Longmire

Can you say BOOM? This promo just drips with the Boom Sound Effects Library. In a pinch, that library can take you from zero to that's a wrap in less than 2 hours. That's about how long it takes me to mix a promo like this puppy.

Cheers to an awesome voiceover by the lead actor, Robert Taylor. Other than my killer SFX, the voiceover truly makes the spot. The music sets a nice mood too. Oh and the cinematography. Don't ya just love Wyoming? My favorite state in the Union, hands down.

"Watch the moon . . . smiling in the sky, hum a tune – prairie lullaby. Peaceful wind. Old coyotes cry. Song of home, my Sweet Wyoming Home." Cheers, Danny Gotham.

As always, here is the SFX split out. Boom. Boom.

The Legend of Korra

From time to time, I have the privilege of working on some fairly high profile projects. Whether it's the launch of a new product like HBO GO, rebranding a network, or mixing a documentary on fallen soldiers in Iraq, there are some opportunities that come along that remind me that creativity and content creation can impact our lives in profound ways. Sometimes it's disruptive, sometimes it's fun, sometimes it helps to make us think and make us better people. It's a great feeling to be part of these moments.

When I was asked to mix some spots to promote a new Nickelodeon show called The Legend of Korra, I knew that this was a moment that would affect millions kids around the world. The Legend of Korra is a follow up of the critically acclaimed and widely popular series Avatar, the Last Airbender. I knew that the mix on the spots that I did for Korra were very important to help sell the excitement in the series so I really tried to push the envelope and make a dynamic and powerful mix on the promos. Here is one of my favorites.



The back end of the spot has a lot of loud/soft/loud/soft to increase the excitement and energy of the spot. Although the FX and music tail off a little bit, there is mostly absolute silence and dialogue right before the Polar Dog burst through the window. Hopefully I will knock some kids off the couch with that one. :)

Although a lot of the sound effects were from the series (and all the great music is from the show), I did add quite a few. Here is the SFX split.

Lost Girl

I'm not quite sure what this show is about. A girl who seems to have some sort of special powers. It's a little creepy, a little dark, a little eerie. Is she dead? Is she magic? Is she a lesbian? The world may never know the truth.

As always, here is the SFX only.



The sound I used when the light is coming out of her mouth is blended cymbal scrape, some whoosh action and a little electric guitar feedback.

Dog the Bounty Hunter

Breakin' the law. Breakin' the law! Don't skip bail when Dog the Bounty Hunter is in your neck of the woods. I usually avoid him at all costs when I skip bail.

Cheers to the producers at A&E that always pick great music. Made this spot happen. I think this was Leigh Ornstein.

As always, here is the SFX split out. I had fun with this one. Guns, chases, drama. Gotta love it.

Nick Holiday Giveaway

500 iPads????!!!!!!



I had plenty of time to work on this spot but somehow it came down to the wire. Still, it's nice to be able to really explore the sound to go with such cool looking 3D graphics. And as always, for your listening please, the SFX Splits:

Spike Sports Sizzle

It's always fun to work on a Sizzle spot that is not for air. You get to use cool music tracks like The Beastie Boys "Sabotage" Here's the SFX Split:

Breakout Kings

Breakout Kings. Second season of the series on A&E with Domenick Lombardozzi from The Wire and Entourage. A classic tough guy cop.

The mix for this spot was a little rushed. Seems like they had a lot of sound effects already in place from another edit. But they were all mono so I kind of went through it and replaced or added to a lot of the original effects. It ended up sounding a lot better. But in fact the original mix sounded pretty cool at times. I was able to get some good ideas from it. Then made them sound a lot better. They put in whooshes and room tone all over the place! Kind of overkill but hey, it's a trailer after all.

At other times I questioned the orignal mix. You could tell the mixer was pretty inexperienced. Instead of removing the noise from a sound bite, they decided to cut around the dialogue and removed the noise only when the character was not talking. So you could hear these massive shifts in the noise floor (25 seconds in, Shea Daniels being interviewed outside). And because they cut out all the clean noise, that is, the noise in isolation when Shea was not talking, I had very little time to sample the noise in isolation. Anyone who knows much about noise, you know you need to isolate the noise in order to remove it. The plug-ins need a clean sample. And the worst thing you can do is to sample some noise that has a breath or other noise in it. Then your noise-reduction filter ends up taking out too much noise and you get this watery type of reverberant effect.

Long story short is I was still able to make the clip sound better and in fact, I think the average listener will not hear the noise floor jumps now. Not in the mix, at least. You can still hear it pretty clearly in isolation. But it sounds much better than before.

Supah Ninjas

I had a lot of time to make this spot sound super kick ass, appropriately for the subject matter.

This spot features internet sensation Ryan Higa. I looked him up on Wikipedia. Apparently I'm old or out of touch. Or both. Because this guy has had about a billion youtube views. They're actually pretty funny. Especially if you're about 13 years old. This guy has basically created a career for himself by being pretty funny and posting videos on youtube. Wow. That's awesome. Much respect for the internet.

I also included an FX only version so you could hear all the intricacies:

Intervention on A&E

Another fine mix for the A&E network. I had a hard time looking at the acne though. Over and over again as I mixed. Yuck.

Butterfinger MTV

The producer brought this project to me with absolutely no sound. We put in a little drop music at the top, then I added in some FX, some bowed bass, some electric bass, a little dialogue, and the back-end groove c/o Stylus RMX. Not bad for about 2 hours work.

Superbabies!

We worked a little singing into this Dora spot.

Earth Day on Nick Jr.

I was asked to do a sound-alike for a series of Earth Day spots on Nick Junior. The original tune titled "Battle Without Honor or Humanity," written by Tomayasu Hotei, was featured in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill vol. 1. The producer from Nick Jr., Jennifer Treuting, asked me to write this piece when the stock sound-alikes came up short.




Music only version

Political Campaign Ad

I wrote this piece for a political campaign ad for Health Care Reform. Feels good to do something for a good cause.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Wow, TMNT is coming to Nick. That's awesome. I love Ninjas. I love turtles.

Sucka Free Sunday

I did the sound design and mix for this MTV2 spot -- threw in some musical elements like the synth at the top and tail and the snare that matches the quick cuts throughout.

Nick Sizzle Spots

The sound design on these sales tapes was a lot of fun to create. Check out my toy grand piano at the top of the the Kai Lan spot.




Gotta love Sponge Bob.

Nick ID's

Starting in the Summer of '09, I began the Nickelodeon Re-branding campaign. These are the preschool ID's -- all sound design so a lot of fun to make.

Nick Re-brand

I mixed over 300 spots for this campaign and these are some of my favorites. Short and sweet.






I wrote the music on this one.


Auto-tune made The Backyardigans sound a little more robotic.

StepAfrika Promo on CSTV

I was given the dancers' performance audio and told to put some music underneath to go with it. This is what I came up with.

Quinces

Original music for MTV promo for Quinces.