Audio for spots: audio post studios have been challenged with finding the right balance between personality, talent and gear - Audio

Post, August, 2003

With our ever-diminishing attention span, ad agencies and their clients need to grab and keep viewers' attention within the first seconds of a commercial spot. And this sometimes makes for a tense but highly creative work environment.

After all, this is not an inexpensive proposition. Companies are spending millions of dollars to make sure their message is seen and heard. So, in tandem with having the best technology available, audio post houses make sure their talent also has the ability to delicately balance personalities during a session.

THE HUMAN FACTOR

LA-based Ravenswork (www.ravenswork. com) chief engineer Eric Ryan performs final mixes on spots, so he brings together everything from voiceover to music to sound design, Ryan reports that the majority of his work includes national spots for clients such as Intel, Nissan and Sony PlayStation. The direction he receives from clients depends upon who shows up for the mix session.

"Sometimes we'll have an editor's assistant here all the way up to the creative director from the agency and possibly their client," he reports. "So, a lot of times you have to juggle their hierarchy--you'll have a junior writer who wants one thing, and you'll go down this path for three or four hours on a mix, then the creative director will show up and want something totally different. So, you have to be able to really humor just about everybody in the room, depending on what the time allows."

Ryan's first goal is to get the spot to where it will sound good on air. "Then it comes to a point where it's playing around with subjectivity," he explains. "Sometimes it gets a little heated with the egos, so to speak, as to who you have to be really listening to and what's going to end up being the best result. It gets to be a political situation sometimes."

The way he resolves any tension is to explore everyone's ideas. "At that point it becomes obvious to the room whether or not it's a good idea," he says. "Basically, as they are talking I can be doing what they are saying and then as soon as they are done with their comment I hit play and it's obvious whether or not it works. If it doesn't, I hit undo and go down some other road."

As for the technology that Ravenswork uses, Ryan says it's predominantly Fairlight's MFX3plus and FAME, although they do have Pro Tools so they can interface with the rest of the world. "We have found that the Fairlight, as far as speed and stability, far exceeds what we could do with a Pro Tools system," he says.

When it comes to mixing a spot, Ryan believes the key is making sure there is space for everything to be heard. "If you get something that's a little more exploratory with esoteric sound design elements, make sure that's coming across in a good way and not just a mess," he explains. "Or if the copy is really selling the spot, then the simplicity of what's around it works a lot better. If it's a music-driven spot, make sure that shines and isn't swallowed up by a bunch of explosions."

FINDING THE RIGHT FLOW

Brian Aumueller, senior composer at New York City-based Blue Room (www. blueroompro.com), says he faces many challenges while working on promo spots for networks such as TBS, ESPN and CNN. "I think the first thing when you are given a visual is finding the right pulse and really nailing the most effective way to give that visual life with music or sound effects," he explains.

Overcoming that depends on the spot. Aumueller points to a redesign campaign the company recently did for TBS. "Every couple of years they'll redesign their whole network with new promo spots. In this case we started with storyboards rather than video. That was an interesting place to begin, because immediately you start developing ideas about what the sound may be for that spot musically," he says. The company then received video of actors shot against greenscreens, which enabled them to work with sound design and music sans graphics. It was an interesting challenge, he adds, because the more visual material they received the more he could hone in the audio.

"Sometimes you'll work out a piece and the flow will just about be right, but then some things will change and certain edits will be made. You then have to rethink where the music needs to go because the bottom line is that the piece has to have a flow to it," Aumueller says. "We encountered that with the redesign because it was an ongoing process right up to the deadline."

As far as tools, Blue Room uses Pro Tools|HD as their main system with a Focusrite Control 24 board. Aumueller employs a handful of modules and synthesizers, including a Yamaha Motif, a Roland Phantom, a Kurzweil K2000 and a Trident. "It's a good mix, because one particular brand might have a great strength, but it's when you use the different brands in union with one another that you can get really wild and crazy," he says.

Based on his experience, Aumueller reports that the key to creating exciting music for promos or spots is going above and beyond what's already airing. "You really need to inject these spots with something unique and creative. I'd like to think that when I'm writing music to a spot that it's really my voice. As a composer you have a whole bunch of things in your bag of tricks," he says. "It's about how effective the visuals will lock up with the music and sound design, and about the actual piece of music--whether or not you can tell a story over 30 seconds. I think the same thing applies to a spot that's two minutes or 10 minutes. Any writer should really challenge themselves to bring their voice to these spots."