RealFeel = 131. Yeah. It’s been that kind of day.

So I thought I’d share with you all a bit of cool fan work from a little while back that some of you may not have heard of. It’s a project entitled “The Hunger Games Music Project” done by composers Edward Underhill and Matt Bukaty. You can go check it out here. What is it? It’s a wonderfully produced unofficial soundtrack for the series. I’ve gotta say: it’s really well done, highly professional work that really channels a lot of the emotion of the series straight to your ears. They haven’t released a hard copy or offcial digital download version of the soundtrack yet (they’re apparently still looking into that), so as of now we can only enjoy it from their “Music” tab or else on their YouTube. Still, it’s worth giving the whole thing a listen! Seriously, I wouldn’t advise something I wouldn’t do myself. As such, I read through part of the book with the music in background. I give this project the Official Sam Jack Seal of Approval. *seal given*

They’ve gained quite a bit of fame within the Hunger Games fan community as of late. They were interviewed on Down With the Capitol’s Airtime Assault, on the Fireside Chat, and even featured on the Official Hunger Games Movie Facebook Page! So how’d they come to this project? Well on the site, they state:

“Both of us were extremely intrigued by the books and, as composers, sort of naturally jumped to wondering what the musical universe of such a story might sound like…. something like this was just too good to pass up. It gave us a chance to find a new medium through which to tell the story and have some fun doing so!…. the books have a very human, earthy, and folky quality to them that seemed to point us toward American folk and simple folk-like melodies, as well as instruments that had a vaguely folky disposition.”

So check out the promo below!

May the favor be ever in your odds and… wait… no, that’s not it,
Sam.

PS – I’m working on a lot of blog related things. Stay tuned~!

Last post I talked about the design of the booklet and such. After that, however, came an even more annoying problem: printing them. We didn’t need hundreds of copies, but we still didn’t want to use our home printer ink (for obvious reasons). So I went to Staples and got some estimates on how much printing 50 booklets would cost (that’s 150 pages front and back, fyi). If we had used their paper, it would have been over $200. Thankfully, Mel got some high-quality “great for CD booklet” paper. Using her paper it was something like $145, which is a lot, but not since Will is selling the booklet editions anyways.

So a few nights ago we went and got them all printed at Staples. Too bad they got them ALL WRONG. The woman who “helped” us, while nice, was rather incompetent about anything relating to printing, and printed nearly every every page off-center. Some of the pages were even diagonal on one side! I mean, seriously, how does that even happen!? Since we couldn’t use any of it, we went back the next morning (when we knew there would be a new shift of people at the printing station), and the woman there kindly reprinted all 150 for free. She even let us keep the original batch.

We spent the rest of the day stapling, cutting, smooshing, and inserting the booklets into the jewel cases. And they turned out GREAT. In fact, I think they look awesome. So if you can get one from Will, get it. Of course, I guess you could also get it for the music on it… heh heh.

In other quick news, I’m helping out with our church’s Vacation Bible School this Summer, which starts today. I’m doing drama, playing the part of a homesick, classic english butler in Egypt. It’s gonna be epic.

OH, and I’m seeing Arcade Fire tonight in Philadelphia. So expect some news from that!

Happy Trails,
Sam.

In preparation for the album, our quite good friends Mel Kobran and Nathaniel Tonelli worked on an album cover for the CD. You can see the finished back cover/cover (respectively) for the album below. They did a really great job, and Mel did a great job putting it all together in Photoshop. All the elements are real, from the hand drawn planes to the coffee stain (which is actually an orange juice stain, but who needs to know?). As always, click to enlarge and by doing so, enjoy.

While they worked on the cover, I simultaneously worked on designing the inside of the album booklet. I finally finished yesterday at 4 AM, and figured I could share a few of the pages with you. But I won’t share them all, some surprises should be left for when you get your hands on a copy of the album!

In Flight booklet pages 1 & 2

In Flight booklet pages 5 & 6

I think it turned out quite well, but then again I am a bit biased. So far the response has been positive, though, so that’s a good sign. Regardless it was a lot of fun branching out into the design of album art. The awesome photos from the booklet were taken by Mel as well. She’s a photography major at VCU, so go over to her flickr or some place and support her. Another friend of mine, Billy Bacci, is also releasing an album soon (he claims next week) and has asked me to do something for him. I can smell another late-night-team-album-art-creating venture coming! Where’s my album? It’s coming…

So go pick up a copy of In Flight from Will, and I’ll keep everyone else updated on where they can download a copy of the album on the interwebz. Soon, very soon. In fact by tomorrow. No joke. I know, it’s crazy how much I’m suddenly blogging. And yes, I realize I’m just having a conversation with myself at the computer.



Happy Trails,
Sam.