Life's a Pitch

Thursday March 12th, 20:00, Kriterion, K2
Tickets: € 5,-

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Unheard Film presents a real-time pitch for a TV-commercial, with 3 composers having to create a soundtrack within an hour. The winner will have the opportunity to participate in a paid pitch for Massive Music, who has been one of the leading commercial music studios globally for the last years.



Click here for more information on how to apply for the competition

Most people are not aware of the fact that there is a whole bunch of music written by Dutch composers on TV everyday, namely during the various commercial blocks. Composition for commercials has become a unique profession due to the high time pressure and dense information. Within 30 seconds a commercial can tell a story with as many turns as a 20-minute short film. However, an average composer gets no more than one or two days to finish their composition for a commercial most of the time. To guarantee success, several composers will be asked to create their interpretation for the same commercial. This is commonly called a “Pitch”.

Commercial music is mainly influenced by development and trends in movies, but can also play a part as trendsetter on it’s own. High budgets make the platform an interesting place for a director to try out some of the ideas that they otherwise couldn’t. Also, working in advertising has become a reality nowadays for filmmakers, sound designers and composers because of the amount of money in the industry. Therefore Unheard Film thinks it’s important to give commercials a place in their programme. This is done with Life's a Pitch.

This edition of the Unheard Film Festival we will take a closer look at this process of “pitching”, with a competition for starting commercial composers and also we will discuss a specific commercial and follow the way the soundtrack evolved from several pitches by composers to the final end product, together with the people who were involved.

Together with Massive Music and DDB the Unheard Film Festival will pick three contestants for this challenge. They will use their own mobile setup in another room and after their time is over, the three soundtracks will be screened. The composers can explain certain choices and finally the jury will pick a winner.