Director of Music
Leo Burnett Group
1) The Samsung S8 Global launch commercial was one of the most fun challenges I’ve had in 2017. Our creative team has great music taste and our client allowed us to explore options without any present boundaries, so the opportunity to explore artists and songs that we truly loved and really spoke to the new product offering took center stage. We collectively decided to focus on the 2000s to present in order to find a contemporary production aesthetic that could resonate, as well as an artist that has cultural relevancy to ensure music reflects the new product features. We had just experienced a great response to licensing The Black Keys’ “Howlin’ For You” for our teaser and pre-order spots, so I did my dancing internally to drum up major interest in another tough, stomper-of-a-song: “The Power” by Sweet Spirit, an Austin-based band on the rise who has members I’ve known for years. In the end, the creative and client team loved the bravado of the track, especially the female vocals with lyrical relevancy to a breakthrough product.
2) I’m most proud of my team’s work for the new product launches we handled for both Samsung Global and Nintendo Switch. Our internal creative and production teams collaborated at a high level for Samsung, identifying and licensing all-time gems like “Rocket Man” and “Across The Universe,” as well as creating high-quality, major label-worthy original music for several spots with The Elements. Nintendo not only embraced a massive new song release by licensing Imagine Dragons for their Switch Super Bowl spot, but they also allowed us creative freedom with a discovery angle to write an original, Switch-inspired song with blues rockers White Denim, as well as licensing an absolute gem in the new Rubblebucket song, “If U C My Enemies.”
3) I’m extremely fortunate to be working at the intersection of the advertising and music industries in this era marked by the increasing popularity and creative business need for agencies to staff music supervision and production experts. It’s refreshing to see major corporations and communications companies embracing the human element of quality taste and production ability as a method to keep up with the different cultures and media technologies continuously changing our individual and collective lives!
4) It’s been an amazing year for new releases and I’ve enjoyed real instrumentation popping up more frequently in electronic and dance music. We continue to be tasked with creating more and more great content for our clients, which can be a challenge when finding marketplace-appropriate budgets for high-quality music, but the realm of premium original music companies and composers continues to deliver and help us balance the demand.
5) I enjoyed the initial buzz the entertainment and ad industries were swept up in around VR’s potential a couple years ago, but I’ve only worked on projects incorporating it in conceptual stages. Some of the premium original companies established themselves early on as front runners in spatial sound composition and production, so I look forward to utilizing it more and more once the everyday project viability catches up with the hype and potential.
Alec Baldwin Urges Judge To Stand By Dismissal Of Involuntary Manslaughter Case In “Rust” Shooting
Alec Baldwin urged a New Mexico judge on Friday to stand by her decision to skuttle his trial and dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against the actor in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western movie.
State District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case against Baldwin halfway through a trial in July based on the withholding of evidence by police and prosecutors from the defense in the 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film "Rust."
The charge against Baldwin was dismissed with prejudice, meaning it can't be revived once any appeals of the decision are exhausted.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey recently asked the judge to reconsider, arguing that there were insufficient facts and that Baldwin's due process rights had not been violated.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer on "Rust," was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal when it went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — and the revolver fired.
The case-ending evidence was ammunition that was brought into the sheriff's office in March by a man who said it could be related to Hutchins' killing. Prosecutors said they deemed the ammunition unrelated and unimportant, while Baldwin's lawyers alleged that they "buried" it and filed a successful motion to dismiss the case.
In her decision to dismiss the Baldwin case, Marlowe Sommer described "egregious discovery violations constituting misconduct" by law enforcement and prosecutors, as well as false testimony about physical evidence by a witness during the trial.
Defense counsel says that prosecutors tried to establish a link... Read More