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1. Project Overview

I am a songwriter-producer who specialises in indie and electronic music. Previously, I have worked in library music – managing library music platform Quarry Music’s “Snapshot 3” compilation – where I have compositional, mixing, and mastering credits. Despite working in library music, I have yet to develop experience in sync composition for visual media.

For my collaborative project, I wanted to explore my passion for electronic music production to create the soundtrack to a contemporary dance film. I developed a 12-minute film exploring the experiences of Asian women in Western society on a typical “night out”. The film features a 3-act structure, with each act representing a distinct stage of the “night out” process. The first act depicts the getting-ready stage, with the protagonist reluctantly preparing in the sanctity of her room. I accompanied this scene with soft, IDM-inspired synthesis. The second act shows the overwhelming nature of the club, with the protagonist contorting to violent, abrasive electronic music, before the third act depicting the unnerving drunk walk home. The film ends in a cyclical return to the first act’s motifs, alluding to the protagonist’s fate to repeat this process the following weekend.

I worked closely with dancer Nina Grindley and videographer-editors Fred Wilkinson and Lucy Gibbons to communicate these experiences through music and dance. The film was conceptualised equally between me and Nina, a Birmingham-based contemporary dancer in her final year at Northern Contemporary School of Dance. Nina is a member of the Autin Dance Theatre, whose work addresses contemporary social issues, such as “Out of the Blue”—a response to the climate crisis featuring a 13-foot puppet named “Eko”. Fred Wilkinson graduated in Film at Leeds Arts University in 2025 and had previously worked on films exploring British rave culture. Lucy also graduated at the Northern Film School in 2025 and her background in dance made her an effective bridge between choreography and cinematography during filming.

Nina was selected for her experience in socially engaged contemporary dance, Fred for their background in subcultural film, and Lucy for her dual expertise in dance and cinematography. My objectives were to compose a cohesive three-act electronic score, develop experience in sync composition, and explore the intersectional experiences of Asian women through collaborative sound and movement.

I approached Nina as a collaborator in June 2025 to allow contingency time whilst simultaneously producing soundtrack work for a friend’s documentary should the project have fallen through (see Appendix 1).

2. Panopto Video – Final Product (10-12 Minutes)

3. Chronological Monthly Diary

May

26th – Asked Nina to be part of project (Appendix 3)

June

5th – First meeting with Nina, discussed stylistic influences in music and dance

29th – Improvised piano accompanying Nina’s movements at NSCD Studio(Appendix 2)

29th – Sent first musical idea to Nina (Appendix 29), explored sampling and synthesis correlating with concepts discussed in studio (Appendix 4)

October

1st – Fred agrees to film (Appendix 5)

5th – Brainstormed concepts, structure, and filming locations with Nina in meeting(Appendix 6)

January

29th – Meeting with Nina, consolidating ideas from initial brainstorm

30th – Sent Nina second act song first draft exploring industrial club ideas; she gives feedback (Appendix 7)

February

10th – Sent Nina second act second draft, adapting to her feedback, scheduled next session (Appendix 8)

11th – Double confirmation from Fred to work on project (Appendix 9)

18th – Session with Nina, consolidating second act song structure, sounds, choreography (Appendix 10) (Nina’s notes Appendix 11)

19th – Sent Nina second act third draft

March

1st – Sent Nina first act loop idea (Appendix 31)

7th – Sent Nina first act first draft

12^th – Contingency: dance studios blocked up: production/choreography delayed (Appendix 12)

23rd – Sent Nina latest first act song version and third act first draft, planned filming (Appendix 13)

26th – Sent Nina third act song updated version

27th – 2-hour rehearsal and lighting room practice (Lighting notes Appendix 14)

29th – 12-hour filming day 9:30am-10pm, recording all 3 acts (BTS shots Appendix 15)

30^th – Contingency filming day – not needed

31st – Received Act 2 rough draft from Fred

April

7th – First full draft of all 3 acts from Fred

16th – Sent detailed feedback to Fred (Appendix 16)

25th – Fred sends back 2nd draft

26th – Gave Fred new list of feedback (Appendix 17)

27th – Fred sends final version

4. Evidence of Planning/Process

Over the summer I produced a GANTT chart and told Nina that we should spend the remainder of 2025 conceptualising the piece and spend January-March producing/choreographing the pieces, with a song completed each month.

