This is a feature film I did recently.  It revolves around the same world my Metaphysician's Dream film was set in though it is live action.  It originally had dialogue but I cut those scenes making it more "impressionistic" -  somewhat of an experiment. That allowed the music to be more prominent.  It is played by VI using the Pernegg Monastery MIR with the instrumentation of solo flute 1, celesta, musical glasses, vibes, gong, timpani, Appassionata violins, violas cellos, solo violin 1 & 2, solo viola, solo Cello 2, orchestral violins and basses.   

Althyria

Hi William,

I didn't know you make movies as well! I started watching and liked it a lot, including the sound score. Will need to come complete watching it later but wanted to send a quick note. This must have involved quite a lot of work to make an hour long film and score for it! 

I also checked out the metaphysical video you had made a few months ago and really enjoyed it, esp given all the scientific instruments and science themed images settings! Need to watch it again.

Hope all is well.

Best

Anand   

Congratulations, William! Comment on YT.

Jos

William, so sorry for not commenting on this production before now. In all honesty the film (which I watched all through, twice) just had me completely foxed - I don't know what to make of it or what to say about it. I guess the full-on "is it real, hallucination or just over-active imagination?" type of movie has never floated my boat, probably because as a design engineer I've cultivated a mentality in which my visions and fantasies must above all be feasible. I can easily, however, get into and really enjoy good sci-fi and abstract art films - like your wonderful Metaphysician's Dream. But somehow Althyria as a film takes me completely out of my book, leaving me up the creek without a paddle. So, unhappily for me, this boringly straight-laced old engineer is the wrong person to appraise Althyria as a film, though I dearly wish I could.

Your score, on the other hand, speaks to me beautifully well without a moment of puzzlement, doubt or hesitation on my part. I love the delicacy, the nuances, the veiled charm, suspense and strangeness, the ethereal motion, connections and hints of connections. Your uses of vibes and harp are wonderfully delicate, intricate and highly effective. Your strings also are just so apposite and beautiful, sitting so perfectly in the music's evolutions. Also the flute does a lovely job of shedding another light on the theme.

Considering the production as a whole, organic entity, your spotting and your scoring to picture are top notch in my book. No doubt at all about that for me. Awesomely well done. Your adventure into film-making is bold and inspiring. I'm looking forward to more of your projects - though of course I appreciate it's huge effort and time (and probably substantial expense) for you. Good hunting, William.

William, can I add an afterthought on your adventures into film-making? I've felt bad about not being able to put together a positive review on Althyria as a film. Let's see if I can make ammends for that now.

While watching and enjoying "Lapsis" (2020) * it occurred to me that the truly vibrant, creative, interesting and engaging sector of film-making these days and for the forseeable future includes people like yourself. The big-time end of the spectrum of film-making lately seems to have stalled somehow and all too often is just not cutting it like it used to.

Nowadays, instead of having to join, submit and pay tribute to the big-time studio system, it looks like the door has opened once more to talented independent startups (I recall an earlier indie new wave in the '60s). Moreover, indie film-makers can use storyines and real-life class-aware settings, roles and acting (such as in Lapsis, also Agonie 2016) that the big studios these days would be too afraid or too disdainful to touch with a ten foot sterilised bargepole because they're sticking dogmatically to their formulae which give audiences pitifully narrow choice.

In short, indie film-makers these days can once more do their own productions somehow, somewhere and with something, no matter what so long as it works within the constraints of little or no budget, and find audiences. But you already know that, William. Hope you carry on developing your film-making craft and art in your own way.

* What got me thinking again about your bold adventures was finding out that Noah Hutton wrote, directed, scored and edited the low-budget award-winning "Lapsis", plus the fact that its two main actors, Dean Imperial and Madeline Wise, aren't the usual wannabe Hollywood clones and had me fully engaged all through.

Sorry I didn't know about your earlier productions - I'll watch Disembodied when I get some time. Also sorry to read about (from your comments in IMDb) what that deadbeat distribution outfit did to you and other indie producers back then.

Interesting to hear of your focus on animations now.

Thanks Louis for checking it out.  Thank you Macker for those comments, oddly enough today I finished the printed score to the music of ALthyria.  Why did I do that?  I can't explain.  Somehow I have to see any music I do in printed form on paper, otherwise it doesn't really exist.  A mental illness probably.  I want to see music printed with proper placement of beams within the staff (sit-straddle-hang) and correct spacing throughout, on beautiful parchment, ready for performance by powdered and bewigged virtuosi. 

Soon, here in my cell at the Institute, I will hear them playing Althyria, directly from my printed score.  The orderlies may not hear it, but I will urge them to listen more carefully, and perhaps then, they will hear.