Nathan Johnson - Composer - Official Page

I’m really excited to have done the score for Joe’s fantastic...

Wed, 22 May 2013 20:00:55 -0400

I’m really excited to have done the score for Joe’s fantastic directorial debut! I’ll talk more about how we did the music soon, but for now, check out the trailer here!

hitrecordjoe:

Hey everybody, the first trailer is now up for my new movie, Don Jon! I’m so curious to hear what you think of it :o)

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE!

And all you talented gif-makers running around on Tumblr, like I know you are, I’m looking forward to seeing what you make out of this…

Check out the awesome new record by my longtime...

Tue, 21 May 2013 14:21:48 -0400

Check out the awesome new record by my longtime friend andyfitts:

ANDY FITTS’ SMOKY WILDS
Produced and Mixed by Yuuki Matthews
Mastered by TW Walsh
Art by Richard Swift Available on BANDCAMP, ITunes and other preferred digital media outlets.

Sampling and beat-making magic over at Ruby Red Studios with...

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:34:00 -0400

Sampling and beat-making magic over at Ruby Red Studios with Jake Sinclair and Katie. This is how I like to do it: a new song, soup to nuts, in one day from sound-gathering and sampling to beat-making and the hook.

We should probably call this one Penny Arcade since we made most of the track with pieces recorded from a nearby pinball machine. Also, electric razors as bass-bursts for the win.

Here’s a piece about the new Apple ad (the...

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:45:00 -0400

Here’s a piece about the new Apple ad (the “pictures” commercial which my good buddy Rob Simonsen wrote the music for). I think this is the best commercial Apple has done in a while and I absolutely love Rob’s tune. Solo piano, real performance, no click track, performed while he was traveling in Germany.

Watch the commercial and read Zablotny’s thoughts below. (It’s especially interesting about the compression in the mix compared to other commercials.)

zablotny:

‘photos every day’

this is a spot by tbwa/chiat/day for apple, called ‘photos every day’. the craft is fantastic, and there’s some subtle, unusual attention to detail in it.

let’s take a look at the sound mix. here’s a waveform of the spot:

and now here’s the waveform of a conventionally mixed spot — this is that ‘old spice’ commercial everyone flipped out for a couple years ago. it might as well be any ad you see on tv today.

huge difference. there’s incredible restraint in the amount of compression applied to the music in ‘photos every day’. (from wikipedia, compression “reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds by narrowing or “compressing” an audio signal’s dynamic range”.) my point here is that if you caught this on tv, it would be substantially ‘quieter’ sounding than other ads around it.

the other interesting thing about the mix is that the iPhone shutter click sound is substantially undermixed. it comes across as incidental, and unobtrusive. the ambiences are the real star here, and the sound editor wasn’t even afraid to drop them out entirely for effect (see snowy skyscraper, 0:23).

other observations:

• there’s a real nice match-cut at 0:06 of the guy jumping off his skateboard into the shot of the jogger running.
• 0:25, the iPhone bobs up and down at a concert, and halfway through, the shot itself starts bobbing with the phone, keeping the screen stationary in the frame.
• overall, there’s a very careful variety of perspective, scale, and involvement. are we peering over someone’s shoulder? watching from across the street? ostensibly taking the picture, ourselves?
• i could have done without the voiceover at the end.

Julianne Moore as “Famous Works of Art” by Peter Linderbergh -...

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:25:00 -0400

Julianne Moore as “Famous Works of Art” by Peter Linderbergh - for Harper’s Bazaar

Seated Woman With Bent Knee by Egon Schiele, La Grande Odalisque by Ingres, Saint Praxidis by Vermeer, The Cripple by John Currin, Les danseuses by Edgar Degas, Madame X by John Singer, Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer, Woman With a Fan by Modigliani, Man Crazy Nurse #3 by Richard Prince, Adele Bloch Bauer I by Gustav Klimt.

The Importance of Starting Working out ideas for a handful of...

Tue, 14 May 2013 21:22:17 -0400

The Importance of Starting

Working out ideas for a handful of talks coming up in the next month.

I’ll be speaking on music technology at Cal Poly this Thursday before heading across the Atlantic to do an afternoon session for the ArtEZ conference in the Netherlands. Then Rian and I are going to hop over and do a joint masterclass at the National Film and TV School in London. Who knows what kind of shenanigans we’ll get up to? Not I, is all I’m saying. I definitely don’t know.

I’m gonna be in Europe for a while before coming back to speak at Hallmark (?! - yes, that Hallmark), so hit me up east-siders (that’s what we call Europe, right?) if you wanna chat or if you have an idea for another class I should come talk to.

