[Todd Terry]

[Nick Griffin] “the original “Voice of God” was Norman Rose. (I last worked with Norman in New York in the mid-1980’s and he was in his early seventies then so I doubt he’s still around, let alone working”

Sadly, Nick…no.

I thought we lost Norman a few years ago, but looked him up to make sure. Last Thursday was the five-year anniversary of his death. He made it to 87.

We’ve lost a lot of the great voice guys… Lafontaine, Hal Riney… anyone ever get to work with Danny Dark? Danny was great and so prolific, tons of commercials and the voice of NBC promos for years and years. I think that’s why NBC uses Townsend Coleman so much now… his voice is very evocative of Danny’s. Danny died the same year as Norman Rose. Always wanted to get to work with him but never did….. sigh.

There are some great younger dudes (i.e., Stew Herrera, Rino Romano), but it seems like my favorite voices these days… Hal Douglas, Peter Thomas, Ed Grover…. are all old guys (although they don’t sound like it). Ed is in his 70’s and Hal and Peter are both well into their 80’s.

Looks like there will always be room for new blood.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I’ll pop back in with one mic recommendation… especially since you said video production is your primary thing but would like to do some voice work on the side.

On location we typically use the Sennheiser MKH416 as a boom mic. It’s a really sweet shotgun, and one that you’ll see on a lot of productions. It’s not a $5000 Neumann, but it’s not a $60 Radio Shack mic either. It’s somewhere in the middle.

It was sometime after we started using the 416 as our primary boom, that I discovered a lot of higher-end voice actors also use it as a VO mic, which really surprised me. I knew it was the boom-of-choice for a lot of sound guys, but hadn’t thought about using it for VO. It has a very warm and open sound, a bit friendlier sounding than some of the usual booth mics, that can sound a bit sterile… and since it is so highly directional you can use it for VO in some places that might not be as acoustically isolated as a quiet-as-a-church audio booth. I tried it a couple of times in a booth, and it really does sound great. The 416 was Don LaFontaine’s mic of choice, and I believe it’s the one that Joe Cipriano, Andy Geller, and Townsend Coleman (the main NBC promo voice) use as well. Probably a bunch of other guys too. It has a lot of range, too, so it’s good for both the Voice of God types (LaFontaine, Geller), as well as higher-register voices like Cipriano and Coleman.

Of course a dedicated booth mic is ideal. We have the Audio-Technica AT4060 in our booth, which is a decent quality VO mic, with a middle of the road pricetag as well (about $1300). BUT, if you plan on doing a lot of video and maybe some audio, then a double-duty mic like that Sennheiser might be a good investment, since you can use it for both. The MKH416 comes in at about a grand, maybe a little more.

Keep in mind that most higher-end VO mics require 48v phantom power to operate. That used to mean they needed to go to a mixer that outputs phantom, or you had to use a separate dedicated phantom power source. Now though, there are some USB mic connectors that provide mics with phantom power, so that’s really all you need.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Ha… FUNNY… Thanks John. The world is too too small.

Thanks everyone else, as well.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Good for you… I love working with great voice guys, and just listening for voices.

I’ve been privileged to work with some of the great ones through the years, from the guys you’ve never heard of (but know their voices), to the bigshots like John Leader and the late great Don Lafontaine. Don was always a total hoot, and a heckuva nice guy, despite being the true Voice of God. I’m so sad that I never got to work with the great Hal Riney before his untimely death last year. If you wanna hear absolute first class narration, check out the spot he voiced (and wrote) 15 years ago for the Texas Rangers at youtube.com/watch?v=EYhJ5l62KRA. I still hope to get to work with Hal Douglas some day.

Right now, I find myself using Peter Thomas a fair bit, when a really emotive and smooth read is needed. Peter is not only the King of Smoothness, but a nicer old gentleman you’ll never meet. I have no idea how he does it, but keeps a middle-aged voice at 85. And still works everyday (Burger King, Monday Night Football, NBC News), plus one loooong session a week recording Forensic Files. The man is a machine.

I’m digressing to make a point…. all of these guys are narrators. None of them are announcers. The big radio-voiced announcer went out of style a long time ago. The guys in command now are the ones who can truly tell a story with their voices. That’s why so many name actors are doing VO work now. Work on your ability to tell a story, to act with your voice (without overacting), not just the quality of your golden pipes.

