Political Ad Voice Talent I heard a great

Political Ad Voice Talent

I heard a great piece on NPR yesterday with two guys who do a ton of attack ad voice-overs.  Their normal voices were similar to their TV voices, but they both used subtle changes in pacing and breathing that transformed them from normal deep-voiced guys into all-knowing voices of serious condemnation.  Using those voices, they then read various nursery rhymes and turned them into attack ads.  Funny stuff.

There’s a woman who does a lot of the GOP ads here in Minnesota, and I’m sure lots of other places, too.  It’s hard to describe what she does, but it’s this weird sort of hiss or lisp or cutting off of the last part of a word.  It so perfectly captures the prudish, pious disgust that motives certain parts of the conservative frame of mind.  I’d love to know if that’s really how that woman talks or if she actually uses that voice intentionally.  She’s either a master of her trade or an actual pious, prudish woman full of disgust.

Both the guys on NPR said they really had to check their own politics at the door.  I suppose that’s true in a lot of jobs, and we all do check our politics at the door in a variety of situations, such as a Libertarian swingers party.  I have to think if you were a hard-core partisan it would be hard to not have second thoughts about literally being the voice of your opposition.  I’m not sure I could do it, although it’s entirely possible that getting paid like premium voice talent could influence my thinking on the subject.

daCapo Voice Talent of the Year Awards, 2006
A big part of any success we have as a company is the talent that we regularly work with and hire. If we didn’t have access to a wide variety of skilled and unique voices, we could not do the work that we do! In order to recognize the contributions that our voice talents make to us, our clients, and the audio production industry (and to have a really good excuse to eat cake at 2:00 in the afternoon), we initiated the FIRST ANNUAL DACAPO PRODUCTIONS VOICE TALENT AWARDS!!!!

(Clint addresses the black-tie crowd at the awards ceremony)

The winners (talent of the year, and runner-up) were chosen based upon a complicated formula involving total number of projects voiced, total revenue earned, and some linear programming. Our runner up was… Monique LaCoste who has the added caché of being able to do excellent voice work in French and English (note the beautiful trophies these folks were presented with. You don’t find things like this at just any pawnshop, let me tell you!).

Our overall winner was… Gordon Tanner

Congratulations everyone! It has been great having the opportunity to work with you over the years!

Voice Talent for TV
We have need for professional voice talent TODAY. If you are talent that is free today to record we are ready to pay. Here is what we are looking for: Male 25 – 45 Light Voice NO HARD SELL Product: Regional Wireless Campaign Please send an mpeg of your demo or something we can reference in your email. Thank you.

RE: Insider Secrets for Winning More Auditions
Maxi Schwarz-Bastami: Thank you for the link, Nik, There is a lot of useful, common sense advice that goes beyond the particular niche of voice over. The speaker’s bottom line seems to be that one must be professional in every way possible, an expert in your field, properly equipped, and have decent business strategies …