Voice Talents Melissa Exelberth, Anthony Mendez and Peter K. O'Connell

Bob Souer’s blog is usually better at keeping up with stuff like this than I am cause people send him their info and updates. But the stars aligned tonight so that I can advise you that the “cross over voice” aka my friend and fellow voice talent Anthony Mendez has changed the name and location of his blog.

Anthony Mendez’ Post-amp blog can be found by clicking the link here. I hope you’ll subscribe to it like I have.

Tags: blogs, commentary, social media, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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In addition to the discussion on this blog, I have found discussions on VO-BB and Voiceover Universe about the change from Walter Cronkite to Morgan Freeman as the announcer for The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

I was and am not in favor of the change.

As I noted in one of the discussion threads, not a lot of exciting stuff happens in our industry so when something like this comes around, it’s a 7 on the Voiceover Richter Scale…and yeah it’s a little bit pathetic. “More doing and less talk about doing,” you might say and you’d be right.

But one email note on the Voiceover Universe discussion kind of disturbed me and it came from the site’s creator/owner, the fine voice talent Zurek.

His message about the debate there (where I ahem, “shared” my view) was brief: “I never thought one man’s success would (be) a topic for debate.”

That “one man” would be Morgan Freeman and the quote concerns me because of my active participation in this debate.

Let me again say as I thought I have specifically said many times – the focus of my comments are why it is valuable to keep Walter Cronkite’s voice associated with the network’s flagship news program. I really couldn’t care who got the job under the current circumstances which I felt/feel does not merit any change at all.

If CBS’ decision on the announcer is “cast-in-stone-final” and Morgan Freeman is their choice, OK. I have no other horse in this announcing race (which obviously wasn’t much of a race – a compliment by CBS News’ execs to Freeman’s recognized acting abilities). If anyone felt that my comments were a negative reflection on choice of Freeman – that was not my intent and I apologize if I was not clear enough on that point.

It’s whether there is a true need for change in this circumstance that I believe makes the opportunity for debate relevant to the voice over community (and probably very few other people 🙂 ). And if you have a blog post, no matter the topic, one better expect, nay, hope for a debate. It’s what makes a blog post a true blog post.

Tags: CBS News, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »

I’ll be brief.

Tonight, “The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” changed the news program’s opening; the graphics were the same but the voice was different.

The network’s most celebrated anchor (even more than Edward R. Murrow) Walter Cronkite had introduced the network’s flagship broadcast since it began in September of 2006. It was a masterful piece of casting.

Tonight, CBS News President Sean McManus and Executive Producer Rick Kaplan used a new voice to introduce the program, actor Morgan Freeman.

Here is the audio for the new introduction.

Mr. Freeman did a passable job as an announcer and it’s said he’ll voice other CBS News programs as well, adding unity and flexibility to many CBS News broadcasts.

But Freeman is not Walter Cronkite whose voice upon that program bestowed a blessing and implied gravitas the likes of which cannot be measured by anything yet invented. No other network news program had or has anything like it. Suffice it to say Cronkite’s voice over on the program’s open was an invaluable asset.

McManus had indicated the program would lose Cronkite’s voice on the open in 2009 after the anchor man died but the Cronkite family allowed it to be used ever after, which (it was said at the time) made everyone happy at CBS News.

Evidently “everyone” lied.

The stupidest thing The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric ever did occurred tonight – it removed a pillar of broadcast journalism as the voice of the network’s primary news program and replaced it with someone else. It is not Freeman’s fault…no one could have replaced Cronkite’s perfect voice over.

No one should have.

Tags: announcers, CBS News, CBS Television Network, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
17 Comments »

James Brown - the Hardest Working Man in Show Business

While James Brown may have been the hardest working man in show business (correctly pronounced by those of us in the industry as “bid-nez”), I am going to canonize myself as the hardest working man in voice over (correctly pronounced by those of us in the industry as “voice talking”).

Picture if you will (channeling Rod Serling) a vigorous lake effect snow storm with 30 m.p.h. gusts and blinding snow falls and an even earlier than usual darkness that falls over the city from the ginormous (that’s a meteorological term…maybe) snow cloud that had covered the area. The snow drifts alone had to be 25 miles high! And those were the small ones.

