He’s performed hundreds of different characters in commercials, cartoons, and video games, but now Wally Wingert has hit the big time as the voice of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The South Dakota native was recently interviewed on a trip back home.

Maybe I should be more specific.

Two weeks until the end of the world for voice talents who want to enjoy the amazing discount on the FIRST EVER voice over unconference: Faffcon.

Two full days of voice over learning, growing, troubleshooting, connecting, and faffing about for just $149–how awesome is that?

Sure, you can always go next year– but dontcha want to be one of the cool kids who was there at the very first one?

If your not sure what it’s all about, I’ll refer you to this post I wrote about Faffcon a while back. I hope you’ll attend.

Male Voice Talent Michael Minetree

As a world, we seem to be mostly a proud bunch.

But too much pride can be a bad thing. I know because I am better than you – smarter, better looking, more successful – so I know pride can be a bad thing and conceit is even worse.

Wait a minute…

Anyway, I mention this because I got an email blast from Michael Minetree of MineWurx Studio. In addition to voice work, he’s overseeing a myriad of other projects including voice over directories, isdn directories, voice coaching and web hosting.

It was the web hosting part that he was emailing about. I’ll let you read the whole thing because I think it’s a really great example of how to adapt and change in a transparent way that builds credibility.

We all have to change and we all make missteps. How we make ourselves accountable can determine success or failure. I think the way Michael did this was a major success. Really well done.

In this newsletter:

1) A total slash on pricing – things have gotten El Cheapo – like Unlimited Web Hosting for $4.95 a month…

2) A total shift in policy – now we don’t have one.

3) A complete change in our course of business.

4) A total redesign of the site.

Our hosting site, www.artistwebhosting.com, has been made anew.

1) A shift in Pricing: We have completely removed all limitations on the hosting accounts – now everyone can have unlimited disk space and bandwidth for as little as 4.95 a month. On top of that – unlimited emails, databases and FTP accounts. Now – we are just like the big boys – and even better in some instances. Your web hosting has never been any cheaper. Add free setup and free site transfer to that and you’re looking at a winner.

2) A massive shift in Policy: Gone are the setup fees, gone are the account limitations, gone are the confusing “Tiered Hosting” accounts. All of it – GONE. Now – there are just unlimited accounts – with all the backend server features activated for all of them. No more junk. No more clutter. Wide open accounts. Period.

3) A complete change in course: We’re always ready to admit we made a mistake and change things. The first approach was old and out-dated. We goofed on the concept and figured people would have the time to figure it all out. We were wrong. So we changed it. There’s always room for improvement – so we hope that our new course for the future is the right one. We’re certainly convinced that it’s a whole lot better now.

4) A complete redesign of the site: Last week we sat and looked at the site and realized that the original test design was a bust. Too much data, too many choices and much like most of our newsletters – too much information. The whole damn thing was wrong – from top to bottom. So we scrapped it and went to work on making it better. Because we sit and look at data all the time we kind of lose sight of the fact that not everyone else wants to. This led me to make the site WAY too detailed and forced a lot of the important information off to the side. Not any more. All of the important stuff should be there. Right up front.

We encourage you to go by and take the new site for a test drive. Any of your comments and input will be greatly valued, so valued in fact that we’re offering an additional $3.00 per month off any monthly account to any one of our newsletter subscribers who sends us a little note with their feedback about the new site. $3.00 may not seem like much – but in the world of web hosting – it’s absolutely huge.

We look forward to hearing from you. And look forward to your comments about our new course of direction.

Michael Minetree

MineWurx Studio

www.minewurx.com

(blower) 703-293-8906

ISDN 703-766-1048/1049

Find Great Voices at:

www.minewurx.com/voiceovertalent

Find ISDN Voice Talent at:

www.voiceswithisdn.com

Find Great Web Hosting at:

www.artistwebhosting.com

Find Voice Over Coaching at:

www.thevoiceovercoach.com

Maybe its just me who finds entertaining these interviews with some of the voice actors from The Lion King.

