BØRRE Official Trailer to be released worldwide 11.27.2008!

The official trailer of the Norwegian psychological thriller, Børre, is finally complete and will be released worldwide 11.27.2008! That’s tomorrow-Thanksgiving!

I have tried to write about my experiences on this project for my blog, but ironically, it has taken me three unsuccessful days to do so. I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately with various events happening all at the same time and now finding out that the political situation in Thailand has now resulted in the two main airports in Bangkok being closed down is not helping! I just read on CNN today, the various details of what is going on in Thailand and things are not looking good. Two bombs went of Wednesday morning, one at each of the airports. Several were wounded and the country is simply diving into more chaos.

At the moment, I’m preparing for the launch of the BØRRE official trailer tomorrow and getting geared up for a new British short film about the London undergound bombings in 2005, which is being directed by Harry Burnett-Rae, a dear friend and fascinating director with whom I had a chance to work with while he was here in LA earlier this year.

Here is all that I could type up about my experience working on the Børre trailer. I will find time to finish it a little later when things have cleared up a bit:

“The journey in working on this project has been most rewarding and unique. I approached the writer and producer, Kim Dillevig Aas after having seen the teaser trailer for Børre on Facebook. It was very cool and spine-chilling and I was extremely impressed so I explained my interest in the project to him. And surprisingly, he was interested in having me on board as well and mentioned that he would be in town (Los Angeles) in a couple weeks. So I informed Ken of this exciting project and started looking for new sounds and toys to sample especially for this project.

A couple weeks later, Kim arrived, as expected, in LA and we had our initial meeting at my studio in West LA. I was really blown away by the images and cuts he had assembled for me, but he had wanted to cut the final version of the trailer to my score. So I had a bunch of images and scenes to referrence and I started immediately. It was a very exciting process as I had been really inspired and had discussed some potential cuts with Kim so that I could create my score accordingly. That day he took a photo for his production blog on the film and it became my favorite photo of me in my studio!

After several days, I came up with what I thought was good, blending sound design with a cold, chilling orchestral taste. I brought Ken in and showed it to him and together we crafted a mix of it that really shaped the score and added an eerie edge to it.”

Finding Dante

For the past several days, I’ve been at work on a large scale symphonic poem based on a poem from Dante’s La Vita Nuova. The specific poem is Gentil pensero che parla di vui (XXXVIII). The approx. 15 minute-long piece involves a full orchestra, choir and two solo sopranos as the core of the piece and alternate between various ensembles; starting from a single string note to solo cello and choir, with the sopranos to full orchestra and choir, to just soprano and harp. Ken, my engineer, and I are also brainstorming production on it and are coming up with new and interesting production techniques.

It really has been a big journey of discovery in finding Dante and his voice within the piece, the poem being so passionate and beautiful. The two sopranos will resemble the two battling forces within one’s heart: the soul (representing logic and reason) and her amorous passionate heart. Finding that voice, that sound that can represent Dante musically is a tough but very enjoyable journey and although I’m still about less than halfway through, there is something there that can be discovered.

Having just come back from an interview for UCLA Extension, I’ll probably hop on the couch for a bit and then get back to orchestrating this work of passion.

Three Weeks in Bangkok, Thailand

I’ve just returned to Los Angeles a couple days ago from a three-week trip to Thailand to participate in the PRAKOMPLENG PRALENG TAWAI Memorial Concert for HRH Princess Gaylani Vadhana of Thailand. The concert was a huge success and the live version of my piece, IN MEMORIAM, which was orchestrated by Ladd McIntosh, turned out very well indeed. Despite not having a full choir there, we managed to use synths and create a similar atmosphere which resulted in a very emotional evening, along with all the other eight memorable pieces performed that night.

Publicity on the project was also through the roof and I spent my days jumping between the orchestral rehearsals various interviews across town. I did a live interview on Thailand’s Channel 5 with fellow composer Trisdee na Patalung on November 3rd, which turned out to be a particularly fun interview, and did a number of radio interviews for various radio channels including National Radio and ChulaRadio (the sponsors of the project). I’ve had a wonderful relationship with ChulaRadio. They premiered my memorial piece in January this year followed by several more performances of my works and I flew back to do an interview with their classical music host, Seesom Eamsunpang in July this year. Later in August, they informed me that they were putting together a memorial CD in honor of HRH Princess Galyani and asked if they could include my piece in it as well. Naturally, I was delighted at this honor, and things got larger from there.

On November 4th, all the composers were asked to give interviews on their respective pieces for Thai PBS, who was also sponsoring the project. They were filming a documentary about the making of the project, which is supposed to air at some point this month.

After the concert, I stayed for a couple days in Bangkok discussing potential projects with various personel there and had conceived the idea of building a production studio there as well. An idea of such immense scope, it has taken me almost two weeks to recover from!

I finally flew back to Los Angeles a couple days ago to finish the final dub on a trailer for a Norwegian psychological thriller, BØRRE. I’m very glad to be back where I could breathe (almost literally) more easily. This three-week trip to Thailand has been one of the most emotionally broad that I’ve encountered in my entire life, so broad in fact, that it’s left me a bit dazed. Even now, four days after my return, I haven’t left the house yet, due to an odd reaction to my journey over the past few weeks and as I’m now working on a new orchestral/choral piece of a large scale. Details will follow.

Welcome to my personal blog…

“At one point in ones life, one feels the need to express oneself in an entirely new and modern approach.”

It’s not a wholly new idea, blogging, but I never was really able to maintain any sort of constant dictation of my thoughts and daily adventures. I’ve tried diaries, and journals and even opened up a blog once before…and failed miserably to keep up the writing after a few days.

However, life takes its turns, and after starting up a blog for my production studio, Nistades Music Productions earlier this year, I’ve been finding myself wanting to keep writing about personal experiences with the projects and adventures I’ve gone through. So here I am…once again starting up my own personal blog and hoping it continues and flourishes with memories and accounts that would someday prove to be memorable.