Fully 90% of my voice over business comes from outside my local area. It’s a kind of strange, baseless colloquialism that affects other voice talents and other businesses in general sometimes…”the talent must be better elsewhere” goes the thinking. Not everyone locally thinks that way fortunately (usually it’s the more creative and talented local minds who gladly employ local talent). But it’s a wall I’ve faced and since there is easier and sometimes greater money to be made elsewhere, then off I go with no hurt feelings.

That’s not to say I ignore my local market, quite the opposite. I participate in many professional associations and have held leadership or at least committee positions with a many of them. While networking is always my priority, I know I am ultimately better served focusing on the educational tools that these groups can offer me. I also develop deeply valued friendships which sometimes evolve into direct business or referrals which are sincerely appreciated.

One of the groups I belong to is the Advertising Club of Buffalo (formerly know as Brainstorm, formerly known as Pro Com and…after that it just becomes logo soup). But name-a-liciousness aside, the group is a good one. Its part of the American Advertising Federation and its chalk full of ad agency and public relations pros at all stages of their careers. Last year I was honored to be asked to be the voice of the Addy Awards, which has been going on for a long time. I got to work with Rob Wynne at Wynne Creative Group and Shaun Mullins at Propellerhead Media ; it was a terrific experience.

Well, the Ad Club and another Upstate New York based group called Ad Hub started a cool trade show two years ago called the Freelancer’s Expo. I know for a fact it was two years ago because my daughter was to be born the week before the expo but she decided she was very “comfy cozy” and in no hurry to arrive (it was the last time she did anything at less than the speed of sound). She thought she should wait until the Expo to arrive, which meant Da was a no show at the show. But Walter Ketchum, who runs the Expo and Ad Hub, could not have been more understanding. Walter refunded my booth money and gave me the show list of attendees to allow me to market to them, post show. It is a kindness I have never nor will ever forget. He was the very definition of the word “gentleman”.

So this year, having no birthing conflicts, I attended the Freelancer’s Expo at the Center For The Arts – University at Buffalo. It’s a lovely facility with the only downside being it’s at UB on a weeknight. Parking is at a premium when classes at a major University are in session, which may have made some prospective attendees gun-shy. On the other hand it is such a challenge to find a facility with a high profile that has free and easy access parking for hundreds of people that is centrally located. Give and take.

Be that as it may, the show was well attended I think and I had made a ton of new contacts and became reacquainted with some old contacts. I am subtly amazed at people who have an epiphany right in front of me: “oh, I knew you did voice overs but I forgot!” I could send weekly direct mails to these folks and they’d still forget.

But that’s the value of these trade shows: face to face marketing. Its comfortable, its informal but it is very informational (transmitting and receiving). You obviously need to have a great product or service, a good display, strong collateral and a refined pitch but if you do, the sky’s the limit.

If you have a chance to do trade shows like this within a 50-100 mile radius of your studio or office…do it. While showing up is only 50% of the effort (the other 50% is the follow up) your closing rate will amaze you.

Congrats to everyone involved in pulling off this show. And thanks again, Walter.

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, marketing, peter o'connell, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Editor’s Note: In the daily observation of life around him, the author occasionally feels the need to point out ridiculously inane behavior and general thoughtlessness. These are called “Rants” and this is one of those times.

Today is Blog Action Day , a day when bloggers across the internet have agreed to publish a post about one topic based on the concept:

“What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day? One issue. One day. Thousands of voices.”

We found out about this project in August.

My environmental hot button has always been litter: how incredibly easy it is to contain, how unnecessarily careless people are with their minor waste and how it’s grown into such a huge problem.

I’ll let the more environmentally educated in the world tackle the statistics on garbage collected and how best to recycle, etc. I want to focus on the simple everyday problem of daily litter and stopping people from littering.

Many people of a certain generation will remember in 1971 the Keep America Beautiful campaign’s TV spot for Earth Day where the actor known as Iron Eyes Cody came upon all the litter surrounding America, which made him cry.

That was 1971.

It’s not much different in 2007.

At least twice a week as I’m driving my car, I see one of the other drivers tossing some wrapper or cigarette or other refuse out of their car on to a street or expressway. Somehow the materials that got into their car “immediately” need to be expunged from the car…for some reason, it can’t be disposed of in their home’s garbage can or in a nearby trash receptacle at their next stop (there are trash cans at public places almost everywhere these days).

It’s not just cars though. Parks, streets, its everywhere!

I know Americans are lazier than ever, I know we’re less educated than ever and more disrespectful than ever. So all I think it takes is a quick reminder…a loud, public, always polite reminder that will attract attention from anyone within ear shot and embarrass the crap out of the litter bug.

(In an overly clear loud voice professional voice talent….but you can do it too>) “Hello, HELLO SIR!!!! I’m sure you dropped that wrapper on the sidewalk by accident so I just wanted to remind you to please, right now, pick up that wrapper and throw it in the garbage can you’re standing next to, great, thanks!”

Start politely humiliating the offenders, wherever possible. If we’re silent, litterbugs think we don’t mind. We mind and we need to let them know it.

