UPDATE (May 28, 2008; 11:45 p.m. ET)— We have updated our :30 PSA with current statistics from the disaster. Please use that update which you can find HERE.

UPDATE (May 15, 2008; 7:56 a.m. ET)— UNICEF has now posted celebrity public service announcements on their You Tube Channel asking for donations to help raise funds for the Myanmar relief effort. Participants include Ben Stiller, Joel Madden, Nicole Richie and Tea Leoni. Please get these PSAs on the air. The military government has also allowed more relief workers into aid in the relief efforts but not enough to properly deal with the devastation.

UPDATE (May 13, 2008; 12:30 p.m. ET)— The New York Times reports that relief efforts are still being blocked by the Myanmar government. If and when (please be soon) that the government lets relief efforts in, the donations to UNICEF are going to be even more critical because the problem of disease and death only gets worse the longer its ignored. Please keep pushing the PSA’s to any media outlet you can.

UPDATE (May 9, 2008; 3:30 p.m. ET)— The web site Swiss Info is reporting that the United Nations will immediately resume aid flights to Myanmar and that one US Flight has been approved by the nations military government. Foreign aid workers are still restricted, though and I’m not clear how they plan to handle the issue of the government stealing UN relief supplies as reported earlier.

UPDATE (May 9, 2008; 12:00 p.m. ET)— NBC Nightly News senior producer Subrata De has posted two emails she has received from a friend of hers who has lived through the cyclone…you can read those emails here

UPDATE (May 9, 2008; 8:10 a.m. ET)— Thanks to my friend Joel Denver from All Access.com for this update via the Wall Street Journal:

May 9, 2008 –The United Nations said it would suspend all further aid shipments for survivors of last week’s devastating cyclone in Myanmar after the country’s ruling junta seized all aid material that had been flown in so far. The U.N.’s World Food Program “has no choice” but to suspend further shipments until the matter is resolved, WFP spokesman Paul Risley said. All “the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated,” he said, including 38 tons of high-energy biscuits.

The New York Times has its report here.

The UNICEF web site is still taking donations. My assumption is that at some point aid will be given and that funds will be needed. In the worst case, no funds donated will be able to be used in Myanmar BUT will be used to aid children when another international disaster strikes. The US Fund for UNICEF needs our financial support; let’s move forward and continue to promote this cause. Hopefully we’ll be ready to help Myanmar when allowed in.
————————————————————————————————————
ORIGINAL POST
Frustrating as it has been for all nations, including the United States, to immediately get food, water and medicine into the areas of Myanmar ravaged by the recent cyclone, the challenge of having to pay for all the needed relief in the weeks, months and maybe years to come is going to be even more of a headache.

Today UNICEF issued an emergency appeal for financial contributions to help pay for all that will be needed. UNICEF is working with Myanmar’s (Burma’s) military government to coordinate relief efforts. It occurred to me that UNICEF will need to promote this fundraising appeal.

My personal experience with non-profits is they don’t always execute communication plans as fast as possible because of restrictions on manpower and money. I hope UNICEF proves me wrong and if they do get audio and video spots out on this appeal, ignore and delete what I am about to do.

I’m stepping in to what I assume will be UNICEF’s eventual communications plan for Myanmar fundraising without an invitation and without approval. Screw politics and procedures. I’m a broadcaster and this is the internet.

Let’s roll.

Attached are two public service announcements (PSA); one sixty seconds long, one thirty seconds long both explaining how to donate funds for the cyclone relief effort directly to UNICEF.

The scripts I wrote (also attached) were based on text lifted directly from the UNICEF web site dealing with the Myanmar relief effort.

audio’connell Voice Over Talent is not receiving any compensation for this, we don’t want any…nor are we looking for publicity for us.

We DO want publicity (and lots of it) for the PSA’s themselves and ask that if you directly know any radio station or television station program directors, internet radio stations or podcasters, please direct them here or email them the spots or scripts (if they want to record spots with their own voice talent, God bless ’em!).

PSA’s don’t do any good if they don’t get played and if people don’t respond to the call to action. Please promote the availability of these spots within whatever professional network you are a part of and encourage their use to help raise money the people in Myanmar who have been so terribly distressed.

And if you could throw UNICEF a couple of bucks in the effort, that would be good too.

Please note in the comment section of media to whom you have sent this to or (if you’re the media) what outlet you are from.

Thanks for being a good person.

SIXTY SECOND UNICEF MYANMAR APPEAL PSA
[audio:http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/UNICEF_MyanmarPSA_60.mp3]
Click (or right click)here to download the the :60 PSA!
Click (or right click)here to download the the PSA script!

