Final Project for my Masters

The Masters in Scoring for Film and Visual Media at Pulse College in Dublin, Ireland is set up to be completed in 3 semesters. Fall and Spring semester had courses with assignments and the 3rd semester was during the summer to work on a final project and thesis.

For my final project I reached out to a friend back in Colorado and we collaborated on a short film to re-contextualize Shakespeare's Macbeth. The project grew into a huge undertaking including multiple actors, assistants, renting, and finding locations and facilities.... Brendan and I produced the film, financing and obtaining needed materials and locations. I was honored by the amount of work and effort my friend, Director Lauren LaCasse, put into the project and am very happy with how it is turning out. --- we still have a TON of work to do on the film.

On top of being a Producer, I am primarily a composer. I picked 3 of the cues Lauren and her assistant Misha sent me to compose and use in my final project. These scenes were ones that included the witches. I decided to pay for and record a live cello player doing extended techniques in order to make an "other world" sound to represent the witches and their supernatural ability. I also wrote one song to include the cello and played piano/sang the other parts for one of the scenes.

Pulse College is run out of Windmill Lane Studio, and the president of the college graciously allowed me to use the studio. They provided all the recording materials and a sound engineer. I was also blessed to be able to work with cellist Kate Ellis. Amazing cello player.  So easy and helpful to work with in the recording studio - http://kateelliscello.com/

Sound Engineer Rachel Conlon and Cellist Kate Ellis

Last time in the recording studio

My studio at home to cut, snip, and edit all the music.... Compose and write thesis. Everything was done in this tiny little corner of my bedroom. 

 I thought everything turned out rather well. I was a little disappointed with one piece. It worked as a concept and the music is fine.... just not exactly what I had imagined for that cue. I will probably change the music for that scene in the final version. Otherwise I was happy.

I was not able to schedule time with the cellist or the studio until 1 week before the music was due as part of the final project assignment for college. I recorded on Tuesday, had to put everything together and edit it in order to turn it in by Friday. THEN I couldn't really write sections of my thesis until AFTER all the recording and editing --- because that was the main aspect of the whole final project.... soooooo I pretty much wrote my 10,000 word thesis in a week. The stress and constant sitting was SO painful. My lower back completely seized up and the lack of sleep was not good for my overall fibromyalgia issues... It was an extremely painful week, health added on top of the already painful and stressful assignment. BUT I pushed through. Got it done. Turned it in.