Thursday, June 24, 2010

Whack-a-Mole

I keep saying to various relatives that I'm going to upload one of my commercial spots to the blog. Today I have some downtime so hear goes.

This one is for Whack-a-Mole, a children's game. I just landed another spot through the same agency for a toy called Red Rover that should air soon. Maybe making silly kids' songs is my calling... Makes sense since I'm just a goofball.

So, to give you guys an idea of how a job like this works, we got the call for this in the afternoon and the due date was the following morning. I, and a handful of my company's roster of composers, will then go to work to create "demos" and then we submit them all and see if the client buys any. So that is, worst-case scenario, an afternoon to write, record and mix a track. Thankfully they are short (:15, :30 and :60 second increments)! I put "demos" in quotes because these tracks are generally going to run as-is, or with slight revisions, if they get bought, so they have to be good enough quality to air when we turn them in.

All of the instruments in this case were done in a computer using samples of instruments (drums, bass, piano, synth) that I will perform on a keyboard using it as a midi-controller. Whenever possible we try to use real instruments which we can record here in the studio. But in a pinch, I'll just use the computer samples. The vocals were sung by myself and a friend here (we took turns on the parts that sound sped up) and I did some of the more talkier ones like "They surprise, they talk back."

Whack the most in and you win!

4 comments:

Grandma said...

Good job--just too short. I was getting into it, then it was over.

scott said...

I find this offensive. Moles are the majority of the members of the mammal family Talpidae in the order Soricomorpha. Although moles burrow, some species are semi-aquatic. Moles have cylindrical bodies covered in fur while the ears are generally not visible. They have small or covered eyes and can probably still tell night from day, although they are otherwise blind. I love Moles.

Phyllis said...

Mole is a meaningful word for a Thompson. All four of us kids have one on our nose... What are the chances?

Good song Daniel. Of course I made the staff at LCC listen to it.(<>:

Stephen said...

I'm with Scott. What he said.

Plus, as an ECD I'd fire the creative's who came up with the idea, or lack of idea. But not you Daniel. I know the position you're in. Nice work on your part.