Blogscapes

You know Roy H. Williams, (the Wizard of Ads), right? If not, do yourself a favor and bookmark his site. It's a fountain of advertising wisdom.

Here's a link to a story about the results from a dollar-for-dollar comparison between radio and newspaper. (spoiler alert: Soundscapes does not buy ink by the barrel—if we did, I sure wouldn't put this on our blog.)

It's a great story, a fine thing to forward to all the AE's, and a testament to the fact that radio simply works.

Leave your favorite summer song in the comments of this post, and tell us what you were doing the first time you heard it.

Extra points for any story including the words "tequila" or "streaking." Just kidding, there are no extra points, because we'll randomly draw 10 comments. If your comment is picked you'll win $10 in iTunes. That's an entire album, at least enough to last you through the end of the summer, right?

Post your song and story by the end of the day Monday. We'll email you if you're a winner.

p.s. Soundscapers are free to post, but not eligible to win. Sorry guys!

EDITED: Oh, what the heck. iTunes for everyone!

Contest ends 12:00 midnight CST on Monday, July 28, 2008. Ten comments will be drawn at random, and ten people will each receive (1) $10 iTunes gift certificate, sent to the email address included with the comment, for redemption online at the Apple iTunes store. No purchase necessary to win. Void where prohibited. Not to be used as a life-saving device. Close cover before striking.

We really enjoy doing automated dialog replacement in the Soundscapes recording studios, or ADR as it's known in audio production circles, and a few weeks ago we successfully pulled off our first Trans-Atlantic ADR session.

We were contacted by the producers of the award-winning British spy drama "Spooks", and we worked on two new episodes of the popular BBC program, which also airs in the US on A&E as "MI-5".

While veteran English actor Stuart Wilson was in our studio in Little Rock replacing dialog, we had a frame accurate picture lock with Goldcrest Studios over the pond in London.

The session was a lot of fun, and despite 4,400 miles, the Atlantic Ocean and a 6 hour time difference, it went off without a hitch.

David and Stuart after a long but successful ADR session earlier this month.

Great radio is all about storytelling. Tiny little stories built around a product work so much better than lists of product attributes. I don't know if you listen to This American Life or not...if you don't, you should. It's on your local public radio station.

The guy who does This American Life, Ira Glass, has put together four short videos that talk about storytelling. I just found them, and wanted to share them with you. They're great! He's great! Just watch these, and glean what you will.

There are four videos in this series...look for them in the Related Videos when they pop up!