RenaMarie Villano | Voice over actor

RenaMarie's love of radio and voiceover began early. As a child living in Southern California, she would wait every night for her parents to go to sleep, and then quietly sneak out to the living room. In darkness, she would turn on the stereo, slowly rotate the giant silver volume knob until it was just loud enough to hear, and then sit there, on the floor, crouched with her ear to the speaker, listening to "The Mighty 690" until sleepiness lured her back to bed. Those cherished moments parlayed into a career in 1990 when she began interning at 100.7 WVAY in West Dover, Vermont. She was 16. A few months later, at 17, after receiving her broadcaster's license from the FCC, she started doing overnights. While other high schoolers were partying, RenaMarie was live, on the air, playing Smooth Jazz and talking to late night New Englanders. Her love of production and the Rocky Mountains landed her out west at "The Moose" 95.5 KMMS in Bozeman, Montana and then, a few years later, at "The Mountain" 96.9 KMTN in Jackson, Wyoming, where she spent hours a day hosting live radio shows and splicing tape on reel-to-reel, producing commercials and entertainment pieces focused on the communities and music she loved. She dabbled in television, doing on-camera hosting when big name acts came to town, interviewing bands like Fishbone, Ben Harper and Widespread Panic. In 1997, she was asked to narrate a ski documentary for Outdoor Life Network and her love of long-form narration began. It was then that she decided she’d build her own studio so she could pursue voiceover. In 2001, she took a job in Boise, Idaho, on "The River" 94.9 KRVB. On 9/11, one week after she arrived, the Twin Towers fell. Her role quickly expanded to include hourly news updates and production work for all 6 stations in the company's cluster. After two years, she began working for "The X" 100.3 KQXR as an on-air talent and part of their "Byl & Doug" morning show, producing an hourly entertainment piece called "The Morning Buzz". All the while, she was doing VO on the side, slowly growing her business and expanding her reach. In 2005, she decided it was time to switch gears and focus solely on voicework. Since those days, she’s brought her signature sound to promos for NBC, DIY Network, HGTV, MGM HD and The CW, along with commercials for Chevron, Wal-Mart, Dinty Moore, Bowflex, GNC, California Academy of Sciences, American Cancer Society and more. She’s voiced kids' games for PBS, narrated documentaries for TLC and Discovery Fit & Health, voiced presentations for eBay LIVE! and industrials for Fortune 100 companies like Intel, HP, Chase, Apple, Citi, Microsoft, Oracle and countless more. She’s kept her connection to radio by voicing imaging and helping to brand stations in several formats. For sports fans, she's the signature voice of Christopher Russo’s "Mad Dog Radio" on SiriusXM 86. In terrestrial radio, you hear her coast to coast, voicing Alternatives 102-1 THE EDGE in Dallas-Ft. Worth and 99X in Atlanta, Legendary Rockers WAAF in Boston and WMMS in Cleveland, Hot AC STAR 94-1 in San Diego, AAA Alice 102 in Kansas City and Rockin’ Talker 96 K-Rock in Ft. Myers, among others. Online, you hear her voicing the coolest radio service around: Slacker Radio. The other genre she likes to play in is podcasting. In 2005, when podcasting was new, she was co-host of the first-ever independent music podcast called "The Bandtrax Podcast," introducing unsigned musicians to listeners thru Adam Curry’s Podsafe Music Network. Now, she lends her voice and production skills to several comedy podcasts, including Bryan Callen's “The Bryan Callen Show,” Dov Davidoff and Mara Marek's “Emotional Junkyard”, "Tee 2 Grin" with Jimmy Shubert, Dennis Regan and Jackie Flynn & "The Health and Comedy Show" with Dan French and Amy Kubal. Her sound is unique and timeless. She has a cool sophistication that cuts through. She’s hip and conversational; grounded, seductive and sexy; playful and sassy, with a clearly defined edge. She’s passionate, intuitive, quick-witted and unafraid to venture into new territory to find the style or character you’re looking for. And, she's precise. No sloppy voiceover here. She can slice 2 seconds off your read with perfect diction while balancing a plate on her head. She loves learning and has studied with the best VO coaches in LA: Marice Tobias, Elaine Craig, Kalmenson and Kalmenson, Dave Walsh, Jody Gottlieb and Jeff Howell. She's even ventured into Improv, graduating from Upright Citizens Brigade's Improv 101. Although she’s far from the Rockies, her voice still lives there, welcoming visitors to world-famous Jackson Hole Mountain Resort as they ride up the tram. And, about that studio she built so long ago? In 2009, she moved it to the City of Angels, and now happily calls Los Angeles home. When it comes to recording, RenaMarie keeps it clean and simple. She uses a Sennheiser MKH-416 in a WhisperRoom sound booth, with an MBox 3 Pro, Mogami cables and Pro Tools 10. She edits on an iMac, listening thru BeyerDynamic 'phones and Event TR5 monitors. It’s a far cry from the long-ago days of the grease pen, exacto knife and splicing tape. She’s available on short notice via ISDN (Telos Zephyr XStream) or phone patch (Telos ONE) and offers quick-turnaround FTP upload of mp3s, .wavs or .aiffs.

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