Scott Burns discovered early on that when you make people laugh, positive things follow. Drawing funny cartoons and birthday cards prompted his Grandparents to purchase him art supplies. Producing funny skits on a cassette recorder elicited encouragement from his parents to pursue his penchant for parody.
From a steady diet of Mad Magazines and TV’s Laugh-In, Scott developed his appreciation for humor wrapped in tightly edited packages.
Soon after high school Burns was building an audience of his own with creative bits he produced for his morning radio shows, starting Moscow Idaho, then progressing to larger markets of Spokane, Boston and eventually Seattle.
Scott immediately declared the Pacific Northwest home and soon expanded his career to include voiceover, acting, and audio-visual production.
In the early 1980’s Scott was recruited by the Production Manager of Seattle’s local CBS affiliate KIRO-TV to bring his energetic personality to their airwaves as a booth announcer. Years later Burns would end up at KING Broadcasting producing promosfor News Talk AM 1090 where he experienced a defining moment in his life…directing a recording session with NBC Nightly News anchor, Tom Brokaw.
Hearing Brokaw’s distinctive voice in person prompted Scott to attempt a replication. By using the back of his throat and pushing just enough air out of his lungs (but barely just enough) he was able to nail a pretty accurate imitation of the stoic man he’d just had the pleasure of meeting, but hard to understand.
Capitalizing on this new-found capability, Burns created “Tom Brokenjaw” and began offering humorous news headlines to radio stations across the United States.
Additionally, he and his wife formed “The Production Funnies,” a customized comedy service featuring jock jingles, song parodies, topical bits and an interactive segment with Barney Fife as the radio station security guard. This weekly package was delivered to over 30 markets including LA, New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
While audio production is Scott’s first love, being enticed to perform in other arenas has been hard to ignore. Character acting for corporate videos, television commercials and film prompted an interest in improvisation, which Burns was equally enthralled and terrified with.
Fortunately his introduction into the genre came through the venerable Gary Austin, founder of the legendary LA Improv Company, The Groundlings. Gary taught Scott to breathe! He also directed Burns first ever solo stage show, “From Farmin’ to FM” in which Scott performs vignettes of his life experiences growing up on a farm to the fertile field of broadcasting.
Today Scott continues to grow as a sound designer and commercial producer for a leading Seattle-area advertising agency. As their in-house producer he casts, directs and fully engineers recording sessions producing commercials for broadcast and the Internet.
A highly sought after voiceover mentor and coach, Scott teaches introductory classes and workshops. Additionally he produces high quality voiceover and on-camera demo reels from his fully equipped home studio in Richmond Beach.
While Scott Burns has enjoyed numerous successes in his life, he considers his ultimate achievement to be the practically too-good-to-be-true children he and his too-darn-perfect-for-words-wife have raised.
The Abaton Calendar is a resource created for and by voice talent, to help create meaningful connections and forge and maintain professional and personal relationships. (And hopefully, have a hell of a lot of fun in the process).