Broadband Video Buzz & The Interactive DilemmaBy Terry O'Gara
Originally published on Adholes, Wednesday, June 7, 2006
BBDO gives birth to Atmosphere. Mezzina Brown renames itself Agent 16. The Barbarian Group is redefining the very meaning of ‘Production Company’.
It’s no secret that established agencies and migrating talent have spent the last several years re-branding themselves with new mastheads, or by creating distinct interactive divisions. However, many creative suppliers remain entrenched in the traditional broadcast economy and are –perhaps– just starting to dabble with online media. Sure, every broadcast design firm and music house has their own website, but how many have necessarily been commissioned to work on online media pieces? Here in New York, not as many as you might think. (If you can tell me which ad houses are partnering with which post houses to produce killer content, post some links and let’s get a list going. )
A decade after the initial Internet explosion, many post-production houses can be said to have only dabbled in the medium, if at all. –And not for not wanting nor for lack of adventure. Actually, more than a few high-end creative suppliers have confessed new media budgets just don’t pay the bills. One wonders if Interactive work, like banners of every shape and form, really doesn’t lend itself to an external collaborative process, and therefore it’s all produced in-house?
Will Broadband Video Commercials change this? With recent IAB recommendations, and new formats rolling out of companies like Unicast and Forbidden, all of a sudden the future of Internet Advertising looks a lot like, gulp, the :30 TV spot.
Which leads me to this basic question: If every designer today is required to be an HTML whiz, will a director’s job change when hired to shoot expressly for broadband? How will an editor’s? Hey, will anything actually get shot EXPRESSLY for broadband, or will we actually be looking at repurposed :30’s? Are there any new skill sets that post-production staffers will have to demonstrate before the e-crowd believes they ‘get it’? And if audience/consumers are equally happy with content, regardless of screen size, and agencies handle the integration, why would anyone in post have to upgrade their skill set?
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Interactive Advertising/Interactive Process
In late spring of 2006, my company Position Management, was commissioned by a Los Angeles production company to produce a State-of-the-Industry market analysis on Interactive Advertising. The report would thereafter serve my client as a reference tool with which to identify clients, contacts and other points of entry suitable for investigation by their associates. It was a project I was quite excited to work on, especially as I had been chasing the broadband video tail since the previous decade.
Obviously the resulting report and its findings are confidential, therefore I won't be divulging its contents here. However, as I carried out my task, I endeavored to conduct parallel research for a story which might end up in one trade magazine or another. Of current interest to me was the fact that eight years after the founding of Blister Media, and fifteen years after my first Interactive job, it was readily apparent that most traditional production companies who worked on broadcast advertising projects still hadn't worked on an interactive project, save their own website. Not only that, but some of these shops, despite their relative inexperience, promised vertical branding solutions. Whoa. Hello, people, that means top to bottom.
Anyway, I was –and I continue to be– intrigued with process. That is, how does a particular medium affect the way creative people work? You know, of course I already have my own ideas about this, but it's important to find out what other people think. Some people will tell you the technology has no bearing on their process. Others will tell you that it changes everything. Despite the fact that everything can be distilled to electro-magnetic waves, I can tell you from personal experience, that I write different music at a piano than I do a synthesizer. The electronic keyboard's layout might be identical to that of the piano, and it might in fact only be triggering a piano sample; but something changes in my brain when I know the possibilities have suddenly become limitless. –Or narrowed, for that matter.
Obviously the resulting report and its findings are confidential, therefore I won't be divulging its contents here. However, as I carried out my task, I endeavored to conduct parallel research for a story which might end up in one trade magazine or another. Of current interest to me was the fact that eight years after the founding of Blister Media, and fifteen years after my first Interactive job, it was readily apparent that most traditional production companies who worked on broadcast advertising projects still hadn't worked on an interactive project, save their own website. Not only that, but some of these shops, despite their relative inexperience, promised vertical branding solutions. Whoa. Hello, people, that means top to bottom.
Anyway, I was –and I continue to be– intrigued with process. That is, how does a particular medium affect the way creative people work? You know, of course I already have my own ideas about this, but it's important to find out what other people think. Some people will tell you the technology has no bearing on their process. Others will tell you that it changes everything. Despite the fact that everything can be distilled to electro-magnetic waves, I can tell you from personal experience, that I write different music at a piano than I do a synthesizer. The electronic keyboard's layout might be identical to that of the piano, and it might in fact only be triggering a piano sample; but something changes in my brain when I know the possibilities have suddenly become limitless. –Or narrowed, for that matter.
Monday, May 01, 2006
Music As Collateral: Using Audio to Add Value
The music industry complains of being broken. Digital Audio is easy to copy. So, now consumers apparently have no reason to purchase legitimate product. As a result there is much talk regarding how to add further value to physical product in order to sustain a consumer base.
Let me suggest that instead of adding value to the music, let’s consider how to use music to add value to other consumer products. In this way:
A) the producers of a recording can profit;
B) the artists gain a vehicle for distribution; and
C) the consumer can feel like they’ve either earned a reward, or gotten something for free that they would otherwise have to pay for.
For instance:
I would personally be more likely to listen to an album of romantic songs if they were delivered with a premium box of Godiva chocolates. Likewise, the global florist, FTD, has an immense opportunity waiting for them if they are first to deliver music along with their floral arrangements. Long after the flowers wilt, a loved one can listen to the song they were gifted and thereby continue living within an FTD branded experience.
I call this Camelback Distribution (or Collateral) because something else is carrying the load. In this latter example the something else is the flowers, and the load the music.
Any kind of sponsorship may not be the best platform for an unknown artist, for either the artist or the sponsor; but you can surely can see how it could be a profitable one for both current hit makers –(Mariah Carey & FTD, for example)– and for classic catalog recordings, which in effect represents a vast emotional repository for the entire culture.
To the customer the experience won’t feel branded: It will simply feel like a love letter received from one person to the other; or it will be accepted as a token gift of music, accompanying the bouquet. Either way, which florist do you think giver and receiver are going to call the next time either one needs to send a bouquet of flowers?
As a teen my friends and I traded songs or mix tapes. On occasion, the exchange was prefaced with an explanation that the person receiving the material was to pay attention to a particular set of lyrics. Thus, the music became the vehicle for a message attributable not to the songwriter, but to the person who made the mix tape, to be decoded later by the person he or she gave the music to. In a way, the gift which arrived was in fact neither the mix tape nor the music, but rather both mix tape and music provided Russian Doll like packaging for an emotive expression, which was the true gift!
Given this scenario, which continues today with the exchange of mp3s, why not bundle single roses with singles (songs) and market the combo to teen romantics at a price they can afford?
I can imagine that the attached card might read:
"Nothing says 'I Love You' like a rose, except for music. This song says more about how I feel about you than I could ever put into words myself."
The reality is, the music isn't free but it feels free, because the ostensible purchase is for the rose (or other gift (the 'camel'). So, the music is paid for with each and every product purchase. Alternately, a corporate sponsor can eat the cost entirely, either as a loss leader or because by doing so they hope to profit by factors other than an immediate economic payback (–such as the goodwill and gratitude of their customers, for instance).
+ + +
This article is one in series of articles about audio as added value. Read the other entries by following the links:
Music As Collateral: Using Audio to Add Value
The Compact Disc Is Dead
Saving The Music Industry One Brand at a Time
Self-Referential Jingles are not Content
Synergy = Energy
Let me suggest that instead of adding value to the music, let’s consider how to use music to add value to other consumer products. In this way:
A) the producers of a recording can profit;
B) the artists gain a vehicle for distribution; and
C) the consumer can feel like they’ve either earned a reward, or gotten something for free that they would otherwise have to pay for.
