Justine Barker is an award winning composer and multi instrumentalist. She was the winner of Best Composer at Underwire Film Festival 2016 and was chosen for WFTV’s mentoring programme and BAFTA Crew 2016. Along with an impressive selection of credits within TV and film, Justine has written music for critically acclaimed dramas such as BBC One’s Holby City and Channel 5’s Suspects and her production music has been used in shows such as BBC One’s hit comedy Outnumbered and Channel 4’s George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces. She has worked for award-winning directors such as Jake Graf and Christiana Ebohon-Green. Currently, Justine is scoring the latest season of Casualty for BBC One and has just completed the music for a brand new drama, London Kills.

Jenny Dyke from Jeppstones talks to Justine about her acclaimed work and what it takes to make award winning scores.

Early Days

You grew up in a musical family and are a multi-instrumentalist. What instruments did your family play?

As far back as I can remember, there was always music playing in our home. My dad was a passionate enthusiast and it was infectious. He introduced me to all kinds of artists and had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of who wrote what and who worked with who. Everyone in the family enjoyed music but we all came to it differently. My grandma played piano beautifully and was particularly fond of Chopin and my grandad would entertain me with On The Street Where You Live from My Fair Lady. My aunts also played piano and my parents both played guitar. Most of The Beatles songs I heard for the first time were played to me by my mum singing along with her acoustic guitar – she has quite a high singing voice and when I heard the Beatles recordings, I was surprised they were an octave lower than I was expecting! My dad was a guitarist in a band and he taught me the basics; a handful of chords and a whole lot of rhythm. The first song I learned to play on guitar was Peggy Sue by Buddy Holly and I practiced playing with the guitar behind my head!

Were there any instruments that you didn’t enjoy playing or didn’t stick to?

I’ve never had much formal music training but I did learn the basics at school. In primary school, the top students in the recorder class got the opportunity to learn the flute but I really disliked playing that instrument and had no inclination to practice, so I quickly gave it up.

At secondary school, I was one of five students who showed promise in the music class and I was chosen to learn the cello at the neighbouring grammar school, as my comprehensive school didn’t have facilities for that. I fell in love with the cello, it’s beautiful warm rich tones can break your heart in just a few notes. I walked up hill to school carrying my huge cello and loved it, but it was a sadly short lived experience; the difference in the schools’ timetables meant my cello lesson made me five minutes late for science class and the disgruntled science teacher complained and that was the end of that. It is still probably my favourite instrument – I may try to learn it again one day.

Throughout all these musical experiences, I continued playing guitar by myself learning chords and songs from books. I find it easiest to play by ear and I want to learn everything – at least enough to understand the instrument and be able to write music for it. Over the years I’ve experimented with everything from drums to clarinet with varying levels of patience or success; much as I love the violin, I found bowing it a very frustrating experience and soon realised it wasn’t for me!

When did you start to compose your own music?

As a child I often made up songs, I’d write them on the guitar or just sing out a tune. At school, I played with like-minded friends and amongst other things, we performed a Christmas carol, I wrote at the school concert. We didn’t have access to any recording equipment back then. We rehearsed and performed live and that was it. Fortunately that’s when I discovered I am really good at remembering musical phrases or melodies, even the ones I wish I could forget!

At what age did you realise that composing music was the career for you?

I was always a huge fan of film scores and TV themes and bought lots of them when I was younger but I never thought for a moment it was a career option for me. I didn’t know any professionals in the music or film industry and this was before X-Factor, Youtube and the like. I had no knowledge of ‘ordinary’ people working in these sorts of creative roles.

As a teenager I was pretty obsessed with the score to Desperately Seeking Susan – I initially watched the film because I was a big fan of Madonna but I loved the score especially, for its more minimal, somewhat hypnotic cues. I put it onto a tape recorder from the TV speakers and I played it on my walkman everywhere – I loved how I was transported and how the music made me feel different emotions. I think that’s the earliest memory I have of really studying that kind of musical experience although it was just something I loved – there was no great strategy at that stage.

Only years later did I discover that score was one of Thomas Newman’s very early film credits. Now when I listen back I can still really hear his stamp all over it.

At nineteen, I was pretty obsessed with Eric Serra’s score for Nikita. I played it on a loop continuously and could bring every frame of the film to mind with every note. I wasn’t conscious that composing was a career option for me but I was completely fascinated by it. My enthusiasm for film and TV scores continued throughout my life as did my love of writing songs but it was very much a hobby.

