The MacDaddy

Intel Parody - Medical Marijuana

2008-11-18T14:55:00.001-05:00

I guess you've really made it when someone does a parody of something you helped to create. What's the saying...."Parody is the sincerest form of flattery"?

Don LaFontaine: The Voice

2008-09-02T13:03:00.001-04:00

A nice piece on Don.

Don Lafontaine: The King of Voiceovers is dead

2008-09-02T10:20:00.002-04:00

I had the pleasure of working with Don for many years when I was an Audio Producer at FOX. While we may have banged heads once or twice, he once called me a "jerk" for having him re-read a line, he was without argument a true master of voiceover. His voice is on a number of spots I produced while at FOX including this one for The Abyss and The Fly. I often argued with my bosses at both FOX and later at Disney that Don's voice was overwhelming the TV world. There were times where you could hear his voice on all the networks as well as commercials and of course movie trailers. I once tried to make my case to my bosses at FOX that a network trying to create it's own identity should not be using a voice heard on every major network. I had a tape in hand of a commercial break I had recorded where Don was the voice on every spot of a commercial break, a full 2 minute break mind you. Needless to say, no one ever listened to me and Don continued to voice just about everything for everyone. I can not deny that Don's voice got your attention and elevated just about any spot to a new level.

Don actually found his way in front of the camera on a number of occasions recently appearing in this Geico commercial. There's a great parody of voiceover guys, including Don, in this piece called 5 guys in a Limo and a great behind the scenes piece from The Today Show including my buddy Joe Cipriano. Oh yeah, he used to travel from session to session in a Limo. Quite a job if you can get it.

Today there are a bunch of guys in the voiceover world saddened by his passing, secretly however, they know there's a ton of work that just opened up.

Don's been called the "King of Voiceovers" and "The Voice of God". Well now God better step aside...there's a new voice in town!

Don LaFontaine Dies At 68

Urgent! Help Dr. Jones! Excerpt from UNDER OUR SKIN (2 min)

2008-08-15T21:11:00.001-04:00

Our son was treated by Dr. Jones. My wife and I consider him a Saint. Please help him in his fight against injustice.

The commercial JC Penny doesn't want you to see

2008-06-26T12:41:00.007-04:00

Banned from YouTube, this spot won a Bronze Lion award at Cannes even though the client never intended it to be seen by anyone. Submitted by the production company without the clients consent. They could never have dreamed of so much publicity.

Click the image to play

Pork and Beans

2008-05-29T23:05:00.001-04:00

Weezer's latest video with cameos from some of YouTubes most famous faces.

Scary Screen Sharing

2008-05-14T09:35:00.004-04:00

screen_share
Originally uploaded by themacdaddy

This is what happened to my screen when I shared my screen with a mac I was already viewing its screen with screen sharing. Just kept on going to infinity. Had to quit screen sharing but was able to get this frame grab. Pretty cool.

Apple Mac Music Video

2008-05-12T12:32:00.001-04:00

This is quite ingenious. Using almost every conceivable app on the mac do a screencast and make it a music video. Apple should use this as for advertising and PR

Barenaked Ladies - 789

2008-05-08T21:01:00.001-04:00

If you love BNL and have kids now you can introduce them to some of their music.

Avid 1.0 - Media Composer Promo

2008-03-27T02:31:00.001-04:00

Ah yes. A bit of nostalgia. I first saw the Avid in 1989 and was blown away. I didn't work on an Avid until 1993 yet it was still in it's infancy. Fun to see where we've been and how far we've come in such a short time.

Better YouTube Videos

2008-03-19T17:57:00.001-04:00

Want to view better quality YouTube videos? Here’s how. While it doesn’t work for all videos it does work for some. Add the following character string to the end of the URL:

&fmt=18

Here’s an example of the difference.

Before....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iczl9Eg7Ru8

After....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iczl9Eg7Ru8&fmt=18

Pretty cool!

Intel - Touch of Genius

2008-03-05T14:24:00.008-05:00

Long time since I've been able to post some original work. The nature of my current work usually prevents me from sharing for public consumption but finally something that's already out in the public.

