Lance Blair, a talented voiceover artist based in Atlanta, has started blogging. Welcome, Lance. I look forward to reading what you have to say.
Blog
Animation Bonanza
Whether or not you grew up watching them, there’s a treasure trove of classic animations available at In2TV Animation. My thanks to my friend Joe Rodriguez for posting a link about this on the VO-BB.
A quick update
Yes, the look of things has changed again. Since my favorite theme keeps getting broken every time WordPress issues a security update, I’ve launched a search for a replacement theme. This seems to fit the bill for the time being.
Meanwhile, if you’re interested, here’s an update on the massive Bible podcast project I’m working on. We’ve completed recording Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Lamentations, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zechariah, the first half of Genesis and the first two-thirds of Jeremiah.
The reason we’re skipping around has mostly to do with cataloging official pronunciations of many of the people and place names that have to be done right, but for which we weren’t able to find definitive information right at the start of our project.
So, we’re making progress. Ultimately, this has been quite a humbling experience, mainly because if I ever thought I was good at reading long, complicated passages of narration without mistakes, I don’t think so anymore. But, at the same time, it’s a great learning experience.
(edited to fix typo)
A bit of fun this evening
DB Cooper emailed me this evening asking about my son Eric who is doing some work with me these days. He’s become a pretty good editor with both Sound Forge and Pro Tools. And he’s helping with mixes in Pro Tools on projects as well. Eric is also a budding voiceover talent in his own right and his younger brothers have also expressed some interest in doing voices.
So, back to the point, DB was asking if Eric might be interested in doing some lines for a project she’s working on, the details of which she can reveal in her own good time. Because of the specifics of what she needed, she had both Eric and our middle son David read some lines. The three of us had a good time gathered around the microphone in the studio, reading our lines while the workstation recorded everything for us.
Then, after a couple of times through the script with David playing the part and Eric helping me with one of the other voices, Eric switched roles and he and I just recorded a few of the relevant lines. Then I cleaned out the discussion bits in between the takes and emailed the audio files to DB. Great fun and it’s served to remind me again what a joy it is to be able to include members of my family in my work.
A little dusting
If you stopped by the blog a little earlier this evening and found things somewhat in disarray, I was running an upgrade this evening to the latest version of WordPress before their next major release comes out in a few days and quite by accident managed to upload a few of the wrong flavor of files. The solution was to delete the entire site and re-upload clean…which as you can see worked quite well.
Thankfully, I did practice good computer and had made a complete backup of the blog before I started this upgrade process, so getting back to normal wasn’t too hard.
A new ISDN alternative
Earlier today, I did a test Source Connect session with my friend Brian Forrester who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Everything worked as smoothly as it always does. In fact Brian expressed surprise at how easy and simply everything worked. He was expecting the process to be a lot more complicated that it was. Of course, you already knew about Source Connect if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time. So, what’s new?
This evening my friend Edo Peters posted a note on the VO-BB about a new technology from a company called SoundStreak. The software, which runs on both Windows and Mac computers is called 2-Picture. It looks very interesting. It was just launched a couple of weeks ago and is something I’m certainly going to watch closely.
(Update: And my friend Caryn Clark got a chance to preview 2-Picture from SoundStreak while she was in New York a few days ago.)
Also on this front, you should know that my friend Frank Frederick tells me he is getting very close to fully launching his iSpeek application.
Twist your tongue the Dr. Seuss way
Dialects and Accents and Voiceovers, oh my!
Pat Fraley, one of my favorite voiceover teachers has two new posts you should check out. First, read through his take on Vox Daily about why studying dialects and accents is so important for voice actors in the 21st century.
Then, when you’re done reading through that post, check out Pat’s Voice Over Experts podcast on Accents and Dialects.
The brick walls are there for a reason
They are there to let us prove how badly we want things.
The title and first line of this post come from a lecture given by a 47-year-old professor at Carnegie Mellon University who is dying of pancreatic cancer, giving, literally, his final lecture. Watch the report of this amazing, exuberant man. You will not be sorry you spent the 4 minutes and 40 seconds that it takes.
(If the video player doesn’t show in this post anymore, you can click here to see it.) My thanks to my friend Peter O’Connell for posting the link to this remarkable video on the VO-BB.
Want to be a voiceover in games?
Or, are you looking for voices for your game that’s under development? Then check out the the Game Developers Conference Radio podcast featuring my friends and mentors DB Cooper and Pat Fraley. And my thanks to DB for posting the link to this excellent material on the VO-BB.
Voice123.com makes an important change to their rating system
For some time now, when I receive a lead from Voice123.com that has “To-be-defined” as the budget amount, I delete the lead without reading further. I give credit to my good friend Amy Snively for being the spark that helped lead me to this decision. (Thank you, Amy for consistently demonstrating a professional attitude about your work. You are an inspiration.)
On the Voice123.com blog yesterday, Alex Torrenegra has posted information about a change they’ve made to the way the ratings mechanism at Voice123.com works for folks who post jobs with “To-be-defined” budgets.
From now on, the first time a voice seeker rates an audition/proposal with one or two stars we show them a large message asking them if their decision was based on the quoted price. If so, we ask the voice seeker to delete the audition/proposal instead of rating it low. This message will be seen by voice seekers in projects with budget “To-be-defined”.
I know there are lots of folks who are unhappy with the rating system at Voice123.com. I really don’t worry about it too much. There are most important things in life and work than worrying about how someone rates my auditions at Voice123.com.
