Wieden+Kennedy made some noise on SHOOT’s spring Top 10 Spot Tracks chart–taking slots one, two and three for, respectively: Nike’s “Breath” out of W+K, Shanghai; ESPN’s “The Sound of Speed” from the agency’s New York office; and Lurpak Butter’s “Bread” via W+K, London.
For “Breath,” bicoastal music and sound house Elias Arts was brought into the project a bit later than usual, which in this case proved to be an advantage. Noted hip hop producer Timbaland had done a full instrumental music track for the spot, which shows us a bevy of world-class athletes—including basketball star Kobe Bryant, tennis champion Roger Federer and soccer great Ronaldinho–training on the same indoor athletic field. Through the magic of visual effects, they all appear together even though they were filmed separately.
Elias creative director David Gold recalls that he and his crew got their first look at the job when it was pretty much a polished, finished piece. “The spot had been cut, all the compositing had been done and it was edited to a really great, really hot track [from Timbaland],” says Gold. “The commercial looked and sounded cool but for Nike the original idea–the sounds of professional athletes exerting themselves, breathing as they put themselves through rigorous paces–got a bit lost.”
Gold notes that Elias came in and tackled the project from a sound design approach. The Elias talent included sound designer Dean Hovey and composers Kenny Segal and Nate Morgan. They had the benefit of being able to utilize key elements–Timbaland’s track and some breathing sounds of the actual athletes recorded by the spot’s director, Paul Hunter of HSI. Elias built upon this body of work, weaving in a composition of human breathing rhythms covering a wide range from an athlete’s internal sigh to the breathing sounds and feel of exertion and exhaustion linked to physical activity. The Elias music and sound design contributions then lead the audience to Timbaland’s original track, which is the culmination of the spot.
The commercial also in a sense serves as a lead-in to a version of the commercial on Nike’s website, which plays to the full-length Timbaland track.
“The key ingredient we brought to the project was the human element, the breathing and the creation of rhythms to promote the breathing concept, making sure it was believable in the context of great athletes in training, relates Gold. “Every step along the way–prior to and during our involvement–was valuable in the process, with all these different artists brought in at different times contributing in various ways to the final track.”
Audio post mixer was Jeff Payne of Eleven Studios, Santa Monica.
Sans Music
For “The Sound of Speed,” Crandall Miller of The Whitehouse, New York, who edited and served as sound designer on the spot, says the agency made a creatively inspired decision “to go without music, just to play up the sounds.”
Relying on a series of vignettes and sound design, the spot–promoting ESPN’s broadcast of NASCAR races–depicts children appreciating the sound of speed.
While one little boy uses a clothespin to attach a playing card to the spokes of his bike tire so he can hear the whirr as he pedals along, other kids get amped up playing a video game featuring loud racecars. Older kids zoom about outside in go-carts. Another child sits in the backseat of a car, lulled into a tranquil state by the sound of the car and the passing traffic.
The spot winds up on the infield at a NASCAR race where a boy cruises around on his bike, hopping off and rushing up to the chain link fence that separates the infield from the track just in time to see and hear the cars roar by. A tagline simply reads, “It’s the life.”
W+K art director Stuart Jennings relates that the commercial is designed “to speak to our primal, instinctive attraction to speed in general.”
Adding to the impact is that the fascination with speed is seen through the eyes–and heard through the ears–of children, tapping into their imaginations and our recollection of what we imagined when we were young.
“Our approach was to stick with that simplicity and to try not to build too much through the sound,” relates Miller. “The idea was so pure that we wanted to keep it that way.”
Miller notes that collaboration was key–with the agency team, director Henry Lu of Moxie Pictures, and with his assistants on the job at The Whitehouse, Kim O’Donnell and David Cea. “Kim and David just kind of jumped in, coming up with sounds that would do justice to the concept. By random chance, Kim was working on a short film that literally had a bicycle in it, with a Topps baseball card in the spoke. She was able to pull from that source as did David and myself from others. Everybody was pulling out different layers.”
For the most part, relates Miller, “The sounds were pretty natural–going on the Web to find a kid operating a remote controlled car and so on. Plus there were scenes for which we would blend two or three tracks together. Even with the roar of the NASCAR race–which you see fills the boy watching with awe–was a mix of the actual sounds of a race, with some Astin Martin engine sounds mixed in to add to the rumble.”
Editing the spot proved advantageous in the sound design, observes Miller. “I did the first cut silent, conjuring up sound effects in my mind, which helped as we tried to define and then find the realistic sounds we needed. Henry Lu was also great in terms of feedback, keeping us thinking of what sounds were and how we heard them when we were kids. His input had us fine tuning and rethinking from a child’s perspective.”
Audio post mixer was Tom Goldblatt of audioEngine, New York. (click here to see Top 10 spring 2007 chart and watch videos)
“Bread”
For its client Lurpak Butter, W+K, London, decided to pay homage to bread–not the green stuff, but the stuff of life, the loaf as comfort food. Titled “Bread,” the spot opens with an explosion of flour and dramatic coverage of each stage of production–mixing, rising, kneading and baking. A baker’s hands are seen shaping and nurturing the loaf. The voiceover is a tribute to the power of fresh-baked bread. “The smell alone can sell a house,” says the male narrator.
The bottom line: Bread deserves respect. And the best way to show respect is to spread Lurpak over a slice.
The spot positions Lurpak as a champion of good food. “Bread” is one of three spots in a campaign, the other two honoring the mushroom and potato. The commercials were directed by Partizan’s Antoine Bardou Jacquet.
All the foods are given an edge through abstract sound design and audio post mixing from Parv Thind of Wave Recording Studios, London.
“An abstract sound design is the perfect match to these stunning and unusual visuals [depicting and reflecting the spirit of food,] observes Thind who decided to use what he describes as “an earthy theme when selecting appropriate sound effects. In ‘Bread,’ for instance, the explosion of flour is symbolized by the sound of crashing waves, and the kneading process was conveyed by moving rocks. The voiceover is very powerful and distinct so I used it as a rhythm, constructing sounds around the pace of his words.”
(click here to see Top 10 spring 2007 chart and watch videos)
