shieroz – Page 14 – Shie Rozow – Composer, Music Editor

Musical Fantasy: Featured Artists

The album is starting to come together. I’ve lined up some stellar musicians to perform my works. I’m very excited to have such incredible performers involved:

The Lyris Quartet
The Lyris Quartet, described as “radiant…excellent… and powerfully engaged” by Mark Swed of the LA Times, was founded in 2008. The individual members of the quartet have won top prizes at such competitions as the Tchaikosvky International Competition and Aspen Music Festival as well as collaborated with renowned artists Natalia Gutman, David Geringas, Martha Argerich, Alban Gerhardt, Boris Pergamenschikov, Guillame Sutre, Myung-Whun Chung, and Richard Stoltzman.

Violin: Alyssa Park
Violin: Shalini Vijayan
Viola: Luke Maurer
Cello: Timothy Loo

Robert Thies
A pianist of “unerring, warm-toned refinement, revealing judicious glimmers of power,” [Los Angeles Times] Robert Thies (pronounced “Theece”) is an artist renowned for his consummate musicianship and poetic temperament. He first captured worldwide attention in 1995 when he won the Gold Medal at the Second International Prokofiev Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia. With this victory, Thies became the only American pianist to win first prize in a Russian piano competition since Van Cliburn’s famed triumph in Moscow in 1958.

Brian O’Connor
Brian O’Connor is a studio French Horn player with over 30 years of experience playing on countless movies, TV series and shows. He’s played (often as principal horn) for legendary composers such as Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, James Newton Howard, James Horner, Thomas Newman, Maurice Jarre, Alexandre Desplat, Michael Giacchino & Danny Elfman, to name a few. If you’ve gone to the movies in the past 3 decades, you’ve doubtless heard him on many occasions.

Quick Tip: Backups

Quick Tips

Backing projects up is extremely important. If you’re not already regularly backing up your projects, you need to start right away. In my experience the best way to run backups is to use a program that can run in the background and automatically run backups for you. That way you can set it and forget it.

I like & use Synk by Decimus. It’s very reasonably priced and full of great options. There are other good backup programs, and as long as it gets the job done, it really doesn’t matter which program you use, as long as you’re consistently running. it.

Typically when setting up a backup, you have the option to mirror your source, which will often delete files in the backup when you delete them at your source, or you can archive everything. Make sure you’re archiving everything!

I like to use a hard drive dock (there are lots of options) and backup my projects to external drives. I simply label them backup-1, backup 2 etc. and store them in anti static bags in my closet. I have a simple Filemaker database where I list what is backup up where, so if I have to bring up an old backup, I can look up what drive it’s on in my database and know which drive to plug-in.

Finally, don’t forget to backup you system drive. Start with a bootable clone of your system drive, and then update the backup so as you create new files, update software etc. the backup is updated, too.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, or add a comment.

Musical Fantasy: Birth of An Album

Musical Fantasy

I’ve been writing music for as long as I can remember, though I didn’t get any formal musical training until I was 21. You might say I was a late bloomer. While studying music I became attracted to film scoring and pursued a career in Hollywood. I’m mainly known as a music editor with nearly 100 feature film credits to my name ranging from blockbusters like Avengers: Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy, & Spider-Man 2 to independent films like the hugely successful Hustle & Flow, Geography Club, and The Last Word to TV shows like Desperate Housewives & Go On.

I’ve been fortunate to work with composers such as Tyler Bates, Marc Mancina, Heitor Peirera, John Swihart and Danny Elfman, with whom I’ve worked for over a decade, including co-producing his concert work Serenada Schizophrana. I’ve written additional music for many films, TV shows & for music libraries and have scored 3 feature films on my own, including Jasmine, which recently won the Grand Jury Prize at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

I’ve spend the majority of the last two decades contributing my talents to the works of other artists. It has been a privilege and a pleasure and I hope to continue doing so for a very long time. But it’s now time for me to produce an album of my own music. Musical Fantasy will be my first album of original concert works.

A few years ago a violinist friend asked me if I had written anything for string quartet that she and some friends could play. I had never written anything for string quartet and was immediately inspired to do write my first piece for string quartet. I wrote 3 movements in 4 days, the music just spilled out of me. Then a couple of years ago I saw the story of holocaust survivor Alice Hertz-Sommer (www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oxO3M6rAPw) and was inspired by her story to write a piano piece – Fantasia Apassionata.

