Unofficial (School assignment) composition for Audi Commercial

My take on Audi.

Epic, high-tech, and powerful. Influenced by Hans Zimmer, (film music), Philip Glass (minimal music), Flying Lotus (hip-hop) and Alva Noto (glitch).

My new composition: http://www.rutgermuller.nl/video/Audi_Rutger.mov (opens in new window)
The original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVQKrxSOx7Q (opens in new window)

Project evaluation

This school project put us (the students) in the role of composers working for a company intermediating between commercial makers and music composers. There was an actual intermediary company, or music supervision company, involved in the project. On multiple occasions our work was commented and criticised by them.

But we were also working with managers of our own, represented by students in Art & Economics. Our managers were mostly project planners, making sure we worked on schedule.

After we were briefed about the commercials we had to score (=write music for) I began to research the associated brands. For the Audi commercial I searched on Youtube for different Audi commercials throughout the recent years. I listened to commercials from different countries, different cars and different years. I noted down what  kind of style elements were typically Audi, so when making new music I would have enough ideas. I noticed for example that Audi music was often very grande sounding, with hollywood-esque filmmusic elements. Filmmusic with big beats and energetic synths, or filmmusic with almost over-the-top powerfull orchestras.

Because the video was so hi-tech I decided to blend in a touch of crispy electronics, mainly in  the form of electronic beats.

After the first evaluation I realised my experimenta touch was appreciated, but I heard BMW was more the (tough) beats kind of brand, whilst Audi has a more classical image. So I tried to be careful with the beats and made the whole music more ambient. That didn’t turn out too wel because I lost a lot of the high-tech sounding percussion. My challenge was to find the balance between experimental beats and atmospheric orchestral sounds.

Working with video keeps intriguing me. I improved my skills on balancing visible movements and audible elements.

I thought the whole experiences felt really as if you were in a professional working environment, because the criticism was hard and direct. Because I usually compose pretty experimental music I now had the chance to balance between an existing image and my own style. I learned to communicate and listen to the tips and criticism. I was working on four commercials and I noticed I didn’t plan good enough, cause in the end I didn’t divide my hours equally between the four commercials.