As the calendar page turns, the balls drop, and the fireworks sizzle, together with the rest of America, allow me to wrap-up the old and welcome the new from New Orleans’ Airlift Productions.
To the ancient Romans, the god Janus (from whom we get the name of the month January) represented this rather two-faced sentiment.
Looking back . Yet forward. All at the same time.
Airlift Productions & I sure have had a wild and varied ride through the fall & early winter, but that’s the way we like it.
Variety, after all, is the spice of life. And in New Orleans, we certainly like our spices.
What a roux!
From television commercial work to web-based holiday greeting cards … from Christmas sentiment to radio imaging, through the past couple months, Airlift & I sure have stirred the pot.
Tasked by Chicago-based ad agency Right Hat to provide the audio for an internet law firm’s Holiday Greeting Card, I called on the talents of NOLA-based actress Wendi Berman.
Together, we recorded a rather clever “Night Before Christmas” parody involving the holiday office pressures of a harried and frustrated thirty-something office manager.
Oh, boy. Oh, joy. Happy Holi-daze, cubicle worker bees!
Meanwhile, back at Airlift Productions, the roux thickens….
Yours truly, Airlift Mike, got behind the mic, as well as drawing-up the storyboard with all the “creative”, for the gang at Mr. Sparky.
Working with video wizard Todd Schmidt and sales point guard Nathan Ales, I helped to cook-up this entree on behalf of the electricians down at our local Mr. Sparky.
Straight-ahead. No BS. “Electrifying”, you might even say, and now energizing flat screens all across metro New Orleans.
Television spots with vision, internet-based holiday cards … yet, as they say in the advertising world, “but wait, there’s more!”
Educational software pioneer – and my own personal BFF – JOHN LEE and I have been through quite the odyssey the past quarter century.
Together, we’ve not only created a trail-blazing approach to teaching America’s kids how ‘to cipher’ with a program that merges math text books with the computer and the internet … we’ve also seen each other through having and raising kids!
So, I get this call from John’s daughter Katherine a couple Sundays back looking for some help in putting together a very special kind of Christmas gift for her dad.
We call it “Daddy Lessons”, and it goes like this….
Katherine brought me a karaoke track from Beyonce’ Knowles, we dropped her voice into it, then added pictures from the family album at strategic points to deliver a powerfully poignant message for her daddy.
‘Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse’… let alone a dry eye to be found around the Christmas Lee house.
Great job, Kat-gal!
Variety? Ya think?
And I haven’t even gotten into more radio imaging sessions for Mike Church and his Crusade Network or recording Hip-Hop artist Staxx (Greg Baptiste) for the Real Deal Nation label & Jason Jones.
Looking back, 2016 sure has been quite the year around the Airlift Productions studios … with fun & exciting projects, working for and with some wildly talented & fascinating individuals.
Let’s ‘face’ it. 2016 or 2017, whether you’re looking back – or forward – the view from Airlift on Pomona is outstanding.
Happy New Year, y’all!
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“I had the extreme pleasure of working with Mike of Airlift Productions for a project in 2016. He was professional, courteous and most importantly, fun to work with. Mike is patient and very thorough with his recording, making sure that what you want is done before he powers down the gear for the day. 10/10, I would work with him again.” -Jared Garcia, Sr. Recording Engineer for Blackstone Audio and Downpour.com
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Airlift Productions ~ Audio Alchemy & Digital Magic from New Orleans since 1984
