Hello World, I am still alive. This month, I give you sheet music from PopCap's wonderful game, Plants Vs. Zombies composed by Laura Shigihara! The rather short and simple soundtrack has its appeal though, and sounds wonderful on piano. Expect a medley soon!

Oh, and if you don't even know what this PvZ thing is, let PopCap's Plants Vs. Zombies website fill you in.

Here are 3 of the 12 songs from the game (not counting "There's a Zombie on Your Lawn"):

Choose Your Seeds
Grasswalk
Loonboon

And as usual, there is more free sheet music on my website!

Down in San Diego for the weekend for Comic Con and Video Games Live. I'm helping out at both events, so if you see a German kid running around, chances are it'll be me. Come say hi!

This is my official plug for something I have been anticipating for three years: an official "Piano Collections Kingdom Hearts." Square Enix released the CD in Japan on May 27th. With 12 amazing arrangements by Kaoru Wada (和田 薫) of some of the best Kingdom Hearts songs by Shimomura (下村 陽子), it's one of the most amazing things I've heard lately.

Here is sheet music for my favorite track, arranged for you to perform and post on YouTube. Sheet music available here: (and on my website)

Concert Paraphrase on "Dearly Beloved" From Kingdom Hearts Piano Collections

More info here: (JP) http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/sem/page/piano_kh/
Buy it here: (JP) http://www.amazon.co.jp/PIANO-COLLECTIONS-KINGDOM-HEARTS-下村陽子/dp/B002206XQG

Last quarter, I composed a few songs for a movie by the Moxie Production Group - an on-campus film group dedicated to professional film production for college students. This was my first experience with scoring a short film and working with cues I had to hit. Hence, some of the songs end abruptly and seem distorted in places. Also, due to the unfortunate lack of available instruments, all songs are synthesized with Reason.

MP3s are available for download; Sheet music is available on request.

Tracks:

• Solitude
• Celtic Fantasy
• It Can't be Over
• Your Love Will Echo

Tags: 16mm fantasy 16 mm score soundtrack composition solitude celtic keltic fantasy can't by over your love will echo in me movie short film sebastian wolff germanseabass moxie production group ucsc student media

16mm Fantasy - for Moxie Production Group
Compilation Video / All songs
Solitude
Celtic Fantasy
It Can't be Over
Your Love Will Echo

I've been busy with things other than finals - a few weeks ago, I started composing music for a friend's amazing flash game, RAID Play the game here: http://www.kongregate.com/games/Ragnarok/raid.

Kongregate praises the game: "RAID's vibrant graphics and brooding soundtrack alone are enough to send shivers down a gamer's WASD fingers. Combine that with a devilish AI engine and enough weaponry to spark a second Cold War and you've got a flash game that neither noob nor expert can put down. Cheat Codes, 15 Unique Missions, Survival, Multiplayer, and Co-op capability provide the diversity to make RAID the thrilling, endlessly replayable flash experience that you've been waiting for."

Also, download the music for the game here! All music © Sebastian Wolff feel free to share non-commercially. Aren't the titles utterly creative?

RAID soundtrack
Debriefing
Mission
Victory
Defeat

For the the last month, I have been composing a score for a a friend's movie project at USC: "Reversal: Part One." I used Sibelius and Reason to create the ambient tracks; my first experiment with industrial and sci-fi music and relying on cue-sheets for precise musical prompts. Watch the 7-minute short here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GABhKoa6fk&fmt=18

More information, by the director:
"Reversal: Part One" is an update of the film "Reversal" that I made in 2005.

Rather than being solely a standalone film, "Reversal: Part One" is the first in a five-part film cycle that tells the story of a dystopian future in which the authorities have some new, alarming duties. The film cycle will explain how the system came to be and its repercussions on society. It will also explore a major disturbance in the system. Each film will be able to stand alone as its own piece apart from the other four films, but will also seamlessly connect to them. Each film is meant to represent a scene from the larger whole, as well as an independent, standalone short.
"Reversal: Part Two" is currently in pre-production. Principal photography will begin this June, and I anticipate a mid-August release.

I saw Coraline yesterday, in all its glory. If you haven't seen it, go to your nearest movie theater (3D preferably) and go watch it. There's this song that everyone seems to want to play... the Other Father Song. Sheet music (vocal + keyboard) is now available by yours truly. The song was composed and performed by They Might Be Giants.

