Archive for 2015

Rapid Development : Function Point Analysis

November 19, 2015 by John No Comments »

Rapid Application DevelopmentWhen I was studying Computer Science, one of my favorite CS Professors was a fan of Steve McConnell’s approach to system analysis and software design. I had read his book Code Complete, which is an industry standard for software design. When I was getting ready to go on the road for a brief tour, my professor suggested I take McConnel’s Rapid Development as reading material.

Side note : I have always been a voracious reader when traveling, particularly on band tours. I would carry a few books with me at the start of any trip, and as I completed a book, I’d look for a bookstore where I could trade it for another title. In some cases, venues provided a “band house” for our lodging while performing several shows in the area. This was especially nice, because it meant we could (1) do our laundry and (2) actually cook a meal. The band houses usually had a small collection of videos and books to keep us entertained. I often would leave books behind for others to read. On occasion I found an interesting book and brought it along for the next leg of the journey. In Victoria, BC, the band house had a copy of Foucault’s Pendulum, by Umberto Eco, which I finished reading as we made our way down the west coast. Ultimately, that book was left in Bend, Oregon. I’m sure it continued its journey in the hands of another musician.

My copy of Rapid Development is from the first pressing. It’s a dog-eared book with post-it notes, and hand-written margin notes. It’s been on my work bookshelf in various cubicles and offices for the past 20 years, and I’ve loaned it out more times that I can count. This is the book that made me want to become a project manager. It also has been a book that I have found useful as a manager and leader.

Among the highly useful principles in this book is the practice of “Function Point Analysis”, which is an estimation technique that is very useful in modern Agile decomposition and estimation. I have adapted FPA for use with my PMO team at Disney, and it’s a good basis for task estimation in software development. In addition, the book emphasizes effective principles for managing high-performing teams, and for business customer satisfaction – which has a strong basis in effective, precise communication.

For Agile development teams, one of the initial opportunities for improvement tends to be estimation. Newly formed teams will not have a baseline velocity, and will not have estimation / retrospective data to feed the continuous improvement loop. Narrowing the estimation error has an immediate effect on normalizing the team’s performance; this is where FPA can be effectively leveraged. After 4-6 sprints, estimation variability versus actuals will be reduced, and sprint loading will become a reliable predictor of the work that will be actually accomplished in each sprint.

This book is worth a read. Steve’s seminars are also interesting, and he has established a good curriculum for technology thought leaders.

 

Thoughts on the Dudley Manlove Quartet Halloween Performance 10/31/2015

November 2, 2015 by John No Comments »

JH Halloween 2015Every year, the Dudley Manlove Quartet performs a big Halloween show. During one of the sets, we pay tribute to another band by dressing up as them and performing several of their songs. This year’s honored artist was Elvis Costello. He has written so many fantastic songs that it was difficult to select our favorites. I wrote out charts for the following songs, which was mostly a straight-forward process.

  • Alison
  • Every Day I Write The Book
  • I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down
  • Oliver’s Army
  • Pump It Up
  • Radio Radio
  • (What’s So Funny) ‘Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?

The most difficult transcription was Alison, owing to the gorgeous jazzy style of John McFee’s guitar work. There are always plenty of online tablature transcriptions for popular songs, but they’re often incomplete or incorrect. It’s faster for me to just write it from scratch, and that also helps me internalize the part. It took me a few revisions to get this one sufficiently correct.

Alison-Guitar

The performance was a blast. Our audience brings a lot of Halloween spirit, and really dresses up. There were some fantastic, funny costumes. The show was sold out, which always happens on Halloween. We arrived to the club in the midst of a massive rain storm, which made for a wet load-in. Once we got through with our soundcheck, the rain had let up, and we all walked to a local restaurant for dinner together. Upon our return, the room was full and abuzz. We played two long sets, and dug into some back catalog material. Definitely a good night.

For this show I decided to use my Xitone guitar monitor rather than the EA VL110 cabinets. The Xitone has a great, immediate sound, and having my guitar coming from directly in front of me is nice. The AxeFX rig sounds amazing every time, and I love getting compliments from the FOH engineers about my guitar tone. At the end of the night, we prepared to load out – and discovered the massive rain storm was back! I parked directly in front of the club to make load-out as quick as possible, and still was completely drenched in the three minutes it took to load the car. Good thing my cases are waterproof!

Our next public show is New Year’s Eve at the Triple Door. I’m certain it’ll be another wonderful night.

