I’m back with news of another major project of mine now broadcasting on UK TV channels as well as VoD and Online. October and November saw me working again with London-based creative agency, RECIPE, on a series of four TV adverts for board games manufacturer DRUMOND PARK.
The adverts are for three of their most popular games; ARTICULATE, RAPIDOUGH, and THE LOGO BOARD GAME, and also their brand new game, SKETCHY. The adverts are all occupying spots in the competitive pre-Christmas TV advertising schedule and are showing on channels across SKY’S portfolio. All four of the adverts feature the exceptional animation skills of RECIPE’S in-house team and feature voiceover work from a famous, footballing, father-son duo. Take a look at the adverts below and see if you can guess who the famous duo are!
Audio for board games seems to be a recent niche for me after my work on ESCAPE PLAN’S STOP THE TRAIN! last month. This project for DRUMOND PARK was a little more conventional fare for me given that I was working on adverts for games rather than audio for the games themselves.
From the outset of the project the brief was to create bespoke audio for all four adverts. The client was keen to capture the personality of each game in both the visuals and the audio, but they also wanted the campaign as a whole to embody the brand identity of DRUMOND PARK. In short, we needed to create variety and unity in the same breath. No easy task!
I went about achieving the variety through the music composition and choice of sounds for the sound design on each ad. The unity would come through the processing of the voiceovers and the mixing style for all four adverts. Keeping the mix template and audio processing consistent for all four adverts helped them all share a similar sonic aesthetic. Meanwhile, the bespoke music and sound design on each advert helped them stand out in their own right.
Below you can listen to the adverts with the voiceover removed, leaving just the bespoke elements I composed for each advert.
As you’ll hear from these examples, I had a lot of fun composing in distinctly different musical styles on this project. It’s not often I get a project where I can write pop-rock, gypsy-jazz and a lounge-jazz arrangement of a Christmas classic all at once! This was also the first project I worked on in my new studio space, which made it extra special for me. Recording live instruments was a lot easier in my lovely new subterranean studio, which boasts much more space and better acoustics than my old studio.
I’ll be posting an in-depth article here in the new year which will feature a detailed look at how I went about producing the bespoke music and sound effects for this project, as well as a look inside my new studio space. Until then, keep an eye out this month for the DRUMOND PARK adverts on your TV screens as well as a final news post of the year from me, which will be appearing here very soon.