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Sovereign Hill – Ballarat

The Crew

Director: Justin Weyers, Assistant Director/Producer: Luke Keys, Producer/Casting: Teagan Glenane, Dialect Coach: Penny, D.O.P: David Franjic, Assistant Camera: Michael Gordon Hill, Sound Recording: Hassan Lahrech, Gaffer: Albert Garcia (Savage), Make Up: Lou McLaren, Tech Director/VFX: Jesse Sanders, Wardrobe/Client: Erin Santamaria, Naomi Holden, Chontal Hickey, Megan Anderson.

Sovereign Hill is an open-air museum in Golden Point, a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Sovereign Hill depicts Ballarat’s first ten years after the discovery of gold there in 1851. It was officially opened on 29 November 1970 and has become a nationally acclaimed tourist attraction. It is one of Victoria’s most popular attractions and Ballarat’s most famous.

Set in the Australian 1850s, the complex is located on a 25-hectare site that is linked to the richest alluvial gold rush in the world. The site comprises over 60 historically recreated buildings, with costumed staff and volunteers, who are able to answer questions and will pose for photos. The recreation is completed with antiques, artwork, books and papers, machinery, livestock and animals, carriages, and devices all appropriate to the era.

Last October, I finished a two weeks long shoot, on green screen for the new Sovereign Hill open air museum show. That experience was something completely different from the usual shoots. We filmed the reconstruction of the Gold mine rush, with most of the main characters involved back then. The really nice part was the costume and make up departments brought a massive wardrobe on set with clothes dating from back then, their attention to detail was astounding!! Nothing was out of place and it had to be historically accurate too, the research work these guys have done was so amazing!! The make up work of Lou McLaren was absolutely breathtaking. In the second week, there was a talent on set ready to be miced up, I went to him and introduced myself as the sound guy, he looked at me with a big smile on his face saying: ‘We’ve met last week!! I was a different character!!’ I looked at him confused, I simply didn’t recognized him at all!! I burst out laughing and apologized for not recognizing him!

I also had for once, more time and opportunities to try out and experiment on different mic placements, on a wide variety of clothing. Some were extremely difficult to deal with, as hair and hat were not an option!! My favorite spot is the hat!! Placed right in front of the forehead, great spot. I tried that technique from a good friend of mine, Ray Beentjes, who showed me, when I was in Wellington, NZ, how he placed the mic in Gandalf’s hat for The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit shoot. If I remember well, he took the same placement when he was recording the ADR’s with Sir Ian McKellen. You avoid any form of clothes rustling and body movements, my trusty Sanken COS 11 D did a fantastic job at picking up crystal clear dialog with plenty of low end frequencies!! I was surprised at how close it was sounding to my Sennheiser MKH8060 shotgun mic when we were shooting close ups!! Really impressed!!

My second favorite spot is hidden and pinned in the hair, as close as possible to the middle line of the cranium and as close as possible to the forehead, I still managed to pick up really clear speech and the resonance of the cranium provided me with convenient low end frequencies too, it was great!! One thing to be careful of though is, make sure the wire is well hidden in the hair, hopefully the subject has long hair or a scarf covering the back of the neck and the wire!! For some scenes, it was very very tricky!! The actress didn’t have a scarf and her collar was not very high at the back of her neck, I got away with hiding the wire under a skin tone, clinical masking tape and had to ask the make up department for help in disguising my masking tape to match the skin colour, it worked a treat!! Except for one scene, I attempted the same trick but the clinical masking tape was slowly coming off, I turned around and asked David Franjic, the DOP, if it would be noticeable as it was a wide and far shot, but his sharp eagle eye spotted it, he told me ‘Sorry mate! I can see it!’ I had to quickly go and change the position of the mic and hide it in the collar between two takes, while the entire crew and the Director stares at you doing your thing!! No pressure!!! Especially when you think about how big it will look when projected on big buildings, for the next 15 years or so!!!