Coraline Sheets:
Other Father Song © They Might be Giants

Lyrics:
Makin' up a song about Coraline
She’s a peach she's a doll she's a pal of mine
She's as cute as a button in the eyes
of everyone who ever laid their eyes on Coraline
When she comes around exploring
Mom and I will never ever make it boring
Our eyes will be on coraline

I hope to have more wonderful Coraline music soon; perhaps even a recording. For more stuff, see http://music.sebastianwolff.info.

Dear Diary.

Today I was contacted by Italians. The conversation went something like this:

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[03:38:13]    umbe has joined
[03:38:13]    ** . . *.•´¸.•*●•°• has joined
[03:38:13]    BADBOYS has joined
[03:38:13]    They called it the  has joined
[03:38:13]    helena_409@hotmail. has joined
[03:38:13]    ffff has joined
[03:38:31]    ffff: hahahahah
[03:38:31]    ffff: sebastian
[03:38:31]    ffff: hahaha
[03:38:31]    ffff: sei
[03:38:31]    ffff: l'amica
[03:38:31]    ffff: della
[03:38:34]    ffff: sirenetta?
[03:38:35]    ffff: xDDD
[03:38:37]    ffff: hhaha
[03:38:38]    helena_409@hotmail.it: xD
[03:38:41]    GermanSeabass: ...?
[03:38:46]    helena_409@hotmail.it: è inglese
[03:38:48]    helena_409@hotmail.it: xD
[03:38:48]    ffff: sebass
[03:38:49]    ffff: you
[03:38:50]    helena_409@hotmail.it: oh boh
[03:38:50]    ffff: are
[03:38:51]    ffff: a SHIT
[03:39:00]    ** . . *.•´¸.•*●•°•●.LeSaa.●•°•●*•.´•¸.* . . *: [c=#F52CB9]xp[/c=#32C8FA]
[03:39:03]    ffff: SEBASTIAN YOU ARE A COW'S SHIT
[03:39:06]    helena_409@hotmail.it: xD
[03:39:10]    ffff: xD
[03:39:18]    ffff: SEABASS YOU ARE A COW'S SHIT
[03:39:21]    ffff: bhuahah
[03:39:27]    helena_409@hotmail.it: aha
[03:39:46]    ffff: YOU ARE UGLY
[03:39:47]    ffff: 4EVER
[03:39:51]    ffff: OR NEVER
[03:39:59]    ffff: YOU ARE A BIG WOMAN
[03:40:01]    ffff: okay?
[03:40:07]    ffff: okkay_?
[03:40:10]    ffff: okay?
[03:40:12]    ffff: èh?
[03:40:15]    ffff: okaaayy?
[03:40:35]    GermanSeabass: do you have anything to say besides insults?
[03:40:42]    ffff: SEABAS YOU ARE VERY VERY STUPID
[03:40:45]    helena_409@hotmail.it: o_o
[03:40:47]    ffff: xD
[03:40:50]    ffff: cazzo dice
[03:40:51]    ffff: hahahahah
[03:40:55]    helena_409@hotmail.it: traduco
[03:40:55]    ffff: non la capisco
[03:41:08]    ffff: tu hai ifnito
[03:41:09]    helena_409@hotmail.it: ha detto : tu sai dire altro oltre a insultare
[03:41:10]    helena_409@hotmail.it: xD
[03:41:12]    ffff: xD
[03:41:13]    ffff: haha
[03:41:14]    ffff: EMH
[03:41:14]    ** . . *.•´¸.•*●•°• has disconnected
[03:41:16]    ffff: NOT
[03:41:17]    ffff: OKAY?
[03:41:18]    helena_409@hotmail.it: aha
[03:41:19]    ffff: NOT
[03:41:20]    ffff: NOT
[03:41:21]    ffff: NOT
[03:41:51]    ffff: GermanSeabas  I love u
[03:41:53]    ffff: =D
[03:41:58]    ffff: 4ever
[03:42:02]    ffff: You are THE BEST
[03:42:04]    ffff: yes
[03:42:07]    ffff: v.v
[03:42:10]    ffff: very very
[03:42:19]    ffff: how old are u seabass?
[03:42:32]    ffff: god pig
[03:42:35]    ffff: speack
[03:42:37]    ffff: speack
[03:42:39]    ffff: speack
[03:42:42]    ffff: speack
[03:42:45]    ffff: speack
[03:43:12]    ffff has disconnected
[03:44:00]    helena_409@hotmail. has disconnected

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If you're a spammer, feel free to add the following smilee@hotmail.it and helena_409@hotmail.it to your database...

