If it starts out badly…

If something starts out badly, chances are it is not going to get much better. In the case of a movie, we keep hoping it will get better, because we just spent a whole bunch of money to see it, plus the popcorn and beverage.

You can do your research, but talent can be very subjective, so something someone else says is great, may not be great to your ears and eyes. Now, testimonials can’t hurt. And referrals are usually helpful, especially if you trust the person giving you the referral.

So, tonight I decided to do an On Demand movie – checked out the new releases and popped over to Rotten Tomatoes to see what they said about the movie before pushing the BUY button.

93% positive! Wow, boy was I looking foward to seeing this movie, despite the fact that it had an actor in it that I have never thought was […]

2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00December 25th, 2011|Categories: Musings|Tags: |
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Priorities – Fun!

My niece (German-American) moved in with me in October. She wanted to see what life is like in the States. And life as I know it has changed forever. Well, OK that is probably a bit more dramatic than it really is, but things sure have changed around here.

The past couple of years I have been watching the balance of personal time and work time change as my mother’s needs have changed. And despite a dramatic uptick in personal time things are going pretty well with things on the work side.

Now, with a wonderfully wacky and semi-wild adult child living with me, my fun time has increased as well. It could be that the fall is filled with opportunities to party. Opportunities that I simply have not taken advantage of for a while.

Has all of this fun time impacted my business?

Yes. New clients every week. Repeat clients coming back with new […]

2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00December 20th, 2011|Categories: Business, Musings|Tags: |
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Put the pot on and bring it to a boil

Many voiceover people use various kinds of nasal rinses to keep their sinuses clean and clear. I use one of those plastic squeeze bottles. Others use a Neti Pot.

But a story in the news recently points out that this can be a dangerous habit unless you take some precautions to sterilize the water.

Two people were found dead in Louisiana after using unclean water in their Neti Pots.

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/16/two-dead-in-louisiana-after-unclean-water-used-in-neti-pots/?hpt=hp_bn10

I had heard about these deadly amoebas when I took a canoe trip down the Colorado River from the Hoover Dam. All the way down to the water, they repeated the admonition not to dunk our heads under the water in the hot springs. They seemed pretty serious about it – and now I know why.

These amoebas can get into your brain and are 95% lethal.

So, even though it is probably a pretty low risk, I’ll be using distilled water or boiling it before rinsing […]

2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00December 18th, 2011|Categories: Announcements|
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Be Picky!

I pay to play on Voice123. And as each month passes, I am more and more picky about the time I spend auditioning. And yet, I am still auditioning a bit more than all Voice123 Premium Subscribers that also speak English – North American.

I just counted up the auditions I’ve done in the past 6 months…63 auditions. I think I’ve had 2 bookings – could be more, I’d have to do a little database research. A lot of Finalist rankings, but the phone hasn’t rung yet with the gig – and maybe never will. Too soon to tell on some of them and relationships are bubbling I am sure.

Frankly I would be thrilled to have 10 auditions a month from my agents. I’m up to about 8 per month with one agent and the others? Not even close. Of course, I do get booked through agents without auditioning, which is […]

2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00December 9th, 2011|Categories: Auditioning, Marketing, Musings, Negotiating|
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The VO-BB Takes on New York

Is it almost Wednesday? I’ve been back from New York and the 2011 New York Voiceover Mixer created by my friend Erik Sheppard – this year co-sponsored by my friend Marc Graue – for two days now, but I am still reveling in the sights, sounds and feelings of being in New York City with a wonderful group of people who mean quite a lot to me.

Professional voiceover folk. People who do what I do. Who understand what I do. From all around the world. From small towns to the Big Apple, they all understand what it means to get a an email with a script from a client who trusts you to “do your thing.”

But it is more than that. These are virtual friends who became real friends. Friends you can hug.

The road to the mixer started with an old message board called the Voiceover Cyberstation. The host at […]

2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00December 6th, 2011|Categories: Musings|
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Content is a woman, distribution is a man.

While I am not directly involved in content creation as a producer anymore, or on the distribution side of things, this article caught my eye because of my interest in seeing good content.

