New TV for Moneygram

Ever wonder what it sounds like inside a snow globe?
Well, here's your answer:

On Set with Roy Halee

Coupe was honored today to host legendary producer Roy Halee (Simon & Garfunkel, Journey, The Byrds). Producers of a documentary on the 40th anniversary of Bridge Over Troubled Water chose Coupe's Studio A as the location to film an interview with Roy.

UPDATE: Wildwater Wins at Salem and Kendal!

UPDATE: WildWater wins top prize - "Best Adventure Film" - at Kendal Mountain Fest (one of the "Big 4" in the genre) - including a specific shout out for the "meticulous" attention to sound design!

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Congrats to our friends at FORGE Motion Pictures - their film "Wildwater" won Best Short Film at the Salem Film Festival. Kip created some custom music for the film's score, and Greg did some wicked sound design, driven by his own experience as a white water junkie. Mixed in glorious 5.1 surround sound by part-time Couper and full-time cool guy Kelly Garry along with Supervising Mixer Ed Kaufman.

WildWater Ecuador Teaser from Anson Fogel on Vimeo.

VO Talent Advice

Check out this great article written by one of our favorite VO talents, Maxine Dunn.
One of the biggest milestones in your early voice-over career will be working in a professional recording studio - Maxine tells you how to ace it in this article.

As Seen ON The Guggenheim...

On Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and YouTube presented "YouTube Play," an exhibit of 25 videos selected by a jury including the filmmaker Darren Aronofsky and the music group Animal Collective.
Coupe provided the music, sound design and mixing on "This Aborted Earth" by filmmakers Michael Banowetz and Noah Sodano. The piece takes black-and-white engravings from the 19th and early 20th century and animates them in a way similar to Terry Gilliam's "Monty Python" cartoons. The result is a surreal reflection on long-ago times, and it's being projected on the outside of the museum. Wicked cool, and funny as hell.

Chasing Classic Cars

:30 promo for the premiere of the new show on HD Theater, Chasing Classic Cars. We had the host, Wayne, here with us in person to cut some VO lines before we sweetened and mixed this puppy.

Turn that noise down!

Those of you despairing of today’s partisan bickering, take heart: The Senate unanimously agreed late Wednesday that loud TV commercials are very annoying. We couldn't agree more. We standardize all of our broadcast mixes at -10dB. The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, or CALM, will require television stations and cable companies to keep commercials and shows at the same volume. Similar legislation has already passed the House. Senator Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a co-sponsor of the bill, said that "TV viewers should be able to watch their favorite programs without fear of losing their hearing when the show goes to a commercial."

-Courtesy TheDailyBeast.com

Darth in the Studio

Boulder Wildfire

Longtime Friend of Coupe and former Fire Chief Steve Stratton is one of our favorite VO talents. He's also one of the 3,500 evacuees from the Four Mile Fire that is currently ravaging the hills on the west side of Boulder. Steve's been down here recording VOs this week, and has been a great source of information (and inspiration) for us here at the Studio.
If you're a musician or VO talent who's been evacuated, and you need a temporary recording space, give Scott a call directly and we'll be happy to help out however we can.
Stay safe, Boulder.

Don't Flake Out Now, Boulder

Reposted from The Denver Egotist: You're still in the running for America's best ad city – a contest being hosted on The San Francisco Egotist. Go vote, you stinkin' hippy.

The results of the Sweet 16 of America's Best Ad City is in the books – and just like March Madness, we had a few small upsets. 5-seed Chicago beat out 4-seed Boston and 5-seed Minneapolis beat out 4-seed Denver.

Now we're down to the Elite 8. Check out the pairings and vote in the comments section. Voting for this round ends on Wednesday, so vote for your city now and get the word out!

SF(1) vs Chicago (5)
NY(1) vs Minneapolis (5)
Portland(2) vs Seattle (3)
Los Angeles (2) vs Boulder (3)

Despicable Me / Deadliest Catch

Everyone's favorite amorphous blobs, and crazed crab fishermen. You can bet we had a good time creating the sound design that brought together these two very different worlds...