For instance:
I would personally be more likely to listen to an album of romantic songs if they were delivered with a premium box of Godiva chocolates. Likewise, the global florist, FTD, has an immense opportunity waiting for them if they are first to deliver music along with their floral arrangements. Long after the flowers wilt, a loved one can listen to the song they were gifted and thereby continue living within an FTD branded experience.
I call this Camelback Distribution (or Collateral) because something else is carrying the load. In this latter example the something else is the flowers, and the load the music.
Any kind of sponsorship may not be the best platform for an unknown artist, for either the artist or the sponsor; but you can surely can see how it could be a profitable one for both current hit makers –(Mariah Carey & FTD, for example)– and for classic catalog recordings, which in effect represents a vast emotional repository for the entire culture.
To the customer the experience won’t feel branded: It will simply feel like a love letter received from one person to the other; or it will be accepted as a token gift of music, accompanying the bouquet. Either way, which florist do you think giver and receiver are going to call the next time either one needs to send a bouquet of flowers?
As a teen my friends and I traded songs or mix tapes. On occasion, the exchange was prefaced with an explanation that the person receiving the material was to pay attention to a particular set of lyrics. Thus, the music became the vehicle for a message attributable not to the songwriter, but to the person who made the mix tape, to be decoded later by the person he or she gave the music to. In a way, the gift which arrived was in fact neither the mix tape nor the music, but rather both mix tape and music provided Russian Doll like packaging for an emotive expression, which was the true gift!
Given this scenario, which continues today with the exchange of mp3s, why not bundle single roses with singles (songs) and market the combo to teen romantics at a price they can afford?
I can imagine that the attached card might read:
"Nothing says 'I Love You' like a rose, except for music. This song says more about how I feel about you than I could ever put into words myself."
The reality is, the music isn't free but it feels free, because the ostensible purchase is for the rose (or other gift (the 'camel'). So, the music is paid for with each and every product purchase. Alternately, a corporate sponsor can eat the cost entirely, either as a loss leader or because by doing so they hope to profit by factors other than an immediate economic payback (–such as the goodwill and gratitude of their customers, for instance).
+ + +
This article is one in series of articles about audio as added value. Read the other entries by following the links:
Music As Collateral: Using Audio to Add Value
The Compact Disc Is Dead
Saving The Music Industry One Brand at a Time
Self-Referential Jingles are not Content
Synergy = Energy
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Artist X Brand X Not Available @ iTunes
There may be a time in the future when the Apple brand is deemed an incompatible venue for one or more artists to distribute their works. It may happen, for instance, that a performer receives underwriting from Microsoft, or another Apple competitor. Apple, is not after all, retail agnostic. How long will Sony want to keep sending their consumers to their biggest competitor for music playback devices?
There’s absolutely no reason or need to send music fans to any specific online store, such as iTunes, whose own branded experience may fall outside any given artist's own brand mandate. Companies that underwrite artists should make downloads available on their own websites. Additionally –and in direct contrast to record label offerings– creative works resulting from corporate underwriting might even be offered without copy protection. Why? Because unlike traditional entertainment units, brands will want as many consumers as possible to share in their brand event/experience.
Assume an artist who receives sponsorship of some sort is satisfied with his or her compensation/funding. It follows that adequately financed, original works of art and music will have a chance of spreading virally as never before. And because the material is underwritten and not work-for-hire, the artist retains the option and opportunity to further profit from the material assuming his or her underwriters are duly credited (ex. 'This recording was made possible as a result of a grant from The Famous Soda Pop Co. Foundation For the Arts').
Underwriters might also negotiate such things as branded tags, keywords and icons so that the material can be located and viewed in iTunes (and other similarly formatted sites or applications) by BAND name and BRAND name. Why not? Doesn’t every movie begin with the producing studio's Logo? I’m not suggesting pre-roll audio commercial announcements be placed before a song or musical composition –although a .25 (quarter second) to 3.0 (three second) fanfare before a multi-song (or music+video) experience may not be too unreasonable for consumers to accept. However, I am advising that Song Info appear in any and all consumer databases fully credited:
‘Artist X’ – ‘Title X’ – courtesy of Brand X
For other articles in this series:
ROCK BRANDS: Tomorrow's Rock Star Marketing Partners
Branded Mixes
Medici Model Revisited
Artist X Brand X Not Available @ iTunes
Strategic Audio Partnerships
Diplomatic Corps Rock Fest
itunes
There’s absolutely no reason or need to send music fans to any specific online store, such as iTunes, whose own branded experience may fall outside any given artist's own brand mandate. Companies that underwrite artists should make downloads available on their own websites. Additionally –and in direct contrast to record label offerings– creative works resulting from corporate underwriting might even be offered without copy protection. Why? Because unlike traditional entertainment units, brands will want as many consumers as possible to share in their brand event/experience.
Assume an artist who receives sponsorship of some sort is satisfied with his or her compensation/funding. It follows that adequately financed, original works of art and music will have a chance of spreading virally as never before. And because the material is underwritten and not work-for-hire, the artist retains the option and opportunity to further profit from the material assuming his or her underwriters are duly credited (ex. 'This recording was made possible as a result of a grant from The Famous Soda Pop Co. Foundation For the Arts').
Underwriters might also negotiate such things as branded tags, keywords and icons so that the material can be located and viewed in iTunes (and other similarly formatted sites or applications) by BAND name and BRAND name. Why not? Doesn’t every movie begin with the producing studio's Logo? I’m not suggesting pre-roll audio commercial announcements be placed before a song or musical composition –although a .25 (quarter second) to 3.0 (three second) fanfare before a multi-song (or music+video) experience may not be too unreasonable for consumers to accept. However, I am advising that Song Info appear in any and all consumer databases fully credited:
‘Artist X’ – ‘Title X’ – courtesy of Brand X
For other articles in this series:
ROCK BRANDS: Tomorrow's Rock Star Marketing Partners
Branded Mixes
Medici Model Revisited
Artist X Brand X Not Available @ iTunes
Strategic Audio Partnerships
Diplomatic Corps Rock Fest
itunes
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Medici Model Revisited
There’s a historical precedent for patronage. Mozart, Bach, Beethoven –all the great classical composers– wrote music at the bequest of a variety of benefactors, be it the church, a member or royalty, or another extremely wealthy person. Michelangelo’s masterpieces were all created as commissioned works, and I don’t think anyone ever accused Michelangelo of selling out to the Medicis or the Roman Catholic Church.
As such, I don't understand why today our largest corporations do not commission symphonic works of some substantial length to merit an evening of music. If classical or concert music is dead, I can certainly imagine this kind of patronage changing the whole game, not to mention the potential contributions to the arts and culture such largesse would afford. By the way, I'm accepting such commissions beginning immediately.
As it turns out, some corporations already do employ art buyers: to decorate their lobbies and offices; to contribute to environmental branding needs and to enhance an investment portfolio. So, if a company has an art buyer in their employ, why not also create an artist relations role? Or develop in-house music producers who not only are capable of eliciting world class musical performances from the artists and entertainers they work with, but who also specialize in cultivating, selecting and filtering works of art (i.e. the composition, performance, tonality and recording process) through the lens of a client's brand strategy.
Of course, artists averse to selling out –if they perceive it as such– don't have to participate. And there will certainly be those whose material is so offensive or politicizing that they would be hard pressed to attract mainstream sponsors. But for others, the idea of piggybacking on a pound of Starbucks coffee or a can of Pepsi will be considered a perfectly acceptable means of guaranteed distribution should they choose to accept a corporate commission or grant (certainly, if the result is getting heard by millions of people).
Has any one who loves building cars or driving them ever said, “No, I can’t accept a sponsorship because that would be selling out; and therefore, I will limit all my driving to public roads?”