Here's a piece I cut originally to be shown at CES(Consumer Electronics Show) in the Intel booth. Since CES it has undergone some revisions and also been turned into a television commercial as well as an online campaign. This was my first project cut in HD. Footage shot using a Panasonic Varicam at 24p. some of the spots from the online campaign are uploaded on YouTube by Intel and I've embedded them below.

Makes your really marvel at the power of the microprocessor and how much we take it for granted.

Shout outs to Charlie Veprek(writer) and Chris Baffa(art director) on this campaign.

Click image to play

Intel - Touch of Genius - Miracle Worker

2008-03-05T12:15:00.014-05:00

Intel - Touch of Genius - Movie Maker

2008-03-05T12:15:00.013-05:00

Intel - Touch of Genius - Blogger

2008-03-05T12:15:00.012-05:00

Percy Rodrigues

2007-09-25T13:07:00.000-04:00

He was one of the first great voices in TV and film advertising. I got to work with him once while working at FOX. Here's a little sample of a movie trailer that really put him on the map.

I remember him being the voice on many a Stephen King movies also and of course he was also well know for his roles in front of the camera. Here is obituary from the NYT.

Climate Change?

2006-07-11T18:01:00.000-04:00

I wish I had my video camera. The sound of the hail pounding on the skylites was quite loud. I'd have to say this is somewhat unusual for around here. Especially in July.

New Opportunities

2006-07-11T15:21:00.000-04:00

So you might see more postings on my blog now that I'm not longer working at the agency. You see I was freelance and when you're freelance and working there's nothing better. Problem with freelance is at anytime you can be out of work. Seems there is a company mandate to eliminate all freelancers. So now on to the next opportunity. Maybe a career change. Did I, or have I ever had a career? Seems I've just been jumping around from job to job. Now with a wife and family a career sounds kind of nice. I'd really like to apply myself to something meaningful like educating people on the benefits and necessities of green living. Yup. I saw "An In Convenient Truth" and if you haven't you must go see it. It has changed my thinking about what is important in this world and if we don't wakeup then my son may not have a very nice quality of life when he gets to be my age. That is if there is even a planet to inhabit. While my first objective must be to get a paycheck, I really must find something to do with "greening" the world we live in. I've installed at least 20 CFL light bulbs, purchased 500 kilowatts per month of wind power from my power company, turned the thermostat up to save on air conditioning and I really want to see about solar and wind power for the house. Ultimately, I want to make this my business I just need to find the right avenue and people to do it with. I've started listening to a good podcast on renewable energy called Renewable Energy Access. You should also check out renewus.org. This being a video blog I've added the trailer for "An Inconvenient Truth". Whatever you politics, scientific fact can not be ignored. Please go see the movie and take a friend with you. The cover of Newsweek this week is about Going Green. Now I feel like I'm a bit trendy. Oh well. As I am writing this we have just experienced a very intense thunderstorm with hail in the middle of July. Coincidence?

Click here to play.

From Pencil to Toothbrush

2006-05-23T14:43:00.000-04:00

I recently completed producing a spot with McCann-Erickson for Johnson & Johnson. The brand is Reach and the product, a new toothbrush called Clean & Whiten. The spot stars the lovable Mr. Reach who has been a part of Reach advertising since the early 90's. We hired J.J. Sedelmaier Productions in White Plains, NY to draw and animate Mr. Reach. J.J. is best know for his animated work with Robert Smigel on SNL. The 3D toothbrush and compositing was done by Spontaneous in NYC.

I'm including 2 versions of spot in the post. The first version is the pencil test. This is the rough beginnings of the animation and the first time in the production process we've seen moving images from the animator. At this stage you'll see, in rough form, the beginnings of the spot. Not until final animation will the nuances and true character of Mr. Reach come through. So the second video is the finished spot and you can compare the two and see what progress was made from the early steps to the end. On this job there was approximately 3 weeks going from the pencil test to the final animaton. The announcer on the spot is Jay Gregory and the voice of Mr. Reach is done by Bill Chesley. We mixed the spot at Audio Engine with Tom Goldblatt. For McCann the spot was written by Jack Spicer and Art Directed by Jeanne Ladias.

Great experience and great results. Apparently sales are up 40% over last year!

