Blog

I had a wonderful conversation and dessert with my friend Jeffrey Kafer last night. The lighting isn’t so good and this fuzzy shot comes from my phone’s camera, but here we are at the table in a photo taken by our waiter.

Jeffrey and I talked a lot about voiceover. He had recently posed a new commercial demo for critique on the VO-BB, and knowing that I was going to see him that evening, I had listened to it not long before I left my hotel room in Tacoma, so I could offer him my thoughts in person. We talked about his acting background, some of my lessons learned the hard way and lots more. It’s always a delight to spend time with another voiceover talent and Jeffrey is certainly one of the good guys.

One of my favorite places in the blogosphere is The Nice Blog, but it has been a while since I’ve visited. When I stopped by today, I ran across a recent post that really hit me between the eyes. It has nothing to do with voiceover work, so if that’s your only interest, you probably want to stop reading now.

The Nice Blog features a letter from Matthew T. Hunt, the founder of a non-profit organization called A Rose of Thanks. Not only is it an inspiring, wonderful, heart-warming story…but Matthew lives in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that’s where my family and I are based now, too. After reading his story, I promptly made a donation to A Rose of Thanks. You make up your own mind on that matter, of course, but I think it’s a great cause.

My friend Tim McLaughlin has recently been able to see the results of one of his voiceover projects in a very direct way. We don’t often get to see and hear the connection between our work and the results of our work so directly, which makes his blog post just a delight.

My friend Bruce Miles really knows how to cook up a good deal on cars, as you can see from his performance in this auto dealer TV commercial from Arizona.

Nice work, Bruce.

OK, we met in the Internet first, on the VO-BB…but when Tom Ackerman, Caryn Clark and I all attended some voiceover training last weekend in Atlanta, we got a chance to visit together.

Here are the 3 off us at dinner the evening between our 2 days of classes.

And the microphone, with Dave Courvoisier, as he’s featured in a new article at Voice Over Xtra. And while you’re there, if you’re not already a member, why don’t you join up? I’m very glad I did. Lots of great information.

You don’t really think of voiceover going with turkey, but my friend Caryn Clark recently had a close encounter with a turkey while in her voiceover booth. Thanks for sharing that funny story, Caryn. And it was great meeting you while we were studying in Atlanta this past weekend.

Over the weekend, I was in Atlanta for a voiceover training workshop. Among the people in attendance was Liz Raphael Helgesen, woman as talented and gracious as she is lovely. Little did I know, Liz wasn’t just someone coming by to study voiceover, she’s the voice of T-Mobile, Sprint and many other companies. So, spend a little time meeting the lady whose voice you hear just about every day of your life.

My friend Moe Egan is featured in the alumni magazine from her alma mater in the very nice article you’ll find on the right side of the page at the top. Very nice, Moe. Thanks for letting me know.