 

AxeFX Quantum Firmware

October 2, 2015 by John No Comments »

Axe-fx-ii-xlI recently updated the firmware in my Fractal Audio AxeFX to the latest version, called “Quantum”. New firmware releases are a regular occurrence with this system. When I first received my AxeFX, it came with version 13, and there were steady releases of new firmware every couple of months. We were up to fw19 this summer when the owner of Fractal Audio announced he’d made a huge breakthrough in the modeling technology, and would be releasing something called “Quantum fw v1” as the next big step for the system. I waited until I’d finished doing some shows before taking the plunge. I can say that without question, every one of the amp models is more realistic, livelier, and more responsive than ever before. I love my AxeFX. It’s easily the best equipment purchase I have ever made.

 

Preparing for the 7/25 and 7/31 BowieVision Shows

July 21, 2015 by John No Comments »

Axe-fx-ii-xlIn preparation for the next two weekends of BowieVision shows, I performed a full system update on my AxeFX. Firmware version 19 was released recently, and with each of the major firmware updates, all the amp models within presets need to be reinitialized to their factory default settings. This is necessary in order to pick up the latest changes to the amp models. As with most major firmware updates, these changes significantly improve the amp sounds. Starting with firmware version 18, many of the amp models and effect pedals have been recreated as “G3” (third generation) models. When I upgraded to FW18, I merely reinitialized the amp models, but with FW19, there were so many improvements across the board that I decided to recreate all of my individual presets from scratch.

I purchased my AxeFX last April, and since that time I’ve gotten very familiar with it. I’m much better at creating individual presets, and have learned how to create fairly complex signal routing to replicate dense studio tones from Bowie’s guitarists. The most complex presets in my setup are for those parts recorded by Adrian Belew, Robert Fripp, and Reeves Gabrels. In these cases, I’m running multiple amp / cabinet combinations, with parallel effect chains, multiple sub-mixed busses, and a final multi-channel stereo mix at the end.

The latest amp model revisions have led me to explore some specific amps that I’ve never encountered as physical objects : amps by Suhr, Carol Anne, Two-Rock, and so on. I have certainly spun through all of the models at some point in the past, just to get a sense of what they sounded like. But with the G3 updates, some of these previously unused models have sprung to the forefront of my patches. The Suhr Badger turns out to be a pretty useful amp model, especially when stacked with the Boogie Lonestar clean channel for a little sparkle. I’ve also learned a few handy tricks like adding high-pass chorusing on just the clean channel, then layering that sound with the straight distortion tone. The resultant tone doesn’t sound obviously chorused, but it does have a nice dimensionality that helps open up the sound. Chorus has a tendency to smear that note attack, and to thin out the sound of the guitar. By adding a high-pass filter, I can control the portion of the signal that will be treated with the effect.

The next big adventure in my rig evolution will be experimenting with in-ear monitoring. I’ve have the capability to do this for some time, but haven’t used it regularly. It’s definitely a big advantage to have my guitar sound directly routed to my ears; it helps attenuate some of the other stage noise, and it gives me a very clear representation of what I’m sounding like. I’ve noticed it also causes me to play with a lighter touch because I’m not trying to overcome stage dynamics. Once we get past these two shows, I’ll start working on an in-ear mix strategy.

 

Like Falling Off A Log

June 15, 2015 by John No Comments »

Trek 7-2Last weekend, I finally bought a new bike. Back in the early 90s I wound up with a free Montlake Bike Shop mountain bike. It was a great mountain bike, but was probably 2″ too tall for me, and as much as I enjoyed riding it,  I always knew it was too big for my size.  A few years ago I sold it to a friend, and it’s a much better fit for him. Since that time, I’ve been without a bike. My wife also has a pretty old mountain bike, and we’ve been ready to get lighter weight hybrid-style bikes for some time.

After months of shopping and looking at options, we decided to go with Trek bikes. Mine is a 7.2 and hers is an upgraded 7.4 model. They’re amazingly lightweight and very comfortable. Our inaugural ride was about 16 miles in the Interurban / Green River trails, and we both really enjoyed our day. One of my immediate discoveries on this bike is that I really did use most of the 21 speeds at different points on the ride. Also, the lighter weight frame and hybrid tires make for much lower rolling resistance, and it’s easier to pick up / maintain speed than on my previous bike.

We purchased the bikes on Saturday, and left them to be outfitted with some additional accessories. On Sunday we picked them up and immediately hit the trail. This was also the first time we’ve made use of our hitch-mounted bike rack. It’s a Yakima Double Down 4 bike model. On the way to the Trek store, we stopped and picked up a friend who joined us for the ride. On the way home we had three bikes on the rack, and it’s clear there is ample room for a fourth.

