From Band Room to Scoring Stage: How Local Composers Brought Hollywood to San Diego
The music you’re hearing in the video above was recorded live-to-picture and played by the MBHS Advanced Symphony Orchestra.
In April 2024, media composer, orchestrator, and score producer Morgan Fator, audio engineer and media composer Marilynn Do, and media composer Cheska Navarro collaborated with music educator Jean-Paul Balmat and Mission Bay High School in San Diego to record Morgan’s original score for The Cue Tube’s animated short entitled Sprite Fright. The program, which wrapped post-production this July 2024, was a great success! The story of how Morgan, Marilyn, and Cheska brought Hollywood scoring to San Diego illustrates ways composers can create their own opportunities, make progress in their careers, and give back to their communities.
In January 2024, Morgan Fator had the opportunity to attend the Los Angeles Film Conducting Intensive 2024, a workshop designed to train young media composers in the art of conducting live-to-picture in a studio setting (you can learn more about Morgan’s LAFCI experience by clicking here). During the workshop, faculty including Angel Velez and Conrad Pope suggested that composers looking for opportunities to work with orchestras could reach out to school orchestras, “who are always excited for the chance to play new music.” They went on to say that having a school orchestra play your music can help one develop stronger orchestration and compositional skills, in addition to conducting experience. Morgan was deeply inspired by these practical recommendations. Having already developed plans to cultivate a new composer demo reel, she realized that she could take her mentors’ advice one or two steps further. It was also the LAFCI that helped Morgan realize her deep passion for orchestration, conducting, music preparation, and score production. With this newfound sense of career direction, Morgan started to establish herself not only as a media composer, but as a full-scope music services professional in San Diego, Los Angeles, and beyond (learn more about Morgan’s music services by clicking here). She also began researching local music programs in the San Diego School District with the intention of creating an original score for a short film that could be played live-to-picture by a local educational ensemble.
By this time, Morgan had already connected with local San Diego media composer Cheska Navarro once in 2023. When they met again in February 2024, Morgan shared her ambitions to start a music services company in San Diego with Cheska, and her ambitions to produce a live-to-picture scoring session with a participating local music program. Cheska was enthusiastic about the idea. They both agreed that while there were plenty of film-related activities happening in San Diego, no effort was being taken to make those opportunities widely known. They discussed the fact that screen scoring and film music education were not as prevalent in San Diego compared to Los Angeles, especially when it came to middle school and high school. Cheska mentioned that she knew a local audio engineer and composer Marilynn Do (who works on the audio team at The Old Globe Theater in San Diego) and that the three of them should meet and discuss the next steps.
After reaching out to approximately 30 local music instructors in the SDSD, Morgan received replies from several teachers including Jean-Paul Balmat, an award-winning music educator with a 17-year tenure at Mission Bay High School, who seemed to be the most enthusiastic about the idea. After some research, Morgan discovered that Mission Bay High had one of the best music programs in California with a focus on Jazz studies and that many notable musicians had studied there. Morgan wrote that in addition to her getting experience working with live players, it could also be an educational experience for student musicians. Jean-Paul arranged a meeting with Morgan to pitch the scope of the endeavor and much to Morgan’s surprise, Jean-Paul generously green-lit the project.
Morgan, Cheska, and Marilynn met shortly after during which Morgan officially asked if they would be interested in committing to the project, explaining that it would be a lot of work and that it would be volunteer-only. Morgan also added that she was interested in documenting the project, knowing Cheka’s expertise in social media and content creation. Again, much to Morgan’s surprise, Cheska and Marilynn graciously agreed.
Morgan started the process of composing and orchestrating the music for an animated short called Sprite Fright, which is made available to composers for re-scoring by The Cue Tube, a library of royalty-free films. With a large instrumentation approved by Jean-Paul, Morgan had a broad range of instrumental colors and timbres to play with and felt inspired to write a score drawing from classic Disney scores like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. Knowing that the element of playing live to picture might be challenging for student musicians, Morgan kept the orchestration style as simple and effective as possible. After completing the writing process in late March, Morgan fully orchestrated and prepared parts and scores conforming to the highest industry standards. Once the engraving and copying process was complete, Morgan, with the help of her partner Michaela, meticulously printed and bound parts and scores as well as practice parts the students could take home. Additionally, Morgan made her mockups, the footage, the score, and the parts available to MBHS students via Dropbox. With limited equipment available at MBHS, Morgan knew it would be impossible to record with click. Instead, she opted to add punches and streamers to the footage so she could sync the music to picture while conducting during the session.
