I’m very pleased to announce that Boston area singer-songwriter Adam Michael Rothberg will be composing the original music for my new film project “Figure/Ground”. He's toured with Joan Baez, produced Dar Williams and performed on dozens of CDs and recordings, including his own critically acclaimed solo album “Another Spin”.

Unlike my previous film, “Escape Velocity”, it is important for the music in “Figure/Ground” to be very consistent. It must also be perfectly timed and appropriate for the many moods and feelings encompassed in the piece. Because the film deals with the death of a loved one, the film must be poignant in places without being overly sentimental.

Adam is a friend from my days in Northampton, Massachusetts. I’ve always admired his work and thought he could do a good job with the music. I played a rough cut of the film with Adam’s music for my wife, Laura. When I saw that she had a tear in her eye at the end of the film, I knew Adam’s music for the film had accomplished its purpose.

I’ve talked a lot on this blog about digital technology and how it is changing the way we approach creative endeavors. One of the revolutionary characteristics of digital technology that I haven’t discussed as much is its role in long distance collaboration. I uploaded the giant movie file to my server for Adam to download. He created the music for each scene and then synced a rough version of the music to each movie scene. He then sent these movie clips to me so I could see how the music worked with the visuals. I made suggestions via email and phone and we went back and forth until everything worked.

He used a service called yousendit (www.yousendit.com) to send me the files, which were too large to send via email.

He lives in Boston and I live in Cleveland, but we were able to collaborate in, essentially, real time. We were delayed by our schedules as two busy creative guys, but our collaboration was never delayed by our physical distance. Never before have long distance collaborations been this technically effortless. Digital technology is inspiring a constant barrage of new collaborative possibilities with no end in sight.

You can get more info on Adam on his website: www.adamr.net

With the placement of music, the movie is just about complete. I’ll add (and create) sound effects, do some final edits and retouching, and then we’re done! My “making of” blog series is complete. Soon, we’ll create a new “making of Figure/Ground” extras page. We’ll also keep you updated about the film’s release.