Jasmine has won the Best Narrative Feature Film award at the Sydney World Film Festival.
A year after his wife’s murder, once-successful Hong Kong businessman Leonard To (Jason Tobin) is still reeling from the tragedy. Having lost his job, friends and all sense of order in his life, Leonard becomes obsessed with a mysterious stranger he sees at his wife’s grave, believing him to be responsible for her death.
Jasmine has been named an Official Selection at the Kiwi International Film Festival, and Sydney World Film Festival.
A year after his wife’s murder, once-successful Hong Kong businessman Leonard To (Jason Tobin) is still reeling from the tragedy. Having lost his job, friends and all sense of order in his life, Leonard becomes obsessed with a mysterious stranger he sees at his wife’s grave, believing him to be responsible for her death.
I am of the opinion that one cannot control exactly how or where their “break” comes from. It could be a film that hits… being at the right place at the right time, etc… But once a “break” happens, one can control if they can sustain or even build a career from it. Talent is certainly needed to sustain a career from a break. (And I am not only talking about musical talent).
Things one can NOT control:
If you actually get hired on a project or not.
If a film is deemed a “financial success” at the box-office.
If a film you are on is marketed properly so the masses will be aware of it.
If a film you are on is released theatrically.
If a TV pilot you are on gets picked up for series.
If millions of people click on your YouTube web series.
Things one CAN control:
If the music you write is appropriate for the film.
If you create music unique to your abilities that everyone wants.
If your score themes are memorable.
If you have an easy to work with demeanor.
If you communicate effectively with your team.
If you handle promotion of yourself well.
If you are present in the industry and build a network of people.
If you have a likable personality.
If you treat people with respect.
If you have integrity.
If you deliver on time and on budget.
If you create drama or a sense of collective calm.
If you present yourself well online.
If you have an active social media presence.
If you understand the emotional essence of a project in front of you.
If you are amazing at creating MIDI recordings/demos.
If you are trustworthy.
If you take a meeting well.
If you know your music theory.
If you build relationships with musicians who can play for you in order to breathe life into your music.
If you are good at stretching a music budget.
If you decide to take risks or play your career path conservatively.
If you assist another composer.
If you go it on your own and just start scoring indie films.
If you take rejection well and define it as a good or bad thing.
If you have an ego.
If you are argumentative.
If you formally study composition or not.
If you continue to play and perform on your instrument or only compose.
If you run the day to day operations of your “business” well.
If you write every day to get better or not.
If you use a lawyer to protect yourself legally in your contracts.
If you send out multiple emails daily to potential projects.
If studio and network music executives even know who you are.
If you even recognize that a break has happened.
If you….
In the end… there are things one certainly cannot control in this biz. As I mentioned above and to reiterate on one… I cannot control whether the show I am on it going to be a hit show. I can only control the notes I write and if the score I produce is effective and musically doing what it needs to be doing for the project. But in general… it seems to me the list of things one CAN control in their careers is much longer than the list of things one CANNOT control. Many of those things can lead to a “break” or put you in a much better position to taking advantage of a break when it happens. And I would not necessarily call the items in the “Can do” list LUCK.
 Brian Ralston Brian Ralston is a Los Angeles film/television composer whose credits include the 20th Century Fox lacrosse film Crooked Arrows (2012) starring Brandon Routh, the action thriller Awaken (2015) starring Daryl Hannah, Vinnie Jones, and Natalie Burn, the Magnolia Pictures bank heist film Graduation (2008), and additional music in season four of the WB Television production Angel (2004). Mr. Ralston is also a long-time co-host of the SCOREcast podcast, a popular industry-insider radio show for film and television composers and an instructor in UCLA Extension’s film scoring program. |
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Jasmine has been named an Official Selection at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, and will also screen in competition at the Auckland International Film Festival in New Zealand.
A year after his wife’s murder, once-successful Hong Kong businessman Leonard To (Jason Tobin) is still reeling from the tragedy. Having lost his job, friends and all sense of order in his life, Leonard becomes obsessed with a mysterious stranger he sees at his wife’s grave, believing him to be responsible for her death.
