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How to Talk to a Composer (And Get the Film Score You Actually Want) · Indie Film Podcast

0:00
I try to get people to describe things as emotionally and
0:02
viscerally as possible. I want it to feel like when you
0:05
find out that your grandmother passed away, like, OK, those are
0:09
interesting things that aren't musical, but I can write music
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that kind of feels that way. Chuck, what's the one thing no
0:15
film should do without? A musical score, unless you're
0:17
making No Country for Old Men. You are absolutely right when
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even silent films can acknowledge the importance of
0:24
sound and music. Maybe it's time for indie film
0:26
makers to get on the same page. Welcome to indie film podcast
0:29
I'm. And I am Chuck.
0:31
This week we're chatting with local musician, Boise musician,
0:34
film composer, and completely unbiased individual Jessie Blake
0:38
Rundle. A film score is pretty
0:40
important. Agreed, and if our listeners
0:43
take away absolutely nothing else from this episode, I hope
0:46
they at least walk away with that.
0:47
So, Jessie, why don't we start with comparing stock music with
0:53
a original film score? What is it that you offer that
0:57
people can't find on their Adobe Stock Music account?
1:01
I'd say quite a bit. I think if your film has an
1:05
emotional arc, the chance of stock music really fitting that
1:09
and adding to it is pretty slim. It might kind of like fill some
1:12
space or help with like a slow pacing moment, maybe move it a
1:18
little bit forward. But if you want, if you want
1:20
music that's going to either accentuate the emotions that are
1:24
there or you want it to like draw out a different emotion
1:28
that maybe isn't as present in the in the in the like in the
1:32
screen, then you need someone to write music that's kind of just.
1:35
How it works and I and I think that there's kind of this
1:39
confusion sometimes when people do drop, I'll call it temp
1:43
tracks into their film. As soon as you add some music to
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a scene, it almost always instantly makes it feel better.
1:52
Even if you're looking in your stock music library, whatever
1:57
intense violins or scary person around the corner, you throw
2:02
that in on top of the video and it's like, Oh my gosh, this made
2:05
it so much better. And I think that it's important
2:09
that people realize it's it's OK not to stop there.
2:14
That's not what you're aiming for at the end of the day.
2:18
Yeah, typically. Yeah.
2:19
And so we've talked before on this podcast about the
2:23
importance of using quality music, right?
2:25
So local musicians obviously have needle drop tracks or
2:28
tracks that they've recorded for their albums that a lot of times
2:31
they will be willing to offer in exchange for like video creation
2:35
services. That's going to sound a lot
2:36
better than stock stuff. But you also compose for film,
2:40
and do you want to kind of just talk about what indie film
2:43
makers should consider when they are asking a musician to score
2:47
their film or a composer to score for their film?
2:50
Yeah, there's trying to think of where to start there.
2:54
I mean, one is style. I think as a, you know, I
2:58
produce music for a living, mostly more like songwriter,
3:02
indie rock kind of stuff. Yeah.
3:04
And in producing music, working with people, what do you find is
3:07
communicating about music in English is pretty tough.
3:10
So I'm working with a filmmaker and working with a musician of
3:13
any kind. I'm trying to figure out what
3:15
they want. And sometimes they'll say
3:19
something like, I want it to be really rhythmic and driving.
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And I, I show examples of things that are really rhythmic and
3:24
driving. They're like, oh, I but I didn't
3:26
really want drums, you know? That's the second thing, like.
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Oh well, that's pretty hard to do without.
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Drums like So what, what do you mean?
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And like, well, and then they show another example and I try
3:35
to recreate that example and just it's really difficult.
3:38
Like I'm, I'm not making fun of film makers.
3:40
I think it's it's difficult for everyone to communicate the
3:43
feeling that they're trying to go for.
3:45
And it's my job as the composer to kind of figure out what
3:49
language someone uses to describe music and translate
3:54
that into actual new music. So do.
3:57
You have an example, a little bit more specific of a time that
4:00
you've you've had success with, with a director or with a film
4:05
maker and what that looked like, where the process started and
4:10
then where it ended up. Yeah, I had a really specific
4:13
one where I was composing the the final cue for a film and the
4:19
director asked for, he said I want a lullaby that could be
4:24
played on repeat without ever annoying someone.
