Steve Pretty

I work with Little Wooly Vision on an ongoing basis, producing, recording and performing music for children’s stop-motion animation projects released on YouTube and also available on smart TVs and Yoto devices.

The work centres on creating live, characterful musical accompaniments that support the warmth, humour and handmade feel of the films. It calls for a careful balance of playfulness, precision and musical sensitivity, with the soundtrack needing to feel closely connected to the visual world rather than pasted on top.

My role spans both the musical and technical sides of the process, helping shape and capture soundtracks that feel lively, expressive and well crafted.

As bandleader and principal creative lead for Hackney Colliery Band, I’ve written, arranged and produced music for large-scale live shows and collaborative projects performed in venues including the Barbican.

This work sits somewhere between composition, arrangement and music direction: creating material that is bold, audience-facing and full of character, while also making it function in the real world for a live band, guest artists and complex performance settings. It’s practical music-making as much as imaginative music-making, which is often where the actual craft lives.

These projects have involved shaping arrangements, leading rehearsals, refining the musical identity of shows and helping turn broad creative ideas into coherent live work.

I worked as Composer and Head of Music Department on the Channel 5 drama Cold Call.

The score needed to support tension and unease without becoming heavy-handed. My approach was to build a soundworld that could carry suspense, ambiguity and emotional pressure while still leaving space for the drama to breathe. Rather than simply underlining every moment with “something bad is happening” music, I focused on atmosphere, pacing and restraint.

Projects like this are a good example of the side of composition I particularly enjoy: shaping music around story, subtext and rhythm of scene, while staying responsive to editorial needs and the broader arc of the programme. I also particularly enjoyed working with director Gareth Tunley on this production.

I handled the composition and broader music delivery for the production.