No, of course not: The best professional drivers want to get behind the wheel of the best-made cars and drive them on the most exclusive, prestigious and challenging tracks in the world. There’s no reason a similarly constructed music industry can’t adopt something from the NASCAR model.
Can you envision a day when consumers make all their music purchases at a grocery store because all the produce they purchase comes with –or provides access to– the music they want? I can: It will either be an economic nightmare or a gilded age.
Perhaps a can of beans is not an ideal stage for a serious composer. Perhaps the public will be turned off by an artist who arrives home with them with their organic carrots. But at the same time, I can't help but think it still is a commercially viable model for the production and distribution of entertainment, given the suitability of artist and corporate partner. I'd be more than happy to bring home the complete remastered works of Duke Ellington with a Lexus, and I wouldn't think less of the man or his art. A market exists for this delivery system right now, and it is probably larger than anyone right now can even imagine.
This may mean that companies such as Proctor & Gamble –to mention one company which is perfectly poised to take advantage of the proposed model– could eventually come head to head with companies like SONY/BMG. No doubt, today’s corporate titans are on the verge of a market shake-up that will define tomorrow’s entertainment behemoths and modern day Medicis. As a result, a company best known for selling soap and detergent today, just may win the upcoming war for consumer loyalty, and do by simply creating connections with artists; by funding music and distributing it with or without explicit tie-ins to their products and services (the music/ entertainment/ art might be made available only at their website, or by via some kind of non-commercial venue).
Proctor & Gamble is an especially formidable player in this regard because they already have a significant, if often overlooked, history as a content producer.
It bears mentioning that reasons for corporate patronage also include a desire or necessity to curry political favor in another country, as Lorenzo de' Medici is known to have done. By investing or contributing in another nation's arts and artists, one possibly wins favor with its members of government. For American and European interests (seeking foreign industrial contracts), it may seem like good strategy to spend dollars developing tomorrow's Chinese rock stars and East Indian gangsta rappers. Likewise, we may one day witness Asian governments sponsoring indigenous African and mid eastern cultural activities in a bid to compete for those country's petrol resources.
It should also be noted that government sponsorship of artist tours abroad are neither new nor even revolutionary. We are reminded by the Heritage Foundation on the Americans for the Arts website, that:
“Cultural exchanges are part of our first line of defense, helping to bridge ideological gaps and policy disagreements with person-to-person contact and close-up views of the United States. Such programs helped end the Cold War and could have reduced costly complications for America in the global war on terror.”
Future artists will greatly benefit from national patronage –or another form of sponsorship– if only for the guarantee of distribution and exposure, and if not always as a result of an association with the underwriter. –Although negative perceptions of artists (for participating in these relationships) by existing fans can largely be avoided if both parties –brand and band– make good public partners. New fans won’t care if patronage, endorsements or sponsorships are in play because that will be how they discovered the artist/s in the first place.
For other articles in this series:
ROCK BRANDS: Tomorrow's Rock Star Marketing Partners
Branded Mixes
Medici Model Revisited
Artist X Brand X Not Available @ iTunes
Strategic Audio Partnerships
Diplomatic Corps Rock Fest
sponsorship
As such, I don't understand why today our largest corporations do not commission symphonic works of some substantial length to merit an evening of music. If classical or concert music is dead, I can certainly imagine this kind of patronage changing the whole game, not to mention the potential contributions to the arts and culture such largesse would afford. By the way, I'm accepting such commissions beginning immediately.
As it turns out, some corporations already do employ art buyers: to decorate their lobbies and offices; to contribute to environmental branding needs and to enhance an investment portfolio. So, if a company has an art buyer in their employ, why not also create an artist relations role? Or develop in-house music producers who not only are capable of eliciting world class musical performances from the artists and entertainers they work with, but who also specialize in cultivating, selecting and filtering works of art (i.e. the composition, performance, tonality and recording process) through the lens of a client's brand strategy.
Of course, artists averse to selling out –if they perceive it as such– don't have to participate. And there will certainly be those whose material is so offensive or politicizing that they would be hard pressed to attract mainstream sponsors. But for others, the idea of piggybacking on a pound of Starbucks coffee or a can of Pepsi will be considered a perfectly acceptable means of guaranteed distribution should they choose to accept a corporate commission or grant (certainly, if the result is getting heard by millions of people).
Has any one who loves building cars or driving them ever said, “No, I can’t accept a sponsorship because that would be selling out; and therefore, I will limit all my driving to public roads?”
No, of course not: The best professional drivers want to get behind the wheel of the best-made cars and drive them on the most exclusive, prestigious and challenging tracks in the world. There’s no reason a similarly constructed music industry can’t adopt something from the NASCAR model.
Can you envision a day when consumers make all their music purchases at a grocery store because all the produce they purchase comes with –or provides access to– the music they want? I can: It will either be an economic nightmare or a gilded age.
Perhaps a can of beans is not an ideal stage for a serious composer. Perhaps the public will be turned off by an artist who arrives home with them with their organic carrots. But at the same time, I can't help but think it still is a commercially viable model for the production and distribution of entertainment, given the suitability of artist and corporate partner. I'd be more than happy to bring home the complete remastered works of Duke Ellington with a Lexus, and I wouldn't think less of the man or his art. A market exists for this delivery system right now, and it is probably larger than anyone right now can even imagine.
This may mean that companies such as Proctor & Gamble –to mention one company which is perfectly poised to take advantage of the proposed model– could eventually come head to head with companies like SONY/BMG. No doubt, today’s corporate titans are on the verge of a market shake-up that will define tomorrow’s entertainment behemoths and modern day Medicis. As a result, a company best known for selling soap and detergent today, just may win the upcoming war for consumer loyalty, and do by simply creating connections with artists; by funding music and distributing it with or without explicit tie-ins to their products and services (the music/ entertainment/ art might be made available only at their website, or by via some kind of non-commercial venue).
Proctor & Gamble is an especially formidable player in this regard because they already have a significant, if often overlooked, history as a content producer.
It bears mentioning that reasons for corporate patronage also include a desire or necessity to curry political favor in another country, as Lorenzo de' Medici is known to have done. By investing or contributing in another nation's arts and artists, one possibly wins favor with its members of government. For American and European interests (seeking foreign industrial contracts), it may seem like good strategy to spend dollars developing tomorrow's Chinese rock stars and East Indian gangsta rappers. Likewise, we may one day witness Asian governments sponsoring indigenous African and mid eastern cultural activities in a bid to compete for those country's petrol resources.
It should also be noted that government sponsorship of artist tours abroad are neither new nor even revolutionary. We are reminded by the Heritage Foundation on the Americans for the Arts website, that:
“Cultural exchanges are part of our first line of defense, helping to bridge ideological gaps and policy disagreements with person-to-person contact and close-up views of the United States. Such programs helped end the Cold War and could have reduced costly complications for America in the global war on terror.”
Future artists will greatly benefit from national patronage –or another form of sponsorship– if only for the guarantee of distribution and exposure, and if not always as a result of an association with the underwriter. –Although negative perceptions of artists (for participating in these relationships) by existing fans can largely be avoided if both parties –brand and band– make good public partners. New fans won’t care if patronage, endorsements or sponsorships are in play because that will be how they discovered the artist/s in the first place.
For other articles in this series:
ROCK BRANDS: Tomorrow's Rock Star Marketing Partners
Branded Mixes
Medici Model Revisited
Artist X Brand X Not Available @ iTunes
Strategic Audio Partnerships
Diplomatic Corps Rock Fest
sponsorship
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Auto-Tune™ Goes Public
Auto-Tune™ is digital processing software used to correct the pitch of vocal or instrumental performances. It was introduced to the market in 1997, by Antares Audio Technologies. However, I’ve recently noticed the word/phrase ‘autotune’ being used as a generic term, –regardless of whether the lawyers at Antares, think that's a good thing or not.