Love,
Sebastian

Firstly, thank you so much everyone who donated! Having a broken desktop (my main computer) makes life a bit difficult (and nigh impossible to manage as far as video goes). Due to piano-recording-downtime, I had to fill the musical void in my life with arranging--all done on my semi-stable laptop, which barely supports Sibelius. I bring you a few songs from the realms of the Internet. I hope to play a medley of these at one point - alongside some other familiar tunes.

Songs from the Internets
Still Alive (Portal) New! © Jonathan Coulton
Caramelldansen New! ウッーウッーウマウマ
Candy Mountain Song New! Charlie the Unicorn
Chocolate Rain New! Tay Zonday
The Hamster Dance ("Whistle Stop") New! www.webhamster.com
Ievan Polkka (aka, Leekspin)

Work-in-progress list of a next medley (unless I get my hands on new Kingdom Hearts music beforehand): Chocolate Rain - Tay Zonday, Caramelldansen - Caramell, Ievan Polkka (leekspin) - Loituma, Numa Numa, Dragostea din tei - Ozone, Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley, Still Alive - Jonathan Coulton, Tunak Tunak Tun - Daler Mehnd, Moskau - Dschinghis Khan, Ding Dong Song - Gunther, The Hampster Dance Song, Happy Tree Friends theme song, Dick in a Box - Justin Timberlake, What Is Love - Haddaway, Candy Mountain Song - Charlie the Unicorn, You Spin Me Round - Dead or Alive, Dota Rave - Basshunter, I Like it Like That - Orangina commercial, Lovers' Theme (guess where this is from for a cookie).
Elsewise, happy New Year!

Saw Video Games Live .. live in San Jose last Tuesday. Meeting Tommy Tallarico, Martin Leung, PianoSquall, Jason Hayes, and a bunch of other amazing and talented people inspired me to finish up a project I started a few weeks ago: arranging Stolen Transport from "Advent Rising" for piano solo. It looks like a pain for the fingers, and is. But it's a fun piece... enjoy!



Advent Rising: Stolen Transport










More sheet music and MP3s: http://music.sebastianwolff.info

Um, hi! I'm alive. I've gotten myself a website which I'll use more than livejournal. Clicky: http://sebastianwolff.info.

Besides that, I'll (probably?) continue to post stuff here if I find the time.

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New videos on YouTube:
Destiny's Force (Kingdom Hearts)
Traverse Town (Kingdom Hearts)
Kyle Landry's "Lonely"
Improv #2


On another note, I plan to have another medley of sort up on youtube shortly. It will contain songs from Kingdom Hearts II, Final Mix, and RE:Com. The pieces I'm thinking of including are (in no particular order- yet):

• Memories in Pieces
• Scent of Silence
• Scythe of Pedals
• (The 13th Struggle)
• Namine
• Lord of the Castle
• Fate of the Unknown
• The 13th Reflection
• (Deep Anxiety)
• Rage Awakened
• The Other Promise
• (Castle Oblivion)
• (Showdown at Hollow Bastion)
• A Fight to the Death

I'm not too sure about the ones in parentheses yet- either because It'd be difficult transposing to the key it's in, or just because I don't know it well enough yet :3

-Sebastian

I live! After two days of testing and writing commentaries and essays, I pronounce myself to be done with IB English testing!

I celebrated with seeing Spiderman 3, which completely rolled over any brilliant expectancies I had for it. [9 / 10 for now, review to follow]

And now that the first part of testing is over, I finally had some time to finish a review of a terrible film I saw a few weeks ago, The Last Mimzy

[Does this sound too much like a rant?]

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Why is it...

Why is it that CGI-based films are so lacking of a decent storyline? The Last Mimzy, directed by Robert Shaye, offers several elements that could have been extrapolated to create a wonderful family film, yet its lack of deeper development in these areas resulted in nothing more than eye candy. The trailer did its job of luring in audiences to an over-hyped 90-minute film about how "The future is trying to tell us something." Despite the array of creditable actors and the notable animation, The Last Mimzy is a fantasy / sci-fi adventure featuring three shallowly developed storylines with an equally shallow underlying comment on current political difficulties.

