Musicians dreaming of breaking into the world of film and television will have a chance to learn from an award-winning composer this Saturday.
Damien Lane will be leading Screen Illawarra’s Composing for Screen workshop, alongside fellow composer and sound artist Brent Williams from 10am to 1pm tomorrow, October 26, at Wollongong Town Hall's Music Lounge.
The workshop will feature multimedia presentations, including clips from the speakers' work, as well as insights into how music enhances narrative and factual storytelling in film. Directors and editors will also benefit from exploring the powerful role of music.
“It'll be a bit of an overview about how the industry works and also the craft of composing to screen,” said Damien.
Damien has built a career composing for film and television, while also working as a producer, songwriter and arranger. He has contributed to award-winning productions, taking home his first screen music award in 2015 for Best Music for a Short Film for 1919 and an AACTA Award for Best Original Score in a Documentary with Caitlin Yeo for The Dark Emu Story.
More recently, Damien was nominated for a Screen Music Award for Carry You. He wrote this with fellow composers Amanda Brown and David Leha, otherwise known as Radical Son, for Channel 7 series, RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service).
“It's an honour to be recognised for it,” Damien said.
“It sort of came out of nowhere, we didn't know that we were going to be writing a song and then suddenly we were.
“It's exciting to be nominated, it always is.”
As a teenager, Damien played in bands and his early childhood was also steeped in music. At 6, he learned the trumpet, his only formally trained instrument, but found joy experimenting with other instruments around the house.
“We had instruments around our house like a piano and the guitar,” Damien said.
“Then my sister got a drum kit, so I just used to work out how to play songs on them and that's kind of how I taught myself most of the things that I learned.”
Despite his passion for music, Damien didn’t enter the industry until his 30s, graduating from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) in 2011. He grew in the industry through his experience working with other acclaimed composers, such as Amanda Brown and Caitlyn Yeo.
“One of the first things I ever learned when I started working alongside other composers was that you have to learn to work really quickly,” Damien said.
“You can't really spend hours or days fiddling with things just because you want them to be perfect, and they still need to be perfect.
“You just have to learn how to do it and be able to generate a lot of music very quickly.”
A successful career hasn’t come without challenges. Alongside managing time and stress, Damien, like any artist, has had to accept that he won’t always please everyone.
“Music is a notoriously difficult thing to communicate about,” Damien said.
“There's a lot of things going on in terms of the volume of work that you're doing.”
Having relocated to Wollongong last year, Damien is eager to engage with Screen Illawarra and connect with the region's talented professionals.
“It does feel like a growing sort of scene around here, and I know that a lot of filmmakers have moved to the Illawarra from Sydney,” he said.
Damien recently finished scoring the documentary Aquarius, which premiered at Sydney Film Festival, and is now working on another feature documentary, set to be released in 2025.
To buy tickets for the Composing for Screen workshop this Saturday, click here. If you're interested in becoming a Screen Illawarra member, follow this link.
