Terry O'Gara: Select Discography

Here's a select list of clients I produced music, sound design and sonic branding projects for over the course of my career:


TV ADVERTISING ACCOUNTS: Acura, Advanced Micro, American Sensor, Anheuser Bush, Aqua Vie, Armani, Army, AT&T, Atlanta Gas & Light, Audi, Avon, Bahamas Board of Tourism, Bell South, Ben Gay, Block Buster, BCBS, BMW, Boston Market, Braun, Budweiser, Burger King, Cadillac, Campbell’s, Canon, Champs, Chase Bank, Cheerio’s, Citibank, Clairol, Coca-Cola, Converse, Coppertone, Corona, Deutsche Bank, Digital, Discover Card, Disney, Dockers, Easy Spirit, Energizer, Estee Lauder, Fidelity, Finesse, First National Bank, Foot Joy, Gatorade, Georgia Pacific, Gillette, Got Milk, Guess Jeans, Guinness, Helene Curtis, Hershey’s, Home Depot, Infiniti, John Deere, Juno, Kellogg’s, Kemper, Kmart, Lady Footlocker, Lean Cuisine, L’eggs, Levi’s, Lincoln, Lipton, M&M’s, MasterCard, McDonald’s, MCI, Mennen, Merrill Lynch, Mexico Board of Tourism, Michelob, Miller, Molson, NEC, Nikon, Nynex, Ocean Spray, Oppenheimer Funds, Oregon Dept. of Energy, Ortega, Pepsi, Phillips, Pinnacle, Poland Spring, RCA, Reebok, Rite Aid, Salon Selectives, Samuel Adams, Seabreeze, Seagate, Seiko, Showboat Casinos, Shredded Wheat, Snapple, Sony, Southwestern Bell, Sprint, Sprite, Starburst, STP, Stride Rite, SunTrust, Swiss Bank, Taco Bell, Tag Heur, Texaco, Tommy Hilfiger, Toyota, Toy’s R Us, US West, Visa, Volkswagen, Volvo

RADIO ACCOUNTS: Afrin, Allied Signal, AT&T, Bell Atlantic, Bell South, Budweiser Cadillac, Cellular One, Coca-Cola, Estee Lauder, Gatorade, GTE, Levi’s, McDonald’s, Merck, Merrill Lynch, Mitsubishi, Molson, Nikkon, NYNEX, Oregon Department of Energy, Red Light, Shawmut, Southwestern Bell, Sprint, Sun Trust, Texaco, UPS

NETWORK PACKAGING/ID: ABC Television, Cable Vision, CBS News, Cinemax, CNBC, Comedy Central, DCTV, E! TV, ESPN, ESPN 2, Fox News, HBO, HBO Zone, MTV, NFL Properties, QVC, PBS, RCN, SCI FI Channel, Showtime, TeleTV, TBS, TNT, TNT ASIA, VH1, WNET, X-Files Promotions

MUSIC SUPERVISION: 1996 NBC Olympic Broadcast Music Production Library, VAM Ear Candy Library, Provided various and numerous music searches for leading multinational advertising agencies

FILM RELATED: Columbia Pictures Main Logo, Miramax ID

MOVIE TRAILERS: ‘Belle Du Jour’, ‘Dusk till Dawn’, ‘Four Rooms’, ‘Halloween’, ‘Horseman on the Roof’, ‘Last Action Hero’, ‘Line of Fire’, ‘Night Watch’, ‘The Prophecy’, ‘Things to do in Denver When You’re Dead’

FEATURES: "Jam"[Real Film Co.] & "Surprise"[N.Y Picture Company], “Josh W. Eats a Bug” (animation series) [Quiet Man], “Nick & Jane” [Shooting Gallery]

INTERACTIVE AUDIO: Sesame Street/Texaco Foundation “Sesame Street Music Zone”, AMEX Promotions, Noggin ‘Skengle’, ‘Parenting’ CD ROM, AT&T Long Distance Tone, TeleTV Set Top Box

ELECTRONIC GAMES: Shockwave’s ‘Loop’, Lego ‘Junk-Bot’, MSN Netwits, Phillips ‘Flintstone’s/ Jetson’s Time Warp’, Cartoon Network Online ‘Orbit Games’, NASDAQ Market Watch

DIGITAL/ENHANCED TV/SYNC-TO-BROADCAST: MTV ‘Web Riot’, TBS ‘Cyber Bond’, ‘The Weakest Link’ On-line, Game Show Network ‘Inquizition’ On-line, History Channel ‘History IQ’ On-Line

SPECIAL VENUES: NASDAQ Market Site/Times Square, Marvel Store/Universal Theme Park/LA, Epcot Center/Orlando, Kid’s Room @ Millennium Dome/London, RE Swiss Installation/Geneva

PRO BONO: Anti-Smoking, AIDS Awareness, ASPCA, Breast Cancer Awareness, Drug Free America, Education, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights & Literacy, March of Dimes, National Gallery, New York Landmarks Commission, Off The Street Club, Organ Donor, Points of Light