Other trademarks have slipped into the public domain: Kleenex, and Xerox, for two examples. Henceforth, when I use the word as a descriptive, I will refer to ‘autotune’ and ‘autotuning’ (no capitalization; no hyphen).
I define autotune, or autotuning as:
Fixing or otherwise enhancing a vocal performance, using modern mojo.
Many point to Cher’s ‘I Believe’ as the first commercial pop song that brought autotuning to the general public’s attention. There are conflicting reports whether the effect on Cher’s voice was the result of an extreme Antares Auto-Tune™ setting (whose effects are usually transparent on minimal fixes), or the sum results of another technology. The British recording magazine Sound-On-Sound does a pretty good job of documenting that the song was in fact produced using Antares technology.
Whatever the technique, the result may be inhumanly perfect pitch, but the sonic artifacts that one hears as the pitch is centered to an absolute setting is not the result of a heavy handed producer, but rather an intentional artistic decision. Quite simply, –and most twelve year olds agree– the heavy-handed effect sounds cool.
What did recording engineers and producers do before Antares made Auto-Tune™ pitch correction available (there are other similar DSP solutions to correcting pitch, such as Melodyne™ (Celemony), which I also include as autotuning software).
Before the advent of either Auto-Tune™ or Melodyne™, producers and engineers might have used digital samplers to fix vocals –a painstaking task. Before samplers they might have ‘comped’ vocal passes (which continues to be a common technique). Comping is the art of splicing (now cutting and pasting) a number of vocal takes together in order to create one perfect master take. Equally common is the art of 'punching' in a new vocal or instrumental take over a pre-recorded take, that is recording a live bit of new performance over a bit of pre-recorded material.
Punching in a word or note here and there may not seem the egregious bit of studio magic that autotuning is, but punching in every single word of a lyric, or note of a solo– certainly is. On the other hand, if the end result sounds great, why not do it? Is the purpose of a commercial recording A) to document a musician's skill set, or B) to document the best performance of the work/song. The answer is invariably –but not always– 'B'.
There are other ways to create perfect vocal. For example, a touch of reverb or chorus has long been a producer’s best friend in this regard. Unlike autotuning, which centers the pitch, reverb, chorus and other similar effects serve to mask a poorly pitched vocal.
Effects aren’t just used to correct a vocal performance. Just as often they are used to enhance a vocal performance. Consider Alvin and the Chipmunks, for instance, and enjoy the technological marvel of slowing the tape down during record, and playing it back at regular speed (thus speeding up the vocals at the same time as raising the pitch).
One device, the Eventide’s H3000™, has long been a staple in recording studios for it’s ability to facilitate ‘Harmonization’ techniques – whereby a recorded performance is doubled and then the replication is re-pitched, and/or delayed, thus creating a harmony, of varying realism.
Vocoding –that robotic effect we sometimes hear, is essentially the sum of a a vocal signal modified by an electronically produced signal.
Some argue people who have no business singing are using autotuning to cover up imperfect performances. However, it is just as often the best musicians and singers who demand autotuning because they want to sound even more perfect than they are.
I sometimes wonder if there is also a racist or sexist component –or a bias against homosexual oriention– that underlies criticisms against autotuning and other similarly creative digital signal processing. I know that sounds patently ridiculous on the surface, but consider the DEATH TO DISCO movement during the nineteen seventies: At the time it was thought an innocent backlash against an overplayed trend. But from our current perspective, we can see that it was propagated by a mostly white, heterosexual American male population upon the collective popular works produced by either gay, European or African American artists.
Similarly, much of the bemoaning over autotuning, vocoding and harmonizing, comes across as a wholesale prejudice against urban, pop and dance music genres. Any armchair pop anthropologist has have to wonder: Is it the technology? Or the people using the technology?
Further, I’ve never once heard any guitarist decry the use of Fuzz or distortion. Yet, guitarists have been hiding sloppy technique behind torn speakers, overdriven amps and stomp box emulations of both since the sixties.
Remember a DC comic book character called Bizarro Superman? Bizarro Superman was Superman’s doppelganger: an Anti-Superman who was everything Superman was not. Thus Bizarro logic dictates black is white, strong is weak, good is evil, etc.
I’ve come to think of rampant distortion as Bizarro autotuning. Instead of centering guitar pitch, it masks it. That’s why it’s called distortion! –And it is the constant friend of many a hammered fingered rocker.
Auto-Tune, DSP, music production, sound effects
Other trademarks have slipped into the public domain: Kleenex, and Xerox, for two examples. Henceforth, when I use the word as a descriptive, I will refer to ‘autotune’ and ‘autotuning’ (no capitalization; no hyphen).
I define autotune, or autotuning as:
Fixing or otherwise enhancing a vocal performance, using modern mojo.
Many point to Cher’s ‘I Believe’ as the first commercial pop song that brought autotuning to the general public’s attention. There are conflicting reports whether the effect on Cher’s voice was the result of an extreme Antares Auto-Tune™ setting (whose effects are usually transparent on minimal fixes), or the sum results of another technology. The British recording magazine Sound-On-Sound does a pretty good job of documenting that the song was in fact produced using Antares technology.
Whatever the technique, the result may be inhumanly perfect pitch, but the sonic artifacts that one hears as the pitch is centered to an absolute setting is not the result of a heavy handed producer, but rather an intentional artistic decision. Quite simply, –and most twelve year olds agree– the heavy-handed effect sounds cool.
What did recording engineers and producers do before Antares made Auto-Tune™ pitch correction available (there are other similar DSP solutions to correcting pitch, such as Melodyne™ (Celemony), which I also include as autotuning software).
Before the advent of either Auto-Tune™ or Melodyne™, producers and engineers might have used digital samplers to fix vocals –a painstaking task. Before samplers they might have ‘comped’ vocal passes (which continues to be a common technique). Comping is the art of splicing (now cutting and pasting) a number of vocal takes together in order to create one perfect master take. Equally common is the art of 'punching' in a new vocal or instrumental take over a pre-recorded take, that is recording a live bit of new performance over a bit of pre-recorded material.
Punching in a word or note here and there may not seem the egregious bit of studio magic that autotuning is, but punching in every single word of a lyric, or note of a solo– certainly is. On the other hand, if the end result sounds great, why not do it? Is the purpose of a commercial recording A) to document a musician's skill set, or B) to document the best performance of the work/song. The answer is invariably –but not always– 'B'.
There are other ways to create perfect vocal. For example, a touch of reverb or chorus has long been a producer’s best friend in this regard. Unlike autotuning, which centers the pitch, reverb, chorus and other similar effects serve to mask a poorly pitched vocal.
Effects aren’t just used to correct a vocal performance. Just as often they are used to enhance a vocal performance. Consider Alvin and the Chipmunks, for instance, and enjoy the technological marvel of slowing the tape down during record, and playing it back at regular speed (thus speeding up the vocals at the same time as raising the pitch).
One device, the Eventide’s H3000™, has long been a staple in recording studios for it’s ability to facilitate ‘Harmonization’ techniques – whereby a recorded performance is doubled and then the replication is re-pitched, and/or delayed, thus creating a harmony, of varying realism.
Vocoding –that robotic effect we sometimes hear, is essentially the sum of a a vocal signal modified by an electronically produced signal.
Some argue people who have no business singing are using autotuning to cover up imperfect performances. However, it is just as often the best musicians and singers who demand autotuning because they want to sound even more perfect than they are.
