Questions :: Answers

  • Helipopter develops original music for picture or anything else that needs the bespoke musical treatment. Helmed by Songwriter/Producer Keeley Bumford, aka the artist Dresage, and joined by Scoring Composer/Creative Director, Bryan Rheude. We have deep experience with branded-content, scoring, and song-placement that spans the worlds of Apple, BMW, and Adidas to HBO, PBS, and Netflix.

    While Keeley is steeped in the songwriter tradition, and Bryan is grounded in a scoring mentality, they share a love of left-of-center sound design and an obsessive attention-to-detail. Above all, they value HONEST MUSICALITY. Music that is from the heart but tickles the mind.

  • -When you need an ownable sound that Is unique to your brand or project.

    -When the project calls for custom scoring detail.

    -When you have a musical idea that requires collaborators who know how to trust and nurture the process.

    -We’ve been accused of being musically left-of-center; we take that as a compliment.

    -We are especially adept at navigating demanding corpo-politico gauntlets to complete creative projects.

    -Being ​​female/queer-owned brings a unique perspective creatively and a valued diversity on the business side.

  • Helipopter is majority Female-Owned and dedicated to fostering opportunities for communities of gender and socio-economic diversity who have been historically kept out of such spaces.

  • Keeley Bumford (also known as Dresage) is an artist, producer, and composer based in Los Angeles. In her world of creativity throughout various arenas of media and composition, she creates lush synth and tactile organic musings, allowing herself the freedom to inhabit many genres, from dreamy synthwave to indie grunge pop. Clash Magazine calls her “pop from an alternate universe driven by a commitment to personal communication…honest, creative and forever outside the box.” 

    With music licensing as a forte to her work, Bumford recently performed and produced a cover of the Harry Nilsson song “Perfect Day” which was featured in the final season of Better Call Saul on AMC/Netflix and named #1 of the top 10 TV needle drops of 2022 by Vulture. The placement also won the best song written or recorded for TV at the Guild of Music Supervisors awards as well as a feature on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, 158k Shazams and over 880k Spotify streams. She also  appeared in a Volvo commercial as herself where she and Youtuber Andrew Huang created a beat with sounds from the XC60 car for their new campaign. Additionally, her cover of Bob Marley's Three Little Birds with sync powerhouse & collaborator, AG was placed in season 3 of Virgin River on Netflix. The placement resulted in over 175k Shazams, the #3 position on the Shazam viral chart, 1.6 million Spotify streams and also the #8 spot on the top 10 songs in television Billboard chart for July 2021. 

    She has credits as a producer & composer having written/produced & performed five original songs as well as co-scoring the original Hulu/Blumhouse film, My Valentine, from the “Into The Dark” anthology series. Her score and original songs for V/H/S/99 from Shudder also premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). She was in the beloved YouTube series “4 Producers 1 Sample” with Andrew Huang, and actively works within the film/tv sync world with recent placements from Apple, Volvo, Samsung, Netflix, UNIQLO, Nintendo, Disney and more. 

    While sculpting songs that ponder feminism & mental health, Bumford is also passionate about spreading the autonomy of self-recording and production to women, and folks along the gender and socio-economic spectrums who have been historically kept out of such spaces. She regularly collaborates with femme-driven initiatives to bring more equity & training to upcoming producers.

    See more about Keeley on her personal site.

  • Rheude has composed for a goodly percentage of the Fortune 500 and he’s been associated with nearly every awards venue out there, from Clio’s to Cannes. His score for the PBS Doc, Lost In Middle America, was nominated for an Emmy.

    After partnering in a bicoastal music and post mix shop from 2001-2017, Rheude spent the last few years working solo; scoring ads for friends, a few film and tv projects, and plenty of personal pursuits. Rheude’s alter-ego, Dudadius, has released several albums that explore sonic textures from analog and modular synths. Rheude also spends a fair amount of time at the piano; recently focused on recording and performing Bach’s Goldberg Variations, a keyboard monument comprised of 31 challenging compositions.

    Rheude had collaborated with Keeley Bumford a few times over the last couple of years, so when the opportunity came to join her in this new venture, Helipopter, he recognized a path to mesh his experience as a Creative Director, Producer and Scoring Composer with Bumford’s tremendous melodic range, staggering production chops, and her powerful perspective as a female working in a male-dominated space.

    Rheude otherwise likes to stay in motion and enjoys Cycling, Skiing, Tennis, Golf, Home-Chefing, and Armchair Philosophy. And cats.

    See/hear more of Rheude’s music on his site.

  • As the idea for Helipopter was taking shape, the concept of Honest Musicality became a theme. There is a surplus of gate-keepers in the music industry and this is especially true in the arenas surrounding music-for-picture. There are probably more Supervisors, Agency Music Producers, Music House ‘Executive Producers, Publishers, Music Library consolidators and Reps than there are composers. We are composers who have experience with all those sides of the musical carnival, but we’ve made the explicit choice to focus on the craft of composing and producing. We value collaboration and working with other creatives to explore new ideas and new sounds; to create something unique and powerful for the moment.

    We understand the workflows and ourselves enough to be honest creators within this dizzying production machinery. We also know that music is a subjective beast; everyone has their opinions and favorites. Our place in this is to be true to ourselves and our point-of-view and to revel in NOT being everything to everyone.

    So, we take our craft seriously, we take even the smallest project seriously, and we’re serious enough to take on the biggest projects deftly too.

  • Helipopter works out of Los Angeles and Chicago.

  • We’ve had occasion to work with many formats of live orchestras over the years, from small string, brass, or woodwind ensembles to most recently 55-piece orchestras (Rheude for Clash Royale and CBS Mornings). We can do everything from composition, orchestration, recording logistics, to mixing.

  • Yes, we aren’t afraid to sound synthy. We have a vintage synth collection that might be near museum quality…but put to use daily! And a modular synth wall that is a treasure trove of unique tones and sound design possibilities. So we like to think of it as electronic music with soul.

  • We use AI for many aspects of our work–from brainstorming to some of the music-making/processing tools we use. However: we draw the line at the music itself. Anything that is copyright-able is absolutely done by us.

  • Atmos is a burgeoning surround sound technology that is quickly becoming a new standard in the music world. We are abreast of the techniques involved to create and deliver music in this format and are excited about Atmos’s wider adoption.

  • Our focus is on music production, but sound-design is a core component of how we work and create, so our productions frequently trend into the sound design area. Similarly, we are often called on to perform the post audio, mix-to-picture duties. It’s not our specialty, but we stay current on the broadcast delivery specs and we are happy to do this part of the production when it’s helpful.