My friend Jeffrey Kafer is moving his voiceover blog to a new platform. While looking through his most recent posts this evening, I noticed that he’d linked to an article at the Voice Over Times about the voice acting done in the new BioWare video game called Mass Effect. Jeffrey works as a game tester for Microsoft most recently helped test this game.
General
Planning your publicity
My friend Caryn Clark is not only a very talented voice performer, she’s a very good writer as you can see clearly on her blog. While reading through some of her recent posts, I came across this excellent piece chock full of valuable insights and suggestions for every month of the coming year about how to generate publicity for your business. I hope you’ll read the entire article, but in case you don’t have time, here are just a couple of tidbits.
The author of the piece Caryn is quoting in her blog post is Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc. She begins by helping you think about where you want to place your article or PR piece: a newsletter, magazine, trade publication, web site…what ever makes the most sense for your niche. Next comes what I think it one of the key paragraphs in this entire article.
Once you define your publicity targets and get an idea of what to pitch when, you’ll want to open up a calendar and start circling dates that will matter to your story. Get creative with this! Often dates are overlooked because they may seem too small (like peanut butter and jelly day) but everyone’s competing for the biggies: Valentine’s Day, Christmas, etc. so why not add some off-beat holidays to your pitching calendar and see what happens? If you’re looking for every holiday under the sun (including international ones) try downloading the Calgoo calendar – this is a free program used to sync Outlook with your Google calendar – but an additional benefit of it is that it comes loaded with every imaginable holiday. A great tool to start your planning session!
Terrific stuff, Caryn. Thank you for sharing it.
Skywalker Sound secrets
With thanks to my friend Anthony Mendez for posting this link on the VO-BB, if you enjoy sound, don’t miss this fascinating video on the cnet news site on the secrets of Skywalker Sound.
A documentary about voice acting
According to VoiceOverTimes, Bang Zoom! Entertainment is releasing a documentary, the first in a series of documentaries on the behind-the-mic world of animation and video game voice actors, called Adventures in Voice Acting: Anime – Games – Animation. Check out the trailer. And keep your eyes open for more information either at VoiceOverTimes or Bang Zoom! Entertainment.
A new podcast is released
It’s always a great deal of fun to work on the “bridges” podcast for the Office of Science and Technology at the Embassy of Austria, in Washington, DC. The latest “bridges” issue has just been released. You can read Volume 16 of “bridges” or you can listen to selected articles in their podcast section.
Press "1" in two languages
My friend Liz DeNesnera has a voice you may well have heard dozens of times, without knowing it. She’s on voice mail systems for companies in both English and French in all kinds of places. She’s featured in a very nice article in the Morris County Daily Record. As you read, you’ll learn that Liz does lots more than just voice mail systems. Enjoy. I certainly did.
Taming the Sibilant S
The sound of the letter S can be more than a little troublesome for some voiceover talent. Some of us choose to fix this problem with audio processing, though it’s easy to over-do this. On Voice Over Xtra you’ll find an excellent article by Susan Berkley about how to tame this problem without resorting to audio processing.
And if you’re not familiar with Voice Over Xtra, check it out. There’s a ton of valuable resources and membership is free.
Opinions
Everyone has at least one. Including me, of course. Speaking of which, I rather like the opinions expressed by my friend Dave Courvoisier on his blog as he shares an email exchange with a fellow voiceover talent.
Kudos to my friend Peter
My friend Peter O’Connell, whose smiling face has graced this blog a time or two as a result of our meals together here and there, has just received a rather nice accolade. He is a featured voice talent in the 2007 Video Game of the Year. Terrific news, Peter. May there be much more success in your future.
Voiceover Man UK
Yorkshire Television in the UK has prepared a short documentary about one of the UK’s most prolific voiceover talents, Mike Hurley.
And I offer my thanks to my friend Joe Rodriguez for posting a link to this video on the VO-BB, thus helping me find it.
Update: I’ve just learned that this documentary was done in 1994, just to set the context.)
Further update: As noted in the comments below, and as noted in this article, Mike has passed away.
Don and the doctors
Voiceover living legend Don LaFontaine tells a remarkable story of his recent medical challenges as published on the Vox Daily Blog. I’m praying for your complete and full recovery, Don.
Keep your voice in shape
My friend Bobbin Beam links to an important article in the San Diego Union Tribune on her blog. The article is chock full of important information about how to stay vocally healthy and avoid problems with your voice. Thank you for the link, Bobbin. This is truly good stuff.
Saving Energy
Saving energy is a good thing, of course; but in this case my blog post title makes reference to a very well done Public Service Announcement for which my friend Caryn Clark provided the voiceover.
Really nice work, Caryn. And my thanks to Mary McKitrick for posting the link to this on the VO-BB.
(Update: Stephanie has posted about this as well on the Vox Daily blog.)
Space Weather explained
My friend CC Petersen is featured in the exceptional video featured on this page from the MIT/Haystack Observatory. It’s a really cool piece. I hope you enjoy.
A job of Biblical proportions
As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m working on narrating the entire Bible for eventual distribution as a podcast by Thomas Nelson Publishers. The job was cast through Voices.com so Stephanie Ciccarelli recently interviewed me about the project on the Vox Daily blog.
Getting in on the ground floor
The best way to do well with any business opportunity is to get in on the ground floor. My friend Avi Melman may be able to provide you with just such an opportunity with an animation project on which he’s working. I don’t have a lot of details to post for you beyond this very sketchy outline. This is an opportunity only for those who are willing and able to invest in this project in return for some of the equity points in this new action/adventure series.
If you are serious about this opportunity, you’ll find Avi’s contact information on his website. The time to act on this opportunity is now.
(Edited to clarify one statement.)
Kara Edwards talks real good
With thanks to my friend Joe Rodriguez for posting a link to this video on the VO-BB, here’s a really excellent video interview with Kara Edwards and Kyle Hebert.
Great fun and lots of interesting background information, especially about the Dragonball Z story.
Building traffic to your blog
While reading Peter O’Connell’s voiceover blog today, and specifically his post about his trials in getting to a family Thanksgiving celebration in Atlanta, I clicked through to some excellent advice on the Copywriting.com site titled Top 10 ways to drive traffic to a new blog. Excellent material that applies to every blogger, not just those who are new.
Thinking about goals
My fellow voiceover talent, Tim McLaughlin has posted some very cogent thoughts about the value of setting goals and building plans for reaching those goals on this voiceover blog.
And for more insights on this process, because while having goals are good, developing a plan for reaching those goals is also vital, be sure to read Peter O’Connell’s post prompted by Tim’s original post.
Excellent stuff, Tim and Peter. Thank you for the kicks-in-the-pants.
(edited and updated)
3 Movie Voices?
From the new Frank TV show on TBS, a movie trailer concert a la The 3 Tenors, featuring Frank Caliendo, Pablo Francisco, and Don LaFontaine.
Great fun. My thanks to Michael Valentin for posting the link to this on the Yahoo! Voiceover Group.