What happens here, stays here. I recently had the pleasure of hearing Randy Snow, of R&R Partners in Las Vegas, speak about his agency's highly successful ad campaign for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. You can read about his talk here.
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Microphones for sale. I've just ordered a new mic and am selling some old ones. If you're interested in any of these please let me know: Rode NT-1A with shock mount for $125 plus shipping. Audio Technica 4060 with shock mount and power supply for $600. And I may be selling my Soundelux U195 but I'll need to wait until the new mic arrives to be certain.
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MCM News
a few highlights

Cruising to the premiere! I mentioned in my May newsletter that I had done a number of voices for a documentary but could not yet give you the details. I'm now able to reveal that the film, Forgotten Ellis Island, chronicles the history of the immigrant hospital on Ellis Island. The filmmaker, Lorie Conway of Boston Film & Video, got some great publicity at CBS for her book of the same name which is due out 9 October 2007 (Smithsonian Books/Harper Collins), and which you can pre-order at Amazon. The film's premiere will take place on Ellis Island on 22 October 2007, with broadcast and theatrical release in early 2008. The choice of the main narrator has not been finalised but negotiations with the actor's agent are in progress.

Real estate audio and video podcasts are the focus of AgentCasts, catering to real estate agents and handling all aspects of podcast production. They have chosen me as their voice and are keeping me quite busy narrating real estate listings for houses that sound very much like my own (e.g., "two recording studios with private entrance and a driveway that can accommodate a tour bus"). In my dreams.

The highlight of my voice-over career. This week I had the opportunity to get paid to say one of the most euphonious names of all time, that of former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali (along with several other pages of material). The client requested the piece be narrated using "a neutral European accent". My cup runneth over. Here is a bit of the piece.

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Avian bloopers. A colleague recently asked me to review a recording of gulls that he was considering using in a piece about the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I was expecting to hear the very common Herring Gull or Ring-billed Gull in this sound clip, so I was astonished when I opened it and found the voice of a Mew Gull! This species breeds in the Pacific Northwest and Eurasia and may wander down the coast of the western U.S. in winter. It may occasionally turn up elsewhere as a "vagrant" but would definitely not be a good choice to represent the Outer Banks. In choosing natural sounds for background, it's important to consider the time of year as well as geography. For summer, really nice, evocative choices for the Outer Banks would be Gull-billed Tern, Sandwich Tern and Royal Tern, all of which breed there. In winter this same location is home to thousands of Tundra Swans. If you want to enhance your reputation for accuracy in audio, find out the birds for which the region is known and use them - or find someone who knows who can help you obtain just the right avian voice for your project!

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That's all for this month.

Keep moving forward -

Mary C. McKitrick
Drop me a line!
413-320-1181

© Mary C. McKitrick, 2007. All rights reserved.