Composition – the Black Sheep of Sync?

  Why is it, so many new clients we meet for the first time have such reservations about commissioning composed music? Or a preconception that the art of crafting a piece for a specific project, is somehow a second rate option (or worse still not a viable option at all)? How, when year on year […]

11 Film Scores That Changed The Game

  When writing music for picture it can be all too easy to fall back on tried and trusted ideas: open with a low drone, big drums for tension, reverb piano at sunrise…. But here at The Futz Butler we always try to do the unexpected in terms of sounds and arrangement. Get it right and […]

How to Write a Killer Music Brief

  As composers and producers writing to picture, the single most important skill we’ve developed over the years is the ability to interpret and then deliver what clients really want. As with any creative process, establishing a solid dialogue between the relevant players involved is absolutely essential. But a common challenge for many clients is […]

Got it Covered…

  Over the last decade as revenues from album sales continue to dwindle, artists and publishers are increasingly looking to exploit a rich back catalogue through syncs in advertising and digital content. Taking a well-loved (or even relatively unknown) tune and breathing a new lease of life into the song, re-contextualising the lyric or feel […]

The Art of the TV Title Sequence

  Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman famously wrote: “Work on a flop and you won’t get another job in the movies. Work on two and you won’t get a job in television.” But thanks in part to the rise of on-demand services, tribal binge-watching habits and more widely ailing cinema attendances, TV is no longer the […]

The 20 Best Drum Sounds of All Time

  For us, getting the drums on our work right is absolutely central to striking the right vibe for our clients, probably more so than an other instrument. More than ever now, bands and artists are defining themselves by their drum sound, and simply changing the way the same physical pattern ‘sounds’ can have a […]

Creating Creature SFX

  We’ve been working on a feature project lately that presented several unique challenges to us from a Sound-Design perspective. One such challenge was to create violent and threatening creature sound effects for a full scale fight scene. Now, whilst it would’ve been very easy to reach for the nearest sound effects library, that’s not […]