Week 23 - Rubber meets the road

I thought the first day back after a week off might ease us into things. Boy was I wrong! First thing Monday morning we screened student films from all over the country. Then we got to vote on our first and second choice of films to score. I got my first choice, and was also named captain of the composer team which includes 2 very talented ladies. 

We spotted our film (The Gateway Process), spotting means to watch the film and decide where it is best to have music and where it is best to have no music. Part of my duties as team captain is to be the point person to the film's director, so by end of Day Tuesday I hade reached out to the director and had a Zoom meeting scheduled for Friday at 5:30. Then as a team we each wrote a theme and texture and presented them in a team meeting to the program director. After careful deliberation he decided who's theme and texture we would use.  Turns out that between the three of us, we had a theme and texture to work with. 

It was Thursday evening before our group theme and texture was approved, just in time for our Friday meeting. Had a great meeting with the director and his associate director. Bantered about our thoughts for the music compared to his. Agreed on music placement and began working on our individual cues.

The film is 7 minutes 35 seconds long, we spotted for 5 minutes 45 seconds of music which divided into 7 separate cues of varying length. I pooled the cue times together and was able to assign about 1 minute 45 seconds for each of us. Now comes the process of timing each individual cue. I watch the section of the film for my cue. See the document below for our spotting notes:

Each cue has a timecode start and stop point and a total amount of music it will consist of.

The italicized line for G2M8 is for proposed end credits, we are not sure if we are doing those or not.

How to read a cue number:

G2M1 :  

G is for Gateway Process) 

2 means our footage lies within the 2nd our of total footage on the film footage we received. 

M is for Music

1 means the 1st music cue in order of cues to be recorded.

G2M1 is Gateway Process Hour 2 Music 1

Anyway that's enough about that.

Here is what the finished product for the movie Cane looks like. Cane was recorded on March 4th, it was the cue for Solo Clarinet, Solo Cello, Harp and synthesizer.

Well shit! Blogspot won't let me post a video that large.  I'll put it up on Patreon in front of the Paywall if you want to jump over there to see it.

Cane on Patreon

Week 22 - Hell Week! | Spring Break!

Last week was the busiest scholastic week of my life. I had 4 finals and wrote & recorded 2 cues. And, to top it all off, I was sick. 

I had finals in conducting, Advanced MIDI 1, Logic, and a HUGE 13 page final for orchestration. Tuesday I recorded my Tension / Chase cue for Brass / Percussion, and Thursday was the Cane cue for solo Clarinet, solo Cello, Harp and Synthesizer pad prelays. 

I have this week off which is desperately needed! Starting Monday, it only gets more intensive and the only time off I have before July 20th is Memorial day and July 4th. 

Next week we start screening submitted films for scoring, we get to vote as a group on which films we want to score. We are then divided into groups and each group will score a film. Each of us will submit a theme and propulsive texture and the instructors will decide on which ons we use, then each team member uses those pieces to construct their own cues. 

We are now solely responsible for the session files needed to record. Until recently, we would export tempo maps, streamers / punches, and MIDI from Digital Performer and a member of the faculty would build a Pro Tools session from those. For Cane, we had to build our own. At least they are letting us work a bit at a time to get familiar with one process before moving un on, there is a ton of tech involved in the process, all of which it totally new to me. Some of the other students have varying levels of experience working with DP and PT in this way, I on the other hand, do not. 

I need a break!