I’m pretty sure I have posted links to this guy’s article before – Ashkan Karbasfrooshan is CEO of WatchMojo.com, a producer of premium video content.

These two articles talk about online content and exclusivity and include what seems to be an accurate picture of content being a “woman” and distribution, a “man.”

He postulates…

By and large, distribution companies

–        never make any promises,

–        have no-strings-attached offerings,

–        make no commitments,

–        rarely seek exclusivity, and

–        when they do, it’s usually too good to be true.

Content owners, meanwhile,

–        enter distribution deals with expectations,

–        believe the promises they hear,

–        expect a commitment, and

–        want a guarantee.

In his second article on the same subject, he adds a third and fourth element to this […]

2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00November 28th, 2011|Categories: Business, Communication, Musings|Tags: , , , |
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Are you still doing voiceover work?

As a long time voiceover talent, I get email from past clients on a regular basis asking me if I am still doing voiceover work. I assure them that I am and their relief is followed by a script.

It begs the question though…how many times do clients return to someone and find that they are no longer in business? As technology and services change and it becomes easier for people to hang out their shingle proclaiming their voiceover prowess, it strikes me that many people who get hired today for a project (and may even do a decent job on that project) may not be able to sustain voiceover as a viable business and simply not be around when the client needs an update.

Their equipment may still be hooked up, but their new day job, the one they had to take to put food on the table and pay the […]

2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00November 23rd, 2011|Categories: Business|Tags: , , , |
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I Wanna Go Viral!!!

Yeah! And I want to win the lottery too. Going viral isn’t really something you count on.

But WAIT! There may be some key elements in viral videos that if incorporated into your work COULD lead your video to end up with that all telling hit count, likes, reposts, shares, etc.

Bryan Boettger, Chief Creative Officer of The Buddy Group and creator of the Viral Barometer, just published an article on MediaPost with some tips on things that MIGHT help make your video rock the ethernet.

Bryan says, “It’s just a matter of applying some science to your art.”

Here’s the short list – check out his article for the details – including links to videos that exhibit one or more of these particular elements. I have to admit I was strangely drawn to the taxidermist spot – very odd…

1. Authenticity

2. Irreproducible

3. Odd

4. Funny

5. Musical

6. […]

2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00November 11th, 2011|Categories: Business|Tags: , , |
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The 1% (or whatever it is) in the VO Biz

With all the talk about the 1% vs the 99% these days with regards to Wall Street and Jobs and Taxes, something crossed my eyeballs this morning that shows that this spread exists in other areas as well.

Voiceover actors have been chatting about the jobs being lost to “celebrity” voices for years now…ever since the animated Alladin was released featuring Robin Williams as the Genie. There is no doubt that Robin Williams stole that movie, but it paved the way for more and more celebrity on-camera actors being cast in animated features and fewer and fewer opportunities for working class voice actors.

Written by SCOTT MESLOW – an Atlantic contributor and a film and television writer based in Washington, D.C., who has also written for Campus Progress andWealthBriefing – this article highlights how the “A-list” actors are nudging out the “ubiquitous but nearly anonymous, traditional voice actors.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/10/how-celebrities-took-over-cartoon-voice-acting/247481/

His main question is whether there […]

2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00October 31st, 2011|Categories: Business, Musings|Tags: , , , |
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In the Online World, Context is King…

It is hard to get any work done these days because you follow links which lead to more links and suddenly you have forgotten what you went online to do in the first place, but it is almost always an interesting distraction. Sometimes pure silliness, sometimes thought provoking, sometimes good for business. I’m always looking for interesting tidbits that will help the bottom line.

One of the mantras of video has been “Content is King.” With the emergence and tsunami of online video, it may be that the context will be driving the dollars.

Today, I was reading a post from MediaPost and it led me to an article called “Context is King: How Videos are Found and Consumed Online” packed with information from a November 2006 study by Bear Stearns Cable and Satellite analyst Spencer Wang called “Why Aggregation & Context and Not (Necessarily) Content are […]

2018-02-06T06:48:20+00:00October 24th, 2011|Categories: Business, Musings|Tags: , , , , , |
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