Naturally, I bought a black bike. 🙂

We’re looking forward to a great summer of rides.

 

Thoughts on the 5/30 BowieVision Performances

June 2, 2015 by John No Comments »

bandOn Saturday, May 30, BowieVision performed two shows at The Triple Door in Seattle. We initially had planned to perform just one show that evening, but within a few days of putting tickets on sale, it was clear there was enough demand to justify adding a second show. We wound up with full houses for both shows, which was fantastic.

In advance of the show, I upgraded the firmware of my AxeFX to v 18.12, which definitely breathed some new dimensionality and life into the amp models. Part of this firmware update is a new generation of amp modeling, and it’s significantly bigger / better than ever. I really love my AxeFX, and BowieVision is a perfect application for this kind of flexibility and power. Another great upgrade before this show was the MFC-101 firmware v 3.08, which allowed me to move my preset controls to the second row of switches, and reassign the bottom row to scenes 1-5. It’s the most flexible configuration for this band, and lets me get around within / between songs much more easily. john2 john

These shows also marked the performance debut of three new songs: All The Young Dudes, Hang On To Yourself, and I’m Afraid Of Americans. These are all great songs. “All The Young Dudes” is a classic rock anthem, and it was fun to have the audience sing along in the big out-tro chorus. “Hang On To Yourself” is a rocker, and gives us a chance to really blow off some energy. I could see that one becoming a great show opener. “I’m Afraid Of Americans” is one that I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and we finally put it together for this show. It’s a huge, menacing song. I prefer the version from Bowie’s live performance in Paris from 2002, so that was the basis of my transcription and arrangement for the band. Part of the challenge on this song is that Bowie had multiple guitarists and keyboard players on that tour, and we have to recreate that massive sound with only one guitarist and one keyboardist. I wrote out a line for our sax player Brian, which helped beef up the guitar part when I’m summoning the Banshee. Our keyboardist Chris also helps by reinforcing the distorted guitar part on the chorus. I’m pretty satisfied with the initial performances of this song, and we’ll continue to refine it as we go forward.

Logistics
Logistically, a double-header gig introduces some challenges for the musicians in the band.

  • We arrived for load-in at 3:00 PM. It takes about 15 minutes to get our equipment from the alley, through the side door, into the freight elevator, down two floors to the main showroom, snaking our way through the booths down to the floor in front of the stage, and finally up onto the stage.
  • It takes another 30 minutes to get everything set up and ready for microphones.
  • Line check and sound at The Triple Door are pretty simple, because they have a full-recall board. We usually have the basic levels established within a few minutes, then we run 3-4 songs to fine-tune everything.
  • Then we have about 60 minutes before the doors open for the first show. This gives us just enough time to eat dinner, and return to the dressing room to get changed for the performance. There are eight people in the dressing room (six men and two women), so it’s crowded and fairly chaotic, with everyone putting on clothes / makeup / doing hair, etc.
  • We hit the stage for the first show, power through the entire set plus an encore (or two), then run back up to the dressing room to change for the second show. Most of us wear different costumes for early / late shows, so once again there is a frenzy of clothing / makeup / hair.
  • After the first show, we did some quick meet / greet visits with the audience to say hello, and to thank friends who attended. Then we all have to get back to the green room. We have just enough time to eat a quick bite, then we need to be ready to return to the stage.
  • Each of our performances is 2+ hours in length, so the total performance time for the evening was close to 5 hours. This is not a factor for me as a guitarist – I often practice five hours a day in preparation for shows – but it takes a toll on our vocalists. We try to give the singers breaks whenever possible, and everyone on the band takes care not to wear perfume / cologne (throat irritant), use aerosol hairspray (also a throat irritant), smoke anywhere near the band, etc. Most vocalists also take the time between shows to give their voices a rest, so we minimize chatter with them. One of our backup vocalists has a big suitcase full of costumes and accessories. She decided against wearing a pair of black furry / sparkly leggings with her costume. She asked if anyone else wanted to wear them, and no one answered, so I said “give them to me”. I put them on over my jeans, and wore them for the whole show. It turned out to be a bold fashion choice, and a warm one.
  • Hitting the stage for the second show it deja vu for us, but as far as the second audience is concerned it’s their first show. There are always some people who attend both shows. At the Triple Door, we offered a “double header” price for anyone wanting to attend both performances that night, and we sold a number of those packages. In addition, a number of people from the first show decided to purchase tickets for the second show. We made a point of mixing up the set lists a bit to give those people some different material.
  • The second show ended around midnight. First order of business is the post-show backstage huddle with the band, usually accompanied by a toast. We then have some time to go out into the room for meet / greet purposes, saying hello and thanking friends. At that point I try to get backstage to change into comfortable clothes for packing up and loading out.
  • The pack up / load out process is the reverse of loading. From the time I start, to the time when the gear is in the car, is usually around 45 minutes.
  • By the time I left the venue at 1:15 AM, I had been on site for over 10 hours, and had changed clothes three times. I had moved my gear (around 200 pounds total) into my car at home, then out of my car in the alley, onto the cart for in-building transport, into the venue, off the cart, up several stairs onto the stage, back down the stairs off the stage, onto the cart, back off of the cart in the alley, into my car, and back out of my car at home.

