Catching Up
So yeah, I've been a little absent. My bad. In my defense, I'm filling basically every minute of the day lately.
Gwen, the producer of Gameheads, pushed up my shooting schedule such that I could wrap everything up before leaving for San Francisco (oo, foreshadowing!). I haven't heard anything for a few weeks, largely because I've been too busy to proactively find out, but I assume that they've wrapped up the rest of the filming by now and are hard at work in post-production. In addition to the acting role, I got a Fight Choreography credit. Awesome. I'm also under the impression that I'm going to be contributing some or all of the music, which would be cool. More on that later.
As foreshadowed, D. and I went to Northern California in late July, to spend several days with my parents in the SanFran area. We roamed Napa Valley the first day and a half, visiting winery after winery. D scored us a VIP tour of the Quintessa facilities, which were very cool. I couldn't begin to tell you everywhere we went, so I won't try. After that, we went up through Sonoma and wound up in Glen Ellen; I was unfortunately ill that evening - in fact, I stayed a bit ill the whole trip, but I had a great time. We wrapped that up with a drive down the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping at Point Reyes (supposedly the furthest west you can get on the continental US) before heading into SF itself for two days. Liked SF a lot, but they had a heat wave going on, and being the temperate area that it is, it seemed like very few places had air conditioning, so dinner the last night was a bit unbearably hot. We wandered all over SF on Saturday via one-day cable car passes, and saw a lot of great stuff. I do wish I'd had time to get to Alcatraz; maybe next time. Anyway, I took lots of pictures.
So one day at work, I was browsing the iTunes of Jeff, and noticed he had the entire Diablo 2 soundtrack. I remembered liking the music, so I decided to listen to it while I coded some GUI thing or another. I had forgotten just how good it really was, and I've been kind of obsessed with the composer Matt Uelmen since. I also decided it was high time I broke free of my punk chains and expanded my horizons a little, so I've been writing a lot of scorish and classical stuff lately. After mentioning this to Gwen, she offered to have me do music for the movie, which I jumped at. That probably won't be orchestral in nature - it's just not that sort of movie. I don't expect it will need a lot, being so dialogue heavy, but I won't know until I see it all assembled. I'm also thinking about picking up a couple of projects from Craigslist or somewhere, since there are always indie filmmakers out there who want someone to score their stuff for free. Pretty exciting stuff. I've never tried composing for a full orchestra before, and it's fun. Learning a lot.
So that brings you up to date, where I am currently sitting in a hotel room in Austin on a borrowed laptop on the run from the law. In case you didn't hear, BioWare was the first company to license HeroEngine from us, which of course has produced a great deal of scrambling all over the place. Other companies are scrambling to set up appointments with us, which is awesome. We're scrambling to hire a few more people and keep up with a crazed production schedule. I'm scrambling to rewrite most of our interface stuff and produce a day-long training presentation on a few days' notice. That and the music is where I've been, so now you know. I lived at the office last week, going home for a few hours of sleep at a time, and when I ran out of that, I worked on the training stuff on the plane with a pen. Never let it be said that I have no work ethic...now, that is. It sucked up until a few years ago.
Also, the BioWare people are all awesome. Chris and I have been asked to stay an extra day to finish up some training and help them get on their programmin' feet. And that's why you're always supposed to pack for one day past what you'll need.
Also also, I finally broke down and bought myself a little 1GB MP3 player the day we flew out. Love it. Not an iPod. Never an iPod.
Currently listening to: "Kultaansa Kuuleva", Loituma
Gwen, the producer of Gameheads, pushed up my shooting schedule such that I could wrap everything up before leaving for San Francisco (oo, foreshadowing!). I haven't heard anything for a few weeks, largely because I've been too busy to proactively find out, but I assume that they've wrapped up the rest of the filming by now and are hard at work in post-production. In addition to the acting role, I got a Fight Choreography credit. Awesome. I'm also under the impression that I'm going to be contributing some or all of the music, which would be cool. More on that later.
