Babble-On recently hosted a “Pins and Pints” party at Uptown’s historic Bryant-Lake bowl. Delicious food, great beer, and some pin-crashing were all part of the recipe. And what would a bowling party be without a “Wheel of Meat?” Congratulations to our winners, and many thanks to all who attended. We’re honored to be a part of the stellar ad community here in Minneapolis.
From TASA:
“Not all ‘loud’ sounds irritate an audience to the same extent. The irritability of sounds to an audience is frequency and duration specific. For example, breaking glass at 85 decibels is far more irritating to an audience than a foghorn at 85 decibels.
Rather than simply measuring ‘volume,’ the standard seeks to measure ‘annoying volume.’”
Beyond just having aisle after aisle of shiny new recording gear, the AES convention is notable for the brilliant industry minds it pulls together for roundtable discussions and Q&A sessions that an every-engineer like me can attend and learn from.
One of the more worthy workshops I attended this year was on the subject of listener fatigue. Though on one hand it’s a technical issue for the people like me pushing the faders (er, grabbing the on-screen volume curve with my cursor), it’s also something for the creatives who book us to think about on a more philosophical level.
In addition to being in the business of producing the content that fills our airwaves, we’re also consumers of that content. And in the course of that consumption, whether we’ve thought about it at the time or not, we’ve all experienced listener fatigue. This is painfully obvious when we channel-surf (with the volume differences between channels sometimes startling) or even within the scope of one channel when going from a well-mixed drama to a commercial break with a tear-your-head-off, overly bright announcer. (You listening, Menards?) This is an issue that’s already been tackled (having pretty much brought it upon themselves) by the good folks who mix movie trailers and theatrical commercial spots. Enough consumers got fed up with having to pry their heads out of their backrests after an exceptionally loud movie trailer that the powers-that-be started to listen, realizing that if you keep fighting “the loudness war”, you’ll eventually have no more bodies in the seats.
It’s even easier for the TV viewer, remote in hand, to sit on the couch and shut down a spot. He/she just turns it down or (yes, you know it happens, though you’d like to pretend it doesn’t) changes the channel. He/she won’t ever experience the copywriter’s carefully crafted message, the art director’s highly-polished logo, or the legal department’s carefully-worded disclaimer – they’ll be 8 or 9 channels down the dial by the time the last note of the music house’s jingle rings out.
So, what does it have to do with the work you and I do? The work that you bring me to do? The new digital TV standard has in its verbiage something that essentially says that I as a mixer now have to not only stay on top of the electrically measured volume of my mixes (something mixers have had to do all along), but that I also now have to measure it using new tools that reflect the apparent loudness – how loud it’s subjectively perceived by a human being – in order to save the viewer from the dreaded listener fatigue. The hope is also that this saves the advertiser from being channel-surfed away from.
The FCC has now stated explicitly that on the airwaves of digital TV, the loudness war will no longer be waged. So, now we must ask ourselves: if we can’t make a spot grab the viewers by being louder/harsher/brighter… how will we make a spot grab them? Will we trust enough in the message we’ve crafted that we’ll choose to speak it calmly, soothingly?
The digital TV standard, with the power of law behind it, is tossing us in the water. Grab my hand, and let’s start swimming.
1. When touring Dolby Labs in San Francisco, one realizes the perks of being a worldwide household name for over 3 decades: You can build an in-house theater with a noise floor, a seat-comfort-level, and a bowel-loosening-yet-heavenly-such-that-Händel-would-have-to-rewrite-that-Hallelujah-thing-of-his low-frequency extension. (JK, Händel. It’s an all-time classic. Almost as uplifting as Ludwig’s “Ode To Joy”. [Come on, I'm German.] And, BTW – no disrespect to Jesus! He was a community organizer, while Pilate was just a governor.)
2. After consuming a quantity of dirty Tanqueray martinis in a restaurant sufficient to excuse one’s presence in said restaurant for the duration of the in-house broadcast of the vice-presidential debates, one can blog with less self-consciousness than which one might otherwise be saddled; yea, less than one might have to surmount for subsequent entries of “Notes from the AES convention,” even. (Ass-coverage, you know. Who knows if the martinis I have on nights to come will liberate me so.)
Every now and again we get a crazy concept that offers creative opportunities we just love to embrace. Like this scenario:
“Hey, let’s throw some wimpy little guy in an elevator. Some mousy hand-wringer who needs to talk through a bullhorn to feel less impotent”
Hmmmm…. Voxagra? Elevitra?
The only thing better than an opportunity like this would be if the radio spot in question were written to allow for elaborate sound design, awkward pauses, and funky spatial placements. I mean, that would be like hitting the freakin’ lottery.
Hey, guess we did.
A few weeks ago we got the chance to work with Joel Stacy, a writer at Minneapolis ad agency Colle+McVoy, on some really different radio for the Minnesota State Lottery. Not only was this spot unique in concept, but it was equally so in execution.
