It’s been a good minute since my last update, and things have gotten insane, for lack of a better word. I’ve booked the Airbnb for the Semester in LA, which means that it’s officially time to work on getting our internships!

What happens, is that we each have to write a short biography about ourselves and two excerpts of our absolute best work. The composers we wish to intern with are then sent to a page that has all of this information where they listen and read for themselves and decide whether or not they want to take us on as interns. So, whatever we submit has to be absolute top notch.

In good news, one of the most recent films I’ve worked on got into the Nevada Women’s Film Festival!

I planned to use my piece “Call of the Blood Moon” for sure, since that’s an award winning piece. However, I wanted to use a piece that was still in progress for the second. It has a ton of odd-metered vocal chants that go to picture in a horror film I’m working on. But with the weather being awful the past few weeks and everyone being busy, I couldn’t get what I needed recorded for that piece.

So there I was, down one piece and not wanting to use anything I had previously done. I didn’t have anything that truly represented my entire voice as a composer in my works from the past year, and I wanted a piece that evoked the horror style I love so much, but also showed off how I write. I had a decision to make. Do I use my super intense metal/electronic/orchestral hybrid cue from last year, or do I write something entirely new, amazing, well written, well orchestrated, and produced to the utmost professional standards that are expected?

I chose the latter. For two entire days. I did absolutely nothing but work on that one piece from scratch, knowing it had to be perfect and up to my standards. I concept created for a solid twelve hours, rebuilt my orchestral template, and got a brand new mix happening with 80 more tracks in the session than was there before. I sent every iteration off to friends and colleagues, and got some process-changing advice from my classmate Andrew Byars, who I absolutely trust with my music. And after many, many revisions, I had something worth putting out.

I submitted on Wednesday night a piece of music that I can absolutely call my own that seriously represents my voice as a composer.

I guess the moral of the story is that nothing worth doing is risk-free. Take your chances, push your limits, you’ll only grow from them.

Until next time

– Chris