4:28
I was like, OK, And he's it was like, what can you give an
4:30
example? And he like mentioned a couple
4:32
like classic lullabies that we all learned.
4:34
Lullaby or whatever, yeah. OK, like things like, you know,
4:37
some of the best pieces of music ever composed.
4:40
Well, that's pretty good. That's a good challenge, yeah.
4:42
So I was like, OK, well here's my start.
4:45
I read a I got a world class lullaby and I wrote a lullaby
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and I was like, I'm actually pretty proud of this.
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It's like it's like got this kind of sing songiness to it.
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It's a little bit hopeful and it has it has the cyclical nature
4:57
so it can kind of come back onto itself and start again without
5:00
feeling like you just hit stop start.
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And so I did that. And then the director was like,
5:07
well, that's I like it, but it's it's far too hopeful for me.
5:11
Like, huh, we asked for a lullaby, so.
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He wanted those really popular sad lullabies where, you know,
5:21
maybe the kids not going to wake up.
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You know, that's sad, Yeah. So what I ended up doing is
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like, OK, well, this is not the right approach.
5:27
So what I, I, I was like, OK, well, how do we add this?
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How do we add some kind of mystery to this or sadness or
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not? Not necessarily sadness, but
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something that just feels a little off.
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So I end up kind of recomposing the lullaby melody in a like A5
5:43
four time signature, which no one who listens to it should
5:47
know that, but it just, it feels like an unexpected, like the,
5:51
the rhythm returns on itself in an unexpected time where you're
5:54
not really expecting the melody to start over again.
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And then it does. So it kind of 1 feels a little
5:59
unfinished and two feels like a surprise.
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And that's what we end up going with.
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I don't think the directory even knows that that that's what I
6:06
did, but that that's what I did. But the director was happier.
6:10
Oh yeah, OK. Yeah, so if something needs to
6:14
be a little bit more melancholy, we just go to 54.
6:18
Go to 5 four, do something a little bit a little bit weird,
6:21
yeah. I like it.
6:23
What kind of language would you do you prefer directors
6:26
communicate to you? Like their aspirations for film
6:30
scores? Yeah, I mean, I try to get
6:33
people to describe things as emotionally and viscerally as
6:36
possible. So some people like, oh, I want
6:38
it to sound blue. And a lot of producers or
6:41
composers would complain about that, which is real.
6:43
But that's if that's how someone, if that's how the
6:46
director thinks of it, Like I want this to feel blue.
6:48
I don't want to feel like the trees blowing in the wind.
6:51
I want it to feel like when you find out that your grandmother
6:56
passed away, like, OK, those are interesting things that aren't
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musical, but I can start to sort of think about how you feel
7:05
about this. And then I can write music that
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kind of feels that way. So that I think using emotional
7:09
language and and really like kind of poem me language is
7:13
helpful. And then making a track list of
7:16
reference tracks, not temp music, but just like music.
7:19
That's inspiring because also everyone has taste that goes
7:23
beyond maybe what the individual cues are going to be, but
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everyone has taste for what kind of music they like.
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And that's a really difficult thing to communicate without
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just like making a playlist. So, you know, because everyone
7:36
says they listen to everything and it's just not true.
7:39
Everyone listens to a lot of things, but everyone has a very
7:42
distinctive taste. And figuring out what someone's
7:45
taste is is pretty important. Early stage for me.
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Otherwise, I'm going to make things that might be good, might
7:51
fit, but aren't to the taste of the director, so they're not
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going to work. So what you're saying is old
7:55
school Facebook, where you could have, like, your music playlist
7:59
on your page was actually very helpful.
8:01
Oh, yeah. Because you could just stalk
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these people and figure out what music they like.
8:05
Right. Nice.
8:07
Yeah. That that.
8:08
Helps a lot. Wait, was that old school
8:10
Facebook or was that Myspace? That was Myspace.
8:13
Myspace. There we go.
8:14
That's the one. Thank you.
8:16
That was old school Facebook. True it was.
8:20
It was. Over Tom's top tracks.
8:22
Does anyone anyone remember? Oh, I'm sure it was whoever was
8:26
paying him the most to be father that day.
