MIKE'S BLOG
My official title is "Senior Intern" which, as you could guess, puts me in charge of the group of interns we have at the studio at any given time. However when larger projects come through our door I get the privilege of getting an extended title as "Second Assistant Engineer". My responsibilities during this specific session included things such as getting the room setup for Fantasia and her crew, patching in effects, and helping with any problems or situations that need to be attended to; technical or personal. I also ran the production room for Fantasia's producers and brother. They were working on a tentative new track for Fantasia. Her group of producers are very personable, funny, and easy to get along with. After spending all night with them (literally) we established a very productive and easy work environment, that didn't really feel like work at all!
Through the night I was also running back to our main live room where Fantasia, her brother and back-up singers were cutting vocals for another tentative new song. Bruce was the engineer on the project. Fantasia has a certain presence about her. Immediately after her arrival the room changed and she brought a certain excitement to all of us. She's a very energetic person. She made a habit of dancing around the studio and control room to the new song(s) and even while she was recording vocals. She wasn't shy to express her creativity and learned new parts in no time. It's extraordinary to watch her in action. She is truly talented. Fantasia is a very focused person and is definitely professional with her work. Her brother is also a very creative person and pretty much produced and help coach her all night. You can tell Fantasia and her brother are very close by how they interact and respect each others creative opinion. It was fairly surreal to watch the brainstorming in both rooms go on and watch mere ideas come to life.
The first thing Fantasia did after walking in the door was immediately walk into the control room and gave Bruce, Bob (assistant engineer), and me a handshake and hug and thanked us all for setting up for her and commented that the room looked and sounded great. She was extremely grateful for what we had done for her. She made a habit of saying thank you for even small things we would do for her. She is a very grounded person which is a breath of fresh air. Even in the wee hours of the morning she kept everyone alive and laughing.
Hopefully I'll get another chance to work with her in the future as she was a great client to have and be around. Thank you for reading my blog. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed our session with her.
- Mike
(Fan-Tasia.NET would like to thank Mike for being so gracious and taking the time to write this blog for Fantasia's fans. If you have any other questions please send them to Fin, via the message board and he'll pass them on to Mike!)