The 30 minute documentary film “COW” by director Peter Watkins-Hughes tells the story of Cassie COWan, a 17 y.o. girl having a terrible car accident caused by using her mobile phone for texting while driving. She survived, but two of her best friends died.

Starting originally just as a local project for the Gwent Police in Wales as part of an ongoing road safety campaign (to be shown primarily in schools and by local TV stations), the project became an international phenomenon on the web just within a few days: Some sequences of the film have been seen by more than 6 million people on YouTube.

“The response has overwhelmed everyone involved”, says composer Stuart Fox.

Stuart used the Vienna Special Edition (Standard Library) and the Soprano Choir to compose a very sensitive, reflective score that affects the subconsciousness of the audience (by using some drones and sub-frequencies) and that plays a fundamental role in enhancing the emotional impact of the film.

Stuart Fox on creating the score:

“I had to find a musical voice that would support the story and character emotion without overwhelming the viewer or undermining the narrative or acting work. I realised that I could very easily take away some of the film’s power and completely ruin it if I made the wrong musical decisions.

“Using the Vienna Symphonic Library in this project definitely changed the way I approached it. Before I used Vienna software, an idea for something choral driven, or music driven by a solo woodwind or string instrument would have frightened the life out of me. Unless I had budget for session musicians I would never have considered it, especially for a film as potentially powerful as this one.

“Thinking back … it was normal for composers to write music in a certain ‘sample and synth friendly’ way, however the overwhelming development of virtual instruments, in particular Vienna Symphonic software has helped break studio based composers out of these ‘synth safe’ writing habits.

“Director Peter Watkins-Hughes said to me in the dubbing studio that he couldn't believe that the score we were mixing was 100% computer generated and admitted that the part where the helicopters are taking off after the crash even sounds better than the temp score (which featured a real orchestra recording).

“It was not the first time I've had this reaction since using the Vienna Symphonic Library”, composer Stuart Fox concludes.