Thanks to my friend David Houston for pointing me toward this interesting interview with Chris Patton about his work on the anime’ called Guyver. Even if you’re not a fan of this genre, you’ll gain some valuable insights into the world of voiceover. Read. Enjoy.
And don’t forget to visit David’s blog while you’re at it.
People
Helping others
Karen Commins relates her recent experience with helping others in a post on her blog from yesterday. I just love reading stories like these.
Read. Enjoy. Go thou and do likewise. You’ll be glad you did.
Operation Voice Talent update
While I’m posting about Michael Minetree, there’s an update on his site regarding his contest for new voiceover talent.
Congratulations to the Top 10.
You might find this fun
Michael Minetree has offered a challenge to voiceover talents, just for fun. You’ll find the details in this post at his site.
Wild Hogs and Pat Fraley
Pat Fraley has written a fascinating account of a recent ADR recording session for Disney, that’s published on Vox Daily, the blog at Voices.com. I think you’re going to love reading this story.
Ready for anything?
Elaine Singer, a talented voiceover artist, blogs about her work and life. As I was reading her blog today, I took a moment to look over a previous post I’d somehow missed, written a few days ago. As you read, you’ll discover that when you’re working in voiceover, you really do have to be ready for anything!
You’ll find voiceover people in all kinds of strange places
Standing in the spotlight
The weekend of August 15 and 16, 1997 was the time when my understanding of voiceover took a leap to a whole new level. I’ve written about this experience several times previously, just look at the History and People categories and you’ll find lots of posts about the International Radio Creative and Production Summit.
But this post is about something that happened at my 10th consecutive Summit, the one in 2006. The final session each year is called the Critique-A-Spot-A-Thon. Those of us foolish enough to subject our work to public examination turn in one promo or commercial we’ve written, produced or performed for a live, on-the-spot evaluation.
You hear each promo or commercial played, and it’s then followed by that evaluation; in front of everyone at the Summit. Sometimes nice things are said. Most of the time, it’s more painful than that. But, in every case it’s a fair and honest evaluation. And in every case, I’ve learned something valuable in the experience. This time I learned more than I usually do.
First, before you hear this audio, note that in general as each evaluation is given, you just stay in your seat and listen along with everyone else. If Dan has a question, he’ll ask you to respond; but most of the time you just listen to your spot, listen to the evalaution and then Dan moves on to the next one. Here’s what happened to me. You’ll hear my spot first, and then a few minutes what followed.
Summit 2006 with Dan O'Day and Bob Souer
I can’t think of a better illustration of what taking part in the Summit is like each year. Because while being called up to the mike like that doesn’t always happen, there are many opportunities to jump into the action.
As I’ve written each year since I started this blog, whether you are full time in voiceover, work at a radio station in production or just do a little of this kind of work on the side, you’ll gain a lot from attending the Summit.
For those who’ve made it all the way to the end of this post, Dan has a great deal for you. A special offer on the audio recordings from the 2006 Summit (14 hours of actual seminar time) and a bunch of extras that will make the purchase very much worth your while. You can download Dan’s PDF about this offer right here. But, the deal ends October 31, 2006.
Kudos to my friend Ralph (edit)
Ralph Hass, a talented voiceover artist in British Columbia, Canada has been selected as the voice for the Buffalo Sabres NHL team. Good for you, Ralph. You can read his blog post about this good news here.
Update: There’s a very nice write-up about this news that’s been added to Vox Daily, the voiceover blog from Voices.com.
The voice behind Spongebob
With a great big top of the hat to David Houston’s blog, here’s a link to a profile that should a a bunch of fun to read.
Free production music
Some folks involved in voiceover just record scripts for people; but lots of us do some production from time to time for clients who need more than just dry voice tracks.
If you’re like me, you certainly want to take a moment to check out this post from David Houston on his blog. Very cool. Thank you Dave for pointing us to this valuable tool.
It’s a Joy to Meet Nice People
The book The Power of Nice
And on her blog, Mary C. McKitrick provides us with a wonderful story that illustrates this fact quite vividly. Read. Enjoy. As you do, you’ll be reminded that Mary herself is a mighty nice person. Then, while you’re thinking about it, pass it along. The niceness I mean.
Voice Over Times
I’ve just added a link to VoiceOverTimes.com in my voiceover blogroll on the left here. It’s a discussion forum that’s been around for a while. The archives are filled with valuable insights and comments. And my friend David Houston is one of the new moderators there. I’m sure it’s going to be a site worth visiting often.
By the way, David also blogs about voiceover here. He’s posted a note about his new moderator role here. And while you’re there, be sure to note the post right above, linking to a press release about his very fine voiceover work.
