2015 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

The film is the final chapter in a series of five episodes. The protagonist is Qusai, a famous Saudi hip hop artist, performer and co-host of Arabs Got Talent. This film is all about sound design: in fact, the whole campaign was a documentary about how we turned a car, the Chrysler 300C, into a musical instrument to be played by Qusai. To achieve this, our sound engineers extensively sampled the car down to the last detail: the mechanical sounds, the electrical ones and, of course, the powerful engine. The 1000+ sounds have then been used to create a professional software musical instrument called The Performer. The song that is the soundtrack of the 60" TV commercial, an original dubstep track composed by Qusai, has been arranged and produced using only and exclusively the software instrument. The drums, the percussions, the wobbling sub-bass sound, the eerie pads and the gritty solo synth, incredibly musical, are the pure expression of the sounds of the Chrsyler 300C and of the incredibly refined process of sampling, from the use of the hyper-detailed Earthworks microphones to the top notch outboard used to give a new meaning to the concept of "sound design".

Creative Execution

In the four previous chapters of the documentary that you are not going to see here, the narrative is of the meeting between Qusai and our sound engineers, when he takes them through the concept of turning the car into an instrument. The two sound engineers accept the challenge and start using their sophisticated microphones and equipment like a compass to find the true voice of the Chrysler 300C. Chapter after Chapter, the process gets more and more refined. The car gets sampled in a studio but also on the open roads, and the more the engineers sample it, the more they discover its true nature.