I’m proud to announce the release of the soundtrack for “Of Dreams and Wings.” It’s 90 minutes of original music in a 2-disc set of 23 high-quality MP3s.

Download links are posted in the “Members Only” section of the fan forum (visit the forum here). If you don’t already have a forum account, please do sign in and download the tracks – they’ll only be available here for a limited time, for our charter fans, you guys out there that have been following the show for years, long before it becomes the next big thing!

Musically, I split episode 3 into two parts. Each part is about half of the total episode. My goal for the last six months or more has been to create the core music for Part 1 from beginning to end, even if it’s not totally fleshed out. Now, I can finally say that I’ve accomplished that goal. All that’s left for Part 1 is to flesh out transitions, fill in some of the thinner passages, etc. — all quite easy, compared to facing the initial “blank slate,” or – even worse – facing down passages that just aren’t working out, deciding what to keep and what to throw away.

As for Part 2, I have music from other musicians that I’ve already plugged in to key passages. I’d say Part 2 is about halfway done, and it won’t be nearly as huge an effort as Part 1.

In fact, let me make a commitment to everyone – staff and fans – right here. I’ll have all the music for Episode 3 ready to lay into the master project by March 2. That’s two Saturdays from now. I know Garth already has most of the SFX done, so this means Ep 3 could be “in the can” in just a few weeks.

Special thanks to Scott Howard for providing me with a flight case to take my equipment on the road with me when I travel.  I’m on the road a lot lately for work.  I have portable gear for composing and recording music now, and  I needed a way to lug all of it around safely.  Scott provided what my wife is now calling the "techno-suitcase."  I can record any time, anywhere!  Bwahahahaaaa!  Except when I’m working.  And actually flying around.  Okay, I don’t have much in the way of time, but even a couple of hours a few nights a week, adds up.

Apologies for letting the show slip so much lately.  We’ve been producing new material, but slowly, as usual.  But we’ve let the web site slide, too.  We really should stop in once in a while and say "hi," but we’ve been, let’s face it, neglectful in our public relations duties. 

So, okay, as long as I’m here typing, what’s new with the show?  We recorded narration for Episode 4 a few weeks ago.  Scott’s performance just gets better and better.  Then we had to cut out several passages to make room for the story to breathe.  It hurt to do that.  There were lots of cool little lines, sometimes whole paragraphs, that didn’t make it.  We’d already eliminated everything that wasn’t essential to the story, during the writing and editing phase.  All we had left to cut were descriptive passages that add a textured beauty and detail to the narrative.  The show would be richer if we could have kept them.  Even so, the story sounds tighter without the "fluff."

Then, we put strategic pauses back into the story, building the poetic pacing that separates this show from all the others.  It’s more art than science, and we’re pretty picky about it.  It’s not uncommon for the three of us to bicker about 1.5 seconds vs. 2 seconds — in dozens of instances throughout the show.  What’s fascinating to me, though, is that we bicker less now, because that pacing has become second nature.  For the most part, we know and agree on how long to pause where.  I’ll say, "Put a pause there," Scott will say "2 seconds," and Garth has already done it before we can get the words out — working in perfect, Borg-like unity!

And now, the audio "text" of the episode is timed out and ready for music.

The first story wraps up in Episode 4, so when this one’s done, the whole story is ready to go.  Still a lot of work before we’re there, but the end is in sight.  And, you’ll be pleased to know, Scott caps it off with a classic Searcher and Stallion ending scene, full of intrigue and mystery.

There’s no way we can produce one show a week, like in the old days, unless we have more musicians working with us.  We’d like to invite musicians of compatible genres to contact us.  We’re not ready to license music yet, but we probably will be in a few months.  I’d like to have a list of musicians at hand so we can hit the ground rolling when that time comes.

Even if you’re not a musician, but you like to listen, be sure to drop us a note when you hear music you think would fit our show.  Send us the names of the artist and song, and a URL if you can, and we’ll give it a listen. 

What kind of music are we interested in?  Electronic, orchestral, or any mix thereof.  Sometimes we can use music with a groove, sometimes we need slower, more evokative pieces.  Listen to the preview episodes and you’ll see what we mean.

Thanks!

http://www.searcherandstallion.com/insider/podcast.xml

Just paste that URL into iTunes, or your favorite podcatcher software.

The podcast will feature news, interviews, previews, etc.  While we’re finishing the first brand new S&S story, though, the podcast be dedicated to a final retrospective on the Series 1 shows.

With that in mind, we’ll kick off the podcast with an excerpt from Brad Torgersen’s story, "The Nemesis."

We were looking at about 28 minutes of raw material last week that we had to cut down.  Recovering 3 minutes wouldn’t be enough; we needed extra time to insert as pauses throughout the material in order to keep the pacing right.  Otherwise, the story would plowrightthroughwithouteventakingabreath! 

This sounds a lot easier than it really is.

We obviously had to cut something, but what?  The story had already been through the copy-editing phase.  Presumably, at this point, any unneccessary stuff had already been trimmed out.  It’s like some famous writer-guy said: the story is finished, not when you’ve put in everything the story needs, but after you’ve taken everything you can out.  Anything still left over should be essential to the story, right?

We had significant trouble removing stuff from eps 1 and 2.  We cut those episodes to the bone, and then we kept cutting.  There were some really cool passages that didn’t make it.  And sometimes, we’d accidentally cut important info that was used later in the show, without realizing it.  More frustrating: even after we were under our limit, we dropped more really cool stuff, just to get dead time to slice up and reuse, for pacing purposes. 

For ep 3, we were lucky.  We found one piece of the main fight sequence that could be removed without consequence.  I wish it could have stayed; I think it would have enhanced the characters.  If you’re interested, Scott posted the text on the forum somewhere.  If not for that, the only other option would have been to rewrite several other passages to use even fewer words to say the same things, and re-record them.  Obviously, this would take a lot more time than simply snipping a passage out like we did.

Read Scott’s previous post for specifics on what we took out.  What’s left is pretty tight, essential to the plot and character development, and keeps the story moving, without taking the audience on unneccessary detours.  We’re happier with these episodes than we’ve been at any other time in the history of the show.

Still, it leaves us with a "recycle bin" full of interesting stuff that we can’t wait to use somewhere else!  Think of these gems as a preview of things to come…