Wrapping Your Head Around the Headroom Digital Vibe
Part audio post facility, part music house, Jerry Plotkinulls trendy little Manhattan studio wants to expand your definition of sound.
Wrapping Your Head Around the Headroom Digital Vibe
Part audio post facility, part music house, Jerry Plotkin's trendy little
Manhattan studio wants to expand your definition of sound.
By Anthony Vagnoni
It was the hookah that first caught my eye.
You expect to see all kinds of things when visiting music studios. Guitars sitting nonchalantly on stands in the corner of the waiting room, CD or album covers hanging on the walls, bookshelves stuffed with awards show trophies, that sort of stuff. But a hookah?
Of course, it kind of makes sense. This is Headroom Digital Audio, after all, and what else would be better for expanding your consciousness – getting a little extra headroom, as it were – than a nice toke on some scented weed?
That would be tobacco.
The Headroom gang laughs it off when I bring up the hookah. It just looks neat, they say. But that's kind of the point; the environment at this compact yet bustling studio in New York's Flatiron district is long on comfort, style and versatility. All the better to help them do what they do, which is offer agency and broadcast network clients a range of services that they can't find in just about any other similar shop. Its menu of services includes TV and film mixing, sound design, radio production, voice casting and direction, as well as comprehensive music services including original music composition and production, music search and licensing and talent negotiation.
Headroom is run by Jerry Plotkin, President and Creative Director, whose advertising career took an interesting and unorthodox path. He started as a keyboardist, guitarist and songwriter who was signed to an RCA Records contract back in the day. He worked out of a small studio in his home just outside the city, and tells the story of running into a producer at Y&R at a party who asked him if he'd be interested in working on an ad campaign.
"That started it," he explains, adding that he found, as he got farther along, that he liked the ad business more than he liked the record business. But it's not what he initially set out to do: "I kind of fell into an industry I knew nothing about," he says.
That changed quickly, for a variety of reasons. One, for sure, was Plotkin's magnetic personality; he's an effervescent guy who's fun to hang with. But he was also a musician and composer who recorded and mixed his own work. This led to ad clients asking him if he could engineer their radio and TV sessions in addition to providing music.
Taking things a step further, Plotkin began bringing in talents that he knew from the music industry - utilizing musicans and singers not only to perform music, but voiceovers as well. "I had access to a pool of people that they'd never heard before," he says of his ad clients back then.
Soon he was handling jobs where he'd compose the music, record it, mix it, create the sound design and even furnish the voiceover. In the process, Plotkin's company evolved from simply a music house to a full-service music and audio facility.
Plotkin says that for a time, the audio post and sound design side of the company's business seemed to be eclipsing the music composition side, until he had an epiphany a few years ago. "I went to the Battle of the Ad Bands event at Advertising Week in 2008 and that's when I realized I wanted to get back into more music work," he says. That's also when he also met Theresa Notartomaso, which helped seal the deal. A former music producer at JWT New York, she joined Headroom a month later and has since taken the lead in the studio's ascendant move into more composition and licensing work for clients.
"I realized that the industry was changing faster than I thought it was," says Plotkin. "Theresa came in with all of her experience with licensing and dealing with music publishers, and knew all these small, hip record labels; she was able to fill in that side of the business for us. She's also connected us with top composers and musicians located around the world, which has been a huge plus for our clients."
The mix of what Headroom does from job to job varies widely, says Plotkin; what they have that's most advantageous is the ability to approach assignments from lots of different avenues. First off, he points out, practically everyone on the staff can write and perform music, which gives them a depth of creative talent not normally found in most audio post and mixing studios.
Then there's the newest addition to the Headroom talent pool: Engineer Fernando Ascani, who joined last fall after a 16-year stint at HSR. Over the years he's worked on countless ad campaigns, including the Clio, Andy and Lion-winning Xbox Halo work from 2007. On the side, he's also built up solid music industry credentials, having worked with such hip hop artists as Krs-One, Grand Puba, Big Daddy Kane, Mad Lion and other '90s legends, as well as with a range of DJs. And if he wasn't busy enough, he's also created his own mixtapes that have become underground faves in the music industry.