I sometimes wonder if there is also a racist or sexist component –or a bias against homosexual oriention– that underlies criticisms against autotuning and other similarly creative digital signal processing. I know that sounds patently ridiculous on the surface, but consider the DEATH TO DISCO movement during the nineteen seventies: At the time it was thought an innocent backlash against an overplayed trend. But from our current perspective, we can see that it was propagated by a mostly white, heterosexual American male population upon the collective popular works produced by either gay, European or African American artists.
Similarly, much of the bemoaning over autotuning, vocoding and harmonizing, comes across as a wholesale prejudice against urban, pop and dance music genres. Any armchair pop anthropologist has have to wonder: Is it the technology? Or the people using the technology?
Further, I’ve never once heard any guitarist decry the use of Fuzz or distortion. Yet, guitarists have been hiding sloppy technique behind torn speakers, overdriven amps and stomp box emulations of both since the sixties.
Remember a DC comic book character called Bizarro Superman? Bizarro Superman was Superman’s doppelganger: an Anti-Superman who was everything Superman was not. Thus Bizarro logic dictates black is white, strong is weak, good is evil, etc.
I’ve come to think of rampant distortion as Bizarro autotuning. Instead of centering guitar pitch, it masks it. That’s why it’s called distortion! –And it is the constant friend of many a hammered fingered rocker.
Auto-Tune, DSP, music production, sound effects
Friday, January 06, 2006
Sonic Semiotics Series
Click on any link below to read all the articles in the four-part January 2006 SONIC SEMIOTICS series exploring the author's musicological development of a personal branded theory for sound.
1. Say It In 1.25 Seconds
2. Bumps, Bugs, Beats and Brands
3. The Message In Merrill Lynch
4. Packaging Vs. Branding
* * *
Like this topic? Explore these four other articles from the Critical Noise Archive, exploring the relationship between Sound and Symbol and Sonic Branding:
1. This Is Where The Story Ends (March 1, 2003)
2. The Ur-Song (February 1, 2002)
3. Branding With Audio (March 30, 2001)
4. HBO ZONE: Creating a Sonic Identity (October 01, 2000)
1. Say It In 1.25 Seconds
2. Bumps, Bugs, Beats and Brands
3. The Message In Merrill Lynch
4. Packaging Vs. Branding
* * *
Like this topic? Explore these four other articles from the Critical Noise Archive, exploring the relationship between Sound and Symbol and Sonic Branding:
1. This Is Where The Story Ends (March 1, 2003)
2. The Ur-Song (February 1, 2002)
3. Branding With Audio (March 30, 2001)
4. HBO ZONE: Creating a Sonic Identity (October 01, 2000)
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Music Packaging Vs. Sonic Branding
In 1996 I was asked to serve as a lead music supervisor on the 1996 NBC Olympics, a project spearheaded by Elias’ special projects lead, Audrey Arbeeny, who turned out to possess a preternatural talent for maximizing the entertainment value of broadcast sporting events. My future business partner, Michael Sweet, also worked on the project programming a precursor to iTunes, which would serve as an onsite digital library for NBC’s location based producers.
My own responsibility was to listen, select and identify music –and edit points– for possible license. In this capacity I personally selected and categorized approximately 3000 pieces of music by sport and mood, so that, for instance, Victorious Track and Field different from a music selection suggestive of defeat, but Victorious Track and Field would be distinct from Victorious Swimming or Victorious Gymnastics. Categorization coupled with the digital interface allowed on-site NBC producers instantaneous access to a music bed suitable for any event or situation.
It was by this process that I soon realized how music could thread connected but different events (the activities), within an overall multi-experiential event (NBC's Olympic Broadcast).
While the Olympic Project taught me a good deal about music identification and selection for a broadcast, it also changed the way I think about branding. In fact, I hesitate to think of this work as 'Branding', which I admit goes against the grain given its use in this manner by many music supervisors I meet.
Heres why:
My personal standard for what is and isn't branding starts with a uniquely identifiable mark.Certainly, branding has evolved beyond the limitations of mere mark, but nevertheless, a distinct mark embedded with symbolic data continues to serve as a valid lens through which we may create branded experiences and other related assets.
As it happens, there's nothing distinct about licensing music from the same pool of work which others do, notwithstanding the argument that the music selection in conjunction with the picture creates a unique experience.
Moreover, a winning athlete doesn't need my jubilant rock selection to brand the event victorious. He or she has defined the occasion by virtue of their own efforts. My music selections for the Olympics,then, provided a utilitarian function to enhance (or focus) mood and maximize the entertainment value of those who are spectators to the event.
One could argue a DJ spinning a uniquely and specifically conceived playlist for a given venue is in fact branding the environment. I agree in the general sense of the term, but I still think some other nomenclature is on order.
Wrapping an in-store experience or hotel lobby up in a bundle of musical works specifically composed for an event or the venue itself reminds me more of producing a score for film and TV.
Is a soundtrack a Branded playlist?
Even I'm guilty of labeling such things BRAND MIXES, which is what I called them (and continue to call them) when I first started pitching them to clients in the mid nineties.
But when my company, Blister Media, was recognized by the television industry with the 2000 Gold Promax award for Best Original Music & Sound Design for Network Packaging (HBO Zone) I realized then that the concept of 'Packaging' film and video entertainment could be applied to any media platform, and even environments, and have made the distinction ever since.
Although, lately I've been thinking of retail and hospitality environments as volumes of space (which they are) and therefore maybe 'packaging' isn't quite right because it's something we apply to the outside, when in fact, we fill a space with music from the inside out.
Regardless, it may sound like an arbitrary distinction, but here's how I distinguish between Branding and Packaging:
Branding is the transmission of uniquely distinctive signification in order to convey a client's position for the purpose of creating a bond with an audience, user or consumer. Branding may thus be said to be: The art and science of composing a semiotic construction for the purpose of business-to-consumer communication.
In contrast, a Packaging assignment implies the utilitarian design and construction of mood enhancers for the benefit of participants or spectators, and which may or may not compel a specific action (or inaction).
For instance, the music provided by a DJ in a hotel lobby is meant either to entertain you or float through the air like a kind of aural wall paper, but nary a single track is necessarily identifiable as representing the hotel. Granted, some venues do make effective use of music to brand an environment, but if entertainment is the client's primary purpose, then any brand statement is going to be compromised, or at the very least suffer from potential dilution, as the message of one piece of music fades into the potentially contrasting content of another.
Audio for devices provides a great opportunity for the production of branded assets, although in practice it is more likely a signature 'tone' will be identified as the logo, and the rest of the sounds, though they belong to the same 'family' or 'palette' simply serve to provide confirmation of physical execution.
Perhaps it is better not lump all applied audio as sonic branding or packaging, but simply to speak of the need for utilizing sonic signification for a specified purpose.
In the meantime, I continue to think of audio branding the commission of an original mark (embedded with a message), and packaging as a curated collection of sounds created for a functional purpose. And that utility may –and often does– include the intent to entertain or inform, as each circumstance requires.
So as Branded Audio is to a single ray of light, Packaged sound is the reflections bouncing off a mirror ball.
My own responsibility was to listen, select and identify music –and edit points– for possible license. In this capacity I personally selected and categorized approximately 3000 pieces of music by sport and mood, so that, for instance, Victorious Track and Field different from a music selection suggestive of defeat, but Victorious Track and Field would be distinct from Victorious Swimming or Victorious Gymnastics. Categorization coupled with the digital interface allowed on-site NBC producers instantaneous access to a music bed suitable for any event or situation.
It was by this process that I soon realized how music could thread connected but different events (the activities), within an overall multi-experiential event (NBC's Olympic Broadcast).