THIRTY SECOND UNICEF MYANMAR APPEAL PSA
[audio:http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/UNICEF_MyanmarPSA_30.mp3]
Click (or right click)here to download the the :30 PSA!
Click (or right click)here to download the the PSA script!

Tags: commentary, commercials, public service announcement, radio, tv, UNICEF by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
16 Comments »

In my voice over business, I do more commercial and narration work that radio imaging work (serving as the radio station’s voice for ID’s, promos, contests etc.). Some of the production work I do for radio stations is strictly producing because they have a voice under contract. Usually these are smaller stations that may not have a full time production director or just want to avail themselves of my mad production skillz, yo, yo!

Proving timing is everything in life, I happened to have just updated my radio imaging demos for both voice and production. It had been over a year and a half since I laid hands on the demos and while there was nothing wrong with them, I think it’s good to freshen things up with newer material…after 18 months!!!! My thanks to my anonymous mentor for providing his aural guidance again; he helped make the demos sing!

But I was thinking in the back of my head as I’m doing this updating about the sameness of ALL imaging demos. Certainly there is the uniqueness of each voice talent’s money voice and the value that brings to painting a picture on the set of the theatre of the mind. The additional flavoring and spices that are included with radio imaging, however, (editing, EFX, drops etc) seem to be blending in to a cacophony of sameness.

As this (also timely) article noted from KROQ Production Director Trevor Shand, I’m not the only one who has noticed this.

You can go into almost any radio market in America and be sure to hear 3-4 of the same imaging voices everywhere. Let’s be clear, I do not resent for one minute any of these wonderful voice talents’ right to make a living and ride the wave of success. They have worked hard and more power to them.

Taken from a big picture perspective, almost the art of radio imaging, the same voices, the same effects, the same drops makes it all sound blah. I understand it is all so formulaic because one VP is issuing orders to use a voice talent because we get a corporate discount or because if it worked in Peoria it will work in Des Moines. And hey, if the customer asks me to make their station sound like the Des Moines station, that’s what I will do.

Neither I nor Trevor Shand are trying to bite the hands that feed us, certainly I’m not. I am offering up a request for program directors to try and create for their stations a slightly different sound in their imaging (no matter who they use as their voice). PD’s are the brains of the operation so they have to decide on the palette and texture. But as the hands (and/or vocal chords) of the guy whose putting the right paint colors on the proper numbers, I stand ready to try and craft something unique for the imaging sound of your station.

And I bet there are a few hundred other imaging producers chomping at the bit to do the same.

Am I right or am I way off base here? Please share any thoughts you have on the topic.

Thanks for reading.

If you really like this post (of course we hope you do), please feel free to bookmark and or promote it by clicking the buttons below on your preferred services.

Tags: commentary, radio, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Talking about the strength of unions in the voice over business can be a bit like talking about politics and religion at a family gathering. You’re pretty sure a fight could break out but you’re just not sure what’s going to get broken.

In the past 24 hours, news of the day and a film festival I attended brought this issue to the fore.

This item from today’s New York Daily News:

Unions representing film and television actors will negotiate separately with producers in upcoming contract talks after board members of the TV actors union voted Saturday to sever a long-standing agreement between the two guilds.

The vote by the board of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists came hours before a meeting with the Screen Actors Guild and just three months before the expiration of the contract covering movies and prime-time shows.

Despite a sometimes rocky 27-year relationship the unions had shown recent signs of peace as they prepared for the upcoming talks.

The two groups had hoped at Saturday’s meeting to set a start date for negotiations. Instead of discussing strategies the sides swapped accusations.

I’m all about synergy and combinations of effort to save time and money. A merger between SAG and AFTRA should simply happen for the good of all and no one should be allowed to go home until it’s done. The above makes me think the strength of those unions will take a hit in negotiations because of their dispute. Regardless of the reasons (many of which could be valid on either side) their positions at the bargaining table will be weakened.

At the conclusion of the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival (what, you never heard of it?) there was a great presentation by New York City casting director Judy Henderson. Along with everyone in attendance, I wanted to learn more about the casting business she ran and how I might work with her.

The bottom line is all the work she casts is union. Her markets are New York, Los Angeles and some national commercial work. It’s all union work.

Not knowing yesterday about the SAG-AFTRA tiff, I asked what I prefaced as possibly an impertinent (though that was not the intent of the question). Could she gauge the strengths of the unions based on her current experience? She was unabashedly pro-union (being a member of the new Casting Directors union) and said the unions were strong and necessary. Given the examples she offered and the markets she primarily works in, I fully understood and respected her position.

