The 2001 Critical Noise Sound of the Year belongs to The Silence that befell the world in the immediate aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001.
We did not all feel The Silence at the same time. Nor did we all drop into that vast pit of darkness together for the same reasons. It was not even a physical silence we sensed, but a disturbing quietude we felt inside, as if we might drown in that hole that had grown inside our hearts.
For some, The Silence arrived immediately, while witnessing the surreal events of the day in real time. For others who jumped into action by professional necessity or instinct, it came afterwards, with weary or anxious rest. And in those cases, it often came on with an inexplicable feeling that one had just returned from a tour of duty on Mars.
For still others The Silence arrived when the evidence that a loved one had been lost proved irrefutable.
And for still others, they finally sensed its overwhelming emptiness when the question 'Why?' yielded absolutely nothing.
But if even if we did feel for a moment that we were enveloped in muffled darkness, and even in the light of day, it was only so that our hearts and minds might pause and recalibrate the order of things.
Words fail us still, but no doubt we will all emerge in time and make sense of this world again.
+ + +
HOW THE SOUND OF THE YEAR IS SELECTED:
The Critical Noise Sound of the Year goes to that sound source, event, entity, happening or concept which so effectively produces wide response and reaction, whether intentional or not, such that it stirs collective emotion, inspires discussion, incites action, or otherwise lends itself to cultural analysis and resonates across the globe.
Saturday, December 01, 2001
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
9/11: Sirens and Silence
The following entry was composed on the fifth anniversary of the event, and inserted here for context. On 9/11, Michael Sweet and I were in the compact penthouse office that housed Blister Media's recording studio. It was early; we were tired; and so we had the blinds drawn. We had arrived especially early that morning for two reasons. I had promised to messenger some elements to Cheryl Richman at McCann/NY for delivery by 9AM; and we were obligated to present another set in a long line of deliverables to our client, Sesame Workshop.
An architect who shared our floor rushed in and told us that a plane had hit one of the towers. We ran up to the roof to assess the situation, finding one building with a smoking hole in it, and another seemingly intact, but also damaged.
Among the sounds I was conscious of hearing that morning were first and foremost sirens from every kind of emergency vehicle –ambulances, fire trucks, police cars– and moving in every direction from every part of the city.
Despite the fact that our offices were more than a mile away, it was still possible to make out objects falling from the towers. Intermittent debris seemed to flake off the south tower, but from the north, a shocking procession of what we at once knew to be mortals fleeing some even greater horror within.
I knew that each building potentially held thousands of people, and each was a city unto itself, so I realized the magnitude of casualties must be immense. We still didn't know the tragedy was the result of a terror attack, so how to find meaning in this chaos?
It was then, briefly, that the sirens receded from my senses and I felt as though I stood in a silent bubble –a vacuum– watching the world change, from the surface of my skin to the sky above me, and right before my very eyes. And for those few moments, before another fire truck raced down Fifth or Park, all I could hear was the sound of my own blood rushing though my ears.
Monday, August 13, 2001
Too Many Notes To Choose From?
I returned to New York from Miami after attending the 2001 Winter Music Conference with the interesting observation that DJ's were not only trading in their turntables for laptops and recording software, but many were also abandoning the tag 'DJ' in favor of the more expansive title of 'Producer'. It didn't take a genius to realize that this trend would eventually result an increase in the number of creative audio options available to advertising agencies. And in fact, where there had once been a few music houses, soon there many boutiques, and the choices so plentiful that an ad shop never had to use the same audio house twice.
A lot of studio guys who had been in the business for years were still paying off their Neves and Studers would find themselves sweating bullets. But, since my partner and I were basically kids with laptops ourselves, I argued that if we could squeeze into the industry, then there was still room for more competition.
Now, whether or not this is actually true maybe for up for debate, but one thing is certain: The New Economy favors small, fast and lean –and over leveraged, top heavy post production companies were going to find themselves forcibly downscaled or simply overtaken by the unforgiving forces of market evolution.
The title of this article, 'Too Many Notes To Choose From?', is inspired by Emperor Joseph II's famous comment to Mozart that there were ‘too many notes’ in his music. Mozart replied there were neither too many nor to few notes than the composition required of it.
–Terry O'Gara
Too Many Notes To Choose From?
By Terry O'Gara
First published in Shoot, April 13, 2001
There has been a discussion in the music production community as to whether the number of people entering an already crowded field is reaching a saturation point. Ultimately it's a matter of perspective, but I think the repercussions are generally positive for all involved.
The reality is that many talented people out there now bypass the rigors of training at a large shop, and directly approach an agency. The reason being that you no longer need a multi-million-dollar studio to create first-rate music. A modest investment and your hobby can become a viable way to get immediately into the game. Or so it may seem. If you can manage to pound the pavement and find a way to stand out from the rest, then who's to prevent you from competing?
A decade ago this wasn't necessarily the case. But as the competition multiplies, music houses are definitely going to be niched. They are already. The variety of projects available to an established composer is significantly--and ironically, one might say--reduced. Regardless of what you're able to do, if it's not on the reel already, you won't get the job. Because clients now have such a wide range of talent to choose from, they're more likely to place their bets on someone who has already done exactly what a client wants to do for a current project.
This makes sense from the client's viewpoint--much to the detriment of many composers who need the work to expand their craft and abilities. But if stuck with a smaller budget, clients and composers have to take fewer risks and get it right the first time. Also, because licensing a ready-made track is much easier than creating an original piece of music, a client on a smaller budget will go for the former if it has already been created--by a recording artist or through a stock library, for instance. Whether or not a ready made track can address the branding issues of the advertiser or the campaign doesn't seen to make much of a difference as long as the experience of the spot is riveting. I'm not personally convinced that this is true, but it seems to be the tendency. And branded or not, a licensed piece of music has a good chance of hooking an audience that is already predisposed to listening to it in the first place. Since licensing does appear to be a growing trend, add it to the increasingly competitive climate of the industry.
One new difference does make someone on our side of the business optimistic: The avenues from which a music production house can generate revenue have also multiplied. Advertising dollars now only account for a part of the income pie. I started my career in 1991. Back then we only did commercials. Many houses still only do commercials, as they remain a lucrative business. But today a talented production team can make a living in a host of other media, as well--like electronic games, Web sites, in-store kiosks, special venues, sync to-broadcast and enhanced television projects.
New talents in shops like mine no longer have to sit in their studios waiting for an agency and/or client to believe music-makers can score that campaign right to the Clios. We can dive in and have fun with all sorts of new technologies and the new media they provide. Granted, none of these media generate the dollars that a steady diet of TV commercials does, but this variety keeps you on your toes and does provide composers and producers an opportunity to work differently. It keeps life from getting dull, and you're not allowed to repeat the same formula twice.
A lot of studio guys who had been in the business for years were still paying off their Neves and Studers would find themselves sweating bullets. But, since my partner and I were basically kids with laptops ourselves, I argued that if we could squeeze into the industry, then there was still room for more competition.
Now, whether or not this is actually true maybe for up for debate, but one thing is certain: The New Economy favors small, fast and lean –and over leveraged, top heavy post production companies were going to find themselves forcibly downscaled or simply overtaken by the unforgiving forces of market evolution.
The title of this article, 'Too Many Notes To Choose From?', is inspired by Emperor Joseph II's famous comment to Mozart that there were ‘too many notes’ in his music. Mozart replied there were neither too many nor to few notes than the composition required of it.
–Terry O'Gara
Too Many Notes To Choose From?
By Terry O'Gara
First published in Shoot, April 13, 2001
There has been a discussion in the music production community as to whether the number of people entering an already crowded field is reaching a saturation point. Ultimately it's a matter of perspective, but I think the repercussions are generally positive for all involved.
The reality is that many talented people out there now bypass the rigors of training at a large shop, and directly approach an agency. The reason being that you no longer need a multi-million-dollar studio to create first-rate music. A modest investment and your hobby can become a viable way to get immediately into the game. Or so it may seem. If you can manage to pound the pavement and find a way to stand out from the rest, then who's to prevent you from competing?
A decade ago this wasn't necessarily the case. But as the competition multiplies, music houses are definitely going to be niched. They are already. The variety of projects available to an established composer is significantly--and ironically, one might say--reduced. Regardless of what you're able to do, if it's not on the reel already, you won't get the job. Because clients now have such a wide range of talent to choose from, they're more likely to place their bets on someone who has already done exactly what a client wants to do for a current project.
This makes sense from the client's viewpoint--much to the detriment of many composers who need the work to expand their craft and abilities. But if stuck with a smaller budget, clients and composers have to take fewer risks and get it right the first time. Also, because licensing a ready-made track is much easier than creating an original piece of music, a client on a smaller budget will go for the former if it has already been created--by a recording artist or through a stock library, for instance. Whether or not a ready made track can address the branding issues of the advertiser or the campaign doesn't seen to make much of a difference as long as the experience of the spot is riveting. I'm not personally convinced that this is true, but it seems to be the tendency. And branded or not, a licensed piece of music has a good chance of hooking an audience that is already predisposed to listening to it in the first place. Since licensing does appear to be a growing trend, add it to the increasingly competitive climate of the industry.
One new difference does make someone on our side of the business optimistic: The avenues from which a music production house can generate revenue have also multiplied. Advertising dollars now only account for a part of the income pie. I started my career in 1991. Back then we only did commercials. Many houses still only do commercials, as they remain a lucrative business. But today a talented production team can make a living in a host of other media, as well--like electronic games, Web sites, in-store kiosks, special venues, sync to-broadcast and enhanced television projects.
New talents in shops like mine no longer have to sit in their studios waiting for an agency and/or client to believe music-makers can score that campaign right to the Clios. We can dive in and have fun with all sorts of new technologies and the new media they provide. Granted, none of these media generate the dollars that a steady diet of TV commercials does, but this variety keeps you on your toes and does provide composers and producers an opportunity to work differently. It keeps life from getting dull, and you're not allowed to repeat the same formula twice.
Sunday, July 01, 2001
The Ethics of Alpha Bits
Having read my response in a chat room regarding the ethics of working on various marketing accounts, the editors of CREATIVITY magazine asked me to re-package and contribute my thoughts to the June 2001 issue.
They titled the article:
CHEW ON THIS
Originally Published in Creativity Magazine, June 2001
Under what circumstances will one person decline to work on brand or product category based on a set of moral or ethical beliefs? A cursory examination of virtually every single brand out there uncovers a yet another moral dilemma for the philosophers in our midst.
Many in our business already to decline to work on tobacco advertising because of the health issues posed by cigarettes. But who feels so strongly about not working for a tobacco company that they would also decline Capri Sun, Country Time Lemonade, Crystal Light, Kool-Ade, Alpha Bits, Frosted Shredded Wheat, Grape Nuts, Oreos, Raisin Brand and Velveeta –or the umpteen other fine products brought to you by the folks at Phillip Morris.
Is there anyone out there who refused to worked on a certain alcoholic beverage because the frogs reminded you too much of Joe Camel? Is working n a red wine OK because it might emulsify fats in your bloodstream? Or is that still questionable, because overuse could contribute to long-term liver damage?
Have those of you concerned about global warming considered this issue when producing a car ad? Give the origins of the VW Bug, does anyone out there still have misgivings about the brand? If you have any concerns about colon cancer, should you really be working on products that feature refined white flour as their primary ingredient? If you’re concerned about cholesterol, should you really be doing “Got Milk?”, Kraft singles or any other kind of dairy product (excluding skim milk, of course)?
Does anyone with a dentist (or a diabetic) in the family object to working on a product that contains sugar? Does anyone working exclusively in print have a problem with his or her role in the continued deforestation of the Pacific Northwest? Are there any vegetarians who feel comfortable working on a McDonald’s spot?
Is there anyone out there who would decline to work on a specific brand but think it’s OK to then watch TV programs sponsored by that same brand? Are anyone’s convictions so strong that they’ve requested divestiture of objectionable companies from the portfolios of companies they’ like to work with (or their pension plans?)?
Will you, the vendor, work with an advertising agency on a seemingly innocuous product knowing that the very same agency has won a multi-million dollar campaign to promote a product you strongly object to?
Can't it be said that consumers must take some responsibility for the choices they make? Or are those brains ours, for the taking?
They titled the article:
CHEW ON THIS
Originally Published in Creativity Magazine, June 2001
Under what circumstances will one person decline to work on brand or product category based on a set of moral or ethical beliefs? A cursory examination of virtually every single brand out there uncovers a yet another moral dilemma for the philosophers in our midst.
Many in our business already to decline to work on tobacco advertising because of the health issues posed by cigarettes. But who feels so strongly about not working for a tobacco company that they would also decline Capri Sun, Country Time Lemonade, Crystal Light, Kool-Ade, Alpha Bits, Frosted Shredded Wheat, Grape Nuts, Oreos, Raisin Brand and Velveeta –or the umpteen other fine products brought to you by the folks at Phillip Morris.
Is there anyone out there who refused to worked on a certain alcoholic beverage because the frogs reminded you too much of Joe Camel? Is working n a red wine OK because it might emulsify fats in your bloodstream? Or is that still questionable, because overuse could contribute to long-term liver damage?
