Not long ago, in a city not-too-far away.....

It's not every day that we get to use the phrase "World's Largest ______" when describing one of our projects, but Tapeworks Chief Engineer Bill Ahearn was on hand recently for the unveiling of the largest LEGO model ever built!!! 

X-Wing touches down in Times Square

According to Wired, the model - a full-scale "X-Wing" from the Star Wars franchise - was brought to Times Square after spending 2 months aboard two boats that carried the model from Czech Republic to NYC.  It weighs in just shy of 46,000lbs. and will eventually make its way to Legoland, in Southern California.

As part of the video presentation, LEGO asked us to sound design an animation featuring a larger-than-life Yoda while he used the force to pull back the curtains on this giant ship.  The video portion of the event was played on a couple of enormous screens in Duffy Square @ Times Square, and of course our engineers were thrilled to take on the challenge: creating sounds and ambiance as big as the centerpiece of the presentation!

Yoda uses the force (and some killer sound design) to lift the curtains

 from the X-Wing

The day went off without a hitch, and - despite a close encounter with some local Jawas - Bill made it back from the event in one piece!  

    

       

Up to Our Ears....

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While it looks like we're still a snowstorm and/or some chilly weather away from the arrival of Spring, things have been heating up at Tapeworks over the last couple of months!

We've been thrilled to do some work recently with some of our favorite talents on a couple of new projects recently.  In late-January, Mr. Ernie Sabella popped in to record new voiceovers and a song for a Lion King-themed public service announcement.  Ernie is the voice of Pumbaa from the beloved Disney classic, and his "Hakuna Matata" greeting always gives the studio a boost of positive energy. 
We were also delighted to host Bryan Dennehy to record ADR for his upcoming film, Feynman and the Challenger.  The film, which was mostly shot in South Africa, explores the details behind the space shuttle Challenger's 1986 explosion.  Keep an eye out for it to air on The Science Channel later this year!

Engineer Mike Burke has been busy working on a couple of cool music projects lately - including tracking and mixing sessions with Simply Swing, one of New England's most active performing big bands.  Mike also packed up the Tapeworks mobile recording rig recently to record organist Jason Roberts for a very cool project at St. James Episcopal Church in West Hartford.  Mr. Roberts was performing an accompaniment to the Buster Keaton 1926 classic silent film, The General live in front of a packed house.  The playing was flawless, and the audience was delighted!
 

While the rest of CT was preparing for Winter Storm Nemo, we prepared for the deluge of snow in the only way that we know how - by inviting our favorite people from LEGO to come and play kazoo for a Valentine's Day-themed video short.  Chief Engineer Bill Ahearn managed to wrangle together a pretty catchy theme out of the madness; keep an eye on the LEGO YouTube Channel; we have a feeling it just might pop up again during the next few months!

It has been a locally-musical start to the year as well here at Tapeworks, as Engineer Chris Lennie has been working with a couple of local groups to put together new album projects in time for Spring 2013.  We have been splitting weekends between tracking one of UConn's premiere a Cappella groups, Extreme Measures, and recording for an upcoming EP release with the Hartford Advocate's "Best Rock Band - 2011", LittleUgly.  Things have sounded great in tracking and we can't wait to share the results with you!

Looks like we're about caught up for now.  As always, we have some top-secret, exciting projects in the works. So keep checking here for updates!  Spring is just around the corner...

        

Post-Season's Greetings

Happy New Year to all of our friends and colleagues!  While 2012 was a huge year for us, we're anticipating even bigger things in 2013.

Hopefully everybody out there had a chance to do what must be done over the holidays; eating way too much and getting some much-needed "R&R" with family and friends.  While most of you out there were feasting on holiday turkeys, we still managed to sink our teeth into some great projects during the break.

At the end of December, we were delighted to record an audiobook that will be released sometime in the next couple of months.  We have been sworn to secrecy on this one until it's release, but it is a unique story from a local author that we found to be extremely interesting.

Engineer Mike Burke was also hard-at-work just before the New Year, finishing up his mix for an upcoming planetarium show for the Children's Museum in West Hartford.  The film, titled "From the Blue Planet to the Red Planet" is an exciting, educational look at what it might take for people on Earth to one day travel to Mars with the intent of colonization.  The film looks and sounds great, so keep doing your neck warm-ups with an eye on the planetarium schedule over the coming weeks for info on how to see it!

Lastly, we kicked off the new year by recording actor Vince Nappo in an ADR session for the new ABC TV show "Red Widow".  The show, about a woman trying to put her life back together after her Mob husband gets sent to prison, will premiere on Sunday, March 3 at 10pm EST on ABC.  Vince can be seen playing Sam Philips in the currently-running North American tour of "Million Dollar Quartet".