These tsu-nado-zzard conditions made travel unfit for neither man nor beast. But being a beast of a man and having a commercial recording session in a downtown studio scheduled in the midst of this blizz-tor-nami, I grabbed my dogs and my sled (and my light spring jacket…I’m a native Buffalonian after all) and sprang into action.

Buffalo, NY on December 28, 2009 at the corner of Delaware and Chippewa - about two miles from the recording studio

I dodged stalled cars and busses, ran over old ladies on the sidewalks (when I could find them) and flew around turns like an Olympic luge driver who’d failed his drug tests multiple times all to make it to my appointed recording session where, of course, I performed spectacularly for the people in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.

They won’t know how hard I worked for them when they hear my spots or what a bombastic, egotistical, self-aggrandizing bone-head I am….but now you do.

Tags: buffalo, commentary, peter o'connell, silliness, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Voice Over Talents Rowell Gorman, Debra Stamp & Peter K. O'Connell

The nice thing about travel (yes there are a few nice things) is heading in to warmer climates during the winter. Raleigh, NC isn’t Bermuda but it’s a very nice spot and it was my destination yesterday and today.

As always, I try and summon the voice over troops in the area, this time breakfasting with Rowell Gorman (the Imaginator) and Debra Stamp (who lived and worked in Buffalo for a long time and now lives in Raleigh).

Rowell is an in-demand character voice actor as well as announcer and Deb is a very well respected narration and commercial voice across the country. Both do terrific on-camera work as well.

It was an all too short visit but terrific to hear about the great work they are both doing including Rowell’s work on the North Carolina lottery as Mr. Monopoly and his voice work for the well known area drug chain Kerr Drug.

My thanks to both of them for spending part of their morning with me.

Tags: voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »

What, did you think I forgot or sumpin’? It’s December and that means it’s time for voxmarketising’s annual fake audition or “faux-ditions”

This year we go back to the news division and our network of choice will be ABC as Charles Gibson is retiring and Diane Sawyer is taking over as the “World News” anchor. Obviously, they’ll need to re-do their opening announce.

That’s where YOU come in.

As you may or may not know, the great Bill Rice has been the announcer for ABC News for over three decades and does a marvelous job. I highly doubt someone of his great talent will be dropped so not only don’t get your hopes up via this unofficial audition…don’t even day dream. As always this is for fun (“this is not a competition, just an exhibition; please, no wagering.)

I’ll grab 3 judges and we’ll whittle all the contestants down to 10 finalists and then we will vote (but not until I call the vote).

You’re responsible for the mixing and audio quality (which has been a factor in past judging and voting); your audition needs to sound broadcast ready which means the mix should sound as great as your voice.

Here’s my demo – again just as an example – perform the announce in whatever way you think would be most likely accepted by ABC News producers if they were hiring a new announcer (which, as far as I know, they are not).

Peter K. O’Connell Demo Faux-dition:
[audio:http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/ABC_News_Sawyer_Auditions/OCONNELL_Unofficial_Sawyer_Audition.mp3]

You can download the music bed here. (Right click on the “here” and click “save link as…” on your computer to mix it within your own system.)

Your short script from which to prove your voice over brilliance is as follows:

“From ABC News headquarters…
This is World News with Diane Sawyer.”

If you need a reference for how they do it nightly, you can view that here but we will NOT be doing the story teases, focus on the part starting at about :15 seconds in for the purposes of your audition.

Email your audition to peter at audioconnell dot com. MP3 file only.

File name: YOURLASTNAME_Unofficial_Sawyer_Audition.

LISTEN TO ENTRIES HERE.

I’ll allow submissions until it becomes tedious or boring. Only one entry per voice talent, please.

Have fun and Merry Christmas from audio’connell Voice Over Talent.

BTW, if you haven’t already taken the time to SUBSCRIBE to this blog, I hope you will now.

Tags: commentary, fauxdition, unofficial audition, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
49 Comments »