NPR: Driveway Moments
Dire Predictions and Disastrous Votes: Election Ads
All Things Considered, November 6, 2006
Melissa Block talks with voice-over artists Dennis Steele and Scott Sanders
about how to make a threatening voice for a political ad.
Go to this page for audio file: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6444183

Vocabulary:
voices
frightening
kickback schemes
federal criminal probes
crime
arrests
failed leadership
taxes
government
intervention
911
scary
negative ads
campaign staple
productive
season
voice-over artist
Scott Sanders
Dennis Steele
to bring people together
skills
first step
negative ad
leave...at the...door
studio
politics
hired guns
speed
immediacy
right on the air
cycle
Republican Governors Association
against
Democratic
Michigan
Jennifer Granholm
lies
to fuel
all s.o. has left
standard issue
consultant
soft negative
"attacky"
not as...as it could be
style of delivery
to happen to be
guy
heavy, middle, light
to be under investigation
FBI
 to lay it out there
it's like...
I get a lot of that
ironic
to work hard
to love one's country
to ask for s.t. in return
to send jobs overseas
"doomy"
to sink to the depths
benign
nursery carols (usually: nursery rhymes)
nasty
Humpty Dumpty
to waste tax dollars
to fail s.o.
wall sitting
London Bridge is Falling Down
who's to blame
to withhold
needed
infrastructure
funding
key
to lock s.o. up
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
to shout
Iraq
there goes
to be on s.o.'s side
a contribution to
to order s.t. in a restaurant
trout with lemon
actually
wannabe
promos = promotions
TV shows and movies
favorite
phrase
to pop up in
to get to say
to get hired
liberal
pretty
as if it is like
the worst possible thing
liars
crooks
king and prince

Listening comprehension questions:
1. Why does program host Melissa Block say that this has been a "very productive campaign season", and for whom has it been "productive"?
2. What does it mean to "leave your own politics at the studio door", and what does Scott Sanders mean when he says, "We're hired guns."?
3. Individually describe the "heavy", "middle" and "light" attack style as described by Scott Sanders.
4. How do the voiceover artists use pauses in their work?
5. What does Block mean when she says about some children's songs and rhymes, "I don't think I'm ever going to be able to read those [in] quite the same way"?
6. Why does Dennis Steelethink the people who hire him for voiceover work like the way he says the word "liberal"?
7. Based on this interview, how do you think these two voiceover artists feel about the content of the jobs they are hired to do?
8. How much do you think you are influenced by the tone of voice and delivery style of TV and radio news reporters? Give an example.
9. Has hearing this interview at all changed how you might react to TV and radio voices in the future? If so, how?

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