Airlift Productions NOLA’s Micheal & Ben Ziants along with The Shadeaux – his first Christmas 2006
The only problem with dogs is … that they don’t live forever!
And spelled either frontwards or backwards … Dog is still man’s best friend.
The Shadeaux, with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal dogs, came to the Airlift Productions Studios and became our official mascot and ‘talent herder’ over Christmas 2006.
Near as we can tell, he’s twelve years old today and, truth be known, he picked us out at the SPCA that day. Kind of like the Ziants boyz – a mutt; part German Shepherd, part Chow, part Border Collie … and all Love.
Airlift Mike and The Shadeaux – ears back – after a long walk. Gee, this totally Zen dog doesn’t even return a bark for a bark! But he loves to give that mailman hell. 🙂
No, this is not his obituary (and even he’d appreciate the humor that the word ‘bitch’ is in that word), it’s more like a mid-life opus and testament to his otherworldly powers.
After all, the recording process can be somewhat intimidating to some, and capturing a stellar on-mic performance can feel a bit daunting at times – even to the pro!
And the Shadeaux has an uncanny way of throwing a ‘chill-out’ factor into the entire equation.
Little Quvenzhane Wallis (of ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’ fame) wanted to take him home with her (no chance), and James Carville’s ‘missus’ – Mary Matalin – could hardly tear herself away to get back to work on her audio book.
With a woof, a lick, and an appreciative tail wag – coupled with more fur than Liz Taylor at a pre-PETA-days holiday bash – the Shadeaux has an amazing talent for making anyone feel comfortable, relaxed and right at home.
And when trying to record a stunning on-mic, on-point performance … what more could you ask for?
Except maybe that he’d live forever.
Airlift Productions … where EVERY day is ‘Take Your Doggie to Work Day’… Airlift Mike with his fave, furry four-footed friend – and uncharacteristically shy, The Shadeaux
————————————————————————————-
“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.” ~ Will Rogers
“I care not for a man’s religion whose dog & cat are not the better for it.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
“The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.” ~ Andy Rooney
Micheal Ziants & Sean O’Shea, navigating the twists & turns of AudioBook production, Airlift Productions New Orleans, June 2017
“Airlift Mike was a saint, and ridiculously patient and supportive (and helpful!!) for this audio book virgin. In another environment, without the support, and with pressure to perform “right”, I probably would have completely fallen apart. So the MVP for this getting done goes 100% to Mike and the chilled outenvironment he’s cultivated…personally and within his studio.
I can’t tell you how excited I am to be able to get this audio book out to you guys!! As challenging as it all was, the end result, I think, is amazing!
Once again, a big heartfelt thanks to Mike and the years of expertise he brought to this project to ensure I sounded my very best. If you’re ever in Nola and need the best audio dude, and the best dude dude, holler at my man Mike withwww.airliftproductions.com
Thanks for the great week my friend! :)”
— SEAN O’SHEA, Los Angeles-based Dog Trainer & AudioBook Producer
Now playing – yes, still in 2018, that’s what ‘buyouts’ are all about – on flat screens all across Atlanta, from hotels to motels and on the web, is this classic piece all about a Mediterranean Grill in downtown Atlanta called “Aviva by Kameel”.
The creative crew at Destination Network in Florida came up with the copy, approach & video editing expertise. The call came into the Airlift Productions Studiosfor V/O help on the announce tracks.
Yours truly – as the VoiceOver guy – is merely a supporting player, helping to tell the story. The star is without question – proprietor, chief cook and bottle washer – Kameel Srouji!
A native of Nazareth, Israel, who emigrated to the states and Atlanta in 1979, this guy just lights up the screen with his intensity, passion, and drive. And, oh, those eyes.
Kameel serving it up…with style & passion
My job? Simply to tie it all together – level, even-handed, even understated – while the orchestrated symphony of the kitchen workers and the snappy music track propel it forward.
Fun! Bouncy! Electric! And motivating hungry Atlanta natives & tourists to sample Aviva’s eclectic fare… and keep coming back for more.
Broadcast Veteran – and Actor – Micheal Ziants, plying his trade at the Airlift Studios
Airlift Productions & Airlift Mike ~ sort of like my buddy Kameel ~ ‘boxing-up’ VoiceOvers-to-Go since 1984!
Tour the Studios right now from your laptop or cell phone here ~ AIRLIFT PRODUCTIONS, or just call on the 504 at 833-8450.
