Forrest Burgess

Impersonations include many Simpsons & King of the Hill (Mike Judge) characters; personalities from Rod Serling & Sam Elliott, to George Takei, to Mr. Movie Phone. Accents include (but not limited to) British Cockney/Liverpool, to upper crust Lake District. Scottish, Australian and Irish accents; American Southern, Cowboy, Midwestern, Slavic (Russian), Spanish, French, German, Asian, Israeli, Arabic, Native American Indian to East Indian, etc. If I can't do it off-the-cuff, I can probably pick it up with a little study.

I first worked for many years in movie trailer production where we hired and supervised sessions by the biggest names in V.O. (see training section) -- so I came to know what was expected with good direction of top-end talent, and then what was necessary to work with in post-production, as I was often editing the reads into the offline cuts. From there, I was doing Voice Over reads for corporate video projects, with companies like MultiMedia Studios, See3 Computer Animation, Caribiner Communications, Jack Morton Worldwide, Maritz, and creativdesign group, Inc. Types of reads include training narration, "Voice of God" announcing at live events, animation characters, Press Event & auto show video V.O., ADR for spoof characters, and whatever was needed so as not to go over budget but still sound pro! I grew up helping my Dad with his "Boutique" advertising agency and in so doing, became familiar with commercial production and Voice Over, both behind and in front of the camera. After receiving a B.A. in Cinema/TV from U.S.C. (Class of '88), I went to work for several Trailer Production companies and Brian Boyd Studios, where I watched, listened and learned from the likes of Jim Sloyan, Ed Grover, Mark Elliott, Brian Cummings, Don LaFontaine, Tom Bosley, Billy Zane, Jack Lemmon and James Coburn. After that, I was mostly doing voice-overs for corporate projects: VOG announcements, computer animation, training videos, and in-character for humorous skit videos for company presentations, all while working in the production and post-production of industrial media. All on-the-job training, and from a producer/editor's standpoint - so I know what it's supposed to sound like, what you're going for, and won't stop until you get it, because I know first-hand what it's like when you don't... Shure SM-7B microphone or Blue Microphone's "Nessie" mic, and MacBook Pro running Logic Pro 9 or WireTap Studio. Currently, co-host of the Astonishing Legends podcast which has to date over 30 million downloads and averages over 250,000 downloads for each episode. I also have copywriting skills and can perform on-camera. I also have a lot of experience in dealing with and speaking to the general public in a "Street Team" Brand Engagement, consumer marketing environment. On the other end, for the last 15 years I've been working face to face with the highest levels of U.S. corporate executives: Presidents of Nissan NNA, Ford, Hyundai, Columbia Pictures (now Sony), Honda, Amgen, Waste Management, etc. in the production of their national meetings and large-scale events, with emphasis on the delivery of their speeches & TelePrompTer skills, on-camera video production & post-production, and general client services. I'm public and "client presentable," and comfortable in both arenas.