Josh is a writer and a scholar currently studying PhD in English Literature at University of Southern California. We have been friends for quite a long time and even got to work together on my personal project, Tales of the Forgotten. (You can Google it, essentially he wrote the novel which I wrote a soundtrack for)

Josh and I have been having very meaningful conversations around our mental health and our difficulties navigating the modern life. So I thought, why not record one of these and share it with others?

This is rather a vulnerable yet personal and intimate conversation that I will remember for a long time and I hope you will too.

Follow Josh: https://www.instagram.com/joshbeckelhimer/

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Today’s guest is a trumpet player, composer, a college professor and another one of my long time friends, Michael Dudley.

He’s performed and collaborated with some of the biggest names in Jazz such as Maria Schneider, John Daversa, Brian Lynch, and Donny McCaslin to name a few. He’s also currently an assistant professor of Jazz Studies at Crane School of Music in New York.

We get to talk about his struggles during our time in college together, his complicated relationship with trumpet and composition, and lastly answering the big question whether it’s still worth it to go to college for music.

Lastly, we touched on something Michael said to me a long time ago that has stuck with me since. He said something along the line of :

"I feel like I'm obviously not white from the color of my skin, but black people don't see me as being black enough either. So I sort of belong nowhere"

This really resonates with the concept of our podcast, being between the gap so to speak. I feel like I finally understand what that really means and I get to learn more about how Michael has come to terms with this in his young adult life.

Follow Michael:
https://www.michaelrdudley.site
https://www.instagram.com/mr_dudley.mp3

Support the show

Our Website: https://billhemstapat.com/between-the-gap-podcast
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/btgp.podcast/
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Contrary to our normal format, I got to sit down with Chad Cannon in his backyard and talk about a topic we are both really passionate about - diversity in music.

Having been a part of a multi-cultural projects ourselves such as Ghost of Tsushima, Mulan (Live Action), Thai Cave Rescue - we're untangling our thoughts on the state of "Hollywood Music" today. Further more in the episode, we get to explore a little bit of Chad's background and his religious roots, the reason why he's not currently active in the LDS church, and his ancestral connection with New Orleans that connects to his current project.

There were a lot of great discussion points for me and I hope that this sparks some conversation for you to   continue exploring culture, history and diversity even further.

Follow Chad:
https://www.chadcannonmusic.com/
https://www.instagram.com/chadwickcannon/

Chad's Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6uWCfedtEI8DXT7DVwCxj2?si=3S7NO1ptQa27SP_-c-WsMg

Support the show

Our Website: https://billhemstapat.com/between-the-gap-podcast
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/btgp.podcast/
Buzzsprout: https://betweenthegap.buzzsprout.com/

Our guest today is a storyboard artist: Patradol "Dodo" Kitcharoen. Dodo is one of the first Thai people I met when I moved to LA. We quickly became friends and collaborators during our time at USC. 

We get to learn about his upbringing of diverse cartoons, his relationships with drawings, and how it got him to fly across the pond to American. We then dove into his experience as a trainee at Cartoon Network and also going wayyyy back to when he was still working at an animation studio in Thailand called The Monk.

Dodo has just finished working on the Apple TV+ animated series Wolfboy and the Everything Factory. You could tell that this is a special show for him. And from this conversation, we get to see how the dotted lines are clearly connected to his child-self drawing comics for friends in class.

Follow Dodo:
https://www.patradodo.com/
https://www.instagram.com/dodododrawing/

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Our Website: https://billhemstapat.com/between-the-gap-podcast
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/btgp.podcast/
Buzzsprout: https://betweenthegap.buzzsprout.com/

Max is a composer whose music can be heard on hit TV shows like The Witcher, Shadow and Bone, and America the Beautiful. Max and I moved to Los Angeles just about one year apart. We remain very close friends and endlessly support one another ever since we met.

While being a crucial member of Joseph Trapanese's music team, Max also seek opportunities outside of his full-time job to score his first ever feature length film, The Gates. He expressed his rewarding collaboration with his colleagues, which brought us to the topic of crediting in our industry and how he's making a small, but meaning change from the industry norm.

Every time Max and I see each other we always seem to end up talking about philosophical things that inspire/change the way we write music.  In this episode, we get to talk about his change in philosophy and how narrowing down his focus gives him a chance to truly develop something.

I had a lot of fun listening to how he's grown. I myself also get to reflect on the changes in philosophy I've personally gone through over the years and I hope you get to do the same.

Follow Max:
https://www.maxdavidoffgrey.com/
https://www.instagram.com/maxdgrey/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4QmLB4qMUKHeobmZwF2Uq7?si=rJrHjzElQvO6I-jRedtghw

Support the show

Our Website: https://billhemstapat.com/between-the-gap-podcast
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/btgp.podcast/
Buzzsprout: https://betweenthegap.buzzsprout.com/

In this episode, I have a pleasure of welcoming Koon W. Ya-inta, SOC, ACO, to our podcast. You may have seen his work as a steadicam operator on HBO The Flight Attendant, Netflix Kate, A24 The Last Black Man in San Francisco, and the upcoming Apple TV+ series Shantaram. But what you don't know is that 12 years ago he was a drummer in a mildly successful progressive rock band called Lucid Dream Syndrome, my band!

I've known Koon for over 16 years now and he remains one of my best friends to date. We get to talk about his life that’s filled with trial and error - from being a music student to a college dropout, coming to America and switching gears to become a steadicam operator, and then most recently shifting his focus again to manufacturing his own camera accessories while getting a master degree in engineering.

This is truly a special conversation that I get to have in an intimate environment at his own home in Bangkok. It’s a very raw and casual conversation in tone, but also a very reflective and meaningful one that’s very thought provoking to me. Suffice to say that we went DEEP into how he gets to where he is today.

I thought I knew him very well, but while recording this, I think I get know him just a little bit more...

Follow Koon:
https://www.kineticw.com/
https://www.instagram.com/koon_cine/
https://www.facebook.com/SteadiKoon/

Support the show

Our Website: https://billhemstapat.com/between-the-gap-podcast
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/btgp.podcast/
Buzzsprout: https://betweenthegap.buzzsprout.com/

Welcome to the first episode of Between the Gap, a new podcast where we have conversations with creatives about how they're bridging the gap from where they are in life and where they want to be. In this week's episode, I'd like to welcome composer and a great friend, Peter Lam.

Peter has done it all, from blockbuster television like Star Wars Clone Wars and DC's Peacemaker to  comedy hits like Jane the Virgin and Baywatch. But that's not really what I'm interested in.

Today we sat down to have a very intimate conversation about how (the old) Hong Kong influenced his interest for sentimentality in music,  a multi-national background that made him who he is today, his curiosity in new things and environments - all the way down to how he carries himself with a sponge mentality that encourages fun in exploration rather than money or fame.

Follow Peter Lam:
https://www.peterlammusic.com/
https://www.instagram.com/peterpeterlam/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/74jzQu1fvIQpp9MJfwITOd

Support the show

Our Website: https://billhemstapat.com/between-the-gap-podcast
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/btgp.podcast/
Buzzsprout: https://betweenthegap.buzzsprout.com/