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A quiz about accents

General

My thanks to Marsha Loftis for pointing me to this quiz. It’s only going to be of value if you’re from the USA as they’ve not included results that apply to any other English speaking country. I did think, given my occupation, that the results were interesting.

What American accent do you have?

Your Result: The Midland

“You have a Midland accent” is just another way of saying “you don’t have an accent.” You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
The Inland North
Boston
North Central
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
What American accent do you have?
Take More Quizzes

A working professional voiceover needs to update his demo

Career Advice, General, People

Mike Shepherd, a talented voiceover guy with years of experience, sent me a very kind note yesterday. Since he had some questions about updating his demo that I thought might be useful to you, I asked his permission to quote him here and he has kindly granted it. These were the thoughts and questions…

I have procrastinated on a new demo for far too long…. call it complacency or just sheer laziness, but the time is far overdue for updating and I’m just wondering if you any recommendation on a good candidate to consider as a Director to help me do some serious re-construction/rebuild of my existing demos. I tend to be partial to someone who is a working performer who’s accustomed to advising experienced/established talents such as myself (vs., say, the studios on the Coasts that tend to cater to the newbie VOs). If you have any people who’ve served you well in the role of demo producer…I’d welcome your thoughts.

One of my biggest hangups in approaching this, is that I have archived virtually everything I’ve produced out of my own studio and when I look at the prospect of demo updates, a “daunting feeling” overtakes me! There’s a part of me that wants to consider “actual production” that I’ve done — as potential demo material… in addition to any new material I might cut specifically for a New Demo….

The amount of stuff I have is huge…and unfortunately I was never as disciplined as others insofar as trying to keep a sort of ‘catalog’ of particular work that may at the time have struck me as especially good and worthy of future demo consideration.

I learned long ago that I’m far too close to my own stuff to be objective about picking and choosing the “right” cuts for my own demos… That said, I really value being able to work with someone who has the the directing ability to truly bring out the very best in a talent…and a track record of building proven successful demos that reflect it.

Mike’s situation is similar to lots of folks currently working in the voiceover world. It’s very easy to let a couple, even several, years go by without re-working our demos. And like a lot of us, he’s archived a bunch of work without setting aside material that might work well for future demo updates. (I’ve actually only started doing some flagging and collecting of potential demo update material in the last year.)

So, here were my suggestions for Mike. Hopefully they’ll be of some value for you as well.

Regardless of how poorly organized your archives are, spend some time listening back to several spots and pieces of narrations every day for the next few weeks. As you do set aside or copy all of the tasty pieces you find (not the edited bits, the whole piece) as you find them. At the end of a month you’ll have a big pile of good to great material in probably several categories. Commercials. Promos. Narrations. And at least a few others, depending on how specific you want to get.

More than likely you’ll have enough real material that you won’t have to make up anything, or if you do, it will be minimal. To cover that option, as you get toward the end of that month, start looking for copy you can use to cover those holes in your material. Magazines. Current TV or Radio ads. You’ll know what you need so you’ll recognize it when you see or hear it. The point here isn’t to try to listen to everything, just some of what you have. And you won’t start until and unless you do.

Then, talk with one or both of these two friends of mine, both working professionals and both of whom have been working with demos for a while: Ben Wilson and Dan Nachtrab. I’ve listened to the demo work both of them have done and I think it’s really good stuff.

The reason I’m recommending that you use only or almost only real stuff that you’ve done is because I think it makes a difference that’s subtle, but genuine. As you no doubt remember, years ago a demo was essentially an audio resume. Using real stuff is going to raise your credibility for those who can tell. And it won’t matter for those who can’t. Either way, assuming that you’ve done good work over the years, you’ll have a ton of usable material.

Thanks for reading. If you find any of these thoughts or ideas useful, leave a comment. I’d love to read your thoughts on the subject.

Unintended consequences

Blogging, Career Advice, General

Finding work is the real work of the voiceover professional. We’ve discussed this truth a number of times and in a number of different ways here.

While this story from Dave Young isn’t about voiceover, the lesson is one we need to heed. Whether it’s pulling off some kind of publicity stunt or just sending out emails, if you don’t have your web site in order, you have no idea how much your marketing efforts are costing you.

