I was pinged this morning (and I think we all know painful that can be – ba-dum-bump) by David Ciccarelli who, with his wife Stephanie, own Voices.com. David asked if I would review, post and comment on his annual “Report on The Voice Over Industry 2009”.

OK then, a review with some general perspective and information upfront.

• While I am not a fan of the pay-for-play voice over model upon which Voices.com, Voice 123 and others have built their business, I have stated that if I were to choose one service of that ilk it would be Voices.com because even before I knew the Ciccarellis personally, the customer service and responsiveness their Voices.com offered me when I was an early member was better than any competitor.
• This is at least the second if not third year David has done this report and I give him great credit for seeing an opening for information sharing and promotion of his own business and going for it.
• I also give him credit for daring to ask the opinion of a loud mouth putz like me ’cause he knows I pull no punches on industry issues or in reviews. He and I must ascribe to the same theory that some publicity is better than none at all.
• Over the years I have become friends with David and Stephanie and know them to be honest people whose opinions and talents I respect. Others in their business, not so much.

So enough preamble, on to the meat-

The 23 page report is more PowerPoint than e-book with each slide offering one or two nuggets of information ranging from various market overviews to drilldowns on pertinent business segments.

My likes:

• I like that David’s established an annual tome that summarizes the industry. It adds credibility to the business but to be taken seriously it needs some additional info (see dislikes).
• I have seen “state of the industry reports” or prognostications from Voices.com’s competitors and comparably this is the most credible and informative of all of them at this moment in time.
• Information like $4.05 for the ad word voice over on Google is good to know (a stupidly high price to pay when its competitors who do most of the clicking on such ads but let’s not kill the messenger here)
• I like the format for both conveying information and for its readability.

My dislikes:

• The content has only a few bits of information that I think are new or enlightening to the industry. To become a must read it has to reveal trends and statistics that offer more insight for voice talents and producers. That requires a great deal more research which this document does not have and it shows rather clearly.
• Some topics struck me as grossly self-serving: a report on Social Networks conveniently notes the growth of a Voice.com sponsored group on Facebook and the Time Spent Online chart had Voices.com’s site crushing Voice 123’s statistically and visually while also noting most industry players spend most of their time on Voices.com. This smacks a bit more like a sales presentation than a industry report.
• The salary statistics chart – probably the most important page for both talent and producers – had no quoted sources for the stated figures (which were much too broad) and was only one page (versus three pages on podcasting). This was a big miss.
• The Touch Graph tool wasn’t simplistic enough or easy enough to immediately digest key information (like a good graph should). As just one (possibly self-serving in keeping here with a developing theme) example this graph had the audio’connell web site listed on the web site graph on “voiceovers” and on the same graph an Oxford biography link to Peter O’Connell who I think is a professor or a Bishop but sure ain’t me (no, I do not believe there are any other Peter O’Connell voice overs but me). The graph was gimmicky and not informative.

In summary, I believe that this report reads more like a sophomore’s term paper rather than a senior thesis. What it can, should and I truly hope will be in the future is a report that has a lot more facts in it, much more pertinent data and more information to help talent and producers manage their businesses. It will take much more time and research from Voices.com to make this annual report a widely respected annual state of the industry. Today, the report is not yet there but there is a foundation of a good idea.

We need that “stuff” as well as the promise of what this report could someday be.

Tags: audio'connell voice over talent, commentary, facebook, google, internet, social media, voice 123, voice over podcast, voice talent, voiceover, voices.com by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
6 Comments »

Whether this becomes an out and out holiday tradition here at audio’connell’s voxmarketising remains to be seen but suffice it to say I’m at it again.

Based on the enormously popular Unofficial Casting Call for the NBC Nightly News announcer, I am today kicking off the Unofficial Casting Call for the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon announcer job.

Some points of difference between the two casting calls:

1. The Nightly News audition was in response to what I (and many others) felt/feel was a poor performance by a certain actor (who otherwise is very talented). For the Fallon casting call, I have no knowledge of the new announcer’s (Steve Higgins) ability (which I’m sure is great) nor should this thingy we’re doing here be seen as an indictment of his talents…I wish him great success. This is just for fun and nobody here will be getting the Fallon show job.

2. NBC Nightly News had a well known theme. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon has a house band, The Roots, but no theme song that I know of yet so I grabbed a Roots song (“Here I Come” all rights reserved etc.) and edited into a strictly demo theme sample. The music should open up some creative voice imaging opportunities for participants.

The directions to participate are simple and straight forward:

A. Download HERE the demo only theme song (complete with cheering audience to get you into the late night feel)

B. Here is a script (again demo only):

From NBC Studios in New York, It’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Tonight Amy Adams (slight pause) Eddie Izzard (slight pause) and musical guest John Legend

With The Roots

Now here’s your host: Jimmy Fallon!

C. Record your version mixed with the demo theme (note: you should have your audition finish at about :30 seconds into the theme as you’ll note I brought the audience cheering up. If you hit it right it will sound like he just walked out after you said his name. Also remember there would be graphics and likely some animation as part of the intro too.

