Tom Wiebe’s new Earhole Studios started off with the proverbial bang. Its first job was original music for the big-budget Nokia phone spots that aired during the college bowl football games and concluded with the Nokia Sugar Bowl contest.
Nokia’s agency is The Richards Group of Dallas, a long-time client of Wiebe’s predecessor company, Wiebe Music. Wiebe recently acquired and moved into Pat Yacono’s Mixture studio space.
Feature director Guy Ritchie (Madonna’s husband) employed his signature fast cut style in the eight commercials that featured rapper Snoop Dogg.
“These tracks are dope” (translation: great, awesome) was one of Snoop’s compliments made to Richards’ creative director, Chuck Schiller, when he heard Earhole’s music.
Earhole creatives Eric Lambert, Alberto Santoya and Eric Sproull combined their talents to create 16 tracks, “mostly hip hop-based plus a couple of funk tracks,” said Santoya.
“Because of Ritchie’s fast cut-cut-cut style, he used three tracks in one spot,” Santoya added.
The spots were a mini-mini-series with a storyline: Snoop Dogg, plays a detective and the chief of police, uses all the features on a Nokia to investigate the theft of the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) trophy.
There are three suspects: Terry Bowden, a coach whose father was on a BCS winning team feels he’s entitled to the trophy, a bitter professional football player who never won, and BCS mascot, Horn Frog. Frog is represented by attorney Johnny Cochran.
Earhole’s Patrick Yacono supplied sound effects, sound design and final mix, working at Novastar Post in L.A.
Earhole is located at 11 W. Illinois; phone, 312/527- 1775.