Custom Demos…more thoughts

General

In the comments to my post yesterday about Custom Demos and Watermarks, David asks…

Bob,

I’d be interested to know what criteria do you look for when deciding when to create a custom demo. Does it simply come down to the budget? What about the opportunity to obtain future work or to land an on-going contract?

Perhaps I’m not reading the audition leads carefully enough, but the vast majority of them don’t provide enough information to determine whether on-going work is likely. But, in those situations where on-going contracts are involved, yes, that is a factor.

One key key point is that even an on-going contract that involves a lot of time and a relatively small budget isn’t one to which I’m going respond. I only reply to jobs for which I wish to be cast. And for those jobs, I audition regardless of how many other auditions have already been posted.

The other point here, however, isn’t specifically about custom demos. It’s about budgets. For me, even if no custom demo is requested or required, a job for $100.00, in general, isn’t going to get my attention.

Here’s the exception: when the project is small, that is, when it won’t involve more than a half-hour of my time and even more importantly when there’s great copy. I remember an audition posted a little over a year ago through Voices.com for a local retailer. The budget was only $100.00 but the copy was so well written that I did a custom demo for the client anyway. I love reading great copy, so the delight of reading that piece of copy was so great that I couldn’t wait to record the piece. (By the way, I did not get cast for that job; but I loved reading the copy anyway.)

Custom demos and watermarks

Career Advice, General

When an audition comes to me from Voices.com or Voice123.com, like anyone I’d rather not do a custom demo. It is, after all, more effort, preparing not only the studio but making decisions about how to approach the copy.

But, much of the time, a custom demo is either required or prudent so I do custom demos pretty often. Given the many thousands of dollars that being cast through these sites has added to my family’s income in the last 2 years, I’m happy to do these auditions.

There are a number of thoughts being exchanged at the Vox Daily Blog and the Voice Over Times forum (both sponsored by Voices.com) regarding custom demos and watermarks. If you have thoughts on this subject, you might want to jump into the discussion. Who knows, your idea might help a lot of other folks?

Money in the bank

Career Advice, General, People

What follows are comments I posted on the Voiceover Bulletin Board earlier today. I think they’re well worth repeating here. These comments were written in response to a question from Joe Rodriguez about the value I had realized from attending the Audiobook Master Class with Pat Fraley, Hillary Huber and Kimberly Breault in July 2006.

In my experience, studying with Pat Fraley is money in the bank.

I’ve been to 3 seminars with him now. After the first, my understanding of copy and characters improved a great deal. After the second, I was cast for two national projects, no doubt in large part because of the improvements in my ability to break down copy and figure out quickly how to approach an audition that I gained at that seminar.

And the third was the Audiobook Master Class, after which it took less than 2 months to book an audiobook project, a massive non-fiction project I’m still working on and will be for a few more months. Two months after that I made the connection with this SciFi audiobook publisher.

Like I said, money in the bank.

If you’d like to read the entire thread, you’ll find it here.

Kudos to Mary C. McKitrick

Blogging, General, People

Mary C. McKitrick was the first person I did a feature interview with for this blog. I wanted to feature her first because, as I said at the time, I admire her approach to the business part of voiceover a great deal. (Of course, she also is very talented, as anyone who has listened to her demos knows.)

Now, Mary’s local newspaper has realized the treasure in their own back yard, and they too have done an interview with her. You’ll find a link to the article in this post at Mary’s voiceover blog.

Good for you, Mary.

Make Room for the Love of Your Life

General, People

This post isn’t specifically about voiceover. In fact it isn’t even sort of about voiceover. I’m writing this post because one of my very dear friends is a tender-hearted and amazingly insightful man named Russell Friedman. I met Russell through Roy Williams, another amazingly insightful man, but about different sorts of matters than is Russell.

Russell and his business partner John W. James have recently published a book that might be just what you’re looking for; that is, if you’ve gone through a relationship break-up recently or even not so recently. The book is called Moving On. Russell and John have a profound understanding of the things we grieve about, often without even knowing we’re in grief. But, read the book. You’ll see what I mean.

A change to this blog

Blogging, General

Beginning today, I have removed the requirement that comments have to be moderated by me before they are posted. The old policy may have inhibited some valuable contributions.

