Seth MacFarlane to host 2nd Annual Elans in Vancouver, Winner of Unofficial NBC Nightly News Contest, Voice Overs Mixed in on CDs to prevent piracy, Pat Fraley and Ed Asner Workshop in February, and some more YouTube’n with John Miles in the VOX Box.
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Seth MacFarlane Hosts Elans, Unofficial NBC Nightly News Contest, Pat Fraley, Ed Asner and YouTube with John Miles
Transcript of Vox Talk #53
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Episode 53
Terry Daniel: Hi, it’s Terry Daniel from Voice Overs on Demand with Terry and Trish. Join Trish Basanyi and myself once a month as we discuss different topics in the voice over industry. Voice Overs on Demand is great for new students who are eager to get into the voice over business. It’s also great for you experienced voice over pros for there are several opportunities to network and share ideas on the voice over industry.
To access Voice Overs on Demand, go to voiceovers.podcastpeople.com or you can visit my website at universalvoicetalent.com. Thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you next time on Voice Overs on Demand.
Male: You’re listening To VOX Talk, the voiceover industry’s number one podcast brought to you by Voices.com. It’s about voice acting, growing your business, and sharing your knowledge. VOX Talk is a show that you can be a part of. Getting involved is both fun and rewarding. It’s time for this week’s episode of VOX Talk with your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Hi there and welcome to VOX Talk! You’ve just heard a promo for the Voice Overs on Demand Podcast with Terry and Trish. Their most recent episode featured voice over expert Jon Baker. Go check it out after this episode is through and subscribe to hear their great show too.
Now, to get this show going, I’d like to send shut out to Mr. Bissell’s Broadcasting Communications class at Clarke Road Secondary School in London, Ontario. I hope you’re listening. This week, I have Pat Fraley in the house as well as some You Tube voice overs from John Miles but first the news.
Male: The Loop, informing you of news and current voiceover events.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: In our top story, the producers of the Canadian Awards for the Electronic and Animated Arts are ecstatic to announce that Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy is the host for their 2nd Annual Elan Awards Show on February 15, 2008 at the The Centre in Vancouver for the Performing Arts.
Tickets are available for purchase to watch winners in the video gaming and animation sectors receive their awards. To learn more about the Elan Awards, go to theelans.com or visit the VOX Talk Show Notes.
Finally, some closure, Peter O’Connell published a podcast over the weekend revealing the winners of the unofficial NBC Nightly News Announcer Contest he was running at audio’connell.com with 60 entrants and over 154 votes, the results are as follows:
1st Place: David Houston
2nd Place: Bruce Miles
3rd Place: Connie Terwilliger
Congratulations to David, Bruce, and Connie.
Again, if you’d like some more information, just go to the VOX Talk Show Notes.
And to conclude, in efforts to curb piracy, music labels are now using voice over to thwart would be pirates from leaking music on the internet before CDs hit the store shelves. Well, the voice overs are quite effective. They also happened to be potentially detering music reviewers from thoroughly enjoying an artist’s work.
Now, these people instead of giving really good rating for music that I love are taking it out on the artist by giving them a lower rating than they would have had they not been distracted by the voice overs meant to crack down on the illegal file sharing that’s going on. Do you have any thoughts about this? Why don’t you head over to voiceovertimes.com and have your say?
Male: The Biz, helping you grow your voice over business.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: And happily in the Biz, I have Pat Fraley with Ed Asner. They’re here to take it away.
Ed Asner: How could I till my forty acres
Not to speak of getting more,
With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos
Stirred in my brain by crows and robins
And the creak of a wind-mill.
I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle–
And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
And not a single regret.
Pat Fraley: That was a cut from the audiobook version of Spoon River Anthology with Ed Asner providing the role of Fiddler Jones. A project I produced a few years ago. This is Pat Fraley and I*m so pleased to be teaching with my friend and mentor, Ed Asner, coming Saturday, February 9th in Los Angeles.
First thing is first, this is your first lesson in what I hope to be a very meaningful day spent with one of our foremost American actors. Ed and I will be sharing beauties, teaching skills, techniques, some critical and sophisticated methods for acting in front of the microphone. That being said, I’m sticking to my new year’s resolution to teach more and sell less.
Now, your first lesson. This is a lesson I was taught by Ed 20 years ago. Having Ed Asner as my next door neighbor was too rich for me not to take advantage of. You would have thought he’d be suspicious of my borrowing ranchos, cups of sugar, and eggs twice a week in those years. I had managed to widdle my way into his den for some help on an audition. I started to read my copy and he pulled his hamhack hand up to my face while I was performing and fashioned a kind of talking hand puppet with his fist and headed to say, “You’re talking too good. You’re talking too good.”
I stopped and said, ‘What?” And he said, “People don’t talk like that. Actors talk like that.” It was then that I got the surprised of my early years as a performer. Ed Asner launched into a recitation of T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral with perfect meter, diction, and articulation. It was like Lou Grant swallowed Sir John Gielgud, a little scary. Well, that demonstration was taken to heart.
Now, years later I hired Ed and I must point out that he showed me a great deal of mercy by keeping his fee low enough to accomplish this. I hired him to do some of the characters in the aforementioned Spoon River Anthology. I will now play a minute and a half piece and encourage you to not merely listen but hear what he does. Here it is.