Have those of you concerned about global warming considered this issue when producing a car ad? Give the origins of the VW Bug, does anyone out there still have misgivings about the brand? If you have any concerns about colon cancer, should you really be working on products that feature refined white flour as their primary ingredient? If you’re concerned about cholesterol, should you really be doing “Got Milk?”, Kraft singles or any other kind of dairy product (excluding skim milk, of course)?
Does anyone with a dentist (or a diabetic) in the family object to working on a product that contains sugar? Does anyone working exclusively in print have a problem with his or her role in the continued deforestation of the Pacific Northwest? Are there any vegetarians who feel comfortable working on a McDonald’s spot?
Is there anyone out there who would decline to work on a specific brand but think it’s OK to then watch TV programs sponsored by that same brand? Are anyone’s convictions so strong that they’ve requested divestiture of objectionable companies from the portfolios of companies they’ like to work with (or their pension plans?)?
Will you, the vendor, work with an advertising agency on a seemingly innocuous product knowing that the very same agency has won a multi-million dollar campaign to promote a product you strongly object to?
Can't it be said that consumers must take some responsibility for the choices they make? Or are those brains ours, for the taking?
Thursday, June 14, 2001
Interactive Audio Manifesto
As Executive Producer for Blister Media, part of my job includes marketing the company to new breed technology/content companies who create advertising and entertainment for the web. Back in 1998, when we founded the company, I sketched out some ideas for a virtual vision statement, which I'm not sure ever got fully executed. But thought I'd publish some of those initial thoughts here under the guise of an Interactive Audio Manifesto. The title is tongue and cheek, but the bullet points may have some inspirational value–
INTERACTIVE AUDIO MANIFESTO
• Experimentation yields great advances in science and technology; The same is true for art.
• If your ears are hungry, feed them music.
• The consumer is your audience.
• Audiences demand to be entertained.
• They’re not just ‘eyeballs’. They’re eyeballs with brains.
• When given a choice, audiences don’t buy bland.
• Information and Entertainment are most effective when combined.
• Nothing identifies you like your face. Except your voice.
• Audio is most effective when used judiciously:
1. Use it to brand.
2. Use it to entertain.
3. Use it to convey information.
Anything else is wasted bandwidth
INTERACTIVE AUDIO MANIFESTO
• Experimentation yields great advances in science and technology; The same is true for art.
• If your ears are hungry, feed them music.
• The consumer is your audience.
• Audiences demand to be entertained.
• They’re not just ‘eyeballs’. They’re eyeballs with brains.
• When given a choice, audiences don’t buy bland.
• Information and Entertainment are most effective when combined.
• Nothing identifies you like your face. Except your voice.
• Audio is most effective when used judiciously:
1. Use it to brand.
2. Use it to entertain.
3. Use it to convey information.
Anything else is wasted bandwidth
Wednesday, June 13, 2001
Tooting My Own Horn
A company's legacy is the sum of its people. Several years after my departure, Elias offered as part of its promotional literature, several pioneering 'FIRSTS'. Imagine my happy surprise to learn that I was a principle player in at least half of the ‘firsts’.
Among them:
• First to use music supervisors
(I was on the first team of music supervisors)
• First bi-coastal music production house
(I was on the first bi-coastal production team; and created SOP for the production of all in-house music, sound design and sonic branding projects for both the East and West Coast production offices).
• First Olympic music library with Meta tags and digital database
(I was one of three internal supervisors/producers that created that first Meta tagged music library.)
• First commercial music company to do product sonification
(I produced, or was part of a team that produced, the company’s earliest product sonification projects for AT&T and TeleTV)
• First company to do corporate audio identity systems
(I worked on the company’s first corporate audio identity system –with Alexander Lasarenko– which was created for Elias Arts itself!)
* * *
Honestly, who really knows if any of these ‘firsts’ have any historic –albiet narrow– importance within the industry, or if they are all simply bits of a marketing mythology? Hell, I don’t care: it's a mythology business, and if current and future crews of Elias are as proud of the company's legacy, then I couldn't be happier to have made some small contributions to its development. It was a wonderful time with wonderful people, full of art and music and chaos and personality.
Tuesday, June 12, 2001
Every Beat Must End
I worked 361 days of the preceding twelve months before I resigned from the commercial music, sound and audio identity firm Elias Associates, now named Elias Music.
For the previous two years my typical workday started at 8AM and ended between 10PM and midnight. We were so busy and being a one man production department, it was simply the only way I could singularly produce both day and night shifts. Before that, I spent three years taking a nap at 8pm so that I could return to the studio at 2AM, to learn the technology and work on my own projects.
I had attempted to hire an assistant in the past, but after a training period of about six months, one young woman added up the hours and told me in no uncertain terms, "I don't want your job." –And then she quit!
We had four rooms in the New York office alone, three of them running two back-to-back, 12-hour shifts, resulting in at least one national spot going final every 2 or 3 days, -and one room devoted to early interactive audio projects where sound for games and theme park attractions was created.
It was, as '80's retail icon Crazy Eddie liked to say, "INSANE!"
In retrospect I was extremely lucky to make new strategic relationships and enjoy similarly inspiring working collaborations after my departure from Elias, but if I hadn’t, those few years would have made the rest worth it.
I'm especially proud of having had the opportunity to play an executive leadership role as part of a management team that essentially quadrupled revenues over a three year span, and evolved during my watch from an old economy music production house into the leading U.S. Sonic Branding and Sound Identity firm of its time.
Along the way I established Standard Operating Procedures for both New York and West Coast offices; promoted and managed collaborations with Machine Head, a west coast-based sound design company; repaired and normalized relationships with both the American Federation of Musicians and the Screen Actor's Guild unions; and I played a significant role in the a transformation of the company culture by actively and consciously recruiting new creative talent with contrasting talent and skill sets – developing a new paradigm of talent development within the company.
The result was that instead of a having a staff of composers who worked in relative competitive isolation from one another, as had been the case in the past, the company now enjoyed a sense that each project was open for collaboration.
It felt more like a band than a music house, and the diverse artistic perspectives and processes also contributed to the general development of the company's brand image as a creative solution provider, and not just a jingle factory.
Among the new team I scouted and either recommended for hire, or hired directly, were composers Fritz Doddy, Matt Fletcher, Todd Schietroma, Rich Nappi and Kerry Smith; also sales rep Debra Maniscalco, associate producer Jonathan Nanberg, studio manager Jennifer McGee, recording engineer Mario Piazza, and producer Keith Haluska.
I also developed and forged important external strategic creative relationships with many of New York's hottest upcoming young performers then bubbling up under the radar. Among these relationships, notable mentions for their contributions to our creative output must include: Trumpeter Chris Botti, guitarist Eric Schermerhorn, New York Philharmonic violinist Sandra Park, orchestrators Deniz Hughes and Tony Finno, and newly established vocal management firm, Val's Artist Management (aka VAMNATION).
I eventually found my own replacement in a young producer I had worked with a year or two before on a NEC job. Keith Haluska immediately impressed me with how much he loved music, –and the business of music– and so he struck me as a good fit for the company. He started in June '96, dovetailing my final departure by three months.
I suspect the relatively brief time I spent with Keith didn't actually make his job appreciably easier. One hopes, but you can’t wrap up an old role like a holiday package and give it to someone without part of the puzzle missing. All you can do is give them a few of the pieces, and hope they can make something out of it –their own thing. If you can accomplish that, then I think you can finally move away from the stage, back into the wings, out the back door, and into the street, where life awaits, ready to pick up where you left off, and where hopefully it has remained, waiting patiently to tease you with the next big thing.
For the previous two years my typical workday started at 8AM and ended between 10PM and midnight. We were so busy and being a one man production department, it was simply the only way I could singularly produce both day and night shifts. Before that, I spent three years taking a nap at 8pm so that I could return to the studio at 2AM, to learn the technology and work on my own projects.
I had attempted to hire an assistant in the past, but after a training period of about six months, one young woman added up the hours and told me in no uncertain terms, "I don't want your job." –And then she quit!
We had four rooms in the New York office alone, three of them running two back-to-back, 12-hour shifts, resulting in at least one national spot going final every 2 or 3 days, -and one room devoted to early interactive audio projects where sound for games and theme park attractions was created.
It was, as '80's retail icon Crazy Eddie liked to say, "INSANE!"
In retrospect I was extremely lucky to make new strategic relationships and enjoy similarly inspiring working collaborations after my departure from Elias, but if I hadn’t, those few years would have made the rest worth it.
I'm especially proud of having had the opportunity to play an executive leadership role as part of a management team that essentially quadrupled revenues over a three year span, and evolved during my watch from an old economy music production house into the leading U.S. Sonic Branding and Sound Identity firm of its time.
Along the way I established Standard Operating Procedures for both New York and West Coast offices; promoted and managed collaborations with Machine Head, a west coast-based sound design company; repaired and normalized relationships with both the American Federation of Musicians and the Screen Actor's Guild unions; and I played a significant role in the a transformation of the company culture by actively and consciously recruiting new creative talent with contrasting talent and skill sets – developing a new paradigm of talent development within the company.
The result was that instead of a having a staff of composers who worked in relative competitive isolation from one another, as had been the case in the past, the company now enjoyed a sense that each project was open for collaboration.
It felt more like a band than a music house, and the diverse artistic perspectives and processes also contributed to the general development of the company's brand image as a creative solution provider, and not just a jingle factory.
Among the new team I scouted and either recommended for hire, or hired directly, were composers Fritz Doddy, Matt Fletcher, Todd Schietroma, Rich Nappi and Kerry Smith; also sales rep Debra Maniscalco, associate producer Jonathan Nanberg, studio manager Jennifer McGee, recording engineer Mario Piazza, and producer Keith Haluska.
I also developed and forged important external strategic creative relationships with many of New York's hottest upcoming young performers then bubbling up under the radar. Among these relationships, notable mentions for their contributions to our creative output must include: Trumpeter Chris Botti, guitarist Eric Schermerhorn, New York Philharmonic violinist Sandra Park, orchestrators Deniz Hughes and Tony Finno, and newly established vocal management firm, Val's Artist Management (aka VAMNATION).
I eventually found my own replacement in a young producer I had worked with a year or two before on a NEC job. Keith Haluska immediately impressed me with how much he loved music, –and the business of music– and so he struck me as a good fit for the company. He started in June '96, dovetailing my final departure by three months.
I suspect the relatively brief time I spent with Keith didn't actually make his job appreciably easier. One hopes, but you can’t wrap up an old role like a holiday package and give it to someone without part of the puzzle missing. All you can do is give them a few of the pieces, and hope they can make something out of it –their own thing. If you can accomplish that, then I think you can finally move away from the stage, back into the wings, out the back door, and into the street, where life awaits, ready to pick up where you left off, and where hopefully it has remained, waiting patiently to tease you with the next big thing.
Monday, June 11, 2001
Winning Awards with Collaboration and Conflict
During my tenure as the Senior Producer and Head of Production at Elias Arts, an especially productive relationship developed between our Creative Director, Alexander Lasarenko, and myself, whereby Alex considered each opportunity or commission to score a TV commercial primarily as cinematic art (i.e. a potentially entertaining experience in and of itself) –its intent as a vehicle for a brand message or marketing piece –and our budget, notwithstanding.
By contrast, my responsibility was to ensure our client's marketing and message mandate was appropriately represented in our musical and sonic compositions, –and internally, that our creative solutions were executed in a manner that left us with either a profit or a relationship that would produce one later.
-But as a direct result of this contrasting dynamic our ideas and our execution got better, and I think the subsequent award-winning results speak for themselves. -And I can't think of another music team that did it the way we did at the time, which turned out to be so successful, that it made us all feel we were invincible at the time.
And we were a pretty good team! Two years before we were nobodies or newbies.
Now, a year and a half after my promotion to Senior Producer, Elias NY had become the toast of the North East, and was even drawing clients from the west coast and London. In 1996 we walked away with two of three AICP awards in the music category (Guess ‘Mambo’ (Schietroma) and ‘Levi’s Sensual’ (Jenkins)) and a Clio for a Marcus Nispel directed spot out of DDB, produced by Steve Amato, for the Digital Equipment Corp., called ‘Manifesto’.
What made that latter award all the more sweet was the fact that it had been a collaborative effort whose participants included several new composers working in tandem with Alex, Alton Delano, Fritz Doddy, and myself. The year after I left, several other awards rolled in for projects produced during my tenure, including AICP recognition for Levi’s ‘Primal’, composed by Kerry Smith.
Of the many awards the company’s staffers have earned over the years, I take great pride knowing that a creative team I recruited and assembled swept award shows in the mid to late nineties. For a time –when Jonathan Elias headed out west and Scott Elias stopped out to pursue other ventures– those of us who spearheaded the company’s flagship headquarters did a unprecedented job catapulting its capabilities back into national industry notice.
When I started my tenure, the company billed less than a quarter of what it reportedly billed during my last year with the company –according to publicly available records. We quadrupled profits in 24 months and made the Elias Brothers proud. But the awards were icing on the cake, because more importantly, for a shy kid who didn't move to the United States until he was 13, it was a good American dream to have lived, and to have lived it with so many generations and talented individuals.
