The pace we were working at was really unbelievable," says audio mixer Philip Loeb of Sound Lounge, New York. He’s talking about working on "Touchdown Dance School," directed by Joe Public—a.k.a. the team of Adam Cameron and Simon Cole—of bicoastal Headquarters via BBDO New York, which was one of three Cingular Wireless spots that aired during the 2001 Super Bowl broadcast. Loeb also scored "Dan," directed by James Gartner of bicoastal Gartner, and "Dancing Josh," helmed by Sam Bayer of bicoastal Mars Media.
"We mixed that the Friday before the Super Bowl," Loeb relates. "The night before we had been mixing until three or four in the morning. It was my first experience being in that mad rush with the Super Bowl."
It must have been quite a scene: two editorial companies—the bicoastal shops Crew Cuts and Lost Planet—BBDO and Cingular were all involved in the spots’ audio sessions.
"Touchdown Dance School" shows an elderly, energetic ballet instructor leading a class of football players. The humorous ad features the teacher trying to get the big athletes to gracefully express themselves by imitating peacocks, camels and trees. The results are hilarious. At ad’s end, a voiceover picks up the self-expression theme: "Announcing Cingular, the wireless company that believes in the joy of self-expression."
When asked what it was like to mix the commercial, Loeb replies, "It sort of took care of itself. We just had to make things sound good and make it audible so that you could really understand what was happening. What I took away from the mix was being able to manage my side of this very fast-paced situation."
At first, Loeb wasn’t aware that the spot was headed for the Super Bowl. "I didn’t really know until I was kind of into it. I had no idea," he says.
In addition to the Cingular ad, Loeb also mixed three Verizon spots directed by Jim Sonzero of bicoastal Venus Entertainment that aired during the Super Bowl broadcast.
Collaborative Spirit
Lipton Brisk’s "Jailhouse Rock," helmed by Ken Lidster of Loose Moose, London, through J. Walter Thompson, New York, is another striking commercial to which Loeb lent his sharp ear. The ad received a citation of excellence from the Addy Awards and won a certificate of merit from the Art Directors Club of New York, last year.
The stop-motion spot, which features animated puppets, riffs on the 1957 feature Jailhouse Rock, a musical starring Elvis Presley. The spot opens with Elvis sulking in his jail cell. Fellow inmate James Brown offers the dejected rock ‘n’ roller a can of Lipton Brisk Iced Tea. Elvis takes a sip of the drink, perks up and starts belting out "Jailhouse Rock." Soon the whole jail is jumping—James Brown joins Elvis, and so does the rapper Coolio. Even Willie Nelson makes an appearance.
"They came in with this mix and they wanted a lot of sound design done," explains Loeb. "We brought Marshall [Grupp, of Marshall Grupp Sound Design, New York, a partner company of Sound Lounge] in to work on the sound design, and that put me in a much better position. I can’t say enough about how important good sound design is [to a spot’s success]."
"I had enough to work on getting the music right, giving them different versions and making them presentable to both the client and the Elvis Presley estate," continues Loeb. "That was a big music track that was a lot of fun to work with. I could make it really loud, and that’s always fun for mixers."
Some of Loeb’s more recent credits include Intel Pentium IV’s "Light Bulb," directed by David Kellogg of bicoastal Anonymous, out Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG, New York; and Merrill Lynch’s "Chief Executive" via J. Walter Thomson, helmed by Malcolm Venville, also with Anonymous. The latter ad uses the image of the president trying to run the country by himself, thereby holding up his own inauguration, to illustrate the idea that Merrill Lynch will help you handle your financial life, so you can tend to other tasks.
Besides his broadcast work, Loeb also mixes radio ads. He has sound-designed radio commercials for FOX Sports and mixed radio spots for PricewaterhouseCoopers. "When you get into radio, mixing is virtually sound design," explains Loeb. "When you’re putting a specific character in a certain space, that’s in and of itself sound design. The lines [between a sound designer and a mixer] are a little more blurred [in radio]."
Longform
Loeb also mixed Rise, a feature length documentary directed by Julie Drazen. "As a mixer, I can’t be as picky about certain things," comments Loeb about mixing for long- vs. shortform projects. "One second in a feature relative to one second in a thirty-second ad is a huge difference. You let certain things go in films."
Loeb started doing audio work on film productions at the University of Texas, Austin, where he studied film. After graduating in ’96, he worked as a mixer/sound designer on Plastic Utopia, an indie feature directed by David Zellner; Loeb’s payment for the project came in the form of a ProTools audio recording system. He familiarized himself with ProTools and headed to New York.
Upon his arrival in the Big Apple, Loeb interned at Eastside Audio, New York. He moved on to Post Perfect, New York, where he worked with engineer Frances Milano on remastering records from the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s for Drive Records. After a few months he left and joined his current roost, where he’s been for almost three years.
Talking about mixing, Loeb says, "One of the most important things that I’ve learned is being able to manage all of the clients’ requests. When they’re coming into work with me, they have fifteen different ideas about how they want something to sound. What I can bring to the table is allowing them to experience all of these options."
And April Jaffe, executive producer at Marshall Grupp Sound Design, who also works with Sound Lounge, adds, "It’s important for them to be able to hear what they want, but I think they look to Philip being the expert. He presents them with what he thinks is going to work best."
