MUSIC COMPOSITION
C. E. Simon was awakened to music as a form of storytelling when listening to records of The Magnificent Seven, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Slaughter on 10th Avenue at a very young age.
He began composing and arranging music for community theatres, professional theatres, documentaries, and short films while in California.
After moving to New York in 2005, he created Pipe Dream Theatre with his partner, Liz Muller, and they produced several original one-act and full-length musicals. They now concentrate primarily on podcasts of original musicals and plays with immersive 3D sound. Simon writes the book, music, and creates the sound design for all these projects. He also collaborated with Halfworld on Dark Obscurities, another immersive 3D sound experience, to which he also composed the score.
Simon has written music for multiple films, including the critically acclaimed Rage, nationally aired commercials for Kellogg's and others, and original music and arrangements for cruise lines and theme parks.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
& PHOTOGRAPHY
Graphic design is a hobby of Simon's that just happened to slide into some professional gigs. This includes animated set background and logo design for Prohibition the musical (currently playing on Norwegian Cruise Lines), and logo concept design and animated backgrounds Speakeasy playing in Times Square.
Writing music and scripts are both very time-consuming. For example, 1 minute of music can not only take a full day to write but then a full day to orchestrate and program to hear the final result. On the other hand, photos are fairly instant gratification--not counting editing, which is a calming, enjoyable experience to Simon. It's also a very social event, while many of his other creative passions tend to be solitary affairs. In addition to personal art photo shoots and headshots, he is also responsible for the bulk of the marketing photos for Prohibition and Speakeasy.
WRITING
Simon was the bane of his elementary school teacher's existence. They would give out simple prompts for short, one-page stories; Simon would cover the front of the paper, the back, and then ask for more pages to continue his story.
Over the years, he has completed many screenplays, some of which were made into short films, such as the Date (Finalist - Los Angeles Cinefest, 2019), Dick (Winner/Best Drama - Couch Film Festival, Fall 2020), and Forge (Winner/Best Drama - Couch Film Festival, Spring 2021).
FILM
Like many filmmakers, Simon was inspired initially by Steven Spielberg--amazed by the laughter, terror, and tears produced by E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial alone.
He began making movies in his backyard with often a limited cast of two, employing the swish pan to give the illusion of a larger cast (all of whom looked very much the same).
He now makes movies on a shoestring budget with his partner, Kim Casey, at Pray for Rain, where they have created multi-award-winning films (Date, Dick, Forge, Shelf Life).
He is currently finishing a short film commissioned by the Bronxville Women's Club for their 95th Anniversary Gala and part two in the Forge series.
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