Day 36: Work, Work, Work

Today I went into the studio. Brandon, Dave and Mike were working on the main title for Law and Order: LA again and finally got the call from the producers that the song is locked and ready for TV, so there was a bit of a celebration after that. Mike then went on to talk about how stupid he must be to still love working on the theme to Law and Order after 20 years, but he loves the challenge of keeping something that old interesting. Then, Liz, one of the Pete Carpenters from last year was in the area and stopped in to visit so we all went to lunch. Liz is now a teacher at Chapman University. When we got back we finished my review from my final SVU episode.

Mike was extremely impressed. He said all my cues are just as good if not better than his so that was amazing to hear. I'm starting to find my voice so he said I'm taking different approaches to the music than him, but he said they are just as effective as his. Come the last cue, there is a reuniting scene between a kid and his brother. It's a very heartfelt scene. I told Mike I took a risk on this one and may have gone too far. See Mike said when I did my first episode that Law and Order never uses major (happy) chords in the music because it's not that kind of show. At the end of this episode I used major chords. When I played the cue, Mike was smiling. After we played his cue, he did the same thing, so knowing that I'm on the same page as such a legend like Mike Post is a really good feeling.

After the review Mike had work to do, but I asked Brandon and Dave if they would listen to the 2 main titles I finished. They listened to the Afghanistan one first. They liked it so much and had nothing to say about it. They said the mix was great and it was very different and definitely sounds like a main title. Then they listened to the French Revolution one. The loved the elements I incorporated into it. Brandon had some suggestions about the mix and how to make the trumpets sound more realistic using reverb. Other than that he said my orchestration and writing is great and he can't give me any tips on that. So then we talked my next main titles that will have live guitar. Things are going to get tricky. Brandon is going to Hawaii on friday morning for a wedding. The next SVU episode isn't getting to the studio until wednesday for some reason so that means they have one day to finish the entire thing, so we have very limited time to record Brandon.

At that, I went right home to get writing. I have 2 titles that I'd like guitar on so I need to have both ready by thursday morning. The first one that I started is a show about and sailor, part of a whaling community in Falmouth, MA in 1820. This is a high energy, high seas adventure where the man spends half his time on the ocean doing a dangerous profession. The other half, he spends at home with his family, so the music should have a folky feel. I chose a Celtic, Irish feel because a lot of the whaling community was Irish. So I spent all afternoon working on this first main title. I'm currently 40 seconds into it. I have the first A section and the B section finished. All I have to do no is write the second A section and it's ready to record. So tomorrow I want to finish this main title and start the second one so everything is all set for thursday. Other than that, hope everyone had a great Valentines day.