Noah and Emma Wilder (Chris O'Neil and Rhiannon Wryn) are two Seattle-based kids living with their mother (Joely Richardson) and their workaholic father (Timothy Hutton) who has too little time to spend with their kids. This family-film cliché is flatly resolved at the end of the film in the father's decision to stay home to observe their rather abnormal children. The semi-dysfunctional family ties make up the primary part of the story, while the supernatural elements contribute to the other segments. The strained foreshadowing of a gloomy future is all that Mimzy has to tell, without further details with regards to what this future would contain. A mere one-minute glimpse allows the audience to tell that the world's future in The Last Mimzy is as any other second-rate sci-fi film: trite flashing lights on switching boards with technology having evolved to unprecedented levels, cyborgs ruling the earth, and humanity edging towards the inevitable doom. In a sad attempt to target current problems and linking them to a melancholic future, a third sub-plot is introduced - the government and its disregard to how "the future is trying to tell us something" - something we are currently ignoring. So let us listen to kids who can create swirling fields of energy that atomize anything placed inside.

While the acting was surprisingly well done, the dialogue was stale and advocated better writing. Especially impressive was the level of professional acting achieved by the two Wilder children. Adding a sense of reality in an unrealistic environment set the surreal scene and made it plausible.

Yet despite the near-credible make-belief world, the ending scene left much to be desired. A futuristic setting hinting strongly at the success of the two child protagonists to restore the natural order in the future, another rather uncanny plot hole is established when various kids ... just got up and flew away from an utopian landscape of flowers and picturesque mountains. Despite various other elements remaining unexplained, such as the actual cause of paranormal powers and the child-genius factor, the "actual" causes should be disregarded. The loosely held science-fiction fabric of the film serves as a fair excuse for a few missteps, although the gap in communication leaves a trace of mystification.

The strength of the film was, as anticipated, the animation and CGI-quality. Unfortunately, the potency of this category was excellent only in comparison to the others. Based on CGI to support itself, Mimzy featured a layer of creditability established through a shiny green block, slate rocks capable of creating energy fields, a purple gizmo that knocks out the power of half the country, and the (last) Intel-made rabbit doll, Mimzy. A lengthy list in most regards, with hints to a shopping list to a futuristic Toys"R"Us ^[TM], it served no function but to cover the lack of suitable content in most other categories.

Disregarding the areas in which the film did not excel, Mimzy is a science fiction film that children will be sure to enjoy, as the adventure story is one of few prerequisites. Perhaps this is not the next academy-award winning film, yet it is a family film with a mysterious texture that dictates the supernatural and contributes to an almost enjoyable film.

3 / 10

Hey look! Music:





Tatakau Monotachi (Final Fantasy VII)


Destiny Island (Kingdom Hearts I and II)

Happy Spring Break!

Also, our trailer for our film is finally completed!

[copypasta from youtube]
Since October, we (a group of four film students) have been working on our final film for the International Baccalaureate (IB) Program at our high school.

Our IB Film class necessitated a film between six and seven minutes in length and a complimentary trailer 40-60 seconds. We have submitted our 7-minute film already and are still working on a better version that will I will upload on April 16th.

Everything you see and hear, we created. We went to film at Mt. Shasta, California; I composed the music, edited, created sound effects ... more info to come soon.

I received a fair bit of hate-mail in the last few days from UCLA, UCSB, UCB, UCSD places I once considered to have morals above such trivial things - like sending love letters reading as follows:

After careful review of your application for admission, we sincerely regret to inform you that we are not able to offer you admission for the Fall Quarter 2007. We are retired grumpy ex-Wal-Mart employees and have been induced to reject you on no feasible basis whatsoever. We also hate you and your diminutive accomplishments, such as the IB Diploma. We continue to receive more applications for admission than we can accommodate in our freshman class. For fall 2007, we received more than 100,000 applications for 3 available spaces for freshmen. Hence, please go away and have a pleasant life outside our pristine school.

If attending our exemplary college remains your ambition, you should know that there are other opportunities for admission. To learn more about transferring to our school 29 years from now and maximizing your transferring experience, please visit www.admissions.we-hate-you.edu.

