Brandon Rice
Distributed Producer
Yeah, ADR in the car... I remember those days... It sucks when it's 110 degrees outside too!
Composers Ticker Tape Parade!
- Thread starter RMI Studios
- Start date
somthing like that was my dream from like age 16 - 23RMI Studios said:I've been mac since 1999! Here's a 4am photo of me in my tracking room working on Pandora:
(see if you can spot the extra large cup of coffee)
C.R.
now I have a laptop, a nanosynth sound module, korg sound module, virtual orchestra, a couple of "OK" M-Audio monitors, some awful mics, M audio audio interface and a very small control synth, but I get by OK ... except for the mics -- I always wind up using my senhieser ME66 shotgun for everytyhing and it sounds much better.
Oh and ben a MACuser sine 1991
TheMacB
Veteran
jdanstan said:
yeah, the sound through the DVX mic is very thin. i just take care of that in EQ. since then i've picked up a pair of MXL condensers for $100 at guitar center. SUCH a bargain AND they came with a USB pre-amp. No more having to capture the music. I can just recor directly into the ocmputer. WooHoo! And the sound is so much richer. It is night and day between the music in A Brief Case and the record i'm working on now. we should be done by the end of the month and i'll post some tracks.
Texture
Well-known member
Hello all,
I've been watching this thread as you all have tried to hammer out what the nature of the BEST SCORE award should be...
Seems like very few films explicitly rely on the original score. There's always some sort of extra music thrown in the mix. I think BEST SCORE should include original music or not and all the rest...
This question aside, one thing I think we can all agree upon, is that film is a collaborative process.
Its an art, where the total product, is somehow greater than the sum of all its individual parts.
Yes, its true that some of you have worked hard to put your musical stamp on these fine productions, but in many larger projects, involving larger budgets and larger egos, you can bet that even the original score you hear, is not always, unequivocally the result of one person's work.
You composers who have worked with, editors, directors or producers, who feel themselves to be musical geniuses, will know what I mean.
Sometimes a composer can work for hours getting their piece picture perfect, every hit in place. Then they take it to the edit room where the editor (who may also not be a very good listener, regarding your instructions for proper placement) tosses it haphazardly into the mix and suddenly. BAM! It works just as well the way he put it in. You end up walking out of the session, totally successful, but asking yourself, why did I waste my time trying to get all those hits to work?
Almost every major motion picture you see has a music editor on it, so without doubt, the music you're listening to has been sliced and diced in one way or another. Hopefully not simply as a justification for giving the director's brother a job.
Point being, even if every contestant in this festival had their own individual composer, with no other music, BEST SCORE is not completely the composer's award. The composer is really accepting it for the team and in some measure, the director.
I've been watching this thread as you all have tried to hammer out what the nature of the BEST SCORE award should be...
Seems like very few films explicitly rely on the original score. There's always some sort of extra music thrown in the mix. I think BEST SCORE should include original music or not and all the rest...
This question aside, one thing I think we can all agree upon, is that film is a collaborative process.
Its an art, where the total product, is somehow greater than the sum of all its individual parts.
Yes, its true that some of you have worked hard to put your musical stamp on these fine productions, but in many larger projects, involving larger budgets and larger egos, you can bet that even the original score you hear, is not always, unequivocally the result of one person's work.
You composers who have worked with, editors, directors or producers, who feel themselves to be musical geniuses, will know what I mean.
Sometimes a composer can work for hours getting their piece picture perfect, every hit in place. Then they take it to the edit room where the editor (who may also not be a very good listener, regarding your instructions for proper placement) tosses it haphazardly into the mix and suddenly. BAM! It works just as well the way he put it in. You end up walking out of the session, totally successful, but asking yourself, why did I waste my time trying to get all those hits to work?
Almost every major motion picture you see has a music editor on it, so without doubt, the music you're listening to has been sliced and diced in one way or another. Hopefully not simply as a justification for giving the director's brother a job.
Point being, even if every contestant in this festival had their own individual composer, with no other music, BEST SCORE is not completely the composer's award. The composer is really accepting it for the team and in some measure, the director.
