John Lennon at the piano creating a vision with “Imagine”
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people living life in peace
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one I hope some day you’ll join us And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people sharing all the world
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one I hope some day you’ll join us And the world will live as one
~ John Lennon, “Imagine”
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As my fave old metaphysical space cowboy running partner Henry David (Thoreau) used to say, “Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now… put the foundations under them”. And …
“What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us … are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.”
Airlift Productions’ Micheal Ziants – at age 20 – on the first real radio job, Youngstown-Niles, Ohio, 1972, when many thought I LOOKED like John.
Airlift Mike – channeling and realizing the dreams of John Lennon.
Norman Robinson & Airlift Mike, tracking VoiceOver session, October 2019 at Airlift Productions New Orleans
“Michael is without a doubt one of the most versatile audio and production experts in the industry. ” — NORMAN ROBINSON, Harvard Nieman fellow; Honorary Doctorate of Human Letters-Our Lady of Holy Cross College; former CBS-TV White House correspondent; senior news anchor WDSU-TV, NOLA
Footprints in the Sands of Time …. or skid marks at the intersection?
I guess it’s human nature for all of us to seek love and respect in life. Respect from family, friends and co-workers. And to be thought lovingly of and to be fondly remembered by those we’ve left behind is to never die. You know, “footprints”.
Well, as a life-long student of history, world religions and philosophy, I’ve read many a book on history, but I can honestly say that I’ve never been IN one … until now.
I don’t know what you – the reader of this blog – were doing in the 1970s, or even if you were alive in the ’70s, but in that decade I left enough creative blood and sweat in Harrisburg, PA radio station control rooms to fill a swimming pool!
Meanwhile, here in the 21st century, Harrisburg native, broadcast vet, engineer & scholar Timothy P. Portzline has written ‘Harrisburg Broadcasting: Images of America’, wherein he devotes an embarrassing amount of ink to yours truly.
Available today through all the usual outlets and on Amazon here — ‘Harrisburg Broadcasting’ tells the remarkable story – along with images – of radio’s & television’s roots in the state capital of Pennsylvania. Including that irascible John Saint John guy.
Yes, it was my job every afternoon for over five years to entertain state workers (white & blue collar) in the ‘commuter combat zones’… topical, relevant, fun & cutesy, but never ‘rude, crude, or lascivious’. And it was all LIVE and direct into car speakers years before the internet, web, mp3 players and digital downloads.
Listen to a WKBO Radio AirCheck of John Saint John from 1977, along with Listener Introduction here ….
This recording, along with a few others, helped to catapult me from Harrisburg to afternoon drive with the Pulitzer Family at NBC affiliate KSD Radio in Saint Louis the very next year.
Pre-MP3/Downloads – in the days of 45 rpm records – a WKBO Radio weekly music survey, charting record sales … with John Saint John
‘Fun’ is too weak a word. ‘Exciting’ barely captures the passion and drive. Personality Radio to a then-20-something was EVERYTHING! It’s a good thing J. Albert Dame (WKBO owner)didn’t know it, but I would have paid HIM for the opportunity.
And to think, to this wild-eyed wanderer, the city of New Orleans, recording studio entrepreneurship and Airlift Productions weren’t even dreams yet or even on my radar.
The Cherokee have a sentiment and saying which states that each of us (as “human beings”) live as long as the last person who remembers us.
So we’ll leave it all to the history books and workplace water cooler talk to make sense of my years in Pennsylvania’s capital city. Footprints…or skid marks. Either way, I wouldn’t change a thing or trade a day.
In the meantime, all those lessons learned are still with me, the mics are hot and the creative juices are still flowing way down yonder in New Orleans … every day … at AirliftProductions.com
“Micheal Ziants and Airlift Productions offer an excellent and affordable option for VoiceOver & Recording.” — Michael Morris, Head of Post-Production, Discovery Studios, Hollywood, California
The short answer? All three! The long answer? How much time do you have? Too many questions? Oops, another question…
To begin with, all sound travels in waves. That’s analog. As I speak, my voice travels from my larynx to your ear as a wave form. Now, in capturing said wave form in a recording device or computer for editing and storage, it is still considered and called a wave form, but then it’s digital. Science.
But making MAGIC with that wave form is quite another thing altogether. Art.
Airlift Productions “Booth” ~ where talent shines!
