My first attempt at an orchestrated score.

Hero Theme

My new favourite... Thanks to Craig James for the guitar work... And apologies to James Taylor!

Dear Old Dad

One of the better orchestrated themes I have written. Initially a western style theme, but maybe just a big epic adventure theme, complete with a choir... Thanks Spitfire! I had 27 plays before I did a better mix... silly me!

Adventure Theme

Regret

A piece around a repetitive motif, around a repetitive period of my life. Something sad, something difficult.

Through Tear Filled Eyes

A love theme, something delicate. An old fashioned love.

Love Theme

A violin melody I've had kicking around for a while. Something with melancholy.... Ambient, something with just a small ensemble.

Still Standing

One of my first ever cues... a medieval waltz perhaps... or loss? Sparse in its arrangement... to give it that medieval feel. I don't think an orchestra was nearby in every castle?

Think Medieval

A piece for piano and string quintet... telling me to chill, relax, everything will be ok. I just gotta listen.

Mind Lay Still

One of my favourite pieces. Originally written as a cue for a short film, but it was passed on, so I worked it into a piece for piano/orchestra and solo violin. It gives hope, but with a tinge of sadness.

Flower Petals

A sunny morning, a French street perhaps… a short cue to set up a scene.

Happy Beginning

A short piano piece that invokes dread, sadness, or some sense of inevitability of bad news...

Inevitable

A simple piece with piano and two cellos... something subdued and perhaps sad.

Bad News

A short and simple music cue with piano, double bass and electronics, something that builds obvious tension by the fact that sh!t is getting real....

Getting Real

I try to write stuff that gets me emotional. It doesn't always work, but this one does. It builds and builds and the counterpoint is just enough. Again, simple... but I love music that doesn't have to be any more than it is.

Flood Gates

One of the first co-writes I did after I scored my publishing deal. With Gina Jeffreys and Alison Hams... with the demo exquisitely demo'd by Gina and very talented and all round nice bloke Rod McCormack.

Home

With apologies to Led Zeppelin for the title, this is my stance on a current issue in the world today. With thanks to Niels Johnson for the added guitars I think some of my influences shine through on this...

Immigrant Song

The brief: The director needed an 80's themed song (along with the film score) for a 80's themed party, with possibly darker overtones as opposed to the cliched bubble gum pop of the era. 

https://thebetaphasefilm.com

Inside My Head

Peter and the Wolf has a lot to answer for!

For it introduced Mark Drilling how to truly LISTEN to music.  The children’s masterpiece gave Mark his ears for music… hearing individual instruments and the part they played in the overall composition.

“Giving a character an instrument and a theme, introduced me to the emotion of music and how a story can be told using these simple elements. I’d lay on the lounge floor as a 4 year old just soaking up the atmosphere and the story.”

He trusted his ears so much, that he chose the rock n roll route on the way to his dream of film composition.

“It was always on the cards, but the technology to help my lack of theoretical music knowledge wasn’t there yet….”

His musical education took him into hard rock, gospel and country music where he managed to score a publishing deal with ABC Music Publishing as a songwriter and later moved to Sydney to hone his craft. 

“At one time, I was also a music director and songwriter/arranger in a large church, and It was actually there, that I began to really learn to arrange and write for different instruments.”

Upon returning from Sydney, he was approached to write music for a short film.

“The technology was there, my skills, I felt, were there and “The Beta Phase’” was such a fantastic story. At first I was hesitant that I was capable, but I think deep down, this was what I was meant to do. The whole experience was exhilarating!”

Since then, he has written for a Sci-Fi short - “Anthelios”,  a quirky nod to the Spaghetti Western called “The King’s Court” and two other student short films, “LOVERS” and “L PLATES” 

“This is what I always wanted to do musically. I just had to learn my way and in my time, but I got here! It somehow makes it more rewarding.”

Mark Drilling

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