Speaker 2 (00:00.45)
Hello everyone and welcome to the My Local Marketer podcast. I'm Maria and today I'm speaking with Chris Mitchell, a composer, producer and performer. Chris, thank you for coming on the podcast. How are

are you? I'm doing really well. It's such a lovely sunny day today that I think it's put us all in a very good mood.

I can't believe how hot it's been, even since, what, March? Yes. Now, for our audience, could you give a little bit of background on yourself and how you became a composer, producer, performer?

It's unexpected, isn't it? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:32.61)
Sure. Well, I think when you have an upbringing that's very musical, you think it's the same for everybody. You take it for granted. So looking back, I was incredibly blessed to have a lot of opportunities growing up. I remember not only did we have a piano at home, but my grandparents, both sets of grandparents had upright pianos. And I think I started piano lessons age six.

And then also I grew up in the Salvation Army and I don't know if you know, but the Salvation Army is a very strong musical tradition and it was thriving in the place where we were part of. So there was a children's choir, there was a children's brass band with about 20 in it. And I started off on the tenor horn, age seven. That's like a tiny mini mini tuba shape, if you're not sure. And then obviously loved it.

and every opportunity I had to play, was playing piano or playing a brass instrument. And then age 10, we were told that it was an opportunity for a music scholarship at a school nearby. And I'd never really had a brass lesson except for playing in the band. And then a friend came in to help me prepare for the audition, because age 10, I had to do an audition for this music scholarship. Got the scholarship, which was amazing. So then just loads of music at school.

And then I grew up in the Croydon area, south of London, and there was a very thriving musical scene across the whole area for schools. So then I joined the school's symphony orchestra on trombone. I joined the school's wind band on euphonium, which is beautiful instruments like the cello of the brass band. then age 14, I decided I wanted to have a career in music. and so the advice was, well, do a general music degree.

and then maybe do a specialist top-up course at a music college in London. So that's how I ended up in Reading because there was a fantastic music degree department at that time. It's since closed. And Peter Wishart, who was the professor, was a composer and very inspirational man. And I specialized in performance and coming out of all that, so that's kind of the musical heritage

Speaker 1 (02:59.786)
Once I'd graduated, I felt challenged that there was something different for me that maybe I wouldn't just follow through with my original plan. And things started to open up for me playing trombone in various contexts in recording studios, touring, mainly in the Christian music scene, which I just found myself connecting with really well. So my career to date, you could divide into three parts.

Part one was mainly playing and some work for music publishers, some work as a musical director for a church, a bit of a mixture, but mainly playing. And then middle part of my career, mainly teaching. So I was assistant director of music at Leighton Park School, which is also in Reading and helped the school to develop new opportunities and new resources. So introduced and built up teaching music production and then media production.

And then we built just before I left, we had the official openings in 2019 of the Music and Media Centre, which was just state of the art video production, audio production. And then that brought me to part three of my career, which is where I am now, full time, just composing and producing and doing other things.

It's fascinating that you grew up with music and the area that you were in that was very strong on teaching children music. Why do you think it's important to have music around you as you grow up, even if, unlike you, someone doesn't go on to have a music career?

Well, I don't have all of the facts and figures here at my fingertips, but it's been researched and the research says that everyone should have some musical training, not to become a musician, but because of the impact it has on your brain, the impact it has on your development, the impact it has on your social skills, your listening skills, your self-control, especially playing in a group or a band or an orchestra.

Speaker 1 (05:07.478)
or singing in a choir has a very significant impact on your development as a young person. And the advice would be that if everyone did that, we'd all be in a better place. And also it would impact your results in all the other subjects. So it's like it's a catalyst subject for your brain to be better connected for everything that you do, which is really interesting, isn't it?

Yes, that's fascinating. I didn't know that. But as you said, think before, that's why I think Leighton Park is good, that schools are trying to introduce music now and it's such a key park that will accelerate in other areas.

Yeah. And did you know that the way that we're made is we have this thing in our bodies called endorphins, which is the sort of the feel good chemical. And did you know whenever you sing, it releases endorphins into your system.

It really depends on the context.

Maybe, but you know, maybe that's one of the reasons that very hearty and loud singing in a football stadium is so loved because it actually makes you feel good. And you know, if we if we could all just sing for a few minutes every day, I think we'd it would be good for all of us.

