Dean Hanson was in Recording Studio A at Babble-On this past week doing what has become a pretty regular voice-over gig for United Airlines & Scott Miller Productions. Known mostly as a great art director at Fallon, Dean’s dabbled with recording voice-over scratch tracks and mood videos at the agency for years. That experience has led him into some “real” VO work for The Children’s Defense Fund, Washburn Child Guidance, Minneapolis Mosaic and even BMW.
For United, he started out doing voiceovers for in-flight presentations but he’s expanded into voicing occasional TV spots as well. It’s a good fit. Although his voice carries a lot of lumber, it’s actually folksy without the plastic “aw shucks” trappings or candy boy sincerity. In a nutshell – he never comes off as announcery, which is ironic since (as Dean will attest) he feels most comfortable in that role.
As ad folks go, Dean stands in stark relief to the notion that people in advertising exist in the same universe as pro athletes and pop divas; selfish, demanding and oblivious poseurs. The full largesse of what he’s accrued from his United work has been donated to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) an international medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to those who are affected by war, epidemics, disasters, etc. Y’know, stuff we’d all do if we weren’t… so busy. The organization relies completely on volunteer medical personnel so the dough that’s donated doesn’t go to outrageous salaries or some creakingly slow-footed bureaucracy.
These phone-patch sessions wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t pass some hang time on the line with Scott Miller who’s the independent producer, director, writer from Chicago. Recording the voice-over takes half an hour. The editing – ten minutes. The rest of the time is given to rambling commentary enveloping politics, history, kids, education – it’s The Mclaughlin Group only it’s civilized, insightful, funny – huh, y’know, it’s nothing like The McLaughlin Group.
Here’s a piece that we worked on earlier this Summer called, New At United.
(the audio is low fidelity for streaming reasons)
If you’d like to have Dean on your next project you can book him through his Twin Cities agent, Wehmann Models and Talent, Inc.