I’m sure there are some folks who would dare be dumb enough to debate me (ha, thems fightin’ words) but there is no way that any one could possibly sway me to believe that during Water Bowl 41, uh, I mean the Super Bowl other than THIS ONE.

It’s funny, totally unexpected and (save for what the spot’s talent COULD HAVE charged but didn’t) the least expensive professional commercial produced for the big game.

Hands down, best spot. Next!

Tags: commentary, commercials, tv // Comments Off on best super bowl commercial 2007

Editor’s Note: It’s very rare that I would post an entire release on voice over blog on! but this is one of those rate times for my friend Leesa Barnes who is one of the organizers of Podcamp Toronto. As I have noted in the past, any excuse is a great excuse to visit Toronto, one of my favorite cities and home to some of my favorite clients. If you are in the area, I hope you’ll join us (yes, I’ll be presenting too…but they’ve asked me to stand in a dark corner and face the wall when I present. Must be a Canadian thing!)

(Toronto, ON) – Podcamp Toronto (http://www.podcamptoronto.org), a 2-day unconference which will be held at Ryerson University on February 24-25, 2007, will teach people how to plan, produce and publish a podcast. Attendance is free.

A podcast is a multimedia file that’s syndicated over the Internet. Similar to an Internet radio program, podcasting allows people to download audio or video content when they want to view or listen to it.

“Both hobbyist and companies are using podcasts to communicate with fans or clients,” says Leesa Barnes, one of the organizers behind Podcamp Toronto. “There’s a guy who uses his podcast to teach people how to knit and there’s a large corporation that uses their podcast to give end users tips on how to maintain their computers.”

The very first Podcamp was held in Boston in September 2006. It was born out of the desire to share information about audio and video podcasting and related subjects. Podcamp Toronto is a 100% free, volunteer-driven, sponsor-supported event. Otherwise known as an unconference, Podcamp Toronto focuses primarily on allowing people to share ideas, interact with each other and learn in an open environment.

“Using the unconference method means that attendees will learn from those in the trenches, the very people who are producing podcasts on a day to day basis,” says Barnes. “Whether you’re a seasoned podcaster or someone who’s just curious about this new medium, Podcamp Toronto will allow you to learn at your own pace.”

Sessions includes Interviewing Techniques, Video Podcasting for the Average Joe, Podcasting 101, 7 Ways to Monetize Your Podcast, How to Create Hollywood Effects from Your Living Room and Podcasting in Public Interest. There are a number of panel discussions, including Will Podcasting Kill Radio, Using Podcasting in Secondary Schools and What’s Hot in Marketing Your Podcast. The hosts of 2 of Canada’s most listened to podcasts – In Over Your Head and Galacticast – will be on hand to answer questions about replicating their success. These are just a sample of the 25+ sessions and panels being offered.

A blog is updated almost daily with news about Podcamp Toronto. Sponsors include Scotiabank, the first Canadian bank to produce a podcast called The Money Clip and BabyTel, a voice-over IP company.

Visit http://www.podcamptoronto.org for more information or to register for free for Podcamp Toronto.

Media Contacts

Leesa Barnes

mailto:leesa.barnes@gmail.com

(647) 225-3792

Jay Moonah

mailto:jay@jaymoonah.com

(416) 885-5341

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Tags: peter o'connell, podcamptoronto, podcasting, technology // Comments Off on podcamp toronto update

Proving yet again that in some ways I am a day late and a dollar short on my tech knowledge (shoring up some tech specs on this blog would be one short coming I am still currently working on…Bob Souer, don’t give up on me yet!)…I humbly introduce audioconnell.com’s newest attribute, our Favicon.

Not to be confused with Flavor Flav, I am only hoping there are at least a few of you who quizzically furrowed your brow at that word. I didn’t know it existed until a few minutes ago myself. I only knew it by its original Latin name: Logo to the left of the URL.

Pronounced fav-eye-con, it is short for ‘Favorites Icon.’ A Favicon is a multi-resolution image included on nearly all professional developed sites. Within Internet Explorer the Favicon is displayed on the Address line and in the Favorites menu. The Favicon allows the webmaster to further promote their site, and to create a more customized appearance within a visitor’s browser. Often, the Favicon reflects the look and feel of the web site or the organization’s logo.

So now I’ve got one. Frequent visitors will even say “well, you had one when you first re-did the site”, it was a smooshed version of the company “microphone” (RCA-77 for the microphone aficionados in the audience). But it looked, well, like crap (are we allowed to say “looked” on voice over blogs?) Anyway I needed to change it.

