Endless Noise Turns Ambient Sound into Percussive Score for Post Office Spot
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LOS ANGELES (Apr. 29, 2002) -- Sound design and music company Endless Noise recently did hybrid “musical sound design” work for a U.S. Postal Service spot from Leo Burnett/Chicago. The new :30 TV spot entitled “Dry Cleaner” was directed by Anonymous Content’s John Dolan and debuted on Apr. 15.
In the spot, a small drycleaner experiences a surge of business based on a direct mail campaign. As commerce picks up, the sounds of customers entering combine with hisses of steam, the sound of the spinning rack, rings from the cash register and other ambient noises, eventually building into a percussive underscore. The voiceover drives the point home: ”Target your customers with direct mail and you may actually hear your business growing. Music to your ears, brought to you by the United States Postal Service.” [an error occurred while processing this directive] “We had to find a way to get across to people that the postal service can help businesses grow to become more vibrant and efficient,” explained Endless Noise creative director and project co-composer and sound designer Jeff Elmassian. “So specifically, we had to find sounds in the environment of this business that reflect the image of the postal service and that come across as being interesting and musical.
“Together with John Dolan and the creative team, we found that the sounds in this environment made for a dynamic rhythm track – so that's the direction we ultimately went,” Elmassian continued.
“The biggest challenge was trying to live within the reality of the sounds,” explained Leo Burnett’s senior producer Bob Davis. “It was challenging to create an interesting sound that builds, but the team at Endless Noise helped us find the right balance of ambient sounds that could build to drive the storyline of the spot.”
“To me,” added director John Dolan, ”Jeff's input was invaluable in the preproduction stage, because he helped me define which sounds would work the best musically. He also created a scratch track that I used on location to ensure the proper tempo. His knowledge of music and sound design and the combination of those is what makes him really unique.”
The live-action footage was lensed on-location at Bixby Knolls Cleaners in Long Beach, Calif. in March by Dolan and director of photography Conrad Hall, Jr.
All sound for the project was created in-house at the Endless Noise studio in West Hollywood. Working with co-composer and sound designer Andy Rehfeldt on a Macintosh G4, the team used SampleCell for sampling, ProTools for sound editing and Studio Vision to sequence their sounds into a musical composition. The final track was mixed through a Digidesign Control 24 mixing console. The Endless Noise studio features Mackie HR24 studio monitors.
The ability of Jeff Elmassian and his team to transform sound into music recently earned them a London International Advertising Award for Best Sound Design for their work on the Nike Freestyle campaign. Elmassian will also be honored for that campaign’s sound design at the upcoming 2002 International ANDY Awards Show and Party on May 1 in New York City and at the 43rd Annual Clio Festival on May 21 in Miami Beach.
For the Leo Burnett project team in Chicago, Lisa Bennett served as executive creative director and Steve Simoncic served as creative director. Along with Bob Davis, the team also included Chad Ackley as art director and Daniel Mabe as copywriter.
Anonymous Content’s team was led by executive producer Andy Traines and head of production Cassie Hulen, and also included producer Tapas Blank and production manager Sam Swisher.
Deb Schimmel of Chicago’s Optimus edited the spot.
For more information, go to www.endlessnoise.com.
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