I Partied Like Friday on Thursday

Last Thursday, I attended a conference on Getting Your Music Into Film and Television at the Media Co-op. I ran into a guy named Terry, who is a memebr of the local band Empty Shell. Empty Shell also includes accomplished actor/musician Travis Stone (Ray, Delusions). The speaker was Kathryn Rachtman, a music supervisor for Hollywood. She has worked on films such as Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, Reservoir Dogs, Boogie Nights, Spongebob Squarepants, Clueless, Reality Bites, and several others. She started out as an assistant at Cannon Pictures.

I learned that you have to follow the director's wishes and you cannot just put songs that you think will be great in the film. It can also be hectic getting permission from film publishers and record companies. Rachtman said that the most challenging aspects were trying to put great songs in bad films, the pressure to deliver, and those moments when the director shoots down a song choice that you think is perfect. Rachtman also said that when doing period pieces, you want to use obscure yet memorable songs. For example, the people who owned the rights to the song, "Boogie Nights" were so certain that she would use that song for the movie Boogie Nights. She felt that was too obvious and too easy. She also showed us a secret clip from an animated film called Barnyard. It was written by Steve Odekirk, and Wanda Sykes is one of the voice actors. Local favorites the North Mississippi All-Stars play a band called the Barn Boys.

Scott Bomar, who composed the original score for Hustle and Flow, talked for a minute. Bomar said that one of his friends told him "Don't envy anyone who is successful". Success involves a lot of paying dues. I spoke with him afterwards and he seemed real cool. He said he's busy with the score to Black Snake Moan. I also saw indie director Edward Phillips (Grim Sweeper). He informed me that the Indie-Memphis winning Act One will be running at Studio on the Square starting February 17, and it will have a trailer for Grim Sweeper. That's good for the Indie Memphis film community. Lovers of art and cinema, let's make an effort to see that film. These are hometown people trying to do something positive, and that's always needed.

After that, I went to see Hope Clayburn perform at the Full Moon Club. She was very improvisational, she used a machine that would loop her voice or riffs she played on her saxophone. She started with "Inner City Blues", did a little "Istanbul not Constantinople", and she even started singing "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp", I'm sorry, the GRAMMY-nominated "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp". Bosco of local rap group Tunnel Clones also came up and performed a rap that he had recently wrote. It was good to see Bosco again. Shout out to him and the DJ for Poisonous Dialects. It was good to see my hip-hop friends again. I've been off the scene pursuing this acting, but it's all love, belive me.

I slid out after her first set and made it to Flashback's in time to join my Red West acting school clique: Forrest Pruett (Forty Shades of Blue, Delusions), Joseph Smith (Delusions, Cowboy's Silver Lining), Lina Fritsche (Delusions, Slow Down You're Dating Too Fast), and our friend Candace. Of course, Joseph and I performed "Nuttin' But a G Thang". Our performance is the stuff of legends!

Man, after all that, it's amazing that I made it to work. Fortunately, the threat of getting kicked out by my brother keeps me focused and on the ball at the day job. Be easy, readers.