Again, I wish you every success in achieving your educational goals, which are - without our wonderful school - unattainable and impossible for someone like you. :)

Sincerely,
Dr. whatever
Director

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On a happier note, I finally got around to watching Disney's and Walden's Bridge to Terabithia. Which you have to watch, because contrary to popular opinion, it's not a Narnia rip-off; but rather a profound and touching story - on not centered on the elements of fantasy, but rather using them to progress the friendship of the two elementary-school protagonists.

Read praise for the movie more profound than my ramblings...

Another 3-day weekend came and went; leaving only a soft trace of its wonders as school continues its toll on plagued minds... </poet>...

On Saturday, I got the chance to be 12,000 high in the air... from deviantart:
"So, thanks to a friend of a member of my film group, we had the chance to be in a private airplane for a few hours to capture footage of Mt. Shasta. One of the many stunning results: this picture, at 12,000ish feet above sea level and about 18 minutes away from Mt. Shasta, California. I have the feeling this, or an edited version of it, will end up being the DVD cover for our film. Details to follow..."

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In other, less important news, I wasted an hour and 44 minutes on watching Eragon after enjoying the book and its sequel (instead of reading The Handmaid's Tale.. ugh). A short, pleasant, and nearly-complimentary review:


Disappointing

Despite its CGI-based visual and graphic appeal, Eragon offers little substance to relish if one has enjoyed the book of identical title. One of the most remarkable feats of the 104-minute film is the way it tears away the delicately constructed plot devices, butchers key plot elements from the book and replaces them with forced action and dialogue.

Although the casting of the main characters, Eragon (Edward Speleers), Brom (Jeremy Irons) and Arya (Sienna Guillory) is fairly fitting, it does little to levitate the unjust adaptation of the book and distract from the B-movie look. Stefen Fangmeier undoubtedly did his best to direct the talent according to screenplay, yet accuracy seemed to have been a topic of unimportance in the conversion from book to script - despite the necessity to remove certain scenes for the sake of time. This, however, does not make up for stripping the story of its mysterious appeal, its dramatic undertone and its stirring depth of narrative development. Thank you, Peter Buchman.

As expected for an "epic" film, the orchestral score undulates between cliché disharmony and excessive beat for dramatic impact, mirroring the action in a dim light instead of enforcing the mood in a stylistic manner. The one category the film does succeed in, however, is special effects. Saphira, the digitally created dragon, is a masterpiece and deserves compliments, as well as the many hundreds of fire, water, landscape and magic effects that naturally flow through the realms of Alagaesia. CafeFX, ILM and many others did a fine job to enhance the film's majestic feel - the very thing that got lost in all other creative departments.

So much could have been done with this movie - even at the sacrifice of pulling a Peter Jackson and ending up with a 3-hour film. At least that would have done the previously establish story justice instead of tossing it into infamy or, at most, leaving it forgotten as any other cinematic flop.

3 / 10

UPDATE: New website: http://sebastianwolff.info/music.php

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To whoever hasn't seen it yet, here is the Kingdom Hearts Piano Medley:



And an mp3 for those who don't read video descriptions: http://www.last.fm/music/Sebastian+Wolff [128kbps mp3; 16.2 MB]

Aaand, I finally decided to transcribe sheet music, due to nice requests popular demand. I will be publishing the sheet music in parts; I'm hoping people are smart enough to fit the pieces together until I do so once I'm done. Feedback always welcome; post here or on youtube, or send an email: seabass88[at]gmail.com

Enough blabber, here it is: http://sebastianwolff.info/music.php

Until I find a better composition program, this rendition of the sheets will have to do; [LH] means left hand crosses over.

I take no credit for these transcriptions; all credit goes to the composers and license holders: Kingdom Hearts music (c) Hikaru Utada, Yoko Shimomura, Squaresoft, Square-Enix; "This is Halloween" (c) Danny Elfman.

Well, back to writing a useless 4000 word essay about the history of advertising...

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So. I finally decided to get a lj. Why? I've always wanted a homepage, but I didn't feel like paying money for a domain name. I'm not much of a diary/journal person anyhow, so I won't really spend time with lengthy journals about me.

What I will post here, however, is what I do: procrastinate over homework, piano recordings of yours truly, and my film work.


-Fishy