Interview Justin Lassen

AN INTERVIEW WITH Justin Lassen

Q. Hello Justin, could you introduce yourself to our readers and how you got started in 3D... Oops… music?

Hi. I’m Justin. I am a composer, independent producer and art director/graphic artist and I’m 25 years old. I’m selftaught. I think it was during the early years in school. Since I was a child, the music and drama classes in school were always my favorites, so I worked hard to get myself into the top music classes whenever possible. I hadn’t really thought about it being a professional career until around 1996. That’s when I noticed my interest and focus started increasing drastically.

I don’t think I’ve had my “big break” yet, but my first break was perhaps the Robert Miles remix with the London Session Orchestra tracks, which was an incredibly fun (if terrifying) glimpse into what “high production values” means.

Q. So, you are creating music for still 3D-2D images, please tell us what the main basic idea/technique behind this is?

The basic idea is to bring the scene to life through necessary. This could mean melody, themes, moIt really depends on what the scene calls for.

The technique is definitely more emotional some rules, I’d say Gaussian blur calls for objects and shapes in the scene and tion of the recording, and music and audible texture, by whatever means tifs, counterpoint, minimalism or other things.

than scientific, but if I had to boil it down to reverb, brighter colors call for louder sounds, overall composition determines the duraperceived camera movement and action

points painted into the mine pacing. The mood and is determined by the color palette

Feel free to bust me on those if you what you’ve seen and heard in the Syaware of what I’m doing. It just seems scious. I just know what it needs, but to be able to describe it more cluefully, scene detertexture in the recording and tone in the painting.

notice they’re not consistent with naesthesia pieces. I’m not entirely to bubble up from the subconI don’t know exactly why. I’d love but I suspect I’m more of an artist

AN INTERVIEW WITH Justin Lassen

than a scientist. Deeper, geekier analysis is welcome, btw.

As with all art, I suspect these are not strict rules or laws. Some of the more obscure and perhaps abstract methods behind this style are the emotion in the faces of the characters, or the emotion of the environment or circumstance. Their skin tone, how they are feeling, wondering what they are feeling, or if they are feeling at all. Not every painting works this way for me, but I am most inspired by truly finished pieces that tell stories without words. The eye in the character (if there is one) really must know what is going on.

Erlend Mørk - www.erlendmork.com

AN INTERVIEW WITH Justin Lassen

Q. What’s the meaning of Synaesthesia?

Synaesthesia is basically a condition where your senses intermingle in sometimes odd ways. Tasting shapes, hearing colors, seeing touch- that sort of thing. For instance, you might feel a mango with six tentacles in your hands at the mention of the word “ham,” and the shape of what you feel changes with infinite variety, depending on what you’re thinking of. The thing about Synaesthesia is that it is not voluntary, meaning your mind will do these things without trying.

I don’t really have to think of any of the technical issues of creation, because it seems to be playing the music in my head, just by looking at the image. It’s not really a complicated process for me. Not all images make such beautiful music though. Some just make loud noises. Some are silent. Some drone. It all really depends.

All I really do is edit. I choose which images to present to the world, for quality control of the series.

Q. Have you ever had a chance to create a soundtrack for moving pictures and how much you are comfortable in doing that?

I’ve done a few dozen short films over the years. My favorite score type project was getting the chance to do two remix/revision scores for Mark Osborne, inspired by his short film project ‘More’, which if you haven’t seen, you surely should. It was nominated for an Oscar, but it’s amazing how few people have seen it.

I would love to score a full length feature film, however, it’s a ton of work to compose for and conduct an orchestra, and most filmmakers aren’t comfy spending the kind of

Benita Winckler - www.eeanee.com

AN INTERVIEW WITH Justin Lassen

money it takes to do it right, easily a couple hundred thousand, and that’s if you’re going with a really cost-effective orchestra like the Prague Orchestra or other Eastern European Orchestras. Even if they are willing, you’re back to that fabulous catch-22 of “have you done it before?” I’m sure you know how this tune goes.

