This week my blog (100th post!) goes to directors Patrick Horvath and Dallas Hallam, who’ve made a great film called ENTRANCE. It’s been racking up acclaim since premiering at the LA Film Fest last summer, and this Friday marks its release in theaters & on demand by IFC Films!
I feel lucky to have come up in the same circle of creatives at the University of Iowa in the early-mid 2000′s: Pat, Dallas, Steve Gartz, Max Crowe, David Fishel, Joel Anderson, Mike Schaubach, Spencer Griffin, etc… all who’ve gone on to create many a cool project. Pat’s first feature 100 Years From Now was shot in the Chicago apartment I shared with Max, and creating a few tracks for the film was one of my earliest scoring experiences.
It’s been a pleasure following their work over the years, as well as their podcast Toward A New Cinema which I’m always hoping for more of (ahem!)
So, if you’re in LA tomorrow, come see their best yet. Congrats Pat, Dallas, and crew!
Friday, May 18, 2012 from 8pm to 11pm
Location: Downtown Independent, 251 S Main St.
Q&A with Ti West and reception to follow screening.
I just realized my company hit the 6 year mark last week! To mark the occasion, I thought I’d share a very early (as in.. before I knew much of anything about music production) project with you guys.
In 2005 (a full year before going into music as a profession) I made this theme song for a random guy on the internet (Chris Dodgen) for his sketch comedy series “Stranger Than Fiction”. Although the series never came to fruition, making this theme and a bunch of other random STF tracks was one of my very first tastes of what is now my day-to-day experience as a composer/producer.
This features longtime bandmate/friend Les Ohlhauser on rock/shred guitar, and myself on trumpet, accordion, metal growl, and the one synthesizer I used for everything back then.
Certainly I had plenty to learn about mixing music, but I still look back at this one fondly.
Matt Pollock directed this Gotye/Kimbra parody for which I had the pleasure of producing the music. Check out the original below to see how it stacks up. Kudos to lyric writer Emily Axford, producer David Kerns, DP Marcus McDougald, post wizards Mike Schaubach & Lacy Wittman & Amanda Madden, VFX gurus Gloo Studios, actors/naked people Kyle Mooney & Beth Dover, and many more.
I was lucky to have Ryan Hanifl on male vocals (not many singers can handle Gotye’s range/power, but he nailed it), Annette Frank on female vocals, and Max Crowe on (sexually ambiguous) guitars. Thanks also to Richard Howarth for his help with a few music production elements.
ALSO, I want to give a big shoutout to the many talented folks at CH for winning 3 Webby Awards this year.
Sunday, April 29th @ 4pm-6pm
Downtown Independent
251 S. Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Come say hi if you’re free!
p.s. there’s a “Fiesta Broadway” event going on Sunday which will result in some street closures- here are a few handy suggestions for getting to the Downtown Indpendent this weekend.
A behind-the-scenes glimpse of ADR with the lovely Nicky Hawthorne for her new short Not Exclusive.
Ironically we’re recording outside of the big recording booth that’s directly behind Nicky, to better simulate the acoustics of the room the dialog was originally recorded in.
We also placed 2 cues from my library of past work as “source music” (i.e. music coming from a TV within a scene of her film) as well as an old track featuring a good friend of mine on vocals (Alice Wedoff) for end credits music. It’s good to see these pieces finding their way into more projects!
Continuing on my post from last month, here are the remaining episodes of FCU. 4.5 million views as of this writing, sheesh! Anyway, let’s get to it:
Episode 4 (ft. DMC): This one’s my personal favorite of the series.. a few reasons why:
I got to make some “medieval old skool hip hop” for the jesters scene (2:25)
Brian’s character is losing his grip on reality, resulting in some of the best/darkest Pete & Brian moments in the series. Made a bittersweet strings ‘n choirs cue for the climax at 3:30
Episode 5 (ft. Mary Lynn Rajskub, Mark McGrath): To wrap up the series, you’ll hear plenty more “Party in my Mouth” from Ep. 2 as well as some (terrible) dance music I put together for the party:
Kudos again to all the talented people behind this series- director Dan Beers, leads Pete & Brian, Editors Steve Makowski and Kyle Gilman, Exec Producer Thomas Bannister, Producer Larry Laboe, and many more. If you’re at SXSW on Saturday, drop by the FCU panel and give them high fives.
I recently had the pleasure of scoring & sound designing this video, directed by the wonderful Celia Rowlson-Hall. She describes it thusly:
watch me demolish a city, perform in a broadway show, stroll through the jungle and turn into a ghost… all over a pair of shoes.
I’ve been following Celia’s work for a few years now and it was a real treat to team up. It was a fun challenge to figure out how to complement the stream-of-consciousness visuals in a compelling way… I’m pretty excited about the godzilla-soundscape-into-broadway-sassiness-into-electro-jungle-ominousness-into-bittersweet-death-music-with-ghost-breathing approach we landed on
Thank you to all the great musicians who helped out on super-short notice:
Shannon Stone – tenor sax, clarinet
Walter Simonsen – trumpet
Angeline Gragasin – vocals
Max Crowe – guitar
Also, thank you Richard Howarth for assisting with sound design (as with last week’s post!)
Special thanks to frequent collaborator David Fishel (who also assistant directed and edited this video) for the introduction.
Enjoy! Then check out more of Celia’s films and choreography here.
This haunting animation about the origins of Cuzco, Peru is by one of my favorite Chicago filmmakers, Gus Gavino. Check out more of his work at middle mind project (I especially love his musicvideos.)
My main focus with this score was tone. It features a lot of accordion.. but more for mood than melody (e.g. the “breathing”, key rattling, shakes..) Other elements instruments included: string bass, a few woodwinds, harp, faint whistling, and some close mic-ed “low sighing” for the skulls scene.
Thank you Richard Howarth for assisting with sound design on this one! With this piece especially, the sound FX are just as important as the music in making the piece feel right.
Also, my old intern Alex Wand (who gave a very inspiring MFA graduation recital at CalArts on Wednesday by the way) was kind enough to translate the text of the story:
The story begins with the telling of the founder of the Incan dynasty, Ayar Manko. Legend has it that he turned to stone once he got old. Others say he magically flew away to a place where he continues to protect his town. His Successors maintained that they were children of the sun and in this way, they were able to secure the obedience of the nations of Tawantisuyu.
The text then explains how the Spaniards, who came with an ambition for gold, conquered the land. (i.e. barbaric mistreatment of women, murders, destruction of sacred monuments). Manko II attempted to retake Cuzco from the Spanish, but ultimately lost.
Finally, thank you Mike Ambs for letting me use the audio from his project The Lonliest Mix in this animation. It’s the wonderfully low sound of a “last-known hybrid blue whale” which sings at 52 Hertz… much higher than its fellow whales, whose calls fall in the 15 to 25 Hertz range- hence the nickname, “The Lonliest Whale.” Beautiful… you’ll hear it for a few seconds starting around 1:03.
Look who stopped by the studio!! (courtesy of my buds Lucia Aniello and Paul W Downs) I hit record and tried to stay out of the way.. Zac had a very clear vision of what he wanted (hint: it’s awesome, man)
Check out more “Diary of Zac Efron” here. (I particularly recommend Dance Hoops)
