The soundtrack to 'Newsroom - Horizons Interstellar'

One of the weird crossed wires in my brain is that almost every song feels like it should be the soundtrack to a movie scene. A lot of the time, for me, that’s the very first seed of what will eventually become a story. My flash piece ‘Newsroom — Horizons Interstellar’ is no exception. Check out some of the songs that inspired it here: 

Read - NEWSROOM — HORIZONS INTERSTELLAR - available on Sci-Phi Journal!

(or, alternatively, on YouTube)

SOUNDTRACK NOTES:

Your Touch | Nine Inch Nails

From the opening notes of the song, the first thing I see is a spaceship arcing gracefully towards a star, white engine plume streaming out the back like a comet’s tail. There’s hope and beauty and wonder, but also that Nine Inch Nails edge that makes you worry that things are about to get a lot more messed up soon (and spoiler alert, in the story, they do). 

Descent | Makeup and Vanity Set 

I first learned about Makeup and Vanity Set from the game Brigador. Side note, if you like sci-fi, space stuff, mega-corporations, and spectacularly explosive violence, you’ll probably also dig Brigador. It also reminds of John Carpenter’s amazing soundtrack to The Thing, which may or may not have partially inspired some of the ideas for the Kepler aliens in Newsroom — Horizons Interstellar *cough* chest jaws *cough*. 

Run Like Hell | Nine Inch Nails 

Another track from the recent Ghosts albums, it feels like a complex world falling apart as chaos and fear take hold. On a personal note, this was also my soundtrack to understanding the initial days of the Coronavirus Pandemic in early 2020. One of the things that drives me to write is to cut the harsh world of the real with some sort of fantastical element, take the edge off by reimagining reality. I think that’s what fiction does at its best - it gives us satisfying narratives that also help us process and re-interpret the frequently mundane, sometimes frightening, complicated feelings we go through in our real lives. 

Here Come the Robots I Stoned Jesus

In my head, I like to imagine that each of the self-designing, self-constructing, murderous warforms of the Autonomous Robotic Safety Network (the ARSN) play hard rock as they go about their cheerful mission of purging the universe of life. 

Strange Things Happening Every Day | Sister Rosetta Tharpe 

I love credits songs. To me, a good credits song can make or break a movie, being that perfect final note to a story, that setting of tone as the lights come up and you begin to emerge from whatever distant world you were just immersed in and return to your regularly scheduled programming. For Newsroom — Horizons Interstellar, Strange Things Happening Every Day is that song. 

Favorites from the 48 Hour Film Project's Filmapalooza 2020

This year I was lucky enough to attend the 48 Hour Film Project’s global Filmapalooza festival in Rotterdam, NL (about a week before Coronavirus shut down most travel between the US and Europe). 

For those that don’t know the 48 Hour Film Project, the basic is that you write, shoot, and edit a movie within a single weekend (in under 48 hours)...the movies are then screened in a city-wide competition. It’s fun, madcap, and happens in over a hundred cities all around the world. Like one of my other favorite film festivals (The My Rode Reel festival), teams of all different national backgrounds, skill levels, and sizes compete, but this was my first time really getting to watch some 48 Hour Film shorts from around the globe. And man, I was blown away...here are a few of my favorites:

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Scare by Coven Productions - Edinburgh 2019 48HFP

This brave little short has so much spirit and spunk. One of the things I’m so blown away by from the Filmapalooza 48 Hour shorts is how many of them managed to talk about real world issues in personal ways - in this case a pregnancy scare and women’s reproductive rights. Shifting from mysterious to hilarious to serious, Scare has a bold viewpoint and makes it well. It’s even more amazing than it looks at first, because Sarah Grant, the creator of the short, did almost all of it as a one woman team! Also, her acting during the ending completely blew me away, and it was the perfect final beat. 

WATCH IT HERE: https://www.48hourfilm.com/en/edinburgh-gb/films/36999

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Social Silence by Two Sense Films, Orlando 2019 48HFP

The colors, my God, the colors. This film literally (and I do mean literally, literally) oozes style. The cinematography, the music, the editing, all of it adds up to one of the slickest shorts I saw at Filmapalooza. I love the slow build of the mystery, the growing tension, and the way our worst fears are confirmed in the opening montage. Bonus points for the perfectly hatable hipster villain’s Patrick Bateman dance towards the end. 

