Happy August…where the weather won’t let us forget it’s summer! Continuing to take advantage of the extra time in the off-season, I’ve temporarily switched gears more towards (non live) production, studying production theory and practice, maintaining equipment, and planning for the upcoming season. I’ve also committed myself to keeping the newsletter short form.
This month I finished my fifth commercial short form video, Prismatic Sound. Tackling this one, I’ve sought to satiate my ongoing fascination of story writing and took a deep dive studying composition and armature, while leaning heavily on the library for books and DVDs. I have been enjoying watching some Spielberg classics, and am looking forward to Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, and Victor Fleming titles.
On the studio maintenance front, what others may find mundane has been quite exciting to me as every improvement makes Tonehaus more leveraged, meaning more value for clients and a better experience for my team. In July I spent substantial time on cables: binding dual camera cables together and fitting the ends with protective boots. With two sets of 200’, one of 150’ set and three of 100’, I feel like we’re covered for every venue we’ve worked. Live-stream setup and teardown will be cleaner and faster thanks to this effort, meaning more time for excellence and creativity. We are ready for you Moody, Long, and every other stage in town!
As the ’22 -’23 season calendar fills up, the budgeting and planning for many interesting performances continues. I am looking forward to my 12th season with Chorus Austin! Back in 2011, I never expected to find myself here. Bringing Ryan Heller’s diverse, inclusive, progressive and magical performances to hi-fi audio and video (for the fifth year now on the video) to worldwide audiences, in what the industry considers low budget, is both challenging and rewarding. In other season news, there’s been talk of a live multimedia performance with Ensemble VIII in the Spring, and this Fall we are producing a multi-camera taping of special, period instrument only Beethoven’s Fifth produced by Arts on Alexander.
That’s a wrap on the August news, please check the website for more news and thoughts. Studio maintenance, study, and planning has been the order of the day this summer, as well as finishing my latest short form video, introduced below. Thank you for reading and I look forward to hearing from you and helping you get your art and message out to the world!
Prismatic Sound
I am pleased to share this 10 minute video made for Austin based experimental pioneer Bob Hoffnar. It was shot in May and wrapped in July. He approached me to capture the experience of his Prismatic Sound sculpture and make a video that will help him book this hard to describe performance. In these performances the listener is, in a word, the music. He creates a room that acts like a sonic prism, splitting off frequencies from strategically chosen tones, and to experience it, the audience must actively participate by walking around and listening. My job is to communicate this to the viewer. Please take a look and let me know if this presentation makes you feel like you have an understanding of his work. This production had about 14 hours of shooting on location and 20 hours of editing.