Long Neck Big Heart

Over a year ago, Tim Foss approached me to discuss working on sound design for his MFA thesis project. Over the months, the project evolved into a fascinating story about a man coming to terms with his own insecurities along with the help of two precocious children and a man who may or may not be Santa Claus. The story is told through animatics, live music, and performance. Being involved with such a project for so long was very interesting as I was able to help shape and mold the final product.


I was involved with voice acting (Santa), recording small children's voices for overdubs, Foley and sound design work, as well as custom media programming. The piece of technology I developed was a program in MAX/MSP for a foot pedal board (FCB-1010) used to control the video playback. It also allowed  Tim to record and manipulate musical loops. This created an ‘impossible’ live, one-man, acapella performance.  It was a very fun effect to witness live.
Email me for more information about this kind of program or other performances involving interactive technology.


November 09 Preview

There were three sections of performances.  The November preview in 2009 at the Old Main Theatre at CU was a difficult venue to work with, but we learned a lot about what needed to be changed for the final performance.  An interesting sound design choice was to have a speaker off stage left to play pantomimed sound-effects to.  This idea was eventually removed, but it was still interesting.  Jon Swihart also performed with Tim as his disdainful bandmate.  However, after this showing, the overall direction of the piece changed drastically.


MFA Thesis Presentation

Rehearsal at the VAC

The thesis presentations that happened on April 8th and 9th of 2010, and for better or worse, we were given a new venue.  We now had access to a brand new auditorium in the recently christened Visual Arts Complex.  A brand new surround speaker system and HD projector!!  What a dream...  Good thing none of it worked...  (except the normal projector).  So in the end we brought in our own sound system (just like at Old Main) and our own lights.  Auditoriums are not equipped with any kind of theatrical lighting.  So we were forced to bring in our own trees and dimmers as well.  Not a great performance space to say the least.

Despite these challenges, the performances were edgy, entertaining, and insightful.  Tim's "Hand-Drawn, One-Man, Live-Stage Musical" was a huge success with well over 50 attendants each performance. Congratulations to Tim, John Kadleck - Writer/Director, Andrew Metzroth - Creative Collaborator/Lighting, and Lukas Gonzales for his work on the stop motion dream sequence.


2010 Boulder Fringe Festival

Finally, the performance was chosen for the 2010 Boulder Fringe Festival.  The show opened at Topo Ranch in Boulder on August 19th.  A few minor changes were made, and the pedal was removed for simplicity.  Overall, I liked the new direction, I just wish the venue had been more appropriate.  I hope Tim takes this show further and that I can collaborate with him more on this exciting work.

I very much enjoy this kind of work as I get to contribute creatively as well as exercise my technical limits.  Preparing the pedal was a difficult and time-consuming process, but rewarding nonetheless.  Smashing junk Tim's office and recording it was a great experience, and the recording sessions with the two children were a lot of fun.