why do i agree to score these crappy films that give me no creative inspiration and give me nothing to put on my reel and i’m not particularly proud to put my name on?
…
…….
………..
…money.
.____.
Things are looking up.
Got an appointment with a therapist who seems really cool to try to get my anxiety under control, am liking work again, got a fun weekend planned, mom has stopped calling me every 2 seconds to make sure I’m doing alright, I got some of my birthday money already, and I’m making mac and cheese right now.
The amount of hassle it is taking to find a doctor to treat my anxiety is giving me anxiety. ‘MURICA!
Man I think I have to break up with the boy I’ve been seeing and it’s going to be really hard. I’m going to do it tonight I think. If anyone has music suggestions to listen to before I do the deed (to make me feel brave and such) please suggest away!
tonight’s plans: gin and garage rock and cleaning
i am oddly excited for this.
So for the past 2 days I hadn’t left my apartment or eaten much of anything due to anxiety. But that is not the point of this post. The point is I’m fine now and here is a list of everything I’ve consumed in the past few hours to make up for 2 days of not eating.
MAC AND CHEESE
HALF A BAG OF CHOCOLATE CHIPS
GRILLED CHEESE
A BAKED POTATO (WITH CHEESE)
FAKE CHICKEN NUGGETS
A SMOOTHIE
SHERBET
PITA CHIPS AND HUMMUS
And now I’m considering making pancakes.
NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM
:)
Well shit.
I’ve lived in Chicago for a month and already I feel like I need to be somewhere else.
Specifically, Los Angeles.
I just am not seeing my career grow at a rate I would like it to here in Chicago. I still want to pursue this film scoring thing and I’m not sure that this is the best place to do it anymore.
I had thought I’d stay in Chicago for awhile and build my resume, meet people, etc. But I’m realizing it may be hard to even do that here.
I dunno, the idea of packing up and leaving my family and friends really scares me. But maybe it’s just something I have to do.
I am going to see Jurassic park in IMAX 3D for a date with a very dashing young gentleman YOU GUYS I AM SO EXCITED
Ever feel like you ruin everything you touch?
So, let me tell you about the project I am currently working on.
It’s about a NPO that build schools in Uganda. There are lots of cute African children. Cool.
The thing is, the sound is awful. It’s basically a series of interviews, and each of the interviewees’ voices are at completely different volume levels. Some have awful noise in the background. It’s past the point where audio editing can help much. These people are already hard to understand, and the filmmakers want me to put music under it.
So I went a super minimalist route. A few piano blips, some synth pads. The last thing I want is the music competing with the voices.
And of course they didn’t like it. They want more! Something more energetic, more upbeat! I’m trying, but I can’t do anything more without competing with the voices. It’s going to make them hard to understand. It is physically impossible to avoid. And that is going to make me look like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. If the music overshadows the dialogue, that makes the composer look bad.
I’m going to finish this project, but I’ve decided that from now on, I’m going to be pickier about the projects I agree to do. And if I had been going by my new standards, I would have never agreed to score this film.
Does that make me snobby? Like, I know they were in Uganda in the middle of construction and everything so getting good quality sound was probably really difficult. And I’m wondering if maybe I’m thinking I deserve to work on better projects than I actually do, like I’m not quite a professional yet so maybe I should take on some more iffy projects before I can get any awesome ones. Like, these filmmakers went to the same school as me and are around my age so they’re really the ones I should be focusing on working with right now, right?
I guess my problem is, I don’t really know how good I am. Am I still an amateur? Semi-professional? Professional? I feel like I’m better at film composing than a lot of the directors I’ve worked with are at filmmaking, but maybe I just think too highly of myself. I’m definitely at the point where I can start saying no to some projects, but I’m not sure how picky I should be. I’m just a bit conflicted as to what kind of standards I should hold the films I agree to do music for up to. What do you guys think?