While projects other than commercials have made headway in SHOOT’s quarterly Music & Sound Top Ten Tracks Charts over the past couple of years, these varied content forms are becoming increasingly prevalent, perhaps best underscored with the number one entries in our Q1 2010 rundown and prior to that in our Fall ’09 Chart (SHOOT, 10/23/09).
The latter was topped by the California Milk Processor Board’s “Battle for Milkquarious” online rock opera starring spandex-clad rocker White Gold, who brandishes a milk-filled guitar.
Both White Gold and the rock opera were creations of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, with the rock opera composers being Tyler Spencer and Zach Shipps of Detroit-based rock band Electric Six (and lyrics written by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners’ copywriter Andrew Bancroft).
Next our Chart kicking off this new year was headlined by ESPN World Cup’s “Group of Death: The Rockumentary” from Wieden+Kennedy, New York.
This web viral short also finds an agency creating not only inspired work but also the rock stars themselves with W+K assembling four musicians, whose roots are in heavy metal and soccer, to form the band Group of Death. The music for the short, featuring a concert at a soccer pub in N.Y., was composed by W+K copywriter/lyricist Andy Ferguson and the agency team in tandem with band members Steve O’Reilly, Matt Anthony, JT Weber and Matt Montalto.
Fast forward to our current Spring ’10 Top Ten Tracks Chart–and while the number one entry is a broadcast commercial, four of the 10 selected works are outside the traditional TV spot arena.
There’s a Bounty “Rap/Bring It” video from Yessian Music, New York, for Publicis, New York; a short spec film The Sandpit scored by bicoastal Human, and which helped earn Sam O’Hare of Aero Film inclusion in our Up-And-Coming Directors feature story in SHOOT’s recent Spring Directors Series (3/19); a short film, Job Security, which won a leg of the Canon/Vimeo online “The Story Behind The Still” competition, scored by Modern Music, Minneapolis, and directed by Josh Thacker of Runner Runner, Minneapolis; and Absolut Vodka’s short I’m Here, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and then recently made its online premiere, scored primarily by Squeak E. Clean Productions, Los Angeles, and directed by Spike Jonze of bicoastal/international MJZ for TBWAChiatDay, New York.
I’m Here For a taste of what these expanded opportunities beyond :30 mean on the music and sound front, SHOOT explores the backstory and music/sound resources marshalled for Jonze’s robot love story, the half-hour short I’m Here.
Sam Spiegel and Brent Nichols of Squeak E. Clean served as composers/performers for the intro section of the film and various vignettes and moments. Additionally music was composed for The Lost Trees, the fictional band that was part of the story in that the two main characters/love interests in the short are big fans of the group, Brought together to perform that band’s music were a mix of singers and musicians from varied sources, including a local L.A. band, and an undisclosed well known group.
Spiegel also collaborated with Aska Matsumiya, a member of the band Moonrats, who wrote the song “There Are Many Of Us” for the short. That song, related Squeak E. Clean’s Zach Sinick, who served as music supervisor on I’m Here, became “an unofficial theme” for the film, with Spiegel asked to rework the track instrumentally.
There was a collaborative back and forth between Matsumiya and Spiegel as the film’s prime composer. He also touched up some of the recordings and mixes.
Spiegel provided additional production for two versions of “There Are Many Of Us” penned by Matsumiya, as well as “The Past is a Grotesque Animal” (courtesy of Polyvinyl).
Squeak E. Clean also reached out to a then unknown band, The Sleighbells, and wound up licensing two tracks from it for the short: “A B Machines” and “Crown on the Ground.” The Sleighbells have since been picked up by a label and are building a following.
Squeak E. Clean also licensed a track, “Hellhole Ratrace” from Girls, a band that came out with its debut album (titled “Album”) in September ’09. Also fitting into the I’m Here mix was “Did You See The Words,” a track from Animal Collective.
“We had bands and talent involved–including some we can’t name–who normally don’t license or perform their music for ads,” said Spiegel. “But the chance to work with Spike on a film that he had creative control of is what drew them in.”
Regarding that creative freedom, director Jonze stated on the day of the short’s premiere at Sundance, “They [Absolut] didn’t give me any requirements to make a movie that had anything to do with vodka. They just wanted me to make something that was important to me, and let my imagination take me wherever I wanted. And it wasn’t like working with some huge corporation where I had to meet with committees of people. It was just a small group, and it seemed like creativity and making something that affected them emotionally was the only thing that really mattered to them. I got to make my first love story. It’s about the relationship between two robots living in Los Angeles.”
The love story required maintaining a delicate balance on the music front for Spiegel and his colleagues, and on the sound design front for Ren Klyce of Mit Out Sound.
“The film takes place in the kind of near future but very much has a now reality feeling to it,” related Spiegel. “Science fiction-type scores were considered but we wanted to push the creative envelope and give the film its own feel–slightly futuristic yet realistic.
“That’s important to the story so that the robots feel very human, which they are,” continued Spiegel. “So we were going for futuristic but at the same time realistic, a mix of emotional and realist. We worked with Spike to find that balance in-between that kind of fantasy/fantastic world and one that is very much grounded in reality.”
This translated into a mesh of sound genres, including, said Spiegel, “sprinkling some synthesized and futuristic elements in with some organic elements.”
I’m Here didn’t release wide until last month, when it went global on www.imheremovie.com.
Following its Sundance Festival debut in January (during that film fest’s first ever opening night shorts program), I’m Here enjoyed a high-profile screening at the Berlin Film Festival in February.
Absolut’s collaboration with Spike Jonze was spawned by TBWAChiatDay, New York, and reflects the changing nature of projects in the advertising/marketing arena, which in turn yields expanded creative opportunities of the longer form fare variety for the music and sound community.
Music editor for I’m Here was Erich Stratmann. The re-record mix was done by Juan Peralta at Skywalker Sound, Marin County, Calif. Susan Schwartz of Platinum Rye handled music clearance.