8:28
I don't know. Yeah.
8:31
So then as far as film makers being prepared with what to hand
8:37
off to you, Definitely not speaking from my own personal
8:41
here experience here at all. Of course not.
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But if a filmmaker is going to be speaking to a composer, not
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necessarily just a band or a musician or a friend they know
8:53
who had a guitar in high school, but an actual composer, should
8:58
they expect to just hand off the movie and say, here you go?
9:01
By the way, here's my Spotify like favorite playlist.
9:04
That's enough for you? Or should they be prepared to
9:07
break it down scene by scene and overall goals for the music?
9:11
Like, what are you hoping to get from a film maker other than
9:15
just the ways they talk about the film?
9:17
Yeah, I'm expecting to get a lot, I think.
9:21
Yeah, the emotional character, like a feeling of like what the
9:25
goal of this movie is, because especially if you if you've been
9:28
working with temp music and you strip that back and you just
9:31
play the film, it's it's pretty hard for the composer to know
9:34
where it's supposed to go. So getting a playlist of things,
9:38
getting a a sense of what emotions are looking to be drawn
9:42
out or accentuated and getting as some kind of rough cue list.
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Like are there hit, are there hit points that want to be
9:52
accented by music? Or is there a, is there a tonal
9:55
shift that happens at, you know, minute for where you're trying
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to go? You like maybe visually it
10:01
doesn't really change much, but the director knows that we need
10:03
a tonal shift that's happening like underneath the character
10:06
arc. Those kind of things are super
10:08
important. So what I've done, it usually
10:12
works best to just get in the room together because unless
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someone's super experienced, they're not going to know how to
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communicate those things and I'm not going to know how to ask the
10:20
right questions either. So we just like sit down and
10:22
watch it and call out cues, cue points.
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We're like, OK, music's going to start here.
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Music's going to stop here probably.
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Or like music at this moment is probably going to be pulled from
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music that happened earlier in the film because it's
10:37
emotionally similar or trying to connect those two parts of the
10:40
narrative together. So just sitting down and and
10:43
mapping out AQ list is super important as kind of a stage 1.
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And then the stage two that I've basically done with everyone
10:53
I've worked with is actually sitting down and composing with
10:56
the director in the room. So just like pulling up some
11:01
piano pads or string pads or kind of whatever textures we're
11:04
working with and playing the film and just kind of
11:08
improvising on top of it and getting their reaction, that's
11:11
that's worked really well too. That sounds so intimidating.
11:16
Like if somebody for me, yeah, like I'm just imagining if
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there's somebody else near me and I'm trying to type on a
11:24
computer, then all of a sudden I can't spell anything or don't
11:28
know how to hit backspace properly.
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So I just imagine trying to take out a whole instrument, just go
11:34
and improvise in the food. That sounds very intimidating.
11:36
You're right, it is intimidating a little bit, especially when
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someone's hired you and is paying you and you're like, I'm
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going to make some garbage in front of you.
11:43
Sorry, but that has to be part of the process.
11:47
I think if you're an artist and you don't know that making
11:50
garbage is part of the process, then what are you doing?
11:52
You know that's. True.
11:53
Yeah, right. Draft 1 is going to be draft
11:56
one. There's nothing you can do to
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get to draft 3, right? There's no other way you.
12:01
Have to go through drafts 1 and 2.
12:03
That's fair. Yeah, I would be there.
12:05
I do wonder, though, if like John Williams feels that way
12:08
every time he sits down with Spielberg, you know?
12:10
I would imagine there would be. Known in the room.
12:12
A war there, but they probably have if they've worked together.
12:16
I would, I would guess, you know, music like composers
12:20
working with the same director over and over again.
12:22
I would imagine it just continues to get easier and or
12:25
more efficient. Yeah.
12:27
So. I guess that's fair.
12:29
I guess that's almost any crew member too, right?
12:31
Like or even like in your band, you're probably not rotating
12:35
through a bunch of different drummers every single week,
12:37
right? Because once you find somebody
12:39
that gets it and flows with, you probably want to keep them
12:42
around. Yeah, you want to keep them
12:43
around. That's true.
12:44
And I guess, you know, maybe that's a good point.
