Back to School!

While I work as a voice talent full-time – and have been this time around for the past dozen years or so – I do manage to carve out enough time in the Spring and Fall to teach one class at San Diego City College.

The reason I say “this time around” – is that I started out making a full-time living doing announcing and voiceover work, while also working in my spare time as a producer/writer. I actually gave up my free-lance voiceover work for several years while I worked full-time in a video and film department where I wore lots of hats. Eventually, I chose to stop producing and put the writing on the back burner as well, moving back into voicework full-time. I actually consider those years as “post” post-graduate school for my voiceover work.

Back to the class. It is a basic introduction to voiceover. If you are interested in what goes on […]

2018-02-06T06:48:18+00:00January 22nd, 2012|Categories: Business, Teaching|Tags: , |

Nurturing the Garden

In my part of the world, the climate allows me to have a garden all year long. Right now I have lettuce, an eggplant, some tomatoes and a perpetual red Swiss Chard that has been growing for about 2 years now.

But a winter garden requires more attention than a summer garden. In fact, it is a mess right now! The lettuce is starting to get a little nibbled and brown at the edges and has never really grown to expectations. For some reason the little purple flowers on the eggplant have not produced anything. It is sturdy, but barren. The tomato vine is brown and the actual fruit gets to a certain redness and then stops. The Swiss Chard seems to bounce back with just a little water…but the size of the leaves get smaller and smaller. Don’t even look at my banana trees, it is simply not banana tree […]

2018-02-06T06:48:18+00:00January 15th, 2012|Categories: Business, Marketing, Musings|Tags: , , |

The Cost of Doing Business

Esteban Valdez Pots for sale
They say you have to spend money to make money. I would agree with that. Unless you dig clay from the earth, use your hands to form a pot, grind rocks to make paint, gather wood to build the fire to bake the pot and then stand by the side of the road to sell the pot, you probably have to spend at least a little money to be in business.

I had a chance to meet Esteban Valdez at his family compound just outside San Miguel de Allende Mexico a few years ago. He does just that. At his age though, other people are helping him gather the materials, so he probably has to pay out a bit in payroll these days in order to make his pots.

What will the future bring for video?

Humans frequently predict the future. It helps us plan for a rainy day. We think it helps us know what should we look out for that will ensure we keep moving forward toward our ultimate goals – whatever they may be.

It is very interesting to look back at predictions to see what the soothsayers said and what actually happened. This reading is sobering, amusing, thought provoking and sometimes just plain silly.

I found a website with 20 predictions that we are still waiting for – like the flying car and weather control.

http://www.manolith.com/2009/07/30/pending-future-technologies/

And to me an even more interesting website with 100 predictions from 1900 – including that there will be no C, X or Q in our everyday language.

http://blog.longnow.org/2007/04/18/100-year-old-predictions-from-1900/

So what is next for video – or more specifically video commerce? Justin Foster just posted a piece on MediaPost. He is co-founder and Vice President of Market Development for video commerce […]

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