2009 is coming to a close and it was a great year for Sound Underground! I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some projects.
First off, we finished over 20 projects for JibJab alone in 2009, including the JibJab original He's Barack Obama, the CNR music video for Weird Al and most notably, the new music for this year's Elf Yourself campaign. I'd like to extend a huge thank you to the Spiridellis brothers as well as the amazing production team over at JibJab for all of the incredible projects we were able to collaborate on. What a fun year!
On the short film front, sound design work was completed for the amazing animated short Second Wind by Ian Worrel (see post below) and original score was completed for Nadia Hamzeh's film Fiasco, which won the Best Comedy Award at the International Student Film Festival this year.
Earlier in the year, with the help of superstar mixer Carlos Sanches, the sound design and mix were completed for the feature film Quitting by director Chuck Meré. The soundtrack (mixed in 5.1 surround) was a shining example of remote client interaction. The tech we now have at our fingertips allows for very low overhead in long-distance collaborations, keeping costs low for the client without sacrificing the quality of work. I hope to be see a lot more of this in the coming years.
2010 is looking up as well with a very busy slate already in place for the first half of the year. Currently in production is the scoring of Lucinda the Ladybug for clients Mira Vasiljevic and Ellie Martinez. I'm having a blast working up all kinds of fun and quirky cues to support the characters in this very creative children's radioplay. Stay tuned for more on this one for sure! In addition, Sound Underground has a string of spots for talented director/animator Phil Rynda to be completed shortly as well as the score and soundtrack work for an amazing animated film by writer/director/animator Jason Carpenter.
Lastly, the original music album for Yoga practice and meditation, Yogihead is currently being pressed and will arrive shortly for a release at the beginning of 2010. This album was truly a labor of love. Ultimately, I set out to make a collection that would play well in a Yoga or meditative setting. What I ended up with was a through-composed album of very visual and unique tracks that can stand on their own as well. This is the first album produced by Sound Underground, and I am very excited to share this music with you. The album will be available through CD Baby and linked through the
Yogihead website. In addition, there are T-shirts, tote bags and other great
Yogihead merchandise available right now. All products feature amazing graphic designs by artist JJ Paredes.
Again, thank you so much to all of our clients. Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year from Sound Underground!
12.14.09_AN EARLY LOOK AT 'KICK BUTTOWSKI'
Disney XD has posted a sneak peak into the new show I'm working on, Kick Buttowski. The show is about Kick, a suburban daredevil, and all the crazy hijinks he gets himself into. Check out the scene below, where a passed out Kick attempts to jump a nuclear reactor, with a little help from his friend Gunther.
10.29.09_WEIRD AL PERFORMS 'CNR' LIVE
Check out this live performance of 'CNR' by Weird Al Yankovic on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. I had the pleasure of cutting sound effects for this very funny new track from Al's 'Internet Leaks' collection. Typically, with a complicated performance like this one (tracking along live with visuals) I don't expect the effects to cut through very much, but I was very surpised. The mix sounded fantastic! Also, the folks at JibJab deserve a huge shoutout for producing the awesome video you see playing behind him.
10.19.09_HOLIDAY PROJECTS
The Christmas season came early this year at Sound Underground thanks to JibJab.com and their new batch of fantastic holiday material. For starters, the new music tracks for the 2009 'Elf Yourself' campaign were composed and recorded here at Sound Underground. I don't want to spoil any of the surprises, but I'll just say keep your eye out for these new and very fun videos this Holiday Season.
In addition, Sound Underground has created the soundtrack for a new Facebook gift to be found in the JibJab facebook store. This is a great new medium and I'm really excited to see the kind of reaction these get from all the great Facebook/JibJab users.
8.17.09_SECOND WIND (Animated Short)
Filmmaker and Animator Ian Worrel brought his animated short to me in need of sound design and a final mix. His incredible character design and story made this an inspiring project to work on. My main goal with the soundtrack of the film was to create custom 'outside the box' sound design elements. The windmill and small blue creature in particular benefitted from a great deal of ground-up design and experimentation. I Used Native Instruments KORE FX for it's unique hands-on processing abilities as well as KONTAKT to control the speed and pitch of the various windmill elements. I think the film's soundtrack now supports these beautiful and unique images. Foley record and dialog were both recorded in studio (I personally provided the few vocal reactions of the bearded character, which was a lot of fun). The mix was done with Pro Tools 8.
6.19.09_HE'S BARACK OBAMA
The guys at Jib Jab have created a new original short and I was lucky enough to be able to help out with the sound design. The piece features a superhero version of Obama fixing all of our nation's problems. They found the sound design process to be a lot of fun and blogged about our collaboration. Check out the video below and then take a look at the blog entry for some behind the scenes info and a 'sound effects only' render of the short!
click for to read the blog entry
I've recently finished a bunch of shorts for the website jibjab.com and wanted to point you to the site since they do a ton of REALLY funny videos and ecards. Below is one of my favorites that I provided both music and sound design for. More projects on the way!
Jeff's latest project, Yogihead, an album of original music for yoga practice and meditation, is officially off the ground. The new website is up and 6 'audio snippets' are available for preview. Look for the release of the Yogihead album some time in November of this year. For now, sign up for the mailing list and recieve a free download from the album.
click for Yogihead
5.11.08_PKP KAST
Jeff's great friends and fellow musicians Mike Kwapisz and Scott Post of PKP have been kind enough to feature the music of Sound Underground on their electronic music podcast. Check out Episode 13 for the latest feature, with discussions of the music making process as well as an insider look into Creation Inc. Make sure and go through some of the archives to see all of the great music they're putting out, or search iTunes for "PKP Kast" and download some of the episodes they have already produced!
click for the kast
2.10.08_CREATION INC.
In addition to providing music and sound design for this animated pilot, Jeff also co-wrote and co-produced it. This is a grass roots effort and we highly encourage everyone to check it out and leave us your comments.
click to view it
1.4.08_FREE TONES FOR YOUR PHONE
Over 1500 downloads and counting!! Sound Underground has created some original ringtones and message tones which are available for free from myxertones.com.
click for tones
11.29.07_INTERVIEW
I recently did an interviewed with Transformers fansite tformers.com about my work on the new Animated Transformers series. In it, I discuss the process of establishing a show for sound as well as the challenge of bringing a classic series back for a modern audience.
click to read it