By contrast, my responsibility was to ensure our client's marketing and message mandate was appropriately represented in our musical and sonic compositions, –and internally, that our creative solutions were executed in a manner that left us with either a profit or a relationship that would produce one later.
This meant when our Creative Director felt strongly about pursuing a creative thread that was not part of the original brief, he would have that conversation with me instead of ‘fighting for the idea’ with our clients, as had been the organization’s prior model. As a result we sometimes did take new ideas to the client, but only after any sense of ‘fight’ had been eliminated from our mindset. In practice, though, now instead of fighting the clients we often fought each other.
-But as a direct result of this contrasting dynamic our ideas and our execution got better, and I think the subsequent award-winning results speak for themselves. -And I can't think of another music team that did it the way we did at the time, which turned out to be so successful, that it made us all feel we were invincible at the time.
And we were a pretty good team! Two years before we were nobodies or newbies.
Now, a year and a half after my promotion to Senior Producer, Elias NY had become the toast of the North East, and was even drawing clients from the west coast and London. In 1996 we walked away with two of three AICP awards in the music category (Guess ‘Mambo’ (Schietroma) and ‘Levi’s Sensual’ (Jenkins)) and a Clio for a Marcus Nispel directed spot out of DDB, produced by Steve Amato, for the Digital Equipment Corp., called ‘Manifesto’.
What made that latter award all the more sweet was the fact that it had been a collaborative effort whose participants included several new composers working in tandem with Alex, Alton Delano, Fritz Doddy, and myself. The year after I left, several other awards rolled in for projects produced during my tenure, including AICP recognition for Levi’s ‘Primal’, composed by Kerry Smith.
Of the many awards the company’s staffers have earned over the years, I take great pride knowing that a creative team I recruited and assembled swept award shows in the mid to late nineties. For a time –when Jonathan Elias headed out west and Scott Elias stopped out to pursue other ventures– those of us who spearheaded the company’s flagship headquarters did a unprecedented job catapulting its capabilities back into national industry notice.
When I started my tenure, the company billed less than a quarter of what it reportedly billed during my last year with the company –according to publicly available records. We quadrupled profits in 24 months and made the Elias Brothers proud. But the awards were icing on the cake, because more importantly, for a shy kid who didn't move to the United States until he was 13, it was a good American dream to have lived, and to have lived it with so many generations and talented individuals.
Sunday, June 10, 2001
Artists and Repertoire for Madison Avenue
Music and sound design production houses which specialize in the delivery of non-entertainment audio projects often draw a creative boundary between the composition and production departments.
The fact is, a music house is a post-production facility. Composers score tracks, and producers bridge the gap between project management and sales.
In fact, many 'music' producers in this environment are recruited from advertising agencies or other post houses, and their primary advantage to the music house is not their ability to produce a track, but to produce clients! Indeed, Executive Producers in post are generally leading sales efforts, not managing projects.
Obviously, you'll note how vivid the contrast in comparison to the entertainment model, whereby producers are artists themselves and often expected to be collaborators –an additional member of the band, per se.
As I worked up the ladder @ Elias, it was not simply my intention to develop a career as a project manager, or as someone who could 'run a creative company', but as someone who was also a creative resource. One key advantage I had, which was then unique to the company, was my youth spent growing up overseas, in the Caribbean, South America, Europe and the Mid East.
As it turned out, I had a very open ear, and as a result I was very good at discovering and directing talent, especially in the genre of what Americans then called 'world music'.
I also discovered in very short order that my 'casting' choices could influence the creative direction of a given track with great effect. It also helped that I enjoyed the casting process. Just like an A&R scout @ a record label, I recruited talent right out of clubs and bars. But I also found singers and musicians busking away in subway terminals and on sidewalks. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that in New York City, many curbside artists are conservatory trained virtuosos –and they arrive from all over the world.
Additionally, I never walked out of an ethnic restaurant that featured a live musical performance without taking every musician’s phone number. Need an Urdu player? I know a guy. I took a lot of pride introducing our composers to authentic players of every variety. When the Tourism Boards of Mexico and The Bahamas each required native talent to perform on their respective campaigns, which we we were commissioned to compose, I was the go-to global guy who connected with embassies and delivered.
I'm particularly proud of introducing our composers to the talents of musicians they may have already worked with about but hadn't fully exploited or explored, because they had never really talked to a specific musician or singer about what they 'really' did. Chris Botti was just another trumpet player in the rolodex until I found out –simply by asking what he did otherwise– that he toured with Sting and Paul Simon and therefore had an ear for improvising around almost any style of music. In short order, he moved from a horn player to our first call on anything we considered esoteric.
I have many stories like this. It's easy to put someone in a niche. But talk to them for a few minutes and a world opens up.
I've learned that the best talent doesn't always arrive on a demo tape with an accompanying electronic press kit. The best talent you discovered –in person– because you went out one day believing everyone has a unique gift, and if you look for magic, you’ll find it.
Today, loops –short repeatable audio snippets– are frequently used in the construction of music. As early as 1991 Elias had a huge library of loops and samples. I myself had been working with loop based composition since 1985, the result of my youthful fascination with the Brian Eno and David Byrne collaboration, ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’. Nevertheless, I always fought hard for using live players and ‘rolling our own’ samples. Even one solo violinist, for instance, over dubbed on an otherwise sampled string section will communicate just enough fractal audio information to fool most human beings into thinking everything they're hearing is 'live'.
Yes, it's cheaper to do it all yourself and not work in the moment with live musicians. And that’s certainly the trend, but we lose something when we stop working together. Of course, maybe the next generation won’t miss it after it’s gone because they’ll never had the experience to compare it to in the first place.
The fact is, a music house is a post-production facility. Composers score tracks, and producers bridge the gap between project management and sales.
In fact, many 'music' producers in this environment are recruited from advertising agencies or other post houses, and their primary advantage to the music house is not their ability to produce a track, but to produce clients! Indeed, Executive Producers in post are generally leading sales efforts, not managing projects.
Obviously, you'll note how vivid the contrast in comparison to the entertainment model, whereby producers are artists themselves and often expected to be collaborators –an additional member of the band, per se.
As I worked up the ladder @ Elias, it was not simply my intention to develop a career as a project manager, or as someone who could 'run a creative company', but as someone who was also a creative resource. One key advantage I had, which was then unique to the company, was my youth spent growing up overseas, in the Caribbean, South America, Europe and the Mid East.
As it turned out, I had a very open ear, and as a result I was very good at discovering and directing talent, especially in the genre of what Americans then called 'world music'.
I also discovered in very short order that my 'casting' choices could influence the creative direction of a given track with great effect. It also helped that I enjoyed the casting process. Just like an A&R scout @ a record label, I recruited talent right out of clubs and bars. But I also found singers and musicians busking away in subway terminals and on sidewalks. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that in New York City, many curbside artists are conservatory trained virtuosos –and they arrive from all over the world.
Additionally, I never walked out of an ethnic restaurant that featured a live musical performance without taking every musician’s phone number. Need an Urdu player? I know a guy. I took a lot of pride introducing our composers to authentic players of every variety. When the Tourism Boards of Mexico and The Bahamas each required native talent to perform on their respective campaigns, which we we were commissioned to compose, I was the go-to global guy who connected with embassies and delivered.
I'm particularly proud of introducing our composers to the talents of musicians they may have already worked with about but hadn't fully exploited or explored, because they had never really talked to a specific musician or singer about what they 'really' did. Chris Botti was just another trumpet player in the rolodex until I found out –simply by asking what he did otherwise– that he toured with Sting and Paul Simon and therefore had an ear for improvising around almost any style of music. In short order, he moved from a horn player to our first call on anything we considered esoteric.
I have many stories like this. It's easy to put someone in a niche. But talk to them for a few minutes and a world opens up.
I've learned that the best talent doesn't always arrive on a demo tape with an accompanying electronic press kit. The best talent you discovered –in person– because you went out one day believing everyone has a unique gift, and if you look for magic, you’ll find it.
Today, loops –short repeatable audio snippets– are frequently used in the construction of music. As early as 1991 Elias had a huge library of loops and samples. I myself had been working with loop based composition since 1985, the result of my youthful fascination with the Brian Eno and David Byrne collaboration, ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’. Nevertheless, I always fought hard for using live players and ‘rolling our own’ samples. Even one solo violinist, for instance, over dubbed on an otherwise sampled string section will communicate just enough fractal audio information to fool most human beings into thinking everything they're hearing is 'live'.
Yes, it's cheaper to do it all yourself and not work in the moment with live musicians. And that’s certainly the trend, but we lose something when we stop working together. Of course, maybe the next generation won’t miss it after it’s gone because they’ll never had the experience to compare it to in the first place.
But if you manage your budget properly, why fake push button to trigger a loop when you can have a famous Brazilian percussionist in your room laying down tracks with a world-renown fretless bass player from Kenya.
Real musicians and singers are also talents in themselves that can add magic to a track. Ask yourself, who would sound cool on that this? Sometimes the answer I can up with was a single member of the New York Philharmonic. I loved calling in David Bowie’s guitarist at the time, Eric Schermerhorn. A lot of guitarists can shred, but few have the fluid cinematic sense that Eric does. You see, it’s not what guitar will add, it’s what Eric will add. Big difference.
Among my few contributions to the company, one of my proudest is simply creating the database of hundreds of uniquely gifted musicians and singers with global talents, some of which were not even ‘professional session players’ until I heard them busking and recommended them to our composers.
Simply consider why a music producer would feel any pride for a track he or she did not compose. Maybe because he or she suggested something or someone to a composer or sound designer, and they acted on it, resulting in an end product that evolved into more engaging experience than either of you could have imagined before.
And in that way, I’m convinced, we all win: clients, creatives, colleagues, culture, the work.
Real musicians and singers are also talents in themselves that can add magic to a track. Ask yourself, who would sound cool on that this? Sometimes the answer I can up with was a single member of the New York Philharmonic. I loved calling in David Bowie’s guitarist at the time, Eric Schermerhorn. A lot of guitarists can shred, but few have the fluid cinematic sense that Eric does. You see, it’s not what guitar will add, it’s what Eric will add. Big difference.
Among my few contributions to the company, one of my proudest is simply creating the database of hundreds of uniquely gifted musicians and singers with global talents, some of which were not even ‘professional session players’ until I heard them busking and recommended them to our composers.
Simply consider why a music producer would feel any pride for a track he or she did not compose. Maybe because he or she suggested something or someone to a composer or sound designer, and they acted on it, resulting in an end product that evolved into more engaging experience than either of you could have imagined before.
And in that way, I’m convinced, we all win: clients, creatives, colleagues, culture, the work.
Saturday, June 09, 2001
From Senior Producer to Creative Producer
The entertainment and advertising industries are both populated with many kinds of people possessing different skill sets, specialties and methodologies, and all of whom wear the title PRODUCER. Depending on their career development, most have learned some degree of project management skills. It would be difficult, I imagine, to actually begin producing a project without knowing how to manage time, budget, resources and personnel. But at one end of the spectrum we have producers whose skill set parallels ACCOUNT or BUSINESS MANAGEMENT; and on the other end we have producers who are purely ARTISTS, and whose skill set, however expansive, may be limited to creative process.
The former excel at managing clients and sometimes process, but do not necessarily influence the client’s opinion or the compositional outcome. The latter are adept at conception and creative development, but may not fully grasp how to integrate a marketing initiative into the work, much less a brand mandate. Not to mention, understand that highly skilled creative craftsmanship often requires one engage clients at the same time one is focused on development. How do you do that when you’re staring at a screen and your back is to a room full of clients? Maybe you should turn the desk around?
In my own development I sought to straddle the fence: I wanted to be more than an Account Executive or a Project Manager. The earliest and nearest role models available to me were Advertising Agency Producers. Most were a cross between a road manager and a business manager, but the ones I most admired resembled film producers as they collaborated with their directors. They may not have defined either the brand message or initiated any specific commercial storyline, but they were masters at maximizing both marketing and entertainment value from any given project, and once focusing a creative strategy, assumed an executive leadership role in the subsequent production.
How was I going achieve that measure of influence for myself in order to advance my career and fulfill the professional expectations I had for myself?
Well, as music producer, I was often the first contact from the agency for a commission. And as it happened, whenever an agency called, they often wanted to know my initial gut instinct regarding what kind musical score the ad deserved, based on a review of story boards, if only to understand how I was going to develop an estimate. I immediately understood if I could define the creative direction at this early stage, I would be in front of the project from conception to final delivery. Not in front, as assuming or usurping the role of a Creative Director, but at an advantage in the process because, as an idea’s source, I possessed a comprehensive overview of it, and therefore could have an authoritative voice in its development.
In the early days I took these calls with our superbly talented Creative Director, Alexander Lasarenko, and at the time I always deferred to his expertise. But on the occasions when he wasn’t available, or perhaps when he was testing me, I would find myself alone on the call with the client and the direction was left to my sole discretion. In the beginning I winged it, and to be honest, half the time I was frightened. And as you can imagine I didn’t always bat a hundred.
However, eventually my ear and eyes connected and I became an expert at concepting interesting creative directions –based on initial preproduction storyboard review– that both enhanced the story, and/or fulfilled the marketing solutions required by the project at hand (Later I would also develop an understanding of how to incorporate brand message into the work).
