My friend, the great Canadian voice talent and singer Jodi Krangle, will lead an all-star group of presenters at the first ever Voices of Vision event for voice actors September 23-25 in Toronto (yes, my favorite city in the world).

Backing up Jodi (who didn’t ask for this star billing but I’m giving it to her anyway and SHE can explain it to her fellow presenters 🙂 ) are Deb Munro (another of my favorite Canadians – it was at her seminar that Jodi and I first met), M.J. Lallo, Pat Fraley, Bill Holmes. The event will be hosted by Elley-Ray Hennessy.

I hope if you have the chance that you will attend.

Tags: commentary, voice actors, voice over training, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover meet-ups // 1 Comment »

Actor James Gammon (photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

Which end?

THE end.

The thought was brought to the fore when I was reading the New York Times obit of actor James Gammon.

Clearly a talented performer what caught my eye was the end of the story when actor and writer Sam Shepard said:

“This was a guy who could act circles around most other actors,” Mr. Shepard said, “and he never pretended to be other than a working kind of actor.”

When “The Late Henry Moss” was first produced at the Magic Theater in San Francisco in 2000, he recalled, it had a starry cast that included Sean Penn, Woody Harrelson, Nick Nolte and Cheech Marin.

“I mean, a bunch of notoriously famous guys,” Mr. Shepard said. “And every single one of them would come up to me, alone, and say, “Who’s that Jim Gammon guy? Where did he come from?’ “

How is your work and your work ethic viewed by those around you now?

What will be the legacy of your work in the mind of others?

It’s not your primary goal of course (performing, working, paying bills are more immediate concerns) but it does give one pause to reflect.

Now is the time that you are/can shape that legacy.

Tags: commentary, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover advice // Comments Off on working with the end in mind

Radio Imaging & Promo Master Mark Driscoll

For as long as I’ve known Mark Driscoll’s imaging work (which I think goes back to when he was doing imaging for WLZR in the mid ’80’s) I’ve always thought he was at the top of the radio imaging and promo food chain. For me, his voice quality has been right up there with my voice over hero Ernie Anderson LISTEN

And I’ve never and likely will never come close to sounding like either of them.

But I noticed on Facebook for the first time a link to his blog and if radio imaging is a current or future objective of yours, pay attention to what Mark Driscoll tells you.

Tags: announcers, radio, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover blog // Comments Off on welcome mark driscoll to the blogroll

Female Voice Talent Allison Smith

From out of Calgary, Alberta, Canada comes Allison Smith and her Voiceover Gal blog.

Specializing in voicing IVR and telephony platforms, Allison has done that work companies like Verizon, Qwest, Cingular, Bell Canada and Vonage.

Unless I missed it (and I am getting older) I didn’t see an RSS feed but the content I saw looked great.

UPDATE: The RSS Feed address, Allison has advised me, is: http://voicegal.wordpress.com/feed/

Tags: voice talent, voiceover, voiceover blog // Comments Off on welcome allison smith to the blog roll

He’s performed hundreds of different characters in commercials, cartoons, and video games, but now Wally Wingert has hit the big time as the voice of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The South Dakota native was recently interviewed on a trip back home.

Tags: announcers, character voices, NBC Television Network, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover // 1 Comment »

David Airey over at the Logo Design Love blog has a really cool post about all the World Cup logos going back to 1950 whilst announcing the new logo for Brazil, the country hosting the World Cup in 2014.

I crafted a little logo chart below and wanted to ask you the musical question (it’s not really musical by the way): of all the logos, which are your top 3? If you want to talk about why, you certainly can.

Leave your answers in the comment box.

Tags: advertising, blogs, branding, commentary, logo design, marketing // 4 Comments »