“What’s New With PETER K. O’CONNELL Spring 2021″ is part of a series in which MVO: The Voice-Over Guys checks-in with one of our male voiceover talents to learn more about a recent media project he has voiced. Here’s what Peter shared with us.
1. You mentioned a really cool voiceover project in your recent MVO: The Voiceover Guys update. Can you talk about who the project was for and where it was heard or seen?
The project was a narration project for AWS, also known as Amazon Web Services. AWS has millions of customers and has the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform.
AWS was hosting an educational conference and the video – that included my voice acting – was shown during the meeting.
2. What made the media production’s content interesting from your perspective?
This was fun for me because it was a character voice piece.
It seems if you’re not doing video games or out in LA or Toronto doing cartoon voices, good character voiceover work is harder to come by. So when this fun script came through AND it was for a big client like Amazon…that was a great treat for me as a voice actor.
3. As the voice talent in the media project, were there any technical or performance challenges during this voiceover recording session?
From a performance stand point, my job was to recreate a famous movie character from a beloved old movie. I was cast because of my vocal versatility…the producers wanted someone with professional voice acting experience and range.
I pretty quickly got the voice the director wanted and we were off to the races!
There were no technical challenges because I actually got to go into another studio (it was all very COVID-safe) and my awesome engineer did all the technical work.
But it was a GREAT joy to be (safely) around other people in a recording studio. I don’t take that for granted anymore.
4. Is there anything else you would like us to know about this voiceover project?
I guess I would just say it was nice to get to flex my character voice muscles again.
I think in the narration and commercial world, I feel sometimes writers and producers (and ultimately the clients) play it a little too safe sometimes with creative concepts. I get why and I respect why…there is a lot riding on these projects for everyone from management on down.
But adding some creativity, some fun, some tasteful spice to a script or a voiceover project helps it stand out in the listener’s mind. To me that makes the project profitable and memorable. I was pleased to be a part of this very creative and memorable Amazon production.
ABOUT MALE VOICEOVER TALENT PETER K. O’CONNELL
IT WAS 1969 and I was in kindergarten.
Our saintly teacher, Sister Donna Marie, took our class on a trip to WEBR-AM in Buffalo, NY.
The minute I walked into that radio station control room…BOOM!
Everything changed for me. Everything.
I knew instantly my life would always include a microphone.
From securing my high school’s first-ever broadcasting internship to hosting Dayton, Ohio’s #1 rated Saturday night request show on a 50,000-watt FM station while only in college, I’ve been behind a microphone almost ever since.
My audio production and voiceover work evolved into my voiceover production company, audio’connell Voiceover Talent.
There, I voice commercials, narrations and broadcast promos for clients like Amazon (AWS), Crest Toothpaste, iHeart Radio and Duracell Batteries.
In 2016, we O’Connells packed up our Conestoga wagon and ventured from our longtime home in Buffalo, NY to Raleigh, NC (near Research Triangle Park), where my Source-Connect equipped, professional recording studio serves media producers world-wide.