The project is still ongoing, and I will be creating further variations of the theme to cover the worldwide advertising campaign as the race traverses the globe, covering a further 9 countries this year.
Scroll down for the full breakdown of the project.
Worldwide Broadcast TV, Digital & Internet Campaign for Red Bull Air Race.
Re-branding of music theme to appeal to a younger audience whilst still including their existing demographic.
10 Territories, 10 individual themes. The music would need to be composed, mixed, edited and mastered by myself, providing all the different formats required for Red Bull’s various broadcast providers.
Following the completion of the Red Bull ‘Fire & Water’ project, I was asked to get on-board with the team working on the next season of the worldwide Air Racing championships. This would require me to work closely with the team in Austria, presenting music within tight deadlines, and having regular meetings to receive feedback from all stakeholders in the project.
This was all done remotely from my studio based in Brighton (UK), with regular conference calls with the team based in Salzburg, Austria.
Initially, no musical direction was given, so I provided a range of music from my personal catalog that demonstrated the compositional styles that I felt could have worked (30 in total, all of which could have been licensed from me directly). The team got back to me with 3 that they felt worked best, giving me a better idea of what they were looking for. Many factors needed to be considered with the music, as it was a re-brand aiming at a new, younger audience, so we decided that a bespoke, tailor-made track would be the best route. The budget and terms were agreed, we signed a contract, and proceeded.
I then received a written brief outlining the aims of the campaign, the statistics of the audiences involved, and a diagram of the planned timing arc of the video. I then set about creating a range of musical themes that covered the emotions that I expected the audience to experience whilst watching high-speed stunt planes. At this point, there were no visuals to work too, so this was purely to help inspire the edit. A total of 7 themes were completed and presented to the team 3 days after receiving the brief.
Inspired by Christopher Nolan and Hans Zimmer’s ‘Bat Mobile’, the team also asked if I could utilize a Shepard tone in the piece. (A Shepard tone is an audio illusion effect that gives the listener the sense that a sound is constantly rising or falling, to infinity, creating anxiety and excitement). I loved this idea and set about experimenting with plane engine sounds, running them through vocoders and modern synthesizers, so that they could create this effect. It was a challenge, but the result was very effective, and I added it into the soundtrack.
The video then started to be put together, and when the edit was being cut, the team decided that the current timing arc was not right for the footage, so it was totally re-briefed, and I was required to come up with alternatives as soon as possible. The tempo had changed and stylistically it required a new approach that meant starting from scratch and building a new piece of music. This was no problem – I am very used to creatives needing to experiment with ideas and try things out, so I got stuck into the new brief and presented a range of pieces 2 days later.
As I was now working to the video footage, it was much easier for me to understand exactly what the visual required musically. Following some minor revisions we were able to fine-tune and hone the new music to fit perfectly. The first stop, Abu Dhabi, was signed off and completed.