A 1-2-3 method to get stuff done
Been quite busy these past weeks working on the audio-post for Small Days. And no rest for me as I’m ear-deep in the audio-post and composing chores for Creed now, too. Both projects have killer (impossible! **) deadlines — but doesn’t every project? It can be tricky to juggle the work, but I have some simple advice that I like to share when tackling ALL mammoth projects:
(1) Get started.
(2) Keep going.
Simple, eh? Too simple? I don’t think so. It’s the work that matters and not the thinking about it or putting it off. Get down to business and then you can finish the project. It IS that simple. Oh and remember this:
(3) Have fun along the journey!
And as a bonus here are 72 Ideas to Simplify Your Life, too.
** Not every project is so crazy. In fact, I had a lot of time to really explore Scott’s Dead, and that time really paid off in the end. Small Days had about a week (vs. four months) and that is a bad deadline by any stretch of the imagination. You can’t really do a good job in a week. Thankfully, this was just to meet a film festival deadline and we can revisit the film before it actually screens. And I will revisit it and make it sound better. There’s only a month to do Creed, but I will have help so it’s doable. I hope. Still I wish I had a bit more time to just let things ‘soak’ in as fresh ears always make for a better soundtrack.
3 Comments
Yes true – all projects are ridiculous, impossible timelines. The challenge has always been to produce the best quality work within time provided. So, deadlines are a fact of life in this biz. Sometimes a short deadline can really sharpen your focus, allowing you to produce stuff you may not have if you had the luxury of time. I think short timelines are just one of the parameters that composers need to factor into their working style and develop a set of skills and compositional techniques to deal with these challenges.
Steve Rault
Melbourne AUSTRALIA
I know it’s a bit uncool to respond to your own post but I like this discussion. I just finished an opener/closer for a lifestyle TV show. The brief was, “I like the ones with guitar in them”… I’ve learned to ask more questions to aviod multiple attempts at deciphering a brief. I got a basic idea of what this guy wanted by asking lots of questions then got straight to work. I essentially had 48 hours to produce a finished product. Try getting as much info from the client as possible. I have found that often the people who make decisions about music are not always able to communicate what they really want and sometimes they don’t know what they really want. I’ll always ask them to give me examples of a song or piece of music to help get closer to their vision. I find that if I have clear direction and purpose, I can produce more efficiently.
Thanks for sharing. What a pleasure to read!