Some News

Yesterday was the SENE Festival in Providence, RI. My family and my friend Nicole who acted in the film drove up in the morning for the festival. We met up with other members of our cast and crew who came to support our film being accepted in the festival. Our film was to show first on the 3:30 block of short films. 4 other films showed with ours. We got such a great crowd reaction and they really seemed to get into the story. I was really happy with everything and proud of all the work everyone put into the project that took it this far. If that project, made on zero budget got this good a reaction, I'm looking forward to what our next one will be like.

Today I got a call from Frank, who did sound on our film. He told me a filmmaker in CT he knows is working on a pretty ambitious film that he plans to debut at the Sundance Festival. The film shoots end of May and the director would like me to consider scoring the film when it's ready. Frank will be sending the script to me soon to look over as well as the links to his other work so I can get a feel for the other projects he's worked on. I'm excited to see what kind of project this is. Hopefully this work will keep me busy until I hear from whoever will give me a permanent composing job.

The Next Generation

A couple weeks ago Jeremy Taylor, my band director from high school asked me to come in and give a lesson to one of his MIDI classes about what I am up to and how MIDI is used in film scoring. Admittedly I was a bit nervous about this as giving lessons is not my strong suit. What Jeremy recommended was I talk about what I did in LA and then he would give me a clip that I had never seen before and I would bring in my rig and score a bit in front of them. I liked the idea so we set up the date.

That morning I brought in my equipment and set everything up. The class started and I spoke about my time in LA working on Law and Order and talked a bit about the important things to remember while film scoring, like tempo and honing in on what the music needs to do for the picture. The kids had some good questions and seemed really interested in the process. Then Jeremy gave me the clip. It was a scene from an old Betty Boop Cartoon. This was great because I got to talk about how the animators would draw with a tempo in mind and how the music in those days usually needed to serve as both the score and sound effects track for the show. I scored a little bit and showed everyone how to fix mistakes in the MIDI recording and moving phrases around and they really got into it. The time flew by and we only got about 10 seconds into the score but it was really great to do that, and hopefully if just one of those kids decides they want to try their hand at film scoring after the presentation, then that would be really amazing.

Jeremy and I were talking afterwards and he gave them all a small scoring assignment. I suggested that if a couple kids do a really good job on their project that I could come back and convert their scores into finished recordings using my system and the better-sounding instruments. He liked the idea and we'll see where that goes. He also told me that he ran into Jack Bradley after my meeting with him and Jack said that once I get out to LA, he may have some work that he could throw my way. I hope so. That would be a great start to my life out west if he does. Other than that, things have been pretty quiet around here in terms of music but very busy trying to finish up my side projects and get ready for the move.

Tomorrow I'm headed to Providence, RI for the SENE Festival. Our short film, A Step in the Wrong Direction has been accepted in the festival and will be shown there. We were also invited to speak on a panel about the film, so it will be excited to see what the audience reaction to it is and (especially for me) how the music is viewed for the film. I'll be sure to post an update once the festival is over.

Networking

I just got back from a meeting with Jack Bradley. He is a composer of most of the ads you see on TV today like Bounty and Samsung to name a couple. My band director from high school met him, and passed the name along to me so we met up today. He's such a great guy and so easy to talk to. We spoke of how we got started and he has a story quite similar to mine. He started playing piano when he was 5 and loved music until he got to college where he wondered how he would ever turn that love into a job. So he got into film instead and went into the production end of things. We wound up producing commercials and had the most fun working with the music guys. Now that he knew people in music, he wanted to go back to writing. Before too long, there he was, writing TV ad music.

He wanted to hear about my trip and said that he knows a bunch of guys out in LA, and even some who work with Hanz Zimmer. Networking is almost more important than the talent because it's so necessary to know people who can get you work and keep you working once you're doing it. I'm so grateful to know all these people who are willing to help and it really speaks volumes about the community of people that I'm trying to associate myself with. I haven't seen a single big ego yet even though so many of these people definitely could have them. Instead I see this group of people who love what they do. It keeps them young and they want to help anyone out who has put in the work to get into this industry. Jack had to leave for a meeting after about an hour (which went so much faster than I thought) but we agreed to meet up again soon so we can share some music. First week back in CT and things are already looking good.

On another note, I have 4 events coming up that I'm very excited about. I'll be giving a lesson at my high school in two weeks to the kids about film scoring which should be fun. They have a digital music class there which is so cool that the kids can be exposed to it in a classroom setting, so I hope I can encourage them to keep up the interest in it. Second, I'm going to my college to do a forum on film scoring and my experience in LA to the music department, so that should be interesting. Third, I'm giving a talk at the local SECT Filmmakers group about how important music is to film, which I'm hoping will raise awareness that thinking about music starts as early as the screenplay and maybe get me a few local jobs in the process. Finally, I've received word that our film 'A Step in the Wrong Direction' has been accepted into a festival for viewing in April, so my music finally gets to reach a general audience. I'm very excited for that. I'll give more details when I know them. So it's good to be back, and being back has been good to me, so here's to a great time back in CT!

Media Woes

Here is the finished product for Ansel's project. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I'd like to take this opportunity to talk about tempo. Now Mike told me way in the beginning that tempo was the most important thing you could do with music for picture. Boy was he right. I edited this film with no idea what the music was going to be like. When I sat down to write the music, I could hear a tempo in my head. Once I started writing, I realized that I unconsciously picked a tempo that lined up with every beat I wanted to hit in the video without needing to tweak the picture! It was incredible how right Mike was that if a composer can pick up on the implied tempo of the video, then your music will be so successful.

