Starting “Treehouse of Horror XXII” and finishing “The Falcon and the D’ohman”

I’m in the thick of it now. We spotted this year’s Halloween show on Thursday, September 22. There will be 38 cues in this episode. That’s more than the average for our usual count, but par for the course when it comes to the Halloween show. We’ve had as many as 52 cues for one of the “Treehouse” specials. Once again we have four stories in the episode, a recent development when FOX added another commercial break a couple of years ago. Let’s see… what can I say without saying too much?

The Food Wife

Firday, September 9 was a pretty busy day for yours truly. I spent pretty much the entire day at FOX working on 4 different episodes of THE SIMPSONS.

First up, directing Yeadley Smith as she sang a new song for the episode with guest star Lady Gaga. No, Gaga wasn’t there with us. She recorded her part for the show a couple of weeks ago, but Yeardley’s been away in New York for most of August and has just returned to L.A. so I was able to go into the studio with her to record her singing part for a special song in the show. More details as we get closer to the airdate next spring.

Music Editing 101 – Dubbing

You were probably starting to think I’d never get around to explaining dubbing. I’ve mentioned it here and there in some of the posts leading up to this one and if you’re not familiar with film audio lingo, then you might have been asking yourself what the heck I was talking about.

Music Editing 101 – The Scoring Session

We’ve reached step 5 of 7 in the music editing process and it’s one of the most fun and anticipated steps: The Scoring Session.

Music Editing 101 – One More Thought on Scource

One of my favorite films has an excellent example of scource. THE BIRDS, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, has no score in the film, only a few source cues and this brilliant use of a children’s choir as scource. The masterful use of this music is subtle, ironic, and suspenseful. Enjoy.

Music Editing 101 – Scource

In a previous post I told you there are four types of music cues in a film or TV show: score, source, montage, and musical production number. After I spotted this week’s episode I realized I forgot to include one other type: scource (pronounced skorss). The name comes from score + source = scource.

Music Editing 101 – Breakdown Notes

It’s been nearly a week since we spotted the first SIMSPONS episode of the new season. The spotting notes have been prepared and distributed and now I’m deep into step 3 out of my 7 steps of music editing: breakdown notes.

Music Editing 101 – Music Spotting Notes

Our first spotting session is finished and here are the stats: 34 cues total which break down as 23 score cues, 8 source cues, and 3 “format” cues – format cues include the Main Title, End Credits, Gracie Films Logo, and the Fox logo. The guest star for this episode is Kiefer Sutherland playing a character with a secret past, fans of TOP CHEF will also get a special treat, and we reveal the results of the NEDNA Internet voting.

Well, THAT was quick!

I was ecstatic at finally landing my first professional music editing gig in 1985 as an apprentice music editor at Segue Music. “Apprentice” was defined in the union handbook (as I recall) as one who “winds, rewinds, and carries film” among other low-level tasks like cleaning up the office, getting coffee for the room-at- large and making pick-ups & deliveries. They had a company pick-up truck for the apprentices to use and I clearly remember going on my first delivery run to Warner Bros., turning up the radio full-blast and singing at the top of my lungs with joy over my new position.

Music Editing 101 – The Spotting Session

We’re about to have our first music spotting session of the new season. What exactly is a music spotting session? It’s the first of seven music editing steps that I go through on every episode of THE SIMPSONS or any of the other shows or movies I work on. I’ll write a different blog post about each of the seven steps as I experience them on our first episode of the season.