Released April 29 2017

Background

Jeff of the Hospital was a student film made by a college friend of mine, Chris Jakab. I primarily had a music focused major with a minor in media arts, and Chris was more on the filmmaker and screen writer track, which is how we ended up meeting in the same screen writing class at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. Besides some of the friendships I made during the class (including Rodriguez Jennings, writer and director of Honour Among Thieves), the most memorable part was that the class lasted from like 6 pm to 8 pm, and I commuted to school from Richmond, which is about a 45 minute drive. So late nights and long drives home were on the schedule when those classes happened. And the teacher NEVER let us leave early, even when they ran out of material to go over in the class. Anyways, Chris was doing a sort of final film project one semester and asked if I could do some music for it. Naturally, I said yes.

Chris wrote a script for a short film set in modern day about a detective who had some kind of schizophrenic tendencies, where he believed that he was actually in a classic noir-esque movie of his own from the 40s or 50s. In the reality of the film, he is following up on an alleged murder case with his partner, but then begins to sabotage the case by making up a narrative of his own in line with that of a noir film, convincing himself the defendant is actually guilty. He’s in and out of a mental hospital in the film, hence the title. I’d love to share a link for viewing, but Chris never released the film publicly, as far as I know, and I’d rather not be the one to do it in the event it’s not something he wants shared around. So, use your imagination.

Chris wasn’t asking for a ton of music for this project, but I ended up giving him a few different tracks to use. Though I think he only used a handful of the tracks in the final cut. The film was only about 15 minutes long, if I recall, but still, I wanted to give him enough material that could cover whatever he needed. Looking back, the production on this is a bit rough, and I didn’t really know how to master tracks properly. Hell, even now, I’m not sure how to master a track for film, specifically. But regardless, it was a great learning experience and gave me the opportunity to write some music I would have otherwise never written. It gave me a chance to work on my jazz chops too, which I was studying at the time.

Chris, if you’ve got more movies in the works that need music, let me know. I would be happy to help out again.