Career Advice, General, Getting started in Voiceover, People
The first presenter at the VOICE 2007 conference was Rodney Saulsberry. As I was looking at this site this evening, I noticed that Rodney is starting a 3 week commercial teleclass in June. (on that page, click on the “Commercials” tab. )
You’ll find registration details here.
If you’ve been reading this blog over the last several weeks, you know that I think very highly of Nancy Wolfson. Indeed, I’m currently studying with her.
I’ve previously mentioned that there is a Voice123.com sponsored webinar with Nancy taking place tomorrow at 1:00 PM Eastern (10:00 AM Pacific). You may still be able to register by clicking here. This webinar is free, as have all of Voice123.com’s webinars.
And on Monday, you have a chance to dig deeper, if you’re willing to invest $49.00, in a teleseminar called Acting for Advertising. You will gain more than $49.00 worth of insight. The class will begin at 9:00 PM Eastern (6:00 PM Pacific) on Monday. Go to BreakIntoVoiceover.com to register.
Update: As you’ll see if you read the comments below, Voices.com is sponsoring the teleseminar on Monday evening. Kudos to them for helping us gain more insights into this business of voiceover. I’ve signed up for both of these opportunities. I hope you have, too.
In the last three months, I’ve been asked an amazing number of times about how to get started recording audiobooks. I suppose this is because I’ve had some success finding work in this corner of the voiceover marketplace.
One of the guys asking me for some comments was my friend Tony Craine from Chicago. In Tony’s case, he was asking specifically about the value of attending Pat Fraley’s audiobook class. I gave him my honest opinion, which is that Pat’s audiobook class was exactly what I needed to prepare to get work narrating audiobooks. Because it was. Within a few weeks of my class in July of 2006, I had been signed as a regular narrator for one audiobook company, and in the following months, I’ve signed with 2 more and I’m in conversations with 2 others.
What’s equally important is that Pat, and his teaching partner Hillary Huber, were bluntly honest about the fact that in general audiobooks pay the least of any kind of professional narration, given the amount of work involved. So, why do them? Because there’s so much work and because it’s usually not work tied to really tight deadlines. Which means that in your otherwise down times, you can be earning some money narrating audiobooks, while still having time for the commercial (and other voiceover) work you do that pays more per hour.
One valuable part of Pat’s audiobook class is that you record an audiobook demo as part of your classwork. Now let me be bluntly clear, if you are just getting started in voiceover work, taking Pat’s class isn’t the smartest thing for you. Because without a solid foundation in voiceover basics, (including mike technique, breathing, how to break down copy, making solid acting choices and so forth) you’re almost certainly wasting your time and your money. Get a solid foundation started. Study with a solid professional coach. (My top recommendation is Nancy Wolfson.) Then, if you’re still interested in audiobooks, take Pat’s class.
By the way, you can hear Tony’s audiobook demo on his site, (recorded during his class with Pat) along with his other demos. Good work, Tony. May you, and all the readers of this blog post, experience much success.
Nancy Wolfson and Anna Vocino are going to host a free Webinar through Voice123.com on Saturday, May 5, 2007. The focus will be on how to work your brand to get more voiceover work. Sign up to be one of the 1000 who get to listen in and watch live by clicking here.
You can get more information about Nancy and Anna and their teleseminars, here.
My friend Mary McKitrick doesn’t write a post to her blog every day, but when she does post what she writes is always worth reading. Her comments about What You Want Versus What You Need As a Student of Voiceover is a superb example of wisdom and thoughtfulness.
There may be reasons someone would want to attend a large conference like VOICE other than those Mary has dealt with in her post, but whatever those reasons are, they need to be based on both thought and feelings. At least, if you want to be sure that your voiceover business (you do realize it’s a business, right?) shows a consistent profit.
Good words, Mary. Thank you for writing. Even more, thank you for making me think.
DB Cooper, voiceover talent and hostess of the VO-BB.com, gave a brilliant presentation at the VOICE 2007 conference on doing voiceover work for video games.
Stephanie, over at Vox Daily, has done a superb job of summarizing Deirdre’s presentation. This completes my series of posts about the presentations at VOICE 2007. I’ll have more stories to share with you in the coming days. And, I’m indebted to Stephanie and her team for their great work documenting all that happened in Las Vegas. But, let me close this post with these thoughts.