So here's where we started...

Click here to Play

And here's where we ended up...

Click here to Play

The Santaman

2006-02-15T16:11:00.000-05:00

While Christmas may be past, here's a nice little piece of animation I came across. The Santaman was created by Pete Fritz and Mike Horan both from Ohio Edit where I've been working on a project. This little animated movie was born out of a job both were working on at the time and the inspiration struck them to create an animated short. Mike was the illustrator on the piece and Pete the editor. They used Adobe Illustrator and After Effects to produce the entire movie. Some music composed by Matt Dolven also of Ohio Edit. If you need any of your commercial work edited be sure to look up the guys at Ohio. Enjoy!

Click here to play.

Verizon Vcast - The Madden Report

2006-01-09T23:15:00.000-05:00

Whenever it's been awhile between postings you can be sure it means I've been working...which is a good thing. Many posts over consecutive days is a bad thing

So in December I was hired by a large advertising agency to produce some unusual content, video for mobile phones. While I've never been a believer in content for mobile phones, there certainly is a market for it. Having just gotten an iPod with video for Christmas I've been enjoying my commute on the train to and from the city watching The Office from the BBC. The phone screen still seems a bit small to me and the quality of the content is not the best, but none the less the client wants content so we produce some content.

The Madden Report is a weekly mobisode where we take John Madden's audio comments about some upcoming NFL games and put some graphics and pictures to it to make it look like a seamless show. The shows have been running around 2:30 in length and now we're 5 shows into production I'd say we've hit our stride. The real challenge is how do you make compelling video when you don't have the rights to use any NFL footage? We can't even call the teams by their team names only by their city. Well thanks to Manic, the produciton company producing the shows, I think for the hard core football fan we've found a way of making it compelling. The Madden Report is second only to the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders for Vcast sports video downloads. We're thinking about working in some cheerleaders to our show. Only 3 more weeks of shows and then that's it for this year. So go out and get your Verizon Vcast phone so you can enjoy all the great Vcast content. Here's the show from week 16 of the regular season.

Click here to play.

Windows Vista - Never before seen features!

2006-01-09T22:02:00.000-05:00

Heard about this on TWIT and had to take a look. Now we Mac people have always known that Microsoft was never very good at inovating and creating original ideas when it comes to operating systems. Now here's further evidence of those facts. Thanks to Maclive for putting up the original postings. Sorry I can't find quicktimes to publish into iTunes.

NBC/iTunes Commercial

2005-12-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

So last week NBC/Universal announced they are joining ABC and selling some of their television shows on the iTunes Music Store. Not only are they providing shows currently on air, but also some classic shows dating back to the 1950's.

Here's a fun spot produced by NBC promoting the shows in iTunes. Pay close attention to the ending where it says coming soon. Seems we haven't see the last of the TV shows from NBC/Universal.

Click here to play.

One Great Day

2005-12-01T10:17:00.000-05:00

What do you do when you hire a brand new play-by-play guy for your Major League Baseball team? Take him for a tour of the city of course!

A few years back Cox Channel 4 in San Diego hired Matt Vasgersian to become their new play-by-play man in the booth. My friend Ed Roth, who's been doing the marketing for the Padres on Channel 4 for several years, had the idea to take him for a tour of the city with the color analyst and former Padre Mark Grant, to introduce him to the people. They make a great team in the booth and on the tour.

While I missed the tour, I did get to edit together this short little featurette. See Matt and Mark as they explore beautiful San Diego.

Click here to play.

Shameless Plug

2005-11-29T20:33:00.000-05:00

So it's come to this...
See whether you knew this or not, I'm not making a living by maintaining my vlog and posting fun videos every once in a while. That's why you might see my links to the right for my demo reel and my resume. Right now I have way too much time on my hands so I thought maybe if I get my little demo montage out there into RSS land, someone might see it, have a need for my services, and who know's maybe get a little work out of this deal.
So here's the demo montage. Just a little something to try and wet your appetite. Much more where this came from.
The clips are taken from over 10 years of writing/producing and editing stuff for television. The music track is taken from an artist called Bostich and the track is called Polaris. Click here to buy the whole track from iTunes.

