These are quickies:

* My Tierney, Nachtrab and Lachey post marked my 500th post. I can’t get those hours back and neither can you 🙂 . Thanks for reading.

* The VO-BB is a must read for voice over talent information and most importantly for me…wonderful friendships. It’s celebrating (as of November 10th) its 5th Anniversary! There is NO other resource as respected like it on the web. DB Cooper founded it, runs it and deserves all the kudos in the world for it (are you listening VOICE 2010 awards committee, I am speaking to YOU!!!)

* I’ve said before that Dave Courvoisier is the best looking man in voice over (and he sounds great as well) but as usual he’s also ahead of the curve by sharing his significant and impressive on-camera techniques with those of us using web cams (or who soon will be, anyway). CourVO’s suggestion to me on improving my on-air look was two paper bags (the second was in case the first one ripped).

* From the man who is powering Voice Talent Productions towards a force to be reckoned with on the agency stage, Erik Sheppard is organizing his 2nd Annual Voice Over Mixer on Saturday, December 5, 2009 from 6:00 – 10:00 p.m. at White Rabbit, 145 E. Houston St., in New York City. It’s free to get in but you need to send an email to lindz@voicetalentproductions.com to save your space. If’n your wantin’ to see the guest list and raffle prizes updated, pop over here. Yes, I am going to try and make it.

* Thank you God somebody in the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences got it right by including legendary NBC-TV announcer Don Pardo into their next Hall of Fame on January 20, 2010.

* While in Des Moines, IA, I got the chance to meet Jay Weiss of the Radio Garage and he couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful. There was an ISDN project that popped up then fizzled out until next week and I stopped by Jay’s studio to see if he could help out. At the time, I thought the project was going to take place ASAP; Murphy’s Voice Over Law states that as soon as you have ISDN backup on the road, the job won’t immediately happen. Jay was a total class act and a fine voice talent in his own right; thanks Jay, I hope we get to work together soon.

* John Florian’s Voice Over Xtra is promoting a “Business of Voice Over” Webinar on November 19th.

Thanks again.

[Read more →]

Tags: commentary, 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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I was able to visit the Voice Actor Workshop where my friend, teacher and agent Toni Silveri was up to her wonderful tricks again. As happens on occasion at the end of class sometimes, Toni, myself and another student, Kevin Iuzzini, just started talking and it ended up being 11:00 p.m.

By the way, Kevin is a helluva good voice talent, er, voice actor (as well as a great conversationalist) who you should absolutely check out.

But that above nomenclature was my mind as we all talked about voice training and methods and styles. Toni and Kevin are much more studied in the way of stage acting training and I just tried to shut and listen as I was waaay out of my league. Strassburg, Method Acting and Stanislavsky…plulease. I am a lazy voice over fella who just wants to know what time it is, I don’t need to know how the watch is made.

Their insights did cause me to think about the idea of actors training and whether, at its very root, stage actor training is that much different than voice actor training (stage direction and the much greater focus on physicality and movement for stage acting aside). My decision was it really isn’t and that’s probably is a good thing.

Then my next thought veered towards the name, the descriptions if you will: voice actor vs. voice talent. Why is one performer called a voice actor and another called a voice talent? Certainly both titles are part of the industry’s vernacular with those performers who do character voice work most often called voice actors. I refer to myself as a voice talent but I do lots of character work. Should I be calling myself a voice actor?

Does a voice actor get paid more than a voice talent? I don’t think so. Is there greater prestige having “actor” in the title? Nah, I don’t think so, or is there?

So my question is: which are you and why?

Tags: voice actors, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Voice Actor Travis Davis

I opened up Facebook today to see a post from VO Planet’s Donna Summers announcing the passing Monday of voice talent and actor Travis Davis from a 15 month long battle with stomach cancer.

He leaves behind a wife and two young children. There is a foundation set up to help the family.

Until this day, I never knew who Travis Davis was.

But I have a wife and two young children and right now my heart is racing and not in a good way.

If you’d be willing to forgo the morning Starbucks for a week, it might make a nice donation for a family that just lost their Da.

Tags: requiescat in pace, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Emmy Award Winning Female Voice Actor Stevie Vallance

I trained with Stevie Vallance at her “Tooned In” Workshop about two years ago in Toronto and it was a good experience. As you might guess by the name, Stevie’s focus is on animation voice over, a field where she has been an Emmy Award winning performer and producer for many years.

This week, unbeknownst to me, the Ottawa International Animation Festival is taking place and I’ll let you guess the city. Stevie has advised:

I will be in Ottawa teaching a workshop at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. On Wednesday, October 14th, I’ll be turning the hosts into ‘Toons’, on the A Channel’s Morning Show (aprox 7:30 am).

Sign up for my 2-hour Animation Voice-over Acting ‘Drill’, at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, on Thursday October 15th, at 7:00 pm, in the Arts Court Theatre, 2 Daly Ave, Ottawa. There is a $15 dollar walk-up entry fee, based on availability.

On Sunday, October 18th, I am teaching the ‘original’ Tooned In! Animation Acting Workshop, from 10am to 6pm. This event will take place in a state of the art recording studio, in Ottawa. ‘Animation acting’ experience is not required. Class capacity is limited for quality control and to ensure ample mic time for all participants. This workshop is 8 hours of intensive voice workout and participants will leave with a rough demo.