We spent the first week shooting in a fairly small space at Dragon Studios in Collingwood, Melbourne, the good part is, it was acoustically friendly and treated, that made my work a lot easier, no particular issues that week except one actor had a scene where he had to move around quite a bit, standing up, putting props down, picking them up again several times and in the middle of a take, the mic body pack dropped from the back of his pants!! My jaw dropped even lower, my heart stopped for a few seconds and I rushed on set, apologizing profusely to Justin, the Director who said ‘That was a great take!!’… Quickly fixed it back, this time with gaffer tape!!!

Due to the confidentiality of the project, Sovereign Hill has requested not to post or reveal anything about the shoot or the characters, here are a few pics that have been approved by Sovereign Hill.

Click thumbnails to start the pictures gallery.

Photos Credits: Teagan Glenane (http://www.teaganglenane.com.au)

We spent the second week in another green screen studio that was much bigger, in Hit Makers, South Melbourne… That space was far more challenging for sound for several reasons… The reverb time in the room was fairly long, even though there were some curtains covering the high walls and some absorbing acoustic panels on the ceiling, the space was necessary as we needed to shoot wide angle scenes with very large props… The closest spot for my boom mic was about 1 to 1.5 meter from the talent’s mouth, not ideal at all!! That week went very well too with no major issues.

We finished the last day of shoot in Ballarat at the Wendouree Centre Performing Arts to record some scenes of an indigenous family speaking in their dialect. After wrapping up, we were invited to a sumptuous dinner and drinks  by Luke Keys, our producer and managing director of Mass Motion. This guy surely knows how to finish a shoot in splendor!! Thank you Luke!

I will most likely post a blog about the post production  and Dialog editing process for this project but at a later stage… Bear with me…

Coming up next, Disney’s Alice Pleasance…

 

 

 

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Amaze – Autism Australia

The Crew:

Director: Gabrielle Bullard – First A.D: Kim Ingles – D.O.P: David Franjic – Assistant Camera: Michael Gordon Hill – Sound Recording: Hassan Lahrech, Producers: Elizabeth Reeder – Holly Hayes – Wardrobe: Louise Patterson, Lighting: Savage

A brand new four years campaign has been created to promote awareness on people’s behavior towards autistic people. The campaign will run three 30″TVC’s that should start airing April 2nd 2019, launch will be on World Autism Awareness Day.

I’ve been called on this project to assist with location sound recording. After reading the treatment, I was really intrigued to see how this shoot would unfold, we were going to work with autistic people as the heroes of the stories. During pre-production, I was explaining to the the production team that we might need to be a bit creative with sound recording as some autistic people do have serious issues with physical contact and handling. It took me a lot more thinking than usual, I immediately thought of the worst case scenario, not having the option of wiring the heroes with a lapel mic!!

Panic did not set in as there are many other options to work with, like hiding microphones as close as possible to the talent, but still, I like to have crisp and clean dialog recorded properly, in close proximity of the voices. I prepared a basic recording kit with my trustworthy Sound Devices 744T, a radio mic with a Sanken COS11D (I love that little mic, very easy to hide and it sounds great!!), a shotgun mic Sennheiser MKH8060 on a boom pole and that was it. I had to rent two additional Lectrosonics radio mics and three IFB for the Agency, Client and Director to monitor the sound during the scenes. Fairly easy…

Photos credit: Bonnie Savage (www.bonniesavage.com)

Click to enlarge the Gallery

Day 1

We rolled in with all the gear in an office in the Melbourne CBD, set up pretty quickly, I like to meet the actors before hand to break the ice and make friends,  if I need to mic up a lady, I usually quickly run to the wardrobe department, in this case the hilarious Louise Patterson, or the make up artist to ask for help, fixing a mic can get pretty invasive, some people don’t mind, others are freaking out…

Being on very high alert, I discreetly asked who was the autistic hero for the first story, someone pointed me to Chloe, she was having her hair done… I asked the  assistant director, Kim Ingles, how comfortable Chloe would feel to be wired, she did not have an issue. I went happy and gently introduced myself, explaining calmly what the process would be like, Louise, the wardrobe artist, was really helpful in getting the mic in the right spot. Gabrielle, the Director, mentioned that Chloe did not have any dialog in the script, I told her never mind, it would be very good to capture her presence, breathing and movements, less work in post for foley’s and it’s the real deal if it’s usable!

