Final Report - Jingle Reflection

My initial intention with the jingles was to do a handful of old, Australian ads and recreate them in a way that was fairly close to the original but maybe put a few twists in them. So change some of the dialogue and the music to alter the feeling and maybe go for a humorous feel. Which I did do for a couple of them but in the end I mostly just opted to recreate the collection of ads fairly true to the original as the focus shifted more toward the music. Which was something I did not really think about too much early on when I was selecting the ads. I thought more about the ads and how I would recreate them and what I could do from a sound design perspective but after the first class where we showed work I realised I was going to have to change my approach toward the project. Ultimately I threw a good handful of the ads out I had originally planned to work on and changed the direction. As a result I think I actually produced the best piece of work in the lot right at the end and it took the least amount of time.

With the Pal dog food ad I tried to make a fairly poor sounding ad that matched the original in terms of quality. So I set up a tape machine plug in and ran my background noise samples through completely maxed out. Just to try and make and it sound fuzzy and hissy. The music is just a guitar riff simple guitar that I tried to hide behind the rest of the ad. Because it was not a jingle that was going to act as a theme song for the ad I tried to play it in a style that seemed like it suited the vibe of what was happening. This was my first attempt at music for all of the ads that went from start to finish and what I quickly realised was that it's extremely hard to squeeze in a riff that resolves itself perfectly within 30 seconds.

The Ansett proved to be a lot harder than I originally thought. It's just the music right toward the end but making the rest of the ad sound like it isn't completely empty was more work than I thought. I had to record a lot of street sounds and edit them all between scenes to make it feel like the viewer is moving with the character and is hearing the spaces that they are in. The music is just the organ instrument in Pro Tools aux'd out to a warbly tape delay with the delay then sent out to a reverb to really try and widen the sound and make it modulated. In terms of the music itself I tried to just play something that sounded uplifting or inspiring. As someone that is very terrified of flying you want to have faith and confidence in your airline and I feel like what is played somewhat conveys that.

ABC Radio National was one of the more fun ones to do. Getting all the samples together and then making them sound as though an old radio was being flipped through was interesting. Lots of band passing and mid boosting to make it sound like an old radio. The part where I say "Music" is a recording of a song I wrote while doing this project. I wasn't sure what I was going to put there but while I was working on the Coles ad one night I was just not in the mood to be writing silly advertising jingles and was literally just tapping aimlessly away at keys on my midi controller and making obnoxious sounds. Eventually I stumbled onto a little progression I liked and just abandoned working on the ad and wrote a song for one of my bands instead, which was really good. This actually happened twice during this project, two new songs for one of my projects. The soft pad sound in the middle is just the Structure Free instrument in Pro Tools. The music at the end of the ad is meant to be Brian Eno inspired and somewhat similar to the NBC chimes. I don't quite know if I nailed that vibe but the ad feels as though it's the ABC was trying to move confidently into the 80's and everyone was obsessed with the new era of digital music back then so I would assume that someone commissioned for this project would have hopped straight onto their Juno 6 and made space sounds. It sounds dated in this context but hopefully if it was being heard in the 80's it would sound futuristic. I am not sure I nailed the Brian Eno thing though because even his records from the 70's sound timeless.

The Holden one was pretty straight forward. I wanted to something that was as Australian as the Commodore. So I got a didgeridoo from a friend and recorded in my bed room. Granted I am not a skilled player of the didgeridoo but it only had to be 30 seconds so I wasn't forced into a situation where I was going to have trouble with my breathing. Good dose reverb, sample some clapping sticks, make a beat and away you go.

Coles is what forced the direction change in where the ads went. One issue I did run into was recording the background foley for it. I went to Coles with my field recorder and asked if I could just hit record and stand at their check out which they got really weird about. In the end I said I'd come back another time after sending an email asking for permission. I then proceeded to buy a banana and turned the voice recorder on my phone on and got my sample while I stood in line. Sucked in Coles. It was the music for this that did my head in though. I sort of realised that I was just not in the right frame of mind to write really cheesy, Casio keyboard style pop ditty's. If I was having trouble with doing it on the Coles one trying to do it on another 6 ads would be a nightmare.

Enter Love Poem. I came across the video on Vimeo and instantly knew I could do something with it. It gave me more time and it allowed me to write in a style that I am more comfortable with. I think it took me maybe a few hours to write and edit both the synth and piano stuff and then and just spent time tightening it up with the scene transitions. The music is obviously slow and dark but it's by no means despairing. The poem is one I have known for a lot of years now and I wrote the music with it in mind. When I recorded the people reading it I didn't allow them to read it before hand because I wanted to try and catch the tone of their voice as they slowly move through it and contemplate what is they are reading. Because I originally came across the poem as a sound recording from the late 60's I thought I would make mine sound somewhat similar. So lots of band passing, mid boosting and some vinyl crackle.

In the end I think Love Poem is the best work I did for the project. I have never written music like that before and never for film but I feel bleak music is more interesting to me than where I was originally going to go with my ads. What I never considered when it comes to jingles is how much mood would effect what you write. I am used to writing what I guess you would call the aural representation of a feeling. I don't normally write with a set idea in mind. So to try and force myself to be creative and have that creativity come from a place of critical thinking and not feeling was just awkward for me. Especially when I just really wasn't in the mood to be making up beat music. That would be something that is incredibly difficult to navigate as a professional jingle writer. I did think about it early on in the project but I thought I would be able to work around it, apparently not. I should really have aimed to work on a longer single video from the start.

I am not really proud of what I produced for this project. I like what I came up with for the Love Poem video but ultimately I don't think the rest of the work is to a high standard. My freelance work set me up well to go around and do my recordings for this ad project though. I am pretty familiar with taking a Tascam DR-60 around in my car or on public transport and getting good quality field recordings.

Wesbite for jingle group - https://aud210group2.wordpress.com/