Here’s a quote from Alan Fletcher’s book “The Art of Looking Sideways”:
Ivan Chermayeff does much of his thinking in taxies, Lon Dorfsman on planes, Steve Guarnaccia on the subway. Designers also talk of getting ideas when they are on the sleep borderland...”
Challenge: Can you successfully not pick up your smart phone in a taxi, on a plane, on the subway, or in that sweet transition from sleep to wakefulness? Can you do this in the service of idea generation?
Ideas can be subversive, especially when I’m trying to fall asleep.
Madlib - Pill Jar
In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield describes the ways in which we doggedly resist being creative. He sees resistance as the biggest hurdle to overcome in living a creative life. It’s my understanding that I must intentionally engage with a free act of creativity everyday, beyond judgement, blame, fear of negative consequences, without expectation of either reward or result.
In other words, I don’t care if I win or lose.
A page of score sounds twice as elaborate as it looks.
George Frederick McKay
Found dedication inside a used book entitled How To Be An Explorer of the World by Keri Smith
Love this: “Art, whose divine expression flows impartially from the fingertips of a cowboy or dilettante emperor, had chosen for a medium the Boy Artist of the San Saba.”
Source: Clockwork Music, Arthur WJD Ord-Hume, 1973
I love this little plant.
Two very good friends of mine, David and Sissy Hobizal of Firstmates.tv, asked me if I wanted to compose the music to an animation they were developing for Gradifi. Gradifi makes paying back your student loans much more affordable (something this country desperately needs), so it was with pleasure to create the music that worked to support David and Sissy’s incredible animation work:
Not too long ago, I joined a band in Santa Fe, NM. We eventually got into the studio to record a bunch of songs. And now, Miguel (drummer) tells me that the EP has been released!
Also, Miguel told me that this is the #1 album in Santa Fe, NM. Sweet!
You read that correctly... This album is not sugar-coated candy pop. It’s a full expression of the complete sonic spectrum of your listening station. I designed the music to sound excellent at 85db. Enjoy!
As I've mentioned many times on this blog, film industry people can't go wrong with attending the Austin Entertainment Business events. I've happily been attending these events for many months, and I just started to volunteer to help get more people there. This past meetup was the third installment of three series of presentations called "Tunnel to Hollywood," all organized by Jennifer Hutchins, a madly-connected and hard-working producer. Her guests were awesome: Neil Landau and Laura Brennan.
Neil Landau has a Hollywood pedigree to die for! He is not only a producer and award-winning screenwriter whose credits include Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, and Doogie Howser, M.D., but he is also a bestselling author. He had some great stories about how scripts that he was told were "trash" ended up being amazing. The best story was how he was told by an agent that this one script that he co-wrote would end his career if anyone read it. The script ended up underneath some old shoes in his closet until a very well-respected director friend of his asked to read it. That same script ended up netting him about $500,000 in a sale, and launched his career. Moral of the story? Don't believe everything you hear!
Neil's approach to getting his work out there was interesting: He used a golf metaphor (fortunately I wasn't completely lost considering I don't play) to explain that with a script you need to get closer and closer to the hole. It's rare to get a hole in one, so with each successive draft, you get closer and closer. He also mentioned that he has a group of very well-respected writers that he brings his work to. If the work excites his friends, he knows he's onto something. If each of his friends is lukewarm, he has some work to do. If all of them dislike it, likely, he'll not waste time on it anymore. It's a pragmatic, smart approach to the creative work you would do as a screenwriter.
Laura Brennan is a pitch consultant in Hollywood, a writer, and her work has appeared in television, film, theater, fiction, and news! I found that she had an excellent sense of humor regarding the relatively dour experience of pitching, and after watching her presentation I figured out how to pitch to other people as a composer in a way that is ridiculously compelling. Here's the secret:
Tell someone what you are currently doing, and never, ever tell them your job title!
So, instead of saying, "I am a screenwriter," you could say, "I am currently writing a script for a science fiction series on Netflix which involves statues in Washington DC coming to life and eating humanity off the face of the planet." A lot more compelling, no?
Here's another example. Instead of saying, "I am a costume designer," you could say, "I am currently designing costumes for a full-length narrative comedy that involves a twisted story of betrayal at the Rennasance fair."
I was really proud of my own: Instead of saying "I'm a film composer," I reworked it to say, "I'm beginning to compose the soundtrack for a full-length felt-animation movie about an animal's journey across the pacific northwest." All of it is true, and it seems so much more compelling
Laura's advice was priceless!
Between the guest speakers, the networking, and Jen Hutchins' fantastic work as a presenter and organizer, I just can't say this enough: You need to come to this event.
Using found footage of an eruption of Capelinhos in 1957, this video presents the terrifying blurriness of an eruption of a volcano, and really, the effects of that on a civilization. The music for this was such a joy to create!
Video: Capelinhos
Author: Alzira Simas
URL: https://archive.org/details/MarleneAn...
Copyright: Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 CC
I found a video of a very dilapidated ghost town. It reminded me a lot of some creepy scary movies I've seen lately. This miniature film score is meant to accentuate that feeling of a creepy loneliness.
Original Video: Gerry Fialka Super 8 Movies Cottage Cottage Cheese
Link: https://archive.org/details/GerryFialkaSuper8MoviesCottageCottageCheese
Author: Gerry Fialka
It's August, and in Austin Texas we need everything we can get our hands on to stay cool. What better time than to publish this citrusy miniature film score, eh?
