My friend Adam Creighton has been walking through a truly shattering experience for the last many weeks. He’s posted an extraordinary audio file on his blog that will be hard for you to hear, but I’m pretty sure you’ll agree it is well worth your time.
And Adam, I will be praying for you and your family.
(edited to fix typo)
On the heels of my post a few minutes ago about my inspiring friend Liz de Nesnera, I see this post on my friend Peter O’Connell’s blog, just another example of how nice Liz is. And while you’re there, be sure to check out the other posts Peter has made about the Public Service Announcements he’s prepared to help relief efforts in Myanmar.
My friend Liz de Nesnera is an ongoing inspiration to me. Not only has she established a solidly successful career as a voiceover talent in the last 3 years; but for the last 13 she’s been a caregiver to her aging mother, as you can read in this newspaper article from her home area of New Jersey.
In a single month, I Rock the Mic VO.com has exploded on the Web 2.0 scene with over 120,000 page views. I hope if you’re not all ready there, that you’ll join. And connect with me as a friend there.
If you don’t keep up with Tracy Pattin and the VoiceRegistry blog, you should. I just noticed today that about a week ago, she’s started posting a series about demos. Also, check to make sure you’re using the right server hosting provider.
With thanks to my friend Stu Gray for posting this information on his blog, Bettye Zoller Seitz will be teaching a voiceover class in Nashville on Sunday, June 29, 2008.
As a professional voice talent, I’ve been blessed with a very durable voice. This might be the reason I enjoy long-form narrations so much. But, while reading Kara Edwards’ recent blog post about her need to adopt complete silence for several days so that she could recover full use of her voice; I am reminded that I’ve had to learn a similar lesson.
The key moment when I learned my lesson took place a few years ago while I was in Pittsburgh on a business trip. I was sitting in my hotel room after a morning of meetings. I felt really tired and thought, briefly, about taking a nap. But, because there were a couple of people I really wanted to see while I was in town, I decided to skip the nap and push on. Big mistake. Within two hours, my voice was almost completely gone and by the following morning I couldn’t even croak. And it was more than 2 weeks later before I was able to get back to work.
Since then, when ever I feel that strong need for a nap, I’ve make it a policy to find a way to get some rest. And thankfully while I have had a sore throat or scratchy throat a few times, I’ve not completely lost my voice again since.
What’s the moral of this story? Take care of your instrument.
I noticed on the Cartoon Brew blog this evening that Harvey Korman died today at the age of 81. Among his many, many funny performances, Harvey was the voice for The Great Gazoo on The Flintstones.
I had a wonderful time meeting several folks in Texas last evening. We gathered at Reel FX, where one of our number, Justin Barrett works as an animation technical director.
Justin gave us a tour of the place. Here he’s just shown us some test renders of a project the company has been working on for the last few weeks.
We stopped in the lobby of Reel FX just before we all walked down the block to dinner.
From left to right, this is Amanda and Allan Peck, Justin Barrett, Vicki and Ron Phillips, Amber Cotton and her husband J.D. Then Amanda volunteered to take a photo so I could get in the shot.
Luciano, our waiter at Daddy Jacks Wood Grill, snapped a photo of us all together.
Great food, wonderful conversation and nice people. A fabulous combination. We had a great time. My thanks, especially to Justin and Amber for helping to organize our time together.
My friend Anthony Mendez emails with news of that he’s featured in the television ads for Diary of the Dead. Kudos to you, Anthony and terrific work.
In my email correspondence with Marice Tobias today she reminded me that she’s going to be in New York City for Promax and will be holding a Post Promax Promo and Trailer Intensive training weekend after it wraps up. There are only 12 places available at these weekends with Marice. I most of them are all ready filled. Kathy Payne is the lady you’ll want to contact to see if there are any left. 404.876.8629.
Pat Fraley emailed today to remind me that he is teaching a weekend voiceover seminar June 21 and 22, 2008 in Hartford, CT. If you live and voice anywhere in the East, think seriously about this opportunity for 2 days of fun and learning. Each day’s class can be done individually, but if you’re going to take both days, there’s a $100 discount off the combined price. Along with registration details, you’ll also find two free lessons from Pat here on the official web page.
As someone who has studied with Pat multiple times I can assure you that if you decide to take this class you’ll learn a ton and have a great time.