I'm also available for Mac consulting, troubleshooting, tutoring and much more.
I am after all...THE MACDADDY!

Click here to play.

The Mac Hater

2005-11-29T15:55:00.000-05:00

Okay so it's time to give the other side equal time.

Yes I would say even as a longtime Mac enthusiast, there have been times where I just want to throw my Mac out the window. In a paradoy of the Apple "Switcher" ads, here's one man's opinion on why not to get a Mac.

Once again I sourced this video from Google Video. Since Google Video only plays Flash video, I used a site called Goolge Video Dowloader to download the flash file. I then used iSquint to convert the flash file into a quicktime. This should play in Quicktime 5 or later. Give it a look!

Click here to play.

Power Mac Cats

2005-11-29T15:40:00.000-05:00

Found this cute video over on Google Video. You might need to like cats do enjoy this. Even if you don't, give it a shot. The ending is worth a chuckle.

Since Google Video only plays Flash video, I used a site called Goolge Video Dowloader to download the flash file. I then used iSquint to convert the flash file into a quicktime. Sorry for the quality of the video but as they say, "garbage in, garbage out". Trying to provide a version that will play in earlier versions of quicktime. Hope this works!

Click here to play

Tiny Machine

2005-11-22T23:12:00.000-05:00

Created by George Masters on his own free time and for his own pleasure, this ad for the iPod Mini received lots of play about a year ago. Thought it was time to bring it back now that the Mini has been discontinued. George, an obviously very talented graphic designer and animator was looking for real work in the graphic design world. By the looks of it he's found his place at Shelter Post. Check out this Wired article about the spot.

Click here to watch.

1984 Revised?

2005-11-22T22:45:00.000-05:00

What would a Vlog devoted to all things Mac be with this classic spot from 1984. Groundbreaking at the time is was aired, it is still to this day regarded as one of the greatest commercials ever produced. Directed by Ridley Scott who later went on to direct Alien among other films, the spot takes a rather cynical view of Big Blue. Here's a very in depth article on the spot. Watch closely and you'll notice this isn't the same spot that aired during the Super Bowl in 1984 however. A hint: look for a certain mp3 player. 10 points for finding it the first time through.

Click here to watch.

Fainting Goats

2005-11-22T14:55:00.000-05:00

A re-release from an earlier post but now in iTunes compatible format.

I worked on a marketing presentation for A Current Affiar. While the show never lived up to expectations (it's currently off the air) this one piece makes me laugh every time I see it. Who knew about fainting goats!?

Click here to watch.

Millionaire Promo

2005-11-21T13:28:00.000-05:00

Here's a 30 second promo just completed. This is a generic promo meaning it can run anytime and doesn't promote anything specific. The objective of the spot is to build excitement and to get people to watch the show. Millionaire and game shows in general are tough to cut spots for because there is no variety in the shots to choose from. You've got shots of the host, shots of the contestants and they're always framed the same way. Even though none of the contestants won a million dollars you might think they had after seeing the spot. As a matter of a fact, I don't think anyone has won a million on the show over the last 2 years. I cut this spot working for Beantown Productions here in NYC. Music is from a library and this spot is actually different than the one that will air. The client didn't like the most of the graphics so we pulled them out. I like this version better.

Click here to play.

Editor's Best Friend - MovieLogger

2005-11-18T09:02:00.000-05:00

Came across this new software thanks to Michael Horton and the LAFCPUG. I was actually in the process of looking for something like this for a client. Their workflow was very tedious; digitize source tapes into Final Cut Pro...make VHS with window time code of each tape and then the producer would log the VHS tapes by playing them down and taking notes in Word. There has to be a better way...and now there is! MovieLogger from Digital Heaven. Now you can log the quicktime movies after they've been digitized, create a text document of your notes and and XML file to import into FCP. The real bonus here is the XML file import. Once you've logged your movie, exported the XML and imported into FCP, your master clip will have markers for every log note. That is awesome! Now in the case of this one client, they have a SAN where all the edit bays share storage. But since the producer doesn't have access to this storage on their computer the solution was to recompress the media after it's digitized and put it on a server that they have access to. Everything translates and links back to the original media once done. MovieLogger is $99 and you can try it for 30 days free with some limitations. This is a great product!