I especially found interesting Nathan Lane’s interview about the dark parts of this movie which I always found unnecessary to the story (Disney seems transfixed in its movie stories with killing parents ((Bambi, Nemo, Lion King)).

But the acting stories I think are fun.

James Earl Jones didn’t think of himself as a voice actor when he voiced the character of Darth Vadar in the Star Wars movies.

He considered himself special effects…that’s all. Except that because of his voice over performance, Jones WAS Darth Vader in a way now costume or visual effect ever could be.

It seems he made $7,000 for his work on the first movie. Just my opinion but I’m guessing he made ooodles more for the sequels.

Courtesy of Doreen Mulman on Facebook, a saw a video featuring interviews with voice talent discussing the challenges of voice actor parts in animation going to celebrity actors and how that impacts their careers.

As I noted recently, sometimes animated movies get picked on for picking celebrities to voice characters primarily because they are marketable celebrities (MJ Lallo offers one funny example). In other cases (I would cite “Toy Story” and “Cars” as two examples) the celebrities chosen to voice are clearly great actors whose transition to voice acting was seamless and superb.

As usual, Pat Fraley offers some really salient insight into the benefits of celebrities working in voice over.

While I applaud the producers desire to tell the story, a little effort properly checking the spelling of the featured actors’ names for the lower third graphics would have gone a long way to making this effort that much more credible.

Sometimes Hollywood actors get crap from non-Hollywood voice actors (of course not me, because I never give anyone crap) about why they were cast as the voices in an animated film.

Well, the voices in the Toy Story series for me have always made me forget who the “big names” were behind the voices. That’s a compliment – that’s how its supposed to be.

And now, watching them exercise their craft in these two videos from Toy Story 3, you may more fully understand why their performances are so amazingly good.

Toy Story 3 comes out tomorrow. The voice actor who plays Andy, the owner of all the toys like ‘Woody’ and ‘Buzz Lightyear’ has provide the character’s voice in all 3 films.

He started when he was 7, the next movie was made when he was in his teens and now, in his mid-twenties, he’s voiced Andy for the 3rd time.

Here’s an interesting interview with voice actor John Morris.

Moderator John Florian with panelists Peter K. O'Connell, Trish Basanyi, David Kaplan & Doug Turkel

Though I publicly warned him that this might be a bad idea and privately promised he could drop me from his panel at any time in favor of someone who could actually offer some valuable content, John Florian of Voice Over Xtra insists he still wants me to speak at VOICE 2010 in L.A. with him, Doug Turkel, Trish Basanyi, and David Kaplan.

John will also unveil the results of his extensive recent industry survey on how voice actors use the Internet at the beginning of this presentation as well.

Our panel on Friday, June 4th at 11 a.m. is entitled “Voice Actors & The Internet”. I am to talk about voice over marketing and the internet…and I’m supposed to cover that in 10 minutes. Factoring in the raucous ovations I’ll get from the crowd just for being there , that will leave me with 5 minutes. No sweat.

Point here is if ya ain’t yet made yer reservations for this shindig, the only one of its kind for our industry, you really should come and I mean that seriously, not just because I am a presenter. For networking, education and even business opportunities, you need to attend. You are really missing out, I think, if you don’t come. To register, click here.

Voice Over Master Don LaFontaine

Most folks in voice over are aware of who Don LaFontaine was and what an enormous impact he had on our industry. He was our public face and best of all our public voice.

Don’s friends and fellow voice talents Joe Cipriano and Paul Pape have been the leaders in establishing the Don LaFontaine Voice-over Lab inside the Screen Actors Guild Foundation. This will create a studio where union talents can attend classes and record free of charge. All this in recognition of Don’s legendary generosity to other voice talents.

I’m not a Union voice actor presently so I can’t use the facility…so why will I financially support it? Why am I asking you, my readers, to do the same?

Because, as Don knew and showed through his actions, it is the right thing to do.

For the full catalog of promotional videos promoting the Don LaFontaine Voice-over Lab inside the Screen Actors Guild Foundation, please visit the always enjoyable blog of George M. Whittam but in the meantime here’s a video of support for the Lab from one of Don’s very satisfied customers, Entertainment Tonight.