Chaotic
Chaotic
4Kids Entertainment
Music Editor & Composer:
Jeff Silverman
(40 Episodes)
Please visit the Chaotic “Before and After” sample portfolio page for more info on the music editing process.
Comments:
Before becoming an animated series, “Chaotic” first started as a Danish trading card game named “Grolls and Gorks” in 2000. In 2006, 4Kids Entertainment signed a Joint Marketing Agreement with Chaotic USA Entertainment to produce the “Chaotic” cartoon and licensed products.
The original trading cards, an on-line game and the new series were redesigned to give “Chaotic” a more mature look. The show was broadcast on “4Kids TV” and the Cartoon Network for 3 seasons.
The music library for “Chaotic” started out with me building a temp track to a likeareel (pencil drawing stills for the most part) and inserting music into picture from a number of different movie soundtracks. After that, 4Kids, for the first time, scored and recorded “pre library” performances by a live orchestra.
As the lead music editor, I was able to get in on the ground floor and help create the overtone and style of music that was going to be used on the show.
There were several different moods that were composed explicitly for editorial. The initial “pre library” cues were done via midi and then sent to a copyist, where he/she adapted the music to a live orchestra.
Later on in the show, I was able to incorporate the midi stems as well as their counterpoint live interpretation, in order to get even more ammo and to keep each show sounding fresh.
After all the pre and some post production work was done on the “pre library,” the first 5 shows were mostly composed to picture with a few extremely talented composers via their midi rigs / library and me adding just a little bit of “pre library” cues to augment their build.
After those shows were aired, the new cues were sent to me with a very carefully planned out group of break out stems so I could begin editing more and more of the each episode until by the 10th episode, I was up to approx 95% – 100% editorial.
This was the most organized approach to a custom “pre library” geared for the music editor that I had ever been a part of in the 6 years I worked with 4Kids. The file management that I developed for the company also helped to make the music delivery much more useful and productive.
Combining cues with other cues became a big part of my editorial process. I was also under contract as a composer for all the shows that I worked on with 4Kids.
This gave me the luxury to compose additional cues if needed and to also create new music parts to help glue some of the existing library cues together. This process of merging original composition with existing cues and recomposing existing cues within themselves was and will always be one of the most creative moments of being a music editor.
The bottom line to the theory behind what I do as a music editor, is more music ends up being placed into each episode, giving the composers the luxury to work less and make more back end performance money. They are then able to move onto the next show and begin the creative process all over again!
The end result is there is less money spent on the production of the music, but everyone wins with more residual income. I call that a win win situation for all concerned! Clients included of course!
