FILM & TELEVISION COMPOSER

This was a series of four ads based on the private investigator character "Lou Tennent" created by Gerry (Thunderbirds) Anderson. My brief was to compose a theme for Lou which would I could then re-orchestrate for each film. Usually with animation, the music is composed first, but in this case Gerry wanted to create the film first. Fair enough, but this made my work much harder of course as it was necessary for the music to sync with a lot of cue points. Still, it was great to meet and work with Mr. Anderson.

The next film raised a couple of copyright problems as the brief called for the established Lou Tennent theme to be orchestrated with a similar rhythm to the tune Brazil. I knew that the melody was completely different, and of course there is no copyright in a samba rhythm so there should not have been a problem. However, the word "Brazil" was part of the voice over and the voice over artist (no less than Viv Stanshall), instead of saying the word, sort of half sang it to the tune of Brazil. Although there was no copyright infringement by me, the publishers claimed that this was "passing off as " their copyright and the advertising agency paid a small settlement.

You may also notice a section in the middle with a striking resemblance to Girl From Ipanema. This was intentional and although the melody is different, we were aware that this was very close (as it needed to be), especially given the bossa nova rhythm at that point and the beach context of the film, so the agancy negotiated a clearance to be on the safe side.

It is important to be aware that even if a copyright has not been technically infringed, if a publisher can claim that the context could fool the public into thinking it was their copyright ("passing off as "), then they may have a case.