Let there be music!

Quite a bit has happened since I last posted.

The film is now edited into a roughcut with a 9 minute runtime. The sound tracks have been handed over to Mike Dollar who will be performing all the sound editing, remastering and audio wizardry. Mike's an interesting guy with a widely varied background that ranges from psychologist to musician to sound engineer to civil war buff. He came highly recommended from a voice actor friend of mine, John Guertin.

And lastly, but definitely not leastly is the arrival of a score composer to help bring this project to life!  

Last week, Mojave Bird (the stage name of Grace Peters, a Portland based singer/songwriter/musician) joined the small monster,me team. Grace was the keyboardist in the southern California bands "Fairview" and "Kiev" before moving to Portland and creating her solo project "Mojave Bird." Her music has an ethereal and, at times, hypnotic quality to it.  It also has the feel that I've been imagining all along, which I can only think to describe as "hopeful melancholy." Please follow the link above and check out the sample songs on her website. I think you'll see what I'm trying to describe.

( Grace Peters )

It was an odd and unexpected set of circumstances and synergy that brought Grace onboard.  I had approached the recording artist Petracovich, who I've been a longtime fan of, to see if she would be interested in composing a score for monster,me. She was interested, but she was also 8 months pregnant, which made our timing less than ideal. So when she decided she'd be unable to work on the film, she suggested that I talk to her sister who is also a "very talented" musician.  

I listened to the song samples that Jessica (Petracovich) directed me to. Turned out that Grace's music, like Jessica's, had all the qualities I was looking for in a soundtrack for the film. A few emails and phone calls later and Mojave Bird became the composer for monster,me.

Grace has already written/recorded the theme that opens with the first few scenes of the movie and I can't wait to hear where she is going to take this.  Beautiful work.

So, many thanks to Mike Dollar for taking on the role of sound-man for the movie. And many thanks to Petracovich (who I hope to have the opportunity to work with someday on another project) for suggesting Mojave Bird for this film, and many many thanks to Grace for lending her talents to the soundtrack!  I couldn't be happier to have her on board.

( In Grace's Portland studio )