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MEDIA RELEASE – Audio on Video for audio’connell Voice Over Talent

audio'connell Media Release

BUFFALO, New York, June 29, 2010 – – Television and video have always been a part of audio’connell Voice Over Talent’s profession – it has been simply to provide the voice-overs for commercials, narrations and television promos’ — until now.

The company has unveiled its own YouTube Channel (http://www.youtube.com/audioconnell) that features examples of their client work as well as original voiceover-based videos. audio’™connell Voice Over Talent’s owner, Peter K. O’Connell, noted the new video channel helps explain even more clearly the services his company offers.

“We now have generations of visual learners in our world. Our company has been honored to support those visuals with our audio for a long time. So it seemed like a nature progression, given the technology now available, that we support our audio with visuals from client work we’ve completed. We hope it will give viewers a better context for how our audio was used and how it might be used to support an upcoming video project,” O’Connell said.

In addition to video samples of client work featuring the company’s voice talent, Mr. O’Connell has also produced original videos about auditioning for voice over projects, producing audio for commercials and an exclusive tour of the recently opened Don LaFontaine Voice-over Lab in L.A.

The company will not be producing any client videos. “Anyone who watches one of the videos that we’ve produced will immediately understand why we are an audio company,” O’Connell chuckled.

audio’connell Voice-Over Talent is a worldwide, English language-based voice talent organization. The company also operates International Voice Talents, a company featuring professional foreign language male and female voice actors. audio’connell Voice-Over Talent and International Voice Talents provide voice talent for commercials, animation, corporate narrations, documentaries, broadcast voice imaging, audio books, podcasts and messaging on-hold (MOH). Industries served by the two companies include advertising agencies, media and broadcast production companies as well as both large and small businesses around the world.

Mr. O’Connell also owns Voice Over Workshop, which provides professional voice over training to novice and experienced voice talent world-wide.

audio’connell Voice Over Talent, International Voice Talents and Voice Over Workshop are all a part of O’Connell Communications, LLC.
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NOTES TO EDITORS

Company Media Releases ON LINE:
http://www.audioconnell.com/media

Company Name Pronunciation:
au·dio·o’·con·nell (awe-de-oh-oh-kah-nel) or au·di-o’·con·nell (awe-de-oh-kah-nel)

Company Name Spelling:
Use lower case letters- audio’connell or audio’connell Voice-Over Talent

Company Web:
http://www.audioconnell.com

Company Blog:
http://www.voxmarketising.com

O’Connell Voice-Over Resume:
See resume here

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social media day is june 30th

Did you know Social Media Day was June 30th this year?

Neither did I.

Since the logo indicates its the social media version of a Hallmark holiday (as its sponsored by the web site Mashable) I think it might not have made it onto alot of calendars.

What makes this interesting to me though is that their are Meet-ups scheduled across the GLOBE (almost 600 of them) for Social Media Day, there’s even a Social Media Day Meet-up in Buffalo, NY.

Color me stunned.

So I’ve signed up to see who will be there and providing I don’t fall asleep (it starts at 8PM for goodness sake, that’s like an all-nighter for me) I’ll be there. Hash tag #smday.

Did YOU know it was Social Media Day? Do you care? Would you attend an event in your area?

kodak risks getting it wrong

Does this picture represent Kodak quality?

So my brother-in-law and I are strolling the grounds of the Locust Hill Country Club in Rochester, NY on Sunday enjoying the LPGA Championship there, presented by Wegmans.

A few quick notes – sadly, there are not enormous crowds respecting and enjoying the talents of these great golfers – happily, that makes it easier and more comfortable to get around. This is a MAJOR championship for Ladies Professional Golf Association (like the Masters and the PGA Championship for the men). My father-in-law and I have long agreed that the LPGA tournaments are some of the most enjoyable because of the the access and quality of golf guests experience. Also of note, most of the good merchandise is sold out by Sunday at these tournaments.

But now on to Kodak.

So Kodak was a huge American corporation based in Rochester and in spite of changes to photography that the company didn’t always weather well, the company seems to be enjoying a bit of a resurgence (a quick example, I own and enjoy my Kodak Zi8 video camera which I purchased in the past year based on a presentation I saw by Kodak’s very gracious Jennifer Cisney). This is all great for Kodak and the city of Rochester, NY. I want Kodak to succeed.

