DDB Chicago called on Pull to score the future. When robots finally take over they may only find solace in our bathrooms. Behold the Future.
Nothing like some honkey tonk piano... enjoy.
What happens when 61,000 sets of eyes look at health care differently?
Change appears. Innovations bloom. Breakthroughs become the norm.
Pull was thrilled to be called on by JWT to score the new Northwell Health campaign.
"We no longer take comfort in That’s the way it has always been done, but instead are challenged by This is how it should be done.
In 21 hospitals and over 450 community and research facilities, we are constantly looking to not just raise our standard of health care, but raise the standard of health care.
The North Shore-LIJ Health System is now Northwell Health℠. Look North.℠"
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Engineers are collaborative and creative…they are problem-solvers. Every challenge has a solution—in the engineer’s world, every challenge has myriad solutions… Engineers work in teams to develop elegant solutions, designing and building practical devices that make day-to-day life safer and more fulfilling…
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PULL has again teamed up with the Vh1 team to create the new sound for the new and improved Top 20 Video Countdown. Now simply referred to as The20, the show package soundtrack is as fun and bouncy as the host.
Having the guys from Ireland in our studios to record their latest album was a thrill for everyone. When they surprised us by using our cover of TheFly on tour it blew us away. Thanks guys!
The humor behind a new :60 spot for Qualcomm, “Prequel,” called for a very special song to make it work: Custom-made music and lyrics were a must, yet it still had to feel familiar. Agency Ogilvy & Mather turned to PULL to make it possible.
In “Prequel,” a magical dragon soars above a major metropolis – but instead of breathing fire, he uses his powers to make people’s lives better. As he enhances a graffiti artist’s work, lifts a city bus over rush hour traffic and more, a breezy song evocative of a ‘50’s girl group elevates it all with the lyrics, “I've got a recipe/To make you smile at me/My mama passed it down to me as a child/I think I'll do a little cookin' tonight/With a little bit of magic/A little bit of dreamin'/A little bit of foolin' around.”
Writing lyrics for commercial projects is a welcome assignment for PULL composer Davis, who has released multiple albums and singles under several monikers including Orba Squara. For Davis, the challenge was to create a new song that would resonate like a distantly remembered single from the past.
“It needed to feel like a song that you might know, with lyrics that happened to relate to what you’re seeing onscreen without referring directly to what’s going on,” Davis says. “I wrote a song that sounded innocent, but with a touch of innuendo, like you might have heard on the radio back in the day.”
Working at PULL’s SoHo NYC studio, Davis added to the vintage flavor by carefully selecting instruments and recording gear for the track. “Since this is a track that could be of an indeterminate era, instead of trying to sound ‘old’ my objective is to not sound new,” explains Davis. “I used only instruments, microphones, reverbs and compressors that were available during the time period we’re suggesting. I also kept it simple, since they didn’t have the luxury of recording to 200+ tracks then.”
PULL simultaneously created the score for “One Touch”, an extremely adventurous :60 spot in the Qualcomm campaign.
As an active music artist, Mitch Davis has the distinctive ability to deliver authentic album-style tracks for commercial composing projects like Qualcomm’s “Prequel.” “My songwriting and record production background come into play every day at PULL,” he confirms. “I look at everything I do as if it were being produced for a record. When a commercial sounds like it has a real song, that helps the brand to make a strong connection with the viewer.”
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather
Client: Qualcomm
Agency Credits:
ECD: Tommy Henvey
GCD: Terry Finley
Executive Producer: Patti McConnell
Associate Producer: Kelly Allen
Music Producer: Karl Westman
Sr. Business Manager: Camille Crenshaw
Executive Group Director: Adam Puchalsky
Account Supervisor: Brian Lee
Account Executive: Alexandra Andrial
Production Co: The Corner Shop
Director: Peter Thwaites
EP: Anna Hashmi
Line Producer: Megan Moore
Editorial: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Stewart Reeves
EP: Eve Kornblum
Producer: Jenny Greenfield
VFX: Framestore
EP: Dez Macleod-Veilleux
Sr. Producer: Nick Fraser
VFX Supervisor/3D Artist: James Dick
VFX Supervisor: Theo James
Pull Takes it to the Streets for Nike’s ‘FootballX Skills’ Series
Crafty soccer moves are no longer an international secret, courtesy of an intriguing new online video series created by Nike. All six 1:00 installments are paced perfectly by original scores from the New York City-based music company Pull.
