I was updating some blog comments tonight (which I always fall behind on and I apologize…I love when you comment -thank you- but in getting to my comment responses, well, life gets in the way) and I noticed that this blog has almost 3,000 comments from over 1,000 posts!

Now, I know in voice-over blog land, the big guys have triple those amounts etc., as they should.

And in big boy blog land, my stats pale in comparison.

Nor am I looking for adulation or congrats.

But with only me writing and you reading, where did we two ever amass THOSE kinds of numbers?!

I’m not sure if it’s me or you but one of us needs to get out more.

But thanks, too.

Tags: blogs by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Today’s 5 Questions for a Professional Voice Over Talent are answered by Rick Lance, a professional voice-over talent based in Nashville, Tennesee.

1. The beginning: When did you know you wanted to be a voiceover talent; how did your career begin (please include what year it started) and then when did your passion for voiceover develop into something professional?

In 1993 was singing a songwriter demo in a large Nashville studio (one source of income while trying to find my way to country music super stardom) when the engineer ask me if I’d do this TV Commercial for his desperate client. I said, ” Ok, do you have a tape of it?” He said, no, we have a script.” I said, what… you mean you just want me to talk?” That was my first voice over. I’m sure it really sucked but it worked for the client and I made $100.00.

Although, it made me think more about VO work and what it really is, it took many years for me to take it seriously enough to think I could make a living at it. My music and the commercial photography studio business I had were my priorities. But soon I began taking acting workshops, doing some theater and on camera work.

The funniest thing I did was about a half a dozen cheesy Karaoke videos (with beautiful babe, arm-in-arm running through fields of daisies and such) for the Japanese market. And I was in several country music videos and a couple of B films.

All along I was doing VO gigs and I began to get busier with them. About 7 years ago I went full time as I finally had burned out on the music biz and was tired of trying to keep my photo business alive. Technology changes were killing the small photographers and we were dropping like flies.

2. What is the one thing you know now that you wish someone had told you when you first started out in voiceover?

That it would become so easy for every “yahoo” with a microphone and a computer to enter the business and glut the market with substandard work. Which is exactly what happened when digital photography became the norm. Every nut with a new camera called himself a professional forcing me to compete with that. I was a Photographer’s Mate in the US Navy, mostly in a Photo Recon air crew, but I had photo training in Photographic A School, Pensacola, FL and continued on in college with photo and communication studies after discharge. At the same time, however, the accessibility of less expensive, high quality recording equipment allowed me to enter the VO biz! But I also entered with talent, ability and a basic plan.

3. What do you see as the biggest professional or personal obstacle you face that impacts your voiceover business and how are you working to overcome it?

When I entered the field I thought that not having a radio background or broadcast training would become a problem. But I found out that the trend was for a more natural, real-people kind of sound for commercial work and other forms of media communications that were being developed.

Mostly, now the greatest challenge involves always increasing my brand… cutting through the clutter, seeking out those opportunities out there.. and keeping consistently as busy as I want to be, with my yearly income consistently well into the six figures.

4. What personal trait or professional tool has helped you succeed the most in your career so far?

First, my musical background… my ability to hear pitch, texture, dynamics, timing, etc. Second, some acting on camera and theater background and third, my aging voice seems to simply add more appeal to the clients and prospective clients that come my way. Also my basic understanding of audio and recording gear helped keep the learning curve less curvy.

5. In your development as a voice over performer, who has been the one particular individual or what has been the one piece of performance advice (maybe a key performance trick, etc.) that you felt has had the most impact on your actual voice over performance and why?

As voice actors we need to be very visual people and react truly from the heart. My photo business experience and natural photographic ability allows me to isolate a moment in time while I’m reading a script. If I can see it, feel it, smell it, taste it, etc. I can perform more effectively. As I said earlier, my musical ability comes in mighty handy as well.

As far as people and other influences… James Alburger & Penny Abshire, Pat Fraley, Harlan Hogan, Randy Thomas & Peter Rofe, Rodney Saulsberry, Susan Berkely… through their books, CDs, workshops and on line resources…. as well as several music biz folks, Robert Redford, Rex Allen, Walt Disney, my Italian mother, horses, dogs and Native American philosophy.

Tags: 5 Questions for a Professional Voice Over Talent, 5Q:VO, commentary, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Oh how we love to talk about voice-over.

We have meetings, we have meet-ups, we have bulletin boards, we have blogs and Facebooks and LinkedIn and Twitters galore!