[Spoon River Anthology]
Ed Asner: “Indignation” Jones
You would not believe, would you
That I came from good Welsh stock?
That I was purer blooded than the white trash here?
And of more direct lineage than the
New Englanders And Virginians of Spoon River?
You would not believe that I had been to school
And read some books.
You saw me only as a run-down man
With matted hair and beard
And ragged clothes.
Sometimes a man’s life turns into a cancer
From being bruised and continually bruised,
And swells into a purplish mass
Like growths on stalks of corn.
Here was I, a carpenter, mired in a bog of life
Into which I walked, thinking it was a meadow,
With a slattern for a wife, and poor Minerva, my daughter,
Whom you tormented and drove to death.
So I crept, crept, like a snail through the days
Of my life.
No more you hear my footsteps in the morning,
Resounding on the hollow sidewalk
Going to the grocery store for a little corn meal
And a nickel’s worth of bacon.
Pat Fraley: Only after I edited and mastered this performance, that the lesson I was taught in my solid days hit home. Here’s a performance at the very lowest volume and projection as it’s called in theater with all the expressiveness intact. And here, Ed Asner’s performing poetry and yet with the reallism one would expect from the praised prevayors of realism like (Brando), (DeVaughn), and later Chris Cooper.
So, short of reserving your plays and being taught personally by Mr. Asner and by me, I hope you get the invaluable lesson I get when I listened to this recording. Here it is.
Don’t fall into the performance tiger pits of over articulating and performing at a heightened volume. Finally, here’s the challenge that comes out of this lesson. How quiet can you be as you performed and still be expressive, realistic, and accomplish your primary objective to realize the author’s intent?
Thank you for listening. And please consider joining me and Sir Edward Asner, well, the Sir is from me, they don’t give that away in Kansas City, join us for what we hope to be a very meaningful and joful day in Los Angeles. If you’d like to participate with a group of committed performers limited to just 12, e-mail me or call me at 818-400-3733.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Thanks to Pat for sending that in.
Male: VOX Box, sharing your audio feedback.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Remember a little while ago when I asked for you to voice over submissions, John Miles certainly did and I have some audio to play for you from John. Here we go.
John Miles: Photolex is launching its new 2008 line about transpack lighting kit cases. The new transpacks have drastically changed from a good bag to a great, tough, durable case. We’ve entered the light weight, super stiff, durable, corrogated palmer materials for the walls of all our cases for maximum 6-wall protection. It has super rigidity to protect against age, and other (ragged items).
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Thank you for sending in your You Tube video link, John. I really appreciate it. To close the show, I’m going to play a promo for Podcamp Toronto. Peter O’Connell and some folks from the VOBB put this together to help get the word out for this event in February. You’ll likely hear some voices you recognized and I can tell you for certain that Jeffrey Keffer is the voice that says, “Twitter,” as is noted on Jeffrey’s blog.
Author-talent on the recording include Elaine Singer, Chris Rice, Mary McKitrick, Kara Edwards, Liz de Nesnera Dave Courvoisier, and Jim Sutton.
PodcampToronto Promo
I’m all about podcasting. I love iTunes. Twitter. I love iMovie. Totally into You Tube. Otters. Facebook. Blog spot. Webclass, I am all about webclass. U stream. Broadcasting. Podcamp? I love podcamp. Podcasting. Podcamp. Podcasting. Podcamp. Podcasting.
Whether the tools of new media are brand new to you or as comfortable as your favorite pair of headphones, you’re invited to find the answers to all your podcasting, blogging, and social media questions at Podcamp Toronto 2008, February 23rd and 24th at Ryerson University. Podcamp Toronto is a free, innovative on conference where newcomers and seas of new media producers gathered together to share how they create and use new media for either their personal use or for business. It’s informal, it’s really educational, and it’s free. So, come learn new stuff and make new friends. Podcamp Toronto 2008, Saturday, February 23rd and Sunday, February 24th. You must register for this free event at podcamptoronto.org.
Podcamp Toronto 2008 is proudly sponsored by FreshBooks, www.freshbooks.com, The Shadow and James Show www.ShadowandJames,com, W8NC Inc. w8nc.com, audio’connel Voice Over Talent www.audio’connel.com, Wild Apricot www.WildApricot.com, blogTO.com, and One Degree www.OneDegree.ca.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Well, that’s all for this week’s show. I want to thank you again for listening and if you have any feedback on any of the topics that you hear on VOX Talk, you can always send me an e-mail, [email protected] and if you would rather just shoot me an MP3, that’s perfectly fine too. All you need to do is record that comment that you would have otherwise sent int eh e-mail and send that off to me and we can air it here on the show if you like.
I want to thank you for staying subscribed and if you haven’t yet subscribed to VOX Talk, you can always do so by going to iTunes, that’s the podcast directory there by Apple. If you don’t have iTunes, you can go to Apple.com/itunes and you can download the appropriate version for your computer. That’s all for this week. We’ll talk to you later. Bye for now.
Links from today’s show:
Stephanie Ciccarelli
Pat Fraley
John Miles
John’s voice on YouTube
Voice Overs On Demand Podcast
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