Preview to the Score for “Malice”

by J. Aaron Stanley on December 5, 2011

So we had the recording session today for “Malice” at Ardent Audio in Torrance, CA. I had 6 brass musicians (2 trumpets, 2 horns, trombone, and tuba/cimbasso) plus a lone clarinet.

For the big epic sections, we did a triple pass to get a nice, fat orchestral brass section!

I think it turned out well! Take a listen…

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Set to Score “Malice” – A short film about a 12-year-old girl who aspires to be a supervillain

by J. Aaron Stanley on November 24, 2011

12 year old Alice aspires to be a super-villain, and she’s well on her way, what with her bad-ass cape, boots, gloves, and signature “M” on her belt (short for “Malice”.) Then, of course, there’s her master plan for world domination.

But when grandpa gets hurt by a group of thugs robbing his comic-book store while Alice is away on a mission of mischief, she begins to question her aspirations. Will she aspire instead to the role of “superhero”?

“Malice” is a fun, yet touching story, and I’m very excited to be on board as the composer. It’s a chance to write some epic, yet comedic, “supervillain / superhero” music, which is always a ton of fun!

The director, Reyna Calvillo, is a young fireball full of energy and enthusiasm – the kind of magnetic personality that’s instantly endearing and infectious. It’s a joy to be working with her, and I have a feeling this won’t be the last time we work together. She has the “spark” – that ineffable quality that tells you someone is going to be successful because they have the right combination of talent, energy, positive enthusiasm, and fearlessness.

I’m all the more excited about this project because I will have live brass, and be recording in a real studio. Brass is so essential to this genre of music, and I’ve got some amazing musicians lined up to play. It’s going to be fantastic!

Stay tuned for comedic epicness…

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It’s A Wrap On Seminarista

September 23, 2011

I delivered the score to Seminarista this week. It was a fun project, and I am grateful to have had enough of a budget to get an ensemble of four live musicians together, including…

    • Piano – Jeremy Borum
    • Clarinet – Sean Franz
    • Cello – Cameron Stone
    • Viola – A name I cannot divulge for safety & security reasons, lest union thugs hunt him down and do terrible things to him. (Note to the reader without a sense of humor: I’m exaggerating.)

These musicians made a fine ensemble, and I’m very pleased with the end result. It’s always a pleasure to work with great musicians. I don’t care what the trends are these days, I will continue to work with living, breathing musicians any way I can.

I chose this instrumentation partly for practical reasons and partly because I knew instinctively it would work well for the heart-warming drama this film happens to be.

I also layered in some sampled orchestral strings, simply for harmonic and textural support and to aid climatic moments. Of course, a live orchestra would have been way better – and I continue to pine for one. But short of that, four live musicians is certainly better than none.

I can only hope that my future film projects will have ever larger budgets for ever larger ensembles! I’m waiting (and salivating at the very thought) for the day when I have an entire symphony orchestra seated before me, ready to play my music at the downbeat.

In the meantime, here’s a peak at what I created with just four live musicians….

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Score for Swordsman Delivered – Here’s A Sneak Peak…

September 13, 2011

So after pulling an all-nighter, I delivered the score for Swordsman yesterday. It’s a short film based on the legendary Samurai, Myamoto Musashi, directed by Marcus Sun.

I wrote it for shakuhachi, shinobue, koto, and taiko with a string orchestra. I feel fortunate to have worked with some amazing musicians on this project, including…

Bill Schultz on Shakuhachi (end-blown bamboo flute)… Yoko Awaya on Koto (a harp-like string instrument)… and George Abe on Shinobue (a traditional transverse bamboo flute).

Sadly, I didn’t have the budget for a live string orchestra, but I had the help of orchestrator Michael West, who created the mock-ups and mixed the final score.

I had a wonderful time collaborating with Marcus Sun, the director of Swordsman. His feedback as I was creating the score was both helpful and supportive, and the end result is better because of it.

