The Torchbox choir
Right, it's the end of November 2011 and we've been so busy on client work that we haven't got around to the agency Christmas card. And, no, we can't just quietly forget about it either.
Thanks to the great Christmas cards that we've produced over the last couple of years ('Snowtime' and 'Starry night' to name two), expectations were high, and our friends were letting us know it. Cue the brainstorm.
The challenge
- it must stand out, even amongst all the other agency Christmas cards
- it can't take too long (we didn't have long)
- it must involve the whole team
The idea
A few hours later, the Torchbox Choir was born. Each member of the crew was recorded singing a single note and we combined them into musical arrangements of various popular Christmas carols. It shows off our technical virtuosity, makes us look a bit silly (hopefully in an endearing way), and has some shareability.
And, that was the basic idea, before the 'builds' started. Actually, that remained the basic idea, we just added a few jingle bells and whistles, and ended up with a pretty sophisticated web-based keyboard on which anyone can compose and record tunes performed by the Torchbox choir (have a go, if you think you are musical enough). You can even arrange a tune offline and import it into the Choir.
The result
The result was something a bit special (especially if you know some of our team and appreciate their vocal contributions!). The carols, are great, but the standout number (for me, at least) is the choir's rendition of the Nightrider theme tune. If you haven't heard it, listen to it now. Happily, this one found it's way onto the playlist of the Hoff himself, who tweeted his appreciation:
The project won third place in the IAB's Creative Showcase for December.