Walter Cronkite (Photo credit: Texas Parks and Wildlife Department © 2006, Richard Roberts)

Iconic CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite died today at the age of 92. The newsman died of cerebral vascular disease at 7:42 p.m. ET in his New York City home surrounded by his family.

CBS News was the standard for television news during Walter Cronkite’s tenure.

After he left, the place was never the same.

He saw the country through the Kennedy assassination and the national mourning that followed and Man walking on the moon (I’m especially disheartened he’ll miss the 40th Anniversary of that monumental event this coming week).

He reported on the Vietnam War and of a Presidential resignation following something called Watergate.

I didn’t know him, I knew of him. I watched him. Everybody did.

My only connection to him was when I bestowed on him an honor I am pretty sure he never heard about: the best voiceover performance of 2006.

Good night Walter.

Tags: CBS News, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on requiescat in pace walter cronkite

There are those, sometimes myself included, who wonder if any event on television can ever capture the imagination anymore.

Sporting events? Maybe for a day like the Super Bowl – but when you think about it, it is just another football game with some extra sweet frosting surrounding it.

Inaugurations? Funerals, maybe.

But visually the sight of Paul McCartney playing live during a taping of the Late Show with David Letterman ON THE MARQUEE of the Ed Sullivan Theatre (the theatre where he first played in America as a Beatle on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964) was stunning.

It was impactful.

Watch the thousands of people lining Broadway and the side streets…as far as the eye could see. Office workers and people hanging out windows to listen. The TODAY show may try but it’s not the same.

To consider the history that happened there in 1964 and everything that transpired for McCartney, the Beatles and the world since then was amazing.

That’s what television CAN do when it’s not doling out crap about some pseudo celebrity or chasing “real-life” stories.

If you’re a true broadcaster at heart, if you get the history that surrounds our medium, this was great television.

This is why David Letterman is the king of late night and, since Carson retired, always has been. They both can be called comedians and entertainers but they are broadcasters first.

True broadcasters can make great television.

P.S. 7.17.09- Sometimes when you do make great television, EVERYBODY notices. Congrats, Dave!

Tags: CBS Television Network, commentary, tv, video by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on letterman, mccartney, great television

Sometimes the person offering the kick in the pants deserves a kick in the pants and I’d be a bit of a phony if I didn’t fess that I got kicked Sunday morning for good reason.

In my July 12th post, I was so excited about a wonderful comment I read about taking the risk of going too far in a voice over performance that I omitted a key thought in the post. While you can read the whole post here, the summary of it was supposed to be that reading blogs can offer some great insights into your voice over performance because sometimes time (as is my case) and money (as is the issue for others) prevent folks from getting professional training.

While I stand by my statements completely, it is what I failed to say that caused a dust-up and rightly so. What I neglected to say was that while blogs are valuable they cannot take the place of professional in-person or at least phone training. While I have made that clear on this blog in the past and certainly pointed it out in my free e-book The Voice Over Entrance Exam, I failed to make that point clear in my blog post.

That omission got noticed by of all people my voice teacher. And she was pissed! As she wrote on my facebook page:

Ouch Peter! In my 25 years as a voice actor, I have never taken a Voiceover Seminar with a reputable teacher that has not come back to me with manifold rewards (and monetary ones). Blogs are great for sharing opinions and occasional bragging rights, but to pack your parachute with skills in this competitive biz, it takes an investment in training that should never cease, no matter what the cost. I’ve sacrificed, paid the piper and reaped the rewards.

Oh dear. This was not good. I made a mistake, I left out an important part of the blog post and the woman who’s been teaching me voice acting the longest now rips me a new one on Facebook. Well my axiom has always been if you’re going to fail, fail big!

Actually that’s never been my axiom, I just made that up here.

My response, made on bended knee when typing on a i-phone (which is no easy task):

Toni,

Your point is well taken so let me clarify (and I think you know well my belief in this from my book): nothing replaces personal voice over training. The interaction is invaluable so that would always be my preference.

But there are times when life’s priorities get in the way…at least in my case. So reading is a supplement.

BTW one of the teachers who first taught me to go farther was YOU.

Thank you for that and your (as always) wise input.

Best always,
– Peter

It’s a lesson learned but likely a mistake I’ll make again anyway: re-read your blog posts 12-13 times before posting; find your mistakes then or else you’ll piss off your voice teacher. Sorry Toni.

Tags: commentary, kick in the pants, voice over entrance exam, voice over workshop, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
1 Comment »

If you’re like me (and God help you if you are) you work and then you’ve got kids. In between you grab a sandwich and you sleep a few hours.

So taking time let alone money out for voice over seminars is costly on both fronts. This is why I subscribe to many blogs. I will set aside time in my workday to read because that’s another way to improve – not only within voice over but also social media, marketing and overall business operations. And it’s free, except for the time.

A prime example for me recently was a great performance reminder from voice coach Marice Tobias (friends and fellow VO’s Bob Souer and Mary McKitrick are just two folks who go ga-ga for Marice’s teaching insights). My light bulb moment came courtesy of Tracy Pattin’s VoiceBank blog.

