November » 2008 » The Voiceover Boblog

RIP Bill Drake

Posted November 30, 2008 by Bob

His name is better known in radio circles that the voiceover world, but legendary radio programmer and consultant Bill Drake has just died. Here is the news from Ken Levine’s blog. My thanks to my friend Willie Edwards for posting the link on the VO-BB.

Category: General, People | Comments (0)
A formula for succcess

Posted November 29, 2008 by Bob

Are you ever astonished by the number of people hoping to find some magic formula that will guarantee success? I sure am. While I suppose it might be possible to create a formula that goes something like “effort + persistence + patience = success” even that is no guarantee, because so much depends on what kind of effort in what direction and so forth.

However, Tom Asacker has developed a very interesting formulation to map business direction for 2009. It goes like this.

EF = A/S + I/P

You’ll need to look at Tom’s A Clear Eye blog to get the explanation. I think you’ll find it well worth your time.

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An opportunity

Posted by Bob

If you are a member of an online voice casting service, you might find this video of interest.

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Building your own voice booth

Posted November 28, 2008 by Bob

TJ Jones has a new voiceover blog he’s started in the last few days. Among his first posts is a series he’s done to document construction of his own voiceover booth. Quite an impressive bit of work he’s done, starting with the initial post. Then Framing. Adding carpet. Some additional assembly. Adding Trim and foam. And finally the completed project.

Category: General, People, Tools | Comments (0)
Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted November 27, 2008 by Bob

If you live in the USA, I hope you’re enjoying a very Happy Thanksgiving holiday with those you love. If you’re outside the USA, I certainly hope you’re having a lovely day, too.

On this traditional start of “the holidays” in the States, how appropriate that an email should arrive in my inbox today from Scott Brick and his clan announcing the release of Scott’s audiobook version of A Christmas Carol, the Charles Dicken’s classic. Scott also has blog post up about his life-long relationship with the story that is well worth a few minutes of your time.

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Hello Zurek

Posted November 26, 2008 by Bob

My friend Zurek (formerly known in the Voiceover Universe as Rick Party) has blogged about his name change and other matters of importance. I hope you’ll take a moment to stop by, read, and ruminate.

Category: General, People | Comments (0)
Let’s hear it for the little guy

Posted November 25, 2008 by Bob

My friend Steve Stone emails this morning with the admonition, “read this story.” So I did. Now, I’m passing that admonition along to you. What a great story. Seriously.

Category: General | Comments (2)
Customer value

Posted November 24, 2008 by Bob

In the current down economy, the way a company presents itself to its customers is vital. No big insights there. However, if you’ll click through to Tom Asacker’s cogent blog post on this subject, you’ll see there’s a world of difference between framing the perception of value and adding to perceived value.

Category: Career Advice, General | Comments (0)
TeleVoice Workout

Posted by Bob

Deb Munro does a teleseminar on the last Wednesday of each month. You’ll find details on her web site here.

Category: Career Advice, General, Getting started in Voiceover, People | Comments (0)
Marketing art and science

Posted November 23, 2008 by Bob

My friend Tom Dheere has written part 3 of his series on the Art and Science of Self-promotion for VoiceOverXtra. My thanks to Erik Sheppard for the link that lead me there.

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Added to the blogroll

Posted November 21, 2008 by Bob

My friend Anthony Mendez is one of the most talented and inspiring voice actors I know. He emails this evening with news that he’s just started a blog he’s calling The Lazy Voice-Over. When you read, you’ll see he’s defining lazy a little differently that you might think at first. I know this is going on my reading list immediately. Welcome to the blogosphere, Anthony.

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Why don’t women do movie trailers, more thoughts

Posted by Bob

There’s an article in Variety that talks with several ladies who are involved with this question in one way or another, including Sylvia Villagran who linked to this Variety article on her Voiceover Universe blog.

Category: General, People | Comments (0)
If you ever have to move

Posted by Bob

Kara Edwards is one of my very favorite voiceover people. Not only is she wonderfully talented, but she has a knack for taking the difficulties she encounters and turning them in to valuable lessons for her own life and for us. She’s written up a Top 10 List of things to do if you have to relocate your voiceover business, a list based on the lessons she’s just learned from her move from Charlotte to Tampa. It’s well worth your time even if you’re not thinking about moving.

Category: Career Advice, General, People | Comments (2)
Getting out the word

Posted November 20, 2008 by Bob

Donna Reed offers some thoughts about preparing press releases that are well worth a few moments of your time.

