I would happily take a little less “unprecedented” right about now. How about you?

Masks. Social distancing. Trying to figure out where you can go, who can be there, and how far apart everybody needs to stand. Even the simplest things seem to require a planning meeting.

For my friends working in residential and commercial real estate, getting prospective buyers through a property has become one more complication in a year nobody ordered.

Sellers may be uncomfortable welcoming strangers into their homes. Buyers may be uncomfortable going inside. Touring an occupied commercial building brings its own concerns for the people working there.

But houses and buildings still need to be bought and sold. People still need somewhere to live. Businesses will hopefully still need a central place to work.

How do you introduce a property when getting everyone through the front door is so difficult?

My thoughts are simply that video has become more important than ever. And so has what people HEAR while they watch.

I have previously talked about how I am a big proponent of video as a sales tool for commercial real estate and residential real estate sales. I am all in on drones as possibly the best way to get the emotional and cognitive buy-in from prospects. A real estate video gives prospective buyers a chance to explore from a distance. Ground-level footage can take them through the rooms, while aerial drone footage introduces the property’s setting and surroundings.

But when someone watches that tour at home, the agent may not be there to explain what they’re seeing.

That’s where professional real estate narration can help. And yes, this IS what I do for a living, so I’m hardly an impartial observer. But my facts check out as true…especially through all this COVID crap.

A friendly voice can guide viewers through the property, connecting the pictures with details that matter. For a home, that might mean explaining the layout, pointing out a feature, or introducing the outdoor space. For a commercial building, it might mean describing access, available space, and how different parts of the property fit together.

You’re giving people a tour they can see AND understand.

Watch this video and tell me if this isn’t a pretty effective way—second to an in-person visit—to show a residential or commercial property (this video I narrated kinda shows both)::

I’ve enjoyed doing this work for years through audio’connell Voiceover Talent, including property videos for my friends at DreamDirt. In 2016, two videos I narrated earned first and second place in the National Auctioneers Association’s marketing competition for Best Auction Promotional Video. I was proud to contribute the narration to those productions.

The purpose today is much the same, even if the circumstances are very different: help people understand the property’s story.

The voice shouldn’t sound like someone shouting specifications across a parking lot. It should feel like a knowledgeable, welcoming guide, with enough room between the words to appreciate the view.

And getting a script started doesn’t require inventing the property all over again. Agents already have descriptions, specifications, and important features that can be shaped into conversational copy to follow the footage.

Will a narrated video replace every visit? No way….agents are the beginning, middle and end of every transaction.

People still buy from people. Period, full stop.

But right now, video tours give agents a badly needed tool, offer prospects a useful first look, and help them arrive with better questions when a visit is possible.

If you’re a residential or commercial real estate agent, video producer, or drone videographer putting together a property tour, I’d be glad to help give it a voice.

We’ve got enough distance between us right now. Let’s help buyers feel a little closer to the property.

Tags: commentary, real estate, video, video production, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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U.S. Male Voice Actor Peter K. O’Connell shows off his recently adopted Premiere League Soccer Team (and the hat). The award winning voice talent’s recent video tells the story of how he came to choose his new team for his new sport

For those that have been reading here for years – you two know who you are – I have made clear my overabundance of baseball hats.

You call it an addiction, I call it a collection. La, la, la…I can’t hear you!!! 😉

Anyway, one of my sons has become enamoured with Premier League Soccer.

The Premier League is basically the big leagues of English soccer, where 20 of the best clubs battle it out from August all the way through May. It’s absolutely massive around the world, and for good reason. The quality of play is incredible, the clubs have serious money to spend, and fans everywhere are obsessed with it.

What makes it so exciting? Well, it attracts the best players and managers from all over the planet, and the action is super fast and competitive. Plus, there’s this cool promotion and relegation system with the league below it (the EFL Championship), which means the bottom teams can actually get kicked down to the lower division, and teams from below can move up. Keeps things interesting!

