blog wars episode IV: a new teaser

woo hoo. it is cool to see stuff on the internets. especially things i have a vested interest in.

if you will notice in the right hand column of my page there are two links to see a quicktime video of Michael's teaser for his upcoming film 1 In 9. or you can watch it by clicking here.

if you don't usually read Michael's blog but would like to read his director's notes on the trailer, click here.

so a few notes of my own from the prospective of the scorer.

-i scored the trailer using Logic Pro 7 as my sequencer. i used east west quantum leap's Symphonic Orchestra Gold edition for the stringed instrument samples.

before i saw the video Michael gave me a written sample of how he thought he was going to make the teaser. so from that i wrote a concept teaser using almost everything that is in the teaser now up to the gunshot.

when Michael got me the (almost) finished video of the trailer i sat down and wrote an entirely different theme in the violin section. however with Michael having already heard the first theme, he asked that i scrap the new for the old.

one of the most difficult things i did for the trailer was the snare. the reason being is that i have never had training in percussion...although i was 4th bass drum in UND's Drum Corps and Marching Band (we even played for the president.) but i made roughly 6 versions of different rhythms and Michael chose my 5th version. also, the snares are recorded in stereo with the first snare coming in on the right.

after the buildup to the gunshot, the low cello comes back in and takes us out to the end. early on, Mike asked me for something quick toward the end to help people forget that they've been watching the teaser for over a minute now so that is where i cam up with the glockenspiel doing the slow run who's melody was inspired by the now scrapped concept. i was concerned that because the timbre is so close to that of John Williams' (hedwig's theme) celest that it would be seen as "oh, that's harry potter." but Mike liked it so it stayed (i like it too.)

the ominous sounding pad throughout is something i created in one of Logic's plug-ins called sculpture. i think that it provides enough debasing menace to set the tone for the idea behind Mike's movie and coincidentally the teaser.

so please, after listening and watching the trailer any and all comments, concerns, thoughts, malignments are welcome.