Speaker 2 (06:13.662)
you're absolutely right. Singing as an individual, you just feel good. If there's a good song on it, especially for me, especially if you're alone, you just want to sing along to it. But then obviously, like you said, in group settings, if you're all singing together, I think it just helps unite everyone, bring everyone together. As we said, you are a performer, producer, and a composer. How have you developed those different parts as part of your business?

Well, probably like a lot of creative people, I have strengths and weaknesses. And I would say that the business brain is not a strength for me. My wife Linda is phenomenal on that side of things. So she often fills in some of those gaps. But in terms of business, I've done some promotions, some marketing, obviously I have a website, social media accounts, try to post as often as possible.

But I've found that practically all the work I've done has come through relationship to people that I know or people that I know who've recommended me to other people. At the end of the day, it's about trust, isn't it? And so to build trust, as you know, this thing of personal connection. And also I think historically I've been able to be quite versatile, which can be a great blessing, but also there's a flip side to that because you you can end up doing a bit of this, bit of this, bit of this.

and never quite fulfill your potential maybe in one thing. But from a business point of view, it has been very good to have some versatility. So I think from that point of view, some composers wouldn't be producing recordings for other people like I've done. building this studio in part was because of my love of the whole creative process and the technology, the range of work

since I went full-time in 2019 and work came in. So there's an exam board, partly because of lockdown, that decided overnight that they were going to start to publish their own and print and publish, distribute the music for their syllabus. So I had a really big contract to write some music for examination use for young, for children to learn instruments. And it was piano, violin.

Speaker 1 (08:33.518)
Maybe it's just piano and violin, but then produce all the music up to grade eight. So, you know, I was typesetting and producing the sheet music for Beethoven and everybody else. So was a really big job and was very grateful of that. And then some other film projects started to come in. People were creating films by getting you to film at home on your phone, but directed so that it was it was good quality and then editing it and all these sort of remote projects.

really interesting mixture, especially to get going, but then as time's gone on, focusing more and more on the the composing side.

When we spoke before, obviously you explained very generously the difference between sound and music because I did not know there was a difference. I thought music was sound. So would you explain that for our listeners?

Yes. So, I guess this is thinking particularly of film and TV production where when you've got a bigger budget, you have heads of department and you have departments covering different areas in the production. So it kind of helps to think this way to understand the difference. So you would have a music department, but you'd also have a sound department who work together, but they have slightly different roles. So the music department,

would create the music cues. As a composer you sit down with the director once the film or the content has been edited. Ideally it's the locked cut so it's like towards the end all the decisions have been made about what you're using, what you're not using. And you sit down with the editor and you have what's called a spotting session and you work out we want music to start here and finish here and this is the mood and here are some examples of the sort of thing that could work. And you might

Speaker 1 (10:18.318)
create all the music in a studio as we've got here. Or you'd bring musicians in, you'd put microphones up, or you'd go to a bigger studio with an orchestra. The sound department, their job starts on set where you've got the boom operator holding his boom just out of shot, capturing the dialogue. That's the main role at that stage. After it's been shot and edited, then it goes to

other people in the sound department who would then make the dialogue sound as good as possible, level it out, make sure it's all the right takes, and then maybe add, you have a Foley artist who would look at the picture and have lots of objects and a microphone. They'll recreate the sound world. What people I think are really surprised by is when you watch something on TV or a film, practically everything was added afterwards. You know, so it looks like it sounds

like everything you're hearing happened on screen, but probably it didn't. It was probably all added afterwards. So recently I did a little bit of sound design for something and we needed the sound of a fridge closing. So I went into my kitchen with a microphone, recorded the fridge, came back in the studio, just dropped in and got the timing just right. Your brain fills in the gaps. And an example of that is there's a famous Ted talk where the sound design has different clips of rainfall and asks them

how they think the sound was made and they think it's a stupid question because it's obviously a recording of rain. And then he shows a video of bacon frying in a pan. And it was the recording of that frying bacon that was used for every one of those clips with rain, because your brain, the combination of what you see and what you hear, it fills in the gaps.

It's funny you say that because I have to sleep by listening to the C because I used to have such difficulty sleeping until I started listening and since then, no difficulties. At the start, I was trying to figure out what sound would work best and I listened to Lorraine, but to me, it just sounded like frying eggs. And that's all I could think of. I actually was just lying there thinking, this sounds like frying eggs. And that's all I was thinking about. So I couldn't sleep. But the waves, I don't know if it is the real waves, but that just works. It says you can do sound.