The Denver Egotist

We're lucky enough in Colorado to have a great source of industry news for the advertising community - The Denver Egotist. Great source for news and fun stuff too.
And they gave our new commercial demo reel two thumbs up too. Clearly men (or women? No one knows!) of impeccable taste. http://www.thedenveregotist.com/news/local/2010/june/30/coupe-studios-2010-commercial-reel

Cold Blooded!

You can bet we had a good time doing the sound design work on this sick little number for Discovery Networks...

The theatrical release of the summer!

Finally, it has arrived. The cinematic event of the year:
The 2010 Coupe Studios Commercial Demo Reel. Also included at no additional cost to you is a little tour of our fine facility! With the help of a Steadi-Cam guy and an video editor whom we suspect of sleeping in a closet in the studio, we put together our Magnum Opus for your viewing (and hearing) pleasure.

A star-studded start to the week...

Johnny Mosely yesterday, and Henry Rollins today. Not a bad start to this week here at The Coupe!

Project Sanctuary PSA

We collaborated with Ad2 Denver and all the fine folks below to help out with this PSA for Project Sanctuary - a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide therapeutic, curative, supportive and recreational activities to veterans, active military personnel, their spouses and children in a leisure environment. The music you hear at the top of the spot is "Brother" from Meniskus, also recorded right here at Coupe! This radio PSA is also being made into a TV spot as well.

Big thanks to:

Ad2 Denver @ http://www.ad2denver.com/

Project Sanctuary http://www.projectsanctuary.us

Karen Morris @ Freelance Writer

Ashley Boyden @ Cactus

Richie Kendall @ Futuristic Films

Eugene Thompson (Freelance VO talent)

Greg McRae @ Coupe Studios

Mel Reeck @ Coupe Studios

Meniskus

Yum.

Check out this new Boston Market spot - conceived and produced by Boulder's Casa Criss Productions, shot by !mpossible and a local crew (and very small cast), with Coupe sweetening the stock music and mixing the spot, this was another 100% Colorado production.
Who says Colorado can't compete with LA and New York?!?
Oh. Nobody says that?
Well, good.

"The Cove" takes home an Oscar!

The largely Colorado-produced film won the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary last night. Coupe Engineer/Sound Designer Kelly Garry is credited on the film's audio. Congrats to Director Louis Psihoyos and the whole team who helped make this such a powerful documentary! The Cove Official Website

Putting the M back in MTV

Do our eyes deceive us?
Is MTV really putting actual music back on its airwaves?
According to Ad Age, it is: "Unplugged" is returning!

Paper Bird mixing at Coupe

Paper Bird has been gracing our halls lately mixing for their second full length album to be released this summer. They're working with Coupe producer/engineer John McVey, who's having an absolute blast working with the seven-piece band.
While we've been fans around here for a long time, the band was introduced to a whole new audience when they were recently featured on NPR's All Things Considered.
Catch them on the road in March/April on their "Sunrise Tour" with stops in Texas, New Orleans, South Carolina, New York, Virginia, Philadelphia and more. Check em out at www.paperbirdband.com

Brand Spankin New Launch Video for IBM

IBM Power7 Launch Event Video
We had a ball doing the sound design on this launch event video with our friends at Leopard and Impossible for the IBM Systems Group:

Credits:
Joan Doolittle - Group Creative Director
Corien DeJong - Associate Creative Director
Yunita Heroe Permatasari - Associate Creative Director
Patrick Cullie - Senior Creative Associate//Senior Copywriter
Impossible - Visual Effects Production
Coupe Studios - Audio Post Production

Congrats to BIFF!