12:46
It's I think if I was working with someone new, my first step
12:49
wouldn't be to improvise in front of them because I want to.
12:54
I want to prove my worth a little bit.
12:56
First, let me draft something for you while you're not
12:59
watching me. Yes, yeah.
13:02
And then once we have that, then maybe then maybe there's a
13:05
session together where you're like, OK, how do we adjust this?
13:08
And because for me, I just so important to get their reaction
13:11
in real time where like, OK, I'm maybe playing this little guitar
13:14
riff and they're like, oh, but that's too that's too Moody or
13:17
maybe that's too busy And and then I can adjust immediately
13:24
instead of it just saves me so much time compared to like
13:26
trying to compose 7 different versions of the same queue and
13:30
then get notes on each one. Like, oh, I like this part of
13:33
this one, that part of that one, that part of that one.
13:35
And then try to mish mash that together.
13:37
It's easier to do it in real time.
13:39
No, that makes sense. I can see that being
13:41
substantially faster. Yeah, that's fair.
13:43
OK. Question I have for you as far
13:45
as we've been talking about composing and you've also had
13:50
your music featured. I know at least in some of the
13:52
lower Gentry stuff that that I've worked on your music
13:55
featured from various EPS that you've recorded that you've
13:59
spent time mastering those types of things.
14:02
If you're approached by a filmmaker that wants music, like
14:08
what flexibility do you have as far as them requesting just a
14:12
needle drop of one of your songs?
14:14
Like maybe as far as cost or trade is concerned versus doing
14:19
a composition and what what do you value as an independent
14:25
musician in that in that scenario?
14:28
OK. If that, if that makes sense.
14:29
Like, yeah, because you're you're basically fighting the
14:32
same battle that we film makers are fighting just on the musical
14:36
end where you're trying to get, I would imagine trying to get
14:39
exposure. Yeah, trying to get more people
14:41
to follow you so that you can sell more albums down the line.
14:44
So how do you weight that? Can I also throw in one quick
14:48
interjection? That's another question.
14:53
Needle drop versus composition, just for anybody.
14:59
Oh yeah. Until I started hearing needle
15:01
drop very consistently, I had no idea what that meant.
15:04
So what is that? What is a needle drop in a film?
15:07
Are you asking me? Either one of you.
15:09
OK, so needle drop is when I'm using that term.
15:12
It's like just taking a track that exists that a musician is
15:16
already recorded and then using it in your film.
15:20
All of Martin Scorsese does that a lot, where he's just playing a
15:24
song that everybody recognizes. I think A Knight's Tale is the
15:28
best example with Heath Ledger where they they just use that
15:33
existed. Yeah, it was a, it was a film.
15:36
It was like a night battle film, but that they used a whole bunch
15:39
of rock songs throughout the entire thing.
15:41
So that would be an example of a needle drop versus what John
15:44
Williams does or what Danny Elfman does, which is to write
15:48
original music specifically for the film.
15:50
That's a composition. And also not a musical where
15:52
it's the the story is being carried specifically through the
15:56
music. This is music that is in.
15:58
So it's not like a Baz Lerman then doing Great Gatsby kind of.
16:01
Or I guess it's more Baz Luhrmann's Great Gatsby, less
16:04
Moulin Rouge. Yep, exactly, exactly.
16:07
I was like Jaws. That's a composer, yes.
16:11
Yeah, right. OK, sorry.
16:13
So now that that's clarified, yes, please continue, Jesse.
16:15
Thank. You, I mean, for me as a
16:18
independent musician, a needle drop's great because it's I
16:22
don't have to do anything. You're already there and I might
16:24
get exposure. You know, if something gets it
16:27
gets does well, then yeah, then I have music out there.
16:31
Of course, if you're like, if you have a, a bigger name, then
16:34
you're thinking about sync licensing and stuff.
16:36
But that's not, I mean, most of the people I'm working with are
16:39
in this arts community we have around here and I'm not not
16:43
looking to make a buck off of them.
16:44
I'm looking to be a part of the community and maybe get some
16:48
some work for trade. Yeah, but a.
16:50
Lot of us outside of New York, LA, London, large cities
16:54
throughout the world, we're kind of in a different boat than the
16:57
the musicians and artists in those larger areas, right, I
17:02
feel like. Yeah.