For us to get this peculiar scene to play the right way, we were going to have to approach how we recorded it in a creative and non-traditional manner: we’d need a multiple mic array for our “bullhorn guy”, separate rooms, and some way to neutralize the occasional ear auguring feedback that can occur when recording a bullhorn.
Thankfully, we were going to be working with one of our favorite studio affiliates in the world to do this, Nutmeg Audio Post in New York. Asa Somers and Bryan Fenkart, our voice-over talent for this radio ad, were setup in separate rooms (which gave us perfect isolation), and then their voices were sent to us discreetly here in Minneapolis on individual tracks via ISDN Digital Patch.
1st approach – Due to the extreme differences in volume between a megaphone and a normal voice, Asa, “The Wimp” had two mics to work – one for his regular voice and one for the bullhorn. Since his character moved freely between these two modes, there was a lot of trickery in trying to have the right mic live at the right time. We got a few passes this way to see how the overall flow of the spot worked, but we quickly realized that, a cool as it was, – it was difficult to keep up with the actors.
2nd approach – Knowing that the concept worked, we decided to have the guys concentrate on just their interaction – with Asa simply aping how he might be saying his lines if he were on the bullhorn but, all the while, staying on the mic for his regular voice. This kept the timings pretty dead on – (whew).
3rd approach – we had Asa record all his bullhorn dialogue with Brian – letting the two really riff off of each other and go to town. The results were pretty hilarious since they were given pretty free reign to bring to the scene whatever came to mind.
In the end, we edited, mixed and matched elements from all three approaches to arrive at our hero take. From there, we created the illusion of our guy Bryan walking into the elevator and then hearing him dialogue, loudly, with Asa in the trapped confines of a small metal cabin riding all the way up to “36″. Then, we handed the keys off to Masasa Moyo, our announcer, whom we recorded via ISDN from L.A. Studios.
Three cities, Three talent, Three approaches, one pretty damned nice radio spot.
Here’s “Three Times”
Three Times
January 17th – The annual Radio Mercury Awards are gearing up again and, for the fifth year-in-a-row, we here at Babble-On Recording are quite privileged to be involved in the judging of the entries. As first round gavel jockeys it’ll be our job to try and separate the tasty wheat from the run-of-the-mill chaff that spreads endlessly across the plains of radio land. Once we’re done, we truck it off to the expertly honed shredding blades of the Final Judges. Entries are due as of February 22nd, ‘08, so, if you need us to get your award winning radio spots compiled – please give us a shout.
January 15th- The “Who’s Going To Replace Amelia?” sweepstakes are over and we’re proud to announce that the winner is.. the lovely and talented, Becky Carlson, who comes to us from CBS-TV. Becky is our new studio coordinator and, as such, she’ll be that first voice on the phone, the smile at the front door, and the one who’ll keep the whir and buzz of the studio humming along – all while minimizing the ho-humming that can come with waiting around in our lobby for your next recording session to start.
Trust us, she’s far more interesting than last months People Magazine. Hey, just, ask her about film – She. Knows.
Over the past month or so, we’ve had a number opportunities to work with a few celebrities (and celebrities to be) who’ve been in town for some interesting projects.
First off, we had the distinct pleasure to help “local-boy-done-good” , Joey Pollari with his first ADR session. He’s playing the lead role in the pilot of a brand new series for The Disney Channel called, Skyrunners.
Joey plays Tyler Burns, a 14 year old curly-haired genius, – a loveable geek who’s glib, bright, and verbal. The show hinges on the fact that he and his older brother, Nick, have discovered a UFO – and, of course, against their better judgment, have decided to keep it for their own amusement, benefit and edification.
Hey….wouldn’t you?
Tyler, who (unlike his brother) struggles with the idea of keeping the UFO – is kept in a constant state of worry and stress, which poops out in comical dialog – especially when trying (desperately) to talk to girls.
We’ve seen the pilot, and can only hope that it gets picked up – it’s got all the mark of programming you’d like to see aimed at teen boys of this generation – a touch of Sci-Fi, some brotherly love, good humor, and a nice storyline mixed with just enough awkward adolescent moments to give the stories the kind of “street cred” a series like this would need.
We’re crossing our fingers.
Although the NFL Network is involved in an enduring battle with cable networks around the country (trying to get their channel included into everyone’s basic cable package), we can tell you that scrum has zero to do with how good the content is – a few minutes spent with Michelle Beisner will tell you that.
Michelle, a former Denver Broncos cheerleader, is now a reporter for a show called, NFL Network Now. She was in town to visit relatives over the holidays, and while doing so, the network had her pop on by to record some voice-over via phone patch for a piece on the Cleveland Browns.
Without question, she delivered the goods much better than Romeo Crennel’s squad did.
With the continuing writer’s strike rolling along, plenty of programming has been cancelled, condensed, destroyed or demurred.
Last time there was a notable strike – at that time an actor’s impasse roughly eight years ago – the airwaves came alive with a whole new genre of programming, The Reality Show.
