Creating the Music for Curio - Early October 2023 Dev Update
featuring another special collaborator!
(thumbnail art by louie zong, btw!)
Hey guys!
About a month ago (wow am I behind!) we wrapped on a big audio component of CURIO - its soundtrack! Bearpuncher used existing music licensed from the band Hawktail, but for CURIO, I knew I wanted to do something custom if possible. Mainly because the shorter runtime of the film meant custom music was within my budget, but also custom music would allow the short to be monetized and help fund future projects. I actually don’t get a cent of ad revenue from Bearpuncher, despite its over 204k views (thanks so much by the way! I’ve got some celebration posts planned). That’s because while me and Hawktail had things worked out on our end, YouTube did not know that, and it took all the money (hopefully sharing some with Hawktail, which I’m fine with.)
I thought hard about who should do the music for CURIO, since it’s sort of a period piece requiring a niche style. Eventually, I decided to shoot for the stars and cold called Louie Zong, a musician/3D artist/storyboarder who creates a MASSIVE output of albums in every style imaginable (ska, rock, jazz, funk, bedroom pop, samba). He’s most known for his “Ghost Duet” series he posts in October, the most recent of which came out just the other day:
Louie’s been a favorite of mine for a while and working with him would be a DREAM (literally. See my Dream List from four years ago.) And I figured he’d be able to imitate whatever style we needed. I made very clear in my email how the project already matched up with his interests (old internet lore, handcrafted art, songs under 1.5 min), sent him my music budget, and hoped for the best! I wanted to answer every question up front and make it as easy as possible for him to say yes (or no, I guess.)
I did in fact hear back from him, and (spoiler for all my free readers) he said he was down to help!
So Louie Zong is the composer for CURIO! I could not be more excitedd!!!
Paid members, read on to hear how the process went, and hear the music itself! Free members, sorry to tease you again but the wait will be worth it! Or of course, you don’t have to wait ;) (points to free trial)