While the Olympic Project taught me a good deal about music identification and selection for a broadcast, it also changed the way I think about branding. In fact, I hesitate to think of this work as 'Branding', which I admit goes against the grain given its use in this manner by many music supervisors I meet.
Heres why:
My personal standard for what is and isn't branding starts with a uniquely identifiable mark.Certainly, branding has evolved beyond the limitations of mere mark, but nevertheless, a distinct mark embedded with symbolic data continues to serve as a valid lens through which we may create branded experiences and other related assets.
As it happens, there's nothing distinct about licensing music from the same pool of work which others do, notwithstanding the argument that the music selection in conjunction with the picture creates a unique experience.
Moreover, a winning athlete doesn't need my jubilant rock selection to brand the event victorious. He or she has defined the occasion by virtue of their own efforts. My music selections for the Olympics,then, provided a utilitarian function to enhance (or focus) mood and maximize the entertainment value of those who are spectators to the event.
One could argue a DJ spinning a uniquely and specifically conceived playlist for a given venue is in fact branding the environment. I agree in the general sense of the term, but I still think some other nomenclature is on order.
Wrapping an in-store experience or hotel lobby up in a bundle of musical works specifically composed for an event or the venue itself reminds me more of producing a score for film and TV.
Is a soundtrack a Branded playlist?
Even I'm guilty of labeling such things BRAND MIXES, which is what I called them (and continue to call them) when I first started pitching them to clients in the mid nineties.
But when my company, Blister Media, was recognized by the television industry with the 2000 Gold Promax award for Best Original Music & Sound Design for Network Packaging (HBO Zone) I realized then that the concept of 'Packaging' film and video entertainment could be applied to any media platform, and even environments, and have made the distinction ever since.
Although, lately I've been thinking of retail and hospitality environments as volumes of space (which they are) and therefore maybe 'packaging' isn't quite right because it's something we apply to the outside, when in fact, we fill a space with music from the inside out.
Regardless, it may sound like an arbitrary distinction, but here's how I distinguish between Branding and Packaging:
Branding is the transmission of uniquely distinctive signification in order to convey a client's position for the purpose of creating a bond with an audience, user or consumer. Branding may thus be said to be: The art and science of composing a semiotic construction for the purpose of business-to-consumer communication.
In contrast, a Packaging assignment implies the utilitarian design and construction of mood enhancers for the benefit of participants or spectators, and which may or may not compel a specific action (or inaction).
For instance, the music provided by a DJ in a hotel lobby is meant either to entertain you or float through the air like a kind of aural wall paper, but nary a single track is necessarily identifiable as representing the hotel. Granted, some venues do make effective use of music to brand an environment, but if entertainment is the client's primary purpose, then any brand statement is going to be compromised, or at the very least suffer from potential dilution, as the message of one piece of music fades into the potentially contrasting content of another.
Audio for devices provides a great opportunity for the production of branded assets, although in practice it is more likely a signature 'tone' will be identified as the logo, and the rest of the sounds, though they belong to the same 'family' or 'palette' simply serve to provide confirmation of physical execution.
Perhaps it is better not lump all applied audio as sonic branding or packaging, but simply to speak of the need for utilizing sonic signification for a specified purpose.
In the meantime, I continue to think of audio branding the commission of an original mark (embedded with a message), and packaging as a curated collection of sounds created for a functional purpose. And that utility may –and often does– include the intent to entertain or inform, as each circumstance requires.
So as Branded Audio is to a single ray of light, Packaged sound is the reflections bouncing off a mirror ball.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
The Message In Merrill Lynch: A Lesson in Sonic Branding
In 1995, if memory serves correctly, it was Steven Cohen, the senior vice president and management supervisor on the Merrill Lynch account at Bozell Worldwide, who tapped his car keys on the glass coffee table before him and declared:
"This not the sound of Merrill Lynch."
And with that one sentence, our demos were dust.
The specific spot Cohen was referring to was alternately titled 'Privatization' and 'South African Leaders' (Titles change as spots evolve from storyboard to broadcast). And it was produced by Paul Gold and Jean-Claude Kaufmann, who was then the Director of Broadcast Production at the New York office of Bozell Worldwide.
Both Kaufmann and Gold were not only among our most important clients, but their passion for the work, and the humanity they brought to the game, always made them enjoyable to work with. They also both belonged to a group of advertising professionals that I considered role models for best-of-breed creative producers.
And it helped that both men seemed to share a parallel musical aesthetic with the creative direction produced by our music team. So, even though we worked hard, it was generally easy to get on the same page, which is not always the case with every client.
Indeed, the process from demo production through revisions and an eventual narrowing down of selections to two or three suitable options proceeded as efficiently as one can hope for any project.
But only when the New York agency’s creative team were fully satisfied that our music score options fully satisfied the story objectives required by the footage, did they send the music down to the Merrill Lynch account execs, which were based in Princeton. Naturally, we were surprised when word came back that they were definitely not impressed. As head of music production, I was especially none too pleased to see what had at first seemed a finely executed project return to the studio as a full blown crisis. Gold and Kauffman informed us that an emergency meeting was requested and we made the necessary arrangements (i.e., vacuumed the floors and ordered food from a really nice restaurant).
MESSAGE IDENTITY TONALITY
Some days later, a black and gray suited swarm of Bozell and Merrill Lynch representatives filled our studios looking like Federal Agents securing a location, so that the doors were blocked, calls were held and the facility felt like if was on lock-down.
It was only when Cohen arrived that we learned the reason for the Senior VP’s concern. He demanded that not only the soundtrack enhance the story –as was the usual rote instruction for every project– but also that the tonality of the music score itself reflect the Identity of the financial institution. In effect, Cohen demanded that the score, absent of picture, would be identifiable as unique branded audio asset for the company.
In hindsight, it seems like a perfectly reasonable request. But in 1995, most scores for TV commercials in 1995 did not do that. By the way, most commercial scores in 2006 don’t do that either. Then and now, most clients commission music that either works as a bed or simply “supports the story”, exactly in the same manner as a film score enhances a movie cue, but say with a bit of audio pixie dust for a product or logo reveal. The task of creating original music and sound design for TV and Radio commercials did not –or only rarely– require a brand analysis.
We were already familiar with the notion of creating a project specific ‘palette’ of sounds for other classes of projects, such as broadcast network or cable channel packaging, but that was considered a different kind of media animal.
Anyway, Cohen shook his head and played our military snare parts back to us on the table (again using his keys). We were puzzled by his criticism. We felt we had presented a regal fanfare that any financial institution would have been happy to have. And yet, Cohen's arrangement for car keys and glass coffee table, intended to mimic our score (and possibly belittle our intelligence) sounded rather tinny and funereal on playback to me, which was his point.
It did not help matters that a delicate white bowl holding perfectly balanced exotic fruit from Indonesia rattled in sympathetic unison with the rat-a-tat-tats.
'Beyond being symphonic, what was Merrill Lynch supposed to sound like, anyway?'–I wondered.
I know what my colleagues –award winning composers all– were thinking:
'Merrill Lynch be damned, the music works!'
We were frankly befuddled, and Cohen’s departure was followed by internal argument. However, after some discussion, it eventually did click and make sense:
The music we had initially produced supported the narrative just fine, in the cinematic way that a film score enhances a movie experience, however the music did not actually convey anything about the client's Identity or immediate communication objective –the Message– beyond the action and emotion evident in the footage.
When I say 'Message', I mean:
The symbolic transmission of a client's brand attributes.
And if we felt that any financial institution would have been happy to have the track, perhaps it was because our arrangement wasn't specific to any one brand! We had composed symphonic works for other financial institutions before, and it was then that I realized that prior to 'Privatization', melody was the only differentiating element that separated music for one bank from music for another.
