Bio
Callum McDonald is a Melbourne-based composer, instrumentalist and post-production sound specialist. He has experience in film-scoring, game audio and foley, among a variety of other sound production skills. With his truly unique musical expression, Callum uses electronics, orchestra and any sound in between to create music anywhere from ambient, introspective soundscapes to bubbly TVC scores. Callum enjoys all forms of experimentation in music, particularly the application of such to storytelling in all media. He has scored and written music for several short films and a video game and has also had much experience with all aspects post-production music creation throughout his career and education. The facilitation of narrative is core to Callum's artistic drive and passion.
A love of film music has been an integral part of Callum’s nature for his entire life, stretching back as far as kindergarten. When asked what he wanted to be when he grew up Callum stated he wanted to “write music for movies”. Ever since, music has been a passion and driving force in his life, both at home and at school. Callum learned guitar from ages 6 through 18 and won multiple creative and music awards throughout high school, including the senior school music award. These amounted to a performance at the Monash Gallery of Art in his final year. He was also captain of the school Jazz ensemble for 3 years and played in the school’s productions of the musicals In the Heights and Wicked. After auditioning for, and being accepted to, the Melbourne Conservatory of Music, Callum decided to break up his studies to pursue his musical passions and gain work experience prior to studying a Bachelor of Applied Music - Composition at Box Hill Institute.
Through his education at Box Hill, Callum has been able to gain a multitude of experiences in all areas of composition. He has been able to work on projects such as films and video games through tertiary collaborations with Swinburne University and the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE). In addition to these collaborations, he has been able to work with performing groups such as Syzygy Ensemble. These opportunities and collaborations, alongside lectures from industry professionals, have given Callum a broad skillset of compositional techniques and abilities and a wide-reaching taste that is fundamental to his compositional work.
Callum is currently working on another short film project with a friend and collaborator which seeks to begin production by the end of this year. Another film, Lonis (2020), that Callum scored will also be screened on June 4th at the St Kilda Film Festival. He is excited by his many future projects that he will be working on. These include solo projects, collaborations with his fellow composers and creatives and work on films and other multimedia. Some of which can be found on this site or on his social media (above) or SoundCloud.