Getting into the business

Your first job in TV was as a post-production supervisor for the ITV series “The Bill.” Did that help pave the way?

In 2000, I started working at The Bill and became their post-production supervisor. The Bill was a huge production and it was my responsibility to navigate the show through Post to deliver 96 episodes of drama per year. I loved it and I learned so much about many aspects of drama production.

I learned to edit and found my ‘super-power’ was putting great pieces of commercial music to pictures. I cut all the press reels for show and loved seeing people shed a tear at just the right moments but I didn’t want to be an editor. I decided to turn the process on it’s head and try writing music for pictures and all the pieces fell into place; all the nuggets I had learned by intention or osmosis over the years came into play and I knew I wanted to pursue this as a career.

What was your first experience of using computers and software for composing and recording? Do you ever flip between writing manuscript and using software or do you use computers 100% of the time?

I had a Mac and fiddled around on Garageband for a while but I knew I really needed to get to grips with a professional DAW. I bought Logic Express and most of it I found very intuitive. I discovered an online course at producertech.com – it was a very affordable course of video tutorials that accompanied Logic sessions. This taught me so much – aside from that I’ve really learned through experience and trusting my ears.

Other than when I’m writing on the guitar and noting chords by hand, I always compose music using a computer but again, it’s mostly by ear.

You eventually began writing music for some of biggest shows on British TV. How did you move from post to composing?

The Bill was a very big production with all sorts of creative people on site. Nearly every time I’d go to the water cooler, I’d meet someone: an actor, an editor, an assistant director who were making a short films in their downtime from their day job. I began asking these filmmakers to let me score their films. This gave me the chance to hone my craft and form some long lasting collaborations.

I had also made some great connections with directors and producers I worked with in my capacity as post-production supervisor. Although a lot of these people didn’t really know me for composing, they knew what I was like to work with – there is a lot more to being a composer than writing good music: you need to be able to communicate well, meet deadlines, take constructive criticism whilst having the confidence to make your own voice, be reliable, personable and able to deal with the often plate-spinning nature of the job.

I made sure all these connections knew I was composing and I wanted to work with them!

In 2011 I wrote my first ever broadcast cue for Casualty, while doing some freelance Post Production work. There was a big character leaving and the producers wanted to put music on the exit scene. They were struggling to get what they wanted so I took the initiative to score the scene myself. I showed it to the producer who liked it and it got approved by the exec and that was my foot in the door. A year or so later, the same producer was working on Holby City and they had a long running character leaving so she suggested me for the job. Over the years, I slowly built up great working relationships with these shows, although for occasional episodes. When they decided to introduce composed music as a regular feature on Casualty for the current series, I was invited to pitch alongside other composers and I’m happy to say I got the job. It’s a brilliant show and I absolutely love working with the team of producers, directors and everyone in post. It’s a great gig!

What is the process to creating/adding music to a scene?

On Casualty, they have a whole library of my music for the show and during the edit, the editors and directors choose guide tracks, known as ‘temps’. These will not fit exactly as they are not written bespoke for the pictures but act as a good placeholder. By the last day of the edit, the editor, director and producer will have decided which scenes they want to have score on and I get a full episode to watch through and review. We then all have a ‘spotting’ session; this is where we go through all the scenes together and discuss what the mood is, who the focus is on, where we think the music should start and end etc. At that stage I also have the opportunity to suggest any other places where music might work well.

On London Kills, I worked very closely with the executive producer on the full series. I wrote lots of temp cues after reading scripts and sent them for the editors to use. When it came to the first episode, Paul Marquess and I had a detailed spotting session and discussed how we wanted the show to sound. Once that first episode was agreed, I was sent each new full episode and scored the show without doing a briefing session each time. Paul would then give me his notes. It’s a very trusting approach and it wouldn’t necessarily work with other clients as potentially I could spend a long time scoring scenes only to find music is not always desired but Paul and I have worked together many times and I think I have a good understanding of what he likes and he knows what he can expect from me. When you work with someone a lot, you develop a kind of shorthand which makes it much easier when communicating, particularly about music which is notoriously tricky.

What was the process for composing this breath-taking clip from Casualty?

This is from season 32 before score was introduced weekly on the show. This a pre-title scene and we see regular character Alisha waking up next to a colleague who has raped her. Bearing in mind the weight of the scene, the writer and director of this episode, Jon Sen, wanted music to reflect the gravity of the situation. To begin with I watched the previous episode to get the back story and Jon talked to me about he wanted the music to do.