Here’s a “sneak peak” excerpt of the score. The first cue is from a moment Myamoto is experiencing self-doubt. The second is a moment between Myamoto and Oharu, his love interest. You’ll hear excerpts of both the Love Theme and the theme representing Myamoto’s Destiny…

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Set To Score “Automaton” – A Sci-Fi Short Directed by David Quakenbush

August 15, 2011

I will be scoring a fantastic short (30-minute) sci-fi thriller called “Automaton” this fall. (Facebook page.)

Here’s the premise: Far in the future, there are few humans left and automatons populate the one city, which covers the entire globe. Out of loneliness and a desire for human contact, Gary upgrades his housekeeping automaton to be more “suitable” company at home. She is programmed with one key objective: to make Gary happy. But when Gary’s happiness begins revolving around Margaret, perhaps the last remaining real woman alive, what’s an automaton to do?

Yep.

Gonna have fun with this one!

I saw a rough cut last week, and I’m very excited. The film’s slow but relentless pace reminds me of classic Hitchcock thrillers such as Vertigo and Rear Window. There is plenty of opportunity for the music to set the tone and heighten the sense of anticipation and suspense.

Here’s a case of an amazing premise, a fantastic script, a great cast, and a talented crew coming together to create something that’s going to look (and sound!) like a much more expensive film than it really is.

This one deserves to be made into a feature film. (And when it is, I better be the one to score it!)

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Set To Score “Seminarista” – A Short Film By Henry Corzo

August 12, 2011

“Seminarista” (Facebook page) is a touching crisis-of-faith drama about a seminary student who realizes he’s gay. The script is very well written and the footage I saw looks great! The director, Henry Corzo, is a former engineer now finishing up the film program at UCLA.

This is a different kind of project from the others I’m working on. It’s the kind of film that presents a great opportunity for writing an intimate, emotional score. (I’m thinking Ennio Morricone here. Hats off to the master of intimate, emotional music.)

Because of budgetary limitations, I sadly will not be able to hire a live string orchestra, which is essential to creating the kind of emotional depth needed for this kind of film. However, I could get 2 or 3 solo instrumentalists. I’m thinking piano and cello with some light string pads underneath. But I’ll wait to make a definite decision until I see what the full rough cut looks and “feels” like.

This will be a good challenge. I tend to write “big”, and this is the kind of film that needs to be intimate – not bombastic.

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Set To Score “The Swordsman” – A Short Film By Marcus Sun

August 11, 2011

I found out yesterday that I will be the score composer for the short film, “The Swordsman”. It is a historical drama set in medieval Japan, and features one of Japan’s legendary samurai.

I saw some of the initial footage and it looks fantastic! I’m looking forward to the collaboration with Marcus Sun, who is finishing up his film program at New York Film Academy – L.A.

Because of the period ethnic nature of the film–and because the dialog is actually in Japanese–I will be writing for a combination of ethnic Japanese instruments with some atmospheric electronic layers to fill out the sound.

I’m excited about having enough of a budget to hire some live musicians, which means the end result is going to sound fantastic! Plus, it’s a heck of a lot of fun working with other musicians.

I can’t wait to get started…

(I also picked up another awesome film scoring project yesterday, which I’ll post about tomorrow.)

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Coming Soon: “Success Journey Songs”

July 16, 2011

About a year and a half ago, I asked myself in a state of meditation, “How can I use my talents to be of service to others?”

The answer I got was, “Write positive, life-affirming, motivational, inspirational songs.”

This was somewhat surprising since I’d never considered myself a songwriter. I wrote instrumental music, not songs.

But those were the “instructions”. So immediately, I began writing songs. The first two songs I wrote were “Winds of Change” and “Rockstar Sales Superstar”…

  • “Winds of Change” is about the moment of making the decision to no longer live in a scarcity mindset, but to embrace abundance (the natural state of the universe).
  • “Rockstar Sales Superstar” is based on the sales training of Eric Lofholm, one of America’s top sales trainers.

