How’s that for an informative, succinct headline?

For those of you still unsure of its meaning: the 2009 Unofficial Casting Call for the Announcer for ABC’s “World News with Diane Sawyer” will end THIS MONDAY, (January 4th in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Ten). At 5:00 p.m. eastern time (1700 hrs)….”that’s all there is, there isn’t any more.”

After that time, the judges will whittle all the fake auditions (faux-ditions, if you will) submissions down to their 10 best; voting will then begin.

No, you won’t get the real job and no there is no prize except for bragging rights.

If you haven’t yet submitted your faux-dition (you lazy so and so!), you can read all the details here on how to submit. We’d love to hear your take on the job!

And if you think you’re too cool or too talented to submit for a phony audition…you’re not. You’re just a yella bellied chicken!

Tags: ABC News, announcers, fauxdition, unofficial audition by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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James Brown - the Hardest Working Man in Show Business

While James Brown may have been the hardest working man in show business (correctly pronounced by those of us in the industry as “bid-nez”), I am going to canonize myself as the hardest working man in voice over (correctly pronounced by those of us in the industry as “voice talking”).

Picture if you will (channeling Rod Serling) a vigorous lake effect snow storm with 30 m.p.h. gusts and blinding snow falls and an even earlier than usual darkness that falls over the city from the ginormous (that’s a meteorological term…maybe) snow cloud that had covered the area. The snow drifts alone had to be 25 miles high! And those were the small ones.

These tsu-nado-zzard conditions made travel unfit for neither man nor beast. But being a beast of a man and having a commercial recording session in a downtown studio scheduled in the midst of this blizz-tor-nami, I grabbed my dogs and my sled (and my light spring jacket…I’m a native Buffalonian after all) and sprang into action.

Buffalo, NY on December 28, 2009 at the corner of Delaware and Chippewa - about two miles from the recording studio

I dodged stalled cars and busses, ran over old ladies on the sidewalks (when I could find them) and flew around turns like an Olympic luge driver who’d failed his drug tests multiple times all to make it to my appointed recording session where, of course, I performed spectacularly for the people in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.

They won’t know how hard I worked for them when they hear my spots or what a bombastic, egotistical, self-aggrandizing bone-head I am….but now you do.

Tags: buffalo, commentary, peter o'connell, silliness, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Tags: commentary by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Tags: commentary by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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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 k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I have been talked in off the ledge (so to speak) on this forum and on others regarding yesterday’s post about whether to continue with the Unofficial Voice Over Casting Call for World News with Diane Sawyer.

Last night, during the debut, there WAS a new announcer, ending the decades old reign of the great announcer Bill Rice. I wasn’t sure, given the circumstances then, if it would be in good taste to continue the fun event.

I am told (repeatedly and unanimously now) it is in perfectly good taste so we shall carry on and gladly accept your continued submissions probably up until the first of the year (January 1, 2010).

Tell a buddy, bring a friend… game on for faux-ditions, baby!

Tags: ABC News, commentary, fauxdition, unofficial audition by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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