Yeah, yeah.. I know.. Flying donkeys.. Sure, that’s something you see everyday… I just wanted to get your attention so that you would sit up straight in class. Audio proficiency is what’s at hand here and the use of the phrase “ready to fly” means ready to move your can in the event you have to. As usual, I would like to share some of my real world voice over experience in hopes that it may help someone survive a potentially embarrassing situation – or best of all – avoid one all together. You never know when a client will call just as you’ve hopped into the car to take the little lady shoe shopping, asking for something you might not be able to deliver.
That’s exactly what happened to me the other day. I was about 4 blocks away from the studio on a mission to buy wedding shoes for my fiance, i.e. the ones she is going to wear with her dress, the ones she might fuss over for 3/4 of a century, the ones that might have me turning into a comatose, green and red melting blob in the corner of a shoe store for 18 hours while she fiddled over such magnificent details as whether or not a stitch might be out of place – So understandably, the last thing I would want to do is leave my future bride stranded in the car curbside while I ran into the studio to re-feed a client some audio. But – risking all peril that’s what I did. Thankfully she is understanding and she knows that servicing clients is what I have to do even if it means missing a funeral… Just not a wedding..
For a quick rundown of the situation: When I initially auditioned for this project, I sequenced my audition to their video as a test track, so that it made sense to them when they dropped it in their editor. I sent my processed voice track mixed with my client’s music and elements to the client for approval, they then forwarded that audio to their client so that they could approve it. Once everyone was happy and all was approved, I sent the raw (dry) voice file to my client so they could do their own mixing, processing and sequencing to the video… So far nothing strange here…
After a few hours of working on the video, my client called me back to say “I really like it, but I have been trying to find the voice you used in the spec piece and I have gone over everything and cant find it.” It was at this point that I told them the voice I used for the spec was the first one on the track and the other reads on the track were provided in the event they needed some specific timing or tonal changes. So they said, “Ok, but no matter which voice we use we cant get the same sound as the test track.” To which I said, “Well, that’s because the test track was processed and you’re working with a dry track.” to which they replied, “Ok, so what process do we use to get the same sound?”
Right here is where it could have all unraveled – because what if I couldn’t answer that question? What if I had fiddled and fiddled with processes until I came up with a sound that I liked and couldn’t remember how many times or what I had done in order to achieve the sound I had? I’d be screwed, the client would be disappointed, I would end up spending hours trying to figure out what I had done in an effort to reproduce it and the most important client of all would be outside waiting in the car with a dagger in her hand.
So we need to break this down into what I did, what I didn’t do, what I should have done, what I’m glad I did, what I might have to consider in the future – and how it all applies to flying Donkeys.
What I did:
At first I really didn’t want to turn around and go to the studio to upload a file for someone when I had already sent it to them and they couldn’t figure out how to get the sound they wanted. After all, they’re the producers. I was only hired to be the voice talent. They shouldn’t be upset that I can make things sound better than they can… If they wanted me to produce it then they should send me the work and the client and forward me any checks they had been paid.
That is the “Honest Me.” But as usual, the “Realistic and Practical Me that likes making clients happy and getting paid” took over and before you knew it I was turning around the car and returning to the studio to get the client their audio. (The turning radius on a Nissan sucks when compared to a BMW… Just thought you should know… We were in her car…)
So I parked the car, ran inside while still on the phone with the client, talked to them while I pulled up the audio and re-applied the process to the dry track just as I had done before I mixed it the first time. I then uploaded it to my server, sent them the link and continued to talk to them while they downloaded it and stayed on the line while they listened to it and said, “Yeah! That’s the ticket.” Then I said “Buh-by.” and ran off to save my marriage…
Because of my proficiency and efficiency with my studio setup and editing techniques, which is only born from constant practice and application of the science, it took all of about 3 minutes to resolve the issue and I really didn’t mind doing it. I was happy, they were happy, their client was happy and I could go die in a shoe store… What could be better?
I think this whole thing worked out the way it did because of what I didn’t do from the start.
What I didn’t do:
I didn’t sit around and muck with the audio file over and over again to try to get some sort of great sound. Instead, when I recorded the original audio track I used a great mic, a great mixer, a good sampling rate and bit depth and I did it all in a very quiet studio.
