Yin me, Yang me. From the ridiculous to the sublime, and everything in between, it sure has been a rather interesting late summer and early fall around the Airlift Studios here in NOLA.
As footballs fly, leaves fall, and political mud gets slung, far be it from Airlift & me to not get a little on us. And just as the time-honored Yin~Yang symbol reminds us: Every Thing contains it’s opposite! We’ll never have the concepts of Heat without Cold, Up without Down, or a Hero without a Villain.
Recording studios and VoiceOver dudes and dudesses walk the same path… especially in 2015. Welcome to my ‘Silver Linings Playbook’.
Working alongside Nathan Ales and Todd Schmidt, lately we’ve tackled some pretty attention-grabbing television, for clients as diverse as high-end furniture outlets …
** Georgian Furnishing & Berger Home Labor Day Sale, asking the question “What will the Future Look Like?” ~ Ziants/Schmidt **
… to one-stop-shopping for plumbing, lighting & generators. And with the Louisiana State University Tigers having to cancel their home-opener last weekend on account of lightning & rain for the first time in nearly a hundred years, and sending over 100, 000 home early, the boys and I were almost prescient with this one ….
** Southland Plumbing’s ‘Best Seat in the House’ TV :30 ~ voiced by Micheal Ziants, Video Wizardry by Todd Schmidt **
I just LOVE working with these characters. Nathan Ales and I go way back to radio days at Q-93 here in NOLA, I was afternoon air personality and he was super sales dude. Todd and I met only last year, but that meeting was on the common ground where creative sparks fly and alchemy & magic live. This guy just gets it. He’ll go into the field with camera in-hand and then edit, imagineer, and cut ‘n paste masterpieces!
But as they say in the advertising field – “That’s not all!”
The Yin~Yang continues.
The call came in from Manhattan about another job slated to air in California – San Francisco, to be precise. Andy would write the copy, cast the talent (four separate actors), the agency is in Boston – are you following so far – and yours truly, sitting here in NOLA at the Airlift Productions Studios would merely be the button-pusher engineer to make it all happen.
Sixteen edits in a :30 spot? Really. Airing now in San Francisco is this goodie on behalf of the Armanino crowd…
** Armanino Radio :30, produced by Micheal Ziants at Airlift **
And to wrap-up the ‘Yin~Yang’ fall post, as the Louisiana Governor’s race looms – Trick or Treat – the call came into the ‘firehouse’ for some help with some boys (ironically, also in San Francisco) heading-up an Anti-David Vitter TV ad campaign. Oh boy, oh joy!
Could I help out recording NYC-schooled, NOLA-born ‘n bred Jamie Neumann reading the riot act?…. shouting ‘fire’ in the crowded political theater… calling, in effect, the front-runner a whore-monger?!?!
Oh, sure, why not. Sample just a taste of the phone-patched V-O session from a week and a half back, here ….
** Jamie’s ‘Anybody But Vitter’ phone-patch session excerpt **
From New Orleans, a town that pretty much invented the ‘piano player in the cat house’ thing, and where the only thing folks like spicier and hotter than their food – is their politics, why not?
Besides, as a life-long political atheist and outsider, I say, “Hey, let the best man win!”
Fall in the air, fur flying, leaves falling, mud on the tires – and the flat screens. Things just seem to get more interesting all the time around the Airlift Productions Studios. More Interesting. And hotter!
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“Airlift is THE place to go for a top quality demo. With Mike behind the board you are in very capable hands. His vast knowledge and command of all things audio blends with his laid-back fun environment to bring out the best in any voice. Airlift has the experience and all the tools necessary to make a voice-over reel that is on par with anything you would find in New York or LA!”
– – – HARLON MILLER, Voice-Actor
Hear Harlon’s most bodacious demo now at HarlonMiller.com
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