The world of voice over is full of unique, creative people.

As I have often said, voice talents do not compete against each other, we compete for the subjective ear of the producer. That’s why I enjoy my friendships with so many voice talents around the globe.

Talent is one thing, heart is another and most of the VO’s I know have large amounts of both, like Philip Banks.

He initiated a project Monday on the VO-BB which was akin to a festive audio chain letter among board members. Requesting we alternate between male and female voice talents on the board, he wrote out the poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and asked us to read two lines each. Philip started us off and chose DB Cooper to read the next line. DB read her lines and sent it to me, I did my lines and sent it to Kara Edwards and on it went until Philip had the entire production beautifully completed within 24 hours.

That was his gift to us. My gift to all the voice talents who participated is some “link love” so that you may know even more about these talented voice actors with whom I am so proud to be professionally associated.

LISTEN HERE TO: Twas the Night Before Christmas presented by the voice over talents of VO-BB.com

Merry Christmas to all –
1. Philip Banks
2. DB Cooper
3. Peter O’Connell
4. Kara Edwards
5. Bob Souer
6. Diane Maggipinto
7. Todd Ellis
8. Connie Terwilliger
9. Brian Hart
10. Moe Egan
11. Greg Littlefield
12. Mary McKitrick
13. Michael Rhys
14. Liz de Nesnera
15. Frank Frederick
16. Tammy McDaniel
17. Greg Phelps
18. Caryn Clark
19. Greg Allen
20. Marcy Worthington
21. Frank Frederick
22. Liz de Nesnera
23. Michael Rhys
24. Mary McKitrick
25. Todd Ellis
26. Liz de Nesnera
27. David Monteath
28. Mary McKitrick
29. Philip Banks
30. Kara Edwards

Tags: announcers, audio production, character voices, commentary, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I have been remiss in the crunch of work and holidays and kidney stones (don’t ask) to thank fellow voice professional Todd Ellisfor joining me for dinner last week when I traveled to St. Louis.

Todd has enjoyed a successful voice over career part time and now (for the past five years) full time. He has a wonderfully humorous disposition which meshes well with mine.

At the complex that housed the restaurant where we ate, Todd stopped by KTRS-AM, meeting with an old radio colleague of Todd’s, Shawn Balint, who is a news anchor at the station. (The picture features Shawn, me and Todd)

Together, we all shared many funny radio and announcing stories and proved yet again, when you are in voice over, you’ve got a friend in almost every city.

Tags: announcers, commentary, peter o'connell, radio, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Two things about voice over work:

1. It’s often anonymous…people hear our voices but other than a few family members, friends, clients or industry pros, no one knows its us. And that’s just fine by me.
2. Jobs often last from anywhere from 15 – 30 minutes and unless you’ve hooked a ad campaign, VO’s are off fishing for their next job and soon as they leave the studio

So it is with great awe that I announce to you the vocal retirement from NBC News of announcer Howard Reig. He has been introducing the NBC News’ evening broadcast going back to the days of The Huntley Brinkley Report and straight through to NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.

Howard really retired from the network a few years ago, but they liked his voice so much they kept using it. And his retirement kinda fell under the radar. So now, let’s take note.

December 14th was the last broadcast of his voice, with NBC’s blog post offering up a tease of a new “familiar” voice to be unveiled on December 17th’s broadcast (possibly ala Walter Cronkite’s announce for the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

But with an estimate of having introduced over 7,000 broadcasts, not including his career at WGY in Schenectady, NY, he’s held his voice over job for a truly impressive stretch. And the performance while anonymous was always spot on.

On the Nightly News blog post Friday, I left a comment for a man whom I have never met but who I know would have some wonderful stories to share about a great career:

Howard:

From one voice over professional to another, my sincerest congratulations on a terrific career. And kudos to NBC News for honoring you for your years of service. You give the rest of us an example of excellence to strive for.

Best always,
– Peter

I hope all my fellow voice over professionals with also sign the NBC News’ blog post’s “guest book” and let Howard know that we too respect all that he has been able to accomplish and wish him well. Wow, what an impressive ride!

Tags: announcers, commentary, NBC Nightly News, peter o'connell, radio, tv, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Thanksgiving in the ATL was great (once I finally got there). It was lovely fall weather there and we even brought them some much needed rain.

One of the real treats was having lunch with September Day Leach, an Atlanta voice over talent and soon to be Los Angeles voice over talent (yes Bob, I forgot the camera again). She’ll not be falling off the Greyhound bus with stars in her eyes once she reaches the west coast…this young woman has some tremendous voice credits already including serving as the voice/announcer for the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards (check out the name on the cast list right after Avril Lavigne).