I have wanted to record these pieces ever since, but have been continually distracted by other projects. At every opportunity I’d go back and tweak the works and each time the desire to record them has grown.

I decided to expand the project from just these two works to a full-length album of chamber concert works, and so the adventure begins.

Jasmine to screen at AAIFF15

June 24, 2015

Jasmine has been chosen as an official selection for the Asian American International Film Festival, which will take place from July 23rd through August 1st in New York City. The dark, psychological thriller, starring Jason Tobin and Byron Mann tells the story of Leonard, a man coping with the unsolved murder of his wife when he identifies the man he believes killed her. Jasmine won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2015 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and has been well received by audiences and critics alike.

Jasmine to Have New York Premiere

June 23, 2015

Jasmine has been selected for inclusion in the 2015 American Asian International Film Festival in New York City. The film’s NY premiere will take place on July 30, 2015 at 6:00 pm at the Village East Cinema. Click here for more information. The soundtrack album is also available on iTunes, amazon.com and all major online music services.

James Horner: What His Music Means To Me

I didn’t really get interested in film-music until relatively late. I was studying music in Israel, thinking I’d be a singer/songwriter. The only problem with that plan was that I’m not a very good singer, a mediocre songwriter at best, and have terrible stage-fright. Plan B was to become the Quincy Jones of Israel, I would produce other artists. Then I took my first orchestration class and I just knew that is the medium I want to work in. So court composer for the archduke of Bavaria or something along those lines was the logical next step, except I was a couple of centuries too late. So how else would I get to work with orchestras? Film Music!

It was 1994, I was 22 years old and that’s when I began my affair with film music. I started paying attention to music in films like never before. A year later I was at Berklee College of Music studying film scoring. I remember spending hours listening to film scores and staring my soundtrack collection. I started with scores that seemed to stick with me subconsciously from years past.

The first score I obsessed over was The Land Before Time. I remember watching the film on VHS tape when I was in high-school over and over. I’m a huge fan of animation and something about that film just resonated with me, I now know that James Horner’s score had a lot to do with it.

The magic of the strings, the harp, the choir, the oboe and the french horns, oh those majestic french horns. Starting with a gentle solo, and then the sweeping melody, which I suspect includes tuben. So majestic! Then at 3:46 such charm and lightness and sweetness and joy and so seamless. Finally at around 6:00 we get the quintessential theme, on which the song form the movie is based. This is one of those famously long Horner cues and it is sheer musical perfection.

The Whipping from Glory is another perfect cue. Glory is another one of my favorite scores. I know it inside and out. I studied it extensively while at Berklee College of Music, I once transcribed the entire end credits, by hand.

It never ceases to amaze me how much Horner’s music does by doing so little. The perfect amount of tension, build, and heart. Another cue, which is sheer perfection. Denzel Washington’s performance, especially in this scene is incredible, and I’m sure Horner’s score, which perfectly compliments the performance, elevating it, never competing or overshadowing it, is at least partly responsible for Washington earning his first Oscar for that role.

I think my next favorite Horner score, and probably my favorite film cue of all is A Father’s Legacy from The Man Without a Face.

This music brings me to tears. The depth of emotion just reaches into the depth of my being and stir up emotions like nothing else can. The beautify and simplicity of the themes is overwhelming – for my taste this is Horner at his best.

His range was astonishing – whether writing action, suspense, drama, romance or comedy his music was always effective, thoughtful and uniquely his own. He’s one of those special composers that have a very distinct sounds, a fingerprint that is immediately recognizable.

I could go on for a very long time sharing my love and admiration of Horner’s music. I hear his music as the soundtrack of my life. In my humble opinion, The Rocketeer is the best super-hero score ever written. An American Tail & its sequel An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Cocoon, A Beautiful Mind, Bicentennial Man, Braveheart, Clear & Present Danger, Ransom, Enemy At The Gates, Field of Dreams, Gorky Park, Iris, Jumanji, Legends of the Fall, The New World, Willow, *batteries not included, these all rank amongst my favorite scores.

His music influenced me greatly. Along with a few other greats, like Jerry Goldsmith & Elmer Bernstein, it inspired me to pursue a career in film music. His music fills me with awe. It inspires me to treat every scene with care, whether composing or music editing, he was a master of never overdoing it or under doing it, and I aspire to do the same. His loss fills me with sadness.

