Friday, March 14, 2008
I’m pretty excited about meeting with the head honchos of ‘Milly, Molly’, almost a year and a half since we started producing the first season of the series. ‘Milly, Molly’ is the cartoon series which I did music composition for. Production for the first season wrapped up last month and has been sold to a few TV stations. The three of them – Ron Saunders and Rodney Whitham (both producers) and David Evans (writer and director) have come down from Australia, where they are all based, to discuss production for the next season with Scrawl Studios, the Singapore partner, as well as meet up with everybody involved in the project face to face. So I am excited about going down to Scrawl Studio’s office today to meet the people I have been communicating with but never seen in physique.
There’s no nervousness because we’ve worked with each other before, we’ve each seen and heard the stuff each other has produced, hence the meeting is very laid back. They’re really nice people, very patient, understanding and compromising. I personally feel very privileged to have worked with a director who knows what he wants and offers very straightforward comments about how he wants the music – so easily understood that as time goes by I am able to interpret his intentions about the music.
We exchange niceties, and reminiscence about the production of the first season. David mentions, ‘I should have brought a kazoo along to show you!’ because there was an episode where Milly played a makeshift kazoo using a comb and tissue paper. A year ago, we had to create the music right after the script for one of the episodes had been produced because, in that episode, the students in the school put up a performance using instruments made out of recycled materials. For this, the animators needed music as a reference for the sequence of events.
I recall David sends us this photo of himself putting a comb tightly wrapped with tissue paper horizontally to his lips. We tried it ourselves – there was a mere ‘pppph’. Hardly much of an instrument, you’d say. And we had no idea what the real kazoo looked like. ‘Probably sounds like a harmonica,’ was the thought, since it is played in an almost similar manner. So we used a harmonica sample – for the time being.
On hindsight: we didn’t have the resourcefulness to check out Youtube.
One year later, we are haunted by the kazoo once again, as authenticity is required for the final cut. The samples we provided, using ‘realistic’ equivalents to the makeshift instruments, were too clean. We have to sample the makeshift instruments ourselves. We need a garbage bin for the drums, a metal garbage lid as the cymbals, bottles as glockenspiels (the small metal ‘xylophone’ – the actual xylophone has wooden keys) – as well as the comb-and-tissue kazoo. Which is probably the biggest problem.
I guess the second time round we manage to find out what a real kazoo sounds like, so we know of what to expect when we blow our fake one. Mike helps me with the samples. We discover a website that tells you ‘how to make your own kazoo’ in the same way that Milly makes hers in the show (there’s a picture and a description here: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/its-easy-to-make-music/make-music-0184.htm). Mike takes a comb and wraps it with tissue. He raises it horizontally to his lips. And he blows hard at it.
A crisp bleeeep (like those duck hunting whistles) emits.
We are so jubilant! The best thing we can expect is a loud, clear sound. Quickly we rush to the recording booth to get the sound recorded so that I can add it to my sampler.
Unfortunately the melodic passage sounds very mechanical, because we only sampled one pitch and derive the other pitches – high and low – using this sample. Think of it like General MIDI. Every note sounds ‘bee – bee – bee –’.
David tells me today that they eventually rejected that track, which I say ‘thank goodness’. They ask for another sample of the music track, this time without the kazoo, and one of the girls at the production facility over in Australia went into the recording booth and blew out a sample of the tune. In David’s words, it’s very ‘naïve’ but the tune can still be made out. Which is good, because in the context we don’t want it to be too perfect.
We also take the opportunity to express the problems encountered, and come up with ways to avoid repeats as we work on the next season. Thereafter Rodney shows us the schedule planned for season 2. I am much more confident of working on the show this round as we have come to establish a particular ‘sound’ and style for the show. And having understood David’s ideas about the music for the past 26 episodes, I am more or less sure what are to be done and what are to be avoided. We probably spent a third of season 1 locking down a style for the show – in many instances I tended to ‘go over the top’ and score, for instance, life-threatening scenes too much like a thriller, with brass and percussion and all the works. And I’d score the terrifying bits eerily enough to make kids cry! But I’m grateful to David and the team for being particularly patient and allowing me to grow musically. I’ve heard of cases whereby production houses sacked composers who could not deliver in the musical language that they envision! I’ve really been fortunate to be guided along patiently. David and the others tell us that they were initially ‘very nervous’ (to use their words) when the team for ‘Milly, Molly’ was assembled, because they didn’t know who they were dealing with! It’s heartening that everything has turned out well and we’re going on to season 2!
And time and again I have to thank Brother Mike (my boss as well – for those who’ve watched ‘Chestnuts’ the past years you might know him as the Sound Designer) once again for always coming to the rescue so often, for making so many sacrifices and having faith in me. Looking back a year and a half ago, I was still learning the rudiments of music production. I’m glad to have been patiently guided along.
