It stands to reason that music is a big part of any musical, and so Toronto-based commercial audio house Pirate Radio & Television played an integral part in this year’s Top Spot, the four-and-a-half minute ‘Dilemma/ Discovery/Big Finish’ Eatons campaign produced by The Partners’ Film Company for agency Ammirati Puris.

Done in the style of a 1950s Hollywood musical, the three-part spot’s soundtrack originated with song lyrics for a closing number, penned by Ammirati copywriter Tom Goudie (now a Pirate writer/director). He and Doug Robinson, the spot’s creative director/art director, approached Pirate composer/arranger Mark Hukezalie to write a song around the lyrics and score the other elements. Pirate producer Chris Tait (former lead singer/guitarist of pop band Chalk Circle) helped coordinate the music, sound design, foley and ADR.

Hukezalie, who composed the tune singing the praises of ‘aubergine’ (fancy-speak for purple), says that Goudie’s meticulous planning simplified his job.

‘The script he presented to me had stage directions and looked like four pages from a Broadway show,’ he recalls. ‘It made it kind of easy to write structurally, because he had already figured out the look of it.’

Tait explains that on both the audio and visual side, the spot-makers referenced old films to find the right feel. He cites the colorful 1957 Audrey Hepburn musical Funny Face as one source of inspiration (as to a personal musical fave, Tait quips, ‘I like Apocalypse Now’).

Preproduction began in April 2000, with Hukezalie creating a synthesizer demo of the song with pre-synched vocal parts that the production would use to choreograph the dance routine. Pirate did final recording in October after Panic & Bob’s Michelle Czukar had edited the footage, allowing Hukezalie to do the underscoring of the piece’s opening two minutes. Pirate appreciated the creative freedom allowed it by both agency and director Floria Sigismondi.

‘[Floria directed us] mostly with broad strokes,’ Tait explains. ‘She was very hands-off, which was fantastic. She let us go for it. The great thing about the whole project is that everyone from the outset had a great sense of where it was going to end up. There wasn’t a lot of discussion in terms of tone, because we were basically going after a vibe [from the past], and everyone was focused on the craft of recreating that.’

To capture the feel of 1950s sound, Pirate used old RCA microphones to record the orchestra that performed the music. (Recording and mixing was done at Manta Sound with engineer Gary Gray.) In an era when many spots have scores built with programmed sounds, Hukezalie says that Pirate will see projects with the budget for five to eight flesh-and-blood players a couple of times a month. For the Eatons campaign, on the other hand, 51 musicians were commissioned, mostly from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

In the style of old Hollywood musicals, the score underlines the on-screen action in slightly overblown fashion. It is also uncommonly ambitious for a TV commercial. One or two musical ideas can be put across in most 30-second spots, but this four-and-a-half minute soundtrack incorporates many different themes, including an opening string flourish, mournful horns, the wonder of wind instruments, and passages that venture from suspenseful to playful, culminating with the rousing finale.

Pirate saw the campaign as a unique opportunity.

‘What was refreshing was the chance to actually do something for real,’ Hukezalie explains. ‘Nobody was trying to do a parody or a copy or a halfway version or have a flavor of something. This was supposed to be a 1950s Hollywood musical. So you’re not always second-guessing yourself – we just went ahead and did it.’

Certainly in terms of magnitude, it is not the kind of project – Canadian or otherwise – that any shop can expect to see in the near future, especially with the recent economic downturn.

‘When people are able to come up with the budgets for something that’s done with real players and shot properly, the results are far superior to something that’s done halfway,’ Hukezalie says. ‘The difference is palpable, and I think that translates in the public.’

-www.pirate.ca