Putting the Pieces Together

Putting the Pieces Together

To call Paul Goldman, founder of Ear Goo Music merely a composer/sound designer, doesn’t tell the whole story of one of New York’s rising creative talents.  Sure Goldman and Ear Goo have won a shelf full of awards for their music and sound design in today’s top advertising and television projects, and an array of fans from agencies like McCann-Erickson and Y&R and networks like MTV, VH1 and Versus, but that doesn’t take into consideration the launch of Element, creative design/visual effects studio he founded with veteran designer John Yu or Sweet Mobile Content, the original content developer for the mobile phone market.

“I always liked the creative process – it’s not just about running the company,” says Goldman. “I’m a creative person, I’m not a designer, but I understand visual design. Element helps Ear Goo from a business point of view, but I also wanted to expand my own career.”

That career began in the early 90s following graduation from Berklee School of Music with a degree in film scoring. After interning at several commercial music houses the Chicago-native stuck out on his own finding his first clients at New York University and Columbia University’s ’s film school where student directors were looking for an affordable way to add original music to their student films (one of which went on to win an Academy Award). That work opened doors to MTV (still a client) who would come to Goldman’s apartment to work with the young composer, including on the network highest profile assignments such as the Video Music Awards for six years in a row.

In 2000 the company moved into its current mid-town New York City digs and began expanding into bigger advertising and short and long-form television assignments. Recent Ear Goo assignments include projects for Mojo HD, VH1, and MTVU. In 2006 he launched Element, which launched itself by providing graphics for ABC’s coverage of the Super Bowl and hasn’t looked back creating complex design, 3D animation and visual effects for Verizon, Versus, Voom and ESPN. And last year Goldman launched Sweet Mobile Content, which is developing ringtones, wallpaper and other content for the mobile phone market. The company has non-exclusive licensing deals in place with several cell phone providers and more on the horizon.

For Goldman, launching Element seemed like an obvious step from a business standpoint.  “After Ear Goo was well established I was looking to expand.  As a sound designer, composer and mixer I was always at the table with VFX creatives: Clients typically do the design and audio phases of their jobs last.  I felt VFX was the future of the postproduction market; it was the other half of the pie for us and very cool from the creative side.  I met John, who’s got a great reputation and a big following in the VFX community, and we decided to partner on Element.  We hit the ground running -- it was quite an achievement for a one year-old company to get the job of redesigning the brand for Super Bowl XLII.”

Melissa Bolton-Klinger, VH1’s Director of Multi-platform & Pro-social Promotions and director recently teamed with Goldman and Ear Goo on a PSA she directed for “Nothing But Nets,” an organization focused on mosquito netting in Africa to prevent the spread of malaria, said:  “The challenge was to find a way to engage our pop culture savvy audience but at the same time inform them about these serious issues. I knew I wanted to work with Ear Goo because for this we needed to draw people in through the music. They are always collaborative. Even before we shot anything I showed them the script and asked them for ideas. We wanted something funny and light with instrumentation that emulates a mosquito. They totally nailed it.”

Looking to the future, Goldman sees a tremendous opportunities in the Far East, South Korea in particular. He’s already invested in an office for Element there and is considering doing even more. “We’re opening Element Korea which will produce creative that Korean companies will execute.  John is Korean, although he came here as a teenager, so he knows the culture well.  Seoul is experiencing a huge economic boom, but it missed out on visual design and crafting a world image. Because of that Seoul has proclaimed 2008 ‘The Year of Design.’  They want creative design and they want to go global.  The city feels like New York in the late 80’s -- just full of opportunities.”