The point was to have a vacation with just Mrs. audio’connell and me while baby audio’connell played with the grandparents (baby, btw, seems not even to have noticed the parents had gone missing because of all the fun provided from the grandparents). The destination was New York City, where the missus is originally from.

Early flight out Friday morning with an incredibly long line at security out of BNIA (made even more interesting by some young, strong dude who may have come straight from the bars to the airport and promptly fainted while in line causing a tremor (“thud”) when he hit the airport’s marble floor; “the bigger they are…”) then straight in to JFK, SOHO and the sister-in-law’s apartment.

It was decided naps were in order and it was from that nap that I was awakened by a call from one of my agent’s advising that Shell wanted to use me for a VO. Groggily I replied in the affirmative inquiring only how much and when (though I’m not sure in which order). Numbers came first and since they were in the “proper sequential order” ($), I went on to the “date” which was to be the following Monday. I would still be in NYC, would they do ISDN? Sure, where would I like to record from? Give me an hour, I said, and I’ll price out a couple of studios.

Like a fireman answering the bell I was fully awake now, knowing I had to work fast to find facilities, availabilities and rates. Remember, this is NYC, many studios are not as available as other studios in other cities on short notice. I had made one brief attempt pre-trip to ensure I had available VO facilities in the area, only to find my contact had moved to Australia…I decided that might not work for me.

The sister in law had a video production friend who had a lead on an ISDN studio and I had the internet. I gave the client’s agency three choices, they picked one and all was booked. This job would pay for the vacation!

Monday comes and I show up at the studio off 5th Avenue in mid-town early to review the script (ha!). There were voice actors (or more likely actors looking for voice work) auditioning for a group of spots; unfortunately they were union spots, so I didn’t get a shot at them. The studio was also having some technical problems with the client’s ISDN hookup so we got started about a ½ hour late. I walked in, was handed the script, set up in the booth (Neumann U87) did four takes of the main read, about nine takes of the tag and I was outta there in about 15 minutes. The clients were very happy and I made some nice new business contacts.

Post script: as the plane was landing, coming back home today, I got an email and a call from the client: they screwed up the script and need to me to record again. That means I get paid again!

I’ll post a few other New York notes a little later.

Tags: commentary, commercials, narrations, technology, voice actors, voice casting, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
4 Comments »

Yeah, the new Buffalo Sabres mullet logo sucks. I miss my original blue and gold logo but I have to shut up about it and just wear my New Era hat with the old logo because:

a. The Sabres earned the most NHL points this season
b. The Sabres are #1 in merchandise sales in the entire NHL
c. Baby, it’s playoff time!

Go Sabres!

P.S. I hereby publicly promise that when the Sabres win the Stanley Cup, I will wear a New Era cap with the mullet as “penance for my blasphemy” against the mullet!

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, marketing, silliness by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
1 Comment »

OK, Imus has been fired.

I don’t care about that so much because I really didn’t listen to him. The stuff I heard on his show I didn’t care for so I turned the channel. That’s what grown-ups do.

What Don Imus said about the women’s basketball team was stupid and offensive…to everybody. Depending on your social or political persuasion, you could argue that most of his show was usually either or both. He’s been doing some sort of inane or “shock” radio for 30 years; what’s the surprise about? People have been free to tune in or tune out Imus’ on-air belligerence for a long time

Controversy is pretty much the only ratings card morning radio has to play any more: A. all news or sports B. all music or C. comedy/stunting/controversial. So on average about 3.5 million people thought Imus’ controversial act (and some political chat) was worth listening to in the morning. Who’s blaming the listeners?

Imus’ employers didn’t care what he said or did as long as sponsors were happy. His sponsors didn’t care what Imus’ said or did as long as the audience and ratings were there. The audience either endorsed or was apathetic to Imus’ shtick (maybe they waded through the obnoxious stuff to get to the heady political interviews).

Then a political group gets wind of an Imus comment (that was stupid and offensive), a dust storm builds up into a tornado and repeated, likely heartfelt Imus apologies become mere interruptions in a diatribe which seem to be about social justice (a good thing) but more often are really about political and/or celebrity gain (a bad thing).

Sponsors and broadcasting companies who have long endorsed Imus’ shtick suddenly distance themselves as if ignorant to his previous work on their air. Who are they accountable to? Don’t say the government because in matters of broadcasting and any word that rhymes with “decency” our government is useless.

I don’t know if Imus is a good person or not but I do know he said a dumb thing, had his apologies summarily ignored and is now out of a job (two words: satellite radio). He gets most of the blame on this to be sure but not so much that dismissal was the only option. Shall we also fire the listeners, sponsors and networks? It seems they should shoulder much of the blame here too.

But we’ve become so comfortable with our scapegoat culture (protest here, finger point there) that once we’ve set our collective laser beams on a target (big or small) we fire at will. Then after the explosion, we move on with no perceptible improvement in OUR behavior.

Do we as a society even know how to accept an apology any more? Are we getting to a place in time where even saying “I’m sorry” is pointless?

Over at CBS News.com, Dick Meyer presented some other points (some similar to mine) on how our culture thrives on building up then tearing down celebrities. I don’t think we’d have to look to far to see how we do this in our own personal and professional lives as well.

Man, I hope we stop doing this soon.

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, media, radio, tv by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
5 Comments »

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.