Sony Bravia Commercial

2005-11-15T17:09:00.000-05:00

Now here's a cool commercial! Again, no special effects here. Just great visuals and a great music track. Check out all the details for this spot right here. I believe the LCD Bravia Television is only available in Europe so you probably won't see this spot here in the States.

So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

Click here to watch.

Tiger Ball Tricks

2005-11-15T15:37:00.000-05:00

Found this spot in my archives. I remember when I first saw this I thought for sure it was done with special effects. Yeah, that ball was just inserted and made to look pretty seamless. Wrong!

The story goes Tiger was just fooling around in between takes of shooting another Nike spot when the director and crew noticed what he was doing and decided to roll the camera. The rest, as the say, is history.

For those of you who play golf I'm sure you've seen plenty of people attempt to emulate this skill. I myself have mastered the bounce for about 3 or 4 times. Forget behind the back and between the legs. If I recall, this spot was the result of 3 takes this being the third. Amazing!

Click here to watch.

2005-11-12T22:47:00.000-05:00

Just claiming my feed for Odeo. Nothing more, nothing less.
My Odeo Channel (odeo/4d6e6bc90e2828d9)

Beantown Demo

2005-11-12T13:37:00.000-05:00

This montage was created to run at the top of a string of shortened marketing tapes produced by Beantown Productions. I guess I love cutting to music. This music was actually inspired by the iPod Shuffle ad. The song is "Jerk it Out" by the Ceasars.

Click here to watch.

Creating Albums in iPhoto

2005-11-09T22:12:00.000-05:00

Well here it is. My very first Mac video tip. It's a very basic tip for iPhoto users but one some people will find very useful. I'm using Snapz Pro X to record my screen and Final Cut Pro for editing and output. Please be sure to leave any comments or suggetions as I'd like to have each tip improve and to be of value to as many subscribers as possible. And speaking of subscribing, please do. Just click right here . You should be able to subscribe to my videos via iTunes or any other aggregator. Again thanks for watching!

Click here to watch H.264 version
or here to download MPEG 4 version.

New Look

2005-11-07T11:55:00.000-05:00

Just doing some updates to the look of the blog. I want to cutomize it more and find other ways of adding video content. I'll have some new material up soon.

Delicious Monster

2005-10-28T22:54:00.000-04:00

If you've you got lots of books, CDs, DVDs or games you'd like to catalog here's a great program to do just that. Check out Delicious Monster. You can download a free demo and try it out to see if it's worth $40 to you. Very intuitive and visual. Enter the name of an musical group or artist and Delicious Monster will access the internet database and pull down album art and all the tracks for the CD and put it on you CD shelf. Very cool. Found out about this on MacBreak Minute. Check them out here.

Mac Tip #4 -Email a webpage or link

2005-10-27T21:32:00.000-04:00

If you're using Safari and you want to email a webpage or link to someone use the keyboard commands (Apple + I) to send the webpage or (Shift + Apple + I) to send the link. Or go into the File menu and select Mail Contents of this page or Mail link of this page.

Mac Tip #3 - Selecting more than one file at a time

2005-10-27T21:12:00.000-04:00

Here's a very useful tip for working with files in the finder windows, desktop or even within programs such as iPhoto.

To select more than one file at a time use the Apple key on your keyboard.

Hold the Apple key down and click on any files you want to select. You can select a file on the top of the list and on the bottom or in the middle as long as you keep holding down the Apple key. To then move these files to another folder for instance, select your last file, release the Apple key and drag the files to their new destination.

To select a range of consecutive files use the shift key. Hold down the shift key and selct the first file you want to select, then find the file further down the list you want to end with and while still holding the shift key click on that file. All the files inbetween the first and last files you clicked will now be selected. Now to move these files release the shift key and click on one of the selected files and drag them to their new destination.

Now you can use a combination of the Apple key and the shift key to select any number of files to move. Try it out and practice these techniques and it will make your file management tasks much simpler.

Bathtime in Clerkenwell

2005-10-24T22:29:00.000-04:00

You got to watch this!

