On this page, you can find the Culminating Experience (CE) Projects for all graduate students from the Berklee College of Music master’s program Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games (SFTV) from 2015 – present. Click on any title for more information and access to the full paper and other deliverables (if available).
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Tides of Nun
Nicholas Adams
2025Writing music for role playing games (RPGs) is becoming more relevant in the current day than it has been in over 15 years. In the past few years there have been several massive releases such as Baldur’s Gate 3 and, more recently, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 just to name two of the most recent original titles garnering mass recognition. It is clear that this genre of video game in which large scale stories are told across tens or even over one hundred hours is beginning to make a strong comeback and will likely race to the forefront of gaming as it once was during the late 2000s and early 2010s. During times like this, it is wise of enterprising composers to hone the skills necessary to write for these types of games as not only are there going to be more jobs for composers on AAA sized productions, but behind the industry leaders there will soon be smaller companies vying for the consumers’ time between major releases who will also need several hours of music each. This paper aims to explore the topic of the music for this specific medium through use of some games that personally touched me musically and played a hand in inspiring the composition of my piece Tides of Nun which is set to an AI generated trailer for a non-existent epic fantasy RPG set in ancient Egypt. By analyzing the music of these games and how it applies to my composition, I hope to inspire the thought in others that this music especially must be approached from a narrative perspective framed by the expectations of the genre both historically and those created by more modern trend setters.
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Memories
Enea Astori
2025This thesis explores the creation of the original orchestral score for Memories, a short film by the visual artist TRGNY. The film unfolds as a dreamlike journey through the inner landscape of a character’s past, a world of symbolic figures and green fields transformed into memory-scapes, reflecting on the irreversible nature of memory. The score was composed to mirror this atmosphere: subtle, expressive, and open to interpretation. Through evolving themes, delicate textures, and dynamic pacing, the music supports the film’s emotional undercurrents generally without imposing fixed meaning. This work reflects on the collaborative process and examines how music can give voice to the unspoken in a narrative built on impression rather than plot.
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Planet Earth II: Ways of Life
Patricio Avila
2025This thesis presents my Culminating Experience for the Master's in Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games at Berklee Valencia: a rescore of the trailer from the acclaimed documentary Planet Earth II, recorded with a full orchestra at AIR Studios in London. Through a creative and analytical approach, I explore the process of scoring nature-based visual storytelling, focusing on translating natural imagery into musical emotion. Breaking down the trailer into different sections, the project traces my compositional journey from initial concept and thematic development to orchestration, professional recording, and final mix. I also discuss how cinematic tools such as cinematography and editing influenced my musical decisions, and how techniques such as motivic transformation enhanced narrative and emotional depth. This project aims to reflect on the emotional and technical implications of scoring this nature documentary and provide future composers with an in-depth view of a scoring process rooted in artistic sensitivity and structural rigor.
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“Wing It!”:Composition for an animation
Luwen Cao
2025This report outlines the process of composing, orchestrating, recording, and mixing the music for Wing It!, a three-minute comedy-adventure animation. As my final project, it served as the culmination of my Master of Music Degree in Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games at Berklee College of Music, Valencia Campus, and allowed me to put into practice both the technical and emotional skills I’ve built over the years. Even though the animation is short, it covers a wide range of emotions from calm joy to fast-paced and thrilling excitement, ending with a warm, satisfying tone. This variety gave me space to explore musical storytelling and strengthen the connection between music, visuals, and character. The report is organized in chronological order. It starts with how and why I chose this project, then goes through the steps I took before writing, the composition and orchestration process, score and part preparation, recording at AIR Studios in London, and final mixing. The report ends with personal reflections and thoughts on my future work in the field.
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To the Rescue
Naima Catten
2025This project discusses the culminating experience process of To the Rescue, a rescore of an action scene from Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War (2018). From sharing inspiration about the project and the early stages of composing and orchestrating, to explaining score and part preparation, I share everything that I experienced in the final days leading up to recording To the Rescue at AIR Studios Lyndhurst in London. I emphasize the importance of balance throughout the orchestra and the use of different orchestral textures in this kind of cue. Furthermore, I share how I navigated unanticipated challenges, elements that I could have approached differently, and feedback throughout the process from my advisors and colleagues. Overall, I reflect honestly upon my experience and discuss what I plan to do in my future steps. I hope that this project can serve as a guide to future SFTV students and help them make the most out of their culminating experiences.
