Overdose: Collaboration is Key

"Overdose," the latest piece I released on my SoundCloud, is actually several years old having been used in a friend's short film, Second Chance. This was his first film and won a Silver Remi Award in the Experimental Short category at the 2007 World Fest Film Festival. As my friend knew me from high school, knew I was a musician, and that I was attending film school, he wanted me to create music for the whole film.

This particular piece was fittingly named as its used during the overdose scene in the film. To give you an idea of the visuals, one of the characters (we'll call him "Aaron") is snorting cocaine and starts having a seizure. During this incident, he accidentally speed dials Brian, Aaron's best friend who hadn't spoken to him in a long time after unsuccessfully trying to get Josh into rehab. Knowing something is seriously wrong though Aaron is unable to communicate, Brian jumps in his car and races across town to try and save his friend. The scene transitions between Brian and Aaron, the cuts becoming faster until Brian kicks the door down to get to Aaron.  While the rest of the film is in color, this moment is Black & White, and it's important to note that the entire film has no dialog or sound effects: the music is the narrator.

I mention this because I wanted to discuss the process of collaboration between a director and composer. Before coming to me, my friend had an idea of the soundtrack he wanted: a sound similar to Creed and Perfect Circle. Which is fine, but once I viewed the footage and spoke to him about tone and  themes, I had an entirely different idea. Thinking about the story, the use of drugs, and how the film was shot, it immediately brought to mind one of my favorite composers: Cliff Martinez. You'll have heard his music in such films as Traffic, Solaris, Narc, Drive, Contagion, The Limey, and The Lincoln Lawyer-- to name a few.

With my friend's film, the soundtrack from Narc popped into my head right away.  These two videos are pieces from that movie:

"Big Catherine, Little Catherine"

by Cliff Martinez for Narc

"Girl in the Closet"

by Cliff Martinez for Narc

Cliff's use of ambient tones (i.e. the open sounds in "Girl in the Closet") and textures (i.e. the really low notes at the beginning and end of "Catherine" that sound more like a sound effect than music) inspired "Overdose" by giving me a focus on how to best compliment the emotion on screen. What makes Cliff so unique is his ability to compliment the action by hiding his music deep in the background so that it resonates through the performances. His music doesn't force emotion; in fact, I read in the YouTube comments how soothing people find the score to Narc, an incredibly dramatic and intense film. It's diverse, haunting, quiet, peaceful, and contemplative. And that's what I wanted for my friend's film. Once I played the pieces for him and showed him how the music was used in the film, he realized that was the sound he needed for Second Chance.

Not all directors are going to be as easy to work with and some will know EXACTLY what they want. As a composer, it's my job to discern how to work with individuals, share my ideas, and be able to follow directions while maintaining my creative individuality. After listening to "Overdose," feel free to leave me some feedback in the comments section.

ASCAP...

...meaning "American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers," just accepted my membership application! What does this mean in terms of composing? ASCAP is an organization that monitors the copyright, use, and royalties of an artist's music, making sure they get paid and legitimizing the work as professional.  While there's a one time only fee of $35 for both the writing and publishing applications, you can't randomly decide to join. And this status is needed by many of the professional production companies and studios since it validates your abilities and allows them to go through easier legal channels.

In order to qualify for ASCAP, you need to have written a piece that was either "released" (or published) or "performed" professionally. Fortunately, the three albums I made and the commercial, documentary, and short film that won an award enabled me to do so, though I just used the short film on my application. I was on pins and needles for 2 weeks, hoping ASCAP would simply accept my application without me needing to run around, send emails, and make phone calls to the filmmaker to get proof. It's not that I don't have proof, it's just less hassle. So now I'm a writing member and will fill out an application to become a publisher so I can start licensing my music. I can also now submit my music to a variety of music libraries used by professionals to get more exposure and royalties that way.

It's another forward step in my growing career as a digital composer.

Mo Cuishle

This post's title comes from the film Million Dollar Baby: it's Hilary Swank's nickname in the film and is Gaelic for "my pulse" or "my darling" or "my blood."

"Mo Cuishle" is the second in a fantasy trilogy I am composing. The first song is titled "Enchanted" and the third has not yet been made. Most of my earlier work as a digital composer focused on the drama genre and experimental pieces using ambient sounds, so I wanted to challenge myself with a new genre. And a challenge it has been.

The desire to even attempt exploring and creating fantasy music was inspired by playing the video games Trine, Flower, and Journey-- though I've always enjoyed fantasy films like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. These games provide such a wonderful sense of adventure, immersing the player in beautiful game design, music, and imagination. And they're fun to play.  So it was only natural that I found myself with a fantastical melody in my head, waiting to be created.

An example from Trine 2:

An example from Journey:

At the same time, both "Enchanted" and "Mo Cuishle" have a Celtic sound with my choice of harp and flutes. While Logic Studio-- the software program that serves as my staff paper and pen-- has its own "Fantasy loops," I ignored those completely and found myself drawn to the Irish/ Scottish sounds that reminded me of the cobbled streets of Bowerstone, the main town in the video game Fable 2. From there, I began imagining lush greens, a sunset, walking through a forest and discovering it full of fantasy creatures (as in Snow White and the Huntsman). It's the beginning of an imaginative journey... And so the piece "Enchanted" was born.

"Mo Cuishle" was a far greater challenge for one MAJOR reason: I accidentally deleted the incomplete master audio file. So while I had the mp3 file to play the piece, I had to start recreating it from scratch to complete it. While nearly going insane trying to find all the loops I used (note to self: ALWAYS document loops in a notebook no matter how excited you are) and remember the arrangement, time signature changes, fade in/ fade out, and effects I put on them, this mistake ended up a blessing in disguise. As it turns out, once I found the few accent loops that served as the foundation of the piece, I wound up creating an even better composition with richer melodies and harmonies between the flutes and strings. Not to mention, with this piece I moved from the 4/4 time signature and successfully executed a 3/4 time signature-- another notch to add to my composing experience belt.