They are one of the sponsors of the LPGA Championship and as such had a fairly big tent with the chance for guests to get their picture taken with the LPGA Championship trophy as a free gift. A lady from Kodak stopped us and beckoned us into the tent for a picture and we said sure.

The above photo, taken by Kodak, had us standing in front of a green screen with the trophy on the podium. It was taken by what I assume was Kodak cameras, set up by Kodak staff and assembled on Kodak software to allow the images to be mixed.

Setting aside the obvious – that the two subjects (at least one of them) are not terribly photogenic in the best of circumstances- if you are Kodak, I would assume you would want this cute, silly throw away (possibly) memento to have outstanding photographic quality in reproduction, color, contrast, lighting, framing….the whole deal. Cameras, imaging and photo reproduction are what the Kodak brand is all about.

I looked at the picture and I thought – it looks as if my wife or anybody else could have taken it. It was washed out, the framing was odd (likely because of the background and the logo they put in) and basically I was underwhelmed.

Maybe I am highly critical because I’m more involved in media and marketing than most people. Maybe most people DON’T make the correlation between a photo booth picture and quality imaging and photography…but if they don’t, why would Kodak do the booth?

If you or I host a silly photo booth at a carnival with our little cameras, people aren’t expecting too much. But when you are Kodak – an iconic leader of photography and imaging in the U.S. and the world – I think people do and should expect higher quality and I think if you are Kodak you should want and expect to provide it.

I think Kodak tried to do the right thing here with the booth, I just think the execution needs to be tweaked. I know that it would be difficult to adjust photographic conditions for hundreds of individual photographs…but I think there’s got to be a better way for them to achieve a higher quality product even with a mass assembly line process.

It’s Kodak, it’s America – shouldn’t we expect their best?

showing off my true geek

audio'connell's YouTube channel

So I’ve been doing more videos on my YouTube channel, a channel some of you have subscribed to and others of you have totally blown off which is fine except you miss some OK content with more content still in development.

The videos I’ve been shooting (in HD no less) on my Kodak Zi8 have been OK quality and I am re-learning video editing on with Windows movie maker – which sounds about as painful as it is…I’ve not worked with it personally but I just have a gut sense that Apple does all this easier. Oh well, not going there.

Any way, lots of people (more than I realized before today) have actually watch this stuff. When I was at VOICE 2010 people said “hey, saw your videos on the blog, they’re great.” For some reason I thought they were kidding or being polite or politely kidding. They weren’t.

But I was a little nervous about the branding for all this. I’ve wanted to keep it low key but the purpose of social media is to get a bits of branding out there. I didn’t have a concept for how to do this until about a week or two weeks ago. At which point I imagined a concept and then imagined how much I’d have to pay some graphics person (or hobo with a mac) to create my idea.

Then I turned to the web and YouTube and realized how amazingly easy it was to execute my idea….which of course took me 3x longer than a smart, talented person but I’ll take my meager successes where I can find them. Plus I had to reload all the videos so my stats for these videos got zeroed out…but to those who watched, I say thank you.

So I finished my intro and added them to my three original shorts and will craft something for the voiceover demo pieces as well – although I just want to throw my name up there so it doesn’t look like I actually produced the videos I simply voiced.

To follow is likely amateurish and unprofessional to most but I was amazed it came out looking as good as it did anyway.

It’s at the very beginning of this piece and I didn’t have the budget to rent a lion like the folks over at MGM (I suppose you have to be of a certain age to get the humor in that). I hope you like it.

bob souer talks about anxiety and progress

Two thoughts before I include a link to Bob Souer’s blog post:

1. When Bob sits down to truly share his thoughts on his blog – it’s always among the most worthwhile stuff on the net to read.

2. For as long as I’ve known Bob (which seems like forever – in a good way- but really isn’t) I can’t ever imagine him being anxious. Obviously he’s human but Bob reminds me more of a duck: gliding seemingly effortlessly across the water but paddling like the dickens under the water.

Now read this, and then this post on HMHB.org about anxiety.

Thanks.

the recorded feed from the opening of the don lafontaine voiceover lab

Don LaFontaine Voiceover Lab

True to his word, George Whittam recorded the entire opening last night.

If you weren’t there (and most of us weren’t in spite of generous invitations) here’s what you (and I) missed. The ribbon cutting takes place at about 19 minutes in.

Thanks George.

Thanks Don.