MSI Chicago: Science + Jim Henson

The other day I checked in on the website of Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry and was pleased to find they’ve been cranking out podcasts. Before I moved to LA I had a blast helping to kick it off by engineering and producing the first few.

I think my favorite recent one is this interview with Karen Falk, Archives Director for The Jim Henson Company:



Theme song by yours truly with some sound effects by podcast host, Jason Meyer. Keep up the good work, guys!

If All Movies had Cell Phones

Here’s an early score I did for CH, a little multi-genre challenge.

As I didn’t have any sailors handy, you get to hear my best attempt at some Gilligan’s Island style singing. I used a ribbon mic to make it sound more old-timey, and layered in a whole bunch of Carls to sound like the original.

Dragon Ball Z meets... Jersey Shore

I love working on animations, and the above sound design + music project was no exception.

I checked out a bunch of dragon ball z clips courtesy of youtube to get a flavor of their sound design. It’s largely a mix of explosions, jets, whooshes, etc. mixed with old-school sci-fi sounds (synthesizers galore!) I’m assuming the sonically dense fight scenes are the reason so many DBZ episodes consist of the characters just standing around grunting… their sound guys just needed some downtime?

The music mostly stays in line with the american DBZ music, which I must say is VASTLY inferior to the original Japanese music. Holy moly. In contrast, the former often sounds like some guy ham-fisting away at a casio.

Other than that, you can also hear me doing some vocalizations e.g. Goku yelling at 1:47 and Piccolo (the green guy) grunting at 2:15- probably the closest I’ll ever get to “acting”.

This project was my introduction to Jersey Shore, which I was quite fortunate to have never previously seen. This amazingly astute Netflix review (thanks reddit) pretty much sums up my feelings on the show ;) I have to say, putting a nice huge punch sound in at 2:21 was QUITE satisfying.

Elevator

Here’s a quick short I scored for my pals Jonathan Grimm and Giancarlo Fiorentini. They also directed another favorite past project of mine, The Old Man and the Seymour.

Featuring always-funny actors Josh Ruben and Heather Cavalet (another Seymour alum).

New booth!

Last week was a very exciting one here at the studio, because I upgraded to a huge new booth! I took a time-lapse of my extremely handy friend David Forrest and I assembling it, then some strange people showed up and took a bunch of pictures.

It took me a few hours to put this video together using the free (and extremely buggy) program that came with my computer.. but I’d say it was time well spent. Enjoy!

I'll Make Like to You - with Romany Malco

Here’s a Boyz II Men parody I produced for CollegeHumor featuring Romany Malco (No Ordinary Family, Weeds, 40-Year-Old Virgin). I was all of 12 years old when this song came out… working on this was such a bizarre way to be revisiting my childhood.

To keep things simple / affordable, I decided to tackle this using 2 singers instead of 4. I really lucked out: that’s the incredibly talented Maurice Smith on lead vocals + some harmonies, and another great singer, David Vines, filling out the rest (including the airy “super-bass” vocals during the choruses.)

They shot this one out here in LA and invited me out to the set! (which happened to be a crazy mansion) A few pictures:



Myself with Romany Malco & backup singers. Left to right: Nic Huffman, me, Romany, Jordan Carlos, ____ (name escapes me!)

Sam Reich directed this one. Here is he working with the backup dancers on some smooooth choreography.



The outdoor stairway scene.

Music, Parkinson's, and my Aunt

I recently found out my aunt in Indiana, Dr. Pam Kelly, is working with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic to study whether live music has an effect on Parkinson’s symptoms. Above is a local news report about it, and you can read more here.

Congrats on the very cool work, Aunt Pam!

A Beatles Parody

Here’s another song I produced with lyrics by prolific parodist Streeter Seidell.

