Mahmoud Taji pinged me to say he’s got a new voice over directory started (this seems to be a trend) called the The Voiceover Pavilion.
It’s a pay-to-play directory (you won’t be sent leads ala V123 but you pay to have a listing). He also advised he’s going to be spending some of these proceeds on advertising to end users who do the hiring.
Male Voice Talent Michael Minetree
Look, to go through the headache of creating a really nice, well thought-out on-line voice over web directory seems overzealous, generous and a bit crazy to me. Pictures, demos, links – too much work for a lazy guy like me.
But not Michael Minetree.
It seems in addition to his MineWurx Studio, Michael likes to create projects for himself. He created a very enjoyable to watch (maybe less enjoyable to build) video chronicle of the construction of his new voice over booth (a link to one of the many videos created on that project can be found here).
Then he decided to create this voice over directory (I’m in there somewhere under the category of short, fat voice talent – sadly, it’s not an exclusively listing ;).
Now he’s also created a “Voices with ISDN” web directory, listing all voice talents who have ISDN numbers.
And there is more to come.
While maybe not wholly altruistic (we are all business people here) these are all extremely generous efforts by Michael to help promote an industry that is fortunate to have him as a practitioner.
When it comes to viral videos and such, I’m always behind about 1,000,000 people in learning about them. Maybe it’s work or kids or travel but I never know about these things early on.
So to find Stephanie Ciccarelli’s post today about a viral video wedding announcement brilliantly crafted as a movie trailer that has been on morning shows and blogs for a while now, I thought why should I bother posting it?
Then I realized, there are more “me” types out there than there are viral adopters so you may not have seen it either.
Sometimes I give these things too much thought – just watch the darn thing 🙂
And congrats to voice talent Larry Wayne for getting the gig and going viral.
Female Voice Talent Gina Tuttle
I don’t know if you caught the 2010 Oscars last night.
I did and I thought it was a pretty good show. I thought it was VERY interesting at the end for best picture how Tom Hanks seemed to walk on stage and just read the winner’s name without any recognition of the 10 nominees (yes they did little BP vignette’s throughout the telecast). But it just seemed like he got told “go out, read the winner and get off…we’re LATE!” Maybe it was just me but I chuckled (been there, done that…just, you know, not on the Oscars).
But to the point of this post, congrats to someone I do not know in this industry (probably there are more I don’t know than I do know) and that would be Gina Tuttle who served as announcer for the 82nd Oscar broadcast. She was an excellent choice to my ear. Congratulations on a job really well done.
Voice Talent Lee Gordon (I swear it's him)
Last evening I enjoyed two very pleasant phone calls that I thought I would share with you.
First, I got a call from a number I had never seen before – which isn’t that unusual as many new clients call me all the time. But this wasn’t a client, it was my friend and fellow voice talent Lee Gordon (that’s his picture above) who shared with me the fact that he took my advice (yikes…I’d forgotten what I said) and got a cell phone he could use just for his business. This would be his primary business number: 860-805-8100. I was his first call on the new phone, which was a great honor in my mind. I hope if you read this here, you’ll call Lee and congratulate him while simultaneously putting the number in your own database, as I did.
Lee also called to share some other good news: he was cast as the “Sun” in a national commercial for SunSetter Awnings, though our mutual agent and friend (the two aren’t mutually exclusive) Erik Shepard at Voice Talent Productions. I was especially thrilled to hear this because Lee and I had spoken in New York in December about how we were both up for the announcer role for the SunSetter Radio spots, which I was hired for. Let it be known that the FIRST person to congratulate me on that win was Lee Gordon – the very definition of gracious. We both hope somehow our paths will cross on these campaigns and we’ll get to work together.
Later in the evening, about 8:00 p.m., I got a call from the agency president of one of my other agents, Lynne Heyman of Heyman Talent (that’s not her pictured above). She was returning my call, which I advised her automatically puts her in the upper echelon of my agents. But as I also pointed out to her, the dedication she shows to her talents on her roster by following up with a call even at 8:00 at night is very impressive. And as usually, our 5 minute call lasted almost 1/2 an hour and it is always time well spent with her. I just wanted to thank Lynne here for taking the time with me last night.
John Florian is usually a pretty savvy, smart guy. But I think he may have lost his mind. Either that or absolutely everyone else on the planet said no.
John pinged me last week to invite me to be on a panel he is moderating at VOICE 2010, June 2-5 in LaLa Land.
I am to speak eloquently on how I use the internet for my voice over career and for my companies: audio’connell Voice Over Talent, International Voice Talent and Voice Over Workshop. If he wants eloquence, I hope he has a script for me.
Trish Basanyi (who I had the pleasure of meeting at the NYC Voice Over Mixer) will be on the panel with me along with David Kaplan.
Our plan as panelists, I have decided here without consulting either Trish or David, will be to have a pre-meeting confab with John and us at the most expensive, trendy, posh restaurant in LA (on John’s dime of course, he’s rollin’ in it).
This way, when I open my mouth to speak at the conference and the audience realizes I have nothing to say and my voice over career promptly ends of the spot, I will at least have had one last good meal.
