Character voice acting is becoming very competitive if for no other reason than sheer quantity- if character voice actors had to each be processed through Ellis Island like many of our immigrating forefathers did years ago, the lines to get through the character voice acting doors would seem longer than ever before (“Give me your tired, your hungry, your poor…” that would be your average voice actor).

And as challenging as it now is for a voice actor to be heard over the other voices competing for a role, the challenge for casting directors must be even worse. There is no way a voice over casting director cannot become numb at some point to the hundreds of demos they get…and likely they are missing out on some great talent too.

So in my opinion it becomes even more important to find out what voice over directors are looking for (and listening for) when working with a voice actor. Nancy Cartwright (she of Bart Simpson fame) has conducted a variety of interviews for Animation World Magazine and in late June she published an interview she conducted with voice over director Ginny McSwain.

Pay special attention to Ginny’s criteria for animation voice over. Great stuff there.

Tags: character voices, commentary, tv, voice actors, voice casting, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I do love the tv show Family Guy.

The first time I heard Stewie’s voice in a Fox Network promo, I laughed out loud and usually the promos aren’t THAT funny.

It was a treat for me to come across this footage of the “Family Guy” voice actors working on a show. I hope you enjoy it too.

Tags: advertising, character voices, commentary, media, tv, voice actors, voice casting, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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My friend Stephanie from the voiceover service Voices.com sent me an email a few days ago about a new contest they are running through July 20, 2007. You can grab the full details on it here but as a brief summary for those who prefer such things, The 60 Second Pitch is based on the ever famous “elevator speech” in which you have from 30-60 seconds to tell/engage someone (with whom you would hypothetically be riding in an elevator) about your business…in this case, the voice over business.

It’s a great tool for voice talent who haven’t gone through this exercise and terrific for those who want to refine their speech. And the contest has over $4,000 in prizes.

I will NOT be participating.

Why?

I am not above contests or competitions, I think they are fun and can bring together some great creativity.

But I’ve got a business to run and I have sales goals to achieve and to be in the contest and win, one would have to share some of the secrets of one’s success, in this case the elevator speech.

I’ve got a pretty great one, one that has served me well and its worth a lot more than $4,000. Even if the prize money were higher (and there’s nothing wrong with $4K worth of stuff) I wouldn’t do it.

The voiceover community is a helpful and sharing community…we’re voice actors and the acting community has usually been a group that wants everyone to succeed. I do too and have helped many folks with my time, talent and treasure to improve their voice over talents.

But while I may teach some everything they know about voice over and running a business, I won’t teach them everything I know. It’s not practical and it doesn’t make good business sense. The contest is not bad for all….its just not right for me.

Tags: advertising, commentary, marketing, media, voice actors, voice casting, voiceover, voiceover advice, voices.com by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I received a completely unexpected and stunning honor/thank you gift in Tuesday’s mail. With no disrespect intended to those who’ve been so kind throughout my career to bestow honors on me (deserving of none and grateful for all), Tuesday’s recognition may have topped them all.

From the Armed Forces Network, based in Baghdad, Iraq (you may have read about some of the goings on there in your local paper) TSgt. Chris Eder (Kasbah to his listeners on Freedom Radio) sent a thank you note, a certificate of appreciation signed by all the Freedom Radio personalities and an AFN medallion (pictured above) for my efforts to support their station with voice imaging and production.

To me, I was so stunned (not nearly a powerful enough description) because these folks are in the middle of fighting a war (the radio station’s base incurred a direct hit not so long ago). They are living under very difficult conditions yet in the midst of all that crap (much of which most of us cannot fathom I am sure) they took time to say thank you to ME!

My initial thought was: are you kidding?!

Regardless of your position on the war and its consequences, the men and women in America’s Armed Forces all answered the call of their country and are executing the orders they are given on a daily basis. They sacrifice their families, their futures and yes their lives. So if they call me and say hey, could you help out our stations so that the troops can listen to more professional sounding radio…not yes but HELL YES I’m going to gladly help out (as did the score of professional voice talent who joined me in these voice imaging productions free of charge). I do not have their courage; I am not as selfless as they are. But I have a voice.

Darkness has come to my neighborhood as I write this blog during the 2007 edition of July 4th and with that darkness has come the familiar popping and cracking of fireworks from citizens celebrating the independence of the United States of America 231 years ago. Not only in Iraq tonight (or tomorrow) but in locales around the world, United States military personnel may hear those same popping and cracking sounds…but it is live ammunition, not a Roman candle firework. I’ve not the talent of Francis Scott Key but he is on my mind this evening:

“And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

No branch of the United States Armed Forces anywhere in the world needs to thank me for my meager efforts…but we all need to thank them for defending us everyday, everywhere. Thank you!

Tags: commentary, peter o'connell, radio, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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While on business for the past week in Boston, I had the opportunity to visit with my voice over colleagues Deirdre Cooper and Mary McKitrick who live in the area. “Area” is a vague term because both were at least 90 minutes away from my location near Boston Harbor.

But bless them both, they took the time to travel and have dinner with me in the city and boy did we have a grand time. I’ve known them both “virtually” for some time on the VO-BB and through some voice projects that we’ve collaborated on.

It is said you can’t really know someone until you’ve spent some time with them and these two voice actors are great ladies in addition to being amazing voice talents. While one might imagine conversation coming easily to people who talk for a living, our conversations were the very definition of effortless, full of both professional insight and shared challenges. Social networking at its finest.

There is no 12-step program for voice over talents because we can call our shared addiction a profession, but it’s nice to be able to discuss similar trials and tribulations with people with whom you can both commiserate with and learn from. And I’m not sure who was the first to pull out the pictures of the family first (usually I’m guilty on that count) it was very funny to learn again how parenting challenges are universal.

My sincere thanks to them for taking the time to become my friends in addition to my colleagues and making Boston an even more hospitable place.

Tags: character voices, commentary, peter o'connell, silliness, voice actors, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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The Armed Forces Network in Iraq recruited audio’connell Voice Over Talent to help with their July 4th weekend production of “The Firecracker 500” countdown. You may recall we were enlisted originally via the VO-BB for their Memorial Day countdown…so I guess we all did such a good job we got invited back.

Appreciating the enormous response from the voice talents of VO-BB but realizing such a large team was becoming unmanageable, AFN kept the team small using five voice talents (audio’connell’s DB, Diane Maggipinto, Bill Elder, Frank Frederick and Bob Souer) and two producers (Todd Ellis and your gentle author). Pairing up producers and voice talents made the production work flow smoother and it was great from my prospective cause it was one less job for me. I was paired with Deirdre and Frank.

It was during this process I had an idea (always a bad thing because my ideas are always complicated to execute and usually involve bothering others). Since the efforts in the Middle East are international in nature, why not craft a more international station promo (one that could be used all the time, not just during the “500”). So I chatted with Frank Frederick via Skype about my idea, he had some great ideas, and I put the call out on VO-BB for multi-lingual voice talents.

The response was overwhelming and amazing (thank you all) and final product sounds pretty good if I do say so myself (oh, the client liked it too).

Tags: blogs, commentary, media, radio, voice actors, voice casting, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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