Whilst I’m no newbie to the advertising world, I’ve never provided music for ad spots before. However, there are clear parallels in producing creating wonderful visual and sonic work.
Firstly, there needs to be an interesting story/creative idea, secondly, a great client brief. Thirdly, everyone involved pulling in the same direction and collaborating.
I’ve spent the last week with the challenge of re-scoring four recent(ish) big brand ads as part of my second MA sprint. It’s self-briefing, and collaboration was minimal (unless the cat got involved), so I put my client head on and gave myself some rules:
Take the visual story forward with sound.
Grab the audience.
Surprise us. Do something cool.
That established, which ads to pick?
There wasn’t a lot of methodology to my choice, but I knew I wanted to start with a bit of genre spread - a high fashion ad, a sportswear ad, a car ad and then… another car ad.
Sorry, my game, my rules.
Scoring ads requires a different approach to coming up with your own original tracks. You have a visual stimulus to give you cue points and also to suggest something stylistic, or in some cases to suggest the opposite (more on that in a bit), but generally, you have to provide about 1 to 2 minutes of music which supports the story vs being the centre of attention.
So there are no real spaces - or reasons - for major section shifts or key changes to keep the listener interested: in some cases, you can get a cool riff and just play with it if it suits the visual. And who doesn’t love a riff?
Anyway, without further ado here’s some new shiny advertisement Foundtracks, with a little bit of what I learnt whilst producing them.
Nike: “A Feel For Every You”
I knew I wanted to do an ad with a good degree of syncopation with dance.
This particular ad from Nike has some pretty clear cue points (for instance, the dancing down the steps, the girl jumping and landing) and some signposted scene changes, which allowed me to section off my piece into various chunks.
I’ve been using ‘Life’ by XLN Audio a lot on my pieces - it samples anything you can record into it and then slices it up and rearranges it as drum loops, which you can of course, edit and shift and play with. It’s endlessly fun and inspiring, as you get all sorts of weird results - some of the basis of the loops on this piece were a recording of our dishwasher chuntering away.
Once I had one of these loops installed, I knew I wanted a little jazzy piano figure to start as the girl walks down the hill working as a stylistic tension against the rather bang/crash drums, which would get morphed into the more modern synth tones later in the ad. A bit of a signifier of how the old (limited size and shape in sportswear) has become new (multiple lengths, waist heights, and extended sizes) - that a change has taken place.
As ever, I’m a real fan of having a ‘What?’ moment - in this one, it’s at 0.21 when the girl runs down the street. Even though I’d introduced the jazzy piano figure and got everyone comfortable, I wanted to take the audience out of that for 5 seconds or so - it felt important to give this character some space, almost as if you were looking at her across the street - hence giving this it’s own section.
You’ll notice as the ad goes on, the jazzy piano gets toned down or replaced in the mix with more ‘modern’ instrumentation - for example at 0.40 where I added an arpeggiated synth. Also added was a degree of ‘crashy’ percussion. I used this to accent the dancing from 0.47 onwards, and then again the arm movements around the 1.15 mark.
I knew I needed a big ending and that it needed a breath before that happened. Thankfully, there’s an obvious cue point where the central character stops for a moment at 1.22, opens her eyes and looks up. I could have just brought all the instrumentation back in at that point, but I wanted something BIG to come in - to signify a journey had been had. Something a bit triumphant - a clarion call.
Now, a big fat synth always works. And a doubled-up one doubly so. Here it lives on its own for a good few seconds before we brought the whole ensemble in again. Ta, and indeed, da.
What I learnt:
The syncopation took quite a bit of time (relatively speaking) to sort, but it’s crucial in this sort of piece. Keep working on this until it’s bang on.
The message of the ad (in this case, a change in product offering) can live in the music as well as the visuals.
Renault: “Renault 5 EV - Be The First”
Next up, entry number one on the car ad slate.
Despite there being some rather questionable CGI in this ad, it’s about a very cool car - the new Renault 5 EV, which is both retro and modern all in one. Nice.
This being a French brand, I started with the idea to do my version of Air’s “Sexy Boy”, which unsurprisingly turned into something else as it developed. You can hear the original influence in the opening bassline. It’s similar to the Air melody.
Let’s call it a homage.
Unlike some previous pieces, I delayed the drums until quite far in. I felt like when the fast cuts started happening at 0.23 was the optimal moment. That’s also where I added quite a bit of sound effects and production to match the edit - it becomes a marker to say “Right… we’re off!”.
It’s not to say there are no drums up to that point by the way, if you listen there’s a drum loop (courtesy of Joey Warnoker, drummer with Beck and REM) submerged to give a bit of movement. I haven’t generally used third party drum loops much so far. Not because I think it’s cheating or anything, but more that you can spend a lot of time looking for something to fit rather than coming up with your own programming. However, sometimes in the early stages if you want a ‘vibe’, a well-picked loop might just work.