17:03
And no one's like trying to take advantage of you here.
17:05
No, which if if someone, if I was living in New York and
17:08
someone was like, hey, can I use your song for free for exposure,
17:12
I would feel like, oh, this person is probably trying to
17:14
take advantage of me. But here it's like, no, it's
17:17
just, it's just we're all just trying to make art.
17:20
And if someone ever gets ahead and makes a buck, then cool.
17:24
That'd be great to be a part of that.
17:26
But yeah, so yeah, needle drops are great.
17:31
And composing takes a ton of time and effort and it's hard.
17:34
So I rarely do that for free. I've done some of that for free
17:40
to, to basically build up my own skill set there because I've,
17:44
I've been really curious about composing for film for a long
17:47
time. So I've done some work for free
17:50
or for cheap to build up the skills and to get a little bit
17:54
of a resume, you know, build up the IMDb credits.
17:58
And I'm at a point now where it's like I have, I just don't
18:00
have enough time to write a lot of free music.
18:03
Yeah. So I can't really do that
18:06
anymore even if I want to. It just doesn't really make
18:08
sense for me financially. I'll just, I'll just, you know,
18:11
it's like either get paid or don't eat.
18:14
So. Yeah.
18:16
That sounds reasonable. Yeah, that's a completely
18:18
reasonable to ask. Of course, that's how else are
18:21
you going to be a starving artist if you're not starving?
18:25
Right, So if you're, if we have some musicians out there
18:27
listening to this podcast, what would you recommend they do to
18:31
because you just mentioned that to move into composing, you did
18:34
some some work on the cheap or for free.
18:38
What do you recommend musicians consider if they're trying to
18:41
make that leap from I'm going to release tracks and albums to I
18:44
want to compose for some of the film makers in my area?
18:48
Yeah, I think get involved in the film scene and start trying
18:51
to find people you want to collaborate with and offer them
18:55
free work. I think that's just how that's
18:58
how this industry works. So yeah, I do.
19:02
I some people don't like that idea of working for free, of
19:06
giving away your services for free.
19:08
But I think that's just, that's how the thing works.
19:11
And like I said, it's not like someone's trying to take
19:13
advantage of you or someone's like going out and making,
19:16
making a, you know, a short film for a local Film Festival and
19:19
there's going to make money off of it.
19:20
They're not making money. No one's making money, so and if
19:23
you want to be a part of that scene, you got to be a part of
19:26
the scene and it should be fun. So if you're not in it for the
19:30
fun of it, then also it's like what are you doing?
19:32
I like that, yeah. If you're not, if you're not
19:34
having fun, then just don't do it.
19:36
And that part of that is making sure you're surrounding yourself
19:39
with the people that you want to spend time with and work with
19:42
and learn these things at the same time.
19:44
Yeah. So if you find a film maker that
19:47
maybe seems just horrible to work with and you're like,
19:50
absolutely not. So that's not somebody you have
19:52
to work with for free, then? No.
19:53
Yeah, you're allowed to say no. Yeah, just don't do it.
19:56
OK. So what what entices you Jesse,
19:58
as far as being flexible on payment just just yeah, you
20:03
directly, which may not be the same reasons for somebody else.
20:07
Like is there a certain type of project that gets your
20:09
attention? Is there a certain type of?
20:13
Trade that you look at as far as working with film makers,
20:17
because we've mentioned on this podcast before we actually met
20:20
because we were doing a live video series, which we sent you
20:23
those assets as soon as live music video series and we sent
20:27
those assets to you as soon as we were done.
20:28
And that helped us build a relationship and made the film
20:32
that my my brother and sister-in-law and I made
20:35
infinitely better. Like it took, I think it took it
20:38
from like ACB to like a plus as soon as your score was was put
20:44
in there. So.
20:45
So what are those things that you consider?
20:49
Yeah, I mean one, do I think it's good art?
20:53
Like do I want to be a part of it?
20:54
Do I want my name associated with it?
20:57
That's the main thing. And then is the team fun to work
21:01
with? Is is the other one, I think
21:03
those two. And then I mean, we were just
21:10
talking about a potential musical.