That’s the glamorous aspects of being in a band. 🙂

As far as the performance… wow! We had a really great time. The first show was very good. I thought we hit the ground running and delivered a great high-energy performance. The audience at the first show was all-ages, so we had to slightly modify the lyrics of a few songs to make them PG-13. The first show was absolutely sold out, and the audience gave us a lot of energy. We had a number of people join us onstage at the end of the show for some singing and dancing. Always a blast!

Once we were reset for the second show, the audience had grown. We initially were told that only about 120 tickets had sold for the second performance. When we hit the stage, the room was full. Apparently there had been a large number of walk-up sales, plus those people who had attended the first show and decided to purchase tickets to stay for the second. I would say the second show was easily the band’s best performance to date. It was very high energy, and the performance level was superb. I was very satisfied with our whole night.

First Show Set List

  • Heroes
  • China Girl
  • Rebel Rebel
  • The Man Who Sold The World
  • Changes
  • Hang On To Yourself
  • Ashes To Ashes
  • Fashion
  • Absolute Beginners
  • Golden Years
  • Life On Mars?
  • Space Oddity
  • Under Pressure
  • I’m Afraid Of Americans
  • Young Americans
  • Suffragette City
  • Fame
  • Let’s Dance
  • Ziggy Stardust
  • All The Young Dudes

Second Show Set List

  • Space Oddity
  • Jean Genie
  • Beauty And The Beast
  • Starman
  • Blue Jean
  • Hang On To Yourself
  • Fashion
  • Life On Mars?
  • The Man Who Sold The World
  • Changes
  • Ziggy Stardust
  • Absolute Beginners
  • Golden Years
  • Ashes To Ashes
  • Under Pressure
  • All The Young Dudes
  • Suffragette City
  • I’m Afraid Of Americans
  • Young Americans
  • Let’s Dance
  • Fame
  • Heroes
 

Thoughts on the 4/26 1 Uppers Performance

May 2, 2015 by John No Comments »

quilter2x10On Sunday April 26, the 1 Uppers performed at The Little Red Hen in Greenlake. We’ve played there many times, and it’s always a lot of fun to have an audience that really knows country music, and knows how to dance to it. It makes our shows a lot of fun, and we always have to be ready to respond to the room’s energy. One of the challenges of playing at The Little Red Hen is the stage configuration : it’s very shallow and quite wide. We’re a six-piece band, and I play on the far side of stage right (that’s the left side of the stage if you’re looking at it from the audience point of view). Our other electric guitarist, Kris Geren, is all the way on the opposite side of the straight-line formation, so I can’t see or hear him at all during the show. It’s a little disconcerting and means we really have to just be well-rehearsed so we can fly blind during the show.

A few months I decided to sell all of my tub amps and switch to a Quilter Aviator 2×10 amp. It’s very lightweight, and sounds fantastic. This was the first time I’d used this amp at the Hen, and is by far the best my baritone guitar has ever sounded onstage. The Quilter seems to have a much wider dynamic range and better response for that instrument. I’ll be using for banjo as well. Definitely a big step forward in the “quest for tone” department. I’ll likely use the Quilter for select DMQ shows as well, as it would allow me to have a lightweight “grab and go” rig composed of that amp and the Line6 M9.

We hit the stage with three full sets of music, and as usual, the dance floor was packed all night. The one guarantee of playing at this bar is that if you play well, the audience will dance. It’s a good validation of our hard work in this band, and having that energy makes it a lot easier to get through the late gig on a “school night”.

