Herman Witkam (born 19 March 1985) is a Dutch composer and multi-instrumentalist, best known for his scores to motion pictures. During his studies at the Utrecht School of the Arts, Witkam worked on a number of online shorts through the DVXUser online film festivals. For two of these films, Rekindled and A Little Mouth to Feed, both directed by Jack Daniel Stanley, Witkam won awards at the Shriekfest and HollyShorts Film Festival respectively.
Career After graduating, Witkam started working mainly on feature films and television drama, but also documentaries, such as Eric Walter's My Amityville Horror, which screened at the BFI London Film Festival and Fantastic Fest, and was named one of the top 15 festival horror films of 2012 by Bloody Disgusting. The Dutch mobile phone thriller APP, for which Witkam composed a hybrid score of orchestra and electronics was released in a limited theatrical run in the US on May 9, 2014, and uses audio digital watermarking technology to give viewers a fully integrated second screen that complements the film. Witkam also scored the youth drama Spijt (Regret), which received grand prizes at the Giffoni Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival's TIFF Kids and the European Film Award in the youth category, amongst a total of around 30 festival awards worldwide.
Ethnic Instruments Witkam frequently uses traditional musical instruments like the Armenian duduk and Japanese shakuhachi in his work, which he performs himself, often using improvisation as a composing technique. As a multi-instrumentalist, Herman has performed on video game titles such as Mortal Kombat 11, Total War Rome II and Dungeons & Dragons Tactics, and internationally co-produced pictures such as The Seven of Daran: Battle of Pareo Rock and The King Maker.
Selected filmography + Film Year Title 2010Golden Earrings 2011Train to Stockholm 2011Mila's Journey 2011Claustrofobia 2012My Amityville Horror 2012Mike Says Goodbye 2012Class Of Fun (aka Mister Twister) 2013Regret!2013APP2013Sensei Redenshon2013Mister Twister Goes Camping2013According To Robert2014Painkillers2014Hamartía - More Or Less Louis van Gasteren2014Mister Twister On Stage2015According To Jacqueline2016The Free Market2016Mister Twister At The Pitch2017Mister Twister (drama series, S1)2017My Giraffe2019Mister Twister 52020Mister Twister (drama series, S2)
Awards and nominations
Awards 2010 HollyShorts Film Festival - Best music - A Little Mouth to Feed 2010 Shriekfest - Best Music - Rekindled 2011 Eindhoven Film Festival - Best Music - Prosopagnosia
Nominations 2008 Action On Film International Film Festival Best Music - Berlin
References
External links
Score Magazine Interview (in Dutch)