Meeting Chris Beck

Last Friday I got the opportunity to visit Chris Beck at his studio in Santa Monica. I was able to get in touch with him because we both received the Pete Carpenter Fellowship (though he got his a 'few' years before me). When I arrived I was greeted by his assistant accompanied by a lot of scary screaming coming from the back of the studio. I was given a tour of the place which was fantastic. In his studio is a live recording room, the server room and a full mixing suite. The server room contains all the sounds, along with 10 mac pros and maybe 8 to 10 mac minis networked together. Then I was brought to the screaming where I met Chris and his other assistant Leo engaged in a very serious game of foosball. I was introduced to Chris and we headed outside to talk. He wanted to hear a lot about my story and how I got here. I'll spare that part, as my whole story is written here in the blog. We also talked a lot about the composers we know. Chris has worked with many of the composers I have met so his insight into the world was very helpful.

Then it came down to business. In terms of what Chris needs, he said that he is actually overstaffed, but having us both be Pete Carpenters, he wanted to help me out. One thing he said would benefit me was to advertise at UCLA and USC and offer to write scores for student films. He said this won't pay the bills, but it will keep me writing, give me exposure, experience and if any of the student directors or producers gets a job in the industry, I'll already have a working relationship with them, so getting a scoring job is a possibility. Chris was in the process of contacting someone he went to school with many years ago who is doing a major film he wants to write for so he said it does pay off. It took Chris almost 10 years to really make it in the business, so I know I have my work cut out for me.

After that he recommended that I get in touch with Trevor Morris. Trevor does the music for The Borgias, and The Tudors and had just finished his first A list feature, Immortals. I did send him an email and he responded to me the next day. He said that I am a bit on the inexperienced side having not worked for another composer yet, but he said we should meet anyway. I'm hoping to set up a meeting soon and see what we can work out.

All in all it was an amazing day with Chris and I feel like I'm in the right place doing the right thing and just need to put in my dues and get ready for the long haul. More to come soon!

Adventure

Today I received an email from the guys I'm doing the Disney commercials for. They had just finished putting the video together for the second spot. Luckily, this one doesn't have any copy written material in it so I can post it here. This looks like a really cool event. Soon I'll be able to go backstage Disney and see the rehearsals before I write the final 2 spots, which I'm very excited about. here's a link to the website for the event, which currently has that video on it.

Flashback

As I mentioned last week, I decided to use the music from this commercial and extend it to 90 seconds for the 'adventure' genre submission for the fellowship. I have finally finished this piece today and I'm very happy with the result. I think this may be my favorite piece of mine I've written to date. It combines everything I have learned about mixing, balancing and composition I've been reading about recently. I feel it is also my most compositionally mature piece of music so far (there's still a lifetime's worth of things to learn). My music tends to be very sectional. What I mean by that is I write a musical segment and then switch gears to another. Sometimes that works great, but in the film world, music needs to be able to move and shift without the listener always knowing it. In this piece I tried to blend the different sections together better so that when there is a sudden shift, it really grabs you. I also tried moving my melody around in the middle of phrases so one instrument starts playing the line and trades it to another midway through. Overall I'm very excited to share this piece of music and I hope you all enjoy it. All that's left after this is the 'epic' piece and I'm almost ready to submit my work. Expect some more updates soon, and without further ado, my adventure piece:

Chris Beck

Chris Beck is a major composer in Hollywood these days. His credits include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Hangover, Red, Percy Jackson and the Pink Panther to name a few. For a list of his credits, see here. Now why am I talking about him. So here's the story.

Chris Beck won the Pete Carpenter Fellowship a number of years ago. Turns out at the time, Mike Post was looking for an assistant and Chris was hired on the spot. He did so well in the position, he began to get recognized for his work and left to do his own compositions.

Sidetrack: To show you how small a world it is, when Chris left to begin his own work, Mike needed to fill the position for an assistant quickly. Robert Kral, the guy I met writing music for Scooby Doo last year, applied for the position and did not get it, but instead did get hired down the road by Chris Beck. Robert began writing music for Buffy and took over for Chris when Chris left to write other music and that's how Robert got established in the business. Incredible how all the composers are linked together somehow.

Anyway, back to Chris. When I did my fellowship last year, I heard a lot about Chris and even got to meet his assistant, Matt Janszen, who stopped in at Mike's Studio. Matt was also a Pete Carpenter winner, either 1 or 2 years before me. Matt spoke very highly of his time with Chris and he learned a lot from him.  Matt went on to win the fellowship I'm applying for this year and I don't know if he's still Chris' assistant due to his recent success. Last month, I was feeling a bit antsy not hearing from people and not having any new names to contact. Then I remembered that I never tried to seek out Chris. On a whim, I found the email of his studio and sent a very straightforward letter. I told them I had won the fellowship last year and that I was looking for work as an assistant composer. I said that seeing as how Chris had won some time ago, he may be in a good position to give me some direction. I sent the message and that was that. Today I heard back.

I was contacted by someone on Chris' staff. They said they wanted to meet next week. They want to show me around the studio and then I'll get to spend some time with Chris. I'm beside myself with excitement. I had seen pictures of his studio and it's beautiful, and having time to spend with someone who was in my position 10 years ago will really help put some perspective on what my path should look like. So my plan is to finish the song I'm working on now for the fellowship, and maybe remaster my original Pete Carpenter piece if I have time and get those ready for Chris. We'll see where this goes!

Interview With Mike Post

I was doing a bit of reminiscing today about my time with Mike Post last year. It was this time a year ago that I was in that studio writing music for Law and Order, and sometimes I need to stop and remember that I was there and what a great experience I had with some of the best people in the industry. I was hunting around youtube and found this great interview with Mike where he speaks about his experience writing music and how lucky he feels to be where he is. Just felt like this is worth sharing. Enjoy!