I’d say this particular performance was probably the best we’ve ever played at The Little Red Hen. The entire band was firing on all cylinders, and there were a lot of ripping solos from all the musicians. I love it when we’re all in tune with each other (even if we can’t hear / see each other) and are playing well. On nights like this, we’re definitely living up to our name. We’ll be back at the same venue in a month, and it’ll be fun to see those familiar faces on the dance floor. If you’ve always wanted to learn how to swing dance, or 2 step, or schottische , this is a great place to do it. During the hour before we start playing, they provide free dance lessons for anyone who wants to learn, and it’s a great opportunity to pick up a few new steps.

 

Thoughts on the 4/25 Dudley Manlove Quartet Performance

May 1, 2015 by John No Comments »

Gibson LP GoldtopOn Saturday April 25, the Dudley Manlove Quartet performed at a benefit event for a local agency called “Water First”, whose mission is to provide clean water to the world. The event was held at Hale’s Palladium in Fremont, which is a fantastic large room with a great stage. We’ve played there on a number of occasions for private events, and it’s always a lot of fun. This was the first public DMQ performance with our new drummer Garey Williams, who did a wonderful job of driving the relentless groove for the band. We selected Garey a few months ago as a result of an audition process. He impressed me as being really prepared for the audition, and he had a very comfortable approach to performing the parts. It was an added bonus when, during the run-through of “Copacabana” he said “…the drum part on this song is almost a soca beat…”. Soca. I hadn’t heard that word in some time. Back when I was in Jumbalassy, we performed a wide variety of original and cover versions of soca songs.

One of the wild card at private events is whether the crowd will politely observe and applaud, or if they’ll hit the dance floor and get into the energy of the night. It was obvious from the moment we hit the stage that this was a crowd in the latter category. What followed was exuberant dancing, singing along, and wild applause following every song. We even coaxed an audience member onto the stage to sing “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” with us.

During the set breaks, we were approached by many people in the crowd, who wanted to share their appreciation of the band’s performance. That is such a nice feeling. We’re good musicians, and we know when we’re having a good night. The part that makes it so special to is to hear that people are having FUN listening to / dancing to / singing along to our performance of the music. That makes our jobs so much more fun!

For this show, the client requested a bunch of 70s and 80s hits, so our set list was stacked with some favorites :

(set 1)
Copacabana
Night Fever
You Sexy Thing
September
Just Like Heaven
Working For The Weekend
Don’t You Forget About Me
What I Like About You
Never Gonna Give You Up
Let’s Go
Venus
White Wedding
Separate Ways
Any Way You Want It

(set 2)
I Ran
Power Of Love
Hit Me With Your Best Shot
Centerfold
Let’s Dance
Rio
Sister Christian
Melt With You
Little Red Corvette
Take On Me
Video Killed The Radio Star
Don’t Stop Believin’

I noticed during the first set that something was a little strange with my amp settings for the higher-gain patches. One disadvantage of using the AxeFX onstage is that you can’t just reach over and adjust things without digging into a few menus. I didn’t have enough time between songs to dial up the patches and make those adjustments, so it had to wait until the set break. It’s a minor inconvenience, and could have been avoided if I’d thought to test those patches during soundcheck. It had been a while since we played “I Ran” and I was glad to have made those adjustments before we kicked off the second set with that song.

At the end of the evening I managed to load out in record time. We had friends who had come to Seattle to attend the Friday 5/24 DMQ performance AND the 5/26 1 Uppers performance, and they were staying at our house. I wanted to get home after the private show so I could visit with them. I arrived home on time to find everyone still wide awake, and happily drinking wine (and watching hockey).

So, another fine performance with the DMQ crew, and the public debut of Garey. All went quite well. I’m looking forward to the next one!

 

Thoughts on the 4/24 Dudley Manlove Quartet 20th Anniversary Show

April 30, 2015 by John No Comments »

johnTDOn Friday April 24, the Dudley Manlove Quartet performed at the Triple Door for our 20th Anniversary show. It was a great night of music with a sold-out audience sharing the fun event with us. For this show we invited founding drummer Jeff Mosier back to perform one last with us, and it made the evening all the more special to have him behind the kit. In addition to being an evening of “lasts”, it was also a night of firsts : at the age of 51 I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can’t read without my glasses! So rather than squinting down at the set lists, I just wore my glasses onstage. Seeing myself in the pictures from this show is pretty amusing… I look like a more dignified, bookish version of myself, with short hair. You’d almost think I was a respectable grown-up. Fortunately, all my friends and family know better.