Everyone was standing by and ready for the first scene to be shot, when the Director walked on set, sent the roll over cue, camera was rolling, sound was rolling and… action! That’s when we heard a live bagpipe blasting out in the street John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’ tune, soon to be joined by a very loud singer… I looked completely depleted and powerless at the director… There was a street corporate event rocking it loudly, all you need for a clean and crisp dialog recording on top of the uncontrollable, centralized loud air conditioning system in the office… What a great start!! The event didn’t last very long though, about fifteen minutes, then everything went just fine, to cover all bases, we recorded some wild lines in the quietest part of the office so the post production department would have more clean material to work with, we wrapped the first spot around lunch time…

The second story was happening in a cafe with two actors and a male autistic hero. That set was even more of a sonic environmental challenge!! The scene was to be shot near the kitchen area which had massive suction fans that could not be stopped, yes, we were shooting in the middle of business hours, switching that off was not an option! I did my best to hide the lapel mics as close as possible to the actor’s mouth. In these situations, I like to take my headphones and pass it to the Director so she could appreciate, in an augmented reality fashion, the sonic environment and challenge first hand! Gabrielle was very understanding, she looked at me and said: ‘Today is not going to be very good for you, don’t stress, it’s not your fault…’ Very sweet of her…

To damage control that, the only alternative was to go back to the production team’s hotel room and do more wild lines as a back up, failing that, I suggested ADR in post if the wild lines were not usable for lip sync…

Day 2

Was happening in a Woolworth supermarket, the trick of the day, we were going to shoot with autistic children! I had been warned that the first kid would be fine but I might not be able to mic him up. On the other hand, I was told the second kid was a more complicated case. Gabrielle discreetly told me: “No boom for him!”. Creative mic placement kicked in really fast!! I rushed to the cashier where the scene was happening and started looking for options, managed to hide the shotgun mic pretty close to the action, I had two additional Lectrosonics, one on the acting ‘Mum’, the other one on the onlooker passing nasty comments (part of the script), it sounded pretty good everywhere…

The down side to my set up, the shotgun mic was pointing directly towards the automatic doors of the supermarket constantly opening and closing, with customers walking in and out, traffic was coming through as well! I opted to hook my Sennheiser MKH50 diametrically opposite the shotgun mic, hoping to counter act the unwanted traffic noise. I quickly built a made up 50cm x 50cm card board screen placed just behind the MKH50 to reduce background traffic noise. The result was pretty good!

Oscar, the first autistic hero was a sweet heart to work with, he was taken in a quiet place in the staff room of the Wollies, where we had the make up and wardrobe set up… Once he was ready, I asked if I could approach him to mic him up and he let me, to make him feel more comfortable, I slowly went to him and with a peaceful and very calm voice. I introduced myself, I told him that I’ll be his new friend for the day, he smiled and seemed very happy with that. My approach to mic him up was simple, I knelt down so my eye level was lower than his, I felt this psychological position would be far less intimidating for him than me standing up from my six feet tall, looking down on him… He was very relaxed and he was wired in no time, very cooperative! We shot the scenes with him with no problem at all.

Then came Scott, the second autistic hero, we started rolling without wasting time, I was looking at David, the DOP, constantly and quickly picked up that he was quietly filming! That’s when I decided to let the recorder roll with no interruption, the Director was calmly resetting the takes and the intensity gradually climbed up. At one point, the voice of Rachel, the acting ‘Mum’ became so shaky, I had to take off my headphones, it was becoming too emotional for me to bear!! It was an incredible eye opener and a pretty strong moment to experience. It does really make you appreciate first hand what some parents of autistic children have to deal and put up with… It was so emotionally charged!! I had never seen something like this before!!

