I have been remiss in the crunch of work and holidays and kidney stones (don’t ask) to thank fellow voice professional Todd Ellisfor joining me for dinner last week when I traveled to St. Louis.

Todd has enjoyed a successful voice over career part time and now (for the past five years) full time. He has a wonderfully humorous disposition which meshes well with mine.

At the complex that housed the restaurant where we ate, Todd stopped by KTRS-AM, meeting with an old radio colleague of Todd’s, Shawn Balint, who is a news anchor at the station. (The picture features Shawn, me and Todd)

Together, we all shared many funny radio and announcing stories and proved yet again, when you are in voice over, you’ve got a friend in almost every city.

Tags: announcers, commentary, peter o'connell, radio, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Thanksgiving in the ATL was great (once I finally got there). It was lovely fall weather there and we even brought them some much needed rain.

One of the real treats was having lunch with September Day Leach, an Atlanta voice over talent and soon to be Los Angeles voice over talent (yes Bob, I forgot the camera again). She’ll not be falling off the Greyhound bus with stars in her eyes once she reaches the west coast…this young woman has some tremendous voice credits already including serving as the voice/announcer for the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards (check out the name on the cast list right after Avril Lavigne).

We shared many fun stories and helped lay the ground work for some seriously impressive marketing opportunities for her. Expect to be hearing her even more in the near future.

My thanks to Karen Commins, Lance Blair and Scott Pollack, September’s fellow Atlantan voice talents who wanted to join us but had commitments that didn’t allow time for my (as per usual with me) last minute get together. Maybe next time.

Tags: announcers, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Bob Souer and Kara Edwards were so kind to join me for dinner last night as I stopped by Charlotte, NC. And I also enjoyed having lunch with Brett Mason who has a great story about how he started in radio.

In the voice over business, it’s rare you could go into a city and NOT have someone in your voiceover network who you would know. For such a individualistic business, our networks are getting stronger all the time. My thanks to Kara, Bob and Brett.

Tags: commentary, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I had an interesting experience last week when audio’connell Voice Over Talent’s Terri and me were invited to speak to a class of radio broadcasting students at Buffalo State College about the voice over business and commercial production.

Buff State has an impressive communications program and boasts a famous or infamous radio station in WBNY, which includes among its impressive alumni Tom Calderone who currently oversees VH1.

Terri actually set up the whole presentation because she’s finishing her degree there (way to go!) while balancing her voiceover work and her other job with the Buffalo Fire Department (and I thought MY days were busy).

Having been in broadcasting for over 30 years and teaching at Buff State for at least 25 years, the class’ professor, Tom Donahue, is a great asset for students and was a great host for we presenters. We shared some terrific radio stories.

Presenting in front of college students is always a challenge…you really have to rev them up…I think we did alright. Students were at a select disadvantage when I presented because I’m a talker AND a walker….I’ll come up to you and finish my point with emphasis right in front of you and look for your recognition….you weren’t sleeping, were you?! (They weren’t…they were all great).

While I’ve neither the patience, education nor the talent for teaching, I fully understand why it can be a satisfying profession. Tom brought some scripts to class and Terri and I would read a couple (watching the students’ eye light up…you could tell they were thinking “that sounds just like on the radio!”). Then, I’d bring them up and we’d try 2-3 takes. The difference between performances from take 1 to take 3 really caught students by surprise.

It’s the kind of surprise some students might be able to build a career on.

Tags: announcers, commentary, commercials, peter o'connell, radio, 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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Hot and humid pretty much covers the summer weather in much of the southeastern United States and boy is that true in Florida.

On this trip, I was in Marco Island, Florida, just south of Naples, staying at the very nice Marco Island Marriott with a lovely room looking out over the Gulf of Mexico. Every morning and evening I went out on my balcony to enjoy the view and very quickly went back in my comfortably air conditioned room. Too humid outside for my liking.

What was to my liking was an impromptu visit with professional female voice talent Caryn Clark , aka “The Hip Chick Voice”. My schedule on this trip was constantly changing but it worked out that I could meet up with her before my flight home out of Fort Meyers this evening.

After some navigational missteps, I did find the Denny’s near the airport and had a very nice visit with Caryn, sharing voice over war stories (are there any other kind?) Caryn recently walked away from a successful career in the insurance industry to take up voice over full time.

Things are clearly going well for her in that regard or maybe I’ve just become her Irish lucky charm because while we were visiting, she got a call on her cell and booked a voice over job. Well done!

Yeah, we forgot to get a picture, I always forget that. Shame on me.

My thanks to Caryn (find her blog here)for taking time out of her obviously successful voiceover duties to visit with me. She’s a talented announcer and a nice person too.

Tags: commentary, commercials, voice actors, voice casting, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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While on business for the past week in Boston, I had the opportunity to visit with my voice over colleagues Deirdre Cooper and Mary McKitrick who live in the area. “Area” is a vague term because both were at least 90 minutes away from my location near Boston Harbor.

But bless them both, they took the time to travel and have dinner with me in the city and boy did we have a grand time. I’ve known them both “virtually” for some time on the VO-BB and through some voice projects that we’ve collaborated on.

It is said you can’t really know someone until you’ve spent some time with them and these two voice actors are great ladies in addition to being amazing voice talents. While one might imagine conversation coming easily to people who talk for a living, our conversations were the very definition of effortless, full of both professional insight and shared challenges. Social networking at its finest.

There is no 12-step program for voice over talents because we can call our shared addiction a profession, but it’s nice to be able to discuss similar trials and tribulations with people with whom you can both commiserate with and learn from. And I’m not sure who was the first to pull out the pictures of the family first (usually I’m guilty on that count) it was very funny to learn again how parenting challenges are universal.

My sincere thanks to them for taking the time to become my friends in addition to my colleagues and making Boston an even more hospitable place.

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