Fun ISDN Session at The Voicecaster (photo blog)

So even though most of my work comes from directing voice over casting and production sessions, I also do a bit of engineering on the side. ISDN sessions can be kind of dull, as once you've set everything up, you're pretty much just babysitting.

Well yesterday I had a really fun day of ISDN-ing. I got to work with a great bunch of actors for a series of radio spots.
First up I had the LEGENDARY Carlos Alazraqui (Reno 911, voice of the the Taco Bell dog and Rocko from 'Rocko's Modern Life). Not only is he a talented animation actor, but he crushed a dozen spots full of natural conversational announcer work. He's producing his own animated web series "Off the Curb" which looks like it'll be RIGHT up my alley.

Next up I had Larry Cedar, who happens to be a personal hero of mine. LONG before I was ever in this industry, I was a HUGE fan of Square One, which Larry was a part of. Most recently you might have seen him in the re-make of The Crazies. He's the one with the pitchfork...



And what session would be complete without a funny gal? Enter the lovely and witty Julie Wittner, who you can catch in the web show "Two Hot Girls in the Shower" starring opposite Kim Evey (producer of The Guild).

The session required her to eat cookies for sound effects. Thankfully she kept the mess of crumbs to a minimum...




Thanks for a great session guys!

Random Trivia Tidbit - Radio Waves vs Sound Waves

My Mom's a big ole trivia geek too...


She just sent this my way:

Because radio waves travel at 186,000 miles per second and
sound waves saunter at 700 miles per hour, a broadcast voice
can be heard sooner 13,000 miles away than it can be heard
at the back of the room in which it originated.

Neat!

AFTRA votes YES, what does this mean for Voice Over?

Yup.

By a margin of about 62%, AFTRA members have ratified a new 3 year prime time TV contract.
It'll be interesting to see how SAG responds to this, and what impact it will have on their current negotiations with the AMPTP.

For more info on the particulars of this contract head over to VoiceOverXtra, or you can read my interview with AFTRA Vice President Holter Graham.

Here we go...

Don Imus really IS a racist bastard. Who knew? Audio included!

I didn't jump on the bandwagon the last time he went and did this.
I just didn't care that much about Imus.

I did feel sorry for the Rutgers Women's Basketball team, having their accomplishment crapped on by this ignorant yutz, but I could give two shits about Imus.

Didn't he say he was going to be better?
From TechLuver (just after he returned to radio):

Imus apologized Monday again to the players.
“I will never say anything in my lifetime that will make any of these young women at Rutgers regret or feel foolish that they accepted my apology and forgave me,” he said. “And no one else will say anything else on my program that will make anyone think that I didn’t deserve a second chance.”

So after everything he did to diffuse the previous situation, convince people he's not all bad, just an entertainer who made a mistake, he goes and pulls this.

Don "Imus -t be a MORON" talking about Adam "Pacman" Jones 6/23/08:

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THAT'S NOT COMEDY! There's no reasonable way, that you could mistake that as an attempt at humor. What a jerk!

I'm not morally outraged, or offended by this comment. Adam Jones is a big boy. I'm sure his feelers aren't going to be hurt by this. I don't think we need to protect the children from comments like this.

I'm pissed they keep giving this bigot chucklehead air time.

Is there really NO ONE ELSE they could put on the radio? There's really not ONE soul, more apt for AM radio than this freak? Is the market for people who enjoy xenophobic racial slurs about athletes so flush with advertising dollars, that we NEED Imus (and only Imus) to satisfy them?

It's time. He's done.
I think we can safely leave the slurred warbling of this sad pathetic individual, and move on to a real host now. Pls-K-Thnx.

Freak show is over. Nuthin more to see here folks...

Rod Serling's Daughter on Coast to Coast Tonight!

Just a quick blurb here sent in from a reader.

On Coast to Coast with George Noory:
Anne Serling (daughter of Rod) and
writer Marc Zicree will talk about Rod
Serling's induction into the Sci-Fi Museum Hall
of Fame.

Sweet!

CHECK IT OUT HERE!

I'll be listening!


Thanks Lisa!

New episodes of Irrational Public Radio!

I've been bugging Joe about this for months and he's FINALLY gotten around to gracing us with some new episodes of IPR. If you're not familiar with IPR, it's a perfect send up of NPR, and it's really funny.

Here's a sample from the new full length CD (on sale now):



Here's IPR on MySpace.

And here's the official IPR website.

A Liberal Comeback

A liberal radio show host, Ed Schultz has the same size audience as Bill O'Reilly. And they thought liberal radio shows would never survive...

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Why aren't you listening: The Onion Radio News

Just a quick write up here.

Trolling Digg, I stumbled upon a really quick and easy way to find all of The Onion's news bite podcasts. I'm really surprised that they aren't "Dugg" more.

Anywho, here's the Digg link to look them up. They're short, and really funny.

Internet radio to go silent on June 26!

I wholeheartedly support efforts like these. It just sucks that in today's age, no one seems to care that much. A small minority will fight tooth and claw, a larger minority will support the cause if it doesn't inconvenience them TOO much, and the vast majority will go "MY TEH INTARWEBS DON'T WORK, I will just have to spend MORE money on a service with less benefit!".

Maybe I'm a cynic, but kudos to KCRW for stepping up. I'm related to a show producer there, and our Agency has a great working relationship with quite a bit of the talent.



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Where I wont go with my Voice: Radiodaddy edition

What a silly reactionary response to the popularity of podcasting...

