Adam Howard of Howard Music recently completed the musical orchestration for the South African film, White Lion, which also stars award-winning actor, John Kani.

The film centres on the legend of the Shangaan people who believe that white lions are messengers of the gods and that their presence in tribal lands ensures peace and prosperity for all.

Howard and Lizzie Rennie worked for three weeks with composer Phillip Miller on orchestrating the music for White Lion. Miller would email a sound clip of the score he had composed in software programme Cubase as well as a PDF score of certain elements. This was then imported into music notation software - Sibelius.

The orchestrations were discussed with Miller and then Howard and Rennie would augment the music into a full score for symphony orchestra – strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion. Sibelius was also used to print out the full score for the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra conductor, Alan Stephenson and all the parts for the orchestral players. These parts had to be absolutely perfect as any mistakes would eat up the valuable studio time. The orchestra was recorded in sections at the M2 studio at the SABC. A click track ensured that sync was maintained with the picture. Recording in sections also made the process easier to edit and to identify mistakes in the recording process.

Traditional African voices were over-dubbed to the traditional “epic” style orchestration, which reflected the big open spaces that the film was shot in.

Howard has also been involved at the Ministry Of Illusion, in a composition of the music for a Nigerian TVC. The company was Nigeria’s Legacy Realties. The TVC was shot, edited and animated with full post production treatment at the MOI. With Howard Music now based at the MOI , it means that MOI is able to offer music composition to the list if services.