Monday, October 12, 2009

a day in the life

Today I got up about 9.30am. This is because I am having trouble adjusting to daylight saving time.., but to be honest, I haven't made much of an attempt to go to bed any earlier. I don't really work very well in the mornings anyway.

Then, I did a bit of emailing, and some work on the business plan for SoBI . Most of the time I was doing this I was also trying to get my speakers to work, and afte
r several failed attempts to start up the program I decided it was not worth trying..

After that, it was time to head into town for a haircut. 
This took only 1+1/2 hours which is GREAT compared to the usual 5-6hour ordeal when trying to dye one's hair an unnatural shade of snow..  I decided to keep the sexy regrowth for my role in summer wonderland at HLT

Then, after that, I cooked 3 falafel(s)? for lunch, and put them on a burger.

Then, after that, I decided to wash my blanket that I had got from the hospice shop to make into cushions.

Then, after that, I actually did some composing. I wrote about 2 minutes, of a piano and synth cue for a film called 'The off season' which I have been working on for a few weeks. Directed by Michael Lonsdale. 

Then, dinner time. 

Now.. blogging. 
And in one hour i'm going to a movie because it's cheap tuesday.


This is the day in the life of composer, claire cowan.
Fascinating, ?

I missed out all the little details about phonecalls and suchlike, just because, I can sense your boredom, and can only ignore that to a certain degree.

Good byyeee.


This is a little doll I bought from avondale market. She has blinky eyes. She shall be called - Emma.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Quick catch up


It's been a while since I last blogged.
Yesterday I made the list of lists - yes...the one that rolls all the areas of my life into one lump sum, and categorizes them into most and least important...and which bits will pay the bills fastest.

I am keeping very busy, possibly taking on a little more than I should be, but that's all good.

I think bullet points might be the best way to go -

Stuff that's happened in the last month:
  • Set up the Society of Brilliant ideas
  • Built their website
  • Been cast in HLT's new play 'Summer Wonderland'
  • Taken on two more film soundtracks
  • Decided to organize an Arvo Part concert
  • Decided to buy a motorbike
  • My car decided to blow a gaskit
  • Built some cool puppets
  • Done LOTS of screen printing and markets for AFL
Yesterday I played in a midnight youth music video for MTV which was fun, if not incredibly repetitive..but such are the nature of these things.

Things coming up:
  • Moving into SOBI in high st (a new studio space and artist run workshop)
  • Developing more puppet stuff for a show next year in auckland
  • learning lines for play!
  • buying a new car
Some film related stuff:

  • Films I scored 'Lessons from a melting ice cap' won Best NZ documentary at Reel earth
  • 'Assume Nothing' was nominated for best art documentary at Qantas awards

I took this picture at muriwhai ganet colony. Me and Chris drove out to helensville as I decided to take a day off work..well, a half day. It's really nice to take a day off now and then, working from home means I'm almost never not working, but it doesn't feel much like work anyway!

Tootle pip.


c

Monday, July 6, 2009

Free Michael Jackson Tribute album by NZ artists


Download it HERE from cheese on toast.

THANKS CHEESE ON TOAST!

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Heavy Dreaming


This morning I woke up and my head was FULL of dreams that I had had the night before. It felt like i'd just sat through a 6 hour long movie and was able to recall almost every moment.
Now, I remember very little, except that it involved a swimming pool, and performing aquatic stunts..
I think last night was the first night in ages that I hadn't been just a little bit cold in bed..so I guess I had put my body into the perfect dream mode, and my brain had a little bit of a party..
Anyway once I'd recovered from that (it took 3 snoozes to actually remember I had to be at the craft market in an hour).. I realized I was going to be late because I hadn't factored in setup time.

Anyway, why am I posting today? I forgot to post in June. I just wanted to have a few random ramblings, and I'll do it in my favoured format - precise and informative, LISTS.

Things I'm looking forward to:
-Seeing my sister in melbourne soon
-The new harry potter movie

Things that have been annoying me a bit:
- People who say 'to be honest..' all the time, even when they would have no reason to lie about the subject matter, say for instance, their opinion on the weather forecast, or, giving directions..
- When the supermarket sells out of the organic cheddar cheese and they dont replace it for weeks
- When birds poop on my windscreen cos i've run out of water in the squirtee thing and cant be bothered replacing it
- people who say 'we must catch up', but have no intention of doing so
- people who update their facebook status constantly with unnessarily boring status' - ie 'so and so is just home from work'
- The window washers at avondale market traffic lights on sundays, who abuse people who actually dont want their windows washed and tell them so..
- hollywood films and their obsession with satisfying every need of the audience until they make no impact whatsoever.
- library fines. fullstop. cant they email you BEFORE they're late?

