Just a Nice Guy: Miniseries

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrnK-qPARYI

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGeWGvDHTA

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5lJL2peXik

Watch the series on Youtube:

Part 1: The Problem Part 2: The Lesson Part 3: The Risk

I met Philip Wang at the VC Asian American Filmfest in LA. I was totally psyched about meeting him, having seen his hilarious short film, Yellow Fever, which has gotten over a million hits on the internet.

Philip asked me to score his new short, called “JUST A NICE GUY.” It’s a 3-part miniseries that takes a funny look at why girls look past nice guys for dating potential. I definitely connected with the subject material, I was a former uber nice guy.

I collaborated with an awesome singer-songwriter friend of mine, Bo Han, who is a fantastic guitarist. He’s an amazing musician and has a great ear. I laid out the chords and how the music lines up with the movie ahead of time. Bo then came to my studio and improvised all these amazing guitar licks. I was just blown away by how quickly he comes up with ideas.

Check out Bo’s myspace page

http://www.myspace.com/bohanmusic

There's one portion that I ended up recording on guitar, it's the romantic theme for the Amy character. I had come up with that particular voicing and style that both Phil (the director) and Bo thought I should play the part, since I had the feel of it down already. My shoddy guitar playing doesn’t come close to Bo’s awesome technique, but I went ahead and did it and it came out ok. Though I’m very critical of my own playing, and wish it was better. After I laid down the rhythm guitar track, Bo improvised the melodic part over my chords.

For episodes 2 & 3, Phil reused the music from the first episode in the recap sequences, and it fit perfectly, and gives the whole series a nice continuity. For the final scene in episode 3, Phil needed some emotional music that started off somber and transitions into the “happy ending.” So I sat down at the keyboard and improvised a piano solo, I literally spent 5 minutes on it and sent an mp3 to Phil to get his thoughts. He asked for very subtle changes, so I took what I improvised and reworked it to fit the scene better and recorded my playing on the keyboard (so much easier than playing guitar for me). And that’s what you hear in the final product.

Click here to listen to the entire score suite