The Smoking Gun has the complete budget for the film, “The Village.” After flipping through over 60 pages, I finally found the music budget page. (It actually continues for a few pages past that.) Among the findings: The composer, James Newton Howard, received what I had previously heard to be the standard rate for a film: $1.3 million. I heard it was “standard” for the big guys, but never saw any proof, until I read the budget. Other tidbits: the copying fee was $52,500. The orchestrator got $64,800 — but that includes $20,000 for transcribing the MIDI files. I would have thought the orchestrator would get a much bigger chunk.

Still — it seems that I’m in the wrong line of work. Or, at least the wrong specialty.

AEJ and I headed to Beverly Hills today to buy a treat at the Nike Store: new running shoes that communicate with our iPod Nano. Have you heard about this yet? If you’re a runner, this is genius, and a must-have. Apple and Nike have teamed up to make a little two-part gadget to make running a bit more fun — a welcome purchase, given my recent difficulty getting motivated to run in the current summer heat.

What it is is a little $29 thing that comes in two parts. One part is the transmitter, roughly the size of two Mentos, that goes under the heel padding of your Nike shoe. (Yes, you can use it on non-Nike shoes, but you’d have to either cut a hole in the shoe to hold it, or velcro it, or rig something decidedly non-elegant and therefore inherently non-Apple-like.) The other part — the receiver — plugs into your iPod Nano. That’s it. Now your Nano will measure your running distance, time, calories burned, mile pace. Whenever you dock your iPod, it sends your run stats to Nike, where you can review all of your runs onscreen.

Also on the Nike site, you can set goals for future runs, like “I want to run 30 miles over the course of 4 weeks” or “I want to burn 3200 calories in 6 weeks,” etc. It’s strangely fun. You can even compare your runs to friends’, if they join the site, too. (That goes to any readers out there — if you get this little gadget, let me know, and we’ll link accounts. Think of the fun!)

An added weird bonus — but one that’s extra-cool — is the voice feedback. When you finish your run, a voice tells you how far you ran, for how long, and your mile pace. Why? Because chances are, you have your Nano in an armband where the screen is covered. Supposedly, if you set a workout goal for an individual run (like, “run until 500 calories are burned”), the voice chimes into your headphones with updates as you progress.

The shoes were $100, but they make some at the $85 price point, too. (The line is called “Nike+.”) Seriously — if you already have a Nano (it only works with the Nano — no other iPod models), and you run, you need this.

Now they just need to make a model for bikes.

The new piece is done. The working title is “Turning.”

If you’d like to see the full score and listen to the MIDI realization, here’s the link.

Be kind. It’s MIDI, after all, and slow, emotive music doesn’t lend itself to computerized performances. But wow, the intonation is impressive!