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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Some of the more market savvy of readers of this blog (you know that’s you, not those “other” readers ((sarcasm dripping))) have likely come across Seth Godin’s blog which is creatively entitled “Seth Godin’s Blog.”

Seth has written a number of fairly successful marketing books and I enjoy his daily insights into our world and how we all market within it.

As a published author, Seth has a unique perspective allowing him to wax philosophically (and with a degree of “been there done that” credibility) about audio books and their value in the marketplace. As a voice talent / voice actor who narrates audio books on occasion (when I’m not waxing floors), I’d really like to see the audio book industry shaken up a bit too (only for the good).

Some of the most recent books I’ve enjoyed have been audio books, experienced primarily on long car rides. For those folks with interminable commutes, audio books can be a great educational tool or getaway…all the while not ruining your eyes or wrecking your car.

But the expense and the dearth of titles have not allowed the genre to flourish. Seth’s idea may help that situation. At the very least, let’s hope it starts a discussion.

Tags: audio books, blogs, commentary, marketing, media, narrations, technology, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I’ve always felt two of the toughest jobs in all of broadcasting were that of a news reporter/anchor and a play-by-play announcer/sportscaster.

While anchors and reports have their slow news days when they can phone it in, they always have to be prepared to report credible, accurately and succinctly on a breaking story as it happens. As soon as they “say it” the audience hears it. That’s pressure!

Play-by-play announcers are like news reporters on speed. They have to follow the action right in front of everyone and be immediately insightful in their analysis before the next play begins. And fans are never shy about their opinions.

One of the finest examples I ever witnessed of a news anchor/sports reporter was during the 1989 World Series and the earthquake that took place there. Al Michaels, who spent three years in San Francisco as an announcer for the San Francisco Giants, was nominated for an Emmy Award for news broadcasting after giving an eyewitness account of the aftermath of the earthquake at Candlestick Park. I think he should have won.

But as a pure sportscaster, someone who turned play-by-play into an art form, I don’t know if I like anybody as much as Vin Scully. I think he’s been the voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers since baseball was created and he’s awesome at it.

This week, the Dodger’s play their arch rivals the San Francisco Giants…note worthy because it may be the location where Barry Bonds ties and or breaks Hank Aaron’s all time home run record.

The controversy regarding Bonds aside, for the purposes of this blog, Scully’s opportunity to possibly call the swing that ties or breaks the record is uniquely important because it was Scully who broadcast the homerun call when Aaron broke the record 33 years ago.

Kudos to the New York Times’ reporter Lee Jenkins for this timely and interesting article about Vin Scully

Tags: blogs, commentary, narrations, radio, tv, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Although we’ve got something like 500+ days left before the next United States Presidential election, candidates from the Republican and Democratic parties are already having debates on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. The debates are summarily ignored by the majority of the voting public even though they are covered ad-nauseum by the networks. It’s a vicious cycle.

This Presidential election has gotten the earliest campaign start in history I have been told and yet I’m convinced more people vote for singers on American Idol than for a President. I’ve nothing to back this up, research-wise, it’s more of a “gut” thing. Yet what choice do candidates have, especially those running for president?

The branding and marketing of a political candidate, public referendum or issue has become a real art or a fascinating battle depending on your perspective. How would YOU create a brand (and hopefully buzz…positive buzz) about a candidate or policy while competing for the attention of an ever more diversified and distracted voting public? Oh yeah, and you have to do it on a budget based solely on how well your candidate can fund raise…assuming he/she can get enough people who know him/her as well as who thehave money to even contribute to a campaign. That is why I guess we’re starting so early on each party’s “horse race” for the presidential brass ring. In politics as in life: follow the money.

And with the election season comes the political ads…some good, some questionable (again, trying to gain attention) but always thought provoking. Political consultants will again do their level best to map out a salient strategy for their candidate clients. These strategies will include a “theme” or “message” that consultants and candidates hope will resonate with the voters. Likely, TV and radio political ad campaigns will remain the mediums of choice to spread that political message to the widest audience.

Voice over scripts for political commercials are a great deal of fun for most voice talents (for me I refer to some of these political spots as requiring “vocal summersaults“). But overall today’s political spots are really not that different than commercials for any other brand. Political advertisers need to gain the public’s attention, summarize a key message and elicit an emotion in anywhere from thirty to sixty seconds. Sometimes the audience is uplifted by the message (“It’s morning, again, in America,)” and sometimes some mud is slung (politics didn’t invent attack ads; a quick example: wasn’t “The Pepsi Challenge” mud slinging at some of its most famous?).

I’m looking forward to the coming political advertising season whether from a presidential, congressional, state, regional or local election level. It gets citizens more involved in the democratic process for a while and I just don’t see how that can ever be a bad thing.

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, marketing, media, narrations, radio, tv, voice actors, voice casting, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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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
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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.

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
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