How Ed Burns ended up voicing those B&H commercials

More than half of Ed Burns’ $9,000 budget for the 2011 movie “Newlyweds” was spent on a Canon 5D he bought at the Manhattan photo and video store, B&H. Now, he’s the voice of their commercials.
B&H started as a tiny shop in Tribeca in 1973 and has grown into a massive three-story behemoth near Hell’s Kitchen, complete with its conveyor belt that runs through the entire shop. Over the years, the store has become an iconic part of New York.

In 2018, they enlisted Burns, another New York icon, to tell their story.
“When I was making my micro-budget movies — ‘Nice Guy Johnny,’ ‘Newlyweds,’ ‘The Fitzgerald Family Christmas’ — I was going to B&H all the time,” the Queens-born Burns told the Daily News.
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Years later, a friend of Burns reached out on behalf of an ad agency that was shooting a new spot for B&H and looking for talent.
Between 2018 and 2021, Burns did voice recordings for a handful of commercials. One tells the history of B&H, from its humble beginnings to its Ninth Ave. mega-store. Most deal directly with customers: a woman who takes photos through her microscope, professional wildlife photographers who live in Alaska, even NASA.
“They’re great spots,” he said. “They’re well written and they’re fun to do.”