The studio has handled a variety of assignments for numerous spots and campaigns over the past year, including work for the US Census Bureau, the Partnership for a Drug Free America, Purina, Applebee's, Victoria's Secret, TV Land and Bing. It's been honored for its work on such efforts as the Doritos' "Asylum 626" online campaign, which was created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and produced by the digital production company B-Reel.
Nicole Muniz is a producer at B-Reel who's worked on a number of projects with the Headroomers, including Asylum 626. She notes that this project in particular was shot without sound, and that everything on the soundtrack that accompanies the video clips seen on the site had to be built digitally at Headroom. The interactive experience, which you can check out here, is a horror-movie meets video game that takes place in an old-style mental hospital back in the days when the patients were treated with all sorts of ghastly implements, typically administered by frightening looking men and women in lab coats.
Muniz, who worked at JWT with Notartomaso before she joined B-Reel, says what she likes about working at Headroom is the level of trust she has. "I feel very confident about the capabilities of their crew," she says. "They're well versed not just in music but also in sound design, too."
Work like the Asylum 626 project demands a more thoughtful approach to sound design and music, says Headroom EP Jennifer Hunt, a longtime veteran of the audio industry in New York. "The listening experience is completely different, and we often have a much broader palette to work from creatively," she explains. "The interactive aspect also changes things. The sound has to work with the other elements that are appearing at the same time. And the final mix is never really locked down-once you're done, then it has to be programmed. It's a totally dynamic process that's highly influenced by the end user."
The results have worked well for B-Reel. Muniz says she's turned to Headroom for everything from original music to sound design to music licensing and rights clearance. "They've been my sound studio of choice for the past two years," she says.
She's not alone in her endorsement of Plotkin and his team. Jeri Slater is a senior freelance agency producer who's worked at such shops as McCann, Arnell, D'Arcy (now Publicis) and currently at JWT. Her association with Headroom goes back to the days when the studio was based in a small office across the street from the D'Arcy headquarters. Her first job with Plotkin, she recalls, was an eye-opener.
"We were doing this spot with the Pillsbury Doughboy where he's rapping, and Jerry was the engineer. And all of a sudden he jumped into the studio and started rhyming, and that's how we found about his great skills as a musician and a composer," she says.
She looks at the current Headroom set up and says that she's amazed at the studio that Jerry has created. She's worked with him consistently since her D'Arcy days, and singles out her work with Headroom on Applebee's for McCann as another great case study. "We brought in actor John Corbett ("Sex in the City," "My Big Fat Greek Wedding") to do the voiceovers, and he was blown away by the space," Slater says. "It's a great place for celebrities, and Jerry really knows how to work with them."
Slater says she's worked with Plotkin and the Headroom team as both an audio post and mixing facility and as a music company, and she appreciates their duality. "As an engineer, they can add to the music or help fix little creative problems you might be having with the track," she says. "And when you're working with them as composers, it's just an easy and pleasant experience. Jerry is so spontaneous, he always has ideas and he knows the right people."
Plotkin believes that when it comes to sound, everything that clients do is interrelated, from their radio to their TV to their music to their audio mix. "We see it all as being one thing, and that's what we do-it's all connected to sound. And while it sounds like a cliché, it's what's behind the one-stop model we have here."
What makes the place special, he believes – and comments like Slater's bear him out – is the mix of talent he's got behind him. "What makes us different is the people," Plotkin states. "Our staff is incredibly creative. For example, Engineer Evan Spear and Assistant Engineer Jamie Meidenbauer are also composers, and both play a multitude of instruments. And our client service coordinator, Deb Oh, she's a superstar!"
As the studio is experiencing a bit of a growth spurt, Plotkin has been eyeing his space nervously, wondering where they're going to find room to expand. Perhaps the hookah will have to go. One thing that won't, however, is the vibe of positive energy that rolls through the place, and it starts from the top.
"Jerry is an extremely generous guy, it's just the way he is," says Slater. "He's always helping people and he'll meet with anyone. He goes out of his way to give back, and I think that's why he's attracted the kind of people he does, both those who work for him and those who work with him."
Published 5 January, 2011
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