Speaker 2 (12:37.514)
but you prefer the sort of music side with the composition and the performing.

It might be jumping ahead, but you the whole thing about the film studios being built in Reading and resource productions, taking a lead to train and recruit new people into the industry. The first job they asked me to do to support that was to do a day training on sound design. And that kind of set a little bit of a ball in motion because then I ended up doing some sound work at Shinfield studios.

And in fact, I did a whole feature film recording sound some years ago. So that's kind of how you learn just by doing it. So, you know, I know what to do, know how to do it. But the thing that's core to me is music.

What I find interesting though is obviously that sound where it came to you, not because you were looking for it, but because you knew people. So this idea of actually getting to know people and putting your name out there and people will come to you and ask for different things. You'll say you do one thing, they'll still come to you and ask for something else. It's just get your name out there.

because of trust, know, if they have a sense of, yeah, I like this person or I trust this person, that's exactly right. I mean, I do enjoy meeting people and people say to me, Chris, you know, so many people. And for me, I think, I don't know what you're talking about, because for me it's just normal. And I quite enjoy going to networking events. And I remember years ago when I was thinking about going full time to do what I do now, reading that you needed to put...

Speaker 1 (14:11.766)
a significant chunk of your week into networking and connecting, know, and that was really valid. so understanding that, I think it's going to be a very positive attitude.

Yeah, it's really beneficial. Are there any projects that you've worked on that are highlights for you?

One of my first film scores was for animation and I think this is when I was still teaching, so it was kind of before I went full-time with the composing. And if you Google Ruckus Vimeo, Bournemouth University is internationally known as a place to learn about animation and film and media and things like that. And these were final year students, a team of six of them. And you know, I could tell straight away they were incredibly high flyers.

and they'd put together this animation and they needed somebody like me to do the music for it. And that's a lot of work, even though it's not very long. It's a technique sometimes called Mickey Mouse-ing, because when you don't have any dialogue, the music has to fill in the gaps. And so almost for every tiny little movement you see on the screen, you have a little musical gesture. That was a highlight because somehow I did it in just in a couple of weeks. was a lot of work, but it it flowed.

know and when you get into that flow that's that's very special. Initially just recorded it on a piano and then once they were happy then I have the experience and ability to then turn that piano score into a full orchestra so then you add the brass and the woodwind and the strings and everything else and brings brings the whole thing to life. That was one of the very first bigger or more demanding projects I did with it with a moving image and then maybe the second one I'll mention

Speaker 1 (15:51.17)
I did a feature length documentary with a guy who used to live in Reading, Simon Rattigan. And he came to me and he'd created a feature length documentary, a really inspiring story and said, would I do the score? And although it was quite a substantial project, it was like this thing of really crafting something. He's an award winning commercial film director. So you're very, very experienced in what he does, but he was new to a feature length thing.

and I think the combination of how inspiring the story was working with Simon, it's had some great recognition in terms of awards, the charity that are linked with this story, Alex Lewis Mountain, you can watch the whole thing there and I was really pleased with that because it was just a very meaningful story to support musically.

What is your process for creating and composing music then?

Something has been with me a lot recently, couple of years ago now, a famous jazz pianist passed away, Chick Corea. And the reason I say that is because, you when somebody dies, then things from their past start to become much higher profile. One thing that came up was the way that he used to teach people. And there's a really inspiring bullet point list handwritten by him from time with young jazz musicians. And point number one was,

Only play what you hear. So he was potentially talking to musicians who were very able, very trained, had incredible ability. But his understanding of music was it wasn't just about showing off. It wasn't just about creating something impressive that in a way it's a search for meaning. So play what you hear, it's hinting at a more of a spiritual attitude to music where you're kind of listening.

Speaker 1 (17:45.71)
And remember hearing Sting talk about this, you know, he talks about being in a state of grace and a state of receptivity where you're kind of open and listening. So I'm a strong believer in that. And so if it's a commission and there's nothing visual to get inspired by, I'll just think, right, I've had the brief, I've had the understanding what's coming to me. And I will take that seriously, that initial thought, rather than discard it and then develop it and...