The other thing I did on this little project was play around with the virtual positioning of the instruments using microphones. The software I use allows me to choose any of 3 mics (a close mic, a mic on the stage, and a mic in the 'audience') to 'place' the sound in the room. Once the strings come in in my piece, they were too muddy and hard to hear. I added the close mic position to it, and they became so much clearer. Overall I'm very happy with this video and I hope you enjoy it.

Mini-Project

I'm here in Seattle with Lauren, enjoying a little vacation before everything goes crazy when I get home. There I need to prepare my demo reel, work on a few video projects (non-music related) and make as much money as possible to prepare for the move. While I'm here one of Lauren's friends is doing a school project where they needed to make a one-minute video about how media and electronics effects people's lives. He asked me to help. We came up with this little comedy about how college kids never open books anymore, even if the answer to their question is sitting right there. I have all my music gear here, so I'll be able to write him a custom score to go with it. I'm excited to have something to work on while I'm here and this should be a fun little story to put music too. I should have the finished video up sometime this week, so keep your eyes peeled!

Day 42: The End - The Beginning

So this journey has finally come to and end. Today was my last day in LA until I move back out here in the summer. I went to the studio to meet Dave and set up my titles for my final review session. Mike showed up shortly after and we got started. I began by showing him my hip-hop title as I wanted to get that over with. He had asked my if any gave me trouble, and was happy to hear that one actually did. He said these styles are so vastly different from one another that if one of these didn't trip me up a bit, I'd be some freak of nature. He listened to the first piece twice. When it was over he turned to me and said "If this is the worst you've got, this is going to be one heck of a review." He loved the piece. He said it told the story of this guy's transformation extremely well and sounded just like a traditional hip-hop piece. He was moving to the beat and everything, and was even more impressed when he found out that I didn't use any loops for it; that I had created my own because I wasn't happy with any loops that I had. 

Moving on we listened to the French Revolution piece next. He listened to that one close to 6 or 7 times on every speaker he had. He was blown away by the writing. He even asked me to break down the chord structure of the key change going into the B section because he was so impressed. We went right along after that.

Next came the Afghanistan piece. After listening to that one he went into this speech about being different and creating a hook that people would latch on to. I thought I had really screwed up, but when he finished, he talked about how much I had nailed this one. He loved the writing, and loved how much of a risk I took starting the piece so slowly. He said the music creates a visual right away, and that's what you want. The one piece of advice he gave me on this one was he could tell I was trying to put as much into a short bit as I could, and for a main title, sometimes you want to keep it simpler so the audience has more time to latch onto your hook. Other than that, all he could say was "killer". 

Fourth came the Leukemia piece. Again he listened a few times and talked to me about how simple music with a melody you can hum, or nearly hum is what makes you a huge player in the industry. He talked about how Jerry Goldsmith is a more complex and involved composer than John Williams, but the reason John Williams is such a bigger, more requested name than Goldsmith is because his melodies are memorable. He said that this tune is one he thinks people will want to play on repeat and is a sign that I'm ready for the bigtime. 

Finally we did the whaling piece. He loved the energy and could tell that I was "flexing my composing muscles, showing everyone how big they are." At that he said "Talent determines 'if' and luck determines 'when' and 'how big'." He said I have the talent to jump right in to scoring major film or TV, and now it's just a matter of getting the luck and timing line up. He said that he'll write a letter of recommendation to any composer I'm trying to work with, and said the trick is to be borderline annoying with them. Keep making emails and calls nil you get a definitive yes or no. He told me to keep in touch, not to be a stranger and be sure to stop by when I get back out here. For him to say all that was simply unbelievable. I'm beside myself and there was no better way to end the fellowship than on that note. 

We left the studio and my time here was officially over. I can't believe the six weeks went that fast, but that just speaks to how much I've learned and experienced in my time here. Dave was so nice and gave me a ride to the airport. We stopped at the In and Out Burger for a final meal. He told me that Mike doesn't do the recommendations for just anyone and that's a big deal, and he thinks that with my attitude, how I get along with others and my composing ability, I shouldn't have a problem finding work. We made it to the airport, he said to keep in touch and now I'm here getting ready to head to Seattle to see Lauren for two weeks and decompress after the last 6. 

This fellowship is over, but I'm not going to stop this blog. I likely won't write every day, but I'll keep this up, talking about what I'm working on, who I'm in contact with and things like that. I'll be posting clips of my current projects and well as other music I'm working on, so check in from time to time. I'm sure a lot will be happening in the months to come as the effects of this fellowship help me on my road to starting my career. I'm about to board my plane, so I'll see you on the other side.

Day 41: Hip Hop

Let me start this out by saying that I don't think I will be able to find a type of music that will push me further out of my comfort zone than this main title did. I'm glad it happened, because I need to know what I can and can't do. It took me nearly 3 days to come up with something at least passable, which is no small feat considering that 3 days ago, I had never listened to a hip hop song all the way through before. So here it is, my final main title. This will be the first, and hopefully last hip-hop song I do, but I'm happy Mike made me do this. The lesson here is that in the composing world, a producer will ask you to write something you have no personal interest in, and if you want to get paid at the end of the day and be reliable as a composer, you need to deliver.



Tomorrow I'm meeting Mike to have my final review. From that review Dave is driving me to the airport and this fellowship will be over. I don't have any thoughts on it now because it doesn't feel like it's over. In a way it's not. This is kind of the beginning. So tomorrow I find out which direction I'm headed in, and I can't wait. That's all for now.