Blog – Page 10 – Connie Terwilliger

Do you know someone who you can recommend?

For some reason a lot of people ask me if I know people. Do I know someone who could produce this – crew that – voice this. The answer is usually yes, but referrals are a tricky thing. There is time involved. And reputations at stake. On both sides! Actually on all three sides. The Asker, me, and the person I refer. Referrals can be a wonderful thing, but you have to be careful.

When I was producing and writing corporate media full-time, I was often asked if I could recommend people to either write a project or produce something. If I wasn’t available to do the writing project myself, I had to spend quite a bit of time evaluating the person/company needing the script and then searching my memory and Rolodex for someone who I felt might be compatible. The last thing you would want is to […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:14+00:00August 6th, 2013|Categories: Business, Musings|Tags: media production, producing, referrals, writing|

What did I say?

I just saw a blog post from my virtual voiceover friend and prolific blogger, that made me laugh out loud. Just what kinds of situations do REAL working voiceover talent face as they go about the business of recording a script?

He posted three videos produced by voice actor, Paul J. Kinney, a San Francisco based talent. These are not only extremely well produced pieces, but each is a true reflection of what actually happens in directed voiceover sessions. These clips happen to be in a studio environment where the producer is just on the other side of the glass, but the same thing happens during phone patch sessions and ISDN sessions.

OK, they may be slightly exaggerated. But, I too am “guilty” as charged.

GUILTY

STANDING BY

THE […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:14+00:00July 11th, 2013|Categories: Business, Recording|Tags: Derek Chappell, Paul J Kinney, studio session, Voiceover career|

Software – One of the Great Money Monsters

How much money have you spent on software that ends up gathering dust (anyone have a good computer reference?) because it just didn’t really work the way you wanted it to work? I can’t pinpoint the $ exactly (they told me there wouldn’t be any math in voiceovers), but I know that I have purchased lots of software that I stopped using in frustration.

As an aside, because I have always been an early adopter of technology, I have been asking software to do more than it was designed to do since about 1987. I spent hours on the phone with the developer of a piece of writing software working with him to make it possible to write a dual column script and keep the video and audio tracking together. When Word came along and with it the table function, all was right with the world, but it simply wasn’t possible […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:14+00:00June 18th, 2013|Categories: Business, Marketing|Tags: accounting, boookkeeping, Freshbooks, QuickBooks, Quicken, voiceover business, ZOHO|

With Trepidation I Present “In a World…”

Just what we need, more exposure for the voice over business! So, I am somewhat hesitant to bring this up, but since most of the people who will chance across this post will already be in the business, or already interested in the business, I suppose it won’t do any harm.

From watching the trailer, this looks like a delightfully funny little film about life in the rarefied air of the Los Angeles voiceover market where there is a chance of someone actually hiring you (man or woman, but mostly man) to do a movie trailer.

Lake Bell wrote, produces and stars in the film, with some other familiar real-life voiceover “stars” in the Los Angeles market including Joe Cipriano and Marc Graue. In fact, now that I think about it, this might make a good pilot for a sitcom that takes place in a renowned recording studio in someplace like – […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:14+00:00June 12th, 2013|Categories: Announcements, Business, Musings|Tags: In a world, Lake Bell, movie trailer voices, voiceover, women voiceover|

Anonymity Means Never Having to Say You are Sorry for NOT Auditioning

There are lots of opinions on the Pay-2-Play websites. P2P sites are automated sites that, for a fee, send you audition opportunities. These sites are one of today’s auditioning paradigms – along with agents who send us auditions, potential clients finding our websites and sending us an audition and repeat clients asking for an audition for new projects.

Many people hate the P2P’s. Many people like them. A few people love them. I am somewhat ambivalent, because most of my work comes from other sources, yet I get enough projects through them to justify the money and time spent. And of those two elements, the time element is the greater of the two. The less time it takes the better.

The Voice123 mantra of being picky picky picky is pretty much my only option given the time I have available to scan and determine which auditions might be right up my alley.

