Courtesy of Doreen Mulman on Facebook, a saw a video featuring interviews with voice talent discussing the challenges of voice actor parts in animation going to celebrity actors and how that impacts their careers.

As I noted recently, sometimes animated movies get picked on for picking celebrities to voice characters primarily because they are marketable celebrities (MJ Lallo offers one funny example). In other cases (I would cite “Toy Story” and “Cars” as two examples) the celebrities chosen to voice are clearly great actors whose transition to voice acting was seamless and superb.

As usual, Pat Fraley offers some really salient insight into the benefits of celebrities working in voice over.

While I applaud the producers desire to tell the story, a little effort properly checking the spelling of the featured actors’ names for the lower third graphics would have gone a long way to making this effort that much more credible.

Tags: animation, commentary, video, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Stephanie Ciccarelli of Voices.com

Editors Note: When the content merits it (or we’re just feeling too darn lazy to write our own stuff) voxmarketising welcomes guest bloggers. Today we welcome Stephanie Ciccarelli, Co-Founder, and Chief Marketing Officer of Voices.com, who blogs today about how handsome and talented I am.

Social Media for Voice Talent from a Casting Perspective
by Stephanie Ciccarelli

Social media is fun, it’s free and generally the return on investment is exceptional… but what happens when you’re tweeting or updating your status on various properties about auditions, experiences and information that might be considered classified by those in casting circles?

Most of us have pretty good manners and keep details about gigs with non-disclosure agreements off the social media circuit, but what about grey areas such as auditions or jobs before you’ve signed an NDA?

What’s off limits and what isn’t?

Perhaps the thought hasn’t even crossed your mind. For many, it doesn’t. A perfect case in point is when the celebrity cast of a certain animated feature film decided to tweet about their involvement with the project before the PR department at the production house gave the official okay to shout their joyous strains from the rooftops. Needless to say, the cat had been let out of the proverbial bag and the actors were reprimanded in some capacity for tweeting about it.

What are producers doing about this?

According the Hollywood Reporter new artist contracts are now drawn up with special clauses that pertain to social media with the purpose of obtaining a commitment from talent to not leak juicy details or the like when signing on to work with companies such as Disney. Disney’s contract has a clause forbidding confidentiality breaches by way of “interactive media such as Facebook, Twitter, or any other interactive network or personal blog.”

How has this played out in practice? Cameron Diaz and Mike Myers are said to have both signed DreamWorks contracts with anti-Twitter clauses prior to the release of the newest Shrek movie.

While many celebrities declare that their tweeting days are numbered, others opt to honor their contracts and use their Twitter accounts in relation to a given project when and if appropriate.

To ensure you don’t get into a situation, check with the producers you’re working on projects with to see if there are any clauses that might affect your ability to publicize your involvement and or experiences. It also may not hurt to check with those who didn’t make you sign an NDA and see what their preferences are with regard to social media and their project in development.

Although sharing insider information can make you feel like you have a special currency with the public, beware! Releasing behind the scenes features, dev journals and the like usually fall into the realm of the companies themselves. Does this mean you can’t write about or share your own experience? More often than not you’ll meet with a positive reply, but ask before you post, tweet or speak.

About the Author
Stephanie Ciccarelli is one of the most connected people in voice overs, a sought after industry expert and respected blogger. In 2003, she co-founded Voices.com, the voice over marketplace, and has been actively engaged in the voice acting community ever since. Mrs. Ciccarelli graduated with a Bachelor of Musical Arts ’06 from the Don Wright Faculty of Music at the University of Western Ontario and is also the author of many eBooks, including the Definitive Guide to Voice Over Success, editor of the VOX Daily Voice Actors Blog and also shares her insights and unique perspectives via podcast.

Tags: commentary, guest blogger, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voices.com by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Sometimes Hollywood actors get crap from non-Hollywood voice actors (of course not me, because I never give anyone crap) about why they were cast as the voices in an animated film.

Well, the voices in the Toy Story series for me have always made me forget who the “big names” were behind the voices. That’s a compliment – that’s how its supposed to be.

And now, watching them exercise their craft in these two videos from Toy Story 3, you may more fully understand why their performances are so amazingly good.

Tags: animation, announcers, film, video, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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With the completion of VOICE 2010, I decided I should update my voice over photos that I have been posting on Voiceover Universe. Besides this blog, I couldn’t think of another place where sharing such photos made since (Flicker is too general).

Well, I started to update those pictures when I realized I hadn’t put ALL my voiceover pictures from this blog on the site. Now I have (I think).

ALSO, I updated all the blog posts entitled “audio’connell in….” where I post about all the voice talents I’ve personally met. If you look at the categories section on this blog, you’ll see voiceover meet-ups (or just click on that link) and you can see the post and the pictures from all the voiceover friends I’ve had the pleasure to spend time with.

Some of the early posts don’t contain pictures because I didn’t get good at that until about summer of 2007. I’ve been pretty consistent every since and now with video…well, bar the door Katie!

Tags: commentary, voice 2010, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Toy Story 3 comes out tomorrow. The voice actor who plays Andy, the owner of all the toys like ‘Woody’ and ‘Buzz Lightyear’ has provide the character’s voice in all 3 films.

He started when he was 7, the next movie was made when he was in his teens and now, in his mid-twenties, he’s voiced Andy for the 3rd time.

Here’s an interesting interview with voice actor John Morris.

Tags: animation, character voices, commentary, video, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Social Media VO is the web child of its parents, voice talents Terry Daniel and Dave Courvoisier and their unholy union on the stage of VOICE 2010.

This was a presentation created from scratch, not part of some sales seminar they’ve given over and over. I know because at various parts of the past four months, I’d spoken with both of them and watched their creative process evolve on-line. There was a lot of work put into it and it showed. It was helpful, thoughtful and insightful.

Whether you are a voice talent who needs to enter the social media playing field and feels clueless, a voice talent whose been around social media but could use some pointers or someone not at all in voice over who falls under part of either criteria, this web site would be worth you time and attention.

Tags: announcers, commentary, community, search engine marketing, social media, social networking, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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