The music in the film was first conceived in a little park in J-Town San Francisco, on a nice afternoon in Jan. 2006 while Shanks (Amir) and Art waited for my break  ups into a million pieces to play during the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.  While whale was officially in production, the duo, also known as Shanks and the Dreamers were conjuring up the process of recording. 

It was decided a week prior to going to San Francisco to test an approach that involved recording on location, with small setups in public places.  The visual environment would inspire the ideas.  So, during that faithful day at the park, the first recordings, were, for lack of a better word, recorded.  The setups were very simple.  There was also several little children fascinated with our gadgets in a public park.

The process continued, changing ever so slightly for a couple years afterwards, till, all that was needed as recorded. 

But, when the film went from the cutting room floor, to the sound design portion, several music holes still existed.  With no were to turn, and total exhaustion from Shanks and the Dreamers, Amir desperately looked but didn't find the answers, till one random car cleanup.  It was in this unremarkable cleaning that under some books and folders, that Amir came upon a CD with only a few random markings.  These markings seemed familiar, and at that moment he remembered that his former production designer for such films as knock. knock. and Plain Us had given him a CD of his musical inventions.  Turns out that Tom O'Connell had foreseen this event long before, and had provided the necessary music to finish whale. 

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This brief bio of Celestial Ceilings might in fact explain the whole story:

Celestial Ceiling is the byproduct of musician Tom O'Connell who plays the harp, guitar, piano, synth, percussion, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, charrango, and winds.  All sounds are improvised, and are sometimes channeled.  While Celestial Ceiling has never played for a public audience in this dimension, he has played the harp for higher dimensional extra terrestrial beings of light from Venus, Saturn's moon Titan, and the Pleiades star system.  Celestial Ceiling's new record is on the way. 

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Shanks and the Dreamers is Amir Motlagh and Art Toussi.  They have recorded two albums, 2007's A Day Late: Instrumentals for Illegal Aliens, and 2008's full length, My Darling Dia. Both albums are available to purchase through various outlets.  The duo has also provided music for several movies, and will continue to make music as another means of communication.

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For further information on these artist please check the links page.