The reason I asked the question is because in many markets outside New York and LA, my non-union work is skyrocketing. That’s an observation, nothing scientific about it but I keep getting a sense that business owners and some production companies cannot be bothered with the expense and paper trail forced upon them by the unions. Of course, the reasons performing unions were needed in the first place was because wages and conditions companies offered were abysmal. So can there be a happy medium?

I’m really not for one side or the other. You really have only two choices…if you’re not in the union at some level, you are non-union. I am non-union. For many performers, a union membership is very valuable. That’s cool. It is strictly a business decision…one that on any other day could change for either group.

My choice was made because ultimately it gives me more opportunity to work than union work does. Its also less complicated than tracking the union work and payment rules. Certainly the down side is that there is opportunity in some cases to make much more money as a union performer. But for my business, I can currently, consistently make more money as a non-union voiceover.

Were I based in New York City or Los Angeles, I would likely be a union performer as those are primarily union towns and most of the work they do goes around the country. That said I have done work in both cities as a non-union performer.

What does dishearten me is how the two main performance unions cannot either get along or better yet merge into one stronger union. The politics of it all, the turf battles and what seem to be egos in this battle must certainly be a turnoff for other observers besides me.

I hope it gets worked out amicably for my performing peers.

Whatever your opinions, I look forward to a civil discussion here 🙂

California voice talent Bobbin Beam also writes on her blog about this situation, from the perspective of a union member.

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

Sometimes when I read my Google Alerts I come across some really fun and unexpected stuff.

The first thing I found in my alerts was a link to voice talent Joe Symanski’s blog, which I have added to my blog list on the right. Great content.

If I haven’t added your voice over blog to my blog roll, let me know. Usually I try and keep up on new blogs by reading Bob Souer’s blog roll because he’s awesome about linking to everybody but still I miss stuff.

Included in that great content from Joe Syzmanski was a video produced back in January for the NAB meeting featuring Z-100 production director Dave Foxx. Amazing insight and candor from an imaging master (save for his annoying cigarette habit).

Then after that You Tube video was done, there was a list of a bunch of voice over and jingle related videos on You Tube that I know I’ll enjoy watching if I ever get the time (which is probably why I missed all of the above in the first place).

Oh well, I get to stuff eventually. And there’s this really cool new band that I think is going to be very big soon called the Beatles. Check them out and remember where you heard it first.

Tags: announcers, audio production, blogs, commentary, radio, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »

Not everyone will remember the 1984 re-election campaign of President Ronald Reagan but it featured not only one of the best made political commercials ever but simply one of the most effective commercials of any kind ever made.

It was made by a San Francisco ad man named Hal Riney, who owned Hal Riney & Partners, and some other prominent ad men who were part of the “Tuesday Team” who helped ensure Reagan and Bush were reelected that year.

Besides the fact that Riney and his partners did amazing work for clients like General Motors and Gallo Wines (great interview on the campaign here from KCBS-AM), he was among one of the great voice talents ever to breath into a microphone. He was one of two ad men that I would qualify as outstanding voice talents (the other being Ferdinand Jay Smith from Jay Advertising).

Hal Riney died today at age 75. His creativity and his voice are but two small parts of his legacy.

I’d be happy with just one of them.

Tags: announcers, commentary, commercials, marketing, radio, tv, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
1 Comment »

It was 1985 and I was working at WVUD in Dayton.

The previous Christmas, musical artists in the UK under the leadership of (now) Sir Bob Geldof had recorded the incredibly impactful song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The song included a collection of the day’s top artists who donated their time and talent to raise money for the famine in Africa.

It was a singularly amazing combination of musical artistry, song writing and performance.

In January of 1985, at the end of the American Music Awards, scores of artists commuted from the award show to the A&M Studios to record the Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie penned “We Are The World“. It too was singularly amazing.

My recollection of the song is so fresh because as production manager at WVUD, I was tasked with recording the song off of our satellite upon its release and our station debut it in our market. Downloading a song off satellite was hardly an everyday occurrence in 1985. We usually waited for the records to arrive like every other radio station.

On Good Friday, April 5, 1985, at 12 o’clock noon on WVUD and over 8,000 U.S. radio stations, regardless of their format, played “We Are The World” at the same time. For those seven minutes you literally could tune in almost any radio station and hear the same song. It was a shining moment for radio.

There were concerts and fund rasiers and on Good Friday, 2008 – 23 years later, still more famine.

Can’t we use the millions of dollars paid to Paris Hilton to have a TV Show camera follow her around to buy grain for entire regions of starving people? Are our priorities still that askew?

Let’s not forget the hungry while we enjoy our Easter celebrations. We may not think so but someday it really could be us.

Tags: commentary, radio, university of dayton, WVUD by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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