Thrill Factor: Recording Kari Byron & Tori Belleci

Kari and Tory from Mythbusters are back on TV with this "thrilling" look at the science behind thrill rides and roller-coasters. They both came in to One Union for a few days each to record the voiceover narration for the season, which premiers August 12th on the Travel Channel! Fun fact: I first worked with Tori in 2011 on a 48 Hour Film Race submission called "Button Man."

T-Mobile's new TV campaign with Major League Baseball!

I worked with SF Agency Publicis and Hal Riney in San Francisco to finish this new TV campaign for T-Mobile starring Bryce Harper, the Washington Nationals outfielder. The voice overs were recorded by the Nationals' own announcers. A clever script bringing the metaphor of 'overages' into sports. The spot is certainly high-profile and a there were a lot of interested parties, so the creative process was complex but highly collaborative. AdAge even covered the story.

ADR and VO this month: Connie Nielsen and Dennis Haysbert

This month I had the pleasure of working with two great actors in the studio. Dennis Haysbert and Connie Nielsen. Dennis was recording VO for, of course, Allstate Insurance. Connie was recording ADR for her sinister character Lily in the series "The Following."

Cheeteau: April Fools!

I love cheese! So I was happy when Goodby, Silverstein and Partners brought this silly project in to One Union. Nothing especially complicated or challenging about this mix, but it is truly spectacular :-) and almost 2 million views! Visit the "official" Cheeteau website for more "information."

Cicada Princess: Magical fairytale now online

This is one of the most magical projects I have ever been a part of. Produced during 2012, it was finished and released to festivals all over the country in 2013 including BAM Cinematek, Cinequest, South by Southwest, and SF International Film Festival. I had the pleasure of recording British comedian, actor and overall superb human Stephen Fry as he read the voice over for the film. The sound design took a few weeks, and the final mix was supervised by director Mauricio "Mauchi" Baiocchi and composer Jesse Clark. This is some of my best work to date. I was in the booth recording foley of dirt crumbling in my hands, metal scraping together, and pieces of scotch tape flapping together like wings. Tons of the finest SF Bay Area talent worked on this amazing piece -- camera operators, model builders, and puppeteers. It was an amazing team. It recently got some press on io9.com now that it is finally viewable on the small screen. I definitely hope the team sticks together and continues more amazing work like Cicada Princess! Mauchi is definitely a talented guy, and someone you want to keep your eye on.

Battlefield 4 "Anthem" TV :60

In addition to the 20+ testimonial videos I have mixed for agency DraftFCB and their client EA, this masterpiece of order and chaos was mixed for television broadcast. This single minute of video battle glory took us almost two weeks of work, re-recording dialog, mixing and editing multiple versions of music, building sound design, and mastering the entire brew into a coherent spot. The challenges were obviously to keep the voice clear over all the chaos, and keep an artistic dynamic while adhering to broadcast limitations. The other issue with sound designing a video-game spot is that all the sound design elements must originate from the game (for legal reasons) so NO SFX library. Over a million views in less than a week! The game is highly anticipated by its fans, and the comments on YouTube are very enthusiastic...

GE's Datalandia: Stormageddon

San Francisco agency Mekanism is producing this series of amazing work for GE's new campaign, Datalandia. Based around a gorgeous miniature city, the campaign tells the story of GE's future innovations in big data. Because the subjects are all models, the sound design is essential to tell the story, and the mix is totally key in bringing the excitement. With so much happening in the score, balancing out the sound design and voice over was my main focus. Some fancy side-chain compression and multi-band compression helped keep everything nice and loud without losing too much detail.

Skype "Stay Together Stories"

San Francisco agency Pereira & O'Dell took on this great project for Skype, filming both sides of an international video chat and telling the story of people who stay connected over great distances. I mixed the videos for Lindsey and Julie. The Lindsey video is great because of all the Australian animals! For this piece, we actually recorded voice-over from Lindsey and mixed it with her on-camera monologue.
Check out the Skype homepage for this campaign to learn more, and watch videos from the other "portraits."

Common Sense Media TV and web videos

SF agency Camp+King produced this series of hilarious PSAs for Common Sense Media - a content guide and digital resource center for parents. A new issue on their plate this year I thought was interesting: kids' addiction to electronic devices, and misbehavior on social media. The 9-year-old actress in this spot is borderline frightening! Although we did spend a good deal of time editing the dialog takes together... Other great ads in this series include: Family Dinner :30 and Priorities :30. We also got some press.

FosterMore.org: TV Public Service Message

I worked with San Francisco director Robert Caruso to bring these emotional videos to air. We originally recorded several children of various ages reading the VO script, planning on shuffling the voices together throughout the spot, but ultimately we just went with the single voice-over, Emily - who is very talented and charming in the booth! Learn more about the program at FosterMore.org.

VO with Skyler Samuels for NBC pilot

Skyler is enrolled at Stanford University, and came up to San Francisco to record voice-over for the pilot episode of a new series for NBC. She plays the young descendant of an ancient warrior people, and the show tells the story of her struggling with her identity in modern times. Read the press release. The pilot is also getting fan attention already through it's Facebook page.

Mike Rowe My Life!

Mike is a regular at One Union Recording. I've recorded his voiceover for hundreds of episodes of Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch, and all kinds of commercials, mini-series and specials. Lately he's been producing a ton of content for his thousands of Facebook fans, and now he's got an idea for a new series - Mike Rowe My Life. Inviting his fans to submit their own banal life videos, the theory is that solid VO (and sound design!) can spice up anything. He's already got 10,000 views on this baby in less than a week, and I can be seen in the "making of" video. Definitely had a lot of fun with the sound and music, all original - to essentially mock the over-dramatic Deadliest Catch style. Lots of commenters are giving props to the Wilhelm Scream at the very end! It's nice to be noticed.

Honda: President's Day Sale TV

I mix a lot of spots for Northern California Honda Dealers and Northwest Honda Dealers, working with SF agency Baker Street Advertising. I thought this one was pretty clever, they shot it in Portland with some silly costumes.

Star Wars: The Old Republic (EA)

Working with agency DraftFCB, I mixed this epic video game spot in 5.1 surround and stereo, for US and international broadcast. The YouTube video has already gotten over a million hits! We recorded voice-over from Lance Henriksen, who played Bishop in Aliens in 1986, as well a few of the cast members from the game itself.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

I had a great time recording the brilliant, young, talented Thomas Horn. Over a few days we recorded his entire voice-over for the film, and all the dialog replacement. Thomas lives in San Francisco, but we were connected via ISDN and SKYPE to the director in New York.

Ubisoft: Castle Empire Trailer

Dramatic, epic voice over and some cute sound design bring this video game trailer to life.

DEX: Local Rhythms TV, Stereo and 5.1 Surround

I worked with agency Godfrey Q and Partners on this exciting TV spot in stereo and 5.1 surround. A very busy sound-collage of the very-busy life that Dex supports! The surround version is really immersive, since there is so much happening on the stage, as the viewer is led through the scene, all the other activities pan to the background and sides - definitely a lot of material in the rear speakers!