Check out the “Handmade Digital” talk that we did at...

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:14:10 -0400

Check out the “Handmade Digital” talk that we did at last week’s Adobe conference!

themadeshop:

The Made Shop: Handmade Digital

Adobe just posted the video of The Made Shop’s recent talk that I did with Nathan and Kim and Adam. There’s no live camera so you can’t see our pretty faces, but the full presentation is there, complete with questions and answers.

If you’ve got an hour or so to kill and want to see a bit behind the scenes into our design process, check it out.

Speaking at the Adobe MAX conference this week with The made...

Mon, 06 May 2013 16:34:11 -0400

Speaking at the Adobe MAX conference this week with The made Shop. Come say hi if you’re here:)

My new assistant reporting for duty.

Wed, 01 May 2013 14:47:24 -0400

My new assistant reporting for duty.

hitrecordjoe: Steven Spielberg’s follow-up to LINCOLN… “OBAMA”

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:07:23 -0400

hitrecordjoe:

Steven Spielberg’s follow-up to LINCOLN… “OBAMA”

Kid Blue and Kid Lu crossing the street together, downtown LA

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:16:23 -0400

Kid Blue and Kid Lu crossing the street together, downtown LA

"We gotta start teaching our daughters to be somebodies instead of somebody’s."

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:08:47 -0400

“We gotta start teaching our daughters to be somebodies instead of somebody’s.”

- Kifah Shah (via murmurrs)

Why we should use the Oxford Comma

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:17:47 -0400

bowtiesinthedungeon:

A direct quote from The Times newspaper, talking about a Peter Ustinov documentary and saying that:

“highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector”.

I’ll be presenting a panel with Marke and The Made Shop at...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:00:28 -0400

I’ll be presenting a panel with Marke and The Made Shop at this years Adobe MAX conference (read about our work here). This should be quite a cool panel!

themadeshop:

A few slides presented with absolutely no context from our upcoming Made Shop presentation “Handmade Digital” at Adobe MAX.

If you’re interested in coming to the conference and haven’t signed up yet, we’ve got a promo code MXSM13 that will save you $300.

The Musical Conquests of Don Jon In support of Joseph...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:48:00 -0400

The Musical Conquests of Don Jon

In support of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s upcoming directorial debut, DON JON, he and I will be doing a panel tomorrow at the ASCAP I Create Music EXPO. We’ll be talking about our musical and narrative collaborations from Brick to Morgan M. Morgansen to Looper and mainly about the upcoming Don Jon. If you’re in town for the conference, drop by the Dolby Grand Ballroom at 2pm. See you there!

maxx-and-lucy: Lucy & Nathan

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:03:08 -0400

maxx-and-lucy:

Lucy & Nathan

Also, the shortcut to eliminating whatever might be considered...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:16:06 -0400

Also, the shortcut to eliminating whatever might be considered “artistic voice”

Writing a new song with Faux Fix and Son Lux

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:07:49 -0400

Writing a new song with Faux Fix and Son Lux

I’d assume the majority of you who follow my tumblr are...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 15:09:14 -0400

I’d assume the majority of you who follow my tumblr are most familiar with my film music, but I also do a lot of design and conceptual work with my family at The Made Shop. This year we’ll be speaking at the upcoming Adobe MAX creativity conference in Los Angeles about our approach to physical design (much of which overlaps with the way I approach making music for movies).

themadeshop:

Hey!

The Made Shop is speaking at this year’s Adobe Max conference in L.A.

Our talk is called “Handmade Digital” and we’ll be talking about a number of recent projects we’ve done using large-scale physical construction of graphic and typographic elements. Should be an interesting conversation. If you’re attending the conference or know anyone who is we’d love to have you!

"That’s the sole reason to do this. It’s been really satisfying to contextualize and craft and frame..."

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 11:45:24 -0400

“That’s the sole reason to do this. It’s been really satisfying to contextualize and craft and frame the way the audience will see this… You can do more than just sell tickets, or raise awareness. It’s like this is the opening-credit sequence of the film. It sets the tone. There’s a way to approach this where you want to make as much money as possible. I get that. But I think if we’re willing to just have some integrity and some earnestness, we get to do something better and something we can be proud of. It’s a continuation of storytelling… I’m already in the business of trying to be compelling and making a case for people to look at this thing, so I feel like I would like to try what’s called marketing, but it’s a continuation of storytelling. We’re getting to the film… This is the overture.”

- Shane Carruth on self-distributing his new film, UPSTREAM COLOR, which opens in select theaters today.