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Helmut Meijer, Gavin Young, Jesse Dreyer, and Lukas de Beer came up with the idea a year ago: a one-stop solution for moviemakers to find music for their next film project.

Meijer is a composer, producer, and songwriter while fellow director, composer, and musician Dreyer keeps things organised and creative.

Young, who is a drummer, focuses on brand direction and web development, while de Beer is in charge of graphic design and liaising with the media.

“We create and offer audible emotional experiences in the form of musical themes and moods to a global moviemaker-community through our online film music library, stonebed.io,” says de Beer.

“The first thing we asked ourselves at when designing this user experience, was how moviemakers think when scoring a film."

Being actively involved in the music and film industries they understood two things:

"Our product addresses both of these issues through a subscription-based platform that offers intuitive navigation and royalty inclusive music at an incredibly reasonable price,” he says.

By Earle Holmes, Issued by AFDA 3 Aug 2022

Although most items that are currently on offer comes from the company’s own stable, they are excited about the prospect of working with some of SA’s leading artists and composers in the future.

According to de Beer their music is not royalty-free, but royalty-inclusive.

“This ensures that artists and composers receive hard-earned royalties, at no additional cost to the filmmaker, if cue sheets are completed and submitted to the relevant performing rights organisation like Samro. This way, Stonebed also do their bit to support the creative community.”

Stonebed’s music has featured in a number of projects, including romcom sequel, Klein Karoo 2 , the inspiring real-life documentary, Against All Odds - The Alwyn Uys Story, and a number of streaming programmes and projects.

“Our dream is to be the film music database of choice for moviemakers from all walks of life. We want to expand globally and showcase the work of the world’s leading artists and composers,” he says.