I'll just let the "Radio Daddy" explain in his own words:

"For years the licensed broadcasters on RadioDaddy have complained about the kids and unprofessional people that run podcasts and internet stations. While there are many exceptions to this, for the most part they were right. So before a flame war begins, let me just say that I have a lot of internet stations on some podcasters whom are friends and they produce highly professional products and services. Unfortunatly with the ease of producing low quality podcasts and internet stations, children and the feable minded have become the majority operators of these. Thus, we have created VoiceDaddy.com as a haven for traditional broadcasters to come and hang out and share their work together."

I've left the misspellings in, "feable minded" indeed.
See folks it's this kind of "you can't play on our playground" kind of mentality that really sparks content consumers up. Traditional media has been in such decline, why not alienate even MORE of the audience. Do they think they're eliminating competition maybe?

Also, such arrogance over a medium they didn't create.

You can read the rest here.
someaudioguy some audio guy voice over business podcasting production audiobook announcer narration radio voice acting auditions

I MET A LIVING LEGEND!!!: Norman Corwin Edition

Yup he's 97, and as sharp as ever.

I got to go hang out at the the Museum of Television and Radio yesterday. AFTRA was wrapping up this years mentoring program by having college students perform a radio play, complete with live sound effects. Of course I'm a sucker for this and had to be there. It was only after RSVP-ing that I realized the play they were performing was an unpublished work from Norman Corwin, and that he would be in attendance. To be honest I only had a cursory understanding of who Corwin was, but I knew enough to know that this was a pretty big deal.

I showed up 90 minutes early.

The play was a funny little romp called "The Strange Affliction", and dealt with a woman who couldn't stop speaking in rhyme, and the students had a fun time performing it. After the play we were then treated to the Academy Award winning documentary about the life of Corwin called "A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin".

As it was also so close to his birthday, a reception was held with a cake and refreshments. My favorite moment was Corwin's proclamation post blowing out the candle on his cake, that he couldn't enjoy the cake because of dietary restrictions, but that it was sweet enough knowing there were only some 500 days left for Bush.

It was a great way to spend an afternoon.

For those not as familiar with Corwin's work, first up, check out these Youtube clips of him speaking, the link should direct you to search results.
Then check out his web page here. It has tons of clips of his work in radio.


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MenSTEALia still getting pissy, now with Ari edition

Man, I've said it before, but where's the RIAA when you need them...

So, not much to say on this one. Carlos Mencia calls into San Diego radio show, tries to play magnanimous, they take a call from Ari (in the Joe Rogan video), Carlos gets pissy (while trying to offer his sage-like advice to Ari over "just being funny"), Carlos' people have the radio station pull the call, and interview over.

Take a listen.

I don't know, but where there's smoke there's usually a fire, so just interrupting the call just makes Carlos look guilty.

Also I think it's funny that they played a clip of old Ned talking about being Mexican, and that there are "different kinds of Mexicans"...

...

Which is funny ...

...

Cuz he's Honduran ...

...

Awesome FCC Info Regarding Sirius/XM Merger - I Didn't Write This Edition

Hey all, this is a follow up to my previous story about the FCC, Sirius, and XM. An Anonymous commenter left this great comment with some awesome info and links. Rather than try and write up a post (or series of posts, come on we all know publishing numbers matter, god bless Analytics), I'm just going to post this up as my favorite comment of the week.

Anonymous said...

After a year of heavy promotions, there is no consumer interest in HD Radio:

"Sirius, XM, and HD: Consumer interest reality check"

"While interest in satellite radio is diminishing, interest in HD shows no signs of a pulse."

http://www.hear2.com/2007/02/sirius_xm_and_h.html

"What kind of digital radio are listeners searching for?"

http://www.hear2.com/2006/10/what_kind_of_di.html

"HD Radio on the Offense"

"But after an investigation of HD Radio units, the stations playing HD, and the company that owns the technology; and some interviews with the wonks in DC, it looks like HD Radio is a high-level corporate scam, a huge carny shill."

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/2007-03-07/music/hd-radio-on-the-offense

"RW Opinion: Rethinking AM’s future"

"Making AM-HD work well as a long-term investment is seen as an expensive and risky challenge for most stations and their owners. There is the significant downside of potential new interference to some of their own AM analog listeners as well as listeners of adjacent-channel stations."

http://www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0044/t.557.html

April 1, 2007 6:22 AM

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The Beginnings of my Horrible Awful Demo

Ok, it's not that bad. These are some of the first recordings I've made for my next demo. I don't spend a lot of time on myself, and little bit by little bit I'm going to make this a production worthy demo.
I've done it for others (because I get paid to), so now it's time to take care of myself (and maybe I'll even pay myself to do it, who knows).

Let me know how much it sucks!

Some Audio Guy's Initial Recordings for His Next Demo! WOOT!




Bigg's thinks it's tasty!

*** EDIT ***

Here's a streaming version, so you don't even need to navigate away from this page to have a chuckle over my VO skills! Enjoy!

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And NPR will come to save us?

No no really, of all the places that a resistance will brew against the RIAA, who'dathunkit, NPR.

I for one, am very much looking forward to this little alphabet battle. Amidst cries of NPR going "corporate", a move like this would make me very happy.

Read all about it (@ the Chicago Tribune):
NPR may lead fight against Internet radio royalty rate hike
someaudioguy some audio guy voice over radio recording voice acting announcer narration royalty audiobook news riaa copyright