Stay tuned... plenty more to come in the next few weeks as we spend some time with our heroes and (hopefully) survive a little full-contact, gridiron action!    

That "Sleigh Bells on Every Mix" Time of the Year

Well, we're approaching mid-December and that must mean that things are winding down for the holidays.... someone clearly forgot to tell the folks that have been keeping us up to our ears in projects over the last month (not that we're complaining)!

Tapeworks has seen all types of audio work over the last few weeks: from recording and mixing some very funny Konica Minolta radio spots, to more ADR with our friend Brian Dennehy on the hit CBS show The Good Wife, to a new series of radio promotions for the Orange Bowl in Southern Florida.

Congratulations are definitely in order for our good friend Jason Durrant on the release of his first two full-length studio albums, titled "Embracing the Moment" and "Love Between Us".  Jason recorded and had many of his songs mixed here, and worked with engineer Chris Lennie to master both albums at Tapeworks as well.  We look forward the next project with you Jason! 

As we look ahead, we have some very cool LEGO projects that are "in the works" for the new year.  All of our engineers have been hard at work recording voices, scoring music tracks and sound designing several exciting new projects that we can't share with you just yet....

Cowabunga Dude!

If you were born in the 80s.... or had a kid in the 80s.... you may not need the introduction.

Paige Turco, who played "April O'Neil" in two of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live-action films, stopped in to record some ADR with us yesterday afternoon.

Mrs. Turco, who stars as a recurring character Zoe Morgan on the hit TV series Person of Interest, was voicing lines here while the post-production director and audio mixer for the show were listening in and producing from California.


We didn't get a chance to bust out the old nunchuks, mostly because our moms said we couldn't. 

      

Tapeworks gets Hardcore

It's not often that one gets to record a session with a hardcore-punk vocalist/author/comedian/TV actor/producer, but that's just what we did this morning as Mr. Henry Rollins stopped in to record some voiceover audio at Tapeworks.

Henry is performing at the Webster Theater as part of his current spoken-word tour tonight; but he is also the narrator for UFC: Primetime, a television series dedicated to showcasing the key figures for the Ultimate Fighting Championship's largest-profile MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fight-nights.  Today he was here profiling the preparation processes for both Georges St-Pierre and Carlos Condit, the two central figures in the next large UFC event.

Henry brings every bit of his "trademark" energy and intensity to the microphone when he steps into the studio, and today was no exception.  When Henry Rollins talks MMA, we'd all do best to listen...

"Fall"-ing into great new work!

Election Fever sets in at Tapeworks

It's election season, and that means campaign commercials.... lots and lots of  campaign commercials.  
Tapeworks recently made our contribution to this biennial flurry of advertising when we recorded a new radio spot for Elizabeth Esty last month.  Mrs. Esty is the Democrat nominee running for Congress in Connecticut's 5th congressional district, formerly represented by Senatorial nominee Chris Murphy.  
While we try our best to stay impartial over matters of political preference, Mrs. Esty was extremely professional, pleasant and easy to work with.  So whenever she decides to retire, there's always that voiceover career waiting in the wings!

CBS calling; and we learn a little history 

Today we had the pleasure of working with one of our favorite pros; internationally-acclaimed film and theater actor (and our good friend) Brian Dennehy came in to record lines for his role in the award-winning hit CBS show "The Good Wife".  Episode #406, titled "The Art of War" will feature the audio our Chief Engineer Bill Ahearn recorded with Brian, and it will air on Sunday, November 4th at 9pm (Eastern).     

Another highlight over the last week was having the chance to record a Tony-Award-winning talent for an upcoming multimedia exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.  Jefferson Mays dropped by the studio in between performances at the Hartford Stage (where he is currently performing in a month-long run of the musical "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" - playing eight different roles).  He was delivering a biographical account of Theodore Roosevelt for this new exhibit at the AMNH, and as could be expected, his conduct and performance were the very definition of professional.  
After speaking with an engineer from the Museum, we discovered that our respective mixing environments are slightly different: we have our main control room where the wall are acoustically treated and built from the ground-up for ideal listening... and they have a giant, marble exhibition hall.  They'll have their work cut out for them, as our contribution is to be one of four separate installations running simultaneously in the same hall.
Mr. Mays' run at the Hartford Stage ends November 11th.

Getting "Ugly" Again

This weekend, Engineer Chris Lennie mastered the latest single for local band Little Ugly as they prepare for their upcoming music video premiere party at Arch Street Tavern in Hartford on Friday, November 2nd.  The entire track was recorded here a couple of months ago, and the video was shot recently by director/cinematographer Daniel Salazar III and art director Nina Salazar.  Congratulations to a local band that continues to work as hard as anyone out there while making cool original music.

We've got TONS more coming up in the next few weeks, including some major sound design and music scoring projects -- stay tuned!