Film News South Africa

Pressure Cooker Studios nominated for SAFTA award

Daniel Caleb and James Matthes of Pressure Cooker Studios, the music and sound design architects for film and television, have been nominated for a 2014 SAFTA Award for Sound Design on the feature film Sleeper's Wake, a thriller based on the novel by Alistair Morgan. Directed by Barry Berk, Sleeper's Wake is produced by Anant Singh and Ken Kaplan for Bioskope Pictures and Videovision.
Pressure Cooker Studios nominated for SAFTA award

"The script was a huge influence for us from the start - resulting in the bulk of the music being written before any filming commenced for the feature. Barry, who has a great musical ear, also had a huge part to play. When we received the edit, he had already placed a lot of our music in the film and came to us with a firm idea of what he wanted. He sat with us for weeks going through scenes, talking about sound design and music ideas he had, so we'd like to give him a lot of credit as he had a huge hand in the final product," said Caleb, co-founder and composer of Pressure Cooker Studios.

A tortured soul and an innocent sweetness

Berk did not want to give a specific brief to Pressure Cooker Studios, as he wanted to see what their initial response from reading the script would be. Caleb explained: "What he kept on saying was that he wanted a sound capturing a combination of a tortured soul and an innocent sweetness that create a conflict of tension and irony. He loved the idea of the sound design putting us inside a baboon's throat."

Caleb said that the end result is a sound design-driven score that "will both scare the living daylights out of you and give you goose bumps at the same time".

The eighth annual South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs) will take place on 5 and 6 April 2014.

For more, go to www.pressurecookerstudios.co.za

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