My friend Lance Blair is the voice of the trailer for a new documentary about College radio called Low End of the Dial.
Nice work, Lance. And the film looks more than a little interesting.
General
Sword of the Lamb
The latest audiobook release from Scott Brick is Sword of the Lamb, volume one of the Phoenix Legacy by M. K. Wren. He blogs about the book, and provides and audio sample, on his site. Scott has his own audiobook publishing company called Brick by Brick that is publishing quite a number of interesting titles.
Creative Entertainment Management
For just over a year now I’ve known Stacey Stahl as one of my agents. She’s a bright lady with a wonderful grasp of the way the voiceover world is working these days. Not long ago Stacey began Creative Entertainment Management.
Starting this year I now am working with Stacey as my manager.
Voices That Motivate blog carnival – call for submissions
Doc Philips has been the driving force behing the voiceover blog carnival called Voices That Motivate, which he’s hosted on his blog each time thus far. He’s now open for submissions to the 4th edition.
You can make your submissions here. If you blog about voiceover you almost certainly have at least one post you’d like to highlight.
Physical adjustments and character voice work
My friend LindZ Reiss blogs about how she has discovered that in order to do different character voices, she often makes physical adjustments to how she stands or moves. What about you? Do you do the same thing? Or do all your characters come from basically the same physical space?
Rodney Saulsberry vocal warm-ups part 2
Some time ago I linked to a fabulous video by Rodney Saulsberry that included some superb vocal warms. He’s back with another even more.
Wow! Now I need someone to untangle my tongue.
Marice Tobias and shifting gears
Marice Tobias is holding a seminar in Los Angeles later this month. If you are working steadily these days, you seriously need to think about attending this unique event which will be unlike just about anything else you could do by way of training and taking your voiceover career to the next level.
From the email I received today:
This event will focus on:
- Shifting gears
- Nailing the read with your own spin
- The current trends
The structure of the weekend is very different. It will refect the times we are in, how the work now occurs and how armed talent must be to not only stay in the game but to move to the next level.
Working with Marice is a wonderful and unique experience. This will be an exceptional weekend. January 24th & 25th, 2009. To book your spot contact:
Tobias Entertainment Group
c/o CEM Management
creativeentertainmentmanagement.com
503.246.2239
There is a limit of 12 participants. The price is $775. It will be money well spent.
Drain the poison
Bonnie Gillespie writes a brilliant column every week called The Actors Voice. It’s always excellent, but her post this week is especially brilliant. (I hadn’t yet looked at so my thanks go to Nancy Wolfson for pointing it out to me in an email today)
They key thought?
I spent years in friendships that served the friendships and not the individuals. We could actually feed off each other’s negativity and live forever. And all we’d have at the end of any bitch session was a righteous feeling of, “Yeah! The world sucks! Screw ‘The Man’! Let’s show ’em!” But when you are so sure the world sucks, owes you something, or needs to be put in its place, how much creative energy does it take to overcome that stacked deck in order to actually create even a tiny bit of light? In comparison, when you weed out the Poison Playmates, you find you’re filled with extra creative energy, you have more enthusiasm for creating your own projects, and you suddenly have an astonishingly abundant source of free time (because you’re not sitting around grousing about how hard it’s gonna be to actually do it).
That paragraph is good, but believe me, for this column you want to read the whole thing.
(Edited to correct typos and clarify point.)
Radio imaging workshop coming to Charlotte, NC
My friend Brian Haymond posts on his blog about a radio imaging workshop that will be held in Charlotte, NC on Saturday, January 24th from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Gabrielle Nistico of VoiceHunter.com will be leading the workshop. I took this class when it was offered last fall. If you’re interested in pursuing radio imaging work, this is a day of study that will be well worth your time and money.
Philip’s star shines, too
My friend and mentor Philip Banks as the promo voice for CNBC. For real.
Names and branding
Karen Commins has written a very fine post on her blog about how she is working to strengthen her brand as a voiceover talent.
Amy shines brightly
My friend Amy Snively is featured in this delightful ad for LowFares.com
Good for you, Amy. Wonderful work.
Performer Track report 1 – initial impressions
In the last several days I’ve started using a web application called Performer Track to help organize my voiceover work. Performer Track is from Holdon Log, LLC, a company founded in 2001 by professional peformers who needed organizational tools specifically designed for entertainers.
