And a Blog to Match

I’ve been in redesign mode all week and the blog I created last month for my Voiceover Acting Class has a completely different look than the new website I created. This drew some comments when I asked for input and critique on the new website. So I decided to look for a theme that blended with the blues and greens of the new website.

In the process of doing this, I realized that I needed to either maintain two blogs – one just for VO Musings and the other for my class – OR – change the look of the existing class blog.

I’ve decided to try keeping two at the moment. I really want the students to have their own space and be able to actually see their assigments.

So I moved some content from the Class Blog over to here to fill it out a bit. This has pretty much taken over […]

2018-02-06T06:48:58+00:00July 17th, 2009|Categories: Marketing|Tags: , |
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Made a new website this week

I had a long conversation with a career coach this week and was inspired to redo my website. My last site was pretty packed with information (much of it not really related to earning money) and in effect tried to do far too much.

The new site is cleaner and more focused on marketing me as a talent. As a talent working the higher paying jobs. At least I hope it is. It’s probably still got a few bugs to check, but I got on a roll and managed to design and create it in a relatively short period of time.

New website

 The basic design is from a background collection from Digital Juice. The inner pages were created using the colors and basic idea of the circles and lines. I wanted to keep a lot of text on the inner pages. There are some little issues and […]

2018-02-06T06:48:58+00:00July 16th, 2009|Categories: Marketing|Tags: , , , |
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Was there a lesson to be learned?

Negotiating rates is the hardest part of my job. I much prefer to have an agent involved in this process, but more and more of my work comes directly to me from my website from places outside the range of my various agents. So more and more, I find that I am providing quotes. Add in the auditions from the P2P sites and a LOT of time is spent figuring out rates.

I have a set rate card for most projects now that I use as a starting point, but there is always something that makes the rate card difficult to apply. The nature of the material may require additional dollars (or not). Or the turn around time is short necessitating a rush charge (or not). The project may be for a really good cause that warrents a discounted rate (or not). The project may actually be more than one project, […]

2018-02-06T06:48:58+00:00July 14th, 2009|Categories: Negotiating|Tags: , , , , |
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Adding to the Land Fill

I just spent about an hour and a half going through about 50 pounds of paper scripts that have been piling up over the past couple of years. While I would probably read a lot of these scripts right off the screen, during the school semester I usually bring in scripts from sessions to show my students what a professional voice talent may see in the course of a week.

Scripts range from very “formal” radio and TV scripts (with logos and official titles to help the radio and TV stations figure out which spot to run when), to a hasty email with a single line.

Normally, if I am going to work in my ISDN studio, I need to print out the script, as there is no monitor tied to a computer. I may do that one day (add a monitor), but frankly I like to mark the script when I am […]

2018-02-06T06:48:58+00:00July 12th, 2009|Categories: Techniques|Tags: , , , , |
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A Day in the Life of a VO Talent

At coffee – the BlackBerry rings – it is an agent from the other side of the country. “Got a job for you today if you are available. Don’t know what the pay is or anything much about the job, but they have to have it on the net tomorrow.” I ask if it is ISDN (yes, it will be) and assure her that I can carve out some time today to do the session.

Walking back from coffee – the BlackBerry rings – it is the agent from the other side of the country. “OK, how’s 2pm? It is about a 10 minute corporate piece for a hospital. How’s $800?’ 2pm is fine and $800 is fine.

Back home and in the studio, I start working on my In Box – it needs attention – sorting email, following up on auditions, confirming upcoming work and reviewing the scripts. Some prep work […]

2018-02-06T06:48:58+00:00July 10th, 2009|Categories: Musings|Tags: , |
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