Although it's usually directors who find themselves signing representation deals with companies in faraway lands, Venezuelan composer Javier Blanco recently hooked up with New York's Light At The End Of The Tunnel for work in the US commercials market.

Blanco operates Caracas' Taurus Studios, a full-service music and sound design house, with his partner, Gustavo Gonzales. Drawing 80 percent of his business from commercials, Javier scores spots for both local ad shops and the Venezuelan outposts of agencies like Leo Burnett, McCann, JWT and Saatchi.

"Here, it's not like in other countries where you specialize in one style. Venezuela is a country that has received people from Africa, America, Europe and everywhere over the last century and so has musical influences from everywhere. Anything goes, you are supposed to be on level with international standards," says Blanco, who says creatives hand him references from Peter Gabriel to techno to traditional folklorica (generally polyrhythmic with African and Spanish influences).

Beyond music, some of Blanco's work includes sound design. In "Genetica" a Toyota spot for DMB&B Caracas, he assembled an abstract pastiche of rhythms, noises, voices and found-sound to support the images. A native of Spain, Blanco studied music and fell into scoring commercials while teaching a music class. Now, he turns around about 180 commercials for the local market each year.

"Today I am supposed to finish four commercials by tomorrow morning; don't ask me why or they will cut my throat," he jokes, adding that by comparison, North American production schedules seem luxurious. He points out this leads into another reason he'd like to work outside of Venezuela.

"Ten years ago, we used live musicians with trumpets, drums and violins. Today you have something like a Björk album, that probably takes several programmers two years to produce," says Blanco. "Here, we have many people who don't understand that although we have machines that help speed up the process, when someone asks you for something like this by tomorrow morning, you don't have time to think. Sooner or later it will affect my work."

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