With Sharon flying away on Tuesday, and Brad and Melissa hitting the road early Wednesday, this was a very short week for Project Presence. But we do have some fun things to report, just the same!

The Musicians are In

Stephen Murphy gets his score all ready for recording

Stephen Murphy has been doing the composing for us. He is a graduate of the CMU College of Fine Arts, and is currently playing music out of Scranton. He wrote the music remotely, calling in to meet with the team and get feedback. On Sunday, he and two of his band mates, Jesse Morvan and George Pachucy, drove to Pittsburgh. They joined current student Chris Smith, and the four of them recorded our entire soundtrack in one go.

We could not have achieved this without the supervision of Professor Riccardo Schulz and the Valahkis Recording Studio. On short notice he gave us access to the studio to record, and a few of his students to do the setup and recording work. While the band recorded, Brad and Melissa sat in the back room with the sound engineering students, hooked in with headphones and timing the recording from the motion capture studio to see how the sound matched.

On Friday we received the raw files, as well as the name of the student who will be doing our mixing – Michael Bridges. As we go into these final weeks, he will be making subtle adjustments to the sound to make sure that each moment has exactly the emotional intent we want.

What’s next?

Even though there was not all that much to speak of this week, next week is “Soft Opening,” when faculty come around to test the final product. We spent the remainder of this week remotely discussing what we want to be able to showcase when they come by. Next week we will talk a little more about what it is we will be showing, but each of us is working over Thanksgiving to make sure it all happens.

See you next week!

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