We shared many fun stories and helped lay the ground work for some seriously impressive marketing opportunities for her. Expect to be hearing her even more in the near future.

My thanks to Karen Commins, Lance Blair and Scott Pollack, September’s fellow Atlantan voice talents who wanted to join us but had commitments that didn’t allow time for my (as per usual with me) last minute get together. Maybe next time.

Tags: announcers, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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The great thing about being asked “what do you do for a living?” is telling people that I am a voice over talent which often times is followed up by “what’s a voice over talent?” I get to tell them about my business because they asked me…I didn’t force explaination on them. That is a sales person’s dream!

The bad thing about that scenario is how often it happens and how monotonous the explaination can feel after a while.

Well leave it to voice talent and teacher Bettye Zoller to spend the time to define it for all of us so we can just send people to a web site after they back up the Brinks truck with the oodles of money they’re going to pay us for our voice over talent.

I really enjoyed the part where she rattled off examples of the type of work we do because I often forget a few:

Voiceover talents today are hired to narrate audio books, anime, cartoons, videos, films, and cable TV programs. They are the voices of toys, talking picture frames, cell phone messages, talking greeting cards, your car’s GPS navigation system, and everything else that’s manufactured with a computer chip inside of it on which a voice track can be stored and played. Voiceover talents greet you (and annoy you!) on thousands upon thousands of those pesky recorded telephone messages and IVR systems. They talk to you through ceiling speakers while you shop in stores. You hear voiceover talents trying to convince you to buy cosmetics at your department store on a video playing over and over (looping) next to those expensive cosmetic products! The military uses voiceovers in training projects and the educational field also uses voice actors for educational endeavors. Nearly every classroom today, kindergarten through post-graduate study in universities sports a large TV monitor in a corner on which educational videos are played. Sometimes, it seems that a teacher doesn’t talk very much anymore. Rather, schools teach a majority of the time with videos.

Thanks Bettye for taking the time to slap that together. You can read the whole article here if you like.

Tags: announcers, character voices, commentary, narrations, podcasting, radio, tv, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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My friend and re-newed Mom (welcome baby Daphne) Stephanie Ciccarelli posted on her Vox Daily blog a fun question: “What Attracted You To Radio?” At the risk of parroting my voice over compadre David Houston who has previously done what I am about to do (and probably did it better) here is my response to the post offering you a little peek into my inner geek (oh, you KNOW you wanted to look, admit it!)

“I was in kindergarten in 1969 at Mount St. Joseph Academy (well, it was called the Medaille School then but it changed and…aw you don’t care).

Sister Donna Marie took the class on a field trip to a radio station – WEBR. Now up until that point, I was under the distinct impression that the music coming out of the radio came from a building where all these musicians stood around waiting their turn to play their songs live on the radio.

Imagine my surprise.

We stood in the control room and watched the broadcast live and I was mesmerized. Knobs and lights and oooo what’s that? A microphone! I want me one of those!

Wait, it gets geekier.

Some kids like to draw space ships or cowboys.I drew pictures of radio and TV studios.100’s of them. Microphones, cameras, technicians. Paging Dr. Freud!

Um, it gets geekier.

I’m in 2nd or 3rd grade and I come across an audio production catalog which has….microphones! Oh I thought that was the coolest thing. Lots of em to broadcast my voice. I finally got a used one and I thought it was super cool. It didn’t work, it wasn’t hooked up to anything but I had me a microphone.

Fast forward early high school where it occurred to me after everyone said I had a nice voice (my Dad had won public speaking awards in high school and my mom wanted to work in Television before women were really permitted to do such things…do you think the broadcasting bug I have was genetic?) I started reading copy from magazines like they were radio scripts. And I gave them pretty good reads. The quizzically look my Mother gave me one day when she heard this was priceless (“what are you doing?”) But I was too far gone.

College time rolls around and I am looking for a broadcasting program. I thought I would head right to one of the best broadcasting programs in the east, Syracuse University, until they said “no” (who wants to be an “Orangeman” anyway…what the hell is an “Orangeman”). The University of Dayton I liked for many reasons not the least of which was their 50,000 FM commercial (non of this public radio stuff) station broadcasting to three states with a professional GM, PD and sales staff….and all student air staff.

WVUD-FM was the equivalent of Geek Bingo!

What an amazing introduction into broadcasting and my future in radio and voice over. Sadly, the University sold the station and now one of the big radio chains owns it, WLQT (an old competitor, Kim Faris, a staple at Z-93 for years now does mornings on Lite 99.9…very nice lady).

But what an introduction and what a ride.”

Tags: announcers, audio production, blogs, commentary, media, radio, tv, university of dayton, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, WVUD by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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