Typically, a studio orchestra would not rehearse music prior to or during a recording session. While Morgan knew that Mission Bay students had excellent sight reading skills, she opted to schedule two full rehearsals prior to the scoring session in late April in order to get the best possible performance. In order to get a sense of how the ensemble played, Jean-Paul invited Morgan to conduct some pops material from a recent MBHS concert including Suite from Aladdin, Suite from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Alice’s Theme from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. The rehearsal went incredibly well, and Morgan was amazed at the student’s fantastic musicianship.
Morgan arranged a meeting with Jean-Paul so that he could meet Marilynn the week after. During the meeting, Jean-Paul gave Marilynn a tour of the MBHS band room and showed her the recording equipment they had available. Marilynn started to develop her plan for how she would set up the room for the recording session. The most significant element of planning was that in order for Morgan to be able to see the footage for each cue on large monitors from the podium, they would have to flip the orientation of the room. Another complication was the fact that they had limited microphones and cables available, so instead of attempting to close mic each player, Marilynn suggested a more general recording with spot mics on important soloists, etc.
Over the next weeks, two rehearsals were held. Cheska filmed each rehearsal and got a feel for the room so she could develop a plan for how she would film the final recording session. The rehearsals were incredibly successful. The students were excited to be playing in a studio orchestra setting and enjoyed playing from professionally printed parts. Few changes were made to the score throughout the rehearsal sessions; Morgan was happy to know that her orchestrations were effective and playable and that the students captured the sound she was looking for through their artistry.
With the final session slated for the 26th of April, Morgan coordinated with her team and Jean-Paul to set up the room on April 25th. Jean-Paul, his music assistant, and several students offered to help which made the work go by quite fast. Morgan, Marilynn, and Cheska brought their equipment that late afternoon and Marilynn began setting up the seating arrangement they had agreed on. Marilynn was able to borrow some professional microphones from The Old Globe, including some Neumanns and AKG mics, as well as some mics from her personal collection. Morgan brought a large collection of her studio equipment, and together, all three were able to transform MBHS’s band room into a recording studio. At about 8 pm they were finished with setup and went to dinner to celebrate their combined efforts.
Early the next morning, the team arrived at MBHS and after being let in by Jean-Paul, Marilynn began working to make final tweaks and set levels while Morgan passed out parts and prepared the podium for the session. Cheska set up her equipment with her videographer friends Josh and Angie; she planned to have static cameras recording while she, Angie, and Josh walked around getting B-Roll during the session. The students began filing in am it was clear they were amazed at how their space had transformed. One student walked in and when Jean-Paul explained what they’d be doing, she expressed how cool she thought it all was. This was the goal all along, to inspire the students to develop an interest in film music, the process of recording, etc., with the hope that a career as a studio musician might appeal to them.
The session officially began at 9 am sharp and after tuning, the Morgan and the orchestra ran through various excerpts so that Marilynn could set appropriate levels. Morgan also got a chance to conduct with the footage projected for the first time. The orchestra was able to adapt to new tempos exceptionally well. At around 9:30, they were ready to record. All three cues were recorded with multiple takes in a little under two hours with a 10-minute break in between. The session overall was a huge success and it seemed that the students, and Jean-Paul who joined the percussion section, had a lot of fun. When the session concluded, Cheska’s team took a group photo and the students signed scores for each cue for Morgan to take as keepsakes. Within an hour or so, Morgan, Cheska, and Marilynn loaded out their equipment and returned Jean-Paul’s room to its original state, taking care to make sure MBHS equipment was stored correctly, etc.
Morgan, Marilynn, and Cheska have just now wrapped post-production for the recordings that were captured, and Cheska is working on creating a documentary series to be released on YouTube telling the story of how the three brought Hollywood to Mission Bay High School, and what they learned in the process! What they were able to achieve in collaboration with MBHS and Jean-Paul proves that composers can create their own opportunities and that you don’t have to live in LA to make it happen. We hope our efforts inspire others to create similar paths for themselves!
Special thanks to Jean-Paul Balmat, Mission Bay High School Music Department, the MBHS Advanced Symphony Orchestra, The Old Globe Theater of San Diego, videographers Angie and ClockHandStudios, and Tristan Noon.
