Lucky Dog Audio Post: Category Audio Goodness

Don LaFontaine, R.I.P.

charles — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:12:00 -0500

The stories and tributes are piling up around the web today about the passing of a true voice-over legend, Don LaFontaine. Undoubtedly LaFontaine is best know for his movie trailer work, especially for his deep and dramatic delivery of that oh-so-ubiquitous blockbuster phrase: "IN A WORLD. . ." That being the case, most of the obituaries I've read today play off the idea that though LaFontaine possessed one of the most recognizable voices in the industry, few in the public knew him by name. Such is the plight of the voice over artist. That said, Don could be seen (as well as heard) on national TV in a popular GEICO ad. Plus, if you haven't seen it, 5 Guys In A Limo is a fun, Hollywood romp that features a well-coiffed LaFontaine goofing off red-carpet style with four other masters of the craft.

But, of what I've seen today, I think Don LaFontaine: The Voice offers the best tribute to the man. Especially interesting are his thoughts (around the 4:50 mark) on how each voice artist makes the best use of his or her talent when they bring their own experience to a project. Well said, Don. It is most definitely the human touch that brings any script to life. So, it was with a touch of horror that I also noticed that his /Film obituary can be heard online spoken by a TTS (text-to-speech) program. The aforementioned irony-of-ironies can be heard here.

Rest in peace Don. You will be missed.

Prank Calling The Intern

charles — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:39:00 -0500

So, Judson approached us several months ago about being our intern. Really, our friend Ben approached us several months ago about his friend Judson being our intern. Anyway, our initial response was thanks but no thanks. We've never had an intern. We don't really need an intern. Etc etc. Well, Judson and Ben just wouldn't let up about the whole thing. "Are you sure you don't want an intern?" asked Ben. "Judson REALLY wants to be your intern." After several emails and iChats we conceded to meet Judson. We did our darnedest to scare him off. "Judson, if you are going to intern with us there's gonna be a lot of data entry," said Scott. "These is nothing glamorous about this kind of work," I said with a steely expression, "Are you sure you want to do this?" Yes, yes. Judson was excited. He wanted in.

So we conferred with Judson's professor at UALR and set up a course for the month of July. Then we came up with a rough outline of work we could assign to Judson, our intern. Things like archiving finished spots, soldering cables, updating our talent demos so they included more of Brian Winkeler's spots. Suddenly we were excited. We had an intern!

Not so fast. Turns out that in between signing up with us as an intern and showing up for his first day (July 7) Judson accepted a gig playing guitar in a touring band. Our buddy Jason ran into Judson on Monday of this week, learned this, and called us. Judson had been meaning to call but. . .

No intern. But more seriously, no heads up from Judson, the intern-turned-touring-guitarist, about the change of plans. So we decided it might be fun to play a little phone prank on Judson.

Here's the cast:

Me playing me. Rather me playing a slightly more passive-aggressive me.

Voice actor Bob Hulsey as Keith Satterfield, our attorney who has been working all week on "paperwork" for the internship. (Incidentally, this isn't the first time we've cast Bob as a lawyer).

Judson as himself, the unknowing recipient of our prank call.

Listen to Prank Calling The Intern

Judson was a great sport about the prank. Obviously he gave us permission to post the recording saying that he would have his lawyer contact us with a release form. Ha!

Also, we are pretty excited for Judson. July looks like it's going to be a busy month for him on the road. He will be looping through Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. His touring schedule can be found here and here.

Congrats Judson and good luck on the road!

Music From Our Faces

charles — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:56:00 -0500

In yet another attempt to squeeze entertainment from our celebrated Sleeve Face gallery, here's some select tracks that we've faithfully transfered from the vinyl discs that we found hiding within the cardboard, record sleeves that we held in front of our faces.

Put more simply, here's the music from the Sleeve Faces:

Lucky Dog Muxtape*

* This mix covers page one of our gallery - Arto Lindsay to Neil Young.

Really it's not a bad mix. There' some folk music and some rock and some folk rock. As far as music genres go, there's something for everyone, unless you are looking for:

alt-country, ambient, blues, britpop, celtic, chill, classical, country, darkwave, doom metal, down tempo, drone, drum and bass, dub, dubstep, electronica, emo, folk metal, funk, garage, goth, gothic metal, grindcore, grunge, hard rock, hardcore, heavy metal, hip hop, house, idm, indie, indie pop, indie rock, industrial, j-pop, j-rock, japanoise, jazz, jazz-metal, metal, metalcore, minimal, new age, nu metal, pop punk, post-ambient, post-hardcore, post-punk, post-rock, power metal, progressive metal, punk, r&b, rap, reggae, sadcore, shoegaze, ska, soul, soundtrack, symphonic metal, synthpop, techno, trance, trash metal, or trip hop.

