This is a great redemptive story, but more significantly “Standing Firm” is a story about suffering, God’s purpose in it, and being joyful despite of it.

I am honored to be attached to this project and am looking forward to scoring this film and working together with director Kyle Prohaska, who has done an outstanding job on the film.

Below is the a trailer for the film, which is currently in post-production. For more information about the film, please have a look at the official movie site for “Standing Firm”, along with its production blog. You may also follow “Standing Firm” on Facebook.

I am delighted to have a chance to score the music for this film and I am looking forward to working with the director and producer, who themselves happen to be a father-son team.

For more information about the documentary, please check the film’s production blog and their Facebook page.

Filmweavers is currently readying the release of the official website for the movie, which will include a new trailer containing themes from the film score.

While working through the scoring project, it became apparent early on that relying on a traditional orchestral sound was not enough to give the film a unique musical signature. This meant that a number of sound libraries had to be utilized to push the score beyond the limits of a ’standard’ score. I am pleased with the outcome and can’t wait watching the film in its completed form.

Here is a screenshot of a typical setup for one of the cues in the film:

Scoring for 'The Penny'

It is truly an honor to be attached to this project, as the producers, crew, and cast of ‘The Penny’ have done a fine job bringing a great script to life. I am continually impressed with the production quality and am looking forward to adding musical life to the film.

Check in for updates here or on the Filmweaver’s production blog.

Here is a short but sweet visual taste of what’s to come in the new feature film from Filmweavers. Note that I have not composed the music for the teaser.

The Penny Teaser from Filmweavers LLC on Vimeo.

Scene from 'The Penny'

Common wisdom would dictate that you wait until the dust settles, reports of what works and what doesn’t are in, and developers of the various music and audio applications, plug-ins, and hardware drivers you use in your production environment are all up-to-date with their Snow Leopard compatibility. And with good reason: Any initial release of a major operating system could potentially cause major headaches if you are working on a deadline and the upgrade yields some unexpected results.

However, especially with the Mac OS X system there are some great ways to create a test environment based on your existing system, which you can play with before rolling out a new upgrade into your production environment.

Important: Before I dive into some of the details, let me emphatically state a disclaimer, that following these steps are solely meant as a guideline and you are essentially responsible for taking necessary precautions so as to not loose valuable data (have I mentioned the word ‘backup’ yet?) Don’t shout at me if your production system is spitting up green goo, or is making rude noises. You have been warned!

What’s Needed?
There are a couple of items you will need to follow this process:

• Either a separate hard disk (external or internal), or an unused partition in your Mac
• SuperDuper! system backup software

Instead of SuperDuper! you can use other backup software, but ensure that a complete backup of your main Mac drive yields a bootable copy.

If you are using a new hard disk for this process, or you are erasing an existing disk to create a new partition, make sure that in Disk Utility you use ‘Options…’ before you partition the new disk and choose ‘GUID Partition Table’ scheme. Otherwise the Snow Leopard installer complains that it can’t install on a non-GUID partition.

Making a Bootable Clone
You will need to create a bootable backup (clone) with SuperDuper!, which is straight forward and allows you to essentially create a clone of your main Mac OS disk. Using the ‘Backup – all files’ option will produce an identical and bootable copy of your Mac OS disk.

You will need to specify the ‘Copy’ disk (your Mac HD drive) and the ‘to’ disk, which is your separate drive, or your second unused partition. Note that this process will wipe out any previous data on the target drive, so make sure you use one that you can afford to loose the data.

SuperDuper! Mac Backup Tool

Booting From the Cloned Drive
The Mac OS X has the beautiful ability to boot from a drive other than your internal main disk. This means that you can easily boot from the cloned drive you just created with a mere switch in the Startup Disk preference pane. This you can find in the System Preferences in the System section. Simply select the cloned disk and click on ‘Restart’. Your Mac will reboot from the cloned disk.

Startup Disk Preference Pane

The Fun Part
Once your Mac reboots with the cloned disk as your OS disk, you are now ready to upgrade the OS to Snow Leopard. During the upgrade, make sure you select the correct disk to put the upgrade on, which should be your cloned disk.

When the upgrade finishes, you have a previous OS disk and the newly upgraded Snow Leopard system disk that you can switch back and forth with the Startup Disk preference pane. This essentially allows you to test your software and hardware for compatibility, while continuing production work from your original disk. Since you cloned your original drive, all the software, including hardware drivers, are present under Snow Leopard and you should be able to tell quickly whether you would run into any issues with the upgrade.