When I first started listening to music as a kid the only CDs I had were by the Beach Boys and the Beatles.. and to this day I never get tired of revisiting them. This was my first time, however, recreating a Beatles track from the ground up and it was definitely a good learning experience. There are some pretty bold creative choices in the original mix such as:

• the bass and acoustic guitar are extremely compressed
• the electric guitars are mixed very high towards the end
• the vocals have a very strong slap-back delay (pretty typical for lennon, of course)

In my opinion, all this results in an overall sound that’s pretty compelling & interesting.. a nice reminder that experimentation and non-intuitive choices can lead to a much cooler result than playing it safe.

Props to Matt Geiler on vocals, Max Crowe on guitar & bass, Jon Steinmeier on drum sequencing.

Harry Potter: Sorting Hat revisited

Here’s a CollegeHumor Harry Potter parody I scored recently. CH requested a few spooky cues as well as simple orchestral accompaniment for the Hat (sung by Josh Ruben once again- he also directed)

Kudos to the Puppet Wrangler on this one! That hat looks exactly like the original.

Tweetlejuice

Here’s something I scored for CollegeHumor back in 2009- a parody of one of my favorite childhood movies, Beetlejuice.

The dialog is so fast-paced (that’s the amazing Josh Ruben as the titular character) we opted to just give it a little intro and outro music score-wise. In any case, Elfman is one of my idols so it was a lot of fun.

Then there’s the end tag in which I do my best to sing like Harry Belafonte. Funny story… when I was working on this video the REAL Harry Belafonte just happened to be in town for a screening. I managed to get his agent’s assistant on the phone on the off chance he’d be interested in stopping by to record. As expected, they told me Harry’s about 80 years old now and doesn’t sing much anymore. Worth a shot!

Harlem rhyming jive 101

Busy week! I have a half-written blog post about cartoon scoring, but in the meantime thought I’d share a few videos I’ve been pretty fascinated by this week.

Basically, these are rap… from the 1940’s (!)

“Brother, Beware!” (starts around 3:40)



“Look Out, Sister!”



That’s Louis Jordan, who I have to confess I’m just starting to learn about. People like Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Little Richard and James Brown cite him as a huge influence. And many consider him an undeniable precursor to rap. “Harlem rhyming jive” was the term back then.

He’s also one of Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Artists of All Time… understandable given all the above.

Enlighten me! Who else do I need to know about??

Grease Dilemma

I produced the music for this parody of Summer Nights from Grease, with lyrics by Jake Hurwitz.

This was the last project I made before moving from Chicago to LA, and was very glad to bring in one of my favorite singers, Leslie Beukelman as the voice of Sandy (Oliva Newton-John).  You might want to listen to the original song again first… she is EERILY accurate, and nailed every nuance we could find.

Lucky for me, she brought her friend John Tashjian along, who did a great job on the Danny (John Travolta) part.  I was shocked when he whipped out a dead-on Kineckie (thick Brooklyn or Bronx-ian accent) so I had him cover that part too.

Longtime friends Nick Thompson and Max Crowe respectively/respectably played saxophones and guitar/bass, and Josh Sauvageau was interning like crazy.  For the gang vocals I layed in a bunch of other fun people: Caroline Davis, Noel Taylor, Alice Wedoff, Jacob Carlson.

Enjoy.

New Score Preview

I recently finished a score for the David Fishel film Cogitat Ergo Sum, and thought I’d share a few snippets with you.

Here are 2 versions of the “pulse” theme which propels several scenes, followed by a swelly dramatic thing that accompanies a montage sequence:



And here’s a waltz which comes later, followed by the reprise for the end credits:



It features these very talented LA musicians:clarinet: Eleanor Weigerttrumpet: Scott Copelandviolin/viola: Michael Beach

Poster:



Happy Holidays!

Music Reminder

Last month a random person emailed to ask for an mp3 of one of my short film scores.

When I asked if he was looking to use it for anything in particular, he told me it would be for his grandpa’s cremation. I was pretty speechless.

It was a nice reminder: you really never know what your music or art might mean to any one person.. how they might uniquely interpret it. In any case, it’s encouraging to see someone really connect with it.

I also sent him a score in a similar vein that I made for the doc Outspoken: Los Angeles (a track from which is posted above).

Happy to help, Kenny- I’m honored.

