The Holidays and Upcoming Films

The Thanksgiving holiday weekend is approaching an end, and I feel like I need to drag myself out of a lazy stupor. Fortunately I finished recording and mixing my latest score about a week ago, and was able to enjoy the holiday and take some much needed time to relax, veg, watch some movies, play video games, and spend time with friends and family.

I really needed a little time off to recharge myself, I'd been feeling burned out from composing non-stop since May, I've written over 2 hours of music in the last 6 months for a variety of projects. The most recent is a Chinese film entitled SAILFISH, was shot in Beijing and is being released by Warner Brothers China next year.

I'll let you in on some frustration of being a struggling artist. I'm waiting to be paid for SAILFISH, and I really hoping to get the money by Dec. 1st just so I can pay my rent. It's one of the things that's been difficult with working on a production from China, it just takes a lot of patience to get things sent back and forth. Even with the ease of sending messages and files over the internet, I've dealt with problems in differing software, incompatible file formats, and the actual wait of having physical things sent over. At one point I got notes from producers and it was all in Chinese, I had to wait a few days to get a translated version, and even then it was hard to decipher the notes through the bad grammar in the translation. I've had some similar difficulties doing a movie shot in Mexico, but fortunately the directors I've worked with have been fantastic collaborators as well as good friends, and some of my proudest work has been on foreign films.

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The two leads in SAILFISH.

I'm told some of the actors in SAILFISH are pretty big stars in China. I'm not familiar enough with Chinese cinema to know how famous these actors are, but their performances are fantastic. i barely understand Mandarin (My Chinese is at a level of that of a 5 year old), but I was able to understand the emotions and actions of the scenes just from their body language and tone of voice.

SAILFISH is a heart warming and romantic movie about a boy growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution who dreams of becoming a champion swimmer. And it is one of the most beautiful and thematically driven orchestral scores I've ever written. Some of my favorite melodies that I've ever written are in this film. You can listen to a suite of themes on my myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/maestrosc

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Still from Victim.

VICTIM is another film that I scored over the summer. It's a really dark, sick and twisted horror/psychological thriller co-directed by my talented friend Matt Eskandari. It is the most dark, unusual, and experimental score I have ever written, it couldn't be more different from SAILFISH.

Here's an mp3 of a suite from VICTIM: VICTIM Suite

Matt has already shot his next film, THE GAUNTLET, which from a few behind the scenes photos that I've seen, looks wicked cool! It stars Bai Ling and Dustin Nguyen, and it's about six strangers who wake up in a sunken castle with no memory. I can't wait to see it!

A bloodied Bai Ling from THE GAUNTLET. Cast from THE GAUNTLET.

More GAUNTLET stills here: http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/10261

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There was another feature film that I scored over the summer, but the score I wrote got thrown out. It's a common occurrence that has happened to all the biggest composers in Hollywood, so despite a little disappointment, I'm not terribly upset. Personally I'm very proud of the music I've written for this project, and hope to one day release an album so it doesn't just sit on a shelf collecting dust. But for now, take a listen to the main theme:

Shaolin Story

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Also, last month i was nominated for 3 Film and TV Music Awards. I didn't win anything, but that's not a big surprise as I'm probably the youngest person that even got nominated, and am still working to become more established. Of ones that did win in two of the categories I was nominated for, one was an Oscar nominated short film scored by one of my favorite composers, and the other had some name actors and was scored by a mentor of mine who is very talented and much more established than I am.

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Anyways, thanks for reading this really long blog...I have trouble sleeping sometimes, so I've spent some really late hours writing this (it's now 7am, and I think I started around 4 or 5 am. I was really just trying to procrastinate from composing).