Brian James has died of an apparent heart attack (according to a news post at AllAccess.com) at the age of 48. Rest in peace, Brian. You are gone far too soon. (My thanks to Jim Feldman and Stu Gray for first alerting us to the news, and to Zurek for further details on his blog.)
With thanks to my friend and mentor Philip Banks for posting the link to this video on the VO-BB, here’s a look inside a microphone factory.
Fascinating.
Lance Blair offers some helpful ideas for how to pull the best audio performance from your laptop. My thanks to Bill Pryce for linking to this article, thus leading me to it.
Sort of. Actually his blog post is about making public presentations or sales pitches and the like. But try this. As you read his blog post, substitute voiceover script for every place he mentions a presentation. See what I mean?
There’s some very nice voiceover work done on this site, but the main reason I think you should visit is because it’s so amazingly well done. Be sure to explore everything. The Pomegranate, the ultimate smart phone.
Great job of marketing, my Canadian friends!
My friend Todd Ellis has posted a video about how he turned a really “live” hotel room into a pretty decent studio on the road.
mobile studio from todd ellis on Vimeo.
Very nice work, Todd. Thanks for inspiring those of us who have to travel and voice in all kinds of less than ideal locations.
The Wall Street Journal spotlights one segment of the voiceover business that’s growing these days. (My thanks to Nancy Wolfson for emailing the article my way.)
No, this isn’t a blog post about microphones. I want to call your attention to some cogent and thoughtful words from David over at the Voice Coaches blog. Here’s one key paragraph.
When it comes to pursuing the things that we really want to do, the things we imagine we would enjoy, the things we secretly know we could be really good at, most folks choose to remain in the passengers seat. In effect, they are actually calling shotgun on their lives.
I hope you’ll take a moment to read the whole thing.
There are a few seats left for the Better, Faster, Now master class that Marice is teaching in New York City the weekend of March 28 and 29, 2009. Here’s the gist.
The Voiceover Master Intensive for Established Talent. Focus: Promo/Trailer/Commercial/Narration
Agents, managers and producers tell us: “Staying in the game means upping your game, being able to shift gears on a dime, nail the read with your own spin and know the current trends.” The more chips you have on the table, the more chances you have to win.
Limited to 12 participants. Price is $775. Check to: Tobias Entertainment Group, PO Box 15396, Beverly Hills, CA 90209 or PayPal to: tobiasent@tobiasent.com
This message came in my email this evening and if you’re in New York, you just might want to take a few minutes to read this.
The Good News:
Voiceover is the perfect companion/transition career for the Performing Artist.
The Bad News:
Voiceover is the perfect companion/transition career for the Performing Artist.
The Good News & The Bad News:
Voiceover is the single most sought after, auditioned for and potentially lucrative career in entertainment and broadcasting. If you go about it correctly, it can be very good news.If not, it can eat up a lot of your precious time, effort and resources.
And you would be?
Tobias Entertainment Group. We are the pre-eminent training, consulting and producing resource for the established, ongoing voiceover career. Marice Tobias is affectionately known as “The Voice Whisperer”.
We are offering this evening as a reality check – an opportunity to learn about the biz before you jump in. It’s your choice. Get the information, do your research and establish a solid foundation, just as you have with your primary career. Or run out, take a class, record a demo, send it out, and wait for the phone not to ring.
We will cover it all: What it takes to make it in each of the areas of VO: agents, getting & doing the work, auditioning, home studios, marketing, the net, your website and sufficient time for Q&A. There will be representatives from the agent community and established VO talent on hand as well.
Since this is an information-only evening, no microphone or recording will happen, nor will demos be accepted.
Attendance is via payment in advance. No walk-ins. Check or Paypal: $125.00. Call or e-mail Stacey Stahl at CEM for further details at (503) 246-2239.
The Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA) has a blog. Recently they featured an interview with my friend Jean-Marc Berne.
One of the legendary voices of our age has been silenced. Bob Greene offers a moving tribute that is well worth a few minutes of your time. If you listened to Paul Harvey, Bob’s comments will make you nod in recognition, several times I imagine. If you don’t know who Paul Harvey was, you’ll get to know him in Bob’s story. Either way, I hope you’ll read the whole thing.
Good day, Mr. Harvey. May you read in peace, once again in the company of your beloved Angel.
(My thanks to my friend Charlie Glaize for sending me the link to this story this morning.)
I offer my thanks to my friend and mentor Roy H. Williams for the link to this video at the end of his Rabbit Hole this week. Roy also linked to this wonderful news story about Paul Harvey.
Dan O’Day offers you and any of the readers of his blog a chance to win a prize (for what the prize is, click through to the blog post) if you can write and produce a radio commercial for Target that’s better than the one Target is running.
(Edited to correct a stupid mistake on my part)
I strongly believe in the value of on-going learning, training and coaching. I’ve seen how beneficial it has been in my own voiceover business many times in the last few years. That value was underscored this past week in a big way. During a recent teleseminar, Nancy Wolfson talked about how to interpret the common direction to “be more warm” or “warm it up a bit.” I thought her advice was excellent. Little did I know how excellent.
Less than 24 hours later I was in a recording session with a director with whom I hadn’t previously worked. His direction after our first pass through the copy? “Make it warmer.” That’s right. And, putting into practice what I’d just learned the previous evening, the session ended up going very well. The director was pleased with how quickly we were able to narrow in on exactly what he wanted. Naturally I was pleased because the fee for that session was multiples more than the price of the teleseminar.
Have you had a similar experience of confidently being able to put into practice something you’ve learned? Leave a comment. I’d love to hear about it.
Peter O’Connell has released his third podcast, which includes an interview with the winner of his Unofficial Late Night With Jimmy Fallon announcer audition contest. The postcast is here on Peter’s blog, playable in the flash player and with a link to download.
That’s the first line of Tom Asacker’s latest blog post. It’s also very true, so true that I don’t even need to say so, do I? You know in your gut that it’s true. Which is why I think you might want to read the rest of what he’s written. It’s some solid advice for anyone in business these days. The blog post is titled Emphatize first, then do something different.
My friend Patrick O’Connor is featured in a television news story in Japan because he has a one of these lovely dogs, which leaped into the headlines because of the First Lady’s interest in them. You can’t tell is from this short news clip, but Patrick is a gifted actor and voice actor in New York City. And I’m glad to say, also one of my friends.
If you are a working professional voice actor, you may want to seriously consider studying with Marice Tobias. She really can help you raise your game to a new level. Bill Pryce offers his memories of a private session with Marice that gives some valuable insight into just how effective she is at helping you remove the internal barricades that are keeping you from reaching all the heights that you can.
Some months ago I mentioned that while I’ve narrated many audiobooks, I have only done one children’s audiobook. That’s for a company called Faith Audio Center. The author and producer for that project, Sara Lowe, emailed today with news that the story about her children’s audiobook venture has picked up some publicity. Some very nice publicity. Good for you, Sara. It couldn’t happy to a nicer person.