We eventually managed to get all the shots Gabrielle needed and finished packing up really quickly, peak hour customers were flowing in, it was time to go! When everything was packed up, I ran to the BWS, just besides the cashier (how convenient!!) and bought a six pack of Hoegaarden that we shared with the remaining crew and Director in the staff room! I really needed that to digest the day!! Incredible shoot!! My hat off to Gabrielle, the Director, for managing the set in a such a calm and controlled way!! Awesome job from the entire crew!!!

I’m sorry, I don’t have a link to point to just yet, I will keep you updated when the TVC’s are being released!

Coming up next: Sovereign Hill, Ballarat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Driven Episode 3 – High Maintenance

 

Sandra Horne is a 60s pin-up and promo model, host of her own YouTube car show,  loves nothing more than getting out on the open road and traveling incredible distances across Australia in her 60’s inspired 1932 Ford 5 Window Coupe, yet she’s equally at home racing the Hot Rod down the tarmac drag strip.

This episode was kind of challenging for sound recording, I was not allowed to put any recording device in the front of the engine for two reasons, first, the front of the car had no bonnet, the engine was fully exposed to wind, second, Sandra, was not comfortable with me fixing anything in the front section of the car, which I can totally understand and respect…

I had to be quick in my thinking and come up with alternatives to get the needed sounds to match the chasing shots of the front of the car, the good thing is we started the day by recording passing by’s at high and medium speed, which gave me more time to figure out alternatives.

Things got really exciting when we headed to the Heatcote Park Drag Strip, we spent a few hours there doing beautiful gimble shots by the very talented David Franjic, the thrilling part was the burn out shots!!! Once again, I got to hide in the foot well of the passenger seat while Sandra was going completely mental in doing her burn outs, she was incredibly good at it!!! Between two takes, she casually mentioned that she drove from Melbourne all the way to Ayers Rock and back with her hotrod!!! That’s about 2.500 kms one way, on her own!!! I found that completely amazing!! I did the drive myself in my comfortable Toyota Kluger and found it very hard!! Anyway, I managed to capture really nice sounding burn outs from the inside as well as from the outside with my Mid Side kit!! Sounds sick!

I also requested to Sandra if we could get away in a quiet spot, away from all the talking on set to record additional material and she was very keen, so we went off at a couple of km’s from the track and did a few take off, arrive to a stop, fast, medium and slow speed as well as gear shifting, doors opening, closing with 360 degrees idle pans that can be heard on the drone shot passing slowly over the car on the track…

Recording the back of the car was a lot easier, there was a perfect spot where I had fixed the zoom recorder, really close to the exhaust and away from any wind, sounded really good…

We finished the day near a beautiful little lake which gave us really nice dawn light for some beauty shots! It was gorgeous… I love my job!!

Written by Hassan Lahrech

Click thumbnails to start the slide show

Click HERE to view the film.

 

 

 

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Driven Episode 2 – The Sickness

Technically, same crew, same gear has been used as in Ep1. Recording techniques were a lot easier given the very spacious cars we worked with.

We shot 2 different vintage V8 muscle cars, the first one was a Plymouth Road Runner, yes, the legendary ‘Meep Meep’! For someone like me, that honestly doesn’t know much about muscle cars, at first glance it looks like a very well maintained old car, that you would take for a cruising road trip and sight seeing, but Brian Dale (the owner) said at one point of time “All right, let’s give it a little squirt”, he then slammed the pedal on the floor, my breath was completely taken away, my eyes opened really wide when I felt the power that car had, absolutely unbelievable! To top it all, I was lucky to be under the headphones and fully experienced an augmented reality moment!! Totally unreal!  I also had, once again, the opportunity to spend most of the time in the foot well of the passenger seat, which was a lot more spacious and ‘comfortable’ compare to the tiny little Porsche!! We spent a few hours doing passing by, beautiful drone shots in a light fog and we moved on to Dodge Charger.

