SOUNDTRACK and Updates
I’m writing this from the family cottage (or Mom&Dad’s place) somewhere in the Quebec wilderness and fall is definitely here in spectacular form. The finest fall colours I’ve seen in a few years…and I thank my lovely wife Michelle for helping me resist the urge to stop every 10 minutes on the drive to take more fall colours photos to add to my hundreds of same. The bane of the budding photographer is the difficulty resisting taking the same captivating pictures over and over and over. And then one more time.
Fitting with the season, the first round of colds are making their way through my house and its occupants rather handily. I can only hope that we’re better immuno-prepared this year..because last year was a write-off for sick and colds. It seemed that every time my daughter Mackenzie got sick, we all got sick…but in such a way that it was able to mutate and keep rotating through the family. We’re eating lots of greens and taking vitamins…here’s hoping!
Things have been a little slow musically for me…insomnia the week before last, which has meant a stall on mixes for Brad Sucks…but it’s a long weekend, so Monday should be a catch-up day. I did invest in the Neve 88RS console strip for my UAD-1 card, something I demo’d on a track of Brad’s for use with his vocals. It sounded fantastic, then it went on sale, and now I own it. I’d just like to say, I LOVE my UAD-1. Love it. Buy it. Own it. LOVE IT.
As for SOUNDTRACK-related news…I’ve been spending time with my camera whenever I can find it (time, that is). I recently purchased a wide angle lens for my Canon A630 camera with the hopes of broadening the palette of shot-styles I could use in the video portion of the project. I immediately loved the lens, but it’s taken awhile to figure out how I can use it practically. So far this Thanksgiving weekend, I’ve been on a tear with it, taking pictures of huge trees on my folk’s property in the country. I love trees. But as far as video goes, I’m afraid I’m finding my trusty digital camera just doesn’t quite cut it in terms of quality and resolution. Sigh………
To solve this need for quality video clips, I’ve found quite a few stock footage websites who seem to carry loads of general footage. The best of these, and the most reasonably priced, seems to be www.istockphoto.com. It’s only the video I think I’ll be using, but the library seems to be huge and not too ridiculously expensive for royalty-free type clips.
So in the meantime I’ve begun storyboarding the exact video I’m seeing in my head for SOUNDTRACK…the idea being that when I’m done that process, I’ll hunt down the footage I need that best gets me there, and buy it. This I’ll cut in with any of my own useable footage and imagery, and presto! Instant awesome cool multimedia thing.
Well, that’s the plan so far……I’m still not 100% sure my chops + my mojo + my average luck-on-hand will equal the final product I have in mind. But I guess that’s part of art….sometimes you won’t know until you Gert‘ er done.
In other news, my good friend Claude (www.thepeptides.com), whose debut CD I mixed, has removed himself from society at large into a cabin somewhere deep in Vermont where he is starting to track his next album. I’ve helped him find his way around a few new tools to add to his arsenal, so expect his second effort to be a different sounding affair altogether. We here at HipCola Labs couldn’t be more excited.
And still talking about The Peptides, I’ll soon be posting up a big summary of my thoughts about the mixing process for I’m A Spy, complete with before and after clips of audio. As the first full length project I’ve been involved in, I think it’s important to reverse engineer the whole process.
Eat loads of turkey and hang with family and friends…..
Rob
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