Now, creating an environment, a creative space, a ‘vibe’, a place to make that audio magic – that audio alchemy – possible is yet another story completely.
Original Airlift Productions Studio Design ~ Micheal Ziants, 2001
Pause to consider, the entire Airlift Productions air space is completely out-of-square with no parallel walls, and the studio ceiling rises from front to back.
Custom-designed, the entire room is built like the ancient Greeks imagined the amphitheater – sound waves naturally propagate from the near-field reference monitors in the front across the room to the back wall.
The Airlift Studios control room widens from 6 feet square at the front … to nearly 12 feet at the back. Dramatic, sure, but functional, as well. A critical listening space should never be constructed with parallel walls, ceiling & floor, as this creates standing waves, slap-back echoes and assorted audio headaches.
Airlift Productions “Gift of Life” Stained Glass Window
Room treatment, acoustic foam, carpeting on the walls, natural daylight filtered through stained glass, and dimmer-controlled mood lighting further enhance artist & engineer comfort & creativity through the entire recording process.
Yes, Art & Science get it on at Airlift Productions! To create MAGIC.
Purpose-designed for comfort, creativity & breath-taking sound, Airlift has delivered the goods since 1984 from New Orleans to the planet with style!
From big screen to small; basic TV/Film voice over tracks & intimate audio book sessions to fully-produced broadcast-quality podcasts, test-drive your first session today from wherever you are on the web at Airlift Productions.
“Weapons of Mass Production” ~ Airlift Productions, New Orleans
Airlift Mike, always as close as the mouse on your desktop or the cell in your pocket at #504.833.8450.
When quality counts ~ count on Airlift Productions. Audio Alchemy & Digital Magic from New Orleans since 1984.
Micheal Ziants & Sean O’Shea, navigating the twists & turns of AudioBook production
“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 pressureto perform “right”, I probably would have completely fallen apart. So the MVP for this getting done goes 100% to Mike and the chilled out environment he’s cultivated…personally and within his studio… 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”
—- Los Angeles & NOLA-based Dog Trainer SEAN O’SHEA
Airlift Productions 3927 Iberville Street location, under construction in 1989
If you ever recorded at or visited or got silly during Friday ‘happy hours’ at the now-the-stuff-of-legend Airlift Productions Iberville Street location … have you ever paused to consider what it took to create that remarkable space?
It’s not too bold a statement to say that my blood is quite literally in the mortar that holds the very bricks in this wall together! For though I am not a mason or a brick layer, I certainly played one in 1989 on Iberville Street.
Airlift Productions Proprietor Micheal Ziants ~ like a proud papa ~ at the Airlift shingle, Iberville Street, NOLA 1992
With the help of just one other guy (Joe Delery now works in the crime division of the NOPD), I also pounded the nails, hung & floated sheet rock, packed insulation, laid carpet, and wired the entire facility. Whew!
And oh, the people who were destined to walk through that front door to record within these walls … Peyton & Eli’s pop Archie Manning, Mayor Marc Morial, his mother Sybil, the Rev. Avery C. Alexander, Romper Room’s “Miss Linda” Mintz, Dr. Morgus the Magnificent, Ronnie Lamarque, I CAN Learn founder John R. Lee, WDSU’s Norman Robinson …
Dr. John Autograph to Airlift Mike on old Airlift Iberville Street Notepad
And a whole host of radio rebels, stand-up comics, misfits, in-laws & outlaws!
The mantra through the entire construction stage was ‘Build it…and they will come!’ What a passion, what a studio… what a time!
Airlift Productions – as it looked in 1992 on Iberville Street … Reel-to-reel analog decks, outboard gear & mixer, the way recording used to be done. Oh, if only you’d lived then, kids.
** A “Mike McCann” classic VoiceOver/Production Demo from the 90s, all produced on Iberville with R-R tape – for NOLA clients like WVUE-TV, Pat O’Brien’s, Times-Picayune, etc. ***
But as much as I loved this location, Iberville street, the elevator, my Endymion parties, and having Venezia’s Italian food, Angelo Brocato’s, Mandina’s & Liuzza’s but a block or two walk away … I flooded twice at this location – and this was well before Mother Katrina came to town!
Airlift Proprietor Micheal Ziants outside the Iberville haunts, shortly before the 2001 move to Pomona
So, I ran with my prophetic visions and in early 2001 moved the entire Airlift Productions business well out of the flood plain and to the high ground just the other side of the now-infamous breached 17th Street Canal . To start over.