By the way, another outcome of defining audio direction, is the potential to influence not just the sound score, but how the final commercial was going to be shot to some degree, and certainly how it was edited.
That's a lot of power for a music guy: The client may only be paying you five or ten percent of the his or her overall production budget, but by defining audio direction and delivering a temp track or sketch before the shoot, you've just put yourself in the position of influencing the entire project, and therefore every dollar spent on its development. By the time the first edit is sent your way, you are basically done with the heavy lifting.
Elias proved a great training ground. And later, after I left the company, I had a two year string of amazing successes with another company when it seemed like every idea I pitched went straight to air without revision.
Either way, you can bet that much of that success came not just from my own contributions, but from having been fortunate to choose adept creative partners as collaborators in all those projects. There have been times in my life as an artist or producer that I struggled alone, but in those days I was surrounded by smart, world class collaborators at every turn.
One such talent was Todd Schietroma, a composer/percussionist I recruited. Todd often came to the table with a million concepts for any given storyboard. Of course, I always loved it when my own ideas were chosen for development, but we were lucky if any of us presented an idea that pulled in a high profile project.
The bottom line: Analyze each board or rough cut that comes your way, and then bend your brain in such a manner that you get in the habit of giving birth to new, inventive ideas and creative solutions for any given commission.
The alternative is that someone else will provide you with a directive that you will merely execute and project manage. That's not such a bad thing when you work as a team, but it does make VIP client management easier when you are a creator or co-creator, and not just an administrator.
Keep in mind also, that as a producer, if your pitch goes into production –then it’s likely you have a much easier time budgeting the project.
It also means that when you deliver the concept in the form of a creative brief to the Creative Department to manage its development, you will also have some idea of how development should proceed, at what rate, and how to manage your time and budget. It may not actually make you the Creative Director, but it will make you fully vested in a comprehensive creative development.
In a nutshell, being first to concept –defining direction– is one strategic way any creative producer can stay ahead of a given project. At the very least, it certainly helps one identify appropriate resources, track creative development, and control of cost and schedule.
And that should almost be the first rule anyone in any kind of media production learns.
It's how interns become Senior Producers, for sure.
The former excel at managing clients and sometimes process, but do not necessarily influence the client’s opinion or the compositional outcome. The latter are adept at conception and creative development, but may not fully grasp how to integrate a marketing initiative into the work, much less a brand mandate. Not to mention, understand that highly skilled creative craftsmanship often requires one engage clients at the same time one is focused on development. How do you do that when you’re staring at a screen and your back is to a room full of clients? Maybe you should turn the desk around?
In my own development I sought to straddle the fence: I wanted to be more than an Account Executive or a Project Manager. The earliest and nearest role models available to me were Advertising Agency Producers. Most were a cross between a road manager and a business manager, but the ones I most admired resembled film producers as they collaborated with their directors. They may not have defined either the brand message or initiated any specific commercial storyline, but they were masters at maximizing both marketing and entertainment value from any given project, and once focusing a creative strategy, assumed an executive leadership role in the subsequent production.
How was I going achieve that measure of influence for myself in order to advance my career and fulfill the professional expectations I had for myself?
Well, as music producer, I was often the first contact from the agency for a commission. And as it happened, whenever an agency called, they often wanted to know my initial gut instinct regarding what kind musical score the ad deserved, based on a review of story boards, if only to understand how I was going to develop an estimate. I immediately understood if I could define the creative direction at this early stage, I would be in front of the project from conception to final delivery. Not in front, as assuming or usurping the role of a Creative Director, but at an advantage in the process because, as an idea’s source, I possessed a comprehensive overview of it, and therefore could have an authoritative voice in its development.
In the early days I took these calls with our superbly talented Creative Director, Alexander Lasarenko, and at the time I always deferred to his expertise. But on the occasions when he wasn’t available, or perhaps when he was testing me, I would find myself alone on the call with the client and the direction was left to my sole discretion. In the beginning I winged it, and to be honest, half the time I was frightened. And as you can imagine I didn’t always bat a hundred.
However, eventually my ear and eyes connected and I became an expert at concepting interesting creative directions –based on initial preproduction storyboard review– that both enhanced the story, and/or fulfilled the marketing solutions required by the project at hand (Later I would also develop an understanding of how to incorporate brand message into the work).
By the way, another outcome of defining audio direction, is the potential to influence not just the sound score, but how the final commercial was going to be shot to some degree, and certainly how it was edited.
That's a lot of power for a music guy: The client may only be paying you five or ten percent of the his or her overall production budget, but by defining audio direction and delivering a temp track or sketch before the shoot, you've just put yourself in the position of influencing the entire project, and therefore every dollar spent on its development. By the time the first edit is sent your way, you are basically done with the heavy lifting.
Elias proved a great training ground. And later, after I left the company, I had a two year string of amazing successes with another company when it seemed like every idea I pitched went straight to air without revision.
Either way, you can bet that much of that success came not just from my own contributions, but from having been fortunate to choose adept creative partners as collaborators in all those projects. There have been times in my life as an artist or producer that I struggled alone, but in those days I was surrounded by smart, world class collaborators at every turn.
One such talent was Todd Schietroma, a composer/percussionist I recruited. Todd often came to the table with a million concepts for any given storyboard. Of course, I always loved it when my own ideas were chosen for development, but we were lucky if any of us presented an idea that pulled in a high profile project.
The bottom line: Analyze each board or rough cut that comes your way, and then bend your brain in such a manner that you get in the habit of giving birth to new, inventive ideas and creative solutions for any given commission.
The alternative is that someone else will provide you with a directive that you will merely execute and project manage. That's not such a bad thing when you work as a team, but it does make VIP client management easier when you are a creator or co-creator, and not just an administrator.
Keep in mind also, that as a producer, if your pitch goes into production –then it’s likely you have a much easier time budgeting the project.
It also means that when you deliver the concept in the form of a creative brief to the Creative Department to manage its development, you will also have some idea of how development should proceed, at what rate, and how to manage your time and budget. It may not actually make you the Creative Director, but it will make you fully vested in a comprehensive creative development.
In a nutshell, being first to concept –defining direction– is one strategic way any creative producer can stay ahead of a given project. At the very least, it certainly helps one identify appropriate resources, track creative development, and control of cost and schedule.
And that should almost be the first rule anyone in any kind of media production learns.
It's how interns become Senior Producers, for sure.
Friday, June 08, 2001
How to Build a Creative Team
With Jonathan Elias heading out west, and myself having made the transition from arts and office administrator to music producer, Scott Elias commissioned Alexander Lasarenko, our talented Creative Director, and myself to keep New York’s three studios operational. Our mission was two fold: staff up the studios with new talent and get work. In fact, we were told we had a year to demonstrate Billings that merited keeping the doors open, or we’d both be out of our jobs.
It was scary and but I was also excited. And Alex and I shared a common desire to create an altogether different culture than the one that preceded us, and I think we both jumped at the opportunity to put our own personal stamps on what was already a legacy company. I certainly loved the organization to such an extent that I conducted myself as though I owned it, and at least a couple of clients, it turned out, haha, seemed to think I did. But I think anytime you find a really successful company, you’ll find its employees all feel personally vested in its success.
By 1993 or 1994, however, after a series of departures, the composition staff had dwindled down to two ‘night guys’. One was Fritz Doddy, a musical chameleon who came highly recommended by Doug Hall, but whose demo had nevertheless languished in a shoe box before I heard it and then spent the next six months championing his talent to my superiors. 'How long will it take before you hire this guy?' I wondered. But then, in my own case, I had first approached the company 4 years before they hired me, and then they only hired me after a solid campaign where I called the company every single day for six months.
Fritz himself had also already made several overtures to the creative department, but there were so many exceptional talents besides him that were also beating down our doors that anyone who was eventually hired there really required someone inside to evangelize their talents on their behalf. For me, it was Audrey Arbeeny, Hugh Barton, Sherman Foote, and Ray Foote who eventually brought me in.
In addition to Fritz Doddy, the other senior composer was even newer hire named Alton Brammer Delano. Alton was an inspirational and eclectic ahead-of-his-time composer–cum–sound designer that had come to Ray's attention by scoring the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, and then despite his obvious upward trajectory, still agreed to start out as a studio assistant simply in order to get his foot in the door. That's how desirable a staff composer job at Elias was in those days (and may still be).
By 1993 or 1994, however, after a series of departures, the composition staff had dwindled down to two ‘night guys’. One was Fritz Doddy, a musical chameleon who came highly recommended by Doug Hall, but whose demo had nevertheless languished in a shoe box before I heard it and then spent the next six months championing his talent to my superiors. 'How long will it take before you hire this guy?' I wondered. But then, in my own case, I had first approached the company 4 years before they hired me, and then they only hired me after a solid campaign where I called the company every single day for six months.
Fritz himself had also already made several overtures to the creative department, but there were so many exceptional talents besides him that were also beating down our doors that anyone who was eventually hired there really required someone inside to evangelize their talents on their behalf. For me, it was Audrey Arbeeny, Hugh Barton, Sherman Foote, and Ray Foote who eventually brought me in.
In addition to Fritz Doddy, the other senior composer was even newer hire named Alton Brammer Delano. Alton was an inspirational and eclectic ahead-of-his-time composer–cum–sound designer that had come to Ray's attention by scoring the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, and then despite his obvious upward trajectory, still agreed to start out as a studio assistant simply in order to get his foot in the door. That's how desirable a staff composer job at Elias was in those days (and may still be).
A year later, Alton Delano and Fritz Doddy had formed a powerful musical partnership, combining two trends at the time, grunge rock and liturgical loops, and which Alex then synched to found footage of dolphins in the wild, of all things, and to such great effect, that it actually earned us several projects.
Another important part of the new configuration was Michael Sweet, who not only being one of Jonathan’s engineers was also an early creative technologist. And after Jonathan’s departure for LA, Michael’s role shifted to a lead interactive audio role, which put him in the position of an audio pioneer in those days.
To our core team we added a very effective sales rep, Debbie Maniscalco, with whom I collaborated on closing an astounding amount of sales over the next two years. In the music production community, a sales rep solicits projects from advertising agencies and film directors. The job requires the combined skill set of a socialite and a Soviet era Super Spy. That is, combined talents for people and analytics. Debbie was incredibly resourceful in this regard. Together we formed one of the most satisfying business partnerships of my career.
With the studio’s namesake, Jonathan Elias, now operating out of Los Angeles, however, the New York office required some kind of draw to separate us from our competitors, which now, ironically, included our own west coast office. So, Alex commissioned me with identifying promising young talent that we might develop into the new music stars of the advertising community. Who or what this talent should be, and how these talents would fit within the organization was not yet determined. So, apart from learning how to produce projects, I also had to learn how to manage a production company; promote its services; and recruit creative professionals, or young people who could develop into them.
Alex and I never sat down and made a plan; we simply trusted the other in the responsibilities assigned to them. And as team building goes, I actually did have a few specific ideas about how I wanted to accomplish this task.
The model I inherited from my predecessors was built on staffing each studio with a Synclavier Operator, essentially an electronic musician who works a recording studio in an equivalent way that many composers today construct music entirely by themselves using a laptop and sample libraries. It may be a successful model, but I had also observed that individual composers working separately often felt pitted against each other in competition for every project that came through the studio’s doors.
To our core team we added a very effective sales rep, Debbie Maniscalco, with whom I collaborated on closing an astounding amount of sales over the next two years. In the music production community, a sales rep solicits projects from advertising agencies and film directors. The job requires the combined skill set of a socialite and a Soviet era Super Spy. That is, combined talents for people and analytics. Debbie was incredibly resourceful in this regard. Together we formed one of the most satisfying business partnerships of my career.
With the studio’s namesake, Jonathan Elias, now operating out of Los Angeles, however, the New York office required some kind of draw to separate us from our competitors, which now, ironically, included our own west coast office. So, Alex commissioned me with identifying promising young talent that we might develop into the new music stars of the advertising community. Who or what this talent should be, and how these talents would fit within the organization was not yet determined. So, apart from learning how to produce projects, I also had to learn how to manage a production company; promote its services; and recruit creative professionals, or young people who could develop into them.
Alex and I never sat down and made a plan; we simply trusted the other in the responsibilities assigned to them. And as team building goes, I actually did have a few specific ideas about how I wanted to accomplish this task.
The model I inherited from my predecessors was built on staffing each studio with a Synclavier Operator, essentially an electronic musician who works a recording studio in an equivalent way that many composers today construct music entirely by themselves using a laptop and sample libraries. It may be a successful model, but I had also observed that individual composers working separately often felt pitted against each other in competition for every project that came through the studio’s doors.
And I also noticed how composers sometimes took an adversarial stance with clients over small creative points; the idea as it was explained to me was that clients don't always know what they want, so you have to fight for great music. Unfortunately, some clients did not appreciate losing fights to the people they had hired.
So how might we change the model in a way that benefited our culture, our composers, and our clients?
Long before I heard the phrase 'strategic relationships', it was obvious to me that an ensemble of contrasting skill sets groomed to embrace collaborative partnerships –not competitors– would yield the maximum benefit to both the company and its many creative endeavors.
