NEW LIVESTREAM - Hollywood Film Music Vlog DAY 1
Welcome everyone! In this series, I'll discuss some ideas and projects I've been working on as well as things to come regarding the Hollywood film music and orchestration space. Today's post touches on the privilege of working in Hollywood film music, the difficulties of NDA's, and some of my recent work as a copyist on Nine Perfect Strangers (Hulu) with Marco Beltrami.
Thought I would share some ideas about the Hollywood film music stuff I'm up to. I've been working on creating a series of materials for people who work in Hollywood or who want to pursue Hollywood film music. I'd love to explore how our work differs substantially from the more academic, classical orchestra traditions. So maybe I can create a "Quick Tips" series or some videos for you all. What would you like to see? Originally, I was thinking I could just write a blog post here and there, but I know there's tons of information out there already about film music and orchestration. So I thought I'd put together a collection of videos and writings musing on what I've learned on my own musical journey so far.
HOLLYWOOD OPPORTUNITIES
I've been fortunate to have had lots of opportunities here, working with some of the best players in Hollywood, and wanted to see what I could do to create a resource for people who might not have had those opportunities. I'd like to pass some of this knowledge along so that others can learn like the tricks of the trade and what we do here in the studios that are different than what a classical orchestra might do in a concert setting.
I hopped on and just wanted to throw that out there and see if there's any interest. If any of you guys want to learn kind of what I do day in, day out as a "Hollywood artist". I don't know why I put that in quotes. I am. It's just kind of always weird when I say it, having lived here for years now and working in the industry. To think that I'm one of those like Hollywood types, Hollywood musicians...
Anywho, I want to share my story and share some of the knowledge gained and experiences I've had working in the film music industry. If you think this may appeal to others too, kindly share this with a friend. Also feel free to message me or comment down below what you'd like to learn more about. It can be anything from writing music for film or creating a MIDI mockup - making your computer sound like an orchestra - or translating that into sheet music to put in front of live players. What to do, what not to do, etc.
WHAT NOT TO DO - NDAs
For example, you definitely do NOT want to violate an NDA. People will ask, "Well, what are you working on right now?" And the majority of projects that you work on in Hollywood are under NDA, which stands for a non-disclosure agreement, which means that you're not legally allowed to talk about the project because it hasn't been released yet. So what makes it difficult is to say, "Oh, I'm super busy doing all these really cool things I can't tell you about." And that gets really annoying because you want to talk about all these cool, exciting things. You're working with these incredible teams of people on these big films and these projects, and you can't say anything for months or even years. Yes, it's a very privileged position to be in and I'm very grateful for these opportunities. But it is kind of a struggle to have to keep so much of your work hidden from the people you live with and work with.
So when people ask me "Hey Kyle, what are you working on right now?" I can't answer that question. I have to pivot to answering the question "What did you just finish working on?" because that's (legally) all I'm allowed to share. That's now public, but remember that anything you see that's public and released is potentially six months to a year old. Especially with the 2020 mess and all that stuff we went through. There are a lot of projects put on hold, a lot of things that went up in the air. A lot of things that you're gonna see coming out from me in 2022 are things I worked on months ago or years ago that are just finally now seeing the light of day. I wasn't allowed to talk about these projects because they "don't exist yet". And listen, I'm not angry about it. It's just difficult to not be able to talk about those kinds of things. When you're working on something consistently every single day, it can feel like you're spinning your wheels and not making progress simply because you're not allowed to share it.
NINE PERFECT STRANGERS (Hulu)
So one of those fun projects, for example, was Nine Perfect Strangers on Hulu. I got to help out Marco Beltrami and his team with the creation of the sheet music for the show. The project allowed me to work with orchestrators at a very high level of musicianship. And going to a string recording session with Marco Beltrami? Iconic. That's one of the highlights of my career so far. So now that the show is out and all the credits are out - you can look it up on IMDB - that's something that's definitely fun to be able to talk about now. But for that gig, I basically received a call from a friend (that's usually how these things go, personal networks are key). I received a call from a friend who's out of town and couldn't work on it and wanted me to help print and collate the sheet music and tape a thousand pieces of paper together. I really don't think I'm exaggerating that number. It's usually several hundred pieces of sheet music because you're going through all the cues for multiple musicians and we're literally taping them together by hand in a very specific way. The goal is to put that sheet music in front of the live players at the session for them to record. Nine Perfect Strangers is that weird Nicole Kidman show, if you haven't seen it on Hulu check it out. Definitely not safe for work, probably not something you wanna watch with your family if you have young kids, but very trippy and very interesting music by Marco Beltrami.
CELESTIAL - A New Fantasy Orchestral Album
As if there wasn't enough on my plate already, I have an album coming out! It's called Celestial, it's all original orchestral music. I got bored in 2020 - as I think many of us did - and I didn't have much to do so I said to myself, "I'm just gonna write music just for the sake of it." So I did! I figured at the very least, I can learn more about my composition process, the orchestration process, working with other musicians, writing for live players who would record remotely. And I just took that on. There's a cool saying I heard recently, "If opportunity that doesn't knock, build a door!" With the lack of projects available in 2020, I felt driven to make my own opportunity with this album. If you don't currently have a gig or a project to work on, make one up! Just do something. Just make something. And then people will come to you because they're never experienced anything quite like your work before.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
So these are the kind of projects that I'm working on day in, day out, and beyond the music I write, I'd also love to create some kind of educational resources to answer questions for anyone who wants to pursue film music: what skills they need to develop, what tips and tricks and traditions they need to know about in the film music industry, the game music industry, and how the studio world differs from academia what they've learned about classical music composition. Check out more of my work at the links below, and feel free to get in touch anytime.
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