Dan’s Voiceover Projects
I offer voice talent services for your every need. Check out some of my examples below:
Portfolio Sampler (A little bit of everything) [audio:http://www.dansheedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/dansheedy_demo1.mp3] – You won’t find an assortment of chocolates, cheeses, or pretentious imported teas in this sampler. It’s a quick and painless rundown of some of my work over recent years (and some that aren’t so recent), just in case you don’t want to go through the individual cuts.
Number 4 in the sampler was a little “story teller” portion of a campaign for Genesee Country Museum, a fascinating recreation of a 19th century American village. I had to dress in period costume for the sessions (actually, that’s a complete lie, but I couldn’t help myself).
Then, there’s a national spot for Dunlop Cruisemax motorcycle tires. Again with the tough guy sound. Fortunately, I am not required to try to sound like a caveman in everyday life.
I became a sort of British version of Niles Crane for the Rochester Telephone campaign. Alas, Rochester Tel doesn’t exist anymore, but I swear it wasn’t my fault.
The next cut, for Buick Century, was another national voiceover aimed at consumers who needed a little convincing to buy a Buick. I aimed at sounding reassuring and warm, as opposed to so many automotive commercials in which it seems like viewers are being bludgeoned into running out and buying a new car right now !! Personally, I have yet to buy a car, furniture, carpeting, or acne medicine just because the announcer yells at me and demands that I do so immediately.
Genesee Brewing Commercial [audio:http://www.dansheedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Genesee-Beer.mp3] – Years before recording this spot for a regional brewery (Genesee Brewing Co) I had voiced quite a few commercials for this same client, so it became necessary to try for a different sound just in case there were any die hards out there who might remember and…oh, I don’t know…call their congressman and complain that here was that same guy AGAIN! Plus, the copy was written for a kind of tough guy.
You know the type…sleeves rolled up… forearms like Virginia hams, steel-toed work boots, routinely kicks some idiot’s butt who shows disrepect for the flag and never misses his mother’s birthday.
Honey Brown Commercial [audio:http://www.dansheedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Honey-Brown.mp3] – Vito the bee came into being during a raucous recording session that involved about a dozen assorted agency people, engineers, assistant engineers, plus a couple of strangers who had wandered in off the street. Nobody, including me, knew that Vito was dormant inside my brain, but when he materialized during the session, we knew he was the right bee for the job.
The voice of Vito is reminiscent of some gentlemen I used to see was I was a kid. They had business dealings with a close relative of mine and wore shiny suits, big diamond rings on their pinkies and had no necks.
News Promo [audio:http://www.dansheedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/News-4-promo.mp3] – Example 1
News Promo [audio:http://www.dansheedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/News-4-promo-2.mp3] – Example 2
News Promo [audio:http://www.dansheedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/News-4-promo-3.mp3] – Example 3
News Promo [audio:http://www.dansheedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/News-4-promo-4.mp3] – Example 4
As a former radio and television news reporter (about a thousand years ago), I felt right at home voicing these promos for News 4 in Miami. Electronic journalism has undergone enormous changes since my days in the bullpen when we had noisy teletype machines clattering night and day and ran around with audio cassete recorders doing interviews and “stand-ups.”
I tried to create a serious, but friendly sound to convey this station’s commitment to accuracy and integrity. I’m sure the reporters at News 4 didn’t use stone tablets for taking notes on stories the way I did way back when.
Inside Edition Promo [audio:http://www.dansheedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Inside-Edition-promo.mp3] – This was a miracle gig that came along in the mid-eighties and lasted for an unbelievable 5 years. I had been running a small classified ad in Electronic Media magazine. One day I got a call from a somewhat notorious investigative reporter who was looking for a promo announcer to do a presentation video narration and some demo V/Os for a television news magazine pilot he wanted to launch. Having no idea what to charge, I said, what the heck, I’ll just do it for free. At that time, I was doing loads of promo work for Fox Five in New York as well as a lot of other work, so it seemed like the right thing to do.
Nothing ever came of it so I forgot all about it.
Subsequently, I got a call one day from out of the blue from the executive producer of King World’s INSIDE EDITION. He’d been steered in my direction by that investigative reporter who had just been hired by I.E. and it just so happened that they needed a new promo guy. Was I interested? Indeed I was!
Initially, the producers of INSIDE EDITION also had me voicing promos for another of their syndicated shows called INSTANT RECALL. There was a catch, however. The I.E. promos ran back to back with the I.R. promos and I couldn’t sound like the same voice on them both. What I came up with was a sort of Patrick Stewart-esque kind of voice (Star Trek: The Next Generation was big back then) that fooled some of my family members who commented that I sounded much better on the INSIDE EDITION promos than “that British guy” on INSTANT RECALL. It even fooled a freelance producer on a phone patch once who told me to “go get that other guy” for the INSTANT RECALL promo session after we had just finished doing the dailies for INSIDE EDITION. We never told that producer that I was the same voice on both shows.
Inside Edition Promo [audio:http://www.dansheedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Inside-Edition-promo-2.mp3]
Movie Trailer [audio:http://www.dansheedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Sons-of-the-Morning-Mono-v4-Audio.mp3] –
GMC Truck Commercial [audio:http://www.dansheedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/GMC-Sacramento.mp3] – For this national spot, I tried to imagine the potential truck buyer as a hard working family man or woman who doesn’t use a lot of hair product, or get professional massages, or sip dry sherry.It put me in mind of people I have known and worked with. People who speak plainly and honestly and (as I do) own shoes that are older than their children.
GMC Truck Commercial [audio:http://www.dansheedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/GMC-Truck-spot.mp3] – GMC wanted a smooth, professional read on these national image spots, as opposed to the more urgent sounding regional retail commercials that I did hundreds and hundreds of. Did I just end a sentence with a preposition? Do I have to go back to Lincoln Elementary and sit through grammar classes again? Lucky for today’s youth, grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure and even penmanship are no longer drilled into young, impressionable minds (have you read a newspaper lately?)
But, I digress. What were we talking about?