During the week before this show I updated my AxeFX to the latest firmware, which really opened up some new sounds for me. Each firmware update unlocks more magic inside this device, and the amp / effect models always wind up sounding more alive and responsive. For most of the DMQ 20th Anniversary show I used the same ten patches, but there are some specialized settings for a few specific songs (e.g., “More Than This”) to recreate specific recorded tones.

For this show I brought along the Les Paul Gold Top, but I never got around to using it. The black strat continues to be my main guitar, and was really the perfect choice for every song in this show. I wanted to use the Les Paul for the second set, but didn’t get a chance to switch my wireless transmitter over to it during the short break. When we hit the stage to begin the second set, I realized I hadn’t done that, and decided to just finish the show with the strat, rather than interrupt the proceedings to make the switch onstage. So that beautiful guitar sat onstage on a stand and watched the action without being part of it. After the show, a friend (dressed as a penguin) helpfully carried that guitar to the car. So at least it had a ceremonially important night.

 

 

 

 

jenguin

The set list was composed of songs that have been staples in the DMQ catalog for a long time:

Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You
It’s Not Unusual
Copacabana
Silly Love Songs
Dancing Queen
Night Fever
Brandy
You’ll Never Find (You’re Gonna Miss My Lovin’)
Seattle
Sweet Caroline
Let’s Stay Together
September
I Wish
Suspicious Minds

(set 2)
Power of Love
Let’s Dance
Rio
Hit Me With Your Best Shot
Centerfold
More Than This
Melt With You
Little Red Corvette
Take On Me
Video Killed the Radio Star
American Girl

(encore)
Don’t Stop Believin’
Don’t You Forget About Me

A few days after the show we discovered that a reviewer from the Huffington Post had been in the audience, and they posted a nice review online:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/l-steven-sieden/dudley-manlove-quartet-ro_b_7171362.html

Nothing like being called “middle aged” by the national press :). It was a blast to see that the night was enjoyed by so many people.

At the end of the night, there was a nice backstage toast to our good friend Jeff, and we celebrated all the great fun that we’ve had together over the years. DMQ will move forward with a new drummer, and of course, I’ll still be working with Jeff in BowieVision, our David Bowie tribute band. BowieVision is performing on Saturday May 30 at The Triple Door, and you should definitely come see us. It’s the perfect room for the spectacle of our video and light show.

On to the next!

 

Area 152

April 10, 2015 by John No Comments »

area 152During the past few months, I’ve been working on a film project called Area 152. I happen to live in Burien, Washington, which is about ten miles south of Seattle. Among Burien’s many enjoyable weird characteristics is an annual event called the “Burien UFO Festival”, which always takes place on April 1st (yes, that’s April Fool’s day, but the event is real). The origin of the event is a movie called The Maury Island Incident, based on a UFO encounter that occurred in 1947. For the past few years on April 1st, Burien has closed a few blocks of 152nd and hosted a street party with a beer garden, music, and of course, aliens and “men in black”.

For this year’s festival, the organizers suggested that local amateur filmmakers should produce 7 minute movies featuring local businesses, and having a plot involving “men in black” or aliens. My wife and I, along with another couple who are friends of ours, decided this sounded like fun, so we started brainstorming plot ideas and potential filming locations.

We wound up with about four hours of filmed footage (!) that I eventually edited down to six minutes and fifty six seconds. This was the first time I’ve done chroma-keying for video special effects, and I was pretty pleased with the silly UFO + fiery crash + smoke plume that I composited atop a video of a local restaurant.

Once I had the film edited to its required length / sequence, I spent another few days completing the score. Because our title being Area 152, I decided to use 152 as part of the music:

  • The chord sequence in the main theme is I-V-ii
  • The main theme is stated using a rhythm of 1-5-2 pulses, matching the chord functions
  • I used groups of instruments reflecting the 1-5-2 theme as well

Elsewhere in the score, I created individual musical motives for

  • The “men / women in black”, played by the four of us
  • The “MIB headquarters building”, for which we used the Burien fire station on 146th
  • Our official MIB vehicle
  • The “interview” theme music, played under the four business interviews we conduct in the movie
  • The “UFO” theme, associated with the craft as it attempts to land

When I put together the final movie, I wound up removing most of the original camera audio and replacing necessary sound effects with Foley and post-production voice-over. All in all, pretty satisfying to have worked on this, and definitely an enjoyable project. We’re already scheming to make our next movie for the 2016 festival.