The top three commercials on SHOOT’s Fall Top Ten spot track chart demonstrate how integral powerful music and sound design are to a spot’s success. And sometimes, as FCB Worldwide Detroit, Southfield, Mich. partner/copywriter Richard Dennis says of the Jeep Wrangler’s "Hand," "the absence of sound is also important." That commercial features the creation of the world by a large hand, accompanied by subtle sound design.
Datek Online’s "The Wall" uses a driving, multifaceted techno/rock piece created by Peter Lawlor of Water Music, London, that has resonated with viewers, according to Brent Bouchez, executive creative director at Bozell New York: "People are really talking about the music. They’re even asking for the CD."
And Chrysler’s "Soul," replete with voiceovers from past promotions, seeks to put the car in historical perspective. Set against the backdrop of a dreamy, guitar-driven track, the spot weaves in and out of the present and the past, showing Chrysler cars zipping along country roads and busy highways. John Adair, partner/composer at Admusic, Santa Monica, and creator of the minimalist piece that drives "Soul," relates that "it was a challenge [to create.] When you’re using so few elements, whatever you use has to be compelling." Following is a look at how the music and sound design for these chart toppers were created.
Number One
For Jeep Wrangler’s "Hand," directed by Andrew Douglas of bicoastal/international Satellite Films, via FCB Worldwide Detroit, Southfield, Mich. (formerly Bozell Worldwide), the music and sound design house had an unusual mandate: Create for the creation.
"Hand," with sound design by Machine Head, Venice, Calif., opens with an avalanche, complete with gusts of wind and flying boulders. Echoing weirdly as they fall, the rocks are swept about. Then a large hand appears and sweeps the rocks away, accompanied by otherworldy, almost ominous, sounds. The hand creates a mountain, and then a series of rapid dissolves follow, each showing close-ups of the hand in action. The hand opens and birds fly out from it. Next, the hand releases goats onto the mountain. Then a roaring lion leaps from the tip of the thumb.
After completing its work, the hand begins drumming its fingers on its tableau. A "hmmm" is heard. Then, after another dissolve, the hand places a red Jeep on the mountainside and the car drives off. The tagline: "Jeep. There’s only one."
The sound design on "Hand" is the work of sound designer Sam Londé and creative director/ sound designer Stephen Dewey of Machine Head. They had seen the boards in pre-production, but were formally brought into the picture when editor Michael Elliot of bicoastal Mad River Post temp-tracked the commercial with sounds from a previous Londé-designed spot
"We wanted to strip away the nonsense and get to the meat of the piece," explains FCB partner/ copywriter Richard Dennis. "[‘Hand’] needed very subtle sound design. It would be easy to put up a wall of music and sound design, but then it would sound like every spot on the air. The absence of sound is also important."
"We were trying to make the spot more forcibly surreal," adds Jack Nelson, a senior producer at FCB. "We tried to build in silence. It was the [Stanley] Kubrick idea from 2001—where you built in silence."
Londé worked on the sound design for the project for about a week. "The sounds were all based on natural, organic sounds, which I then ran through various processes," he recalls. "I would combine different techniques, experiment with them and then add things and subtract from them, trying to get a mood."
"We have an immense amount of material that we record ourselves," Dewey notes. "That is the starting point for us. We take the elements and spend all day abusing the sound." Londé himself played the part of the Creator, voicing the "hmmm" during a microphone test that was used in the final version.
"Ninety-nine percent of the time, everyone was on the same page," Dewey says. "There was not a lot of discussion or angst. Everyone understood why the track was working," although he adds the creation of The Creation was still a challenge. "Dreaming up abstract sounds is easy," he observes. "The difficult part is getting them to fit with your images."
Number Two
A buzzing, distorted tuba sound is heard on the soundtrack to "The Wall," a spot for Datek Online, directed by Gerard de Thame of bicoastal HSI Productions and London-based Gerard de Thame Films. Distortion leads to a pounding rock’n’roll beat, which eventually builds to a crescendo as it accompanies images of financial brokers at work on a trading floor. Outside the trading area, a huge door labeled "Stock Exchange" is pummeled and pounded by average investors. On the other side of the door is a glassed-in viewing area overlooking the trading floor. Suddenly the traders are surrounded by hordes of people who are pounding to get in. As the people finally break the door and shatter the glass—shards descend in slow-motion—the narration explains: "Until now, there has been a wall between you and the tools of serious trading. That wall is coming down. Datek Online. The information and technology professionals use to trade is now available to everyone. Datek Online. The rules are changing."
