Hakuna for the Holidays

Yesterday we received a seasonal "shot in the arm" and a real boost in holiday spirit as Ernie Sabella, the voice of "Pumbaa" in The Lion King, brought his infectious energy and cheer to the studio.  
  
Ernie was recording voiceovers for "Wishes," the newest original show for Disney Cruise Lines.  The show will be performed on DCL cruises, and features a trio of teen characters visiting Disneyland to celebrate their high school graduation.


Along the way, they run into some real-life Disney characters who help make their experience a memorable one -- enter Ernie's performance as Pumbaa, along with his old pal Timon.


From the sound of things, it should be a really fun show... now who left all of these bugs lying around the studio??  

Once upon a time, in a LEGO set far, far away...

Amongst the various signs of holiday spirit, none have contributed more to the festive mood 'round these parts than the Star Wars Holiday specials we recently made with our friends from LEGO.  As part of a campaign that is helping raise awareness for a great charity, the folks from LEGO worked with Tapeworks engineers to score and sound-design both Darth Vader- and Yoda-themed Youtube holiday season videos.  

You can take a look at the videos by clicking the links above, or by copy/pasting these URLs into your web browser:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFKqAhIlcHI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFpDa5e4lpo&feature=related

These videos are raising awareness for the Toys-for-Tots donation program that LEGO is running this winter; click here to find out how you can help make a child's holiday season much merrier with a couple clicks of the mouse. 


More to report in the upcoming days - including a visit from our favorite animated warthog and a trip to the snowy slopes of New Hampshire...

...Now, in the words of a very wise little Jedi: "Back to work, we must get!"



   

It's Doc Season at Tapeworks!

It's always exciting when you get a chance to host Hollywood talent - this week we were pleased to work with highly-regarded film actor and international stage performer, Marton Csokas.  


Mr. Csokas (from the films Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring; Kingdom of Heaven; Alice in Wonderland (2010), and The Debt, among others) was in our studio to perform voiceovers for the upcoming feature-length documentary, Follow Me: The Jonathan Netanyahu Story.  


This film depicts the story of a young Israeli soldier who was killed during the 1976 rescue of 246 passengers who were taken hostage by terrorists on a flight from the Ben-Gurion Airport (in Israel) to Paris, France.  The narrative is of a combination of historical accounts from the highjacking to the eventual rescue, as well as personal letters and correspondences involving Jonathan from the time of his military training up until the time of his death.  Mr. Csokas' role in the project is the vocalization of Netanyahu's written letters - the voice of the principle character for the film.

Despite coming from a variety of backgrounds (born in New Zealand, dual-citizenship and ancestry in Hungary, and permanent residence in the US), none of which include a Hebrew dialect, Marton expertly delivered his lines with an Israeli accent; no small task, when we regularly see just how hard it is to read lines the right way in our regular voices! 

Marton even found some time to demonstrate his didjeridoo chops during a short break - don't you just love working with those multi-talented performers! 

"Rush"-ing to An Xbox Near You

Now that the power is back and we find ourselves caught up enough to take just a tiny breath, it's as good a time as any to write about what we've been up to since last time....

This week we were thrilled to work with an old friend of the studio (also an internationally-acclaimed film, stage and voiceover actor), Mr. Brian Dennehy.  Brian was in the studio working on a couple of projects, including a new Xbox Kinect game code-named "Rush" based on various Pixar films.  Brian was lending his voice to the project as a reprisal of his character "Django" from the original 2007 Pixar film, Ratatouille.  His other project was a narrative voiceover for an upcoming historical film titled Ice Bound, which deals with both the physical and psychological hardships that settlers in Nome, AK were forced to overcome during the early 20th century.  As always, it was a pleasure watching a true professional of the craft hard at work.

We would also like to take a moment to recognize and congratulate another friend of the studio, Orice Jenkins, on his wonderful write-up in the Hartford Courant this past Sunday.  This young, talented jazz artist is drawing widespread praise for both his songwriting and piano playing, performing for (and with) some heavy hitters in both the regional and national jazz communities.  Of course, this came as little surprise to us, since we have been fortunate enough to record and mix both of Orice's last two album projects here at Tapeworks.  The growth in his playing and writing between the two albums recorded here ("Just One of Those Things" from Fall 2010, and "Journals of a Teenage Chromaticist" in Summer 2011) is huge, and the sky appears to be the limit for this strong local talent.

Congratulations, Orice!  We look forward to hearing about all your upcoming endeavors, and working with you again in the future.

Lastly: we hope that everybody out there has managed to come out of the horrible storm and ensuing power outage that ravaged CT a couple of weeks back in good health and moderate humor.  Hopefully the worst storm of the winter is already behind us, and we can all look forward to a prosperous (and dry!) November.  Stay tuned for much more in the coming weeks! 