My writing process is usually to watch the video clip on a loop and play around on my keyboard to picture to see what comes instinctively. These days I tend to hit record almost every time as I’ve missed too many good improvs in the past. This cue starts out quite ambient, a sparse sounding synth, that stillness as she wakes up and then a subtle ticking harp sound as she creeps out of the bedroom. When we see her come out of the front door and slam it behind her, the emotive strings come in and some weird processed synths which evoke the feeling of thoughts panicking and spiralling in your head, she starts running and the darker synths come in, it gets heavier and builds and finally there are some high piano notes as we grasp the full horror for Alicia.

When I have a good draft of the cue, I send a video clip to the director for feedback, I address any notes and then go through the same process with the producer and finally the series producer Lucy Raffety.

How long do you usually get to write and record a piece like this? Or do you have to deliver the finished product first time?

Now we are scoring the full series, turnaround is usually pretty tight and therefore we have a very efficient way of working. Casualty usually has around 12 music cues per episode. I have a week to write them including addressing notes from the director, producer and series producer. I try to submit cues that are pretty finessed so the team get a really good idea of my intention although the strings will be midi samples. Once the compositions are all signed off, I prepare the project for the string recording session. On Casualty, one very talented musician, Richard Curran, plays violin, viola and cello. He records remotely and multi-tracks so he is essentially a one-man string ensemble. The benefits of this are both practical and creative. A series consists of 47 episodes so recording this way means we can keep budgets manageable and work within the shows ambitious schedule. From a creative perspective, the strings have a very close, real, human quality to them. I really like layering them up with synths and other uncomfortably mangled atmospheric sounds to give a palette that’s both emotional and tense.

Once I’ve got the strings back, I lay them into my Logic session, make any last changes and then prep all the cues for the score mixer, Rich Aitken. He will then mix everything and bring the cues to their optimum sound.

Once we’re happy with all the mixes, I deliver them to the show’s dubbing mixer. The final part of the job is then attending the dub review where the dubbing mixer, director, producer, post production supervisor and myself watch the programme through together in the dub suite and make any last changes. This process looks at all the sound elements, the music, the dialogue and the effects. Any changes to the music here are usually minimal details such as how a cue fades in or where it needs a volume push to emphasise the action on screen.

You’ve worked on many short films such as “Dusk” and “Headspace”, written and directed by Jake Graf. How does the process differ between film and TV?

In many ways the process is much the same. In my experience the biggest difference is the time frame. On TV projects we have a pretty strict schedule to work to as there is the fixed deadline of the transmission date to meet. In a series, there will be multiple episodes so we need to keep everything on track. With shorts, schedules are generally more fluid. Invariably the director and other members of the post production team are juggling their input on the film with other jobs so dates can often slide and that can create a few challenges, but it always works out in the end.

What equipment are you using for composing and recording your music?

Like many composers, I have a collection of weird and wonderful instruments – you just never know when you might need a banjo or a classic 80’s synth.

In my studio I do all my processing on the computer but when sessions get sent out for an external mix, hardware may be used.

WFTV, BAFTA and Beyond

We recently spoke to Emma Butt who is a fellow WFTV mentee. You both champion women in tech. What does it mean to you to see more women involved in the technical side of television and film?

In my opinion, your gender should have no bearing on your chosen role in a career in film and TV or in life! We all have the capacity to bring something creative to the field and to excel in technical areas. We also all have our own unique perspective and I believe exclusion of any group of individuals means that we all miss out, not only on work opportunities but on the potentially limitless benefits of untapped talent. Historically, particularly in screen composing, women have been woefully under-represented and that means female role-models have been significantly outnumbered by men. That can make women feel less suited or less confident or less inspired to pursue those paths, but if they want to do it, they should absolutely go for it.

You’ve won Best Composer at the Underwire Festival for your work on the short drama “Dawn”. As the festival is about celebrating women, did it make winning just a little bit more special?

Ultimately I’d like to be recognised as a good composer as opposed to a good female composer. That said, and this relates to the last question, we need to see more female role models and a great way to highlight them is to celebrate and connect them and that’s why, yes absolutely, Underwire is special. I’ve attended that festival since year one and every year the breadth of work gets better and better. It’s been really inspiring to see films there and see so many talented film-makers brought together and winning Best Composer was truly a proud moment.

Your music features on “Some Sweet Obvious Antidote” starring Sir Lenny Henry, which won the Best of the Fest Award at the “TriForce Short Film Festival 2018” at BAFTA in December. What was it like knowing your work would be played in such a fantastic setting?

