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06.24.2008 - My Favorite Piece of The Night
So... I can not sleep. Which makes it a perfect time to blog.
While I was lying awake in my oven of a bed, it came to me that I really like this little bit of music I created, to tryout for a VW speck add, and how important it is for a career to do projects you can be passionate about. Creating music is hard work, and I never want it to feel like work. Usually it doesn't, but sometimes I'll take on projects that I don't not hate just for the work, and usually they end up with me standing over a picky director with a bloody face and a lack of consciousness waving my fist and yelling something like "WADDA YA MEAN YOU DON'T LIKE THE BANJO? DON'T YOU KNOW WHERE BANJOS COME FROM? EAT THE BANJO! EAT IT!" Or at least, thinking it. Neither of which is extremely professional.
06.21.2008 - My Friend Jeff is Hillarious
06.20.2008 -
Ive been composing for a film that I may or may not put a little harp in. So I've been studying different angles, and I've got to say; Harpo Marx plays a bitchin harp! (Chico ain't bad on them keys niether)06.19.2008 -
I love the way those old scores sound in classic movies. In many cases they would considered far too busy and distracting for films today, but there is something so, romantic I guess, about those less than hi fi recordings of ribbon-esque theme barring violins.06.18.2008 -
It is time! Time to let everyone in on the CARTOON I'm working on! I am very excited and proud to start showing this stuff off, because it is so freaky awesome. Check it out! (click on "cartoon")06.14.2008 -
Why are recorders so often found and associated with elementary school music time instruments? Those things are hard to play! Getting the breathing right alone is a feat. Give me a sparkley plastic tambourine any second grade day of the week. (I was actually home schooled that grade)05.27.2008 -
This is some tryout music for a really cool cartoon I'm a part of. I hope to blog about it a lot some day, but for now I can only give you bits of bits. This one was received well by all, but we decided it was too Peanuts-ish(not that I could even come close to Vince Guaraldi).
05.25.2008 -
05.21.2008 - La Chevelure
This Friday, at the Harris Fine Art Center, is the screening of La Chevelure. A Film about an antiques enthusiast, who gets more than he bargained for, when he finds a beautiful lock of a womans hair in a secret compartment of the dresser he bought. Innocent as it may seem, the hair slowly drives him mad, and isolates him from his friends. Alla Volkova directs. Music by me (samples below). If you need something to look at while you listen, may I suggest these pictures of an abandoned Japanese amusement park.
Engouement
Running Home (turn this one up)
Cachette
Beau Cheveux
Dreams of A Ghost
Madness
The Antique Shop
05.18.2008 -
I apologize to anyone who cares enough about my blog to wonder why I haven't posted for the last two weeks. The New York trip threw me off my rhythm. But I'm back now, and promise to be more astute about blogging.In this post I will share some of the goings on of the trip to NY, and the One Show award ceremony.
The flight there was about five hours, but it felt short thanks to the talkative woman seated next to me. She was heading to Italy from Lake Tahoe, which is very close to where I'm from. Giving us lots to talk about.
The taxi ride from JFK to Manhattan cost sixty dollars, and the cab driver explained to us (myself and Cole) how the Jews are going to rig the election so that John McCain will win. Welcome to New York. Later that night while at dinner at the Shake Shack, Cole and I retold the story of the anti Semite cab driver to our table of friends, who thought it a hilarious anecdote until we noticed the rest of the park fall silent. It may have been just our imaginations. Maybe everyone ran out of conversation at the same time, but we did feel sheepish. Until we realized how funny it was.
Anyway, we made it back to our hotel with our skin intact, and had a great time watching late night TV, and trying to decide which of us, me, Cole ,or Jeremy Ames, were going to share a bed (me and Cole).
Tuesday, the next morning, while Cole went to an interview at some big studio, Jeremy and I went to the MoMa, which was closed. So we went next door the the American Folk Art Museum and took a tour of the Asa Ames exhibit, which was incredible. And some other amazing stuff too. We think Jeremy may be related to Asa, but who knows?
That night was the award ceremony. Earlier we had got to talking, and realized that none of us knew for sure that we were getting an award, which made it all the more fun when we actually did.
Here is Jeremy, Cole, and me, looking at exhibits from some hopefuls.
Playing our video during the ceremony.
Hailing a cab with our Pencil Award.
