oh no, i made a blog fail. forgot to post this last night. anyway, here’s some trailers of movie’s coming out that i’d like to see…
PAUL - looks totally silly and wonderful. i hope it’s as great as i want it to be…
COWBOYS & ALIENS - the title says it all. i have a feeling this is either going to be the best movie ever or the very worst. probably nowhere in between. ha.
CARS 2 – i adore pixar and although literally every single pixar film is of the same, impeccable caliber, “cars” is probably the film lowest on my fav. list. BUT still loved it and i have no doubts that cars 2 will be surprisingly great.
BATTLE LOS ANGELES - loved district 9 and this seems like it’ll have some stuff in common. looks well made.. been really into the lesser hollywood budget sci-fi of films.i’m sure this still costs millions to make, but probably quite a few million that say transformers. ha.
some other 2011 films i’m looking forward to:
we bought a zoo, hugo cabret, pirates of the caribbean 4, kung fu panda 2, thor, 8mm, harry potter and the deathly hollow pt. 2, winnie the pooh, bioshock (uh, awesome – just learned about that one’s release!), brave new world, district 10, gravity… there’s more but this list is getting overwhelming..
A little while back I wrote about one of my favorite shows “At The Movies”. This is the show that Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel made famous. There had been many different iterations of the show, bringing in different hosts after Gene Siskel’s death and then Roger Ebert’s battle with cancer that forced him to leave the show and eventually led to the loss of his ability to speak. After all the show had been through it was cancelled last year. I was pretty bummed. The show had become a big part of my Sunday routine and it was sad to see it go. Then they announced several months back that Roger Ebert had stepped in and was bringing the show back, this time to PBS. Well the show had it’s debut this past weekend and it’s great to have it back. The new hosts are Christy Lemire of the Associated Press and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of Mubi.com. The new hosts did a great job. You can tell that it’s a difficult transition from writing to hosting a show. They seemed a bit nervous towards the beginning of the show but they seemed to loosen up by then and I’m sure they’ll only get more comfortable as the show goes on. You can see the first episode and find out more about the show here. But by far the best part of the show was the return of Roger Ebert. He has a segment called “Roger’s Office” where he’ll share what’s on his mind (kind of like a blog). Since he is no longer able to speak for this first episode they brought in the famous director and amazing voice haver, Werner Herzog to be his voice. It was awesome and the movie he talks about looks really interesting too. I’m excited to see what they’ll do for future episodes. Check it out below.
today’s a good day. the “february” EP is officially “out of our hands” now, which means all that is left to do before it releases, is us giving opinions on the last mix or two and mastering. easy, quick stuff. but as far as everything else goes, we are officially done with “february.” really hope you guys like it!
pretty sure the track list will be:
1. “dear true love” – which is a love song, of course… a simple, folky love song in honor of valentine’s day. played my baby taylor guitar on this one!
2. “land or sea” – a bit more upbeat… ukuleles, pianos, drums and all sorts of other stuff.
3. “learning curve” – the last song to be completed – played on the electric guitar, super simple and slow. very lyric focused.
excited to show you guys these songs! although it was only a month, it felt like we’ve been working on these for a long time. they’re like old friends to us now.
now that we’re finished with “february,” we get to take a brief but needed break before hitting the ground running on the “march” EP. february is a shorter month, and i’m leaving town for a few days for some TWLOHA events, so it’s going to be quite a race to the finish line, but we’re feeling good about it.
talk soon!
love, ryan
p.s. completely random: so, my mom recently posted a blog post and she found/put up the following picture from early last year in hawaii… so, in case you were wondering what a picture of me, my family and dog the bounty hunter and his gang would look like… well, here it is:
Did you guys play the video game Portal like I told you to a while back? Good, because the sequel is coming out in April and it looks like it’s going to be amazing. The first one was so good and really one of the most fun games I can remember playing. For the uninitiated, the basic premise is you have this portal gun that shoots two colored portals, an orange and a blue. You can walk into a blue portal and you will exit the orange and vice versa. You then have to use this mechanic to make it through these different test chambers. It’s really fun and it’s really interesting how you have to change your way of thinking to be able to solve the puzzles. It was such a totally original idea and it also had this really great dry sense of humor. Anyway, like I said the new one is coming out in April and although I think this video has been around for awhile, this is the first that I’ve seen of it. It looks like it has a chance to live up to the original. It also looks so difficult. Sorry for the super nerdy post. If you can’t wait for the sequel or your just at work and are bored, you can play a flash version of the game here.
we’re so so close to finishing “february,” but this week is definitely the homestretch! to meet each of the tight deadlines ahead, our pace needs to be kept up the best we can! but in the frenzy i almost forgot to post today. so this will have to be a mini update. here’s the latest:
1. “dear true love” was just sent to mastering today (which means, the mixing is finished and sounds great!)
