Where have I been? Where even am I now? I'm sitting in the break room at NY1. It's cold. Winter has come early and with a force. I'm hiding though the temptation to go outside and get real coffee is there. A lot has changed this year and not just that I'm actually drinking coffee again. But I got thinking yesterday and today about a specific moment in the evolution of a career. When the realization comes over you that you might be finally stepping up to the plate.
A few years back now, I had a chance to submit my ideas for a 10 minute snippet of a documentary about nuns in Hong Kong in the early 1900s. I was excited, overwhelmed even and, though I took the day off work to get the bulk of the work done, I feel like I didn't really grasp the significance of the opportunity. I did take it seriously, that's for sure. I knew I had to give it my all but I really just think I wasn't ready.
Fast forward to now. I'm getting some more opportunities in voice over and I'm feeling paradoxically like I'm both more ready and more frightened to be at bat. Maybe it's that I'm more frightened by the opportunity that tells me I'm more ready. But I do hope to get past that. Being confident that I can do this is winning out over being terrified that I'm not fit just yet.
On Sunday, I went to a screening of "True Love," the film I scored over the summer. The film is an offbeat comedy about two brothers who try to pick up a middle aged prostitute. It was my first chance to really score a comedy and to actually make my music part of the joke in a lot of the scenes. It came out really well and there some cues where the director added something after the fact that added to the laughs. At one point, a slowed tape effect whenever two characters were about to kiss but were interrupted and a few other times to bring back the same trope to comedic effect. In fact, the first time my underscore, which was based on the same idea as the opening title theme, came in, during the prostitute's dramatic telling of her backstory, the audience burst into laughter. It's a heartfelt bittersweet piano piece with a string trio behind it, almost taking itself seriously but with a wink, to the extent that at the moment it comes in, it's a cue that the film knows that it's absurd. It was such a treat to hear people reacting to my music. Normally, in the film's I've scored, my music has a much subtler effect.
So, going forward this week with that triumph, I get an opportunity to read a documentary script at CNN, just so the producers can hear my voice (apparently it got back to them that I do voice overs). At first I'm terrified, mostly of messing up and nothing coming of it but then, I'm terrified of something actually coming from it. And then I'm out there and laid bare, standing in front of a packed auditorium in my underwear and free to be judged on my talents or lack thereof. But then I go back in that booth and do a second take because I know enough to not be satisfied with my first take and because I'm confident that I can totally f*#$ing do this.
And no, nothing has come of it yet. I was merely using that example to illustrate a point.
Hopefully soon, though, I'll be able to show you all clips from "True Love" with my music. Stay tuned guys. And stay warm.
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