Robot Cousin’s Audio Feed

Hey all, long time, no post. I’m still kicking. Busy, but still here. For the longest time, I was having trouble with my MySQL database settings. The dreamhost staff told me what to do at first, and I tried my best. Turns out, I really don’t know what I’m doing at all when I try and edit some SQL settings. Finally got around to emailing them last night, but this time, I made sure to include “I don’t know what I’m doing at all, the fate of my page rests upon your shoulders”, or something like that.

Within 10 minutes, the site was back up and ready to go. So, after I get a few projects finished, I’ll be putting up another episode.

‘Richard King‘ for his work in ‘The Dark Knight‘. Makes sense, since that film wasn’t only visually pleasing, but also sonically well-done. Very well-done.

The winnder of ‘Best Achievement in Sound’ went to ‘Slumdog Millionaire‘, for the work provided by Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, and Resul Pookutty. I’m looking forward to finally seeing (and hearing) this film tomorrow night.

Robot Cousin’s Audio Feed - Episode 4

Links of relevance:

• www.benunderwood.com
• Hobnox’s Audiotool
• AudioSurf
• RPM Challenge
• Terminator 2 Sound Design with Gary Rydstrom (and a clip of T-1000)

Ok, so I’m not that good at this podcast thing, in respect to putting out episodes. I have tons of ideas, and they’re all saved, and I am going to put them together very soon. I guess I’m just unsure of what audience I could possibly have. Audio Engineers would listen to it and think “Well, duh”, as I’m not really reporting on anything new or advanced that they’re not aware of, or not able to find on a better site. Should I aim for the everyday internet-surfer, interested to learn about audio from a distance? Perhaps. 

Either way, the point of this post is not the paragraph I just wrote. It’s about the RPM ‘09 Challenge that I’ve enrolled in and want to help get the word out. Basically, it’s a call to all songwriters/composers to create 10 tracks or 35 minutes of original music in the month of February. I’ve decided to partake this year (unlike last year, where I kind of flaked out during, and never released anything I had worked on) and put out a bunch of new music that I haven’t even thought up yet. I’m excited, which is probably the main ingredient in a project recipe like this one.

-Jordan

Ok, another non-podcast update, but it’s not like I’m going to record myself giving my opinion about, or reading through the roundtable questions and answers.

The Hollywood Reporter has a roundtable interview with Danny Elfman (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands), Howard Shore (Lord of the Rings, Doubt), Jan Kaczmarek (Finding Neverland, Unfaithful), A.R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire, Elizabeth: The Golden Age) and Alexandre Desplat (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Golden Compass), and it steps into what they like and dislike about scoring a film, and a bit about their personal approach to a new project.

I’m not going to copy and paste it here, but I do suggest you check it out (otherwise, why would I be posting about it?). Personally, the most interesting thing I took away from the article was the mantra ‘Keep the pencil moving’, which is to say…

Never stop creating.

Hey all, happy holidays! I just wanted to let everyone know that, although I’ve been quite busy lately, I haven’t forgotten about RCAF, and I’ll have a new episode up in a little while. Most likely after the new year. And I’ll try to make it longer, and worthwhile.

I of course am fully aware that this is a podcast-based blog, but since I won’t be recording anything for a little bit, I figure I should mention this now, as I just found out.

According to nytimes.com, ‘The Dark Knight’”s musical score is ineligible for an Oscar nomination, due to the fact that ‘too many names were listed on the official musical cue sheet for the film.’ (a cue sheet is a list of music that has been showcased in a film or tv show, and is submitted to royalty distribution companies such as ASCAP in the States, and SOCAN in Canada.) The people listed on the aforementioned cue sheet are Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, Alex Gibson, Mel Wesson, and Lorne Balfe.

Why is this grounds for disqualification? The only thing I can think of that would cause a problem would be… who gets to take the award home? Personally, if I were to win that award, even with 20 other people, I wouldn’t care who had it, I would just be proud of our work.

Speaking of their work, you can pick up a copy of the soundtrack here. Do it, it’s excellent.

Just a little notice that www.robotcousin.com has gone live, although it’s almost done. Everything is there, aside from the Demo Reel, but I should be uploading media to that either this coming week, or the next.

-Jordan

Two things I want to let everyone know:

1. This style I’ve chosen sucks. I know this. I’ll be picking a new one soon.
2. When everything got screwed up tonight, I had to re-post my old episodes. For whatever reason, they’re not showing up on iTunes anymore, even though they’re right here on this site. I suppose I should mention that in the next episode.

Robot Cousin’s Audio Feed - Ep. 3

Links of relevance:

• Binaural Recording / Virtual Barbershop
• Ask Mr Biggs
• Tommy Tallarico’s Game Audio Network Guild