Sep 2005
Back In Studio With Hanson. Dean, that is...
09/23/05 05:59 PM
Dean
Hanson was in Recording Studio A at
Babble-On this past week doing what has
become a pretty regular voice-over gig
for
United Airlines
& Scott Miller Productions. Known mostly
as a great art director at
Fallon,
Dean's dabbled with recording voice-over
scratch tracks and mood videos at the
agency for years. That experience has led
him into some "real" VO work for
The Children's Defense
Fund,
Washburn Child
Guidance,
Minneapolis
Mosaic
and even
BMW.
For United, he started out doing voiceovers for in-flight presentations but he's expanded into voicing occasional TV spots as well. It's a good fit. Although his voice carries a lot of lumber, it's actually folksy without the plastic "aw shucks" trappings or candy boy sincerity. In a nutshell - he never comes off as announcery, which is ironic since (as Dean will attest) he feels most comfortable in that role.
As ad folks go, Dean stands in stark relief to the notion that people in advertising exist in the same universe as pro athletes and pop divas; selfish, demanding and oblivious poseurs. The full largesse of what he's accrued from his United work has been donated to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) an international medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to those who are affected by war, epidemics, disasters, etc. Y'know, stuff we'd all do if we weren't... so busy. The organization relies completely on volunteer medical personnel so the dough that's donated doesn't go to outrageous salaries or some creakingly slow-footed bureaucracy.
These phone-patch sessions wouldn't be the same if we didn't pass some hang time on the line with Scott Miller who's the independent producer, director, writer from Chicago. Recording the voice-over takes half an hour. The editing - ten minutes. The rest of the time is given to rambling commentary enveloping politics, history, kids, education - it's The Mclaughlin Group only it's civilized, insightful, funny - huh, y'know, it's nothing like The McLaughlin Group.
Here's a piece that we worked on earlier this Summer called, New At United.
(the audio is low fidelity for streaming reasons)
If you'd like to have Dean on your next project you can book him through his Twin Cities agent, Wehmann Models and Talent, Inc.
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Light On Dough - Cheap TV Delivers for
Donatos
09/15/05 06:45 PM
Ideas
are free - Too bad money isn't.
However, sometimes you get lucky and you get your ideas produced for less scratch than you might think.
Martin Williams' client, Donatos Pizza wanted to have an innovative TV spot to showcase their affiliation with the Cleveland Browns. Knowing that there wasn't a lot of money in the hopper, Tom Witkowski and Toby Balai, (the writer and art director) considered penning a spot that would use surveillance cameras or simple lock down shots. Clean, cheap, easy to do.
But as the concept and boards germinated a different, yet equally uncomplicated, idea gained favor; simply shoot a series of quirky vignettes about people with "D's" that would bloom into a smart reveal. Donatos and everyone loved this new approach, called "D-Fence".
Coach Crennel helps Stan Prinsen direct the shoot
Then, to everyone's shock, the already elfen sized budget got dwarfed by 35% percent.
With necessity being the mother of invention, some quick compromises were realized. The only way the spot could be done was to forego film and shoot it on video. Plus, Stan Prinsen (normally a producer) would now double as the director. With nil for a film crew, they would use the cameraman from the Cleveland Browns - a guy who normally shoots press conferences and football action.
Let's just say that's a... different discipline.
So off to Cleveland. Which, happily, proved to be a hotbed for the type of character talent needed for the TV spot - a certifiable pearl in a somewhat fallow oyster bed. Things were jelling. Then, on the day before shooting, Coach Crennel, who was slated for a prominent role, was forced to ditch the shoot. That particular wrench facilitated the consideration of body doubles and alternative endings. On a budget.
So, on they shot for 3 straight days covering 15 scenarios with just 2 hours per shot - including travel time. Wrapped up in all of this was a surprise location switch at the stadium, pouring rain, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame hit the freak button, the scooter overheated, it rained again, and the "D" on the restaurant didn't fully come off at first. To top it all off, there was another weekend in Cleveland to get the Coach, who got delayed by five hours. And, of course, it poured again.