I'm sure I gained this ensemble mentality from my training as dancer. (I received a BFA in dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts). A dance company is, after all, a team of individual performing artists working together to present a simultaneously singular and collaborative work of art.
And if one looked at the entire production of a TV commercial, from storyboard to shoot to edit, score and finish –one easily saw it as a work of art executed by a team. So, within that, why couldn't the audio development process work the same way?
Consider the way a band or orchestra work together. In a band, ideally, each member simultaneously contains uniquely contrasting and complimentary gifts. That's how it should work, I thought. In a symphony, the french horns play with the violins; they aren't allowed to play whatever they want –which is the way our music company seemed to work, with individual craftsmen following their own muse quite apart from what anyone else was doing.
In short, I envisioned a team of collaborating composers, each with a distinct and different musical or technical ability.
I placed pre-Internet ads in the New York Times and The Village Voice and received about 300 resumes. I met about 30 candidates and culled those by half, introducing the most promising artists to Alex, Fritz and Alton. We hired several young people who appealed to the consensus. Among them: Matt Fletcher, a technologist who came to us from NYU’s music department; Kerry Smith, a rock guitar player who had been paying his bills by working at Kinko’s; Todd Schietroma, a conservatory trained master percussionist from Texas; GianCarlo Libertino, a classical guitarist who would go on win a small amount of fame whistling the theme for Comedy Central; and Mario Piazza, an engineer/composer whom I recruited from New York's legendary Hit Factory.
Add to this in leadership roles, Fritz Doddy's immense skills as a multi-instrumentalist, Alton Delano's uniquely impressionistic approach to music and sound design, and Alex Lasarenko's mastery of traditional symphonic scoring, and there wasn't much now that we couldn't collectively accomplish in house, especially if we all worked together towards a common goal.
There were several others –many others, actually– who also came along for the ride, if only briefly. (In the end, I was one of those, too, who hopped on and off the machine.) Whether they left for other careers or studios, had girlfriends or boyfriends on the west coast, or had family obligations, or were let go for one reason or another, there are still some whose contributions continue to inspire me and my own creative work. To mention just three, there were several young women –Jennifer McGee, Erika Horsey and Lane Lenhart– who were all hired as studio assistants, and who were all so particularly talented, that it would not surprise me to see any if their names surface on the national stage sometime in the future.
All in all, I sought recruits who not only possessed a distinct talent for composition, but who also demonstrated themselves as gifted musicians with little or no overlap in skill sets. This forced collaboration, and that was an important factor in creating a vibrant organizational culture in a creative industry. Further, I not only selected contrasting skill sets, but contrasting personalities, -we weren’t just hiring staffers, we were hiring talent to groom into industry stars and musical brands. Once hired, I thereafter impressed upon each the importance that every member contribute to each others' projects. My idea was to transform the culture of internal competition into a team effort striving for exceptionally high standard of creative excellence. I felt most proud, not necessarily when we won a new client, but when walking past the studios I noticed the composers working together in each others rooms.
Competition with one's external competitors, or even between divisions in one large company, may be productive, but in a boutique artistic climate, I think internal collaboration yields greater rewards for all, and improves both morale and the bottom line. Indeed, I think the best way to consider this formula is to insure internal collaborations are so efficient that they win external competitions.
To this end, I also attempted to create an environment where creatives did not feel like the necessity to keep 'trade secrets' from one another. Naturally, I didn't do it alone; Alex, Alton and Fritz all wanted to achieve the same ends. But Elias had long been a top down highly political organization, and it was difficult to initiate change from the creative side, especially since the composers were all essentially new employees. So, it really fell to production to challenge legacy processes and I did my best.
Each new composer/musician was expected to share their craft with the others. Their personal reward for contributing to an open work environment would be the knowledge returned to them when they learn something from his or her colleagues' own specialties. For instance a classically trained artist would learn studio processes and mixing techniques from someone more electronically inclined, than if they forged ahead in isolation (as I did on my own journey). Conversely, the technologists in the lot would find themselves improving their musicianship by working with traditional musicians.
Happily, this new paradigm for the company also proved an advantageous defense against the ongoing recession. Now, instead of hiring session musicians to simply bring to life synthesized tracks produced by engineers and electronic musicians, our new musically diverse staff, while professionally inexperienced, nevertheless possessed the talent (and enthusiasm) to enhance each other's compositions –from concept to console– and all in-house, thereby cutting production costs and talent expenditures significantly.
In fact, at the same time I was building a creative team, my boss, Scott Elias, had also commissioned me to cut production costs by 20%, and I actually accomplished that by simply by hiring people who would work together!
So, how do you build a creative team? My answer circa 1993 - 1994 was to recruit the most talented people I could identify, and to insure that their talents aside, that they were also well liked by at least three other colleagues in the organization; and who relative to one another simultaneously represented Contrasting and Complimentary skill sets. And then, after they were hired, I worked very hard to cultivate in them a desire for working together in an open, collaborative environment, to convey the idea that this had always been the case in this organization, and to protect them from any influence that suggested otherwise. -that while the tracks may be in competition with each other, the people were not.
It was a great big experiment, actually, but it succeeded, and in the end, that team of music and sound design talents turned out to be one of the longest running, highest earning and cohesive creative teams in the history of the company.
I'm sure I gained this ensemble mentality from my training as dancer. (I received a BFA in dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts). A dance company is, after all, a team of individual performing artists working together to present a simultaneously singular and collaborative work of art.
And if one looked at the entire production of a TV commercial, from storyboard to shoot to edit, score and finish –one easily saw it as a work of art executed by a team. So, within that, why couldn't the audio development process work the same way?
Consider the way a band or orchestra work together. In a band, ideally, each member simultaneously contains uniquely contrasting and complimentary gifts. That's how it should work, I thought. In a symphony, the french horns play with the violins; they aren't allowed to play whatever they want –which is the way our music company seemed to work, with individual craftsmen following their own muse quite apart from what anyone else was doing.
In short, I envisioned a team of collaborating composers, each with a distinct and different musical or technical ability.
I placed pre-Internet ads in the New York Times and The Village Voice and received about 300 resumes. I met about 30 candidates and culled those by half, introducing the most promising artists to Alex, Fritz and Alton. We hired several young people who appealed to the consensus. Among them: Matt Fletcher, a technologist who came to us from NYU’s music department; Kerry Smith, a rock guitar player who had been paying his bills by working at Kinko’s; Todd Schietroma, a conservatory trained master percussionist from Texas; GianCarlo Libertino, a classical guitarist who would go on win a small amount of fame whistling the theme for Comedy Central; and Mario Piazza, an engineer/composer whom I recruited from New York's legendary Hit Factory.
Add to this in leadership roles, Fritz Doddy's immense skills as a multi-instrumentalist, Alton Delano's uniquely impressionistic approach to music and sound design, and Alex Lasarenko's mastery of traditional symphonic scoring, and there wasn't much now that we couldn't collectively accomplish in house, especially if we all worked together towards a common goal.
There were several others –many others, actually– who also came along for the ride, if only briefly. (In the end, I was one of those, too, who hopped on and off the machine.) Whether they left for other careers or studios, had girlfriends or boyfriends on the west coast, or had family obligations, or were let go for one reason or another, there are still some whose contributions continue to inspire me and my own creative work. To mention just three, there were several young women –Jennifer McGee, Erika Horsey and Lane Lenhart– who were all hired as studio assistants, and who were all so particularly talented, that it would not surprise me to see any if their names surface on the national stage sometime in the future.
All in all, I sought recruits who not only possessed a distinct talent for composition, but who also demonstrated themselves as gifted musicians with little or no overlap in skill sets. This forced collaboration, and that was an important factor in creating a vibrant organizational culture in a creative industry. Further, I not only selected contrasting skill sets, but contrasting personalities, -we weren’t just hiring staffers, we were hiring talent to groom into industry stars and musical brands. Once hired, I thereafter impressed upon each the importance that every member contribute to each others' projects. My idea was to transform the culture of internal competition into a team effort striving for exceptionally high standard of creative excellence. I felt most proud, not necessarily when we won a new client, but when walking past the studios I noticed the composers working together in each others rooms.
Competition with one's external competitors, or even between divisions in one large company, may be productive, but in a boutique artistic climate, I think internal collaboration yields greater rewards for all, and improves both morale and the bottom line. Indeed, I think the best way to consider this formula is to insure internal collaborations are so efficient that they win external competitions.
To this end, I also attempted to create an environment where creatives did not feel like the necessity to keep 'trade secrets' from one another. Naturally, I didn't do it alone; Alex, Alton and Fritz all wanted to achieve the same ends. But Elias had long been a top down highly political organization, and it was difficult to initiate change from the creative side, especially since the composers were all essentially new employees. So, it really fell to production to challenge legacy processes and I did my best.
Each new composer/musician was expected to share their craft with the others. Their personal reward for contributing to an open work environment would be the knowledge returned to them when they learn something from his or her colleagues' own specialties. For instance a classically trained artist would learn studio processes and mixing techniques from someone more electronically inclined, than if they forged ahead in isolation (as I did on my own journey). Conversely, the technologists in the lot would find themselves improving their musicianship by working with traditional musicians.
Happily, this new paradigm for the company also proved an advantageous defense against the ongoing recession. Now, instead of hiring session musicians to simply bring to life synthesized tracks produced by engineers and electronic musicians, our new musically diverse staff, while professionally inexperienced, nevertheless possessed the talent (and enthusiasm) to enhance each other's compositions –from concept to console– and all in-house, thereby cutting production costs and talent expenditures significantly.
In fact, at the same time I was building a creative team, my boss, Scott Elias, had also commissioned me to cut production costs by 20%, and I actually accomplished that by simply by hiring people who would work together!
So, how do you build a creative team? My answer circa 1993 - 1994 was to recruit the most talented people I could identify, and to insure that their talents aside, that they were also well liked by at least three other colleagues in the organization; and who relative to one another simultaneously represented Contrasting and Complimentary skill sets. And then, after they were hired, I worked very hard to cultivate in them a desire for working together in an open, collaborative environment, to convey the idea that this had always been the case in this organization, and to protect them from any influence that suggested otherwise. -that while the tracks may be in competition with each other, the people were not.
It was a great big experiment, actually, but it succeeded, and in the end, that team of music and sound design talents turned out to be one of the longest running, highest earning and cohesive creative teams in the history of the company.
Thursday, June 07, 2001
Six Sigma Music Producer
I arrived at the Elias studios on the third floor of 6 West 20th with a global perspective courtesy a childhood spent abroad, and modest but then eclectic musical talent because it included both a classical and electronic musical background.
Two years later, Scott Elias promoted me to Senior Producer, but I was still a novice with a bigger job title than skill set and lacked a production mentor at a critical time in my professional development. Six months before, the production department had disbanded when its several members left to start or join competing companies. How was I going to manage what had once been the responsibility of a department?
In short order, I had to quickly find a way how to manage national broadcast music and sound design projects without embarrassing myself or the company I worked for.
When I eventually found myself with two large three-ring binders full of organized notes, I called the resulting compendium ‘The Production Manual’, and with it I established a personal and practical foundation and reference for the production of music, sound design and sonic branding. As I evolved, the Production Manual evolved. And by the time I resigned from Elias Arts (then called Elias Associates), all those once complicated or difficult lessons had become second nature. Not to mention that protocols I developed had been adopted throughout both of our offices in New York and Los Angeles, and continued to support the organization for some time thereafter.
I would suggest any novice producer do the same as I did; a sentence or two every day is enough: who did I work for, what did I do, what did I accomplish, what did I learn? What went right? What went wrong? Is there a process?
If you can manage it, your production manual will also serve as a collection of the legal and business paperwork you receive from clients that can be used as boiler plate documents for future projects, and commonly referenced items, such as basic union rules governing the hiring of musicians and singers.
What else goes into the professional journal? The project specifications, the creative brief, a list of internal and external personnel and a post-mortem –essentially a synopsis of how the project concluded, problems or obstacles and how they were resolved, and lessons learned.
What gets saved to your computer? Every single digital document and electronic communication regarding the project, from both internal and external sources.
Sound like a lot of information to keep? It is, and you'll be adding to its volume for the length of your entire career.
Did you notice I haven't mentioned anything about music? If you're just getting started, I recommend another notebook altogether which you can use to keep notes on actual studio production.
In essence, you're writing two text books as you proceed: one is on the business of music production, and the other is for tracking your creative and technical development. And by the time you retire, you may finally know just enough to actually do your job without referencing any of your notes. Bonus points if you also can share this knowledge with others you meet who want to walk down the same path you did.
* * *
By the way, if you really have no experience producing music at all, I recommend buying and beginning with Propellerhead Software's music production program REASON. It's the closest thing I know that teaches traditional studio signal path. What that is and why that's important would probably sound nonsensical to you right now, but in lieu of interning in a recording studio, REASON is as good a place as any to start.
Two years later, Scott Elias promoted me to Senior Producer, but I was still a novice with a bigger job title than skill set and lacked a production mentor at a critical time in my professional development. Six months before, the production department had disbanded when its several members left to start or join competing companies. How was I going to manage what had once been the responsibility of a department?
In short order, I had to quickly find a way how to manage national broadcast music and sound design projects without embarrassing myself or the company I worked for.