Brandon Rice
Distributed Producer
I think we've put this issue to bed... and I don't think it needs to be brought up again, your points are well thought out, and well taken. Thanks.
Texture
Well-known member
Yes, I apologize for resurrecting a ghost.
Yet I saw a hidden undercurrent in that debate, an issue of absolute control.
Like many large undertakings in life, making a large film is like shooting the rapids, you're in control, but your not completely in control, somehow you're guiding the boat, but you've got to go with the flow.
Its my hope that the composers who participated here reach greater levels of success.
You more than likely won't have the same level of control that you have working on these smaller films though. And accepting that with a smile is the true nature of collaboration and personal growth.
Good luck!
Yet I saw a hidden undercurrent in that debate, an issue of absolute control.
Like many large undertakings in life, making a large film is like shooting the rapids, you're in control, but your not completely in control, somehow you're guiding the boat, but you've got to go with the flow.
Its my hope that the composers who participated here reach greater levels of success.
You more than likely won't have the same level of control that you have working on these smaller films though. And accepting that with a smile is the true nature of collaboration and personal growth.
Good luck!
TheMacB said:
Lol -- I never use the on camera mic f-- when said awful mics I meant MXL condensers that came with teh FireWireSolo recording interface -- do we have the same mics / preamps. I haven't tried the narrow condensor for instruments and stuff, but the large diaphram mic for vocals -- ugh well it just sounded like geese farts on a muggy day. So all the VO in ODD Squad was done with the Senhieizer Me66 shotgun and the ADR was done either with the Me66 or senheiser lavs to more closely mimic the on set sound depending on what we shot it with.
So I think we might have the same MXL condenser / M-audio preamp cheapo package -- if so maybe the narrow cardoid is good and the large diapghram is bad?
abraham said:
Wow! I love it. Then again I've never used anything else eexcept whem circumstances have conspired to make me take temp job.
For like $600 bucks you can get Orange PC and run windows on your desktop.
I think there are some shareware or freeware apps out there that will make your mac look like windows, so it'd be a fake windowsesque interface -- maybe try googling for that.
TheMacB
Veteran
no, i rarely use the narrow but i love the large one. here's a very rough mix of a track from our new record. recorded entirely with that mic except the organ which was direct. there's no drums yet.
obviously we don't have the budget for a really well produced album so we're looking for the raw sound of like a G. Love record or a Jack Johnson record.
www.elmatadorfilms.com/weight.mp3
lyrics by my little brother evan (abraham)
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you guys got more talent than should be legalTheMacB said:
but yep that's the mic, and it sounds a little muffled (not that present) to me
if you google that mic you will find nothiing but people ragging on it
still if I hadn't been listening so closely for mic quality I might not have noticed and it does have that sort of raw sound you said you were going for
here's a cool page on EQing vocals if you decide you ever wanna make the mic a little more present
http://www.digitalprosound.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=8953&afterinter=true
kickass song though man -- really -- not just saying that because I don't like the mic, that's really a great track.
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RMI Studios
Active member
RMI Studios said:I've been mac since 1999! Here's a 4am photo of me in my tracking room working on Pandora:
(see if you can spot the extra large cup of coffee)
C.R.
JDANSTAN:
somthing like that was my dream from like age 16 - 23
now I have a laptop, a nanosynth sound module, korg sound module, virtual orchestra, a couple of "OK" M-Audio monitors, some awful mics, M audio audio interface and a very small control synth, but I get by OK ... except for the mics -- I always wind up using my senhieser ME66 shotgun for everytyhing and it sounds much better.
Oh and ben a MACuser sine 1991
__________________
I'm 23 at the moment, so maybe I'll wake up when I turn 24 and just sell everything lol
C.R.
well I just gave up because the price point for even the system I have now was SOOOOO out of reach in the mid to late 80's / early nineties. Plus I was supposedly going to be an actor at that point, but became a theatre director and composer/sound designer for theatre, and got more work than I wanted in the latter category.
