Another candidate voice

A commenter at Ace of Spades blog says:

My husband does voice-over work. He's got a really good ear. He says it's Anne Gartlan. Differences in signal compression explain some slight differences, but both ads are the same woman. She pitches up, she slightly alters her accent across all her work, but the core of her voice is the same. A resonance and timbre that is clear in everyone of her spots, and you can pick her out.

Posted by: SarahW at September 22, 2008 06:57 PM

Listen to her political demo reel (QuickTime download). Sure sounds like her, and the political client list is solidly Democratic.

From a June 2006 article in Campaigns & Elections:

An accomplished voiceover artist, Gartlan has done work for many Democratic candidates including Al Gore, Jon Corzine, Leonard Boswell and a number of New York state candidates. Gartlan's non-political work includes a commercial for a laxative (which is among her favorite commercials because of the tone of voice she uses in it). She said the voice she uses in this commercial is a party hit. One of the most challenging projects she has ever done was an audio book that required her to voice five different Southern women of the same age from the same town.

Is this the voice?

So, McCain DID pitch a curveball -- and what a curveball! Sarah Palin has the Democrats tying themselves in knots, and resorting to slimy tactics that make me want to gag.

As a sidelight on the story at The Jawa Report about how David Axelrod seems to be 'astroturfing' smears of Sarah Palin all over the Internet, I was curious to see if one could find the name of the announcer Obama uses for his regular video ads. I think it's Cedering Fox.

Cedering Fox was the voice actor who did the in-hall announcing at the Pepsi Center during the DNC Convention this year. She's also a longtime voice-over talent on Democratic Party and candidate spots through her affiliation with Greer, Margolis, Mitchell, Burns and Associates (GMMB), a political consulting and advocacy advertising agency.

Listen to her voice demo and then listen to the Palin smear video. Note in both cases the deep timbre of the voice, the sibilant 's' sounds, and how on the demo reel she varies her voice characterization just as the actor on the Palin video uses a different voice for the Alaskan Independence quote compared to the rest of the ad.

Promo Reel

Not that this is Earth-shattering, just interesting.