TV Series
US Premiere: March 28, 2017
Rebel is an extraordinary take on the seminal police drama that examines the unique and conflicted relationship officers of color have with their jobs – at a time when police forces are rife with brutality and misconduct. Oakland police officer, Rebecca “Rebel” Cole, has always excelled by playing by the rules. She has always known that she must be better and smarter on the job because she is both black and female. After her brother is slain by police, Rebel soon becomes disillusioned with the system and is forced to take matters into her own hands and become a private investigator and a champion for her community. Caught between family loyalty and the fraternity in blue, Rebel’s actions set in motion a cause-and-effect crisis that can’t be undone.
Role: Composer, Music Editor, Music Supervisor
Director: John Singleton
Cast: Danielle Moné Truitt, Mykelti Williamson, Giancarlo Esposito, Brandon Quinn, Method Man, John Churchill, Angela Ko, and Bree Williamson.
Continuing its successful run in the film festival circuit, Jasmine has been nominated for Best Narrative Feature at DC Chinese Film Festival, where it will screen on September 20th, 2016. The film has also been invited to screen at the Laughlin International Film Festival in October.
A year after his wife’s murder, once-successful Hong Kong businessman Leonard To (Jason Tobin) is still reeling from the tragedy. Having lost his job, friends and all sense of order in his life, Leonard becomes obsessed with a mysterious stranger he sees at his wife’s grave, believing him to be responsible for her death.
No matter what sequencing program you use, you either have in the past or will at some time in the future use other software. Whether you’re switching from one DAW to another, or simply upgrading to the latest version, or changing your template, your plug-ins and/or your outboard gear, at some point between upgrades and other system changes you will no longer be able to open your files using the original software with which they were created.
That’s why I recommend always saving a standard MIDI file whenever you’re done with a cue. When you save a standard MIDI file, you’re ensuring you’ll always be able to go back to your project even if you’re using different software. You’ll always be able to import that standard MIDI file into whatever DAW you’re currently using and make it work again.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, or add a comment.
Continuing its successful run in the film festival circuit, Jasmine won Special Mention for Best Feature Film from the Miami Independent Film Festival as well as taking 2nd place in the Best Narrative Feature competition at the Knoxville Film Festival.
A year after his wife’s murder, once-successful Hong Kong businessman Leonard To (Jason Tobin) is still reeling from the tragedy. Having lost his job, friends and all sense of order in his life, Leonard becomes obsessed with a mysterious stranger he sees at his wife’s grave, believing him to be responsible for her death.
The Glendale International Film Festival has nominated Jasmine, the psychological thriller scored by Shie, in ten categories: Best Narrative Feature, Best Director (Dax Phelan), Best Actor (Jason Tobin), Best Actress (Li Qi Eug) Best Cinematography (Guy Livneh), Best Editing (Chris Chan Lee), Best Screenplay (Dax Phelan), Best Sound (Erick Jolley, Lisa K. Fowle), Best Make Up (Hiromi Nakashimax Brown), and Best Trailer (Chancler Haynes, Edy Enriquez).
A year after his wife’s murder, once-successful Hong Kong businessman Leonard To (Jason Tobin) is still reeling from the tragedy. Having lost his job, friends and all sense of order in his life, Leonard becomes obsessed with a mysterious stranger he sees at his wife’s grave, believing him to be responsible for her death.
By Miriam Mayer
Doing the media composer thing involves a lot of moving parts: composing, tech stuff, self-promotion, time-management, learning new things, patience, persistence, talking to other humans. If there’s someone who is a natural genius and willing to put in the hours on these things, they’re going to get far! For most of us, we excel at some of these things, and some are scary; they involve a skill we’re not good at.
Here’s how I deal with scary tasks: I commit to doing them for an hour. Going to a networking event? Commit to an hour…after that, I can go home, guilt-free. Of course, once I’m there, I usually have fun and stay until the end…it’s the getting there that’s scary. The one hour rule says, successful or embarrassed, I can leave after one hour.
Need to shore up my website but have zero confidence I can do it? Commit to one hour of working on it.