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The Heron’s Journey: Scoring the Animated film El Salto de la Rana
Natalia Chatzopoulou
2025The Heron’s Journey is an original score for the animated short film: El Salto de la Rana. It was composed as part of the Culminating Experience in Berklee Valencia Campus and in collaboration with UPV (Universitat Politècnica de València, Máster en Animación). In this thesis paper, I aim to describe every step of bringing the story and the character of the titular Heron to life through a musical tapestry. First, by analyzing the film, finding meaning in the characters’ struggles and understanding their world. Then, by breaking down my compositional approach and orchestrational references while creating the sound. Through these I describe the preparation and events that led up to the session, the out-of-this-world experience of recording in the Air Studios, Lyndhurst Hall and finally mixing the session in order to bring all elements together.
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You Did It - Facing Shadow Inside
Huai-Xin Chen
2025This thesis outlines the composition process for the orchestral work "You Did It." It focuses on the search for musical style and video source materials, developing ideas from the materials, compositional process and scores analysis.
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“Carlotta” A Cinematic Rescore: Breaking Personal Grounds and Climbing New Heights in Composition and Production
Handi Cui
2025In this thesis, you will get to know all aspects of my Culminating Experience as a project, including the birth of the idea, my relationship/history with the chosen material, the conceiving & developing of musical concepts/motifs, the composing & orchestration of the cue, the process & experience of pre, during, and post-recording, and finally my reflection and thoughts on the past nine months and what will be ahead for me. There will be musical and visual references along the way, and I hope after reading this thesis, you will gain a deep understanding of the whats, whys, and hows of the entire journey that brought my CE to life.
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Shared Horizons: Original Score
Colm Delaney
2025This paper reflects the creative and technical journey behind my culminating experience on the SFTV program, concluding with a professional orchestral recording at AIR Studios, London. The project represents my musical personality and combines previous experiences with skills, techniques and lessons learned during the program. The chosen visual, a trailer for Planet Earth III, provided a dynamic narrative arc and was suitable for a modern cinematic scoring approach which was one of my personal objectives for the final recording session. The score was structured around six narrative-driven sections, with music written to compliment sync points, shifting moods and pacing. Key phases in the timeline of the project included searching for the right video to score, spotting using Digital Performer to determine the tempo map, writing thematic material, the recording session and mixing and mastering process. The final composition predominantly features the live orchestra, with layered electronic elements and additional MIDI stems used to enhance certain sections. Ultimately, this project fulfilled three primary goals: to create a personal work of which I am proud, to record a cinematic portfolio piece which is competitive with industry standards, and to demonstrate the ability to record an original score in a world-class recording studio.
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Sapiens: Exploring the Human Conflict
Alonso Del Carpio
2025Sapiens is an orchestral piece that traces the journey of humanity—from the rise of consciousness to the critical crossroads we now face with the emergence of advanced technology. Structured in four acts and based on an original script written specifically for this CE project, the work explores pivotal moments in our evolutionary story. This paper documents the entire creative process: from the initial concept and scriptwriting, to scoring the music, preparing materials for recording, and mixing the final piece. It concludes with a reflection on our role as a species in an increasingly automated world, asking whether we will give in to the alienating forces of our own technological creations or enter a new renaissance that moves us into the next phase of human evolution.
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Outlandish - Original Score
Alex Fortunato
2025Outlandish – Original Score is a fully orchestrated, four-minute composition created for the 2D animated short film Outlandish, directed and animated by Christina Wu. The score blends traditional orchestration with experimental textures to support the film’s emotional arc: a sheltered child’s journey through a mysterious forest in search of her friend. Recorded at AIR Studios in London and with the Budapest Art Orchestra, the music explores themes of innocence, transformation, and the unknown through recurring motifs, metric modulation, and shifting timbres. This project represents the culmination of a multi-year collaboration between the director and composer, whose creative partnership began at CalArts and matured during their respective thesis projects. The scoring process involved technical challenges such as transitioning to a new DAW (Cubase 14), building a large orchestral template, implementing hybrid sound design, and preparing industry-standard notation for live recording. This documentation reflects on the creative, technical, and collaborative processes behind the score, highlighting the artistic decisions and logistical problem-solving that shaped the final result. Outlandish – Original Score stands as a personal and professional milestone, merging narrative sensitivity with orchestral ambition.
