Les Miserables actor Aaron Tveit records ISDN session at Uptempo

During last year we had a very special task: record with actor Aaron Tveit (Graceland, Gossip Girl) for the award winning movie Les Miserables.
The session was done via ISDN with studios in London where Oscar winning director Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) was giving directions to Tveit.
Being part of this project was another reason why Uptempo is the best ISDN Recording studio in Miami.

Actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan records and ISDN session @ Uptempo in Miami

Another high profile ISDN recording session in Miami was performed by Uptempo with actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Morgan is actually starring the Starz series Magic City which is being produced in Miami.

Disneyland's newest attraction Luigi's Flying Tires gets narrated by Tony Shalhoub at Uptempo

Disneyland's Carsland recently opened in California and one of its main attractions is the new Luigi's Flying Tires ride.
In this state of the art ride, families will get to enjoy giant floating tires as well as the narration of award winning actor Tony Shalhoub (Luigi's character in the movie "Cars").
Uptempo had the priviledge of recording all the narration of Mr. Shalhoub with the direction of top creatives from Pixar Studios in California.
To have a virtual tour of the ride click here 

BBC Radio interviews Cedella Marley via ISDN from Miami @ Uptempo

In an ISDN interview from Miami, Jo Fidgen from the BBC, meets Cedella Marley, the eldest child of Jamaican musician Bob Marley. She talks about why he was the ultimate competitive dad, how he wrote a song for her and about her own recent achievements designing the kit for the Jamaican Olympic team. An interesting interview that you can't miss. Click here to listen the stream.

 

New York Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey talks about his new book via ISDN recording in Miami

New York Mets Pitcher R.A. Dickey came to our studio to record for Public Radio International and we were expecting a sports talk. Then we found out a very interesting and inspirational story of a man with a very difficult past who overcame everything to be very successful. You can listen to the full interview in this link

 

Uptempo records the Beatles with the Miami Children's Chorus

Paris, one of the most important department stores in Chile and DDB created a very touching commercial where Uptempo musicians Jose Miranda and Jose Tobar where in need of recording a version of The popular Beatles song "We can work it out" with english speaking kids.
The mission was up to Uptempo to find that group of voices.
After a detailed research, the Miami Children's Chorus was the solution. A group of very talented and well directed kids performed the song in a 2 hour session lead by the Chorus Director Timothy Sharp along with Uptempo's musicians.

The story of an advertising campaign, Addy's video with Music and Sound Design by Uptempo

Ikea's new TV campaign with music by Uptempo

Furniture retailer and 2011 Cannes Lions Advertiser of the Year IKEA has launched a new ad campaign designed for the US Hispanic market. IKEA and ad agency *S,C,P,F searched for a composer with a dept Latin artist influence for its new spot and Miami-based original music and audio post facility Uptempo’s Aaron Fishbein was an exceptional match.

The spot follows a wed couple in search of the perfect kitchen cabinet doors; the wife prefers a party environment while the husband favorsa more romantic ambiance. IKEA and *S,C,P,F depended on Uptempo’s commercial talent and ability to maneuver a variety of different music styles flawlessly to execute a compelling score.

The agency was looking for music that were appealing for a 35- 40 yearsold audience. For the romantic track, Fishbein played the guitar and worked with Sam Hykem trumpetist from the Miami Symphony orchestra to produce an original score that connected with IKEA’s audience immediately. Fishbein, himself, also performed on the party track which was a house track influenced by the sounds of recent Top Ten music tracks list performed at the clubs. The score for the new ad was achieved in just a couple of days.

Why recording ISDN in Miami?

Miami is a paradise for celebrities to spend their free time, however, they have to keep working. This is a short list of ISDN, Source Connect and ADR recodings performed for us at Uptempo in Miami.
For pictures of some of these celebrities at our studios, go to our facebook page at http://ow.ly/6HOzn

Univision airs "Infiltrados" its first Documentary with Original Music and Audio Post by Uptempo

Univision the lead Spanish network in the US, launched a new documentary unit. After a year in the making their first project is “Infiltrados”. This documentary takes an in-depth look at the FARC - one of the world's deadliest terrorist organizations, which is accountable for 60 percent of the cocaine that comes into the United States.

The show had an average of 2.5 million viewers and it was a total success not only because it was a great story but also was a non typical show for a US hispanic network.

Renowned mexican journalist and Univision's anchor Jorge Ramos who narrated and presented the documentary, was a major influence in its success. His work is highly recognized in the US and specially in the hispanic community.

Juan Rendon, director of the documentary wanted to create a music that described not only that military / spy mood but also the pain and drama of the agents. Based on that request the option was to go to Uptempo musicians Jose Miranda and Jose Tobar to create the music of Infiltrados, whom long and awarded career in film scoring (they won the european film festivals of Huelva, Flanders, Nantes and Ghent) was the perfect fit for the project. A total of 32 tracks were produced for the documentary.

The sound design and mix of Infiltrados was another big task for the project since it had more than 50 animations for the reenactments. A team of 3 engineers lead by Ricardo Tinoco with the help of  Ryan Cook and Juan Fortea took care of that mission in 2 months of work.

The stories of courage of these 4 infiltrated agents and the influential result of their mission is something that needed to be portrayed with an excelent quality.

For us at Uptempo it was a great experience to raise the bar for the hispanic tv programming.

The X Factor Host’s Dermot O’Leary records at Uptempo

The X Factor is one of the top rated shows in the world and now is coming to the US. Dermot O'leary, host of the United Kingdom and original version was at Uptempo recording the narrations of the most recent show aired on September 11th. 