In the studio film market where the money supposedly flows like water, there’s that Danny Elfman chap, who I must confess is really brilliant, and the bastard has a corner on the market of gothic symphonic film scores. Perhaps your dear readers could collectively pray to the Dark Faeries to impart their withering kisses to each of his talented little digits and steal them away to the Nether World from whence they came?

Q. If you have to create music for a still image which has no environment, background (may be you can see), dramatic lighting, props but great modeled character then will be possible to do? If yes, then please try to create an exclusive music for this wonderful still 3d image of Korean Actress – Song Hye Kyo by Max Edwin Wahyudi from Indonesia?

She looks almost too perfect to me, like a beautiful android from Blade Runner. She also looks a little like she’s dressed for an informal networking party where she is expected to smile, even though she’d rather not.

Listen the track inspired by the image. I gave it a slowly surging section of ethereal electronic instruments to create an ambience supporting what I interpreted as an informal party in a large, white room in a future setting. The surge is the buzz of conversations and energy in the room. She’s standing at the edge of the party, both physically and emotionally. She’s there with a jerk who cares only about his image. He expects her to conform- to be a quiet, obedient prop, and to hide her true feelings. I tried to express her strained need to fit in and the effort to suppress her true feelings in the short, staccato electronic notes that are reverberating in that lonely space. Towards the end of the track, as the surges strengthen and overlap, I imagine her losing her composure briefly as she meets a guy who encourages her to express her true self without the truncated notes, but then she is busted and embarrassed in front of the others by the jerk she came with, and the room goes painfully quiet with only a faint echo of its previous energy.

AN INTERVIEW WITH Justin Lassen

Q. Which software’s and hardware you use for your work and how often you update them?

I’m going to get a little geeky here, because I know some of your readers out there are pretty serious musicians.

I have a number of hardware synthesizers and workstations that I draw from. Some of them are Korg Triton, Yamaha MOTIF8, Roland XP30, Korg N5, Korg Electribe, Roland DR-770, KC-500’s, several Altec Lansing systems and loads of rack units, compressors, gates, EQ’s, etc. I have loads of Behringer gear (a 6.1 Truth Surround System, several mixers and desks, Controllers, amps, fx units, etc.). I have tons of pedals, BOSS stomp boxes, guitars, basses, my trusty violin, and everything in between.

The main audio conversion interface in the studio is my Presonus FirePod, which so far has not failed me and keeps the music flowing. The centerpiece of my software studio is Cakewalk Sonar 6.2 Producer Edition, and I primarily use the Sonitus:FX Suite of plugins. I’m currently using a beta of Sonar 7, that seems to be shaping up nicely. I use Project5 2.5 to get my ideas written down. Later, I can manipulate that data in Sonar and fine tune the composition, arrangements and sounds. By the way, if you get P5, it comes with a demo track I created called ‘The Dark Beats of Morbidia’ that uses a lot of the cool new features in the 2.5 update.

I also used Sony Acid Pro 6.0 and Sony Sound Forge 9.0 with the IzoTope plugins on of the new Synaesthesia pieces. I really liked how they turned out. I’m a big Native Instruments, EastWest, Garritan and other libraries. I’m also a sampler, creating tons of my own patches and audible odd contions for use on a number of projects. Though, that really isn’t the magical part. several fan of heavy trap-

The part I love is meshing those gorgeous sampled instruments with live instruments and performances, ambiences, cusverb signals, in as realistic (or othing as possible. This of string players, a tinkering on a number creatively. It’s really a tom reorder to keep it all erworldly) and full soundcould be a full orchestra, a section small choir layered to oblivion, or just me of different instruments and layering efficiently and fantastic illusion for me when it all comes together.

AN INTERVIEW WITH Justin Lassen

Q. Have you ever tried doing 3D and how much you are successful?

I started doing 3D in the late 80’s, with some very basic ‘virtual 3D’ software for DOS. I eventually moved on to POV-Ray, trueSpace2 and later experimented with LW and 3dsmax. I learned on 3DS for DOS. I made a few short film projects, but nothing worth mentioning in your finely crafted magazine.

