Enter the Auto-Tune Chamber
Check. It. Out. I finally got a chance to try out the Auto-Tune Chamber here at Lucky Dog Audio. From a voice talent's point of view, it's kind of scary inside the chamber. With the unnatural gloam created by the blacklight glow lights, the acrid, cold taste to the air from the emissions of the multi-angle fog machine, and the ridiculous cover charge once you are in the door, the whole experience evokes the ante-room from Saturday Night Fever's 2001 Odyssey discotheque crossed with the isolation tank from Altered States. But this is where you have to go in order to get that Auto-Tune sound, so into the chamber I went.
Agency: Third Degree Creative • Writer: Daniel Solis • Campaign: Buck the Norm: Win Your Books 2010
Sloganeering 1
Today I spent the morning at Rose City Middle School for career day. A friend of mine who teaches art there asked me to come and talk to his class about audio work and advertising. I talked to three different groups of students. All of the groups wanted to know if we ever produced spots featuring kids. "As a matter of fact we do," I said and then I played them one of these awesome spots we produced for the Nashville Zoo two years ago. "Cool! I want to work for you," said one student. This then led us into a discussion about acting and how voice actors use their voices to evoke certain emotions. After class, the student who wanted to be a voice actor wrote her name, age, and a short description of her range as a voice actor on a piece of paper and handed it to me.
Lots of voice talent out there have blurby subtitles they use on their websites to promote themselves. You know, catchy little phrases that say something about their personality or style. One that immediately comes to mind is Bob Jump who is The Voice of America. Another is Caryn Clark who is the Hip Voice Chick. Jonathan Hanst has a good one, too, i say stuff for a living. You get the idea. Well, before this entry turns into an Andy Rooney observation piece, let me just say that this torn notebook paper contains my new favorite voice talent slogan:
Who Is That Masked Man?
He's the Jan Gardner Memorial Award for Outstanding Radio Copy awarded to our agency compadres at Red Deluxe at this year's Memphis ADDY awards. Check out these two spots from their award winning Memphis Grizzlies radio campaign starring our voice talent compadre Big Lou Johnson.
Listen to "Greetings" :60
Listen to "Game Night" :60
PS. I photoshopped a lucha libre mask on our Soderberghicon. Did you notice? Yeah? You did? Well... no. I used the scale and distort tool. Really? Oh. I didn't know you could do that. Well.. I think it looks fine. You get the idea anyway. OK. Next time I'll try that thing you were talking about. K. Thanks.
Talking Trash
Soderberghicons be praised, our friends at Eric Rob & Isaac won a Gold Addy (one of many at this year's Arkansas ADDY Awards) for the Goldman Recycling radio campaign they produced here with us. Congrats y'all!
Listen to the radio:
We'll Make You Think
Congrats to Zehnder Communications for winning Best of Show Overall this year at the Baton Rouge ADDY awards. Huzzah! One part of this campaign was the following handsome video with music, announcer VO, and audio mix provided by your's truly, Lucky Dog Audio Post. Which means it's time, once again, to whip out the Soderberghicon. Now... where is that thing?
EBR - We'll Make You Think from Zehnder Communications on Vimeo.
Sound Design in the Sky
One of my favorite bits of the job is working with actors: finding a character, creating an emotional context, honing a performance. Occasionally we get to put that aside and simply work with un-narrated visuals, like this piece for Intake Studio.
And you know what? That's darn fun too.
Hugh Kretschmer, Los Angeles
Saw these cool, retro-ish, whimsical, weird photos by Hugh Kretschmer in his Feature Shoot Q&A.
This prosthetic ear vocal booth caught my real eye's attention. This shot also kind of gives me the willies.
Playtime
Another in the "Recent Work" catagory:
This spot makes me smile. Friendly VO, nice music and sound effects work that celebrates the playful vibe of the visuals. After trying several approaches on the car sound, we decided that the toy-box look needed a toy-box sound. Foley lip-buzzing by yours truly, modded with a "bubbly" vocoder effect.
For more, (and certainly more coherent,) behind the scenes commentary, see our friends at Third Degree.
Cover Me
Just saw this on Adfreak. It's like the Lazer Beatles radio spot that we produced for Bumpercar but different.
Laser Beatles
Here's a new radio spot we produced last week that's airing in Nashville. It's kind of weird. Especially the opening chord. I think that has something to do with pandiatonic harmony. Anyway, the whole concept behind the dialogue is some kind of inside joke. I don't get it. Apparently there was an invasion in the 1960s that I was never told about.
Maybe I'll ask Bumpercar to elaborate.
