Whether this becomes an out and out holiday tradition here at audio’connell’s voxmarketising remains to be seen but suffice it to say I’m at it again.

Based on the enormously popular Unofficial Casting Call for the NBC Nightly News announcer, I am today kicking off the Unofficial Casting Call for the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon announcer job.

Some points of difference between the two casting calls:

1. The Nightly News audition was in response to what I (and many others) felt/feel was a poor performance by a certain actor (who otherwise is very talented). For the Fallon casting call, I have no knowledge of the new announcer’s (Steve Higgins) ability (which I’m sure is great) nor should this thingy we’re doing here be seen as an indictment of his talents…I wish him great success. This is just for fun and nobody here will be getting the Fallon show job.

2. NBC Nightly News had a well known theme. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon has a house band, The Roots, but no theme song that I know of yet so I grabbed a Roots song (“Here I Come” all rights reserved etc.) and edited into a strictly demo theme sample. The music should open up some creative voice imaging opportunities for participants.

The directions to participate are simple and straight forward:

A. Download HERE the demo only theme song (complete with cheering audience to get you into the late night feel)

B. Here is a script (again demo only):

From NBC Studios in New York, It’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Tonight Amy Adams (slight pause) Eddie Izzard (slight pause) and musical guest John Legend

With The Roots

Now here’s your host: Jimmy Fallon!

C. Record your version mixed with the demo theme (note: you should have your audition finish at about :30 seconds into the theme as you’ll note I brought the audience cheering up. If you hit it right it will sound like he just walked out after you said his name. Also remember there would be graphics and likely some animation as part of the intro too.

D. Email it to peter at audio’connell dot com. MP3 file only. File name: YOURLASTNAME_Unofficial_Fallon_Audition

E. I’ll allow submissions until it becomes tedious or boring. Only one entry per voice talent, please.

>>> HERE is where you can LISTEN (but NO voting yet) to all the entrants <<<

Here’s my example to give you a general sense of timing but PLEASE do it with whatever pace and vocal performance style you’d like. Mine is just one way, not necessarily the perfect way.

DEMO EXAMPLE
[audio:http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/Late_Night_Fallon/OConnell_Unofficial_Fallon_Audition.mp3]

How a winner will be chosen:

i. I’ll get between 3-5 people to serve as judges to pick the top 10 entries
ii. From there I will open up the voting. Don’t vote until I open the voting….I’ll delete any voting posts until I write the “voting is open” post
iii. As for prizes, I got bumpkus. Maybe we’ll get an angel gift giver or someone who wants to re-gift some holiday present, we’ll see.

Anyway, have fun and Merry Christmas. Let’s hear your best stuff!

If you just want to listen to the audition “bed” here it is:

Tags: announcers, commentary, fauxdition, NBC Television Network, peter o'connell, silliness, tv, unofficial audition, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
18 Comments »

My “friends” at US Airways lost my luggage making my trip a bit more inconvenient than it needed to be (although to be fair the ground staff at US Airways GSP- who had to deal with the outcome caused by the baggage dolts’ who did the losing of the bag – were nice, especially Chad). But the trip has otherwise been terrific including a nice dinner Wednesday in North Carolina with my friend and the man beloved by all voice talents Bob Souer, who brought along his very bright and charming son.

He and I plotted our individual world tour travels to personally meet every voice talent in the world, lull them into a state of complacency and then steal all their voice work. Bwahahahaha! (That, by the way, is the correct spelling for “evil laugh”).

Of course I’m kidding but he and I have been able to meet so many of our fellow VO’s over the past few years, we both feel very fortunate.

While we could have spoke for hours, Bob had some narrations to do and I had luggage to find but we’ll get together for a late lunch today before heading home. Another successful trip.

Tags: commentary, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
11 Comments »

Everyone has to do what they have to do to make a legal living.

Each person has to set a value on their professional worth and what their skill set is worth.

This I believe.

I just happen to also think that people willing to voice 20 statements for $60 or less (yes, that IS $3.00 a statement) might enjoy a better profit doing darn near any other job than voice over.

