High Five: Good 'Cover-age'

It's rare that you see a beautiful long-form film paired so perfectly to a powerful song, but this Greenpeace ad is exactly that. It is a re-imagination of a classic song, re-written and performed with a bold new meaning around climate change and corporate responsibility. The song is very well produced, and brilliantly performed by the artists involved (Future Utopia, Avelino and Tomorrow's Warriors.) 

This piece of work is meticulously handcrafted, from the sound design to the visual effects to the music and everything in between. This re-imagination of 'I'll Be There', originally performed by the Four Tops, is absolutely epic. It's a bit quirky and a little dark to match the trippy visual style of the ad, matches the creative concept perfectly and was impeccably arranged to match the timing of the spot. Hats off to this team!

As a music supervisor and EP, I naturally gravitate towards work built around a song. This spot from IKEA doesn't disappoint. It's incredibly difficult to sync a track to someone playing drums on screen without recording it on set, and they pulled it off. I've played drums my whole life, so when I see drums playing on screen to a backing track, I usually expect sync issues - but it was timed perfectly here. Aside from that nerdy assessment, I like the way they built the spot around the song. From the break in the song for Mum to say "Bedtime", to the ending where the girl starts playing muffled 'pillow drums' - and everything in between - was a beautiful symphony of song and visual that told a great story. Of course, the message of believing in your dreams is quite a positive one, and this is one of the best songs to do it with. Bravo all round!

I like humour in ads, and I like Heineken's approach to making mini films that pull you into an immersive story. This spot doesn't disappoint. It's slow in its development, taking a cue from horror films in building suspense towards some sort of (potentially gruesome) resolution. The office worker feels like she's being watched, and the song choice hints at that. The nice thing with this rendition of 'Somebody's Watching Me' is the fact that the introduction sounds quite creepy and different from the original, but then resolves into the fun, poppy, funky tune we know and love when you realise the joke is all about getting out of the office before the cleaners get there. The track is very well produced, both vocally and instrumentally, and skilfully synchronised to film throughout the spot. A+! 

We recently produced this very fun and lighthearted version of the classic nursery rhyme 'Head, Shoulders, Kees and Toes'. I am biased of course, but what I like about this cover is that it reimagines the classic kids song with a little bit of sophisticated style that could appeal to cool Mums and Dads catching a bit of this tune when the ad is running. It's fun for the kids of course and recognisable, but it has a singer / songwriter quality to it that could appeal to the musical taste of the parents as well. This, hopefully, differentiates the ad from other ads targeting kids with a more expected 'kid music' type soundtrack.