Sunnyshore Studio is thrilled to announce that we are in the final stages of wrapping up a contract with composer Todd Masten. Todd will be doing a song for the upcoming We are Family documentary, and composing the music for Sunnyshore Studio’s brand animation.
Here’s the story of how this partnership came about.
One of the coffee shop “haunts” of Sunnyshore Studio’s Artistic Director, Jason Dorsey, is River Trail Roasters in Redmond, WA.
One day he noticed a guy who had an impressive computer and looked like he was doing some kind of musical composition. Jason went up to him and introduced himself. It was Todd Masten.
Here’s the bio on Todd from his web site:
“Todd began his career scoring public service announcements and television commercials for several companies in the northeast while still attending college. He then moved on to compose exclusively for computer, console and social platforms beginning with Carrier Strike Force by Interactive Magic in 1998. He has since scored over two dozen titles and has moved into both television and film. He recently helped launch Microsoft’s augmented reality device HoloLens as the team’s New Technology Audio Director. To date, Todd has shipped more than 40 million gaming units worldwide, and has completed multiple drama series for web and television along with two major motion pictures.
Todd recently completed his Master’s degree after over a decade of real world audio experience. He previously graduated from Berklee College of Music in 1997 with a degree in Music Synthesis with an emphasis on composition and film scoring. While at Berklee, he studied classical theory and composition while training with the most revered modern jazz talents from around the world. Todd worked in conjunction with faculty and students from Emerson College in producing public service announcements for the state of Massachusetts along with television commercials for major global corporations including PBS, Round Table, and AT&T.
Over the past decade , Todd has worked on blockbuster games for Activision, Disney Interactive, Konami, Lucas Arts, Microsoft, Pixar, Sony, THQ, and Universal Interactive; containing iconic characters such as Crash Bandicoot, Spider-Man, Tony Hawk, Spongebob, and Lightning McQueen. His passion for making great games has led to his involvement with high level game production; often performing multiple roles on any given title.
Todd travels and works between his studios in Southern California and Seattle.”
Jason and Todd got to talking about their work, and Jason mentioned his documentary. He asked if Todd had ever worked on scoring a film. He said, yes matter of fact he he had.
Later Jason checked out Todd’s website and was super impressed with his work. You can check it out here: https://www.toddmasten.com
Jason shared a very rough cut of the We are Family documentary with Todd and asked if he would be willing to work on it, and potentially on a score for the animation of the brand. Todd said he would be!
Jason kept running into Todd at River Trail and eventually over the next month the details got worked out. And that’s how it happened!