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Music Toiling In The Pixel Mines

Just an insane amount of stuff.

All kinds of DVDsIt seems like it’s all hitting the fan at once here at Casa Green. In case you managed to miss it somehow (surely not for lack of me blabbering about it everywhere), after months of teasing everyone along, the Classic Gaming Expo 2007 4-DVD set is now up for pre-order, with the first discs shipping at the end of this month. PDF Level 2 now has a drop-dead date in early April, giving me around a month and a half to complete it at its planned 3-hour running time (which includes editing, post, restoration of commercial clips where needed, writing, and composing the music – not necessarily in that order).

As a sidebar to PDF Level 2, though, I’ve fallen in love with a bit of my own work. I hate to admit that, because at some point you have to step away from it and view it with a critical eye. Or ear, in this case, because it’s a piece of music I composed to cover an audio-less stretch of the 1970s segment of Level 2. In the course of prepping a segment and getting it to the point where I’m finally ready to put it to bed, I get to where I have the sound memorized, and the music memorized to the point where I’m sick of it. But, pathetic as it may sound, I could listen to this piece of music all day – I embedded it in this blog post as “RCA Studio LIV” (think Roman numerals to get the joke). I’m probably going to go back and do an extended/embellished version of it to use for the trailer. Why I’m so fond of it, I don’t know – it was intended to resemble a late ’70s Alan Parsons Project instrumental (a sub-sub-genre of music that I dearly love), and I must’ve gotten somewhat close to the mark because I can’t get my ears off of it. It’s all that stuff that jumps around at fifth intervals – that sounds very Parsons. I don’t rate myself as a musician, especially not with a loop-based program as my weapon of choice (the conceit here being that the music for a video game documentary is being composed on a video game console), but this thing is just an earworm. At least for me. Your mileage may very well vary.

I have an actual client edit soon as well, and then once PDF Level 2 is on the floor and out the door…I might actually sleep. Yeah. That sounds good. Was I ever working this much when I was punching someone else’s clock? Probably not, but then I didn’t have a little guy running around “helping” me edit. Having him around (eating us out of house and home) keeps me highly motivated! 😆

One thing I’m going to try very hard to accomplish after Level 2, though, is to get my old VHS taped of the various Northside High School drama department productions transferred to DVD, do any restoration work needed, and get discs authored and duplicated in time for their respective class reunions (there were two productions in the ’88/’89 school year, and two in ’89/’90). Now, considering that these are 20-year-old edits of plays staged 20 years ago, I’m not exactly saying these are up to what I’d consider my current professional standard, but they are what’s there. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I probably won’t be charging an arm and a leg for these, just covering my costs and making sure everyone who was involved in those productions who wants ’em can get a copy.

After that…who knows? Best of CGE 2003 & 2005? Jump Cut City: Remastered, now with CGI Burchuss? Actually writing one of these books I keep promising/threatening to write? Or sleep?

Oops – Evan just woke up. Silly me – daddy stuff is what I’ll be doing with my time. 😛

P.S. I can confirm, for folks attending OEGE, that I’ll have some CGE DVD sets at my table at that show. Anyone who’s only been to OEGE who watches the CGE DVDs may be in for a bit of a culture shock. 😆… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3

BYE DADDY

Evan got up at 5 o’ clock this morning. I tried to buy his silence (so he wouldn’t wake mom) with bananas and oatmeal. I was partially successful. I got him dressed and cleaned up by 6, and then we sat in my room and played with Noah’s Ark critters for a little bit. By 6:15 or so, he got up and started wandering around, clearly a little bit restless. He grabbed his own diaper bag and dragged it to my by the strap. I asked him if he was trying to tell me he wanted to go to day care early – really early, i.e. just after they opened – and he said “Yeah!” I got his coat on him and he started waving and saying “BYE!” to the kitties. 😆

When we got there, Evan’s buddy Jonathan brought him a toy giraffe. Not the same kind of giraffe that hangs out in Evan’s Noah’s Ark, but that’s okay – only Evan did what he does with his own giraffes: he walked up and offered it to me. (He’s sharing like that.) I swear to God, Jonathan just about came unglued, and you could just read his thoughts on his face: I GAVE YOU THAT GIRAFFE. YOU CANNOT JUST GO AND GIVE IT TO A GROWN-UP. WHAT ARE YOU THINKING!!?

I gave Evan the giraffe back so he could give it to Jonathan, and tried to sneak out while he was distracted; even now, Evan still gets upset sometimes when I leave him at day care. I turned around to look behind me as I made my way down the hall – and there he was, watching me go without a problem. He waved and said “BYE DADDY!” – in a tone of voice that was kind of like “You’re dismissed!”

Guess he showed me. Thanks for the giraffe, buddy.… Read more