Collaboration Is Always the Right Move for KO Music

Collaboration is the backbone of the advertising industry. When done well, it yields results that satisfy both creative and commercial goals. Philip Kay, award-winning composer at KO Music, an original music agency for film, television and advertising, says that a “great collab can take many forms.” Philip is of course speaking from a wealth of experience with KO Music working across projects for global brands and companies like Amazon, Sony, Smirnoff, BMW, Amazon, BBC, Channel 4, and Focus Features - to name but a few. 

“Sometimes it's a partner who has a very clear, precise idea of how they want the film to feel and how the music should operate,” Philip says of collaborations. “So you try to find the best solution to that problem while also perhaps bringing something to the table that either shows the strengths of the initial idea or blows it out of the water. A collaborator who is open to having their mind changed is always a great thing.”

Producer Benton Roman, who KO Music worked on Les Mills’ ‘Choose Happy’ spot, highlights how “it’s so common these days for the client, agency, and even the director to get demo love when you edit with famous scratch tracks. That is except when Philip Kay and KO Music are involved.”

Choosing a known track is not always the best approach for the spot or the brand, it can even be detrimental. The music brief for ‘Choose Happy’ was “very tough”, according to Benton, and yet Philip and KO “over delivered,” he says. “We wanted a score that you’d find in famous hardcore sports advertising, only this track needed to get exponentially more intense, more ridiculous, eventually going off the rails and crashing into the gates of hell. KO Music understood for the narrative to work the score needed to be grounded in reality, so the audience would believe it was a legit sports ad before going over the top.”

“What we ended up with was a brilliant multi-layered piece of music that had everything from John Carpenter synth to chanting Gregorian monks,” Benton adds. 

“Isn’t it amazing how much music can elevate an ad!?,” asks Andreas Nilsson, director of ‘Choose Happy’. “I was very happy with the footage and the performance we got for Les Mills. It balanced the fine line of sport parody and the cuts we did on set felt really good and promising. But it wasn’t until KO Music scored and sound designed it that it really took off and became something that was one of the highlights of my 2023. They knew the heroic sport genre enough from the inside to be able to do a spoof of the same that was as much a parody as it was a celebration.”

Sometimes, the client’s desires can be more nebulous, “more of an exploration,” Philip says. “We have to dig and excavate until we find the golden nugget.” In those situations Philip stresses that “having a collaborator who can clearly communicate where something is going wrong or right is always a huge help. However, communicating about music and emotions can be quite tricky sometimes, even for us, so it's our job to navigate the path through. Sometimes it's a little like being a musical psychologist... asking the right questions and digging under the surface until a clear solution emerges.”

For Philip, there are benefits to concrete and open-ended briefs; both present pleasurable challenges to overcome and different beats to hit. “A collaborator really throwing down the gauntlet and saying something like, ‘We want a track that sounds like a late ‘70s Bollywood romance’ gives me the opportunity to get really geeky about finding specific pieces of equipment to exactly recreate that sound, studying musical forms in analytical detail, finding rooms to record in that are the same dimensions as a 70s studio in Mumbai, finding the exact tape formulations they used back then... all that very forensic technical detail is wonderful to explore and there's a real thrill in bringing  what is in someone else's head to life.”

Director Ian Pons Jewell recalls how “KO Music came through as ever on [Riyadh Season’s] ‘The Wish’, somehow doing the impossible (which they consistently manage) of nailing a client brief with very specific instructions, but also creating a genuinely brilliant piece of music. We were very married to an existing piece that is quite a classic, but Philip Kay’s composition managed to beat it out. It’s always a pleasure to work with him and the team, with lots of experimentation always done.”

All creatives with a strong point of view and sense of personal taste revel when given the ability to follow those instincts. Philip is no different. “An open-ended brief is fulfilling in other ways - it's a great opportunity to really see the effect different types of music can have on a picture. It still blows my mind that the different combinations of film and sound, sometimes quite subtle, can have such a radically different effect on how it makes you feel, and it's great fun to explore that with a collaborator. It's been a long process for them and I'm coming along at the end and together we're perhaps challenging the way everyone's been seeing or feeling the film all along, exploring how we can really elevate a film with the music and make it really shine and cut through. It's great fun,” he says. 

Music supervisor Mike Ladman at Droga5 calls Philip “the secret sauce hired gun for most of our unsolvable, most difficult, and important music projects,” singling out Philip’s taste and KO Music’s general, attentive approach to the execution. “Rather than just give you what you say you want, Philip gives you what he thinks is best for the film and he's usually right. He's bold and intentional about his choices which is extremely rare in an industry based on competitive music with many shops just trying to win the job rather than make the best music. He is able to score complex intricate films seamlessly, effortlessly, and cohesively while still maintaining his unique voice and warm authentic production. It never just sounds like ‘ad music’. At Droga, our success is derived by making all choices that are best for our films and we trust KO Music to deliver that,” comments Mike. 

Working with Mike and Droga5 is, for Philip, a perfect example of how a collaboration can grow, evolve, and make everyone deliver their best work. The two companies have worked on multiple projects over the years, to great results. “Our recent work with Mike is some of the work I'm most proud of - his understanding of music in commercials, and in general, is second to none. To have someone with that degree of knowledge and creativity in between us and the client almost makes my job too easy!” Philip says. 

Philip also mentions that working with the creative directors Hugo & Dean has been particularly enriching for everyone involved. It’s easy to see why in Playstation’s darkly adventurous ‘The King’ spot featuring a haunting, string-heavy version Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams’; and in Smirnoff’s ‘Infamous Since 1864’ spot which time travels through different periods while backed by an energetic track that ties the narrative together. “Creative duo Hugo & Dean have been amazing to work with over the years - they allow a lot of creative freedom but they're so clear in their direction, on an emotional level, that it always feels as though the path to the finished piece is very clear. And their work is just incredible - it's an honour to put music to their films,” Philip adds. 

And as for the ideal collaborator? There’s only one answer for Philip: the director Ringan Ledwidge. “I had a long working relationship with the late Ringan. He was the ideal collaborator. Clear and concise with how he was looking for the work to feel but always with room for experimentation and for me to bring something unexpected to the table. There was a large degree of trust - he trusted me to really go the extra mile to write the best possible music that could be written for the film, and I trusted him to be completely honest about anything I wrote and to respect my work as an artist. You don't get many like him.”

With music’s ability to deliver an emotional impact far greater than copy or images ever could, getting it right should be the top priority for everyone involved. In the hands of experts, a music brief - whether open-ended or detailed - really comes alive through collaboration, questioning, and experimentation, to make its sonic mark.