I have been working on the songs, but mostly I've been dealing with a new cold. This one has kept me exhausted for a full week, during my brief break between Summer and Fall semesters. I've decided to change the name of the Clara Kirkbride project to simply kirkBride, with the fancy capitalization.
For now, I'm going to continue anticipating an October release of 'Octopus Zoo', and give you a zipped up pre-release ep of sorts.. Probably do it friends-only, so it'll go to some irl friends, and any friends on My.Opera will be able to grab it as well. Curse or a blessing, that's how I share the love.
Here's the music I did for the short film The River's Edge.
The movie we did as part of the 48 Hour Film Project, as part of the Digital Media Program at AB Tech. Basically, people form groups, and on Friday night are assigned a prop, a character,a genre and a line of dialogue. They then have 48 hours to write, shoot, edit and score a short film. I post the movie here, and all the music I wrote for it. If you want just the stuff that's in the movie, then get River Scene and Driving Ditty. I'm doing this music under the name of Clara Kirkbride.. maybe I should go with Robert, or Douglas or something.
So, I'm trying to develop and design a website for Infinite Jellyroll and a promotional interactive flash site for Octopus Zoo. (these are school projects, as well) But now i'm faced, again, with a task I've always had trouble figuring out..
who is my target market? what sort of people would be into my music?
Work continues on the Vacant Sky Parlor album "Octopus Zoo". I'm just making tiny tweaks here and there now, because the music is pretty much done. All that remains is to record the vocals. The lyrics are written for all but one song, not considering the instrumental track. "Anchor Light" needs more work on the words, but I am extremely happy with the music. If I manage to get time to record vocals and get them mixed in, then this album will be done and released at the end of summer.
In other news, my "Intro to Audio/Video" class is participating in the 48 Hour Film Project this summer. Or more specifically, this weekend. I'll be doing the music and be involved in the audio/music side of post-production. I'm also going to be with the rest of our team working on other bits as well. It's going to be a long and busy weekend.. with me completing the final draft of a essay in the middle of it. The movies for the 48 hour film are to be up to 7 minutes long, so I figure that means maybe 2 - 12 little pieces of music for the thing, depending on what all the thing requires. Whatever happens, I'll offer up versions of the songs for download in a couple weeks.
Did work on more songs last night, and things are coming along nicely. I did a few things to "Lovely Day", and "Sunlight Shines" that I wanted to do. Unfortunately, in the process I ended up increasing the volume of the main snare drum a bit too much, so I need to return and bring that back to a more rational level. I believe the drums over all are a bit high, but it's the snare that's doing real damage. For "Sunlight Shines", it's pretty much done.. I just wanted to simplify the first chorus so that it wasn't at the same intensity as the next two choruses.
For "Vegetable Scream", there were a few small changes I wanted to make to the ending, and I did that. Mainly I wanted to take the last piano note out, and I did that.. as well as created some odd effects with other instruments in place of that note.
And also, in "Honey Lamb", I increased the overall volume and gave a bit more power to the track. It's still kind of weak in comparison to the others, but it's almost there. I don't want to do too much mastering work on it until the vocals are done though.
I'm glad I'm working on this again. It's going to be a busy summer semester, but I think I'll get this album done. Finally.
Hooray! Four months since the last time I worked on any of the Vacant Sky Parlor stuff, I have finally got around to putting some finishing touches on one of the Octopus Zoo songs. Circles is a slow song with some vocoder that probably won't be the most popular song, but one that I think has some interesting moments. At the end it has a neat sound that I got by banging on one of those toy "microphones" that has a spring inside.. it creates a terrible echo sound when used properly, but makes some cool spring noises when jostled and beaten.
Anyway, I'll get this song up on thy myspace page, and here.. soon.
I like the box.net widget that rich is using over at the Vinyl Lounge Hut so maybe I'll get one of those for over here. I'll figure out some decent way to share these songs that doesn't require people go to myspace.
Importing the video portion of a movie from a dvd into Adobe Premiere is blissfully simple.
You have to copy the .VOB file you want from the DVD to the hard drive, rename it to have a .MPG extension.. and then import it into Premiere. Today was the first time I'd ever even opened Premiere since getting it as part of one of the CS3 suites last year. It looks like there is a lot to it, but that it's fairly easy to use. There's going to be a lot of work, time and preparation involved in creating music for a film, but I think it'll be worthwhile.. that is if I can find the time.
Vacant Sky Parlor takes priority.. and school takes priority over that.
Last week, during the limited time I had to work on my final project for Digital Animation I, I had an unpleasant flu that made me very tired. It went away, but left me with some bronchitis that is still making me very tired. This is the one week I get between Spring and Summer semesters. I had hoped I would have this time to go out hiking with my son, and work on music. Eh well.
I have been thinking a lot lately about the synth film music that I've always wanted to do. I'm considering the possibility of taking some of an old horror film, stripping the audio from it and trying to create my own music to go with it. Curious how difficult it would be to rip a dvd and import it into Adobe Premiere.
Anyway, I'm going to finish Octopus Zoo over the summer.. just not this week, because even more so than usual, I can't sing with this bronchitis.
Violet Mongoose has been officially discontinued, but I have started a 3rd solo project in its place.
Sans-Serif Complex is my new noisy/minimal outlet, and I am planning out some stuff for it. It's intended to be low-maintenance stuff for me to have fun and produce something. It will probably annoy your family.
Vacant Sky Parlor, the electronic pop music project continues. I am slowly finishing up the second album, "Octopus Zoo". Working full time and going to school full time has brought progress to a crawl.
Clara Kirkbride, soundtrack for abandoned buildings and lost memories, continues. Things are formulating in my brain, but nothing is really laid out on paper. This is the one I hope to get some visual artists involved in.. and foresee some potential videos/cartoons etc.
Things are rolling along slowly with Octopus Zoo. About once a week, I get about an hour, at the most, to tweak things. Three songs still need work, most everything else is finished. Occasionally I get a bit of time to work on vacantskyparlor.com, which is nothing online right now.
In my head, ideas are being formed for Clara Kirkbride work. Hopefully have some music from that project by the end of the year.
Well I am trying to get a college group at the uni where I work and promo the cause in 5 towns. So I am mustering all the resources I can. I will promo the blog and add to it as well as my own stuff.
