New York Voiceover Mixer 2009

My sincere congratulations to Eric Sheppard at Voice Talent Productions for putting together the upcoming 2nd Annual New York City Voiceover Mixer that will take place on December 5, 2009. Special congrats to Lindsay Reiss, Eric’s associate at the company (and his fiancée) for her work in selling out the event.

There are 205 people on the list and they had to stop there….three weeks away and its sold out! I am assuming all the guests are related to the world of voiceover either as active performers, producers, agents or wannabes in any of those categories. Of those 205, I am long time friends (personally or on-line) with the following attendees: September Day, Liz de Nesnera, John Florian of Voice Over X-tra, Philip Banks, DB Cooper, Lee Gordon, Melissa Exelberth, Tom Dheere, Moe Egan, Bob Souer, Pam Tierney, Dave Courvoisier, Mandy Nelson, Patrick O’Connor, Elaine Singer, Doug Turkel and Mary McKitrick.

Then there are those whose reputations I wouldn’t sully by branding them a friend of mine as ours is more of a social media kinship but I am still very much looking forward to meeting: certainly our hosts Eric and Lindsay, Bob Bergen, Ron Levine, Diane Havens, Michael Schoen, Terry Daniel, Bobbi Owens, James Lorenz, Julie-Ann Dean, Chip Joel and Linda Ristig.

As for everybody else, I don’t think I know them know but I very much hope to know all of them by the end of the event which I predict will last long over the 10:00 p.m. closing date on the invite. I hope if you are there and you see me before I see you, you’ll all say hi.

Tags: announcers, social media, social networking, voice actors, voice over podcast, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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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.

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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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FRONT ROW: Jill Perry, Pam Tierney, Kara Edwards MIDDLE ROW: Peter K. O'Connell, Caryn Clark, Melissa Exelberth BACK ROW: Bob Souer, Rowell Gorman, Alexander Vishniakoff, Debra Webb, Beth Whistler, Robert John Hughes CUT OFF ONLY DUE TO PHOTOGRAPHER ERROR: Mike Stoudt

So I packed a bag on Friday and flew down to Atlanta for the Marice Tobias workshop on Commercial and Narration voice over at the very nice Captive Sound Studios. My friend Bob Souer has been singing her praises for a long time; Kara Edwards and I were talking about maybe attending about 6 weeks ago and since I could see some family while I was there, I decided to pull the trigger.

Kara Edwards, Bob Souer and Melissa Exelberth

It was completely different than ANY other voice over workshop I have ever been to and I have been to many.

I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and learned much. And while I participated in the workshop, I am at a bit of a loss as to how to effectively summarize it because I think unless you’ve been through it, it’s very difficult to understand it. So my first piece of advice would be to take a workshop with Marice.

Rowell Gorman

A lot of internal performer analysis (as it relates to vocal performance) for each student went on during her seminar. I think we all came away with a specific understanding of how effective personal analysis greatly affects the performance a voice talent gives. That kind of analysis helps performers to get out of their own way. The performance improvement was immediately evident and we (each workshop participant) all witnessed it and experienced it time and time again.

Now, you’ve likely just read that and had no understanding of what it meant. Well, some things must be personally experienced, not just read about. I’m not being coy or mean but instead honest.

Kara Edwards, Caryn Clark, Melissa Exelberth, Robert John Hughes

Each voice over talent (as does everyone) learns in different ways and her seminar needs to be personally experienced, not read about. I would recommend you look at Marice’s schedule and if it’s possible for you, take the seminar.

And if you are especially lucky, you’ll get into a class with as many incredibly talented voice over performers as I did. This might be a record because we had 6 of us – about ½ the class – who’ve been long time friends from the VO-BB. There was an immediate and invaluable comfort level learning, working and performing among friends.

Jill Perry and Pam Tierney

When I signed up for Marice’s workshop, I knew Bob was going and I knew there was a chance my friends Kara Edwards and Caryn Clark were coming (they did attend) but what I didn’t know for sure until I saw the list just before I came that the great character voice actor Rowell Gorman would be there, my pal Melissa Exelberth from New York would be there as well as the lovely and talent Pam Tierney from the toddlin’ town of Chicago. What a gift to have my friends there!

