Internet Musician | Singer/Songwriter | Steve Chatterton

Soundtrack for Short Film: Fortune Cookies

   » Photo of fortune cookies by Wikipedia user Lorax «

Here’s a little something I did over a weekend in June, 2006. A German film student approached me on a Thursday evening requiring a score for a four minute silent short he was submitting to a panel the following Monday. I foolishly accepted, downloaded the video file on Friday morning, and by Sunday night we had a finished product.

Since it was a silent film, I decided to go old school and do a score for solo piano. The plot was fairly straight forward: boy dog sees girl dog across a crowded street, bot dog falls in love, girl dog gets abducted, boy dog gives pursuit only to find her collar by a dumpster in an alley behind a Chinese takeaway. Hopefully that’ll help you understand the changes a little.

Here’s the audio:

1. 01. Fortune Cookies - Solo Piano - DRM-Free MP3, 7.02 MB, 3:50
   

In retrospect, I would’ve preferred if I had access to a crappier sounding set of piano samples at the time. A nine-foot Steinway grand piano sounds a little too polished for the old time silent film feel I imagined.

A few months later, I tinkered with some of the themes on my own time to see if I could develop them to the big screen worthy orchestral soundtrack level (I briefly flirted with the idea of composing for film).

1. 01. Fortune Cookies - Digital Orchestra - DRM-Free MP3, 3.20 MB, 1:44
   

Of course, a live orchestra would sound much better, but what are you going to do.

I’ve also done a few other animal-related shorts in my time (other than the “Two Dogs” film I blogged about earlier this week, including another one with a dog trying to get some food that’s just out of reach and a cat trying to wake its owner up for breakfast, but I think for the purposes of this blog I’ll call it a day here and stop revisiting my old student film work for now.

Link to original photo