WATCH IT HERE: https://www.48hourfilm.com/en/orlando-fl/films/39207

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Bi, không sợ nữa! by FGS(HCM), Ho Chi Minh 2019 48HFP

I think heart is one of the most important qualities an indie short can have - genuine empathy for the characters, exploring an issue that matters to us, that we can relate to, but getting us to relate to it in a new way. This short’s exploration of a kid trying to learn about sex from porn could have felt sketchy and icky, but instead I’m struck by how genuinely kind it is towards the main character’s journey. (I’m also a sucker for any short that starts with a shot of a dripping sink).

WATCH IT HERE: https://www.48hourfilm.com/ho-chi-minh-city-vn/films/39374

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Keep by Afro Viking Pictures, Halifax 2019 49HFP

Right from the get-go, the old school 4 by 3 (I think, feel free to correct me in the comments!) aspect ratio lets you know this isn’t going to be a short like the others. It’s simple and yet at the same time quite complex, a quiet little story about a woman whose taken up hoarding. The set design is amazing, the acting excellent. One of the things that most impresses me about this short is how well the backstory is introduced in the fight between the siblings - I absolutely see how the stress of a parent’s death and being responsible for her brother brought the main character for this point. 

WATCH IT HERE: https://www.48hourfilm.com/en/halifax-ca/films/41467

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The Missing Car by Boomerang, Tirana 2019 48HFP

One of the things that annoys me most about gangster films is the violence. Not necessarily because I don’t like my movies violent (I can be the occasional gorehound), but because to me that’s not what makes gangsters scary in the real world. More often, it’s the unspoken threat of violence, setting terrifyingly ambiguous boundaries, forcing otherwise well intentioned individuals into complicit situations. The Missing Car does just that. One of the other things I love about it is the sense of these stories being far bigger than what we see in the short itself; from the more personal side of the main character preparing to propose to his girlfriend, to the sinister machinations of the criminal enterprise manipulating him.  

WATCH IT HERE: https://www.48hourfilm.com/en/tirana-al/films/42290

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Everything Rises by Mint Volcano - Taipei 2019 48HFP

I love a great high concept (but simple to understand) movie executed well, and I’m a fan of any short that can pair that with a great monologue and good music choices. The idea of one person moving forwards while another moves backwards is so simple to follow once you see it, and yet the technically mastery to make it happen still hard for me to wrap my head around. The scene where the main character walks down the street while everything else moves backwards is simply remarkable. But this short isn’t just about being technically great with a camera and editing skills - it also has a painful story of alienation, an inability to fit into the world as you are or as it is, and somehow making peace with all of that in a way that definitely got to me.

WATCH IT HERE: https://www.48hourfilm.com/zh-tw/taipei-tw/films/40582

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These are my favorites from Filmapalooza 2020. I’d love to hear what you thought of them in the comment section below, or feel free to share other 48 Hour Film Projects that have spoken to you! 

FAVORITES FROM THE 2019 MY RODE REEL FILM FESTIVAL

A little late to the party this year, but I wanted to shout out one of my favorite film festivals that happens each year, MY RODE REEL. The festival attracts talent of all different skill levels from every corner of the globe, with the only requirements for entry being a short film that’s under 3 minutes, using a Rode product to make it, and doing a behind the scenes video for the short that shows off how you used one or more pieces of Rode gear...and personally, the behind the scenes element has been really useful to me in picking up tricks from other filmmakers.

So, without further ado, here are my favorites of the 2019 My Rode Reel film festival!

CHAPTER 14

Thursday Shoots

As a kid who use to gobble up books on ghosts, UFOs, and the Loch Ness Monster only to grow into a skeptical adult who recognizes that those mythical monsters probably don’t exist (at least, not in the ways pop culture understands them), this story of a jaded paranormal investigator really vibes with me. I want to believe, but I don’t want to delude myself, so I stay a skeptic.

I won’t give too much away about the ending...but that smile the main character gets, when he finally gets to witness something truly weird, I feel that. The soundtrack is brilliantly simple and haunting, and really stuck with me.

