This one gave me a chuckle.

The Buffalo Niagara Sales and Marketing Executives hosted their yearly awards gala and they asked if I would do the live announce again. I said sure, we worked out a trade deal and all was good. I did warn them that sometimes travel comes up and then I might have to pass; they were cool with that.

Travel came up and off I was to be on a plane instead of behind the mic for them. I said the only option I had for them was that I could pre-record it the show for them into individual sound files and they audio-visual technician would play them back for the proper intros. They loved that idea, I recorded it, they loved how it sounded, it was done well in advance and sent over to the av company to get them comfortable with pacing and technical stuff, etc.

So the night of the show comes and goes and the next day I email to see how it went. Here’s the answer I got:

Well….funny you should ask. Hi Peter – the rehearsals went really well but we did have a glitch during the actual intros. I sat with the av guy to make sure he knew when to cue the next person’s intro. He would hit the button with your recording and then play music in between. However, he hit the button too quick after announcing the Key Bank winner and we heard “from Business First” too soon so he stopped it right away. Unfortunately, by stopping it the way he did, it was miscued and then it went back to the very beginning of the recording again. Luckily he wrote down the exact time of each recording so it was a matter of getting back to the right time on the recording but he kept missing it so we had about 2 full minutes of waiting and wondering what was up. My face was on fire J

Your voice was loud and clear and it sounded like you were right there so that was very cool. I think considering what the av guys had to do, they did an awesome job. And other than that, the night was fabulous. We are getting rave reviews.

Yikes.

So tonight on Facebook, I see my friend Nancy Knight posted something so I threw a kudo towards her as she was one of the award winners —who happened to be the NEXT intro when the AV had the hand-eye coordination melt down on his computer mouse. Nancy wrote:

Peter — thanks for the kind words — yeah, the audio left me and my prom date stuck at the top of the stairs for QUITE some time… before I figured it was all automated, I thought you were mad at me or something…

Oy! Usually I only annoy people when I am present but thanks to one tech, I annoyed hundreds of people while in Texas. Sorry Nancy.

Of course, I never make mistakes. Like the time as a PA announcer I had a stadium full of people stand for the national anthem during a college football game…only it was time for the band to play the school song. Yeah….

Tags: announcers, commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter o'connell voiceover
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This is a political post but not in a Democrat or Republican kind of way.

You may have seen in the news last week as an “also in the news” feature after the Haiti and NBC late night imbroglio, that the Supreme Court issued a ruling that loosened restrictions on corporate campaign spending.

As viewers and listeners, this means more political campaign ads – soft, hard and/or nasty – but upwards in some estimates of $300,000,000 more in political ad spending in the next political cycle.

Whether or not you like that as a citizen or politico matters less to me that what that ruling means to me as a voice over talent of political spots for radio and TV. If you wanted to, say, only cut me in for .5% of that total in voice over work – I’d probably consider it.

Some voice talents don’t like to do political spots and some, like me, study the client/candidate for their stand on one or two issues of high importance and if he/she doesn’t match up, you pass on the spot.

So if you’re of a mind to, you might want to dust off your political commercial voice over demo and maybe think about updating it if you haven’t in a while. It looks like it’s gong to get politically busy pretty soon.

Tags: advertising, political advertising, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter o'connell voiceover
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When it comes to technology, I am not an early adopter like, say Dave Courvoisier. This is especially true for me with internet technology.

I was late to Firefox as a browser and I only kind of embrace things like Gotomeeting.com as just two examples.

As a business owner though, I know that I need to at least have a passing understanding of the purpose of some this technology because many of my voice over clients have it or will begin using it.

While we all don’t need to necessarily be internet technology experts in the eyes of our clients, we shouldn’t appear technologically inferior either.

So you may have seen on the web talk of something called Google Wave, you may have even gotten an invitation to participate in it (yeah, it’s currently an “invite” thing but its not that crazy exclusive).

I don’t understand Google Wave very much…maybe because I haven’t used it. But because it’s Google it has a better than average chance of being universally adopted by people I work with. So I need to try and understand it…and you should probably try to learn about it to.

So far, the best explanation of Google Wave that I have found so far was written by Gina Trapani over at Life Hacker. It’s a kind of an FAQ that helped me understand the business applications of Google Wave a bit more and I hope it will help you too.

Look, if it was easy, anybody could do it. Open your brain a bit and let some stuff in this post seep in. It may help.

Tags: commentary, internet, technology, voiceover advice by peter o'connell voiceover
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Ruts.

We all find ourselves in them and often times cannot remember how we got there. Sometimes it part necessity but sometimes we also get lazy.

We then need a kick in the pants (a title I use for a e-blast I occasionally sent to my voice over friends with insight I HOPE they find helpful.)

Well the video below helped me think about that a little bit today. Maybe it will help you too.

I would be interested to hear from you NOT what you think of the following video but what part of the video resonated with you most and what you plan on doing about it.

Some may not feel comfortable in sharing that stuff, I respect that…not trying to be nosy here…but if you care to share, that would be great.

Tags: commentary, voiceover advice by peter o'connell voiceover
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I hope I’ve written something like this before about the voice over industries preeminent e-zine, Voice Over Xtra! but if not, here it is: you darn well better be a subscriber if you are in this industry.

Should you needed any more convincing, look no further than the post its editor and my friend John Florian put up yesterday. He got voice over talent Jennifer Vaughn to write a fascinating article that financially analyzes and compares her 2009 efforts auditioning and securing business on both Voices.com and Voice 123.

As the voice over industry’s two primary pay-to-play sites who together have changed the landscape on how clients and talent get new voice over business (the argument about whether for better or worse will be held over for another time) this is really a great comparison and a startlingly honest report by Vaughn.

Thanks Jennifer for that and thanks John for everything.

Tags: casting, commentary, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog, voices.com by peter o'connell voiceover
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Over at Taji’s Voice Emporium, Mahmoud Taji offers his insights on the economic challenges voice talents could face in 2010.

As he points out, it’s ok to be concerned about your professional future (everyone always is) but if you prepare by giving yourself professional options, you can provide for both your family and your art.

Tags: voice casting, voice talent, voiceover advice, voiceover blog by peter o'connell voiceover
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