Need to compose but don’t know where to start? Commit to an hour of studio time, no interruptions.
Miriam is a composer for media and multi-instrumentalist, happily toiling in the studios, theaters, and concert halls of her native Los Angeles. Her compositions can be heard on every major network and cable channel. Miriam worked for John Williams for many years, proof-reading on films such as “Star Wars, The Phantom Menace”, “Jurassic Park, Lost World”, and “Saving Private Ryan”. She is a proud member of the Television Academy and is fluent in many different genres of music. |
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August 22, 2016
For Immediate Release
Contact: Jeffrey James Arts Consulting
516-586-3433 or jamesarts@att.net
Amernet String Quartet in Pix ‘N Music Concert on September 13 at National Opera Center in New York, New York
What: Amernet String Quartet Pix ‘N Music Concert
When: Tuesday, September 13 at 8:30 PM
Where: National Opera Center, 330 Seventh Avenue in Manhattan
URL: http://chamberplayersinternational.org/
New York, NY – The Amernet String Quartet will be in concert on Tuesday, September 13 at 8:30 PM at National Opera Center, 330 Seventh Avenue, between 28th and 29th Streets in Manhattan, performing the inaugural Pix ‘N Music concert, presented by Chamber Players International and Jeffrey James Arts Consulting.
CPI and Jamesarts are proud to announce this new and unique series, Pix ‘N Music, featuring today’s top film and media composers in concert. The series features the music of media composers whose classical works will be performed live in concert, synchronized to film, video, animation and/or digitally conceived visual elements.
The September 13, 2016 inaugural event will feature The Amernet String Quartet performing premieres of “music to picture” works by Steve Horowitz, Nataliya Medvedovskaya, Adam Reifsteck, Rolando Gori, Christopher Kaufman and Shie Rozow. The Quartet will also perform Frederic Kaufman’s String Quartet No. 6. Each of the “music to picture” works will run between five and eight minutes in length and feature real-time synchronization between the Amernet Quartet and the visual components. Additionally, each performance will be live-streamed via the internet as a means of connecting with international audiences. The composers will be present to speak about their respective works and how they were conceived.
Praised for their “intelligence” and “immensely satisfying” playing by the New York Times, the Amernet String Quartet are Ensemble-in-Residence at Florida International University in Miami. Strad Magazine described the Amernet as “…a group of exceptional technical ability.” The Amernet’s performance schedule has taken the quartet across the Americas and to Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. They have collaborated with many of today’s most prominent artists and ensembles including the Tokyo and Ying quartets as well as Shmuel Ashkenasi, Robert deMaine, Roberto Diaz, Gary Hoffman, Ida Kavafian, Anthony McGill, Sherrill Milnes and Michael Tree. Visit them at http://amernetquartet.com/.
Tickets are $20 and can be ordered by calling 877-444-4488 or visiting http://chamberplayersinternational.org/.
Chamber Players International is a major regional performing arts organization presenting between 25 and 30 concert events serving the entire New York metropolitan area. Its artistic mission is to bring chamber music and chamber orchestra performances of the highest artistic quality to audiences throughout the area including world-renowned guest ensembles such as the International Chamber Orchestra of Rome, The World Youth Alliance Chamber Orchestra of the U.N. New York. Core ensemble members include violinists Emil Chudnovsky, Bela Horvath, Anastasia Khitruk, violists Mialtin Zhezha and Cong Wu, cellists Andrey Tchekmazov, Adrian Daurov and pianists Yoni Levyatov, Svetlana Smolina and Julia Zilberquit. Visit them online at http://chamberplayersinternational.org/.
For more information about Chamber Players International, please contact Jeffrey James Arts Consulting at 516-586-3433 or jamesarts@att.net.
Feature Film
US Premiere: September 16, 2016
#FollowFriday follows students and faculty on a college campus as they are targeted by a killer using Twitter.
Role: Composer
Director: Micho Rutare
Cast: Courtney Lakin, Joseph Poliquin,Elliot Armstrong, Ramsey Hanchette, and Ashley Bratcher.