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DIALOG

Souvik Chakraborty

Speaking of soundtracks, Dialog sets the sounds of the streets of Mumbai to a beat, and follows along with some of the trippiest footage I’ve seen in My Rode Reel. I love traveling to India, the cacophony and the constant energy, the bright colors, the street art, the tuk tuks. There’s a maniacal joy to the editing in Dialog, you’re never quite sure what to expect next...I literally shouted with glee when the talking fish showed up. Special props to composer Ankit Uppal who created the killer track that is the heart of the video...definitely someone I plan to start following on Spotify.

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GLIMPSE

Nicholas Acosta

The 2018 My Rode Reel film festival brought us the colorful and wild action short Maneaters, which almost made my favorites list then. This year, Nicholas Acosta and his team went a much quieter, creepier route. It’s a pretty scary little short that takes a few cues from David Sandberg’s (aka ponysmasher) viral short Lights Out, but where this film REALLY shines is it’s behind the scenes companion video. I’m a sucker for things that mess with established formats, and the twist of the BTS had me literally ROFLing.

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CHMURKA

Bogusław Wiktorowicz

One of the great things about My Rode Reel is that filmmakers from all over the world participate, so many of the films are little slices of life from places I’ve never been. Chmurka (which translates to ‘Fluffy’) is an adorable science fiction story that takes place on a farm in Poland. But I have a confession to make. Chmurka is not my favorite film this year.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s cute and I like it a lot, but I definitely found the filmmaking part of my brain asking more questions about where they got that giant silver orb rather than getting involved in the plot. So I fired up their behind the scenes video to find out...

...and THAT is my favorite My Rode Reel short from this year. I have to admit, I still don’t know where the hell that silver orb came from (Maybe Kepler 16b?), but using the BTS short to do an even funnier off the wall companion movie was a stroke of genius. God bless the internet.

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So that’s this year’s roundup of My Rode Reel 2019! What were some of your favorite shorts that I might have missed?

And also, if you haven’t checked it out, here’s laughing with the storm’s short film BLENDER and its own bizarre BTS short:

BLENDER

laughing with the storm

Favorites from the 2018 My Rode Reel Film Festival

My Rode Reel is an annual film contest hosted each summer by Rode Microphones. It's global, has no entry fees, and the only requirements for submitting are that teams also produce a short behind the scenes video that shows how they used a Rode product to make their movie. Because of this, it's one of the most gloriously diverse and entertaining film contests I've participated in, with teams from all over the world, of all different skill and budget levels, creating all different kinds of movie. It's one of the few festivals I know of where a team of scrappy kids in England making a low budget monster movie can go up against a slick production company's documentary from South Africa, who are competing with a group of Skateboarding Japanese teenagers making a donut commercial, and all of them have an equal shot at getting their films seen by a global audience and winning some truly cool prizes.

The Behind the Scenes component also makes it a great place to learn from this smorgasbord of short filmmaking, and can be almost as entertaining as the films themselves.

Recycling Man - Oliver Topp

What I love about this is how scrappy the whole thing is, both in the film itself and behind the scenes (seriously, watch the behind the scenes...SO MUCH DUCT TAPE I LOVE IT). The title had me primed for a very different kind of movie (a superhero, maybe?), and I liked how that subverted my expectations with what I actually got. The creature and sound design are clever and on point. Plus there’s a cute dog in it...always a plus.

Fishy Wish - Przemysław Stański

Coming out of Poland, two neighbors battle over a magic wish granting fish. It’s little touches from this that make it one of my favorites this year...the voice of the fish saying “Okay!”, the hiss the one neighbor gives when he sees his opponent sneaking onto his land, the slow sound of frogs and crickets as a little denouement at the end. This was the winner of the Judges’ award for this year, and it was a well deserved win. This short also holds a special place in my heart, because from the behind the scenes footage it looks like they used a Panasonic GH4, my personal camera of choice for the past several years.

Tokyo, the City that’s always drunk - Video Curazy

Something I look for in a short film is that it captures the feeling of a specific moment. A tone poem to an experience. ‘Tokyo, the City that’s always drunk’ does this for a night of heavy drinking in a vivid locale. The editing makes this a standout, the way the cuts slide from one moment to the next, the whole thing blurring together in a way where I’m not quite sure how we got from point A to point B, but it doesn’t matter because I’m just enjoying the ride.

