Antfood has offices across 4 locations in 3 continents. Whilst Antfood Amsterdam is our youngest office, having opened in 2018, our São Paulo team has been going strong and growing since 2012. We spoke to the São Paulo team to find out what inspires them to they compose, and why personal projects are so important.

Lou Schmidt, Creative Director & Partner

Why I Compose: Since childhood, I have had an insatiable need to express myself through creativity and art. So I started drawing, which I still do – and they look primitive and weird. Once music entered my life, everything became sound. Even when I couldn’t play any instruments properly, I wanted to create music. During my teenage years, I started to record things at home and soon understood that my real passion is composing, recording instruments, producing, mixing, taking pictures, making cover art, creating websites, and promoting. It is all about my inner expression.

Why Personal Projects are Important: A brief and the limits of on-demand creative work sharpen the craft and skills of a composer. However, personal projects are the perfect place to experiment and expand the boundaries of artistic expression. Whilst I genuinely enjoy creating music for brands, my true artistic expression and personal relationship with music are only fulfilled by doing my own crazy stuff. Every time I finish a personal project, I come back with more drive for client work. These two worlds complement each other, which is why I always have personal projects.

Christiane Rachel, Executive Producer

Why I Compose: At Antfood, I do not produce as a composer or a sound engineer on a daily basis. I don’t work directly with original compositions, but I create schedules and budgets and solve clients’ problems. The search and structure processes are part of production and part of the art that we develop as a team. I also like to express myself when communicating with clients – to me, this is a form of art.

Why Personal Projects are Important: Whilst I enjoy organising data on spreadsheets, I have always appreciated art beyond the rush of our job. Since I was a kid, I have loved capturing video and stills using my JVC tape camera – I save the film roll for the most important moments. In the past, I thought I would become a renowned film director or editor, or I thought I might work as a creative at an agency. Now, I work in the client services department of an audio production company, but I never lost my creative side. I still take nice pictures and develop some creative stuff – such as business cards, visual identities and illustrations. I like to create for close friends. The audio world has shown me that I have a voice beyond images – and I also record voiceovers for national & global projects. Personal projects are important to keep our essence without losing ourselves along the way.

Luis Bergmann, Composer

Why I Compose: I compose because of a creative itch – a deep need and a desire to be musically expressive and to evolve. It is also my job, so I feel that being creative is something I take seriously but with a playful and experimentalist state of mind.

Why Personal Projects are Important: Investing energy and time in honing my craft is a key ingredient in my happiness recipe. Having personal projects that allow me to grow is not only important for developing my skills, but also helps me find fulfilment in my work and keeps it fresh.

Antfood São Paulo Studio

Tiago Lins (Mago), Creative Director

Why I Compose: Since I was a child, I always knew I would work with creativity – creating and recreating stuff. I confess I wasn’t sure about the specific area: I could draw, write tales, and could have even chosen to work as an artisan. I think that when we create, we leave our footprints in the world.

Why Personal Projects are Important: By doing personal projects, we can express ourselves freely as artists, with no predetermined direction. In other words, they help nourish our souls.

Fernando Rojo (Nerfa), Creative Director

Why I Compose: Songs always played in my house. My mom listened to Brazilian music on record and cassette players, as well as on her red tape deck player. Music was never a strange thing to us – it was always there, persistent in our daily lives. As a natural response to continuous exposure throughout my development, I started to compose in my head - song snatches, rhythms, and various musical ideas - even before learning how to play my first instrument. The act of composing was always with me, and whilst some of my compositions move forward, others are forgotten minutes later. I usually hum into a recorder when I think the idea deserves to be remembered. I generally compose when I walk; the rhythm of the steps unleashes my creativity. Over time, I started to compose professionally, but my process is still the same.

Why Personal Projects are Important: Personal projects – focused on music or any other specific area – are fundamental. They reconnect us with our own principles and with our personal identity. With our true selves. In a world where we need to be more resilient every day, it is natural to move away from our purposes and principles to adapt our work to reality on a day-to-day basis. A personal project is like an anchor that helps us keep attached to who we truly are. It’s a guarantee that we won’t forget our origins.

Fabian Jorge Jarabeck, Recording & Mix Engineer, Sound Designer & Voice Over

Why I Compose: I compose for the pleasure of making new and exclusive sound effects for each client / film – sounds that have neither been heard nor imagined before.

Why Personal Projects are Important: They force me to explore, develop, create, edit, and mix new sounds and songs, improving my perception as an audio engineer and helping me to better comprehend the universe of sounds every day.

Bruno Broaska, Mix Engineer & Sound Designer

Why I Compose: When I was younger, video game scores and soundtracks always drew my attention. They had the power to make me dive deep into that universe. Every time I came back to the real world, game songs would come back with me. Then, I grew up and realized that I could pass this feeling forward through different media formats and outside the game platform – which is something I love to do.

Why Personal Projects are Important: Personal projects are art, and art is our form to grow as people and spread what we absorbed from the world around us. During a conversation, we’re limited to the way we express ourselves through words, but art allows us to put things into the world that words cannot say.

Antfood São Paulo Studio

Vinicius Nunes, Music Producer

Why I Compose: Music has been part of my life since I was a kid. My dad has always been a music enthusiast. At home, we always had diverse instruments and recording gear (such as a 4track Recorder, which allowed me to have my first music production experiences). I grew up side by side with this equipment, it has been part of my life and my evolution. I was born in a city where music culture is very strong in many music aspects and styles and I was born watching and admiring the carnivals’ “electric trio” which also made me fall in love with music.

Why Personal Projects are Important: You can use personal projects to practice without concerns or compromises. It’s the same job, but softer. They also allow us to create stuff that advertising doesn’t.

Pablo Homem de Mello, Sound Engineer

Why Personal Projects are Important: They help us to understand every aspect of sound production – even on a small scale, it makes a difference. Personal projects also allow us to develop other skills inside our job – such as client services, negotiating budgets, pre-production, production, creative direction, decision-making, deliverables etc. Things that you don’t do when you work within a bigger structure and where an individual can’t have this broad vision. Another important thing about personal projects is that you can practice your creative side from your own point of view.

Fernando Ianni (Jornal), Coordinator

Why I Compose: Communication has been a part of me since I was born. It accompanied me through school, my higher education studies: 2 years at journalism school and an advertising degree, and also through music, which I have played since I was a teenager. Despite having studied music, I consider myself more of a sound designer/mixer than a composer. I like to think that music and sound, being more primitive forms of communication are also the most complex means and can be the best and most efficient way to express what we think or feel. This is why I compose.

Why Personal Projects are Important: I think of personal projects as a way to dive deeper into what we have to say. We work with many people and tight schedules, so our contributions do not necessarily reflect all we have to say about those matters. So we need a way to express ourselves and let out a more complex and, sometimes, deeper voice or perspective.