Bout That Bout provides a powerful window into the lives of those struggling to survive modern poverty, but what makes the film special is that you can see these people rising above their situation right before your eyes.
This is fight three from the film with temp picture and underscoring - the way I saw the film until yesterday when the screeners arrived. The final picture looks amazing. I also have to send a great big Thank You! to my friend Chris Salmassy over at Post Haste Sound who did a great, great job creating the final mix. Rumor has it there may (will?) be a screening in NYC in the coming months.
So I've been working on this EP for a while. It's completion has been delayed by a cross-country move and having to figure out how to record in my new apartment in Brooklyn.
Once upon a time I shared a lovely house with two good friends that had a great sounding living room.
Sigh. It's not just the weather I miss in LA.
This is a little sample of Tell Me - just the horns recorded in my living room. It was incredibly fun to hear lines I had in my head for some months finally come to life in the hands of the fantastic Joe Bad and two of his compatriots. Now I just need to finish the vocals.
I was lucky enough to work with Bryan Senti and The MacAurthur Dance Project on the ballet From the Margins, This, Unmentioned. The piece was inspired by poems written by Kat Mandeville. I did live sound and a sub-mix multi-track recording of the three performances. Bryan and I did a mix which has been combined with footage and turned into this great teaser trailer. It's a stirring piece.
This is another Kern Saxton collaboration. This scene was finished after a week of shooting to help lure investors. Another set of unique challenges both musically and in terms of sound design.
Kern and I discussed the music on and off for a while. He was interested in a fully-orchestrated electronic score ala Brad Fiedel's score for Terminator. I had some ideas of my own, so I did a demo that had an acoustic, gritty vibe. Kern liked it, but asked for a demo that conformed more to the Terminator aesthetic. Four demos later, I revised my original idea and we had ourselves a scene.
The sound design has lots of fun elements. This scene lives and dies on production tricks. The violence is essentially well-edited footage that makes it feel real. The sound design takes the same tact. Looking at the raw footage, you lose any sense of foreboding or tension. My goal was to make sure attention was drawn to the more frightening aspects of the scene: the razorblades, slingshot, the impacts etc.
I'm looking forward to finishing the rest of the film.
