While the top two entries on SHOOT’s Fall Tracks Chart are distinctly different, they share the bond of dealing with matters of the heart–one from a deep human relationship standpoint, the other centering on a misguided walrus drawn to an odd mating call.
Finishing first in our Chart is “Heart,” an animated spot for United Airlines in which a woman leaves her spouse behind in order to take a business trip. She also literally leaves her heart behind, handing it to her man before she departs. We later see her successfully make a business presentation in a far off place yet clearly something is missing–her heart and love back at home. Her longing is reflected in a chance encounter with a bird that she sees in a courtyard and tries to feed. But the bird flies through a void in her spirit–the space where her heart was–and soars away. When we finally see the couple reunite, she is then whole again.
Meanwhile, assuming the number two slot in our quarterly Music & Sound Chart is the Goodyear U.K. commercial “Mate,” which opens on a rather large, frisky walrus moving through icy terrain. He’s grunting enthusiastically in response to a far-off noise that he assumes to be a fellow lonely walrus. As he nears the source of the noise, we see that is the sound of a man scraping ice from his car. But that doesn’t deter the love-hungry walrus who sidles up to the unsuspecting man. A message appears on screen which reads, “Winter is dangerous enough,” thus making the case for a set of safety-first Goodyear tires.
“Heart” Directed by Jamie Caliri of DUCK Studios, Los Angeles, for agency Barrie D’Rozario Murphy, Minneapolis, “Heart” is among the batch of latest United Airlines commercials scored and/or arranged by Trivers/Myers Music in El Segundo, Calif. Woven into this collaboration over the years has been George Gershwin’s classic Rhapsody in Blue, which too plays a part in “Heart.”
But in this case much of the spot’s score is original music composed by Elizabeth Myers and John Trivers, with the climax playing out to the strains of Rhapsody, arranged by Myers and Trivers. Yet the portion of Rhapsody we hear is not the high profile, hard driving part normally associated with the piece. Instead it’s a softer, more introspective Rhapsody passage that’s deployed to fit the mood of the spot.
The final entire score–the original composition and the new arrangement of Rhapsody–was performed on two concert grand pianos by jazz legend Herbie Hancock and the Chinese virtuoso Lang Lang. After their performance was recorded, strings from members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic were brought in to further underscore the emotion of the piece.
“One of the joys of working with hand-drawn animation is that you have time to let music evolve,” related Myers. “Jamie [Caliri] developed ‘Heart’ from a concept the creative team put forth. Throughout the process Jamie is very good about giving you a real feel for what he’s doing, how the project is developing along the way. He pinpoints the storyline, animates sections and shows pencil drawings, sort of feeding you bread crumbs along a Hansel and Gretel trail. We’ve worked with Jamie on other spots for United Airlines, including ‘Dragon,’ and he provides a great creative jumping off point for us musically.
“You see his visuals as they are developing and you can improvise to picture. The film inspires you through your fingers on the piano and your ears as a composer. It’s a powerful style of scoring that is driven by the film and the story. So often the norm is eye candy and creating simultaneous music for it. This is much deeper. I think of the scene where the bird flies through the woman’s heart, representing the longing to go home and the ability to take flight. The visuals inspire the music and you work at meshing them–in the case of ‘Heart,’ the voiceover for the :60 is solely the music.
The alluded to portion of Rhapsody was described by Myers as being the lesser-known romantic strains of the piece. “You couldn’t use the bombastic parts of Rhapsody to convey the emotion in ‘Heart,’ she observed. “But Rhapsody is so multi-faceted–it has subtle yet exotic, Scheherazade-like qualities that were perfect to convey kismet, the couple’s reunion, a love duet. Our original composition gives way to that part of Rhapsody when that reunion takes place.”
Ken Chastain of Pixel Farm Music, Minneapolis, served as audio post mixer on the spot.
“Mate” Directed by Andy McLeod of Rattling Stick, London, for agency Leagas Delaney, London, “Mate” is a story very much driven by the sound design and engineering of Parv Thind from Wave Recording Studios, London.
Although the premise of the viral spot is simple, creating and developing a sound design that matches a walrus to an ice scraper proved to be quite complex. McLeod approached Thind during the pitch stage of the project to see if the idea could be made to work.
Thind offered the director a selection of walrus effects that he felt could act as the basis of the sound design. Once McLeod selected the walrus audio, Thind set about identifying an ice scraper effect that sounded similar.
McLeod felt it was important to have a slight difference between the two sounds in order to strengthen the narrative. So Thind subtly manipulated the scraper effect to sound even more similar–but not identical–to the cry of the walrus.
Thind played both effects, one after the other, on a timeline, listening to the overall effect without picture in order to help better gauge how they worked together.
To help create comic effect and a sense of suspense, it was decided the sounds should only become dissimilar when the walrus and the man come together. So Thind used distance to manipulate the sound of the scraper, making it more dissimilar as the two entities enter the same space. While Cupid’s matchmaking may have been less than perfect, the audio made for a perfect “Mate.”