But the dirty little secret is…when we are on social media THAT much, we’re not working enough. We’re not DOING the business of voice-over enough. So we do that which is easier…we socialize.

Two quick points: if you look at that list, you can check my name as an active participant on many of those items. And the second point is I can get lazy too. So I can be accused, to a degree, as being guilty as charged.

But oh, how we rationalize.

We all think there is marketing method to our social media madness. In some cases there is – this blog, for example, regular helps my search engine marketing results and I can prove that. So alot of my social media focus on the ‘Twitbookedin’ are repostings of my blog posts (which I suck at compared to guys like Paul Strikwerda who reposts his weeklys every darn place and has billions of readers and millions of comments and I can’t decide if that makes me more bitter or jealous of my talented voice-over/writer friend but I think in the end I’m just lazy and he’s probably written a blog about that already and I can’t keep up with him so I’ll just schedule a nap soon).

This week I saw a Facebook post from Terry Daniel saying he got a voice-over job from Facebook. Great!

I’m sure there are few other similar stories out there but I’m pretty sure the quantity of VO social media users is not, in any algorithm, equivalent to the number of voice over jobs closed using social media.

I think if we’re honest with ourselves (because it’s social media so we’ll want to temper our honesty with each other, TMI, etc.) we get on these groups in Facebook and LinkedIn and other independent web sites because we are not recording, our minds wander and suddenly we’ve lost an hour of the day.

If we had an employee who we were paying who did that, we’d be pissed. Rightly so.

We don’t need over two dozen voice-over groups on the ‘Twitbookedin’ but they keep popping up there and on other independent web sites because they keep getting populated by VO’s.

Here’s a question for you: can you name, without checking, every voice-over related social media site and group you are currently a member of?

My guess is that you’re probably like me: they all just run together.

There’s your answer.

Now, what’s the solution?

Tags: commentary by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Today’s 5 Questions for a Professional Voice Over Talent are answered by Peter Bishop, a professional voice-over talent based in Bellport, NY.

1. The beginning: When did you know you wanted to be a voiceover talent; how did your career begin (please include what year it started) and then when did your passion for voiceover develop into something professional?

I was pretty late to the game. I have no long history with voice work, but have always been active on the technical side of audio production. My father was an engineer, so it was almost pre-ordained that I would follow that path with an apprenticeship and college for electronics and telecommunications. I was able to transfer my “professional” skills over to my passion, which was working in and around the local music scene. That part started back in the seventies when I started producing demos, driving mixing desks and generally doing as much as I could to be a part of the local scene without actually playing (I just didn’t have the musical chops), but a guy with a Revox and a four-track could be very useful back then! Apart from working with the bands, I used to produce my own stuff as well… all a little esoteric… Musique concrète loops, textures and the like… I became quite adept at building the electronics and manipulating tape. I’m certainly no stranger to the splicing block and china-graph (grease) pencil! I have fond memories of twenty-foot tape loops wrapping themselves around microphone stands and door handles as I built ever changing (and ever-decaying) loops and “aural sculptures”. I walked away from my “hobbies” when my company moved me to the US about fifteen years ago.

As a Brit in the US (especially when not in the big city) you get used to people commenting on your voice and can become quite dismissive about it. It took my partner to convince me that it wasn’t just the accent that was being remarked on… but my timbre, delivery, vocabulary and all that other good stuff. She convinced me that what I had was a saleable commodity, and as I was reluctant to climb back on any type of corporate horse (I’d run screaming from the corporate world in 2004), maybe there was a path here. To be honest, she was keen to get me out of what had become a post-corporate malaise and lack of focus. God bless supportive partners!

So, I launched forth in late 2009. My technical background and familiarity with the tools, both hardware & software, made it a relatively easy option to start up with a P2P site… and my experience from being a training officer and a corporate presenter used to ducking and diving in front of a big room was going to get me lots of work… right? Well, not exactly, but that’s when my journey really began. A couple of technical narration gigs gave me the impetus to push forward.

2. What is the one thing you know now that you wish someone had told you when you first started out in voiceover?

When I started I didn’t understand the market properly. Educational work was fairly straightforward as I was able to draw on experiences from my years of writing and presenting course material… I had no problems with technical subject matter, but I seemed to be getting nowhere with other work. I was either delivering clearly and concisely, or stretching too far. I had no middle ground. It was listening to other VOs via the on-line community that helped me identify my strengths and weaknesses. I began to understand what was saleable, and what wasn’t… and where I needed to concentrate my efforts, both in honing my saleable skills and developing my shortcomings. It’s all about playing to your strengths and not trying to be something you’re not. I’m now happily resigned to the fact that I’ll never be asked to read “Sunday, Sunday, Sunday” or “In a world…”

3. What do you see as the biggest professional or personal obstacle you face that impacts your voiceover business and how are you working to overcome it?

