How Mophonics Transformed the Sound of a Champagne Toast Into a Rhythmic Celebration
In the world of advertising, the fusion of sound design and visual storytelling can elevate a campaign from memorable to iconic. We’ve all experienced those commercials where the everyday sounds in a scene begin to sync into a rhythm, creating a seamless blend of diegetic sound and music. While the industry might not have settled on a definitive term for this technique, ‘diegetic rhythm’ might just be the closest we get - clunky as it sounds.
One brand that recently embraced this approach is Korbel California Champagne, with a campaign that captures the connection of their product through the simple yet evocative sound of clinking glasses. With a blend of pre-production experimentation and on-the-fly adjustments, the team at Mophonics, alongside Furlined director Torben Kjelstrup and Cut&Run editor Pete Koob, navigated the challenges of creating a campaign where sound is not just an accompaniment but a central character.
From the initial brief to the final edit, Steph reveals the intricacies of aligning sound design with the visual narrative to achieve the perfect ‘bubbly’ feeling.
LBB> What was the brief from Korbel California Champagne for this campaign?
Steph> The task was to create a score out of champagne glass ‘clinks’. The TV concept was a montage of vignettes in which people would ‘connect’ - bro-hugs upon arriving at a party… double-cheek kiss hello at the coffee shop - but at the ‘connection’ moment, we’d hear champagne glasses clink. And as the spot progresses, these clinks form a rhythm and become a kind of musical score.
LBB> It's rare for sound design to be involved in the early stages, and present on set! Can you tell us more about your involvement in this project from the beginning, and how you ensured that the sound design perfectly aligned with the creative vision throughout?
Steph> We were brought in early, before the shoot, to work with Torben to flesh out how sound could work. We started with music demos based on the scripts, making our best guesstimates of how long scenes should be, what the ambience of each scene would sound like. Essentially we made demo radio spots, the intention being to learn together what kind of pacing felt right sonically, and to understand what should be the density, syncopation and ‘musicality’ of the score. We shared our work in the form of 30” movies displaying a timer and descriptors to help give some visual context. One of our early demos was chosen as the base from which we’d work moving forward. Based on that demo, Torben [Kjelstrup, director] created a Boardomatic movie (a rough assembly of sketched still images that represent each scene), so now we had a rough template of what would be shot, along with the accompanying champagne clink score.
LBB> The film ‘bubbles’ with various social scenes of Korbel California Champagne, each with its own unique sound. How did you ensure that the tone of each ‘clink’ matched the specific moment portrayed on screen?
Steph> Although we did a lot of pre-production work, the plan was that Torben would not shoot to music, but rather, he would just capture the ‘clink’ moments at his own visual pace, and in post Pete [Koob, Cut&Run editor] would be able to assemble those moments to match the clinks in our demo track. We always wanted to leave some room for experimentation in the edit, to allow for the discovery of those serendipitous creative moments to elevate the work. There were elements that Torben shot that Pete started inserting into the edit, and we went through a few days of tag-teaming little iterations and adjustments. Typically Pete might have a visual idea that he’d share in a new cut, and then if I felt there was a more musically compelling position for that new clip to be in, I would propose the sound adjustment, with a granular instruction of how many frames to move the clip in which direction, and Pete would adjust the edit, and so on. It was actually a lot of fun.
LBB> This campaign is a fantastic example of collaboration, with sound taking centre stage in the creative process. How did you work with director Torben Kjelstrup and Cut&Run to ensure everything flowed smoothly and effectively?
Steph> All of this was done very fluently with online sessions. We had a few Zooms with me in LA sharing my Logic session in one Zoom screen, while in SF Pete’s edit played in a Telly session in another screen, and Torben joining in after putting his kids to bed in Denmark!