A very fun music video I found thanks to Rocketboom via the iTunes music store. It features the music of The Real Tuesday Weld and animation by Aleksey Budovsky. Apparently this litte video has won several awards at various film festivals. Watch and if you want to know more be sure to click on the links above.

Click here to play.

Mac Tip #2.01 - How to subscribe to my blog

2005-10-24T22:19:00.000-04:00

My first correction...
It always helps to know what you're doing when you create a tip. I left a step out below the first go around so here I've added the necessary step.

So you've seen my blog and you say to yourself, "I love this blog and I'd love to know whenever there is something new published here for me to see." Well there is a way thanks to the magic of RSS. (click here to learn more about RSS through Wikipedia) So how do you subscribe? First you need a RSS capable web browser. On the Mac your best bets are Safari 2.0 if you're running OS 10.4 Tiger or if you're running Tiger or any earlier OS X download Firefox.
So running Safari 2.0 on Tiger you'll see in the address bar with my blog address all the way to the right in the address field a blue box with RSS.

Click on this blue box and a new page will open showing you the blogs listings in a more basic list style. Now go ahead and bookmark this page by either pressing the Apple key plus D on your keyboard or by going into the Bookmarks menu and selecting new bookmark. In either case, decide where you want to save it, name it and click save. You'll now be subscribed to my blog and anytime there is new content available it will be indicated in the bookmark by a number in parenthesis.
With Firefox RSS is indicated by an orange ray icon in the lower right corner of the browser window. Click on this icon and then click on the site name and you'll be asked to save this bookmark. If you save it in the bookmarks toolbar it will be saved right on the toolbar below the address bar and easy to find. Once it's save you can click on this link and see the most recent content titles from my blog.

Hope this helps you enjoy the beauty of RSS and subscriptions. Don't forget to subscribe to Macdaddy!

ByeByeNOW.com Commercial

2005-10-24T21:30:00.000-04:00

Ah yes! Remember the bubble...the dot com bubble? Seems so long ago yet it was just 5 years ago. Well I found myself riding the bubble when I took a job in Florida. To make a long story short, the company I went to work for was bought by ByeByeNOW.com, a travel and vacation website. In addition to the website, we produce a weekly hour long show called Vacaton TV. The show highlighted vacations and travel products and drove people to the 800 number and website to purchase. Well we all know what happened to the bubble.

We produced a total of 7 shows and then the money was gone. Truly one of the best work experiences I've ever had though. I truly felt like I had equity in what we were doing and didn't mind the 14 hour days to put these shows together.

The video below is actually a commercial for ByeByeNOW.com. Priceline.com had William Shatner but we had Regis! who was hot with the sucess of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Each ByeByeNOW.com store received a custom spot. For those who know me you might recognize the voice over on this spot. You see these spots were produced towards the end of ByeByeNOW's existence and they didn't want to spend money on the voice talent. Well it turns out they had to pay me scale anyway. Thank you ByeByeNOW.com. I left ByeByeNOW at the end of 2001. They went bankrupt in early 2002. Like many dot coms then they were probably a bit ahead or their time.

Click here to play.

Mac Tip #1 - Navigating through open Applications

2005-10-21T13:14:00.000-04:00

If you're running Mac OS X Panther(10.3) or Tiger(10.4) here's a tip for you. Ever have many applications open at the same time? Need an easy way of switching between them? Hold down the Apple key and tab key on your keyboard and you should get a bar across you're screen displaying all your open applications. While holding the Apple key down use the tab key to navigate through each apps icon. When you get to the icon for the open app you want release both keys and you'll go to that applicaiton. This is something I use all the time.

5 Men in a Limo

2005-10-20T13:43:00.000-04:00

Having worked in television promotion and advertising for almost 20 years now, I appreciate the gift and talent of the voices behind the spots. Here are some of the best and most recognizable in a great video. What happens when you put 5 together in a limo? Take a look.

Click here to play.

Think Different

2005-10-20T13:07:00.000-04:00

Apple is not only known for great products but great advertising too. You may know about the famous spot that aired in 1984 during the Super Bowl and introduced the Macintosh, but here's a more recent spot probably from the late 90's. It shows you what emotional music, great images and simple voice over can do to make a spot memorable and impactful.

Click here to play.