I had always wanted the opportunity to work with him. He & Jerry Goldsmith are my two favorite composers and I never had the chance to meet either of them. I didn’t know him, but I feel like I lost a dear friend. I am saddened to the core. My thoughts are with his family & friends, I cannot imagine the depth of their sorrow.

He lost his life pursuing another of his passions – flying. So I will end this post with another incredible cue from The Rocketeer. This cue perfectly embodies the excitement, joy, magic & freedom of soaring high above the ground.

Quick Tip: Renaming Files Using Automator

Quick Tips

Every once in a while, I find myself in a situation where I need to rename a lot of files. For example, if I receive a poorly labeled session with poorly labeled audio files and I want to add some information like a cue number, or the project name. Dong it manually is a pain and very time consuming. Thankfully Mac OS has an app called Automator, which is very easy to setup and does the job perfectly and super-quickly. Here’s how:

Step 1.
Open Automator, which you will find in you Applications folder and select Service.

Step 2.
From the list of actions, select Rename Finder Items (you can type in “rename” in the search box to quickly find it). You can choose to add a Copy Finder Items action if you want to make a copy of the files you’re renaming. I don’t usually do this since the whole point is to rename the files, and I generally have a backup of the original materials I’m sent already.

Step 3.
Adjust the following settings:

Service receives selected: files or folders in Finder
From the next dropdown select Add Text
Add: Enter the text you want to add here, then select before name or after name or as extension
Click the Options tab at the bottom and check Show this action when the workflow runs

Step 4.
Hit Command S to save your automator script and name it

Step 5.
Go to the folder that contains the files you want to rename. Select them and right click (or hold down Control then click) to open the contextual menu, select Services at the bottom and then your script.

Step 5.
A window will appear where you can adjust the renaming settings. If you’re happy with your settings, click Continue. Or do what I do – I created a script and then I just tweak it whenever I use it to the specifics I want.

Tada!
That’s it – here’s what the folder looks like with the renamed files. Create this script once, then modify how you want it to behave and speed up your file management.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, or add a comment.

Effective Time & Cost Management When Recording Live Musicians

Recording a score is a high-pressure situation. Whether you’re recording yourself, just one or two musicians at your home studio, or a 100-piece orchestra on a scoring stage, time management is key. Over the years I’ve learned a few tricks to keep things moving along and record quickly and efficiently.

It all starts with preparation:

Cluster similar cues together

First, go thorough the score and identify cues that are similar in style or are thematically related. Often you will find that there are certain cues that require one size orchestra or group, while other cues don’t require as many players. This will allow you to split up your sessions into different size groups, so you don’t need to hire as many players for as many sessions, which will save you money.

Next, prioritize the cues that require your larger group, then cues that would benefit from a larger group but could work well with a smaller group, and finally the cues that work with your smallest group and sort them accordingly. Now sort your cues by orchestra size, then thematically, and you’re basically done.

If you have time to record your small cues with the big group, great. If not, no big deal, you’ll get them just as well with the next size down group. Sometimes you can have 3 or 4 different orchestra sizes, just prioritize accordingly and only plan to get what you must with each group. If you’re ahead of schedule, you can always pull a cue from a smaller group to the larger group session.

Start with a good warm-up cue

I don’t recommend starting with very difficult or long cues. For each session, pick a cue within that session’s cues that isn’t particularly difficult or easy, yet interesting to play, preferably between 1-2 minutes long. That’s a great warm-up cue. It lets the players get a feel for what’s to come without having to struggle right away. It lets them settle into the session and get comfortable. And if it features a theme that will come back later, even better.

Get the hard & long cues out of the way

Now that your players are warmed up but still fresh, let’s get to work. Next up should be some of the more challenging cues, as well as some of the longer cues that’ll take a while to get through. The players are fresh, they’re comfortable, they’re playing well together, this is a great time to get into the hard stuff. And by clustering similar cues together, the next hard cue won’t be quite so hard. The players will immediately recognize the similarities and automatically make adjustments based on the notes they got playing the previous cue.

