Eric Santiestevan
Eric Santiestevan
Genres: rock, Soundtrack
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About Eric Santiestevan
Biography Eric Santiestevan has always been drawn to music, as exemplified when, at three years old, he walked headfirst into the corner of a stereo speaker, necessitating a few stitches. In high school, he began writing songs on guitar and piano. In college, he sang in the Harvard Krokodiloes, one of the oldest and most prestigious male college vocal ensembles, and began to arrange a cappella music in jazz and swing styles, choral music, and instrumental jazz. He also began to write electronic music and formed a series of rock bands. He has completed the certificate program in film and television music composition through UCLA Extension, under the tutelage of Lee Sanders, Craig Stuart Garfinkle, Robert Drasnin, Norman Ludwin, and Thom Sharp. Since then, he has had the opportunity to compose for film and animation in all genres. Starting in 2001, Eric has been the lab manager for the Baltimore Laboratory at Caltech. The research of the lab is focused on microRNA, inflammation, and vector-based therapies for pathogens and cancer. Writing for PhD Comics Eric is the main composer for The PHD Movie and wrote and recorded most of the music for the soundtrack. The task of composing the soundtrack was not easy. First, the music director, working with creator Jorge Cham, decided which sequences in the movie needed music and then coordinated all the arrangements with the composer and soundtrack contributors. Only a few weeks were granted to Eric to compose the score, since a "locked" edit of the movie was completed only a month before the release date. Working with a locked cut ensures that the music would fit the scenes perfectly. In fact, most of the soundtrack was composed in less than a week! This is even more impressive since a normal composer's pace is around 2 minutes of music a day. After the music was written, it had to be prepared by arranger Susie Bench into sheet music for the score musicians. Because of the accelerated time schedule, Susie's work was invaluable. The musicians, who were almost entirely made up of Caltech students and post-docs, recorded their tracks in Eric's studio. The saxophones, cello, violins, violas, accordion, flute, bassoon, contrabassoon, clarinets, bass clarinet, trombone and tuba were all recorded separately and integrated on a workstation. Fun facts • The recording closet used for recording barely fit two musicians at the same time, especially when they needed room to move like violins. • Several characters from the movie have an instrument and/or theme that characterizes him or her. Mike gets a saxophone, the NGS has the clarinet, Cecilia has the violin and accordion, Tajel has a more serious viola sound, and Cecilia's wily slacker nemesis, the "Barefoot Undergrad", gets the deep-sounding contrabassoon and bassoon. Credit: Judith Quiñones
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