These weren't displays, they were just the wall outside the Museum where the award show was held.
Close up of the Pencil Award.Wednesday morning I went to Bryant Park where my cousin Jaron bought me lunch , a first in what was to be a long generous line of buying me food, and gave me directions to his apartment in the East Village. He let me stay there for the rest of the week. He is a very fun and funny person.
Any way the rest of the week we did a lot of walking and subway riding. I went to a Doctor Dog show with Jaron, then he took me to the sandwich shop from When Harry Met Sally, we also killed three mice in his apartment (they were eating the chocolate in my One Show gift bag) he hasn't found any since. Good times.
Cole went to a lot more studios, and got some great advice from a few of them. I got all my demos passed out to different media peoples. Cole and I finally got to the MoMa, I got a souvenir for Nigel. So all in all it was a fun and successful trip. We even made our flight on time (which we did not do on our flight to NY) thanks to our devil may care taxi driver. Who only blatantly broke the law about a dozen times and nearly killed us only half that. It was worth it.
Thanks to everyone who hung out with us. Thanks to Jaron for putting me up. Thanks to Jeremy for taking me museuming. And a huge thanks to Linda Sullivan for making it all happen! You rule.
04.30.2008 - Pencil Award
I was over at my good friends the Sullivan's house Monday night working on some song writing techniques with Mia and watching the trailers for a movie Brian shot, and while hanging out on the porch with Linda we started talking about how much clout the Typophile project has been getting lately.Linda is one of the heads of the graphic design department at the BYU, and the project was somewhat of an assignment from her. She mentioned that the piece had won two awards, and seems to be all aver the internet. I told her that I was well aware, and attributed the internet success to Jon Canlas putting the You Tube video on his very highly viewed blog. I'm aware of its professional success because Cole is skipping out on our current project (for a whole week) to go to New York to accept one of the awards.
"Oh Micah, you should be going to New York too", said Linda.
"I know right? I'd love to, that would be so cool", I said.
"No. I mean it, you really should go."
"Yeah, I know. I wish I could."
"I'll have BYU buy you a ticket.?
?What? Really??
?Sure, we should have thought of this before. I?ll email you your itinerary.?
Then there was a bunch of whooping and jumping around in celebration. But it gets better. This morning I called my cousin Jaron who lives in Manhattan, to see if he?d let me stay at his place after the seventh, since we won?t have our hotel anymore. He?s letting me, but the point of telling you this is the fun dialog that followed.
Jaron, ?What are you coming out for??
Me, ?We won an award for the Typophile video.?
Jaron, ?Oh yeah? Which one??
Me, ?I don?t know?, (off the phone) ?hey Cole, what is the name of this thing we?re going to??
Cole, ?The One show??
Me, into the phone, ?The One show.?
Jaron, ?You won a Pencil???
Me, ?Is that an award??
Jaron, ?You guys won a Pencil??
Me, ?Is that good??
Jaron, ?That is VERY good.?
Me, ?Wow, I had no idea.?
Jaron, ?Can I borrow it sometime??
Me, ?Sure.?
Jaron, ?I just want to take it into a job interview (he works for an advertising firm)? be like ?you guys got any place I could set this?? ? (Jaron is very funny.)
Me, ?Any time. I don?t think I actually get to have it, but I?ll be sure to get a picture with it. Maybe get a replica made......"
Any way, we are all now very excited.
04.27.2008 - Nice
04.24.2008 - Lost Parties, and Picnics
I'd just like to take this time to say how much I love all my friends and family, who are also my friends. So I'm dedicating this piece to you, even though it has nothing to do with friends or family. I wrote it for a documentary I'm working on, that I'll blog more about later. This is called George Washington.
04.22.2008 - Show
This was one of the early ideas for the Typophile project. I sketched out a lot of ditties before nailing down the tune that we could all get behind, and would eventually evolve into the the final product, like everything, but this one is one of my favorites so I thought I'd share it. I used pretty much the same instruments as the post from yesterday, surprisingly. Also it may seem like a studied and classically trained opera singer sweeping in toward the end there, but nope. That is actually me. I know right? You'd never know. Fools me sometimes.
04.21.2008 - I Over the Oceans Go
These are the instruments I used to make this song happen. Casio's Casiotone CT-310, my trusty Fender DG-7, and The Redrum application in Reason comes in later. Also I guess my voice and Protools too. I just thought I'd mention because I found great pics of all of them on the internet!
