April = Autism Awareness Month - Voices for Autism 2013

Find out more information about Autism at http://autismspeaks.org and http://http://www.autism-society.org/ and don't forget to LIGHT IT UP BLUE with blue clothing and/or blue porch lights!

The producers of this video send a VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO:

DINO ANDRADE
STEVE BLUM
GARRY CHALK
MAILE FLANAGAN
TOM KANE
DAVID KAYE
TANIA GUNADI
KYLE HEBERT
DAVID SOBOLOV
LEE TOCKAR
DANIELLE MCRAE
ZUREK
STEVE VALLO
OTIS JURY
NANCY KASZERMAN
PETER O'CONNELL
SARIANN MANACO
ASIA MATTU
JAMES FERRERO
TED MCALEER
DAVID STONE
CONNIE MUSTANG
LAURA BEDNARSKI
JEN KROMPEL
DAVE DEANDREA
DEB COLOMA
DANA ABRAM

Oracle Endeca - "Changing the Game"

Finding this video was kind of driving me crazy, as I could see the link on the Oracle site for a few months (this recorded back November), but it wouldn't work (though the other video recorded that day with the talented Lara Asmundson seemed to work fine).  While poking around the site today figured out that they had added a gap in the video play string in the page code (and also found another page where it served up without a problem).  Gaps don't play nice in code...  Of course, it was about that time that I realized had also been posted directly to youtube. 



I'm the guy who speaks second, and has the info about how Oracle Endeca Information Discovery helped make things work so well.  My "boss" in this was read by Bob Makohin. 

(The corrected string on the Oracle site is here.)

Interesting Mozilla/Epic Games Hack from GDC

Got steered to this via a TechCrunch feed. 

"...to show off what game developers can do with a modern browser and without plugins today, Mozilla and Epic teamed up a little while ago to port Unreal Engine 3 to the web, something that was unthinkable back in 2011.
As Vladimir Vukicevic, Mozilla’s engineering director and the inventor of WebGL told me earlier this week, Mozilla wants to make the web a viable platform for modern games. About six months ago, Mozilla started to work on using its emscripten compiler to port C and C++ code to asm.js, a strict subset of JavaScript. This combination allows the JavaScript code to run at a speed within 2x of native performance and the latest versions of Firefox Nightly now support these optimizations. Given the complexities of modern game engines and games, getting relatively close to native performance is a necessity for running something like Epic’s well-known Citadel demo and Unreal Tournament, which Mozilla showed running natively in the browser at the Game Developers Conference today."

It's pretty slick and smooth, as the video shows.



Innersting, innersting stuff...

Love That Voiceover! Thom Pinto Interview - Pt 2

I've been lucky to have trained with Thom Pinto over the years. It's always a pleasure to hear his perspective on the industry, technology and talent. His love for the craft and attention to detail always comes through.

Thom Pinto – "Seedy Hollywood to Ninja Turtles" 

from Rebecca's announcement:

"Rejoin Thom and Rebecca as they pick up from last time… He takes us from the Hawks Recording studio in the seedy part of Hollywood to new paths as his VO career dominated running a commercial studio. Follow Thom from the early 90’s to present, witness the shift from external studios to home studios and how other busy industry leaders like Rob Paulsen and Don Lafontaine led that very shift which now creates a conundrum for some of the profession even now… Some producers don’t like it! Learn Thom’s pointers about camaraderie, spontaneity, self-direction and keeping himself fresh – Great tips! And hear Thom reflect on his numerous credits, selecting the most notable including some hilarious guest appearances on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Finally, gain his insights from the Pinto Soapbox – Breaking VO myths, Ultra Marketing, Fostering Relationships, Managing Delicate Balances, How Agents Really Help and VO 2.0, Finding Your Niche, Celebrity VO and the fate of the ‘middle class’ VO."
Learn more about Thom at www.thompinto.com

Love That VoiceOver is a podcast showcasing in-depth interviews unveiling the personalities and projects behind the mic, with your fun loving host LoveThatRebecca, aka Rebecca Michaels Haugh. Every week it's a new interview with a fresh perspective on the art and artistry behind the microphone....
Follow Love that VoiceOver on Twitter @LoveThatVO

Thom Pinto – Seedy Hollywood to Ninja Turtles - LoveThat VO blogtalkradio.com

Part 2!! Rejoin Thom and Rebecca as we pick up from last time… Thom takes us from his seedy Hollywood Hawks Recording studio to new paths as his VO career dominated over the studio. Follow Thom from the early 90's to present,...

The Science of Sample Rates (When Higher Is Better — And When It Isn’t)

The Science of Sample Rates (When Higher Is Better — And When It Isn’t) by Justin Colletti.

Interesting article identifying where the errors actually creep into digital recording.  Distills a lot of the fact and history of sampling challenges very well.  As a (semi) reformed studio rat and computer music geek, I really enjoyed his descriptions of where things start to go haywire.  The idea of "Optimal" sampling rate provides a nice contrast to the constant more-faster-cheaper trend of technology.

And God Made a Voice Actor

The talented Cissy Jones tipped this my way via the FBook.  It's one of those things which is probably only completely-laugh-out-loud funny if you are in this crazy, wonderful business.  There are a bunch of wild fabrications and complete truths herein.  I leave it to you to decided which are which.

(And yeah, it does turn out to be pushing the VO Conference in Atlanta, which I shan't be attending nor do I have a specific opinion about...)

Anyway, enjoy!

Another Microphone Manufacturing Video

This one just popped up while I was searching for something else online, but since I had just shared the video on how the gorgeous AEA Ribbon Microphone went together, it seemed that seeing how the coveted Neumann U-87 large diaphragm condenser mic goes together might be interesting.



Now I will say that the video and voiceover seems a bit "intro" level and slightly dated (cleanroom? cotton gloves? At least cleaned fingernails?)  But, they probably couldn't really shoot where they are truly assembled.

It was interesting to watch the curve being drawn during the computer/anechoic chamber test.  Within the stringent Neumann tolerances, there's definitely a unique arc to the test mic.  Not outside the +/- to be sure, but it has a slight character which will probably be unique to that mic.