2. “land or sea” is up next for the mixing process… we are supposed to hear the first draft of the mix tomorrow. fingers crossed! it’s the most “full” song of the EP (meaning, it has the most instruments happening)
3. the third song, which i think i’m going to call “learning curve” is literally one line away from the lyrics being finished. it’s been an overall easy song to work on, but finishing it up has been a challenge. i’m hoping to finish lyrics tonight, or tomorrow AM and then sing it asap tomorrow, with the goal of sending it to john (our mixer) by wednesday afternoon. fingers crossed on that…
that’s about it! we’re in good shape, but definitely need to work our butts off this week to get it all wrapped up. it’s coming out SOON!
I know I just posted a bit about Charlie Chaplin the other day. But I just found some more examples of the music he composed for his movies. This is the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra performing some medley’s of music from a couple of his films. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the one from “The Gold Rush” which I think is my favorite as far as music goes. But I did find “City Lights” which is my favorite as far as movies go so it evens out. I hope you enjoy it. I think they are beautiful.
judging by the view count on most of these videos, odds are that you’ve already seen ‘em. they’re each just lovely for entirely different reasons.
this one is quite famous, by the looks of it (nearly 7 million plays)… features a song by the band “barcelona” which is wonderfully fitting. it was filmed and put together by the very gifted canadian filmmaker, jon rawlinson. it’s gorgeous and has beckoned me back for several viewings… i get lost in it. (although, i do wish the aquarium would free all of the fish… now that there’s been beautiful footage to watch, the fishes jobs are done!)
(watch in high res if you can though!)
this one’s by peter cote and blake heal… it’s lovely and creative and again, you may have already seen it judging by the view count… song is “home” by edward sharpe and the magnetic zeroes. (love this song)
and last but not least, another film by jon rawlinson. it’s sweet and genuine short film and it deserves as many plays as the first couple videos above.. love the concept.
Tonight was the second concert in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s series “Friday Night at the Movies”. I blogged about the first concert but in case you missed it… For this series the orchestra picks classic movies and plays the scores to the movies while the movie plays on the big screen. The first show was “Psycho” which was amazing and tonight was the Charlie Chaplin classic “The Gold Rush”. Tonight might have been even better than the first concert. One of the first posts on this blog was about my love of Charlie Chaplin, so I was really looking forward to this concert. The score sounded amazing. It was so cool to hear it live instead of the recording that’s featured in the movie. It sounded so lush and full. It was awesome to see a lot of new instruments added since the last concert. For “Psycho” it was only strings which was awesome but tonight they had clarinets and flutes and percussion and my favorite part was the piano player also played a celeste which is one of my favorite instruments. We use it a lot in our music but we just have a keyboard synth version. This was the first time I had ever heard a real one live. The movie was great of course. I’ve seen a Charlie Chaplin movie one other time in the theater with an audience and I really think this is the way to see his movies. His movies have such a warm hearted feel and to be able to share that with a room full of people really makes it feel special. Next up is a tribute to Roger Ebert and he’s even going to be there. Can’t wait.
Love, dan
this is from the Boston Symphony Orchestra but it has some nice examples of the score.
the “february” EP is starting to take shape! the finish line is ahead… i can feel it. this week’s been very productive for us. so far, two of the three songs (“dear true love” & “land or sea”) are complete and have already been sent off to mixing! always a good feeling… each mini milestone feels great. so aside from finalizing the mixing and mastering on those two songs, we’ve only got one more song to complete and it’s already shaping up nicely as well. we made great progress on it today, in fact. we decided to take a different approach to this song than usual… most of the time, we spend quite a bit of time pre-planning out the arrangement of the song and the dynamics, but this 3rd song is very minimal and simple, so we wanted to approach the arrangement/recording of it in that same simple, minimal fashion. so, we spent only a little time working out parts and decided to just jump in, perform both of our parts together, live and then pick a take that stood out. letting the arrangement and feel of the song to sort of naturally come about, rather than planning every detail of it. we’re really pleased with how it’s turning out! dan played piano and i played electric, reverby guitar on it. (which marks or first electric-guitar-as-main-instrument song for “yearbook”!) was a fun way to work today…
now, i’m trying to hit the ground running with lyrics and vocals for this, while dan spends a little time experimenting with atmospheric stuff to add. so far, we’re feeling good about the schedule/deadlines ahead… we’re hoping for smooth sailing from here on out!
thanks for reading, guys!
love, ryan
p.s. have you guys been watching american idol?? thoughts? i’ve only seen tonight’s episode, but it seemed fun enough to keep watching. steven tyler and jennifer lopez seem to be doing well. how about you guys?
I just saw this video the other day and thought I would share it with you. It’s a video of surfers in Alaska. Yes, Alaska. They’re surfing a wave that can go on for almost five miles. Sounds like a lot of fun. It’s caused by something called a bore tide and it happens in very few places in the world. One of those places is the Turnagain Arm in Alaska. We read about these bore tides when we were in Alaska this summer but we didn’t get a chance to witness it for ourselves. We’ll definitely have to try and check it out next time we are there. Maybe we’ll get to see some surfers too.