“My experience with Airlift Productions was top notch from the start. My company is based in Los Angeles and I had a client that needed to do a last minute VO session in New Orleans. Micheal was incredibly knowledgable and accommodating, not to mention a blast to work with! Our session turned out beautifully.”
– LIZZ RANTZE, Executive Producer, Rantze + Raves Productions, Los Angeles, CA
Sister Thecla celebrating her 75th year as a nun in the Order of the Holy Family ~ along with Micheal Ziants in 2009
Today, January 10th, 2018, would have been Sister Thecla’s 104th birthday.
Born Agnes Bonner in 1914 in Scott, LA, Sister Thecla was a nun in New Orleans’ Order of the Holy Family for 75 years!
I first met the good sister through mutual friend John Lee in the aftermath of a rather painful divorce. We took to each other immediately. She wore her air of peaceful equanimity and compassionate non-judgment like a crown.
Calling the house every night for 7 straight years, she consoled and comforted, listened and directed, laughed and cried … and prayed with me.
Would that we all could make the ‘other side’ so clearly visible from this one.
Sister Thecla in 1934, as she took her vows to be a nun. I always used to tease her that we would get Halle Berry to play her in the made-for-TV movie! 🙂
Never one to proselytize, catechize or evangelize – ‘Sister Tee’ showed by her example, the way she lived her life every minute of everyday … the way to a Kingly life.
After all, True religion is not something to be ‘put on’ for an hour or two a week in a building, but rightly used is knit into the day-to-day fabric of our very lives. Wow! Did Thecla ever get that.
Through her 75 year run as a nun she led the posse at the Order, in the French Quarter originally, and then on Chef Menteur, through quite a litany list of soap operas … as they tended to the temporal, as well as the spiritual, needs of everyone!
That’s everyone. From hookers, homeless and drug addicts … to abandoned children and severely abused women. The Sisters of the Order of the Holy Family even took in Louis Armstrong at one point in his life.
In 2004, on her 90th birthday, Sister Thecla visited the Airlift Productions Studios to record her life story
*** Thecla Therapy ~ “What a Wonderful World” from Airlift ***
Sister Thecla’s unyielding faith, relentless compassion, and inner strength are captured in her voice. Listen to just a bit of this remarkable spirit – the patron saint of Airlift Productions – in this recording made on her 90th birthday in 2004.
Sister Thecla hanging with the sinners – the Ziants boyz Ben & Micheal – on Thanksgiving 2004
Though she dropped her body in 2009, I won’t say ‘rest in peace’ at this point. Because she’s still at it today … planning her work, and working her plan. That’s what that Roman Catholic concept of ‘communion of the saints’ is really all about.
Let me just say God Speed, ‘Sister Tee’! And thanks ever so for helping me to be a little more than just human … and for helping Airlift Productions in NOLA to be a little something more than just a recording studio.
Airlift’s Micheal Ziants and BFF Sister Thecla hanging around the Order of the Holy Family commissary on Father’s Day 2008
“Mike, thank you for 25 years of successfully teaching Algebra to children of color and students who were living in poverty. They aren’t living in poverty anymore thanks to you and the mathematical skills you gave them. They are doctors, engineers and scientists today.” ~ the late JOHN R. LEE, founder & creator of the I CAN Learn Mathematics Educational Software
Whether the reader of these words be Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Atheist, Agnostic, or none-of-the-above – there is one thing in which we all must be in agreement: this Jesus of Nazareth’s impact on planet earth and its history is undeniable, quantifiable, and measurable.
Through all these now twenty centuries, his messages of Peace, Love, Hope & Redemption have reverberated strongly, from the blood-soaked sands of his birth in the Middle-East to the church steeples on the corners of Anytown, USA.
And as you and I dance every day on a whisker-thin bubble that separates this life from the afterlife, Easter weekend reminds us all of his hopeful, joyful promise of that life which follows this one.
Let’s be honest. This is the part that hangs us all up the most.
The Laughing Christ – an artist’s rendering that has adorned the Airlift Productions Studio Walls for over two decades
Life after Death? Really?
When I’m often questioned on this one, I respond, “Well, where do you go when you dream? We already spend a third of our lives (sleeping) existing in pure consciousness. What’s the big deal about going from one third to three thirds?”
We will all do the math.
Life is but a parenthesis in eternity. From cradle to grave, sperm to worm, womb to tomb … in the final reality – Eternity – no more real than an eight hour nightly dream on your Serta perfect sleeper. For true.