Terry O'Gara: Brand Sampler

This the big block of household brands I've produced music, sound design and sonic branding projects for over the course of my career:


Acura, Advanced Micro, Afrin, AIDS Awareness, Allied Signal, American Sensor, Anheuser Bush, Anti-Smoking PSA, Aqua Vie, Armani, AT&T, Atlanta Gas & Light, ASPCA, Audi, Avon, Bahamas Board of Tourism, Bell Atlantic, Bell South, Ben Gay, Block Buster, BCBS, BMW, Boston Market, Braun, Breast Cancer Awareness, Budweiser, Burger King, Cadillac, Campbell’s, Canon, Cellular One, Champs, Chase Bank, Cheerio’s, Citibank, Clairol, Coca-Cola, Converse, Coppertone, Corona, Deutsche Bank, Digital, Discover Card, Disney, Dockers, Easy Spirit, Education PSA, Energizer, Estee Lauder, Fidelity, Finesse, First National Bank, Foot Joy, Gatorade, Georgia Pacific, Gillette, Got Milk, GTE, Guess Jeans, Guinness, HBO Zone, Helene Curtis, Hershey’s, History Channel, Home Depot, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights & Literacy, Infiniti, John Deere, Juno, Kellogg’s, Kemper, Kmart, Lady Footlocker, Lean Cuisine, L’eggs, Lego, Levi’s, Lincoln, Lipton, M&M’s, March of Dimes PSA, MasterCard, McDonald’s, MCI, Mennen, Merck, Merrill Lynch, Mexico Board of Tourism, Michelob, Miller, Miramax, Mitsubishi, Molson, MTV, NASDAQ, National Gallery PSA, NBC, NEC, New York Landmarks Commission PSA, Nikon, Nynex, Ocean Spray, Oppenheimer Funds, Oregon Dept. of Energy, Organ Donor, Points of Light, Ortega, Patnership For A Drug Free America, Pepsi, Phillips, Pinnacle, Poland Spring, QVC, RCA, Red Light, Reebok, Rite Aid, Salon Selectives, Samuel Adams, Seabreeze, Seagate, Seiko, Sesame Workshop, Shawmut, Showboat Casinos, Shredded Wheat, Snapple, Sony, Southwestern Bell, Sprint, Sprite, Starburst, STP, Stride Rite, SunTrust, Swiss Bank, Taco Bell, Tag Heur, TBS, Texaco, Tommy Hilfiger, Toyota, Toy’s R Us, The US Armed Forces, US West, Visa, Volkswagen, VH1, Volvo

–whew!

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.

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.

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. 

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.

People to Watch –Me– Hooray

Graphic Design Magazine kicked off 2001 by featuring 50 'People to Watch'. The editors wrote, "Clearly there are thousands to watch in our talent-laden and personality-packed community. But we think you'll agree that these 50 are intriguing individuals who display a special mix of design talent, strategic capabilities, business acumen, joy of creation, and, often, a commitment to professional and public service."

I was really lucky to be selected among an incredible group of people whose reputations I can't begin to live up to. Naturally, of course, they required a nifty quote and I gave it to them–



DELIVERY MODELS ARE MULTIPLYING The coming year presents new challenges for media producers who provide content and service via the internet. Delivery models are multiplying; unlike television, where protocols have been in place for years, internet artisans can't bask in their knowledge of the current methodologies. We still must keep abreast of every technological advance to maintain an edge in the online marketplace. The more you know, the more you can do, and the more clients you can accommodate. Saying "No, we can't do it" might be valid when it comes to creative issues. But not being able to produce a project because you're stuck with last year's technologies is certain death.

No resting on your laurels yet. Maybe after a few more mergers, or if programmers run out of ideas. However, both scenarios seem highly unlikely for some time to come.

My esteemed colleagues –class of 2001– included the rockin' and talented: Joan Nicosia, J.J. Sedelmaier, Sharon Mahoney, Mike Hughes, Ken Hanson, Diane Sterman, Susan Vinik Consales, Ed Han, Chris Do and Jessie Huang, Natalie Pryor, Rondi Tschopp, Carla Hall, Robert Keren, Bill Thorburn, Rob Deluke, Brad Gensurowsky, Kent Hunter, Jackie Merri Meyer, Doug Joseph, Sam J. Ciulla, Tim Larsen, Janet Odgis, Kenneth Cooke, Brian Hill, Jaye Donaldson, Jonathan Pite, David Ford, Dave Miller, Dennis Ryan, Kenneth White, Iti, Candy Piemonte, Kenneth Quail, Victor Rodriquez, Bonnie Barnes, Bob Whitmor, Scott Sugiuchi and Steve Carsella, Limore Shur, Todd Mueller, Joe Lisaius, Robyn Streisand, David Annunziato, Brian Diecks and Gerri Guadagno.