Blog – Page 15 – Connie Terwilliger

The Cost of Doing Business

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.

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:18+00:00January 8th, 2012|Categories: Announcements, Business|Tags: education, FaffCon, unconference, Ventura Beach CA, voiceover conference|

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 […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:18+00:00January 4th, 2012|Categories: Business, Marketing|Tags: interactive video, Marketing, MediaPost, predictions of the future, video trends, voiceover work|

Get a Kick in the Pants! Get the New Edition of “There’s Money Where Your Mouth Is”

I just sort of fell into the voiceover business. I really didn’t have any training. No school of broadcasting. No acting classes (well, none since the 2nd grade). But I had done a bit of radio in college and that led to some staff announcing while I was in grad school. Grad school led to a job in a TV station, first as a director, then, after deciding that was something that I didn’t want to do for the rest of my life, as a staff announcer. A live staff announcer.

A live staff announcer who didn’t sound like a typical announcer – so the door to my little closet-sized booth would open on a regular basis with people handing me commercial copy. After a period of time, I decided that I might need to learn a bit more about this voiceover stuff – and bought my first book –

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00December 29th, 2011|Categories: Announcements, Auditioning, Business, Techniques|Tags: Elaine Clark, There's Money Where Your Mouth Is, voiceover book|

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 […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00December 25th, 2011|Categories: Musings|Tags: what makes something great?|

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 […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00December 20th, 2011|Categories: Business, Musings|Tags: voiceover business|

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 […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00December 18th, 2011|Categories: Announcements|

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 […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00December 9th, 2011|Categories: Auditioning, Marketing, Musings, Negotiating|

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 […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00December 6th, 2011|Categories: Musings|

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 […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00November 28th, 2011|Categories: Business, Communication, Musings|Tags: Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, exclusivity, online video, WatchMojo.com|

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 […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:19+00:00November 23rd, 2011|Categories: Business|Tags: repeat clients, staying in business, voice acting, voiceover work|

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