All footage was found on www.videvo.com, and with the exception of the two videos below, all have the same “Royalty Free License.” The two that do not are
https://www.videvo.net/video/fizzy-summer-cocktail/6651/ “Videvo Attribution License”, by author: Videvo
https://www.videvo.net/video/fresh-lemons-on-tree/6027/ “Videvo Attribution License”, by author: Videvo
Who do you want to meet in the entertainment industry? Who do you need in order to make your vision a reality? If you need to find others, it’s time to get out there and attend the best meetup in town for industry professionals, the Austin Entertainment Business meetup.
What I love most about the AEB events is that I constantly meet new people who are involved in all parts of the entertainment industry. From producers to directors, directors of photography to post audio & sound, from experienced writers to veteran actors, you can really find your people here. As a composer, I find myself most inspired when I get the chance to hang out with other creatives and hear what they are working on. I've stated before that finding work in the entertainment industry is a worthy goal that can only be achieved by taking relationships seriously. Ultimately, having good relationships with others makes me happiest. It’s more about the people, for me at least. Yes, I want cool projects and to pay my bills just like everyone else, but I prefer working with good people as opposed to negative ones. It takes collaborating with good people to make a good and happy career. Fortunately, I keep on meeting the exact types of persons I want to meet at these meetups! That, and I keep on getting incredible information as a result of the wonderful presenters that Jen Hutchins, our organizer, puts together. Last night’s meetup was no different.
Our first presenter was Heather Hale. She is a film and television director, screenwriter and producer. She is also an expert at pitching ideas, which is what her presentation was all about. She gave an excellent overview of her expertise on the markets, how to pitch your script successfully, and how to get your stuff to the next level. There were many points that Heather covered in her presentation that I found it to be interesting. Now, I’m not a writer, but a lot of the things she said made a lot of sense. To echo what Terence Michael mentioned in the previous meetup, Heather agreed that how you approach potential producers is all about the first subject line of your initial email. Face it: Busy producers get at least 300 emails per day from people who are working to get their script in the right hands. To that end, what sets you apart? You have to make it special, eye-catching, and memorable. One of her big mistakes people make is that their pitches are extremely boring. She says the worst thing you can do is be boring! The second big takeaway that Heather drove home for me was that you need to have clarity about your script. You have to be clear about what it is, what genre, the characters, the scenes, everything. You can’t leave things unsaid. This even goes to the extreme of when you attach a script to an email, you have to name it correctly, like “My-Movie-Title_My-Name.” Even Jen Hutchins chimed in and said she hated it when people sent her scripts but she has to rename the file! These details are all what makes a script get read. This is the final takeaway: If you get an agreement to get the script read, you’ve done your job. You can’t expect people to throw you a ton of dough for a script unless they read it, right? Well, Heather was adamant that if you can get people to agree to read the script, then get out of the office as soon as possible. You’ve done your job. She specifically put it like this: “A good salesman knows when not to push.” I agree.
Barbara Daoust
Our second presenter was Barbara Daoust, a coach to many of Hollywood’s elite. This included the Elizabeth Olson, Shane West, Vanessa Hudgens, Aaron Paul, and she even mentioned working with members of the Spielberg family. I found that this presentation was a little more up my alley simply because it talked about the mindset of success. Barbara’s approach is simple when you look at it from a bird’s eye orientation: If you want to be a success, you have to think like those oscar winning successful people. Of course, the details are always a little more tricky. Barbara knows how to get people there. She saw that the people who had this mindset were constantly working on themselves, constantly tinkering and making themselves better at what they did, how they did it, and they also dealt with failure (which is radically different than most people). For example, if a person fails at something and it’s emotionally a big deal, it takes longer for them to come back from it and then reengage with the world. Barbara pointed out that many of these top successful people in Hollywood and elsewhere feel that failure is just part of the process. When a person has this sort of mindset, that failure is not a big deal, they accept that it’s going to happen, and that they will let go of it quicker. This feels like one of the biggest predictors of success. It’s not about pumping our egos up to never fail, it’s being humble enough to realize that we are human, we will fail, but it’s more about how we pick ourselves up. This is a lesson each and every one of us needs to keep in our minds. It reminds me a lot of what author Brene Brown talks about in her book Daring Greatly, which is all about being courageous enough to engage with the world even if it means you will fall down and fail hard. The people who accept failure as part of the process are quicker to get up from career disappointments. This is crucial, especially in the film industry where failing is inevitable!
As I’ve mentioned many times before in my blog, this meetup is so valuable. It is important and vital to Austin, and we should all take good care to grow it. On a personal note, I have a lot of respect for Jen Hutchins as well as producers in general now that I’ve taken a little time to produce a short video for the AEB. This is what kept me occupied all last night! The amount of care a producer must have for the project, the amount of sweat it takes, is tremendous. I laughingly had a “We’re Not Worthy” moment at the end of the night where I came to realize exactly how hard Jen works. Producing is hard work, so mad props to all the producers out there who make great films happen. I salute you.
Keep in touch for an upcoming video for the Austin Entertainment Business. Also, keep in mind that there are many incredible resources that are already available for you that Jen has put together. The job board where Jen and other members share paid gigs in the industry is a great place to go: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AustinEntertainmentBusiness/
Also, if you haven’t made it to the meetups in general, you need to come. I finally convinced my buddy Jeremy Rashad Brown to come, and he had a blast. He was looking for editors and producers, and he made tons of new contacts just last night. So the question becomes this: Who do you want to meet? You’ll do that here: https://www.meetup.com/AustinEntertainmentBusiness/