Competing assignments for both Nina and I led to more intense production activity across February-March, as seen in the diary. However, Fred’s enthusiasm for the project meant they were keen to handle editing, allowing me to delegate a large part of the post-production process to them. Similarly, Nina’s involvement meant I could delegate pre-production responsibilities onto her such as choreography and concept work. Strong communication, co-ordination and delegation with collaborators meant that the project was completed to a high standard within the set timeframe.

5. Reference Material/Inspiration

Original Concept Inspiration

When beginning the project, Nina and I took inspiration from Japanese folklore, as the film was rooted in the Asian experience. This included characters such as the “Yamuaba” – a Japanese woman (typically depicted as older) who is prone to turn into a monster (Meyer, 2018b), Kuchisake-onna – a mutilated ghost of a woman, and Hinoenma – described as “paragons of feminine evil” (Meyer, 2019). We took these depictions of women, rooted in patriarchy and fear of feminine non-conformity, and embedded them subtextually in the final two acts — as she lets loose on the dance floor and lashes out walking home.

Musical Inspiration

The first act’s music is largely inspired by the textures of Björk’s 2001 album “Vespertine”. I wanted to capture a balance between the synthetic and the natural, combining realistic piano sounds with soft, synthetic instruments, such as the arpeggiating sine wave in the bass region. All the percussion sounds originate from sampling an ASMR video by “Yes Plz ASMR” (2025), where a woman applies geisha makeup to another woman, a traditional form of makeup used within Japanese entertainment. The song also has a synthetic version of a “Koto” playing the lead – a traditional Japanese stringed instrument (Ong, 2020). As the protagonist gets ready, she interacts with the synthetic performance of gender, choosing how much of her “femininity” to engage with through artificial means such as makeup, and how much of these choices are rooted in tradition. The koto melodies in the song were composed in the pentatonic scale, also known as the “Japanese mode” due to its roots in traditional Asian music, to reinforce this idea of tradition (Siddons, 1983). I referenced other 2000s-era Japanese “IDM” artists, such as “ACO,” who also make use of soft sine synths and textured percussion. Reference playlist in Appendix 18.

The second act’s music is intended to evoke the viciousness and intensity of nightlife, as the protagonist dances alone to industrial electronic music. The beats of the intro reference 140 BPM dubstep sounds, as Nina is pulled around in a half-time metre before being brought back to four-on-the-floor conventional club beats. I referenced industrial artists such as Gessaffelstein and Tzusing, who combine conventional club elements with harsh, distorted samples to try to bring a stark contrast to the previous act. Nina requested I incorporate a sample from the Japanese film “Perfect Days” (2023) by Wim Wenders (Appendix 30), so I included a sample of the two protagonists repeating “next time is next time, now is now” in Japanese within the song, evoking the protagonist’s “momentary” feeling in the club. Reference playlist in Appendix 19.

The third act’s music was inspired by the production of Arca, as I resampled the previous act’s vocals through granulation to evoke drunkenness, referencing her work with FKA Twigs and Björk. The track’s B section takes influence from classic UK garage sounds: tight, transient drums against large, distorted sub-basses, as the protagonist begins to build drunk confidence before the film alludes to the protagonist being catcalled – as seen in the tense, chromatic strings. Reference playlist in Appendix 20.

Visual Inspiration

In filming and feedback, we discussed films to visually reference. For the second act, Fred and I discussed the use of colour in both versions of the ballet-based film Suspiria (1977, 2018) and how both directors used the colour red to evoke a sense of dread (Appendix 21). In my initial feedback to Fred (Appendix 16), I also referenced Argentinian director Gaspar Noé, specifically his 2018 film “Climax,” which makes use of extremely harsh strobe lighting and high contrast to evoke unease.

For the third act, we referenced the famous scene from Andrzej Zulawski’s 1981 film Possession, where the main character has a fit of madness in a subway tunnel. The character rolls across the walls manically, like Nina’s character as she rolls across the fence outside. (Appendix 22)

6. Use of Technology

I used Ableton to compose all 3 acts and the preceding demos. This is due to my confidence in using this DAW and the project being electronic dance-based, which Ableton is specialised for.