Well have you ever tried to change an easily read or identified image to a 16 pixel x 16 pixel version? It’s hard and it looks bad. I was lost for any ideas on how to make my favicon look good and mean anything.

Fate interceded as it always does. I had been working on some embroidered swag so that I might like a voice over talent turned NASCAR fan at networking events (of which I attend many…networking events not NASCAR races). I used the main audio’connell Voice Over Talent logo and sent it to Land’s End Business Outfitters because I always like their clothes, how well they wear and I had had some stuff made there years ago and it was great. Some things don’t age well, however, and the logo makers and managers at LEBO really didn’t do a hot job in my opinion. The shirts I had made were ok (just ok, embroidery was so-so) and when they tried to tackle the baseball hat, their embroidery wheels seemingly came off completely.

So after two months of what I deemed mostly unsatisfactory results, I went to my friend and past client Cindy Miller. Cindy’s name may be familiar to you for a number of reasons: she’s a former LPGA tour player and she’s been seen often on the Golf Channel’s Big Break III: Ladies Only. She also holds golf clinics, gives lessons, gives keynote addresses and, with her husband and former PGA Tour Player Allen Miller, owns an embroidery company called Tee Shots.

In answer to your question, you’re right, I should have gone to her in the first place, I know, don’t remind me. Let me get back to how this relates to the Favicon. So I am talking with Cindy about this hat thing and she says why don’t you try something different with the hat, something a bit eclectic. So I put on the old thinking cap (which I likely won’t wear as much after I get the new baseball caps) and played with ideas.

The idea struck me that I should create an icon that could be like a secondary logo, something you often see NHL teams (like the always exciting Buffalo Sabres, who’s new, main “mullet” buffalo logo I dislike intensely) use on their jerseys; they have their main logo and then a secondary icon. I wanted something cool, unique, maybe a bit more modern than my current logo which I also designed. I settled on the red “a” in the audio’connell Voice Over Talent logo encircled by an “O” with an apostrophe. Then I realized, if it can work for a hat, it could work on my “Logo to the left of the URL” too.

And so it was born. Ann Hackett from aHa! Designs helped bring my idea to life.

Tonight, I checked on Google to see if there was a name for this logoed doodad and found out about the Favicon. I may yet refine the graphic a bit cause it looks a bit jagged, but over all its what I wanted.

So thank you Favicon, you are a subtle branding reminder that great things in marketing are sometimes very small.

Tags: advertising, commentary, internet, marketing, silliness, technology // 5 Comments »

Doesn’t that title sound like a National Geographic Special or at least some TV show you’d see on PBS?

Well that’s apropos I suppose since many of the TV programs on cable channels like National Geographic, Discovery Channel and the like all feature off screen narrators; great voice talents like Will Lyman, Hal Douglas (who actually introduces Will Lyman’s demo) and Gene Galusha just to name a few of the more frequently heard, anonymous voice talkers.

Often times people say to me “Why do you talk about other voice over talents?” or inquire as to why I would reference them on my voice over site. The answer is simple and I suppose I should trademark it right here and now as I’ve used it for years: voice over talents are like golfers. Golfers aren’t truly competing against each other, they are really trying to beat the course.

In the same way, voice over talents aren’t competing against each other, they are competing for the subjective ear of the producer hiring for the job. I’ve never met Will, Hal or Gene and I may have even come up for the same job as they have (you never really know half the time) but I can’t sound like them and they can’t sound like me and on any given day in any given studio it’s the producer’s ear that we all compete for/against not each other.

So my hats off to these great talents and other spectacular narrators often ignored by the media but never ignored by the ears of the audience.

Any favorite narrators you would like to include?

Tags: commentary, narrations, voice actors, voice casting, voiceover advice // Comments Off on the narrator – america’s forgotten artist.

Editor’s Note: In the daily observation of life around him, the author occasionally feels the need to point out ridiculously inane behavior and general thoughtlessness. These are called “Rants” and this is one of those times.

• Can’t we just pull out some kind of weapon and use it against smokers who throw their used cigarette butts out their car windows? Why is it acceptable that they use the world as their ashtray?

• If Lindsey Lohan is going to Alcoholics Anonymous, why did her Mother go on the radio and tell everyone? When did one of the 12 Steps become “parental public embarrassment”?

• In the next few years, since politicos on both sides of the aisle seem hell bent on taking America down a self-destructive path towards losing our Super Power status, will most citizens even notice?

• Why is it that people would have more trouble identifying Condoleezza Rice than Paris Hilton? Doesn’t that embarrass you a lot?!

