4th of July and a long weekend took the audio’connells to parts south (even more south than Raleigh)! We did lots of visiting.

One visit including seeing one of the top radio imaging and promo voice talents around.

My voiceover pal Sean Caldwell has a wonderful place on Lake Lanier and was kind enough to invite us to spend sometime there with his family. The lake, the neighborhood and of course Sean’s place were all terrific. It was a great place for swimming until a quick storm moved in.

Then it was off to dinner…and right behind the restaurant was an ice cream stand. Well it would have been rude not to stop by there and sample a treat…or 7.

So much fun to hang with Sean and his family who got along swimmingly with my brood (get it, “swimmingly”, you see what I did there?)

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To look at the picture, voice talents of a certain age might be reminded of The Brady Bunch. But this was not ‘the story of a lovely lady who was bringing up three very lovely girls.” OK, the girls in the picture are lovely, but that’s not the point.

This was what happened when one voice talent (the one and only Ms. Jodi Krangle, in the upper left hand corner…where Marcia Brady used to be — that’s me next to her in the upper middle, where Carol Brady used to hangout) innocently posted Thursday evening on Facebook that she wanted to host a voiceover hangout for whomever wanted to join. I think she used her Canadian vernacular, water cooler, but hers is a country that also spells color with a “u” 😉

Like all great parties, nothing was planned but it turned out great. Voice talents who happened to catch Jodi’s post just clicked on the link she posted and were in on the video call.

What’s great about such things is that they are often a unique mix of people, like at a good party. Some people I knew, some people I did not but we all had VO in common and conversation flowed easily.

Unfortunately, I could not stay as long as I wanted to but I appreciate Jodi getting everybody together and everyone for their insights and humor during the video call.

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Voice Talent Peter K. O’Connell recording at Creative Sound Concepts in Atlanta, GA 2016

Living now in Cary, NC (outside of Raleigh) means my family is a lot closer to our family in Atlanta…but it’s still a six hour drive (oy!)

But it was very much a worthwhile (albeit whirlwind) trip, enjoying family and friends for this Thanksgiving weekend!

From a voice-over perspective, it was a REAL whirlwind.

You would think that voiceover might take a break around Thanksgiving but not in my case. A new national client needed a spot recorded while I was in Atlanta, so over to Creative Sound Concepts I went for a great session there. Happy client, happy life.

Voice Talent Peter K. O’Connell and Voiceover Agent Jeffrey Umberger in Atlanta, 2016

To make it even better, I was able to grab a late lunch/dinner with my friend and my agent Jeffery Umberger. He has a number of very cool action items planned for 2017…plus he had all the scoop on the Atlanta voiceover market. We could have kept talking for hours. Always great to see Jeffrey.

Voiceover Talents Peter K. O’Connell and September Day Carter at September and Bob Carter’s “Neighborhood Studio”, Atlanta 2016

Talking off like a rocket in the past few months is The Neighborhood Studio owned by September and Bob Carter. Both have been friends of mine for sometime, but it was great to catch up with September at the new studio (Bob was working) and see what they are doing with it…it’s more than just VO. Trust me when I tell you that if you want an update on the Atlanta video game, film and VO market, September has it but she was shooting information at me like a firehose!!! We had some great laughs about that.

Voice Talents Sean Caldwell, Jill Perry, Kelley Buttrick and Peter K. O’Connell, Atlanta 2016

Then finally, I was able to catch up at breakfast with Jill Perry, Kelley Buttrick and Sean Caldwell (and Sean’s terrific parents too!) There were so many conversations, I couldn’t keep track so here’s a quick summary: Sean liked CB radios when he was growing up (as did I), Jill Perry loves Al Green’s music (me too) and Kelley cannot be trusted around HVAC electrical outlets.

So appreciative to all my Atlanta friends and colleagues with whom I was able to connect. I hope your Thanksgiving was as fun as mine.

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It was a quick visit to Dallas but I gave my friend and audio producer extraordinaire Cliff Zellman a heads up at FaffCon that I would be in town this week.

Cliff produces some of the best and most effective (I suppose being most effective would make them the best, wouldn’t it) automotive commercials in the country (no I’m not a voice talent on those spots – those ladies and gentlemen have wonderfully particular talents that I do not). You likely have these car spots in your market and they are amazing, in large part because of Cliff meticulous production.

He also produces impressive voice-over demos as well.

I got to hang at Cliff’s studio for a while and then he took me to one of his favorite BBQ joints, which was awesome. We solved most of the voiceover world’s problems but then realized no one would listen to us anyway.

Thank you Cliff for being a good friend and an awesome host!

P.S. Don’t touch his guitars!

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I’ve not been to Harrisburg since FaffCon was in the area many years ago. I’ve been about an hour away but not here.