Act 1

The sounds in Act 1 were intended to evoke the synthetic but intimate atmosphere of a girl applying makeup alone in her room. Therefore, the drum sounds are sampled from a makeup application ASMR. The background sound is built from an Ableton granulator being automated to move randomly through the audio of the video to create a rustling, textured sound. This is created by mapping a “randomized” LFO to the “file position” parameter, moving the granulator through the audio. The “spray” module is set to 14 seconds, making the output even more random and “granulated”. This was then filtered to reduce taking spectral space from the other drum sounds (Appendix 23).

The other drums are created from sampling small hits from the video and EQ’ing them to mimic traditional drum sounds such as “kicks” and “hats.” Parallel compression is applied to the drum bus to “glue” the sounds together and stop them becoming too harsh or intrusive (Appendix 24).

To add to the atmosphere of “femininity”, I sampled my bandmate Hetsi Harpur singing, pitched it, and ran it through “granulator II.” I then used a “distance” “max for live” device which made the output sound distant and muffled. I wanted the words to be ambient, unclear, and for the listener to feel a feminine presence on the track. (Appendix 25) I additionally used a MIDI keyboard to play the piano sections as to make it sound authentically human, using Addictive Keys VST.

Structurally, I wanted this act to be the longest – reflecting how slow the “getting ready” process feels in contrast to later in the night where alcohol blurs perception of time.

Act 2

To create the industrial elements of the second act, I warped the samples using guitar pedals and amps. For example, the lead sound heard throughout the track was created through a combination of pitched granular delay (moving the sound up whilst adding tremolo), filtering, tape warble, short-decay reverb, pedals, and OTT. This made the sound distorted and drone-like, whilst also sonically avoiding the other sounds through sidechain to the kick. (Appendix 26)

At Nina’s request, I sampled the scene from “Perfect Days.” There was noise and ambience in the background of the film, so I isolated the vocal stem and compensated for the artefacts the stem isolation software made using OTT, guitar pedals, EQ, saturation, and compression. I added a flanger to make the sample “psychedelic” – like it was spinning around the drunk protagonist’s head (Appendix 27) (Appendix 7).

The ending “beat switch” section plays a rhythm in the style of classic 90s “jersey club”, consisting of “two quarter note kicks, followed by two dotted eighth note kicks and finally an eighth note” (Cant, 2023). This constant changing of beats and metres was a structural request from Nina, as she wanted the arrangement to allow for a chaotic variety of movement.

Act 3

To create the “drunk walk home” atmosphere of the third act, I used a combination of short-decay ambient reverbs and tape emulation. The bass’s original sound is a basic square-triangle bass from a Minimoog emulator which I ran through saturation, reverb, and tape plugins to make it sound uncanny and warped. It was important to apply a mid-side EQ to remove the “side” information emitted from the reverb plugin below 120 Hz, to avoid muddying the track’s bass region (Appendix 28). Similar effects were applied to the pads in the piece: using gating, warble, and short reverbs to create an unnerving, psychedelic texture. For the arrangement, Nina wanted a variety of upbeat and dragging rhythms to create contrasts in movement, which I believe this instrumentation amplifies.

7. Evaluation

Strengths

I was confident working with Nina as she had the same creative values and inspirations as me, resulting in a strong working relationship and cohesive sense of creative identity within the piece. Due to everyone’s hard work ethic and ability to adapt to last-minute changes in schedule, we compensated for the time we lost on various contingencies and shot the entire film in one day to a high standard. Fred and Lucy’s implementations of projections and various strobe tricks in shots of act 2 contributed significantly to the visual impact of the second act. Nina’s fusion of set choreography with improvisation made the performance unique and adaptive to Fred and Lucy’s production choices.

Weaknesses

Towards the end of the project there were some contingencies, such as Nina’s communication becoming inconsistent during the month before the deadline due to dance commitments, coursework and a holiday. This meant she would be returning to Leeds 10 days before the project’s deadline. The Northern School of Contemporary Dance studios were also closed for building work during March, delaying choreography planning for filming. We adapted to these circumstances, and fortunately Fred and Lucy were available to film the weekend before Nina left. In hindsight I should have given more contingency time to consider the March assessment period.