• Toyota makes a better product and GM, Ford and Chrysler pay crazy wages and benefits to their union employees…who couldn’t see this change coming?

• If there were no paparazzi, would we have any idea when Britney Spears did or did not wear underwear? And would we care even less than we do already?

• Do you find it as annoying as I do that the NFL has grabbed such a strangle hold on its trade mark of the Super Bowl name that every body who has a “commercial” purpose has to call it “The Big Game”? Doesn’t it seem like the name should fall under public domain?

• Since Rosie O’Donnell isn’t really funny anymore now that she’s all up on her soapbox all the time and Donald Trump never was interesting, wouldn’t it be better just to ignore them and let them fall into oblivion? Why is that so hard for people to do?

• Most times, it’s not about conservative or liberal. It’s simply about right and wrong. And if we understood the difference as children, why does it seem we’re so ignorant about the difference as adults?

Tags: commentary, rants // Comments Off on rants

If only jobs were as easy or exciting as they initially sounded.

The idea of being a chocolate taster seems like a good idea but if you think about it, maybe not. After a while, you are likely going to be pretty sick of chocolate.

It’s kind of the same thing when casting a voice for a production. There are lots of talented men and women out there who serve as professional announcers or voice over talent and can easily a voiceover your commercial, imaging project, on-hold message or video narration.

And I mean lots.

That’s where the challenge comes in.

Describing the type of voiceover you want

As the potential voice over employer (client), having to describe a voice you want for your project for a production house or on-line audition service will almost require a PhD in similes. If it makes you feel any better, voice talents are just as bad as describing their sound for clients (the over used description “voice of God has always struck me as a rather unqualifiable reference that always makes me chuckle).

But these totally subjective descriptions from clients and voice over talents are a large part of what makes voice casting an incredibly inexact science that rarely proves accurate. It’s not because the employer or announcer wants to mislead, but more because the spectrum of sound quality is so skewed to each listener’s taste.

Sifting through voice over talent auditions

If one voice over talent audition is heard, a hundred are heard. Old voices, young voices, sleek, rough, country-bumpkin and city slicker. The even worse news is that on some auditions all the aforementioned voices may be on just one audition.

Set some uninterrupted time aside and plow through them… it’s going to take awhile.

The weird science of voice auditioning

From the office secretary of a small business to the Chief Creative Officer at a worldwide advertising agency (and that IS how broad the range is of people selecting a voice talent nowadays), what you think you want at the beginning of the process is rarely what you end up with at the end of the voice over auditioning process. Of course, there are exceptions but usually the process of voice talent auditioning creates some sort of epiphany for the client at some point in the production process.

Whether it’s the special sound of a female talent’s low vocal register or the dead-on impersonation offered a male talent, a voice talent can cement an ad campaign’s direction or so amazingly enhance a marketing concept that a new campaign idea is born. It happens all the time.

Ultimately, the best suggestion for a client is to keep an open mind, even when you “know what you want”.

Going through the process

Here are some simple tips to get you through the voice audition process:

• Decide whether you want to request general audition recordings (which mean listing to generic voiceover demos) or if you want the talents to record a customized demo for the audition. While customized auditions are usually free (especially for non-union voice over talent) voices usually want to know a budget range to see if the project is ultimately going to be worth their time to audition for so…

• Establish a reasonable budget for the voice talent’s services and let the talent know what the “range” of that budget is

• Be sure to indicate the type of production it’s going to be: commercial, video narration, voice imaging…and be as specific about details as possible. This will ensure the voice talent can send you the demo that most suits your needs

• Be sure to indicate what format you want the audition to arrive as: MP3, WAV file or mailed on a CD. Voice talents are usually glad to give prospective clients want you want in whatever format you want it

• If you’re going to initially ask for generic demos, make two piles, keepers and tossers:
– The keepers you may ask to audition again with a more specific piece of copy or you may want to interview them, your choice
– With the tossers, while it would be more professional if you created a generic but personally addressed letter politely saying “thanks but no thanks” most voice over talents subscribe to the notion that they didn’t get the job they just auditioned for; which make the “you got the job” call THAT much sweeter.

• If you want a custom audition, make sure you provide pronunciation keys in the script. A mispronunciation is upsetting for the talent and frustrating for the listener

• On customized demos, be ready to hear the same script over and over….focus on listening for script intrepretation, tone and inflection. Don’t focus on the words or you’ll zone out (see the earlier chocolate taster reference).

Tags: advertising, character voices, commentary, commercials, narrations, podcasting, radio, technology, tv, voice actors, voice casting, voiceover advice // 2 Comments »