This site is intended to serve as a resource to three categories of people specifically: those who are currently working as voiceover talent, those who are interested in voiceover work and those who are looking for voiceover talent. However, even if you’re not in one of those categories, you’re welcome here, too.

This change means that if you are one of my clients and you wish to comment, positively or negatively on my work, you are free to do so. I will edit or remove only those comments that might be illegal (potential libel).

If you are a premium member of Voice123.com…

General, People

Then you will want to read the information quoted below, which is part of this thread at Voice123.com’s new forum called Voice Over Savvy.

This quote was posted by Alex Torrenegra, the founder of Voice123.com. It concerns the future of the site, and your future, if you’re a Premium Member there.

Here is a secret for the future. Voice123 SmartCast will know what talents charge and quote. Voice123’s SmartCast gives priority to talents that are within the budget scope of the project. If you charge little, you will be matched with projects that have low budgets. If you charge high, you will be matched with projects that have high budgets. This feature is not working yet, but once we implement it, we will look back at all of your price quotes. As such, whatever you do now will affect you positively or negatively in the future. Hope it helps

Draw your own conclusions about how this affects you, if at all. But, as I’ve posted a number of times, I only respond to leads from Voice123.com, and for that matter Voices.com, that have a budget high enough to interest me.

Voice acting

General

I’ve written previously a number of times about some of the gems of wisdom posted at the VO-BB.com from UK voiceover talent Philip Banks. A comment from Philip posted today in a thread called Be better tomorrow than you were today is so good that I want to highlight it here, since it’s buried in this thread that runs to 3 pages.

Voice Overs are pre-occupied with their sound, their approach and more than ever with the technology. Voice over actors (that can be by training or inclination) tend to look beyond the mic, pop shield, chest rumble, pipes and 10db extra on the top end.

The approach of the voice Over actor is what do I do for this not what does this do for me. That is better for the production.

A liitle while ago I saw a movie trailer, it was the Voice over’s first pro movie trailer. I don’t remember the movie, the title, the plot or anything else because the approach was not the Voice Over Actor approach, the trailer was all about him and his sound. We’re about 12 months on from this epic production and this voice has not done another movie trailer.

I think to get the best out of a voice over career you need straight A’s for having good ….

Acting
Attitude
Ability
Affability
Availability

Get straight A’s and you’ll do very well indeed in your voiceover career.

Reality check

Career Advice, General, Getting started in Voiceover

A discussion group I take part in at Yahoo.com centers around the world of voiceover work. Recently Dave Stone posted some thoughts I thought so valuable that I asked him for permission to quote them here.

You want to do voice-over work? You want to build a client list and a track record? Then take the job for the money being offered. Smile. Expect that you might be put through the mill so that the client gets the read he wants out of you. Smile. Read the line. Now, read it again, but differently. Smile. Expect that if the producer or client aren’t having a good day, you may – unfortunately – take the brunt of that. Kindly thank the client and the producer when they’ve finished with you and you’re sweating because the booth wasn’t air conditioned. Expect not to get a check right then and there. Expect that you might even have to wait 30, 60, or 90 days or more for it. Expect that you even might have to call or send a second invoice before you get it.Some or all of this may not happen, but it is reality. Again, this may not happen, but if any of it does, you’d better learn to deal with it. If you can’t, then you’ve got an ego problem, and you’ll need to dealwith that first.

In our subsequent communication, Dave offered some additional thoughts, also well worth a moment of your time.

There are, of course, other scenarios voice talent could encounter. One example, which would probably take place in a commercial rather than narration session, would be having to take direction from as many as four people (producer, director, writer, and client). This means first, not losing one’s cool, and, having to interpret all of the direction and deliver… something. Many newbies don’t realize, that in addition to this being an extremely competitive industry (which means, of course, you have to be at least ‘good’ to get anywhere), doing voice-overs also requires a thick skin because there is so much rejection, frustration and something more that I just can’t name right now. Above all, there is absolutely no room for attitude. Those just beginning their careers need to know that if they really want to reach the status of ‘always working’ and ‘often called-back,’ it’s going to take quite some time and dues-paying before they are called to the studio to have money thrown at them.

You’ll find this Yahoo.com discussion group about voiceover work, here.