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Blooming: Writing ''The Garden Grows in Both Directions, into tomorrow and yesterday''
Maria Galvez Garrido
2025This document serves as the journal of a composer seeking to share her thoughts, discoveries, personal growth, blooming and artistic development throughout her experience in the Master of Music in Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games at Berklee Valencia (2024–2025). Its primary purpose is to document the creative process and provide a theoretical musical analysis behind the composition of the orchestral piece “The Garden Grows in Both Directions… Into Tomorrow and Yesterday.” The discussion encompasses the relationship between music and the dramatic arc derived from the spotting process based on the narrative that inspired the piece, as well as its recording at AIR Studios, and the overall impact of the experience on the composer’s sense of identity and practice.
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Amatxo Maitia
Aitor Gaztambide Romero
2025For my last project at this master, I decided to pay tribute to my mother’s family–her parents, her brother and, of course, her – and compose a piece that would honor their memory based on some old video recordings of them. When thinking about the people you hold dearest to your heart, memory is a double-edged sword, for it can bring both joy and sorrow. Therefore, I wanted to try and navigate all those feelings in this piece; trying to not only feel nostalgic for the past but also cherish it and celebrate the people they were and the lives they lived. In order to do this project, I wanted to prepare myself as much as possible and write something that would match the period the videos were based on. Therefore, I did a lot of research for references and music scores of music from that time. Thanks to this final project, as I had to work on it during most of the academic year, I learned a lot about my composing tools – both academic and digital techniques – and the importance of having a solid pre-production stage before writing music.
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Finding Home
Jakub Lewkowicz
2025This paper documents the many successes and challenges I faced while working on my culminating experience for the SFTV program, built from the ground up around a central theme: “What is home?” The theme guided me through finding a video, developing musical ideas, orchestration decisions, all the way through conducting and recording a piece within a top-level environment at AIR Studios, one of the best moments of my life, and a process detailed in this paper. This project also represents my journey at Berklee Valencia and is an ode to all of the people who have helped me along the way to shape my musical voice. My chosen visual was the trailer for The Red Turtle, a heartfelt animation with a strong narrative arc that encompasses this theme. Its structure encouraged me to create dynamic music while also giving me the freedom to test my compositional abilities to try to create a lush and modern orchestral score. I delve into the unexpected challenges that I encountered in the project, but also why facing those ultimately resulted in a piece that I am proud of and represents a snapshot of where I am as a composer at the moment. Moving forward, I hope to help composers explore and trust their unique musical voice by building around a simple idea.
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I See
Qingyao Lin
2025I See is a rescore of a cinematic piece that I selected to show my skills and the knowledge I have gained throughout my one-year study at Berklee College of Music. This composition represents a fusion of musical traditions, blending a full Western orchestra with traditional Chinese instruments to create a rich and unique piece. By incorporating the pentatonic scale and harmonies characteristic of Chinese music, I aimed to complement the visual narrative of the Chinese-style animation while authentically reflecting its cultural roots. Throughout this project, I carefully considered how musical elements such as theme development, orchestration, and harmonic language contribute to the emotional and narrative impact of the piece. The orchestration balances the textures of the Western orchestra with the distinct timbres of Chinese instruments, creating a dialogue between these two musical worlds. Additionally, the use of harmony and melodic material is designed to highlight the animation’s storytelling and enhance its cultural atmosphere. In this thesis, I will discuss my creative process in detail, focusing on the development of thematic material, the choices behind orchestration, the application of harmony, and how these musical components interact effectively with the visuals. This project reflects both my technical growth and artistic vision as a composer working at the intersection of Chinese and Western musical traditions.
