Send help: I'm leaving for a conference on Monday and haven't started to prepare my presentation! :/

@ThomasF Yeah, let’s crowdsource a presentation

/giphy pie charts

@ThomasF @dave

Topic is the film composer Max Steiner (think Gone With the Wind, King Kong, Casablanca, The Informer, etc). I’m doing a corpus study of all of his compositions, looking at themes that represent people, places, emotions, objects, etc. While you’re preparing this for me, especially look at how Steiner transforms the theme as the character develops - especially when the character falls in love or is rejected, or is angry, or is killed.

I need musical examples transcribed into MusicXML then converted to MEI.

A few nice recordings (later than the original studio track recordings, but still excellent):

@luvche21 Gotcha, watched Casablanca in the context of a Film Scoring history course a couple years ago. I know he liked to slip in La Marseillaise in different contexts to signify Ilsa and Rick’s time in France. Also a pretty foreboding descending pattern when Ilsa shows up in places. Would you accept examples transcribed into Finale?

@ThomasF Do you actually have Finale and can transcribe them? Cool! I’m super impressed that you had a film scoring course too! Yes, Finale files work, but I do have most of the transcriptions prepared already, so really no need.

Since Steiner composed 300+ film scores, we haven’t gotten to Casablanca yet. I’ll be delving into his music for the next 15+ years, and it will probably get me tenure.

@luvche21 Oh boy. I forgot how much music and projects they had to output during that time period in film.

And yep, I majored in Music and Psych, compose music for some things in addition to my Meh duties.

@ThomasF Steiner’s record was 43 films in one year. Granted many of those that year he only composed the main title and end title music (before he convinced the world otherwise, they thought that audiences would be confused if music was heard during the film without actually seeing anyone perform it on screen). That number declined over time, but there were many years he wrote over 1,000 pages of music in a given year.

We just finished our first screening/analysis session of Angles With Dirty Faces this afternoon, and recently finished The Informer and Kid Galahad.

That’s cool you have a degree in music! What do you compose for?

@luvche21 How about if we can manage to arrange a personal appearance? Would that help?

@magic_cave are you in Portland?

@luvche21 I worked on the scourge that was Homestuck for a while, mostly work with some independent artists now

@luvche21 : I’m about as far away from Portland as one can get – North Florida. @ThomasF pretty much nailed it. I confused your Steiner with someone else whose obituary was run some time back, hence the attempt at humor. I’ve been up all night; if I’d slept some I would probably have been alert enough to check Wiki before posting, and I’d have come up with a little less dismal of a failed joke.

Good luck with your presentation!

@ThomasF I love it!

@Pavlov One of my previous mentors (clear back as an undergrad) gave me this comic as I was finishing up a major research project:

It’s how I work too, somehow the stress of doing something in the last minute (and late into the night) helps more than it should!

hm, imgur link not working for some reason, let’s try it this way!

@Targaryen At this point in the preparation process, does it really matter what I present on?

@dave This might be the first time that I actually do that. I like to relax on the flight, but that’s probably going to change now that I finally got a work laptop…

@medz Ya know, that’s not a bad idea for most of my presentations. But this one I really need musical examples to really prove my point about the composer I’m studying (see above for a little more info if interested).

@luvche21 Ah. Add a slide after the synopsis with a link to a youtube playlist, start the first video then chill for 30 minutes before taking questions. Better yet, ask the attendees for their thoughts on what they just watch and how it applies to your theory. Act like any good ideas were also your own thoughts.

@medz Lol, good idea! This is going to take much much less time to prepare than I anticipated!

@MrMark But if I don’t finish it today (while training a new research assistant and a bagillion other things that need to be finished today), when am I going to paint the garage if I hold off until the weekend to prepare?

@shahnm Am I missing a reference or something?

@luvche21

Yes.

That topic has… changed me.

@shahnm Here I thought on the first read you said, “that topic has charged me”.

@Kidsandliz

/giphy the shoe fits

@Cerridwyn lol I hope not! Procrastination is my true influence for my best work in life!

@elimanningface drunk librarians are odd enough, not sure if I need a conference full of high librarians…

@cranky1950 and the riveting answer?

@cranky1950 Is it flavored?

@RiotDemon Essentially yes and no. I was so happy to graduate.

@thismyusername I’m planning on using audio showing off a playable notated music file, so I’m nervous enough, that that will even work in a live presentation. Maybe I should skip that for star wipes?

@luvche21 I am used to business presentations, you know where the people who do little demand a meeting to see a presentation and discuss content that was emailed to them months ago.

executives love fancy transitions, giant fonts, lots of bullet points, and even more fancy transitions.

and when in doubt add more transitions, especially star wipes.

I am not sure that these rules will apply to a meeting that people actually want to attend and might learn something from, that is the opposite of a business meeting in my experience.

@thismyusername yeah, star wipes don’t fly in academic presentations… The least amount of content on screen the better, unless it’s super important to prove a point.

Since my research analyzes film music, I really do need musical examples though!

@unmlobo300 /

@unmlobo300 You did update my address so I will get my check, right?

@speediedelivery ha ha ha. The address was changed to mine. @unmlobo300 you need to add me as an employee for the foreseeable future. Have many vet bills and need a second job to get them off my credit card. What will I be doing for this money? Not much I hope as I am really busy with the job I already have. But come mid May I can actually do something for the money as this job ends.