The experience of VOICE 2007 was amazing on at least 2 levels. On the one hand, we had a chance to learn from, meet and interact with some of the very top people in our voiceover profession. Rodney Saulsberry. Bob Bergen. MJ Lallo. Frank Frederick. James Alburger and Penny Abshire. Connie Terwilliger. Deb Monroe. Pat Fraley. Don LaFontaine. Just to name a few.
In addition, we got to spend a week sharing time, conversation and relationships with over 200 people who are just like us, voiceover freaks. After spending years living and working in small padded rooms, modified closets and basements, converted bedrooms and the like; to be able to be with so many people who understand, well, that was nothing short of amazing. I’ll let you know about VOICE 2008 as soon as I know. And I hope you’ll be there, too. I’ll do everything I can to be there, where and when ever “there” is.
While I’m not a big fan of lists of rules, there are times when they can be extremely helpful. This is one of them. Excellent suggestions by Sue Polinsky for things to make sure you’re doing or not doing on your web page. This is written for small business people in general, but applies to we voiceover folk very well indeed.
Career Advice, General, Getting started in Voiceover, People
Kara Edwards can. OK, I guess maybe I didn’t quite get that quote exactly right; but you really should spend a couple of minutes reading Kara’s blog today. Her post Mrs. Flexibility has some very good words for you, especially if you’re tempted to fill your day with lots of low rate jobs just to guarantee a certain amount of monthly income.
Career Advice, General, Getting started in Voiceover, People
When you want something bad enough, and work hard enough, is it possible to achieve the impossible? From the time Bob Bergen was 12 years old, he wanted to grow up to be come the voice of Porky Pig. To read the story, don’t miss Stephanie’s superb review and summary of Bob Bergen’s presentation at VOICE 2007.
One of the great highlights of that evening was learning that a tape Bob made (when he was 14!) talking with Mel Blanc on the phone, still exists. Bob has posted the conversation on his web site.
Career Advice, General, Getting started in Voiceover, People
Adam Creighton is an actor who lives in Austin, TX. We’ve not yet met in person, though I’m hoping to see him when I travel to Austin in a couple of months. Along with lots of other things, Adam blogs about acting and voice acting in a place he calls Ramblings. I visit Adam’s Ramblings often, because he so frequently has things to say that I need or want to hear.
His post called Networking for actors is a perfect example.
Adam writes about how much time and effort he used to put into networking, and then says…
But then I stopped doing it.
Why?
Because I honestly didn’t like how good I was at networking. I got into situations and saw people doing the networking thing, and they weren’t sincere. They were looking at opportunities for themselves, and didn’t give a damn about the people they were meeting. They were superficial. They were exploiters. They were users.
I so didn’t want to be them.
So, Adam did what most of us do. He over corrected. More recently, though he’s started networking again…but with a difference…
Here’s how it works for me.
I meet someone, and we talk. I find out what they do, what they’d like to do, and what makes their day worthwhile. And I talk about what I do, what I’d like to do, and what makes my day worthwhile. And we figure out if we’ve got stuff we want to do together that makes our days worthwhile together.
That’s right, kids, we have a conversation.
And then, independent of whether we can do something together, I try to keep that person in mind when opportunities come up for them, even if there’s no benefit to me.
I encourage you to read the entire post, but leave you with this final quote…
The net-net is I think networking — really effective networking — shouldn’t be exploitative “what can you do for me” usury. It should be relationship building. It should be mutually beneficial. And when it’s not mutually beneficial, it should be beneficial for the other person.
If everyone had that mentality, what kind of cool world would this be?
Very, Adam. Very.
With a brilliant smile and amazing energy, MJ Lallo was another superb presenter at VOICE 2007. Stephanie has done a fabulous job of summarizing MJ’s presentation over at Vox Daily. Especially if you do character and animation voices, you need to study with MJ Lallo. She’s brilliant.
Career Advice, General, Getting started in Voiceover, People, Tools
The final details about registration information are now available for this year’s Dan O’Day “International Radio Creative and Production Summit.”
I’ve attended this event every year since 1997. Some times it’s more focused on writing and production, which other years more on voiceover. This is one of the latter. Pat Fraley and Don LaFontaine are both confirmed to be there.
This is an event intended for more than just voiceover folks. There will be a lot of radio station people there (creative services directors, production managers, writers) and it’s always a very international event. Folks from Asia, Europe, Australia and Latin America are almost always in attendance. Registration is limited to 100.
