Anne Frank House / Every Media Video Diary

Briefing

The Anne Frank Foundation, together with Amsterdam-based production agency Every Media, asked us to make the soundtrack for their beautiful 15-part series ‘The Anne Frank Video Diary’. It needed to have a clear recurring theme and sound true to the era while having a modern touch that appeals to younger viewers.

Execution

We decided we first work out a main theme. We started whistling and singing melodies that Anne herself could have sung. From that, we recorded this melody in every possible configuration and ended up in a beautiful acoustic quintet that we recorded in our studio. Cello, viola, piano, bass and trumpet. The warm sound made everything feel both new and old at the same time. We delivered a small library of tracks that we produced from this recording session to director Hanna van Niekerk to choose music from this to edit the series on.

Result

The Anne Frank Video Diary became an international success story. It is distributed in more than 15 countries, translated and overdubbed in more than 5 languages and was featured in many international press releases, including on Dutch news television. It gained wide recognition among its mostly young audience and helped the Anne Frank foundation to appeal to new visitors.

Read the New York Times report about this.
See the end result as mentioned by the NOS.