Rehearse tricky sections

Typically you should let the orchestra read through the entire cue at least once if possible, so they can get familiar with it on their first take. If you have a section that is particularly difficult or requires a delicate balance, especially if it’s within a long cue, sometimes it’s better to skip the first read and jump straight to those sections and rehearse them first. Then go back and play down the entire cue.

Other times you may not realize a section is problematic until the read-through. When that happens, make sure to take some time to rehearse just the bars that need extra attention. If it’s a fast action sequence with lots of prelays, consider rehearsing on the stick at a slightly slower tempo before trying again with the click and prelays.

If it’s a solo, or just a single player (i.e. guitar or piano only) let the player take a moment or two to figure it out. Make sure they feel safe as they sort it out, and that you are there if they need you, but give them the space to just do their thing. As a good friend of mine once told me while trying to nail a tricky guitar part, “sometimes you just have to suck a little before it gets good.” If your player feel safe with you, they wont’ be afraid to give it all they got to get that truly incredible performance.

Start a new long cue before a break

If you’re a few minutes away from a session break, try to get a read through of your next big cue before the break. This will give you time to listen to the cue and make notes while the orchestra is on their break, and you’ll be ready to give them your notes when they are back. If it’s a particularly long cue, it also gives them a break from working on the same piece for too long, and when they return from their break they will be refreshed and ready to tackle it anew.

Review cues on your breaks

When the musicians take a break, you have a golden opportunity to listen to previous takes, review cues and make sure you’re happy with what you have. It’s fun to listen to the music again without the clock ticking and the pressure of having to keep moving, and therefore you will listen differently. If you like what you hear, you’ll have the peace of mind that what you thought was a good take really is. On the flip side, it’ll alert you to any problems and go-backs if something isn’t right, affording you the chance to re-record it.

Take a minute to yourself

Try to take a minute or two to yourself on the breaks when you’re not working. Just like the musicians who are playing your score, you, too, need to recharge. I like to step outside into the fresh air, even if only for 30 seconds and then step back into the studio. I find that taking a short moment to check out helps me recharge my batteries and keep better focus.

Be flexible

Lots of things can go wrong when scoring a film. From technical issues, to re-writes to re-orchestration, it’s not always possible to go in the order you had planned. If you hit a snag, rather than wasting precious time trying to sort it out while the clock is ticking, pull the cue and go to the next one. Your team can figure out the problem while you move on. If you don’t have a team, you can figure out the problem during the next break. In some cases, you may need to pull a cue that requires significant work and bring it back the following day (if possible).

Know the local recording rules

Make sure you know the rules wherever you are recording. For example, if you’re recording under AFM contract there are provisions regarding overdubs and how often musicians get breaks, etc. London’s musicians union has different rules, which are different still than recording in Macedonia or Berlin or Prague or Bratislava. Find out what you can and can’t do before hand and adjust your sessions and recording order accordingly. For example, AFM rules prohibit overdubbing a cue within the same session (technically it’s allowed, just very expensive). However, you can overdub cues at different sessions. So if you want to do a string overdub on a particular cue, schedule the main pass for your morning session, and the overdub for the afternoon or next day session. In London it’s typical to take a 15-minute break every 1.5 hours rather than 10 minute breaks every hour, which is the standard in the US. Plan and pace yourself accordingly.

Trust your team

When scoring with a large orchestra, you will likely have a team working with you. Your team will likely include all or some of the following – an orchestrator, a music editor, your recording engineer and assistant, and someone to run prelays and video. They are all there to help you. They are all listening along, each with a different emphasis. Your orchestrator is focused on the orchestra sounding as s/he intended – the balance, and overall performance. The engineer is listening primarily to the sound quality and fidelity as well as overall balance. The engineer’s assistant is making sure technically everything is on track, that cues aren’t being recorded to loud or too soft. Your music editor is focusing on how tight the sync is to picture, while your ProTools operator might be focusing on how tight everything is against the prelays. Trust them if they raise an issue or concern, and if time affords, do another take if a concern is raised.

If it’s a small budget project and you’re doing it all yourself, trust yourself. You may not be the world’s greatest engineer with the greatest gear as you record that single cello in your home studio, but that’s OK. Focus on the music, focus on what you’re hearing, keep track of your time and you’ll be fine.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, or add a comment.