Dan O’Day will hold a conference call on Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 2:00 PM Eastern (also known as 11:00 AM Pacific) to answer your questions about Summit 2008 . If you’ve been thinking about attending, but having yet made up your mind, here’s your chance to get all your questions answered. And with plenty of time left to make register before the price goes up on June 1st.
If you decide to register, Dan has an affiliate program this year. So if you are attending the Summit for the first time and you put my name as your reference in the comment field of the registration form, I’ll get a commission from Dan. But, please, if you’d rather I DIDN’T get the commission, then DON’T put my name in the comment box. Your price for the Summit will be exactly the same regardless of whether you put me down as referring you or not.
I hope I get to see you in Los Angeles in August.
My friend Frank Frederick has prepared this audio in honor of Memorial Day.
[audio:https://bobsouer.com/pix/Flag.mp3]Frank posted this audio on the VO-BB earlier today and has graciously given me permission to post it here. Thank you, Frank.
My friend Willie Edwards (who lives just an hour up the road from me in North Carolina) wrote some time back about a Do-It-Yourself project building Sound Absorption Panels.
Recently he’s received and replied to some correspondence about those panels on his VO Mic Test blog. I think you might find the exchange valuable and enlightening, especially if you need to tame the sound in your home studio.
Update: In case you don’t see the comments below, my friend Greg Houser mentions a site to checkout called Clearsonic.com.
Well, after offering a rather outdated post recently (having neglected to note the original publication date of the article about George O’Hanlon’s passing), I’m quite sure this article in the LA Times is current, and that Dick Martin has just passed from the scene, at the age of 86.
With my thanks to my friend Greg Phelps for posting a note about this on the VO-BB, I’ve just learned of the passing of George O’Hanlon, the voice of George Jetson.
The Dan O’Day Summit (known officially as The 13th Annual International Radio Creative and Production Summit) takes place August 8 and 9, 2008 at the Airport Hilton in Los Angeles. I’ve posted previously about why you might want to think about being there this year, but since there’s a deadline coming in a few days, I hope you won’t mind a fresh look at some reasons to attend.
Dick Orkin, co-founder of the Summit with Dan, returns for the first time in several years. Dick’s presentation is going to be valuable if you either write or do voiceover work. Pat Fraley will speak. Pat is a very gifted teacher of voiceover techniques and concepts. Nancy Wolfson will speak. Nancy is one of the top voiceover coaches in the world. For someone working in voiceover each of these presentations will be worth the price of attendance by itself.
And if you’re involved in radio imaging, the Imaging Panel with KellyKellyKelly, Howard Hoffman, Terry Phillips, and Jamie Watson will be worth the price of attendance.
Oh and Dan O’Day is going to do something on writing, too. (Actually, if you have to write, especially if you have to write commercials or promos or anything else that comes at you with a tight deadline, Dan’s session will be worth the price of attendance. Each of his previous sessions like this certainly have been.)
Now, about that deadline. If you look at the Summit registration page, you’ll notice that the deadline for the lowest registration price is May 31, 2008. I know from attending 11 previous times, that’s a real deadline. On June 1, the price goes up by $100.00 (US). And on July 1, it rises by $100 (US) again.
As I’ve mentioned in other posts, attendance is limited to 100. That’s also a real number. Recently my friend Melissa let me know that she’s going to be there for sure. So, the number of available places is shrinking.
All of this said, if you decide to register, Dan has an affiliate program this year. So if you are attending the Summit for the first time and you put my name as your reference in the comment field of the registration form, I’ll get a commission from Dan. But, please, if you’d rather I DIDN’T get the commission, then DON’T put my name in the comment box. Your price for the Summit will be exactly the same regardless of whether you put me down as referring you or not.
I hope I get to see you in Los Angeles in August.
My friend Tracy Pattin interviews Some Audio Guy on the VoiceRegistry blog. Thanks Juan for the email heads up. And thank you Tracy for posting another excellent interview.
When I was in Atlanta in October of 2007 for a workshop with Marice Tobias, among the talented people with whom I got to work was Liz Raphael Helgesen. Liz is featured in a recent interview on Vox Daily, so click through and learn a bit more about this lady who is as nice as she is talented. (In other words, very nice and very talented.)
(Update: edited to fix typo)