Q It Up: How do you handle clients who want to voice their own spots?
The RAP Q It Up Panel takes on client VOs: How do you handle clients who want to voice their own spots? If their performance is weak, do you coach them to perfection? Do you discourage them from doing it? Do you use what strengths there are in the client and write a cool campaign around it? Or do you sometimes just take the money and air the substandard spot? If you have a success story of taking a bad spot and making it good for all, please share; and if you have the audio, please attach to your reply!
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The 27th Radio And Production Awards
It's the Call For Entries! Entry deadline is January 17, 2017. Best Promos, Imaging, Commercials and Feature Productions!
Production 512: On Plug-Ins and Strippers
by Dave Foxx
Long before I ever started doing production for a living, I knew through my collegiate experience that the teacher almost always learns more about the subject than his or her students. (I spent a few semesters teaching undergrads about radio.) I don’t mean the teacher knows more and so is teaching the students, that should be a given…but doing the preparation for a given class, the instructor must research the topic to bolster his or her knowledge with specific examples and other, newer insights. In the process of doing that, new avenues of thought are opened and a myriad of small detours present themselves, giving the instructor a sometimes completely new view of the subject.
Feature: Start Combining Ideas
by Dave Cockram
A few Christmases ago, my 7 year old boy brought a Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar to my house on Christmas break. I thought it was the best invention of all time. It’s got everything! An Advent Calendar, Star Wars AND Lego! What 7 year old boy wouldn’t go bananas for this?! I couldn’t get my head around it. Who thought of this? Why didn’t I think of this!? What an amazing idea!
WRONG! The more I thought about it… the more I began to realize that this is NOT an original idea. It’s just 3 ideas collapsed into one. Brain explodes.
Radio Hed: Holiday Memories Make Great Commercials
by Jeffrey Hedquist
Some of the most powerful/rich memories we have are from our childhood – centered on the Holidays – Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Dipavali, Ramadan, or any of the dozens of other celebrations at this time of year. Remember, the power of emotion is your greatest ally in helping your clients break through the wall of mediocrity because people make buying decisions emotionally.
Test Drive: The Tascam DR-100mkIII 192Khz/24bit Stereo Portable Recorder
by Don Elliot
Well this is certainly not a “for dummies” type article; we will not be coming at the subject as if it were a “lab test” either. The answer lies somewhere in the middle. But radio production folks like us are still somewhere at least slightly above the level of appliance operators and generally speaking, have a good set of on board monitors, that is, “in the trenches” experience-acquired calibrated ears from doing lots and lots of red hot spots. Imagine doing major studio quality audio recording anywhere with a device scarcely larger than an iPhone that gave you state-of-the-art results on everything from live music, sound effects, voiceover and more!
Feature: 7 Essential Books for Copywriters
by Earl Pilkington
This is not a book review, and is not a paid endorsement of any of the books listed; it is simply a collection of books that I have found to be invaluable over the past 30 plus years of writing. I have raided my bookshelf to uncover the essential books in my collection that would come to the top of the pile of books on my desk on a monthly basis to gain some creative spark for writing commercials. If you have any that you regularly use, I would love to know about it.
The R.A.P. Soundstage
We kick things off this month with another Editor’s Choice Award winner on track 1. Domestic Violence Awareness is highlighted this time of year in both Canada and the US. Creating imaging and PSAs for this subject can be challenging. We often hear material with victims recounting their abuse, which is not easy to hear, but actually hearing the abuse is even more difficult to take in. Matthys Pischke submitted a PSA that carefully but strongly simulates what domestic violence can sound like. Not comfortable to hear, but it certainly raises the “awareness” of this issue. Track 2 is a client-voiced spot Ryan Spooner sent in along with his response to this month’s Q It Up question on client-voiced commercials. You’ll find Ryan’s comments on page 7. Track 3 is the audio Dave Foxx references in his Production 512 column this month. Commercials are on tracks 4-12, and promos are on tracks 13-16. We wrap it up with some sample recordings Don Elliot did on the Tascam DR-100mkIII he reviewed in the month’s Test Drive on page 13.