The league started back in 1992, and it’s grown into the most-watched sports league on the entire planet. Pretty wild when you think about it. Whether you’re watching a top team or an underdog, there’s always drama, skill, and plenty of reasons to yell at your TV.

I like it because soccer (known as Football pretty much everywhere else in the world) because it’s one of only two sports I played in school. What, did you think all I ever talk about is voiceover and voice acting? I’m a bit more interesting than that…not much, mind you but still more interesting than bland.

So I would occasionally check in on matches (not games) with my son and it’s fun for us.

Then one day I was scrolling on the internet (no searches having to do with soccer/football) and I video came up of some guy who was matching Premier League teams with teams from the NFL.

Obviously – I’d have to go with any Premier League team that this stranger decided was the equivalent of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills.

The quick video below will tell you the rest of the story BUT…I have a new sport, a new TEAM and a new hat.

Hint: Go Magpies!!

Tags: sports, video by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Some weeks ago my voiceover friend (and fellow Buffalo Bills fan) Tim Powers created an idea to help promote WOVOCON The Voiceover UnConference, produced by World-Voices Organization and scheduled for October 17-19, 2025 in New Orleans.

His idea was he was going to interview a bunch of past attendees about their WOVOCON experiences and turn them into one minute video shorts for social media like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.

So Tim and I recorded our interview in about 15 minutes and he got the content he wanted for the socials.

This week, I got to thinking about the interview and I kept thinking – ‘there’s more stuff there that folks might like to know’, because we talked about a lot of stuff.

So I pinged Tim and asked for the footage to review it. I couldn’t recall my answers to all the questions so I had no idea what – if anything – I was going to do with it.

Then I saw it…it was the big secret that really only a WOVOCON Voiceover Unconference can unlock – because of it’s format, because of it very limited attendance limit (the comradeship of the event) and because of the very nature of the event which is unique to ANY other voiceover event.

WATCH THE VIDEO, learn the secret then make your reservations to join us in New Orleans this October.

TRANSCRIPT OF THE VIDEO:

Hi, I’m Peter K. O’Connell

and I’ve been a voiceover actor for about 40 years.

It’s so important that people understand that with an unconference, probably one of its most unique features, aside from the format, aside from the attendees creating the agenda and supporting the agenda by what they know and sharing what they know, probably the most important thing that you learn is an unconference is a safe space for everybody.

Some people understand what that means. Some people don’t. I’ll explain my version of what a safe space is. A safe space is where you can go ask questions, where you can be vulnerable. Whether you’ve been doing it for 40 plus years or for months, whatever it is, um that you can look to this event and know that people are there. They’re not judging you. It is a judgment-free zone.

So, when you come in there as a voice actor, we know that you don’t have it all worked out. Do you know how we know that? because you’re not retired off the riches of your job. You’re still doing it on a day-to-day basis. While we all look, well, how he must be a star or celebrity, stop it!

I will tell you that I know some of the well-known (VO) celebrities and well-known (VO) folks um that people follow on Instagram or have heard on network promos and all the rest of it. And I can tell you for a fact that they don’t know everything either. They’ve had some great success and they’ve built careers, but the more you build your career, the more you can be put on an island unto yourself. And so you don’t feel like you can always ask questions.

Well, no matter what level of career you have at a WOVOCON Voiceover  Unconference, you’re safe to ask your questions. Whether you ask it in a session, whether you ask it one-on-one in a hallway conversation, whether you ask it on the questions board, there is a questions board at a WOVOCON Unconference where you can put a question and somebody will come come to you with an answer at some point during the weekend.

Whatever your thoughts, whatever your concerns, whatever your vulnerabilities, you will probably have a chance to share them with somebody, get an answer with it, or just feel like you’re not the only one.

That maybe for some folks, that’s the biggest thing. Oh, I’m not the only one that thinks that way. Oh, I’m not the only one that’s unnerved by that. Oh, I’m not the only one who didn’t understand what they meant by that, and everyone else seems to get it. At a WOVOCON Unconference, it is so valuable to know that you are among a tribe, a community, a class. Your WOVOCON Unconference will be a class unto itself. The mixture of people will never be like that before or after. It will be there. And it’s very special for people to understand that and to know that you will have that connection likely for the rest of your professional life.