Among the many Tobias nuggets in the post taken from a recent AFTRA Mastery panel: “Go Too Far.”

If you’ve been at all trained as a voice talent, you may have been told that before. If not, then that phrase may seem odd. But for me it was a great kick in the pants.

Me of all people, sometimes the loudest person in the room if not the world when I carry on in a humorous way, needs to be reminded to make a performance bigger, more intense, more subtle, more brooding, more obnoxious (scary I know). But in taking my performance further, I can see how that sounds – see how it communicates and then, if need be, I can pull it back. But I need to dare myself to make it bigger, to take the risk, to get out of my comfort zone. I forget that performance imperative sometimes.

The nuggets are out there and today I found mine by reading Tracy’s blog post about Marice’s comment.

What performance or business nuggets have you found recently and where did you find them?

Tags: commentary, kick in the pants, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »

While being a life-long (mostly always) practicing Catholic, I try not to get into too many religious discussions here because that’s not the point of this blog. My beliefs are mine, your beliefs are yours and I’ve always been of the mind that there’s nothing wrong with that (what’s right for me is right for ME).

But what I will write here now will touch on Catholicism and you’ll get the context no matter your beliefs. I think it will, however, make you wonder no matter your belief system. Or maybe you’ll care not a smidge.

Wednesday, I was trying to look up the phone number of the very famous (Father Nelson Baker, known as the “Apostle of Charity” created it) and beautiful (please take a tour) Our Lady of Victory Basilica in Lackawanna, NY as I have some pending marketing business there. Being a web guy, I tried to do a quick Google search to find the phone number (because the phone book is so last century).

While searching, up came this article from the Buffalo News about Catholics not going to confession much today. The pastor at OLV was featured in the article which is why it came up in the search. I hadn’t seen the article and so I read it.

Now a brief primer on Catholic confession for the unfamiliar: considered an important Sacrament in the faith, Catholics meet with a priest in a room called the confessional to privately confess their mortal (gravely wrong desires, thoughts, words and actions performed with sufficient reflection and full consent of the will) sins and venial ( not grave, not committed with knowledge nor was it deliberate) sins. After discussion with the priest about the sins, there is usually absolution bestowed upon the confessor by the priest. (NOTE: there’s way more to confession than this – but this is a blog post, not a seminary class).

Back to my point, if you haven’t already changed channels, being that in this April, 2009 newspaper article on confession there was a wonderful quote from Rev. Richard Husted, pastor of St. Bonaventure Church in Allegany, who said about confession: “If you were sitting down having a cup of coffee with the Lord, what would he want to talk about?”

That struck a chord with me and I thought I would throw it out there on the net because I thought it would be thoughtful for Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. I figured I’d throw some perspective in there for folks etc.

So I paste the quote “If you were sitting down having a cup of coffee with the Lord, what would he want to talk about?” into my ping account and I look to see it was exactly 140 characters. Not 139, not 141 but 140 on the nose which is the maximum character count you can use on Twitter. I could offer no perspective, no color commentary because there wasn’t room….just the quote. So maybe I was not supposed to comment. I was just supposed to post it and see what happened

So I did.

audio'connell Twitter post, 7/8/09

I got some comments back and I specifically shut up, I didn’t respond. I decided that my job was just to expand the concept of the quote to a wider audience and let the conversation begin, good-bad-indifferent.

I just cannot get past the fact that the quote was kind in nature, thoughtful in content and exactly 140 characters in length.

Does God understand Social Media? I think I know the answer but I would be interested in your thoughts.

Tags: commentary by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
3 Comments »

The cynical would say when television networks produce anniversary shows it is to prove they are still relevant. While I get that argument, I look at it differently; I see it as a kind of a history lesson.

Maybe it is because I am so fascinated by such things that I found this blog post from the KINESCOPE HD blog so terrific. The post features clips from the 1978 production of CBS-TV (and to a degree, radio) celebrating its first 50 years.

What is so poignant for me watching this was seeing so many of the stars long since passed today shown healthy and vibrant and so duly noted in this 1978 special. I cannot help but imagine how cool it must have been back stage, not because of some past, present or future “celebrity” status but rather to have all those talented people together, mixing, sharing stories…what an amazing experience it must have been. Some egos? Sure…you’ll note the absence of a certain Jackie Gleason in the show. What’s up with that?! Maybe it was a “scheduling” thing.

Can you IMAGINE sitting, chatting and mostly listening to Lucille Ball, Red Skelton, George Burns and on and on – likely pleasant folks with mind-blowing stories and experiences and more than a few great belly laughs. So much to learn!

Also of note were some of the sets in the show which used graphics still on the air today on shows like CBS News Sunday Morning. The designs are classic and timeless, much like the network’s famous eye logo (shown respectfully above).

Look, the songs and the skits are a bit hokey but it was celebration and taken as a whole, a pretty OK one at that.

I hope you enjoy watching these clips as much as I did and kudos to KINESCOPE HD for putting it together. They always do a bang up job and I am a proud subscriber to their blog.

Tags: CBS Television Network, commentary by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on 1978 – cbs celebrates 50 years on the air