Musical Chairs
Lee Wall of the indie rock band Luna has joined blast!music, a Los Angeles-based shop representing composers, songwriters and arrangers. Wall has composed spot music for such clients as MasterCard, ESPN, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, and the acclaimed Sega “Beta 7” campaign–
Groove Addicts, West Los Angeles, has broadened the scope of its production music division with the addition of two libraries for distribution–one from Audio Network, the other that of the new contemporary label Liftmusic. Audio Network is a joint venture between Soundstorm, an Oscar-winning U.K. sound design house, and 100 leading British film and TV composers. The Audio Network collection has already proven its stateside appeal by inclusion in the SpongeBob Squarepants Movie.
Liftmusic, represented in the U.K. by Boost Music, consists of the work of 30-plus writers. Liftmusic includes offerings from the U.K. band Ox Blood, which has been likened by London’s Sunday Telegraph to rock icons Cold Play and Radiohead. Led by artists Jim Oxborrow and John Etkin-Bell, Ox Blood is an acoustic-based band.
Additionally, plans call for Groove Addicts to this spring launch a high-end composer scoring series designed for the trailer, film and TV markets, and exclusively available to specific campaigns. Entitled Full Tilt, these tracks will be released in 5.1 Surround, corresponding to a growing demand for HD-compatible formats–.
Wojahn Bros. Music, Santa Monica, teamed with Brooklyn-based JibJab Media on three animated trailers screened before every movie at the recently concluded Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. JibJab is the online animation studio best known for the 2004 election parodies This Land and Good to Be In D.C., which became part of pop culture after generating some 80 million hits on the Internet. The trio of Sundance trailers reflects the fest’s spirit of independence. Titled “Demolition,” “Line Painter” and “Catcher,” the trailers feature absurd characters tossing off the shackles of “The Man” and striking out on their own.
Each trailer is 30 to 40 seconds and features separate scores provided by the Wojahn Bros. “Demolition” has a “blaxploitation”-style ’70s funk track while “Line Painter” grooves to psychedelic-flavored pop and “Dog Catcher” moves to an alternative/folk jam. Common to each track is an independence-themed lyric.
The animated trailers aren’t the first time that Jibjab and Wojahn Bros. have worked together. Late last year, the Wojahn brothers, Roger and Scott, recorded the orchestral track for the Jib Jab’s animated holiday cartoon, Santa Claus, which premiered on Yahoo! Entertainment. The collaborations have teamed a pair of brothers–Roger and Scott Wojahn, and JibJab’s co-founders Gregg and Evan Spiridellis.
According to Roger Wojahn, the Sundance project took nearly two months to finish. JibJab showed the Wojahns the storyboards in November. The animation started out as rough pieces and was filled out as the music and sound design were developed. Vocals were added when the animations were complete. The trailers can now be seen online at JibJab.com.
