The spring top 10 music and sound design chart is topped by a trio of tracks that runs the gamut from monk-like chants to drumline precision to a slightly offbeat filmic treatment of a fantasy/reality mix.
While they are diverse, the spots share a common bond–all three are for automotive clients who took an atypical creative road to convey their messages to prospective consumers.
Our number one entry is indeed a Fast track, literally, which helps to define the inner speed demon character named Fast for the Volkswagen GTI. Next excitement is literally drummed up for the Cadillac’s newly designed DTS. And the Dodge Caliber is put through its paces, impervious to the attempted intervention of a flute-accented pixie.
Here’s our top three tracks rundown:
NUMBER ONE
Let your “Hair” down–as well as your girlfriend–and you are answering the call of your inner Fast in this :30 for the VW GTI out of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami (CP+B). The Fast is a short, squat, slightly sinister looking character with a black body and a red mouth. Ultimately Fast comes to inhabit all of those who drive the GTI, existing not only as a physical icon but also within them.
In this chart topping spot, titled “Hair” (directed by Rocky Morton of bicoastal/international MJZ), a guy is behind the wheel of a GTI with the windows rolled down. His gal pal is sitting in the front passenger seat. While the young man is enjoying the drive, the girl looks uncomfortable as her hair whips about her face. Finally she asks her boyfriend if he can roll the windows up a bit. He tells her no as politely as possible (he wants the windows down so he can hear the roar of the car’s engine) while his inner Fast rages. “Sometimes,” an ominous voice from within the guy (and unheard by the girl) says, “my Fast doesn’t get along with my girlfriend.”
The ad concludes by urging drivers to make friends with their Fast.
The hybrid music/sound design for the entire Fast campaign (a total of four commercials, including “Hair”) was completed at Beacon Street Studios, Venice, Calif., with John Nau and Andrew Feltenstein serving as composers, and Brian Chapman as sound designer. Audio post mixer credits go to Philip Loeb, Rob Difondi, Rob Sayers, Glenn Landrum and Keith Reynaud of Sound Lounge, New York.
A prime element of the sound design track was the hypnotic Fast theme. “You’ll hear the monkish type chants when Fast appears. That was John Nau, my partner, and I sighing again and again and again to make it feel as if a group of monks is meditating,” explains Feltenstein.
The Beacon Street ensemble is accustomed to working with CP+B; their collaborations began about three years ago. “All we got from the [agency] guys to start was a picture of this Fast character. There was no script for us to see at the time. It was just described to us as one’s inner Fast or zeal for driving,” relates Feltenstein.
Nau adds, “It was clear that this character needed its own theme, sound and voice. And as it turns out, the very first track we did was the one they went with–although we went on to explore different possibilities, maybe turning out twenty [tracks].
“The first one was real, tribal and organic,” continues Nau. “It worked because our track made the inner Fast human, tangible–there was a humanity to this internal voice.”
Feltenstein and Nau’s chanting lasted about three minutes. “You double yourself and hold it [your chanting] as long as you can, at which point it starts to modulate, even changing key. If it sounded perfect, it wouldn’t’ work. Not being perfect is pretty. And people respond to this, which I think helps them relate to the Fast character.”
Subsequent Beacon Street attempts were a bit too polished with tribal drums and electric sounds, according to Feltenstein. These executions only served to lead them and the agency back to the first approach. Also figuring in the mix were some more conventional sounds, like the VW engine.
Integral to the successful Fast track, notes Feltenstein, is the trust afforded to the music company artisans by CP+B creatives. “They let us do our thing,” he says. “We’re not just asked to knock this or that out. We can experiment and keep doing it ’til we feel it’s right. After working together over the years, there’s an unspoken language. They’ll say, ‘You know what I mean’–and we do. The freedom extended to us from the whole team there–from Alex [CP+B chief creative officer Bogusky] to Andrew [exec creative director Keller] to Rob [creative director Strasberg], Rupert [executive producer Samuel] and Bill [agency music producer Meadows]–is tremendous and helps us to do our best work.”
NUMBER TWO
Putting a car through its paces is typical vehicular ad fare–but when the hero Cadillac DTS glides fluidly around and through a performing drumline corps, the creative result is atypical, generating excitement and boundless energy for the newly designed automotive model. Conceived by Leo Burnett, Detroit, the spot, “Drumline,” was directed by Paul Hunter of bicoastal HSI Productions.
HUM Music + Sound Design, Santa Monica, sought out and brought composer Jim Casella, a noted drumline artisan, into the project. He worked with HUM creative director Jeff Koz and executive producer Debbi Landon.