What I should have done:
I should have shipped them the processed audio track along with the dry track so that they could choose, however it wasn’t part of the deal, they hadn’t asked me to do any processing work on the file and the first mix was a courtesy I offered them. I never intended for them to use the mix track or even like the mix track. I locked it up to their video so they could drop it in their editor and get a better idea of my sound. When they originally sent the video over for me to look at, I stripped the audio from it and mixed a rather atrocious scratch track with it, (atrocious because I wasn’t at the studio at the time and my voice track sounded like it was recorded on the tarmac at Dulles International Airport) then I sent it back for timing and tone direction. The first read wasn’t quite what they were looking for so I did it again. This time I was at the studio and the audio was clear and compelling and I re-mixed it with their elements and my processing and sent it back to them. Of course this would be the one they would like… What did they like? I don’t know.. One would assume they liked the read and the sound.. So I sent them the dry unprocessed file and figured I could call it a day… Fat chance… There was more work to be done.
What I’m glad I did:
I’m glad that I have gotten to the point with my audio setup and editing skills, where I don’t have to try to be a miracle worker to get things to sound good. I recorded one file, applied one layer of processing to a copy of that file and never messed with the source audio and most importantly – I remembered what I had done to the audio while processing it so that upon request I could do it all again in a flash if I had to. I’m glad I saved my work…
What I might have to consider in the future:
I might have to consider not sequencing to video when I’m not asked to. It’s tough for us production guys to not put a piece together when we are provided with the elements to do so. Some of us have been at this for a while and when we see all the parts of a PB&J on the table the temptation is almost too much to resist. We know that in a few minutes we can take those elements and make something cool with them.. But, in hindsight – somethings may be better off left alone. What if we do such a bang up job on the mix the client’s client wants to use us instead? I haven’t seen it happen but I guess it could. What if the client’s client hears our work and suddenly wants the project to move in a different direction (like someone else’s direction).
What if… What if…. Who knows? I just think that it opens the door to more trouble than its worth.. Or does it? In this case, it helped seal the deal. But even when I thought I was done with the project I had to turn around and undo or re-do something I had done. If I hadn’t initially sequenced the audio to the video I wouldn’t have created the situation I was in. But then again, if I hadn’t sequenced the audio to the video maybe I wouldn’t have been given the chance to create the situation I was in… You see where I am going with this? It is very much the audio version of the “Chicken and the Egg” due out from Harper Collins later on this year – as read by the author.. Which leads me to flying Donkeys..
How all of this applies to flying Donkeys:
It doesn’t really. I said that in the beginning. I just wanted to use something to get your attention. Out of my own curiosity I entered “flying donkeys” in Google and found out there were quite a few things about them out there. I learned that the Flying Donkeys are a much maligned Italian Football team. There is also a storytelling group from the U.K. called the Flying Donkeys – I pulled this from their site, “THE FLYING DONKEYS is a club celebrating the traditional art of storytelling, meeting monthly in Derby and bringing many of the finest British and international storytellers to the city.”
So somewhere out there, flying Donkeys and voice over might cross wires – and the U.K. group seems to be the closest I’ll come unless you guys can find another.
What really prompted me to write about this experience was that fact that this is not the first time sequencing to video has come back to bite me in the Ol’ Gaboon. The first time it happened I was doing some work for a producer out in L.A. and a very similar situation had arisen.
I had locked my audition for the job to their video so it could would drop into their editor. I then mixed my own effects and music bed to the file and uploaded it via Voice123’s upload engine which takes your source audio and sums it to mono, normalizes it and expands it in every direction across the EQ chain. I have gotten used to this effect over the years and have actually begun to mix stuff for it knowing that their upload process tends to color the source quite a bit and if you play to it, you can actually achieve some really cool sound.
Of course this is what I did when I auditioned. When I created the source piece I used multiple layers of processing to achieve a really sci-fi type of sound -a bunch of old radio tricks for mono-summed stereo mixes that have to go out across the AM dial. I used reverb, chorus, delay, doppler dsp’s – you name it. Then I sent it up the line a few times on 123 to see how it sounded – then adjusted it accordingly until I was satisfied with the sound and submitted the audition. This particular audition was one where the entire population of South Calcutta had already answered the lead so I really didn’t think there was a chance I would get it. So I closed down the editor without saving any of the work I had done and the very next day they called.
