Days in the Life of a Film Composer

I just received word this past week that I have been accepted as a junior member of the International Film Music Critics Association. This is an extremely proud honor for me. There are just over fifty members worldwide representing the best film music journalists, writers, and critics in the industry. My work as a writer, lecturer, radio show host, composer, and journalist has earned me a spot at this exclusive table.

For the first year I'll be participating in their online discussions and helping shape the course of their agenda through my own writings. They award scores and composers every year which I hope to participate in as well. It's going to be a great opportunity to broaden my horizons and discuss my passion for film music amongst the very best writers and thinkers in the industry. Many of the members are people whom I've respected for years.

I'm really looking forward to my participation in this esteemed organization.

Butt-numb-a-thon 12 is now history. The entire event showcased 12 feature films and lasted over 26 hours. It started at 11AM on Saturday morning and wrapped up just a little before 1PM on Sunday afternoon. This was a good one...a real good one. Of the nine that I have now attended this is probably the third best after BNAT 3 and BNAT 5. Every film was solid. There wasn't anything that I didn't want to see nor regretted watching when it was over. There seems to have been at least one of those in every BNAT that I've been to.

Here's the entire list of what we saw. Features are in bold. Special thanks to my friend Ben Bartley who took way better notes than I did.

BNAT 2010 Tron Montage Videos
TRON (1982) Trailer
ROOSTER COGBURN AND THE LADY (1975) Trailer
INVASION U.S.A (1985) Trailer
STUNT ROCK (1980) Trailer
Introduction by Tim League
Comedy Performance by Gravy (skewering Jeff Mahler)
TRUE GRIT (2010)
LE SAMOURAI (1967)
WHO KILLED WHO? (1943) Trailer
DIRTY DINGUS MCGEE (1970) Trailer
A Navy Recruitment Trailer
XANADU (1980) Trailer
ON THE TOWN (1949)
COWBOY AND ALIENS (2011) (40 minutes of footage with Jon Favreau, Ron Howard, and Bob Orci in attendance)
RANGO (2011) (8 minutes of footage)
THE SANTA FE TRAIL (1940)
THE FIGHTER (2010)
THOR (2011) Trailer
BIG GUNS (1973) Trailer
KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS (1989) Trailer
THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1939)
CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT (a.k.a FALSTAFF, 1965)
TIME PIECE (1965) Short Film by Jim Henson
RICHARD PRYOR: LIVE IN CONCERT (1979)
GAME OF DEATH (1978) Trailer
GOODBYE BRUCE LEE: HIS LAST GAME OF DEATH (1975) Trailer
SOUL OF BRUCE LEE (1977) Trailer
THEY STILL CALL ME BRUCE (1987) Trailer
THE GREEN HORNET (2011)
HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (2008) Fake Grindhouse Trailer
SECRET MOVIE #1 (2011)
DRIVE ANGRY 3D (2011)
TRON: LEGACY (2010) in IMAX™

Does that look like a lot? Yes, it was a lot! Can you imagine watching all that in one sitting. I can't and I did it.

TRUE GRIT was flat out amazing! Easily my favorite film of the year. My favorite vintage film was tied between THE SANTA FE TRAIL and THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, neither of which I had seen before. Although I was very dubious of TRON: LEGACY and was building a case against liking it from the beginning, I have to admit that I was wooed. TRON: LEGACY was very good. I didn't think they could capture the spirit of the first film but they did. We started the event with an amazing performance by Jeff Bridges in TRUE GRIT and we ended the day with another great performance by Jeff Bridges in TRON: LEGACY.

I slept for almost eleven hours Sunday night but I'm still pretty tired. It'll take a few more days if not a week to fully catch up and not be so damned tired all the time. For whatever pain I feel due to lack of sleep, it is certainly worth the magic and awesomeness that is Butt-Numb-A-Thon!

I'm already counting down the days until next year.

It's that time of year again...Geek Christmas!!! There are many great days during each year that I enthusiastically look forward to but among the toppermost of the poppermost is Butt-Numb-A-Thon! It's an insanse 24-hour film marathon at the famed Alamo Drafthouse hosted by Ain't It Cool News founder Harry Knowles. This year is BNAT 12 "The Dirty Dozenth" (get it?) and I couldn't be more excited. Of the twelve BNATs I've attended nine of them. I missed 1, 2, and 6 (I didn't start going until BNAT 3 and the reason I wasn't at 6 is too painful to recall here).

The clock is about to chime midnight which signals BNAT 12 eve. It'll be a relatively normal day except for the awesome pre-party at The Highball tomorrow night. I won't stay long but it's fun to hang out with fellow BNATers chatting about what's in store for us the next day. The fun part is...nobody knows! It's all a closely guarded secret and that's one of the reason's it's so much fun. You have to love film so much that it doesn't matter what Harry plays, you'll love it regardless if it's good, bad, or anywhere in between. That pretty much sums up my passion for movies so I feel well qualified to attend.

Then Saturday morning we'll gather around 10AM and the Alamo Drafthouse and the movies will start around noon and won't stop until noon the next day.

If you're curious as to what films have shown throughout all the BNATs click HERE. I think 3 (2001) and 5 (2003) have been my favorites so far.

Oh glory day is here again!

Here's the official poster for the event this year...

This week I've been diving deep into AMERICA'S SEA (2010) which is the hour-long feature documentary on the Gulf of Mexico I'm scoring for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Since I had a few weeks until my project with Harry Lynch is set to begin, I decided to take on this relatively quick-paced project in order to fill out the time. Last week I delivered the final mix of the opening music. This week I delivered the initial drafts of the first reel which total around seven minutes of music. Lee Smith, the director in charge of the project loved the music. He had tweaked the cut a little bit so it was just a matter of me adjusting the cues to fit the new edit which I just sent off for his approval.

There are six ten-minute segments that need scoring. I just sent off the first segment. The subsequent segments should be showing up in the next few days. Now that I've got the boat sailing, the tempo of the entire scoring process should quicken.

It's interesting how you think a particular project is going to be relatively easy and straight-forward ends up being an incredibly brain-wracking experience as you fret over the tiniest minutiae of each cue. I guess that's just how I roll. There's no such thing as an "easy" project and I know that.

I'm really enjoying this project so far. It's a great practice piece for me and my team as we try to institute new software, hardware, and a new work flow into the scoring process. It's much easier to fine tune this process on a project like this. Matt, Nate, and I will be a well-oiled machine when the time comes to start Harry's energy doc next month.