From the quirky main title theme to songs heard throughout the show, Hampton-Adair Music is stepping up to the challenge of creating original tracks for one of Comedy Central's newest improv series.
Dog Bites Man, which is in the same vein as the network's Reno 911 and Lovespring International mockumentaries, follows around a group of actors who are posing as a fictional news crew as they "cover" various stories throughout the Spokane, Washington area. The Santa Monica-based pro audio studio Hampton-Adair Music, the film and TV division of Emoto, is producing all the original music services on the project, which doesn't always work on a routine schedule.
"This is definitely a little different than other projects we've worked on," says Brad Hamilton, executive producer at Hampton-Adair. "[Comedy Central] doesn't have needs for original music on a weekly basis. It's really on more of an as-needed basis. Also, there are no transitional cues, interstitials or anything like that. Because a lot of the show is improvised, it's hard to predict how much music or what type we are going to have to come up with."
Hamilton also explains that because of the project's limited budget, Hampton-Adair is unable to bring in teams of writers, musicians, etc. "The composers here are ridiculously talented; they're all multi-instrumentalists. We're pretty versatile here." he says. Lead by Composers Steve Hampton and John Adair, original tracks are created in one of the studio's writing rooms. "Then I'll either bring the songs into a Pro Tools session or sometimes just send [Comedy Central] the audio files [AIF] directly."
Hamilton explains that Hampton-Adair has access to rough cuts of each episode, and is sometimes asked to create music to fit a specific scene. Other times, "I'll just watch an episode and look to see if there's any place I might see a need for music and I'll ask them if they want us to create something there.
The pilot episode of Dog Bites Man was originally pitched to NBC last year, but turned down by the network. "We thought the show was so cool, but it was hard to see a network like NBC airing it in primetime, with the look and the styling of it," adds Hamilton. "When we heard it was coming back on Comedy Central, we just said, 'perfect.' We're just really happy to be involved in it. We all really like the show; it's smart, subtle and funny. And it's right on the borderline of being inappropriate, which is one of the things that makes it so funny."