10 and 1/2 hours of music 26 songs and 5 years of our lives. The Crow Hill team undertook a truly monumental commission for Apple TV. The epic children’s animation series “My Brother The Minotaur”.
In this video lead composer and HOD (head of department) Christian takes us through the process of tackling such a project from selecting sounds to notes and putting them “in the right order” to delivering an atmos soundtrack album. We hope this documentary (featuring footage from the original “MINT” sessions, back in covid days, masks on, distances observed!) exhibits how composing for a major TV series is so much more than just putting notes together. A collaborative spirit is essential with everyone involved pulling in the same direction, under the watchful eye of a spreadsheet dubbed “Sauron” (pictured).
Based in Scotland the Crow Hill team enjoyed working with the seminal talent-pool that can be found in a relatively small country that crowns the British Isles. The richness of tonal colours, influences and invented sounds not only lent to a whole new magical world for the viewer to lose themselves in, but also the necessary engagement with a project of this length. With every episode having a musical thread of its own mindful of the character arcs spread over such a sprawling project.
Christian prided himself on the team composing every cue as a unique entity without simply handing the edit a library of work to edit into the series (as so often happens with a project of this scale). Moreover in order to keep the viewer in the world of the show the music team decided to eschew pre-recorded “needledrop” songs in favour of composing a bespoke song for each and every episode. The result, a suite of 26 songs that have grown from the world of the Minotaurs, from the score, and in turn influenced the development of the score over it’s epic arc.
Join them in the video for a celebration of their achievements by getting together in Henson’s front room for an impromptu “unboxed” live performance of one of the songs “stand beside us”.
The OST of series one can be found on all streaming platforms linked HERE.
