Funny video
Here’s a video made for last night’s retirement party for Anton. Starring Maxi as a young Anton. Probably funnier if you know Anton.
G’bye Anton
Tonight’s the farewell/retirement party/big fancy bash for Anton McClelland, creative director at Publicis QMP. He’s been in advertising for 41 years and now it’s time for the easy life. No doubt half the advertising industry will be there tonight, and hungover tomorrow. Anton, goodbye, good-luck - and please don’t start wearing plaid golf clothes now that you’re retired.
Are you on twitter?
We just got a twitter account! Find us on HERE to follow the piehole twitter.
The theme of the twitter will be all things voiceover-y, and advertising-y and the state-of-play in the industr-y. And to pretty much make sure you waste even more time in cyberspace.
Freebie marketing trick
Sending out CDs, printing postcards, direct mailers all cost a wad of cash. But voiceovers have to promote themselves somehow. There’s a couple of ways you can promote yourself in a memorable way - for free.
One way of doing this is to offer copywriters or producers in ad agencies tickets to one of your acting gigs. Simply pick up the phone, or drop an email, asking if they’d like a pair of tickets to your show. Ask if they’d like you to put them on the guest list. This is a good way for them to see your amazing acting talent, and of course, it’s a more civilised form of bribery. To find out how to create a database of copywriters and producers, there’s a big fat article about it in our ebook.
“Piehole was a godsend and pretty much the source of all my work thus far.”
Tim O’Donovan, voiceover
Cartoon voices
Tara Breathnach has been busy lately voicing cartoon series ‘ Phantom Spirits’ and ‘Camp Lazlo’ for for Abúmedia. She is also back playing Tina in Tg4’s Ros na Rún, episodes to be broadcast in April.
On the cartoon thing - who else is out there doing cartoons? Send us an email. Most of the Piehole work is commercial work, and this cartoon stuff is pretty interesting stuff. Keep us posted - email noticeboard@piehole.ie
Actress Elizabeth Moynihan has
just been in the National theatre London, with Steppenwolf’s Tony award winning production of August: Osage County. And the film with Elizabeth as Nurse Catherine: ‘How About you’ ,opened in the Paris movie theatre, New york City. So all in all 2008 into 2009 has been, well, cracking.
How the recession might affect a voiceover
OK, so what’s the skinny on the CEC (current economic climate)? Everyone’s panicking left, right and centre and it’s hard to know which way is up. And in fairness - the panic isn’t completely without merit. I work in an ad agency, and lived through the 9/11 worldwide financial dip, which famously hit advertising agencies very hard. The reason being, is that advertising budgets are the first things that get slashed (that, and nose hair waxing apparently). Those lovely exotic film shoots with the fancy helicopter shots, cappuccinos and first class flights tend to go out the back door while economy class and instant coffee slips through the front door.
So where does this leave voiceover artists? Is everyone going to be shaking a tin cup in 09?
There’s actually a number of factors at play here, and I foresee a few different things happening. Firstly, there will be less money waste-age, so we’ll probably find that clients are less likely to splurge money to demo a range of different artists for a gig. They might just want pick one VO and hope for the best.
Secondly, TV budgets will probably get slashed. This might mean nothing to the voiceovers, as no matter how high or low a budget is to produce a TV ad - you’re still going to need a voice over at the end, punting the product.
Another thing which might happen is that clients shoot less tv ads. This could mean they re-use last year’s ad. Great for the voiceover, you get paid again without even having to step a foot in the studio. Or perhaps, in the case of campaigns - they might only shoot 1 or 2 ads for the campaign as opposed to 3 or 4. Obviously - this would mean less money for the voiceover. Or, god forbid, they just don’t shoot an ad this year.
A big ripple effect, if there were less tv ads being made, is that clients will still need to sell their products somehow. The medium of radio has always been considered TV’s poorer cousin - and has also been considered a very hard-hitting, good value for money medium. My prediction is that clients will be forced to put more of their advertising budgets toward radio. So instead of shooting one fancy TV ad per year, they might rather run 5 radio ads throughout the year.
I’m hoping that things will kind of cancel each other out for voiceovers in 09. What you lose on TV, you gain on radio.
Think about it - did you notice the airwaves suddenly free of annoying ads during the 9/11 slump? No friggen way. The ads might become less slick, and high-production-value like - but as long as there are products to sell, there’s going to be some company trying to peddle them off onto the unsuspecting public. And they will need just the right voice to do it.
Do one thing every day that scares you
Voiceover Tara Flynn let us know she’s doing her first singing gig in aaages at The Phoenix near Oxford Circus. Drop by if you’re in the area to watch her squirm. Wednesday, January 21st, 8pm, £3.
New kid on the Voice Over block,
James Goldsbury, can be seen later this month in The Savage Eye as part of RTE’s Project Ha-Ha comedy shows. He’s the one in the 18th century outfit thrashing the poor unfortunate peasant!
James also received the great news that his short comedy video was the viewers choice in the Credit Union of Ireland’s video competition having received 49% of the viewers votes - Like WOW!!!
You can see it here