My last conversation with Grandma Mary

Happy new year! I look forward to updating you on what I’ve been up to music-wise, but I’m going to start this year off with something personal:

Last month I interviewed my Grandma about her life- it turned out to be our very last conversation as she passed on a few days ago. I wanted to share the final 5 minutes of our talk because I found it very moving then and now.

She was a singer, dancer, choir director, artist, nun for 16 years, and step-mom to my Mom and her siblings. She taught free art classes, collected dolls and small dogs. She always encouraged my pursuit of music, and even gave me my first digital piano when I was a kid.

RIP PGM

Baby Please

Congrats to director Eric McCoy and the band Fellow Rebel on the release of their first music video today! The recording booth scenes were shot here in my studio ;)

Kudos also to producer Justus Meyer, DPs Wojciech Kielar & George Nienhuis, Costumer Nicole Briggs, the rest of the crew, and of course the band: Matt Sax and Angela Polk. Those two have some pretty serious vocal abilities.

Happy early Thanksgiving!

What is a Mullet?

Well, hello again. I had the pleasure of creating music and sound design for this charmingly funny video by my friend Giga Shane.. in which he interviews his parents to gather their theories on the age-old question: “What is a Mullet?”

I brought in some lovely live musicians for this one including:

Bass Clarinet: Eleanor WeigertBassoon: Brittany SeitsCello: Heather McIntoshVocals: Angeline Gragasin

I added some humming, then dusted off the accordion, broken guitar, and even some whole wheat spaghetti to season the music with the right mood for this bizarre conversation.

Special thanks to Richard Howarth for some very detailed work in helping get the dialog levels under control!

Speaking of… this conversation was recorded casually on an iphone, which presented some interesting challenges from a post audio perspective. Who wants to geek out!? Bear with me and I’ll reward you with a few pictures in a moment.

Usually when I’m processing vocals (from a singer tracked in studio for example), they’ve been recorded at a pretty constant distance from the microphone. Microphones will respond differently depending on how far away a sound source is, so this contact distance is helpful because it will yield a relatively consistent balance as far as low, mid, and hi frequencies in the voice. However, in this case Giga and his parents are at different distances from the iPhone which resulted in this scenario:

• Giga (close to mic): More “harsh” or “bright” frequencies, louder volume
• Parents (further from mic): More hiss and “muddy” frequencies (more of the “room noise”), softer volume

Since there is music underneath the dialog, it’s important for the speaking to be consistent as possible… from an EQ perspective AND a volume perspective. This will help it be more intelligible, and not as easily covered by the music.

Fortunately there are really cool “dynamic EQ” plugins built for just this type of scenario. I was able to apply a specific EQ setting for Giga (to tame the harshness) and a very different EQ setting to his parents (to reduce the hiss and muddiness).. and automatically transition between these in cases where the phone or the person speaking is moving. That is really really cool, right?

After improving the EQ balance of all the dialog, the overall volume levels could be dealt with using envelopes and compression.

Hmmm, as I seem to have gone on and on about the sound design / mix side, I will summarize the music side quickly: super fun! As promised, a few session photos:

Brittany Seits, Bassoonist Extraordinaire:

O, the delicate timbre of whole wheat thin spaghetti:

Chicago: Hawk

This week I returned from a trip to the midwest which included my old friend Nate’s (and new friend Abby’s!) wedding in St. Louis, visits to college buddies and former bandmates scattered across Iowa, and even a few days in my former home city of 6 years: Chicago.

Which is where I had the pleasure of recording one of my favorite singers on the planet (Hawk Colman) at Dan Smart’s studio Echo/Normal for a new project I’m excited to reveal more about in the future. I’m pouring as much time as possible into it, hence the scaling back of blog posts :)

Stay tuned.

IBM, GOOD, and a whole lotta drums

I had the pleasure of composing a drum-heavy score for this video which kicked off an IBM & GOOD collaboration called Figures of Progress. The very capable Brett Fallentine directed, and my buddy Pete Karinen (of Pete and Brian) produced.

This is the first project I’ve worked on with Matrix-style “bullet time”. Nice work, Brett and team!

New mics

Testing out my new mics.

My strategy over the years has been to buy nice mics, preamps, etc. one piece at a time.. gear that I can grow into as I become a better engineer & producer. I’ve been wanting to get a nice matched pair of small diaphragm condenser mics for quite a while and finally acted on the impulse. My good buddy / guitarist / consultant for all things pro audio Max Crowe directed me to a glowing review of the above Mojave mics in Tape Op, and after a little more research it was a done deal.