Most […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:14+00:00June 10th, 2013|Categories: Auditioning|

The Blush is Off the Rose…

My love affair with Social Media seems to be waning. I don’t find myself hanging out on Facebook as much as I used to. And I only am on LinkedIn when something really interesting pops up in my daily digests. Or when I need to moderate something on the group I manage.

And while I want to get over to the VO-BB on a more regular basis, sometimes several days pass and I realize that I have not been over there to check on the latest person to get llama duty. Not much action on the Yahoo Voiceover Email list either these days, so maybe it isn’t just me.

(Ironically, I have bumped up my Tweets a bit. That seems to be easy to do these days when every article you read has a Retweet button handy.)

Perhaps the rest of my life is vying for my attention. The class I teach during […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:14+00:00June 5th, 2013|Categories: Musings|Tags: Facebook, personal relationships, social media|

Change is Inevitable

The only constant is change. It used to be (for those of us who remember the days of black and white television) at a fairly slow pace. Adoption of new technologies was at a slower pace. You had time to adjust – albeit some were dragged along kicking and screaming about the old days.

But the speed of the changes started to pick up and today, you barely have time to buy a new technology before the newest and more advanced product is available. We face it daily, so why is it so hard to accept the inevitable.

I am still using Adobe Audition 1 on my editing computer. I like it. It still works – on my XP operating system. All my computers are XP. But, I know that will have to change the next time I have to upgrade the hardware. I will not like this change – at first. I’ll […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:14+00:00March 28th, 2013|Categories: Business, Musings, Technology|Tags: demise of ISDN, ISDN voice talent, Source Connect|

Interrup…what the h#%@! was that? Distrac…oooh, look at that!

Today, I am not talking about being distracted by amusing kitty videos on Facebook, although I did see at least one funny video that distracted me so far today.

And I’m not talking about the constant flow of email that comes in that – of course – needs to be handled immediately (even if it DOESN’T).

Nor am I talking about being interrupted by the dog scratching at the door, or the cat sliding across some papers which are now all over the floor and need to be picked up before the dog actually gets in to trample them with dirty paws.

And I am not talking about the frequent helicopter flyovers – both routine (the gas’em up path is over my house) and not-so-routine (the circling helo’s looking for whatever mischief is being sparked by semi-high density housing and a bad economy).

No today it is interruptions of major proportions – but an […]

Connie Terwilliger2013-03-21T14:19:50+00:00March 21st, 2013|Categories: Business, Musings, Recording|

A Dozen Years and Counting..(wait make that almost 3 dozen…)

I’ve been in the voiceover business for much more than 12 years, but I got an email the other day from an occasional client and noticed that the earliest email I have from him is dated 2000. And then after looking at my current client list, I see a couple of others on-going since then, some with monthly (even weekly) work. My records for much earlier than that have either been lost for good on some dead hard drive, or packed away in boxes.

But I would put my first paid voiceover work doing some TV Staff Announcing in 1975, when I was working part-time at WTIU-TV during graduate school at Indiana University. Prior to that in 1972, I wrote, voiced and produced public service announcements on KCOE-FM while at Coe College in Cedar Rapids Iowa. So if I do the math, the number of years doing something related to voiceovers […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:14+00:00March 2nd, 2013|Categories: Musings|Tags: Artist Management Agency, General Dynamics video department|

Pro Bono or No Pro Bono or “Huh? What are you thinking?”

“Pro bono: done for free, done without compensation, for the public good”

I occasionally am asked by companies if I can provide voice tracks for little or no money. In most of these cases, the company is a not-for-profit and I can weigh the value of the public good against the value of my current bank account. OK, that’s a little flippant. At this point in my career I can afford to donate some of my time to a good cause. But even when I was just starting out, if the right cause came along, I would make the time for it.

However, it is important to remember that not-for-profit does not translate directly to not-for-money. Every group has a budget of some sort, or it will cease to be a group at some point.

I walk a tightrope on this issue, because in addition to my definitely for-profit voiceover business, I am the Executive Director of a not-for-profit 501c3 group that […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:14+00:00February 4th, 2013|Categories: Auditioning, Business, Musings|Tags: Groucho Marx, Negotiating, pro bono|