This was another very exciting moment for me. Firstly it’s a great little film, delightfully written, beautifully shot, superbly performed all under the direction of the wonderfully talented Christiana Ebohon-Green. I was so happy when I heard it was selected for Triforce but couldn’t attend the screening as I was on holiday. I have always felt this film was something special, so when I heard it had won Best of the Fest I was utterly thrilled for everyone involved.

Working on “Some Sweet Obvious Antidote”, were fellow WFTV mentees. Do you know each other? Had you all met before?

The producer Fiona Gillies and the director Christiana Ebohon-Green were both on the WFTV mentoring scheme the year before me. We didn’t really know each other but had some mutual contacts and Nicola Lees who ran the mentoring programme at the time put us in touch. I was especially happy to be working with other women who had gone through that scheme because having done it myself, that alone told me a fair bit about them.

Was it empowering to be involved in a project alongside like-minded women?

Without a doubt the project was a powerhouse of female talent, not just the producer and director but also lots of the crew including the writer, the DOP and the editor. Yes, that was very empowering, motivating and a welcome change from the norm and I think the quality of the film clearly showcases how well it worked.

The technical side of television and film can be very male dominated. What advice would you give to girls and women who want to pursue careers into the technical side of television and film?

Just. Do. It. I think things are slowly starting to change, when you bother to look for them there are other women who have begun paving the way in those careers. Female DOPs, sound editors, editors, VFX supervisors etc may not always be getting the recognition or opportunities they deserve but they do exist and the tide is starting to turn. There are lots of networking events or panels and discussions where you can meet other like-minded people. I would advise attending those kinds of sessions, aligning yourself with would-be collaborators, doing your thing and doing it well.

Future

What are your next projects?

I am currently scoring season 33 of Casualty for the BBC and have some incredibly exciting episodes coming up. I’m also writing an album of analogue synthesiser instrumentals which has been lots of techie geeky fun!

Do you have anything on the horizon that we should look out for?

Just tune into Casualty on BBC One every Saturday night and look out for London Kills coming to the BBC soon!

For anyone wanting to start in composing, what would you advise?

There are so many different ways people get into composing for pictures and personally I think that’s a great thing. It’s what gives us such a wide variety of music to enjoy. Whether you study music or film composition, play in a band or make music on your computer in your bedroom, what all composers have in common is the ability to write music that helps to tell stories, whether fact or fiction. How you do that, as in educationally and technically, is entirely down to your discipline and what works for you.

I think it’s important to focus on what you can do rather than worry about what you can’t. Composing can be a very solitary job and crushing self doubt is never far away – tune in to what you are good at and try not to compare yourself to others. Whenever I do that I always feel very intimidated. Better to focus on what makes you different and what you can bring to a project.

One of my top tips would be to find your own “voice”. Media composers do tend to be pretty diverse in their musical skills as we are responding to picture. That said I don’t think it’s a good idea to say you can do everything. Even if you can write in lots of styles you probably can’t actually do everything, besides which, a director wants to choose you for their project because of the unique sound you can bring, not because you can copy whatever genre or other composer they want. Try to stretch yourself but develop your own sound and identity. On every project I have worked on, I like to go somewhere new but over the years I have been collecting a little treasure trove of sounds I love. I may find a new instrument or mangled sound or treatment that I love and feel really excited by – when I do, I add that to my own palette so bit by bit I’m developing my signature sound. It can be hard to have the confidence to do that but the things I have done that have sounded the most true to myself have always been the most well received.

It may sound obvious but be well organised and reliable. It’s no good being a genius composer if you never return the phone calls from the director or deliver music to viewings or dubs late. If you’re on a computer do your housework, organise your projects well, label files clearly and with dates and back up, back up, back up!

Develop a thick skin. When you’re writing music for a film or TV production, it is a collaboration. You are writing a score to support the movie – it is not the same as writing an autobiographical song as a piece of unique self-expression. Hopefully you will love what you have written and feel passionately about your work and that can make feedback hard to take, but it’s something you need to get used to because it’s part of the job. When you work with a good creative team, it’s good to listen, discuss and be prepared to at least try things differently, hopefully collaboratively they will push you to do your finest work.

Links

View all of Justine’s credits on IMDb here

Here is Justine’s Website: http://www.justinebarker.com

You can listen to Justine’s music: http://www.justinebarker.com/themes

Watch Justine’s showreel: https://vimeo.com/252318626

You can reach Justine on LinkedIn here: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/justine-barker-a1a05527

You can follow Justine on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JustineBarker12

Watch Dawn online: https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-dawn-2015-online