The top two entries on SHOOT’s Spring Tracks Chart take us to distinctly different places both physically and emotionally yet share the bond of striking a responsive chord among viewers and listeners.
Finishing first in our Chart is “Whale Song” for telecommunications company Optus out of agency M&C Saatchi, Sydney. Handling music, sound design and audio post mixing was Sydney house Noise.
We see a motorboat zipping along the water carrying a driver, a passenger and a giant harp.
A larger boat then appears, transporting several more musicians.
An even larger pontoon carries even more musicians as well as their assorted instruments.
Their destination: a platform in the middle of the ocean.
Once congregated there, this orchestra begins to play a curious creation, with violins and horns prominent in the mix yet playing sounds that are unlike what you would expect to hear from these instruments.
It turns out this music is a call to the wild, a serenade designed to attract a humpback whale. Microphones are placed underwater to help detect the approaching mammal.
Suddenly, in response to the serenade, a bellowing is heard from below the platform. This encourages the musicians to resume in full force, their dedication rewarded by the sight of a humpback whale who emerges from the ocean and flips joyously along its surface, lightly splashing the now overjoyed musicians.
A supered message appears which reads, “When it comes to communication, anything is possible.”
An end tag carries the logo for Australian mobile phone company Optus, accompanied by a website address, optus.com.au/whalesong.
Meanwhile assuming the number two slot in our quarterly Music & Sound Chart is Cricket Wireless’ “City Orchestra” out of Element 79 Partners, Chicago, with Finger Music, Venice, Calif., providing a unique arrangement of a classic hit song meshed with inspired sound design.
Our protagonist is a young woman carrying her cell phone about through the city. As we follow her, with a few detours along the way, we’re treated to an urban symphony of music and sound that moves to the beat of the song “Respect” (originally written by Otis Redding). Sanitation workers bang trash can lids in rhythm to the tune, a string quartet performs in the subway, shots of an apartment building contribute one unit in which a youngster is taking a piano lesson while another apartment yields the sounds of a kid playing video games. This musical/sound cornucopia continues with teen gals jumping rope on a building rooftop, taxi doors closing, a short order cook chopping ingredients, a band tuning up on a school bus, a radio blaring out of a car, and a gospel choir entering a church providing a vocal rendition of “Respect.” These elements mix and match to form a city orchestra that moves us and urban happenings to a distinctive beat.
Our star gal then ends the spot by conversing on her Cricket cellphone, the soft sell message being that Cricket shows respect for both your wallet and communication needs.
“Whale Song”
Directed by David Denneen of Filmgraphics, Sydney, “Whale Song” started out with a concept from Ben Walsh, executive creative director/copywriter at M&C Saatchi. “Ben was fascinated with the idea of how whales communicate to each other with their own love songs,” related composer/sound designer Bruce Heald of Noise. “It’s been scientifically shown that some whales reject the love song while another will embrace it and a mate is found. So what about the notion of humans communicating with whales in this manner? The brief from Ben–the challenge to us–was simply to write a piece of music that would sound like it had been ‘written’ by a whale.”
While the commercial itself evolved visually and was imbued with more humanity through a treatment by director Denneen, that original challenge to Heald remained the same. “The essence of the music brief stayed true to the idea of music that sounds like it was created by whales yet had to be created by instruments that humans play,” said Heald. “This would convey a communication, a connection between human beings and a whale.”
The inherent trap, observed Heald, was musically copping out to either extreme–a meditation-style that sounds lovely with whale sounds mixed in or a score which sounded beastly like it had been performed by people who couldn’t play instruments. Either extreme on that continuum would not have been true to the spirit of the film.
“Lofty, dreamy meditative music would sound too conventional and cliche,” assessed Noise audio producer Dan Higson.
Heald chimed in, “We had to score this musically and with sound that had elements of human musicality but was unlike anything you would normally hear. We had to strike a balance between the whale and humanity, a common ground through which they could communicate. The players we picked were key.
They were adept at playing instruments in ways they would not usually play their instruments. In one session we asked a string player who could play violin, viola and cello to base his sound around a key and notes but not to sound like those notes–to hover around a G. You could close your eyes and feel that it was something different, the sounds ‘written’ by a whale, crossing the boundaries musically between the whale and humans. We had players fiddling with their instruments in varied ways, pulling trumpets apart for example and playing with the mouthpiece. Playing their instruments completely wrong like a child yet coming out with incredible sounds. We’d identify a sound as being on target for what we wanted and then move onto creating other sounds.”
Heald and Higson also worked closely with Noise sound designer/audio mixer Kathleen Burrows. “It’s a bit of a gray area where the music ends and the sound design starts in this spot,” observed Heald. “Kathleen set the stage throughout in terms of the place we were at physically. The event took place on the ocean. She had to create a sonic environment which captured a still morning, which conveyed the boats having an engaging charm to them, a quiet, serene barge that was sort of tense yet beautiful at the same time. The sound of water lapping, feeling the sense of the ocean’s vastness, the transition to the microphones under water and then the actual whale sounds that we used briefly in that scene.”
Higson related, “This flies in the face of what many commercials are, wanting to gain as much attention as possible and making noise about the message and product. Instead we tried to be quite restrained and have as much peace and quiet as possible until we get to the crescendo. The approach was to start quiet and draw the viewer in not through being loud but with intrigue. We had to hold back and be true to the spirit of the story.”
Heald affirmed, “This project fulfills the dream we have as composers and sound designers–to be able to create for the sake of an emotional cue, to come up with something unique, different, restrained and distinctive to attain the emotion of the story.”
“City Orchestra” Directed by James Gartner of Santa Monica-based GARTNER for Element 79, “City Orchestra” had a built-in challenge for freelance composer/sound designer Adam Schiff whom Finger Music brought in for the job. On one hand, he had to do a creative arrangement of the legendary “Respect” tune, melding music and sounds from different performers we run across in a city. At the same time, these disparate beats and snippets of performance had to feel real and not staged, as if they were naturally coming together during our journey from one part of the city to another and yet another.
For Schiff an essential dynamic was that he was involved in the job from the very outset, including during such critical stages as the casting of the performing talent.
For example, the performers beating on the trash can lids had to sound good yet not so good and perfectly syncopated that it came off as staged. The string quartet in the subway was a mix of individuals that Schiff helped to assemble–one with a jazz sensibility, another with a classical bent so as to make for a different feel than one would get listening to an ensemble that played together regularly and thus might come off as too rehearsed for a subway gig.
“To be there from the beginning, to be involved in casting, to be there for the two shoot days and going to Chicago for the mix [with Another Country‘s David Gerbosi) and spending a great deal of time with the editor [Optimus‘ Craig Lewandowski] made all the difference,” observed Schiff who also cited the strong support from Finger Music, particularly executive producer Tania Thiele.
Relative to Lewandowski, Schiff related, “It was a challenge to figure out what should come first, the cut or the track. But Craig and I worked together so closely that I feel it was like I was involved in the editing as he was in the sound. We came together, exchanged ideas, presented our interpretations of how the music, sound, cuts and visuals should play. It was a continual back and forth between us that helped to fashion the outcome that the client and agency wanted and that we thought felt right creatively.”
