My (very belated) second meet-up with Markus the Musician

It had taken me forever to get around to it, but I finally arranged a second meet-up with Markus the musician a good four months after we had first met. Annabeth had urged me about the importance of getting my sound design sorted and while I acknowledged this was an important task, I was simply putting it off with developing visuals because the visuals were right in front of me. I think what really pushed me to the idea of getting it sorted was the fact that I needed to give Markus enough time to develop the soundtrack so he doesn't have to rush it.

He agreed instantly to a meet-up on two days notice. In preparation I decided to create a demo soundtrack for my animation that did not feature the songs I wanted to definitely use, but what I felt like the songs would accomplish would be to give Markus a sense of what tone of music should go where.

My demo soundtrack was awful. Admittedly I had thrown it together fairly last minute in a dash preparation for my meeting but had I had a lot longer to work on it, I doubt I'd have been able to improve the quality that significantly.

The songs I picked were fairly poppy and very well known. But the real problem with them was that they were all so different and while they could work separately in a feature film soundtrack, in the soundtrack for an animation that's less than three minutes long, these songs would just be too jarring. I don't think this demo soundtrack was very helpful for Markus. However I felt that did not matter because the more we spoke, the more I felt like we were on the same page. Furthermore, I feel in that meeting along he was able to expand upon and give me knew ideas that I hadn't considered. For example, he said that it might be a good idea to just make one long track for the whole animation, one with a similar tune, but a tune that fluctuates slightly in tone. I very much agreed with this and felt like it would add a great sense of consistency to the project.

Obviously the fact that we are both third years on separate courses at separate universities is concerning to me slightly because it means we can't keep each other updated as much as we like. However communication between Markus has always been very easy and efficient, he get's back to me instantly and I feel like I can rely on him slightly.