That was an equally impressive piece of car, the sound it makes is absolutely incredible, with lots more power in it I felt. We pretty much covered a few different scenes and sequences for a few hours, we then moved on to interview Brian in his garage, Road Runner Exhaust in Heidelberg West, where he builds and fixes his antique cars and looks after his customers too. We had the chance to see the back yard of his garage where he had a quite a few more gems and beasts in the making.

We had to come back another day to film the last car for this episode, which was another 1970 Plymouth  Super Bird built for Nascar, the funny thing is that car actually has the original horn that is used in the Road Runner cartoons!! It performed incredibly well in the Calder Park Thunder dome Nascar race track. The track is now closed down but we managed to get access to it for a day, I had never been on a Nascar race track before, that was very entertaining! Just before wrapping up, I did ask Brian if I could record the horn, he was only too happy to ‘Meep Meep’ a few times!! I was in the cartoon instantly, looking out for the Coyote!!

Click HERE to view the full episode

Coming soon Driven Episode 3 – High Maintenance

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Driven Episode 1 – The Architect (Shannons Original Web Series)

The Crew

Director: Brad Wilson

Director Of Photography: David Franjic

Camera assistant – Drone Pilot: Michael Gordon Hill

Field Recording – Sound Designer – Mixing: Hassan Lahrech

Client: Stuart Hickman

Driven – Episode 1 – The Architect

This episode is the first of six. The micro crew walked in on set without having met before (besides me knowing Brad Wilson) , within the first half hour, camera was rolling… sound was rolling… and… ACTION! We kicked off the day at sunrise shooting after a nice little breakfast brought by our Director!

Technically, the series is being shot on David Franjic’s  Red Camera (Scarlet), sound is recorded on my kit, a Sound Devices 744t, Mid-Side Kit with Sennheiser MKH50 + MKH30 + Rycote Windshield, an MKH60 shot gun mic for interviews, a Sennheiser EW100 G2 HF Transmitter/Receiver with a Sanken COS11 Lapel mic and a good old Zoom H4n that I am placing as close as possible to the exhaust for the back chasing scenes and under the hood for the front chasing scenes.

Click to enlarge

Yes, I said a Zoom H4n, I can hear some giggles in the echoes of Cyber Space but it’s doing really well for such high Sound Pressure Levels caption, it’s mainly for convenience, set up speed and safety. I didn’t want to have any cables hooked on a high quality mics under a hood connected back on the 744T inside the cabin, especially on the bumpy and winding roads we shot in. The risk of having a $2K mic dropping or a cable loosening up and getting entangled in the engine was far to high!! Besides, the time to set up for the next shot was extremely short…

Just fixing and securing the Zoom H4n itself was quite a mission!!

We went off to a bicycle racing track for some family and drone shots. We came back for a quick lunch, set up for the insightful interview Hugh gave us and we finally got on the road. That’s where I had to spend half a day in the foot well of the passenger seat, it’s really really tiny for a 6 foot tall guy, lucky I’m skinny. I learned to be a contortionist on the spot as I couldn’t be seen in the chasing sequences, I really wanted to capture  the inside of the car properly… A pretty unusual position to experience this amazing little Porsche!! It really felt like I was in a roller coaster ride in Warner Brothers Movie World, only a lot more uncomfortable!!

We finished the day shooting at dawn in the beautiful and scenic views that Mount Martha has to offer! The shoot went really well for a first! It felt like we had done this many times before! Was great!!

The post production process was pretty straight forward, after receiving a locked offline pictures, I spent a few days putting all the sounds together and we realized with the Director that some of the shots were not sounding accurate or satisfying enough… I asked Brad to organize an extra hour with Hugh, the car owner, to re-record the engine with the zoom placed at a different spot. The positive part is that I had a second chance to truly appreciate that incredible little sports car, in the passenger seat, with a seat belt on! Thank you Hugh for being so accommodating, flexible with your time and for giving a solid shake up in those tights round about!! Mind blowing!!