Shie Joins Oscar Caliber Documentary Team

June 1, 2015

Shie has been tapped to serve as music editor on Janis: Little Girl Blue, a documentary about the legendary Janis Joplin directed by Oscar nominee Amy Berg (Deliver Us from Evil, West of Memphis) & produced by Oscar winner Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room).

What About Love

Feature Film

Feature Film
Valentines Day, 2019

Two young lovers change the lives of their parents forever when the parents learn from the joyful experience of their kids, and allow themselves to again find their love.

Role: Executive Music Producer/Music Editor

Composer: Pieter Schlosser
Director: Klaus Menzel
Cast: Marielle Jaffe, Miguel Ángel Muñoz, Sharon Stone, Andy Garcia, Iain Glen, Kamaliya, José Coronado

Quick Tip: Numbering Cues

Quick Tips

There are several conventions when numbering cues for your project. The oldest was simply keeping a running tally of each cue i.e. M001, M002, M003 and so on. The M stands for Music, so this would indicate music cue 1, music cue 2, music cue 3 etc.

At some point a new convention became popular, starting with the reel or act number, then the letter M, then the cue number within that reel or act, for example 1m01, 1m02, 1m03, 2m01, 2m02, 2m03 etc. This system is still very popular and effective. It’s easy to see how many cues are in each reel or act using this system.

Finally, a variation on this system became popular, combining both of the above conventions. In this system the reel or act number is first, then M for music and then a continually escalating number for each cue like so: 1m01, 1m02, 1m03, 2m04, 2m05, 2m06 and so on.

In my entire career I haven’t seen the old serial system in use except when looking up old cue sheets for Bride of Frankenstein (1935) & The Wolf Man (1941). So I think it’s safe to say nobody uses it anymore.

I prefer the latter method for two main reasons. First, it makes it impossible to have 1m2 and 2m1, which can be easily confused, especially when it’s late and you’re tired and trying to beat a deadline, or if you’re dyslexic. Second, it’s not uncommon to re-balance reels after cue numbers have been assigned and using the latter system you can simply change 1m07 to 2m07 to indicate the cue that used to be at the end of reel 1 is now at the top of reel 2. It’s still cue 07, and always will be.

I also like using leading zeros when numbering cues (i.e. 1m01 not 1m1). This makes sure things are always sorted properly when looking at file names on my computer or using any database system I may be using to help manage my projects.

A few more conventions I like:

If a cue is added between cues, I will number it as the cue that precedes it and add a letter to the cue number. For example, if a cue is added between 2m04 & 2m05 I’ll call it 2m04A. If another is added between 2m04A & 2m05 I’ll call it 2m04B and so on. If a cue is added between 2m04A & 2m04B it can be 2m04AA or 2m04A2 – thankfully that’s an extremely rare occurrence.

If a composer choses to split up a cue into parts, I use the same convention. For example if 3m24 is split up into 3 distinct cues they will become 3m24A, 3m24B and 3m24C.

Finally, I like to have a quick visual in the cue number that lets me know if it is underscore for the composer to write, a needle-drop (source or song) or on-camera production (i.e. someone singing on camera). I don’t do anything for score cues. I add an “s” for needle-drop to indicate it is a song or source cue (i.e. 4m43s) and I add a “p” for production cues (i.e. 6m72p).

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, or add a comment.

Jasmine Wins Grand Jury Prize at LAAPFF

May 1, 2015

Jasmine Crew

Jasmine, the dark psychological thriller by director Dax Phelan took the Grand Jury Prize for Narrative Film at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. The film also won Special Jury Prizes for Best Sound Design (Lisa K Fowle), Best Cinematography (Guy Livneh), Best Editing (Chris Chan Lee) & Best Actor in a Drama (Jason Tobin).

Written and produced by Dax Phelan, Jasmine is Dax’s directorial debut. Shie scored the film (the soundtrack is available on iTunes, amazon.com & all major online retailers).

Jasmine tells the story of a once-successful Hong Kong businessman, Leonard To (Jason Tobin), who is still reeling from the tragedy of his wife’s murder the year before. Having lost his job, friends and all sense of order in hi life, Leonard becomes obsessed with a mysterious stranger he sees at his wife’s grave (Byron Mann), believing him to be responsible for her death. Phelan’s direction shies away from the tourist’s-eye-view of Hong Kong, capturing instead the atmosphere of isolation that lurks within the bustle and crowds.