Mr. O'leary is also known for his BBC radio show and for being the host of many other important shows at the BBC.

Bruce Campbell, Producer, Writer and B-Movie Icon: Interview for Public Radio International recorded at Uptempo

Bruce Campbell is best known as a B movie icon and one of the stars of the Evil Dead films. He's also a writer and producer who's continued to have a DIY aesthetic and feeling infuse his work (including his own film, My Name Is Bruce). He talks to PRI's The Sound of Young America about finding a niche in horror and black humor, obsessive fans, and more.

You can see him on Thursdays at 9/8c on USA's Burn Notice as covert operative Sam Axe and in his own spin-off TV movie Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe, now on DVD.

The music of Roshfrans

Uptempo's artist Aaron Fishbein, recently created a power rock ballad for Roshfrans (Mexico) new commercial.
The commercial has been very polemic and has generated a lot of comments in forums and social media.
For the commercial, Uptempo located in Boston a singer that matched that typical tone of the 90's rock. Once the music was composed, the recording was made via ISDN from Boston to Miami.
Check out the behind the scenes video of the creation of the music.

The music and sounds of Jackson Memorial by Uptempo

Uptempo recently finished the music and audio post of the new Jackson Memorial Hospital campaing "I am Jackson" which has the voices of "Burn Notice" actor Jeffrey Donovan and "Alguien Te Mira" actor Christian Meier for the Spanish version.

The Chilean Pavillion at the World Expo in Shanghai has music and sounds by Uptempo artists

Uptempo musicians Jose M. Miranda y Jose M. Tobar recently finished the music for the Chilean Pavilion located at the World Expo in Shanghai, China.

This pavilion is being reviewed as one of the top 25 in the Expo because of its architecture and great interactivity with the visitor.

It took about 3 months to create the music and a voice over that leads you in three languages (English, Chinese and Spanish) through all the 6 different rooms in the Pavilion.

All this tour ends in what is considered one of the largest interactive screen ever built for an event like this.

We had the opportunity to visit this pavilion and created a behind the scenes video with a short tour and segments of the beautiful music created for this incredible place.

Beto Cuevas talks to Uptempo On Air

After a great recording session with the talented chilean singer and actor Beto Cuevas, we had the chance to sit down for five minutes with him and talk about marketing, social media, music, his recent project for Chile and more. Listen to this interview for our podcast Uptempo On Air.

Burn Notice's actor Jeffrey Donovan records at Uptempo

Music Should Challenge, Not Compliment

Just imagine for a second that we changed the musical anthem of Jaws-a movie where we watch about 90% of the action without it’s biggest star. All we get is a fin and a whole bunch of water. What if we gave it something more like a car chase scene type of music or a full symphony building drama with every string? Wouldn’t that be expected? Wouldn't you anticipate such a music for people running feverishly for their lives from a giant killer shark? Instead, we go a much simpler and stronger piece, one that still makes us all think twice every time we decide to put a toe in the ocean. And that’s the emotional power of music that dares to challenge our senses rather than complimenting what we anticipate it to be. And for commercial production, the senses need to be challenged the same way.

You see, music is the bond that connects visuals to audiences. But the right music, the music that is remembered by audiences shouldn’t always be what is expected. If we cue up 100 chase scenes in commercials or even movies, we can quickly identify the same theme among each and every spot. However, in a spot for Windows (click to see the spot) , we see a chase scene that uses a more dramatic and emotional musical tone-escaping the traditional chase scene music. With this piece, our character is so emotionally distraught with what she’s loosing, she will do whatever it takes to get it back. And we only get this understanding though the music. Remove it and replace with a high-energy chase scene score, and we get what we expect, a chase scene. Boring because we know what's coming-there's no need to pay attention. And in doing so, we loose the emotional tie and audience investment as to why she is chasing after the apps and why she is so compelled to do so.

If we replace the current music in the Windows commercial with a chase scene score we are left wondering and constructing the story on our own. Did the apps rob her? Perhaps, she was a crazy glue-sniffing app stalker and they were trying to get away? Or just maybe, the apps were trying out to be the new Yankee’s mascot and shot a t-shirt cannon into the stands which caused the woman to spill her jumbo coke and hot dog all down her shirt and she was trying to get them to pay for dry cleaning? We could construct a hundred scenarios, but the music as it stands does a great job of conveying the feeling it wants us to, more so than if they would have used music typically expected by the audience in this type of scene.

The goal, a lot of times for music is to do what’s the audience will expect-to compliment the visuals. And when we get what we expect, it tends to blend in and not be remembered. But as we dive in closer to the purpose of music in commercials, we can see that music which challenges what the audience expects has a greater opportunity to build stronger emotional bonds. To do this, we must get out of our comfort zones when it comes to selecting music and pick or create music to relate the emotion or reason for the action rather than the action itself. When music is used to compliment what is expected, the visuals becomes what is expected. There is a familiarity but no breakthrough. But when music challenges the visuals, it has a way of transforming the visuals and creating a more powerful experience than either piece could do alone.

WWE's Paul "The Big Show" Wight records for USA Network at Uptempo

Five time wrestling's World Champion Paul "The Big Show" Wight visited Uptempo to record an ADR session for USA Network's "Royal Pains".

The episode named "Keeping the Faith" aired last week and can be seen on USA's website.

British actor Idris Elba records at Uptempo

Idris Elba the british actor known for his work in movies like "RocknRolla", "Obsessed", "28 weeks later and TV Series like "The Office" visited Uptempo to record a couple of commercials for the United Kingdom.