Anyone of any skill level can call themselves a producer. But in the world I inhabited, a producer was the first and primary point of contact between representatives of a Fortune 500 brand, a global advertising company, or a film studio, -and also the person who translated those incoming business or communications problems into creative assignments. And those people -the clients and the creatives- were generally seasoned and experienced experts with little patience for people who were not.
So, how did I level up? By the time I became a producer I certainly understood professional music production, but I was extremely deficit on two fronts:
1) Being green and an introvert, I was often intimidated by people I perceived as important.
2) Being a producer at a commercial production facility requires not just an understanding of music theory or audio gear, but a comprehensive understanding of intellectual property law and film production.
So, how did I level up? By the time I became a producer I certainly understood professional music production, but I was extremely deficit on two fronts:
1) Being green and an introvert, I was often intimidated by people I perceived as important.
2) Being a producer at a commercial production facility requires not just an understanding of music theory or audio gear, but a comprehensive understanding of intellectual property law and film production.
I still recall managing my first recording session and having to work up the courage just to nudge the famous record producer and recording engineer, -Josh Abbey- that he had 15 minutes to wrap a mix. He turned his head, and gently swatted me away like a fly on a hot summer day.
Well, I knew I had to get over treating important people like important people if I was going to get anywhere. I had to see them as ‘us’, and realize we were working together for a common purpose, and for our mutual benefit.
Well, I knew I had to get over treating important people like important people if I was going to get anywhere. I had to see them as ‘us’, and realize we were working together for a common purpose, and for our mutual benefit.
I also needed to become as good at my job as our clients and creatives were at there jobs.
It was a tall order. I had to become a knowledge expert and be able to comfortably talk shop with advertising executives, brand strategists, lawyers, film directors, editors, composers, famous actors, musicians and singers (and later, game developers and software engineers, too). It wasn’t easy, but I wasn’t the first producer in the world, -other done producers had done it. In fact, all producers do it. Not to mention that working for a busy facility meant I had many role models among our clients, partners and colleagues. So, it was a solvable problem, and this is how I did it:
First, in order to advance my understanding of how a music or sound design project is managed, I scoured archived boxes of job folders and studied every single job for the four or five years prior to my appointment. I reviewed whatever creative specifications might be still be available; I then compared the brief to bids; and compared the bids to contracts, invoices, AFM, AFTRA & SAG contracts. As a tandem exercise, I followed the paper trail with digital audio and Video Recordings from demo to final. In this way, I learned a great deal about the production of all variety of commercial audio projects.
In short, I learned to connect the dots between the creative and the business.
What the documentation did not reveal, however, was how one arrived at a specific creative direction; nor did they provide illumination regarding the psychology of audio on specific demographics; nor did they so much as mention how a communications mandate might be filtered through a brand strategy in order to inform an assignment in sonic branding. I learned those things by way of actual experience, on actual jobs and working alongside people who were experts in their respective fields, and whom I was fortunate to have access to. In this regard, Alex Lasarenko provided me with an excellent education in film music and aesthetics, and played a significant role connecting my ears to my eyes. I already had a long-standing interest in semiotics, but Scott Elias and Audrey Arbeeny helped transform my thinking from towards a brand mentality. I'll write about this development in another post.
As for management: I have to tell you, nothing scared this novice producer more than suddenly finding himself in the position of leading a project for which a monolithic brand has paid a very dear amount to broadcast on the Superbowl.
If only there was a text book I could have referred to learn music and post production management. But since I didn’t know of any, I wrote my own. And I did this by cobbling every little bit of advice I received until I could systemize my own set of Standard Operating Procedures for the production and direction of creative projects (music, sound design and sonic branding for a variety of platforms).
In short, I learned to connect the dots between the creative and the business.
What the documentation did not reveal, however, was how one arrived at a specific creative direction; nor did they provide illumination regarding the psychology of audio on specific demographics; nor did they so much as mention how a communications mandate might be filtered through a brand strategy in order to inform an assignment in sonic branding. I learned those things by way of actual experience, on actual jobs and working alongside people who were experts in their respective fields, and whom I was fortunate to have access to. In this regard, Alex Lasarenko provided me with an excellent education in film music and aesthetics, and played a significant role connecting my ears to my eyes. I already had a long-standing interest in semiotics, but Scott Elias and Audrey Arbeeny helped transform my thinking from towards a brand mentality. I'll write about this development in another post.
As for management: I have to tell you, nothing scared this novice producer more than suddenly finding himself in the position of leading a project for which a monolithic brand has paid a very dear amount to broadcast on the Superbowl.
If only there was a text book I could have referred to learn music and post production management. But since I didn’t know of any, I wrote my own. And I did this by cobbling every little bit of advice I received until I could systemize my own set of Standard Operating Procedures for the production and direction of creative projects (music, sound design and sonic branding for a variety of platforms).
It helped, I must confess, that I had already gathered the basic tenants of project management from my father who was a project manager for General Electric, and who had managed the construction of Desalinzation plants, Power Plants and energy facilities around the world. As a result I like to think of myself as the world’s first music producer to understand Critical Path method, and I utilized (an albeit distilled version of) Six Sigma as my mantra in the pursuit of creative excellence, -that is, I made every attempt to minimize imperfections. Suffice to say I had a professional project manager mentality even if I hadn't all the skills and experience of a music producer just yet.
When I eventually found myself with two large three-ring binders full of organized notes, I called the resulting compendium ‘The Production Manual’, and with it I established a personal and practical foundation and reference for the production of music, sound design and sonic branding. As I evolved, the Production Manual evolved. And by the time I resigned from Elias Arts (then called Elias Associates), all those once complicated or difficult lessons had become second nature. Not to mention that protocols I developed had been adopted throughout both of our offices in New York and Los Angeles, and continued to support the organization for some time thereafter.
I would suggest any novice producer do the same as I did; a sentence or two every day is enough: who did I work for, what did I do, what did I accomplish, what did I learn? What went right? What went wrong? Is there a process?
If you can manage it, your production manual will also serve as a collection of the legal and business paperwork you receive from clients that can be used as boiler plate documents for future projects, and commonly referenced items, such as basic union rules governing the hiring of musicians and singers.
What else goes into the professional journal? The project specifications, the creative brief, a list of internal and external personnel and a post-mortem –essentially a synopsis of how the project concluded, problems or obstacles and how they were resolved, and lessons learned.
What gets saved to your computer? Every single digital document and electronic communication regarding the project, from both internal and external sources.
Sound like a lot of information to keep? It is, and you'll be adding to its volume for the length of your entire career.
Did you notice I haven't mentioned anything about music? If you're just getting started, I recommend another notebook altogether which you can use to keep notes on actual studio production.
In essence, you're writing two text books as you proceed: one is on the business of music production, and the other is for tracking your creative and technical development. And by the time you retire, you may finally know just enough to actually do your job without referencing any of your notes. Bonus points if you also can share this knowledge with others you meet who want to walk down the same path you did.
* * *
By the way, if you really have no experience producing music at all, I recommend buying and beginning with Propellerhead Software's music production program REASON. It's the closest thing I know that teaches traditional studio signal path. What that is and why that's important would probably sound nonsensical to you right now, but in lieu of interning in a recording studio, REASON is as good a place as any to start.
Wednesday, June 06, 2001
Elias Arts Goes Bicoastal and How I Got My Big Break
When film composer and record producer Jonathan Elias moved to Los Angeles, he took two staff composers with him –Chip Jenkins and Christopher Kemp. They opened shop in a beautiful mansion in Laurel Canyon but had to move when the neighbors complained about bagpipes echoing throughout the valley.
And almost simultaneously with Jonathan’s big move, the New York office's production and creative departments emptied out.
First, Producer Hugh Barton departed for Thad Spencer's creative studio, Asche & Spencer in Minnesota. Next, Ray and Sherman Foote left to start their own empire called Big Foote. After that, composer, Doug Hall, and the company’s sales rep Andy Messenger, also departed to launch their own soon-to-be award winning venture, Mess Hall. Finally, Paul Seymour and creative assistant Jon Nanberg followed the Foote Bros. down the street to Union Square, leaving our west twentieth street Chelsea offices seemingly quite empty of people and music. It felt a bit like the circus had left town.
Initially, Scott and Jonathan hired a headhunter to fill the Executive Producer and other vacant production positions with new blood, and thereby fill a necessary leadership role within the company. When they didn’t find anyone suitable after six months, Scott offered me the role of Senior Producer, and I did my best to consolidate a department once led by three former producers into one singular administrative position. At the time, it felt like many months of stepping though daily rings of fire before I emerged a confident and capable –if still green– professional. But we remained busy, and since I was used to all nighters, and because I was now producing every project, I learned a lot in less time than it might otherwise take.
With out a doubt, several years of experience were summarily and tidily compressed into a soul shattering but otherwise exciting half year or so. And because there was no senior role model forthcoming, I relied on our advertising industry clients, and film directors and editors to explain to me what their expectations of my role were, -and then I strived to meet or exceed them.
It is one thing to make a mistake as a coordinator or as an assistant, when only one’s pride is on the line –quite another when an international campaign for a Fortune 500 company looms in the balance, and I certainly stumbled along the way. But that’s how you learn. If you’re fortunate, as I was, you are working with people who see your potential and are patient enough to give you the time to get it right.
For essential production and talent management skills, I am especially indebted to Keith Dezen and Margie Sullivan from what was then a pre-Volkswagen Arnold Fortuna Lawner Cabot. Their demands of excellence from me across a continuous flow of work for a telecommunications brand framed my early professional education and my evolution from studio assistant to producer to fulfilling an executive producer role.
Additionally, my observation of Film Directors Kinka Usher and Marcus Nispel taught me fearlessness in the midst of a production clock and budget furiously winding down to air time. Audrey Arbeeny was a constant model of grace under pressure and an early advocate of brand strategy during an era when few used the term in commercial media production. Michael Sweet was my first mentor in the recording studio. Scott Elias shared his knowledge of how to build client relationships, and Ralph Ammirati and our own Creative Director, Alex Lasarenko, who brought a haute couture sensibility to music and sound design, constantly challenged me to take an expansive view of possible creative solutions for any given problem or assignment, and never expect anything less.
Not to say these were my only teachers, because I really made an effort to learn something from everyone I worked with.
Tuesday, June 05, 2001
Electro Art Jams with Philharmonic Strings
When I finally assumed something approximating a degree of professional and technical studio competence I began to collaborate on a number of sonic art projects with both Chris Fosdick and Michael Sweet (both of them assistants and engineers to record producer and film composer, Jonathan Elias).
For a song I wrote, called ‘Return to Zero’, I asked Michael to record me singing from Studio A where I was making a phone call back studio B, where the mix was running. I always loved the thin sound of trebly mono. Must have something to do with growing up with Panasonic cassette decks. Sure, you could dispense with the phone system and simply EQ a normal vocal take that way, but would it be half as fun as routing a call across the county before it cycled back to you to catch on Analog tape? No.
Experimenting with inventive recording techniques taught me a lot about practical hands-on music production. And it was on these personal musical projects that I tried and tested out techniques, singers, and new musical talent before introducing them or the Creative Director or to the compositional staff, which I might do by way of a recommendation for a commercial job.
For a song I wrote, called ‘Return to Zero’, I asked Michael to record me singing from Studio A where I was making a phone call back studio B, where the mix was running. I always loved the thin sound of trebly mono. Must have something to do with growing up with Panasonic cassette decks. Sure, you could dispense with the phone system and simply EQ a normal vocal take that way, but would it be half as fun as routing a call across the county before it cycled back to you to catch on Analog tape? No.
Experimenting with inventive recording techniques taught me a lot about practical hands-on music production. And it was on these personal musical projects that I tried and tested out techniques, singers, and new musical talent before introducing them or the Creative Director or to the compositional staff, which I might do by way of a recommendation for a commercial job.
How did this sound in practice? I once walked into a room full of clients and creatives wracking their minds how to fill a few seconds of black with audio, and nothing was working. But, “Hey, I was recording 24 Buddhist monks chanting last night, and it was kind of cool. Why don’t we try that!” Cut to award winning TV commercial on air 3 weeks later featuring 24 monks (1 singer, 23 overdubs) voicing ‘OM’.
In the process, I became acquainted with the talents of –and made friends with– many of the session musicians and singers that I would work with throughout the rest of my career. Valerie Wilson Morris of Val's Artist Management and Sandra Park Tremante who played violin at the New York Philharmonic were early supporters, and they also gave me good career advice along the way, too.
So, although the experimental songs and sonic landscapes I created over many long nights never evolved beyond demos, they did much to increase my technical ability and inform my aesthetic approach. Today when I listen to those recordings I feel the same thrill now I did then, when I stood next to amazing musicians and colleagues lending their talents to my work in order to help me grow and and get better at my craft.
In the process, I became acquainted with the talents of –and made friends with– many of the session musicians and singers that I would work with throughout the rest of my career. Valerie Wilson Morris of Val's Artist Management and Sandra Park Tremante who played violin at the New York Philharmonic were early supporters, and they also gave me good career advice along the way, too.
