MCM Voices Newsletter |
Thank-you to all of you who wrote after the newsletter launched last month. I appreciated the many positive comments. If you missed that newsletter you can read it here. Do you know a talented performer between the ages of 20 and 29? A Prairie Home Companion would like to see and hear them! The details of this talent contest are at the PHC website and the submission deadline is 5 pm CST, 24 March 2007. |
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MCM's Avian Soundtrack Credibility Consultants. The birds in a movie or TV soundtrack are an important part of setting the scene and the mood. You might not notice when they're there, but you would probably sense that something was not right if they were not. Sometimes the birds are perfect for the production, and sometimes there are bloopers, like North American birds turning up on other continents as in the Bourne Identity and many other films. I recently heard a commercial for a real estate development that a colleague produced. It was an excellent production, except the first thing that struck me about it was the birds - a hermit thrush and a warbling vireo were singing at the same time. The thrush is a deep woods dweller and the vireo prefers second-growth and "edges". It's possible one could hear them together in the real world, but you wouldn't hear them at equal volume as in this production - or maybe if you cut down a lot of beautiful old trees to build a real estate development you would hear weird mixes of bird song - definitely not the mood the client was trying to establish. As it turns out, my colleague had indeed used two different sound tracks and blended the songs. Sometimes this won't matter, but there may be occasions when you really need to get it right. When those occasions arise, I can help you. |
MCM News Art for the Sky. The most challenging project for the past month was the narration for Oregon artist Daniel Dancer's short film on Art for the Sky. Mr. Dancer wanted a light Spanish accent to reflect the South American origins of "sky art". Most of the work I do that calls for accents also calls for humor, but this was a very serious subject, and a great opportunity for me to hone my acting skills.
"Just so you know". It was my pleasure to work with animator Mike Stanfill again this month, this time on an anti-drugs project. The voice-over was a relatively small part of the project (by the way one of the male voices was provided by my friend and colleague Drew Hadwal) but I always feel like I'm doing "good works" with Mike. Electric Heart. This documentary on legendary jazz musician Don Ellis by filmmaker John Vizzusi and narrated by me is now in the final phases of post-production. You can read about it at All About Jazz. |
More on bird song - just for fun. One of the oddest bird sounds of all is produced by the Willow Ptarmigan. I was looking for an example online one day when I simply couldn't go another minute without hearing its voice, and found a beautiful production by the Seattle Audubon Society. Take a moment to listen to the almost unbelievable vocalizations of the Willow Ptarmigan, with narration by Frank Corrado, and I guarantee it will brighten this late winter's day for you. |
That's all for this month. Keep moving forward -
Mary C. McKitrick © Mary C. McKitrick, 2007. All rights reserved. |