Jesus of Nazareth got that! He lived that. He died that. Or did he?
Truth be known – You and I are but ghosts driving meat-coated skeletons made from stardust! Let that one sink in a bit. The biggest part of any of us will never show up in an autopsy. And it’s not about the name on your driver’s license, or how much water you displace in a hot tub. All things must pass. You and me included.
What fights the realization that these words I write are true is Ego. E-G-O – Earth Guide Only, Edging God Out, Eliminating Golden Opportunities! Merely one of the teachings that the Nazarene – in his too-short tour of duty – was trying to get through to mortal man.
And I continue to be amazed by some of our sayings, like “Hey, I’m only human!” No, you’re not. We’re all more. Much more.
But here’s the big caveat – only to the extent that we realize this, internalize this, and make it our day-to-day reality.
Yeshua, along with the Lion and the Lamb … and a promise of ‘swords to plowshares’ … death to the EGO and a promise of everlasting Life
If you’ve run with me this far, let’s take it a bit further.
I’ll never understand the Christian who makes fun of the Jew, when Judaism was the incubator for all Christianity! While many will agree that Jesus to his death was still a Jew, few realize that St. Paul (Saul of Tarsus) to his beheading by Nero in 68 AD Rome – was still a Jew!
So, if looked at from a different perspective, all what we term ‘Christianity’ today could be viewed as a rather elaborate and magnificent Jewish sect. Yes, the two great faith traditions are inextricably and deliciously intertwined at the root forever.
Easter, Passover – from solemn seder meals to Good Friday crawfish boils – we all need to find a way to come to the same table!
And 9-11 & Osama Bin Laden no more represented sacred Islam than David Koresh at Waco or a hooded Klansman at a lynching represented sacred Christianity. But that is the subject for another holiday weekend blog, another day.
“I am in the Father… and the Father is in Me” ~ 21st century style
Yes, this Jesus of Nazareth sure did teach us all to “color outside the lines” … and think “outside the box”. Wait a minute, you mean there’s a box?
Yes, the one humans call a coffin.
And the everlasting promise of this Easter weekend – no matter what your faith or belief system – is that ‘the box’ is not the end … of … the … story.
Many thoughts are rambling around my head on this Mother’s Day 2015, so I came here to unpack a few of them. Allow me to wish you & yours a Happy One, as I attempt to sort some things out.
It’s been said that “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world”, and indeed mothers – and the way in which they raise their children – most definitely mold and form society and the world in which we live.
Rightly or wrongly (and yes, there are bad mothers), through motherhood women leave their indelible mark on the planet. Some seek to leave their footprints in the sands of time … while others leave but skid marks at the intersection.
Did you know that America’s first people, the Tribes – from the Sioux to the Cherokee – had quite a different view when talk of the planet and mothers was involved?
To them, four simple words summed-up all of existence – “Mother Earth, Father Sky”.
ALL food, all sustenance – indeed all life – grew from the Earth! Berries, fruit, maize, corn, wheat ALL came from the dirt beneath their feet. Mother Earth.
And all this nourishment, the very essence of life, would not be possible without the rains and the sun to make it grow. Father Sky.
Pretty simple, huh? And pretty true, too.
Well, if you’ve run with me this far on this Mother’s Day, let’s run just a bit further. I’m haunted as of late by a line from Paul Simon’s tune “Questions For the Angels”, wherein he poses this question…
“If every human on the planet and all the buildings on it should disappear… would a zebra grazing on the African savanna care enough to shed one zebra tear?”
Wow! Ponder that one a moment. Let that one sink-in a bit.
And I realize that it’s more than a tad on the dark side (for Mother’s Day 2015), but couple that thought with this troubling nightmare that persists… in my New Orleans nights.
The whole planet Earth – all 7-billion+and counting – all humanity … the very planet we call home – gone! Disappeared. And the epitaph on the tombstone says rather succinctly – “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.” ~ the Father.
No. Despite all human ‘advancements’ and technology and progress and religion and culture … in the eyes of the Creator Spirit that is All — we just didn’t cut it.
And the kicker? In the Big Picture? In the eyes of the vast universe… the disappearance of this one little planet in the backwaters of the Milky Way, here in what we call the 21st Century … didn’t even make the front page in the Sunday Universal Times.
Yet, from the palaces of Kim Jong Un to Vlad Putin, the games persist. And from the streets of Ferguson, MO to Baltimore, MD… peace, love & respect for human dignity increasingly get lost in our crazed, frantic and hyper-connected digital world.