Click HERE to view Episode 1 – The Architect

 

 

COMING UP NEXT

Driven Episode 2 – The Sickness…

 

 

 

 

 

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BBC Earth – Earth Is Yours

In all the work I have done for the BBC Worldwide Channels in the last decade, ‘Earth Is Yours’ is by far the top 1 project in my favourites I’ve been fortunate to be called on!

After working for a few years with Producer Steven Imrie, he called me up one day to talk about the project. It was for BBC Earth and the plan was to showcase what the channel was all about. The discussion started off with an unusual twist, Steve asked me if I could cut a music track without pictures but with a certain crescendo and a progressive build up structure to it, he sounded like he had a very clear idea, he gave me a rough skeleton as to what the music structure should be like. I was pretty excited, to know that I would be first to cut the music track so he could cut the visuals to, makes perfect sense to me! What I didn’t know, Steve was a musician too, he plays guitar but had never been very loud about it! Trust those lovely Kiwis to keep a very low profile  and  kick mega asses in what they do!!

Anyway, a few days later I received 5 different music tracks to cut together, the music genres were very different, some had a very light choral and heavenly vocals to them, some turned into a pretty intensive beats and orchestrations but one in particular made my jaw hit the ground, it was a Dubstep track with such a massive drop!!! I told myself, geez, Steve? Are you really sure of that track?? It’s not BBC Earth branding at all!! Sounded pretty daring and bold to me!! Nevertheless, I started putting a 4 mins track together, we went back and forth about 5 or 6times to get the structure he wanted.

Eventually, it was good, I sent him the track and didn’t hear from him for quite a few weeks… After checking in occasionally to see how he was doing, everything seemed to follow it’s course. The day came when I received the offline cut, it started very very calmly with beautiful, soft and heavenly vocals, into a progressive build and was left completely speechless when the drop came in!!! The edit was absolutely stunning, cut spot on to the beat, goose bumps were flying everywhere in my body out of excitement for the rest of the track, when it ended, it dawned upon me that the sound design work I was about to embark on was not going to be easy at all, I got very agitated at the idea of having to deliver to the visual standard Steve cut!!!

It took me many days of extremely detailed and intense work to find the right sounds and layers for the shots, lots of trial and error, do, redo, delete, do it again, no… not good enough, push further and further, do again, try something else, 1 frame earlier, no, later, no, 1/2 a frame earlier, mmmmhh…. still not getting that hitting feeling, try a 1/4 frame earlier… lucky accidents happened a few times and after 5 days of intense work, I had something that was holding together pretty well, I was almost comfortable enough to send a WIP1 (Work In Progress) to Steve…

It took us many many back and forth to fine tune the track so we would both be happy with it. I remember doing the final mix with him on Skype, to share the impressions and feelings, live, of what it was sounding like. Steve would ask me to bring this level down 1 or 2 dB’s, this one up 3 or 4 dB’s until we both agreed that what we had put together sounded very satisfying.

Once approved, I thought I was done with my happy stereo mix, that’s when I received an email requesting for a 5.1 Surround Sound mix as they would play the edit to the Networks in Singapore in a Cinema room!!! Which I did in another 2 days and sent off the masters.

The track had been so well received that BBC Worldwide Channels decided to submit the track for some awards. They submitted it in a few festivals where it did really well but for the first time in the history of the New York Festival, we smashed it big time!!

The edit took 22 awards in 24 categories. Two for best sound design and scooped in almost all the other categories, including the Grand Award!!! I remember Steve calling me and sharing his joy, I could hear that he had been celebrating for quite a while, may be days!!! Bless him!!

Like an excited little kid, I asked, ‘So, am I going to get a piece of metal for this?’  I was told that if I wanted a piece of metal, I had to order it through the New York Festival… Never mind the piece of metal… What I truly treasured was the entire, unassuming, yet so tedious process we went through to get this right the way we liked it, that was very special to me!! We  sort of made history for a little while! :0)

Thanks again Steven Imrie! You really rock!!

