Female Voice Talent Gina Tuttle

I don’t know if you caught the 2010 Oscars last night.

I did and I thought it was a pretty good show. I thought it was VERY interesting at the end for best picture how Tom Hanks seemed to walk on stage and just read the winner’s name without any recognition of the 10 nominees (yes they did little BP vignette’s throughout the telecast). But it just seemed like he got told “go out, read the winner and get off…we’re LATE!” Maybe it was just me but I chuckled (been there, done that…just, you know, not on the Oscars).

But to the point of this post, congrats to someone I do not know in this industry (probably there are more I don’t know than I do know) and that would be Gina Tuttle who served as announcer for the 82nd Oscar broadcast. She was an excellent choice to my ear. Congratulations on a job really well done.

Tags: announcers, tv, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter o'connell voiceover
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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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Bobbin Beam - Female Voice Talent

Happy Blogiversary to a wonderful person and voice talent Bobbin Beam, who celebrates her third year in the blogosphere.

As a long and loyal subscriber, I thank her for her blog work and for almost as long, I thank her for her friendship.

Tags: blogs, social media, voice talent, voiceover by peter o'connell voiceover
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the audio'connell YouTube page

I am not a pioneer on most things, including social media. I like to see where things are going, if they are going to build up a big enough head of steam and then decide to join in.

It was that way for me with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and now with YouTube where I have create my own page and produced my first video. Why?

Well, my college degree is in Radio/Television communication and I did own a video production company for six years so this is not totally unfamiliar territory. But I wasn’t sure on many fronts if I wanted to dip my toe in the video waters via social media.

Two things changed that.

One was when Jeff Kafer said he wanted to produce a video of the VO-BB voice talents recreating “The Night Before Christmas”. I didn’t have any of the tools needed at the time or a clue about the new way video worked but I decided to plod through it (embrace change etc., blah, blah). My finished work for that piece wasn’t stellar and Jeff had to tweak it a lot to make it presentable but it put me in to a more “I can do it” frame of mind. So thank you Jeff for that.

Next was the technology. I tried a Logitech camera for the VO-BB video but I thought it wasn’t sharp enough (or maybe the dullness was a result of the talent within my lens). Then I attended an Ad Club of Buffalo presentation featuring Kodak’s Chief Blogger, the very kind and knowledgeable Jennifer Cisney. Part of her presentation, not surprisingly included mention of some Kodak products including their Zi8 portable video camera. At the same time Steve Garfield, who I had met briefly some years ago at Podcamp Boston, published his new book (which I bought) on video and spoke highly of that same camera which had an input for external audio (which most cameras don’t have and which was something of importance to me). At $200 I figured I could make an educated mistake.

Calling around to some friends for editing tools advice and with my own trail and error (as is the way we all seem to learn, technologically, these days) I was ready to make my mistakes more publicly.

I am quite sure that after I do this for a while, I’ll look back at this video in disgust for its poor quality in any number of areas but for now, it’s not the worst thing I’ve seen and hopefully the content is a bit different.

I hope you’ll subscribe to my YouTube page and lets enjoy this ride together. Thanks.

Tags: commentary, facebook, linkedin, social media, tv, twitter, voice talent, voiceover, youtube by peter o'connell voiceover
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Male Voice Talent Andy Boyns

….and while the blog is now listed on the blog roll, you can read it here.

Welcome to the blogosphere Andy.

Tags: blogs, commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover blog by peter o'connell voiceover
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If you’re a member of Voices.com it’s going to be a bit tougher to chat with folks there today because they are moving into their brand new headquarters. Congrats to Dave, Steph and the entire team.

Because of my negative opinion about the pay to play business model in voice over, I’ve been asked by some voices talents why I have spoken often in support of Voices.com. I have no trouble answering their questions – it has to do with the professional and personal respect I have for the Ciccarellis.

While I disagree with the business model overall – a model that is the foundation for Voices.com as a business, David, Stephanie and their team I believe are sincerely committed to helping their listed voice talents build their careers while simultaneously building the Voices.com business. I offer as my examples: the customer service I received when I briefly joined their service when it first started, their corporate openness through their use of a variety of social media tools and my numerous personal interactions with them. They are professional, they are respectable and their business practices as far as I have experienced are completely above board.

It is the model of their business (and those with whom they compete) that I find to be very problematic; briefly stated- pay-to-play voice over sites I believe undermine the quality of the voice over industry. So I don’t pay. It’s up to history to determine if my opinion is right or wrong – ultimately my opinion is only right for me. If one were so inclined to join a pay-to-play site, I would direct them to Voices.com first.

As an owner of many small businesses, a five year mark is an important historic milestone. To have been able to grow their business to a point where they are covering salaries, benefits, rent, etc. every month is a big deal. Being able to move and grow the Voices.com business into new space is pretty amazing as well. That benchmark needs to be recognized and appreciated for every business because it ain’t easy and it ain’t guaranteed for any of us.

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voices.com by peter o'connell voiceover
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