Thinking In Sound: Daniel Altendorff Never Sits in Silence
Dan Altendorff is a music supervisor with over 10 years of experience working in sync. Starting out in production music at Universal, he has carved a diverse path through the music industry, leading on to his primarily bespoke and commercial music licensing role at Felt Music.
An avid music fan, occasional DJ and frequent traveller, he is always on the look out for the next up and coming artist or exciting new destination.
LBB> When you’re working on a new brief or project, what’s your typical starting point? How do you break it down and how do you like to generate your ideas or response?
Daniel> A good starting point, for me, is understanding the emotion of the spot. How should people feel when they see this and what is the story being told. I think understanding how people use language from an early point is really important when working with music, as it is so subjective, so chatting via phone, Zoom or in person early on can really help when deciphering the creative briefs. On top of that any rapport built, often makes the conversations further down the line a lot easier as well.
Ideally, we would love to be part of the conversation right from inception of the idea. We don’t need to have massive creative input at this stage, sitting and listening to ideas being thrown around between client, creatives and producers can lead us to a more succinct musical brief.
The great thing about Felt is we have many strings to our bow, so we can brief our composers for bespoke demos, draw on the catalogue of commercial rights holders or dive into our own catalogue and supervisor knowledge to pool ideas. With an armoury like that it’s rare that we can’t find a solution suited to the needs of the spot.
LBB> Music and sound are in some ways the most collaborative and interactive forms of creativity - what are your thoughts on this? Do you prefer to work solo or with a gang - and what are some of your most memorable professional collaborations?
Daniel> I’m not sure you can ever fly completely solo in this world, you will collaborate with someone along the way on every job. It’s important to have strong relationships with people, being able to have frank and honest conversations is essential and if you can do that and everyone walks away smiling then even better. My job is to fight for the composers and musicians to ensure they are treated fairly, whilst providing a client with everything they need to bring a spot to life. In its essence this job is about collaboration.
When you meet good people, then get to work alongside them on a project, that’s always a memorable and enjoyable experience. Nothing better than working with friends, or coming away from working on something with new ones!
I worked on my first short film recently, Adebowale, so I’m very grateful to everyone who bought me in on that (dir. Claire Gordon-Webster, Nathan Perry-Greene, Elroy Anthony and Aletha Shepherd), but there have been plenty others along the way.
LBB> What’s the most satisfying part of your job and why?
Daniel> Getting to listen to music every day and be surrounded by people who love music. As a kid if you told me this would be my job I don't know if I’d have believed it. It’s amazing to discover new music and artists daily and work with some extremely talented musicians.
LBB> As the advertising industry changes, how do you think the role of music and sound is changing with it?
Daniel> The elephant in the room is AI here, right?! I mean it’s pretty mind blowing at points when you hear some of the stuff that you can produce with it. I think it can be used for positive change for sure, if applied with care and the best interests of artists at heart - but there are also some red flags for sure with all the imitation and so on.
I’m probably romanticising it all a bit but I’d like to think that human touch will always be necessary because you can’t recreate emotion and that is at the heart of what we do. You can imitate, but imitation is cheap. I guess that the danger lies in that people become happy with cheap or just accustomed to it. Hopefully not!
LBB> Who are your musical or audio heroes and why?
Daniel> I love old Motown soul, 80s soul and Hip Hop (mainly because of the old soul samples), I actually just did a Radio LBB with a bit of crossover on this subject. I’d include Jimi Hendrix for sure, the man oozes cool, not bad with a guitar either. Love a bit of Max Richter too, his music just speaks to me - I’ve often sat on the beach with On the Nature of Daylight playing, it just takes you away.
LBB> And when it comes to your particular field, are there any particular ideas or pioneers that you go back to frequently or who really influence your thinking about the work you do?
Daniel> I’ve always loved the use of clever sampling, how it can provide a callback to something so well known and present it in a completely different light or take something relatively unknown and reinvigorate it or show it in interesting new ways.
Guess it blurs the line between originality and replication, which is something we can often encounter in sync.
LBB> When you’re working on something that isn’t directly sound design or music (lets say going through client briefs or answering emails) - are you the sort of person who needs music and noise in the background or is that completely distracting to you? What are your thoughts on ‘background’ sound and music as you work?
Daniel> 100% I’m always playing music, on speakers or in headphones. I rarely sit in silence, to the point where I have to remind myself sometimes to give my ears a rest!
LBB> I guess the quality of the listening experience and the context that audiences listen to music/sound in has changed over the years. There’s the switch from analogue to digital and now we seem to be divided between bad-ass surround-sound immersive experiences and on-the-go, low quality sound (often the audio is competing with a million other distractions) - how does that factor into how you approach your work?
Daniel> Felt has a sister company, Music For Headphones, completely dedicated to immersive sound and we did some amazing work with Huawei on their ‘Sonic Escapes’ campaign, recording binaural soundscapes in locations around the globe. More recently had some fun recording a South African a cappella band called ‘The Joy’ on the Neumann head, the result was just audibly beautiful, like being in the room.
As a whole you need to be aware of these new ways we can experience sound and the experiential audio mixes that we are producing definitely can take things to the next level, if the brief allows for you to integrate them then that’s fantastic. I’d always be keen to try something experimental or push boundaries sonically if that is what the client wants.
LBB> On a typical day, what does your ‘listening diet’ look like?
Daniel> I’ve got a long train journey, so I often have a podcast on early mornings, but musically it’s wherever my mood takes me. With the job it’s good to listen to things you wouldn’t ordinarily be drawn to as well as all the go-tos.
LBB> Do you have a collection of music/sounds and what shape does it take (are you a vinyl nerd, do you have hard drives full of random bird sounds, are you a hyper-organised spotify-er…)?
Daniel> I’ve got a decent little record collection going on, I wouldn’t say I’m a full blown vinyl nerd though. As for my Spotify I’d say it’s semi-organised. Again, with work it’s good to playlist as you go, so when it comes to searching you can call back to stuff quickly.
LBB> Outside of the music and sound world, what sort of art or topics really excite you and do you ever relate that back to music?
Daniel> I enjoy films and TV. This job will make you hyper-aware of soundtracks, sometimes I miss dialogue because I’m listening to the music/soundtracks instead. Reality TV is hilarious for it, the whole narrative is driven by the music, it can be so OTT compared to what’s actually happening on screen. It’s interesting how it manipulates the storyline and in turn the audience.
LBB> Let’s talk travel! It’s often cited as one of the most creatively inspiring things you can do - I’d love to know what are the most exciting or inspiring experiences you’ve had when it comes to sound and music on your travels?
Daniel> I remember seeing Young Marco playing Dekmantel 2014, that set was just unreal. I went back again the year after, mainly just to see him and once again he delivered. Also, seeing Black Coffee in South Africa was pretty special. Open air, afrobeats, 30 degrees, happy days.
More recently I ended up in some dingy cave rave in Istanbul with my brother. Tiny, smoke filled rooms with low ceilings and pounding techno. Actually came off the back of a recommendation from a friend who is also a music supervisor to go to this NOH Radio bar and things just developed from there. Great night.
LBB> As we age, our ears change physically and our tastes evolve too, and life changes mean we don’t get to engage in our passions in the same intensity as in our youth - how has your relationship with sound and music changed over the years?
Daniel> My music palette has definitely become a lot more diverse and I actively seek out new music much more. Not only does the job demand it but we have it all at our fingertips, an infinite galaxy of songs just on your laptop or phone, so you have to really. I do think I move quite quickly from one thing to another though, often bingeing an album or playlist before dropping it and then moving on.
