Inspired by FOX’s famous ‘Searchlight’ animation, the challenge we had at MassiveMusic was to musically represent and translate the light beams movement into music. 

With FOX International producing and distributing 300+ entertainment, sports, factual and movie channels in 45 languages across Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa, it was vital that all sounds were strong and clear enough to be effective across the board.

Thanks to extensive mood searchings and internal experimentations, we explored similarities between light and audio. We looked at the way these behave, zoning in on the reflective nature of both of these forces. 

We used highly reflective reverb environments to generate frequencies that could then be translated into musical tones and instruments, eventually creating a modular suite of sounds that can be applied across all required assets and idents – including bumpers, wipes, ins and outs, and all the fancy technical terms you can think of. 

We also utilised a constant stream of reference media from FOX when compiling our final sound world. This allowed us to test our sounds against literally everything that could possibly arise, making sure we had enough variety to keep all bases covered, whilst also creating a consistent, overarching sound world. 

The key to the success of this project was, without doubt, the creative collaboration between MassiveMusic and DixonBaxi. Daily catch ups, intense phone conferences and numerous coffee appointments allowed us to keep our eyes (and ears) wide open, working together towards a clear end goal. 

Joe Bush, Senior Creative Strategist at MassiveMusic London, comments: “This project gave us plenty of room to flex our creative muscle and come up with some really exciting and original compositions. Working closely around the idea of light beams suggested by DixonBaxi, we have forged a collection of strong, bold musical and sound design assets that accompany the new brand look and feel. It was a great challenge to develop a musical approach that would translate across the globe, spanning all countries that Fox Networks cover.” 

Played before every show and film, the brand signature creates a sense of anticipation and will, over time, become synonymous with everything from The Walking Dead to The Simpsons as well as new, original content.