The Dallas Morning News website features an excellent story about working successfully in voiceover. My thanks to my friend Mary McKitrick for passing along the link.
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Happy Birthday
A very happy birthday today, the 7th of October, to two of my favorite people. First, is my daughter, Karen. Second is my good friend and fellow voiceover talent, Donovan Corneetz. I hope you each had a great day.
Connect with your customers
Viewpoint Business is a new podcast focused on how you can improve your business world. Their first episode is posted. It’s an interview with Geoff Burch, a business guru from the UK who offers some solid and cogent suggestions on how to really connect with your customers.
This site and podcast is presented by Graham Jones and Jeremy Jacobs. Well done, gentlemen. Thank you for the solid and practical information.
You meet the nicest people…
When voiceover people get together, there are two things for sure. There will be lots of fun. And everyone there is going to be some kind of nice.
Case in point was the latest get-together I was able to attend today while I’m in central Ohio on business. Thanks to the excellent planning skills of my friend Ben Wilson, we met at a charming little pub called The Old Bag of Nails.
There were six of us in attendance this time. As the meal drew to a close, I stood up and took a quick photo of the group with my phone’s camera. Here you see from left to right around the table Rob Ellis, Dan Nachtrab, Ben Wilson, Joe Szymanski and Roger Tremaine.
We gathered at around 11 in the morning and stayed until 3 in the afternoon, sharing war stories from our years in radio (all of us had spent at least a little time working for radio stations) and thoughts about marketing. There were all kinds of spontaneous outbursts of fake television or movie promo voiceovers and generally a great deal of fun was had by all. I know I will remember this time very fondly. And after more than I year, I finally got the opportunity to return the favor by paying for Ben Wilson’s lunch, since the last time we got together over a year ago, he had paid.
Of course, I owed Ben an additional favor since I’d had a huge brain fade this morning, forgetting that I had planned to meet him at his house so we could ride over together. By the time we talked on the phone, I was already well on my way and ended up just meeting him at the Old Bag of Nails along with everyone else.
Just before it was time to leave, we asked our waitress to take a photo of all 6 of us, which she did. This one comes from Dan’s camera phone. Here we are. Dan, Roger, Joe, Rob, me and Ben.
(edited to fix typos)
Having friends solves problems
Having problems is inevitable. Having friends, at least this has been my experience this week, leads to solving and overcoming those obstacles. Case in point, at the moment I’m in central Ohio on a business trip. Among the things I need to accomplish while I’m here is to record a number of long meetings so that eventually portions of these meetings can be edited and used for radio broadcasts in future months and years. But, as they do, problems cropped up.
My first and most important challenge, I discovered after arriving in Ohio that my portable audio interface is no longer reliably recording audio. Thankfully, my good friend Dan Nachtrab has a comparable audio device that he’s not using for the next few days and he’s willing to let me borrow it to get the recordings done that are my primary purpose for being here.
Second challenge, I was booked for a recording session by my agent in Pittsburgh while I’m here in Ohio. The session had to be done in person or via ISDN. Thankfully, my friend Dan Nachtrab has ISDN in his home studio and was willing to let me use his studio, especially since I was going to need to drive over to borrow his portable audio unit anyway.
So, I hop in my car and make the drive to Dan’s house in Dayton. It’s a bit of a drive, but given the fact that I can solve all of my problems in one go, it is well worth it.
A third challenge arises while I’m at Dan’s house, when I get a call from my friend Peter Brown. He needs a few voiceovers done and in fact, needs more than one voice. So, again Dan comes to the rescue. We record the audio in his studio and Dan even acts as the extra voice, which also helps solve my friend Peter’s problem of needing an additional voice for his scripts.
I took Dan and his charming wife Niki out to dinner as a small way of saying thank you for helping me out so much this week, and then gratefully drove back to my hotel room after that wonderful meal and lots of interesting and invigorating conversation.
17 Words
There are in fact more than 17 words in this blog post, but the title refers to something well worth seeing over at my friend Bobbin Beam’s blog. 17 words, in fact, that she keeps with her all the time. 17 words I think you’ll benefit from reading. Thanks for the good thoughts, Bobbin.
