Month of the Novel, part 1

I was contacted by Jordan Smith in September 2011. He was looking for a composer for his upcoming web series, Month of the Novel. I had been recommended to him, would I be interested?

I had heard of Month of the Novel and that they were going to be filming it, but it honestly didn't make any sense to me. However, for a young composer it is always an honor to be contacted for a job. Plus I knew Jordan and that although he was still learning himself, his films were getting better in quality all the time. So I said sure, could I look at the script?

Turns out there were six scripts, all of them around five pages long. They were quite humorous and clever, this would be great to do! The only catch was that I was in school full-time at ETSU, and didn't know if I could devote the time to do a show, also. 

When Jordan offered me the position, I decided to take it and go for it. These episodes would be short anyway, right? Plus, the job payed a bit, not very much, but more than I'd ever been paid for composing.

My first work was not too hard, just composing the theme for the show. This was probably the trickiest part of the process, because Jordan wanted something that would work for all the shows, and he had a specific idea in mind. Evidently, I finally got something that worked.

Then Jordan and Co. went off to Georgia to shoot the show. Once they got back, the mad scramble began, and would continue for the next six weeks! They would edit the first episode, get it to me by, say, Monday, I would write the score, get feedback, change the score, tweak it, get approval, do a final render, send it off, and the episode would air on YouTube the following Tuesday. 

www.monthofthenovel.com