Intel Parody - Medical Marijuana

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

A nice piece on Don.

Don Lafontaine: The King of Voiceovers is dead

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)

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

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.

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Pork and Beans

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

Scary Screen Sharing

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

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

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

Avid 1.0 - Media Composer Promo

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

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

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

Intel - Touch of Genius - Movie Maker

Intel - Touch of Genius - Blogger

Percy Rodrigues

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?

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

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

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...

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And here's where we ended up...

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