Summer vibes for Sainsbury's

Another opportunity to channel my inner-Blackpool, presented itself in the form of this charming summer film for Sainsbury's. Dreamt up by Ruby and Jake at Wiedens and brought to life by Rob, Mike and the talented team at Time Based Arts, we were talking about the sound way before there was a single pixel on screen.

Our brief was to pair a series of short animations with summery soundscapes that matched in terms of movement-of-sound but not what you actually saw on screen.

To explain with an example..... Imagine a corn on the cob that is slowly rotating .... coupled with the sound of an old wooden roller coaster rising up the tracks .... clacking away from the sound of the funfair .... before a knob of butter melts and slides down the side ... to the sound of a descending carriage and screaming passengers.

We spent a few days brainstorming before settling on client approved scenarios that I could test sound for. The audio-only tests formed the basis for the first set of storyboards, which we nipped and tucked as they became the pre-vis.

An ice-cream sprinkled with a flock of birds. Tennis at Wimbledon where each hit took a bite from the Strawberry (Rob wisely stopped me from included a deuce / juice Dad-gag). A chicken drumstick that tuned through radio stations when poked with BBQ tongs. Bonus points for subliminal links, like pairing a wobbling jelly with the sound of an ice-cream van.

By the time we reached shoot day we had already cut scenes that weren't working (lettuce-rip-thunder and cherry-tomato-rain-splats were perhaps a too realistic British summer) and could make sure the food was filmed with the movement of sound in mind.

I hope this film brings a gentle summery feeling to your day. It's a great example of what can be achieved by talking about all aspects of the film, sound included, before getting too far down the line with an idea. Thanks to WK & TBA for involving us from the start.

Mike Bamford, Founding Partner

Sound Design: Mike Bamford

Directors: Rob Blishen / Mike Skrgatic @ TBA Studio

Producer: Shion Hayaska

Post producer: Sean Ewins

Exec producer: Tom Johnson

Creative Agency: Wieden + Kennedy

CD: Darren Simpson

Creatives: Jake Attree, Ruby Norman-Curran, Albert Pukies

Account Director: Hannah Gourevitch

Account Manager: Abi Devine

Producer: Iona Patterson