Sometimes when I read my Google Alerts I come across some really fun and unexpected stuff.

The first thing I found in my alerts was a link to voice talent Joe Symanski’s blog, which I have added to my blog list on the right. Great content.

If I haven’t added your voice over blog to my blog roll, let me know. Usually I try and keep up on new blogs by reading Bob Souer’s blog roll because he’s awesome about linking to everybody but still I miss stuff.

Included in that great content from Joe Syzmanski was a video produced back in January for the NAB meeting featuring Z-100 production director Dave Foxx. Amazing insight and candor from an imaging master (save for his annoying cigarette habit).

Then after that You Tube video was done, there was a list of a bunch of voice over and jingle related videos on You Tube that I know I’ll enjoy watching if I ever get the time (which is probably why I missed all of the above in the first place).

Oh well, I get to stuff eventually. And there’s this really cool new band that I think is going to be very big soon called the Beatles. Check them out and remember where you heard it first.

Tags: announcers, audio production, blogs, commentary, radio, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Not everyone will remember the 1984 re-election campaign of President Ronald Reagan but it featured not only one of the best made political commercials ever but simply one of the most effective commercials of any kind ever made.

It was made by a San Francisco ad man named Hal Riney, who owned Hal Riney & Partners, and some other prominent ad men who were part of the “Tuesday Team” who helped ensure Reagan and Bush were reelected that year.

Besides the fact that Riney and his partners did amazing work for clients like General Motors and Gallo Wines (great interview on the campaign here from KCBS-AM), he was among one of the great voice talents ever to breath into a microphone. He was one of two ad men that I would qualify as outstanding voice talents (the other being Ferdinand Jay Smith from Jay Advertising).

Hal Riney died today at age 75. His creativity and his voice are but two small parts of his legacy.

I’d be happy with just one of them.

Tags: announcers, commentary, commercials, marketing, radio, tv, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Writing is an art and any performer in almost any medium will tell you that without good writing you have only a good chance at success. But with great writing, you have a very good chance at success.

As voice over talents, our profession honestly sees mostly average writing, especially when it comes to advertising copy. There can be a myriad of reasons that foster such mediocrity primarily due to the medium itself and the message.

In :30 or :60 seconds, you don’t have a lot of time to flush out an interesting premise AND get the product’s name mentioned and make sure they know what the special offer or point of difference is. Also, sometimes the product or service just isn’t that interesting.

I will grant you that one of the tasks a writer must deal with is making it interesting…that is their job. But sometimes that is really hard.

I got a piece of audition copy last week that I loved. I didn’t get the job but I thought I did a great job on the audition. Bottom line: the client obviously didn’t. That’s show biz and I’m OK with that. I spent a lot more time than normal on the audition (which, unusually, came with it own music bed) because the copy triggered my voice over endorphins.

There may be a better and even more accurate term for the rush I get when I read some copy but that’s how I’ve always defined that sensation I get when I read the copy, review the product and it triggers so clearly in my mind the perfect voice I must use to embrace the language on the page that to alter the clarity of my performance path would almost be insulting to the writer and the client in that order.

The bad news about this chemical reaction is that while it works for me, it may be an abysmal failure in the client’s ears. Yikes! There’s your truth in advertising, buddy!

But with such sparse meaningful direction for auditions done via email today, you absolutely have to go with your performance gut. Because while I didn’t get the job, in my ego-tastic voice over head, I produced a great spot…for, um, which I was….uh, not hired.

Do you get this sensation when you read certain copy? Does it affect your performance and/or audition? How would you describe it?

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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The meteoric rise and fall of internet companies is something almost all of us have witnessed. Names that just a few years ago were household names have evaporated.

Netscape? That browser doesn’t even get updated anymore.

Pets.com? Remember the doggie hand puppet. Turns out that sock was the most valuable asset the company had.

Go.com? Disney bought it and it, uh, went.

South.

Fast.

As in $790 million write off.

Well, what got me thinking about all all the social networking sites that are out there now. As you can see in the column on the right, you’re welcome to friend me up on any number of them. –>

But only 2-3 years ago, social networking sites that seemed hottest then have either faded or become geographically biased (which is a term I just made up and will explain as I go.)

