Chashama Film Festival

Just a quick post as you may remember that October of last year, we were accepted into the Chashama Film Festival, and we drove to New York to represent the film.

Chashama is up and running again this year, if you go to the “About” page under comments, you will find all of the info, or simply click here for all of the film info.

Again, our thanks to everyone at Chashama for the wonderful time last year, and we hope you guys have a great turnout this year.

 

 

Mixing and Madness!

Yes, it has been over 6 months since the last post.  Time flies when you are having fun!  Or losing your mind, whichever.

There is a finalized version of the artwork from “Ravana’s Game”, only slightly different from the one below, so I am going to wait on unveiling that for now.

The score is finished, approved, and Tomás is now in the mixing stage.  The sound mixer, Drew Canulette, is busy working on his end, and Tomás is in the first stage of mixing the music.  The first two reels are being a bit snappish, as David Eblen, the director, was not clear on what he wanted, and he and Tomás ran through many different styles of music.  I would venture to say that this film did not really settle in until Reel 3 – it has been a long, bumpy road, but the end is near, and everybody seems happy.

The mixing process of the first two reels is much more labor intensive than the rest of the film will be, as Tomás was sending off unmixed, totally raw cues to David as fast as he could, so they could agree upon a basic “feel” for the score.

Consequently, it was pointless to mix as he went along, and the first 18 cues had to be wrestled to the ground musically,  as David decided on one cue, Tomás would be off onto another one.  It was a bit chaotic, to say the least.  Especially since the first 18 cues were in Reels One and Two, and in Reels Three, Four, Five, and Six, there are 24 cues all together.  The first two reels are almost half of the film.  We still do not have the exact timing of the end credits, and a few of the CGI shots, but hopefully those will come down the pike at some point.

So, Tomás is now finished with full mix prep – separations, routing, enhanced bussing, and final clean-up of any rogue instrument that happened to pick up noise while being recorded.  The arduous part is over, as once in Reel Three, he mixed as he went along, and the rest of the reels will not require such heavy prep, they will simply be subjected to a nice master mix.

So, there is the news with “Ravana’s Game”.  I have updates on the new film, and another project that just came in, but that is for another day.

And it will be another day, not 6 months from now. However, we are always on alert for being hit by the proverbial bus. Always.

 

“Ravana’s Game” DVD artwork is here!

While Tomás and I have been embroiled in a complicated computer upgrade, all work on Ravana’s Game had to stop, much to our dismay.

The good news is we are back up and running as of today, and cues will be flying over to director David Eblen within the next couple of days.

However, while all this gear drama has been going on over here, David and his graphic designer Ted Davis have been working tirelessly on the DVD cover. Ted has come up with a fantastic final DVD cover, and we are absolutely crazy about it. It’s gorgeous!

Months ago, David had sent us many of Ted’s concepts, and asked us which ones grabbed us.  It was very hard, as every one was spectacular – Ted Davis is very talented and incredibly creative, so we could not begin to settle on one concept.  I believe between the two of us, we basically picked them all, and wound up being absolutely no help in the decision making process.  Sorry, guys.

So, to end the suspense, below is the final DVD cover of “Ravana’s Game”.  Look for it in video stores and on NetFlix soon!

Front:

"Ravana's Game" DVD artwork by graphic designer Ted Davis

Back:

"Ravana's Game" DVD artwork by graphic designer Ted Davis

Happy Birthday Tomás, already!!!!

Poor Tomás.  He has been trying to finish a cue all day, and every time he started getting a nice roll going, the phone rang with a “Happy Birthday” message.  Tomás is working on his birthday, just as he was working on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve.  Yes, he got crazy and we went up north to visit his family on New Years Day. Slacker.

And yes, his birthday is on Groundhog Day, Feb 2nd, so all of the messages have some reference to six more weeks of winter, and somehow it is all his fault, ha ha ho ho tee hee hee.  The man has been hearing the same birthday messages since he was four.