We resolved the musical issue and delivered two arrangements that not only ‘enhanced the story’, but were arranged in such a manner that they uniquely conveyed our client’s brand attributes.
PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS
I never approached another project again without the knowledge I gained on from that project. In fact, when Kaufmann and Gold would later that year commission us with the the production of another score for the Bahamas Board of Tourism, we certainly approached that campaign with a newfound branded sensibility. At the time we called it 'Identity' and not 'Branding', and in hindsight, I think Identity formation is closer to what we were doing than branding, even if the latter word also includes the other today.
After that however, I can also tell you that out of hundreds of projects before and after Merrill Lynch –with the exception of network packaging and tourism board commissions– McDonald's is the only other client I recall whose every spot arrived with a precise sound schematic (this during the French Fry wars of the mid nineties).
Today, anyone who has been in the business of commercial audio for some time will not be surprised by this revelation. Music often represents the final step in the production process before a campaign goes to air. It is arguably part of the post-production process, although clients will sometimes invite participation during pre-production to discuss storyboards –possibly ten to twelve weeks before the shoot. But the conversation where everyone discusses how to communicate a sales objective within parameters established by brand values? That happened twelve months ago, without you, the composer, present. At that stage, your opinion (as the audio/music vendor) was considered irrelevant (by the client). Too bad, because I think 'branded arrangements’ would serve some clients much better than simply an old fashioned movie score.
For the most part, music production is often squeezed into an absurdly short development period (assuming quality is also to be considered). Did we tell you that you had a two weeks? Well, now you have two days; can we hear demos this afternoon?
There were times when I literally had 24 hours to produce a forty or fifty piece live orchestra performing a fully orchestrated original piece of music (which of course had to be first vetted by several layers at the ad agency) –including revisions. You'd be surprised with all year to prepare, how many Super Bowl spots are still in production right down to the wire, and how often the music is commissioned with only days to go before the big game.
So, when exactly does the sonic brand conscious composer hope to execute his or her brand analysis before beginning work?
The reality is that most of the time, clients afford music teams a fifteen-minute conference call and then you’re off; and it’s a mad dash to get approvals and finish before the air date.
Notwithstanding this circumstance, however, I still believe that if this is how you want to practice your art, then you do need to develop an aptitude for developing marketing, message (brand attributes ) and story objectives into semiotic audio strategies that work on both the micro and macro levels (for the spot at hand AND for the brand).
No one said it was easy.
"This not the sound of Merrill Lynch."
And with that one sentence, our demos were dust.
The specific spot Cohen was referring to was alternately titled 'Privatization' and 'South African Leaders' (Titles change as spots evolve from storyboard to broadcast). And it was produced by Paul Gold and Jean-Claude Kaufmann, who was then the Director of Broadcast Production at the New York office of Bozell Worldwide.
Both Kaufmann and Gold were not only among our most important clients, but their passion for the work, and the humanity they brought to the game, always made them enjoyable to work with. They also both belonged to a group of advertising professionals that I considered role models for best-of-breed creative producers.
And it helped that both men seemed to share a parallel musical aesthetic with the creative direction produced by our music team. So, even though we worked hard, it was generally easy to get on the same page, which is not always the case with every client.
Indeed, the process from demo production through revisions and an eventual narrowing down of selections to two or three suitable options proceeded as efficiently as one can hope for any project.
But only when the New York agency’s creative team were fully satisfied that our music score options fully satisfied the story objectives required by the footage, did they send the music down to the Merrill Lynch account execs, which were based in Princeton. Naturally, we were surprised when word came back that they were definitely not impressed. As head of music production, I was especially none too pleased to see what had at first seemed a finely executed project return to the studio as a full blown crisis. Gold and Kauffman informed us that an emergency meeting was requested and we made the necessary arrangements (i.e., vacuumed the floors and ordered food from a really nice restaurant).
MESSAGE IDENTITY TONALITY
Some days later, a black and gray suited swarm of Bozell and Merrill Lynch representatives filled our studios looking like Federal Agents securing a location, so that the doors were blocked, calls were held and the facility felt like if was on lock-down.
It was only when Cohen arrived that we learned the reason for the Senior VP’s concern. He demanded that not only the soundtrack enhance the story –as was the usual rote instruction for every project– but also that the tonality of the music score itself reflect the Identity of the financial institution. In effect, Cohen demanded that the score, absent of picture, would be identifiable as unique branded audio asset for the company.
In hindsight, it seems like a perfectly reasonable request. But in 1995, most scores for TV commercials in 1995 did not do that. By the way, most commercial scores in 2006 don’t do that either. Then and now, most clients commission music that either works as a bed or simply “supports the story”, exactly in the same manner as a film score enhances a movie cue, but say with a bit of audio pixie dust for a product or logo reveal. The task of creating original music and sound design for TV and Radio commercials did not –or only rarely– require a brand analysis.
We were already familiar with the notion of creating a project specific ‘palette’ of sounds for other classes of projects, such as broadcast network or cable channel packaging, but that was considered a different kind of media animal.
Anyway, Cohen shook his head and played our military snare parts back to us on the table (again using his keys). We were puzzled by his criticism. We felt we had presented a regal fanfare that any financial institution would have been happy to have. And yet, Cohen's arrangement for car keys and glass coffee table, intended to mimic our score (and possibly belittle our intelligence) sounded rather tinny and funereal on playback to me, which was his point.
It did not help matters that a delicate white bowl holding perfectly balanced exotic fruit from Indonesia rattled in sympathetic unison with the rat-a-tat-tats.
'Beyond being symphonic, what was Merrill Lynch supposed to sound like, anyway?'–I wondered.
I know what my colleagues –award winning composers all– were thinking:
'Merrill Lynch be damned, the music works!'
We were frankly befuddled, and Cohen’s departure was followed by internal argument. However, after some discussion, it eventually did click and make sense:
The music we had initially produced supported the narrative just fine, in the cinematic way that a film score enhances a movie experience, however the music did not actually convey anything about the client's Identity or immediate communication objective –the Message– beyond the action and emotion evident in the footage.
When I say 'Message', I mean:
The symbolic transmission of a client's brand attributes.
And if we felt that any financial institution would have been happy to have the track, perhaps it was because our arrangement wasn't specific to any one brand! We had composed symphonic works for other financial institutions before, and it was then that I realized that prior to 'Privatization', melody was the only differentiating element that separated music for one bank from music for another.
We resolved the musical issue and delivered two arrangements that not only ‘enhanced the story’, but were arranged in such a manner that they uniquely conveyed our client’s brand attributes.
PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS
I never approached another project again without the knowledge I gained on from that project. In fact, when Kaufmann and Gold would later that year commission us with the the production of another score for the Bahamas Board of Tourism, we certainly approached that campaign with a newfound branded sensibility. At the time we called it 'Identity' and not 'Branding', and in hindsight, I think Identity formation is closer to what we were doing than branding, even if the latter word also includes the other today.
After that however, I can also tell you that out of hundreds of projects before and after Merrill Lynch –with the exception of network packaging and tourism board commissions– McDonald's is the only other client I recall whose every spot arrived with a precise sound schematic (this during the French Fry wars of the mid nineties).
Today, anyone who has been in the business of commercial audio for some time will not be surprised by this revelation. Music often represents the final step in the production process before a campaign goes to air. It is arguably part of the post-production process, although clients will sometimes invite participation during pre-production to discuss storyboards –possibly ten to twelve weeks before the shoot. But the conversation where everyone discusses how to communicate a sales objective within parameters established by brand values? That happened twelve months ago, without you, the composer, present. At that stage, your opinion (as the audio/music vendor) was considered irrelevant (by the client). Too bad, because I think 'branded arrangements’ would serve some clients much better than simply an old fashioned movie score.