I hope you enjoy "Mo Cuishle." While "Enchanted" serves as the beginning of a fantasy adventure, "Mo Cuishle" is the exploration of the adventure.

**You can play "Mo Cuishle" at the top of the blog**

Life in LA

As you can see, a lot has changed since the year and half I last updated. After the last post, my wife, Jamie, and I left the wide open spaces in Appleton, Wisconsin, journeying westward to Los Angeles, California. Because we are both aspiring filmmakers--specifically screenwriting for her and composing for me-- it was time to leave the Midwest and achieve our goals. Though it seemed ideal to stay in Wisconsin, buy a home, and live quietly and contentedly among family and friends, I knew we'd someday regret never trying. Since we're both risk-takers, it made sense to pick up and go... as soon as our lease was up (we're risk-takers who value a good credit score).

So we sold our Ford Focus, traded in our PT Cruiser for a spacious minivan, gave away and sold a lot of our things, bid farewell to our families, and headed cross-country with our two cats, Niko and Cooper.

Our first road trip sunset in Iowa

Although it's never easy leaving loved ones, it was time: the way was paved, aligning all the elements to clear a path west without any problems. The road trip was fast. We left Friday afternoon, finally stopping in Nebraska the first night, exhausted and incredibly grateful Jamie's mom had packed sandwiches for us. Traveling with our cats complicated matters when trying to find hotels each night. We spent a good half hour looking for a place in Nebraska that allowed animals since the Holiday Inn we'd originally booked turned us away. The next day-- my birthday-- proved even more challenging driving through the mountains of Denver. I'd driven my sister to LA years before but we'd gone the Salt Lake City route, not directly through Denver, so while I thought I understood mountain driving I had no idea about the insanity that would ensue. "Runaway Semi" ramps, double sharp curve signs, and cars racing around and down steep curves at 70mph made for an intense, white-knuckled day. Between prayers for dear life, Jamie managed to reserve a room at the Residence Inn Marriott in Glenwood Springs, CO as a special stop for my birthday.

Oasis in the mountains.

Sushi, cocktails, and a soak in the hot tub relieved the exhaustion from driving. It was such a beautiful place we almost postponed our arrival in California for one more day.  Our journey on Sunday took us through the rest of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and ended in California. If you've never done a cross country road trip (or even a regional road trip) in America, do yourself a favor: save the money and make the time for a few weeks of traveling the US. We live in such a beautiful, diverse country with an unbelievable amount to see and do. Jamie remarked how it would've been great to turn our 3 day trip into at least a week, but having a cat that hates to travel makes that difficult:

You can see Niko's excitement for car travel on his face.

Our other cat Cooper seemed to enjoy himself.......

After arriving in Los Angeles, clearing the financials and paperwork with the leasing company, and unpacking our things that arrived FOUR DAYS after we did (God bless air mattresses), we began settling into our neighborhood of Atwater Village. LA is great, scary, pretty, smelly, confusing, exciting-- it's a mix of extremes and eccentricities that will Culture Shock even the most Urban Midwesterner. Five years in Chicago was not enough to prepare me for the asinine highway system and terrible drivers. Jamie and I will have high blood pressure until the day we leave LA-- you just have to live with it.

Yet there is always something happening. The food is wonderful, diverse, and EVERYWHERE. There are tons of places to explore and the weather-- while hot on the east side of LA-- is great. Not having to find our car buried under 6 feet of snow this winter was a relief. Plus we spent Thanksgiving seeing sights like the Chinese Theater:

Not to mention we were fortunate enough to find a great gated apartment community that we chose blindly over the Internet. It's an oasis among this crazy city:

After the stress of moving and adjusting and just trying to get our bearings, we took some time to relax and soak in the fact that we packed up our life (with the help of movers) and moved to the West Coast. So what are we doing here? Breaking into Hollywood, of course.  This takes time, patience, networking, and a discipline at always practicing our craft. Jamie is writing screenplays in the hopes of having one bought or optioned. She's also keeping busy with her own blog and was recently hired to write for another website. Her confidence, use of language, and imagination will guide her into this Industry and continued success-- I'm proud of her.

As for myself, I'm here to compose digital music for film, TV, commercials, trailers, and video games, which brings me to the changes on my blog.  You've probably noticed the SoundCloud player at the top of my blog: it's a direct link to all of the music I compose, and I will continue to add more pieces as the weeks progress. This blog is a way for me to share my process, my inspirations, and my life in LA. Since I love talking about film and music, I'll write about that as well.

Living amidst the Film Industry excites me and I'm eager for people to hear my work and know my craft. I began digitally composing back in college when a roommate let me play around with his Soundtrack Pro (now a part of Logic Studio) software one summer. Since then I've scored music for short films, created a piece for a documentary, and had my music used in a non-profit AIDS awareness commercial. While I've had an innate musical talent from birth, my music background truly begins at the age of 13 when I started drumming. My friends and I formed the band "Breathing Machine," made 3 albums, got signed to a national label, and toured the country. I left the band to join the Marines but was medically discharged in boot camp after the doctor there discovered I had an eye disease. So while I work solely through the computer right now, I am, in fact, a musician. My music is meant to be heard so listen and enjoy. I always appreciate CONSTRUCTIVE feedback so feel free to leave comments or send me a message.

While the Biz is incredibly hard to break into and requires more than just a journey cross country, coming to LA is half the battle. Staying is the other half. I hope you want to come along for the ride.