Monthly Archives: April 2015

Audio Book Recording & Production

Audio Books Are Murder! But Only When Done Correctly.

Leave a comment
"Murder In Coweta County", the true crime drama that shocked Georgia - and America - from 1948, via Margaret Anne Barnes...and Pelican Publishing
“Murder In Coweta County”, the true 1948 crime drama that shocked America – Now in Audio from Airlift Productions , Micheal Ziants  & Pelican Publishing

It really is true: To the VoiceOver guy, if the thirty second radio spot is the 100 yard dash, then the audio book recording process would have to be the marathon.

What a marathon – and what an audio book – “Murder In Coweta County”  turned out to be.  An autopsy on American Ideals and Dreams that mixes prejudice, racism, big money, pride, murder and southern justice all cast against the backdrop of 1948 Georgia –  I lost count after 75 all the different characters I would have to portray by book’s end.

The courtroom scenes, which dominate the back half of the book, involve questioning from agenda-filled lawyers and testimony from terrified and frightened witnesses. For they have been called to help fill in all the details and build the state’s case against the villainous, feared, arrogant John Wallace.  

AirliftProductionsRecordsAudioBookVersionOfMurderInCowetaCounty
Actual courtroom photograph from 1948 of a smiling, confident – and headed to the electric chair (“Old Sparky”) – John Wallace

Bringing LIFE to printed words on paper, painting mental pictures, taking the listener to front-stage center in the ‘theater of the mind’ are the challenges posed to the audio book narrator & actor.

In this excerpt from Chapter 21 of “Murder In Coweta County”, it was my task to, in effect, be the Judge, Jury & Executioner, as the saying goes … as I create antagonist, protagonist and everyone in between – from the prosecutor to the service station attendant cleaning up blood-stained car mats.  Even the aged father of the poor, murdered victim.

~ Airlift Mike reads from Chapter 21 of “Murder In Coweta County”, courtesy of the krewe at Pelican Publishing ~

If a printed book can be referred to as a “page turner”, urging the reader ever-onward, it’s Pelican Publishing’s and my hope that this audio book will be a tough one to turn off.

MurderInCowetaCountyJohnWalGiven the fact that the outcome, which is a long foregone conclusion having been based on a true crime drama (“he gets the chair”), the magic has to be in the story telling. Or as Billy Shakespeare used to say, “The play’s the thing”.

And play it I did. My heart, soul, blood, sweat & tears … metaphysical studies & philosophical leanings, coupled with my decades of on-mic experiences are all boiled down into the tracks of every chapter of this audio book. Truly.

So, as 2015 continues to grind on – with tensions from Ferguson to Baltimore – give a listen to this fascinating autopsy on America’s roots and ideals. 

 Available from the krewe across the river at Pelican Publishing, it will serve as a permanent reminder around the house and to all of America,  that racism must be a thing of the past, that might does not make right … and that “crime does not pay”!

The late author Margaret Anne Barnes together with Johnny Cash, who portrayed her MICC hero Lamar Potts in the made-for-TV movie version
The late author Margaret Anne Barnes together with Johnny Cash, who portrayed her MICC hero Lamar Potts in the made-for-TV movie version

Airlift Productions  ~ Telling America’s Great Stories since 1984

Airlift Productions RADIO work, Audio Book Recording & Production, New Orleans VoiceOvers

Spring Is Busting OUT All Over At Airlift Productions

Leave a comment

AirliftProductionsSpringFlowersIt would appear that seeds sown through countless past seasons have now rooted, grown and indeed blossomed. Too flowery? Too poetic?  Not so much.  Run with me here…

While Airlift Productions clients of last century found Airlift & me via the Yellow Pages (“let your fingers do the walking…”), this Spring’s flowers have all been delivered through SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and that wacky Internet of Things.  Really.

Don Draper & Roger Sterling, those dashing Mad Men, would not even recognize the marketing landscape of today! And audio/video production crews of the 1970s and ’80s wouldn’t even have a clue as to what’s going down in 2015.

