Show reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VsIzyONOz4

Although Andrew Halliwell entered the film industry as an actor, he quickly changed gears to producing and composing music for 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. The film was nominated for Best Original Score in 2009 and won the A&E Short Filmmaker's Award. The two collaborated again on a Bravo!FACT 35mm short film called 'Float', which garnered Andrew a nomination for Best Original Score in 2011.

Andrew briefly moved back to his ancestral north-country town in England to live with his cousin, study astronomy at university, and record his first solo EP which he released under the moniker “Theves.”

Up until this point, Andrew had casually been composing musical scores for films but was gaining traction as a musician in his own right with the warm reception of the “Eta Carinæ EP”, so he established a studio in a jam space under the Old Spaghetti Factory in Vancouver’s historic Gastown district that he shared with his Radiohead cover band at the time. It’s in this space where he recorded his solo work and the early demos of his college roommate and friend, Carly Rae Jepsen.

In 2011 he was approached by producer/director Michael Hamilton to contribute the main themes for the feature film 'Nash: A Documentary' about the twice MVP, NBA point guard, Steve Nash.

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 in Variety Magazine and by those within and outside of the protest movement, resulting in the selling out of every screening at Santa Barbara’s International, Toronto’s HotDocs, and Vancouver’s DOXA film festivals. Four Leo Award nominations and the Copper Wing Award for Best Documentary at the Phoenix International Film Festival followed.

Right off the heels of 'Occupy: The Movie', Andrew produced the independent dramatic feature 'Down River' with James Brown and director Ben Ratner, which won the Leo Award for Best Motion Picture and Most Popular Canadian Film at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2014.

He decided to take a hiatus from film producing and the city to return to Vancouver Island when he was approached by Kristine Cofsky and director Terry Miles to record the soundtrack to their feature film 'In No Particular Order’, which he wrote and recorded in his small bedroom studio.

Upon completion of that soundtrack an opportunity serendipitously presented itself to establish a music recording studio/venue/school which broke ground in the late summer of 2017. Andrew hosted a party for synthesizer enthusiasts at the studio soon thereafter and met the drummer of Canadian indie rock band Wolf Parade, Arlen Thompson. The two became fast friends and eventually long-time collaborators after Wolf Parade wrote their fourth album “Cry, Cry, Cry” at the studio.

In 2019, Andrew was approached by writer/director Anthony Shim to write a song for his feature film “Daughter” and play the role of Anton Gail in the film. The song was released under Andrew’s current solo moniker “A Life in Binary” with the title “Denial” and can be heard everywhere.

Andrew continues to operate Strangeways Studios on Vancouver Island where he has produced a growing number of artists as well as releasing two albums with the band, Music Hall, that he formed with Thompson and singers/songwriters Erik Virtanen and Tasha Cyr.

Top Credits

Nash (feature documentary)
Occupy: The Movie (feature documentary)
Daughter (dramatic feature film)
In No Particular Order (dramatic feature film)