Fish," for the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), out of Fallon, Minneapolis, and directed by Alfonso Cuarón of Santa Monica-headquartered Independent Media, scored the Emmy award for best primetime commercial. The spot shows a goldfish leaping from the confines of his bowl to embark on an ambitious journey filled with harrowing situations. His ultimate goal: to swim upstream with salmon, an event he witnessed on PBS. The adventure-driven, dialogue-free commercial is accompanied by a lush, orchestral score composed by Mike Hewer of Amber Music, New York and London, which perfectly underlies the quest aspect of the commercial. Below, Hewer explains how he scored "Fish."
My work for the PBS "Fish" spot began at a meeting with Mark Sitley from Fallon, Minneapolis [Sitley is now partner/ executive creative director of production at Euro RSCG MVBMS, New York], and my producer, Michelle Curan, [who is also the owner/managing director] at Amber’s office in New York, during the summer of 2002. The consensus at that meeting was that the music should be magical, inspirational and assist in telling the story by creating a sense of journey and adventure. It was agreed that an orchestral approach would the most appropriate way to achieve our aim, and after some discussion on the key moments in the film, and listening to carefully chosen extracts of music to give some substance to our adjectives, it was up to me to deliver the track.
My immediate thoughts after the meeting were inevitably colored by an Edward Scissorhands approach, as that music became synonymous with all things magical in advertising, and my first draft explored this route. When I played the track to Michelle, she wasn’t convinced, and felt that it needed to be more impactful, and impart more gravitas. I took her comments on board, and began to devise a new approach. (I now had only one day to write and deliver a demo.)
My approach to composing music is a traditional one in that I write a manuscript directly, before using a computer to program and record the work. I find it to be a quick and efficient way to work because it enables me to see at a glance where I am and where I need to get to, as well as focusing my mind technically and musically. I also find that at least 50 percent of the work can be done in my head just by a process I call internal listening, and it is this technique that provided a way forward. I started to reflect on the life-changing metaphor of the spot and realized that the transformation of the fish and his circumstances could be paralleled musically by a technique called "variation." Simply put, this is a process that varies a musical phrase by constantly altering its shape and/or its environment with the usual purpose of gathering momentum and transforming it into a higher state of expression.
So I had a plan. All I needed now was a suitably pliable theme. Once the theme was decided upon (played by the cellos about three seconds in from the start), the track virtually wrote itself. Variations of the theme were plotted at key moments, like when the fish lands on the pavement to a seemingly early demise, when he is traveling on the truck, and an ecstatic, unbounded and triumphant statement when the goldfish is jumping like a salmon in the ocean.
The music was presented to Mark and his team. They had one comment to make regarding the scene when the fish lands on the pavement, which was felt to be too dramatic. A more lightly scored version of the same music was presented and preferred. That was the only revision necessary and after a final mix, the track was duly approved.
