OTIS Crafts Haunting Sonic Reality for Youth Homelessness Campaign

​OTIS has partnered with yFoundations and creative agency Ogilvy/Hogarth on Young and Alone, a national awareness campaign that brings Australia's youth homelessness crisis into sharp focus through the lens of a faux reality TV show trailer. Tasked with composing a powerful and emotionally authentic soundtrack, OTIS delivers a soundscape that is as unsettling as it is real.

With young people under 24 making up 40% of all homeless individuals in Australia, the campaign aims to expose a silent epidemic that has been largely ignored by the media and overlooked in national policy. The multi-format initiative includes an 80-second hero film, a series of social cutdowns, and sharp reality-style vignettes that underscore the daily struggles faced by homeless youth – from couch surfing to navigating dangerous environments.

OTIS was commissioned to compose an original score and design an audio experience that could hold the tension and emotional weight of a reality show, without ever slipping into parody or sensationalism.

“Balancing the drama of a trailer with the raw reality of homelessness was a tightrope walk,” said Alex Gomez, founder and director of OTIS. "We wanted to create something that felt honest and emotional, but still leaned into the slightly over-the-top vibe of a reality show."

The result is a soundscape that heightens the isolation of youth homelessness, using visceral sound design to fill the empty spaces that dominate these young lives. At 0:35, the roar of a passing train overwhelms the senses. At 0:45, a door slam crashes through the silence. These sonic punches are deliberately jarring, mirroring the unpredictability and fear experienced by the youth in these scenarios.

To evoke authenticity, OTIS used unconventional techniques – layering mobile phone and handheld camera noise, wind recorded on smartphones, and 'futzing' professionally recorded dialogue to match lo-fi device quality. Even the smallest sounds, like the handling of a phone, were carefully recorded to maintain realism.

Set to run on broadcast television, cinema, radio, online and across social, OTIS worked closely with Rabbit director Daniel Fletcher on the campaign, whose vision helped shape the environmental storytelling throughout.

“Daniel was incredibly clear about what he wanted each scene to sound like,” said Alex. “It was about building a world that felt real, and that meant stripping away polish and letting raw, imperfect sounds lead the way.”

The music and sound design do more than support the visuals, they tell a parallel story. Trailer stingers build tension. Background silence is broken only by intrusive noises. The audio never lets the audience feel comfortable, and that’s the point.

“There’s nothing else in those moments but loneliness,” added Alex. “So, when a sound hits – whether it’s a slammed door or a desperate breath – it becomes the only thing in that space. That’s the isolation we wanted to convey.”