Things I think could make Auckland a better place:

- If you could buy sandwhiches with better filling combinations.
- If you could get somewhere on time by public transport, even faster than by a car.
-If there were less things being imported cheaply and more things made to last, locally.
- If pt chev countdown rennovations were finally finished, and it opened past 8pm.
-If my sister came back to auckland to live.
-If people with LOTS of fruit on the trees in their front yard would put it in a box by the gate and let passers by help themselves.

Things I'm thinking about doing soon:

-Developing a theatre show involving puppetry, video and music
-Sending out my AFL catalogues to shops and galleries
-Doing an EP with toad and some recording projects of my own
-Buying a sewing machine
-Buying a printing press
-Developing ideas for a community art space/studio in high st (more on this soon.)
- Buying a SCOOTER!
-buying some gumboots (anyone know where to get cheap ones?)

Things I would like to happen soon:

-the winter to prematurely end
-to get some commercial music jobs


Things I have learnt in the last month:

-how to play jewsharp.
- how to use elastic audio in pro tools.

Advice for dreamers:

Dream Big. Dream bigger. Dream biggest. Who is stopping you?



Friday, May 15, 2009

50th blog and award nominations!

Welcome to the 50th blog on my website..this is quite exciting, I had no idea I'd blogged
that much over the past year.

Anyway... This is just a short one to check out two little films I scored which are gaining attention in the festivals -

Lessons from a melting icecap - a 40min documentary directed by Jinty MacTavish
NOMINATED FOR BEST NZ FILM and and BEST SHORT FILM in REEL EARTH


Whetu Rere - The Sealion and the Coment - a 24min short film directed by Alastair Jamieson and Kat Baulu
NOMINATED FOR BEST NEW ZEALAND FILM  in REEL EARTH

view the other nominees here.

The awards are tomorrow night May 16th in Palmerston North, presented by Robyn Malcolm. I have no idea whether Alastair or Jinty will be there but I wish them luck across the interweb..

News if they pick up the awards soon!


Sunday, May 10, 2009

48 Hours


Again, Team Rampion has triumphed over the 48Hours weekend, getting it in with a mammoth 25mins to spare! 

Our genre: REVENGE MOVIE
Our character: ALEX PUDDLE
Character trait: EXAGGERATOR
Dialogue: 'IT DOESN'T FIT.."
Prop: A ROCK

We called the film 'The man with the gravel tongue'. Here are a few shots.





We're in the heats on May 21st. 

Some facts about our filming:

- It was 10.30am on saturday before we started filming. 
- By midday we'd only done 2 of the 10 scenes. 
- By Midnight we'd done about 8.
- By 4pm sunday we'd finished shooting.
-By 5pm sunday we'd finished editing
- By 6.15pm sunday we'd finished sound and Voice Overs
- We had voice coaching in South African accents from australia via internet
- We had a lot of chocolate and lollies
-The director and art director played a gig on sunday morning
- 90% of images were derived from national geographic magazines from 1970-1999.
- At one point we had our frustrated sound man Jared searching for Osama vocal samples (when a mis-communication between producer and Jared had somehow misheard my actual request for Obama sound samples)
- Our producers copy of 'The Secret' provided great inspiration
- We had 3 scripts concurrently which confused almost everyone
-Our first 3 attempts at outputting to tape failed
-We took over Mark's flat unexpectedly and even roped in unexpecting flatmates to our stress circle
- The film is made up of about 1500 still photographs.

Things we learned:

-No matter how calm you are, when you're filming a piece of paper close up on the end of a kebab stick, you won't be able to keep it still.
-Polystyrene is awesome
-Delegation is the key to getting a job done quickly
-Make sure your voice talent doesn't abandon you for other 48hour films.
- a focussing stick is an awesome device 
- Camera people get really sore eyebrows from squinting into the viewfinder, possibly inducing headaches.
- We edited with imovie but wouldn't really reccomend it.

Director Claire Cowan, signing off.

Off.


Friday, May 8, 2009

NZSO Sounz readings






The NZSO Sounz readings happened on wednesday and thursday,
where my piece 'the legend of the trojan bird' was recorded.
The session was at the town hall in wellington. Conductor Hamish McKeich.

The score is revised from the version the AYO commissioned in 2008. I was happy with the recording given rehearsal time, and hopefully should have a recording soon from radio nz who recorded it. After the second day of readings there was a forum to discuss new music performance opportunities and collaborations with composers and performers. I had to explain to nzso staff and other composers what the anti-fashion league is. 



Here's me having breakfast after the first rehearsal of my piece.. I always get too nervous to be able to eat anything beforehand. Mmm banana.


Waiting for the performance to begin in the afternoon.


Mid-performance, Hamish cues the brass..

Now this weekend will be full on..so trying to get some sleep..