I think one of the best ways to tackle a huge problem like protecting the earth’s environment is to start small. To a person, litter is a small thing, something that if we each just THINK about it, about what we are doing, how and where we are disposing our trash, we can make a huge impact.

I hope you’ll help by not littering and publicly (and politely) calling out anyone who does.

Tags: advertising, blog action day, blogs, commentary, commercials, internet, media, rants, technology, voice talent by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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There are some voice talents for whom it’s a stressful process but I really enjoy the process of producing voice over demos. I love reviewing the work, picking which cuts to use, freshening some segments that were poorly produced (and making the voice sound better) and then of course, the fun of picking the order. It’s a really enjoyable process.

Except when it’s my voice over demo that I’m working on.

Don’t misunderstand, I still like the process but the challenge of the effort when it’s your own work is tougher. Why? Because as voice talents we are each too close to our own work to be as objective as we can be for others. We voiced the spots or narrations, maybe we even produced the final production; the client paid us so they must have liked it, it must have been good, maybe even good enough for the demo reel. Or is it?

Look, the demo is the VO’s calling card, our billboard on the audio super highway, and it can be the difference between getting a job and not getting a job. It’s between 1-2 minutes that will decide “feast or famine”.

For my new commercial demo, I knew there were some spots I wanted to add that I just hadn’t gotten around to putting in. There was a national spot for Shell Oil Company and a big regional spot I did for the New Jersey Board of Tourism that I felt should be included, among others.

While as a demo producer I know how to produce great demos…I also know how much I can either “not hear” or “over hear” in my own work. Mistakes in either direction can lead to a “famine” demo.

I needed to call for backup.

The key to this back up process is to go to a set (or sets) of ears you trust. You need to understand your backup’s experience in audio production, voice over and demo production. A great set of ears has respected credentials in all those areas. In this instance, my backup does what I have often done for personal friends in the biz which is to actually re cut the demo into the order that might work better. On my demo, my back up made the right changes, in my opinion.

So as not to over step the favor my back up offered on my demo and risk a deluge of requests of him for demo help, I’ll merely say thanks Frank for your help (there’s only about 250 Franks in the VO biz so good luck sifting through them).

Give this new demo a listen and let me know what you think (it’s OK if you want to critique it).

Tags: commentary, commercials, marketing, narrations, 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 had an interesting experience last week when audio’connell Voice Over Talent’s Terri and me were invited to speak to a class of radio broadcasting students at Buffalo State College about the voice over business and commercial production.

Buff State has an impressive communications program and boasts a famous or infamous radio station in WBNY, which includes among its impressive alumni Tom Calderone who currently oversees VH1.

Terri actually set up the whole presentation because she’s finishing her degree there (way to go!) while balancing her voiceover work and her other job with the Buffalo Fire Department (and I thought MY days were busy).

Having been in broadcasting for over 30 years and teaching at Buff State for at least 25 years, the class’ professor, Tom Donahue, is a great asset for students and was a great host for we presenters. We shared some terrific radio stories.

Presenting in front of college students is always a challenge…you really have to rev them up…I think we did alright. Students were at a select disadvantage when I presented because I’m a talker AND a walker….I’ll come up to you and finish my point with emphasis right in front of you and look for your recognition….you weren’t sleeping, were you?! (They weren’t…they were all great).

While I’ve neither the patience, education nor the talent for teaching, I fully understand why it can be a satisfying profession. Tom brought some scripts to class and Terri and I would read a couple (watching the students’ eye light up…you could tell they were thinking “that sounds just like on the radio!”). Then, I’d bring them up and we’d try 2-3 takes. The difference between performances from take 1 to take 3 really caught students by surprise.

It’s the kind of surprise some students might be able to build a career on.

Tags: announcers, commentary, commercials, peter o'connell, radio, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover meet-ups 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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The internet is a great resource for information that really doesn’t exist anywhere else. This is especially helpful when someone like me comes across an idea that needs to be quickly researched. 9 times out of 10, I find what I’m looking for on the web, because the internet has proven to me that the things that I’ve found interesting in my life that I thought only interested me actually were and are of interest to a great many people. I think that kind of personal epiphany has occurred across the globe, which gave rise to the social media phenomenon that has grown so rapidly.

Today I was thinking about Johnny Olsen. Anyone born after the early 80’s will probably have no idea of whom I am speaking. Johnny Olsen was a professional announcer on many game shows but is most famously associated with The Price Is Right hosted by Bob Barker. For me Johnny Olsen has some of the greatest voices for his genre: game shows. The announcer is sooo critical to the pace, excitement level and overall success of that show. He sets the stage for the mood of that show and boy did Johnny do that.

Johnny Olsen took simple phrases and made them television tipping points:

“Come on down!”

“A new car!”

Sadly, Johnny Olsen died in 1985 and I believe The Price Is Right employed 3-4 other announcers before Bob Barker retired (including Buffalo radio legend Rod Roddy ). Enjoy these clips from one of Johnny’s last shows and listen to one of the greats at work.

Thanks Johnny, someday I hope to be as good as you.

Tags: announcers, commentary, commercials, media, radio, tv, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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