I think I enjoyed animating more than modeling to tell you the truth. It felt more natural for me. I wasn’t very good at modeling, except for really creepy looking trees and amoeba-like life forms and custom procedural textures.

I wanted to work at places like ILM when I was younger, but for some reason they didn’t call! I know! The nerve.

Thankfully, music really took over and displaced those fantasies. I still enjoy typography, graphic design, layout and other forms of digital art. Though, my favorite thing is watching all of you amazing artists, and staying inspired.

Q. If you were not a musician then what you would do to earn the living and currently how you are promoting yourself?

I promote myself through music, creative photo shoots, partnering with other creative people and sharing exposure.Believe it or not, I think I’m a closet suit. When I’m not composing, I find myself negotiating deals, putting together teams, making presentations, and writing email.

I am an email machine, in fact. I am often stunned by the volume. It’s not uncommon for me to read about 150-200 really detailed emails in a day, write about 50 detailed replies, and to compose another 50 detailed letters to generate new business.

So I don’t know what I would be. How can you make a career out of that? Maybe a producer or manager?

AN INTERVIEW WITH Justin Lassen

Philip Straub - www.philipstraub.com

Q. What are your hobbies and what you like to do in your free time (if any)?

Food and friends are my number one hobby; I like going to fine restaurants, hole in the wall restaurants, coffee shops (even though I don’t drink coffee), interesting diners, etc. with my friends. I love getting addicted to well-thought-out and sometimes not-so-well-thought-out TV series. Some of my favorites lately have been Battlestar Galactica, LOST, Veronica Mars, Supernatural and a few others. I also like hanging out in hotel lobbies when I’m traveling places and randomly meeting new people, usually around the grand piano.

Though, I am also one of those who can admit that my hobby is also my passion. This isn’t just a career or some resumebuilding stunt. This creative multimedia that I involve myself with is my life. I only get one and I’m doing what I want to do with it. So I work on music and composition whenever I get a chance (or my free time). Especially if given a chance to try something new.

AN INTERVIEW WITH Justin Lassen

Q. From where you get all your inspiration?

I get inspiration from a number of varying things. I am obviously a huge fan of 2D/3D galleries scattered across the globe. I love finding unique galleries, as well as stopping by the more well known portals. There is always loads of inspiration just waiting for me.

I also love travelling and scenery. By train, car, airplane, boat and even foot; I like to walk with headphones and an mp3 player, sometimes for miles. This helps me clear my mind, organize my thoughts, defrag my internal hard drive and decide on my next move in life as a person and as an artist. It is very cleansing to just do that every so often.

Obviously I find inspiration from the typical escapist-fodder: Movies, Books, Video Games, Creative Magazines (like this one) and other forms of endless hours of distraction. We really do live in a pretty humbling and creative world, even with the current events and darkened landscape ahead of all of us.

Q. Your cinematic style brings which CG Artists paintings, scenes to life and how you benefitted with this?

I know this sounds cliché, but the Synaesthesia series has changed my life. Don’t even get me started on the benefits. They’re numerous and glorious.

Over the last couple of years on the three sets of Synaesthesia compositions; I have had the distinct and undeserved pleasure of working with (in no particular order): Philip Straub, Linda Bergkvist, Laurent Ménabé, John Wallin, Alexander Casteels, Olga Antonenko, Björn Börkur Eiríksson, Kirsi Salonen, Steven Staulberg, Specimen, Blaz Porenta, Nykolai Aleksander, Paul Gerrard, Erlend Mørk, David Ho, Benita Winckler, Lance Larson, Kornél Ravadits and Vitaly S. Alexius.

Though the art is the thing, it takes a lot more than that to create a phenomenon. Hold on to your hat size, but frankly, it requires journalists at respected magazines to act as talent scouts and spot a cool project and popularize it. I think all of us who dig Synaesthesia owe a lot to you guys. So this list includes Paul Hellard who helped me kick start the promotion (CGSociety), Ben Barnes (3DCreative Alex Casteels - bionic7.deviantart.com

AN INTERVIEW WITH Justin Lassen

Magazine), Nelson Medina (RevolutionArt Magazine), Patrice Leymarie (ITS ART Magazine) and of course Ashish Rastogi from CGArena.