Yet again.
But Airlift on Pomona – along with its construction & marketing challenges – is the story for another blog and another time.
Amy Landon recording audio books at Airlift Productions New Orleans, March 2017
“Working with Airlift Mike in NOLA was an utter pleasure. I was in town for business for a month and needed to maintain my audiobook recording schedule. Mike was accommodating and a pure professional. He mastered the punch and roll technique in 24 hours to be ready for our first session, and over the course of the month we laid down 5 books and a number of auditions. His studio sounds great. The vibe & atmosphere can’t be beat. You’d be hard pressed to find a better recording studio in the southeast – no matter what your needs. I wish I could have stayed!” ~ AMY LANDON, Los Angeles-based Actress & Ultra-busy AudioBook Narrator
I am the one called Yeshua and was born some twenty centuries ago in a sleepy village known as Bethlehem, Israel, Middle-East on planet Earth in the backwaters of the Milky Way. And times were hard.
Slavery. False gods. Racism. Prejudice. Violence. And most of the known world lived under the boot of the Roman Empire. Today in 2023, sadly, these same problems persist – only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Ironically, I drove the money changers out of the temple all those centuries ago, only to see that the religions founded in my name have today all opened the doors widely. And let them all back in!
It would seem that my message of Love, Peace, Brotherhood, and Equality of all men has been hijacked by otherwise well-intentioned men who claim to follow me – only to use it to their own ends. And all from separate camps.
From the Roman Catholic to the Protestant, from the Southern Baptist to the Jehovah Witness, from the Mormon … to David Koresh’s Branch Davidian compound at Waco – all have built WALLS to keep their believers IN, and the non-believers OUT.
A True Faith, a True Religion, indeed a True Spirituality should build bridges – not walls. The bridge, by definition, must touch both banks of the river, and allow for two-way traffic. I came to the 3rd rock from the sun to serve as a bridge … God the Father in Me became Man … so that one day man could become … and return to God.
And as to this fixation on the Cross? Way too much emphasis has been placed on the final ugly twelve hours of my life (from Gethsemane to Golgotha, thanks, Mel Gibson) fostering centuries of guilt, when the emphasis should be placed on the glorious, Joy-full, Joy-US way in which I lived each and every day of my Life!
After all, should I return today and be found guilty of similar ‘crimes against the state’/sedition and be sentenced to death, twenty centuries from today, would you be wearing an electric chair or a gurney with a syringe around your neck? I think not.
If there should be any symbol at all for my true followers – it should be the Open Tomb, for I came indeed to grant ALL the keys to eternal life.
Yes, of course, my blood was shed for ALL that fateful Friday on the ‘hill of skulls’, but what I wanted remembered and commemorated was the way in which I lived, not the excruciatingly painful way in which I “died” and went to the cross.
My LIFE is my message. Consider, as a case in point, my very first miracle – at the wedding feast at Cana. Many know of the water that became wine in the jars of clay. But few realize that I was the very last to leave the dance floor that night.
And as to this Micheal who purports to put these words into my mouth?
Well, frankly, the Father & I have through all man’s centuries always chosen to work through plain, ordinary, salt-of-the-earth types – fishermen, shepherd boys, whores, even tax collectors. Simply add one more sinner to the list.
Finally, your Faith in me should not be relegated to an observance, head-bowed once a week in a building, in a church or temple. It should be knit into the everyday fabric of your daily life … and lived!
After all, I came to your planet not to be venerated. But imitated.
Follow me. Please?
Oh, and I almost forgot. Merry Christ-mas to ALL from the New Jer-USA-lem! And thanks for all the neat presents. You really shouldn’t have.
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Respectfully, and with prayers for the 3rd rock to IncreaseThePeace ~
Micheal Z
** Inspired by my personal reflection after reading Norman Mailer’s “Gospel According to the Son”. Have you? **
Taylor Swift, tagged to headline Jefferson Parish’s Family Gras 2008
** With the rather remarkable news of Ms. Swift booking NOT ONE, BUT THREE SHOWS IN THE SUPERDOME FOR NEXT YEAR, 2024 – I’m re-posting this blog, originally published in June of 2015 **
Long before her recent shaking-up of the “Apple Cart’s” new music streaming service, Country/Pop-Tart Taylor Swiftwas headed to play New Orleans – and yours truly, Airlift Mike, was tagged to help promote and give voice to the show.