 

Click HERE to view the edit

 

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Village Cinemas – The Nom Noms

This was a challenging but very creative project! I love animations and cartoons, not only because I have not grown up yet, but for the simple fact that when characters are created, it begins with a mental picture and some sketches, then evolves to print, and finally ends in animation. When the animation is finished, we see mute characters acting on screen, with no sound and no life, that’s where we, the music and sound heads, come in! What I also find very interesting is the character development phase, in which you invent a personality for a character. That part was done by a few people, Brad Wilson as Creative Director, Leah Dunkley as copywriter, Nick Philips as Art Director and international legend, Producer Roy Ami. They developed 5 characters, Salma The Nacho, Koolio the Ice Cream, Frank The Hot Dog, very cute!! Kernel Corn, the pop corn pack and Pop, the soda. When  the drawings/characters development phase was done, I was called in the Agency to take the briefing. I was shown the characters, been given the actions that they would each do, alone all or together and it didn’t take much time to get some ideas flowing for music and sound design. The very first idea that came to mind as a reference was my favourite animation film, The Incredibles, I fell in love with the movie, the story and particularly the Music. Michael Giacchino is simply a music genius! I really wanted the music track to be along the same vibe to give the characters a similar heroic feel. I suggested that as a reference to begin with and see how it would turn out once the Music demo would be done. To accomplish that mission, I needed help and decided to bring two of my really good friends and partners in crime on board, Australian Rock legend Phil Ceberano and Maitre Yacine Mdarhri Alaoui both extremely talented and accomplished musicians, with Yacine loving Jazz, that was a perfect fit. They worked as co-composers. After taking the briefing from the Agency, I set sail to Phil’s place at Aloha Studios in Bentleigh, where we work regularly together and started discuss the project with them. I brought up the reference of “The Incredibles” and that was the beginning of the music scoring stage. When Phil and Yacine finished the first Music demo, I was really happy with the result and confidently called the Agency to let them know that we were on a very good track. I took a few days to work on the sound design part. When I mixed both together, we ended up a great and really dynamic track that was fitting the brief and suggestions I had made. I was getting more and more confident! We sent the material to the Agency and was glad to hear they were loving it too. They sent the track to the Client and that’s where we really started working!! The Client did not think it was a good track, fair enough, music is very subjective and you can’t force someone to like your taste… We received a completely different brief, to which we were more than happy to work with and make sure it all worked out, we went back in the alchemy room, brain stormed on new ideas, versions, other angles and  it was time for me to let Phil and Yacine work their magic. They scored another 3 or 4 different demos and variations, I went back on my end to work more in depth on the sound design and when ready, the agency was very happy to present the new versions to the client. Unfortunately, the client still did not like the new propositions… That’s when Phil looked at me and said ‘That’s enough!! We need to sit down with these guys and figure out exactly what they want!”. I started to become a bit nervous… We organized a new meeting with the Agency and did just that! What I really appreciated in Phil, was his very calm, relaxed way in handling what was becoming a complex situation, with so much confidence he managed to get us out of a sticky situation by simply saying: ‘Look, we can score and produce anything you like but if you don’t give us a clear briefing and a reference, we are not going to go in any good direction, all we know is from now on, we stop additional demos, you give us a clear reference with a new budget!” I looked at Phil stunned, he kicked my foot under the table, I kept quiet. And that’s exactly what they agreed to do, they gave us a new budget, a new Music reference; Kanye West (I almost cried), and we headed back to Aloha Studios, Phil and Yacine started all over again, when they were done, I mixed the new track with the sound design and sent that off to the Agency. When that track was finished, the client was finally very happy… That’s was the most important and all that mattered! Click HERE to view our reference. I’m sorry, I’m not going to point you to the Kanye West reference, I just can’t, I don’t want to make you cry!