The Orange Moon
After all this time, after all of this recording, waiting, recording again, and waiting again, after all of this hoping and hand wringing and sweating, I made the final edits to Kaitlyn's lovely vocals on Up On The Orange Moon, thereby finishing the basic track work on the IHML. You may recall from an earlier post that we had to re-record Up On The Orange Moon because the original take was way too high for Kaitlyn's smoky alto vocal register. Well, we went to Scott Garett's house and recorded the piano tracks with my friend Steve White on piano. Then Kaitlyn did her vocals and emailed me the finished takes. Today I did a few little clicks and drags in Digital Performer and, viola! It's all done. So the basic tracks for all 12 songs are finished. The next step is to mix and master the record, which will be a whole other ordeal, but I'll keep you posted on events as they unfold.
In other news, this past weekend we filmed another little short for Grammar School Pictures. This one is called "The Interminable End" I think, and it's basically me giving a woman a ten minute speech about how I want to break up with her. The camera doesn't move from me the entire time. You can see the girl in 3/4 back view, but that's it. It was just me. Yikes! My speech was about four pages long and it took me about 3 days to memorize. This film was a challenge. I had to not only remember all the lines, but I also had to dredge up my worst qualities and harness them to make this guy seem like a typical, flaky-ass boy. Some of my exes might say it wasn't much of a stretch, but I don't think of myself as anything like this guy. I think of myself as much more suave, much kinder. Much less self absorbed (he says as he sits writing a blog post about HIMSELF).
The hardest character to play is yourself.
This person is kind of a caricature of the worst parts of me, but still, it was a stretch to make him believable and funny. Plus, channeling all of the memories of break ups and dating frustrations in order to find the truth in what I was saying was difficult. But I slogged through it. I woke up early the morning of the shoot and talked through the monologue in the mirror a few times until it was time for Joe to come and get me and bring me to the shoot. 
Initially, when I'd read the speech all the way through, it clocked in at only about four minutes, so I had to bring in my own stuff and improvise some stuff. 
I was happy to hear that during the takes you could only see me struggling for lines a couple of times during the monologue. That's good to know. I haven't seen the finished film yet, because they're still editing it, and, frankly, I'm a little self conscious about a film that's entirely made up of me talking. The photos included here are of Matt Knapp in the gray shirt with the camera, Joe Ballman in the maroon shirt also at the camera, me looking a bit afraid, and Shelby, the girl I had to break up with. Anyway, I hope people will enjoy it.
The Common Pornography record is going well. I have 14 songs done. Only 14 more to go. I'll be blogging about that process probably next week. See you then.
In other news, this past weekend we filmed another little short for Grammar School Pictures. This one is called "The Interminable End" I think, and it's basically me giving a woman a ten minute speech about how I want to break up with her. The camera doesn't move from me the entire time. You can see the girl in 3/4 back view, but that's it. It was just me. Yikes! My speech was about four pages long and it took me about 3 days to memorize. This film was a challenge. I had to not only remember all the lines, but I also had to dredge up my worst qualities and harness them to make this guy seem like a typical, flaky-ass boy. Some of my exes might say it wasn't much of a stretch, but I don't think of myself as anything like this guy. I think of myself as much more suave, much kinder. Much less self absorbed (he says as he sits writing a blog post about HIMSELF).
The hardest character to play is yourself.
This person is kind of a caricature of the worst parts of me, but still, it was a stretch to make him believable and funny. Plus, channeling all of the memories of break ups and dating frustrations in order to find the truth in what I was saying was difficult. But I slogged through it. I woke up early the morning of the shoot and talked through the monologue in the mirror a few times until it was time for Joe to come and get me and bring me to the shoot. 
Initially, when I'd read the speech all the way through, it clocked in at only about four minutes, so I had to bring in my own stuff and improvise some stuff. 
I was happy to hear that during the takes you could only see me struggling for lines a couple of times during the monologue. That's good to know. I haven't seen the finished film yet, because they're still editing it, and, frankly, I'm a little self conscious about a film that's entirely made up of me talking. The photos included here are of Matt Knapp in the gray shirt with the camera, Joe Ballman in the maroon shirt also at the camera, me looking a bit afraid, and Shelby, the girl I had to break up with. Anyway, I hope people will enjoy it.The Common Pornography record is going well. I have 14 songs done. Only 14 more to go. I'll be blogging about that process probably next week. See you then.