September is National Voice Over Month

Unfortunately for my pal Dave Courvoisier, he answered the phone last week.

I happened to be on the other end because I had an idea which involved his baby – National Voiceover Month. It struck me that with all the things that went on in the voice over world in September, maybe a video should be created to at least attempt to capture the sense of the month.

That was the entire sum of the idea and Dave was all for it. He helped me gather the pictures and I slapped this puppy together.

My thanks to everyone who provided pictures and my apologies if we somehow omitted your event. No slight was intended.

Voice Over Talents who shared their skills in the videos opening montage include Doug Turkel, Peter K. O’Connell, Mike Coon, Bobbin Beam, Dave Courvoisier, Diane Maggipinto, Stefania Lintonbon, Cira Larkin, Scott Nilsen, Liz de Nesnera and Adam Behr.

Some of the activities included “That’s Voiceover!” in New York City; Faffcon – The Voiceover Unconference held in Portland, OR; Voices of Vision in Toronto, Ontario Canada; Bob Bergen’s Voiceover Workshop held in Chicago, IL; the Marice Tobias Voiceover Workshop held in Las Vegas, NV; Bettye Zoller’s Voiceover Workshop held in Dallas, TX; and the Western New York Voice Over Meet-up held in Buffalo, NY.

OK, so sometimes I forget to hit the edit switch when I come up with an idea that’s going to take a lot of time and effort to put together (effort I got, time not so much). Such was the case when Amy Snively of voice over fame and Faffcon lead sled dog said she needed help and ideas to promote Faffcon.

Well though it took longer than it should have the promo video for the event is done and it is great fun as well as informative only because of the following very talented reasons:

Philip Banks
Mandy Nelson
Todd Ellis
Bruce Miles
Pam Tierney
Dave Courvoisier
Roger Tremaine
Bob Souer

They are my peers and my friends and this video (and this conference) would be a whole lot of nothing with out them.

I am grateful for each of you.

Kenny Mosher of Showdown Visual

I’ve not met nor worked with Kenny Mosher who owns Showdown Visual in Dayton, OH.

But he’s a University of Dayton graduate (2008) who, an alumni association email informed me, produced a video for the Downtown Dayton plan.

I haven’t been to Downtown Dayton since I think 1993 or 1994 and it didn’t look terribly different from when I left there after graduation in 1986. Obviously things evolve (hopefully not devolve) but I certainly hadn’t kept up with what’s going on there.

If this plan comes together, based on this video and what it shows already, the Downtown area could be totally cool.

I have seen and produced many videos in my time, this one is truly terrific with special kudos to the performances of the citizens – who the more I think about it are not actors but more likely civic leaders. They really sold the thing.

I hope you enjoy it.

The Downtown Dayton Plan from Kenny Mosher on Vimeo.

The above picture shows…

A) Part of the United States’ new surface to air defense system

B) The spawn of the robot in the 1986 movie “Short Circuit”

C) Pamela Anderson’s home movie camera

Please no looking at others student’s answers.

Begin.

Male Voice Talent Michael Minetree

Look, to go through the headache of creating a really nice, well thought-out on-line voice over web directory seems overzealous, generous and a bit crazy to me. Pictures, demos, links – too much work for a lazy guy like me.

But not Michael Minetree.

It seems in addition to his MineWurx Studio, Michael likes to create projects for himself. He created a very enjoyable to watch (maybe less enjoyable to build) video chronicle of the construction of his new voice over booth (a link to one of the many videos created on that project can be found here).

Then he decided to create this voice over directory (I’m in there somewhere under the category of short, fat voice talent – sadly, it’s not an exclusively listing .

Now he’s also created a “Voices with ISDN” web directory, listing all voice talents who have ISDN numbers.

And there is more to come.

While maybe not wholly altruistic (we are all business people here) these are all extremely generous efforts by Michael to help promote an industry that is fortunate to have him as a practitioner.

After the worldwide success of my YouTube debut a few months ago, while I had some time this week during a commercial session, I thought you would enjoy watching how I performed my parts for a radio spot I was cast in.

This again was a remote recording session but I think its great fun and at the end you hear the finished part – chosen not by me but by the producer of the spot. I hope you enjoy it.

And if you are not yet a subscriber to my YouTube channel, I hope you will be, it’s free.

There creativity, artistry, music and a true sense of achievement in this video.

But it’s also just a blast to watch.

Some of you may recall that in 2007, the lovely and talented Philip Banks came up with the idea of asking his friends on the VO-BB.com to recite the Christmas poem “The Night Before Christmas”.

He read the first lines and then emailed the poem to the the lovely and talented D.B. (that’s a capital “B” Facebook, dammit!) Cooper who read her lines; she emailed it to me so I would read the next part, I chose to email it to the lovely and talented Kara Edwards and on it went. Philip mixed it all with some wonderful music and it became one of my proudest voice over accomplishments ever.

So fast forward to 2009 where video is now all the rage and in spite of what I think is a logical and fair aversion to the camera, I agreed to Jeffrey Kafer’s idea to participate in a video version of the recording, again with my friends from the VO-BB.com from around the world…literally.

Please enjoy the voice talents of my friends (in order of appearance) Philip Banks, Bob Souer, Todd Ellis, Bobbin Beam, David Houston, Mr. Face for Radio himself, Bruce Miles, D.B. Cooper, Donna Postel, Michael Minetree, Mandy Nelson, Dave Courvoisier, Andrew Frame, Jeffrey Kafer, Justin Barrett, Connie Terwilliger, Pam Tierney and Tony Impieri (all of whom are both lovely and talented).

Thanks Jeffrey. Merry Christmas to all.

If I was better organized I would be able to tell if I had written about this before but to the best my old cranium I haven’t.

While this addresses a topic more closely associated with those in or around Buffalo, NY, it could be worth while to those in other cities because with a little Googling, you might find a group in your area similar to the one I’m about to speak about.

Indie Buffalo is a web site dedicated to everything for the independent film maker in Buffalo and Western New York – casting notices, crew posts, production updates, the whole shootin’ match.

It is hosted by my friends at Full Circle Studios who have the community spirit to support this great idea(disclosure: one of the partners there was a groomsman in my wedding and a former business partner of mine).

So I hope you’ll check it out as a possible resource for yourself or others in your circle of influence. Or like I said, check out a similar resource in your neighbor.