Just a Nice Guy: Full Series Available

June 14, 2007 by George Shaw.

Watch the series on Youtube:
Part 1: The Problem
Part 2: The Lesson
Part 3: The Risk

This project began with a handful of scenes needing music in part 1. So I worked out the timings and the chord changes ahead of time, so everything would line up with the changing moods in the film. Then Bo Han came over and we recorded him playing the guitar parts. The one portion that I ended up recording on guitar, is the romantic theme for the Amy character. I had come up with that particular voicing and style that both Phil (the director) and Bo thought I should play the part, since I had the feel of it down already. My shoddy guitar playing doesn’t come close to Bo’s awesome technique, but I went ahead and did it and it came out ok. Though I’m very critical of my own playing, and wish it was better. After I laid down the rhythm guitar track, Bo improvised the melodic part over my chords.

What’s amazing is we hammered out all that music and recorded everything in a 5 or 6 hour stretch. I spent the next day programming the drums and mixing down all the tracks. It was a lot of fun to work on, and a nice little get away from the horror music I’ve been writing for the last month.

For episodes 2 & 3, Phil reused the music from the first episode in the recap sequences, and it fit perfectly, and gives the whole series a nice continuity. For the final scene in episode 3, Phil needed some emotional music that started off somber and transitions into the “happy ending.” So I sat down at the keyboard and improvised a piano solo, I literally spent 5 minutes on it and sent an mp3 to Phil to get his thoughts. He asked for very subtle changes, so I took what I improvised and reworked it to fit the scene better and recorded my playing on the keyboard (so much easier than playing guitar for me). And that’s what you hear in the final product.

Click here to listen to the entire score suite

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