Andi's Samsung Adventures
Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 1:43 am
Wouldn't otherwise toot the horn, but after 17 years of doing music in Korea I think I've finally found my place of sorts.
Now that I'm being loosely employed by a company that gets huge amounts of outsourcing from Jeil Productions, Samgsung's in-house ad firm, I've got huge amounts of work coming in in 2-month chunks, and now Samsung knows that I'm not from a proper commercial film powerhouse but am affiliated with one of their top 3D video rendering and event planning clients. Things have delightfully snowballed and I'm heading for Spain in a few days for the Mobile World Congress.
It started with me translating texts into English and training the European rep for IFA in Berlin this past October, and then they found out that I do soundscapes and pop tunes, which led to them suddenly hiring me as Creative Director and me doing a lot of music for Samsung's Galaxy tab appearance at Docomo(Japan), and then SmartTV vignettes at CES (Las Vegas) last month. Whew.
So I get back all groggy and disoriented after a week in NAMM and get the call and a .mov file in the mailbox, telling me "Andi, they want a big, HoppÃpolla-inspired jingle" to proceed the Barcelona convention. Cool, no new-concept but one that I'm already liking. I rush into things and 4 edits of the clip, and before I know it it's up on Youtube.
In Korea, composers almost never can retain royalty from commercial jingles(unless recycled, then you get another lump sum), but this work "feels" so effortless, has been paying the bills nicely, and is a decent bump up from my much-enjoyed kindergarten teaching default. Unlike my less-than-successful time slaving away in the K-pop industry, I'm being treated with huge amounts of respect for my experience, musicianship, and the end result of what they're hearing, and am convinced that the worst years of my life being stuck under people's thumbs (1994-2001) along with everything mundane since then were years of preparation for what I'm actually able to do with confidence.
Approaching 40 with very little to show for myself over the years, I've been disappointed that this took so long for me but could not be more grateful to be heading forward.
Now that I'm being loosely employed by a company that gets huge amounts of outsourcing from Jeil Productions, Samgsung's in-house ad firm, I've got huge amounts of work coming in in 2-month chunks, and now Samsung knows that I'm not from a proper commercial film powerhouse but am affiliated with one of their top 3D video rendering and event planning clients. Things have delightfully snowballed and I'm heading for Spain in a few days for the Mobile World Congress.
It started with me translating texts into English and training the European rep for IFA in Berlin this past October, and then they found out that I do soundscapes and pop tunes, which led to them suddenly hiring me as Creative Director and me doing a lot of music for Samsung's Galaxy tab appearance at Docomo(Japan), and then SmartTV vignettes at CES (Las Vegas) last month. Whew.
So I get back all groggy and disoriented after a week in NAMM and get the call and a .mov file in the mailbox, telling me "Andi, they want a big, HoppÃpolla-inspired jingle" to proceed the Barcelona convention. Cool, no new-concept but one that I'm already liking. I rush into things and 4 edits of the clip, and before I know it it's up on Youtube.
► Show Spoiler
Approaching 40 with very little to show for myself over the years, I've been disappointed that this took so long for me but could not be more grateful to be heading forward.
Honestly, I think I've only seen one Tab in the office since IFA.
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