Solid Gold information about audiobook narration
Since July of 2006 when I flew out to Los Angeles to take Pat Fraley’s Audiobook Master Class, every time someone involved in voiceover work asks me for suggestions about how to get started doing audiobooks my answer has been the same: Take Pat’s class. Here’s what I mean, quoted from a comment I left on the Vox Daily blog…
less than a month after I took Pat’s seminar, I had signed with an audiobook publisher as one of their house voices. In the following 12 months, I started working with 3 other publishing companies. One of those jobs is a massive project cast through Voices.com. Or to put it another way, I made back the money I spent on his seminar multiple times over in the first year after taking Pat’s audiobook class.
Now, maybe you can’t afford to get out to LA (or sometimes NYC) to take Pat’s class in person. Then, this post is for you. Because Pat has captured the essence of his live Master Class in a CD and 50 page Companion Workbook called Billion $ Read, How to Make Money Reading and Recording Books. Details on how to order are on the Store page of Pat’s web site. And depending on when you read this note, you could pick up the book at a $10 savings.
Thumper’s voice interviewed
With thanks to my friend Diane Maggipinto for posting the link on the VO-BB, you’ll find the story of Peter Behn, the voice of Thumper in the Disney animated classic Bambi, in the Salt Lake Tribune.
A tool you can carry in your shirt pocket
My friend Frank Frederick offers a brief review of the new CEntrance MicPortPro portable USB audio device on the VO-BB. This would appear to be a very worthwhile addition to the portable recording tool kit.
(edited to correct typo. Thanks Brian!)
The Simpsons contest winners are announced
You’ll find the Simpsons Tribute Episode now posted at VOX Talk. Congratulations to the winners. And well done Voices.com.
(Update: You’ll also find information on the Vox Daily blog.)
OK. I admit I’m amazed.
This post really doesn’t have anything to do with voiceover work, but I’m currently sitting in the airport in Paducah, Kentucky as I wrap up a business trip and head home to Charlotte. And I’m posting this note using the free Wi-Fi service available here. Yes, you read that right. Free Wi-Fi. In Paducah. We really are in the 21st Century.
Keep your voice in shape
Jeremy Jacobs is a professional speaker and presenter in the UK. He often posts valuable ideas and suggestions on his blog, including this superb collection of suggestions on how to keep your voice sounding great. Thank you for passing along this excellent list, Jeremy. First class stuff.
Meeting up with friends, again and again
Not only did I get some wonderful conversation in with Todd Ellis on Thursday of this week, but yesterday saw a delightful visit with Amanda Fellows, a voiceover professional from Indianapolis. Her web searching skills identified the town of Effingham, IL as about equidistant between us, so that’s where we met and a very pleasant restaurant called Niemerg’s Steakhouse.
It is such a delight visiting with other voiceover pros, and I particularly like it when I get time to just sit and talk one-on-one, getting to know someone better; as was the case this week with Todd and Amanda.
Oh, here’s a photo just as we were getting ready to leave the restaurant, taking by one of the ladies working behind the counter.
Next month I’m looking forward to visiting with some old and some new friends when I’m in central Ohio on business. Yes, I’ll post some photos and thoughts here afterward.
Your brand isn’t about you
As I’ve mentioned before, Tom Asacker is a very bright man with some profound insights about branding. He offers some thoughts about branding in light of the controversy in the NFL over the New England Patriots and their coach Bill Belichick.
The details of the controversy aren’t vital for you to know, if you don’t already, for you to get the value of this post. (And read Tom’s entire post for most of the pertinent details.) But, here’s the key thought from his blog entry…
A brand is an expectation of someone or something delivering a certain feeling by way of an experience. And that feeling is always self-reflective. It’s always about the identity of the chooser. Today, the feeling of being a Patriots fan is a conflicted one, at best. And make no mistake about it, it was Belichick’s smug response that tarnished that feeling. As Jennifer Wielgus of phillyBurbs.com so aptly summed it up:
“When somebody acts like they’re smarter than us, or better than us, or above dealing with us, or don’t have to follow the same rules as the rest of us, we relish any opportunity to knock them down a peg or three. We want to see them walking in our shoes – the ugly, ill-fitting loafers of the admittedly imperfect.”
The current leaders of the Patriots have proven that they know how to win. Now let’s see if they truly understand what makes a brand great; and that’s being something to aspire to, something that makes us feel good about our imperfect selves in their bigger than life presence. Because we can’t all be winners in life, but we can play the game with passion, integrity, humility, and humanity.
Your voiceover sessions aren’t about you, they’re about your client and the story they’re trying to tell, the message they’re paying you to deliver effectively. Just so, your brand isn’t about you. It’s about how you make your clients feel.
Meeting up with friends, again
When and where ever I have to travel on business, I always try to arrange to meet up with some of my voiceover and production friends when I can. For example, I got to see my friends Ross Bagley and Charlie Glaize when I was in Virginia Beach earlier this year.
And now I’ve had the great delight of connecting once again Todd Ellis. We had some award winning BBQ at the 17th Street Bar and Grill in Marion, IL and a few hours of wonderful conversation. I had a chance to meet Todd first out in Las Vegas during VOICE 2007, but this was our first opportunity to really talk at length, just the two of us.
What’s more, Todd picked up the tab, demonstrating beyond question that he really is a nice guy. By the way, I call this Two Pigs and a Wood Carving. The pic was snapped by our waitress using Todd’s camera.