One of the benefactors of that new style of entertainment was former ‘N Sync member, Joey Fatone – who has been one of the stars of the show, Dancing With The Stars.
Joey was in town working with the show at Target Center when the folks at TV Guide asked him to come in and record some voice-over via phone-patch for their Golden Globe preview show.
While the Golden Globe Awards didn’t go as everyone had hoped, Joey did a nice job here in the booth. And, we love to say this,….
… he’s one helluva nice and self-effacing guy too.
Good luck with the show, Joey
If you listen to the radio as we do, you often hear a lot of “Talking Head” radio spots filling the doorway of the dial; a steady diet of fatuous blather that is unable to get out of the way of your favorite programming. You know the noise we’re talking about – one peal after another from shrill, shouting, shills who, for all intents and purposes are talking at you – not to you.
It’s the type of stuff that give all of us who work in media production a black eye.
It’s pretty sad really because, so often, that stuff isn’t crafted by advertising agencies who understand the medium or who have the know-how to direct great voice-over talent – yet, they are the very ones who take the body blows of criticism. Instead, much of the real dreck is produced in-house, at local radio stations or by the purveyors of the businesses themselves.
Hey, it’s called “Dollar-A-Holler” for a reason.
That’s why we so look forward to working on good ideas, with good talent. When those two are in lock-step, it allows us to execute what we do in a way that defies what most people perceive as “just another radio ad”. Such was the case when we got to record, edit and mix a radio spot for General Mills’ “Best Life Diet” – a client of Minneapolis advertising agency, OLSON.
Normally, getting eight voice-over talent to record can be a nightmare – from scheduling, to performance, to timing – everything has to click seamlessly or the whole session can get wobbly in a hurry. For this particular spot, the way we got around that was to record all the voiceover actors individually at separate times, and then allowed each to hear what the other had recorded for reference – a “see ‘n say” if you will with a sync track; not exactly a be-bop jam, but the approach allowed for a lot of individual expression to come out while still maintaining the necessary rhythm, pace and framework needed to get everything into sixty seconds. As regards the sound-design, when producing a radio ad with this many talent, one needs to be mindful and spare with the approach – otherwise it can overshadow the message – so, in this instance, only a simple music track was necessary to fill the scene nicely.
On another note, it’s nice to get behind an idea that at least has its head in reality, too. In a day and age when people seriously consider things like the Cabbage Soup Diet, Fen-Phen, or even Atkins (the latter of which is guilty of turning the word “carb” into something analogous to uttering the epithet, “Liberal” – gimme a break) it’s nice to see something like the Best Life Diet. It’s a diet that isn’t a diet – it helps those who are willing to embrace its ideals to understand that weight management is a lifestyle change that is not borne of deprivation or fear. Refreshing.
Thanks to Scott Dahl, Joel Bratsch and Joel Dodson of OLSON for bringing the work our way, plus kudos to all the talent who participated – a very long list that includes, of all people, Tempestt Bledsoe, whom you may remember from The Cosby Show, oh so many years ago.
Here’s the radio spot, Thousands
When talking to an audience that completely eschews anything it sniffs as being girly or pretentious…
…words like “eschew”, for example…
ya really gotta know the lingo.
Walk the walk.
Talk the talk.
And, if you manage to drop in the phrase “power tools” while doing said walking and talking – you’ve successfully drilled down to content that connects like Justin Morneau on a lame-ass hanging curveball (sports references work well too).
Such was the case the other week when we got to work on a holiday radio ad with Minneapolis advertising agency Hunt Adkins and their client, Northern Tool and Equipment. Brian Hucek, the writer, put the stated goal of the spot succinctly (of course, – we’re “walking the walk” here, after all) -”…driving customers to Northern Tool + Equipment during the holiday season. Given [that] the typical Northern Tool customer scoffs at the thought of Christmas sweaters and caroling, the spot needed some attitude to offset the tinsel. The solution? One pissed off Santa. Stuck in a chimney”.
This was gonna be cool. ‘Course, to do this well, you need the right voice-over talent – which, we did. Local hero Mark Benninghofen was our guy at the fictitious call center while Jeff Winter, aka Pissed Off Santa In The Chimney, was brought in via ISDN Digital Patch from Studio Center in Virginia Beach. Simple.
The sound-design was going to be the tricky part – putting Santa in a chimney on his phone would be an interesting wrench to turn. Or, so we thought. In the end however, what helped sell the effect for which we were going really wasn’t even an effect – we simply asked Jeff to affect trying to break free of the chimney at certain points in the copy. Ka-ching. We were able to enhance his struggling with some falling debris, a little small space reverb, a phone filter, some distortion, yada, yada, yada – effectively wrapping it up nicely and putting a glittery little bow on it – which is odd, because, y’know… we’re all guys. Who knew?
Here’s the radio spot, “Chimney”
ChimneyMark Benninghofen can be booked through his Minneapolis talent agent, Wehmann, or can be hired to write and produce radio spots through his production company, SHOUT!