In the “FootballX Skills” series, produced by agency AKQA, street soccer players from Long Beach, California and Amsterdam reveal their trademark moves in detail. Beautifully shot and deftly edited, the videos demonstrate how to upgrade your game with “The Cobra,” “The Beast Chip,” “The Glitch,” “The Flick Flick,” “The Scorpion” and “The 360 Backheel Flip.”
Pull composer Mitch Davis devised distinctive musical themes for the two cities, then made variations on each theme by approaching the different videos like individual cuts on an artist’s release. The Long Beach tracks sport a gritty, swamp rock feel thick with anticipation, while the Amsterdam songs build up a tense beat intercut with 8-bit flourishes and sonic effects.
“To make the scores varied but related, I try to think about them different songs from the same album,” Davis says. “For example, all of the ones in Long Beach have the same basic instrumentation – drums, guitar, violin – but they’re all used to emphasize unique aspects of each players personality. The spots for Amsterdam feature synths prominently, and all of the songs come from the same ‘band.’”
With recording credits that include collaborations with U2, Danger Mouse, and Bobby Womack, Davis knows how to make the most of his SoHo studio – an enveloping wonderland of keyboards, guitars and gear – to create genuine artist tracks. His experience recording and performing as the artist Orba Squara, which has earned synch placements for Apple, Walmart, Iams and Goodyear, add to the authenticity.
Davis and Pull producer Scott Brittingham were glad to be asked back for another Nike soccer campaign, after Pull scored the award-winning series “Inside Small-Sided” in the summer of 2015. “Campaigns like this are fun to do,” Mitch Davis confirms. “The inspiring visuals open up a lot of creative possibilities.”
Sometimes working over the holidays is worth it
JWT New York celebrates the first birth of 2016 at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens with its “Happy Birthday Austin Joseph” for Northwell Health, its first brand campaign in five years and largest-ever marketing push.
The agency had film crews ready to capture the first birth of the year on New Year’s Eve, and Austin Joseph was the first to emerge, a mere 36 seconds after the ball dropped. JWT New York welcomes Austin Joseph to the world on behalf of Northwell Health, before going on to celebrate the health system’s recent rebranding from North Shore-LIJ Health System. The ad goes on to claim that Northwell Health sees not just a newborn baby in Austin but “a person we’ll be keeping healthy his whole life.”
“The birth of a new healthcare system dedicated to a new standard in care deserves more than just another hospital commercial. It’s not just advertising; it’s news,” JWT New York executive creative director Eric Weisberg told Adweek. “Across all media channels, ‘Look North’ challenges people to discover the unique breakthroughs in care happening throughout Northwell Health, and it would not have been possible without the unprecedented collaboration, partnership and vision of the Northwell teams.”
JWT NY
ECD: Eric Weisberg
CD: Larry Silberfein
CD: Mary Warner
Copywriter: Itai Inselberg
Art Director: Sean Ellman
Business Director: John Danbeck
Account Director: Javier Bracero
PRODUCTION AGENCY
Hogarth NY
EVP: Marcelo Gandola
EP: Tania Sethi
Executive Producer: David Logan
Music Producer: Matthew Nelson
Art Buyer: Samantha Mau
Director of Global Broadcast Business Affairs: Terez Fiderer
Global Group Account Director: Jason Moon
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Anonymous Content
Director: Malcolm Venville
DP: Paul Cameron
Producer: Julien Lemaitre
1st AD: John Lowe
Harbor Picture Company
Executive Producer: Kellan Anderson
Executive Producer: Chris Sachs
Line Producer: Jonna Mattingly
Production Coordinator: Maddi Clarke
DP: Marcus Brooks
DP: Martin Albert
DP: Ethan Palmer
DP: Matthew Schroeder
DP: Theo Stanley
DP: Frank Stanley
Arcade Edit
Editor: Brad Waskewich
Editor: Alison Mao
Asst Editor: Laurel Smoliar
Producer: Fanny Cruz
Hogarth Edit
Editor: Milad Nazeri
EVP: Marcelo Gandola
Company 3
Colorist: Damien van der Cruyssen
Hogarth
Colorist: John Tissavary
PULL REINVENTS “DON’T FENCE ME IN” FOR DISCOVER IT MILES CARD AND THE MARTIN AGENCY
Covers of classic songs don’t always stand out from the crowd, but the NYC music company PULL broke boundaries with its new takeon “Don’t Fence Me In.” Their rendition is central to a successful new spot for the Discover it Miles Card, created by The Martin Agency.