CLICK BELOW

(Yes, that job description does say “Please, only bid if you are a professional voice artist.” )

And they might save a bit of professional face (hide the blemish of the low-balling brand, if you will) by not posting their lowly value so publicly (with clickable profiles, even) on a totally open bidding site that anyone can find – without trying- via a Google alert.

CLICK BELOW

(Yes, that does say “Lenny is the name, and VoiceOver is my game!”)

No, everyone does not have to believe what I believe.

Clearly, there are many who don’t.

And the industry is poorer for it.

P.S. I signed up for a free account on this site about a month ago…don’t think I bid on anything; yes after tonight’s viewing that account will be closed up.

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

As Mrs. audio’connell and I had just celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary, we decided a trip to New York City was in order.

With grandparents over seeing the littlest audio’connells, off we went.

Using sister in law’s snazzy new apartment as our HQ,we had a swell time.

A couple of must dos for you (from our perspective):

* You have to have dinner at Rocco Restaurant on Thompson Street in the Village. This restaurant goes back to the 1920’s…they know real Italian cooking. Very friendly service, not a contrived, phony ambiance….great food. For me I will not go to NYC without visiting the REAL Rocco’s. You shouldn’t either.

* The NYC bus tours. Touristy? Yeah but also a great view of the city with tons of cool information You can pick the area you want to go. I enjoyed it a great deal.

* The Lion King – OK, it opened on Broadway in 1997 and won best musical….but I never saw it until this trip…5th row center. If you haven’t seen it…please do so. Not for the kids but for you.

Of course what would a trip be without a meetup of some new and old voice over buddies. As you might imagine we had fun, got in trouble and traded great stories.

This time our group included Liz de Nesnera, Melissa Exelberth, Patrick O’Connor and a special guest appearance by Mary McKitrick and her sons Peter and Edward.

I coordinated the meetup, picking the location and time. I picked a Starbucks in Times Square from my earlier travels and arrived at the appointed time only to realize that it was not a sit down Starbucks. I suppose it would have been smart of Mrs. audio’connell and me to actually cross the street and go in after we picked the place but we didn’t.

Luckily, voice actors are both vagabonds and a flexible bunch and as we all gathered at Starbucks in Times Square we quickly chose another locale to make our temporary camp.

Suffice it to say there was so many stories and laughs we got yelled at for being too loud (ok, well I did). But I need to point out that it was Liz, Melissa and Patrick who got thrown outta the joint after Mary and I had left.

My thanks to all of these talented folks for coming to meet with me. A great way to end a great treat.

Tags: commentary, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
9 Comments »

There is occasionally downtime in the voice over world of audio’connell Voice Over Talent. While I should say that I am always marketing or developing new business when the mic isn’t on, well, that’s not always true.

Sometimes I surf. And not on water.

But a recent surfing expedition (which really was a key word search on Google) led me to a 1997 interview on a “Lost In Space” website with a fairly well known announcer by the name of Dick Tufeld. Dick was the voice of “The Robot” in the series “Lost In Space” and reprised his role when the movie came out. (And, if you like, there seems to be another interview with Dick here).

Dick’s career has spanned a great deal more than just “Lost In Space”. I remember him as a long time announcer of the Grammy’s among other shows (his signoff that I remember was “This is Dick Tufeld speaking”). I can’t find too much present day information on him to know if at 82 he’s still working, other than some somewhat suspect web sites that I cannot confirm as credible.

But what I loved though, from the 1997 interview, was this quote, telling a story that almost every professional voice talent can relate to and laaaughh!

Q: How did you get the voice job of the Robot?
Dick Tufeld: When I was 18 years old, I was working one summer at KLCA-LA radio, and I used to announce shows and do station breaks, etc. There was a literary agent named Irwin Allen, who must have been, I’m guessing, 35 years old at the time, who would walk in and nod to me, and I’d nod to him — I was just a kid at the time. He had a Hollywood gossip show, and I’d spin the theme music for it and announce him, for 15 minutes once a week. Then he’d leave and nod to me, and I’d nod to him. That was the extent of our conversation.

Twenty years go by, and he was walking out of the commissary at 20th Century Fox and there was a guy named Emmett Labry, Jr. who was in the business affairs department. Irwin ran into Emmett and said that he had a new series going on air in a few weeks. “We need a narrator and is there anybody you can think of?’ Emmett was a friend of mine, and said “How about Dick Tufeld?”

In one of the most astonishing statements I’ve heard repeated to me, Irwin turned to Emmett and said “Dick Tufeld, my oldest and dearest friend — great idea!” Which I think is pretty funny. Irwin contacted my agent, and they got an audio tape of my voice doing some narration. Irwin liked it and I became the narrator of the show.

About two weeks later I got a call from Irwin’s office asking me to read for a robot character. So I go in there, and think this is good. He hands me some copy, and I say “Irwin, I presume what you are looking for a mechanical, robot-ian kind of robot sound.” He looks at me and says “My dear boy, that is precisely what I do not want. This is a very highly advanced culture in the year 1997.” Of course that seemed to be very far away to everybody [chuckle]. “I want a cultured low- key voice, (I would equate this with the voice of computer Hal in “2001”), an Alexander Scourby” — the wonderful NY actor and narrator voice who has passed on – and he said “that’s what I’m looking for.”

So I started reading for Irwin with my best Scourby imitation, and I’m not coloring the words and I’m doing an unemotional read and I’m saying “Warning that does not compute.” He says no, that’s not it, and I do it again, and then he says no, that’s not it, and I try something else and that’s not it. All this time I’m trying to do my best Alexander Scourby imitation. And he finally says to me, after about 10 minutes, “Well Dick, I appreciate you coming in. To be honest with you, you’re not getting this, so I have to look further for this. But you’re still the narrator on this show.” And I say to Irwin, “Thank you very much.”

I take my reading glasses off and start packing up my attaché case. And God knows why I even did this. I say to Irwin, “Let me try one more thing for you just before I go.” And now I read the line in my best mechanical, robot-ian kind of way and I say “Warning that does not compute.”

And he says “Jesus Christ, that’s the Alexander Scourby approach I was looking for, what the hell took you so long?” Honestly, I had to literally turn away from him, so as not to laugh in his face, because I was so convulsed.

It was the classic example of what people say they want, and what they are actually looking for. They are two different things. In a sense I was *very* fortunate to become the voice of the Robot, because if I had not said “let me try one more thing” as I was walking out obviously I would never have been the voice of the Robot. It was a kind of a fluke the way it happened.

That IS a classic and oddly timeless truth that makes me smile, knowing the challenges of today in voice over aren’t actually that different from those great talents who paved the way for us.

Thanks Dick. Love your voice, love your humor!

Tags: announcers, audio'connell voice over talent, character voices, commentary, marketing, tv, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
6 Comments »

It was a bit of a jolt to be awakened this morning to hear on the radio (via CBS News) of the death of voice over legend Don LaFontaine. Over the past week the internet had been buzzing about his illness and hoping for Don’s full recovery.

It’s a discussion I pretty much stayed out of first off until I could ascertain the information about his illness was credible (not a awful internet hoax) and then because aside from a prayer I offered, there wasn’t much else for me to do.

Now the gift has ended for Don, as it will for all of us.

There was no bigger name in the modern day voice over world based not only on his talent but also his great income from his talent (he was the “stars” in many voice over newbies’ eyes). Don said many times he knew he was the luckiest man in the world which gave me a sense that he was probably a good fella, I never personally knew the man save for a few emails we traded. Participants in the VOICES 2007 conference enjoyed the opportunity to meet with Don during a panel discussion and it’s a memory I know they will cherish.

While this is a very sad loss for the voice over world, it’s a sadder loss for Don’s wife, his three children, family and close friends. For them and for whatever its worth, I offer my deepest condolences.

Requiescat In Pace.

Tags: CBS News, commentary, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
5 Comments »