Action Cop II - Revengance - Cannon Fodder Production

More cheese than the state of Wisconsin. I came for the Tank suit, but I stayed for the over-the-top-dgaf story and the Pinteresque pauses. I only wish there were more Arnold Style one liners. And please give the Tank his own spinoff short!

Keep Me Posted - Paer Waldemar Tobias Nilsson

A surrealist horror that combines a childlike sense of whimsy with a very adult fear (who among us doesn’t dread the arrival of bills, tickets, court summons, and other sneaky modern daybusting terrors slipping through our mail slots?)

Donut Wheels - AVII IMAGEWORKS

It’s exactly what it says on the tin, and then some. I don’t know that it works so well as a donut commercial - ‘food products I want to ingest’ and ‘things that make good wheels for transport’ remain two VERY separate categories in my mind. But this is some stylish madness. And it’s my favorite film of this year’s My Rode Reel film crop.

And one last film, though this one is kind of a cheat, since it’s actually from the 2016 My Rode Reel film festival, but I’ve got to give a shout out to Dognap by JKK films. This remains one of my favorite online shorts, period, and was the first movie to really make me fall in love with the My Rode Reel film festival. The fights are nuts, the twists are epic, and it’s got a cute dog too.

And some shameless self-promotion, check out our 2018 My Rode Reel entry - DRIP!

How about you? If you’re also watching, I’d love to hear what films stood out to you in the comments section!

Track that beat - Finding Music for Filmmaking

A couple weeks ago, I led a team in William and Mary’s annual 24 Speed film competition. It’s something we do every year, writing, shooting, and editing a short movie within 24 hours. This year, one of my main goals was to rock the festival (literally). And to do that, we needed some jams. Not just any jams, but good accessible jams, that we could legally used without risking copyright infringement. 

Thankfully I stumbled on the Free Music Archive, a source of songs with Creative Commons license. If you haven’t heard of creative commons, and you too are into low budget film making, let me let you in on a little secret…it’s awesome. Creative Commons material is available for independent filmmakers and assorted creative types to remix and use as they see fit (depending on the license). 

A list of Creative Commons' Licenses 

Creative Commons licenses come in several flavors, but if you’re looking for music to add that extra spice to your independent film (and don’t want to shell out a bunch of money to license songs), your best friends will either be Public Domain or Creative Commons Attribution licensed music. Public Domain media can be used without restrictions, Creative Commons Attribution licensed material means you need to give a shout out to (aka Attribute) the title of the song and the artist at some point in your movie (usually in the credits).

Generally, if you're using the music for films you want to submit to festivals, you can only use items that are just under Attribution license (or Public Domain works), and not the others (because a festival submission may be considered commercial, and have restrictions on how the film can be shared). 

The song attribution part of the credits for Medley: Fish, out of Water

To show an example of what kinds of songs you might find on a site like Freemusicarchive.org, let’s delve into the (fishy fishy) guts of Laughing with the Storm’s film - Medley: Fish, Out of Water: 

Pull Your Socks Up - by Jim Rooster

We wanted a gonzo song to lead into our gonzo movie, and the opening piece of this delivered. However, we also wanted a song that matured over the course of the movie, which this one does once the song actually gets going.

Cyphon - by Jason Staczek

For our first mini-film, we needed a tense song to represent the Rookie’s growing anxiety, as well as provide the right mood for our mini action scene. 

Trace Route - by Boxcat Games

Providing the extra energy we wanted during the sting operation. 

One Minute 35 - by Salakapakka Sound System

The Rookie’s anxiety finally gets the best of him

I Am a Man Who Will Fight for Your Honor - by Chris Zabriskie

Our required song for the competition, also helping set the mood for our tone poem ‘Misfit Tribe’

Purse Peekin’ - by The Coachwhips

And to bring us home, the Coachwhips' delightful blend of hard rock energy and hilariously unintelligible lyrics.

A couple of other sites that also provide Creative Commons or Public Domain licensed music that you can use in your films are (don’t forget to check the License information before you use a song in a video!) :

Youtube Audio Library

CCmixter

If you want to know more about finding music for filmmaking, and something is either confusing or not covered here, feel free to drop us a line at: laughing.with.the.storm@gmail.com 

And if you know of another site that you use to find fair-use music for independent filmmaking, please share it in the comments! We can always use new jams.