Hear Business Growing in Latest U. S. Postal Service Spot from Leo Burnett, Featuring Musical Sound Design from Endless Noise

LA-based award-winning sound design and music company Endless Noise announces details of their hybrid musical sound design" work for the latest U.S. Postal Service spot from Leo Burnett/Chicago. The new :30 TV spot entitled Dry Cleaners" debuted on Apr. 15. Company will also be honored at International ANDY Awards and Clio Awards for recent TV work; details provided.

Award-winning sound design and music company Endless Noise today announced details of the company's hybrid musical sound design" work for the latest U.S. Postal Service spot from Leo Burnett/Chicago. The new :30 TV spot entitled Dry Cleaners" was directed by Anonymous Contents John Dolan and debuted on Apr. 15.

In the spot, a small drycleaner experiences a surge of business based on a direct mail campaign. As commerce picks up, the sounds of customers entering combine with hisses of steam, the motor of rack as it spins around, rings from the cash register and other ambient noises, eventually building into a percussive underscore. The voiceover drives the point home: "Target your customers with direct mail and you may actually hear your business growing. Music to your ears, brought to you by the United States Postal Service."

We had to find a way to get across to people that the postal service can help businesses grow to become more vibrant and efficient," explained Endless Noise creative director and project co-composer and sound designer Jeff Elmassian. So specifically, we had to find sounds in the environment of this business that reflect the image of the postal service and that come across as being interesting and musical.

Together with John Dolan and the creative team, we found that the sounds in this environment made for a dynamic rhythm track – so that's the direction we ultimately went," Elmassian continued.

The biggest challenge was trying to live within the reality of the sounds," explained Leo Burnetts senior producer Bob Davis. It was challenging to create an interesting sound that builds, but the team at Endless Noise helped us find the right balance of ambient sounds that could build to drive the storyline of the spot."

To me," added director John Dolan, "Jeff's input was invaluable in the preproduction stage, because he helped me define which sounds would work the best musically. He also created a scratch track that I used on location to ensure the proper tempo. His knowledge of music and sound design and the combination of those is what makes him really unique."

The live-action footage was lensed on-location at Bixby Knolls Cleaners in Long Beach, California in March by Dolan and director of photography Conrad Hall, Jr. All sound for the project was created in-house at the Endless Noise studio in West Hollywood. Working with co-composer and sound designer Andy Rehfeldt on a Macintosh G4, the team used SampleCell for sampling, ProTools for sound editing and Studio Vision to sequence their sounds into a musical composition. The final track was mixed through a DigiDesign Control 24 mixing console. The Endless Noise studio features Mackie HR24 studio monitors.

The unique ability of Jeff Elmassian and his team to transform sound into music recently earned them a London International Advertising Award for Best Sound Design for their work on the sensational Nike Freestyle campaign. Elmassian will also be honored for that campaigns sound design at the upcoming 2002 International ANDY Awards Show and Party on May 1 in New York City and at the 43rd Annual Clio Festival on May 21 in Miami Beach.

For the Leo Burnett project team in Chicago, Lisa Bennett served as executive creative director and Steve Simoncic served as creative director. Along with Bob Davis, the team also included Chad Ackley as art director and Daniel Mabe as copywriter.

Anonymous Contents team was led by executive producer Andy Traines and head of production Cassie Hulen, and also included producer Tapas Blank and production manager Sam Swisher.

Deb Schimmel of Chicagos Optimus edited the spot.

About Endless Noise
Award-winning music and sound design company Endless Noise composes and produces innovative and cutting-edge music and sound designs for feature films, television programming and commercials. Building on its Grammy, London International Advertising Award and International Andy Award-winning accomplishments and solid track-record working with leading entertainment companies and ad agencies, Endless Noise offers the proven ability to create the perfect music and sound design for the worlds most ambitious projects. For more information, please call 310.581.4133 or visit EndlessNoise.com.
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