{"id":4723,"date":"2010-06-07T12:52:32","date_gmt":"2010-06-07T16:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/?p=4723"},"modified":"2010-06-07T12:52:32","modified_gmt":"2010-06-07T16:52:32","slug":"jon-lee-capitalist-turned-composer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/2010\/06\/07\/jon-lee-capitalist-turned-composer\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Lee: Capitalist Turned Composer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/JonLee1.jpg\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/profile-pic.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4733\" title=\"Jon Lee in home studio\" src=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/profile-pic.jpg\" alt=\"profile pic\" width=\"248\" height=\"174\" \/><\/a>So how does one of the top television-scoring professionals in the business get to where he is today?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re Jon Lee, first you run a hedge fund for 15 or 20 years\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Huh?<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll have to forgive Jon for not taking a more traditional route to the top of the film and television-scoring business. He found his true calling a bit later in life than most. But that hasn\u2019t stopped him from making quite a name for himself in the field.<\/p>\n<p>Although Jon started out in finance, it became a job he ended up \u201ctotally hating.\u201d During his last few years in the business, he decided to do something about it and began pursuing his avocation: learning to play music. He took piano lessons, which eventually led him to composing. With the music bug firmly in his system, he soon enrolled at the University of Southern California\u2019s Thornton School of Music, where he studied with many well-established composers.<\/p>\n<p>Jon got his Graduate Certificate in Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television, marking the formal end of his career in finance, and set out to land some initial gigs. He soon connected with fellow USC alum Timothy Michael Wynn, a hardcore SONAR user who co-founded the music production company Sonic Fuel. Jon went to work with Tim and his partner Chris Lennertz for about a year, \u201c\u2019til they kicked me out and said \u2018go get a career,\u2019\u201d as Jon jokingly recalls.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->At first Jon picked up small projects on his own, but got a break after a director passed Jon\u2019s demo reel along to a friend. The friend happened to be well-known writer\/producer Stephen J. Cannell. Cannell soon contacted Jon and he wound up working on scores for three of Cannell\u2019s movies.<\/p>\n<p>Next came the comedy film \u201cWho\u2019s Your Caddy?,\u201d his first major motion picture and which would ultimately lead to Jon\u2019s biggest break of all.<\/p>\n<p>By now he was starting to be able to pick and choose his work.\u00a0\u201cI took projects I found interesting,\u201d he noted.\u00a0One of those interesting projects was a documentary called \u201cUnsettled,\u201d about the withdrawal of Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip.\u00a0The film was entered into the Slamdance Film Festival in 2007 and won the Grand Jury Best Documentary award.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the companies that sponsored Slamdance was Langley Productions, who are big believers in the cinema verite style of filmmaking,\u201d Jon recalled. They apparently liked the music in \u2018Unsettled\u2019 and Jon eventually met one of the executive producers, Morgan Langley at the festival.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Later that year, while working on the score for the film \u201cWho\u2019s Your Caddy?,\u201d Morgan called Jon and described a new project they had created that required a cool, hip-hop feel for the intro of the main title. They asked if he could do it. Eagerly, Jon created a song called \u2018Get Me Out\u2019 which they really liked and ended up using for their new show, which was called \u201cJail.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was the beginning of Jon\u2019s relationship with Langley Productions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJail\u201d led to additional projects.\u00a0From \u201cStreet Patrol\u201d (now in syndication) to \u201cLas Vegas Jailhouse\u201d (a new show that just got picked up for the second half of its season), Jon works closely with Langley Productions in creating a distinct and memorable musical footprint for each new show.<\/p>\n<p><strong>His DAW of choice?<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nJon made a choice early on: SONAR was his go-to DAW, and he\u2019s never wavered.<\/p>\n<ul><a href=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Good-One.jpg\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/guitar-playing.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4734\" title=\"Playing guitar\" src=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/guitar-playing.jpg\" alt=\"guitar playing\" width=\"248\" height=\"174\" \/><\/a><\/ul>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been using SONAR since SONAR 4, on some of my earliest projects,\u201d Jon said.\u00a0\u201cWith TV, the deadlines are really, really crazy, and I\u2019ve had great luck with SONAR because it\u2019s so stable.\u00a0Plus, whatever is in my head or whatever I\u2019m thinking about musically to go with a picture, I can quickly and easily get down an idea.\u00a0Whatever the style.\u00a0I can\u2019t imagine any style of music I can\u2019t write using SONAR.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also appreciates its ability to tap into 64-bit processing. \u201cRunning SONAR 64-bit is just killer. It\u2019s such a good program, I don\u2019t know why you wouldn\u2019t use this program, especially now with 64-bit.\u00a0I\u2019m running with 12 GB of high-speed RAM, so now with as efficient as SONAR is, I never touch my CPU. I might run 80 tracks and 40 plug-ins [per project], and it doesn\u2019t even touch my CPU, and I have an older computer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSONAR\u2019s been there the entire time. Every project I\u2019ve done as a composer on my own has been in SONAR.