Composer, Producer, Music Supervisor

Having worked on film projects for over two decades, Charles Newman began his foray into film music with an early major placement in the cult classic Empire Records. His band PLEASE collaborated with Talking Heads’ Jerry Harrison and mixer Tom Lord-Alge on “Here It Comes Again,” landing the track in the film and on the platinum-selling A&M Records soundtrack. From there, he went on to contribute as a composer, producer, and music editor across a wide range of film and television projects.

Newman has scored several award-winning documentaries and music supervised projects including the Orion Pictures film All These Small Moments starring Molly Ringwald, Jemima Kirke, and Brian d’Arcy James, as well as the feature Monday for Robert Rodriguez’s Rebel Without a Crew project, and multiple television series.

His score for the 2020 documentary Denise Ho: Becoming the Song was part of a New York Times Critics’ Pick. He later served as music supervisor and composer on the Y2K-inspired feature Millennium Bugs, crafting a score built from unreleased 1990s material sourced from DAT tapes from his former band PLEASE’s archives.

Additional recent work includes scoring the thriller short Blood Positive with longtime collaborator Jon DeRosa (Aarktica), which premiered on Bloody Disgusting in 2022; music supervising and collaborating with Andy Rourke (The Smiths) on the score for the indie short The Wrong Guy; and serving as music supervisor and producer on the Universal Pictures film The List, where he created custom songs with a range of artists.

In 2023, he scored the indie short Chicken, starring Courtney Karwal, Matt Walsh and Criss Angel, and produced original songs with artists including Maxie Mandel and Radio Veloso.

Most recently, Newman served as music supervisor, score mixer, and contributed original music for The Unexpecteds, directed by Alejandro Montoya Marin and starring Matt Walsh (Veep, Flamin’ Hot), Alejandro DeHoyos, Chelsea Rendon, and Francisco Ramos. The film premiered at the 2024 LALIFF Film Festival and went on to win Best Comedy at Kevin Smith’s SModcastle Film Festival, after which Smith came on board as executive producer. The was released on the streamers in Oct 2025.

He also served as music supervisor and soundtrack producer on the feature film RUN, directed by Melissa Miller and starring Sarah Levy, Adam Pally, Phillipa Soo, and Chris Redd. The film is currently being completed for release later this year.

Continuing his focus on custom-driven soundtracks, Newman worked closely with the filmmakers to develop a music-forward approach that blends artist collaborations with narrative storytelling.