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Warzone Boss Fight
Wesley Lo
2025One of my biggest inspirations is “symphonic sketch” style writing, like in Distant Worlds and Final Symphony, which reframe the motifs of Final Fantasy through classical orchestration. This project’s vision was to contribute to this tradition—bridging concert and media approaches—by studying varied approaches from composers who each bring a distinctive voice to this space. The final composition is a hybrid score for a warzone style boss fight for a Chinese game company, submitted with temporary footage from the final boss of Horizon Zero Dawn : Burning Shore DLC. This paper documents the research, process, and production in composing this work, including analyzing over 100 media soundtracks across multiple genres, and the development of the thematic material. The final work, recorded in Air Studios, aims to offer one possible avenue for honoring traditional orchestral approaches while blending modern scoring techniques in game music.
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Paperman
Noa Mermelstein
2025My project is an original orchestral score composed for an animated short film, designed as the final thesis for my Master’s in Film Scoring at Berklee Valencia. The aim is to create a powerful, emotionally driven musical narrative that supports and elevates the visual storytelling. The score was performed and recorded by a full orchestra at AIR Studios in London, providing a professional, industry-standard result. I’ve been using Paperman (Disney, 2012) as a creative reference due to its rich emotional arc, minimal dialogue, and elegant animation style. This project allows me to apply the full range of my skills—from thematic composition and orchestration to technical production and collaboration with musicians. It also reflects my deep passion for storytelling through music and my goal of contributing meaningfully to the world of visual media. I chose a simple story about love and longing as a gentle contrast to the harsh realities of life in my home country.
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Il-Baħħar tal-Lejl
Craig Saliba
2025This paper explores my creative and practical journey behind the composition of Il-Baħħar tal-Lejl, an original orchestral piece written and produced as the culminating project for the Scoring for Film, TV and Videogames master’s program at Berklee Valencia. Il-Baħħar tal-Lejl serves as the soundtrack for a short documentary about the Maltese seas, created by Maltese filmmaker Bradley Farrugia. This paper examines the entire process of the project, from its initial conceptualization and collaboration to the compositional techniques and orchestration for a 50+ piece orchestra. It also explores the preparation necessary to ensure a smooth recording session at the iconic AIR Studios in London, the recording itself, the subsequent mixing and mastering stages, and concludes with a reflection on the overall process, the challenges encountered, and the learning curve associated with working in such a high-pressure professional recording environment. The knowledge acquired throughout this one-year master’s program was essential at every stage of this project, as documented in this thesis. The invaluable experience of composing, conducting, and producing a three-minute piece for orchestra and electronics stands as a culmination of the skills and e]ort developed over the past year. This project marks a significant milestone in my development, both as a composer and an individual.
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The Wind and The Wisp: Scoring Sentimental Title Themes
Justin Shin
2025Games are amazing. My story and lived experiences are that of an individual who has played video games all his life, someone who loves and appreciates the medium’s narratives, gameplay design, mechanics, and most importantly, music. I will describe in this paper how my experiences as a gamer, musician, and composer influenced the composition and production of the title themes for the indie game The Wind and The Wisp. I will go into detail about particular motific and orchestrational choices to convey a particular effect and/or emotion. I composed two title themes for The Wind and The Wisp, Title A and Title B (later titled on the soundtrack as “Passing” and “Remembrance,” respectively). Title A plays during the menu screen, a quiet, nostalgic theme to introduce the player to the story and atmosphere of The Wind and The Wisp. Title B plays after completion of the game once the player has returned to the menu screen, replacing Title A with a celebratory yet introspective theme. These tracks were recorded at AIR Studios, Lyndhurst Hall, on June 2nd.
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Ethereal Journey Music scoring for Visual Media
Zezheng Sun
2025This paper centers on my personal experience in film scoring, with a particular focus on the creative journey behind the original score I composed for the short film Ethereal Journey. The project culminated in a live recording session at the legendary AIR Studios in London, conducted by myself. It represents a synthesis of the knowledge and skills I acquired over the past ten months during my master's studies at Berklee College of Music’s Valencia campus. This includes the interpretation of cinematic narrative, the creation of polished MIDI mockups, orchestration, the preparation of industry-standard orchestral scores using notation software, and the technical setup for recording in Pro Tools. Beyond a practical application of these competencies, the project also embodies my evolving artistic reflections on the craft of film scoring. This paper not only outlines the conceptualization and production process behind the project but also offers an in-depth discussion of my use of musical elements, form, thematic development, orchestration techniques, and their role in supporting the film’s narrative.