So naturally when I checked my voice-over rolodex, I looked up Scott Fortney to see if he was available to get together.

This afternoon we grabbed lunch at the Harrisburg International Airport. Scooter (as he’s known) was working on a bunch of cool voiceover projects including a series of very interesting audiobooks about World War II. And mostly we talked about our families, as proud Fathers are prone to do.

We earned the right! 🙂

Thanks Scott for coming out to meet me. It was great seeing you.

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Maybe you feel the same way, but I can only tolerate so much of Facebook recently, with full-blown idiots of every political persuasion hell bent on proving their idiocy to the world. Ponderous. “Hide” is a useful FB tool. Yet I still check in occasionally on FB to check on the world.

Aside from the above silliness, some sad and unexpected news made it in to my Facebook feed last week.

The Voiceover Bulletin Board (the VO-BB) closed up last week. You can still read it, but you cannot post anything new. Foundress of the board and one of my absolute favorite female voice talents, DB Cooper, got frustrated at some feedback she got from a post of hers and turned over the closed sign on one of the most important internet sites for aspiring and professional voice talents.

I don’t begrudge her the right to shut the place down whenever she wanted and for whatever reason she chose. She can’t begrudge me, though, the right to be sad it’s gone.

When my friend (and another killer female voice talent, Connie Terwilliger), directed me and others to the VO-BB so many years ago, I didn’t realize how this new place would change my professional and personal life with industry news and insights, new friendships and a place to be silly (well, and plain stupid…sometimes I was stupid in my posts but an apology usually fixed that).

Thinking about the board and its members and the discussions (and jokes and rants and drama….we’re talking voice actors here…always drama), I started to piece together how so many of my current professional and personal relationships started on this board.

How?

Fellow voice talents who’s comments I read on the board; those who read my comments on the board; voice-over talents who started a business relationship with me because of the board; voice actors who I met at an industry function who knew of me through or because of the board; FaffCon (always FaffCon, which began through the VO-BB); Bob Souer inviting me out to lunch, which beget multiple meetings among VO-BB’ers for years (with more always to come).

So I’ve just made a quick list of voiceover folks I’ve met via all the above permutations that came about because of the VO-BB. Each of these folks have truly made my voice-over journey so much richer because they have been some part of it.

The list has left me a bit gob smacked (and guilty, for fear of those I have no doubt and inexplicably left off, with no malice intended). But I list it as a tribute to what DB created and nurtured over all these years, on her little plot of land on the interwebs.

In NO order of priority:

1. DB Cooper
2. Bob Souer
3. Doug Turkel
4. Connie Terwilliger
5. Liz deNesnera
6. Bruce Miles
7. Philip Banks
8. Lee Gordon
9. Peter Bishop
10. Rowell Gormon
11. Amy Snively
12. Diane Maggipinto
13. Todd Ellis
14. Mandy Nelson
15. Frank Frederick
16. Mary McKitrick
17. Elaine Singer
18. Chuck Davis
19. Anthony Mendez
20. Dave Courvoisier
21. Dan Friedman
22. Tom Dheere
23. Ben Wilson
24. Pam Tierney
25. September Day Carter
26. Moe Egan
27. Jeffrey Kafer
28. Donovan Corneetz
29. Tom Test
30. Vance Elderkin
31. Kara Edwards
32. Caryn Clark
33. Bobbin Beam
34. Terry Daniel
35. Roger Tremaine
36. Lance Blair
37. George Washington, III
38. Erik Sheppard
39. John Florian
40. CC Petersen
41. Melissa Exelberth
42. Jodi Krangle
43. Chris Mezzolesta
44. Dave DeAndrea
45. Craig Crumpton
46. Bob Bergen
47. Michael Schoen
48. JS Gilbert
49. Diane Havens
50. James Clamp
51. Trish Basanyi
52. Monk Schane-Lydon
53. Jane Ingalls
54. Paul Strikwerda
55. Bruce Jacobson
56. Darren Altman
57. Mara Junot
58. Fran McClellan
59. Dale Leopold
60. Lori Berman
61. Talmadge Ragan
62. Scott Pollak
63. Lauren McCullough
64. Randye Kaye
65. Melanie Haynes
66. Larissa Gallagher
67. CC Heim
68. Jordan Reynolds
69. Kristin Lennox
70. Martha Mellinger
71. Rosi & Brian Amador

I am at once heartened and heartbroken when I look at the list, the members of this always-welcoming club. While I expect we will continue our friendships, it seems we shall not have this special place to visit and update.

Maybe it will come back again and maybe we will appreciate it more and treat it better if it does rise again. If not, at least we had it for a time.

“And”, to quote Robert Frost, “that has made all the difference.”

UPDATE: Working with D.B. Cooper, Bruce Miles has resurrected the VO-BB so this wonderful LIVES AGAIN!

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