Tags: social media, video, voiceover advice, WOVOCON by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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This is not a post (AND video!) about how much I dislike people saying the meaningless phrase “no problem” instead of “you’re welcome” after being thanked. Although I believe that last sentence made my stance very clear.

This post is about HOW to thank someone in a CREATIVE way.

Not so much in the everyday things (where you would say the proper and polite “you’re welcome” and not the lazy “no problem”)…but this is in regard to someone who was super thoughtful and went out of their way to show some sort of kindness.

As you know, I am not one to shy away from an actual thank you NOTE. Yup, on a piece of paper (maybe even stationery) with a pen and written out words. POSSIBLY even a postage stamp. People rarely send something so 20th Century thus a thank you note stands out.

But recently a kindness was gifted to me…very unexpectedly, as many kindnesses are…that immediately got my creative juices flowing. This person needs a proper thanking, I knew.

So I could write up the whole story on JOEY SCHALJO but I let the thank you video (oh yes I did!) tell the story.

Tags: video, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Here I go again….first with the fauxditions and now Fake ID’s.

Remember some years ago, I produced the fake auditions for the announcer jobs for NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams (who turned out to create some fake news of his own)?

Then we did Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer!

Well here is ANOTHER fun, creative and totally fake audio project that I think folks will enjoy.

I’m calling it Fake ID’s – where we all produce radio station top of the hour ID’s from the favorite radio stations of our youth.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOUT PRODUCING FAKE ID’S — a creative radio production project hosted by radio imaging talent Peter K. O’Connell:
 
 

As radio professionals and voice talent, we all grew up listening to radio much more intently than our friends…a little less about the music and more about the production and how and what the DJ’s said.

And we all had our favorite radio stations – whether in our home towns or the flame throwing, 50,000 watt Towers of Power stations dialed in to on clear nights (like WLW Cincinnati, KMOX St. Louis, WLS Chicago, KNX Los Angeles or like my hometown WKBW in Buffalo — there are a whole bunch more, but you get the point). Any station, any format…whichever station you remember and were drawn to can be featured in your ID (one entry per person, please).

This project is about creating your version of your favorite radio station’s top of the hour ID (slogan, call letters, frequency, sound effects, music bed, jingle…whatever combination you need with your voice to make that old id come back to life).

Please make the ID for a station and format from at least 10 years ago – nothing current. Also this project is open to men AND women — whether or not the original ID was voiced by a man, for this project a woman’s voice is welcome.

So let’s have fun, let’s be creative and let’s do what we do best.

Please email your MP3 audio submission to: peter at audioconnell dot com.

Tags: fake id's, fauxdition, radio, radio imaging, silliness, video by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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As the Buffalo Bills prepare to host the Pittsburgh Steelers in a Divisional Playoff game in my old home town of Buffalo, NY (well actually, the stadium is the the suburb of Orchard Park, NY), I felt I should address something that might not get spoken of very often.

My new hometown (well going on 8 years anyway) of Raleigh, NC (well actually I’m the suburb of Cary, NC — turns out in the past two sentences, I’m not terribly good at geography) — any this new place I live in North Carolina is Buffalo, NY SOUTH!!!

Unbeknownst to me and my family when we moved here there are a ton of Western New Yorkers and Buffalonians down here.

So whether I am wearing my Bills, Sabres, Bisons or Bandits shirts (or even an old Buffalo Braves shirt), somebody always says something like “Go Bills” or “Let’s Go Buffalo”.

None the less, as you’ll see in the video…while strolling across Raleigh as a Bills fan, I remain “surprised”. 🙂

#gobills

Tags: blogs, buffalo, cary, commentary, raleigh, Raleigh Durham Voiceover Meetup, video, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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