I wrote several other songs over the course of the next few months, having no idea how I would finance recording them, or when I’d be able to share them with the world.

It’s taken a year and a half, but I’m finally very close to releasing the first two songs as part of “Success Journey Songs”, a new website I’m launching devoted to positive, life-affirming, motivational, inspirational songs.

“Winds of Change” and “Rockstar Sales Superstar” are currently in production. I’ve recorded drums, bass, and rhythm guitar. Next week, I’ll be recording vocals, lead guitar, and winds / horns. Then they will ready for final mixing.

If all goes well–and things do seem to be falling into place–I will be launching the beginning of August.

I’m very excited to finally be launching this project. I firmly believe it will be a success, and that there will be many fantastic songs to come out of this project.

I hope you will check it out! It will be happening here:

www.SuccessJourneySongs.com

 

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Superheros Meet Zombies: Scoring for “The Lone Gunman”

May 20, 2011

The Lone Gunman - Superhero meets ZombiesI just found out yesterday that I will be the score composer for an upcoming webisode series called “The Lone Gunman”. After a zombie apocalypse, The Lone Gunman, an avenging superhero, fights off zombies as he searches for other survivors.

I read through the scripts for the entire first 18-webisode season in one sitting. I couldn’t put it down! Michael Winingham, the writer/director/producer did an amazing job of ending each 5-minute episode with a cliff-hangar, LOST-style.

I can’t wait to see what the show looks like! The first four webisodes are slated for release later this summer / early fall.

My job is to created a soundscape that perfectly captures this character and the world he inhabits. Something darkly heroic and a bit edgy.

In other news, the NYC performance of my operetta has been called off due to the director and a lead actress having to back out. It’s still on for next year, though, and I’ll be looking for performance opportunities here in L.A. in the meantime.

The sketch is nearly finished, and it’s coming together nicely. It certainly has character! I can’t wait to gauge an audience’s reaction.

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Heartbreak – When Collaborations Don’t Work Out

May 6, 2011

I’ve been working on the musical, “Another Time”, for about six months, and was close to having all the songs written.

When I started, I was told by the book writer that the original creator of the show (who wrote book, music, and lyrics) was no longer interested in the project and he (the book writer) was developing it.

I agreed to come aboard, evaluate the music that had been written, and determine what needed to be re-written. The original music was mediocre at best, not very well crafted, and the style wasn’t a good fit for the show. However, there was one salvageable number.

Fast forward six months.

When we got accepted into the 2011 West Village Musical Theater Festival (based on my music), the book writer notified the original creator of our progress. She got very upset that I had been re-writing her music. Now, all of a sudden, she wanted back into the project, insisting that some of her music be used.

So what could I do? She was the creator, and had NOT in fact, given full creative control to the book-writer.

Now, I found myself in the awkward position of being asked to re-write the music (again), and this time incorporate her original melodies.

That’s where I had to draw the line.

If I’m going to be a non-paid collaborator, and have my name attached to the show, it needs to be MY music, and I need to have authority over the musical aspect of the show.

Why would I take such a big risk, invest so much of my time, if I’m playing second-fiddle to a lesser composer? I’ll take a risk with MY music–but not someone else’s.

So… I’ve officially withdrawn from the collaboration, including every note of music I wrote for it.

It was a very painful, heartbreaking, but necessary step. I’ve learned a great deal from this experience, including…

  1. Make SURE you and/or your collaborator have COMPLETE artistic control over what you’re developing…
  2. Get a collaboration agreement IN WRITING before starting work.

Despite the heartbreak, it has been a good and positive experience over all. I’ve learned a great deal. I’ve developed more as a composer. I’ve discovered a love for musical theater. AND… it has led to other, greater opportunities…

Because of the music I wrote for “Another Time”, I’m collaborating on a 10-15 minute operetta, which will be performed in June. I’m also looking at some other very exciting and tantalizing possibilities for shows to get involved with as composer.

So all in all, I’d count it a win.

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