I kept the main melody quite simple. In my mind, it was très French. The aforementioned Air or perhaps a Jean Michel Jarre sort of thing.
Once again - he said, noting a pattern - I inserted a slight pause in the music around 0.48, before we entered the final section where the car drives out into ‘the real world’ which may or may not be Paris. This allowed me to introduce a rather Daft Punk-like nasty synth sound to give a bit of grubby movement.
One part of this production I enjoyed working on was the bass. As I said, firstly it was a ‘Sexy Boy’ vibe but later on, it got a little repetitive so I swapped some sections around and worked against the rhythm in a disco style, with a running figure near the end. Gave a different feel with only a few notes.
What I learnt:
Don’t worry about using third-party loops - they can be great for getting you going and it’s like a virtual collaboration!
Keep your inspiration in your head as you’re working. You don’t have to slavishly do something note for note, but a general feel is good as a guide - you’ll get something new at the end with a nod to the source idea.
Valentino: “Valentino RendezVous starring Zendaya”
And now for something completely different.
Much of what I’ve produced over the last few months has been pretty ‘electronic’ in style. This has surprised me a little, as in my head, I’m a guitarist who plays a bit of keyboards. So on this ad, I decided to switch it up.
Originally I was leaning towards a sort of beaty 1960’s Farfisa organ-led pop thing. Possibly the almost Austin Power’s like visual ending on the ad was influencing me. Groovy, baby.
However, I rather like ad soundtracks which fight with the style suggested by the visual. This ad could be quite cutesy, so I felt it needed a counterpoint. Besides, my contrary side quite enjoys doing something the opposite of the obvious.
Let’s crack on. Once I got a pretty heavy beat going, I started to layer in some rather rough and ready bass, which then led to some intentionally loose rock guitar (Quad Cortex, Matchless Amp with a Rat pedal, tech fans) and this led to… well, something The Pixies might have practised in their garage during rehearsal.
I’m not sure what timeframe genre-wise it fits into (thoughts on a postcard please!), but I’m really pleased with the sleazy, live feel. It gives the ad a different edge.
Also, some proper big guitars on something - yey!
What I learnt:
EQ’ing guitars is a pain in the bum. I forgot about this and twiddled for ages in the mix. Bit of extra midrange and some separation help.
Quite often, don’t aim for ‘perfect’. I deliberately only did a few takes of guitar and played (in my head) like I was in the previously mentioned garage band. It’s sloppy, but it gives off loads of personality, making it more ‘alive’ and less processed. Don’t overthink it.
Polestar: “Polestar x Wall Street Journal (feat.) Oscar Isaac”
Finally, let’s wind it down.
As the second entrant to the car ad category this week, it’s this spot from Polestar from 2021, featuring your favourite Moon Knight, Oscar Issac.
This is a short 60 second ad, and my aim was to produce something more ‘ambient’ in genre and sound and impressionistic in composition. Less syncing to certain cues (although they are there) and more ‘mood’ based.
It became a bit of a sound design piece really. I used Slate + Ash’s excellent suite of plugins as a jumping-off point. One patch early on inspired the opening background melody which formed the basis of the whole composition. I then added various moody synths and noises, plus a mournful cello-style descending line (0.35) which morphs into the tunnel noise sound design at the end of the piece.
Like I said, there is a little syncing to add some punch - for example, at 0.24 I added some accents to bring out the logo on the bonnet but it’s quite subtle.
What is a ‘first’ for me here is my first whirl at sonic branding (or mnemonic) for the Polestar logo at the end. It’s only really 3 notes, but it syncs with the appearance of the logo and how it animates in. I’ve separated this out from the mix and included it below:
Enjoyed doing this one. It didn’t take a huge amount of time (no drums! no careful synching! no guitar EQ’ing!) and I’ll be doing more ambient-type pieces in the future. I’ve been meaning to add that to the genre mix for a while.
What I learnt:
Sometimes you don’t need the click track - work with mood and the visuals as your time cues.
You don’t have to spend days slaving away to do something that fits the ad - if it works, it works.
How did I do?
Let’s go back to those three rules again:
Take the visual story forward with sound.
Grab the audience.
Surprise us. Do something cool.
I’d say I’d hit my own briefing. All of these Foundtrack reworks in their own ways, fit the imagery, and have an energy and surprise - sometimes because they’re the opposite of expectations.
And I’ve learnt a huge amount. How to add to the story, to give a visual some mood that wasn’t there, when to zig and zag, how to use space and syncopation…the list goes on. In fact, it occurred to me that perhaps my ‘original’ pieces could start as ad reworks as a first phase, then get redeveloped - using the visuals as a stimulus to start with. Something to play with in the future.
Whatever happens, this was great - it was all little adds to my composing journey, and definitely no minuses. Let me know what you think!
Note: All Foundtracks visuals and scene audio are used for educational purposes and the rights remain with the original artists.