Brian Skutle

Brian (born 1977) started out as a trombonist in 1989, but it wasn't until his junior and senior years of high school at Lassiter, in their award-winning band program, that he found his niche as a musical individual. It was in those years when he heard James Horner's score for "Braveheart," which inspired him to want to compose for film, and Hans Zimmer's score for "Broken Arrow," which opened his mind to the possibilities of electronic music. After graduating from Lassiter, Brian embarked on a five-year journey at Georgia State University, where he majored in Sound Recording Technology, one of GSU's two Music Industry degree programs. From Fall 1996 to May 2001, when he graduated with a Bachelor's of Music degree, he studied recording, MIDI applications, and Csound synthesis under Dr. Robert Scott Thompson, and composition and orchestration under Dr. Nick Demos, composing about 20 pieces employing both electronic and acoustic instruments. While he wouldn't compose his first film score until 2005 (written for a series of hand-made short films by a friend of his), this valuable experience at GSU served him well in creating an aesthetic quality to his music that is capable of standing apart from visual media, but also retaining the same sense of mood and emotion he finds in the best film music he listens to. In 1999, Listen.com said of Brian's music, "At times these compositions can get downright spooky, first lulling you and then raising the hairs on your neck with eerie, minimalist rhythms and synthesized reverberations." Since 1999, Brian's music has been available online at sites such as MP3.com, MySpace, Reverbnation, and others, as well as on CDs he's released via CDBaby, iTunes, and Bandcamp. In 2004, Brian launched sonic-cinema.com, his personal website that not only showcases Brian's musical endeavors, but also movie reviews, essays, and fan commentaries he's done over the years. Brian started making his own films in 2006, and music and the philosophies he brings to his musical work became an important part of the filmmaking process for him. Music, and film music, has always been Brian's first love, though, and in 2014, Brian returned to school, and began studying at the online arm of the Berklee College of Music towards earning a Specialty Certificate in Music for Film & TV.