Newbery Medal Award Speech Recorded with Sitepro, Recording Tech Messes with Complex AC System

Having a full professional recording studio definitely gives Sitepro an edge when working with clients. Weather creating a quick sample for a project pitch, developing an audio CD for a client or recording a professional voice talent, having the studio in house gives us options that not all multimedia companies have.

Most projects we record for inevitably end up being used online, on the radio, in DVD or TV commercials. While we work with a variety of local talents, there is the occasional surprise guest. This is a story about one of those guests.

The Studio

The recording studio is still located at our old facility on Lake Tainter outside of Menomonie, WI. Now, without a visual context the word “old” doesn’t do the studio justice. By “old” I simply mean Sitepro spent the better part of 6 years at our previous facility before outgrowing it and moving to our large facility in Eau Claire, WI. I spent 4 of the 6 years I’ve been with Sitepro at the old facility and it was a pleasure. Not many people get to say they work in an office environment on a lake surrounded by hundreds of acres of forest and all the fauna and flora that go with it. The beauty and seclusion of the work environment is a rarity that many long time staffers at Sitepro look back on fondly. That rarity still applies to our recording studio and the comfort of the location is what brought our surprise guest.

The Call

Early one Monday in May I received an email asking to record a project in a rush. I can’t say that the rush request is uncommon in my field, but the project itself was quite uncommon. When I got in touch with the client I was informed that Mr. Neil Gaiman wanted to record a short speech in studio. For those unfamiliar with Gaiman’s work a good deal of information can be found on his website at www.neilgaiman.com.

“Bestselling author Neil Gaiman has long been one of the top writers in modern comics, as well as writing books for readers of all ages. He is listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers, and is a prolific creator of works of prose, poetry, film, journalism, comics, song lyrics, and drama.”

http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/About_Neil/Biography

My personal interest in Gaiman’s writing went back to the Sandman comic book series which I had read when growing up. More recently Gaiman’s novel Coraline (http://coraline.com) was developed in to an amazing stop motion 3D film that has become the 2^nd highest grossing film of its kind ever. As we create a variety of motion graphics, 3d animations and even some stop-motion animations, Coraline was one of the films I had to see last year. Now several months later I’m getting this request to record with the man who actually wrote the story behind the film! If there was ever a recording session to make perfect, it was this one.

The Session

The recording itself was to be a fairly simple. Neil Gaiman is this year’s recipient of the American Library Association (ALA) Newbery Medal Award for outstanding children’s literature. His novel, The Graveyard Book, is being honored with the award at this year’s ceremony which Mr. Gaiman is not able to attend. Sitepro was contacted to record the acceptance speech for the award and send the digital recording files to New York for editing into the award ceremony. Our studio was a perfect fit for Mr. Gaiman as he spends time in Western Wisconsin and enjoyed the opportunity to make the recording quickly without traveling to the Twin Cities to utilize a similar professional studio. After speaking with his assistant, the rush session was scheduled for the next day.

On the day of the recording everything had been prepared and we were ready to roll. Recording console powered…check!, Protools system up…check!, mic powered…check!, pre-amp and compression levels set… check!, and any possible outside noise eliminated………check! …..or so we thought………..

What we didn’t know is the air conditioning system for the entire facility was under maintenance. While everything was up and running fine there was one small control that was not in place yet. The studio can get very hot with the smorgasbord of computers and electronics packed in to the engineering room and isolation booth. This requires air conditioning to keep everything running correctly and keep the talent from melting when recording. While the air keeps the room cool, the blower fans need to be turned off when recording as it can introduce noise to the audio. The thermostat had been adjusted, the fan was off and Mr. Gaiman arrived.

Myself and another technician at the session (Martin) were introduced to Neil Gaiman, reviewed the projects needs and began recording. Everything was going great until about 5 minutes in to the session when, “whumphhh”!, …sure enough the AC fan kicked on, almost with an anger because I hadn’t heard it that loud before. A bead of sweat began to form on my brow when I inevitably heard from Neil in the isolation booth, “Guys, guys do you hear that?”. Now you must picture this with Neil’s smooth English accent and incredible reading voice (after all he has won numerous awards for his audio books readings)…”It sounds like a helicopter is taking off….do you guys hear that?”….and of course, we did.

The next 10-15 minutes were a whirlwind of fix-it approaches gone wrong. I must start by saying that for a man who is a successful, internationally known author, Neil Gaiman is incredibly gracious, patient and easy going. Neil took a break while Martin and I ran about like two people who knew a lot about recording but not much about heating and air conditioning. The thermostat would not respond and the crude approach of simply stuffing the vent with acoustic foam was not prevailing. But I had a secret weapon: I once created a short furnace service video for Halverson Brothers Plumbing and Heating in Menomonie. Beyond knowing Halverson’s commitment to their customers, that video production also showed me where to power off a typical home furnaces blower motor. On to the mechanical room.

As I entered the mechanical room I was quickly reminded that Sitepro’s studio office had nothing like a typical home furnace. Apparently to control the temperature in a 10,000 square foot building you need something much more like the engineering room on the Star Ship Enterprise (come on we’re a web heavy multimedia company so don’t expect to get out of here without a Star Trek reference). Anyway, after several anxious minutes where I was sure I would crack the dilithium crystals and destroy the warp core, I came across a little sign that said blower #2, opened the service panel, hit the switch….and….nothing. I still heard the AC! On to find blower #1, opened the panel, hit the switch….and….nothingL. Well dang, better quit……not really, but we had to find the issue before our best-selling authors incredible patience did run thin. I pardoned Mr. Gaiman one more time and headed to the other end of the building and mechanical room number 2. It was a bit like that part in the first Jurassic Park movie where Dr. Sattler (Laura Dern) has to get to the other side of the complex to turn the power on, only we were doing the opposite, I’m not a paleontologist and the fauna at the recording facility don’t have 6” retractable claws. Weird parallel aside, I did get to the other mechanical room, found blower #3 and #4, powered them down and…..”hhhpmuhw!” (that’s the powering down sound for “whumphhh”), the AC powered down this time.

While the whole helicopter-sound-in-the-recording-booth incident maybe took 15 minutes to fix, it felt like a couple hours with Neil Gaiman waiting patiently outside the recording studio. I was in Boy Scouts growing up and “Be Prepared” is still at the top of my list for useful modo’s. I guess number two on the list would be “Be Creative”, because if all you’ve prepared for doesn’t cut it, you better be ready to adapt. Sometimes adapting means messing with your bosses Star Trek AC system, hoping you don’t destroy the warp core and getting a best-selling authors Newbery Medal Award speech recorded in the allotted session time…..without a helicopter landing on the mic. There isn’t a day that go’s by where I don’t think I have a cool job.

The Aftermath

When the session was through I thanked Neil for his patience (for about the hundredth time) and he even signed a few items and allowed a few photographs with Martin and I. Overall it was a great experience and an honor to record Neil’s speech, despite the AC debacle. Beyond his literary talent, Mr. Gaiman proved to be a very cordial client that was forgiving and very easy to work with given some of the day’s events. Neil Gaiman’s edited speech will be presented at the Newbery Medal Award Ceremony in July of 2009.