Once you have convinced yourself that all is well, you can simply just start up your Mac with the original OS disk and perform the upgrade on that disk as well. Done!

Let me stress again that I highly recommend having good backups available. Performing the cloned disk upgrade process should be straight forward, but don’t come running to me if you just happened to forget to make that all important backup and something does go wrong.

Enjoy Snow Leopard!

If you want to track issues that other composers have identified with Snow Leopard upgrades, you may want to follow SCOREcast’s blog comments.

Apple also posted a support article that lists known incompatible software, which is mored to a folder named ‘Incompatible Software’ if encountered. Follow the link for frequent updates to the list.

I was honored when Cory Taylor (http://www.coryalantaylor.com) asked me to create the score for an animated film he planned to produce for the contest. I liked the story of AMP, a little robot on a quest to gain freedom from his power chord, which gave him life, but also kept him confined. I thought it would be fun creating a score for an animation, something I hadn’t done before.

AMP Model

Off to a Good Start
While the contest rules allowed the preparation of certain elements of the short film prior to the contest, the actual rendering and assembly of the film had to be conducted during the 36-hour contest. Cory had prepared a rough storyboard with slides so we could work on the timing of the score. This was important since animated films tend to depend heavily on the timing of musical elements of the film and I didn’t just want to create a simple piano score, or anything else for that matter that would be relatively easy to pull off during the 36 hours.

I had asked Cory to put the storyboard slides into a QuickTime movie that I could use to roughly sketch out the score, something I hoped would help in fully producing the orchestration during the contest.

A scene sketch from AMP

Prior to the contest we initially discussed some of the feel the score should have and I had a fairly good understanding of what I thought the score should sound like. It had to be somewhat light, but not silly. With two weeks to go before the contest, I went to work.

Disaster Strikes
Everything looked really good, especially some of the test renders (still images) from Cory and his team. Little did anyone know that when the day of the contest had arrived disaster struck in the form of computer crashes. It was clear very early on into the 36 hours that time would work against us and the decision was made to drop out of the contest.

AMP with texture applied

The Aftermath
With Cory’s permission, I thought that it may be educational to post a progression of how the score developed through the revisions. Keep in mind that nothing you hear in the film clips below represents a finished score. It was to be finished during the 36-hour contest. All comments are those that were made during the sketching of the score.

There are some interesting cues to point out. One would be the intro change-up when AMP wakes up from a dramatic ‘Oh no!’ feel to a ‘Yeah, my battery!’ expression musically. You can hear this introduced in Revision 5. Working with storyboards is fantastic, as you get a general idea where something is going. However, communication is still king, as I wrongly interpreted AMP waking up and kicking the battery by accident was perceived by him as something dreadful. It wasn’t until Cory, the director, explained that AMP was really happy to see the battery there and that it was to be the focus of the score in that cue. So, we changed it up.

AMP in a render test

Because of the unfinished nature of the film, the score was never finished either. However, I will make it available (sans the rotating fan sound effect that can be heard from time to time) under a Creative Commons license so anyone interested to use it can do so freely, as long as credit is given.

I will post again when I have it ready in a releasable state. Until then, enjoy watching the progression in the film clips. Tip: Use the ‘Large Version’ links to read the text comments Cory put into the storyboard.

AMP in a fully rendered scene, including texture

AMP animation test - Click to Play

Working Title: AMP
Date: 03/30/09
Revision: 1

Comments: This is the initial version with an early concept of the beginning cue.

Amp Storyboard Score Draft 01

Large Version

Working Title: AMP
Date: 04/03/09
Revision: 2

Comments: We now have about a minute done. I put a more comedic segment in, which is going to be repeated when Amp tries to grab the battery with the clamps. When we repeat the theme, we’re going to change it up a bit though, so it evolves.

Amp Storyboard Score Draft 02

Large Version

Working Title: AMP
Date: 04/04/09
Revision: 3

Comments: So, we’re repeating the comedic theme and changed it up. Going into the changed up theme, I added a bit of a brooding mood. Amp is mad and is walking back to the chest, kind of like a death march. He’s going to get this battery back, if it kills him. He declared war.

