2008 Entries and Abstracts
Bruce Pennycook
Music
University of Texas Film Scoring Studio
The UT Film Scoring Studio was begun in 2003 under and initiative of the, Dr. B.G. Chandler, Director of the School of Music and then Senior Lecturer, Dr. Bruce Pennycook. The objectives were to add a new graduate composition course in film scoring and to provide a resource that mirrored the commercial studios used by professionals in music for film and T.V. The studio also provides a "workbench" for young composers to explore composition and orchestration using libraries of instrumental and electronic sound samples. The sound samples are in effect recordings of each and every orchestral instrument played at different volumes and with many different articulations thus providing a vast palette of sounds. The studio also provides multi-channel digital audio recording and mixing as well as theater quality 5.1 surround sound output. Over the past few years Pennycook has enlarged and refined the hardware and software resources in the studio to match current industry standards. The music students working with Pennycook are engaged in projects with Radio-TV-Film graduate film makers and with several external commercial productions. While one could argue that displacing music performers is generally undesirable, the realities of the very competitive commercial film scoring business demand that our graduates be fluent with the most modern technologies and techniques available.