Category: Career Advice, General | Comments (0)
Nice people come to Charlotte

Posted November 19, 2008 by Bob

My friend Peter O’Connell is in Charlotte on a business trip and we were able to spend a very pleasant dinner together along with my youngest son, Brian. We talked about voiceover, of course, especially marketing since Peter is something of a mentor to me in that regard.

After dinner, we took a few shots with Peter’s camera in the restaurant (read Peter’s take on our visit and see one of the shots from his camera on his blog) and then when we got him back to his hotel my camera had just enough power to take this shot of the three of us in the lobby.

From left to right, me, Peter O’Connell and my youngest son, Brian.

Category: General, People | Comments (5)
Liz and H2 and Elaine

Posted by Bob

My friend Liz de Nesnera blogs about her experiences this past weekend studying with Harlan Hogan and Elaine Clark at their weekend workshop in the Washington DC area.

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Ask Joe #14

Posted by Bob

Joe Cipriano is back with his latest Ask Joe video.

Find more videos like this on voiceover universe presents…

It is so cool to hear that Fox promo session recorded in rather unusual circumstances to say the least! And then to follow up with the other live session. Very, very cool.

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Trish the Dish

Posted November 18, 2008 by Bob

Trish Basanyi has a brand new logo and it’s just about as beautiful as she is. (Look at her photos from my New York friends post yesterday if you have any question on that score.) Great stuff, Trish. Wow.

The logo was done by Nikki Saco who is obviously gifted not only as a voice talent, but as a graphic designer as well.

Category: General, People | Comments (4)
Free teleseminar from James and Penny

Posted by Bob

James Alburger and Penny Abshire are hosting a free tele-seminar called Your Demo, A to Z, on Thursday evening, December 4th. 90 minutes starting at 8:00 PM Eastern/5:00 PM Pacific. Register on the Voiceacting site.

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New York friends, November 2008, part 3

Posted November 17, 2008 by Bob

My time in New York City was filled with interesting experiences, at the center of which was the Marice Tobias workshop. Every time I do one of these, it takes days for my head to stop spinning with all of the new insights I’ve gained. This time is no exception.

It was an amazingly group of people. I’m blessed and humbled to have been part of this group of talented voice actors.

After the class was over Sunday afternoon, Melissa Exelberth, Rick Party and I joined some other voice actors from New York City for dinner.

From the left, Rick Party, Melissa Exelberth, Diane Havens, Trish Basanyi, me and Erik Sheppard. Diane’s husband John Havens was nice enough to take this shot for us. Needless to say, we were all delighted to have Rick Party with us. (If you haven’t joined his Voiceover Universe yet, go do it now.)

Trish and Diane surround Rick for this shot. Then Erik Sheppard and I posed together.

And the ladies surrounded me for a photo as well.

Melissa Exelberth, Diane Havens, me and Trish Basanyi.

Erik also took a bunch of photos and you can see them on his blog.

Erik and Diane were the brains behind our little get-together Sunday evening and I’m very grateful to both of them for making me feel so welcome. It was truly a great delight to hang out with all of these wonderful people. I look forward to seeing each of them, and perhaps meeting a few more New York voice actors, the next time I get to the Big Apple.

(edited to update links)

Category: General | Tags: Add new tag | Comments (4)
My, my is there no end to that boy’s talent

Posted by Bob

Check out this charming video from the studio of my friend Philip Banks.

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A peek behind the curtain

Posted November 16, 2008 by Bob

My friend Philip Banks has posted a brief video of his work in his voiceover booth.

I thoroughly enjoyed that.

Update: For those interesting in Mr. Banks’ microphone technique, you might want to read through this article from Mix Magazine. My thanks to my friend Bill Ballenberg for posting the link to this article on th VO-BB.

Category: General, People | Comments (5)
Room for 2 in Portland

Posted by Bob

If you’ve been reading my blog posts about studying with Marice Tobias, and you’re a working voice actor, there are two seats available at the workshop she’s holding in Portland, Oregon the weekend of December 6th and 7th. This seminar is called Raising the Bar. (If you don’t, someone else will.) It will concentrate on commercial and promo work.

These professional intensives have become touchstones for established talent to continually expand, enhance and elevate their craft and skills. Dedicated to the ongoing career and the challenges created by technology, time and overwhelming competition, we arm you with the latest information on style, trends and techniques to masterfully navigate the ever-changing and complex marketplace.