Currently I have a reasonably healthy repeat client list for educational and narration work, but have had limited exposure on the commercial side. Like every other Brit in the US, I’ve done the standard Jaguar dealer spots as the “sophisticated” Brit, and a fair amount of success when anyone’s looking for a Michael Caine or Jason Statham type, but this is an area I really need to work on. Since last year, I’ve been getting some success with audiobooks, but I feel that I really need to work on my accents. I still am very unhappy with my American accent, which is a little surprising as I’ve lived here fifteen years! I can generally be comfortable with regional British, European or various world accents, but my American accents still sound pushed and false. The remedy is practice, and getting over being too self-conscious in my delivery. That, and acting lessons!

4. What personal trait or professional tool has helped you succeed the most in your career so far?

I think I have developed an ability to picture my audience. The whole issue about who I’m supposed to be talking to… one person, a small group, a boardroom or whatever. Once I’d embraced what I was doing wrong, it started to fall into place. I try to keep a picture of my audience in my mind during a read, and it helps a lot.

5. In your development as a voice over performer, who has been the one particular individual or what has been the one piece of performance advice (maybe a key performance trick, etc.) that you felt has had the most impact on your actual voice over performance and why?

This one’s difficult to answer. It’s impossible to single out any one person or piece of information as making the difference… there are so many who have been helpful. The main aid to my development has been the community of VOs that have welcomed me. It’s too easy to be insular and locked away in your own world, but once you start to relate to peers and share, the effect is astonishing. To this end, the greatest community “enablers” for me are DB Cooper for all her work with the VO-BB… without which I would probably never have launched my career, and Amy Snively, the driving force behind Faffcon, without which I probably wouldn’t have been able to go completely full-time last year. To be with peers and learn from them is invaluable. I have found VOs to be the most helpful and sharing group of people… we are not in competition, but follow the ethos of “a rising tide floats all boats” with a passion.

Tags: 5 Questions for a Professional Voice Over Talent, 5Q:VO, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Sometimes I get a little behind in my blog ideas.

Often, I sift through my web browsing and my google reader and I note so many wonderful ideas for a blog post that I just don’t have time (at that very moment) to write about. So I click “save” or “unread” so I’ll have them in my file.

And then I keep them there and I never get around to them. Then comes a day like today where I am hell-bent on getting these ideas out but there are too many to write up individual blogs posts about and yet I am NOT going let them stay in my blog reader one minute more.

So this post will feature a link to all of them with maybe some notes from me on why I thought this was cool and you can decide for yourself.

Pintrest? WTH?: If you were to look for a pintrest board from me you wouldn’t find squat cause I don’t see a use for it yet, but remember, I am a famously late adopter in Social Media. You know how Courvo gets to everything first? I’m nearer to the opposite end of that spectrum. BUT for those in advertising and marketing (which almost every voice-over talent is, whether they like it or not) I saw that my friends at the logo critique web site, Brand New, have a new Pintrest board. It’s loaded with pins to their favorite logos and logo related stories. I enjoyed it.

Comic-Con: I’ve never been but I hope someday to actually go.

Peter O’Toole is one of my favorite actors, mostly because he was the star of one of my favorite movies, My Favorite Year. This week he announced his retirement from acting. I understand it but I’m still a little sad about it. All his amazing talent, multiple Oscar nominations but he never won an Oscar. That confirms for me what I’ve recently surmised: the Oscars are really nothing more than a 4 hour string of commercials occasionally interrupted by some trophy toting circus performers. Sorry Mercedes.

Evidently, a long talked about movie about voice-over is closer to production. Here’s a link to the trailer and no I’m not in the movie.

Someone who IS in the movie is the great voice actress June Foray. The big news here is June recently won her FIRST Emmy Award at age 94 for her work as Mrs. Cauldron on “The Garfield Show” on Cartoon Network. It’s about damn time!