Working out of their SoHo studios, PULL composer Mitch Davis created an indie band-style take on the iconic song first written and recorded by Cole Porter and Robert Fletcher in 1934. In “Travel Posters,” a couple’s plans for world travel come alive through a series of stylishly animated posters showing global destinations, accompanied to cleverly updated lyrics: “Give me miles lots of miles/Under starry skies above/Don’t fence me in…”
Davis has recorded several widely-heard covers as the artist Orba Squara, including Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” “Jubilee” and “Harry Hippie” by Bobby Womack, and “Blue Velvet” that was heard on the CBS series “CSI.”
“I love doing covers: You get to reinterpret a song that everybody knows, in a way that brings something new and refreshing to it,” says Davis. “Many artists have recorded ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ and they usually stay pretty true to the original – even David Byrne’s version doesn’t stray that far. That shows it’s a difficult song to take to another place.”
After experimenting with several styles, Davis hit on a modern feel that was organic and decidedly not overproduced, and paired with a female vocal. Once they narrowed down that creative execution Davis of course had an additional challenge with “Don’t Fence Me In.”
“I had to get this whole song into thirty seconds!” Davis notes. “Making it all fit turned out to be a fun musical math problem.”
PULL SCORES THE UNEXPECTED FOR NIKE ‘INSIDE SMALL-SIDED’ SERIES
The do-or-die dedication of Latin America to small-sided soccer is captured in a new online series from Nike, intensified by an unexpected set of scores from the New York City-based music company Pull.
Small-sided soccer – games with fewer players competing on a smaller sized field – can be a lifeline to young athletes with big dreams of breaking into a professional soccer league. “Inside Small-Sided”, produced for Nike by Picture Farm, is an arresting window into this athletic subculture, as artful cinematography and editing uncovers the 24/7 small-sided action permeating every corner of four cities: Mexico City, Santiago de Chile, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires.
The score by Pull composer Mitch Davis for the premiere feature, in Mexico City, brings an unexpected dimension of tension to the micro-movie, pacing it with primitive string sounds and sparse percussion that draws the viewer into the story and keeps them on the edge of their seat.
Davis chose a cello and a curated collection of castoff instruments to create the series’ soundtrack. “I’m really pushing the instrument here, playing it in a way that it’s not meant to be played,” he explains. “Besides bowing the cello, I’m hitting it, plucking it, smacking it, detuning it, and scraping it to get the sound I want. It’s a cello, it’s a drum, it’s a berimbau -- it’s whatever instrument I need it to be. I also keep a number of broken instruments for projects like this, which I can stretch beyond the limits for which they were designed, and produce sounds that were never intended. Sounds which are all somehow relatable as something familiar, having been twisted from elements within everyone’s aural vocabulary.”
With recording credits that include collaborations with U2, Danger Mouse, and Bobby Womack, Davis made the most of his SoHo studio – an enveloping wonderland of keyboards, guitars and gear – to capture the sounds.
“I set up several mics around me, placed at varying distances and all with drastically different tonal characteristics,” Davis says. “I’d grab whatever instrument was needed and play it sitting in the same spot, creating a sense of space from the various mic positions in the room. I wasn’t going for a pristine sound at all – it was more a combination of recording music, Foley and sound design, and if I made mistakes, all the better. The players on the field have to make immediate decisions with no second chances. I wanted to mimic that commitment, confidence and uncertainty with the music.
“I sketched out the tonal arc in my mind, played the movie, and went straight through from A to Z,” Davis continues. “Then freeform layers were built onto that base to rhythmically fight with each other in a sort of musical interpretation of barking dogs. That tension of getting it in the first take was a part of the feel that’s just like a soccer match: something’s going to happen that’s unexpected.
Pull’s score has helped to get “Inside Small-Sided” off to a big start, with the installments for the soccer-obsessed cities of Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro all offering up their own musical adventure. “Nike has a reputation for breaking out of the standard advertising model, and this series is definitely ambitious,” Mitch Davis says. “’Inside Small-Sided’ is something that people will notice. They’ll want to be a part of it.”