The right voice for the project
My friend Jeffrey Kafer has posted some cogent thoughts about how different voice actors are cast for projects on his blog. I think you’re exactly right, Jeffrey. It’s pretty much never about who has the best voice, it’s about who has the voice and performance that’s the best match for the project.
A birthday party for June Foray!
With thanks to my friend Mary McKitrick for sending me this link, here’s an opportunity to attend a birthday party for legendary voiceover talent June Foray, as posted on the Cartoon Brew blog. I’d love to be there, but I’m already committed to attend a different party that weekend in Austin, TX.
Voiceover legend passes away
With thanks to my friend Tim McLaughlin for posting about this on his blog, I note the passing of legendary voiceover talent Percy Rodrigues last month. If you don’t recognize his name, I’m sure when you watch this trailer for The Shark Is Still Working, you will recognize his voice.
Thoughts on Mic pre-amps
My new friend Lance Blair has just added a new mic pre-amp to his signal chain in his voiceover studio in Atlanta. He spent some time considering several excellent units before making his final decision. Thanks for posting this good information, Lance.
Some semblance of normal
Or at least I hope it stays that way for a while. My undying gratitude to Alex at LearnCpp.com for coding the updates to my favorite theme, Tiga, so that it will work correctly with the latest updates to WordPress.
Writing better links
With all of the folks joining us in the blogosphere these days, I hope you won’t mind if I pass along some age advice from some of my friends not involved in voiceover; folks who really understand how to build and market web sites. I mean, the top notch folks at Future Now. In particular I want to call your attention to the sage advice in this post from Jeff Sexton.
The key concept? The language you use for your links makes a huge difference on whether or not someone will click through. Good stuff, Jeff. Thank you.
Welcoming Dave Courvoisier to the voiceover blogosphere
My good friend Dave Courvoisier has just started a voiceover blog. Dave lives and works in Las Vegas, Nevada and I expect that will provide him with some unique opportunities to comment on things. Welcome Dave. I know I’m going to enjoy reading what you have to say.
By the way, check out Dave’s main site when you get a chance. I think you’ll agree, he’s a talented man.
The new Bridges issue and podcast
Dig into climate change, devilish surfaces and real thinking caps among other things, in Vol. 15 of “bridges” published by the Office of Science and Technology at the Embassy of Austria in Washington, DC. I’m honored to be the voice of the podcast edition of “bridges”.
Caryn’s trip to New York
My friend Caryn Clark, a talented voiceover artist in her own right, has just been on a trip from her home in Ft. Meyers, FL to New York City with voiceover superstar Randy Thomas. Thanks for sharing this wonderful story with us Caryn. And be sure to let us know when the book is released next year.
(Update: While Caryn was in New York, she got to preview the new 2-Picture system from SoundStreak that I posted about a few days ago. Thanks for your perspective on this interesting new development, Caryn.)
Check out these comments from Anthony Mendez
One of the most talented voiceover guys I know lives and works in New York City. His name is Anthony Mendez. He was interviewed for the September issue of Radio and Production Magazine and Anthony has posted a PDF of the interview on his site. (Note it’s a pretty big file, so be patient while it opens.)
Sometimes it’s the little things that count
On the Voice123.com blog, Alex Torrenegra has unveiled 3 small, but in my view important, improvements to the way the Voice123.com service works; specifically related how the system behaves when you delete an lead and what information is available when you’re looking at either your inbox or the lead details screen.
Seriously cool new animation
My friend Brian Haymond is the voiceover narrator of the open and close to this seriously cool new animation from Boulder Media.
What’s a SaVOa?
The Society of Accredited Voice Over Artists is a new project you just might want to check out. Like any new enterprise, no doubt it will take a while for things to really get moving, but I think there’s a huge potential upside for this new organization.
Poynter Online talks with VO guy Tom Opdyke
The Poynter Institute’s web site Poynteronline has an excellent article from Chip Scanlan talking with voiceover talent and journalist Tom Opdyke.
My thanks to my friend Mary McKitrick for sending me the link to this excellent article and interview. Mary blogs about voicover, too.