The 9th annual Woodstock Film Festival included more than 150 films, panels, concerts and special events featured at venues in Woodstock and the neighboring towns of Rhinebeck and Rosendale. For more information, visit www.Woodstockfilmfestival.com.

The two-day event will feature sessions and panels on music for film, TV, Internet, gaming, commercials and other industry-related topics.

For information on Billboard events, go to Billboard Events.

The two-day event will feature sessions and panels on music for film, TV, Internet, gaming, commercials and other industry-related topics.

For information on Billboard events, go to Billboard Events.

The guest panel of judges include:

The head of SSE and Carlin America's Creative/Film & TV Divisions. He always look for great writing no matter what the genre, but generally works in the pop, rock, alternative, singer-songwriter, and R&B world.

A&R Manager for Missing Link Music who is looking for "fully-realized" pop, R&B and hip hop tracks which have a verse, chorus, and bridge structure; not a single loop that goes on for 3 minutes. Also no samples.

VP Business Development for Ricall Music Licensing who is looking for "radio-ready," quality songs in all genres for placement in world-wide film, TV, advertising, and digital projects.

For more details and to rsvp go to: SPONY

The successful candidate will have an opportunity to work for 4-5 weeks with BMI composer Mike Post, Pete Carpenter’s partner and friend and writer of such TV themes as NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and Law and Order. There will also be an opportunity to meet with other distinguished theatrical, film, and television composers. In addition, the winner will receive a $3,000 stipend for travel and expenses.

Applications for the 2009 Pete Carpenter Fellowship will be available online at bmifoundation.org, via email, or by writing to Linda Livingston, BMI Foundation, 8730 Sunset Blvd., 3rd Floor West, Los Angeles, CA 90069. The postmark deadline for entries is January 26, 2009.

The BMI Foundation, Inc. is a not-for-profit corporation founded in 1985 to support the creation, performance, and study of music through awards, scholarships, commissions and grants. Tax-deductible donations to the Foundation come primarily from songwriters, composers and publishers, BMI employees and members of the public with a special interest in music. Because both the Foundation staff and the distinguished members of the Advisory Panel serve without compensation, over 95% of all donations and income are used for charitable grants.

Pictured at the film’s red carpet premiere in Nashville are Scott Brasher (left), with wife Joan.

The film, currently playing in cities across the United States, stars Armie Hammer and an impressive cast including Martin Landau and Lindsay Wagner, and features appearances by BMI songwriters including country star Josh Turner. To view the trailer or find theatres showing the film, please visit www.billytheearlyyears.com.

“A full diet of any one of them would probably drive me crazy. But about 50/50 is perfect,” he notes. “On the one hand, you have writing songs, making records and playing shows. And coming out of a punk-rock background, it’s traditionally very much a ‘screw you I’m going to do what I want’ type thing. Which is the opposite of film scoring, which is, ‘Of course I can do that’.”

“You really have to have a certain temperament to be in it,” points out Larson, whose scoring credits include Boys Don’t Cry, Prozac Nation, Choke and Palindromes. “The rock & roll thing is like, ‘Look at me!’ And this couldn’t be further than that. Your role is to sort of to be invisible. It’s a very different job.”

Shudder To Think rose out of the Washington, D.C. hardcore punk scene of the mid-to-late 1980s, eventually recording for Dischord Records, the label headed by Ian MacKaye of Fugazi. “One among the many ways that we stood apart from the other Dischord bands was our ethic, or our goals and ambitions for our music, which were always very, very unabashedly and outwardly commercial,” explains Wedren. “We never, ever — any of us — had any qualms with the idea of our music going global, for lack of a better word.”

The band got that shot when they signed with Epic Records in the early 1990s, and Larson joined the group on guitar after a stint playing bass in the band Swiz. Shudder To Think’s 1994 major label debut, Pony Express Record, didn’t reach a mass audience even if it and its follow-up did earn the group esteem in musical and fan circles.

Both Wedren and Larson began scoring films through what Larson calls “a fluke,” being part of a tight-knit creative community in New York City in the 1990s. Wedren’s work with director David Wain came as a result of a lifelong friendship with him that included attending New York University together. Wedren and Larson also began delving into film work when Shudder To Think contributed songs to and appeared in Velvet Goldmine and scored High Art.

