Joe Cipriano: That Familiar Voice
Cipriano does all of his TV promos, whether they’re for comedies or dramas, from his home studio in L.A. “I have a room that doubles as a studio and a den,” he says. The room has padded acoustic walls, like any other studio, and a Mac Pro running Pro Tools for recording. Cipriano connects to his clients’ control rooms via an ISDN line, the traditional digital pipeline for TV voiceover work. “There’s an ISDN transceiver in my studio and one in the network control room,” says Cipriano. “They dial up my transceiver as if they were making a phone call and then we can stream the audio over the line.” The two are able to port audio between two Pro Tools sessions using Source Elements’ Source-Connect plug-in, which allows synchronized audio connections across high-speed Internet lines.
“The system is bulletproof,” he says. “You can have so much going on with the computer and there are no problems whatsoever. It’s like a light switch — when you flick it on the thought never crosses your mind that the lights aren’t going to come on. It’s the same thing with the Mac.”
The voice actor gets a movie clip of the promo and a script and synchs his part with the video. “It’s very precise, down to the frames,” he says. “If you delay just a half a second, it could be too much. And at the end of the promo you have to leave about eight frames so the audio doesn’t get clipped on the air. Timing is very important.”
On the Road
Timing’s important not just in the studio. Cipriano has built his career on being available for the job, whether he’s at home or on the road. And he’s often traveling to work on movie trailers or coordinate with business contacts. In the past, if he wanted to get his voiceover work done while he was out exploring, he needed a studio with an ISDN line. “That, or I’d just have an ISDN line put into the hotel room where I was staying,” he says. Not an easy task.
Now Cipriano has found a workaround. “It just sort of hit me,” he says. “I was having a problem with my machine and a friend of mine set up Apple Remote Desktop so he could walk me through it. I knew right away how I could use it to do recording sessions.” Whenever Cipriano is away, he leaves his home studio running. Then he logs into his Mac Pro using Apple Remote Desktop on his MacBook Pro and does the session.
“I’ll bring up the desktop of my studio computer and launch Pro Tools,” he says. “Then I’ll launch Pro Tools on the laptop and hook up the two computers. I’ll have the network dial up my studio at home and we’re connected. I’m essentially using my studio as a bridge between the network and wherever I am. It really opens up a whole new field. I can be anywhere and, to them, it seems like I’m back in my studio.”
But hotel rooms aren’t made for audio recording. Again, Cipriano discovered a workaround. “You have to be ready to make adjustments to the room,” he says. “Move furniture to absorb sound, put towels down on hard surfaces. The idea is to get the best possible quality that you can. You don’t want to do these sorts of things that allow you to be away from the studio and then dumb down the quality.” Cipriano will often set his mic against a V-shaped backdrop of pillows and sit with his back to the ubiquitous lightproof, and sound-resistant, hotel room curtains. “Instead of using a broadcast studio, you’re using pretty throw pillows and monogrammed towels,” he says.
Blazing Trails
Recording voiceovers for movie trailers doesn’t involve any fancy pillows or towels, at least for now. Most of Cipriano’s trailer work takes place in a studio. Still, it’s not as calculated as television work. “Trailers are done completely wild,” he says. “You’re not reading to audio prompts or to video — it’s just you reading the script. You get the read they want and they cut it into their footage.”
That wild and creative nature has Cipriano hooked. “When it comes to network TV, I really feel like I’ve fulfilled any kind of goals or dreams that I had,” he says. “I’d like to get more trailer work. It’s a genre that I haven’t worked with very much and it would be creative and something new.”
In the meantime, you can expect to hear Cipriano between your favorite TV shows, excitedly delineating the comedic genius of the next episode or diving into the sordid details of an ongoing dramatic love affair.