New York, NY (March 16, 2016)—Seeking a very special song to make the humor behind a new :60 spot for Qualcomm work, agency Ogilvy & Mather turned to music house Pull and composer Mitch Davis.
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. 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-plus tracks then.”
