Collaboration between professors and departments isn’t required at Cal State Long Beach, but when it’s done it can be favorable for students.
Professors will work here for decades and never leave their department buildings. Wanting to break that cycle, illustration/animation professor Aubry Mintz and Director of Orchestral Studies and Director of the Bob Cole Conservatory Johannes Muller-Stosch decided it would be beneficial to combine forces.
“There isn’t a whole lot of collaboration going on in the college of the arts – and also not in the university as a whole,” Muller-Stosch said. “Since this is such a large campus, departments and schools will [often] silo [their departments] off. You do your own thing over here, they do their own thing over there.”
Mintz and Muller-Stosch decided that together they could develop a system for animation students to put an orchestral score to their films for no cost to the students. Orchestra students then get the experience of what it would be like to record for a film studio, while film students gain experience working with studio musicians.
The two professors then reached out to film scoring professor Perry LaMarca, who got his composing students involved.
Animation students describe their projects to composing students, who then write a piece of music for the film. Finally, the songs are recorded by the Bob Cole Conservatory Symphony.
“I get large scores that have all the instrumental parts written on them just like a symphony score that I would normally have,” Muller-Stosch said. “The students get the parts, we set it up, we have a click track that gives us the tempo and then the students basically sight read the part … and then we record it.”
The orchestra usually gets about 12 to 15 short pieces to record at the end of its concert series.
“By May, because [we] have done our last concerts, the orchestra has really gelled,” Muller-Stosch said. “Everybody’s listening, everybody’s really attuned to playing together.”
Having an orchestra of that level isn’t something that would typically be available to animation students, but when departments work together students can reap great benefits.
“It’s a win for the animators,” Muller-Stosch said. “Because they get live orchestral music that is designed for their particular animation. If they were to go to the Hollywood studios, it’s so expensive that you couldn’t possibly afford it.”
Not only does it a great opportunity for the animators and experience for the orchestra, but it’s beneficial for the arrangers as well.
“The arrangers, they get their music performed by live orchestra, not many composers get a chance to hear their work that they’ve just written by a live orchestra,” Muller-Stosch said. “Not only that but it will also get used in a project and be heard across campus, some of those end up on YouTube.”
Because these professors decided to work together, their students are even better prepared for the professional sector through experience and portfolio builders.