A dream come true for us. We soundtracked a grumpy old frog who eats the staff, gave a fly a banjo, and invented a spooky ambient jazz genre to finish.
Oliver Place follows the adventures of Belle & Burt, porters of the eponymous "luxury inn" that exists in some kind of liminal apocalypse.
The show’s creator, Jarrod Prince, wanted the pilot to feel a little like a European film of the ‘60s. We brought a toe-tapping tropical flavor to the otherworldly situation, contrasting brazilian samba with argentinian tango, gypsy jazz, and a kind of gentle jazz march cum spooky ambient number.
Cross-Diegesis
One of the many fun elements of working on Oliver Place was the creative use of ‘cross-diegesis’ to tell the story using music—where the song and score function as both the cartoon soundtrack and exist within the reality of the story. We first hear the theme music as, well, a theme song, but it quickly becomes the lobby muzak, piped in through hotel speakers. Similarly, the Belly of the Beast and Jazz Fly theme act as emotional underscore as well as being played and sung by the characters themselves. We always love doing that type of stuff.
Rare Collaborations
We also enjoyed rare musical collaborations with others. We produced and arranged the theme song, penned by Jarrod, and interpolated the melodies of Belly of the Beast Theme, contributed by musical comedy legend Scott Edgar from Australian band Tripod.
"You guys are wizards from another dimension"
~Jarrod Prince, Olive Place Creator