While most of the big time voices are on either coast, the good thing about voice work these days is that you can work anywhere. Don was in L.A., Hal Douglas is in N.Y….. but Peter makes a bazillion dollars a year from his home studio in Naples, Florida. You can literally be anywhere.

The great voice guy Stew Herrera used to have an excellent “So you want to break into voiceovers” section on his website. It’s been a while, so I’m not sure if he still has it up, but you might check out stewvox.com and see if it’s still there. It had TONS of great advice.

What equipment do you need? Not that much, at minimum. A computer, and a great microphone… and some sound editing software. In his later years LaFontaine and his wife traveled a lot, and while he had a million dollar studio in his house, more often than not his work came out of his “studio in a briefcase” (just a laptop, his trusty Neumann mic, and a pop screen) when he was on the road… recording movie trailers and FOX promos in whatever hotel room he was in at the time.

What can you get paid? That’s the tough part. The bigshot guys make pretty darn good money, especially considering there’s no heavy lifting involved. But there are scads of guys on the next lower (and next lower) tier trying to make it. Some of them are very good… and most of them don’t charge very much. Even some of the very good ones at that level are working for peanuts. Just like any performing vocation, there are tons of people trying to “make it,” to get their foot in the door, and catch a big break. I probably get somewhere in the neighborhood of five or six “cold call” emails from voice guys every week, directing me to their websites or online demos. I got two today.

You’re young, so I’d say right now don’t worry about what you can get paid for it. Worry about buiding your reel. Do spots whenever you can. Work on your voice. Read books out loud. Take some acting classes, even if you don’t consider yourself an actor. Practice telling stories.

It’s a hard business to break into, but for those who make it, it’s a great one.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Sometimes you find yourself on the other side of the situation.

A while back we subbed out some After Effects work, used a very very talented young man in another city that, actually, we found right here on the COW. Stunningly good work.

Our contract with him specified several different elements as deliverables: a show open, several internal bumpers, some graphics background plates, etc. No mention was ever made of the actual project files, we didn’t need them nor wanted the extra expense.

BUT… when he finished them all and we had approved everything and he made the real high-res files, we got the message from him with download instructions that said something like “The first piece is in such-and-such folder, the second piece is in the next folder…. all of the elements are in the ‘Elements’ folder, all the After Effects projects are in the ‘AE’ folder….” etc.

I was quite surprised. He’s a young guy (super talented, but a mere child), and maybe he didn’t realize he was “giving away the farm.” To tell you the truth though, I never even opened his projects. If I need something else, I’ll just call him again.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Darin Miyashiro] “I don’t want to spend a lot of money”

That’s going to be the tricky part, as the usual best solution is not cheap.

The usual way would be to do two things… cut the amount of light coming in through the window and increase the illumination inside. Bumping up your interior light is going to be the expensive part. For such a drastic difference in light levels, HMI lighting inside would be best… daylight balanced and many many times brighter than any kind of Home Depot work lights. But they come with a cost… to buy, they are many many thousands of dollars. To rent, a single 1200w HMI (which I’d say is the bare minimum you’d need) will probably come in at around $300-$400. That’s about the biggest HMI instrument that you can easily and safely run off of ordinary household outlets (with 15amp breakers).

Cutting the lighting output through the windows is easier and cheaper. You can try stretching a layer of black screen door mesh across the opening. With proper focusing it can appear invisible and cut the exterior light by a stop or maybe even two.

Another option would be to light the interior as best you can, and shoot at daybreak or dusk when light levels are better. Keep in mind though that to look natural you still want the exterior levels quite a bit higher than interior.

Or…

If the shot is locked down and no moving talent is violating the window, shoot it twice and expose once for the interior and once for the exterior. In editing, use the exterior exposure as a background plate and on top of that overlay the interior exposure, matting out the shape of the window.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Mike’s right, of course.

[Steve Kownacki] “The client does not really want them or see a need for them.”

There’s your answer, plain and simple. This is a corporate gig that they are paying for. They are the real exec producers, and should get it the way they want it.

