Easter Week 2024
Dear friends,
I’m writing this on a train headed south and home from Belfast where I have just spent two really fun and creative days making music for a very unique film project in an old church building in the city centre. It is a project bringing together a team of friends of mine who are an artist, filmmaker, photographer, poet and radical theologian. It’s been playful and experimental and the sort of environment that I thrive in - throwing ideas to each other and responding to create something great. It gives me a lot of hope that things like this are still happening in the world, a shared sense of human connection, trust, collaboration and joy. An embrace of the contradictions of life, without a need to provide answers, but simply to revel in the beautiful mystery of it all.
BUILD YOUR OWN FILM MUSIC
I do more and more music for film scores these days, and am also very encouraged by all the people making their own films now that the tech is so accessible. My son and I spent a day doing a filmmaking workshop and since then I've been thinking hard about how to make film music for people to access that is flexible and adaptable so that you can use it to build your own scores that fit the timing and dynamic of your films. Here's a solution I've come up with - delivering you a piece in small building blocks that you can use how you like. Below is a little video showing how to stick them into your editing software and start to build a score.
If you're interested in joining the CINEMATOGRAPHERS tier on my Patreon community, it’s where I deliver film music, and if you're signed up, even just for a month, you can use any of this music in your films/podcasts etc. There's a library of pieces on the patreon feed, just search the tag 'FILM MUSIC' and I'm always open to composing something for a specific need - so write me a message and let me know what you're working on.
MARCH BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
I’ve been immersed in poetry, philosophy and practicality this month. I first discovered Leanne O’Sullivan’s poetry through my pal Pádraig Ó Tuama who presents the wonderful podcast ‘Poetry Unbound’. O’Sullivan comes from the Beara peninsula, even further west than I live in county Cork and this collection is a deep journey through the period where her husband suffered an infection of the brain and was in a coma for 3 weeks, during which he was lead out of the coma by visions of animals and the natural world. Its a beautiful reflection on love, human suffering, the natural world and the beings that dwell in it.
I was given philosopher Darian Leader’s ‘Hands’ some years ago and it then was a book study on the patreon site of Peter Rollins which I support monthly. Its a fascinating study of how human progress and development can be viewed through the lens of our hands, from babies clutching their parents’ fingers through to adults everywhere clutching their iPhones!
Since I made my 2024 new year resolution to re-analog my life, I’ve been looking at new ways to re-assess the technologies we all seem to be encompassed by, and try to find ways of re-discovering the things we have lost in the advent of these fast all-encompassing devices. Cal Newport’s ‘Digital Minimalism’ is a powerful manifesto for this project. He’s a computer science professor in the USA and so by no means a Neo-luddite! He presents a strong argument for a re-assessment of the smartphone and social media, their toxic addictive qualities, the loss of solitude and deep concentration, and how we can free ourselves from the grip of the ‘attention economy’. I would recommend this book if, like me, you feel that you have been distracted from the people and work that are important to you, and long to dive back into the deep joy of finding flow.
In fact, since reading this book, I have ditched my iPhone and bought a cheap flip-phone. I’m also leaving behind me the world of Instagram and Facebook and will continue to focus my energy on writing this newsletter to you all. Its ‘slow media’ in the best sense and I hope you find some enrichment in it!
I endeavour to continue making music, writing letters, and offering insights and tips for creativity each month for my patreon community, who in turn help provide funds to make bigger projects happen. I appreciate you all so much.
Love and happy easter,
Justin