See Starz, Hear Coupe

Three films we worked on will be featured at this year's Starz Denver Film Festival, including SXSW Audience Award Winner Bay of All Saints; Academy Award Winner Saving Face; and Tibetan Buddhist documentary When the Iron Bird Flies.
Get tickets to the festival here.

Time for a quickie?

Sure you do. It'll only take a second. Or ten. Come on, it's October, get in the spirit!

Great visuals from our friends at Wyatt, and sound design from our own Aaron Lasko and Ed Kaufman.

Orpheo and the Wrench

Two guys walk into a studio. Sounds like a setup for a joke. But in this case, it was a setup for a great EP and an equally great band name. Steve and Carter came in to work with engineer Ryan White with the goal of producing an EP with a live sound, close to what their live shows sound like.
Check out the lead track from Orpheo and the Wrench, Sad Little Monster:

It snowed last night.

That's right: snow above 11,000 feet last night. The crew around here is already talking gear and passes for the upcoming ski season, especially after working on this:



Spin Creative brought in Change The Thought for the kick-ass visuals, and Coupe handled VO casting, recording and mixing, as well as composing the custom music score. Bring on the powder!!

What a zoo...

Denver Zoo Toyota Elephant Passage from SPILLT on Vimeo.

Cactus and the Denver Zoo came to Spillt and Coupe to help bring to life their amazing illustrative campaign for Denver Zoo's new $50 million expansion of the Toyota Elephant Passage. We were inspired to compose an original music piece for this visually delicious spot.

Radar Sports Sensor

Radar Sport Sensor is a Denver-based start up company with a brilliant product, but no public image. (Their in-helmet technology senses when you crash & hit your head, then texts your emergency contacts and EMS your GPS coordinates & medical info using your smartphone). They approached freelance producer Cyndi Ortiz (co2 creative, llc) to concept, write and execute an image spot to drive the public to their website to learn more about the product, and garner interest from potential investors. The only caveat was an insanely low budget and tight turnaround that would make most people point and laugh — or run away screaming.

Luckily, the crew involved saw it as an opportunity to work with friends and stretch their creative muscles for a product they believe in and would use themselves. The group pooled their resources, cashed in favors, found friends willing to jump off trampolines into foam pits for free — and then made it happen. Image Brew shot the spot, while AJ Koch directed and edited. Freed laid down the graphics and Coupe handled all things audio. The spot proves that for the right client and the right creative team, this Denver/Boulder community can really pull off the impossible.

This fun little video also earned our team two bronze Telly Awards for "Best Use of Graphics" and "Best Online Sports Commercial."

Producer/Writer: Cyndi Ortiz, co2 creative

DP: Image Brew
Director/Editor: AJ Koch
Graphics: Freed
Audio: Coupe Studios

DH!

We had some fun with sound design for the opening of this demo reel for one of our favorite Denver area video editors, Brian DeHerrera-Schnering. Featured in the reel are loads more projects we've collaborated on over the years. Check it out - the man does some mighty fine work:

PINTO EDITOR REEL 2012 from PINTO on Vimeo.

8's Company

So what's a crowd? A dozen? We don't know. But we were pleased as punch to host our friends from Gyro, Legwork Studios and a few folks representing their client today too. All eight of em got together in Coupe's Studio A with Senior Engineer Ed Kaufman to direct a VO session via ISDN with a great LA-based talent.

Derby, Baby!

We've been working on a ton of great feature films lately (Did you catch the article in The Daily Camera on the CO film scene?), one of which is Derby, Baby! - a film from Robin Bond, Ron Patrick and Dave Wruck. This home-grown production has had (and accomplished) some pretty audacious goals. From getting Juliette Lewis to narrate the film, to some very successful crowd-funding, this team has made shit happen in a big way. Check out some of Robin's interesting insight on their blog here: http://www.robinbondmedia.com/blog/girl-power-enables-film-distribution-to-go-diy-robin-bond 



”Derby, Baby!” is now complete and is currently on the film festival circuit.  The film premiered on the East Coast at the Atlanta Film Festival on March 31 and on the West Coast at the Sonoma International Film Festival on April 14. 

Send us your ideas!

As you may have heard, we've been running a fun little contest. Here's the writeup it got in The Denver Egotist, our favorite online tattler:
Recently, Boulder’s Coupe Studios challenged Egotist readers to pose sound questions via Twitter in preparation for their new “Ideas. Amplified.” campaign from gyro’s Denver office. The crowd-sourcing initiative launches today (you'll see it over there on the right) and features original animated soundscapes by Coupe, animated visuals by gyro AD and resident doodle maestro, Rob Lewis, and questions submitted by Egotist readers. Writer Ricky Lambert and ECD Cameron Day pitched in on the concept, along with Coupe’s multi-faceted sound designers and composers. Credit for the twittered questions appear in each banner. Tweet your question today for consideration in future banners — the weirder, the better.


Meantime, check out the wicked ideas your peers have been submitting here: https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%40coupestudios

Inspired Travel

Bask in the glory of the beautiful imagery - shot on location in the Dominican Republic - and the rousing original music - composed on location in Kip's studio here at Coupe.

Agency: Impossible
Client: Inspirato

Wanna see more? Visit our website: www.coupestudios.com

Brewmaster's Touch

With the days of million dollar record contracts long gone, a good licensing deal has become the holy grail for independent bands. Blue Moon Brewing and their agency, Integer, have long been supporters of the arts, so we were delighted to negotiate a win-win deal between them and Denver based b!nd The Lumineers. Coupe also created a new remix of the song "Ho Hey" for this visually rich TV spot. Since it first aired last month, The Lumineers have gone on to sell out live shows across the country, and appearances on late night TV, including Conan last week.

