All about Otis Regrets : Tosso Hettinger

Brooklyn based composer, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist TOSSO HETTINGER was born in Augsburg, Germany. Since the mid-nineties he has been performing, writing and recording music with some of NYC's best jazz, funk and underground musicians.
Hettinger performs regularly with the Cuban band Grupo Irék and the singer and percussionist from his band are also featured on the soundtrack for Otis N' Dwayne. He formed Otis Regrets when he began recording the music for Otis N' Dwayne with his wife, Anne Bernstein.
Otis Regrets: Music for Otis N' Dwayne is Hettinger's second film project- he recorded several songs on the upcoming feature Mango Tango. Below is footage from a recent performance with his band, Grupo Irék.

songs for the captain

The Captain sure is a special guy. He is quite manly, has a great moustache and his friends love him a lot. So I thought, let's dig up some songs for him. Perhaps these weren't all written for The Captain specifically...



This Styx classic is surely one of your favorite sing alongs. Plus, it offers a great opportunity to show off your air drum skills. The energy level rises, the tension mounts... "come sail away, come sail away, come sale away with me..."



Of course, we have to include The Captain and Tennille in this collection. "Do that to me one more time..." 'nuff said.



Before you head off into the sunset, let me share one more thing. In case you haven't seen it yet, here is a video by yours truly of "Love Song for Captain" which was written for and inspired by The Captain.

The film that wouldn't die

Otis N' Dwayne is a feature film twelve years in the making I pretty much gave up on finishing it a couple years ago. It was languishing on the bottom of the ocean and haunting me in the back of my mind.

Most of the filming was done and I couldn't make sense of the edit. Ironic since I edit film for a living. As a last ditch effort I put a listing on craigslist offering a $1000 to help me finish the edit.

I got a ton of responses mostly from totally unqualified individuals and then this one....

Hey there,

My name is Kelsey Hoover. I'm a working editor, or editress, as I prefer to be called... I watched your trailer and think you are a madman, and possibly a genius. I'd love to work on the film.

I have my own Final Cut at home, which suits me because I always work naked. I hope that's okay with you, and that you're comfortable with working around a nude editress. Can't say how long I've been a nuditress, really, just that ever since I quit working at Trailer Park and got my own setup at home, I haven't been able to bring myself to put on any clothes. I mean, why bother if it's hot, and you're working alone at home, right? Now I'm at the point where I only work with directors and clients who are comfortable with coming to my house and having me be nude while I work.

You strike me as someone who'd understand. So you should give me a call. 310-592-26xx. If my assistant Ben answers, just tell him who you are and leave a message. And be sure to tell him whether or not you'd be comfortable with nudity. That will determine whether or not I return your call. Sorry, but we do get a few pervs.

I can't wait to hear from you! How exciting!

Kelsey

... Sent by my co-worker Danny as a practical joke.

June 2008 I'm in New York celebrating my birthday with my wife when Curtis (my BFF and screenwriter of Otis N' Dwayne) takes me to a BBQ at his musician friends Anne and Tosso's where we drink beer and they introduce me to something called the "Volcano" - Tosso and I get to talking and turns out he's seen a rough cut of the movie and liked what he saw. I said...

"Hey why don't you do the soundtrack blah blah blah..."

And the rain was pouring down in buckets - it was my first time in Brooklyn, Anne and Tosso have a lovely garden and make a nice BBQ. Part of the building was beginning to flood. I hitched a ride back to the city with two guys named Brad and that was that...

Four months later and I'm back in LA actually found someone on craigslist to help me edit the film. Jose Manuel Jimenez from Madrid, a Spanish feature editor (here's his IMDB page), who truly responded to the trailer, the screenplay and the rough cut and offered to do it for free! What the hell, why not?

My cell rings and it's Anne and Tosso they have some songs for the film. Amazing. The songs are great. I can't believe it - I'd totally forgotten about our conversation that rainy day in June.

Jose's cut is great. He trimmed twenty to thirty minutes of fat from the film, restructured some scenes and broke it up into chapters. Suddenly it's playing and flowing with an energy and coherence that it never had before and WE HAVE ORIGINAL MUSIC.

I can't believe it. We finished the movie. Have screened it to private audiences on the big screen twice now and began applying to film festivals.

Otis N' Dwayne will not die.

I thank my lucky stars for Anne, Tosso, Jose and Curtis. From Brooklyn, to Madrid, to LA we made it happen with email, external hard drives, and file sharing on the internet. I don't even think there was the internet when we began this project. I've never even met or spoken to Jose in person. The miracle of modern technology. The miracle of Otis N' Dwayne...

Sincerely,

Haunted No More

b*tches and hohos, that's what's up

The soundtrack I created with Tosso and the help of a few friends, which I will hopefully be able to repay some day, is a mix of funk, salsa, pop, rock, jazz, house... and rap. The rap is hilarious and definitely worth checking out. Let's just say that yours truly didn't have faith in Tosso's rapping ability. Boy did he show me. And yes, that is me cooing in the background.

as one journey ends, another begins

For me, the journey began something like twelve years ago. My friend Curtis Brown was visiting me in Brooklyn and he brought along a copy this movie he was working on... This was back in the days of VHS. A group of about ten or so friends gathered at my D.U.M.B.O loft (my rent at the time was $325.00 a month) to watch Otis N' Dwayne. I, for one, was certainly not prepared for the hours that followed. The movie was mashed together with "scene missing" flashing on the screen every few minutes. I had never watched a film-work in progress before and thought that this was all part of the crazy style of the movie. Anyway, it was more like a collage - a series of images and ideas held together with crazy glue. I really did not understand anything as I watched it. But I didn't care. It was visually arresting and I knew that I wanted to know more and would watch it again some day hopefully.
Fast forward some eleven or so years... Otis N' Dwayne director/producer /co-screenwriter Dylan O'Neil is visiting NYC and drops by a BBQ I am hosting in my back yard with his childhood friend and my old friend Curtis. I start telling everyone about how the two of them made this amazing movie... Naturally, I asked when they planned on finishing the film - seeing as it had been in production for over a decade already. Dylan asked my musician husband Tosso if he wanted to do the soundtrack for the movie and the collaboration was born. Soon after, I started writing songs with Tosso, recording vocals and cheesy keyboards... Over the past year, we created an entire soundtrack of original songs (except for one cover) and scored the movie as well. I never expected to be doing any of this.
We are putting the finishing touches on our baby right now, cleaning up the sound, pumping steroids into it. Soon, we will begin applying to film festivals and raising the funds we need to help finish what Dylan and Curtis started so many years ago.
Welcome to the Otis N' Dwayne blog. We hope you enjoy the ride.