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And he\u2019s clearly gotten pretty adept with it: \u201cFor one movie, I had a violinist from the San Diego Symphony come in to play the solo for a big orchestral piece,\u201d he recalls, laughing. \u201cShe listened to the track and asked which orchestra I recorded, and I said \u2018Well, actually, this is just me and SONAR.\u2019\u00a0 So I can fool a concert musician into thinking this is a real orchestra playing along with her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You can take a closer look at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JDUMbjMDyFU\" target=\"_blank\">Jon Lee&#8217;s SONAR setup<\/a> on our YouTube page.<\/p>\n<p><strong>If it works well\u2026<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nLangley Productions produces music for other visual media projects, and since Jon has scored so many of their television shows, they asked what music software he uses.\u00a0\u201cThey wanted to know what my set-up was and they ended up creating a studio that was even better than mine.\u00a0They took it one step further and brought in a V-Studio 700 because they also do video editing with it, and they integrate its ACT function with SONY Vegas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>On composing for television and movies<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We asked Jon for his thoughts on the differences in the various types of composing he\u2019s done over the years and if he had a preference.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWorking on the television shows that Langley Productions produces is very exciting, and for me it\u2019s better than working on a movie.\u00a0With a movie, you score an hour and a half of film and then you are done. You move on to a new project.\u00a0With TV, I get 13-26 episodes (or 13 hours) to create themes and ideas and do variations and develop ideas.\u00a0With movies, you don\u2019t get quite as much time; with TV, if you get lucky, you get 65 episodes to do it with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn movies, you\u2019re going to get zillions of notes [edits],\u201d he continued.\u00a0\u201cYour greatest moment of relief is where there are no more notes.\u00a0With television, the delivery schedule does not permit you to have lots of notes.\u00a0The other thing about movies is that it tends to be a bit more political.\u00a0You end up writing a score probably three times.\u00a0People don\u2019t realize that it\u2019s very common in the movies where they\u2019ll bring in a movie, they\u2019ll have it \u2018temped\u2019 [produced an early version using library music or older film scores], so you\u2019ll write \u00be of the score, then they\u2019ll just change the movie, making the score you have composed useless.\u00a0There are also a lot more personalities involved.\u00a0Actually, someone just offered me a movie, but I passed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jon often works on multiple projects simultaneously, usually two shows a week. \u201cI will finish one, and then they give me the other. We will kind of swap back and forth.\u00a0Sometimes I\u2019ll get two or three episodes at once, because of changes in the production schedule, but that is rare.\u00a0I usually have between five and seven days per episode to write and produce the music, which for me, is plenty of time.<\/p>\n<p>And with television, the payoff can be immediate. \u201cSometimes I\u2019ll work on something and it airs the next week.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul><a href=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Zac-Langley.JPG\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4735 \" src=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Zac-Langley.JPG\" alt=\"Zac Langley of Langley Productions\" width=\"260\" height=\"174\" \/><\/a><\/ul>\n<p>Interestingly, Jon also needs to be careful pirating from other shows, even ones he\u2019s worked on: \u201cFor example, Langley Productions produces the show \u2018COPS,\u2019 so obviously we\u2019re not going to do a reggae theme for another show, because the song \u201cBad Boys\u201d is closely associated with the show.\u00a0But you want to try and brand each show. Every show I\u2019ve ever done with them is very different musically.\u00a0It\u2019s very challenging to try and create new themes each show, and employ them in different styles, and continually look for ways we can we improve them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So as he works on multiple projects, Jon becomes a musical archivist of sorts. Ultimately, however, it\u2019s a team effort between the guys at Langley and Jon all talking about a project and throwing musical ideas back and forth to get a show\u2019s musical identity developed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On his biggest challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Aside from tight turnarounds and strict deadlines, we asked Jon about what other challenges composing presents.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn composing for a visual medium, it always comes down to \u2018How do you help a project with music?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cHow are you there without being there too much?\u00a0If you don\u2019t have the music in a certain spot, the scene is not going to have as much of an impact.\u00a0It\u2019s not going to move as well.\u00a0So you have to balance between the emotional impact of the scene and overdoing it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also noted that it can sometimes be difficult working with directors who are not trained musicians and cannot express themselves with the vernacular of music. \u201cIt\u2019s a challenge to get on the same page with them. Like if I say to another composer, \u2018This cue needs ostinato, and we should do it in Phrygian mode, and we should do it with a lot of ethnic percussion,\u2019 they would know exactly what I was saying.<br \/>\nTo a director who has no musical training, that\u2019s going to be Greek.