Wyandotte Native Daniel Galeski Jr. has won several independent film festival awards for movie soundtracks.
By ANDREA POTEET
Sunday Times Newspapers
WYANDOTTE – A Wyandotte native’s independent film score has earned him several high-profile awards, but getting it on the silver screen was a fluke.
Daniel Galeski Jr., who won “Best Soundtrack” at last month’s Blue Water Film Festival for the opening music to his brother Scott’s 2010 independent short film “Protangeline,” said he dusted off the brief guitar piece he recorded 17 years ago when his brother, a Wyandotte police detective, showed him a cut of the film.
He rummaged through random clips of sound recordings he had collected through the years and pressed “play” on one unedited guitar piece he had recorded during his “lost years,” living in Detroit.
“I said, ‘I want to re-record this, there’s a lot I could change,’” Galeski, who now lives in Royal Oak, said. “And he said, ‘No, leave it.’”
With minimal fine-tuning, the piece was chosen for the movie’s opening scenes and went on to win honors at Blue Water and at the Made in Michigan Film Festival.
“It was a meaningful piece,” Galeski said. “It was real. It wasn’t just like, ‘Oh, I’m going to write for this movie.’ It was something emotional from my life that works.”
Galeski said his love of film began as a child, when he and his brother spent hours watching movies.
“We were inspired by how people can move people in film and sound,” he said. “We both related to each of the films.”
From there, the brothers took their inspiration to different mediums – Galeski to music and his brother to writing – and when Galeski lost his job with the city of Dearborn three years ago, he turned to his childhood love as a career.
“Scotty came to me and said, ‘We’re going to make movies like we always wanted to,’” he said.
Though he said he and his brother are like “yin and yang,” their contrasting personalities have led to film success, with packed hometown premieres and film festival wins.
“I’m a live wire, he’s more structured and established,” Galeski said. “The combo works, but it doesn’t come without some friction. We fight, but that’s where the potency comes from.”