Then our birthday crazy neighbor shows up, hollering “Happy Birthday” and waving a gift. A wonderful, sweet gesture, and it collides right when Tomás decides to pick up the phone on his parents message. He figures he can at least talk to them, everyone else will have to wait, otherwise the whole day is shot, and he is getting quite involved with the cue he is working on. He had said this morning that the director, David Eblen, would have it tonight, no problem. I ignored that proclamation, because I have seen the flurry that happens in the past, and I knew it was coming. My job was to try and make sure he did not run naked screaming down the street.

I do not think Tomás realizes how popular he is.  Poor guy.  He is exhausted from birthday well wishes, he really wants to return the calls, but he REALLY wants to finish the cue he is on. Suddenly, he was being bombarded, and he looked a bit shell shocked for a few hours afterwards. Note in the photo below the desperation with which he is clutching his sixth cup of coffee, and this was before the height of the chaos had reached it’s peak.

As you can see, his hair is already starting to stand up on its own. It was hilarious a few hours later.

The phone did not settle down until after ten p.m., and he finally has some quiet time.  Even though the cue is not getting finished tonight, he managed to wrangle two hours of uninterrupted writing time, and is ending his birthday feeling quite pleased with how the cue is shaping up.  What more can you ask, really?

To any of Tomás’s friends and family who left a message wishing him Happy Birthday, he thanks you very much, he is completely overwhelmed, and he will call you back in the next few days, he promises.

As you can tell, it was quite a task keeping him calm, and his Birthday post is not posting until after midnight.  Happy Birthday yesterday, oh most loved one.

In Memory Of Rosa Marcelina Gamarra-Thomson

How poignant, that my last post was about a film that dealt with loss, love, and if you had one day left to live, how would you spend it?

Rosa Gamarra-Thomson came into our lives August of this year, she was a Peruvian Medicine Woman, a mentor, a healer, a friend.  She helped Tomás fight through his first serious music writing block, she helped me in ways I have yet to even fully absorb.

We assumed she would be an important part of our lives together forever.  This was not how the world saw it to be, and the night of Dec 16th, Rosa peacefully died in her sleep.

You can read about her over at What Happened – however, we wanted to honor Rosa on this page, because in our individual sessions with her, we had told her about “Ravana’s Game”, and what Tomás was trying to reach for with the music, but he was feeling stifled, both mentally and physically blocked.

She broke the block in him after the first session, and when we went to see her again, he was buzzing with creative juice.  We enjoyed lunch together, and told her that when the film was finished, we would come over and the three of us would watch it together.  She was very happy and excited.  This woman was pure magic, yet she never took credit for her work with us.  She kept reminding us that we found her, and we were only able to be helped because we were willing to do the work. She  insisted that she was simply helping us clear away some of the muck.

My goal is to someday have as much to give and be as grounded and humble as she was.  And to be as innovative and fantastic a cook!  Man, that woman could take three ingredients and make a feast that no restaurant could rival.

We will not be having our movie night at Rosa’s now,  but Tomás will be dedicating the soundtrack of “Ravana’s Game” to her.

Happy Holidays, everyone.  May we get through 2010 with all of our loved ones still standing, and may we always remember to treat our loved ones well, because we just never know when it is time to say goodbye.

See you in the New Year, and below, our beloved Rosa.  She is in our hearts forever.

Rosita Gamarra-Thomson - April 5th 1946 - Dec.13th, 2009

New Film: OBSELIDIA

No, Tomás has not taken on another film, he has his hands full with his current one, lol.  However, one of his older films, “The Table” was directed by actor, writer, producer Chris Byrne, who has come out with an absolutely amazing looking film called ‘OBSELIDIA’, written and directed by Diane Bell, produced by Matthew Medlin and Chris Byrne, and Chris as one of the stars of the film.

OBSELIDIA has been selected to play in the US Dramatic Film Competition at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and Tomás and I just received this fantastic news last night.  We are so happy for Chris, and his whole team.  Congratulations everyone!

Below is a photo of Chris directing “The Table” along with the one sheet of “OBSELIDIA”

You can visit the web page here.

Read more at the Imdb here.

Become a fan on Facebook here.