Also under the about damn time category, George Whittam decries that its about damn time somebody found a decent audio interface for the iPad and iPhone. The winner at this point is the Studio Six Digital IAudioInterface2 as blogged by George via a report from voice-over talent Beau Weaver. The Beau/George report (not be confused with the Huntley/Brinkley report) can be found here.

Benztown Voiceover grabbed a very nice interview Voice Talent and WPLJ Creative Services Director Dan Kelly that I think is worth the read.

Finally, it might have been back in 1957 that Unnouncer Doug Turkel gave me the heads up that Twitter changed it branding, the Floridian knowing well how much I like logo news. And I do/did except I didn’t get on this in a very timely manner. But in case you’re one of the 12 that did NOT hear about the change, here’s a quick summary.

There’s probably more but my laptop battery is dying and I don’t feel like plugging in.

Best always,
-Me

Tags: commentary, social media, technology, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Today’s 5 Questions for a Professional Voice Over Talent are answered by Michelle Ann Dunphy, a professional voice-over talent based in Los Angeles, CA.

1. The beginning: When did you know you wanted to be a voiceover talent; how did your career begin (please include what year it started) and then when did your passion for voiceover develop into something professional?

Alright, well I knew I wanted voice over to be a part of my life at a young age. I decided that I wanted to be a Disney Princess, like many young girls around the world. When I learned that there were voices behind the Princesses, I figured that was how I was going to accomplish my ultimate goal. My parents bought me a $10 mic at Radio Shack and now… ?! years later, here I am. I did radio plays and fandubs (fan made ADR for Japanese animation) as a teenager, then I went off to college to study Theatre and worked a part time radio DJ job.

It was always a professional goal for me, but the big turning point that pushed me to move to Los Angeles happened right after graduating from college in 2005. I got a job as a DJ at an oldies radio station in a small town in Wisconsin a few days after taking my last final. I was on air for only a couple weeks when I realized that I hated being on air, but I loved doing the voice over work for commercials during the break. I came home that day and told my husband to start applying for jobs in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. I signed up for the online voice over lead websites to start practicing. He got a job in LA and I immediately dived into voice over classes upon arrival.

2. What is the one thing you know now that you wish someone had told you when you first started out in voiceover?

Be prepared to spend a lot of money. I like how Bob Bergen explains preparing for a voice over career. It’s an investment of both time and money. I worked a lot of long, hard hours at my day job and spent a lot of money on training, demos, equipment, etc. to get where I am today. Why? Because I’m insane! Voice over is part of who I am. I’ve tried to quit. I can’t, which is why I did whatever I could to be able to wake up every morning and play pretend for a living. 🙂

3. What do you see as the biggest professional or personal obstacle you face that impacts your voiceover business and how are you working to overcome it?

My biggest personal obstacle is being a mom of a toddler. While I have a home studio with ISDN & the works (Thanks George Whittam!), I still have to do the babysitter scramble in order to have someone keep him quiet while I record or to watch him while I drive to a session at a studio in town. It’s tough trying to balance work and family when your job is mostly from home and you have a strong sense of urgency involved. I know most moms would agree that it’s hard to balance work and family.

Professionally? Knowing my worth. Turning away work is the hardest thing in the world to do, but I’m starting to really feel comfortable knowing what I’m worth and not doing something that isn’t on par with industry standards. If we want the industry to be respected, we need to respect each other and ourselves so that we can all get fair rates! 🙂

4. What personal trait or professional tool has helped you succeed the most in your career so far?

Perhaps, my insanity? I say this with a laugh, but seriously, you have to be a little insane to do this job. You are constantly facing rejection. 99% of the job is doing auditions. You send them out into the world and forget about them. That was hard for me at first, but it’s definitely a professional attitude I worked on cultivating to help me make it through. It also helps that I’m a pretty big goof most of the time and just love being in the booth – be it audition or job. 🙂

5. In your development as a voice over performer, who has been the one particular individual or what has been the one piece of performance advice (maybe a key performance trick, etc.) that you felt has had the most impact on your actual voice over performance and why?

If this were a verbal interview, you would have heard me state “Richard Horvitz” here without even letting you finish the question. Richard has been my mentor for awhile now and I do not know where I’d be without him. Not only did he help me learn how to relax and just have fun playing pretend, but he’s also been a supportive and kind friend throughout the whole process. I actually organize his classes now because I feel so passionately that everyone should have a chance studying with him! He is an absolute gem of a person and a fantastic actor & teacher to boot.

Tags: 5 Questions for a Professional Voice Over Talent, 5Q:VO, commentary, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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