Week 33 - I have a faint recollection of what sleep is

Where to start, it's been almost a month since my last post.

This week was a residency meaning I was at the school (except for Monday) each day.

Tuesday morning was a conducting review for Wednesday's recording session followed by a review on setting up the session files for the engineer using ProTools. It's difficult for me to comprehend / express the amount of 'stuff' I know that this time last year I didn't. 

Last year I would have fumbled through a ProTools session like a monkey doing a jigsaw puzzle. Now I prepare entire sessions that I bring on disc to the studio and the engineer plugs into his system and records my music. Then, I bring those recorded files back home and mix them, although not in ProTools this time, I prefer to use Logic for mixing.

Last year I used Logic for everything as it was the only program I knew how to use. Now I work with Logic, Protools, Digital Perform and Cubase, the four most commonly used software suites for the professional music creation community. 

Over the course of the last 3 weeks I was working concurrently on 3 separate films. 

1. "The Gateway Process"
• The oldest film was a X-Files homage (really a ripoff) where a young woman looks into the past to see Mars had trashed their planet at are planing to invade Earth for a new place to trash. I composed 2 cues for this film which was in post-production where I mixed down the recorded files into a single audio file.
• Instrumentation:
• Flute
• Trumpet
• Percussion
• Harp
• Piano
• Violin
• Cello 
• Synthesizer pre-recorded layer
• This was my first remote recording, you may remember in a previous post my 'issues' with the director who couldn't make up his mind.
• The music is all mixed and has been sent back to the director. He is supposed to return a full version of the film with the music in it and our names in the end credits. He has not done this, in fact, he's really being a dick about the whole thing.
2. "Well-Trimmed Grass"
• Second oldest film, quite good for a student submission. A story about an obsessed fan who kidnaps and murders his favorite online personality and his family. I composed 2 cues for this film.
• Instrumentation: One player on each.
• Flute
• Oboe
• Trumpet
• Violin 1
• Violin 2
• Viola
• Cello
• Bass
• Synthesizer pre-recorded layer
• The second remote recording session. The director was far more pleasant to work with. I just finished mixing the recorded files and sent them to the director this week.
3. "Jail Broken"
• Most recent film. Blade Runner ripoff. Seriously, even the film school students aren't writing anything original. We had a mandatory meeting Tuesday at 7:00 to book all our printed parts for the session. Since the last train from Seattle to Puyallup leaves at 6:30, I spent the night at a hotel in Seattle. I composed 3 cues for this film.
• Instrumentation:
• Flute
• Oboe
• Clarinet
• Bassoon
• French Horn (2 players)
• Trombone
• Violin 1
• Violin 2
• Viola
• Cello
• Bass
• This session was recorded live this Wednesday at Studio X in Seattle. I just got the recordings today and have to have final mixed files for 3 cues ready to go by Wednesday. It was my first time conducting live musicians since Cane. I am pleased with how well it went. I feel far more comfortable and confident in front of professional musicians now. I've conducted student and community groups in the past, but these are people who have put in their 10,000 hours and then some, it was intimidating at first.
• This was the first session where we worked with different orchestras. And by that I mean we start the day with the cues that require all of the musicians we hired (12). As soon as we reach cues that do not contain parts for a particular instrument, that person is sent home in order to save money. It's expensive to pay a union musician to sit in a chair and not play their instrument. We started the day with 12 musicians and ended with 6. This also introduced the concept of non-sequential cue recording. Of my 3 cues, only one was written for all 12 musicians, the other 2 were for 7 and 6 respectively, even though the first cue I recorded was the last in terms of it's place in the film. This is when you have to take a few minutes to explain to the musicians a bit about the emotional tone of the cue. Since they have never seen the movie and are playing cues out of sequence, it can be difficult to know what emotion is going on on screen.
4. "Homecoming"
• We just got assigned this film yesterday.  Zombie apocalypse movie but with a twist, American soldiers are brought back to life and end up voting the president who sent them to war out of office. Each student scores the same scene in this one. This is also the first 100% electronic score I've done. We can't use any live or acoustic instruments, in fact, we even have to design a few very specific sounds from scratch. No recording session for this one but a very rapid turnaround. My deliverable is a 2-minute cue using only electronic instruments, due June 10th. 
5. Film #4 TBD
• Not only writing for Homecoming, but we will be issued our fourth film this coming week as well. No idea what our choices are yet. Instrumentation has not been set but we do get 15 musicians this time, It will be recorded live July 9th
6. Fiasco
• This is essentially my thesis. A 3-minute cue for 52 musicians. There is no specific film for this, but the music has to sound 'cinematic'. This is for full symphonic orchestra and will be conducted by me at the final session on July 15th. The following Saturday I graduate! Well, that is after an final exit exam, conducting final, portfolio preparation and defending each cue I composed this year.

As of next week I am composing cues for three films concurrently. 

And now I'm exhausted.  Gonna be so busy the next time I post might be after graduation.