Archive for the ‘General’ Category


In Search of The Next Billy Mays

Tangentially related to voice over, the call has gone out to find a replacement for hyper-pitchman Billy Mays who unexpectedly passed away in 2009.  The joke around our house was that when one of  Mr. Mays’ TV spots came on, you could hit “mute” on the remote and still hear him. Trade publication Advertising Age [...]

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Faux Audition Finalists Fronted

Voice over actor and fun guy Peter O’Connell has announced the finalists for the “just for fun” auditions for the voice of the ABC Evening News with Dianne Sawyer. Visit Peter’s blog and vote for your favorite finalists. Remember, it’s all just for grins and aside from a little notoriety and maybe some link love, [...]

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Goodbye Mr. “Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!”

It was (is) a read stitched into the fabric of America’s culture by Jan C. Gabriel of Chicago. Few of us knew his name, but most of us know the sound, the quintessential hard sell, in this case for drag strip racing that happened when? On “Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!” You’ll find a video story of [...]

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Info Session for North Texas Actors

If you are an aspiring voice, stage or on-camera actor in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area there is an informational meeting coming up next Monday that you should consider taking. SAG’s Sheila Cooper emails with the details: UNION PANEL ROUND  TABLE Have  you ever asked what is SAG, AEA, AFTRA or IATSE?  Have you ever thought [...]

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Que the Announcer

A point of direction we see a lot in the voice over audition process is “no announcer” or “stay away from announcer sound” or “need real, genuine, no announcer” and 67 variations thereof. Why? My voice-over coach has a theory: The classic announcer sound from the 50′s-70′s is representative of the generation of admen who [...]

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JC Penney Doghouse Part Deux

JC Penney is a locally based company that at one time ran a first class production facility where I had the pleasure of voicing non-broadcast projects for them. In fact it was one training piece I worked on for them where I learned just how long I could read before my voice started giving out. [...]

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A Lesson in Branding

When your brand as a voice actor is as secure as as his was, you can get away with wonderfully inventive demos like this. I don’t have enough fingers to count up the “rules” he broke with this one. But it didn’t matter. Lorenzo Music.mp3

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Luck and The Voice Actor

I’m reading James A. Michener’s autobiography The World Is My Home.  In it he offers tips to would be writers and speaks of how simple luck played a huge role in his success.  Just change a few of the skills mentioned and you’ve got great advice for the voice over performer: The only generalization I [...]

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What is the Context?

Been thinking about the word “context” this morning. It’s one of the lenses through which we should see the script as we prepare for the job or an audition. It helps us determine choices. I think language scholar Oscar E. Nybakken has a very useful take on the word “context” for the voice actor: Context [...]

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New Area of Work for the Voice Actor?

The merging and melding of media marches on.  Now we have video embedded in print ads.  What does this mean for the voice actor? It can’t be bad, methinks.

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