These kids in a 5th grade public elementary school in Staten Island, New York (not a school for the arts or a magnet program) have been seen on TV and heard on radio on lots of places.

But they are brand new to me as I was looking up alternate versions of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida this evening.

What touches me more than their beautiful voices and their teacher’s gift for reaching them and sharing his art with them are the looks of musical bliss and freedom within those faces. They know the song, they relish their moment and it is a special, unvarnished treat of musical wonderfulness.

Tags: commentary by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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If you haven’t heard (and I hadn’t until I saw a tweet on Saturday…I thought I was on a list or something) but Podcamp Toronto 2010 is set for February 20-21st again at Ryerson University in my favorite city.

It is a great event and I hope you will go. You will learn a lot about Social Media from some terrific people.

Unfortunately, the 2010 date again conflicts with my son’s birthday which, sorry #pcto2010 folks, is a much funer event for me, so I will likely not attend.

I went Sunday at Podcamp Toronto 2009 and the program just wasn’t as strong as it was on Saturday (as I was told by many Saturday attendees) plus there was some weird drama at the closing meeting that Sunday that we were all forced to witness. But hey, that’s life.

My guess is that this is going to be the event’s favored weekend forever and if so, I’ll have to walk away from it. But I still support it and what it offers in the form of education and networking.

I hope you’ll check it out.

Tags: commentary, podcamptoronto, podcamptoronto2010 by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Justin Kaiser

Some sad news for voice over and social media folks.

You may or may not have had the chance to interact with voice talent Justin Kaiser. I did, on-line, and he was a very pleasant guy with talents in a multiple of disciplines: voice over, social media, marketing.

I was terribly saddened to read on the VO-BB early this morning that Justin had died. While I am unable to find an obituary to link to at the moment, there is some info on the VO-BB link above. The WGFA radio web site (where Justin was Operations Manager and Morning Show host) indicated at the time of the post that Justin was suffering from complications following surgery around Christmas time.

While I am unsure how long his family will keep up his web sites, for the time being I think all you need to know about Justin and his family is found in this video that Justin recorded as he and his wife Diana hopefully mailed their adoption paperwork. Watch, listen and remember with a smile.

P.S. Here is a link the WGFA Radio fan page on Facebook, where you can also leave a message. We’re not bound by zip codes anymore.

Tags: commentary, radio, requiescat in pace, social media, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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There are many reasons I am odd in spite of my usually relatively composed demeanor:

* There are certain restaurants (many actually) where I always have the same thing everytime I go there. This makes some people in my life nuts because of my sameness and my disinterest in cooking

* I am fascinated my many aspects of design but I have always been fascinated by TV set design (side note: great web site here about set design). This fascination is especially odd because I am not handy at all…I couldn’t build a bird house let alone a news set.

* Finally (at least for this current list) I love jingles…commercial jingles, TV network promo campaign jingles and especially radio station jingles

Now maybe this last oddity is a hazard of my bidnez but I have always been drawn to it. I have collections of reel to reels and cassette demos of radio jingle packages from all the major companies and to this day I still have book marked sites for TM Studios , Jam Creative Productions, Reel World, M-Edge (which used to be N2 Effect), Studio Speak and others.

Prior to the internet, I thought I was alone in my enjoyment of all things jingle…but I am not.

There is a blog and podcast for us jinglephiles or jinglites or jinglonians (or what we’re supposed to be called): The Jingle News Show hosted by Stuart Barret with voice imaging for the show done by friend, voice over great Bob Taylor. It’s an especially cool show because it features radio jingles from around the world. I may not understand what they are saying by I like the musicality of many of them.

There are probably more but right now this is the one I subscribe to so if you’re interested, there you go.

If not, well, I am sorry but I can’t give you those wasted three minutes of your life back.

Tags: commentary, commercials, jingles, radio, voice talent by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Male Voice Talent Bob Souer

No but he plays Him in an audiobook. (Ba-dum-bump!)

About four years ago my friend, fellow traveler and sometimes dining companion Bob Souer was booked to narrate entire Bible in the “New King James” version.

Let me repeat: the entire Bible – all 700,000 plus words of it. It’s now been released.

Personally, I’ve always felt there was a bit of divine intervention in the booking because you’ll not find a more kind, Christian man with greater voice over talent than Bob.

If you or someone in your family enjoys absorbing Scripture, this would be an awesome gift, written by some awesome people and presented by an awesome guy.

Tags: announcers, audio books, casting, commentary, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I got a nice newsletter….more like an e-letter than an e-blast, because they are writers after all…from the folks over at Wordsworth Typing and Transcription Services.

They’ve provided transcription services for U.S. Presidents, Saudi Kings and late nights hosts named Conan.

OK, no they haven’t. I made that last part up but they have done work for me and they were good.

The part of the email they sent me that caught my attention was:

At Wordsworth we have been struck by the downturn in the economy. However, we are keenly aware that our customers are also affected. That is why we continue to keep our rates at $32/hour for all of our work. Our rates have not increased since the fall of 2006, in fact only being raised once in the past six years. We hope that keeping them at this level will be a help for those of you having hard times as well.

Pow! Honesty!

‘Our business got wacked by the economy but we’re still plugging along and we’re not planning on nailing you with rate increases to offset our losses.’

Fair enough. I have nothing that needs typing or transcription at the moment but I want these guys to get a leg up so please check out their link and give them a call. Retweet this post (note I don’t very often directly ask that). Or better yet, put them in your database now so when you need the service, they will be there.

My business is doing well but I’ve also known the tough times…we all have. They are times you shouldn’t forget…especially when you know others who are going (and getting) through them. Wordsworth is doing OK but they’d like to do better and I’m glad to help them do that here.

Long before social media, ours has always been known as a business community.

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