Andrew Halliwell

Although Andrew Halliwell entered the film industry as an actor, he quickly changed gears to a career of producing films, many of which were made with his close friend, actor/director Juan Riedinger. The two made their first splash with 'Shark Out of Water', a short film that tackled gambling addiction, which featured a cameo from the 12 time world champion of poker, Phil Hellmuth. The film was nominated for 4 Leo awards in 2009 and won the A&E Short Filmmaker's Award. The two collaborated again on a Bravo!FACT funded 35mm short film called 'Float', which garnered Juan an award as Most Promising Director of a Short Film from the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2011. Up until this point, Andrew had casually been composing the musical scores for their films and was gaining some traction as a composer in his own right. He was approached by producer/director Michael Hamilton to contribute the opening and closing themes for the feature film 'Nash: A Documentary.' This moment hinted that composing music might be a viable career path instead of sitting in the producers chair. He continued to compose music for a number of short films after that but didn't compose another feature film until 'Occupy: The Movie', a documentary that he made with director Corey Ogilvie about the response to the 2008 financial collapse from the Occupy Wall Street movement. The film was praised by those within and outside of the protest movement as an accurate depiction and cogent treatment of Occupy Wall Street, resulting in selling out every screening in Toronto and Vancouver, 4 Leo Award nominations and the Copper Wing Award for Best Documentary at the Phoenix International Film Festival. Right off the heals of 'Occupy: The Movie', Andrew produced the independent dramatic feature 'Down River' with James Brown and director Ben Ratner, which won the award for Most Popular Canadian Film at the Vancouver International Film Festival the following year. Despite the success, Andrew felt burnt out and creatively unfulfilled. He decided to take a hiatus by leaving the city to focus on music. Shortly thereafter, he was approached by Kristine Cofsky and director Terry Miles to record the soundtrack to their feature film 'In No Particular Order' that had just been acquired by Mongrel Media. The aesthetic of the film naturally leant itself to Andrew's musical style so the deal was signed. Producer or composer - that seems to remain uncertain. His decision to release his entire soundtrack catalogue under the Creative Commons licence suggests that he might always be a little bit of both.