21:12
It's also just like, how much time do I have to do I have
21:16
enough? Do I am I over committing
21:17
myself? Because that's the other thing
21:19
too, is like, if I'm going to do work for a friend that's
21:22
supposed to be fun, Like I want to do good work.
21:25
I don't want to do bad work. I could just, you know, skate by
21:29
and do some mediocre work that basically sounds like temp music
21:33
or sounds like you're you're stock music, but that's not
21:36
interesting to me. If I'm going to do it, I want it
21:38
to be something I'm proud of and can be part of my own resume.
21:41
So yeah, it's just like, do I have do I have the time?
21:45
It seemed fun and is it going to be a an interesting piece of art
21:52
that is like says something so. So the bet, the number one way
21:56
to collaborate with Jesse Blake Rondell, which I imagine is the
21:59
same for a lot of musicians out there, is to be creating art
22:03
that actually the holes at your heartstrings.
22:06
Yeah. And then from there.
22:09
I mean, personally, I feel like the craft services table also
22:12
plays a role, you know, back to the serving artist.
22:15
Contest. Yeah, there was that that little
22:18
trailer we shot and they had the licorice.
22:21
Licorice was really good. Oh, yes, that's right.
22:24
Yeah. So licorice, Licorice.
22:26
That's important. So the.
22:27
Fancy is like Australian licorice.
22:29
Oh yeah, good stuff. OK.
22:31
I like where it's the black licorice, but it's also salted
22:34
sometimes too. Have you had that one?
22:36
I haven't. Just a red one.
22:37
No, it looks so chewy. Black licorice with the salt on
22:40
it is just kill. It's the same brand that you're
22:43
talking about. Yeah.
22:44
So Australian listeners out there, you know how to pull out
22:47
our heartstrings just to send us licorice.
22:50
We'll be more than happy to the tariffs as soon as it comes in
22:52
the mail. Surprising someone's No one's
22:55
ever given me ice cream at craft services, but that would also
22:57
work. Oh, right on.
22:58
Ice cream is hard to do on craft services.
23:00
But I was on one set where they had hired an ice cream truck to
23:05
come by after like between the mid afternoon break time when
23:09
they knew they had a big setup change so that everyone was just
23:11
kind of sitting around for a little while and they just had
23:13
the ice cream truck come by and it definitely boosted morale for
23:16
that one. But that.
23:17
Would work. There's like those bars that
23:20
you'd buy in like middle school. The sandwiches.
23:22
The sandwich has been like the ones with like the strawberry
23:24
coating on them. Do you remember those?
23:26
Strawberry coating on. Them is that just a Kansas thing
23:28
that. Might just be a Kansas thing.
23:31
I don't remember that very good. I would, yeah.
23:33
I would do work for free for that.
23:36
So this is sort of like, what would you do for a Klondike bar?
23:38
Now we know you do. There we go, right?
23:41
Original score. I hope all musicians would be
23:46
willing to consider that as well.
23:49
Be nice. Maybe so can you paint us a
23:51
picture just to kind of let all the indie film makers know out
23:55
there that it feels when you tell me about what you do, it
23:58
feels like we're kind of in a similar situation, right, where,
24:03
you know, indie film makers, if we are doing video and film full
24:07
time, a lot of times it isn't our thing.
24:09
You know, we're helping people out on other projects.
24:12
We're doing commercial work, you know, to help pay the bills.
24:15
Can you tell us you have you do compositions, you have, you've
24:22
released several albums of your own, but then you also have a
24:25
studio where you're recording people here in the Boise area,
24:29
helping them mix tracks. You do the tracking, you also do
24:33
the mixing, all that stuff. Can you kind of just paint a
24:36
picture of what your average day or week looks like so everybody
24:40
knows, you know? A day and or a week in the life
24:43
of a composer slash musician slash business owner, an
24:48
entrepreneur. Right.
24:50
It's pretty crazy. It's everyday is so different.
24:53
I'd say I usually have about 10:00-ish projects going in the
24:58
studio at any given time, all different kind of time skills.