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jon continued, \u201cIt is about trying to find a way to hear what they\u2019re saying and then to execute it musically. With regards to the three shows I do for Langley productions, most of the background music and scoring decisions are left to me.\u00a0On all of the main title sequences, it is much more of a focused collaboration, and we try to incorporate as much of everyone\u2019s vision as we can.\u00a0[For example,] for \u2018Las Vegas Jailhouse,\u2019 I created about 60 different musical ideas, over roughly three weeks.\u00a0Generally I\u2019ll have some musicians come to the studio and lay something down. I will add drums\/percussion, or orchestra ideas and do the mixing, and then I will send the producers an MP3 of those cues. They will listen to the cues, and come back and say \u2018Can we try doing something more in this style, or can we add more grit, etc.\u2019 Some shows are easier than others.\u00a0For the show \u2018Jail,\u2019 the song Get Me Out was the first idea, and it was exactly what they wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But that begged the question: What do you do if someone can\u2019t describe adequately enough what they\u2019re looking for? \u201cObviously the thing that drives the music is the visual feel of the show. If I can see the show, if you show me what the main title is going to look like, I can produce l a musical idea in 3 minutes. The hardest part is doing it without the picture, and that\u2019s sometimes what happens too.\u00a0 You may only get a verbal description: \u2018It\u2019s gonna look like this, or be an overview of that, or we think the graphics are going to look like this.\u2019 \u00a0I can score that too, no problem. But when I can see the picture, and the way or the tempo that the editor has cut it, or how the visual has developed, then I can feel an internal tempo and bam, it\u2019s no problem. So if you can give me anything that remotely looks like what you want, I can give you exactly what you\u2019re looking for musically.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>On his future<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With so much on his plate, we were curious how the rest of the year was shaping up for Jon. \u201cWell, we\u2019re definitely doing at least 10 more episodes of \u2018Las Vegas Jailhouse,\u2019 which is one of the top-rated shows on TruTV. We have 12 episodes of \u2018Jail\u2019 which airs on Spike TV under our belts, and we\u2019ll see what happens with that show for next season. There are other shows in development that I will\u00a0 probably work on, so it\u2019ll be pretty much non-stop scoring [for television] for the next 4-5 months.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul><a href=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/DAW-setup.JPG\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4738\" title=\"SONAR rig \" src=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/DAW-setup.JPG\" alt=\"DAW setup\" width=\"247\" height=\"174\" \/><\/a><\/ul>\n<p>But as entrenched as he is with his Langley work, doesn\u2019t Jon long for the days he had varied projects, like film?\u00a0\u201cI really enjoy working with Langley Productions,\u201d he asserts. \u201cThey trust my musical instincts, and their shows present the opportunity to try lots of interesting musical ideas. And the one thing that\u2019s really nice about TV is that [a project] comes in on Wednesday or Thursday, and it\u2019s out on Monday. It is a great challenge to quickly create some musical ideas, execute them, and mix them so that they sound great.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Right now I\u2019m working on an hour show plus two other half-hour shows and that\u2019s gonna keep me pretty busy for a while. You figure one 90-minute show is like doing a movie every week. So for the moment it would be tough for me to take on another project.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And what about becoming typecast? \u201cCareer wise, that\u2019s one thing you never want to happen.\u00a0And unfortunately it does happen.\u00a0\u2018He\u2019s a comedy guy, he\u2019s the urban guy or the action cue guy,\u2019 and the thing I like about working with the Langleys is that every show is really different in what they are trying to do. Sometimes you have to write comedic, light-hearted cues, sometimes edgy, and sometimes you have to write for stuff that\u2019s hard to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But whatever he\u2019s asked for, he\u2019s got SONAR to help make it happen. On deadline.<\/p>\n<p>As we wrapped up our conversation, we asked Jon about the secret of his success (aside from SONAR, of course), especially after making a 180-degree turn so late in his career. \u201cWhen you start something later in life, you just have to work a little harder,\u201d he philosophized.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re pretty sure that even though he may work a bit harder now, it\u2019s a lot more fun than hedge funds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So how does one of the top television-scoring professionals in the business get to where he is today?\u00a0 If you\u2019re Jon Lee, first you run a hedge fund for 15 or 20 years\u2026 Huh? You\u2019ll have to forgive Jon for not taking a more traditional route to the top of the film and television-scoring business. &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/2010\/06\/07\/jon-lee-capitalist-turned-composer\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Jon Lee: Capitalist Turned Composer&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,49],"tags":[1401,1402,1403,271,141,215,1404,1405,1406,359,360,122,35,1407,1408,1101,1409,1410,1309],"class_list":["post-4723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artist-news","category-sonar","tag-cops","tag-las-vegas-jailhouse","tag-whos-your-caddy","tag-64-bit-processing","tag-composer","tag-film-scoring","tag-jail","tag-jon-lee","tag-langley-productions","tag-music-for-documentary","tag-music-for-television","tag-producer","tag-sonar","tag-sonic-fuel","tag-spike-tv","tag-tim-wynn","tag-trutv","tag-university-of-southern-california","tag-v-studio-700"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}