My very first impression of Performer Track is that it is a deeply comprehensive application. A great deal of careful thought has gone in to the design and implementation. (This is no surprise given the performing background of the prinicples of the company.) There’s a ton of features that as a voice actor I will never use, but these features don’t get in the way of doing what I need to do.
With relatively little effort I’ve been able to keep track of every audition I’ve done in this new year, including the source of that audition (which agent or web site), the date and time done, the details about the story and role, the budget, and the scheduled performance date, if known.
I’ve also been able to keep track of every booked job, whether it came from an audition or direct, with all details. There’s a different color icon for work that’s booked from an audition or direct so you can immediately see not only which jobs booked; but how.
In the interests of full disclosure, you should know that Holdon Log has given me a free 6 month membership with Performer Track in exchange for reviewing the application. At this point, I’m very impressed. I have very few items on my wish list, the primary one being that I would love to be able to sync my calendar so that when I book a job, I don’t have to enter the details in two different places. The other wish is that I could import contacts. After talking with some of the principals of the company I understand why they’ve made the choices they have, but I still wish some level of importing were possible. They did mention that exporting of data is among the next things being added.
Look for several more updates from me about this exceptional web application in the coming months, as I get more familiar with it. I promise to tell you what I really think as I go along. If you decide to start using Performer Track, I hope you’ll stop by here and add your comments to the discussion.
How important is a good voice for voiceover work?
From time to time I get emails from people interested in getting started in voiceover. Sometimes the emails come from the interested party, sometimes from a loved one. For example, a mom wrote some time ago asking for help for her son because she thought voiceover work was something he could do well. And the other day I received a note from a lady who wrote to say that her husband has a really good voice and she wanted to know what he would need to do to help him get started.
Here are 4 observations in response to these questions that come my way from time to time.
1. In spite of what you may think, successful voice acting careers are not built on the “voice.” In other words, it’s not about how nice your voice is or how many compliments you’ve received about your voice. Success in voice acting has everything to do with how well you can deliver the story, the message, that your clients hire you to deliver.
2. It’s for the above reason that professional coaching is imperative. Without a foundation of solid voice acting instruction you have virtually no chance of making any money in voice acting. Even with solid coaching, you stand only a very slight chance. There are quite literally thousands of people every day who decide “I’m going to be a voice actor” and yet never make any money at it.
3. Yes, I’m trying to be discouraging. You have to want this. Really want it. And be willing to spend quite a bit of time, effort and money to get ready before you make dime one. A realistic estimate would be 6 to 12 months, a significant amount of money (figure at least $5,000, possible much more). And a great deal of work.
4. Assuming you read over the above and want to press forward go to www.breakintovoiceover.com and order the first of the MP3 teleseminar files that you’ll find there. It’s called “Your Voice Over Business.” Everything you really need to know to get started is in that hour and 45 minute recording. (If you’re really serious and can afford it, take advantage of the special deal they have on the full library, but ONLY do that if you can afford to spend nearly $300 right now.)
(post edited for greater clarity and accuracy)
What Kara learned
My friend Kara Edwards has posted 20 Things About Voice Over that she learned in 2008 on her blog. I think you’ll find it worth the time it will take to read. My thanks to my friend Brian Haymond for posting a note about Kara’s blog post on his blog.
Mic shootout video
With my thanks to my friend Willie Edwards for passing along the link to this video on the VO-BB, here is a fascinating video that not only compares several different microphones, but also provides some interesting thoughts about getting a “good sound” with audio processing.
Willie has a post about this video on his VO Mic Test blog as well.
A voiceover learning opportunity coming to Detriot
Teri Clark Linden has teamed up with Sherri Berger for 2 days of voiceover training in Detroit, Michigan. Saturday and Sunday, May 2 and 3, 2009 are the dates. Details about times and locations along with registration information are available at Teri’s web site.
Add power to your blogging
Chris Brogan has written an excellent post called 27 Blogging Secrets to Power Your Community. I highly recommend you spend the few minutes you need to read his post. My thanks goes to my manager Stacey Stahl for sending this link my way.
Amazon and the New Year
Amazon.com is a fabulous place, as I’m sure you all ready know. For the next several days they’re providing a home page for your New Year’s Resolutions and how to move forward with them.
More thoughts for the New Year
While the year is young, there are lots of folks posting thoughts, comments and wishes for the New Year. I hope you have a wonderfully prosperous 2009. If you have some time to spend today, spend at least a few of them reading Tom Asacker’s superb blog post for this morning.