About: Michael W. Bell

Mike (Otherwise known as Michael W. Bell) is a UK based award-winning cinematic and film music composer, ambient sound designer, sound engineer, record producer, AuroraCast Host and the CEO/Founder of Aurora Eclipse Productions Ltd.

Born on July 1st 1988 in London, Mike moved around a lot spending most of his youth both in and around London and the Sound East. His first memorable experience with film and music was during his formative years watching Disney's “Fantasia” which later solidified in his teens while watching films such as “Gladiator”, “Armageddon” and “Mission Impossible II” with his father on one of the very first Yamaha home surround sound systems.

As a teenager, he discovered Heavy Metal and began playing rhythm guitar in the extreme metal band “Iceni”. After a few years with the band, Mike decided to study Music Production with the aim of becoming a live sound engineer, but ultimately he stumbled upon a passion for creating music for film during one of the many assignments.

In 2011, Mike co-produced, mixed and mastered “Hatriotism” for the then Brighton based metal band Demental; he also scored his first short film, "Francis". The latter led him to enrolling on a Composition for Film & Media course at the University of Brighton allowing him to continue developing compositional ideas and thus, his journey began.

In 2012, he was given the chance to compose a cinematic, dark ambient/orchestral soundscape for the US-based band Shores of Acheron which featured on their EP "End of Reign". he also got a chance to see things from a sound design perspective working as a foley artist for a student animator who had produced a short piece entitled "Æ Har Det Bare Bra", a project which went on to win third place at the Innsbruck Nature Film Festival.

After graduating in 2013, Mike relocated to Surrey where he launched his music production company and studio, Aurora Eclipse Productions Ltd (AEPL). The formation of the company would act as a vessel for his creative endeavours and provide a name for his studio. Two early compositions, "Dolour" and "Maritime Discoveries" were released by AEPL shortly after.

During 2014, Mike connected with a handful of student filmmakers and completed the scores for the short films "Local Girl", "Survival", and "Jogger", as well as a short documentary film called "Night Owls". These projects were very important in terms of practising and establishing effective workflows for film scoring.

In 2015, he found himself mostly scoring trailers, idents and showreels for a number of production companies to promote their upcoming and "in production" projects. Working extensively with the now dissolved Silver Lining Pictures, he scored the trailers for "Cutting Room" (in collaboration with Emily Jackson), "Spirit Hunters", and "Blanket" as well as composing the music for two successful YouTube documentaries, "Mad Frankie Fraser: His Last Interview" and "Legends: The Kray Twins Story". He also experimented with musical sound design during this time by completing two audio brandings… "Coming Soon Ident" for a planned feature film entitled “Dream Finder” and "Ident" for a startup film company Silver Hound Pictures.. Much to his enjoyment, Mike also had the chance to work with a band again in a studio context to produce, mix and master "Tales of the Unaffected", a six track debut EP from London-based baroque-pop band, Black Noire.

2016 was a busy year for Mike, AEPL released his first album "Awakening, the Early Scores", a compilation of film music cues composed for early projects which made it to picture. This was a way to mark the end of an era as he began to become more established in the art of writing music for film. To celebrate the Silver Lining Pictures produced Frankie Fraser documentary surpassing 100,000 views on YouTube, AEPL also released the "Lurking In The Delta Waves" EP; a 13 minute dark ambient soundscape composed for the film. This was quickly followed by the release of "The Raging of the Falcons", a short action packed cue composed for YouTube! Throughout 2016, he also completed the score for two short dramas, “Blanket" and “One Day”. Both films were aired at festivals around the world and to much to his excitement, Mike's score for Blanket was nominated for "Best Score" at the Views of The World Film & Music Festival in Canada. AEPL subsequently released the score for both “Blanket (Original Motion Picture Score)” and “One Day” during the same year.

During 2017, AEPL released Mike’s fifth single entitled “Bewailing Under The Eastern Skies”, an emotional film music composition which attempts to merge eastern and western instrumentation. During the summer, he upped his game in the trailer world after a music supervisor at Cavalry Music spotted his cues “Exosphere Conflict” and “Nature Seems Dead, And Wicked Dreams Abuse… For Nature Is Satan’s Church” on Soundcloud. His first pitch was for the teaser for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and while he was not successful, it was a step in the right direction! You can hear a practical example of the cue in use on YouTube. Towards the end of 2017, Mike returned to working in a studio context once again by successfully collaborated with Clare Estelle and Stephen Hope-Wynne to contribute additional music, mix and master Clare’s eternal single “Somehow” (released during the early parts of 2018). He also worked with Stephen Hope-Wynne to score the branding video for his company Tangitise. The year ended with Mike scoring “Crazy Woman Got A Gun” for All Visions Align Ltd which was well received at the festivals in Los Angeles during 2018.

After taking some time out during 2018, Mike returned in 2019 for what turned out to be a busy year… He began pitching trailer cues to Netflix for their own feature film, “The King”. This was followed by completing two remixes for Season 3 of the show “13 Reasons Why” at the request of the studio’ the first being “Into The Fire" by These New Puritans and the second “Run From Me” by Timber Timbre, the latter was met with much regard… He also pitched for the trailer campaign of Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep by designing a “Sound Effects Toolkit” and composed “REDRUM”, a trailer cue using the original score from The Shining as inspiration; neither of these were placed, but it was a great way to get back into creating music and sound. During the summer AEPL released Mike’s 6th single “Revenge Is Sweet”, a short trailer track with a bitter sweet sentiment. The back end of 2019 was all about the bands! After conversations with Iceni’s Hrothgar, AEPL released the entire back catalogue of Iceni albums which kicked off the start of AEPL acting as an independent record label. Mike collaborated once again with Clare Estelle and Stephen Hope-Wynne to co-produce, mix and master Clare’s second single, “Sacred Night”. Very quickly after, Mike and Steve were in the studio with SkyQuaker recording drums and vocals for their first single “Queen Kong” which Mike also mixed, mastered and contributed to musically. Notably, the track contains the last recorded spoken word of the Russian born Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky who sadly died on the 19th November 2019; AEPL scheduled the release of Queen Kong for the same day while Mike and the band attended the funeral.

2020 started off with a bang with the bands, Mike got to work mastering SkyQuaker’s second single “Thank God for Rock and Roll” which AEPL released in April, just before the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the lockdowns in the UK which put the band into a temporary hiatus. To keep busy during the pandemic, Mike remixed and AEPL released the theme song for the video game Afterburner II which he named “Afterburning” and started his AuroraCast Podcast. Podcast guests that have included composers, musicians, producers, DJs, radio hosts, sound engineers, directors, graphic designers and more… Mike also very successfully collaborated with film director Andrea Ratti on his short film, “Fragments”. The film went on to win five awards at the festivals including Best Soundtrack; to celebrate this, AEPL not only released the score, but pressed a limited run of vinyls for the first time. Towards the end of the year, Mike got news of his cues “Nature Seems Dead” and “You Killed Our Baby” being synced to Discovery’s documentary/crime series Primal Instinct. Following this, he signed a composer contract with Mibe Audio and Sentric Music Publishing Ltd to deliver music cues for TV placement through Aurora Eclipse Productions Ltd over the next two years.

Mike is currently continuing to pitch music to MIBE, Cream Collective and Cavalry Music for sync consideration; he is also working on a personal composition album focusing around the concept of sleep and consciousness. When not composing or producing music, Mike enjoys creating videos and taking to his peers via his Discord, YouTube and Patreon channels. He can also be found hosting AuroraCast, his long format podcast.