HELLO.
Thank you Nice Shit, FIG and Ketel One for considering us for this awesome project.
As we never met: I am Daniele Camosino, head of DanCa: an international boutique music production house with more than 10 years experience in crafting soundscapes and sound design for international films, TV shows, videos, ads and video games. After being based in London for a decade, I now live in Barcelona and my studio is 300 meters away from Nice Shit headquarters!
We are proud of our wide range of styles and mediums, and have attached a selection of past projects below for your review.
This is a TV ad for Avon, where our music is the star. The video clocked up to a million hits on Youtube in just a few days and the music went so viral that Avon decided to release it as a single on Spotify.
We Buy Any Home: We can make our music funny too.
THIS IS HOW WE DO IT
It is my belief that music and sound design go hand in hand. The music must set the mood and drive emotions, while the sound design must draw narrative and help readability. To complete this sort of high-quality end-product for Ketel One, I will team up with both a foley artist and second sound designer to ensure that every single deliverable’s music and sound will be synced together precisely: frame-by-frame, note by note.
I also appreciate what FIG says in their brief regarding the music being secondary and even the possibility of not having music at all: we can definitely try this option, although this would make it more similar to the Red Bull campaign.
However, I would at first try to place the music within the actual environment. For example, coming from a radio, a TV or a live band in a bar. Since we are still in the early stages of production, we could discuss this idea with Nice Shit, so they could potentially add an object playing the music during the planning process for the animations.
Live recordings, organic sounds
Here at DanCa we like to get our hands dirty. We meticulously handcraft each sound with love and care, from every loud swell of the trombone to the softest human footstep. We are a big proponent of recording live instruments, sound effects, and voiceovers; even when mixing and mastering in post, we try to retain that original organic sound. We love the tactile, hand-drawn design of Ketel One, as it fits so nicely with the organic philosophy of our brand.
Here are a few examples of the way we craft sounds in the studio:
Horror movie sound effect.
A clip of a soundtrack recording session, in which real sounds were processed with analogue gear to create a unique soundscape.
MUSIC
After researching Ketel One Vodka, a few keywords stood out to us: sophisticated but minimal, charming and friendly with a distinctive character. The briefs and treatments I received confirmed my original idea: to create something simple but elegant, and a little quirky (but not over the top). I thought instantly of funk, jazz, and modern swing. Each video clip can be composed with music using similar instrumentation, which will emphasize the brand’s memorability. The music would be crafted individually around each clip.
Instrumentation
To keep the music sounding as simple, organic, and raw as possible, I would want to keep each recording to only a few instruments, as opposed to a full orchestral sound. I have listed some potential groupings below:
- Double bass, acoustic guitar, voice
- Brushed drums, cello (mainly pizzicato) and Marimba
- Percussion, piano and trumpet (or trombone that is a little more quirky)
- Classic guitar, bass, whistle
I have composed some initial sound clip ideas below. I would love to use these clips as a springboard, from which to make new ideas in conjunction with the team at Nice Shit. As such, they are not full demos, just initial scratch tracks.
All of the above palettes would allow infinite musical possibilities, but by restricting the number of instruments we could leave more space for sound design and achieve a more distinctive overall sound.
Music References
Out of FIG’s references I particularly like the use of the voice in Boulevard of Broken Dreams. I think the arrangement of the song is far too complicated for this project, but here is an edited version to give you an idea of what it could be like, in terms of general mood:
I would begin by searching for more musical references, analyzing them with the rest of the creative team. I would want to exhaust all creative options before deciding on a final direction. Below, I’ve attached some more food-for-thought examples.
SOUND DESIGN
I envision an extremely detailed sound design for this project: layered, realistic foley, with bespoke sounds created for each character’s movements and actions. This would help the animations come to life.
I would like to experiment with the “voices” of the characters. It is important to me that we differentiate them as much as possible so that each one has a clear singularity and unique personality.
I have included a few rough samples below:
And here is one example, added to animations by Nice Shit:
We are excited about the full creative process, with input and ideas from many sources. We offer the above as just a small taste of what we have already brought to the table, and can’t wait to make this cool project even cooler.
We look so forward to potentially collaborating with the team at Ketel One, and hope that this is not quite…
THE END
For questions, or to receive additional materials, please drop me a line at into@dev.danca.tv.
Ciao!
Daniele