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Scoring a Game Trailer: Glass Eden
Renata Valiullina
2025This thesis documents the experience of recording an original orchestral composition at London’s renowned Air Studios, realized as the final project of the Master’s program at Berklee College of Music’s Valencia campus. Over the course of a year, the project was developed around an original concept: a cinematic game trailer for Glass Eden, a fictional video game created to inspire and contextualize the musical narrative. This paper describes the process involved in coming up with the idea for the project, creating an original game trailer using AI and stock videos, as well as composing and orchestrating an original score, preparing professional-quality orchestral materials, and managing the logistical and artistic demands of a high-level recording session. The culmination of this work was a full orchestral recording at Air Studios, bringing together months of creative development, technical preparation, and collaborative execution. This project explores the intersection of world-building, multimedia storytelling, and orchestral music production, offering insights into contemporary workflows in media composition.
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Wingmates: Narrative Through Orchestration
Kamal Vanterpool
2025This thesis documents the compositional and recording process of my Culminating Experience at Berklee College of Music’s Valencia Campus, centered around the original score I composed for the animated short film “Wings”. In particular, it explores the role of orchestration as a narrative tool, one capable of shaping story, mood, and character alongside the visual medium. Through detailed chapters on film selection, spotting, compositional workflow, and orchestral analysis, this paper presents a cohesive reflection on the creative and technical decisions that shaped my score. My primary aim is to demonstrate how orchestrational choices can elevate cinematic storytelling, not only by supporting on-screen events but also by offering musical depth, emotional resonance, and structural clarity. Ultimately, this thesis highlights the power of orchestration in film scoring as both a functional and expressive agent of narrative.
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Ocean's Serenade: An orchestral re-score of Blue Planet II’s Official Trailer
Ho Cheung Yip
2025The purpose of the Culminating Experience Project for the Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games Master’s program is for students to encompass their experiences and learnings and showcase it via a 51-piece orchestra recording project in the world class recording studio of AIRStudios in London. It is designed to act as a bridging gap between a fledging composer and the professional work environment. For me, this thesis paper will be a recount of the experience and process of working on the project from start to finish and the analysis of the resulting piece of music. But this will also be a platform to express my thoughts on my reason in being in this program and how working on the Culminating Experience Project coincided with my search of my musical identity among the workplace and finding a place within film, television and video game scoring.
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Hero
Qianrun Zhang
2025The project is a complete music rescore and sound redesign of a short animated film Hero originally by Blender Studio. Following along with the title and the story of the film, I composed an epic, heroic theme for the heroes, and orchestrated the piece with heavy usage of brass and ostinato based strings, taking the advantage of the Air Studios. Throughout the entire piece, the hero theme or small motifs of the theme were used to imply the storyline. While for the sound redesign, I made use of the knowledge and experiences gained from the video game course and tried to create a soundspace as realistic as possible. This project demonstrates what I have learned through this whole academic year at the SFTV program of Berklee Valencia. Personally, I think this project is a good conclusion of my study at the program. With the top tier studio players, this project is so far the best I can do. However, there are still spaces of improvements in various aspects.
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Trails of Memory
Bobby Alarcon
2024This project is designed to combine the schools of film theory and musical composition to produce a high caliber score to be recorded with a full orchestra in the prestigious Air Studios in London, UK. My chosen scene to score from the TV series Sacred Lies, is thoroughly dissected from multiple perspectives to understand how to apply compositional techniques to visual concepts such as cinematography and editing. I then document the complex process of realizing the score: composing the thematic material, syncing to picture, producing a professional mockup, orchestrating, recording in London, and mixing the final project. The goal of this thesis is to utilize what I have learned via my documented experiences with this project to offer a roadmap which can be used by anyone to approach scoring for nearly any dramatic project. It is my hope that this project offers a fresh perspective and passion for storytelling to any artist who should encounter it.