submitted by jose m. renteria
edited by sarina e. guerra
I never want to sound cliche with old sayings you especially hear when you’re growing up, but I have to admit that it has served me well. Always having creative ideas growing up, and well, still to this day, has kept me motivated and looking forward to constantly improving. I wouldn’t say that I was much different from your average kid, except for the fact that once I had a great idea about anything fun or exciting, I couldn’t let it go. This included my love of drawing, Halloween, horror movies and eventually, music. I realized much later that my childhood fixation on music was also attributed to having a fascination with sound (or audio) and the way in which it could spark a feeling and affect one’s emotions. I saw it as a powerful tool that the media has used to advertise and sell services, products and promote events. Though my primary focus during my teen years was on music and drawing, I knew that working in media would become my main passion once I was in…
I took Video Production with Mr. Chaney for three semesters at Calexico High School where we produced creative and effective audio/visual communication. I recalled the days when I was nine years old recording all types of silly things with my Kevin MacCallister Talkboy, as if I was paparazzi or a news reporter.
As an adult, the skills I gained throughout my youth greatly came in handy when it appealed to the masses. I’ve done work such as interpreting historical stories of the Imperial Valley, wildlife and land conservation, the Salton Sea, and the significance of our public lands. During those years throughout my 20’s, I thought about my own ability to effectively communicate a message. This all came from spending so much time in front of the TV as a kid, watching mesmerizing snack commercials, sitcoms, and cartoons in full color. I thought that it would be so fun to record voiceovers for advertisements, movie trailers, or cartoon characters just like the ones I saw, but I also thought that it was such a far-off and unreachable dream that it would never happen to me.
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Being nowhere near a Hollywood recording studio, I was forced to forget about those dreams. Many years later, precisely in November of 2017, I found myself re-evaluating everything in my life thus far, and one venture I thought to revisit and possibly pursue was getting into radio advertising. At first, I thought about working with KXO. Though I didn’t have any interest in being a jockey, I simply wanted to be the voice behind local events and advertisements. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the answer I wanted to hear after speaking with a KXO team member. A bit discouraged, I thought I’d visit this topic again sometime later.
By early 2020, I finally ventured into voiceover professionally. With just over a month of research, I dove in head first and found a platform where freelancers of all sorts could advertise their services. After becoming impatient, I decided to do my own marketing and reached out to a few Imperial Valley folks. Luckily, it was election season and a friend of mine recommended I’d reach out to her friend who was running campaign ads in late summer of that year.
…business picked up, though my skills still needed quite a bit of fine-tuning. I thought long and hard about the opportunities for work within my own community, though I hadn’t lived in the Imperial Valley for a number of years. I knew it well and figured starting in my hometown would be an exciting exposition. I eventually reached out to Brown Bag Cookies and Brawley’s own Ryan Brandt, a local filmmaker and heir to the Brawley Beef dynasty. Ryan and I had been friends for a number of years and he had heard that I was doing voiceover work, so he decided to call and offer me the role of radio jockey for his series, The Man From Jalisco.
I jumped at the chance and knew it would be a great opportunity. It seemed like things were looking up and that motivated me and made me look deeper into my work, further improving my craft. Through trial and error, I have learned better strategies on how to run my business and attract new clients. In fact, there is great demand for voiceovers from businesses in a variety of industries. The voice that an audience hears first is often the first impression of any company or business, as it automatically impresses an image of professionalism if done correctly; and I believe that many businesses don’t typically consider this. Gaining new customers as well as maintaining the existing ones is of utmost importance, and a great advertisement with a standout voice helps any company achieve peak branding.
Through my efforts of making connections with local entrepreneurs, I was very fortunate to have become the voice for one of the largest, most well-known events in the valley…
I’ve had the privilege of presenting these festivities since 2021, as well as many other local events such as…
You might have heard my voice being used for projects and advertisements for the Imperial County Health Department, local political ads, and to some degree, historical accounts of the region. Since then, I’ve partnered with some old friends from back in the day at Calexico High School who have started businesses and now need help with voiceovers. I suppose being from the valley has made me passionate about investing in the local community and now I feel like the world is my oyster! Not to be cliche or anything…