“We did a number of renderings from different composers,” recalls Koz. “The job hadn’t even been shot yet. But clearly, Jim’s work was the best. His contributions were so important, with the syncopated rhythms of the renowned Bethune-Cookman College [Daytona, Fla.] drumline intercut with the car–it was a simple and clean idea.”
HUM went to Florida to record the Bethune-Cookman drumline on location. However, heavy rain scrapped that plan, so the performers were recorded indoors, where an impromptu recording studio was set up, with cables running from that room to a remote mobile unit from Eastern Sky Studios, Orlando, Fla., and then back to another accommodation in the music building which served as the control room. Eastern Sky owner/engineer David Brown worked with HUM recording engineer Frank Nadasdy.
The drumline musicians then came out to Los Angeles for the shoot, where they appeared with and surrounded the DTS as it motored through downtown streets. The Bethune-Cookman youngsters performed in sync with their precision music that was recorded in Florida. Audio post mixer was Jimmy Hite of Margarita Mix de Santa Monica.
The drumline world represented a music genre that Koz wasn’t intimately familiar with prior to embarking on the Cadillac job. He found the drumline culture to be fascinating and gratifying–the latter feeling linked to working with real people, the talented college students in the Bethune-Cookman drumline under the direction of Donovan Wells and percussion instructor Pedro Orey. While the youngsters are precision-driven percussionists, they aren’t professional studio musicians accustomed to commercials.
“That’s exactly what made the work special–the kids’ enthusiasm, their sense of soul which provided an energy that helped fuel the excitement for Cadillac in the spot,” observes Koz. “Their playing, dancing, performing and shouting infused the commercial with a tremendous soulfulness.”
NUMBER THREE A wand-wielding Tinkerbell-like fairy flies through a modern day city. A flick of her wand turns an office building into a gingerbread house, and a commuter train into a toy choo-choo.
She then eyes what will presumably be her next wand-induced transformation: a new Dodge Caliber being driven against an urban backdrop. However, the magic pixie dust emanating from her wand just deflects off the shiny Caliber. She then musters one last shot at the Dodge, but the magic wand stream just boomerangs back at her, knocking the magical fairy to the ground. Seeing the pixie lying on the sidewalk, propped against the side of a building, a young tough guy laughs somewhat derisively at the sight–not a good idea. A quick sweep of her wand turns the guy into a preppie. And the macho dog he’s walking becomes four small canine balls of fluff. A voiceover informs us that the Dodge’s just introduced Caliber is “anything but cute.”
Titled “Too Tough,” this Dodge Caliber ad was directed by Brian Beletic of bicoastal Smuggler for BBDO Detroit and New York. The music was composed by Tony Morales and John Adair of Emoto, Santa Monica, with sound design by Francois Blaignan of Nomad Editing Company, also in Santa Monica.
Adair recollects the first conversation about the commercial with the agency creative team and director Beletic. “We were kicking things around stylistically,” said Adair, “and it all centered on the marriage of two worlds–the ethereal, magical Tinkerbell world and the aggression and toughness of the car. The trick, though, was to make it all of one piece so that the spot didn’t take a hard right turn when the Dodge appeared. It was also agreed that the story should play like a movie–we wanted that atmosphere, that vibe, that sense of scope.”
In the initial demo phase, Emoto opted for a heavy guitar to score the Caliber–it was too hard a detour from the magical world, “a little too “ad-dy,” assesses Adair.
So instead Emoto opted to play up the power of the magical world so that the shift to the Caliber wouldn’t be all that abrupt–but clearly there was a power spike when the automobile appears, accentuated by a live, slightly out-of-control drum performance and some guttural brass. “This made it all seem more like one piece–meshing the ambience and mystery of the magical world with the power of the car chase–The other consideration was a last element the director was interested in–providing a specific voice for the fairy character even though there was no dialogue. We had to be careful to come up with something for the fairy that wouldn’t play like a cartoon. Ultimately we went with a flute solo, bringing in the co-principal flutist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.”
Powerful percussive elements, a Marimba riff and an unusual rhythmic treatment were deployed so that the magical aura of the fairy didn’t play like the typical magical theme we’re all accustomed to in the movies. This, says Adair, helped to support the big gestures whereby the pixie transforms the building and the train. “So it’s a filmic quality without being conventional film scoring of a magical world,” he relates.
Contributing to that ideal filmic approach was Blaignan’s sound design, continues Adair. “He provided the size, presence and scope in his sound design without it feeling gimmicky or tricky, which is the trap you could fall into in this kind of job.”
Adair also credited BBDO for “always offering a creative challenge.” He cited the “trust” factor as Emoto artisans and BBDO have worked together on assorted occasions. Loren Parkins was executive music producer for BBDO. Audio post mixer was Tom Jucarone of Sound Lounge, New York.