The first social networking site I ever joined was called e-cademy. It was then and I’m guessing still is now very euro-centric in its membership and popularity. There was a weird vibe I got off the site (which I guess goes to their branding and the attitude of their on-line presence). I decided it wasn’t for me and I stopped paying. It wasn’t a bad site, it just didn’t seem to fit me.

The second social networking site I joined was RYZE. This had a different vibe which I preferred and was pretty active in it. What made this especially attractive to me was that they had semi regular meet-ups of RYZE members in Toronto.

Well I love Toronto and the idea of making new contacts up there thrilled me to no end so off I drove for 90 minutes each way for months. I met so many wonderful people in a great setting, like Leesa Barnes, Faith Seekings and others that it was a blast. And oh yes, I closed deals and made money.

But these groups are delicate (if that’s the right term) and when some of the member leaders changed, the meetings became infrequent. Word came down that RYZE wanted the Toronto group (the largest of all the RYZE meet-up groups) to stop meeting. My interest in the group lagged, the voice-over community on the site increasing consisted of Indonesian voice talents who spoke of a market I knew nothing about and felt ill-equipped to break into and I dropped my paid membership.

Well I have gone back to Ryze in the past couple of days as people have indicated they wanted to network with me. With my unpaid membership, such access had been limited. But when I signed in this week and last, I noticed I’d been given a “free week” (or “weeks” based on the time frame).

I updated a few things on my pages and added a friend. I also looked at the network pages where I had belonged in Ryze. Last posts in these networking groups ranged from 2006-2007. Not a good sign. Maybe THAT’S why I was getting the free week.

Have you or are you an active Ryze member? What have been your observations? Don’t you think that for Social Networks to really have value they need to have regular meet-ups?

Tags: commentary, internet, social networking, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I am resourceful or I am full of resource or possibly I am a source of re’s.

It’s all so confusing but this burdensome responsibility has been placed on me by the Ciccarelli family, they of Voices.com fame. Now with their GoodVoiceKeeping Seal of Approval I have to churn out internet content that’s valuable and important and vital to the voice over, marketing and advertising communities!!!

Oh crap!

Well page through my archives, listen to my voxmarketising podcast, learn anything you want but just please take off your shoes before you come in as I just vacuumed.

Thank you.

Tags: commentary, internet, marketing, media, peter o'connell, technology, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog, voices.com by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »

No matter what line of work you’re in, you will have to speak in public. It may be a crowd of hundreds or only a dozen or so people. And of course, public speaking continues to be one of society’s biggest fears.

There are only two times in all the public speaking that I have done that I was actually nervous, panicked and way anxious. Both times I was doing readings at a funeral and both times I had little or no time to prepare. Funerals don’t especially bother me (sad as they are) but being unprepared really bothers me. If my physical reaction these two times was anything close to what people have with their general fear of speaking, boy do I empathize.

Now you’d think that a guy with 25+ years of voice over experience would be able to keep it together even when speaking without preparation (having never seen the text or seen it really briefly before). And likely as far as the audience was concerned, I did. But internally, I could hear my voice crack, my breathing was tight and my body was rattling from head to toe. It was bad.

I don’t like being unprepared for live work.

In a studio, hand me a script, give me a few minutes to process and rehearse then hit the record button. I’ll be golden.

Live is different. You are not hidden in a booth and you get no retakes.

Live does not grant you do-overs. Preparation makes all things flow when you are live.

I’ll give you a couple of examples. Last weekend, I had to give a pulpit talk at my church on behalf of Catholic Charities. Big Cathedral, marble podium, the works. I aced it. I had time to spend 15-30 minutes the night before to prepare. I knew the script so well I could keep the talk going with eyes off of the script to look at the audience without losing a beat.

Yesterday, I gave a talk to a class of college students on the voice over business. All extemporaneous stuff. Home run. I’ve got 25 years worth of material. Here, its not a matter of having content, it’s a matter of editing it to only an hour’s worth of good stuff.

Both times I had done my homework. Both times I scores straight A’s.

Prepare, rehearse, plan. THEN make it look effortless.

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