Little did any of us realize when then-19 year old Taylor was selected to appear at Family Gras 2008 – just down Veterans Boulevard from the Airlift Productions Studios – that she was destined to explode and become one of the world’s hottest selling musical artists!
Family Gras was brand new – and so was Taylor Swift’s career.
Contracted & hired by NOLA public relations ace Greg Buisson and the Jefferson Parish Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, I was tasked with voicing and producing the :60 audio track (video edited by Joseph Schneider) which was then to play all over New Orleans television to promote the affair.
** An uncharacteristically UP-Tempo Micheal Ziants, generating excitement for Taylor Swift’s Family Gras 2008 Appearance **
So, with but one big hit in her hip pocket (“Our Song”), Taylor got in the bus with mom & dad, Andrea & Scott, and drove down to NOLA from Nashville for the show on that ill-fated late January.
She was slated to appear along with Blake Shelton, Kansas, Billy Ray Cyrus, The Bangles and a host of class N’awlins acts – all in between Mardi Gras parades on the neutral ground of Veterans Boulevard here in Metairie for Family Gras 2008.
But Mother Nature had other ideas.
As fate and the rain gods would have it, the skies over NOLA opened up that fate-filled Friday afternoon and it rained. And it rained. And it rained!
Poor Taylor’s only appearance that afternoon was on the 6:00 News/Blues. Under an umbrella. In a pouring rainstorm. As she tendered her regrets to a dismayed New Orleans crowd about her canceled show.
Really. Ask her about this one sometime, should you get a chance.
And little did any of us realize that day that this little PA native, Nashville transplant, Taylor Alison Swift’scareer was about to explode – into the stratosphere!
L-R, Heath Allen, Theresa Andersson, Micheal Ziants, Rich Lenz – during a break from the original HEALING HOUSE sessions, Airlift Productions 2004
“Great recording studios share something in common with great concert venues. They both have a…what is it? An aura, a vibe, a karma, an ambiance? Whatever you call it, it’s as real as any speaker on the wall or slider on a console. You can’t see it, but, you can absolutely FEEL it.
Airlift Productions has IT – thanks to the man behind the board (and in your ear). Micheal Ziants has a knack for gently pulling your best work out of you – and then improving upon it in the final mix. The finished product always leaves you thrilled, satisfied and amazed that you really had it in you! The best part- he gives you all the credit and you only realize later what great hands your material was in.
Do yourself a favor- give Airlift a try. You’ll love the results and every moment you spent producing them.”
~ RICH LENZ, former WDSU-TV Sports Director/Anchor
The little, bespectacled goober front row left is 13 year old Micheal Ziants of Airlift Productions – part of the “Young Tom Edison” cast, Youngstown, Ohio Civic Children’s Theater, 1964
It has been said that the best VoiceOverTalents come from the STAGE not the RADIO because the theater and acting is at the heart of the craft – not broadcasting.
But what if a talent could combine both?
Yes, this blog could perhaps be seen as self-serving, tooting one’s own horn and sort of like ‘breaking the 4th wall’ in a Woody Allen movie where he addresses the camera directly, but here goes:
While I began my broadcasting career in the 1970s and worked on-air in some of America’s greatest cities as well as for some of the USA’s hallmark companies – The Pulitzers in St. Louis & Billboard Magazine in Nashville – for me it all began on the stage!
Airlift Mike with the Tribe of Ziants, front porch, Youngstown, Ohio, circa 1962
The acting bug bit me early and hard! In the 1960s it was the Civic Children’s Theater in Youngstown, Ohio that was my launch pad. Saturdays could find me onstage re-creating the stories of Peter Pan, Tom Edison or Robin Hood for hundreds of school age kids at a time.
I then went on through high school to become the President of the Thespian Club and had the leads in the Junior and Senior Class plays as well.
Using the human voice to arrest someone’s attention, intrigue them, and then motivate them to relate to a cause or sympathize with an issue seemed damned near magical. I was hooked.
Later on, as a broadcaster and then as a voice over talent, I learned to call on these same skills, intuitive yet honed on a stage, and bring them all to the microphone!
