Awesome Interviews – Nicole Russin-McFarland

Nicole Russin-McFarland is a multi-talented artist who has spent some time recently filming part of her latest project in Canada. Nicole was nice enough to take some time out to sit down with Awesome Canada. What did she have to say? Read the complete interview below.

AC – Hello, thanks for taking the time to chat with me. Take a second to introduce yourself.

Nicole – I am from Illinois in the USA and by occupation, a film director so far having only done animation, a classical music composer, model since I was 21, foodie/chef of sorts, University of Texas at Austin graduate, and founder of my business, Lucky Pineapple Books + Films. My film score for my movie, The Eyes of Old Texas, is currently on iTunes.

AC – Who were your musical influences growing up?

Nicole – I always pick up a film score or classical music along with hip hop. I love both because they’re so similar in concept and technique. I also love people who do film soundtracks and Top 40 music, like Pharrell Williams. I don’t have any one particular person in general I look up to because really, there’s never been anyone like me. A girl classical music film score composer who always wants to have that mainstream impact and reach out to people who would otherwise not like it. I want people to be inspired by film scores and music I put out throughout my life. Whether I eventually do other mainstream work such as producing actual hip hop, that would be so much fun. But my primary thing is going to be classical music in cinemas. And I will in life make it relatable to the majority of people who think all classical music is this boring stuff you hear in period dramas.

AC – What makes your music unique and different from everything else that’s out there?

Nicole – I really try to make different things happen at once and always work with a dominant theme. You’ll see with many film scores, there is one main and somewhat boring sound you can’t really call a theme at the center of the sound but we can call a weak “theme” if you really use the term loosely. Around that horrible mess of a theme, we, if we’re lucky, have the other instruments doing minor stuff. My work is different! If you look at really strong composers, whether Beethoven or John Williams, what these men do is have multiple “moving parts” at the same time working on different sounds as the really thought out theme carries the tune. You can have brass carrying the theme, and the strings and woodwinds are each doing something different. I try to do this. I don’t want to bore people. Any type of music can be boring. Lots of bad songs you hear on the radio are boring because they have what I call only one “moving part” and the backgrounds act the same as the main part! If you’re serious about composing, you ensure that you have an entire party going on with all kinds of stuff at once – and this is why composing is difficult. Why you make a lot of mistakes in getting the final thing right.

AC – How has Canada influenced you and your sound?

Nicole – Much of our movie takes place in Canada’s major cities. We’ve filmed in North America, South America, Asia, and Australia. Currently, we are filming in Brazil! Yes, it’s an animated movie, but we include lots of real backgrounds for the story’s theme that not everything that looks real actually is real and vice versa. We want kids to see real things mixed with the cartoon. I was aware of this when we composed the music that we had to make it blend into various locales, and that includes lots and lots of Canada!

AC – Do you have anything coming up we can look forward to?

Nicole – We are this year going to wrap up the production on our movie, The Eyes of Old Texas. With my company, we are releasing more works by other authors and promoting the authors whose work is currently out. And, if I get a free moment, I’ll play with some popular music and do my orchestral spin on it and post that on YouTube. I hope I can squeeze that in.

AC – How can our readers get in touch with you?

Nicole – I update my website, officialnicole.com, all the time. I love social media. I’m on Twitter @nrmcfarland, Facebook @russinmcfarland, and Instagram @nicolermcfarland. I post a lot on there about food and jokes and randomness not at all related to work as well. I do it all. I entertain you. Or at least try.

AC – Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?

Nicole – I one day want to start making women’s products, though my first goal once I have more movies out as a film director and more of a familiar personal brand to people is…a makeup line. One made entirely of non-gross ingredients! I’m so obsessed with learning about the recipes for makeup, naturally as I love food recipes. Once you learn what’s in that stuff, you don’t want to use it! My makeup line will be totally safe and hopefully, make fashionable women more conscious overall of what they are wearing and using head to toe. I don’t care much if you want to eat a hamburger, though once you know what’s in your makeup, it’s all these gross animal products. Vegetarian or vegan makeup does not have to mean, “Ew! That’s so weird and hippie!” I want a vegan makeup line devoted to keeping stuff out like turtle penises, cockroaches, sheep sweat glands smashed up to force the sweat out, beetles in general, poultry parts, and so on. I heard for years about all sorts of roaches and more from Asian people who are actually from Asia and have known people at home or met them working for the factories, but it seems it’s not getting out into the press so much until lately, and very little at that. Cockroaches have so much disease, why do you want to put old, smushed, dead roaches on your eyelids and inside your eye as eyeliner? Why do you want lead in your lipstick? Why do you want dead cats and dogs sent out from various places melted down so you can pay $50+ for dead dog fat in your makeup? This so sick and bizarre. The stuff in makeup is not what’s on your dinner table. And the very reason a lot of companies work overseas is not so much the labor force laws, though that’s part of it, but dealing with getting away with much more than they would here. And many female consumers don’t care nor want to care. They think chicken feathers and so on work wonders for them. I want to make a luxury makeup line that’s sold in fine stores and actually good and shockingly, vegan. Everyone, whether they eat meat or not, should use vegan stuff on their faces and as skincare.