Trish Basanyi has a brand new logo and it’s just about as beautiful as she is. (Look at her photos from my New York friends post yesterday if you have any question on that score.) Great stuff, Trish. Wow.
The logo was done by Nikki Saco who is obviously gifted not only as a voice talent, but as a graphic designer as well.
James Alburger and Penny Abshire are hosting a free tele-seminar called Your Demo, A to Z, on Thursday evening, December 4th. 90 minutes starting at 8:00 PM Eastern/5:00 PM Pacific. Register on the Voiceacting site.
My time in New York City was filled with interesting experiences, at the center of which was the Marice Tobias workshop. Every time I do one of these, it takes days for my head to stop spinning with all of the new insights I’ve gained. This time is no exception.
It was an amazingly group of people. I’m blessed and humbled to have been part of this group of talented voice actors.
After the class was over Sunday afternoon, Melissa Exelberth, Rick Party and I joined some other voice actors from New York City for dinner.
From the left, Rick Party, Melissa Exelberth, Diane Havens, Trish Basanyi, me and Erik Sheppard. Diane’s husband John Havens was nice enough to take this shot for us. Needless to say, we were all delighted to have Rick Party with us. (If you haven’t joined his Voiceover Universe yet, go do it now.)
Trish and Diane surround Rick for this shot. Then Erik Sheppard and I posed together.
And the ladies surrounded me for a photo as well.
Melissa Exelberth, Diane Havens, me and Trish Basanyi.
Erik also took a bunch of photos and you can see them on his blog.
Erik and Diane were the brains behind our little get-together Sunday evening and I’m very grateful to both of them for making me feel so welcome. It was truly a great delight to hang out with all of these wonderful people. I look forward to seeing each of them, and perhaps meeting a few more New York voice actors, the next time I get to the Big Apple.
(edited to update links)
Check out this charming video from the studio of my friend Philip Banks.
My friend Philip Banks has posted a brief video of his work in his voiceover booth.
I thoroughly enjoyed that.
Update: For those interesting in Mr. Banks’ microphone technique, you might want to read through this article from Mix Magazine. My thanks to my friend Bill Ballenberg for posting the link to this article on th VO-BB.
If you’ve been reading my blog posts about studying with Marice Tobias, and you’re a working voice actor, there are two seats available at the workshop she’s holding in Portland, Oregon the weekend of December 6th and 7th. This seminar is called Raising the Bar. (If you don’t, someone else will.) It will concentrate on commercial and promo work.
These professional intensives have become touchstones for established talent to continually expand, enhance and elevate their craft and skills. Dedicated to the ongoing career and the challenges created by technology, time and overwhelming competition, we arm you with the latest information on style, trends and techniques to masterfully navigate the ever-changing and complex marketplace.
Attendees are like-minded in-town and out-of-town colleagues who deal with the unique, isolating and contradictory aspects of this life and work. The network of support that has formed from these events continues to grow along with the careers. The intensive is a center point not only for current trends in performance and delivery but as well, for marketing and branding.
The price is $775. Mail your check to Tobias Entertainment Group, PO Box 15396 Beverly Hills, Ca 90209-1396, or send via PayPal to: tobiasent@tobiasent.com
I hope I get to see you there.
Today was the first of our two days of study with Marice Tobias. As with every time that I study with Marice the experience was stretching, challenging, uplifting, encouraging, mind-boggling and honestly I can’t come up with enough superlatives. The most interesting this is that while Marice always has lots of valuable ideas and thoughts to share with us, her unique gift is her ability to guide each of us to greater heights that we thought possible.
Among my friends there were Rick Party, sitting here next to Melisssa Exelberth.
Rich mentioned that he’s doing some updates on Voiceover Universe about this weekend, so be sure to check over there for his point of view and photos.
And as we were wrapping up the day, the four VO-BB members (we’ll be joined by a fifth tomorrow) got together for a quick photo.
Mary McKitrick, Anthony Mendez, me and Melisssa Exelberth in the lobby at Pirate in New York City for the Marice Tobias weekend, November 15, 2008.
We have another day of mind-stretching, heart-stirring play and study tomorrow. And then a fun meet-up we’re putting together with several voiceover friends from here in New York. I’ll post more when I can, but it may not be right away tomorrow night because of the schedule I’ll have to keep between Sunday night and Monday morning.
I’m in New York City for a weekend workshop with Marice Tobias. Friday evening I was able to catch up with a couple of my friends here. Patrick O’Connor picked out the restaurant, a wonderful place on the West Side called Kennedy’s. After dinner we took a couple of photos. First Patrick asked the age old question “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” And then pointed us in the right direction.
Then Patrick, Melissa Exelberth and I were able to flag down a nice gentleman who was kind enough to snap a shot of the three of us in front of Carnegie Hall.
We had a wonderful time. Now, some rest and then we hit the ground running at the workshop with Marice in the morning.
Oh, the answer to that age old question, in case you don’t know: practice, practice, practice.
Blue, a company that’s gained a pretty good reputation for their microphones, is coming out with a new device they call the Icicle. You’ll find a quick preview, including a phote, on the Engadget site.
My thanks to my friend Jeff Stitt for posting the link to this article on the VO-BB.
Mae Laborde is a remarkable woman who re-invented herself at the tender age of 93 as an actress. There’s a wonderful interview with her on the Growing Bolder site. My thanks to Bob Fraser for his email with the link to this delightful story.
John Florian publishes a superb resource site for voice actors called VoiceOverXtra.com. If you haven’t signed up there, I commend the site to you. It’s filled with lots of good stuff. Here are a couple of items you’ll find on the front page today.
A fabulous article featuring the new book Voice for Hire: Launch and Maintain a Lucrative Career in Voice-Overs
Dan Lenard does a ton of consulting on home studios and he provides some excellent guidance on how to keep it simple while building a good home studio.
Oh, you’ll also find an article I wrote (and originally published here) about some of the painful lessons I’ve learned along the way in my voiceover career.
With thanks to my friend Tom Ackerman for posting the link to this news story on the VO-BB, I’m sad to report that long time NBC Nightly News Announcer Howard Reig has died. He was 87.
Update: I noticed just a moment ago that Howard’s son created a tribute site to his Dad upon his retirement.
There’s a new series of Peanuts animations being produced by Warner Brothers for web release, with a the first two episodes available as of Monday free (for only a limited time) through Apple’s iTunes. Read all about it at Voice Over Times. And my thanks to Dan Roberts for posting the link to this article in the LinkedIn Voice Over Professionals group.
With my thanks to Nancy Wolfson and Anna Vocino (who have a teleseminar tomorrow evening) for the link, you’ll find some thought-provoking and cogent suggestions about how to build real substance in your work relationships in this post on The Simple Dollar blog.
A post on the Variety blog called HAL explains. Here’s the key line.
Audiences, including females, are so used to hearing a male voice that when they hear a female voice they think something is wrong.
Melissa Disney is the obvious exception, but as the post points out, her most prominent trailer (for “Gone in Sixty Seconds”) was done 8 years ago.
Deb Munro has released her latest newsletter and podcast.
Holdon Log has published a free report called 5 Things Every Actor Must Do. Not everything applies to voice actors, but much of it does.
Doc Phillips emails with news that the new, edition number 2 of the Voices That Motivate blog carnival is up and running today, November 10, 2008.
Be sure to check out the thoughts from my friend Michael Stuber about radio and imaging. Michael offers some good insights about radio formats, programming and branding that are well worth a couple of minutes of your time.
My friend Joe Szymanski blogged about one of the greats the other day, Ann Dewig. Joe points out that Ann has mastered the art of making even her bloopers work for her clients.