BEEP vs BOOP

charles — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:49:00 -0500

The day before yesterday, we thought we were being soooo clever. We were working on a spot that required GPS SFX so we hopped in the car with Scott's Magellan GPS unit, programmed directions to Lucky Dog Audio, took a spin around downtown Little Rock, and recorded the Magellan beeping and cooing at us as we made all the right turns to get us back home. Awesome idea! Good job, Lucky Dog! Home run on the foley work there boys!

Nope.

The spot went to the client for approval and out came the gong. Spot's no good. Turns out the client has a Garmin GPS in their car, so all those Magellan bells and whistles mean nada.

Now it is time for reflecting on the task of creating authentic simulations of specific audio events when using new gadgets that are, as of yet, unfettered to concrete audio signifiers. And yes, we've been through this before. Several months ago we were working on a spot that needed a cell phone ring. We dropped a fairly ubiquitous ringtone into the spot and the client said, "Hey, that cell phone ring doesn't sound like my cell phone ring!" Not to sound like old man Wilson down the street, but it used to be a phone sounded like a phone. Not anymore.

Silent reflective pause.

So yesterday, our buddy Gary graciously lent us a Garmin GPS. Here's a shot of Scott pointing our Rode shotgun microphone at his (Gary's) unit (please refrain from commenting on this sentence).

We thought we were being soooo clever. . .

How To Speak Hip

charles — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 09:23:00 -0500

Lessons in Audio

Del Close and John Brent lay down some nice geek vs beatnik dialogue circa 1962.

The twilight world of the American hipster is an important American subculture with a language all it's own. - Del Close

Like, if you took the lid of your Maytag and there was a giant octopus trashing around in there, you'd go through a change. - John Brent (AKA Geets Romo)

Rumor has it, this was one of Brian Wilson's favorite comedy records.

Art Work

Can you dig it?

Boondogs

Scott — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:58:00 -0600

And now, a moment to salute friends of Lucky Dog, the Boondogs. This footage is from their appearance last year on AETN Presents, visually tweaked by Boondog percussionist Dylan Field.

Not only do we love the songwriting team of Grotto and Weinheimer, but our partnership with Weinheimer's Sellout Music lets us do great custom music work for our clients. Check out the Sellout reel here.

Plus, Charles is much cooler in black and white than in real life.

Also, a big shout out to two more friends of the Dog, Adam and Jordan, dancing like maniacs in silhouette. Shepherds in the house!

Wish Me Luck In A "Good Luck" Way

charles — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 09:50:00 -0600

Time Trumpet "re-voices" a Polish soap opera. . .

Xmas at the Dog

charles — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:45:00 -0600

We got some great stuff for Christmas here at Lucky Dog audio post, in addition to all those clever cards, delicious food baskets, and fine bottles of wine.

First of all, one of our interior decorators got us this porcelain dog. Why? Because you can never have too many porcelain dog figurines laying around the studio. They are so cute. Especially the way they are always staring at you. . . staring. . . always staring at you. . . with those beady, glassy eyes. . . . always. . . staring. . . (gulp).

Secondly, under our lil' LED Christmas tree, we found this handsome coffee table book, It's a Man's World: Men's Adventure Magazines, the Postwar Pulps. You know, you can never have too much pulp fiction laying around the studio. Especially when you already have a lot of pulply, contemporary entertainment magazines laying around the studio.

Oh yeah, thirdly and finally, we got this new Neumann u87. You can never really have too many of these laying around a recording studio either.

Cherry Chocolate Rain

charles — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:33:00 -0600

Here's a big Lucky Dog Audio Post blog category climber - file under Advertising, Audio Goodness, Food & Drink, Music, Web Goodness, Words, and especially Luck.

(Originally we marked this only as Audio Goodness & Music.)

I May Look Nothing Like You Imagine

charles — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:10:00 -0600

boomp3.com

This is one of Emma Clark's spoof Tube announcements that just got her fired.

Via MeFi.