Doug Unplugs... but only after watching a music video!

November 13, 2020

Doug is a curious young bot who senses there is more to life than just the facts. Every day he plugs in for his daily download… and that’s where we come in! We had the bot-tastic fortune of being cast as series songwriters for Doug Unplugs, the first ever collaboration between DreamWorks Animation and AppleTV+.

Our primary job is creating the music video songs that Doug downloads to learn about a topic. He then adventures out with his best friend Emma in search of real-world experience - adventures we’re lucky to score with our frequent partner David Butterfield!

Massive thank you to Aliki, Jim, Dan, Dionne, Alex, Frank, and Matt from DreamWorks Animation for having us on the show ❤️

Plugin Music Videos

The series is based on the book Doug Unplugged by Dan Yaccarino which opens with a similar setup to each of the 11-minute episodes.

In the animated version Doug encounters an object or word he is not familiar with, plugs in for an informational music video, then unplugs and asks a Big Question that only experience can answer. This ritual format is repeated every episode in a story pattern recognizable to our preschool audience.

Early ideas

We came onboard early in the pre-production process to help develop the sound and lyrical style of the plugin songs. Here are some of the original ideas we pitched:

One of the awesome things about writing for animation is imagining the boardroom of executives on the other side debating the merits of your jokes about gravity and ball games.

Pop Demo

The team wanted to move in a more current pop direction and the table tennis song became our focus over the following weeks as we zeroed in on the sound. Here are the roughs:

And here is the produced demo with vocals by Baraka May and Rich Jones:

Some of the repeating elements that came to define Doug plugin songs are bouncy Moog Sub37 bass, OP1/Rev2 pop synths, live acoustic instruments, unusual aux perc, field recorded SFX, and vox performed straight with top 40 production, even if there’s jokes in the lyrics.

Table Tennis Time

Below is the final music video with lead vocal by Mae Whitman, including the ritual moments that lead us in and out of the plugin.

Table Tennis Time music video!

Executive Producers Jim and Aliki talk with Niccole Mucci, lifestyle blogger and mom of two boys, about the music in Doug Unplugs.

Synth Orch Score

Around a year into working on the songs we partnered with David on the score for the series. The team wanted the music to help contrast the world of Rebots, the cool recycling-like facility where Doug and the bots live, with Mega City, the big warm world where Emma and the humans live. The team was also looking to differentiate the score from the the plugin songs by incorporating more traditional orchestral textures.

Here were some of our ideas of how to bring the their vision to life:

This was the first time we’ve had the responsibility for both songs and score for an entire series and there were heaps of suprising benefits.

We often repurposed the song instrumentals for montages and made vocal remixes for the wrap-up scenes and end credits. Sometimes the song inspired the palette of an episode, or we quoted the melody from the hook for Emma’s dialog runner. Or sometimes we even went back and updated the production of the song to match the score.

For me personally this series was a huge step up in leadership in songwriting and score spotting/directing after assisting in these areas on Fast & Cleo. I also got to help produce some of the musical sequences which is my absolute favorite thing to do.

On Ryan’s side, he’s always been an incredible music producer and composer and through Doug has been able to exponentially develop his multi-hyphenate abilities like vocal directing and singing. Also when Ryan was cast as the vocalist for the plugin songs he discovered he loved voice acting which opened up a whole new world and he’s now auditioning for voice roles totally separate to music.

Crew

Some credits related to music!

Series produced by: Aliki Theofilopoulos, Jim Nolan and Dan Yaccarino
Music supervision by: Alexandra Nickson and Frank Garcia
Music coordination by: Matt Manna (and Elliott-Ward Bowen for the first few episodes)
Executive in charge: Dionne Nosek
Theme song by: The Cut
Songs by: Ryan Lofty and Courtney Lofty
Score by: Ryan Lofty and David Butterfield
Additional music & music assist by: Brandon Liew
Plugin song vocals by: Ryan Lofty, Keeley Bumford, Michelle Gonzalez, Baraka May, Rich Jones and Courtney Lofty
Live instruments by: Ryan Lofty, Jonathan J. Golko, Daniel B. Hill, Christian Sedelmyer, and Brandon Liew
Post production supervision: Noelle Fuoco and Joshua McMaster
Sound services by Advantage Audio: including David Bonilla, J. Lampinen, Jesse Aruda, Patrick Spain, Michael Feldman, Robert Pratt and Gabe Gelbrecht

Highly recommend you check out the work of all these wonderful people and the many, many others that made this show.

Doug Unplugs is streaming now on AppleTV+!

This ending area of the blog is where we would usually put team photos and mementos from the crew screening, but alas…

If you are COP crew and reading this - we can’t wait to be reunited with you! Until then, here’s what our records look like in 2020!

Recording a plugin song with Keeley Bumford and Matt Manna.

Beep boop.

We got to work on a game show! Nickelodeon's The Crystal Maze!