I first learned about VoiceOverTimes.com through the blog at Voices.com. Their most recent post about the forum, including a note about David and his fellow forum moderators, is here.
What’s your NiceQ?
Take the NiceQ test. I got 15 out of 20 correct. Leave a comment with your score if you decide to play. I’d love to know how you do.
This test is from the people who’ve written The Power of Nice
Stay focused
As I’ve mentioned a number of times, the voiceover business is a business. In fact, the vast majority of your time working as a voiceover talent is going to be spent finding work, not actually reading and recording.
With that said, my friend Drew tells me he has recently received an interesting offer, but ultimately decided against taking it.
The gist of the story is that while it looked good initially, the terms were such that he realized the situation wasn’t as appealing as he thought. In other words, it’s always a good idea to keep your eyes open before you jump through an open door.
Battling mouth noise
Mouth noises are a major problem for some voiceover talents, a minor problem for others; but everyone deals with the problem some of the time. The subject came up during an exchange with my friend Brian Haymond today. Brian, by the way, is a very talented voiceover guy as you can hear from his demos which are on his home page. (By the way, Brian blogs here and here.)
Brian and I were discussing audiobooks and he made the following comment:
I just know how many times I have to re-record something because mouth noise or something has gotten into the recording. I’m probably much pickier on that stuff than most…I try to provide crystal clear audio even though virtually all of the time there will be a music bed. But when it comes to audio book…my goodness, I bet the audio has to be pristine as well?
Brian,
Yes, the audio has to be really clean because while there are musical bridges and such, the majority of the time it’s just you in your listener’s headphones or car audio or iPod or whatever.
There are ways to minimize mouth noise, stuff that I learned at the audiobook class with Pat Fraley this summer. I take breaks when I need to. Keep a bottle of filtered water (cool but not ice cold) near and have at it. My wife sits in and listens while I record, so if I flub a word or miss something she can tell me. I just do a quick pick-up and keep going. I don’t make a huge number of mistakes so an hour of recording takes maybe an hour and 15 to an hour and 20 minutes to complete.
Then, I make a pass through the audio to clean up the pick-ups and any obvious problems. Save it into segments about 20 minutes long each and upload the uncompressed audio to my web server. The publisher downloads the files, lets me know when he’s got them all. They take care of all of final mastering and production.
Wow!!! Yea, I use an apple (really is a life saver on mouth noise), I always have room temp water (I drink about 80 ounces a day). That’s a great idea to have your wife sit in!!! Love it!
Brian
Brian,
It’s so helpful to have someone there to catch what you miss and saves a ton of punch-in and/or audio replacement time afterward.
I used to use the apple thing, but Pat Fraley gave us this little misting bottle with filtered water in it at the audiobook seminar I attended in LA. A couple of squirts as you start a session and mouth-noise-be-gone. Amazing. That, having my wife sit in with me and keeping your mouth open between sentences are the three tips that have made the biggest difference since I got back from California in July.
Now those are some cool tips…I will log that into my “keeper” file…thanks!! Question: Misting is better than just taking a drink?
Brian,
The way Pat and Hillary explained is that…mouth noises are created by the little bits of saliva in the corners of our mouths. Drinking water doesn’t really deal with that. The misting does because it applies a small amount of water directly to the area creating the noise.
Be well,
Bob
I’m sure you can find these little plastic misting bottles at a dollar store or pretty much any place that sells cosmetics and the like. If you find this suggestion helpful, leave a comment and let me know.
Pat Fraley is coming East
As I mentioned in a post a few days ago, Pay Fraley and Hillary Huber are going to hold an Audiobook Master Class in conjunction with Susan Berkley in New York. The information page is now posted at Susan’s site. You’ll find it right here.
A few excellent ideas
Brian Haymond has been blogging about voiceover here for a few weeks now and has just added a secong blog to his roster focused on podcasts, promos, commercials, imaging, TV, video and narration.
But, it’s his first blog to which I want to call your attention today, because Brian offers some very useful and practical suggestions of things to do in between your times of finding work and actually doing voiceovers. I’m going to implement some of his suggestions immediately (a few I’ve already been doing) and you should probably think about doing the same.
It’s always nice to find a new one
Ralph Hass is a fine voiceover talent who has just started a blog about voiceover work. I’m always delighted to find another voiceover blogger.
Now, Ralph’s only been doing this for a week, so give him some time to build up his archives. But, bookmark him now so we can enjoy watching his site grow together.
Sound and the web
Elaine Singer, a voiceover talent who specializes in audiobooks and other long form narrations, blogs about her voiceover work here. (You can hear her demos here.)
While reading her blog today, I clicked through to an interesting article she’s written about the question of using audio on your website. You can read the article here. It’s well worth a few minutes of your time.