Katoomba composer Me-Lee Hay is in the running for Australia's equivalent of an Academy Award.
Hay has received a nomination for best original film score at the 2024 AACTA (Australian Academy Cinema Television Arts) Awards for her work on the feature film, Suka.
The score features Hay's electric cello, run through synthesiser oscillators which duets with her acoustic cello. The two different cellos represent our women hero and villain's journeys
Suka is the story of two generations of warring families in Sydney's west.
Written by Tsu Shan Chambers and Lily Cheng, the neon-soaked action flick was directed by Heidi Lee Douglas and shot by Casimir Dickson.
"The neo-noir look was a huge inspiration for my score," said Hay. "I felt like it hearkened [back] to the original Blade Runner and I wanted the score to reflect this a little. I used a lot of synthesisers and blended this with multi tracking my cello. I went for a really low score, low meaning low in pitch, lots of deep dark and dirty sounds to represent the edginess of an urban Chinatown portrayed in the film. This is the sort of Sydney I grew up, the constant weekend jaunts to Chinatown from Concord was a staple family activity for me."
Hay said the film features significant martial arts action sequences which she loved scoring.
"I used a lot of repetitive rhythm so as to let the chaos of the rhythmic punches and kicks to cut through to work as almost like a syncopation to the consistent rhythm of the score," she said.
The film features Home and Away star Ethan Browne as one of the main martial artist characters alongside Jenny Wu, Tony He, Tsu Shan Chambers and Grace Huang.
Suka's signature song, Pulling Me Down, from the soundtrack album is an industrial techno rock track. Hay composed this with long-time friend Greg L.Seiler (better known as the electronic artist Comatone), who is based in Wentworth Falls, as well as her husband, rock-funk artist Claude Hay, who is the main vocalist for the track.
Other palettes explored in the soundtrack include "synthy-pop" of Bridge Balloon; ambient neo-classical This is Not the Life I Wanted and orchestral meets modular electronic sounds of action tracks such as Alley Fight and Fandi Attacks.
Me-Lee Hay is the only woman of out of five nominated in her category.
The winners are announced at the Gold Coast Industry awards ceremony on February 8.