It may be that you end up moving on to something else, but it kind of sets the ball in motion for something that hopefully has this additional impact. It's not just utilitarian. It's not just functional. It's something that connects with people on a deeper level. So there's a lot more technique, of course, once you get into software and microphones and technology, but those should all serve, I think, that inspiration.

So it sounds like it's the instinct with all your experience, there's an instinct. If you see something, something will come to you and you go with that. But it's by exposing yourself, I think, to all those different projects and experiences and types of music that's enabled you to have this bowl in your head full of different ideas. And then it's just a natural instinct that brings them all together.

Yes, an example of that, Ben Wicks, who's gotten a fantastic career as an assistant director on really big budget films that we've all seen. So he's very experienced in that world, but he's building up his portfolio as a director. So it's been a thrill for me to work with somebody like him, who's just bubbling up with ideas and experience as well. So we're just doing a film at the moment called The Impending White Light. And he sends me.

playlists and things that he's been listening to while he's been writing the script and then we'll be throwing things backwards and forwards. So it's very, I love that sort of collaborative process. And he's because he's really into music. It reminds me, I went to hear a lecture by composer called Gabriel Yared, who did the English patient years ago and Minghella whose name is attached to the university with the studios then Minghella studios. Yared talked about a similar relationship with Minghella, you know, that even before

Speaker 1 (20:01.214)
film was being shot they would meet up and provoke one another with creative ideas. So that's something I've really loved with Ben and this score that we've just been working on we were talking about singer, were talking about brass band, we had all sorts of grand ideas and then when I saw the lock cut and watched it a few times for some reason the sound of an alto flute came into my mind and we might all be able to imagine how a flute sounds. Well a flute is just a deeper pitch

version of a standard flute and it's got a curly bit at one end to make the flute longer and it's got a very soulful mellow sound compared to a standard flute and I sent Ben a link to a recording of an alto flute I said for some reason I'm just hearing this instrument for this character and he came back said yeah love it you know so it was agreement and then we were able to move forward with developing the score and featuring that sound

I really like this idea of having sound associated with different people. I think it happens a lot in many films. It's just, if you're not a musician, it's just very subconscious. You're enjoying the film. It's really interesting.

One thing about underscore as it's called, in a way if you get distracted by it, it may be that it's not doing its job completely, it should be supporting and enhancing the whole experience, and maybe it's like the behind the scenes clips that you might sometimes have as extras, it would only be when you watch those clips later on, oh that's why it had that impact, that's how they did it, and so this thing of themes

which is a very strong thing in the history of music, things being associated with characters. Some composers use the word leitmotif, you know, it was a German idea originally. Maybe it's subconscious, you know, maybe it's good if it's subconscious, but the composer and the director know exactly what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (22:01.55)
Obviously we're in Reading, you've mentioned Schimfield Studios, it's a great place for film and music. What are the ways in which people can make the most of these opportunities and how can they find them?

Yes, well this has been a big question ever since the building work started and I think at that time a lot of people were contacting the studios directly. In this case, Schimfield Studios is a facility that's then hired out to production companies. It's probably one of the best film studios in the world. It's just incredible. If you've never had a chance to visit, it's absolutely state of the art. So it's amazing that it's on our doorstep. But...

It's not like Sheenfield Studios are offering jobs to people, but there's the beginnings of a new register, which Reader, they're working with Sheenfield to put together a register of local talent and services and businesses so that when production companies come in, then they know who's available locally. And then Resource Productions I mentioned earlier, although they're based in Slough because they were so well established in what they do.

they came in and with some other groups like the university who were very involved as well. So people like that formed a consortium to start up Screen Berkshire, which is this initiative to train and recruit resource. So you can Google Screen Berkshire, you can Google resource productions and resource productions have a register as well. But the root in really is the production companies that might be renting Schimfield Studios.

So think the very first was Disney Lucas, did Star Wars Acolyte. And of course they would have just brought in all the people that they usually work with and it might not have touched the local community but over time I think it's going to impact the identity of the region.

Speaker 2 (23:55.17)
So, just again, it's about getting known, getting on all the registers you can because you don't know where an opportunity will come from.

Exactly. One of the issues is apprenticeship because practically everyone working in industry is a freelancer. When I've done a few jobs at Schimfield Studios, I've needed an assistant and it was somebody that is local who'd made a really positive impression was then asked to come in and be an assistant. And that's, that's probably the way to do it as well.

Is there something that you're currently working on?