Shocking, Raw, Visceral – Adults Only ** Micheal reads from Pelican Publishing’s True Crime Drama “Murder in Coweta County”
So, again, what if the voice over artist – the person delivering the message at the microphone – could combine innate, yet trained, acting chops plus vast commercial broadcast experience plus decades of technical, hands-on production experience?
OK, here comes the horn tooting part: that would be – ME!
Do you want to book a voice talent with experience? With theater in his blood? With years of broadcasting & audio production thrown in ala carte?
Broadcast Veteran – and Actor – Micheal Ziants, plying his trade at the Airlift Studios
“I listened to a lot of voices to represent Detective Lt. Robert (Robbo) Davidson for our audiobook version of “The Evil I Have Seen” and none quite fit. At last, I did a search for a commanding, seasoned, slightly Southern voice — and pulled up Airlift Productions of NOLA. I clicked on Micheal’s sample narrations of “Murder in Coweta County” then James Patterson’s “The Chef,” and I was hooked. No one else would do.
I was surprisingly delighted after speaking with Micheal to learn, he would not agree to narrate and produce the audiobook until he read it. He wasn’t in it just for money — he would only partner on material he believed to be worthwhile. It has been a delightful, rewarding experience and Robbo and I could not be more proud of the way he brought this book to life.” — Author PJ Jones
1984 Times-Picayune Sunday article about that new Mike McCann dude at Q-93
When clients first visit my Airlift Productions Studios here in New Orleans one of their first questions is regarding my motivation for building such an awesome recording space & studio complex in the first place.
My response? “Well, quite frankly, I have an entrepreneurial drive that was born and forged in the fires of unemployment!”
Really.
Q-93 Memo to Staff & Times-Picayune article about Mike McCann’s exit
I just grew tired and weary of the corporate radio mentality that treated warm, talented and caring humans – with families to look after – as simple commodities!
While much of America today it seems is constantly being outsourced, marginalized, downsized and capsized, even back in the ’80s, I wanted to forge, hand-craft, and create my own future.
Enter the Airlift dream.
Airlift Productions Recording Studio, New Orleans Master Control on Pomona
Pause to consider, I would never have been at Q-93 Radio (WQUE-FM) in 1983 had WIFI-FM in Philadelphia not terminated my position. A format change to “Rock of the ’80s” – Psychedelic Furs, Oingo-Bongo, Roxy Music, X, Berlin all the time – in early ’83 led to my dismissal.
Imagine taking this excuse to the PA unemployment line bean-counters, “Well, the consultants considered my on-air approach & style too adult sounding and too mature for the new format!” Really.
I would never have been at WIFI in Philadelphia had management not fired the entire air staff at WLAC in Nashville. This legendary 50,000 watt radio station sat on Music Row in Nashville, was owned by Billboard Magazine at the time, and reached Canada and Cuba from the mid-south with it’s remarkable signal.
But it all didn’t matter when Billboard sold the station to new owners – who then changed the format to All-Talk/News and fired/terminated its entire air staff, including yours truly.
Airlift Proprietor Micheal Ziants as alter-ego John Saint John, in the production room at WLAC, Nashville, 1980
I would never have been on-air at WLAC had the Pulitzer family in St. Louis at 55-KSD not made a similar move. The radio station was sold to new owners who then changed the format to All-Talk/News and fired it’s entire on-air personality music air staff.
Are you beginning to see a pattern here? Enter the Airlift dream.
I left Harrisburg on my own terms to pursue my first major market air shift in St. Louis. And I indeed exited Q-93 (as afternoon DJ/Air personality) in 1985 to build my own dream, to fulfill my destiny… to create Airlift Productions.
Airlift Productions was my way of taking all the skills that I’d learned working for “the man” and putting them to work for myself! I simply parlayed the many skills hard-earned and fine-tuned through all those radio years into self-employment as a VoiceOver talent and recording studio owner.
The final chapter? Well, it has yet to be written. As the old advertising adage goes… “watch this space…”
Airlift Mike Onstage with Sid Noel at NOLA’s Orpheum Theater, Halloween 2019
“Dr. Ziants:
My dear colleague, it was a true delight to visit and work with you in yourdigital laboratory. I somewhat envy your remarkable equipment, which far exceeds anything we can afford here in the old city ice house. Your audio production facilities are second to none, and I thank you again for the excellent recordings you produced for the Momus A. Morgus Institute.” — Momus
** A tested-by-time Testimonial from Dr. Morgus (aka – Sid Noel Rideau) direct from the old city ice house to the Airlift digital lab via email.