January 24, 2020

This is a pretty cool blog post to write! At the end of last year we had the extremely exciting opportunity to write the music for a game show, a US adaptation of a UK series that has been running on and off since the 90s called The Crystal Maze.

We worked with our long time friends and collaborators at production company Bunim / Murray. Kind of a full circle moment… we’ve been with them for years as a library contributor to their various adult unscripted series and had developed experience in writing for kids & family content elsewhere, so this felt like coming home!

The Crystal Maze comes out today January 24 at 7/6c on Nick. Here’s maze master Adam Conover to describe what the show’s about in 30 seconds:

Ryan did a post over at The Crystal Maze Fan Group Blog that talked about what’s new in music for the US version of the show. The team over there is super nice and had been ground zero for answering fan questions on Twitter so he thought it would be nice to host some of our launch blog content with them. Check it out cause we won’t cover all of the same things here!

One of the things that is the same for the US show is the EPIC theme song “Force Field” by Zack Laurence. It’s very prominent and used often throughout an episode: on the title card, in transition between zones, as a timer in the crystal dome, and in the final moments before the credits. Ryan and David did a hybrid electronic/orchestral cover that merged historical variations of the theme:

What’s new in the show is the underscore. There are a couple of new segment themes, including a Hero Theme for when Adam announces the family’s prize. Hero Theme Level 3 plays if they win the maximum $25,000!

You can hear the long riser in the beginning as Adam does some math counting their tokens then… HORNS!

Also new are the sounds for Adam, as he is a new host for the US series. The TCM Fan Blog says… “he embodies the character of a mazemaster, the Willy Wonka type leading people through his creation.” It’s a different style of comedy than the deadpan performance of UK host Richard Ayoade.

Adam’s core sound is the sound of the maze. It’s his maze so ostensibly he’s scoring himself. He often breaks away from the action, unconcerned, participating in one of his many hobbies. He has cues in the style of each zone, this one plays during an opening in the dome room when he hasn’t yet seen the audience enter:

This was our first time working on a game show format and it was an incredibly interesting process! The production is super fast paced, we had approximately four weeks to produce 150 minutes of music.

We worked with Bunim / Murray to spot a couple episodes and come up with the below library structure. These cues are replicated in the sounds of each of the four zones:

Atmospheric - the sound of each zone when Adam and the family arrive or are between games
Timer motif – the jingle that starts the game clock
Mental puzzle – for mental/mystery games
Physical puzzle – for physical/skill games
Ending risers – win, lose, and neutral endings that can be layered on the ending of puzzle cues depending if the player wins, gets locked in, or makes it out with no crystal
Comedy – mostly used for cutaways to the Adam or family outside the game room
Perc buildups - short 2-3 second cues that can be used for transitions
Signature SFX - instrument one hits, runs, or other short processed SFX unique to that zone, often used for stings and fails

Every cue was exported in stems so the editors had a lot of options to mix and match. We tried to stick to one BPM and key per zone so that all the parts could coordinate together to (hopefully) make their job easier.

Some credits!

“Force Field” main title theme by Zack Laurence
Original music by Ryan Lofty & David Butterfield
Score production management by: Courtney Lofty, the person who writes these blog posts
Music Supervisor: Peter Davis
SVP of Music: Dave Stone

We’re heading off to the BMP crew screening this afternoon to celebrate today’s release! Will update this post with pics afterwards.

*****

…and here we are! The Crystal Maze music team at BMP HQ!

Cleopatra comin' atcha! - the music of Cleo in Space

November 25, 2019

Cleopatra in Space is out TODAY Nov 25 in ten countries served by DreamWorks Asia - Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, the Philippines, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. New episodes are airing daily at primetime - woo!!

We’ve been working on the music for this series the past year, creating an epic cocktail of electronic beats, Egyptian melodies, and orchestral dramatics, with a sprinkle of traditional Middle Eastern instrumentation and pop-rock drums/guitars to boot.

Here’s the official description of the show:

Cleopatra in Space is a comedic adventure focusing on the untold story of Cleopatra’s teenage years. Viewers can follow Cleo as she is transported 30,000 years into the future, to an Egyptian-themed planet that is ruled by talking cats and where she discovers she is the prophesied savior of the future world. In order to prepare for her role and mission, Cleo is sent to an elite academy where she has to train to take on the bad guys, figure out how to eventually get herself back home to Egypt, as well as tackling the highs and lows of being a teenager in high school.

Badass women, talking cats, space - we’re here for it!

Our hero Cleo (center), with best friends cyborg Brian (left) and alien Akila (right). Who’s that in the back? ;)

The series is based on the best-selling Scholastic book series by Mike Maihack. It’s a six book epic, five of which have been released, with the grand finale slated for 2020. Check em out on Amazon here.

The television adaptation was lead by Executive Producers Doug Langdale and Scott Kreamer. When we started in post production, as composers do, Scott had already moved on to another DWA series and our leaders for music direction were showrunners Doug [EP] and Fitzy Fitzmaurice [SP].