Pull Composes a Percussive Score for Emmy- and CLIO-Winning ESPN Campaign
Big Drums & Voices Power “I Believe”, Part of a Package That Captures the 2015 Sports Emmy for Outstanding Promotional Achievement, 2015 Silver Sports CLIO
New York City-based music company Pull provided an earth-shaking score for “I Believe,” a highlight spot in a 2015 Emmy- and CLIO Award-winning ESPN campaign.
Pull collaborated with Brooklyn-based Picture Farm Post to create the score for the :60 “I Believe,” one of a critically acclaimed trio of spots created by ESPN to promote the 2014 FIFA World Cup. All told, the package won the 2015 Sports Emmy for Outstanding Promotional Achievement, as well as a 2015 Silver Sports CLIO.
“I Believe” encapsulates the intense excitement of a capacity crowd at a FIFA World Cup match. The drama builds as throngs of spectators arrive at the stadium, then become united in chanting “I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN!” as the game kicks in and the pressure increases. A booming drumline is seen in the stands, their beat intensifying as the World Cup action builds to a competitive climax.
The chants and drumming appear to have been recorded simultaneously with the film footage, which was shot in Ohio during a World Cup Qualifier between the USA and Mexico. In actuality, the soundtrack was assembled in Pull’s New York City studios by composer Mitch Davis, who relied on musical problem-solving to make a complex assignment seem simple.
“This project was tricky, because it required us to figure out the rhythm of the crowd – when the crowd wasn’t really jumping in time to anything that was on-location – and then build the drums with as many layers as possible to match their movement,” Davis explains. “It was like post-scoring a music video, giving something a rhythm when there is no discernible rhythm onscreen. And since the action speeds up, we had to match the film with a lot of fine tempo adjustments to ensure that we’d land on certain beats.”
For Davis and Pull producer Scott Brittingham, executing the “I Believe” project required adopting two mindsets at once: sonically portraying true-to-life events and a fantasy at the same time. “It’s literal in the sense that you hear chanting and a drumline – exactly what you imagine is going on in the environment,” says Davis. “But what viewers are experiencing is really an idealized, impressionistic version of that. The score is a much bigger, hyper-real chant and drum sound that adds to the excitement.”
Picture Farm collaborated with the ESPN promotional team and Scott Duncan of Other Films to produce the spots “I Believe” and “The Big Event.” “I thought of Pull because they’re so good at building soundscapes like the one for ‘I Believe,” adds Toddy Stewart, Editor, Producer and Partner at Picture Farm Productions. “They have a great sense of environmental sound, and Mitch Davis has an amazing rhythmic understanding. Pull’s soundtrack gave ‘I Believe’ the punch that made this spot stand out.”
Experience the Emmy and CLIO-winning “I Believe” here.
2014 FIFA World Cup: ABC/ESPN/ESPN2
World Cup Big Event/Time Zone/I Believe[Picture Farm, Other Films, & Wieden + Kennedy]
Executive Producers
Seth Ader, Ryan Campbell, Tomas Ferraro, Brendan Gillen, Bryan McAleer, Aaron Taylor
Supervising Producers
Brandon Henderson, Temma Shoaf
Producers
Andrew Jasperson, Toddy Stewart, Matthieu Zarbatany
Directors
Scott Duncan, Stacy Wall
Upbeat Acoustic Music Provides McCann with the Perfect Backdrop for High-Tech Rollout
A killer combo calls for the perfect score. The NYC music company Pull provided just that for agency McCann’s new campaign that pairs Verizon with the iPhone6s.
The :30 spot, “Emoji,” details a national promotion offering cellular customers the chance to trade up to the iPhone6s when they switch to a Verizon plan. An iPhone6s is the star of the ad, hovering front and center as playfully simple images, emoticons and animations work with the VO to tell the story. “If you’re going to get the best iPhone, wouldn’t you want the best network?”
Pull composer Mitch Davis paces everything with an upbeat Americana-tinged original composition. Working in collaboration with Eric Johnson, SVP & Executive Music Producer for McCann, Davis devised a score where guitar, mandolin and tambourine provide a natural-sounding counterpoint to the high-tech offering.
“’Emoji’ called for instrumentation that had to strike a number of balances for Verizon,” Davis says. “Eric and I agreed that it should sound light but not childlike, fun without being silly, important without being overly serious.”