25:01
But so I have lots of artists coming in to record or to review
25:06
mixes or to, or I have like introductions for, for newer
25:09
clients that are coming in to kind of figure out what their
25:12
goals are. Some, I got a lot of artists
25:15
coming in the studio and then when I'm, when they're not in
25:19
there, then I'm often mixing and mastering and then I have my own
25:22
music. So there's a lot of just promo
25:25
work for that. It's like making video content.
25:28
I do a lot of video content, you know, to get the word out there
25:32
about my own music and, and find the audience and kind of always
25:38
working on recording or prepping another release.
25:42
Like I have a single coming out in a few days.
25:44
So there's all that kind of work for that.
25:47
And then like applying for residencies and grants and
25:52
trying to get funding and, and just keep collaborating.
25:57
So yeah, the number of projects in my head at any given time is
26:01
way too many. And I try to like about pretty
26:05
much every morning, I just sit down and I write like, what am I
26:07
going to think about today? And I read about 15 things
26:11
usually, and I usually work on 2.
26:13
So that's how it goes. Yeah, I like that.
26:15
I like that you give yourself a whole list of options.
26:18
Yeah. Probably just because those are
26:20
all the things weighing on your brain in some form or another.
26:22
Yeah, but. Dump them out and then like, OK,
26:26
well, I can only really do one or two of those today.
26:29
The myth of no you'll totally be productive for eight solid,
26:32
uninterrupted hours today. Possible.
26:34
Absolutely. That's how humans work.
26:36
That sounds really similar though to what we do great, you
26:40
know, having to work with post production editing, audio
26:43
mixing, same type of thing. And then also trying to find
26:47
time for our own projects, which I do want to hit on for you,
26:51
Jesse, because for you had mentioned that you have a single
26:54
coming out by the time this by the time this episode airs,
26:58
that'll be out. How should people follow you?
27:01
And I also want to mention too, so you don't have to say it
27:03
yourself. I feel like your vertical videos
27:04
that you make on TikTok and Instagram are really, really
27:08
well done. They're also very entertaining
27:11
and very interesting. And yes, they're not.
27:13
They're not all clips of just music, for better or for worse.
27:18
It's fine. I would love to see even more
27:19
of, No, I'm kidding, I'm not telling you to do more work.
27:21
No, they're really, really great.
27:22
But it's also really fun just to get to see a little bit of a day
27:26
in the life of and you're really good at sharing that and so on
27:29
on social media. You are a very fun follow.
27:32
It's a good, it's a good outline for people that are in the art
27:36
scene to see how you do it. So we don't feel like we're
27:39
constantly trying to promote ourselves in a way that feels
27:42
unnatural. But anyway, how?
27:44
How can people find you? Yeah.
27:45
So Jesse Blake Grundle, if you search that on kind of anything,
27:49
I'll show up, you know, Spotify and Apple is where all the music
27:52
is. And then on Instagram and
27:55
Tiktok. I'm I'm pretty active on both of
27:57
those. And like you said, I've been, I,
27:59
you know, everyone complaints about social media for good
28:02
reason. And I've just worked really hard
28:05
to try to find a way to fit it into my life in a way that makes
28:08
me not hate it and hate myself. And so those I have some really
28:12
strict rules about what I will and won't do or what I most
28:15
like, what I will and won't feel.
28:17
It's like if I feel bad about doing this, I'm not doing this
28:19
anymore. So you mean you set boundaries
28:22
even for social media? Yes, very strict boundaries.
28:26
Very. Impressive.
28:27
It's. Like, the way I think of it too
28:29
is like if you're walking into a casino, it doesn't matter if you
28:34
have a gambling problem or not. You can't like get from one side
28:38
of the casino to the other without getting like trapped by
28:41
the slot machines or by something.
28:43
And that's how I feel like social media is.
28:44
It's like it doesn't matter if you care about affirmation or
28:48
care about the likes and the clicks, the game is rigged to
28:52
make you feel bad. So you got to have really strict
28:55
boundaries to make it across the casino floor without dying.
28:58
Wasn't that the study that Mehta released way back in the day?
29:01
Or maybe it was just Instagram before Facebook bought it where
29:04
it was, that it was so psychologically damaging to
29:09
people that they were restricting people And like, no,
29:12
from now on, if you're under 13, you can't have an account.
29:15
That's that's doing some very serious damage to the children
29:18
of this nation. Yeah, it's bad.