Opportunities

This project has provided the opportunity to expand my portfolio to include soundtrack work for visual media. It has broadened my network of contacts to include videographers, editors, and dancers for future creative projects and opens me up to a range of commercial factors such as contemporary dance film scores, sync licensing opportunities, and positions me within a unique sector of the market for modern, electronic soundtrack work. As a group, we discussed submitting the film to the Leeds International Film Festival “Screendance” short film competition as well as the project’s strong potential for development if Nina and I continue collaborating together.

Threats

The main threats to the project were scheduling times where Nina and I both had availability. This got more difficult further into the academic year when assignment work increased and final-year deadlines approached for us both. Additionally, the last-minute change in filming schedules meant that we were unable to plan for outdoor filming weather conditions. We adapted to the forecast on the day by filming the third act in between rain and planning the indoor shoots when it was raining.

Overall, I believe the project met the brief Nina and I set for ourselves: encapsulating the high and low experiences for a woman on a night out. The implementation of the 3-act structure worked well, and I found it interesting exploring socio-cultural perspectives outside of my own through music and media. Culturally, the growing visibility of Asian artists in Western media makes this film’s subject matter particularly timely, with the market for independent dance film expanding.

If I were to redo this project, I would ask Fred to hire out a higher quality camera for the first act, as I believe the graininess of the camera works well for the final 2 acts but takes away from the intended “softness” and intimacy of the first act, as well as over-accentuating shadows in the scene. I also would’ve implemented the “snake” and “monster women” motifs more explicit in some shots, as currently these ideas are only hinted through colour and interpretive movement. Through sync licensing prospects, festival opportunities, and the niche market for electronic contemporary dance scores I believe the project has strong commercial potential and I anticipate working in more soundtrack-compositional roles in the near future.

8. Bibliography

Autin Dance Theatre (2021). About Us • Autin Dance Theatre. [online] Available at: https://autindt.co.uk/about-us/ [Accessed 19 Apr. 2026].

Björk (2001). Vespertine. [Spotify] New York City, NY, US: Elektra Entertainment. Available at: https://open.spotify.com/album/5vBpIxm8ws6pWyVmTWiGE1?si=Lb3mgalJQA6wFzwCa-DK3Q [Accessed 20 Apr. 2026].

Cant, T. (2023). How to make a Jersey club track. [online] Available at: https://blog.native-instruments.com/jersey-club/.

Climax. (2018). [DVD] Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Arrow Films.

Meyer, M. (2018a). Kuchisake onna | Yokai.com. [online] Yokai.com. Available at: https://yokai.com/kuchisakeonna/?srsltid=AfmBOornEibV29mOVk35o9oHn_DWip4loeYU-Zs0FqrCyTtpscslxI63 [Accessed 20 Apr. 2026].

Meyer, M. (2018b). Yamauba | Yokai.com. [online] Yokai.com. Available at: https://yokai.com/yamauba/?srsltid=AfmBOoqfLV-rfZ9hfJ0rHDCSfQ9lS4EWVBIgkflkzhebKGcwd7ylVcPA [Accessed 20 Apr. 2026].

Meyer, M. (2019). Hinoenma | Yokai.com. [online] Yokai.com. Available at: https://yokai.com/hinoenma/?srsltid=AfmBOopPAU6YKqe6mFY0S3C8RqzzyxCuEMYFsWXWQYNuCebFGqe2VTyM [Accessed 20 Apr. 2026].

Ong, R. (2020). Traditional musical instruments: Koto. [online] Japan-guide.com. Available at: https://www.japan-guide.com/blog/home-delivery/200501.html [Accessed 20 Apr. 2026].

Possession. (1981). [Online] Sussex, UK: New Realm Entertainments.

Perfect Days. (2023). [Online] London, United Kingdom: MUBI.

Siddons, J. (1983). On The Nature of Melody in Asia and Medieval Europe. [online] Available at: https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc331874/m2/1/high_res_d/1002779755-Siddons.pdf [Accessed 25 Apr. 2026].

Suspiria. (1977). [Online] Tokyo, Japan: Toho-Towa.

Suspiria. (2018). [Online] California, USA: Amazon MGM Studios.

Yes Plz ASMR (2025). (ASMR) Japanese Maiko Makeup – A Traditional Ritual of Eastern Beauty. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/hrs9Bu57Fzg?si=IEc_hwf4nAoFyGQC [Accessed 20 Apr. 2026].