Joe Reed: Music, Music and more Music

16 August 10

Well, if you've been avidly following these blogs, you may have noticed that it's been ages since I've updated it. What with finishing up schooling and sorting out everything for university and getting a full time job and going to the BAFTAs I've been rather busy. But of course, of course I've still been writing music.

As chronologically as my memory permits here's what happened:

BAFTA TV Craft Awards

These were cool. In the morning I got on the train with three good friends of mine, including fellow nominee (and editor extraordinaire) Mr Crocker. At the hotel check-in we pretended to be famous and I think it worked!

We'll skip now to the ceremony, despite the fact that I'd love to dwell on describing what I wore and how much fun the trouser press was (very). Once we had done all the press photos, we- the nominated- signed in and went through to a ballroom for champagne! I don't drink, but I drank champagne and had great chats with the BBC Natural History Unit sound team I had met earlier in the week (Whilst I remember, briefly, BAFTA also sent Jack and I to Aardman Studios earlier in the week and I met the BBC Natural History Unit sound team). Anywho, they were all great and everyone was all great.

One of the best evenings of my life, especially after dancing to Don't Stop Believing at the after party

Through to the main ballroom, Team Blast all sat down at a table together where there were amazing breadsticks and lovely butter. The awards were swell, and another quick gratz to Sam for winning. Afterwards I spoke to James May and the producer of Coronation Street and more importantly spoke to Karen Gillan who made my knees go a little bit weak. Altogether, one of the best evenings of my life, especially after dancing to Don't Stop Believing at the after party.

Blast BAFTA TV Craft bursary

Receiving all the stuff that the bursary bought me was also cool. I had chosen, to benefit my musical and compositional development, a new macbook pro, 8 channel soundcard, 2x External Hard Drive (Always save your work a thousand times in a thousand places, though one always learns the hard way), a microphone, a DI box and I think that's it. If you really care to know what a DI box is, I'll explain next blog... It's very useful and I love it, but it's not very interesting.

Film Composition course at the LFA

Our friends the London Film Academy, and lovely man Simon Whiteside are all round winners. The first half of the first of two days was spent largely focusing in detail the history of film music, to how we see and hear it today from the birth of the opera, via the inception (yeah, I said it) of cinema and the golden age of Hollywood.

Second day we spent immersed in John Williams' ET score which is great and I had it stuck in my head for days. When we watched the fifteen minute epic that is the final cue I cried a little bit because the end of ET always makes me cry but I don't think anyone noticed. I learned loads, and had some grey areas nicely split apart into blacks and whites. Now I feel more than comfortable talking about music's role in cinema, television and moving image. To pass on what I learned to you guys, I'd have to summate by saying that music is basically the most important thing in the history of ever.

Since then I've been accepted to university in London to study Popular Music, passed my college course and been working full time as a waiter in a pub. To keep myself entertained whilst there I practice sound design by making crashing sounds whenever I put something down, give all the glasses different voices (pints have low voices and half pints have high voices, obviously) and also make tiny screaming noises when clearing up peas. This is my life, cheers.

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