Indie Film Music Contest

Two juried film scores, four criteria, and written spotting notes from professional film composers — Winter 2025 edition.

Role Composer (solo)

Type Juried scoring competition

Edition Winter 2025

Entries 2 films, both scored & reviewed

Film Scoring Spotting Orchestration Strings & Synths Scoring to Picture

The Contest

Scored by Working Film Composers, on Creativity Only

The Indie Film Music Contest gives every composer the same short films and the same brief: score the picture. The judging is what makes it worth entering — professional film composers rate each entry on four criteria, and mixing, mastering, and sample-library quality explicitly do not count. A piano recorded on a phone competes on equal footing with a $10,000 orchestral template. Only the storytelling decides.

In the Winter 2025 edition I scored two very different films: Walter, a dialogue-free animated short where the music has to carry the whole emotional arc, and When The Clapping Stops, a live-action drama about a care worker, where the score has to stay out of the dialogue's way while building suspense across a fragmented edit.

Both entries came back with criteria scores and timestamped written notes from the jurors. That feedback — including the parts that sting — is below, unedited.

Walter

Animated short by Lorenzo Fresta (CalArts, 2019) · no dialogue

A lonely toad bikes across the desert to water his plant. Fresta — now a story artist at Pixar — made a film with no dialogue at all, so the score is the narration: exhaustion, the plant dying, the wind, the bloom, and the flight. I connected the wind motif to the blooming of the plant and accented each bloom with xylophone, then deliberately pulled the music away for the ending — a choice the juror pushed back on.

Spotting & sync to picture11 /15

Mood of the story13 /15

Harmony, theme & composition11 /15

Personal or unique voice13 /15

48 / 60Round 1 total

58th / 115Placement

21.7%Of entries shared the top "unique voice" score of 13

"You connect the wind with the blooming of the plant which is VERY well done. [...] It is clear you have compositional skills and a good sensibility for working with picture."— IFMC juror, Walter notes

Full juror notes — Walter

"There are some great rich moments in this score that are really well done. I feel there was a lot of work put into the first half of this scene and I would have liked for the same approach in the ending. Nice opening, and I love how the first chord is on the plant. The music is very melancholy which works really well with Walter's concern and exhaustion. The music as the plant dies is subtle but so sad! Really touching. I love it. The synth touch over the strings is well done. I love how the progression starts again on the wind battering the window and then moves to the bloom. You connect the wind with the blooming of the plant which is VERY well done. I love the string movement as the plant blooms the seedball. I love how you start a musical idea that really feels like it comes into focus as we get that beautiful ceiling shot of all the seedballs. Great connection to picture. Also appreciate how the xylophone accents plants blooming."

"I like the reducing of musical activity as they surround Walter. I feel like this is a funny moment though, and the humour could have been highlighted a little better, but the pause works well. The music starting back up as they follow him and he goes to open the window works so well. The whole progression to the lighthouse bursting and then through everything flying out is very powerful and the composition and orchestration matches the picture very well. Very satisfying to watch! The string sustain and harp as he is suspended in the sky and realises that he is OK and all is well, that works really well with picture. I love that we have then have the moving idea in the strings."

"However, as he gets control and takes off over the town and we have that swoop in motion, the music is fading out. I don't really understand this choice. I know it is deliberate and intentional, but for me it doesn't work to picture at all. He is clearly enjoying flying and feels free and accomplished but the music isn't supporting that moment. The glockenspiel and single string at the end I know is an intentional choice, but again for me it doesn't work. There has been so many rich musical moments and I feel this warrants the same treatment. There is some really great music in here. I am disappointed in the ending, but it is clear you have compositional skills and a good sensibility for working with picture. Keep composing."

When The Clapping Stops

Drama by Cameron Perry (UK, 2022) · 1.4 Awards Gold · Bolton IFF Official Selection

Matty, a young care worker, is torn between June — a client mid-seizure — and his own dying grandfather. The edit fragments into two parallel paths, and the score's job is to hold that tension together without trampling the dialogue. I went dark and heavy: low string bass, a brass-and-high-strings riff building through the montage, then total silence for the final hallway — the juror called that ending "a fantastic decision".

Spotting & sync to picture13 /15

Mood of the story10 /15

Harmony, theme & composition11 /15

Personal or unique voice13 /15

47 / 60Round 1 total

15th / 30Placement

2 pagesOf written, timestamped juror notes

"Continuing to build the tension all through his decision to leave and through the montage is a smart and unique choice. [...] Choosing to leave the final hallway scene dry is a really dramatic decision that works very well in the context of your score."— IFMC juror, written review #5834

Key juror notes — When The Clapping Stops

"The tone at the beginning struck me as a bit dark. [...] Spotting here puts a lot of extra weight on this moment and cues the audience that this film is about June, about her illness, but it is really about the impossible burden placed on home care professionals."

"Overall, I found the score feeling a bit heavy handed. When June starts her seizure, the score reacts as if it is a horrible emergency with an extreme shift and dark, heavy sound design. [...] In fact, Matty is calm, in control, and reacts in a steady and composed manner."

"Usually suspense is created with some kind of glue that holds the entire sequence together and grips the audience without letting go. A consistent pulse or a sustain can function this way. Once the energy is going, it feels like a train that cannot be stopped."

"I don't think there's any question that you successfully built and magnified the tension through the development of the score. The introduction of the heavy brass and high strings riff is really well done in the context of your score. It's a unique choice [...] which is unique and bold."

"Continuing to build the tension all through his decision to leave and through the montage is a smart and unique choice. It fuses this montage with his mental state as he's racing back to see his Grandad, and keeps our attention with Matty as one continuous sequence. Well done!"

"Choosing to leave the final hallway scene dry is a really dramatic decision that works very well in the context of your score. By building up as big as you do, as heavy and dark as you do, the release of that into a vacuum feels poignantly empty and still in a way that strongly reflects Matty's emotions. [...] I think this ending is a fantastic decision."

Read the full juror review (PDF) →

What I Took From It

Four Lessons From the Juror Notes

Where the cue starts is a statement

On Clapping, opening the score on June's stare told the audience the film is about her illness — but the film is about the care worker. Spotting decisions frame whose story it is before a single harmony lands.

Suspense needs glue

Breaking the pulse at 2:04 to make room for a big hit let the audience off the hook. A consistent pulse or sustain holds a suspense sequence together like a train that cannot be stopped — contrast is only worth it when the picture earns it.

Silence must be earned

The same instinct got opposite verdicts: the dry hallway ending on Clapping "works very well" because the build-up before it was massive; fading out under Walter's triumphant flight "doesn't work to picture at all" because the moment still needed support.

Connect motifs to picture logic

The most praised idea in Walter was structural, not sonic: reusing the wind progression for the plant's bloom tied cause and effect together musically. Both entries scored 13/15 on "personal or unique voice" — the voice is there; the discipline around it is what the next entry gets.