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• The Holidays and Upcoming Films

  Sunday, Nov 25, 2007 11:11PM / Standard Entry

  The Thanksgiving holiday weekend is approaching an end, and I feel like I need to drag myself out of a lazy stupor. Fortunately I finished recording and mixing my latest score about a week ago, and was able to enjoy the holiday and take some much needed time to relax, veg, watch some movies, play video games, and spend time with friends and family.
  
  I really needed a little time off to recharge myself, I'd been feeling burned out from composing non-stop since May, I've written over 2 hours of music in the last 6 months for a variety of projects. The most recent is a Chinese film entitled SAILFISH, was shot in Beijing and is being released by Warner Brothers China next year.
  
  I'll let you in on some frustration of being a struggling artist. I'm waiting to be paid for SAILFISH, and I really hoping to get the money by Dec. 1st just so I can pay my rent. It's one of the things that's been difficult with working on a production from China, it just takes a lot of patience to get things sent back and forth. Even with the ease of sending messages and files over the internet, I've dealt with problems in differing software, incompatible file formats, and the actual wait of having physical things sent over. At one point I got notes from producers and it was all in Chinese, I had to wait a few days to get a translated version, and even then it was hard to decipher the notes through the bad grammar in the translation. I've had some similar difficulties doing a movie shot in Mexico, but fortunately the directors I've worked with have been fantastic collaborators as well as good friends, and some of my proudest work has been on foreign films.
  
  --
  
  The two leads in SAILFISH.
  
  I'm told some of the actors in SAILFISH are pretty big stars in China. I'm not familiar enough with Chinese cinema to know how famous these actors are, but their performances are fantastic. i barely understand Mandarin (My Chinese is at a level of that of a 5 year old), but I was able to understand the emotions and actions of the scenes just from their body language and tone of voice.
  
  SAILFISH is a heart warming and romantic movie about a boy growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution who dreams of becoming a champion swimmer. And it is one of the most beautiful and thematically driven orchestral scores I've ever written. Some of my favorite melodies that I've ever written are in this film. You can listen to a suite of themes on my myspace page:
  http://www.myspace.com/maestrosc
  
  --
  
  Still from Victim.
  
  VICTIM is another film that I scored over the summer. It's a really dark, sick and twisted horror/psychological thriller co-directed by my talented friend Matt Eskandari. It is the most dark, unusual, and experimental score I have ever written, it couldn't be more different from SAILFISH.
  Here's an mp3 of a suite from VICTIM: VICTIM Suite
  
  Matt has already shot his next film, THE GAUNTLET, which from a few behind the scenes photos that I've seen, looks wicked cool! It stars Bai Ling and Dustin Nguyen, and it's about six strangers who wake up in a sunken castle with no memory. I can't wait to see it!
  
  
  A bloodied Bai Ling from THE GAUNTLET.
  
  
  Cast from THE GAUNTLET.
  
  More GAUNTLET stills here: http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/10261
  
  --
  There was another feature film that I scored over the summer, but the score I wrote got thrown out. It's a common occurrence that has happened to all the biggest composers in Hollywood, so despite a little disappointment, I'm not terribly upset. Personally I'm very proud of the music I've written for this project, and hope to one day release an album so it doesn't just sit on a shelf collecting dust. But for now, take a listen to the main theme:
  Shaolin Story
  
  --
  Also, last month i was nominated for 3 Film and TV Music Awards. I didn't win anything, but that's not a big surprise as I'm probably the youngest person that even got nominated, and am still working to become more established. Of ones that did win in two of the categories I was nominated for, one was an Oscar nominated short film scored by one of my favorite composers, and the other had some name actors and was scored by a mentor of mine who is very talented and much more established than I am.
  
  --
  Anyways, thanks for reading this really long blog...I have trouble sleeping sometimes, so I've spent some really late hours writing this (it's now 7am, and I think I started around 4 or 5 am. I was really just trying to procrastinate from composing).
  
  
  

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• I'm nominated for 3 Film Music Awards

  Friday, Oct 5, 2007 6:52PM / Standard Entry

  The Film and TV Music Academy recently announced their nominees for the 2007 Film and TV Music Awards. What's really cool about this, is I have an astounding 3 nominations in 3 categories.
  