"The Wall," out of Bozell, New York, features a distinctive score and sound design created by Peter Lawlor, owner/composer at Water Music, London. "I knew our commercial needed a big track but I didn’t know what exactly," recalls Brent Bouchez, executive creative director at Bozell. "The music had to be in three pieces: setting the stage, the scene on the trading floor, and the glass shattering. If you listen to it closely, it changes a lot. And we certainly didn’t have that music in mind."
"They had an idea [for the music] that I felt was terrible," observes Lawlor. "They had a temp track on it which I hated. … I said to them that I would do something much more aggressive than this. There’s always a tremendous danger of doing something in a commercial that is inoffensive. If it’s inoffensive, no one notices it. You need something that stands out. If [Datek Online] is about revolutionary change, you need something that gets inside that emotion. It’s not a pretty change, either—it’s an aggressive, sudden change."
Lawlor says he composed the music and then added "bits of sound. I took sounds of people [talking] and really distorted them; I made it sound much bigger. A lot of times an accidental distortion on a recording adds character; I like to do that kind of distortion on purpose. Then I took sounds meant for one bit of film and put them on another bit. I also used complete and sudden silence at times. That creates a disturbing effect."
Bouchez adds: "We kind of let Peter go. We believe in letting people have their freedom, and in this case, he came up with things that were very cool. Then he and I sat down in a studio in London and worked on fitting it to the picture."
The commercial took only two days to score. "It was pretty quick," Lawlor says. "As soon as the basic idea hit me for that really aggressive opening bit, the rest flowed." Bouchez, for one, is very pleased. "I think a lot of the credit for the commercial’s angst and drive comes from how well the music fits the picture," he says. "People are really talking about the music. They’re even asking for the CD."
Number Three
Chrysler’s "Soul," directed by Bruce Dowad of Bruce Dowad Associates, Los Angeles, via FCB Worldwide Detroit, is a dreamlike commercial about "the romance of driving," which looks backwards as a sleek new Chrysler moves forward. The spot is a collection of new and old images of various Chrysler models. As a new car glides along country roads, highways and desert byways, images of old ads and voiceovers from previous promotions are seen. The sounds and images are accompanied by a haunting tune performed mostly on guitar.
There were many elements to contend with in crafting the ad, not the least of which were the sound design and music. The visuals consist of color and black-and-white footage, all quickly and seamlessly edited together. The audio is a collection of sometimes overlapping voiceovers—some only a few words, some a full sentence—which could easily have become cacophonous.
The agency turned to John Adair, partner/composer at Admusic, Santa Monica, to tie "Soul" together with music. The company was working on three other Chrysler spots at the time. "We let several music companies working for us try out for this spot," recalls Paul Saylor, partner/executive producer at FCB. "We needed something simple and unique. John did nine tracks for us. His first one nailed it."
"In this case, it was the rarest of experiences," notes Adair. "They had no temp track. They had tried other musical things, but I wasn’t presented with a temp track, just the commercial. It was a clean slate with no preconditions."
"We don’t like to over-direct people," explains Saylor. "We hire them for their talents. We had a cut there. My direction to John was, ‘You tell me what you think belongs there.’"
Adair chose a minimalist approach. "I decided to try something that was super stripped down," he remembers. "The dialogue sound bites had been selected and were already in place. I treated that as the lead instrument and tried to write a song around that. I began with a simple guitar line, then added one or two things. It was like a haiku, where you add one or two words to make it work. I did add some more music as it went along, but felt it was superfluous. So I ended up keeping it stripped down to guitar and bass. With too many audio elements, it could easily have turned to mush."
The composer explains that it made more sense for his scoring to go "in a different direction, to be soulful and kind of quiet. The tone of the music is almost hushed," which allows the audio clips and the film footage to interact together. "The whole thing becomes a kind of dream."
The score took about three hours to compose and record. "I had never done something that’s been so minimal as this," Adair admits. "It was a challenge. When you’re using so few elements, whatever you use has to be compelling. You don’t want it to call too much attention to itself, but you still want it to be distinctive. The difficulty lay in creating uniqueness with very few elements."