“Getting the music exactly right for this Verizon campaign was a challenge,” notes McCann’s Eric Johnson. “We had to strike a balance, making it celebratory but not too saccharine. That’s what led us to Pull: They have a great instinct for making something beautiful, but with just a tinge of melancholy that makes the track feel genuine.
“Mitch Davis historically plays unique instruments that puts his compositions into their own musical territory,” Johnson continues. “As a result, I can get sounds from Pull that I won’t easily find anywhere else. Mitch is a great engineer, instrumentalist, and songwriter – you put all of that together, and you’ve got a special musical resource.”
Davis is no stranger to the iPhone – his music was used by Apple in 2007 for the first-ever iPhone commercial. The gentle acoustical accompaniment that he supplied is an important reason that the spot for that landmark launch stands as a classic ad today. “It’s a pairing that still makes sense,” says Davis. “It’s good to know that some of my favorite sounds remain right for the iPhone.”
CLIENT: Verizon
Vice President Geoff Walls
Executive Director David Bowen
Associate Director Michael Somers
Associate Director Kristie Joosten
AGENCY: McCann
SVP, Group Account Director: Olivia Heeren
Account Director: Dave Ashley
Account Supervisor: Abby Brewer
Executive Creative Director: Chris Mitton
Executive Creative Director: Caprice Yu
Senior Art Director: Rick Cohen
Senior Copywriter: Dan Berenson
Junior Copywriter: Peter Sherer
Business Manager: Debbie Gleason
Producer: Lauren Bauder
SVP, Director of Verizon Production: Michele Ferone
Music Producer: Mike Ladman
SVP, Executive Music Producer: Eric Johnson
Head of Production: Nathy Aviram
PRODUCTION COMPANY: 1st Ave Machine
Director: Tim Brown
Partner/Executive Producer: Sam Penfield
Executive Producer: Garrett Braren
Head of Production: Lisanne McDonald
Producer: Barry Gilbert
Line Producer: Peter Repplier
Director of Photography: Igor Martinovic
Production Designer: Lester Cohen
Set Decorator: Joe Petruccio Propmaster: Holbrook Hays
Visual Effects Supervisor: John Loughlin
Editor: John McSwain
Compositors: Inti Martinez, Matt Monson, Alan Neidorf
Color Grading: Sofie Borup @ Company3
MIX STUDIO: Sonic Union
Engineer: Paul Weiss
Pull Makes the Music of Emojis for Pepsi Instragram Campaign
Emojis aren’t just magic – they’re musical too. The NYC-based music company Pull helped bring these digital icons to life, with three fun themes made for Pepsi’s recent Instagram campaign celebrating World Emoji Day.
Each 14-second spot created by agency The Barbarian Group features a different musical expression of emojis, animated by old-school stop motion techniques. Pull composer Mitch Davis gave “Texting” a breezy guitar riff bouncing off a perky rhythm. “In The Club” is powered by a programmed jam with thick bass buzzes. In “Football,” emojis hit the gridiron to the rhythm of a super sharp drumline. Pull also provided all sound design for the spots.
Knowing that the campaign would debut on social media, Davis made sure that the music would translate well on a mobile device speaker or earbuds. “This wasn’t going to be played in a large 7.1 system so I simplified the mix to match the simplified visuals,” Davis explains. “It’s a fun shorthand for these environments.”
Working in his distinctive SoHo studio – which has hosted collaborations with U2, Danger Mouse, and Bobby Womack -- Davis intentionally kept the music as “flat” as possible, in keeping with the two-dimensional world of emojis.
“These are digital smiley faces that live in a flat visual plain, so it wouldn’t make sense for the sound to be coming from all over the place,” he notes. “The tracks were mixed mostly in mono, all spatial effects like reverb or delay were kept to a minimum, and everything was mic’d as close as could be. Finally, we tested each song by listening to it on our phones before sending it on to the client.”
Wildlife photographer and videographer Paul Nicklen encountered an Alaskan brown bear during his journey through the wilderness near Denali National Park for this American Express Gold Premiere Rewards card television spot. JB is a male grizzly bear that was orphaned by a rifle when he was just a cub. He and his sister, Patron, now live in the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center near Anchorage, Alaska. Even though he might never go back to the wild, he is an ambassador for both his species and for the Alaskan wilderness. Nicklen saw it as a privilege to photograph him in all of his power, grace and majestic beauty. Pull was thrilled to create the sonic world for his experience.
This project marks the beginning of a year-long Ambassador role for Nicklen with American Express Gold.