  I've been nominated for:
  
  Best Score for an Indie Feature Film
  George Shaw - J-ok'el
  
  Best Score for a Short Film
  George Shaw - Hit Me
  
  Best Score for a Student Film
  George Shaw - The Revengers
  
  
  What's even more amazing is I'm going up against several more established composers. In the Indie Feature Film category, one of the nominees is Christopher Lennertz (he's scored several Medal of Honor video games, From Russia with Love video game, Supernatural, and the upcoming Fox film, The Comebacks) who actually mentored me this past year when I was in Film Independent's Project: Involve, a mentorship program for young filmmakers. He's been such a fantastic mentor to me, and one of the most generous and helpful persons I've met in the industry (and he's also nominated for the Education Achievement Award). I'm just honored to be put in the same category as him.
  
  In the short film category, Michael Giacchino is nominated for the short film from Pixar, Lifted. Lifted was nominated for a short film Oscar this year, and is really amazing. Plus Giacchino has done some pretty big projects (Alias, Lost, The Incredibles, Mission Impossible III, Ratatouille, just to name a few). And two of my friends and orchestrators on my score to J-OK'EL are assistants to Michael. Michael is a really wonderful guy, I first met him when I was still in college and was invited to a recording session for Alias during its 1st season. Another one of the nicest guys I've met in the industry. He was actually my second choice for a mentor, though I went with Chris Lennertz (and fortunately he said yes) because he's had more experience working on small indie films.
  
  So my chances for winning are slim, but as they say, it's great to be nominated! Perhaps I have a more even chance in the student film category!
  
  Feel free to take a listen to the music I'm nominated for here:
  http://georgeshawmusic.com/nominations.html
  
  
  

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• Behind-the-Scenes Interview for award-winning film: MARCUS

  Tuesday, Aug 14, 2007 2:40PM / Standard Entry

  Here's a video interview that I did for the behind the scenes extras for the dvd release by Warner Home Video of the award-winning indie thriller, MARCUS.
  
  Creaturecorner.com:
  “I'd be an idiot not to point out how much the soundtrack contributes to the movie. It's a haunting mix of original score and Christmas tunes- and it works beautifully.”
  
  Houseofhorrors.com:
  “The thing that stands out the most to me is the use of music in this film.“
  
  Video: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=15772941
  

  
  
  
  
  

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• Just a Nice Guy: Miniseries

  Friday, Aug 10, 2007 8:28AM / Standard Entry

  
  Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrnK-qPARYI
  

  
  
  Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGeWGvDHTA
  

  
  
  Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5lJL2peXik
  

  
  
  
  
  Watch the series on Youtube:
  Part 1: The Problem
  Part 2: The Lesson
  Part 3: The Risk
  
  I met Philip Wang at the VC Asian American Filmfest in LA. I was totally psyched about meeting him, having seen his hilarious short film, Yellow Fever, which has gotten over a million hits on the internet.
  
  Philip asked me to score his new short, called “JUST A NICE GUY.” It’s a 3-part miniseries that takes a funny look at why girls look past nice guys for dating potential. I definitely connected with the subject material, I was a former uber nice guy.
  
  I collaborated with an awesome singer-songwriter friend of mine, Bo Han, who is a fantastic guitarist. He’s an amazing musician and has a great ear. I laid out the chords and how the music lines up with the movie ahead of time. Bo then came to my studio and improvised all these amazing guitar licks. I was just blown away by how quickly he comes up with ideas.
  
  Check out Bo’s myspace page
  http://www.myspace.com/bohanmusic
  
  There's one portion that I ended up recording on guitar, it's the romantic theme for the Amy character. I had come up with that particular voicing and style that both Phil (the director) and Bo thought I should play the part, since I had the feel of it down already. My shoddy guitar playing doesn’t come close to Bo’s awesome technique, but I went ahead and did it and it came out ok. Though I’m very critical of my own playing, and wish it was better. After I laid down the rhythm guitar track, Bo improvised the melodic part over my chords.
  
  For episodes 2 & 3, Phil reused the music from the first episode in the recap sequences, and it fit perfectly, and gives the whole series a nice continuity. For the final scene in episode 3, Phil needed some emotional music that started off somber and transitions into the “happy ending.” So I sat down at the keyboard and improvised a piano solo, I literally spent 5 minutes on it and sent an mp3 to Phil to get his thoughts. He asked for very subtle changes, so I took what I improvised and reworked it to fit the scene better and recorded my playing on the keyboard (so much easier than playing guitar for me). And that’s what you hear in the final product.
  
  Click here to listen to the entire score suite
  
  

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