In addition to the horses above, I’ve used them to record acoustic guitar, congas, shakers & other percussion, and even as a second mic on upright bass… all of which you’ll hear soon in the form of a Dean Martin cover :)

Backups

I am probably better at backing up files than writing music.(audio/system drives -> network attached storage -> extra backup drive -> cloud)

The Dark Knight & 60's Robin

I recently had the pleasure sound designing this sketch by Paulilu (the very funny Lucia Aniello and Paul Downs.) Have you seen a better Robin than Paul plays here?? I haven’t. Bane (Luke Sholl) and Batman kill it as well.

I watched a lot of Dark Knight scenes to get a flavor of their bass-heavy punches, and spent a good amount of time picking the perfect bone crunches/squishes for Robin’s one-on-one scene with Bane. Lucia and Paul were all about keeping the sound effects as “real/brutal” as possible (albeit within the styled reality of Christopher Nolan’s batman)– No vintage kung fu punches allowed! I liked having “make the audience wince” as a goal. Other than that I bass’d up Batman’s voice and did some general audio cleanup.

Thank you Richard Howarth for helping out with this, and Giga Shane for allowing me to set up a temporary audio room in his NYC basement :)

Paulilu are quite funny and attentive to detail. A+ collaborators!

Back from NYC

I’m back home after an 8-day adventure in NYC! I attended the Vimeo Festival, made some new talented friends, and planned out a future music video. A few pictures below, Add me on facebook for more!

An amazing performance by Miwa Matreyek involving double-projection, her own shadow, and some beautiful animation.

Camera parade

Early Cogitat Ergo Sum sketch

Two of my most favorite collaborators/friends Angeline Gragasin and David Fishel finally meet!

The illustrious Dr. Reggie Watts kicks off Vimeofest with a talk about… something.

Longtime collaborators / CollegeHumor buddies Vince Peone and Josh Ruben gave a talk!

Memorial Day

To mark Memorial Day, I posted the above snippet from an early film score on soundcloud. It’s from the 2007 documentary “Outspoken: Los Angeles” directed by David Bianchi.

The film features several extremely emotional interviews with families that lost their sons in the Iraq war. I watched these hundreds of times while writing the music. As the score neared completion almost a month later, their stories could still bring me to tears. I’ve never felt a greater responsibility for ensuring the music supports, honors, but in no way distracts from the highly personal stories onscreen.

I am grateful for our soldiers, and know that I may never fully comprehend the magnitude of their sacrifices.

acoustic bass - Matthew Golombiskycello - Will Roseliepviolin - Danielle Economy

FCU with James Franco LA Times premiere

Well hey it’s a bonus episode of FCU! This time featuring the amazing James Franco as a shapeshifter. The LA Times even gave it a nice write-up here.

I had fun creating lots of chase cues as well as some evil lab music for unstoppable director Dan Beers. Scoring scenes with actors as skilled as Franco, Pete and Brian is a real treat. Their timing & performances open a lot of doors for the score as my job becomes much more about complementing the energy onscreen than driving it. So fun.

Props as always to the rest of the team: editors Kyle Gilman and Steve Makowski, exec producer Thomas Bannister, producer Larry Laboe, and many more.

Last but not least, thank you to spy guitar-ist Max Crowe for his work starting when Franco flees his lab at 3:16.

Entrance: Tomorrow at the Downtown Independent

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 11pmLocation: Downtown Independent, 251 S Main St.Q&A with Ti West and reception to follow screening.

6 years in! / Early Theme Song

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.

Gotye/Kimbra CollegeHumor parody

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.

Best Comedy Short: Siri ArgumentBest Comedy Short - People’s Voice Winner: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s Star WarsBest Performance People’s Voice Winner: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s Star Wars

Michel Jean-Michel screens at LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival

Michel Jean-Michel: Overexposed will be screening at the LA Comedy Shorts fest this Sunday. I had the pleasure of scoring this mockumentary by Giancarlo Fiorentini and Jonathan Grimm. Screening details:

Sunday, April 29th @ 4pm-6pmDowntown Independent251 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.

The Animals: released

My blog this week goes to my good friend Angeline Gragasin’s new film, The Animals. Portable.tv raves:

“Visceral and strangely moving, absurdly beautiful, the best short film you will see all week (or month, or year).”

Read the full review here. Congrats Angeline & team!

If I do these dishes...

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!

Fact Checkers Unit - season 2 (cont'd)

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
• Thomas Middleditch as DMC’s man-servant (star of the “world’s most famous paparazzo” mockumentary I scored last year)
• DMC of Run DMC!

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.

GOODY! TWO SHOES

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, clarinetWalter Simonsen - trumpetAngeline Gragasin - vocalsMax 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.

Los Reyes Omitidos

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 music videos.)

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.