Recently we had the distinct privilege of hosting Garrison Keillor for a voice-over recording session with some of our friends across the big pond, Wave Audio Post in London. The water analogy is fitting as Mr. Keillor is best known in these parts for spending a lot of time on “the other side of the river” – Firstly, he is the de-facto voice of public radio and rarely does broadcast commercial work and, secondly, one typically finds him strolling the boards of the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul as he hosts his weekly radio show, A Prairie Home Companion.
We were happy to have him cross over to the other side in all manners of speaking.
The voice-over session was for Wieden & Kennedy who is using his voice for a 2 minute and 30 second corporate video for Honda Motor Company. The piece is for Honda as a whole, rather than singly for the automotive division.
Our Engineer, John Lukas, placed Garrison behind a Neumann U87 in Studio B that we ran through our gorgeous new BAE mic pre-amps and hooked up with London via ISDN Digital Patch using our Telos X-Stream. Although the script was only a few words in length, we recorded three versions to get the feel just right. Truthfully, a little goes a long way with a voice like that. Proof that, it would seem, Honda is really all about mileage and quality.
After the session, Mr Keillor was kind enough to pose for a photo and sign a mug for Becky Carlson, our Studio Coordinator. The mug has its own story – it’s from the New Richmond Granite works, which was her Grandfather’s business (sadly, he passed last year). The family has been big fans of the show and, in fact, Becky’s dad, uncle grandmother and aunt had all been in to see A Prairie Home Companion the week before – but were unable to get an autograph. So, in a very special way, it has become a mug filled with significance.