You can feel all three of these incredible creators in the show. Mike’s fantastic imagination, Doug’s effortless comedic ability, Fitzy’s massive heart and attention to detail.

In terms of how the show compares to the books - I think the characters personalities have been amplified. Cleo is more “15” and reckless, something she has to overcome to be a leader. Brian has more anxiety about being part robot. Akila is pretty close to the books, extremely energetic and positive. I’d totally be BFFs with Akila. And there are a lot of new-for-the-series guest stars that appear as the gang travels the universe to take down Octavian.

The overall vibe is classic Saturday morning cartoon, with extremely quotable moments. I personally liken it to Invader Zim, one of my favorite childhood toons, which lead to me writing “doom doom doom-doom doom” on all of my notebooks for the entire length of high school.

The gang with their teacher Khensu, one of PYRAMID Academy’s educators and cat who can talk.

*friendship chords play softly in the background*

And now for the music!

We received the score brief for this series in January 2018 and spent an extreme amount of time researching the books, obsessing over the details of what this electronic, pop-rock, 80s, Egyptian, orchestral musical cocktail would sound like. Some of the references were Paramore, MIA, and the score of The Prince of Egypt.

Here’s what we came up with for track one:

Also this bonus song inspired by “The Scarabs,” a band from the books that appeared to be stylized like the The Beatles. This is what we imagined they’d perform at a party:

Overall there were about 20 tracks in our pitch, about half custom and half existing examples. We sent them off into the ether and…didn’t hear back! Spring and most of summer passed, we moved on to other projects.

Then July rolls around and we receive a request to meet with the studio, holy crap! The meeting was about three test scenes which we had a week to score. There was a bad-guy chase where Cleo has a stylized battle moment, a comedy dialog scene introducing the characters, and a heartfelt conversation where Cleo misses home.

Test scenes

You can start to hear a sound-of-show developing, this is the first iteration of “bad guy” sounds, low growling synths, big taiko drums and dark whispers. Followed by a butt-kicking Cleo moment which are usually visually styled with 2D color card backgrounds:

And then a dialog scene. Here Cleo meets Brian and Akila for the first time, its sweet and funny. She’s a human from 69BC and they’re a cyborg and an alien from 30,000AD - culture shock!

The light synths and finger cymbal stings came to be a mainstay of conversational scenes - especially the arps for Akila when her eyes blink vertically, one of the small recurring reminders she is not human.

As part of the test files we were provided the incredible theme song “Written in the Stars” by Jeannie Lurie and Gabe Mann. The melody is used here as Khensu councils Cleo about her role as prophesied savior. She’s a teenager and just wants to go home, that longing can be felt in the ney flute performed by Middle Eastern instrumentalist Danny Shamoun.

Throughout the series the melodies from “Written in the Stars” are quoted to musically highlight the prophecy and Cleo’s call to be a leader. The ney is the instrument of Khensu, playing softly during his teaching moments with some high register runs reserved for his more catty outbursts.

We got the job!

And around that exact time, we saw Cleo’s book author Mike Maihack post that he was presenting at a convention in Yuma, Arizona. The event was ending in five hours and it was a four hour drive, so we space-raced our way over there for the chance to meet the person who created the world we were about to live in…

Studio poster - she’s always watching over us

Mike was so awesome. It was the perfect experience to kick off the show. We got the personal run down of his inspirations, how the series started, and also some super secret tips about the future storyline.

We were blessed overall with the team that worked on this show, speaking of which, here are some credits:

Showrunners: Doug Langdale and Fitzy Fitzmaurice
Music supervision: Alexandra Nickson, Frank Garcia, Tasha Peter and Matt Manna
Series composers: Jay Vincent and Ryan Lofty
Staff additional music composer: David Butterfield
Additional music by: Steven Gizzi and Brandon Liew
Score production management by: Courtney Lofty, the person who writes these blog posts
Live instrumentation by: Danny Shamoun and Ryan Lofty
Post production supervision: Noelle Fuoco and Caitlin Walton
Sound services by Advantage Audio: including Melissa Ellis, Fil Brown, Heather Olsen, J. Lampinen, and David Bonilla
Executive in charge: Gregg Goldin

The music team with EP Doug, SP Fitzy and post supervisor Noelle at DreamWorks HQ.

A large part of the post, audio and music team at Advantage Audio’s soundstage!

There are obviously HUNDREDS of other amazing artists and producers involved in the show, the people above are the ones we were lucky to get to know and work with directly.

With that, we’ll leave you with this opening montage:

And the end credits:

Cleo!

Producing a boy band for Harvey Girls Forever

May 08, 2019

Ryan Lofty and the team at Future Vega discuss creating the songs and score featured on the Netflix Original series Harvey Girls Forever, produced by DreamWorks Animation.