Archive for November, 2009

Voice Overs Of The World: Caribou Coffee

Posted On: Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 9:56 am | By: MikeSpring
Related Category: Education, VO News, Voice Overs of the World | 2 Comments »

Welcome to the first installment of a new weekly feature here at the Voice Coaches Blog. With Voice Overs of the World, each week we’re going to take a look at a notable new voice over, whether it be from a commercial, a movie or TV show, a video on the internet, or anywhere we find something of interest. These aren’t all going to be the “Best Of” voice overs, just different types of delivery and content that are interesting enough to draw your attention to.

This week, I’ve selected the Caribou Coffee’s first-ever commercial, which features two marionette puppets. Caribou Coffee is the second-largest coffee retailer in the U.S (after Starbucks, of course), located primarily in the midwest and eastern parts of the country. For this 30-second spot, they’ve chosen to go the more humorous route, and I think the commercial is quite funny.

The commercial skewers the “Hollywood Starlet/Vain Pretty-Boy” stereotypes pretty cleverly with the witty dialogue and the well-designed and costumed marionettes, but the voices they cast are perfect as well. The male character has that dead-on Brad Pitt-Ashton Kutcher “too cool for school” delivery, while the female marionette perfectly captures that Paris Hilton-Megan Fox style of blase’ trendiness. What’s especially noteworthy is how animated (pardon the pun) the two puppets appear to be when, if you watch them closely, their faces are actually moving very little. All of the character and humor of the two primary characters are coming from the voice over deliveries.

I also want to point out the “announcer” of the piece. While this would be an easy place to an inject a deep, male announcer-style voice to sing the praises of Caribou Coffee’s hot chocolate, instead the voice belongs to a friendly, conversational female voice. In fact, the announcer’s voice is warm, smooth, and–dare I say it?–creamy. Hmm… sounds kind of like their hot chocolate, doesn’t it? Or at least that’s the impression I get when I hear her voice and see a mug full of steaming hot chocolate at that same time.

All in all, this commercial spot from Caribou Coffee is a fun, effective, humorous commercial that really comes together thanks to some dynamite VO work.

Stuffed With Ideas!

Posted On: Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 10:11 am | By: MikeSpring
Related Category: Education, Effective Marketing, Motivation | 3 Comments »

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It’s a short week here at Voice Coaches due to the Thanksgiving holiday, however, I wanted to leave you with something to keep you warm over the weekend besides turkey and stuffing, so today I’m going to share a little Thanksgiving humor, some motivational thoughts, and a little bit of news as well.

First off, I want to tell you about a new blog feature that we’re going to be launching next week called “Voice Overs of the World.” In addition to my weekly doses of bloggery, inspiration and (I hope) humor, every week we’re going to be looking at a new voice over, whether it be from a commercial, a movie or TV show, a video on the internet, or what have you. These aren’t all going to be the “Best Of” voice overs, just different types of delivery and content that we think are interesting enough to draw your attention to. And don’t worry, we’ll have video clips right in each blog post so that you won’t have to go hunting all over the internet to track down the videos we’re talking about. It should be a cool and fun (and informative) new weekly feature, and I hope all you regular blog readers will get into the spirit of it and share your thoughts and comments on the clips each week!

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I know it seems a little obvious, but since the theme of today’s post is Thanksgiving, I would feel remiss if I didn’t talk about a basic aspect of marketing yourself as a voice actor: thank you notes. It’s very important to remember what a huge impact a quick, personal thank you note can have when you’re marketing yourself. It can be an actual thank you card, a postcard, or even just a quick note or letter, but they’re a great way to make a positive impression on the people you’re marketing yourself to. And there are more opportunities to utilize thank you notes than just after you’ve completed a job (although, of course, you should absolutely send thank you notes to everyone you work with on a professional job.) You should also send a thank you note to follow up with someone who’s listened to your demo, or to anyone who’s referred a job or a potential lead to you. Let’s face it; everyone likes to get a nice, heartfelt thank you card in the mail, and it’s a really effective way to keep yourself in contact with a potential VO employer.

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Finally, I’d like to leave you with two quotes that I think are appropriate for Thanksgiving and the spirit of positivity that is so uplifting at this time of year:

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”

- John F. Kennedy

“An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.”