As foreshadowed, D. and I went to Northern California in late July, to spend several days with my parents in the SanFran area. We roamed Napa Valley the first day and a half, visiting winery after winery. D scored us a VIP tour of the Quintessa facilities, which were very cool. I couldn't begin to tell you everywhere we went, so I won't try. After that, we went up through Sonoma and wound up in Glen Ellen; I was unfortunately ill that evening - in fact, I stayed a bit ill the whole trip, but I had a great time. We wrapped that up with a drive down the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping at Point Reyes (supposedly the furthest west you can get on the continental US) before heading into SF itself for two days. Liked SF a lot, but they had a heat wave going on, and being the temperate area that it is, it seemed like very few places had air conditioning, so dinner the last night was a bit unbearably hot. We wandered all over SF on Saturday via one-day cable car passes, and saw a lot of great stuff. I do wish I'd had time to get to Alcatraz; maybe next time. Anyway, I took lots of pictures.
So one day at work, I was browsing the iTunes of Jeff, and noticed he had the entire Diablo 2 soundtrack. I remembered liking the music, so I decided to listen to it while I coded some GUI thing or another. I had forgotten just how good it really was, and I've been kind of obsessed with the composer Matt Uelmen since. I also decided it was high time I broke free of my punk chains and expanded my horizons a little, so I've been writing a lot of scorish and classical stuff lately. After mentioning this to Gwen, she offered to have me do music for the movie, which I jumped at. That probably won't be orchestral in nature - it's just not that sort of movie. I don't expect it will need a lot, being so dialogue heavy, but I won't know until I see it all assembled. I'm also thinking about picking up a couple of projects from Craigslist or somewhere, since there are always indie filmmakers out there who want someone to score their stuff for free. Pretty exciting stuff. I've never tried composing for a full orchestra before, and it's fun. Learning a lot.
So that brings you up to date, where I am currently sitting in a hotel room in Austin on a borrowed laptop on the run from the law. In case you didn't hear, BioWare was the first company to license HeroEngine from us, which of course has produced a great deal of scrambling all over the place. Other companies are scrambling to set up appointments with us, which is awesome. We're scrambling to hire a few more people and keep up with a crazed production schedule. I'm scrambling to rewrite most of our interface stuff and produce a day-long training presentation on a few days' notice. That and the music is where I've been, so now you know. I lived at the office last week, going home for a few hours of sleep at a time, and when I ran out of that, I worked on the training stuff on the plane with a pen. Never let it be said that I have no work ethic...now, that is. It sucked up until a few years ago.
Also, the BioWare people are all awesome. Chris and I have been asked to stay an extra day to finish up some training and help them get on their programmin' feet. And that's why you're always supposed to pack for one day past what you'll need.
Also also, I finally broke down and bought myself a little 1GB MP3 player the day we flew out. Love it. Not an iPod. Never an iPod.
Currently listening to: "Kultaansa Kuuleva", Loituma
6 Comments:
"Gimme a pour!" Ha, ha...I know - shut up already.
Filming is down to a trickle, but it still continues. Most everything is in the can, and a trailer awaits sound effects and narration. Hopefully, a "wrap party" will be scheduled soon.
Glad you're not COMPLETELY working yourself to death.
Please pass greetings along to your folks...
Hey... in our defense, it was a freak heat wave! How come you didn't include the shot of your pasty white body with the lobster red suntan? Great photos! Good detail, nice arrangement, and fabulously realistic colors! Come back again some time when we can show you around right proper!
Well, well, well. A work ethic does emerge. I must say that I am very impressed. And jealous of the trip to Cali. Hope you and D are well. Let me know when you will be in the clevevegas area. Would love to see you two again!
I've seen parts of Crash's body lobster red before. It's not pretty.
Not related to any of this, but I'll have you know that I can't stop listening to "Miami" and it's all your fault. :(
Um, the Against Me! song. Not Will Smith. Never Will Smith.
Aaron you slacker! Time for an update. Don't bother reading mine, they're just self-expunging rants lately.
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