Details are available here at Dan’s site. The lowest price for registration is available through the end of May. I’ve already registered. If you’re going, it would be a good idea to register sooner, rather than later.
Career Advice, General, Getting started in Voiceover, People
Bettye Zoller’s presentation at VOICE 2007 was on audiobooks. Stephanie over at Vox Daily, has done a superb job of capturing the essentials of Bettye’s talk.
Philip Banks has backed up the bus and unloaded another batch of gems from his fertile brain over at the VO-BB.com. You’ll find the thread he started here. Meanwhile, for your elucidation…
1 – Sit still you’re not an 8 year old! Decide now – Voice over or fidget!
2 – Conducting your read will only help if the copy writer was inspired by Henry Mancini and this version is not for radio but is the full orchestral version.
3 – Close mic is not a technique, the engineer put a pop shield in front of it to encourage you to keep your distance – Take the hint.
4 – When traveling to an audition advise the bus driver and your journey will be free.
5 – There’s money to be made from that movie trailer voice as Don la Fontaine has a vacancy for a pool boy.
6 – If it says 30 seconds at the top of the script and you take longer than 30 seconds to read it, remind the agency creative that although the weather is great in LA a sundial is not the best way to time a piece of copy.
7 – Mouth noise can be avoided by not saying anything.
8 – Most successful Voice Actors have both essential elements, a voice and acting ability. A good “pre†replaces neither.
9 – ISDN is a thing of the past, so is making a living. If you need the second then the first is probably a good idea.
10 – The best voice over agent in the world is easy to spot as he commutes to work on a Unicorn.
11- Most copy interpretation is about “mood†and repeat business results from you staying in a good one.
12 – In a session, the director’s jokes are always funny and your anecdotes are for too long.
13 – When someone asks your price for a job ensure he wants “your price†and is not hoping you are able to guess how much he is prepared to pay.
14 – If you think as a Voice talent that you’ve arrived, then bear in mind that to have arrived you must have reached the end of the road.
15 – Before every low budget session eat a bar of chocolate, drink a cup of coffee and smoke a cigarette.
15 ½ – To make $250,000 Per Anum as a Voi.
Radio station KCRW has a regular program called The Business, hosted by Claude Brodesser-Akner.
Their program from March 26, 2007 includes an extended interview with Jerry Ryba, Voiceover agent at CESD. You’ll need to listen through some other material first, but there is so much solid information about voiceover work, especially the big leagues. (My thanks to Nancy Wolfson for alerting me to this interview.)
The Psychology of Voiceover was the presentation given by James Alburger and Penny Abshire at VOICE 2007. Stephanie has done an excellent job of summarizing their presentation over at Vox Daily.
Alex Torrenegra, founder of Voice123.com, has written up a very nice review of VOICE 2007. I think it’s well worth a few minutes of your time. And may I also say, I found Alex to be a charming and very pleasant man with whom to talk. Meeting Alex and his team was certainly another of the highlights of my time at VOICE.
Gregory Best is not only a voiceover guy, he’s a brilliant business negotiator. You can see the valuable information he contributed to the VOICE 2007 conference is Stephanie’s excellent summary post at Vox Daily.
Thank you, Stephanie, for this valuable service.
(Edited to fix typo. Greg may be a brilliant negotiator, but I’m no great shakes as a writer!)
Exactly one week ago today, I arrived home from VOICE 2007. My head was spinning with information, impressions, emotions and thoughts. If you were there, you know exactly what I’m saying. If you weren’t, but you’ve attended some other sort of highly emotional, fully packed seminar, convention or even family reunion, you have a very good idea of what I’m saying, too.
In any case, one of the thoughts uppermost in my mind was that all of this fabulous information and experience would end up being a gigantic waste if I didn’t find some way to begin putting into practice what I learned. Thus, I think it was no coincidence at all that Roy H. Williams would chose to send this message as his Monday Morning Memo the following day. Here’s one of his opening observations…
We often receive instruction and agree, “I see what you’re saying,” but seldom do we actually do the thing we learned.
It’s the doing that’s the part that keeps the flame burning long after the experience has begun to fade.
And so does my friend Brian Haymond. He uses an interesting, and quite powerful metaphor in his blog post about Relationships. Take a few minutes to read. I think you’re be glad you did. You’ll be even more glad if you put his suggestions into practice.