- Irv Kupcinet

From everyone here at Voice Coaches, we hope you all have a wonderful, happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday!

When Is A Character Voice Not A Character Voice?

Posted On: Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 9:49 am | By: MikeSpring
Related Category: Education, Voice Overs of the World | 2 Comments »

I recently stumbled across a couple of advertisements for Seagram’s Vodka (of all things) that featured some really fun voice over performances. There are three ads that focus on classic football rivalries (Bears vs. Packers, Giants Vs. Eagles, and Patriots vs. Dolphins), but that don’t actually use any football related imagery or sounds. What I especially like about these commercials, though, is that they spotlight a unique style of voice over that are character voices, but not quite character voices.

What I mean by that is that while clearly these aren’t the voice actors’ normal speaking voices, they’re also not celebrity impressions or weird, wacky voices that only someone like Mel Blanc, Harry Shearer, or Seth MacFarlane could produce. Instead, they’re mostly just slightly affected voices that, due to the delivery and the script, have a tremendous impact.

Take the “giant” in this next commerical, for example:

That’s not a traditional “character” voice. Instead, it’s a voice actor who (presumably) already has a deep voice, who delivers his lines with a deep breathy tone, and adds a bit of a snarl to his voice. This is the type of delivery that any voice actor with some creativity can deliver. Likewise, the eagle in the piece doesn’t really have an accent or a particular voice quality; instead, the producers of the piece simply cast someone with a higher-pitched voice who exudes a lot of energy and attitude. Yet, when you watch the commercial (or any of the three commercials, for that matter), your first instinct is to consider these “character” voices.

My point is that a lot of people try to put too many different voices on their demo, when that’s not really their strength. If you do character voices, that’s terrific; your demo should reflect that. And of course, you clearly want to try to have as much range on your demo as you possibly can. But sometimes that range isn’t about being able to do a killer British accent or George W. Bush impression. It’s about using the voice you have to the best of your ability. Instead of trying to push your voice to do things it can’t do, focus instead on trying to get the most out of what it can do. Stretch not just your voice but your delivery to the fullest range of your talent. That’s what a good voice over demo should be comprised of.

Because you never know when you might get called upon to play a dolphin, or a giant, or even a piece of cheese. And who knows what any of them really sounds like anyway? Maybe they sound exactly like you!

The Great Blue Norther of 11/11/11

Posted On: Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 1:42 pm | By: MikeSpring
Related Category: Motivation | 1 Comment »

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I’m fascinated by obscure bits of history. The Boston Molasses Disaster? I’m there. The fact that the first successful parachute jump in history happened on my birthday in 1919? Cool!

So I found the Great Blue Norther of 11/11/11 quite an interesting piece of forgotten history. It turns out that exactly 98 years ago today, a freak storm front moved across the midwestern part of the country that resulted in some of the most extreme weather changes in history. For example, Springfield, Missouri hit midday temperatures of 80 degrees, and finished the day with temperatures of 13 degrees. That’s a 67-degree drop in one day! It was the first time since records had been kept that the record high and record low were broken in the same day.

That kind of change reminds me of what it’s like to market yourself as a voice talent. In what seems like one day, you can go from a record high to a record low. In actuality, marketing yourself is a constant effort, and you never know when those efforts are going to pay off. In some cases, it can seem to come all at once. One of my co-workers is actually in the midst of being almost overwhelmed by the amount of voice over jobs he has on his plate right now. Up until a month ago, however, he hadn’t done a professional job in about two months. Record low, meet record high.

I know many, many working voice actors who go through similar “feast or famine” periods in their marketing efforts. Unfortunately, some of them get discouraged during the “record low” periods and forget that there can be a “record high” right around the corner. If weather can change by 67 degrees in a single day due to a freak storm, who’s to say the same thing can’t happen to you? You’d be surprised how common it is for voice over actors to go through long stretches where they can be either incredibly busy or where it seems like they’re sitting around twiddling their thumbs for days on end. The important thing to remember is to make the most of your time. If you’re in a cold snap, why not use that time to try some new marketing efforts and send out some more demos?

Instead of looking at a slow period as a reason to quit, try using it to get motivated and turn the downtime into a way to create future work for yourself. You never know when you might find yourself in the middle of an extreme temperature change and find the winds blowing in your direction.