Man v Candy Machine trailer / "Carpe" gets distribution

Two things for today… first, check this out:



This is the trailer for something I’ve been slaving away at for a while now: Man v. Candy Machine. It’s easily one of the most intense and fun sound design projects I’ve ever worked on (you’ll hear just a snippet or two of my sound in this). Basically, director Angeline Gragasin rounded up a crack team of mad scientist creative types and set ‘em loose (see: motion graphics).

It’s futuristic, crazy, and I’m not really sure what to compare it to. Be excited.

Secondly, HUGE congrats to director Eric Bednarowicz and everyone at team Carpe Millenium. This film I scored earlier this year just got distribution, as part of a collection of shorts from around the world. Among the nine other shorts is Israel’s Oscar submission… good company!



Click here to open the facebook page and “like”.

Nightmare Before Xmas Parody

I don’t have anything Thanksgiving-themed to post, but I do have something holiday-related. This is a piece I did music and sound design for earlier this year.. a parody of Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas.

As with Web Site Story, I:1) didn’t have sheet music so did my best to recreate all the parts by ear.  (I’m of course using samples and a few great musicians rather than a real orchestra) Here is the original if you’re curious to compare.2) thoroughly enjoyed dissecting this track and figuring out what makes it work. Danny Elfman is one of my all-time favorites and this was a real joy to work on. A very intensely-fast-paced-race-to-the-deadline kind of joy.

That’s Jacob Carlson on vocals (as Danny Elfman!) and one of my Chicago favorites, Gerald Bailey on trumpet. Last, and surely least importantly, I cameo (vocally) as a drunk priest at 0:55.

The lovely claymation is by Chelsea Manifold, and a few nice visual effects are by the wizards at Gloo Studios.

As for my friends at CollegeHumor: Josh Ruben and Vincent Peone directed, Ben Joseph wrote & produced, and David Fishel edited.

Article on reelgrok.com

I wrote an article about filmmaker/composer collaboration for the great filmmaking website reelgrok. Check it out!

Seamless Collaboration with a Film Composerby Carl Sondrol

Good film music communicates. It helps a film inject emotion directly into the viewer’s brain, gives them information about a scene, smooths a transition, or any number of other things. But none of this is guaranteed just because you throw a composer at it. The success of the score in your film is very dependent on…

[read more…]

Batman Vanishing

I got a request for some Dark Knight-ish music last year for this CH sketch. I checked out a few Hans Zimmer cues and created a similar sort of “stuff’s happening!” pulse accompanied by appropriately ominous low brass swells.

Featuring Pete Holmes as Batman (with a spot-on subtle lisp… “lightly irradiated bills-ss”, ha) and the very funny Matt McCarthy as Gordon.

Pipe Dream score

Part 1: (intro and buildup, 2min length)



Part 2: (narration into HIT at 1:10, 2min length)

Above is some audio of a dreamy score I made last year for the film Pipe Dream (again by David Fishel). It still hasn’t been released but when it is I’ll be sure to post it.

Vocals by my great friend Alice Wedoff, who’s also an amazing theater actress.

The goal for this score was to match the tone of the film with something like an echoey French pop song interwoven into sweeping/dreamy swells and neurotic sound design. I used a mix of synths, a broken guitar I found in an alley, orchestral elements and more to get it there.

This was also a fun challenge because it required French lyrics– and I don’t speak French! Solution: I sang a temporary track of the melody (in gibberish), David wrote lyrics to match, then Alice came in and nailed the real thing. Voila! (Ok, one word of French…)

Audio Montage

I recently had a request for an updated montage “reel” of music I’ve worked on and took the opportunity to put this together. If you’re unfamiliar with my work, this is probably the quickest intro I could offer. Snippets from feature films, a documentary, bands, dozens of viral shorts, etc. produced over the past 4 years or so.

As an added bonus, here’s a picture of myself and Jason (my co-pilot during the massive u-haul roadtrip to LA a few weeks ago, as well as the operatic voice of The Hoodie) posing by some of our favorite gas station merchandise finds.