Monthly Archives: January 2012

Austin Variety Show

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Nothing like a deadline. My friend Troy Dillenger needed an assist on getting some rapid post-production sound work done on two episodes of the Austin Variety Show, in time for a January 28 premiere event. I don’t think he slept more than 2 hrs a day this week.

I had basically a day to post the audio for a 40+ minute program aka Episode 14, most of which was poorly recorded narrative bits. Well, I wanted something to bang on Pro Tools 10 with… Episode 15 had less narrative to deal with and thus was cranked out faster.

While I can’t say I plan to personally showcase these rush jobs, I do support his Quixotic efforts to conquer cable TV! Go see them do their thing, the AVS venue is over at Highland Mall.

 

Wild Hares!

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Blammed through a fun little spot today for Shiner Brewery, promoting their latest effort “Wild Hare Pale Ale”. This was another Fueld Films joint, my fave production company here in the ATX. I realized during the shoot that this was my 2nd anniversary with them, an early 2010 Golfsmith commercial being my inaugural effort. One little diff with this one was the need to record VO for both the spot and for radio. Feeling pretty certain that finding an acoustically friendly locale on set would be unlikely, I decided to prep my new vehicle to be the VO booth. Having walled off and insulated the front half when I had Third Coast Vans do some aftermarket alterations made for a pretty decent initial setup. In addition, I put a panel of Auralex-ish stuff behind the mic and blanketed any reflective stuff. I threw a headphone amp and a few pairs of cans, yanked my bag off the cart and we were ready to roll. It was a really windy day outside, but you couldn’t tell inside. We only had to pause for really noisy stuff like motorcycles or airplanes. We had veteran Dallas actor Sean McGraw as our talent today and he was a machine. Hat’s off to ya, mister. All three spots can be viewed here.

 

Oh, the horror!

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Just finished up a three day run on a horror short called Unknown Caller directed by San Antonian Chris Kruse and DP’d by Clay Liford. Clay and I have been FB friends for a while but this was our first collaboration. As with all such projects it was besieged by location issues (road construction noise was a major blemish the 1st day) and a ticking clock, but we finished on time. The lead was a funny and feisty little gal named Kat Connor, who I hope to work with again soon.

 

 

Boot Campaign

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Did some sound design for a spot for the Boot Campaign, a grassroots initiative started by five women from Texas known as the Boot Girls. The campaign provides an easy and tangible way for Americans to show appreciation for troops (both past and present), raise awareness of the challenges they face upon return and donate funds to charities supporting their transition home.

I’ll post the spot once it is online.

Surreality Pilot

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Reality pilots are a wild ride, as there are no templates established and things are just going to come out of nowhere to bone your schedule. I just finished a few days in Fredericksburg, TX, a little Germanic town of about 10,000 or so. We were following a married couple around, one of which happens to be a very experienced NY boom op/utility named Karl Wasserman. Having a cast member with those skills made things way easier, as he couldn’t keep himself from helping our cause. A lovely fellow. His wife, Tamara is a live wire and was super affable and fun to toil with, and toil we did. I personally turned in over 30 GB of audio from just the 3 days. 3-4 cameras at any given point, and 13-15 hour days.
Looking forward to seeing how they stitch this together.

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Hooray for New Van!

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Recently acquired a 2012 Nissan NV cargo van. As far as I know it’s currently the only one in Austin as they don’t sell them here yet. It was used with only 2k miles on it. I had Third Coast Vans add a passenger bench with seatbelts. They also walled off the front half and insulated it. In the back I had tie-downs installed and there’s enough room for both carts and additional hardware.

Pics here: