the mysterious political female voice talent
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Want to know the name of the female voice over talent whose voice has been used to attack Obama in McCain commercials?
Her name is Joan. The rest is on a need to know basis.
Want to know the name of the female voice over talent whose voice has been used to attack Obama in McCain commercials?
Her name is Joan. The rest is on a need to know basis.
If you had asked me three years ago who the h-e-double hockey sticks Dora the Explorer was I might have guess a nickname for a medical device that was part of an unpleasant medical experience – the older I get the more I start to think that way.
But most everyone with kids knows its an ungodly popular TV animated show and billion dollar enterprise for Nick Jr. I have about a dozen Dora related products in my home (more to come I’m sure) including pull up diapers because as the Muppets will tell you you’re not really a hit in TV animation until your animated likeness is plastered all over a…diaper. Please insert your own joke here.
But for fans of the show and for voice over, this upcoming season will unveil a new voice talent for Dora. Caitlin Sanchez, a 12 year old from New Jersey and new to VO, is set to fill the role of Dora. While I offer my congratulations to her as I’m sure she’ll do a fine job, I wonder if the current audience will notice the change as the producers hope they won’t.
For example, even as a child I noticed voice acting changes on the Flintstones during the series and its various incarnations and the later voices made me tune out. Now maybe I was a VO producer even as a child but I think kids are more discerning that adults give them credit for or even hope they’ll be.
I’ll be interested to observe if a certain young lady around our house notices any difference in her must-see-TV.
Thanks for reading.
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The wonderful UK voice talent and my friend Philip Banks has a marvelous sense of humor but his latest posting on the VO-BB had me laughing so hard my stomach hurt (in a good way).
If you’ve ever done any voice over work this imaginary dialogue will ring loud and clear for you. Enjoy the shared experience.
If you are a creative director, audio producer or agency type….these were written by Philip Banks and he made me post them at gun point. 😉
DIRECTION AND RESPONSE
Direction – That was 35 we need to do it in 30
Response – It is ok for me to delete the client name and contact details?
_______________________________________
Direction – More hard sell
Response – throughout or just on the meaningless offers?
_____________________________________________________
Direction – Mmm not sure about your accent do you have another?
Response – I’m sorry I didn’t understand what you just said to me.
_____________________________________________________
Direction – Come back off the mic
Response – Shall I close the door behind me?
________________________________________________
Direction – Do you do “sexy”
Response – Yes and for an extra 20 you can leave the light on
_____________________________________________________
Direction – You’re sounding too announcery!
Response – It says on the script “Announcer” what part should I be reading?
_____________________________________________________
Direction – If you feel you can do anything to improve the script feel free
Response – Excuse the ripping sound
_____________________________________________________
Direction – I want to hear you really enjoy the experience of reading the copy
Response – Do you have enjoyable copy out there or shall use this and act my a** off?
______________________________________________
Direction – One more for luck!
Response – if you like, the sound engineer and me can grab one of your legs each and make a wish too!
Thanks for reading.
If you haven’t already, we’d be honored if you subscribe to voxmarketising – the audio’connell blog and podcast by clicking the “subscribe” button on this blog.
If you have previously subscribed, as of August 1, 2008 we’ve implemented a new RSS feed. Please update your subscription now in your reader because as of September 1, 2008, the old subscription feed will go away and we want you to stay!
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.
Every business has a brand and as Mitch Joel will tell you, every individual has a personal brand.
In the case of voice over, most folks are one person shops so the individual voice talent is often the brand. And by virtue of their sole proprietorship, their personal brand is often front and center.
BRAND = PROFITS
How prospective clients and even the general business community or passersby view your brand impacts your bottom line. You’ve got to understand this as fact. If you don’t, the rest of this post will be meaningless.
We are only aware of about 1/3 of the opinions people have of our brands (my very rough estimate, no science here) meaning that 66% of opinions on our brand – that thing on which we base our livelihoods – never makes it back to us.
We don’t know what potential clients are saying about our brand – personal or otherwise (yikes!) – which is why we must be ardent stewards of our own brands.
So when I see web examples of really poor branding (in my opinion) my head starts to throb. Not in anger or anything like that -more like pity because I know that I am hardly the only person who’s noticed these mis-steps. And they are too often so easy to fix/avoid.
LET’S SEE THE BODIES
Now of course, you want to see (and thereby have me “out”) the sites and their owners I will reference here because you’re also the person who slows down to gawk at accidents, I know. Well no dice.
It’s hurtful to single out someone specifically and that’s not my goal nor is it the point of this post.
“But,” you ask, “isn’t it hurtful to speak badly about a person’s branding even vaguely?”
Yes which is why I won’t be speaking badly about anyone. I will be pointing out mis-steps in branding and design which you can be sure to avoid. I will do this without specifically “brand-spanking” the sites that incited this post (I call copyright on brand spanking!).
“Yet by not being specific, aren’t you speaking behind their back, you backstabbing bastard?!”
Firstly, watch your language, potty mouth 😉 . Second, the point here is to get everyone to look at their own web sites and branding more critically. For some readers, the concept of branding is totally new. If you see some of yourself in any of my forthcoming comments, get offended if you wish but that would just be a waste of time. Rather see if you might want to at least think of revising your branding or presentation. Branding is an ever evolving process anyway…on-going analysis is always good.
CLUTTER IS NOT CONTENT
The first site is from a fairly well know media professional and educator. The site looks like it was designed in 1997 and really hasn’t changed much. There’s a blog that isn’t really a blog, text in sooooo many different colors that the Rainbow Coalition may sue for copyright infringement and its almost nothing but miles and miles of copy in 8 point font. It is jumbled and disorganized (to the eye) and if there is great content somewhere in there, you’ll burn your retinas trying to find it.
Note I said this media professional is an educator – credibility must be one of the hallmarks of his/her brand. Smart and somewhat sophisticated must be some of the other immediate impressions. They seem to be using a do-it-yourself web program and have put no thought into web design. Bad idea.
Based on this site, I could never train with this person even if they were the Albert Einstein of voice over. It would never be apparent how talented they might be. And isn’t that the saddest part of all…one who might be enormously talented gets ignored because (personal opinion only) their brand, their persona sucks?
Ours is not a bricks and mortar business, as it used to be. Often the web is the building. The wrapping paper matters and assuming that using the Sunday comics will be good enough for a web design (as is the impression I get with this person’s really bad design choices) well, that is a really bad plan for branding.
Simple, clean, uncluttered design is best. Among the most simple and effective voice web site designs out there are Bruce Miles and Dan Nachtrab. Certainly, their great voices are what sell you but their personal branding is professional – in two very different ways. Both enjoy good SEO success too.
BRANDING AND POSITIONING
Now let’s chat for a minute about how you position yourself in the voice over market place and how that fits into branding. This is going to be a sensitive area for a lot of industry people because the site I saw tonight positioned itself on being one the cheapest voice over service out there. They said they were “good” but their primary point of difference was low price – clear as a bell.
Point of fact, not opinion: every business has a low cost provider and there’s money to be made in them thar hills. Full disclosure (more on the opinion side of the fence here): I have a tremendous bias against such providers in any business because I think it lessens the value of an industry. And (completing the disclosure) I have, on occasion, shopped at Wal-Mart.
I think that low ball providers in voiceover are so bad because technology has given birth to thousands of talentless hacks who think they are voice talents and are willing (it seems, anyway) to pay their clients to let them do their voice work. “Cheap” is becoming synonymous (if not a standard expectation) with the voice over industry and that devalues everyone’s product. (Let the battle begin on that little paragraph).
The individual whose site I referenced this post was not talentless. The voice I heard was a fine radio voice doing spots – nothing bad there. The design was not awful either. It wasn’t inspiring but it did seem functional and that won’t hurt his branding. The mis-spellings on the copy might (says this author, who is a terrible proofreader) .
POINT OF DIFFERENCE
Back to the brand’s major point of difference: cheap. While maybe profitable volumetrically (and God bless ’em for putting food on the table – that part I get and respect) I heard a level of client on the demos and saw a level of client in the testimonials that I kind of expected. Not exactly Chico’s Bail Bonds (that of “Bad News Bears” fame) but in the neighborhood. When you say you’re the cheapest, there will always be a certain client you attract – and many more you won’t.
Check the synonyms for the word “cheap”. I don’t want to be high priced Harry but I know the value of my talent and of my brand. Cheap and its associated meanings are not something I think are worth promoting. There are tons of branding options – stay away from cheap.
Thanks for reading.
If you haven’t already, we’d be honored if you subscribe to voxmarketising – the audio’connell blog and podcast by clicking the “subscribe” button on this blog.
If you have previously subscribed, as of August 1, 2008 we’ve implemented a new RSS feed. Please update your subscription now in your reader because as of September 1, 2008, the old subscription feed will go away and we want you to stay!
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.
I walked away from a talent agency relationship today.
Now it could be easy to cast this agency as bad guys or disreputable. I don’t think they are and my due diligence (that I do with every possible agency relationship I negotiate) currently indicates I am right. Nor should it be seen as proudly proclaiming that I dumped some group. None of that is the point here (nor is it to name names), rather I simply hope others can learn from my experience(s).
This was an agency that has sent me leads, I’d met with the owner personally and we’d work out a contract — that was left unsigned because they were too busy to take 5 minutes to review minor changes (flag on the play!). Friends who are with them as talents speak well of them. They repeatedly and categorically stated they wanted me to sign as a voice talent with their agency. Now about that flag…. 😉
What I witnessed first hand and experienced with their company was total organizational chaos (not organized chaos, there’s a difference). It was like their agency was working at DefCon 2 and pushing it up to 1 was an imminent outcome. And this group wasn’t in New York, LA or Chicago — where you might expect such behavior (yet I’ve not seen that with the agencies there I deal with.)
My professional experience (i.e. 25+ years within the voice over world’s school of hard knocks) has been if you have to chase agencies down too much, if there seems to be no follow up but loads of platitudes when you do connect, a voice agent’s operation is faltering in some way.
Maybe they’re making money but details are being left out and they are frustrating the client (unbeknownst to the talent). Maybe money is tight and they are short staffed. Maybe it’s one of a myriad of other issues (the agency business is a tough one, I will grant you). But in this case it was at least unnecessary and worse unprofessional chaos.
That’s not something I want my professional brand associated with in front of clients nor do I care to spend my valuable time dealing with it or fretting over it.
Maybe it’s my attitude that I’ve always held about representation. At the very least, an agency relationship should be a partnership where each side uses their talents to make money for the other. In many ways, agencies work for the talent because it is the talent that earns the agent their money (agents need something to sell). I certainly prefer the partnership concept but what I will never support is an agency who thinks any talent is beholden to them and ‘oh aren’t we lucky just to have representation’. To me that’s not confidence, that’s arrogance – I’ve seen it and I won’t hire it.
The good news is there are a lot of great, hard working, qualified and organized talent agents out there. I am proud to be represented by many of them with a couple of new ones about to be announced. So it’s not so much an industry issue; each new agency negotiation needs to be analyzed on its own merits. And to be fair, there have been an agent or two who have not wanted to represent me…rejection in the VO world is not limited to auditions (some folks are very geocentric in their representation policies and I respect that).
Look, I know running a small business is stressful and at times chaotic. But not 24/7. If it is, then there’s a management problem.
The gut check said walk away.
What do you think, good move or bad?
A unique title (not) because “my commercial voice over demo” sounded weird to me. Better I speak of myself in the third person like all the self-important pro athletes (not all just some). Mmmm, maybe not.
Anyway, this new voice talent demo was long over due and joins the political commercial demo, audiobook demo and the radio imaging demo as recently re-done.
Got some more work to do on the narration and character voice demos now.
More to come. Let me know what you think (good or bad). I’d rather you be honest. Enjoy
LISTEN HERE!
[audio:http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/Peter_OConnell_Commercial_Demo_080713.mp3]