And the beat goes on. Until it doesn’t.
I only wish that I had a rosier picture to paint this morning, but we’ll save that ‘rose’ for the Mother’s Day bouquet sitting on kitchen tables all over the world at this moment.
*** Airlift Mike’s “This Is For the Mothers” ***
And along with it, a Hope and a Prayer … for your Mother Earth and mine.
IncreaseThePeace … with Love & Respect ~ Micheal Z
It 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. 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.
Airlift Productions records “The Boys Who Challenged Hitler” for Recorded Books, New York
Just two weeks ago, the Airlift Studioswere 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.
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.
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!
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?
Everything changes. Count on it. Even – and especially – in the world of VoiceOver. If you want to get addicted to anything – get addicted to change.
For the Out-of-Towners, today’s Front Page News for Sunday, March 22nd, 2015 ~ courtesy the boyz down at the Times-Picayune, New Orleans
America’s most fascinating city – New Orleans – is only now beginning to return to ‘normal’ after the developments of the past weeks.
Thrust begrudgingly into the spotlight of national and international news by (1) eccentric millionaire Texas fugitive Robert Durst – picked up downtown in our Marriott (packing a gun, mask, fake ID, and 5 ounces of pot, medicinal I’m sure) on the lam from the law… and HBO, and (2) this weekend’s machete-wielding miscreant (God rest his troubled soul) who decided Friday night to whup-up on some unsuspecting TSA agents out at Louis Armstrong … we’re only now beginning to catch our breath.
But as I type these words, yet another parade, the annual Irish-Italian parade is marching one block from the Airlift Studios, tossing cabbages & other assorted goodies to the eager, jubilant crowds. Oh, and passing out a kiss or two.
You see – everything changes. And the beat … goes on.
When I began my radio and VoiceOver career, the voice artist (we used to just call them announcers) Demo was distributed via the archaic audio cassette and reel-to-reel recording tape. Then, in the early 80s, it evolved to compact disc. Today it just has to be available via a digital file, wave or mp3, and easily downloadable to someone’s phone, tablet, computer, or digital device.
Only problem is, from what I can gather surfing the web and various voice artist sites, many Voice dudes and dudesses are still employing Flash files on their sites to play their voice demos. Not good.
The Flash format is simply ignored by many devices, including many iOS Apple devices, like the ever-present iPad! So the quest began for a more cross-platform compatible approach that would make the voice demo playable most anywhere and on most anything in 2015.
Ah-hah! Necessity being the mother of invention, the solution seems to be – to make Videos out of our audio. The VoiceOver audition demo, sampled, stored and uploaded as a video plays on the iPad, a Mac computer, Android phone & tablet, and, of course, on all Windows PCs. True cross-platform compatibility! For now.
Case in point, I spent the better part of yesterday in the Airlift Studios toying around with Window’s ‘Movie Maker’, available free on most all PCs or as a free download.
Airlift Productions, New Orleans
Watch – as well as Listen – to my new Commercials Voice Demo on the Airlift ProductionsWebsite Welcome Page by clicking here.
OK, so maybe I got a little carried away, a little too artsy-fartsy with it, as I took jpegs from the studio, art work, even a shot from the banks of the MS River, to punch-up every read. As I alternated from serious to light, dramatic to frivolous.
This same video-from-audio approach can also be as simple as displaying a gif image (bouncing analog or digital vu meters, for example) as ‘eye-candy’ while your demo rolls before their ears.
In any event, you’ve got to love the ‘StarWars-ish’ scroll at the top as an attention-grabber, plus the ‘credits’ at the tail, which gives the listener/viewer the opportunity – the Call-to-Action – to get you by phone right then should they choose. Try doing that with an audio-only file.
This approach also gives the VoiceOver talent an opportunity to ‘display the goods’ via YouTube, Vimeo, or a Facebook page near you. Not bad, huh?
Yeah, we used to snail mail our cassettes, reel-to-reel tapes, digital tapes & CDs to chase voice work with UPS & Fed Ex as the middlemen. In 2015, not so much.
Like I said, everything changes. Even the nature of change.
Best of Luck from NOLA as you chase that VO dream.
The life of a VoiceOver Recording Artist in 2015 is never boring. I mean, no sooner do you think you have all the answers, than they change all the questions!
In the early days of the craft we were all called ‘Announcers’, as we all tended to speak rather loudly, with perfectly pear-shaped, authoritative tones… think preachers, teachers, parents, carnival barkers and military sergeants.