True, but hard to believe, this summer marks eight years (8-29-2015) since Dr. Wayne Dyerdrew his last breath and proceeded to drop his body an ocean away in Hawaii.
I first met Wayne through a series of audio cassettes I’d ordered from Nightingale-Conant in Chicago. The series was called “The Awakened Life”. The year was 1987. And my life was never the same.
Wayne introduced me to eastern, metaphysical, transcendent thought, he opened my eyes – and spirit – as he challenged me to take chances with my life that I would have never dared in the past. I learned to jump off cliffs … and build wings on the way down.
Emerson & Thoreau came alive for me, sacred scripture never rang so true, mystical sages of history spoke clearly in my ears, as night-after-night I listened to Wayne unraveling and demystifying thought concepts that for so long were so foreign to me.
Through what is now decades of his lectures, writings & teachings, he introduced me to Alan Watts, Deepak Chopra, Ram Dass, Carl Jung, and many others. Together, we’ve traveled the shores of Galilee with Jesus of Nazareth, meditated under the bodhi tree with the Buddha, and ridden camel-back with Muhammad across the sands of Mecca.
My autographed copy of Wayne’s “The Secrets To Manifesting Your Destiny” program
We first met personally in March of 1997 at a Life Expo here in New Orleans. I confessed to him that he had very directly inspired me to ‘roll the dice’ and move my Airlift Productionsbusiness from my closet to a bonafide store-front with shingle out front on Iberville Street back in ’89.
He laughed and would take no credit whatsoever, saying that he never wanted to be anyone’s ‘guru’. Further joking that if he ever took credit for anyone’s success that he’d also have to share the blame for their failures! 🙂
It was roughly a year later, while I was leading a production team working for a NYC-based ad agency recording radio commercials in Toronto, Canada that we met again.
This time the visit was much more personal.
Through our days-long, sleep-deprived job in Toronto, I had quoted Wayne’s most incredible body of work extensively to the team I’d traveled with to Canada. At the end of the convention, we then rushed off to the airport to catch our flight back to New Orleans.
Dog-tired, with my head down, waiting for our plane, a pair of sandaled feet walked past my field of vision. I looked up – and it was Wayne Dyer!
Together with his assistant Maya, he was en route from addressing a seminar in Amsterdam, headed back to his family in south Florida. As I shook my head in surprise and astonishment, he joked, “Well, Micheal, it would seem that you manifested ME!”
We proceeded to talk and laugh together for a half-hour!
And we talked about EVERYTHING: Life, loves, disappointments, divorce, enlightenment, authorship, radio, recording, music, the Book of Tao, the Gita, days of future passed … he even was very complimentary about my voice. Wow.
Then, called to our respective planes, we parted. I will always treasure this remarkable day, and my not-so-coincidental conversation and time spent with this most remarkable spirit.
Dr. Dyer, quite frankly, I am at a loss for words to describe the impact you’ve made on my life. And, through my life and my Airlift Productions – and the lessons you’ve taught me – the impact I have then made on countless hundreds of other lives.
It has been said that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. From the bottom of my heart and the height of my spirit, brother Wayne, thanks for appearing in my life… and sharing your candle with me.
(L-R) Don Banks , Dawn Vachon, Bo “Boots” Walker, Airlift Mike on a lunch break in NOLA, pre-Covid-19, no “social distancing”
“The Airlift Productions Studio itself is a mirror of Micheal; warm and inviting. I immediately feel at home when I’m there…never rushed, always cordial (great coffee) and I feel like MY project is the most important thing on his mind…total focus. It’s rare to find this kind of personal service. I never have any doubt that whatever I’m working on at Airlift will come out sounding great…always! If you want professional results; use a professional…Micheal Ziants at Airlift Productions IS that professional.” — BO WALKER, Former Production Director at New Orleans’ iHeart Media Stations (and in 2023, a Utah-based recovering radio rebel.)
(L-R) Airlift’s Micheal Ziants, Norman Robinson, Heath Allen, Rich Lenz at the WDSU-TV Studios for the CMN Telethon
Norman Robinson. Lee Zurik. Camille Whitworth. Rich Lenz. Heath Allen. Rachel Wulff.
