Toronto music and sound studio fish-fry is working to a new beat, having migrated from the commercial sector largely to TV work.

Amidst all the hoo-ha surrounding the launch of Slice (formerly Alliance Atlantis’ Life Network), fish-fry developed the music for five of the rejuvenated channel’s station IDs, based on broad concepts and AA’s desired visual look – bouncy, colorful and animated. Once the shop produced the tracks – which range from laid-back and jazzy to upbeat and dance-y – Alliance Atlantis created the final visuals to match.

Fish-fry, which derives its moniker from the last names of partners Derek Treffry and Greg Fisher, has also produced the soundtrack for the network IDs of AA’s HGTV and The Score. It also created theme music for Slice’s Three Takes, and HGTV’s Sarah’s House and Disaster DIY, and has added credits on The Score’s Score on the NFL and Global’s Adventures in Catering.

Treffry says that 90% of what fish-fry now produces is in TV – a far cry from when the company launched in 1999 exclusively doing commercials. Although they were eyeing broadcast work, the partners found it difficult to connect with the proper contacts.

‘The most accessible people we could target were with ad agencies. They have lists that you can get of their creative and market directly to them,’ Fisher recalls. ‘It’s not so obvious with the [TV] production world.’

After blanketing casters with 500 demo CDs of its ad work, fish-fry broke into TV about four years ago when Sportsnet hired the team for the music for its Snapshots show, and the CBC used them for five- and 10-second music themes for segments on the now-defunct afternoon tween program The X.

Treffry says that he and Fisher like the ongoing challenge of series work.

‘Some of the projects will go over a six-month period as the shows are being shot and edited. We’ll sit down and screen them and compose the music and deliver it, and then we’ll repeat that process 13 times for an entire series,’ he says. ‘You love to sink your teeth into a project like that. But then, [recently] we did a karaoke version of a Motown song for a feature film, and that was also a lot of fun.’

The partners say the future of the company lies in branching out into different kinds of programming – dramas, comedies and docs – as well as in more new media work, particularly online gaming.

www.fish-fry.com