Schtung Music, with studios in Santa Monica and Hong Kong, has opened a facility in Shanghai. The launch makes Schtung what’s believed to be the first foreign commercial music production house to qualify for branch office status in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Morton Wilson, CEO of Schtung’s Asian operations, noted that the Shanghai community is "already very familiar with our work" via the firm’s longstanding Hong Kong presence. The Shanghai facility offers music, sound design, audio postproduction, and voiceover capabilities in Mandarin and Cantonese.
Andrew Hagen, Wilson’s partner and CEO of Schtung’s Santa Monica shop, said the rapid growth of spot production throughout China prompted the expansion into Shanghai. "Contemporary technology is really the key to the expansion," related Hagen. "For some years now, first with ISDN lines and more recently with high-speed Internet, we have been multi-tasking between Los Angeles and our Asian studios. Plus there has always been a great demand for U.S. talent.
"For example," he continued, "tracks that are composed in any of our offices can be uploaded to Los Angeles as sound packets or midi files, along with a Quicktime movie. Upon arrival, the music can be re-recorded with American talent, re-arranged and mixed in sync with the original pictures. The audio files are then dispersed back out to their appropriate Schtung locations."
This, he noted, offers Schtung’s China-based clients—like Budweiser, Procter & Gamble, Motorola and Volkswagen—a wide range of musical and sound talent to tap into.
Wilson cited an example in which all three of Schtung’s operations collaborated: a pair of Nabisco spots produced by FCB, New York. "These jobs involved a South East Asian shoot, posted in Singapore, and a Shanghai shoot, posted in Hong Kong. Bahasa Malay, Cantonese and Mandarin voiceovers were required for client presentations in Shanghai and Beijing. All three Schtung studios contributed to this production, allowing agency producer Wendy Vitolo to sidestep the minefield of sourcing believable ‘local’ voiceover talent and compatible mixing facilities in three different Asian markets."
The Shanghai facility is in the Shanghai Kerry Centre—the building which houses J. Walter Thompson’s office in the PRC.
"The application process for opening a company in the PRC is quite involved—media-related companies being subject to some serious scrutiny," related Hagen, noting that Schtung has been in Hong Kong for 18 years, with a blue-chip client list that includes several Hong Kong government departments. "This probably helped move the process along," he reasoned.
Wilson and Hagen conjectured that the Shanghai presence could help Schtung both stateside and internationally, enabling it to link with emerging talent. "There’s a terrific spirit in Shanghai right now—a lot of Mandarin-speaking expatriates from around Asia in the agencies, directors who commute from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Australia; … and a whole new generation of creative talent, coming out of Shanghai’s colleges and conservatories, who are getting involved in film, music, animation and so on. … It’s nice to be in on the ground floor."
In the U.S., Schtung is known for its work in advertising, film trailers and television.