Round up the usual suspects.
I have – to record various voice-over projects here in New Orleans at Airlift Productions.
I first met and recorded Norman Robinson in 1991. He was fresh back in NOLA from the White House CBS-TV Network news beat, and was the newly-ordained anchor man at our WDSU.
Little did we then realize, or even think about future days, but the fact is, 32 years later, we’re still at it!
Our most recent project? Recording and compiling every electronic message for every streetcar and bus – even the ferries – in the cityof New Orleans.
“Senior citizens ride the bus for only 40 cents”… “Please look around you for any personal items you may have left behind before exiting the vehicle. Next stop, Canal Street.”
NORTA – the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority – tagged Norman and me to record well over 1,500 wav files for use in their system citywide.
** Norman narrates NORTA’s ‘Go Mobile’ App Tutorial **
L-R, Heath Allen, Theresa Andersson, Micheal Ziants, Rich Lenz – during a break from the original HEALING HOUSE sessions, Airlift Productions 2004
Rich Lenznow calls Tulsa, OK & OETA home, a gone pecan from NOLA for well over ten years now (gee, Thanks, Katrina), but he served for 16 years as sports director/anchor atWDSU.
Richie and I’ve recorded countless tunes together, including epic anthems to herald the Children’s Miracle Network Telethon fund-raising year-after-year to benefit and support our Children’s Hospital’s life saving efforts for our kids.
** the 1st, of many, Telethon Tunes for Children’s Hospital **
After meeting former WWL/WDSU anchor gal Rachel Wulff around the aisles of our local Lowe’s Home Improvement store, I helped Rachel improve her post-anchor life and UP her game by producing a VoiceOver demo for her.
Very nice.
** Rachel’s VO Demo, with her daughter’s cutesy intro **
Airlift Mike, Lee Zurik, Paul Atkinson – “Glory Days” sessions
The latest project? VoiceOver for “Glory Days”, an homage to the passions and victories of Newman High School’sfootball program.
As it turns out, Lee was on the same team at Newman with a local boy-made-good you may have heard of – the NFL’s Peyton Manning.
** Lee Zurik narrates “Glory Days” with Airlift Mike **
Man, that must’ve been some wild locker room, huh?
L-R. Micheal Ziants, Heath Allen, Rich Lenz, Brian Landry, making music at Airlift Productions NOLA
The Airlift Productions studio doors are always open to Heath Allen . A veteran reporter for decades at WDSU. Heath carved-out his reputation in the early days all over Baton Rouge TV, and is today enjoying a well-deserved retirement on the north shore with his Janet.
His compassionate, and knowledgeable in-the-field reporting was always incisive and spot-on. And he picks quite a guitar, at that. The magic Heath brought to our Children’s Hospital Telethon tunes is the stuff of legend.
2023 continues to see local NOLA news veteran Camille Whitworthdrop by from time to time for various VO commercial and industrial projects.
Camille Whitworth sets the VO mood at Airlift Productions NOLA
Camille dedicated years to the anchor chair at WDSU, and today fills her days public speaking, doing on-camera work for our East Jefferson Hospital, and recording various VoiceOver projects forclients in and around NOLA.
Dependable, personable, and experienced, Camille is always fun to have around the Airlift Studios.
Truth is, there is simply no reason or need for news anchors to walk away from their skills & finely-honed talents when they walk away from the nightly news anchor desk.
Norman, Rich, Heath, Rachel, Lee & Camille are all exceptionally fine and experienced talents with, as the expression goes, ‘ a lot of good miles left on their tires’.
It has also been said, and rightly so, that journalism, as well as the nightly news, is ‘History – the first draft’.
I am so gratified – and humbled – that these remarkable ladies and gentlemen have all chosen to work with me and Airlift Productions to write new chapters.
And, as Paul Harvey used to intone, tell ‘the rest of the story’.
Airlift Productions Proprietor Micheal Ziants shoulder-to-shoulder with JAMES CARVILLE at the Airlift Studios
“I’ve been in studios from the Bayou to the Beltway and I can say after recording my last two audio books with Mike that there is no better place than Airlift Productions. The quality of the production, the studio, and frankly the comfort make it the only place I want to record now or in the future”— JAMES CARVILLE, Political commentator, Tulane professor & Campaign Strategist behind the most dramatic political victories of our generation