So if I had been focused as a composer or recording engineer -- who knows.
Now I have 12K of video gear vs. audio gear.
Which reminds me ... I was so f@cking jealous of the completely professional ultra smooth camera movement in A Brief Case and then I looked at your BTS pics and all that sh@t is homemade ... WTF! I was sure you had some store bought mojo like a cobra crane, etc.
I think in addition to mics we also have the same book, Killer DV Rigs, you can build. But I have never gotten my dolly (the only thing I've made from the book yet) to be smooth. I think this is the biggest production area of mine that needs work - stabilization and dolly / crane movement.
They're just such effective narrative tools and add so much value.
and I loved the shostrings holding the camera at the right angle - that's just exactly what this digital revolution is all about!
You guys obviously did a nice job of putting that thing together also.
So if I had been focused as a composer or recording engineer -- who knows.
Now I have 12K of video gear vs. audio gear.
Which reminds me ... I was so f@cking jealous of the completely professional ultra smooth camera movement in A Brief Case and then I looked at your BTS pics and all that sh@t is homemade ... WTF! I was sure you had some store bought mojo like a cobra crane, etc.
I think in addition to mics we also have the same book, Killer DV Rigs, you can build. But I have never gotten my dolly (the only thing I've made from the book yet) to be smooth. I think this is the biggest production area of mine that needs work - stabilization and dolly / crane movement.
They're just such effective narrative tools and add so much value.
and I loved the shostrings holding the camera at the right angle - that's just exactly what this digital revolution is all about!
You guys obviously did a nice job of putting that thing together also.
TheMacB
Veteran
i actually saw dan selakovich do a training session at NAB last year. he built this dolly/crane right in front of us in like 15 minutes! i bought the book immediately. very cool guy too.
i'm not much of a "man's man," if you will. i don't really build stuff or have any tools. so i got my dad to help me out with this one. it took us about 6 hours (including the 2 hours at home depot). the fun part was the 45 minute drive to the office location with fourteen 10foot PVC pipes in evan's tiny little toyota camry. we had them in the trunk, sticking through the backseats, and popping out the passenger window. it was a very cold ride.
Ghetto from the get-go! Safety Second, Photography First. also, notice the extension cords in some of those shots. i had lost my battery the weekend before at a music video shoot so we had to have someone carry the cord next to the dolly to make sure it didn't get caught in the wheels. fun stuff. i have since found the battery (yes!).
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I saw that and was gonna say that you should pick up one of Jarred's 5600 batt's and then I thought ... wait you just won one didn't you?
I have three of those big ass things and i've rarely had to use more than one on a shoot, yout're gonna love it of that's not the batt you already have, and even then it's great to have more than one.
I have three of those big ass things and i've rarely had to use more than one on a shoot, yout're gonna love it of that's not the batt you already have, and even then it's great to have more than one.
TheMacB
Veteran
yeah i am psyched about that battery! all i have now is the one that came with the camera. excited about the mattebox too but i'm not sure exactly what it does. do you know? i just got a sweet camera bag for christmas so that will probably go to somebody else who worked on the film. very jealous of your steadi-cam. you're gonna get some sweet stuff outta that!
TheMacB said:
the mattbox is for (in order of importance)
1) making your camera look cool (more like a movie camer) impresseing clients/other dudes/and the rare chick that gives a damn
2) cutting lense flair
3) I think this one will hold rectangular filters. Which means you can use a graduated ND filter to make the sky darker but not the horizon. Pretty much any filtering you can do in post. Only thing you can't do is pull information from a blownout area, so a grad filter might be necessary for that. You can get all sorts of cool tobacco, and coffe grad filters too, but again you can do those in post. The rectangular filters are sometimes thought to be higher quality but they are more expensive to.
While you can always tape a piece of cradboard on the side that's creating the lens flare, the guys that did Broken said they wished they'd had a mattbox on set, because they used a century wide angle ... which is another advantage I guess - you MIGHT be able to use it with other lenses that the stock "lens hood" that says LEICA in big letters may not fit over on a lens by lens basis.