Tag Archives: Phone-Patch Audio Sessions

Airlift Mike: Patching Things Up With The Brits Since 1984

Union jack: hugely symbolic.The S.O.S. call came into the Airlift Productions Studios from London, England just this past Tuesday… with George Washington, Lord Cornwallis’ surrender, talk of Redcoats & that Tea Party thing in Boston well in the rear view mirror.

It was Geraldine from Brainstorm in the UK looking for some help on a project for one of their major clients – Jaguar. Or as the Brits pronounce it, ‘JAG-you-are’.

Apparently a couple of Jaguar’s demo team/drivers had been in New Orleans through the past month, across the river in Avondale at NOLA Motor Sports,  and a film Brainstorm was working on needed a few audio VoiceOver patches done – now!

BrettBogartRecordsJaguarVoiceOverAtAirliftProductions
Jaguar Driver Brett Bogart, along with his boy, Records VoiceOver at Airlift Productions NOLA

Tim Scully of California and Brett Bogart from New Hampshire showed up at Airlift Productions on Thursday afternoon for a 4:30 session to do the deed.

So, let’s see, I’m coordinating a phone-patch recording session here in NOLA with guys from California & New Hampshire, on behalf of London concerns at 4:30 in NOLA – with a director, Jeffrey, while he’s on a cell phone getting off a commuter train in London at 10:30 pm UK-time!

Gee, I’ve got a strange life, huh?

** Brett Bogart VoiceOver Work for Jaguar via Airlift Productions **

Brett's road-worthy & road-weary Jag
Brett’s road-worthy & road-weary Jag

The session went splendidly. Brett, Tim and I ‘crossed all the Ts and dotted all the Is’, I watched my tongue and refrained from references that might seem too “dodgy” or “cheeky”, as Airlift Productions & I delivered the goods.

The big fat Aiff files were then sent via FTP site directly into the mac computers inside the edit bays of Brainstorm within one hour of our recording just like that. Voila!

As once again Airlift & I extend goodwill and hands/headphones across the waters … from the states – ‘England, Junior’ – to our mother country. Hey, I’m all about Beatles, Stones, and Bond – James Bond.

Airlift Productions Website Traffic from London & Brainstorm
Airlift Productions Website Traffic from London & Brainstorm

Irony was further served … as I served Tim & Brett a Dos Equis beer after the session (hey, this is New Orleans), so now we’ve got a Pennsylvania-born engineer recording New Hampshire & California boys for the Brits in the UK … toasting the session’s success – with a Mexican beer!

Only in America, huh?

Which is, of course, what that whole tiff in 1776 was all about.

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JohnFMcElroyRecordsWithAirliftProductionsNOLA
New York-based Award-Winning Audio Book Producer records with Airlift Productions

“Micheal Ziants & I have worked on a number of celebrity productions together.  He’s a cool head in tight spots, keeping the talent moving ahead happily.  He has a wealth of experience at the controls and behind the mic, and knows what he can and can’t get — a valuable and rare sense of proportion.  Working at Airlift Productions remotely via Skype or phone patch is seamless.  It’s like being in the next room.”

— JOHN F. McELROY, New York based Grammy Award Winning Audio Book Producer

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              To Communicate is the beginning of Understanding!

                              Airlift Productions Communicates.

Spring Is Busting OUT All Over At Airlift Productions

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

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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