If you haven’t seen the video here it is:

How it was made:

It took a few hours of repeating lines to get the inflections to be funny/interesting. I tried to keep the timing of the words to be exactly the same as Javier’s but I found that if I needed to fudge the timing to make it funnier that was fine.

Next I muted the original to play only when the gas station attendant speaks.

At this point the sound of each character still didn’t sound like they were in the same space. I added the slightest room reverb to my voice to match the original. I then played back the audio of each character in a room with wood floors about the same size of the room they were in. I recorded this back into my DAW and we were almost there.

I added a room tone, the music and a distant ringing telephone to heighten the tension. If you recall the original scene has almost no music at all. I made sure not to over do it.

This first started as a funny idea I had. It turned into a way to show off my sound design chops.

UPDATE:

No Country For Gay Men has been mentioned in this weeks Entertainment Weekly.

Web Obsession of the Week

SWEET AS CHIGURH

Remember that heart-pounding confrontation in No Country For Old Men when Anton Chigurh, Javier Bardem’s coin-tossing killing machine, taunts an elderly store clerk who has no clue he just might be ringing up his last sale? Well, some online joker has turned the scene on its head, replacing Bardem’s gravelly intonation with a hyper-effeminate voice-over. The clip is a dandy, not only because its flamboyant Chigurh is so jarringly different from the Coen Brothers’ assassin, but also because the clerk’s bewildered reaction works perfectly with either voice. When Chigurh says, “You’ve been putting up your whole life - you just didn’t know it,” try not to titter at a bloodthirsty villain who sounds a bit like Linda Richman. - Jeff Labrecque

In the May 23rd, 2008 issue on page 105.

Revision3.com asked me to write the audio package for Social Brew. After firing up the Casios and plugging in a few esoteric guitar pedals these sounds were born.

from Rev3:Social Brew is the show that takes you inside the world of social networking services. From Linked-in to Facebook, Myspace, Twitter - just to name a few - we’ve got you covered.

http://revision3.com/socialbrew/

Motion Design by Eden Soto
Music/Sound Design by Lawrence Scaduto/Fourth Grade Gladiators

Why remix Peggy Lee? First because she’s awesome. But most importantly the challenge of remixing a song originally performed in 3/4 into what is essentially a 4/4 dance beat intrigued me.

Here is the original song:

Peggy Lee - Happy Holiday

Notes on how it was recorded: The bass is a Fender Korean Squire P-Bass recorded using a lil’ bit of compression and Waves Maxx Bass. It’s by far the cleanest and deepest dub I’ve gotten this bass to sound. I was all set to use amp modeling software when I stumbled upon this happy combination. The horns were taken from various sources of samples. The drums were a random not-so-in-time loop found deep in my collection. The vibe I was going for was a sort of an ESG thing. If you don’t know ESG check out this video (the song is sped up quite a bit): http://youtube.com/watch?v=TUoGuRp–tE

Music by Fourth Grade Gladiators/Lawrence Scaduto

Video by Eden Soto (edensoto.com)

Here is the intro (video by Eden Soto) in it’s original glory…

Without further ado, Fourth Grade Gladiators (aka, I, Lawrence Scaduto) proudly presents popSiren: Remixed and Uncut: Fourth Grade Gladiators - popSiren Theme Uncut and Remixed.mp3

Motion Design by Eden Soto
Music by me, Lawrence Scaduto

The Future of Web Apps showcases the successful web technologies and business trends of the future, delivered by the pioneers of today. Attended by all the major European and US start-ups and industry experts, it’s the best place to learn directly from the developers, designers and entrepreneurs behind the web’s brightest stars in a relaxed and fun environment.

Microsoft is launching The Code Trip later this month. It’s a bus tour of “the developer evangelists who interact with our community groups” Here’s the intro to their soon to come videos from the events.

I got involved through Eden and the project went off swimmingly. For those that are curious about production: I used Guitar Rig and a USA Telecaster from 2001-ish. Drums were chopped up one hits from some unknown library. And Bass is my beloved Japanese Fender Squire P-bass from the eighties. It beats the pants off any current Mexican made P-bass by Fender which cost about 2 to 3 times as much.

Animation by Eden Soto (edensoto.com)

Music/Vocals by Lawrence Scaduto

Opencontent.tv asked us to write a piece for a viral video they were producing for Opera Mini.