This was the project where i really bloomed as a sound designer, compiling and using sound effects. Obviously i do all the music, too, but i learned more on this project about sound effects than anything else.
The point of these longer commercials is that they actually break down into smaller the 30 second spots that you see on TV. So while this one tells the full story in it’s minute long version, it usually air as just the first half or just the second half. The score of course adjusts to each smaller permutation.
While a commercial campaign technically exists to please the client, and ultimately the director’s job is to balance his vision of the piece with pleasing the client, my job as composer (and sound designer) isn’t really to please the client. It’s to please the director. I will never meet with or interact with the client. In a commercial gig, the director is god, and when he is happy, i am happy. When you make your own songs on your own albums, you can be the god do whatever you want. In a commercial gig, you exist to make the director’s vision happen as they envision it, just like in a film. Being sent back multiple times at the beginning of the process to get the “sound” of the score right is perfectly normal and should be expected. Once a sound of the score is decided upon it’s usually pretty obvious what to do from there, although there will be a few more rounds of notes. (More build here, more subtle here, lose this instrument here, etc)
The thing is, it’s enormously fun work, especially because you can be asked to do music beds in style you wouldn’t normally try. I love that part. This particular video is not an example of that, but i’m just saying. This score was good fun to make, simple and straight forward enough, and like i said, i progressed enormously as a sound effects designer on this one.
