Online Meet up Session during Quarantine：might lasting still afterwards

as I do not have the authority for every the participants' Portrait rights

Ordinarily, it makes sense for artists to attend events, conferences and parties whenever possible, to build their connection with their communities. However, a lot of things have stopped making sense during the pandemic. Right now, the most sensible thing is to stay apart, but the need to connect remains.

Under these strange circumstances, online meetups have become a lifeline, which explains why they grow in popularity every day. I have participated in a few different types of Zoom meetings, and have enjoyed them all.

Some Zoom gatherings take the form of a lecture, in which several guests are invited to speak on their areas of expertise. Others focus on networking and collaboration. For example a few presenters will introduce everyone to their projects, in the hope of connecting and sharing ideas with fellow creators.

In either case, a discussion period typically follows the speeches or presentations. I especially like it when each presenter has a separate breakout room. As an attendee, you can choose the room that best fits your interests. For me, it feels like coming to a party and getting to hear all the conversation topics, then joining the people who are chatting about the ideas I find most exciting.

Of course, talking to images on a screen cannot compare to chatting with a three-dimensional person. Yet in spite of their shortcomings, online meetups can also open up new possibilities. For starters, only local participants can take part in most on-site events, while online meetups can bring together people from across a country or the world.

The happening of collaborating with a filmmaking student

Julia is studying filmmaking at the same school I attend. She brought her latest work-in-progress to a recent Zoom meetup: a short film for which she is seeking music.

The film centers on a bizarre and bittersweet love story between two men, one of whom does not exist. You could call it the romantic version of Fight Club, or maybe a hybrid of Fight Club and Call Me By Your Name. Since Fight Club was my favorite film for quite a few years, the project captured my interest immediately.

I joined Julia’s breakout room, where I briefly introduced myself, my musical focus and shared my enthusiasm for her project. We exchanged email addresses and she invited me to send her some of my work.

Her response to my message and work samples was positive and promising. She really appreciated my musical aesthetic and felt that it would fit her film well. The next day, she sent me a script and production schedule for the film, saying that she would like me to take charge of the music.

I found myself both excited and somewhat unsettled. As the film was still in pre-production, Julia could not provide me with scene footage. I understand that a film composer should have the skill to create music based on a script alone, but I still found it extremely challenging to work without the impression of visual images.

Fortunately, the script is both well written and powerfully vivid, so ideas began to take shape in my mind. Drawing on the vibes I felt as I read, I created a few improvisation-based tracks and sent them to Julia. I also sent some of my previous work that I thought might fit well with the story. She responded that she already had ideas about how some of the tracks could be placed in various scenes.

A few days ago, Julia sent me some still pictures of scenes from the film, which is now in post-production. She invited me to join her soon to discuss music placements in the film. While we have not yet set the date and time of the session, it is nice that we are in the same city, so it could happen either in-person or online. The whole process has been a pleasure so far, and I can’t wait to see where it all goes from here!

the happening of collaborating with a musician aboard

During another online meetup, I met a creator name Vrii, who was looking for a modern classical musician to contribute to his dub step project.

Unlike the meetup where I met Julia, which focused on connecting people within our school, this event brought together artists from all over. Vrii lives in a completely different part of the world. This opportunity for long-distance collaboration really highlighted the pros of online gatherings.

Vrii shared some examples of his work during the group meeting. His previous reworking of other musicians’ tracks sounded hauntingly beautiful to me. Once again, I chose his breakout room during the discussion. After chatting, I emailed him several pieces I’ve written that I thought might resonate with his work.

He responded that he really connected with one of my solo piano tracks, and asked my permission to work with it. A week later, he sent me his creation, which far exceeded my expectations. It was truly great.

Vrii and I share an appreciation for the “glitch aesthetic”. In fact, I purposefully left some flaws in the piano track I had sent him. Similarly, Vrii’s reworking had a bit of a boomy sound and some minor processing and editing artifacts.

He felt that these unintended elements might be appropriate for an experimental track, but wanted my opinion as a collaborator. In the end, we agreed to keep the minor artifacts, but clean up the boominess. I found the final result even more satisfying than his original version.

In the end, I came to like the piece so much that I decided to include it on my own concept album.