29:21
So you. Feel the urge to grab your
29:22
phone? Have a cigarette instead.
29:24
It's. Much better.
29:28
So yeah, anyway, I'm on the social stuff and we got a single
29:31
coming out called Eyes in a couple days.
29:34
So nice. Yeah, we'll put a link to that
29:36
in the description here as well. And you'll be playing.
29:38
We're gonna be at Tree Fort Pod Fort, which is an annual giant
29:42
music art festival here in Boise.
29:46
Yeah, and you'll be playing at that for anyone who's in the
29:48
area. Thursday afternoon at 3:00 PM at
29:50
the Bandshell. So which is open to the public.
29:53
So anybody can just go attend that.
29:55
If you're in the Boise area, that's the Julia Davis
29:57
bandshell, right? That's right.
29:59
Yeah, and that's the last weekend in March.
30:01
Yes. Yes, so and we'll be we'll be
30:03
there doing a live podcast as well and Dive will be screening
30:06
at that festival. It will Victoria's dive so cool.
30:09
Excellent. Shall we move on to the
30:11
Filmmaker of the Week? I think we should.
30:15
So this week we have Chris or Christopher Mays, the writer,
30:19
director and producer at Trujillo Creek Pictures.
30:22
He's a UCLA film school graduate who initially worked as a
30:26
professional screenwriter. He fell in love, got buried, had
30:30
kids, left Los Angeles for the East Coast, worked in post
30:33
production for various doc TV series and didn't direct for 20
30:37
years before getting hit by the bug when COVID shut down
30:41
everything. By the directing bug, not the
30:44
COVID bug. Yes, the directing bug well
30:47
might have been both, he didn't specify there.
30:49
So he did make it the mission to master indie filmmaking for
30:53
feature films, and has since written and directed 2 indie
30:56
features. And his lesson, I like this is
30:58
to be patient. It's not a race.
31:01
I do like that because you see and hear about a lot of success
31:04
stories of people either write out of film school or graduating
31:08
high school or still in high school, and they're winning all
31:11
these big competitions and making waves and stuff.
31:13
And it's like, hey, it doesn't matter how old you are when you
31:16
go into filmmaking, you know your next big amazing thing
31:21
could still be ahead of you at any age.
31:23
It doesn't matter. Yeah, for sure.
31:25
I feel like as I've gotten older, I used to feel more
31:27
behind on things. Yeah.
31:29
And now I don't feel behind even though I'm over 40 and I should
31:33
be feeling very behind but I. Should not feel this good about
31:36
myself. It's gonna it's gonna move
31:37
forward at the rate it's gonna move.
31:39
He has a tip for us. He was talking about in camera
31:43
facts on the message that he sent us, and he had a cool
31:46
situation where he shot an exterior scene of a character
31:50
climbing vertically up the side of a space station.
31:53
And so he just shot the whole thing horizontally and then
31:57
tilted the camera 45° so that he could fix it all in post.
32:00
So it didn't actually. Nobody had to climb anything.
32:03
No, that's pretty impressive. Just walk across the floor.
32:06
So don't don't forget about those in camera effects because.
32:08
Yeah, there's a lot you can do without requiring special
32:13
editing afterwards. And yes, you can do it in the
32:16
edit afterward, but it's kind of fun to see the differences in
32:20
some of the practical effects. Absolutely, absolutely.
32:22
So thank you so much, Chris, for sharing your story with us, and
32:26
we'll put a link to some of his work in the description.
32:29
Specifically his film Airshift. Oh yes.
32:32
Well, the trailer for that is on YouTube, so we'll be linking.
32:34
To that and if you would like to submit to be the Filmmaker of
32:37
the Week, go to indiefilmpodcast.com/submit and
32:41
then you'll find our link to Indie Film Maker of the Week and
32:44
you can even record a voice memo for us.
32:46
So then you'd like to have your voice played?
32:48
Yeah. And you don't have to listen to
32:49
us trying to talk about you. You can just talk about you.
32:52
Yes. Please.
32:53
Send us your voice memos. Right on.
32:55
So, anything else anyone wants to add?
32:59
Or shall we succinctly say. Farewell.
33:01
Thanks very well. Goodbye.
33:03
Bye.