No, not Biff, the ginger haired bully from Back To The Future; BIFF the Boulder International Film Festival. Named one of the “25 Coolest Film Festivals” this summer by MovieMaker Magazine, the four-day event featured 47 films and 31 filmmakers, as well as a variety of special events, including the inaugural Digital Media Convergence Symposium, which focused on Colorado’s expanding technology and entertainment industry, filmmaker panels and parties. Alec Baldwin (at right) was here to accept an achievement award and tribute from the festival. BIFF saw a 14 percent increase from last year’s ticket sales, with a total audience of 16,450 people. Coupe was proud to be a sponsor of the festival!

CO House committee: TV commercials should get incentives

CO House committee: TV commercials should get incentives
Bill also eases local spending and hiring requirements

by Richard J Schneider

DENVER -- Legislation that will make it easier for out-of-state production companies to take advantage of Colorado's media production incentive easily passed a House committee in early February and faces clear sailing through the full Colorado House and Senate.

The measure is part of a package of housekeeping bills designed to raise the profile of creative industries in Colorado. On February 3, 2010, the House Business Affairs Committee approved House Bill 1180, which would:

• Expand the state's 10 per cent cash rebate incentive to include the production of television commercials.
  
  
• Eliminate the requirement that 75 per cent of the production budget be spent in Colorado.
  
  
• Remove the mandate that 75 per cent of the production crew be Colorado residents.
  
  
• Slash the minimum amount that out of state production companies must spend in Colorado from $1 million to $250,000.
  
  
• Clarify language relating to state income tax payment requirements for highly-paid stars or other crewmembers, such as directors and directors of photography.

Rep. Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs, introduced the bill. Massey has been the prime sponsor of production incentive legislation during several sessions of the legislature.

During the 2009 session, Massey's attempt to significantly increase the size of the state's incentive program failed, largely because of he budget crisis facing the state. However, lawmakers did approve other marts of his bill, which expanded the types of productions that would be covered by the current incentive program as well as create a new Office of Film, Television and Media within the governor's office of economic development.

The 2009 legislative actions led to the dissolution of the non-profit Colorado Film Commission and moving its staff to the new state office.

Director of the new office, former Colorado Film Commission director Kevin Shand, worked with lawmakers to develop the house-keeping proposals included in HB 1180.

Film industry experts say Colorado's incentive, which is a 10 per cent cash rebate on qualified in-state expenditures, is too low to be competitive with other more aggressive film incentive states, such as neighboring New Mexico.

Shand has said that the 75 per cent in-state spending requirement and the 75 per cent local hire mandate make it all but impossible for any out of state production company to do both with a Colorado production location.

By eliminating both of these spending and hiring requirements, as well as lowering the total minimum expenditure requirement from $1 million to $250,000, an out of state production company is more likely to take advantage of the Colorado incentive, according to Shand.

Minimum qualified expenditure requirements for in-state production companies remains at $100,000, which gives Colorado producers a leg-up on out of state companies.

Expanding the program to include commercials should help as well, since many national spots are produced in Colorado.

If Massey's new bill passes and is approved by Gov. Bill Ritter, the list of eligible productions would include films, television programs, video games, industrial productions and commercials.

The other bills in the creative industries package include a proposal to combine Shand's office with several other state arts-related offices into a single group and a measure to beef up the expenditures on art in public places at all eligible state-funded construction projects.

CFVA Members: Contact your elected Representatives and Senators to tell them you favor passage of House Bill 1180. Contact information can be found at the Colorado General Assembly website: http://www.leg.state.co.us/. If you are not sure who your Representative or Senator is, check out Project Vote Smart at this web address:http://www.votesmart.org/.

To contact Richard J Schneider, a long-time Denver writer and video producer, just email him at richardjschneider@comcast.net.

"Relationship Metaphor." - You have to listen to this.

We've had the good fortune to work on a lot of funny scripts in our day, but this is undoubtedly one of the best. Produced with Crispin Porter + Bogusky, we recorded talent from LA via ISDN and sweetened and mixed here in Boulder. Written by Andy Pearson, Tom Miller and Allen Richardson. Produced by Annie Turlay. Talents were Dominic Catrambone and Jill Talley.

American Express Gift Card Radio :60 "Relationship Metaphor"