04.18.2008 - Adventures in Music for Motion Pictures
These are pieces of one very long piece I did for a Pilates workout video (see example below). If you'd like to hear the whole thing, do some reps or something, click here.
04.17.2008 - Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba
This song was written for the closing credits for a film, but we ended up not using it, in favor of something bigger and more orchestral. So this is rough and not mastered. Also the lyrics are still scratch (to be written later) since we went in a different direction. So you may notice the Candy Land bit, and the opening line is stolen too, but I can't remember what it's from. If you do (Dann) let me know. Also I'm testing out a new player so I hope it works. If not I've got the hyper link.
04.16.2008 - Olympic Tourch Runner
This little gem was composed for a branding video for a company called Synopsys. Cole Webley directed it for the production company Kineto. You can see the video here just click on "branding" then "The Challenge".
04.15.2008 - Ouch. Take that Basia.
Look what this old honey dripper wrote about me. What an admirable, amazing, astonishing, astounding, awe-inspiring, awesome, brilliant, cool, dynamite, excellent, extraordinary, fabulous, fantastic, groovy, incredible, magnificent, marvelous, miraculous, outstanding, peachy, phenomenal, pleasant, remarkable, sensational, something else, staggering, startling, stupendous, super, superb, surprising, swell, terrific, too much, tremendous, unheard-of, wondrous, best ever, cat's pajamas, choice, commendable, copacetic, crackerjack, doozie, exquisite, gnarly, great, hunky dory, keen, smashing, solid, spiffy, super-duper, wonderful guy. Thanks Jacob Hoehne."Micah is a musical genius. He reworked an out-of-date and lame song and turned it into something really current and catchy. It was exactly what the video required. Micah has also composed several tracks from scratch for our film. He's great to work with and easy going. I highly recommend his work."
Service Category: Music composer
Year first hired: 2007 (hired more than once)
Top Qualities: Great Results, Personable, Creative
I'm blushing.
04.07.2008 - R.E.M.
Last night I dreamt that I hung out with R.E.M for about a week. Mike Mills didn't come around too often but Michel and Peter went with me wherever I would go. When I woke up this morning and saw their picture on the apple home page it felt weird that I didn't really know them. I felt so used to being around Michel's bald head, and Pete's moodiness. I wonder if they dreamt about me. They're really cool guys in dream life.01.27.2008 - Speechless
Speechless, is a short film about a man who gets gum thrown in his hair and pants at a football game. Because of his crippling shyness he can never find the right words for a good comeback, though he does does obsess over slights, and records would be comebacks in his notepad. On this occasion he feels so wronged that he decides to track down the boy responsible and give him the tongue lashing coming to him. a Brigham Young University TMA 285 Project. The music I wrote for this film was inpiered by a song my brother wrote about a vampire.
01.27.2008 - Blind Faith
Blind Faith is about a Newly-ish-wed man named Kerry, and who we think is a blind guy, named Isaac. Kerry doesn't believe Isaac is blind. He sets out to prove he's not, and hilarity ensues. Garrett Batty Directs.
Doing the music for this was fun, despite the stressfully short deadline, especially that I got the chance to go very orchestral. Though I think to get it into festival they had to trim the time down a lot. This turned out bad for me in that the music doesn't work for me with some scenes like it had before since I composed to action that is no longer there (they cut after the music was done). But time was short, and I understand making hard decisions in a crunch. All in all it turned out good, and my mother told me she really liked it so that's that!
01.27.2008 - Bonjour Danny Bonjour
Bonjour Danny Bonjour is one of my favorite movies I've worked on. It won yet another award last weekend, its fourth I think, this time it won Audience Choice at the lds Film Festival in Orem Utah. Brett, the director, came out to Utah to present it and sell a few copies at the festival. We got to hang out for a bit afterward. What a cool guy he is. It was a lot of fun at the festival. JR, who plays Danny in the film, was selling DVDs of Bonjour like a 19th Century snake oil show. And with success!
Very funny.
The sound is a bit messed up on these, I've tried many different things, but now it seems that you tube keeps showing the original up load instead of the new attempts. I'll put better versions of everything up once I figure it out.
11.09.2007 - More Feul TV
10.30.2007 - Fary Tale Forest Battle Music
Click on picture... hear the music!