So, although the experimental songs and sonic landscapes I created over many long nights never evolved beyond demos, they did much to increase my technical ability and inform my aesthetic approach. Today when I listen to those recordings I feel the same thrill now I did then, when I stood next to amazing musicians and colleagues lending their talents to my work in order to help me grow and and get better at my craft.
To name a few: Doug Hall’s Hammond B-3 and Fritz Doddy’s funky bass kicking off ‘Outer Space’; Alexander Lasarenko’s ambient piano intro at the top of ‘Never Going Back To Earth’, and his lush harmonies throughout ‘The Strangest Boy’; Sandy Park’s psycho pizzicato and Valerie’s ethereal vocals floating just under the stoic sentiment of ‘Return to Zero’. Chip Jenkins, Chris Fosdick, Eric Schermerhorn, Kerry Smith, Ben Sher and Alton Delano all provided amazing guitar work throughout my entire repertoire.
I had a real penchant for space age themes back then, but the music was also always flavored with the terrestrial world rhythms that had served as the soundtrack to my childhood spent overseas.
While Brian Eno may be a human touchstone for many electronic musicians today, Jonathan Elias’ pop aesthetics were skewed somewhere between Peter Gabriel and Trevor Horn, which were closer to my own sensibilities, as well.
In retrospect, I think Elias attracted people who shared a similar taste, that is, drawn to global and technological hybrids, of which I was certainly one by virtue of my penchant for using computers to mix tribal percussion with pop harmonies –and that was probably one reason that our mutual composition professor (Joel Chadabe) sent me knocking on Jonathan's door in the first place.
While the world of polished music production for broadcast may not have been quite in sync with the American grunge zeitgeist of the time, those years at Elias Arts proved to be a great personal opportunity to seek out and work with global trend setters in music from Brazil and Kenya to China and the Caribbean, and certainly more interesting than, you know, well, just about everything.
I saw myself in motion pictures
Standing in the melting snow
If you believe in hallucinations
I'll give you some place to go
Return to, return to zero
I don't know, I don't know
If I can...
Y'know, I'm just one man...
Return to Zero
(C)1994 by Terry O'Gara
I had a real penchant for space age themes back then, but the music was also always flavored with the terrestrial world rhythms that had served as the soundtrack to my childhood spent overseas.While Brian Eno may be a human touchstone for many electronic musicians today, Jonathan Elias’ pop aesthetics were skewed somewhere between Peter Gabriel and Trevor Horn, which were closer to my own sensibilities, as well.
In retrospect, I think Elias attracted people who shared a similar taste, that is, drawn to global and technological hybrids, of which I was certainly one by virtue of my penchant for using computers to mix tribal percussion with pop harmonies –and that was probably one reason that our mutual composition professor (Joel Chadabe) sent me knocking on Jonathan's door in the first place.
While the world of polished music production for broadcast may not have been quite in sync with the American grunge zeitgeist of the time, those years at Elias Arts proved to be a great personal opportunity to seek out and work with global trend setters in music from Brazil and Kenya to China and the Caribbean, and certainly more interesting than, you know, well, just about everything.
I saw myself in motion pictures
Standing in the melting snow
If you believe in hallucinations
I'll give you some place to go
Return to, return to zero
I don't know, I don't know
If I can...
Y'know, I'm just one man...
Return to Zero
(C)1994 by Terry O'Gara
Monday, June 04, 2001
Studio Rats in Chelsea
Elias Associates was the original name of the commercial music business later known as Elias Arts and Elias Music. But when I worked there, first as an intern, and subsequently as the head of production, the studios theoretically could be rented out under the auspices of 'Vision Arts' studios.
In practice, though, Associates was so busy that they rarely were available, and then only to special customers, such as John Barry who dropped by on occasion to record the occasional film cue with Jonathan.
In the early days I cared more about access than money, so when I was offered a full time job the summer of 1992 –after my graduation from NYU– for 13K a year, instead of asking for a bigger paycheck I had the gumption to ask for a copy of the keys to the studio. I think management quite liked the idea that I was willing to spend 24 hours/7 Days a week at the studio, because they fulfilled my request with so much as batting an eye.
After that, most weeknights I’d go home after work, take a short nap, and then return @ 2 or 3AM in the morning.
On a normal night, when I walked in, Jonathan Elias would usually be wrapping up a record session with Mercury Recording Artists, Dito Montiel and Gutterboy; Ian Lloyd, Bemshi, Robert Downey Jr. or any one of his 'Super Model' projects.
In those days the studio was teaming with beautiful girls who wanted to get a record deal, or just hang out with ‘music guys’. Not that any one paid attention to me, and I liked it that way, because I was still learning how to operate studio hardware, and considered the circus around me a distraction.
Either way, when the studios finally emptied out, I settled into Studio B, and learned how to be a capable studio rat by trying to solve musical problems with technical solutions. Occasionally, Chris Fosdick or Michael Sweet would drop in on their way out and help me figure out why the damn Synclavier was not coming up on the mixing board. Billy Mallery would often arrive the next day at 8AM only to find me still trying to figure out how to patch a tone through a channel, or how to lay SMPTE to tape. I would be tearing my hair out; he would press a single small button or patch a cable and that would be it.
Live and learn, and I lived like that for years, much to the detriment of my social life, which pretty much became nonexistent –along with my personality, no doubt. But it was tremendous fun; and living with one hand on an SSL and one on a Synclavier, -it’s what I wanted for myself at the time.
Sunday, June 03, 2001
Strung Out and Shell Shocked from a Sonic High
Young people often think of a music producer as the person that gets ‘The Sound’. That may be true on an album, but in commercial music production, that responsibility is sometimes split with a creative director, and always shared with one’s clients.
In addition to studio technical know-how and presumed musicality, a commercial music producer must also acquire a portfolio of skills. Among them: client relationship management, project management, sales, account management and business development, budget planning, operations, talent recruitment and development, personnel management and contractual negotiation.
A lot of compartmentalization goes on. You need to represent the client to the creative staff; and represent the creative staff to the client. Ideally, composers feel fulfilled upon final delivery, and clients learn to trust you with anything –from their budget to their lunch. Not to mention presenting yourself as supremely capable of rolling back the reverb saturation on any given mix to precisely the level which will drive thirteen year olds into drug stores to buy pimple medicine, –in mono, stereo and multichannel surround.
The first thing you learn is there is an art to everything, including management, which can be a severely underrated skill by creative people, and therefore also undeveloped or even completely absent in creative enterprises. I was determined to get as good at it as I was inventing sounds.
It was always a juggling act: Art versus commerce.
In my first two years at Elias, I spent much of my actual time paying dues by reviewing bids and contracts.
Only after a long day, would I then need to give my nights over to working in the studio as recording assistant. And then, it was in the wee hours, after that, that I worked on my own to study of signal path and mic placement, and where I developed my own perspective on processing, and often while Jonathan Elias worked across the hall with perhaps a Hollywood celebrity.
If the studios were so busy that I could not get into a room after hours –as they often were– then I’d simply sit in the Machine Room/Dub Room (‘Room’ however, is a generous word for walk-in closet) and pour over manuals, where I’d read everything I could about the company’s three consoles -2 Ameks and an SSL; or I’d learn how to create patches for the various synthesizers and effects processors we had on the racks.
For years I easily spent 80 hours a week at Elias honing and applying my craft, but that was not unusual for the driven musical talents that worked there at the time.
Everybody else at the company also seemed to share my intensity. And together, we made for a high-strung, highly competitive crew that was also given to great laughter and comradeship when we found ourselves comping twenty-three tracks of vocals in the middle of the night.
When I finally left Elias in August of 1996, -exhausted- it took me three months to recover from years of sleep deprivation. I awoke from a shell shocked stupor towards the end of October, harboring the distinct impression that this is what a junkie’s withdrawal from amphetamines must feel like.
Only instead of speed, I had been tripping along on brands and beats all those years.
Saturday, June 02, 2001
There are Stars in Those Demos
Elias Arts received hundreds of demos every year –by mail and messenger.
When I first started the demos were audio cassettes. Later they were DATS. By the time I left no one was using cassettes anymore and everything arrived in CD form or VHS.
Engineers who wanted a job in the studios sent some of the demos in. Session musicians, singers and aspiring composers sent in the rest.
Early on, Exec Producer Ray Foote had identified in me a discerning ear for talent; and so it was my task to review each new box of unsolicited material.
At first I was honored that my bosses thought me competent enough, even discriminating enough, to sift through this catalog of work, never mind allow me to make recommendations on it. However, no sooner had I begun the task then I had the sick and sudden realization that very probably –at record labels worldwide– the fates of thousands of talented musicians and bands were in the hands of a few inexperienced gnats like myself.
That said, I really loved listening to demos, so much so that rather than hand the task over to interns and assistants that followed me, I held on to that responsibility until I left the company several years later (having by then risen through the ranks to Senior Producer).
I still love discovering a new talent.
The combined responsibility of production duty and talent scout wasn't much unlike an Artists & Repertoire role (A&R) at a record company. But finding talent for a music house is perhaps a little different than its entertainment counterpart because one's selections always had to possess true musical talent . Sorry, if that offends anyone, but the truth is, people become music stars for all sorts of reasons, some of them not having to do with musical talent. Since we weren't in the business of trying to get clients to work with us because we were beautiful or had great dance moves, the only thing left, was to be the best in the world at providing musical solutions to creative problems, and capable of executing their successful resolution.
A producer can’t always claim a writing credit, but there is nevertheless some personal reward in recommending a singer, a musician, an engineer, sampled sounds, adding to an arrangement, or contributing any other component that sells a track and sends the client back to the agency with an enthusiastic smile. Of course, sometimes one's contributions are compositional in nature, but that's not often the case, and it wasn't the primary focus of my job, which when I defined as inspiring other people to do their best.
At any rate, on the very first day of reviewing demos, I listened to maybe thirty or forty cassettes in all. There was one that Doug Hall, another one of our composers had brought in, of his friend, Fritz Doody. And it struck me as above and beyond all the others. I couldn’t believe it still just sat in this box with all the rest, and so I repeatedly lobbied Ray and Alex to have a listen. And six months after that Jonathan Elias hired Fritz, a Hungarian American Rocker from New Jersey who had the Prince-like capacity to play nearly any instrument he picked up.
I wasn't yet high enough up the ladder to command 'signing power', but thereafter anytime we needed to find a specialized, world class talent, Ray entrusted me with the job of locating and securing the right person for a specific job. It's always fun to identify someone with an amazing gift that perhaps the whole world has overlooked.
As for Fritz, we soon learned he had a great ear. Long before the advent of Auto-Tune he was a master of 'fixing' singers. I remember how he'd roll an entire vocal performance off 2” tape; dice it apart into individual words and syllables; then sample each phoneme into a Synclavier and re-pitch them –one by one– up or down with a pitch wheel. Then he'd sew the newly tuned performance back together again; and –presto! (hours and hours later)– he lay a perfect vocal back to tape.
No doubt, that's as close to handmade as recording gets, and it's not easy work. But Fritz's results were so seamless that upon playback it made some people who really had no business singing, think that they were in fact great singers.
Later, Fritz would go on to win a CLIO for scoring a ‘Got Milk’ TV commercial famous at the time for featuring the Trix cereal Rabbit.
Friday, June 01, 2001
Elias Associates
Ten years ago –in June of 1991– I began my career in audio production at Elias Associates. I started as an intern. Two school chums, Jim Nichols and Josh Kirsch –both Elias alum, but then working for JSM– had advised me to apply for an entry-level job at Elias Associates, which in those days was known to be as dog-eat-dog as it gets. If one survived the competitive culture and Investment Banker/Medical Resident hours, one was supposed to emerge a world-class audio talent. The only other facilities I knew of that shared a similarly rigorous reputation were The Hit Factory and The Power Station (now Avatar) Naturally, I took their advice with great enthusiasm, but it still took six months pestering the receptionist to get an appointment, and a month after that to get hired.
I arrived with high recommendations from Joel Chadabe, with whom I had studied Computer Music Programming with Jim and Josh. Joel had also been a mentor to Jonathan Elias.
In fact, it was through Joel that I first heard of Jonathan, and then another prior student of his –and Elias composer– Sherman Foote.
Sherman had a real impish sense of humor about him. When I was an assistant he'd at times advocate my contributions to the Production Department or to the Creative Director, a gesture that I really welcomed and appreciated. But as an intern undergoing the usual hazing, I could never tell if he was angry at me, sometimes, or just pulling my leg. He would usually just start to laugh and let you in on the joke –right before you were about to cry.
Of course I wanted to impress him, anyway possible.
Early on, before I really knew what I was doing, I remember ‘normaling’ a console –essentially returning all the knobs and buttons on a mixing board to their zero position. Not including buttons, there are over a thousand knobs on a professional console. I left one knob at the 8’o’clock position instead of where it normally zeroed out at 7 o’clock. Sherman –with almost superhuman ability– walked in the room and immediately pointed at the one button I had missed. He quietly but sternly warned me never to leave the console in such an unusable condition again.
That’s how ‘buttoned’ up you had to be: You wanted to work with the best? Not one button in a thousand could be left out of place, not even by a degree. Good morning and where’s my coffee?
My initial duties were split between serving the needs of the Scott and Jonathan Elias; the Creative Director, Alexander Lasarenko; and the Head of Production, Ray Foote.