D. Email it to peter at audio’connell dot com. MP3 file only. File name: YOURLASTNAME_Unofficial_Fallon_Audition

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

>>> HERE is where you can LISTEN (but NO voting yet) to all the entrants <<<

Here’s my example to give you a general sense of timing but PLEASE do it with whatever pace and vocal performance style you’d like. Mine is just one way, not necessarily the perfect way.

DEMO EXAMPLE
[audio:http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/Late_Night_Fallon/OConnell_Unofficial_Fallon_Audition.mp3]

How a winner will be chosen:

i. I’ll get between 3-5 people to serve as judges to pick the top 10 entries
ii. From there I will open up the voting. Don’t vote until I open the voting….I’ll delete any voting posts until I write the “voting is open” post
iii. As for prizes, I got bumpkus. Maybe we’ll get an angel gift giver or someone who wants to re-gift some holiday present, we’ll see.

Anyway, have fun and Merry Christmas. Let’s hear your best stuff!

If you just want to listen to the audition “bed” here it is:

Tags: announcers, commentary, fauxdition, NBC Television Network, peter o'connell, silliness, tv, unofficial audition, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
18 Comments »

Sorry to have been off line a bit. Much west coast travel to Seattle last week and Pittsburgh and San Francisco this week. Last week in SEA I also came down with food poisoning which forced me to switch from a dinner meeting with Jeffrey Kafer to an evening at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle (nice place if you happen to be sick in Seattle). Again my sincere apologies to Jeff…I would have much rather spent time with you and will again on my next trip.

Alls well now and the travel load shall lighten for a bit.

I came across a recently posted video of the late, great NBC announcer Howard Reig’s retirement that I very much enjoyed watching. This type of thing is NOT the norm for announcers unless they’ve been around as long as Howard. Clearly he was beloved.

P.S. The NBC News team also held a memorial for Howard inside their main news studio on Friday which Brian Williams noted on his blog here.

Tags: announcers, commentary, NBC News, NBC Nightly News, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »

My “friends” at US Airways lost my luggage making my trip a bit more inconvenient than it needed to be (although to be fair the ground staff at US Airways GSP- who had to deal with the outcome caused by the baggage dolts’ who did the losing of the bag – were nice, especially Chad). But the trip has otherwise been terrific including a nice dinner Wednesday in North Carolina with my friend and the man beloved by all voice talents Bob Souer, who brought along his very bright and charming son.

He and I plotted our individual world tour travels to personally meet every voice talent in the world, lull them into a state of complacency and then steal all their voice work. Bwahahahaha! (That, by the way, is the correct spelling for “evil laugh”).

Of course I’m kidding but he and I have been able to meet so many of our fellow VO’s over the past few years, we both feel very fortunate.

While we could have spoke for hours, Bob had some narrations to do and I had luggage to find but we’ll get together for a late lunch today before heading home. Another successful trip.

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

I was on Google tonight and came across a web site tonight, of reasonable design, offering voice overs for under $100 and quick turnaround.

Competition is fine but low-ballers like this individual and his compatriots disgust me because I think it cheapens our industry and further confuses potential clients on price.

Searching further on the site I see this person (whom I do not know) is actually within a couple of hours drive of me and has a number of misspellings on his site.

In spite of my disgust I find myself beginning to type an email explaining his misspellings because it looks unprofessional.

Then I stop.

While at first it seemed like the right thing to do, I decided that someone whose business model I do not at all respect does not deserve professional assistance from me as I might normally do for someone in the industry I consider a peer.

I may have become an elitist voice over talent. Not elite, elitist.

Doesn’t he have a right to run his business as she sees fit? Maybe she’s got small children to feed.

But deep discount voice over pricing is wrong and I know this down to my very core.

Should I have helped this person with an email about the errors I easily found or should I have walked away, like I did, because I think his business model is a bad one?

I need clear direction on this. I may ignore your advice in the end based on pure Irish stubbornness but for the moment I know I should listen.

Please state your case below. Thanks.

Tags: branding, commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
13 Comments »

What’s the fun of having a blog if you can’t put out a classified ad every now and again.

International Voice Talents, the foreign language division of audio’connell Voice Over Talent, has some new projects simmering that will require some additional voice talents.

We need professional male and female voice talents who speak any of the following languages:

* Chinese (Standard Mandarin)
* Hindi
* Portuguese

If you are an experienced, professional voice talent who also speaks English and one or more of these languages fluently and also has your own professional recording studio, please send me your demo and contact information (in English) to peter at audio’connell dot com.

Please note: these are the only demos we are soliciting for so do not under any circumstances send me a demo for any other reason. I don’t care how good you think you are or if you have some fantasy that we’ll discover your talent in another category if your demo just gets listened to “accidentally”… don’t send anything other than the ones we are requesting, please.

Thanks very much!

Tags: announcers, commentary, international voice talents, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on help wanted – new international voice talents needed