The sound design and audio post was a cinch compared to the ordeal of shooting the whole production - even though nearly all the audio from the shoot was replaced with sound effects that we tailored in to match the scene's feel and perspective. A nice nuance is that the skateboarder's audio follows perfectly from right to left in sync with the picture. Sorry, we're geeks - we dig touches like that. Tom Lecher of Echo Boys composed the track that we ultimately slimmed, fattened and twisted to blend with the sound design. Lastly, credit needs to got to voice-over talent Jon Bruno (see our May blog for another spot he did). We brought him into recording studio A here at Babble-On via ISDN Digital Patch from Outlaw Sound in L.A. Jon did a nice job shredding his voice as if he were actually in the Dawg Pound for the final shot. We have no way of knowing for sure but, given his level of dedication, we think he was actually waving a bone in the booth.
Here's "D-Fence"
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Fly Over Country? Minnesota isn't just for
the birds
09/05/05 11:59 AM
"Isn't
Minnesota just fly over country?" Those
who've moved here from parts elsewhere
have heard this tired refrain about
Minneapolis forever. It's a quip with
all the social graces and trappings of a
wine cooler - cheap, and incapable of
getting better with age.
Personally, I'll admit that when I moved here from New York I thought I'd stay maybe a year or so - that was 20 years ago. Every Winter I make the same pledge and still stay. Why? Hey, Spring, Fall and Summer are the most glorious month imaginable.
Seriously, the change of seasons this far North of the Mason Dixon is pretty amazing.
The Minnesota Department of Tourism is hip to this and has a lot of info on their new website about Fall Getaways around the state.
Not your average George - Ms. Keller, our announcer.
The ad agency for MN Tourism, Colle+McVoy, came up with some fun radio spots that we got to help produce here last week. The writer, Jay Walsh, thought he'd explode this whole "fly-over" conceit in an unusual way. He cast voice-over actors who could do an accent that was a strange brew of Brooklyn, Philly & Jersey - and then had them use those voices to portray Canada geese.
I know, but it works.
The main voice-over actors were three great guys out of New York - Gary Yudman, Bill Lobely, and Frank Simms whom we brought into recording studio A via ISDN digital patch from Nutmeg Audio Post. The tricky part about this recording was trying to unearth which goose each actor would play. With accents like this Jay's fear was that they might sound too alike. So we recorded a few passes with everyone in alternate roles and determined that Gary would be 1st goose, with Frank and Bill being 2nd & 3rd. Roles set, they breathed a lot of life into the spot with smart voicings and ad-libs - a few of which made the final cut.
To tie the radio spot together, Jay cast Twin Cities voice-over actor George Keller as the announcer. Her smooth and easy sound settled nicely into the manic mélange of Brooklyn-Philly-Jersey Canada Geesieness that we'd recorded from the other guys. Speaking of George, you can catch her on stage at the Penumbra Theater later this month in the play, "Grandchildren Of The Buffalo Soldiers". While she was in studio, she told us a bit about the piece. Click play to hear more...
Getting the sound-design and audio post production right for this radio spot proved to be its own conundrum. As you might imagine, there aren't any recordings of Canada geese flying in formation. And, if there were, they'd no doubt contain the sound of them being sucked into a jet engine. Not quite what we wanted. So, we took a few isolated flight calls, layered them in like audio phyllo dough, spread them left and right and then filled the scene with a little outdoor reverb. Later in the spot we needed to hear bird wings in flight so, for that, we slyly futzed the sound of a sheet being snapped. Once we got that rhythm down, the mix, quite literally, came in for a smooth landing.
Here's "Geese" from Colle+McVoy
George Keller can be booked through her Minneapolis agent Moore Creative Talent,inc., Gary Yudman is at Paradigm, Bill Lobely is with Buchwald, and Frank Simms is represented by Atlas Talent Agency, Inc.
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