Apparently the movie studio out in Hollywood that had listened to my work wanted what they heard. So here I am stuck with the fact that the file they heard no longer exists. They wanted the original audition voice and I told them it was a “one in a million” creation… It didn’t exist.. What I didn’t what to tell them is that I hadn’t saved the voice file – not the processed file, but the dry file. The only dry file I had was mixed with all the elements and effects. To this they weren’t happy so I had to try to recreate it. No matter what I did they weren’t happy. They were myopically focused on the file they couldn’t have. Like a child whose favorite toy was stuck in a tree. At that point none of the other toys exist.
I worked to re-create the file and got essentially the same thing because I knew what I had done to some extent. But they continued to hassle me because they couldn’t have THE file they wanted even if I put a better one in their hands. The producer kept coming back to me asking me for more and more work to try to achieve what ever it was he was after and I finally said this….
“Look, the file you guys heard in the audition had been processed with effects, mixed to music, re-sampled and summed to mono and streamed through a Flash application from a website. You are never going to take a file I send you and put it through a set of studio monitors and have it sound like the file you listened to. It just isn’t going to happen.” “So if you want the same sound or something close to the same sound, send me all of your mix elements – music and all – and I will create the sequence.” “It will sound better than anything you will be able to put together there.” to which the producer refused.
He kept wanting me to send him a processed voice file with no music and effects, but one that had all of the bells and whistles of the original voice file. I kept telling him that no matter what I did, listening to the voice file alone wasn’t going to sound like the file they had listened to. But they proceeded in banging my head against a wall until I coughed up something they were happy with. If they had just sent me the audio it would have been done with… Plain and simple… But that opened him (the producer) up to telling the studio that he wasn’t the one who mixed the audio – which would have led the studio to say, “Well, who did?”
I hadn’t really thought about it at the time, but my part in this little power-play was that I was kind of trying to “outshine” the guy whether I knew it or not. What I was really doing was trying to use him as a proxy to get in front of the studio and say “Hey guys, listen to this.” which is what a lot of people have died trying to do. How many people over the years have lost a leg trying to wedge it in the doors of some of Hollywood’s biggest studios? I’m not sure, but I’d bet it’s a few.
The last thing this guy wanted me to do was out-do him in the audio department. But that is what I was going to keep doing unless I let go and just worked to try to get them what they wanted..
Which brings me to this:
If I had never worked on the file in the first place I wouldn’t have been in the position I was in. But if I hadn’t worked on the file I may have never had the chance to be in the position I was in. I ended up spending hours upon hours trying to fix something I hadn’t broken because I initially went out and did something I was never asked to do, which was sequencing the initial audio to their video. I work with a lot of video guys and it is almost always the same story; they don’t know exactly what they want until you give it to them and when you do you better be able to give it to them again. Which is why when working with anyone, but particularly video guys who don’t have the studio capability to dial you up on an ISDN line and drop your reads into the time-line of their video like the big boys do, you need to keep a few things in mind:
Always save your work – no matter how trivial it may seem at the time.
Process your audio at your own risk and always remember what you did to the audio in the event they end up loving it and you need to do it again.
Get to a point where you don’t have to apply multiple processes to your audio to get it to sound good. You should be proficient as well as efficient at your craft.
Be certain who you are working for or with before you offer up any extra services like video lockup and sequencing.
Never try to outshine your client unless they ask you to.
Part of the reason I have this little struggle with people from time to time is that I am never all that pleased with the way my work is represented by some producers. I have actually gasped at some of the stuff people have done to my voice files after they are out of my hands. The fact of the matter is – once they buy the audio they can do what ever they want with it. And many do. It’s not every day that your audio is going to land in the hands of really great producers.
What this means over time is that many of your “actual spots” out there in the real world aren’t going to be very demo worthy on many occasions. The producers that I have really, really liked working for and with, when it comes to the end product, can be counted on two hands. There are also only a few that remember to share that end product with you when they’re done. I cant even begin to count how many pieces are floating around out there that I have never seen or heard.
So I guess what we need to do is keep what we do to a minimum, only do what we’re asked to do, and make sure we get to a point where we can deliver a consistent, replicable, quality product on demand and only speculate by offering the client something extra when we understand that we may dig a mine shaft – only to find coal.
To my friends J.D.P., Scott B. at MTV and Tony B. from Silverscreencreations.com – I love working with you guys. You represent my work in the best light I have ever seen and you are all pros at what you do. Just in case you get to thinking – none of you are the guy I’m talking about in the later half of this story…
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