Movie music part of workload for GFSS grad

By Shella Gardezi

Gazette Reporter

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Leonard Paul, music composer for the film The Corporation, said it was one thing to break into the movie music business, but another thing to find such a meaningful project.

The Vancouver Films School instructor graduated from Grand Forks Secondary School in 1991. He started his music career here playing in a band called Mr. Mustard. Afterwards, he attended Simon Fraser University where he studied music and computing.

“I did a stream called electro-acoustics,” he said. “So that was where I learned a lot of stuff that I actually ended up using in the Corporation, be it granular synthesis or even scoring for strings and trying to figure out how to integrate live players into the score.”

During university, he continued to spend his summers in Grand Forks.

“It's the best place to be, floating down the Granby River,” he said.

He currently teaches video game audio and plays in the bands Unspoken and Freaky DNA. He was recommended to co-director, Mark Achbar, by a band-mate, mikéla j. mikael, who suggested he send some samples of his work. Nevertheless, he was surprised when he got the call to compose music for the film.

“Mark (Achbar) co-directed Manufacturing Consent which is the most popular documentary of all time in Canada,” he said. “It would have been a possibility that he could pick anyone he wanted to, but I ended up getting the call.”

The film is a documentary that examines the power and nature of corporations. Paul said it is the message of the film that appeals to him.

“I think the biggest thing is for people to think and realize that when you're conducting business it influences lives,” he said. “It's not just moving money around and moving decimal places around.”

The composer said part of the message of the film is that it is possible to conduct business in an ethical way and still be successful.

“That's why the main CEO that they talk to, Ray Anderson, is such a great role model because he's saying, well, on one hand they maximize profits, but there's ways to maximizing your profits while reducing your footprint as a corporation,” he said.

Paul said he was happily surprised by the amount of exposure the film has received. It was winner of the documentary audience award at the Sundance Film Festival and has received many positive reviews.

“I knew that it needed to be seen by a lot of people,” he said. “It's nice that it's been able to get such great exposure and really good press in general.”

The Corporation is scheduled to be screened by Spotlight Films on May 26 at the Gem Theatre. Larry Hudema, a members of Spotlight Films said the group's mission is to screen films that may not otherwise find their way to Grand Forks.