Portfolios Journalism
Page updated March.30.2007
Paul Goldman: A True Creative, even in Business
Cover article, MBJ Vol. 1 Issue 7, December 2005 (~2300 words)
Ear Goo, Inc. For most people, the name is not a familiar one. However, we have all been exposed to the work the company has done, which includes original music, sound design, and mixing for commercials (such as Nokia, McDonald’s, Powerade, and much more), for TV shows (MTV Video Music Awards, VH1 Classic’s On This Day in Music, and much more), as well as scores for independent films as well. Ear Goo has landed some of the biggest jobs in the field of audio post, and the key to Ear Goo’s success is in large part due to Paul Goldman, the founder and CEO.
Goldman graduated from Berklee in 1993 as a film scoring major. His initial focus was on guitar, but after being exposed to the composing and technology aspects of the school, he became interested in the numerous career options within the field of music. He went to New York City even before he was done with his degree, and his last semester was spent traveling from New York to Berklee for his final classes.
For the first couple years in New York, Goldman interned for several different TV/Film music composers, where he quickly took over much of the work running the businesses, in terms of both music creation and the paperwork. During that time, he learned about some of the different aspects involved with running a business, which helped prepare him for when he eventually started his own business.
When Goldman left his internship, he was adamant about starting his own company, and not just freelancing since he believes there is a big difference between the two. With starting a business, you’re branding your own name and identity. A business has the ability to progress and grow in ways that just doing freelance work does not. Despite the fact that Goldman received many offers to do freelance work, he turned them all down.
Around 1994, Goldman started Picture This Music. The company started out with a rented one bedroom flat in a work/live building, where most of the other tenants were accountants and lawyers. Goldman built the bedroom like a studio, using the walk-in closet as a voice-over booth. The living-room area was kept very clean, with a couch and TV. He made sure there were no personal artifacts in the entire apartment, and as a result, clients didn’t know he lived there. He showered at the gym in his building and slept on the living room couch.
Eventually he met his wife and they moved into an apartment together, which allowed his studio to really be just an office, but he still had no secretary or staff. However, he always tried to do as much as he could to convey a professional image, making stationary and invoices with his name and logo and insisting on doing all gigs at his studio, being very clear he was not going to freelance.
During the first two years of his business, Goldman did a good deal of independent film work. He did over 40 short films and several feature films (with one of them winning an Oscar for Best Student Short Film). He not only composed music for these films, but also did the audio editing and mixing on a four-track Pro Tools system.
After a couple years of doing films, however, Goldman began noticing the craft of making commercials, and was very intrigued. He liked how there was so much work and attention to detail spent on just 30 seconds, which was in contrast to films, where there is so much music to write in such a short time span that it is difficult to put the same amount of care into each second of audio. Also, he noticed that advertising people were on the cutting-edge of technology, as they were willing to get into computers since the early days, and he was impressed with that type of forward thinking mindset of professionals in the advertisement world. Goldman never thought that doing commercials was selling out; instead, he saw it as a totally different art form, a craft. He still works on films, but now he is very selective with what films he works on, and does it purely for artistic, creative reasons. In fact, he actually did a feature film this year, and is doing another one next year.
Around the time Goldman switched from doing independent film work to doing commercials, he also decided to revamp his company’s image and take it to the next level of professionalism. He changed the name to Ear Goo, and the phone number was also changed to be one that’s easier to remember. The changes made clients think that the business was progressing to the next level, instead of causing confusion.
One must note that at no time did Goldman have a business plan. He also waited until it was absolutely necessary to incorporate the business—which was when he was making enough money, when it made better tax sense and when he needed the insurance coverage for employees. Ear Goo was incorporated as an S-Corp in the late 1990s with Goldman as the sole owner. The company was built up slowly over a long period of time. As Goldman describes it, the “company is so organic. Part of the success of the company is based on me trying to provide what I thought would be a better process for doing the work, and doing better work.” Goldman says that having not been trained in jingle house actually helped him, as it forced him to really do what his gut instincts told him to do. He thought everyone was doing it the way he was, putting great care into of the music that his company produced. A lot of companies do not make sure the music is good. Instead, they are more concerned with getting it out the door. Also, even if Goldman was in the middle of a mix session, he might pull out a guitar, record it, and mix it all in the same session, instead of having to hire someone and set-up another session for a later time. Goldman’s top priority is to always make the best music he can.
It was mentioned earlier that Ear Goo was developed very gradually. The company did not make it out of the original one-bedroom apartment for 5-7 years. During that time, in addition to getting work, Goldman also spent a good deal of time building up his reel (i.e., a portfolio of sample work). He met many video editors, and they would ask for audio for their reel, in turn giving Goldman product for his own reel.
Eventually, Ear Goo started to claw its way into the big leagues. In the late 1990s, Goldman did a Powerade commercial, and in 1999, he landed the job of doing all the audio and music for MTV’s Video Music Awards. The show took eight weeks straight with only one day off a week (if schedule permitted it). It was a huge success, and at the time, the VMA was the highest rated cable show in the history of cable. A month after the VMA’s, Goldman started getting lots of calls, which included ten calls for major spots in a span of only a month and a half.
