So i’m here frantically trying to pack up all my gear to head home to Toronto, and can’t help but reflect a little on my year before I pack this computer into the box. Most listeners of this site probably didn’t even know I was living in Vancouver or why I came out here, but i’ve moved between the two cities quite a bit in the past few years. Some people ask if it’s because I get myself into trouble in each city and then have to move cause I burned all my bridges but that’s not the case. I just like moving around a lot it seems. I guess i’m sort of young and antsy?
I spent a year in Vancouver to attend the Vancouver Film School’s Sound Design program in 2005. Then I moved back to Toronto for a year thinking I would find more work there and enjoy the comfort of being back in my home town. But sadly it was a rather unproductive year and my dreams of working as a composer and sound designer were just about shot by the end of it. It was becoming clear to me that I had a better network in Vancouver since that’s where I went to college to study my craft and met lots of great people.
Then, in the fall of 2006, I got a call from Joe Girard at Rouxbe Video Technologies offering me to come back to Vancouver to work full time on this project that I started working on the year I was in film school. Back then they were doing a few demos for investors, but this time I was being called cause they were ready to rock out with fulltime production and I was being offered a position that was reserved for me since the beginning as the Director of Audio. The only catch was I had two weeks to move.
So I did it, and I have to say this has been the most productive year since I started composing as a teenager. Well productive is an understatement, it was action packed, sleepless and in the end fruitful. Not only did I write almost thirty original songs for the Rouxbe.com website to date, I mixed and edited all the sound on all the videos currently up there. And that won’t stop, i’ll still be working on this project from back East.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This year saw my first gig working on video games writing tracks for The Bigs, and then just recently after writing countless demos for jingles over the past few years, I finally saw my music on TV in the new ads for Lavalife.On my own end of things I overhauled this website and started my first podcast, started DJing gigs with my laptop, and began recording tracks meant for normal release and not for film and multimedia.
Yes this must sound like i’m bragging but I do stand by my original statement that i’m just reflecting. I’ve been working so hard at this stuff for years now and only until recently have I been feeling that all this sweat and energy is going into the right place. I guess a part of me is thanking Vancouver and i’m wondering if this is the place where I get my best work done, after two years of intense creativity living here.
So as I get ready to shut down my computer that served me so well this year, and get ready to head back home to the place I grew up to face the frigid winter, I want to take a quick moment to thank all the friends that helped me achieve my personal goals this year. If you weren’t busy working with me you were busy listening to all my problems. In no particular order, thank you to:
Suzy, Tovah, Chad, Lisa, Pat, Phil, Jeff, Jaidene, Joe, Dawn and outside the city thanks to Steve B. and Manny. Of course the SD13 crew is still holding it down by email and I hope we can have our planned reunion one day.
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