Mike Stoudt, Debra Webb and Beth Whistler

The voice talents whom I had never met previous to the workshop really capped off the experience for me and I am so grateful to have been included among them for a few days: Robert John Hughes, Alexander Vishniakoff, Beth Whistler (thank you for driving to the airport!), Debra Webb (who, I found out in setting up this link shares the same agent as me), Jill Perry and Mike Stoudt (who also shares mine and Debra’s agent).

Two VO folks who couldn’t make the seminar but who kindly came out to join our group at various times throughout the weekend were Smith Harrison and Craig Crumpton.

Not to put too strong a point on it, but there were certain voice over suspects who shall remain nameless (Karen Commins (complete with brand new web site), Lance Blair, September Day Leach) who call Atlanta home but had something (anything better) to do than visit with Team Tobias Atlanta after hours at our various pubs, taverns and dives (sometimes known as the mini-bar)! Hurmph! 😉

And finally, my most special thanks to my family in Atlanta who were so kind to let me stay with (or near) them. They had fresh hay in the stable for me to sleep on and let me borrow the mule’s blanket to avoid frostbite. 😉

I hope you get to enjoy a training experience at least once in your career a unique as the one I just enjoyed.

If you’ve trained with Marice, I would love to hear your general impression of the experience. And if you have already with any professional voice over teacher, tell us about it here.

PS. Here is a shot of the WHOLE group, (including and ESPECIALLY Mike Stoudt) courtesy of Bob Souer’s camera:

FRONT ROW: Jill Perry, Pam Tierney, Kara Edwards MIDDLE ROW: Peter K. O'Connell, Caryn Clark, Melissa Exelberth BACK ROW: Mike Stoudt, Bob Souer, Rowell Gorman, Alexander Vishniakoff, Debra Webb, Beth Whistler, Robert John Hughes

Tags: announcers, audio production, audio'connell voice over talent, commentary, community, voice over workshop, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover meet-ups 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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Two words that have popped up in my on-line reading during the past twenty-four hours are motivation and inspiration. I don’t know why they showed up either…in my web reading, on my social media networks, I have just seen those words so often in the past day I feel like it’s a theme I should address presently.

Possibly I am more attuned to those words having just come off of Pat Fraley’s event on Saturday. There was great insight there, new approaches to auditioning and performing as well as critical reminders that I find so valuable. I put those tools to work right away in my Monday auditions. I was pumped (i.e. motivated and inspired) about that.

My “pumpedness” could be because I made my payment for Marice Tobias’ Commercial / Narration Weekend Workshop in October in Atlanta (in addition to training with Marice, I’m looking forward to seeing friends and fellow voice talents Bob Souer, Rowell Gorman, Kara Edwards and Caryn Clark there as well new friends I’m sure). Bob, Mary McKitrick and Bobbin Beam are just a few of the voices I respect who truly adore Marice; however Marice may quit training altogether after trying to work with me for a weekend, lesser teachers have tried and cried.

Finally, I got to thinking over the weekend about the Voice Over Workshops I hold for voice talents. From the beginning, I have been bugged by me using the words “teacher” or “coach” for what I do with other voice talents. They are great key words (mine is primarily an internet business after all) but I kept feeling they do a disservice to the work that more true and more accomplished teachers like Pat and Marice execute.

The Voice Over Workshop is very informal…the students who work with me decide a session’s agenda, I don’t. They pick a topic or topics and off we go. I offer insight, history, perspective, evaluations, critiques, direction and advice….but not a formal, structured curriculum like a true teacher would (at least in my experience). So I thought about it some more and I think I came up with a better description for what I do that also better respects what true voice over teachers do.

Best described: I am a voice over consigliere, a voice over counselor. I talk, I prod, I cajole, I direct, I motivate and I teach a little bit. The consigliere part is more about marketing, being memorable but I think the counselor is pretty spot on and feel much better about that moniker than coach or teacher…there are folks more worthy of those titles than me.

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