The Art and Craft of Making Music for Trailers

Featuring:
JOHN BLAS – Audio-visual Advertising Executive
CRAIG STUART GARFINKLE – Trailer Music Composer
RON MENDELSOHN – Trailer Music Composer and CEO of Megatrax, a leading production music library
GARO SETIAN – Award-winning Trailer Editor
Moderator: BENOIT GREY – Composer/Orchestrator for film, TV, and trailers

JOHN BLAS currently heads NCS Creative, Inc. a Creative Advertising agency, consulting with Sony Pictures and Lucasfilm Ltd. among others. From 2004-2007 Mr. Blas was Senior Vice President of Worldwide Creative Advertising for both Disney and Pixar animation studios where he oversaw creative for both print and audio-visual advertising of all animated features. At that time he worked on Disney and Pixar trailer titles such as LILO & STITCH, MONSTERS INC., FINDING NEMO, THE INCREDIBLES, CARS, RATATOUILLE, MEET THE ROBINSONS, and many more.

CRAIG STUART GARFINKLE , SCL Board Member, is an established composer of music for trailers, as well as film, TV and video games. His trailer credits include J.J. ABRAMS’ STAR TREK, SIN CITY, HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE, VICKI CRISITNA BARCELONA, SPIDER-MAN 3, CALL OF DUTY II, and HALO II.

RON MENDELSOHN, pianist and composer, is co-founder and CEO of Megatrax, a leading production music library and custom music house based in Los Angeles. Megatrax music has been recently featured in trailers for the feature films UP, ALICE IN WONDERLAND , VALENTINE’S DAY, LETTERS TO JULIET, THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, and many others.

GARO SETIAN is an award-winning trailer editor who has cut over 100 trailers and television spots for motion pictures. His clients include Lionsgate and Artisan, as well as many independent labels. He has been nominated for 11 Golden Trailer Awards, and in 2008 won three for his trailers for THE EYE 3 (best foreign horror), DRIVE-THRU (Trashiest trailer) and the Marvel animated feature DOCTOR STRANGE (best anime).

BENOIT GREY, SCL Board Member, is a composer/orchestrator based in Hollywood, where he has worked on many major studio films. Prior to that, Benoit used to tour and perform as the bassist for the legendary Genius of Soul Ray Charles. Benoit has worked as an in-house composer at a prominent trailer company in Los Angeles where he composed music and sound design for the trailers for the studio features FRACTURE, MEET THE ROBINSONS, RATATOUILLE, THE GOOD GERMAN, THE COVENANT, and the TV series DAMAGES and THE RICHES.

This seminar took place April 6th, 2010 at the American Film Institute, Los Angeles, California.