For the most part, music production is often squeezed into an absurdly short development period (assuming quality is also to be considered). Did we tell you that you had a two weeks? Well, now you have two days; can we hear demos this afternoon?
There were times when I literally had 24 hours to produce a forty or fifty piece live orchestra performing a fully orchestrated original piece of music (which of course had to be first vetted by several layers at the ad agency) –including revisions. You'd be surprised with all year to prepare, how many Super Bowl spots are still in production right down to the wire, and how often the music is commissioned with only days to go before the big game.
So, when exactly does the sonic brand conscious composer hope to execute his or her brand analysis before beginning work?
The reality is that most of the time, clients afford music teams a fifteen-minute conference call and then you’re off; and it’s a mad dash to get approvals and finish before the air date.
Notwithstanding this circumstance, however, I still believe that if this is how you want to practice your art, then you do need to develop an aptitude for developing marketing, message (brand attributes ) and story objectives into semiotic audio strategies that work on both the micro and macro levels (for the spot at hand AND for the brand).
No one said it was easy.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Bumps, Bugs, Beats and Brands
Between 1994 and 1996 I was lucky enough to be participate in a producer capacity in the development of several network launches or re-launches, –ESPN2, Comedy Central, PBS and SCI FI among them. This work can be summed up as enhancing animation with thematic material. The common commission required everything from three minute themes to three second logo 'bugs'.
Although well experienced producing :30s and :60s for TV commercials, we were all relatively new to the process of creating network packaging and therefore treated each individual promo, bump, etc –whatever the length– as unique asset, requiring that it be composed from scratch. Once we gained experience composing packages for ESPN and ESPN 2, we were able to modify our process by creating long format works from which we might extract a multitude of smaller assets.
Our creative director, Alex Lasarenko, was first to suggest that each five second sting (the memorable end of the track, often used as a sonic logo) should be constructed as an extractable tag from a longer asset, perhaps a :30 or :60.
I was responsible for budget control, and so it fell on me to maximize our profit. And that being the case, I picked up on Lasarenko's idea and expanded on it, suggesting further that it would be exponentially more efficient to produce everything from one long masterwork –when possible.
Understand that in those days we were still dumping Synclavier sub-mixes to 2" tape. It was an arduous task and it fell on production to plan well ahead and make sure every individual asset and version could be accounted for as we went to tape, even within the limitations of of 23 tracks (+1 for Time code), with the core masterwork being the longest version of the theme required by the cable channel or network (a minute to 3 minutes in length).
But as we were wrapping up a package for Comedy Central, Larry Alexander, the engineer famous for mixing everybody, happen to tell me about this new portable ProTools rig he had. He explained to me what he could do with it, and that since it was relatively new, he was pretty excited to use it. So, we hired Larry to mix and edit entire audio portfolios, and it turned out he could do in a day with that rig what it might have once taken us a week to do.
Mind you, his 'portable' rig was not a simple single laptop. The rig arrived by truck and just about doubled the amount of equipment stuffed into her our studios.
Larry's the first person I knew that had what was a full-on Pro Tools set up in those days. So, whenever I specifically hired him to do a session with the rig, it was considered a specialty request only few could accomplish, and we had to have a pretty decent budget to afford it.
But all worth it!
Larry is the type of engineer who will mix down an orchestra with a conductor's score splayed out across the console, like Leonard Bernstein, except instead of holding a baton; he wields massive amounts of technology at his fingertips. I know that all of us who stepped within five feet of Larry's work space would always try to look over his shoulder and pick up a tip or two, compression settings, for instance –always the man's coveted compression settings– that sort of thing.
From the perspective of pure communication, I found the five-second units –the 'bumps'– most interesting because, in practice, a five-second edit generally necessitated the inclusion of a two-second reverb tail and fade, meaning that only three seconds of actual music could be allotted to actual communication of the network logo –the 'sting'.
As it turned out, Larry, who was famous for working the epic song cycles of the some the world's most baroque pop stars, also proved exceptional at whittling the fat off sixty second main themes and carving out terse, tasteful, three-second stings.
The final results provided by producing network packaging impressed upon me the power for audio beyond its ability enhance a story line. In fact, it was with such small deliverables as bumps and bugs that I was beginning to realize, that (in contrast to scoring for film) sound just might be the most efficient means -barring a graphic symbol– to convey a MESSAGE, and so, here I was beginning to evolve my thinking of music production not merely as a means to enhance story, but to deliver a message, and how that philosophy might be applied to the construction of sonified signification and brand asset portfolios.
Although well experienced producing :30s and :60s for TV commercials, we were all relatively new to the process of creating network packaging and therefore treated each individual promo, bump, etc –whatever the length– as unique asset, requiring that it be composed from scratch. Once we gained experience composing packages for ESPN and ESPN 2, we were able to modify our process by creating long format works from which we might extract a multitude of smaller assets.
Our creative director, Alex Lasarenko, was first to suggest that each five second sting (the memorable end of the track, often used as a sonic logo) should be constructed as an extractable tag from a longer asset, perhaps a :30 or :60.
I was responsible for budget control, and so it fell on me to maximize our profit. And that being the case, I picked up on Lasarenko's idea and expanded on it, suggesting further that it would be exponentially more efficient to produce everything from one long masterwork –when possible.
Understand that in those days we were still dumping Synclavier sub-mixes to 2" tape. It was an arduous task and it fell on production to plan well ahead and make sure every individual asset and version could be accounted for as we went to tape, even within the limitations of of 23 tracks (+1 for Time code), with the core masterwork being the longest version of the theme required by the cable channel or network (a minute to 3 minutes in length).
But as we were wrapping up a package for Comedy Central, Larry Alexander, the engineer famous for mixing everybody, happen to tell me about this new portable ProTools rig he had. He explained to me what he could do with it, and that since it was relatively new, he was pretty excited to use it. So, we hired Larry to mix and edit entire audio portfolios, and it turned out he could do in a day with that rig what it might have once taken us a week to do.
Mind you, his 'portable' rig was not a simple single laptop. The rig arrived by truck and just about doubled the amount of equipment stuffed into her our studios.
Larry's the first person I knew that had what was a full-on Pro Tools set up in those days. So, whenever I specifically hired him to do a session with the rig, it was considered a specialty request only few could accomplish, and we had to have a pretty decent budget to afford it.
But all worth it!
Larry is the type of engineer who will mix down an orchestra with a conductor's score splayed out across the console, like Leonard Bernstein, except instead of holding a baton; he wields massive amounts of technology at his fingertips. I know that all of us who stepped within five feet of Larry's work space would always try to look over his shoulder and pick up a tip or two, compression settings, for instance –always the man's coveted compression settings– that sort of thing.
From the perspective of pure communication, I found the five-second units –the 'bumps'– most interesting because, in practice, a five-second edit generally necessitated the inclusion of a two-second reverb tail and fade, meaning that only three seconds of actual music could be allotted to actual communication of the network logo –the 'sting'.
As it turned out, Larry, who was famous for working the epic song cycles of the some the world's most baroque pop stars, also proved exceptional at whittling the fat off sixty second main themes and carving out terse, tasteful, three-second stings.
The final results provided by producing network packaging impressed upon me the power for audio beyond its ability enhance a story line. In fact, it was with such small deliverables as bumps and bugs that I was beginning to realize, that (in contrast to scoring for film) sound just might be the most efficient means -barring a graphic symbol– to convey a MESSAGE, and so, here I was beginning to evolve my thinking of music production not merely as a means to enhance story, but to deliver a message, and how that philosophy might be applied to the construction of sonified signification and brand asset portfolios.
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