Through the Airlift Productions website and this blog, imagine the fascinating and interesting jobs produced already this Spring from the Airlift Productions studios here in NOLA —–

Jeorjina Tegel, the right-hand hands-on exec at Right Hat on this job. Thanks for your help, Jeorjina
Jeorjina Tegel, the right-hand hands-on exec at Right Hat on this job. Thanks for your help, Jeorjina.  To call this gig ‘interesting’ would be a gross understatement.

The call came just weeks ago from Elonide, the President of a Boston & Chicago-based Ad Agency, Right Hat, for some help – the job? A :30 radio ad, which would be overseen by the writer Andy, who lives in Manhattan… the spot would be voiced by four different voice actors (all working from their respective home studios), and yours truly was contracted to produce and engineer the finished spot (for a CPA firm) to air – in San Francisco!

All sound a bit confusing? Well, it certainly was ‘out there’ and different. The commercial involved EIGHTEEN cuts/edits – in a thirty second radio ad – and multiple attempts to find the just-right music.

And the entire job … from NOLA to Chicago to NYC to San Francisco began … with a Google/Bing search by Elonide at the helm of Right Hat. 

AirliftProductionsRecordsAudioBooksforRecordedBooksNYC
Airlift Productions records “The Boys Who Challenged Hitler” for Recorded Books, New York

Just two weeks ago, the Airlift Studios were really buzzing, as we phone-patched between NOLA and NYC (from the Big Apple to the Big Easy) to record the Audio Book “The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen & the Churchill Club”.

Contracted by Recorded Books in NYC,  the world’s largest independent distributor of audio books to libraries, schools & the retail market, Airlift Productions warmed-up the mics to record the book’s author Phil Hoose, as he interpreted the words of it’s hero.

Imagine, if you can, 1940s Danish teens, upset by Denmark’s neutral stance, who decide to take on the Gestapo, the Nazis and the 3rd Reich all by themselves … and spearhead Danish resistance. Wow! What a story.

AuthorPhilHooseAirliftProductionsMichealZiantsApril2015
Author PHIL HOOSE records “The Boys Who Challenged Hitler” at Airlift Productions NOLA April 2015

The sessions ran nine hours across two days, and all the wave files were directed via the Airlift phone-patch and neatly dropped back into Manhattan via an FTP site for use by their editors.

And Andy & his gang at Recorded Books found Airlift and me via the internet and a Google search.  As he let his ‘fingers do the walking’ – 21st century style.

Finally, just this past week, the call came into the Airlift Studios from Denver and a big post-production house called High Noon Entertainment.  These guys are the driving force behind many of your fave shows from TLC, Discovery, HGTV, Animal Planet & …. well, you get the idea.

As it turns out, the hot new show on The Cooking Channel is a fun one called “Taco Trip”, and it’s star, another fun one himself, is a close buddy & business partner with our NOLA chef John Besh.  And he needed to record VoiceOver tracks for the show.

AaronSanchezRecordsVoiceOversFromNOLAandAirliftProductions
The Cooking Channel’s AARON SANCHEZ cooks-up tasty VoiceOvers for TACO TRIP at Airlift Productions NOLA April 2015

Chef Aaron Sanchez blew in the Airlift Studio doors like a hurricane Wednesday morning, we set mic levels, then phone-patched between NOLA and Denver as producer Matt Walker walked the good chef through all his reads for the show.

Again, voila! Within the hour, all the big fat wave files were delivered to Denver, tagged & bagged and ready for air – on flat screens via cable & satellite on The Cooking Channel … all across America!

MichealZiantsNewOrleansVoiceTalentAndAudioProducer
Airlift Mike – like the local fireman down at the firehouse – ready to take the call

Yeah, I guess you could say that Spring is busting out all over at Airlift Productions.  And if these are the April showers … what will May bring?

Stay tuned ….

