New York- and Los Angeles-based music house Heavy Duty Projects has launched Heavy Duty Trailers, a division dedicated to providing original and licensed music for feature-film and TV trailers and promos. As part of this, Chris Restivo has been hired as executive producer while Kevin Seaton has been promoted to creative director, said Heavy Duty partners Ariel Rechtshaid, Josh Kessler and Kate Urcioli on Tuesday.

“Launching Heavy Duty Trailers is a natural progression for us,” said Urcioli in a statement. “We’ve had more and more assignments come through our inbox with trailer needs. Recognizing this opportunity, we were motivated to build a catalog with a focus on this side of the business and to find more opportunities for our composers to do custom work in this space.”

Heavy Duty Trailers is the latest addition to the growing suite of Heavy Duty brands. This includes Heavy Duty Projects, which specializes in custom music solutions including both music supervision and original composition for advertising and brand campaigns, and Heavy Duty Publishing, which looks after a vast catalog of music including works from Frank Ocean, Eminem, Bon Iver, Banks, Charlie XCX and more, many of which were recorded at the Heavy Duty studio in Burbank.

Restivo joins Heavy Duty Trailers from Ignition Creative where he served as director of music.

“What made me want to join Heavy Duty Trailers was the catalogue, first and foremost,” Restivo said in a statement. “They have an amazing well of talent and songs. To help build something from the ground up is very exciting, and there are so many opportunities for us. It was just too good to resist.”

Seaton has been with the company as a composer and producer. He now rises to the rank of creative director. Among his feature projects are trailers for the upcoming Ford v Ferrari as well as the recently released Terminator: Dark Fate, Ad Astra and Avengers: End Game. He also worked on the launch of Apple’s iPhone 11 as part of Heavy Duty Projects.

“Trailers are essentially a highly specialized form of advertising, one that’s usually trying to impart a bigger sense of drama or emotional connection,” Seaton said in a statement. “It requires that composers or producers work within their narrative structure, which is different from how ads tend to work. They really have more in common with film composing than with composing for ads. Having worked with such a diverse range of artists and musical styles, we know intuitively how to create or source music that complements both.”

Both men will work out of the company’s West Coast base, which includes recording studios in Burbank and Venice, Calif., and a production office in Echo Park, Calif.

Tags: chris restivo heavy duty projects heavy duty trailers kevin seaton music


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