- TW

         

Kicking off our October on the right "note"

While we've been knee-deep in voiceover recording and commercial production (see Tuesday's entry, below), we've also had the pleasure of working with some extremely talented musicians and artists over the last few weeks.

Local musician/songwriter Hattie Wilcox has just completed mixing and mastering her new album with our Chief Engineer Bill Ahearn, and we can't wait to hear the full project.  The mixes sound great; cool, catchy and complex all at once.  We also had the pleasure of recording guitar guru Jeff Pevar recently on a couple of tracks for Hattie's next album project.  As usual, Jeff sounded fantastic, and it's always exciting when he swings by the studio.

 This past Saturday afternoon, our friend Grayson Hugh stopped by the studio to record his inspirational arrangement of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," a classic Hank Williams standard.  After laying down the piano track in only two takes, Grayson and his wife, Polly Messer, recorded vocals that included some very moving, beautiful harmonies. 

Last (but definitely not least): we would like to congratulate Thomasina Levy and Joanie Spear for receiving the Native American Music Award (or "NAMMY," as it is commonly called) for Best Single/Song of the Year at the awards ceremony in Niagara Falls, NY last week.  We are proud of our studio's contribution to the completion of their song, "Out of Many, We Are One."

Well... it looks like we're finally caught up - for now.  Stand by, because we're looking forward to an even more eventful and productive fall!!

- From the TW Crew

So... a cartoon superhero, a linebacker and a sociology prof walk into a bar...

It's been awhile since we wrote, but rest assured - with some big projects for LEGO, NFL Films, NPR and a handful of very cool music projects and accolades - we've been keeping busy!

Last week, Chief Engineer Bill Ahearn recorded the infamous voice of "Space Ghost", Mr. George Lowe, for a project with LEGO.  George reminded us all - not that we needed it - why he's one of the best in the biz.  Along with nailing his voiceover part in only a couple of takes, he had both Tapeworks staff and the Lego crew alike in stitches with some poignant ad libs and observations that only Space Ghost himself could come up with.  You gotta love it when everybody's smiling after a session.  Keep your ears peeled for George's distinct baritone in the near future!

Keeping in theme with cool VO projects, we've also recorded several film voiceovers with actor Chris Lemmon for a series of NFL Films productions over the last couple of weeks.  Chris' voice was beamed out from our studio via ISDN, and will be appearing on documentary projects about Tom Brady, Greg Jennings and Ray Rice, amongst others.

We were also pleased to host Dr. Bradley Wright, associate Professor of Sociology at UConn, for his appearance on NPR yesterday afternoon.  Dr. Wright teleconferenced via ISDN with Jean Feraca, host of the radio show "Here on Earth", which is based in Madison, Wisconsin.  The topic of the day was Dr. Wright's new book, "Upside: Surprising Good News About the State of Our World" - as you might expect, it was a great way to end our Monday on a positive note!

All this and we've only covered our recent voiceover work - in the next entry (to be posted later this week), we'll talk about our recent music work.

A Little Goodbye to A Little Wednesday Night Music

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We're into the last few weeks of summer, which means it's almost time to say goodbye to another summer producing the "A Little Wednesday Night Music" concert series at Blue Back Square in West Hartford, CT. 

This year we were delighted to have (mostly) wonderful weather for our Wednesday-night live music series, and a fantastic lineup of performers from all around New England and beyond.

From old-school R&B, to Jug-Band Blues... 

... from infectious Gypsy-Jazz, to the premiere "The Band" tribute group...

 

... from youthful Jam-Band Funk, to an impromptu unplugged Latin Jazz set (performed during a "rainout" and under an overhang); our artists delighted the crowds and kept people dancing and smiling all summer. 

  The lighting for our concerts, provided by Rich Owen at Northern Lights, helped create the atmosphere for our shows.  You may not have noticed it at the start of each show, but as the sun set on Blue Back Square, Rich's setup certainly enhanced the concert experience for everyone involved!

The sound - provided spectacularly, once again, by SP3 - was the perfect compliment to our amazing artists and venue, and we couldn't have asked for a better-sounding season series!

A big thanks to all who participated in making this a summer to remember: Barbara Lerner and Ronus Properties, Jeff Simon and his sound crew at SP3, Rich Owen and Northern Lights, our wonderful bands and the most important part: everyone who came out to enjoy the music! 

If you are in the Hartford area, definitely drop by the pergola at Blue Back Square in West Hartford, CT for our final band this Wednesday night, from 7:00-9:00pm.  This summer's series will close with a performance by CT-based classic-country band Gunsmoke, in what promises to be a fitting finish to a wonderful season.

Hope you can all make it out this Wednesday - if not, we'll see you next year!