Yes, so a lot of things are brewing at the moment. Also working on a set of songs called Songs of Hope and Peace. This is going to be for choir and it's inspired by the letters of World War I soldiers. So my friend Stephen Poxon, who's a professional writer, he got in touch and saying, I'm doing this research and I'm creating these song lyrics. Would you be interested in setting them to music?

So the dream would be one of these to be performed at the Festival of Remembrance at the Albert Hall. And we're just at the phase now of having written the music for all of those 12 songs. Some of them now need arranging for choir and then we want to work with a choir to record maybe a couple of demos before then taking it to a label to partner with them to produce a whole album. Really excited about that project. And then I mentioned about the musical as well. So...

Speaker 1 (25:22.914)
You know, we all know Joseph and the amazing Technicolor dream coats just impacted the whole world, hasn't it? And launched the career of Lord Webber and Tim Rice. I remember singing it at school, you know, before, before it became absolutely huge. But maybe there's time for another Bible story. So this one that we've been working on has a female lead. So it's the story of Esther and there's a book in the Bible that doesn't mention God, which is a bit of a shock. And this book.

the Bible is called Esther and it's the story of her as a heroine and good versus evil and some of the sort of the universal themes. So I've been working with a team of songwriters, we've got six or seven really good demos of songs, we've had a young script writer who's just graduated, trained in creative writing, and we're looking to partner, maybe there's someone listening to this, partner with an experienced musical

book writer or script writer. And it's very exciting because on Saturday we've got a meeting with an American producer and some British funders. So potentially it could be a movie, it could be an animation, it could be a stage production or all three. So that's also really bubbling away at the moment too.

You can't get bored, can you? You've just got so many different things you're working on.

Yeah, it's really interesting. I should mention too, in terms of the local scene, most people have heard of Rabble Theatre. We first connected with them years ago. They did, I think they did a Rome... Was it Romeo and Juliet or Twelfth Night? It was one of those Shakespeare productions. And then they started to do these historical plays about the history of reading. Henry I, Matilda the Empress, Henry II, incredible writing from Beth Flintoff, who is also an amazing writer locally.

Speaker 1 (27:15.34)
And I started to do some work with them, connected with Toby and Danny, off the block, which if you've never been, once a year there's this crazy event, know, four plays produced in a day, which I've loved. And then I've done some plays with them as the composer. But the reason for mentioning them is this, terms of variety, I've also been working with them as musical director. So with young people, have 60 children, young people for a week and teach them a musical. So we just did Wicked at Easter.

And this summer, we've got a week doing Greece and then a week doing Mamma Mia. And a similar thing to that, I love these opportunities to invest in community locally. So number five young people are the biggest mental health charity in Reading for young people. The demand is just huge and heartbreaking how many young people want to connect with them. And then together with friends there, we put together this creative week.

There's me and another musician, two actors, two therapists, a group of young people, and we just nurture them and encourage their creativity for a week. And it's so therapeutic, very dramatic impact and results. So we did a week together at Eastern. We're going to do another week in the summer with them too. So alongside these big sort of professional composing projects and recordings, there are these really exciting transformational things happening locally too.

I think it's nice to that balance of the small and the big because it's just a totally different experience to do those sorts of things. And the local ones, it's very, should we say nourishing for the soul. You just feel so good by doing them. I interviewed Abby from number five, so I'll link that interview onto the landing page. Is there anything that you would like to leave our listeners with?

Well, I think maybe the power of connection and making time to listen, making time to connect. It's very easy to become quite isolated and insular because of the internet. We have access to the whole world at our fingertips and it's so stimulating. It's so interesting. But is it, how much of the time is it distracting us from something even better or something even more important? So

Speaker 1 (29:35.374)
any opportunities to get out to networking events, go out for a drink, invite people over for a meal, get together, barbecue in a like this, is always so rewarding and and I think especially... I remember I've had a couple of trips to Los Angeles and it's very much a hustle culture and before I had these trips I said I'm not going to be like that, I'm just going to enjoy getting to know people and if something comes of it it's a bonus, it's not conditional.

And so maybe that's what I'd like to leave with people. I think that's maybe why I've ended up knowing a lot of people. And then you never know how you could help them or they could help you. But it doesn't matter if you never do. It's okay just to have a friend, just a connection, a person that you know is there.

So the point is just to make these connections and actually do it. Stop consuming and stop producing.

Yes, absolutely.