Connie Terwilliger – Page 30 – Connie Terwilliger

Sometimes it’s good not to have real work to do

I didn’t have any paying gigs today. I did get a couple of bookings for next week. I deleted a bunch of auditions from Voice123 and Voices.com that just weren’t right for me. I spent some time at my mom’s trouble shooting an Internet purchase and doing some gardening. But that left lots of time for webinars!

The morning webinar was being put on by Peachtree – somewhat “selly,” but I think I got some inspiration and motivation for ways to maximize the effectiveness of social media/networking for professional associations. In this case MCA-I – Media Communications Association-International.

We have a LinkedIn page, several pages on Facebook (the international office and a couple of chapter pages), Plaxo, a Twitter account and we also had something on MediaPost, but that venue is […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:56+00:00August 6th, 2009|Categories: Musings|

Getting the Right Results from a Voiceover Session

(Updated June 24, 2015)

Professional video and multimedia producers know there is a lot more involved in a successful voiceover than simply recording the voice and slapping it into a time line. You need to connect and communicate with the audience.

Picking the right “talent”
The process starts with the initial selection of the voice talent for a particular project.

Start early and try not to scrimp on the budget for the talent. You want a voice that will be able to get the “right” read in the shortest amount of time. If you have questions about what to budget for talent for a particular project, make a few phone calls (to another producer, to talent you respect or best yet, a talent agent) and see what the going rate should be. You can usually find someone to do the job for practically nothing, but very often what you end up paying in extra studio time to […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:57+00:00August 5th, 2009|Categories: Communication, Techniques|Tags: picking the right talent, script specifications, voiceover talent|

voiceacting.com will be back up shortly

Jim and Penny just sent out a notice explaining that the VoiceActing.com is temporarily down because they’re moving to new servers. They should be back to normal by the end of this week. The move has affected their member area, their blog, and some links on various pages.

This has also affected the VOICE 2010 site.

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:57+00:00August 4th, 2009|Categories: Announcements|Tags: VOICE2010, voiceacting.com, voiceover|

Gah! August Already!?

Yikes! Where did the year go? Most of us are probably wondering the same thing as we move into back-to-school time.

And what did we accomplish so far in 2009 so far? Is everyone on track? Do we know what track we are on? Do we know which track we want to be/should be on?

I use Outlook and have set up Categories so that I can make notes in my Calendar about how I am spending my time. Recording is Green, Marketing is Gold, Training is Yellow, Business is Blue, Volunteer work is a lighter Green and Personal stuff is Orange…that sort of thing. The Orange is winning by leaps and bounds since April when my mom moved out here from New York State.

But it’s not all mom time. Some of it is morning coffee time with my friends. Some of it is exercise time. Some of it is theater time – and lately a […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:57+00:00August 3rd, 2009|Categories: Business, Musings|Tags: business decision, career, voiceover|

End of the month paperwork

I have time this month to work on my end of the month paperwork – making sure that I have converted open sales orders to invoices – sending the invoices – checking on overdue invoices – making sure my bank statements balance with my ledgers.

Having the time to actually do all this in one concerted effort, means that work slowed down a little bit for me this week. How convenient that it would be at a time when I actually could use the time.

Of course, I am working on other things as well, and I have noticed other voice talent doing the same thing. A lot more podcasts being produced, live video chats and classes being introduced around the country. Ed Victor’s come out with several video podcasts and he’s working on a new reality show for about the voiceover biz. […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:57+00:00July 31st, 2009|Categories: Business|Tags: bookkeeping, Business, education, training, voiceover|

Time and Technology

This goes back to an earlier post talking about being addicted to the computer and email. I have a serious habit. From the moment my little eyes pop open in the morning to just before I shut them again in the evening, I am jonesing for email.

If it doesn’t come into my Inbox in a steady stream, I start to click that Send/Receive icon – sometimes repeatedly…thinking that I must have just missed downloading something important.

The BlackBerry was supposed to help me get away from my office and in a way it has. I can go to coffee in the morning or run over to my mom’s or out to the store and not feel like I am going to miss an important email. But I do constantly look at it to see if the little red light is flashing.

Yesterday my email host was having problems and I didn’t receive […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:57+00:00July 30th, 2009|Categories: Technology|Tags: email, Technology, time|

The Added Value of Local Tech Support

Spent another big chunk of a day on the phone with India – tech support for my mom’s computer this time. She paid for the Extended Service Plan which is unlimited time on the phone with someone who is supposedly quite skilled at figuring out computer issues.

Well, even the best of them have a hard time when BOTH the mouse and the keyboard show intermittent behaviour problems (mostly the mouse).

After turning the darn thing on and off about a dozen times, doing a system reset to a few days ago to no avail, the tech guy decided that it must be a nasty virus and suggested a system rebuild – back to the day it was made. This of course required that I use keyboard commands to try to copy a previously saved folder of data to a flash drive. I did a system restore – or whatever the heck it […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:57+00:00July 26th, 2009|Categories: Business|Tags: Annie Blevins, computer tech support, Jeff Gelder|

Do Not Count Your Chickens…

OK, I auditioned for what could be a large national campaign and got past the first cut. Not sure what the next cut entails – further auditioning or just simply being passed by another set of ears, but I was quite stoked to know I didn’t suck. ;-) Actually, I initially felt really good about the audition, so getting this feedback helped reinforce my self-evaluation abilities.

How cool is that!

No matter what happens with this particular audition (Audition and forget. Audition and forget. Audition and forget), it reinforces why I am stepping up my marketing, working on new demos, remaking the website, getting some additional coaching and making the big push to land a top agent in a top market. It’s because when I do get a chance to audition with the cream of the crop, I compete.

I’ve had a chance recently to work with some established national talent, picked from the avalance of […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:57+00:00July 24th, 2009|Categories: Auditioning|Tags: agents, audition, voiceover|

Working on another role play for eLearning

It is interesting to see how work evolves and how people hear you. When I started in the business, I did primarily corporate narration and straight commercials with a lot of “sell.” Now, in the past few years, a large percentage of my work has turned to more role playing than straight narration.

eLearning characters make up a big part of that – being cast in multiple roles within programs – ranging from some nebulous African accent, to redneck homophobe, to tough Boss Lady. I have had more than one casting as Tough Boss Lady – working on one right now which sort of prompted this post. But I have also been cast as “soft young Asian woman learning to speak her mind at work.” So I while I do a good tough boss lady, please don’t pigeon-hole me there.

A lot of my radio and TV spot work has also been as a real person, […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:57+00:00July 23rd, 2009|Categories: Musings|Tags: acting, casting decision, e-learning, eLearning, radio spot, real person, TV spot, voice acting|

It’s not even 8AM and the AC is blasting…

We’ve been having a heat wave here in San Diego. And most of us in older homes do not have central AC. I do have a tiny old airconditioner that I had someone build into the wall of my studio during the initial rennovation. It manages to cool things down a bit. But of course when it is on, it is impossible to record anything….projects or auditions.

It is also difficult to get to – I have to climb on the counter to reach the knob – which leaves bruises on my upper shins. So I’ve been so reluctant to climb up there that I’ve been letting the projects and auditions pile up a bit – then scrambling up to turn it off.

Amazing how fast the temperature rises! So, during this heat wave, I am wearing natural fibers – as little of them as I can get away with – no […]

Connie Terwilliger2009-07-22T07:44:20+00:00July 22nd, 2009|Categories: Musings|Tags: heatwave, Recording, studio|

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