Attendees are like-minded in-town and out-of-town colleagues who deal with the unique, isolating and contradictory aspects of this life and work. The network of support that has formed from these events continues to grow along with the careers. The intensive is a center point not only for current trends in performance and delivery but as well, for marketing and branding.

The price is $775. Mail your check to Tobias Entertainment Group, PO Box 15396 Beverly Hills, Ca 90209-1396, or send via PayPal to: tobiasent@tobiasent.com

I hope I get to see you there.

Category: Career Advice, General, People | Comments (0)
New York friends, November 2008, part 2

Posted November 15, 2008 by Bob

Today was the first of our two days of study with Marice Tobias. As with every time that I study with Marice the experience was stretching, challenging, uplifting, encouraging, mind-boggling and honestly I can’t come up with enough superlatives. The most interesting this is that while Marice always has lots of valuable ideas and thoughts to share with us, her unique gift is her ability to guide each of us to greater heights that we thought possible.

Among my friends there were Rick Party, sitting here next to Melisssa Exelberth.

Rich mentioned that he’s doing some updates on Voiceover Universe about this weekend, so be sure to check over there for his point of view and photos.

And as we were wrapping up the day, the four VO-BB members (we’ll be joined by a fifth tomorrow) got together for a quick photo.

Mary McKitrick, Anthony Mendez, me and Melisssa Exelberth in the lobby at Pirate in New York City for the Marice Tobias weekend, November 15, 2008.

We have another day of mind-stretching, heart-stirring play and study tomorrow. And then a fun meet-up we’re putting together with several voiceover friends from here in New York. I’ll post more when I can, but it may not be right away tomorrow night because of the schedule I’ll have to keep between Sunday night and Monday morning.

Category: General, People | Comments (0)
New York friends, November 2008, part 1

Posted by Bob

I’m in New York City for a weekend workshop with Marice Tobias. Friday evening I was able to catch up with a couple of my friends here. Patrick O’Connor picked out the restaurant, a wonderful place on the West Side called Kennedy’s. After dinner we took a couple of photos. First Patrick asked the age old question “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” And then pointed us in the right direction.

Then Patrick, Melissa Exelberth and I were able to flag down a nice gentleman who was kind enough to snap a shot of the three of us in front of Carnegie Hall.

We had a wonderful time. Now, some rest and then we hit the ground running at the workshop with Marice in the morning.

Oh, the answer to that age old question, in case you don’t know: practice, practice, practice.

Category: General, People | Comments (1)
Another small USB audio interface

Posted November 14, 2008 by Bob

Blue, a company that’s gained a pretty good reputation for their microphones, is coming out with a new device they call the Icicle. You’ll find a quick preview, including a phote, on the Engadget site.

My thanks to my friend Jeff Stitt for posting the link to this article on the VO-BB.

Category: General, Tools | Comments (5)
An inspiring story

Posted November 13, 2008 by Bob

Mae Laborde is a remarkable woman who re-invented herself at the tender age of 93 as an actress. There’s a wonderful interview with her on the Growing Bolder site. My thanks to Bob Fraser for his email with the link to this delightful story.

Category: General, People | Comments (0)
Featured on VoiceOverXtra today

Posted by Bob

John Florian publishes a superb resource site for voice actors called VoiceOverXtra.com. If you haven’t signed up there, I commend the site to you. It’s filled with lots of good stuff. Here are a couple of items you’ll find on the front page today.

A fabulous article featuring the new book Voice for Hire: Launch and Maintain a Lucrative Career in Voice-Overs from Peter Rofé and Randy Thomas. The article is an excerpt from chapter one of the book.

Dan Lenard does a ton of consulting on home studios and he provides some excellent guidance on how to keep it simple while building a good home studio.

Oh, you’ll also find an article I wrote (and originally published here) about some of the painful lessons I’ve learned along the way in my voiceover career.

Category: General, People | Comments (0)
Rest in Peace, Howard Reig

Posted November 12, 2008 by Bob

With thanks to my friend Tom Ackerman for posting the link to this news story on the VO-BB, I’m sad to report that long time NBC Nightly News Announcer Howard Reig has died. He was 87.

Update: I noticed just a moment ago that Howard’s son created a tribute site to his Dad upon his retirement.

Category: General, People | Comments (0)
New voices for Peanuts

Posted by Bob

There’s a new series of Peanuts animations being produced by Warner Brothers for web release, with a the first two episodes available as of Monday free (for only a limited time) through Apple’s iTunes. Read all about it at Voice Over Times. And my thanks to Dan Roberts for posting the link to this article in the LinkedIn Voice Over Professionals group.

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