She noted she also has upcoming workshops in Owen Sound (Nov 1), New York (Nov 8), Toronto (Nov 29) and Vancouver (Dec 13)

For details or to register visit http://toonedin.ca

Tags: animation, commentary, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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i-posts are short updates written on my i-phone using my wordpress blog app.

Things like this always happen. October 24 when I’ll be in Atlanta at a Marice Tobias workshop (which I am very much looking forward to) there will be a networking mixer in Toronto hosted by Voices.com.

But just because I’ll be unable to attend doesn’t mean you should miss out.

Below is the link to the facebook invite I received. If you’ve never been to Toronto, it’s a great excuse to check out a great city.

http://m.facebook.com/event.php?eid=163317597160

Tags: i-post, social networking, voice actors, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups, voices.com by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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So my voice over compatriot Rich Brennan in New York observantly posted on the Yahoo Voice Over Message Board an ad he saw recently on Joel Denver’s truly great radio webzine (recently and beautifully redesigned) All Access.com (the following ad is no reflection on Joel, or his fine site at all):

Need 2 male voices-Ages 30-50
Production company looking for male talent ages 30-50 to do voiceovers for small and medium market radio and t.v. Must have access to a professional studio Mon-Fri and be available at least one hour per day. We pay $7 for each dry unedited v/o regardless of length. (One word, one line, :15, :30 or :60)Please send :60 unpolished raw demo to voice4radio@comcast.net.

No professionally mixed demos. They seem to be rather misleading.

Deadline to submit demos is October 8, 2009.

Rich added this resonating comment:

SEVEN DOLLARS????

I agree…that fee is absolutely insulting; a reflection of how poorly some people view what voice talents do professionally. So I decided to respond to the ad in my own way. This is my complete,and I thought, fairly restrained response:

—– Original Message —–
From: “Peter K. O’Connell”
To: voice4radio@comcast.net
Sent: Thursday, October 1, 2009 7:50:30 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: VO needed

$7.00 per voice over?

I hope your employer offers you more professional compensation than
you are proposing to the voice over community in your ad.

peter k. o’connell :: audio’connell voice over talent
+01 716 572 1800 :: www.audioconnell.com

Hurling insults back when you’ve been insulted didn’t work in the school yard and it doesn’t work now so (as those who know me will agree) my response was tame even by my own standards. I thought just by offering a little perspective that this might let this person know that the fee was really bad.

And I did get a response, albeit unsigned, (which I’m assuming is because of this producer’s shame for lowballing this job):

> From: voice4radio@comcast.net
> Date: October 1, 2009 10:27:26 EDT
> To: “Peter K. O’Connell” > Subject: Re: VO needed
>
> Hahahahaha…listen sweetheart…we’re producing these ads for $15 for small market stations who can’t afford $150 spots..nor do they have the staff on hand to do their own production..so the next time you wanna be a smart ass, think before you speak..$7 is definitely enough for our talent. And since I posted this ad yesterday at 5pm..I’ve received hundreds of demos from guys who are fine with the ‘compensation’..These are people who manage their own production companies, who work in large markets and have incredible voices..(they’re just wanting a little spending money on the side)..like the rest of us. And these days, in radio…we’re all starving, so be quiet..

Which was followed up by his/her second response (still anonymous of course):

> From: voice4radio@comcast.net
> Date: October 1, 2009 10:34:40 EDT
>
> To: “Peter K. O’Connell” > Subject: Re: VO needed
>
> PS…Yeah, I checked out your website..You’re ‘one of those’….(I won’t comment..I’ll just leave it at that)..lol..

Because I’m really not sure what this person meant, I’ll have to assume that “one of those” means “professional voice over talent” or “someone who actually makes money in voice over”. It’s true, I am “one of those”…oh the shame I bear!

Are there people in the voice over industry or radio who are so desperate to put food on the table that they’ll gladly take a $7.00 voice over job (which, minus the 5 cents for printing the invoice and getting an envelope and an additional 44 cents for postage actually only equals $6.51)?

Possibly as no one is immune despite their best efforts, but I doubt any true starving is going on within this circumstance. Even if it were, most media professionals I know would be smart enough to know that they could easily avoid starvation by grabbing one of the many minimum wage jobs featured in the paper each week. Is it an easy living? Heck no but it’s a more realistic financial opportunity than snatch and grab voice jobs.

I think any responses this anonymous “producer” received were more likely responses from people WANTING to be professional voice talents or PRETENDING to be professional voice talents. Since it would seem quality is not a requirement for these producers or obviously the client, then those folks might indeed grab the glory of that $7 spotlight. But they are so sadly devaluing their professional worth (even as a newbie) for such a gig.

It’s a hard, long road ahead for these folks if they think they’ll create a career, let alone a professional reputation from $7 jobs. It’s their decision but I do feel very badly for them and they might not fully understand why.

I know, however, how much I don’t know. Mine is not the only opinion on this producer’s position (or that of the voice talent willing to take a lowball gig.

So tell me your thoughts…it’s OK to disagree with me; just provide your prospective. Or if you agree with me, your perspective is also welcome.

Is my logic flawed? Am I being an elitist?

Discuss.

Tags: radio, tv, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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