Yearly Archives: 2011


A Fireworks Extravaganza! Happy 4th of July!

If you’ve missed out (or will miss out) on fireworks displays this year, here’s a good 2 and  a half minutes of video footage from our fireworks show — from a mere 100 feet away!

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Sportstime Ohio television spot: STO Remembers 1969

All the credit for these STO spots goes to a very good friend of mine and Mentor, Ty Towriss. His company, NLX Broadcast Design, is the genius workforce behind all the filming, 2D animation, 3D animation, compositing, special effects, sound design, editing, and finishing of stellar commercials like this one. I feel incredibly privileged to be the narrator of these really cool spots — all thanks to Ty’s belief in my voice.

When we first began talking about these commercials, we tried three different vocal styles to see which one “felt” the best. In the first read, I went for a kind of “hard sell”…a somewhat “announcery” sound that is sometimes associated with sports. In the second read, I went in the opposite direction — sounding like an “ordinary guy” — which is another very popular style these days. And in the third read, just for fun, I wore an evil grin and spoke with a little bit of arrogance…trying to put the “Don” sound on it.

For a while, it looked like the first version was going to win since it had just a touch of that ‘over the top’ sound. But then Ty, along with the guys up north at the network, decided that the third version was the one.

If you’re at all interested in hearing how the other vocal styles sounded, I threw together some lines from those original three versions. And to make it easier to hear the subtle differences between these reads, you’ll hear the exact same phrases from each take, back to back, without any music or sound effects.

Thanks for listening! Be sure to check out the other three STO spots in this series (1978, 1986, and 1994) on my GIGS page! Enjoy!

Talk to you soon,

-Tom

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Don LaFontaine 2

Don LaFontaine - Walk of Fame StarDon LaFontaine, also known as “Voice of God”, “King of the Big Screen”, and “Thunder Throat”, was my first inspiration. Long before I knew his name, I dreamt of a day in which I might sound like him–as if the ability could manifest itself. Who among us male voice actors hasn’t tried it at least once? I know I did…several times…and not always in private, either. Some of my friends would laugh. Most would cringe. But I would forever continue trying to get “that sound” that only Don could get.

Several years ago, I owned and operated a small video production company. I wanted to improve the marketability of my services and thought, what better way than to have Don’s voice in my demo? So I emailed him and hoped for the best. In my letter, I introduced myself, gave him a little bit of my history, and explained what I’d hoped he might be able to do. And then I forgot about it.

Three months later, much to my surprise, I got a response from Don. He said he forwarded my email to his agent with “instructions to cut me a good deal”. Wow! Not only did he respond directly (as opposed to someone on his staff), but he was offering to hook me up from the get-go! I was humbled.

A few days later I received an email from his agent at Tisherman who asked me for a script. Really?!? Wow–this might actually happen! But there was one problem: I hadn’t yet written the script. Honestly, I never really expected anything to come of my request…I mean seriously — we’re talking about THE biggest name in voice. I was just some stranger trying to make my tiny company appear larger than it really was. So, I hashed out a script as quickly as I could and sent it right over, after which I got the quote: $8,250 — and it would be worth every penny.

But I didn’t have $8,250, and suddenly felt a little dumb for having started a process that I clearly couldn’t finish. I responded accordingly, and apologized for wasting his time. But then, his agent wrote back with “Don wants to do this…just gimmie a number.” Again I was humbled. I responded with an embarrassingly smaller amount — citing that my wife and I had just gotten married, and we had blown a good bit of our savings on the honeymoon and a really good wedding photographer. I even included one of our awesome wedding photos just to take the edge off my humiliation.

Unbeknownst to me, the agent forwarded our little email conversation to Don, and a few days later I received an email directly from Don’s private email account. It was very short:

“Tom,

… a wedding gift.

All the best,

-Don

And attached to the email was an audio file; he read my script and sent it to me free of charge. To this day, I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced such generosity from anyone who wasn’t my mom or dad. And from someone so HUGE… I still sometimes have trouble wrapping my head around it. To hear this amazing gift, check out my old demo:

Whenever I offered to do anything in return, his response was always the same: “Go and do something nice for someone else who may need it. That’s how you can repay me.” Humbled. Again, and again, and again…

Trying to somehow repay him for his generosity, Don let me and my team rebuild his old website — adding some animation, custom music, updated movie trailers and promos, photos, and a lot of other stuff too. We also created and managed a new monthly email campaign: if you were on his email list, you’d receive monthly emails that he’d write and we’d blast out to his thousands of fans. Sometimes he would offer to pay — citing that I had “long since paid him back” — but I never had any intentions on taking payment. We did everything for free. I was (and still am) honored to be a part of anything with which that man was involved.

And then there was the personal stuff. Don and I became good friends during those years, and I got all kinds of advice on life, love, business, you name it. I would ask questions about his interracial marriage and multi-racial children (a commonality we shared) and he would give me his personal insight on this somewhat rare domestic occurrence. Sometimes he would explain the ways in which he would put his wife Nita first; never letting his massive success eclipse his family life. And then every once on a while he’d surprise me with personalized voice overs. Once, he even narrated a little something for me to give to my wife on Valentine’s Day, and following the sound byte was the very song he said that he and Nita always danced to.

Forever positive, that guy made me feel like anything was possible. I feel very honored and blessed to have enjoyed our short but unforgettable friendship.

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-Tom