In 2015 not so much.
Consumers today worldwide are more savvy. And the delivery method has become more personal. The big box styled TV set of the 1950s has given way to personal, pocket-sized screens … and the tinny, brittle speakers have given way to earbuds and headphones.
All that being said, today’s blog is all about mixing it up – as Airlift Productions and I toss an audio potpourri that helps to capture the changes, and runs the gamut from newly-produced radio ads and audio books … to a soliloquy!
This week, tasked to amp-up the crowds at a local night club, like the old radio days – where shock jocks would walk a fine line between good taste on the radio … and the unemployment line – the very first word out of my mouth is (OMG) “S-E-X!” (well, now that I have your attention….)
*** Airlift Mike talks (sort of) for “Legends Encore” ***
Like I said, never boring.
Back to the 1950s for a second. Not only were all TV sets huge pieces of furniture dominating your living room, all books were found doing a Dewey Decimal System search in a library, trees had to die to produce them, and they were read – page by flipped page.
Today, not so much.
In 2015, we google search and download to our personal digital device (mp3 player, I-Pod, I-Pad or phone) and LISTEN to the printed word – again read and cooed into our ears by a sympathetic, compassionate, yet dramatic voice.
My very first fully-Airlift-produced, narrated and read-by-yours-truly Audio Book is now on the market, and available for download on a digital device near you. But, fair warning, it is not for the faint of heart.
Murder in Coweta County, a true crime drama set in 1948 Georgia, well before Dr. King, Selma and the Civil Rights movement is indeed a shocker. It tackles racial prejudice, arrogant power and southern justice head-on. Give a listen to just a bit of Chapter 7 through the Airlift Productions microphones here ….
** Micheal Ziants interprets Chapter 7 of Murder in Coweta County ~ courtesy Pelican Publishing, NOLA **
Download the entire “Murder in Coweta County” Audio Book from the krewe at Pelican Publishing across the Mississippi River in Gretna by clicking either of these links. On sale for a mere $17.60, about the price of a good pizza. And this story will stay with you a lot longer. Truly.
But better strap yourself in for the ride first. And keep your hands and feet inside the car… and your 21st century sensitivities intact.
To wrap-up the Audio Potpourri, the VoiceOver Recording Artist of today is always sowing seeds for future work. We create demos to showcase our reach and talents wherein we cast ourselves in arenas within which we’d like to work.
Well, my favorite Rom-Com ever (and I’ve viewed many with the ladies through the years) would have to be ‘Love Actually’. In the opening sequence, Hugh Grant does this reflective monologue VoiceOver shortly after the events of 9-11, while we watch loved ones embracing at the airport.
Poetic license affords a name change from Heathrow to Louis Armstrong, and for demo purposes, re-casts the V-O with none other than yours truly, and it sounds like this ….
** Love Actually Soliloquy from Airlift & Micheal Ziants **
Airlift Productions Proprietor Micheal Ziants, in a photo shoot for Q-93/WQUE-FM back in the day, to promote that afternoon M&M Mike McCann Show for New Orleans
As Mardi Gras rumbles through the streets of NOLA yet again (bands, beads & boobs), and just ahead of the opening of “50 Shades of Grey” at a cineplex near you … a few thoughts from Airlift.
It’s kind of funny the way life works sometimes. The Chinese call it ‘wu wei’ …. living with the give and take, the flow of life, but the biggest industrial VoiceOver job I got all last year centered around an unbelievable set of circumstances.
The CEO of this major Chicago-based supply house needed VoiceOver work recorded for a huge upcoming convention in Dallas. As fate would have it, the CEO was female, and her request to the video producer was, “Have Micheal read it like he did ‘The Highwayman’ on his website.”
Now, the read in question came from an audio book on CD that I had finished recording in the mid-1990s, “Soft Words, Warm Nights“, and was a far cry from anything I’d been cast to record at that point. Not even close.
Passionate. Dramatic. Cinematic. As you may recall from high school or collegiate English classes, this epic poem tells the tale of highway robbery, torrid passion, star-crossed lovers, suicide & murder!
Certainly not what one would call ‘commercial fare’.
Yet across the decades, this recording of ‘The Highwayman’ was the clincher. This was the approach, the mic technique, the raw emotion that this woman – the corporate decision maker – based her final decision on.
All that being said, here comes another Airlift Mike stretch.
In her sizzling, poker-hot, best-seller “50 Shades of Grey”, E. L. James set fire to the smoldering libidos of women all across the planet.
