DonLaFontaine's booming, baritone voice is as familiar to most of us as Tom Cruise's and Harrison Ford's, but hardly anyone recognises his name.
More than 3000 trailers are graced by LaFontaine's baritone rumble, which is more than you'd guess as he is able to modulate his voice from the gravelly bass, able-to-burst-speakers-at-20-paces voice used for action blockbusters, to a more singsong and upbeat tone for light-hearted fare.
Before the '60s, LaFontaine says, almost all of the advertising for movies was done in-house, with the trailers being recorded as a kind of afterthought by the editors of the movie.
DonLaFontaine (born August 26, 1940) is a voice actor famous for recording over 5000 movie trailers, television commercials, network promotions, and video game trailers.
LaFontaine and fellow voiceover pro Joe Cipriano were interviewed on "The Paul Harris Show"[1] on KMOX radio (St. Louis) on May 5, 2005.
It's fitting that entomologist DonLafontaine's office smells of mothballs; after all, his specialty is butterflies and moths.
Lafontain and the other scientists research Canadian bugs that hurt crops, such as cutworms, and those that help them, such as ladybugs.
Customs agents will often courier strange-looking bettles and moths to Lafontaine for a quick ID. In fact, a few years ago agents were so worried about a species of gypsy moth from the Far East that they would travel over a hundred miles offshore to inspect boats and cargoes coming from that region.
The area around Lafontaine rises away from the shoreline to go into Awenda Provincial Park at the top of the peninsula, and the brevet route then heads south into Penetanguishene and Midland.
Don had had the wisdom to bring along a map, which helped us stay (more or less) on route, and Carey had a helmet-mounted light to clarify issues at dark, country-road intersections.
For Jaye, Don, Carey, and Rolf, this was indeed cause for celebration, as they had completed their first 400K brevet.
My voiceover hero, DonLaFontaine was the guest on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. The show is available on the NPR website.
Don's part in the show starts around the 18 minute mark.
DonLaFontaine is also known as the 'Voice of God' - or 'The King of the Movie Trailer'.
planet-geek.com /archives/001269.html (266 words)
MW Audio(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
DonLaFontaine, arguably the most successful and famous voice-over actor, places high value on time management in the workplace.
A converted electrical room in the bottom floor of LaFontaine's house serves as a 6×5-foot vocal booth; the control room is housed among a media storage area and machinery for other A/V equipment.
To acoustically enhance the space, Whittam installed Auralex Elite Pro panels on the wall and bass traps between the wall and ceiling, and encased a noisy home-surveillance recorder inside a soundproof KK Audio Quiet Rack QR-16.
mwaudio.com /page/DonLaFontaine (837 words)
Guardian Unlimited Film | Features | To cut a long story short(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
You know Don, even if you think you don't: his is the reverberating, honey-and-gravel voice that has accompanied approximately 4,000 trailers since 1963, a troublingly large proportion of which seem to have begun with the phrase: "In a world...
If it were a trailer for a comedy, this would be the point to introduce the "rug pull", the point at which the tone suddenly changes from mock-serious to unashamedly goofy; it is often accompanied on the soundtrack by the sound of a stylus being hurriedly removed from a record turntable.
As DonLafontaine might put it, in a world of short attention spans - in a time when the entire movie industry is hopelessly commercially compromised anyway - only one part of a trip to the cinema remains a guaranteed pleasure.
New York acquired the 33-year-old LaFontaine from Buffalo for a 1998 second-round pick and future considerations after Buffalo executives questioned his physical condition.
He suffered a concussion 13 games into the 1996-97 campaign and was not cleared to play the rest of the season.
LaFontaine played in the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo and again represented the United States in the Olympics earlier this year in Nagano.
This is funny, because I was just trying to do the DonLaFontaine (didn't know his name, but saw one short TV feature story on him several years ago) voice a couple hours ago to test a new shotgun mic.
Even better: Don and several other voice guys sending themselves up in 5 Men in a Limo.
I heard LaFontaine on an NPR program a few months ago, and he came across as pretty funny and smart.
www.metafilter.com /mefi/43710 (498 words)
Voice Over Resource Guide - VO Media(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
The 'Mic Light' is on when Mark Steines of Entertainment Tonight takes us behind the scenes and into the studios of Dave Fennoy, Joe Cipriano and DonLaFontaine.
May the force be with you in all of your sessions.
DonLaFontaine, George DelHoyo, Ben Patrick Johnson, and Cedering Fox are among those showcased.
This made me realize that most of us know only their voices and nothing else about them.
So, say hi to DonLaFontaine, known as the "King of the Movie Trailers," the "Voice of God (VoG)" and, simply, the "King." He was born on August 26, 1940, in Duluth, Minnesota, in the USA.
To those who still can't place him, he was the narrator of "Star Wars." Incidentally, DonLaFontaine is often confused with Hal Douglas, who is another famous trailer voice guy.
Open Directory - Arts:Animation:Voice Actors:L:LaFontaine, Don(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
With such nicknames as "The Voice of God", "Thunder Throat" and "King of Trailers", DonLaFontaine is considered the reigning "king of the movie trailer voice-over business".
He has become the most sought-after voice in the industry, earning more than $1 million annually.
He even had to hire a limousine and driver to get him to the 80+ studio sessions he records every week.
MultiMediaPros Digital Studios (www.MultiMediaPros.com) teamed with their producers and industry voice talent, including nationally known TV and movie announcers Joe Cipriano and DonLaFontaine, to create a compelling series of radio Public Service Announcements to raise awareness and drive donations to the American Red Cross and other relief organizations for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Two of the top voiceover talents in the country talk to Paul about their profession -- you may not know their names, but you'll recognize them as soon as you hear their voices.
LaFontaine is arguably the most successful voiceover artist of all time, with over 4,000 movie trailers and tens of thousands of TV promos among his credits.
www.joecipriano.com /site_lnks.asp (441 words)
Don LaFontaine(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
DonLaFontaine is the king of movie trailers, having lent his talents to more than 4,000 of them.
Beyond simply having uttered these cliches, LaFontaine actually coined them as well -- which he now regrets.
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This week's show was recorded in front of a live audience at the Bank One Auditorium in Chicago.
NOT MY JOB GUEST: DonLaFontaine, king of the movie trailer voice over
The voice of movie trailers, DonLaFontaine, joins us to play a game called "You're the King of Las Vegas": Three questions about impresario Steve Wynn's new casino resort.
The joke’s getting a bit old, but it’s still fun to see DonLaFontaine, “that announcer guy from the movies,” giving an unnecessary, ultra-dramatic voiceover in yet another ad, this time for Geico.
Check out a 2005 Good Morning America profile on Don here.
"The Lord of the Rings is the winner of four Academy Awards," DonLaFontaine tells us over action shots while the stock creepy choral music plays, "including best cinematography, best original score, and best visual effects."
"The Lord of the Rings," says Don while 'Fellowship' theme from the movie plays, "Rated PG-13, now playing worldwide."