Airlift Productions & Airlift Mike ~ delivering the Goods … from New Orleans since 1984

Morgus & Me, New Orleans VoiceOvers

Morgus & Me + Marriage Insurance? WTH?

Leave a comment
MorgusTheMagnificentSidRideauRecordsAtAirliftProductionsNOLA
Morgus the Magnificent – aka Sidney Noel Rideau – Records VoiceOvers at Airlift Productions … for over a Quarter of a Century! Really.

I guess it would be safe to say that in operating a recording studio in America’s most colorful city –  New Orleans – for what is now THIRTY years, that I’ve worked with some pretty colorful characters.

From setting microphone levels for Dr. John and Archie Manning to recording projects with all of the city’s mayors ( Morial-2X to Landrieu-2X), verbally jousting with Mary Matalin & James Carville, even coaching ‘Annie’ Quvenzhane Wallis through tough V/O copy for Chrysler … my most unforgettable – and beloved – character would have to be Morgus the Magnificent!

Sidney Noel Rideau & I go back over 25 years together now; he has the distinction (?) of being the only person who has recorded at every recording studio I’ve ever built, every incarnation of Airlift Productions; He is the eccentric uncle I never had! I love this man.

We first met in 1986 while I was producing radio ads for and operating as the Voice of WGNO-TV/Channel 26 here in New Orleans, and he was reviving his ‘Morgus Presents” TV show. Our first gig together was in my closet-studio Airlift iteration where we recorded all the E.R.I.C. (the talking skull) heavily-reverbed V/O tracks for use in the shows.

SidNoelRideauMorgusRecordsVoiceOverForNewOrleansAtAirliftProductions
E.R.I.C. the talking skull records VoiceOver at Airlift Productions

Our relationship continues to this day. I almost feel as though I’ve become his real-life Chopsley, in that I’ve operated as his behind-the-scenes henchman all these years.

Together we’ve produced everything from radio ads for Cajun seasonings products to public service announcement campaigns for his Internet Story Club teacher-family outreach … but among my favorite sessions with my fave ‘Uncle Sid’ would have to be the one that is the subject of this post – ‘Marriage Insurance’.

As fate would have it, Sid’s Morgus character is also one of nationally-broadcast Coast-to-Coast late night radio host George Noory’s favorites too! And Sid stopped by the Airlift Studios in February 2006 to record a few ‘pilots’ for segments to possibly be used in Noory’s nightly broadcasts. I kid you not.

The proposed segments never did materialize (radio marketing in the 21st century is a very tricky thing), but this never-before-heard audio is just way too-funny and priceless.

It’s for the “Morgusian Marriage Insurance Company of America”, protecting your marriage from divorce, and includes not only Sid’s outrageous take on the state of marriage in America today – but I’ve also left in all the out-takes! I particularly love the way he slides in/out of character, and oh, that laugh …..

**** Sidney Rideau – aka Morgus the Magnificent – takes on the perplexing problem of marriage & divorce for the Airlift Productions microphones in February 2006 ****

Today, Uncle Sid is enjoying retirement on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain in a tiny hamlet known as Covington, LA  with his bride of all these years Dainya. They met in the late 1950s in NYC where Sid was being considered as a side-kick to Johnny Carson, and she was an interpreter at the United Nations.

For true!  No, I could not make up a story as unique as theirs. 

What a character, and truly fine & gifted, spirited human being this man is. Lucky to have had him in our lives we all are, and to have been able to bask in his light and genius.

Because, at the end of the day (as the white man is often wont to say), in the mythology of the American Tribe – Superman will always have his Clark Kent, the Batman his Bruce Wayne … and Morgus the Magnificent will always be remembered as the man who gave him Life – Sidney Noel Rideau.

MorgusSidneyNoelRideauRecordsAtAirliftProductionsNewOrleans
Sidney Noel Rideau Records VoiceOvers and More at Airlift Productions New Orleans

Airlift Productions ~ Audio Alchemy from New Orleans since 1984