A video of a kazoo (the real instrument) choir:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Seglez6aw4
This is cool: one-man band of several kazoos and a ukulele.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbeAp-sbRDk
You can also see the videos below, if they’ve appeared following their transfer from Youtube!
¶ 3/14/2008 09:32:00 pm There’s no nervousness because we’ve worked with each other before, we’ve each seen and heard the stuff each other has produced, hence the meeting is very laid back. They’re really nice people, very patient, understanding and compromising. I personally feel very privileged to have worked with a director who knows what he wants and offers very straightforward comments about how he wants the music – so easily understood that as time goes by I am able to interpret his intentions about the music.
We exchange niceties, and reminiscence about the production of the first season. David mentions, ‘I should have brought a kazoo along to show you!’ because there was an episode where Milly played a makeshift kazoo using a comb and tissue paper. A year ago, we had to create the music right after the script for one of the episodes had been produced because, in that episode, the students in the school put up a performance using instruments made out of recycled materials. For this, the animators needed music as a reference for the sequence of events.
I recall David sends us this photo of himself putting a comb tightly wrapped with tissue paper horizontally to his lips. We tried it ourselves – there was a mere ‘pppph’. Hardly much of an instrument, you’d say. And we had no idea what the real kazoo looked like. ‘Probably sounds like a harmonica,’ was the thought, since it is played in an almost similar manner. So we used a harmonica sample – for the time being.
On hindsight: we didn’t have the resourcefulness to check out Youtube.
One year later, we are haunted by the kazoo once again, as authenticity is required for the final cut. The samples we provided, using ‘realistic’ equivalents to the makeshift instruments, were too clean. We have to sample the makeshift instruments ourselves. We need a garbage bin for the drums, a metal garbage lid as the cymbals, bottles as glockenspiels (the small metal ‘xylophone’ – the actual xylophone has wooden keys) – as well as the comb-and-tissue kazoo. Which is probably the biggest problem.
I guess the second time round we manage to find out what a real kazoo sounds like, so we know of what to expect when we blow our fake one. Mike helps me with the samples. We discover a website that tells you ‘how to make your own kazoo’ in the same way that Milly makes hers in the show (there’s a picture and a description here: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/its-easy-to-make-music/make-music-0184.htm). Mike takes a comb and wraps it with tissue. He raises it horizontally to his lips. And he blows hard at it.
A crisp bleeeep (like those duck hunting whistles) emits.
We are so jubilant! The best thing we can expect is a loud, clear sound. Quickly we rush to the recording booth to get the sound recorded so that I can add it to my sampler.
Unfortunately the melodic passage sounds very mechanical, because we only sampled one pitch and derive the other pitches – high and low – using this sample. Think of it like General MIDI. Every note sounds ‘bee – bee – bee –’.
David tells me today that they eventually rejected that track, which I say ‘thank goodness’. They ask for another sample of the music track, this time without the kazoo, and one of the girls at the production facility over in Australia went into the recording booth and blew out a sample of the tune. In David’s words, it’s very ‘naïve’ but the tune can still be made out. Which is good, because in the context we don’t want it to be too perfect.
We also take the opportunity to express the problems encountered, and come up with ways to avoid repeats as we work on the next season. Thereafter Rodney shows us the schedule planned for season 2. I am much more confident of working on the show this round as we have come to establish a particular ‘sound’ and style for the show. And having understood David’s ideas about the music for the past 26 episodes, I am more or less sure what are to be done and what are to be avoided. We probably spent a third of season 1 locking down a style for the show – in many instances I tended to ‘go over the top’ and score, for instance, life-threatening scenes too much like a thriller, with brass and percussion and all the works. And I’d score the terrifying bits eerily enough to make kids cry! But I’m grateful to David and the team for being particularly patient and allowing me to grow musically. I’ve heard of cases whereby production houses sacked composers who could not deliver in the musical language that they envision! I’ve really been fortunate to be guided along patiently. David and the others tell us that they were initially ‘very nervous’ (to use their words) when the team for ‘Milly, Molly’ was assembled, because they didn’t know who they were dealing with! It’s heartening that everything has turned out well and we’re going on to season 2!
And time and again I have to thank Brother Mike (my boss as well – for those who’ve watched ‘Chestnuts’ the past years you might know him as the Sound Designer) once again for always coming to the rescue so often, for making so many sacrifices and having faith in me. Looking back a year and a half ago, I was still learning the rudiments of music production. I’m glad to have been patiently guided along.
A video of a kazoo (the real instrument) choir:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Seglez6aw4
This is cool: one-man band of several kazoos and a ukulele.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbeAp-sbRDk
You can also see the videos below, if they’ve appeared following their transfer from Youtube!
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