David Arcus is a Toronto-based composer for film and television and a Juno-nominated producer. Though classically trained, his work today straddles many genres and he is equally at home writing for string orchestra or coaxing ungodly sounds out of distorted synths and samplers. Whatever it takes to tell the story and bring the director’s vision to life.

He has scored numerous award-winning films including Knuckleball (2018, with Michelle Osis) starring Michael Ironside, Fire Song (2015) which premiered at TIFF and Great Great Great (2017), which won best feature film at the Canadian Film Fest. He has scored 2 seasons of the Eli Roth-produced horror series The Haunted Museum for Discovery+ with Michelle Osis and Terry Benn. In 2017, his nominated score was performed live by the Tonhalle Orchestra as part of the International Scoring Competition at the Zurich International Film Festival.

He’s a graduate of the Slaight Music Residency at the Canadian Film Centre and he holds a degree in composition from the University of Toronto.

KNUCKLEBALL SOUNDTRACK RELEASE

Proud to announce the release of the soundtrack for Knuckleball, a horror/thriller film I scored with Michelle Osis. This is truly one of the strangest and darkest scores I’ve worked on, and one of the most fun to write. We built most of the sounds from scratch by hitting, scraping and bowing a variety of metallic objects. To that we added live trombones, modular synths and a custom string instrument we built called the “spinning harp.”.

FILM

• Black Zombie (in production) feature documentary

• Dark Match (with Michelle Osis, Terry Benn, in production) feature film

• Mystery Mountain Project (2020) feature documentary

• True Fiction (with Michelle Osis, 2019) feature film

• The Haircut (2018) short film, official selection Hot Docs Film Festival

• Knuckleball (with Michelle Osis, 2018) feature film, official selection Fantasia Film Festival

• Consume (with Michelle Osis, 2017) short film, official selection Calgary International Film Festival

• Great Great Great (2016) feature film, winner of Best Feature, Best Performance in a Feature, Best Screenplay, Canadian Film Fest

• The Sisters Tolchinski (2016) short documentary, official selection Rhode Island International Film Festival

• Hobnails and Hemp Rope (2016) short documentary

• Fire Song (2015) feature film, official selection Toronto International Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, Atlantic Film Festival, Cinefest Sudbury, ImagiNative

TELEVISION/WEB

• The Haunted Museum (Discovery, 2021-) composer

• 1001 Ways to Wonder (web series, 2016-) composer

• Bargain Brothers Theme music

• Life Story Project (OWN, 2013) Theme music

• Murder in Paradise (Cineflix 2013) composer, 3 episodes

• Backyard Inventors (Corus, 2012) contributing composer, 2 episodes

• Love Hunters (Gorilla Media, 2012) contributing composer, 2 episodes

• Are We There Yet? (Sinking Ship, 2011) composer, 3 episodes