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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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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It’s true, many of us surf the net with no real purpose. One link begets another begets another and so on. The fun part of this blog today is that I can actually remember HOW I got to the link I am about to share with you (even though I didn’t start my surfing with any desire to find an idea for a blog post).

I started at Bob Souer’s blog, whose voice over blog is pretty much read by all in the biz (mine, on the other hand, is read by my wife and now you…but you only found this by mistake I’m nearly sure). Bob was kind enough to write up and link to a post I had late last week. I posted a couple of comments on Bob’s blog and then fished around his site’s links where I noticed the Voice Chasers site. Among other things, it has a forum or bulletin board for people to talk about all things voiceover.

Well, the Voice Chaser’s forum looked pretty quiet except for the news page (thank you Kristy Sproul) which carried a story and a link from ASIFA Hollywood. A member found an old recording of a speech legendary Warner Brother’s character voice actor Mel Blanc gave to the 1966 Annual Awards Luncheon of the Station Representatives Association (no, I don’t really know what that group is either). At any rate, it’s a funny account of the state of advertising from Blanc, who also owned a production company that did commercials.

Note how little the advertising and marketing business has really changed in 41 years!

Tags: advertising, announcers, blogs, character voices, commentary, commercials, marketing, media, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Remember, voice over talents are like professional golfers…VO’s and golfers don’t compete against each other. Voice talents compete for the ear of the producer and golfers compete against the golf course superintendent (well, the course itself actually, but I’ve always felt most superintendents didn’t get the proper credit).

But as performers of a kind, both for voice actors and for golfers, ego “occasionally” rears its ugly head.

There is a “heady” gentleman in the UK who by most accounts as a voice talent who has always been well respected; through his web postings on various voice talent message boards, his thoughtfulness usually appreciated and his humor is sadly lost on a few…but not on me.

His name is Philip Banks and if you need a wonderful, truly British announcer (or some funny character voices too) you should simply call him and stopping your shopping at once. Having spoken to him and corresponded with him at various times over some years, he is quite a thoughtful gentleman. And he reminded a few of us the other day of a phrase he has used before with equal effectiveness each time:

“It’s not about me.”

For a voice talent, no matter the specialty, these are simple words. But their stunning, almost epiphany-like impact because of what they mean to the very core of our professional lives cannot be ignored. Why?

While voice talents are cognitive tools for producers and directors, we are still tools….voices through which messages are conveyed. But it’s the cognitive and emotional part of we “tools” (sentient & egotistical) that sometimes do not allow us to “get out of our own way.” Sometimes we put OUR interpretation of a script, or a line or a character ahead of the writer, producer or director. We can be inflexible.

Note well, I do not mean to say that any voice talent shouldn’t share an opinion if its welcomed. But ultimately, we can take our insights and interpretations too personally so that when a director says finally “do it my way” we feel in some way slighted. Cognitive tools made up of oversensitive wiring with an ego on top; that’s a recipe for a voice talent sundae.

But what we forget sometimes is that the director has a goal, a vision and we’ve agreed to take part in it using our tools (voice over abilities) to help “get him there”. So with her critique or alteration of our vocal performance, we need to remember is not a means to our end, it’s a means to her end. It’s about him or her.

It’s not about us. And that is as it should be.

Tags: announcers, audio books, character voices, commentary, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I have been asked to quote on a character narration voice over project for a documentary that involves the voices of some of America’s founding fathers. As an expert in this topic I am an abysmal failure but I have, none the less, always been drawn to the writings and lives of some of these extraordinary men.

There are far more erudite students of American history who can share better insight than I can on the lives of John Adams or Thomas Jefferson but because this voice over job got me to thinking about my peculiar fascination with some of these historical figures, I’ll share with you how I have come to enjoy American history, my way.

If you’ve never been to Washington, DC, shame on your sorry ass. If you’re an American citizen, double shame! Yes, it’s a town with a grossly high concentration of liars and thieves but it is also the place where most of the important people and important decisions that have impacted America’s existence have taken place. The monuments, the documents, the very seed of your inalienable rights are in Washington, DC and you must go.

When you do, speaking of inalienable rights, you must go to my favorite monument, The Thomas Jefferson Memorial. It is magnificent by day and it is magical at night. It is said that when it was built on the Potomac River Tidal Basin during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, he wanted the statue of Jefferson to face towards the Oval Office and the residence balcony in the White House so that FDR might be inspired and draw strength. It worked, I think. And oh, could Mr. Jefferson write! Some of his marvelous writings adorn his monument and they are thrilling. Rush to get there, stay as long as you can.

One of the finest audio book voice talents I know of is Edward Herrman. I know this because I didn’t particularly care about John Adams until Herrman’s voice talent and David McCullough’s writing talent combined into the great audio book John Adams. Take a ride, get caught in traffic and enjoy.

David McCullough’s talents as a writer about things American need no endorsement from me. He’s already got a Pulitzer Prize for his book Truman, on the life of President Harry Truman. For the audio book, he did the narration and did a fine job. Everyone under estimated Harry Truman, don’t underestimate this book.

Tags: audio books, character voices, commentary, narrations, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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The annual final summer blasts that take place on beaches and in backyards all across America this Labor Day weekend usually include some kind of countdown on local radio stations. My friends at the Armed Forces Network are trying to provide a little bit of that hometown feel for our troops via AFN’s ten stations across in the Middle East. They’re presenting the 72 Mega Mix Music A-Z Countdown.

As with Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, a number of my professional voice over collegues were tapped for service and honored to answer the call. I did voice imaging for the station disc jockeys as well as radio station imaging for voice talents DB Cooper and Frank Frederick. I called on character voice actress Kara Edwards to help me with a little girl voice singing her ABC’s in DB and Frank’s ID’s.

Voice talent and product Todd Ellis also assisted in the project, producing for voice talent Diane Maggipinto and Bill Elder. As always, a great job by all.

The heat and the danger seem endless for our men and women in the Middle East (and for that matter all around the globe). We all hope we were able to bring a bit of home town fun to their current journey. Stay safe. And thank you!

Tags: character voices, commentary, radio, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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