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Screen Magazine - Index

Screen Magazine - Screen Magazine: Vol. 29, Issue 16 - Index

We also supplied music to a series of promotional
and educational videos for NASA that were
posted onto YouTube as recently as the recent
eclipse that took place.
We provied music to Midway Entertainment for
a new game that is scheduled to be released
soon, and we recently provided music for a series of
promos for the soccer championships that took place.
Additionally, we provided music for a couple of spots to
bring tourists to Milwaukee. Until I saw the spots, I personally
had no idea what a wonderful vacation area Milwaukee
could be.
There are many, many more areas where our music gets
used, and by so may diverse and very creative people and
various companies and institutions.
//www.americanmusicco.com
THE BAM BLOG
These days, there’s no better way to keep friends and
colleagues in the loop than to blog about life, work or
a combo of the two, which is exactly what BAM Studios
(Chicago) is doing with its blog, “BAM Studios News.” Sound
designer Dave Leffel talks about a few of the recent projects
that BAM has blogged about.
First off, Leffel says BAM has been involved in quite a lot
of ADR work lately. He notes Baz Luhrmann’s new film
“Australia” and a Chevy campaign featuring Ozzie Guillen
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and Lou Pinella – the Chicago White Sox and Cubs coaches
- performing a South Side/North Side rap.
“[Guillen and Pinella] had rapped on a stage with just a
basic beat, and [the track was given] to an actual rap artist
to redo the track, and he didn’t do anything!” explains
Leffel. “So they called us, and [BAM sound designer] Brian
Reed was asked to totally do a brand-new composition
and compose a rap track in the proper tempo and make
the thing work, and they got gangbusters PR on the [spot].
It was all over the place.”
Leffel also completed a remix for the recently released
documentary “America the Beautiful.” The original mix was
done in Los Angeles, but for undisclosed reasons the
producers needed a few scenes revised about
a week before the release date, according to
Leffel.
“There were only going to be about three
scenes that they wanted to revise,” he
says. “We were given the mix, but then we
were also given new elements for these
three scenes, and they wanted it remixed
in one day. It turned out to be almost over
20 scenes in the film that were remixed
here, and then it went out on the air. So it
was incredibly quick turnaround for us, and even
some of the people that do this kind of work were very
shocked that we were able to do it that quickly.”
Leffel says the BAM crew is moving its way into more
documentary work lately. Another documentary project
that BAM is working on is called “The
Providence Effect,-which is about local
inner-city private school Providence-
St. Mel, which has an unbelievable
100 percent graduation and college
acceptance rate amongst its high
school seniors - for the past 30
consecutive years! Leffel says that was
about an 80-hour project, including
revisions.
On a final and sad note, Leffel says BAM
Studios worked with the late comedian
Bernie Mac on what presumably his
last job. “We recorded him on two
occasions for ‘Madagascar 2,’” says
Leffel. “He was videotaped here so
[the animators] could animate to his
facial movements. It was a pretty
big session - all the video cameras
on him, dual miking and some pretty
intense ADR, just with the directors
and stuff here.”
Although Leffel didn’t actually work
on the job, he says everything for
that project went smoothly. “We
had to hire an outside video person
to run [the video gear], but when
you do sound for something like ‘Toy
Story,’ like Brian did years ago, any
animated stuff [requires the