In addition, I’ll add that I’ve personally never ever put cast or crew credits on a corporate project. I can’t even really say if I’ve ever seen it done elsewhere, either.

For broadcast? Sure. But not for an in-house corporate video. If anything, a one-line simple credit to the production company should be more than sufficient if you think it is helpful and/or necessary and if the client is ok with it. Most corporate videos aren’t high art, and people aren’t doing them for fun, as a hobby, or for credit. The paycheck is “honor” enough.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[stephen hoyal] “What can this camera do?”

Just about anything.

The H1 is my favorite camera. Ever. Period.

I’ve always been a little surprised that the H1 didn’t catch on quite like the wildfire that I expected it would. I think a lot of that has to do with price, as it is definitely one of the more expensive HDV cams out there and there are cheaper options that are easier on the budget.

We started using the XLH1 right when they first came out. I love everything about this camera, from the ergonomics, the almost infinitely paintable images (with almost two dozen different tweakable parameters to control the image), and the fact that it is set up like a real “pro” camera… that is, with real knobs, buttons, and switches right on the camera body to control all of the important functions. Lots of cameras are very “menu heavy” and you have to wade through pages of on-screen menus to adjust camera settings. The H1 has lots of menus, too… but if you want to do something like, say, change the shutter speed… you don’t have to dig into a menu, there are buttons for that right on the body. That’s just one example. There are lots of little extras, too, like the fact that the audio XLR outputs do provide 48v phantom power if you need to use a higher-end pro mic that requires phantom.

All that, and the picture is just really stunning. Even the lens… stock lenses are not always something to write home about, but this one is. To confess, I still never use the stock lens (I almost always shoot with primes), but as far as factory video zooms go this one is very very good.

I only have two negatives about the camera, and one is easily overcome. The factory defaults for all the image parameters really stink… therefore, right out of the box the camera doesn’t look that great…images are quite bland and washed out. I always tell people that step one should be going in and adjusting everything to your visual liking, then saving that as one of the presets (it’s easy). A few tweaks and the picture looks like a million bucks.

The second negative concerns the HD-SDI output. Often times (usually) an HD-SDI signal contains the audio. For some reason Canon chooses not to embed audio in the HD-SDI signal. If you wish to use the camera as a source deck and capture output via HD-SDI, you don’t get audio, just video. So, to capture via HD-SDI you need the separate path for audio. It’s not a big deal, just usually a couple of mouse clicks in whatever NLE you are using to define the audio path, but it would be easier if audio was already embedded.

Other than that, I can’t say enough good things about the camera.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Ahhhh….wait a second. I just thought of something that might be important….

Again, I’m speaking of my usage with the XLH1, though results should be the same.

With the XLH1 if you shoot HDV in 24p, the footage captures and imports as true progressive 23.976fps footage. BUT… if you shoot standard def 24f, the footage captures and imports as 60i video, but with the 3:2 pulldown applied so that it appears as normal 24p video.

Something similar might be happening with the component and HD-SDI outputs. They might actually be feeding a 60i signal of the 24p footage. It would still look like 24p, but would be in a 60i wrapper. I can’t say for sure that it does that, but it might explain the cryptic wording in the manual. Even if that’s the case, you should still be able to capture the live feed as 24p. In a 23.976p project it would capture frame-for-frame. In a 60i project it would capture 30fps but with the 3:2 pulldown applied. Either way it would look exactly the same (24p), although one might bring more post production challenges than the other, depending on your editing system.

It would be hard to know for sure without testing it.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Luke Garza] “owners manual and it says anything out of component or even sdi on g1 comes out as 60i.”

I guess that is theoretically possible, if the XHA1 doesn’t truely have a progressive-switchable sensor and is using some kind of interpolation voodoo to get it to 24fps before it sticks to the tape. I haven’t used the XHA1, but was basing my post on my XLH1… which is the big brother to the XLA1 and electronically basically the same camera. All outputs on the XLH1 pump out whatever framerate the camera is set to.

It’s certainly easy enough to test though in about one minute or less. Hook your camera up to a monitor (component, composite, or S-video, whatever), turn on the camera, and see what the live video looks like. It will be clearly evident whether it’s 60i or 24p.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com