Additionally, I often worked with Audrey Arbeeny on ‘special projects’.
Audrey had been the first member of the organization to recommend me to the others. We sat in the conference room, her back to a wall of sunlit CLIO’s, which cast a regal glow around her. I was suitably impressed.
I showed up my first day at work wearing khaki’s, a tie and a white button down oxford shirt. I thought a professional look was required of me. Management was outfitted in solid black Japanese couture clothing or rock star ripped jeans and cowboy boots.
The first thing Jonathan Elias did when he met me was to bend over and rip a hole in my pants, from my thigh to just above my knee –while I was still wearing them! At first, I thought:
‘My God, I’ve gone to work for freaks.’
Strangely enough, though, I soon felt like I was fast becoming one of them. Whether or not the genetic mutation occurred before or after my arrival, I’ll never know, but before long my entire wardrobe was a hipster’s shade of East Village Black, and my ears –while honed before– were getting increasingly sensitive to the subtlest of background noise, hiss and awkwardly placed pitches.
Monday, May 14, 2001
Banners Versus Commercials
It's 2006 2012 as I write this update, and not a trade show passes that someone doesn't argue declare the a banner dead. As it happens, I first heard this argument five eleven years ago in 2001, in an article published by The Silicon Alley Reporter. A given banner, it was said, was ineffective unless one could determine that a potential consumer actively engaged with it -that is that they clicked on it. This argument sounds reasonable on the surface, but it also negates corresponding behavior exhibited by the consumption of off line advertising, and which could not yet be disavowed as anachronistic by modern communication devices. So, I wrote a response arguing that clicks don't matter as much as impressions, and happy to say, it was published. More than a decade later the article is quite dated, of course, but I still think it provides a valid reminder that we should not underestimate the power of a static image to influence, or overlook the possibility of deferred action (especially after repeated imprints). After all, asking potential consumers to click here there or anywhere is a bit like asking drivers to stop, get out of their car and kick a billboard before we can measure the value of the billboard. Granted, mere visibility and hoping doesn't provide immediate metrics, but those numbers can be measured by eventual sales. I still believe in the power of 2D. But then, I also like the Beatles in mono. What say you?
–Terry O'Gara/2006 2012
Banner Vs. Traditional Television Advertising
By Terry O'Gara
Originally Published in The Silicon Alley Reporter, May 14, 2001
Banner ads are generally considered a failure. But how many click-throughs does a TV commercial get? A billboard? None. And it's probably better to compare banner ads to billboards than to TV commercials, which at least may entertain an audience, as well as suggest a call to action or purchase from consumers.
Great TV commercials and billboards can be extremely effective. The One Show Interactive Awards demonstrate that great banner ads can also be effective. The key word is "great"--as in great creative. The real lesson: Not everyone with a PC can be a new-media company. How many times does one learn the programmer was also the art director, the copywriter, the brand manager, and sometimes the composer or sound designer? All the time! The result is almost a promise of mediocre results.
Probably the only TV commercials whose effectiveness can be measured immediately, like banner ads, are those that close with an 800 number for ordering--the "click through" just requires pushing 10 buttons instead of one.
What may ultimately be important regarding the influence advertising has on consumers is not the medium, but the frequency, consistency, and mindfulness of the message.
It's difficult to measure the influence on my purchasing dollar by any kind of advertising. So, perhaps it's not whether banner ads work, but if any ads work? The answer seems to be bad ads don't work. Ill-conceived branding doesn't work. But a great billboard that I unintentionally look at may spark my interest, and the online equivalent--banner ads--may be as effective.
The banner medium can be more effective than a pop-up interstitial because it remains on the page your scanning. But the moment a pop-up opens, the window can be closed, often before it really gets going. I do that every time. So, in that case, maybe banners are more effective than television. Click.
–Terry O'Gara/
Banner Vs. Traditional Television Advertising
By Terry O'Gara
Originally Published in The Silicon Alley Reporter, May 14, 2001
Banner ads are generally considered a failure. But how many click-throughs does a TV commercial get? A billboard? None. And it's probably better to compare banner ads to billboards than to TV commercials, which at least may entertain an audience, as well as suggest a call to action or purchase from consumers.
Great TV commercials and billboards can be extremely effective. The One Show Interactive Awards demonstrate that great banner ads can also be effective. The key word is "great"--as in great creative. The real lesson: Not everyone with a PC can be a new-media company. How many times does one learn the programmer was also the art director, the copywriter, the brand manager, and sometimes the composer or sound designer? All the time! The result is almost a promise of mediocre results.
Probably the only TV commercials whose effectiveness can be measured immediately, like banner ads, are those that close with an 800 number for ordering--the "click through" just requires pushing 10 buttons instead of one.
What may ultimately be important regarding the influence advertising has on consumers is not the medium, but the frequency, consistency, and mindfulness of the message.
It's difficult to measure the influence on my purchasing dollar by any kind of advertising. So, perhaps it's not whether banner ads work, but if any ads work? The answer seems to be bad ads don't work. Ill-conceived branding doesn't work. But a great billboard that I unintentionally look at may spark my interest, and the online equivalent--banner ads--may be as effective.
The banner medium can be more effective than a pop-up interstitial because it remains on the page your scanning. But the moment a pop-up opens, the window can be closed, often before it really gets going. I do that every time. So, in that case, maybe banners are more effective than television. Click.
Friday, April 27, 2001
RIP Vicki Sue Robinson
God bless Vicki Sue Robinson, who died on this day, April 27, 2000.
The world knew Vicki as the singer who demanded that the DJ turn the beat around. I was one of those fortunate to to know her. We became acquainted with each other while working on a variety of studio projects through the nineties. She lifted my spirits; made me laugh; made me sing and made me dance.
And her memory will always make me smile.
Thank you Vicki!
Monday, April 02, 2001
Blister Media: Interactive Composition Comes of Age
In Mix Magazine's Internet Audio supplement (April 2001), editor Sarah Jones asks the question, "Who is the new web audio professional?" She then goes on to take a stab at the answer and writes:"Creating audio for the Internet requires a unique blend of skills, combining audio savvy, design creativity and programming knowledge. Audio professionals are learning about HTML and Flash. Web designers and computer professionals are learning about compression and sampling rates. Today's production team, like this month's featured creative talent at Blister Media, might be writing both a MIDI sequence and HTML code as part of a client project. Is this jack of all trades the new breed of creative professional?"
The feature story that followed that introduction was in depth interview of my partner and I about the practices we employed, sometimes invented, often combined and then championed as a new breed of sonic artisan that would be both music designer and creative technologist.
Here's the article:
BLISTER MEDIA
Interactive Composition Comes of Age
By Andrea Rotondo Hospidor
Terry O’Gara and Michael Sweet, owners of Manhattan-based Blister Media, are true musicians and creative collaborators. They speak the language of MIDI, sequencing and recording, but they also speak Java, Flash Shockwave, Beatnik, MP3 and RealAudio. The upshot is, Blister Media may just portend the future for all music production professionals.
The company is currently blazing trails as one of the few music houses that composes music–and creates code–for interactive media, and we're not just talking TV commercials, CD-ROMS and on-site installations; we're talking about composing music for the Internet. Recent projects include several sync-to-broadcast gigs, such as History Channel's History IQ game and MTV's WebRIOT. (Sync-to-broadcast synchronizes online content with on-air broadcasts, turning a TV show into an interactive experience.) Blister Media is also responsible for the new sonic identity of HBO Zone, music for Shockwave's BLiX and Loop games, music and sound design for the NASDAQ site in Times Square and a connection tone for a telephone company.
So, if you're a composer who presumes Beatnik has something to do with a Jack Kerouac novel, you'd do well to take note. The future of music composition ain't what it used to be.
MUSIC
Music, Noise, Code. That's the Blister tagline. According to O'Gara, "That translates to: original music, sound design and audio-specific programming as applicable for interactive media–including enhanced or interactive TV, special venues and electronic games–TV and radio commercials, broadcast promotions, phone connection tones, etc." To paraphrase David Byrne, how did they get here?
Both men grew up with a musical instrument in one hand and a computer keyboard in the other. "I grew up in a relatively artistic family," Recalls O'Gara. "I studied violin, worked as an assistant to the organist at a local church and played in a youth orchestra. I also had the benefit of growing in a family that traveled the world. So as a child I listened to the indigenous music of the Middle East, South America, the West Indies and Europe." But perhaps most significant in O'Gara's early music education was the day his parents bought him a Minimoog. He was 13 and just beginning to dream about the ins and outs of sound synthesis.
Meanwhile, in a sleepy Wisconsin town, Sweet was also growing up with music. It was the early '80's and he was learning to merge the computer world with sound. He went on to study music production and film scoring at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
NOISE
Later, both landed jobs at a well-known music production company in New York City: O’Gara following the production route and Sweet concentrating on composition. "We became creative collaborators from the start," notes O’Gara. "In the beginning, our collaborations were more experimental, explorative and noncommercial. We were mixing orchestral harmonies with world rhythms and hip hop loops. This was 1991. It was until 1996 that the world caught up with us, and our explorations became something people would pay us to create." Soon after, the duo created Blister Media.
"From the very beginning, clients would come to us for new ideas and we'd sell them on the idea of a symphonic piece of music being driven by electronically produced tribal rhythms, for example." O'Gara says.
CODE
As they honed their composition chops on commercials, interactive kiosks, installations and CD-ROMs, O'Gara and Sweet also dove into Flash, Java and Beatnik. It was this intimate knowledge of technology that landed them favor with Shockwave. They have since produced music for two online games: BLiX and Loop. In effect, Blister's tech-speak has allowed them to cross over into a world where programmers and musicians routinely collaborate music for the Web being an extension of that philosophy.
"Creating music for the Web takes sound to places where it can be heard on a very personal level," says Sweet. "When we create music for an interactive experience, the one-to-one relationship to the end-user is much closer than creating something that appeals to a broad audience, such as commercials. IN addition, the collaboration between all of the digital artists is much stronger, because it usually takes several months to finish a project."
NOSTRADAMUS FOR A DAY
O'Gara and Sweet advise composers and engineers to delve into audio for the Web–and interactive media–as soon as possible. Composers and engineers must know compression and delivery formats, and it's not enough to just hand your music off to a programmer. Smart production pros will play the active role in creating code.
O'Gara goes so far to say, "If a composer doesn't understand the technical issues regarding the way audio is delivered, then maybe he's in the wrong business. We'll see more and more of these technologies converge or act in tandem. Sync-to-broadcast is just one example. Our perception of what a composer, engineer or producer is has to change along with the technology. But we must emphasize that it's not just the tools. It's first and foremost what's in your head."
Sweet concurs, "When I first started exploring Beatnik, I had to get in that box and say, "This is what it can do. How can I push the box outward and make it do things that people haven't thought of doing before?" You start thinking, "Oh, I had this idea a long time ago and now here's a way to do it!"
TECHNOLOGY AND ART IN ACTION
How do O'Gara and Sweet really combine technology and composition? It seems to be two parts creative musical intelligence and one part kicking studio setup. The creative team runs off of both the Macintosh and PC platforms and mixes on a Mackie D8B digital console. Sequencing is done via MOTU Digital Performer, Digidesign's Pro Tools and Emagic Logic. Their synth rack is extensive and boasts an E-mu Proteus 2000; Roland JV-2080, MC-303, Juno 106, Super JX; Oberheim Matrix-6R; Minimoog; Waldorf WaveXT; and a Synclavier. They also own a host of software synths, Steinberg Rebirth and Recycle to name two. The E-mu E6400 Ultra and Digidesign's SampleCell handle the sampling chores; Macromedia Director, Flash and Dreamweaver round out their digs.
"It's not just equipment but an extension of our ideas," O'Gara says. "We love an eclectic mix of equipment. The tools, to some extent, define the process and the production method. The idea is that if our studio setup is atypical, then what we create will be atypical in nature as well."
Blister Media recently put their studio sensibilities to the test while creating music for a new Shockwave game called Loop. "Although, on first look, it's a relatively simple game," says Sweet, "it has many different levels, both visually and musically. One of the things that has always excited me about music for games is the ability t create a piece that changes every time you play it. In Loop, we structured the sound around playlists that could change in real time, as well as from play to play, giving the end-user a much richer musical experience."
Another recent project was Passport Kids for Children's Television Workshop. "The theme," Sweet says, "was communication. The site is translated into 10-plus languages, and people from around the world exchange information about themselves. When we were asked to add music to the site, we wanted to let users express themselves though music, so we built a musical sequencer and 'jam machine' that allowed users to create their own 'song' and play to other users. We used Beatnik as our audio engine, because it was a fairly robust music system that allowed us to bring custom world instrument samples and manipulate them in real time. When then wrote a lot of custom code to push Beatnik to its limits. The outer visual shell was then built using Flash that communicated directly with our code for Beatnik.
"When we first start a project, we look at many things," Sweet continues, "including the overall creative feel, interaction design, bandwidth/size and what new things we can do that we've never done before. Experimentation is a very important aspect of what we do, because we don't think the sound is made perfect the first time around. We always ask ourselves, 'How can we make it better? How can we push the boundaries of our current technology limitations?"
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