Chicago-based Actor / Violinist

Vocalo (take 2)

Tom asked me to come into Vocalo again this morning and talk about life as a freelance musician. It was nice to show up early this time (uh, last time I was kinda late). We talked a fair amount about The Nutcracker, which I’m playing in the pit right now down at the Joffrey.

My basic ignorance of the ballet’s story was revealed, and I played a few samples of the second violin part, where I revealed just how spectacular I sound at 9 in the morning:

You can hear the interview here

Oh, and the Auditorium Theatre has 4,200 seats.

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Eye of the Sandman opening titles

Eye of the Sandman (Opening Titles) from Jeffrey McHale on Vimeo.

I’m a sucker for good opening titles, so I’m especially thrilled to be a part of these. Jeff (who also edited the film) did a fantastic job re-creating the Saul Bass 60s vibe with the animation.

Behind-the-scenes aside: I shot the close-up “eye” footage of my fellow actors (well, someone else shot me). We were originally planning to use that footage during the sudden blackout sequence around the dining table. The idea was that the screen would be completely black, except for our eyes looking around. Clever, huh? The trick didn’t end up working, but I was glad to see the footage repurposed into the titles.

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Paint Crew

Paint Crew from Dave Belden on Vimeo. Starring Tom Herman, Aaron Graham, and Kirby O’Connell. Written by Mary-Terese Cozzola. Produced by LouAnn Franicich. Directed by Dave Belden. 2009. We shot this in May, and it was featured in the Chicago Short Comedy Video & Film Festival.

NSFW WARNING: There’s some language, that’s all.

There’s also a nice, big 1280 x 720, 76.46MB Quicktime version.

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The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody

Mama!

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eighth blackbird flies without a safety net: sheet music

“It’s like bashing the notes into our skulls with a two-by-four. But the end result is awesome.”

I just got my tickets. They’re 2-for-1 using the code FAN: Get yours now!

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jQuery equalizeBottoms

Finally had the chance to use this plugin. Took some trial and error to get it configured for the site I’m building, but it’s pretty impressive, and seems to work in all the big browsers.

I always run into the same issue with jQuery plugins: how to call them in the page. The example code almost never works for me until I remember no-conflict mode and figure out the syntax. Again.

In my case, what finally worked was this:

jQuery(function( $ ){

Remember.

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    I'm an actor and violinist. I live in Chicago. If you find this gripping, then you might want to read some more…
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