Years ago, when our communications career was more involved in advertising, we did national ads and brochures for a company that produced a world-renowned music synthesizer. One of the things it did incredibly well was "sound sampling" which meant recording a sound, like raindrops or footsteps on crunchy stones, storing it, and playing it back in a modifiable loop. Before sound sampling (and we aren't even talking digital recording yet, although the synthesizer itself was digital), special effects in movies and TV were produced by human beings who were called "Foley artists"; I don't know how the name arose originally, but "Foley" was the production of sound effects for an audio soundtrack. Sound sampling and synthesized sound - which has gotten a whole lot more sophisticated over the past two intervening decades - replaced some people with pretty extraordinary -- if unusual -- vocal talents.
Today we stumbled on this, and -- as a musician and choir singer -- I was mesmerized and in the end, even moved. It's an ad for the new Honda Civic, and if you haven't seen the ad, well, watch it. And if you're intrigued, watch the video that tells how the ad was made, and watch what happens to the people involved in it. This time, advertising was merely the, um, vehicle that taught people something more about their humanity.
(Click on the link, wait for the program to load, and then choose "Watch" and "Watch Film."
Wonderful! This reminds me of Bobby McFerrin, who's famous for replicating musical instruments with voice. He has an album with Yo Yo Ma entitled "Hush" that's amazing, and on the CD "Medicine Music" he collaborates with a choral group called "Voicestra" on a gender-inclusive version of the 23rd Psalm that will knock your socks off. If you haven't heard it, check it out.
Posted by: Lorianne | March 24, 2006 at 10:54 AM
Yes! It reminded me of Bobby McFerrin too. The 60 voices together were amazing in the way they created something like the polyphonic quality of nature itself. It made me think about all the little voices of the individual raindrops, or threads of the wind...
Posted by: beth | March 24, 2006 at 11:02 AM
Oh, yes, wonderful! Funny, spine-tingling, moving! thanks for this! and isn't the French director gorgeous?
Posted by: Jean | March 24, 2006 at 11:16 AM
Wow! I saw the ad once, but your introduction and connection to your own experience in the past, brings a wonderful new slant on this. The making of this ad is amazing, made me admire these people immensely. One of the singers said it was "strange, fun, like being a kid" but it was also an art production. I very rarely say that about advertising, but H. has done some very cool ones, this capping them all. Thanks Beth!
Posted by: Marja-Leena | March 24, 2006 at 11:39 AM
Hmm - was that Kurzweil or New England Digital (Synclavier) by any chance?
cool ad!
as a pedantic aside (forgive me) Foley artists don't produce sound effects vocally, traditionally they used a variety of physical props (boxes of gravel and shoes to do footsteps, minature doors with squeaky hinges, etc.) to recreate sounds in an overdub session, matching timed actions in a projected loop of film. This is similar to ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement) for supposedly "live" actors, in situations where the level was bad, or it was impossible to get a clear recording, like a crowded street, shopping mall etc.
Posted by: aj | March 25, 2006 at 05:50 PM
Hi AJ! It was NED. Now I'm curious - how do you know about them?
And I didn't mean to imply that Foley was a Bobby McFerrin type of vocal trick; you're quite right about how those effect were done. Thanks for the clarification.
Posted by: beth | March 25, 2006 at 06:21 PM
I love the internet!...because the only shot I have at seeing this commercial otherwise is on CNN cable, and they don't feature such products (i.e., Hondas) often. This was fabulous. It reminded me of rap and hip-hop, especially DJ Scratch (I think I'm remembering that correctly).
Anyway. What a great drive that was!
Posted by: Soen Joon | March 26, 2006 at 05:01 AM
I watch so little tv, so I would never have seen this otherwise. Thank you. A roomful of Bobby McFerrins.
Posted by: zhoen | March 26, 2006 at 09:14 AM
Soen Joon and Zhoen: Yeah! I watch NO tv these days, so I feel totally out of it. I thought this was an example of wonderful human creativity, and I'm not so jaded about advertising as to be "sorry" it ended up in an ad. I felt like the art of it transcended the medium anyway.
Posted by: beth | March 26, 2006 at 01:29 PM
Thanks. Ed has talked about how much he wants this car all weekend! ;-)
Posted by: Martine | March 27, 2006 at 10:53 AM
I was in the ER once, as we cut the trousers off a man who had been in an accident. There was a brown wad all around his crotch, and five or six of us leaned in closer, thinking we knew what it was, but it looked strange. All of us together realized it was melted Butterfinger BB's, and together we said "Huh?!" It was the most strange and wonderful sound, a half dozen people saying exactly the same exclamation at the same moment, quietly, but the sound had an odd power that stays with me to this day.
No, I have no idea why he had candy in his pants.
Posted by: zhoen | March 27, 2006 at 03:52 PM
Beth, that's fantastic! thanks for pointing us to it. Fine art as well as a good ad. If I was a car driver/buyer I'd look respectfully at Honda now.
Makes me feel like trying to compose something with voice-noises....
Posted by: Natalie | March 29, 2006 at 04:32 AM
Beth, being a personal-computer-era kid and an amateur musician, I read Keyboard magazine pretty religiously - and of course today there are sites like vintagesynth.com full of datasheets and scans of old ads. There'd always be articles about "the history of sampling" or something like that, and the Synclavier was always mentioned, in the same breath as the old Kurzweil K250 and the Fairlight CMI. Of course I can run rings around all of them today with a laptop and a copy of Propellerheads Reason for about 1/300,000th of the price ;)
Posted by: aj | April 07, 2006 at 03:01 PM