I also have the beginning pieces for the first fly-bot appearance. I’m keeping it a bit mysterious. We don’t know exactly what’s about to happen.

Amp Storyboard Score Draft 03

Large Version

Working Title: AMP
Date: 04/04/09
Revision: 4

Comments: A bit of the score, including the dramatic ‘declaring war on the battery’ theme.

Amp Storyboard Score Draft 04

Large Version

Working Title: AMP
Date: 04/05/09
Revision: 5

Comments: Reworked the intro section. A warm wash type sound is introduced when Amp wakes up and sees the battery. Also made other small enhancements to create a better flow between the segments.

Amp Storyboard Score Draft 05

Large Version

Working Title: AMP
Date: 04/10/09
Revision: 6

Comments: Reworked the intro section. A warm wash type sound is introduced when Amp wakes up and sees the battery. Also made other small enhancements to create a better flow between the segments.

Amp Storyboard Score Draft 06

Large Version

Richard Davis teaches at the Berklee College of Music and at this presentation addresses the basic process and timelines, MIDI mockups, temp tracks, and a requirement for the composer not only to be a musician, but step into the mind frame of a filmmaker as well in order to understand the needs and process of telling the story through the score.

All too often I read in filmmaking forum posts about all kinds of crew members required or at the least suggested in creating a decent film, no matter the genre or length of the production. What strikes me as curious is the bypassed role of the composer, which is rather odd, especially given the frequently quoted statement that music makes up almost 50% of the movie. So, why is it then that it doesn’t have a higher ranking in the priority list?

In talking with filmmakers, it seems to me that most thought patterns follow one of two directions:

1. A composer for original music is not required, since we are using canned music (for the uninitiated, this is pre-recorded music that is edited to fit the film.)
2. The score is almost considered an after-the-fact item, many times hastily put together and rushed into production, missing the impact it could have if carefully planned into the production from the beginning.

There may be other reasons why an original score is not considered higher on the priority list, the financial aspect being one of them, of course. However, of the later of the two above, I wish film producers and directors would learn to rearrange their priorities when approaching the filmmaking process.

May I humbly suggest involving a composer from the earliest point of a production? There are a number of reasons why you would want to do that.

Composers look at your production with different eyes. Great composers are able to express the story you are telling on yet an additional dimensional level, thus adding to the impression your movie has on the viewing audience. Lest we overlook the word ‘audience’, it’s origin can be found in the Latin word ‘audentia’ or ‘audire’, which means to ‘hear’.

Subsequently, when a composer is brought in early in the production process, he or she can contribute to the production in ways that are often difficult to achieve when the film is already fully edited and almost ready for release. Time pressure builds and you simply don’t have the luxury of playing with different concepts to test the impact of various musical ideas.

Even worse is the length of time temp tracks are being used during the production process. It is hard not to become married to a particular sound and musical movement, which essentially is so familiar that it limits the range a composer may have when wanting to contribute a potentially great musical idea.

Music has ways to find the depths of the soul that words or pictures alone may have a hard time reaching. That is how we are wired. As a composer I attempt to tap into that potential by analyzing what’s on the screen and adding impact to it with the musical score I create. Giving me a chance to participate in the creative process early on benefits the overall quality and impact of the film.

So, my advice to filmmakers: Engage your composer early and often throughout the production cycle. You may even want to consider bringing in your composer before you even capture your first images.

Your movie will turn out to be of much greater quality – I promise.

Update 06/15/2009: Here is an excellent article written by Maria Garcia over on the Film Journal site.

John has a long track record of producing music and sound design for film and video productions and he was generous to share his wealth of knowledge with those attending the conference call.

Below is the audio from the interview, which Ken Lawrence graciously allowed me to share here as well. The audio download can be found on the Christian Composer’s Camp website as well.

Interview with John Doryk, composer

The Norwood Christian Ranch located in southwest Colorado is hosting a week-long composer’s camp with John Doryk, who has been creating original music and sound design for over 24 years. According to John, this hands-on training will be a mixture of lectures and practical exercises creating compositions for short segments of actual film material.

Regardless whether you are just starting out, or already have experience as a film composer, you will no doubt be benefiting from the knowledge and insight that John has to offer.

You can sign up for the composer’s camp at the Norwood Christian Ranch website.

To find out more about John, visit his website at http://www.johndoryk.com/