Q. Till now on which commercial projects you worked? And on which projects you are working these days?

Some of my favorite ‘commercial’ achievements are more on the technological side. I’m really interested in cutting edge technologies and getting the chance to see the future of it is pretty inspiring. Some of those were when I got to remix and produce on a cutting edge 6.1 DTS Surround DVD-A with Gary Mraz and Ted Price at the Voodoo Mansion to work on their project Studio Voodoo (2002). That was back when that stuff was just taking off. I learned a LOT about studios, the industry and production from both of them. Doing the soundtrack for the flagship game released with Intel Dual-Core processors was a fun one (2005). I have been doing software and technology demos for different music and hardware companies, including a demo for the world’s first-ever 64-bit DAW; Cakewalk’s Sonar 5 Producer Edition (2005). Most recently I did the flagship demo for Cakewalk Project5 2.5 (2007). They are a very cool company with amazing people and always have cutting edge fun stuff for us musicians. I am honored to even be associated with them in that small way.

A few other commercial achievements I’m happy to have been a part of are doing epic remixes for several different artists like Madonna, Nine Inch Nails, Linkin Park, Garbage and ton of others. That taught me a lot about music and technology and combining the both of them into new creative works of art. It also taught me about crazy fans.

These days I am working on a few different projects doing various tasks, not all are musical. Some of those, which I can’t say too much about are game mod projects (Out of Hell with Long Nguyen: we were just recently featured in The Escapist Magazine together and Hexen: Edge of Chaos), a start-up business with a pal of mine, consulting and advisement to a few up and coming developers and artists, tons of e-mailing and interviews as of lately and a whole basket of unmentionable randomness. Oh yeah, I just released my 3rd set of Synaesthesia compositions ‘The Darker Side of Synaesthesia’.

Q. What is one piece of advice you would give to any person looking to get into music field?

Have rich parents or find a wealthy fan. Barring that, my best advice would be to stay inspired, keep rocking, and never relent- no matter what. This is a cutthroat industry, and musicians and ‘artists’ are over-saturated here. It’s getting tougher for the majority of artists to stay afloat.

AN INTERVIEW WITH Justin Lassen

I know this sounds gloomy, but there is some good news. There’s a neat trick that not many musicians leverage that can give you a huge edge and an ability to beat the odds: reading. I would recommend to any young person wanting to get into music to read as many books on the subject as possible. On the subject of paying for your rent and food while being a musician, recommendations that come to mind are ‘I Don’t Need A Record Deal!’ which has tons of good advice about making it as an independent artist, with anecdotes from several successful indie musicians, Moses Avalon’s ‘Confession’s of a Record Producer’ is also a great read and of course ‘Creating a Life Worth Living’by Carol Lloyd, which has some fantastic interviews and ideas. Those are good starting points.

Obviously, don’t listen to the nay-sayers. Well, if they’re giving you some verifiable facts, certainly fish those out before discarding the rest. A quote that has ALWAYS helped me, at least for a number of years is this: “Never take a ‘No’ from someone not in the position to give you a ‘Yes’ in the first place. Go straight to the ‘Yes’ person.”

Q. Anything you like to add? It is your chance now to state your opinion about anything.

I want to give some mad props and shout outs to all of the amazing digital artists who have painted me or manipulated photos of me for posters, wallpapers and splash screens over the years. I treasure their friendship and continued support, and my lust for their approval is giant motivator for me. I don’t know where I would be without them. Every time I see a new creation, I am humbled. One that comes to recent mind is Danone Rolli, whom has created tons of the most recent photo manipulation pieces, from photos by Lance Larson and Hal Bergman.

Linda Bergkvist - www.furiae.com

Thanks a lot Justin for taking out sometime for us from your busy schedule and making this 3D-2D industry more beautiful and expressive.