Thwak! Music Does Original Music & Music Supervision for Sony “Surgeon” Super Bowl Spot
NYC-based Thwak Music! , an original music/sound design and music supervision company led by founder Tony Verderosa, did all original music for the cinematic :60 Sony spot, “Surgeon”. The commercial was shot by director Noam Murro and debuted Sunday, Feb. 6 during Super Bowl XLV.
The Android is all thumbs in "Surgeon".
Thwak! worked within a tight time frame to deliver a rhythmic, tense original score and dramatic sound design for the spot, which promotes the upcoming Xperia Play android phone from Sony Ericsson. Thwak’s tense drums, eerie sound effects, and precise orchestral hits pace the film-like spot, which shows the back-alley creation of a robot – complete with human thumbs – that rises up, ready to use the new Xperia Play.
Verderosa worked with McCann Worldgroup Executive Music Producer Mike Boris on “Surgeon”, recording at Avatar Studios with fellow Thwak! composer Mark Petrie. Verderosa created several different options for Murro and McCann Worldgroup, experimenting with varied layers of ethnic drums, strings, and sound effects — the final score builds gradually to an emotional climax that reinforces the story’s visual impact.
“The music helps to illustrate this heroic, epic moment when the robot’s thumbs are revealed,” notes Verderosa, who also served as Music Supervisor on the project. “For a project on this level, it’s really important to be able to deliver multiple creative ideas. Multiple looks and variations gave the agency team points of reference comparison when making their final decision on which musical selections to go with. So its my job as music supervisor and composer to give them different options and flavors, all within a compressed amount of time.
“Communication is made easier between Mike and I for a project like this,” Verderosa continues. “He’s a very seasoned pro, way on top of his game, and it’s easy for the two of us to get very focused on what’s going to be needed to support this picture, in the initial phase of music supervision, strategy, and executing. Mike is also a drummer so we speak the same language!”
The massive ambitions of “Surgeon” apparently gave Thwak! and crew plenty of creative fuel. “We drew inspiration from the unique challenge of this spot,” says Verderosa. “It’s cinematic, it looks like a short film, and so narrative has to be approached delicately. You can’t give too much away, or fight what that character is going through up to the surgeon. For us at Thwak! ‘Surgeon’ was a film project — a really intense scene from a feature film.”
See the spot here:
You can also see Tony Verderosa’s live drum remixing techniques here — shot in NYC at Avatar Studios.
Full credits for Sony “Surgeon”
Agency: McCann Worldgroup
Executive Producer : Greg Lotus
Copy/ creative director: Sean Bryan
Art director / Creative director: Tom Murphy
Exec. Music Producer: Mike Boris
Production Company: Biscuit
Director: Noam Murro
DP: Simon Duggan
Editor: Gavin Cutler, Mackenzie Cutler
VFX: Method
Sound Engineer: Joe O’Connell , Blast Digital (NYC)
Sound Design: Sam Shaffer, MacKenzie Cutler
Music Company: Thwak! Music
Composers: Tony Verderosa & Mark Petrie
Music Supervisor: Tony Verderosa