Task Three
Composing for a TV Advert
“Naturally Capable” - Nissan
Alternative Soundtrack
- Watch in Low Quality
http://www.youtube.com/v/VJYM8vkkyKA
Composer’s Notes
I chose the Nissan advert, “Naturally Capable” for my alternative advert soundtrack for two immediate reasons. The first, because the original ad. has no musical textures to it, therefore, it instantly becomes a vessel for any musical additions. The second is because the product (the Nissan range of cars) changes from the actual product and into animal form to elaborate, in an abstract manner, the “inhuman” features of each type of Nissan car available on the market. This enables for interesting variety in composition and gives me a chance to experiment with the sounds and native musical elements that can relate to the various animals.
I felt that I would not like to overload the audience with orchestration but rather go along with a common car ad. theme of adding interesting, multilayer and modern rhythms to pull the attention of the viewer along. This to me, does not feel like my out of the box thinking and within the time I had completed it in, I feel I limited my ideas too much. However, in retrospect I feel my soundtrack adds a lot more flavor and energy to the original. There are musical elements, such as tabla and dholki drums and flamenco rhythms and orchestral stings that characterize each ‘animal’ metamorphosis in the Nissan cars over each cut. It also gives the original a very modern feel, with the rhythm’s constant changes and sub-cutting of the beats and also with the use of bleeps and blip samples in the rhythms.
I feel satisfied with the new soundtrack I have composed. However, I feel I could have done much more to ‘think outside the box’ even slightly, because I had taken the empathetic compositional method again. This is because I feel many composers would have taken a similar route to what I had followed. I also would have liked to accurately relate the animals to native instruments (still following empathetically). For example, the crocodile relates to native Australia, I would have liked to use a Digery Doo, and I would have added more to the spider section, but found it hard to relate any musical element to it.
- Will