Read about the Sundance acceptance here.

Chris Byrne directing the short film 'The Table"

"OBSELIDIA" - One Sheet

Tomás and I want to let Chris know how happy, excited, and proud we are of your drive, your passion, and the quality of work you continually put out there for the world.  You were an absolute joy to work with, and we hope to collaborate again someday soon.

Best of luck with this film, and we are greatly looking forward to seeing it.

What Tomás is Giving Your Film.

There was an interesting article in the LA times yesterday, an interview with composer James Horner concerning his collaboration with “Titanic’s” James Cameron on his new film “Avatar.  It is a very expensive film, and James Horner, an Oscar -winning composer, is most likely making at least a million dollars on it.

In the interview, Horner explains what he is doing to create a memorable, unique, and completely different sounding score to go with the film:

From the LA times, below:



JH: I had to create a sound world that was really quite different than anything I had used before. It wasn’t simply a matter of using instruments from New Zealand or Iceland or Lapland; I had to create new instruments, too, a whole library of instruments and sounds. I also found indigenous instruments and digitized them and changed them slightly. I used a lot of voice and digitized that to create a sound world for myself, a palette of colors so that I was able to create worlds that satisfied [James Cameron] and his need for this new world to sound appropriate as a place that you had never been to. It had to be different and alien yet at same time to have a very warm quality and an organic quality. The score needed to be very grounded, too, as I said. The score is very thematic even though the colors are very exotic.

GB: That’s interesting about the created or altered instruments. Could you be more specific?

JH: There were a lot of vocal sounds I took from various places. These were odd vocal sounds that I would manipulate digitally and there were interesting flutes, for instance, from South America and Finland that I wanted to be more abstract. I also have instruments invented from scratch. They were programmed. There were a lot of instruments that sound like flutes of different sorts, but they were combined with gamelan-sounding instruments. The gamelan is Balinese. The word itself means ”orchestra.” The individual gamelan instruments are these bell-like sounds. A lot of the percussion for “Avatar” is gamelan-based or sounds gamelan-based. So this has this sort of quality of ringing bells, like Indonesian music. It’s a very pretty fusion of different worlds that gives the place itself a quality that is magical. Using it for percussion, rather than drums or other things, gives a sort of magical glow to everything. And as I said there were a lot of instruments that I invented and worked on with my programs. I was very particular.

James Horner describes the process that Tomas does on every film very eloquently.  The irony is, Tomas used to be the guy that was creating the sounds for other composers, who then took the created instrumental sounds and wrote the music.  We decided many years ago that Tomas should be writing with his own sounds and stop working for other composers.  (Let it be known here that Tomas never worked with James Horner). James Horner has a guy, or many guys, working day and night on whichever is Horner’s sample-based software/hardware/computer system of choice to create this world.  James gets to listen, choose his favorite, and write with it.

Tomas, working on Independent Films, does all of the creation work himself, which can take weeks, sometimes months, then he gets the luxuty of sitting back and writing the score.  This takes much more time, as he is one man doing the job of five men.  The ultimate irony is, a small film that does not pay much, is going to get a score that can rival any million dollar Oscar winner’s score, any day.

The only drawback for a director is the score can take a little more time.  But, once it is finished, as always happens to Tomas, people will be blown away by what they hear, and wonder where “this guy” has been and how come they never heard of him?

I am not writing to give Tomas a big head, or justify why a film takes so long.  This has been his track record, and every director he has scored a film for will tell you that. Perhaps someday that budget of a million dollars will come along, and Tomas can hire an assistant, and the film will be finished faster.  Until that day, he works tirelessly, no matter how much he is paid, to give the director everything he has inside of himself, and more.  He comes perilously close to making himself physically ill, from overwork, lack of sleep, too many cigarettes – that is where I come in, to try and get him to rest, eat better, drink less coffee, smoke a little bit less.  It causes us to bicker sometimes, but I can never really be angry with him, as I see the work ethic he has, and the relentless drive for perfection, and when all is said and done, his music blows me, and everybody else away, every film, every time.

You can read the full LA times article here.