As it’s kind of a quiet Saturday afternoon with folks sleeping or running errands from the house, I took the opportunity to visit Voice 123 and submit some auditions.  As I’ve mentioned before here, my bookings, auditions from agents and production schedule offer me less and less time to fiddle with the cattle call that Voice 123 has really become. But I still have months left on my paid subscription so I figured I better get to it. 

It has been awhile since I sent in some auditions.  I threw out the ones I didn’t think I’d be the right voice for and the ever present low ball audition (especially those folks requesting custom auditions for message on hold…who are they kidding?)  I was reading one audition that had a low price for the amount of work required and the usage of the voice and was about to delete it when I read down a little further and notice an addition to the usually inane Voice 123 disclaimer on price which read: 

“Voice123 Team Note: We recognize that this project may be below Voice123 pricing recommendations. We have become more flexible with budgets as it was brought to our attention that we could be violating United States federal anti-trust laws by limiting the participation of voice seekers in our marketplace when they don’t met our budget recommendations. It seems that, legally speaking, it is up to the providers (the talents and voice producers) and not the marketplace (Voice123) to determine to exclude the voice seekers they don’t want to work with.

Right after the release of the new Voice123, we will be working on several improvements that will help talents and voice producers filter the types of projects they want and better match projects with talent and voice producers depending on the budget and experience of the talent. On (sic) the meantime we are trying to be flexible to keep everybody happy.”

 “It seems that, legally speaking,…” Wow, what impressive attorney filed that hard hitting legal brief? 

As you might guess, I find this disclaimer highly suspect.  But I am also not an attorney. I am however a big David Letterman fan (not the stalking kind, I just like the show) and I thought of a Dave quote when he interviewed Bill O’Reilly from Fox News as I read the Voice 123 disclaimer. To paraphrase, it went along the lines of “I’m probably not as smart as you are but my gut tells me 60% of what comes out of your mouth is crap.” 

If Voice 123 is going to be “filtering” projects and pricing in their “next” version (which it seems they’ve been working on since 1950 and which might be ready by 2010) why can’t they filter now? Likely, they can.  In my opinion, the real answer is Voice 123 will take any voice job that comes through, slap it up on the board and let all the $50 announcers quote that price on a $2000 job just so Voice 123 can jack up the number of leads they provide VO subscribers and thereby justify the company’s existence.  

As always….I could be wrong.

Tags: advertising, character voices, commentary, commercials, internet, marketing, message on-hold, narrations, podcasting, radio, rants, technology, voice 123, voice actors, voice casting, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
6 Comments »

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.

Here’s the thing, I do voices for television commercials and narrations for TV documentaries but the truth is I really don’t watch much TV. There are no shows that really grab my attention. It’s a personal preference I guess.

Tonight though, with some in-laws in town, I fired up the laptop and wireless and watched (sort of) TV. Tonight’s choice was a bunch of CSI’s on Spike TV (I like some of these shows…they’re well written, especially later episodes where they don’t seem as blatant in their exposition of the “what & why” of a forensic tool they’re using).

But the epiphany wasn’t so much in watching CSI as it was in the promos and ads on Spike between Acts. Violent, bloody horror films, TV shows and CSI: NY promos (Spike prompting that show as the “ballsier and bloodies CSI) were on for at least two minutes of every break. Movie titles like Black Christmas, Vacancy, Disturbia, and Shooter (uh, sorry, no links to this crap, folks). Or the heartwarming TV story of Ultimate Fighter 3 -5. What crap!

Next time you come across a guy or teenage boy (Spike’s target demo) who has “issues” or seems a bit screwed up, ask them what TV shows and movies they watch (let alone what video games they play). The answers wouldn’t surprise me, I don’t think.

Oh, and lets not blame the networks or studios (entirely, anyway)….if they thought they could make money broadcasting 24 hour crocheting, they’d show it. But somebody is buying and watching all this violent crap. Some parents aren’t monitoring what their sons are watching, when they should be turning off the television and introducing their kids to a book.

So turn off the violence, look at something more peaceful. http://www.technorati.com/profile/audioconnell

It’s a personal preference I guess.

Tags: commentary, commercials, media, rants, tv by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on what else is on TV?

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.

Well, this will likely put me in dutch with some of my broadcast news friends but I can’t sit quietly about this any longer cause it BUGS me…radio news reporters and anchors should NOT be doing commercials…period.

Now before you cry discrimination, the TV news people shouldn’t either but I’ve not seen that happen. I have heard it far too often for my liking on the radio. It’s wrong.

While there was a time in radio and television’s history where news people often read live commercials, that practice dissolved as broadcast outlets’ news divisions evolved and the integrity of the news department became sacrosanct. Today, radio news departments have to scrape and claw for the money they need to do proper field reporting with decent technology while being first and accurate with the story in an amazingly short production window. In such an environment, salaries wane and integrity teeters.

At such a critical time when broadcast corporations often seemingly replace “public trust” with “shareholder’s investment” the news divisions and their leaders should not muddy the waters regarding their market’s perception of their talent by allowing those newscasters to read a murder report one moment only to have that same reporter’s voice heard on a pre-recorded car commercial the next. Not on their station or any other in their market.

What about out of market spots or corporate narrations for videos or even audio books? I have no problem with any of that. But in a local market, if you’re a news voice you cannot be a commercial voice. News integrity means never having to say “24 months interest free financing on approved credit.”

Tags: commentary, commercials, marketing, media, radio, rants, tv by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
4 Comments »