The trouble with having strangers use your iphone to take pictures is they might not know how to use the iphone camera…or any camera for that matter. Such was the case with the above picture from an otherwise terrific evening.

With fellow Faffers Seattle-area voice talents Corey Snow, Jeffrey Kafer and Scott Burns, I enjoyed the opportunity to introduce my them to my other Seattle-area voice-over talent friend Grace Regis Bennett when we all got together for dinner.

The restaurant had spectacular views of the Olympic mountains which made up for their not spectacular wait staff. The laughs were plentiful and Grace joined in liked she’d know these boys forever…which I hope now she will because they are not only all great voice talents but great people as well.

Thanks to all four of them for joining me.

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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What a nice treat for me on my recent trip to Milwaukee to visit with the great female voice talent Bobbin Beam and her husband Pete Kraeger.

Pete and Bobbin recently moved back from San Diego to their old stomping grounds and are having a wonderful time. We had so much fun talking about…well loads of stuff including Bobbin’s growth into the audiobook world (she clearly has wonderful patience that I’m kind of lacking in that particular genre).

I’m only sorry Bob Merkel couldn’t join us but we’ll all get together soon I hope! Thanks Bobbin and Pete!

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I have been doing voice-over professionally since 1982. That’s not the admission of guilt.

In all that time, I have been to an Ear, Nose and Throat Doctor a grand total of once: to get my ears look at.

Never have I been to an ENT to get my throat and vocal folds looked at…that’s my admission of guilt.

Think about it for a moment…the key instrument upon which I rely for my income had never been in for a medically tune up. My microphones were better taken care of than my throat.

That’s stupid and that’s my fault.

Now, you don’t have to admit it, but I’m guessing you’ve been stupid too. When was the last time (if ever) you’ve been to an ENT to get checked out (especially a preventative exam)?

I was even pulled aside by my friend Sean Caldwell at FaffCon 5, who explained to me in no uncertain terms the dangers of ignoring throat and vocal health. That was months ago and yet I waited.

Stupid me.

Well I recently addressed my stupidity head-on…because I was forced to. If you’re skittish about unhappy endings, read on as this one turns out ok.

Here’s the brief back-story – I went down to my father-in-law’s house a few weeks ago for the Easter holiday. He has a cat and it turns out (and I knew this for a few years, having visited him before) I had developed an allergic reaction to cats (as an adult) in the form of asthma (albeit a minor but still uncomfortable form of asthma).

The subsequent significant coughing (even while on medication which I ordered up ahead of time in anticipation of my problem) left me significantly laryngitical for weeks (as my FaffCon Stand-up group can attest). That meant no voice-over work. None.

So after squeaking into the phone one day too many I decided I needed to see someone other than my talented general practitioner about my pressing vocal health challenge.

Problem was I didn’t really have a name of someone to meet with. So I called my friend Dan Lenard who was kind enough to share his ENT with me (since Dan and I live in the same area although we only see each other at FaffCons).

I met Dr. Joel Bernstein who began the appointment by condemning me for talking too loudly when I said hello to him and went on to discuss how I needed to rest my voice more when I wasn’t using it professionally, which I knew. I also let him know I have three small kids and use my loud voice sometimes to corral those feral cats. He didn’t really have an answer for that one. He just said that drugs like Modafinil, which are becoming increasingly popular, do have side effects to look out for.

So on to the heart of the exam- the throat scoping. This involves a little topical anesthetic through the nose…so that a camera tube can be put down there and the good doctor can see what’s up in the throat and vocal area. It’s a bit uncomfortable but it doesn’t hurt.

Well the good news is the exam showed my throat to be in perfect health and that there was no damage to my vocal chords and that I would be fine once my coughing and asthma symptoms subsided, which they have. I am back to voicing new projects without sounding like Harvey Fierstein.

So even though you didn’t ask for my advice, I hope you won’t be as stupid as I was…take this nudge as reason enough to contact an ENT in your area to get your voice-over money maker examined.

Tags: commentary, community, faffcon, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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So I got a LinkedIn ping the other day from my friend and fellow voice talent Jerry Reed over in Syracuse that he’s got a sparkling new web site. Take a look!

And if you’re wondering where those COOL demo players came from, my friend Bob Merkel of VoiceZam can hook you up.

Tags: voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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If you saw the Super Bowl, one of the ads you probably watched was for Ram Trucks and featured one of my true broadcasting heros….one of the people whose talents I would quickly exchange for mine, Paul Harvey. Even after his death his talent – which is one the greatest successes in radio and possibly ALL of broadcasting – still resonants.

One small example comes every Friday on Facebook when my friend and great voice talent Vance Elderkin posts “Hello, Facebookians. It’s Friday,” in a tribute to Harvey who every Friday would open his broadcast by saying “Hello Americans. It’s Friday!”

Another more recent example is the recent Meme that has grown from the famous Harvey speech upon which the Ram Truck ad was built – many jobs have been substituted for the Farmers in this Meme so I suppose it should have come as no surprise that voice acting would have its Meme day.

Except there WAS a surprise.

There was a surprise for me in the personal impact I felt experiencing the great writing, quality audio production and perfect performance by John Taylor who clearly sneezes away more talent during allergy season than most of us can hope to attain in our lifetimes. The great ones always make it look and sound easy.

I hope you enjoy his work as much as I have.

Tags: announcers, commentary, commercials, video, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Sometimes people ask me what I like most about my job. Some days I don’t have an answer. 😉

But I think on a clear day, I would say I love the community I work within, the other talents, even more so than the clients – who are equally amazing.

It’s the talents, however, who create great voice-over projects and from whom I learn so much (and yes, occasionally steal from).

Also, we sometimes create our own projects for our own artistic enjoyment (and maybe the enjoyment of others). A Christmas audio project I (and other VO-BB’ers did many years ago with my friend Phillip Banks and then later a video project with my friend Jeffrey Kafer comes immediately to mind. And then another project a group of us did for Armed Forces Radio was a hoot.

I really am thrilled to even be considered let alone invited to participate in these projects because the final piece is always fun.

So when my friend and fellow voice talent Corey Snow invited me and a bunch of other folks to participate in a tribute to Gary Owens we collectively couldn’t say yes fast enough.

The above video is that project and I was stunned to be the lead off voice on this thing – I should have, I dunno, worn a tie or something. But it’s just great heart felt video to tell a guy who has entertained so many people how great an impact he had on all of us, including:

Liz deNesnera

Monk Schane-Lydon

John LaPiana

Pam Tierney

Todd Ellis

Moe Eagan (who got driven to school once by Gary Owens!)

Joe J. Thomas

Doug Turkel

Chris Ratliff

CC Petersen

Bob Souer

Anthony Gettig

Kendra Hoffman

Lee Gordon

Karl Kuhlken

Corey Snow (who was the heart and soul behind this project)

Tags: announcers, commentary, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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