Wanna see more? Visit our website: www.coupestudios.com

Bingo.

Coupe partnered up with our friends at Cactus Communications and Futuristic Films to create this fun look at America's favorite game. We composed and recorded the musical journey of Bingo through the decades, bringing in specialty players and vintage instruments to really give it the authenticity that each era required.

Wanna see more? Visit our website: www.coupestudios.com

Exothermic

FOC (Friend of Coupe) Ognian Bozikov, a VFX/motion graphics professor at the Art Institute of Colorado, took a three-month sabbatical to play with some VFX tools and workflows. This short film was one of the outputs during his time off. Ognian had some ideas for sound design that matched the brilliance of the visuals. So, he came in and spent some time with Kip to create this very unique soundtrack. Blow it up to full screen, crank up the volume, and prepare to have your mind blown.

Werther's Original Caramels "Magic"

For our friends at the Sterling Rice Group, we arranged and recorded a musical score for this beautiful campaign for Werther's. Yum.
Also took care of the VO talent casting, brought in the finest string players, did the recording, and 5.1 surround sound mixing while we were at it.

Wanna see more? Visit our website: www.coupestudios.com

A Strat Is Born

Audience Award at SXSW

On the heels of her husband's (Davis Coombe) Oscar win for Saving Face, Annie Eastman's film Bay of All Saints brought some more hardware back to  Colorado this week - winning the Audience Award at SXSW! Senior Engineer Ed Kaufman mixed the film here at Coupe.

Sandra Sundström in Coupe

Coming all the way from Finland, Sandra Sundström brought her latest project to Coupe to work with our resident masters of electronic fusion - the Sproul Brothers.

Sandra's no rookie when it comes to music. At age twelve, she had already written her first single. By the age of seventeen, she kept it up by releasing two more songs, "Mountain of Fear" and "Drama Queen". Watch for the upcoming release of her collaboration with Daniel and Jake - "Now or Never."

Above: Ryan Dart, Scott Roche, Sandra, Jake and Daniel (attempting to escape)

Bay of All Saints

This is the next film all your globe-trotting, philanthropist friends are going to be talking about.
Bay of All Saints follows a refrigerator repairman and 3 single mothers in the notorious water slums of Bahia, Brazil, premiering at SXSW 2012.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1685540137/bay-of-all-saints/posts

Academy Award - Saving Face

We are thrilled to report that "Saving Face" brought Oscar gold home to Colorado this week, winning Best Short Documentary. Coupe's Senior Engineer Ed Kaufman spent some long days locked up with the film's director (Daniel Junge, above) and editor Davis Coombe perfecting the film's audio and surround sound mix.
Check out a clip below, and more info on the film at http://www.savingfacefilm.com/

The Man With The Golden Voice

We've got a new favorite VO talent. Maybe you've heard of him?
He's come a long way since panhandling on an on-ramp a year ago.
He's here in the studio right now, and he is an absolute joy to have here! Ted's reading Valentine's Day messages at a rate that would leave most talents, well, speechless.

Starting yesterday and running through Valentine's Day tomorrow, “Golden Voice” Ted Williams will spread a little Valentine’s Day love in a new Twitter campaign from CP+B for Kraft. Tag a Valentine’s Day Tweet from with #VoiceOfLove and it'll go to Mr. Williams’ virtual mailbox. He'll record a personalized video reading of the ones he likes in his deep, soulful voice. You'll know if he hearts yours when @kraftmacncheese Tweets a message to you with a link to your video.

All #VoiceOfLove videos will be available to view on the KRAFT Macaroni & Cheese YouTube Channel. Additionally, each #VoiceOfLove Tweet spurs a donation of 100 boxes of KRAFT Macaroni & Cheese to Feeding America, up to 100,000 boxes.

How do I ask her??

As musicians, we've been helping hook up for years. Now we're just asking you to do it responsibly in this series of videos produced by Vermilion for their beforeplay.org campaign:

More Awards...

While still riding high from the Oscar nomination for Saving Face, we enjoyed working on a few local award winners in the advertising category too!
http://winners2012.webkitclients.com/Gyro/WOW!.html
http://winners2012.webkitclients.com/blog/Integer/Blue-Moon-27.html
http://winners2012.webkitclients.com/blog/Integer/Internal-26.html

Congrats to Gyro, Integer and all the other winners at the Denver 50!

Oscar Nomination!

We were pleased enough to get to work on the powerful documentary "Saving Face" to begin with - but when the Academy Award nominations were announced this morning, we were really thrilled. Saving Face is nominated in the Best Documentary Short category. Coupe's Senior Engineer Ed Kaufman worked closely with editor Davis Coombe on the film, which marks the second Oscar nod for filmmaker Daniel Junge, who traveled to Pakistan to tell the story of survivors of brutal acid attacks. Read more at:  http://blogs.denverpost.com/madmoviegoer/2012/01/24/colorados-daniel-junge-among-oscar-nominees/1486/ 

Bop Skizzum Live at Coupe

Coupe has partnered up with our friends at the recently revitalized Radio 1190 (University of Colorado) for 1190 Presents: Live at Coupe Studios which will feature national touring acts and notable locals performing in our Studio A. First up? Colorado funk legends Bop Skizzum: