Pinch Me

I’ve been wanting to blog for quite some time now, but for some reason it doesn’t end up on the top of my priority list as often as I would like. Somehow time with Miles seems to take precedence, and I’m totally ok with that.

I have probably half a dozen things I want to blog about, since there have been changes a-plenty around here. Have you heard about our new studio space? ADDY awards? Center X Productions recordings? No? I haven’t blogged about any of that yet? Hmmm. Ok, maybe tomorrow. For now…

This blog starts in the year 1998. I was out of college and living in Atlanta. I had left teaching middle school band at that point, and was surviving off of private lessons and ramen noodles so I could pursue my dream of writing music for film and television. As part of my exploration into the field, I visited a local studio or two to see what they do, and ended up on a tour at the Todd AO studio in down town Atlanta. Half way through the tour I watch a guy putting shoe squeaks, net swooshes and basketball dunks to a video. It was an ESPN commercial for March madness. I was totally fascinated watching him time out each dunk and swish. Sweeeeet. I was in nerd heaven. I could have sat and watched him the rest of the afternoon.

So… jump ahead to this past fall, and, well, check this video out:

Mad Ants commercial by Punch Films

Go watch it again. And crank it up… That’s right, every swish, swoosh, squeak, dunk, cheer, and beat, baby. The only part I didn’t create is the voice over. I even grabbed a handful of basketball sound effects from various foley sites to create a custom basketball synth in Kontakt to make the rhythm track. It was a fun project in part because Punch hadn’t actually edited all the footage, so I wrote the music based on his concept. Then he edited it to what I wrote. Then I re-worked several parts of the audio to really fit the visuals he had created. This tight back and fourth creates a really strong connection you just can’t get with stock music.

Unfortunately, I haven’t see it on TV yet! I’ve actually heard it’s even been playing on radio. Let me know if anyone out there hears it!

Put sound FX to basketball promo. Check.

Thanks for watching!

Much Metta,

John