“We just happened to know folks who were filmmakers,” Larson notes. “We sort of stumbled into it.” Both now have long lists of credits to their names as composers for film and television.

Wedren finds that working within two very different musical realms has a positive effect on the creative processes of both. “Because the structure is obviously so different from a two-to-five-minute pop or rock song, it really develops very different skills and gets you out of your usual songwriting habits,” he observes of scoring. “The joy and challenge of a film score forces you out of your own ways. And it brings a whole new bag of tricks to songwriting that break you out of old habits. Then you have to go back to doing film soundtracks to get out of them.

“And the reverse is also true,” Wedren adds. “After working on soundtracks for a while you really do get your bag of tricks and your sound and the way you do things. And going back to a rock band has its effect on the next scores you may do.”

The break Wedren and Larson took from Shudder To Think for most of this decade ended when the band reunited with drummer Kevin March for a New York City club show in September 2007. From August through November of this year the band will have played 10 shows — some with March on drums, others (listed below, on the West Coast) with earlier drummer Adam Wade, while Jesse Krakow handles bass duties and Mark Watrous guitar throughout — from which they hope to come up with the recordings to issue a live album. The shows include dates at the Showbox in Seattle on Oct. 30, the El Rey Theater in L.A. on Nov. 1 and the Fillmore in San Francisco on Nov. 2. Larson will also be releasing an album in early 2009 by A Camp, the group he has with his wife, Swedish rock singer Nina Persson, formerly of The Cardigans.

For Wedren, who won a BMI Film Music Award for his work on The School of Rock, it’s all part of being creative and inspiring others to do the same. “Our feeling was always to make people want to make things, whatever it is: music, movies, light bulbs, anything. As long as people leave our shows feeling that creative spark and a sense of possibility — that was our goal. I don't know what our musical legacy is or was or will be, but I definitely know that some kids we turned on back in the day are now turning other kids on.”

Hailing from Australia and now residing in Los Angeles, Hay’s orchestral new-age ambience made her a favorite in the Darwin Symphony Orchestra and led her to win numerous awards, including first place at the Australian Songwriters Association Unisong Contest. Doreen Ringer Ross commented, “Janet is an extraordinary talent and I’m particularly pleased our recipient is a woman this year, since there are so few female working film composers. “

Hay holds a Bachelor of Music (Australia); completed the Film Scoring and Orchestration Summer Intensive Program (Edinburgh, Scotland); is currently studying at UCLA to earn a Certificate of Film Scoring – Advanced Orchestration; and is owner/manager of Mountain Arts Academy.

The BMI/Jerry Goldsmith Film Scoring Scholarship is an annual award at UCLA Extension that is presented to a student in the schools Film Scoring program. The scholarship was named in honor of Oscar and Emmy Award winning film and television composer Jerry Goldsmith who passed in 2004.

The scholarship partially underwrites the recipient’s study in the UCLA Extension Film Scoring Program, a continuing education program designed to help composers develop the specialized skills and contacts needed to pursue a successful career in film scoring.

“This scholarship is part of BMI’s overall commitment to music education and career development for new composers. Jerry was a definitive, iconic film composer, a master at his craft, and a huge mentor and supporter of young composers. He always took an interest in and made the time to meet with each of our previous scholarship recipients. BMI is proud to continue this program in his honor,” said Doreen Ringer Ross.

Pictured (l-r): UCLA’s Pascale Halm, BMI’s Doreen Ringer Ross and BMI/Jerry Goldsmith Scholarship winner Janet Hay. (Photo by Ellen Dawson)

Created in 1992, the BMI Film Scoring Scholarship awards students in USC's Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program at the Thornton School of Music. The acclaimed program offers student composers numerous opportunities to work with other student filmmakers and faculty including working professionals in the film, television and video game industry. The financial scholarship is based on composition and the level of performance the students demonstrate throughout the school year. The recipients are chosen by the faculty in Thornton's scoring program.

Shown at the presentation in BMI’s Los Angeles office are (l-r): Scholarship recipients Layla Minoui and Ludwig Goransson; BMI’s Ray Yee and recipients Thomas Parisch and Brian H. Kim. Not shown, recipient Nathaniel Blume who could not attend.