Benjamin Speed

Benjamin Speed is a maverick screen composer, music producer and all-round renaissance man. He spent his musically formative years as MISTER SPEED, a loud-mouthed braggart, extreme stunt performing singer, MC and songwriter in Australian band THE NEW POLLUTANTS; an experimental and darkly zany hip-hop duo influenced by 8-bit computer games, 1950's/60's pop music and old film soundtracks. As The New Pollutants, Benjamin devised and performed a critically acclaimed live score to the 1927 Fritz Lang silent film 'METROPOLIS’, which merged classical scoring, electronic experimentalism, industrial soundscapes and pop sensibilities to the film's narrative. This experience ignited in him a feverish passion for film composition, and since his foray in to the world of the screen, Benjamin has scored over 50 films. He is also obsessed with the notions of unexplained scientific and sociological phenomena; interdimensional time and space travel; and has been waiting for a neural-linked helmet to translate musical thoughts directly into sonic realities for the past 20 or so years.

For earthly pleasures, he loves Settlers of Catan, playing soccer, drinking ludicrously sized mugs of unreasonably weak tea and eating watermelon. Benjamin has won three and been nominated for seven APRA Screen Music Awards, won Best Score at the St Kilda Film Festival and was nominated for an MPSE Golden Reel Award for Music Editing. He also holds a Bachelor degree in Music (Technology) from the Elder School of Music and a Masters of Arts (Screen Music) degree from AFTRS