And now, just ahead of it’s big box office release, Airlift Productionspresents ’50 Shades of Grey ~ the Ziants way’ – no reverb, no special effects, no music. Naked. Raw. Real. Sensual. Oh, and fun!
Plug-in the headphones (no kids allowed) and give a LISTEN to Airlift’s audio book audition track here …
***** Micheal Ziants reads from ’50 Shades of Grey’ *****
To the uninitiated who’ve never heard an audio book, yes, the narrator/reader performs all the parts. It’s all about treating the microphone not as a cold piece of metal … but as a warm, human ear. Making sterile technology & internet downloads all warm … and fuzzy.
It has been said that the most important sexual organ is between the ears, not the legs … the human brain, the gray matter. So, let’s tickle it a bit.
Whether this read influences the next corporate narration VoiceOver job or not is purely an academic question at this point … but for now, let’s just consider this a bedtime story for the 21st century woman.
Airlift Productions’ Micheal Ziants putting in another day at the office in 2015. “Ah, can I really say THAT on the microphone?”
Norman Robinson sat in the Anchor chair at WDSU-TV, New Orleans for over twenty years … and still today records his euphonium and VoiceOvers at Airlift Productions.
I first met Norman Robinson in 1991 at the Airlift Productions studios on Iberville Street. He was fresh off the White House beat for the CBS Network and was the newly ordained nightly news anchor at WDSU-TV here in New Orleans.
Along with John Lee, the founder of the I Can Learn educational programs, he showed up at the studios to record some promotional VoiceOver tracks to help attract some attention to this new and innovative method of teaching.
I was thinking about our first meeting and that first session together as Norman arrived at the Airlift studios this past Friday, February 6th, 2015 to record with me… yet again.
Let’s see, so simple math would indicate that our relationship and friendship now spans nearly a quarter of a century!
(L-R) Brian Landry, Norman Robinson, Rich Lenz & Airlift’s Micheal Ziants ~ in the Airlift Productions ‘Green Room’, along with a plaque commemorating four years of Children’s Miracle Network Telethon Theme Songs for our Children’s Hospital in New Orleans
In addition to his outstanding contributions every night for over two decades in the anchor chair at WDSU, Norman is quite the musician as well. While foreign to many, the euphonium (sort of a hybrid cross between a french horn and a tuba) is Norm’s instrument of choice.
He played it in the marine band while in the service, and still does today in various orchestras and ensembles around the Crescent City – and for the Children’s Hospital NOLA at Airlift Productions.
Norman Robinson at the euphonium, along with Brian Landry, the “Soul Men”, laying-down tracks for the 2014 Telethon at Airlift Productions
But it’s more than his chops at the euphonium or at the anchor desk that make Norman so special. It’s his spirit! Charm. Charisma. Magnetism. Gravitas. Norman didn’t just sit in the anchor chair. He inhabited it. He owned it.
In a day and time where even NBC Network News & Brian Williams’ authority and credibility have now come into question, the city of New Orleans always had its fingers on the pulse of what was going on … and believed in and trusted Norman Robinson.
It was that trust, that gravitas, that authoritative weight that brought Norman back into the Airlift Productions Studios this past week to record VoiceOver for a very special project. Just give a listen to a taste of what went down Friday here ….
*** Norman Robinson at the Airlift Productions microphones Friday, February 6th, 2015, talking unabashedly of the city he loves ***
If all Norman did was string words together in that marvelous booming baritone, to many, that would be more than enough, but it doesn’t stop there. His nightly news laughter and asides, and his boundless humanity and love of life on the yearly Children’s Telethons is what endeared him to so many.
Witness this clip provided by his successor Scott Walker, from a cell phone video at our last telethon in June of 2014, as Norman invokes the spirit of James Brown ….
*** Norman performs to make the telephones ring and the pledges come in at the 2014 Children’s Miracle Network Telethon ***
As Norman and I wrapped-up our session this past week, we reflected on our many years working together. And I guess the most interesting part of our conversation was about what lies ahead for us … because we’re just getting warmed-up.
Because, you see, on that great Highway of Life, the most fascinating years, the really interesting ones … are through the windshield – not the rear view mirror!
For more, as they used to say in the ad world, “Watch this Space”.
(L-R) Airlift’s Micheal Ziants, Norman Robinson, Heath Allen, Rich Lenz at the WDSU-TV Studios for the annual Children’s Miracle Network Telethon.