Since the VMA’s, Ear Goo has landed a profuse amount of major spots, and subsequently has moved into a new facility that is two entire floors of a building. Ear Goo has also grown to now have a staff of employees as well. They continue to do work for TV networks, which is unique from other similar companies. Ear Goo has also since ventured into the realm of ringtones, which they produce for a Verizon vendor. However, the company is still considered a relatively small company for the level of work they do. Goldman says the image of Ear Goo is that they are “a creative, boutique-style company.” There are seven employees at Ear Goo (which includes Goldman), with four of them being “creatives” and the other three making up the business staff. In addition, there are always two interns receiving college credit for their efforts. Interns range from those who are “creatives” to business students from a school like Columbia University. Ear Goo also hires freelance composers from time to time as well, people who write really well in a specific style. As the owner, Goldman is still very much involved in the studio. He could easily just be a hands-off type of producer, but he insists on being directly involved, keeping himself heavily booked in the studio from 10 am to 6 pm pretty much every day. After a day’s work in the studio, he then has two businesses to run, potential work bids to take care of, and much more.
Goldman uses the word “creatives” to describe the audio/music/sound design staff, because nobody can work at Ear Goo in any of those areas without having a background in music creation, which includes the sound designers and mixing engineers. Ear Goo is fairly unique in the world of audio post for this characteristic, as most companies (or at least their staff) specialize in just one area. So often, Goldman points out, clients ask them to switch hats; they think of sound as one big, all encompassing element (music, sound design, mix). Goldman also stresses that they don’t just offer to do all three elements as a package in order to win the budget (which some other companies do); often times, Ear Goo is hired for each individual element. They are known for all three separately, and they make sure that each element survives on its own at a very high level of quality.
Of all the employees and hired freelancers, there is noticeably no rep in the traditional sense (agents who go around to ad agencies pitching your stuff all day, then getting a 10% cut). Despite the fact that having reps is almost universally accepted as being a necessary piece of the puzzle, Goldman dislikes the rep system. As he notes, “Who can sell you better than yourself? Better you make the connection.” What Ear Goo does instead is they have a business development person who is a full-time employee at the company, and that person’s job is to send out reels and set up meetings to try and get new gigs. However, Ear Goo still gets most of its gigs due to word of mouth.
Ear Goo, however, is not the only thing Goldman does. While working on the audio for the vast number of commercials and films over the years at Ear Goo, he would get ideas about how to do a better job with the video editing and motion graphics. Eventually that led to Goldman building the upper floor as a fully functional Avid facility. He then went looking for a designer, one who wanted to build his own company and just needed the infrastructure to fulfill that desire. He wanted someone who wanted to make his mark as a designer, and not just someone interested in making money. Soon enough, it was apparent that a designer he had worked with in the past, John Yu, was just the right person. Yu, who came to America from Korea in high school, graduated from the School of Visual Arts (SVA), and is known as one of the best designers in New York City. He had worked out of all the best companies and now wanted to do his own thing. After months of talking to Yu over dinner, Goldman could really sense that Yu had the right entrepreneurial desire in him, even though Yu had no business background or experience. And so Element, a New York-based LLC jointly owned by Yu and Goldman, was born.
Even though Element has been in business for a mere 12 months, they’ve already landed Super Bowl XXXL for ABC Sports, a complete redesign of CNBC, and an InDemand channel for Showtime and others.
Element is growing so fast that even during my interview with Goldman, he was receiving calls about requests for more computers, and Goldman was showing me workstations that were set up just a few days ago, and the spaces that will fill up with workstations in the coming days.
The goal is to build Ear Goo and Element as two distinct, separate companies that really do what they do properly, but are also integrated with each other as well, sharing a common owner in Goldman and also being only one floor apart in the same building.
Goldman wanted to make sure that people did not get the impression that the company is Ear Goo with a couple design rooms. Having two distinct entities was important for him, because many design companies put in a couple studios and then say that they can also do your audio mix. A lot of companies try to diversify just to get the budget, instead of having a top priority of producing quality work.
So what does the future hold for Ear Goo and Element? The near future, Goldman says, is definitely going to include the shift towards 5.1 and HD. He considers 5.1 the biggest change in the audio world in a long time, and is very eagerly preparing for the transition. Ear Goo has been preparing for quite a while now, and as a result, they have landed the job of doing MTV’s new HD Channel (MHD), Element will continue to be built up separately with regards to branding, relationships, and reliability. There are many other interesting ideas and venture possibilities for Ear Goo, but you can bet with Goldman, they will not delve into a new area until they are sure they can do it right and compete at the highest level.
To view this article in the MBJ itself, please visit the Music Business Journal web site, where a PDF of the issues are available for download.
Journalism Outline
The Music Business Journal of Berklee College of Music
· "Editor's Note"
Editorial, MBJ Vol. 2 Issue 1, March 2006
· "NAMM: Kyung Min"
Business article, MBJ Vol. 2 Issue 1, March 2006
· "Paul Goldman: A True Creative, even in Business"
Cover article, MBJ Vol. 1 Issue 7, December 2005
· "The Next Generation Recording Studio: Tainted Blue Productions"
Business article, MBJ Vol. 1 Issue 6, November 2005
· "SSL Rejuvenated: Staying on Top of the Game"
Business article, MBJ Vol. 1 Issue 6, November 2005
· "Marketing Design Group: A New Student Club of the MB/M Dept."
Business article, MBJ Vol. 1 Issue 6, November 2005
· "Mobile Talk: Interview with Tim Nilson,
VP of Global Mobile Technology, Sony/BMG"
Business article, MBJ Vol. 1 Issue 4, August 2005
· "Editor's Note"
Editorial, MBJ Vol. 1 Issue 3, May 2005
· "Editor's Note"
Editorial, MBJ Vol. 1 Issue 1, March 2005
· "The Future of Music"
Model Work, MBJ Vol. 1 Issue 1, March 2005
· "Press Kit: FLUTTR Effect"
Review, MBJ Vol. 1 Issue 1, March 2005
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