An Unforeseen Success

         Hello again! I'm back with some surprising but incredible news, thanks to a long shot that paid off. However, before I can share my success with you, first I must provide some context for my elation. When we were reviewing the film opening instructions during class, I noted that there were certain details and conventions that were found in almost every submission that I had seen. While I have not yet settled on a concrete story at the moment (I actually had a pretty solid concept this morning on the drive to school, but after bouncing it off my friend, I came to the conclusion that I'll review and revise the idea a little more, so I can have a polished idea), I am pretty sure that my film opening will be character focused, meaning that its main purpose is to establish the main character for the rest of the film. However, character-focused openings are a common idea among other people working on their own film openings. As a result of this, I knew that to stand out from the sea of similar openings, I would have to strive to change aspects of my opening. While I aim to have a unique visual style, and I hope that my story (when it's confirmed to be my final draft) is unique enough to stand out on its own, I found myself wondering what facets of film openings I could change for myself that weren't commonly thought about by others. After a long time pondering this dilemma, I finally came to an answer: soundtrack.

        In AICE Media AS, a staple of projects submitted to our professor is the seemingly omnipresent royalty-free music that permeates every single submission. While there's nothing wrong with using royalty free music, and websites offer vast arrays of music that appeals to different styles and vibes, I found myself thinking that it would be a little boring to use a song taken from one of these websites. The quality of music wasn't my main concern, instead it was just the prospect of taking someone else's work and using it in my project that just didn't sit right with me. This project was meant to allow our creativity to manifest something of our own, something original, not constrained by limitations or guidelines. It just felt like a waste to mess up an opportunity to make something myself. And so at this moment I had a thought: what if I had an original soundtrack?

        Now you may not personally know this, but I have absolutely zero musical talent. I had never been someone to pick up a guitar or play the piano when I was younger. The extent of my musical ability peaked in the third grade, as we took recorder classes. Unfortunately, I didn't see myself reviving the recorder playing for this project, nor did I think it would fit particularly well with the story I have in mind (no spoilers yet). Instead, my mind turned to thinking about who I know that does have significant musical talent. Almost immediately, I thought about Alexander Evergarden, (online username: DR_ALEXZANDR) , who is a South African music producer that I came to meet through Twitter. I knew that he had a SoundCloud page, which you can find here, where he posts semi-frequently. Pictured below is the home page of his SoundCloud page.

       Alexander typically produces a mixture of trap music as well as ambient tracks, in an EP that he released a few months prior to the writing of this post. Going through his previously released music, I could identify potential for a song that fit the vibe I wanted my film opening to have. I naturally gravitated towards his ambient tracks, since their quietness would allow for any dialogue to take center stage, while providing a nice, smooth undercurrent that compliments the audio of the film. Once I had listened to enough music to make a decision, I took a leap of faith and messaged him directly, inquiring to see if he still produced music (I was unsure, since his posting schedule is somewhat erratic), and if he would be able to help me out on this project. To my great surprise, he actually agreed to it with the sort of excitement that I could appreciate in a colleague.

Pictured above: A leap of faith pays off.

        It was at this point that I was ecstatic to hear this, and thanked him for his generosity. I filled him in a bit more on the nature of the project, namely the time limit, where I was in the production process at the moment, and what my plans were for the future of the project. I mentioned that I had no concrete story as of then, since I didn't expect a response so quickly, but I promised to have a working concept by the end of the week, so that he could work on the song as soon as possible. However, it was here that we found a hitch in an otherwise perfect plan: he was not currently in a state to produce music. I quickly sidestepped this issue by assuring him that we were far ahead of schedule, and that he had time to work on the project after attending to his own life.

Pictured above: An obstacle in an otherwise perfect plan.

    As of right now, that is where we left the conversation. Since we live on opposite ends of the globe, time zones will likely be an obstacle to our communication. However, I think that this will turn out alright. I'm just happy that I've already confirmed one of my dreams for this project to be in the works: an original soundtrack. I'll update this blog tomorrow to discuss my plans for the story of the opening, including my initial thoughts, early concepts that ended up in the bin, and some completely different ideas that I left out in favor of the story I ended up sticking to. But until then, that's the end of the news for today.

See you then!