A Crisis of Confidence and Tree Trimming

The past 6 months or so have been great on many fronts. Business and personal. I had a great summer. The weather was wonderful and I became an Artlab groupie. Never ending concerts and art shows. There were parties and events and bike rides and sunsets at the beach.

And business was booming. I switched my invoicing to Freshbooks in May and have been watching the columns grow steadily. Until this month.

It has been a fairly dismal month so far compared to the last 5 months. I have some projects yet to be billed, so they don’t show up on the columns yet, and by the end of the month, it will look better, but still, looking at it now makes me wonder what the heck I am doing.

I’ve been making my living doing only voiceover work for more than 10 years – after many years working as […]

We Want What We Cannot Have

Why is it that the faster technology advances the less it does what we want?

Oh, it does so much – and much much more – but the very fact that it does so much makes us want it to do more!

And some of stuff not doing what we want it to do is operator error. It does so much – how can anyone know the total scope of its capabilities…until you ask it to do something it simply can’t.

For example, my travel recording gear used to be a dbx mini-pre with my AKG 1000 mic and a Toshiba laptop. Worked great. Then I got a MicPortPro, which saved some weight and space.

But it didn’t work on my laptop, because I was using Adobe Audition 2 and it didn’t support USB mic connections. An upgrade to Audition 3 was needed to get the MicPortPro to work with the laptop. Fine, software […]

2018-02-06T06:48:15+00:00September 9th, 2012|Categories: Musings, Technology|Tags: , , , |

No complaints…

I am not complaining.

Sure it’s hot. But we haven’ t had the heat that the rest of the country has had this summer. And sure it gets even hotter when I have to turn off the little AC in my studio to actually do some work.

Sure there has been a small plane buzzing over my general neighborhood for the past month or so that interferes with my recording when it is in the Western most part of its loop or grid (it varies from day to day). Since it is a “special” little plane, no one can tell me how long it will be doing whatever it is doing.

Sure my recording tower is acting wonky – and Audition and W2W refuse to work with the Gina card or the onboard sound card – but WILL work with my MicPortPro, so until I can find the right tech to troubleshoot, I […]

2018-02-06T06:48:15+00:00August 12th, 2012|Categories: Musings|Tags: , , , |

Forum Decorum

I belong to a slew of groups on LinkedIn – including a large number of voiceover related groups. Why is it that there seems to be a plethora of unprofessional comments. Social media has been around for years now and it amazes me how people don’t seem to understand that what they post is there for the world to see (when a group is an open group).

I felt compelled to comment today on one of them after a couple of people actually started slamming a legitimate producer for not posting his undying thanks to the group. His post was 6 MONTHS ago and people are still posting comments with links to their demos. And now some are complaining that he hasn’t posted to say thank you!?

It is an International Group with members from all over the world, and perhaps members with little time on social media or little time in […]

Another of my favorite MediaPost Pubs: Out to Launch

Want to see some of the most interesting, clever, stylish or funny of the new ads (mostly video, but some print too) being produced around the world? They are even including a random iPhone app of the week (what about my droid app of the week?).

Sign up to get Out to Launch – another of the multitude of enewsletters published by MediaPost.

This week they are showcasing spots for Orbitz which are pretty funny, Tetley Tea from an Australian firm, and Jagermeister’s first ad in the US. Just wish my internet connection was faster! Takes a while to download and play them.

2018-02-06T06:48:16+00:00May 10th, 2012|Categories: Communication, Musings|Tags: , , , |

In Between Sessions

I wish I could say that I was so busy that I had back to back sessions every day and had to squeeze in the bookkeeping, marketing and plant watering. Well, I’m busy enough that I make a living doing this voiceover stuff without the back-to-back sessions. And even if I don’t have projects stacked up waiting, I still have a hard time getting all the other stuff done. But there is simply no way I can actually organize a day with any strict rules on when I am going to do anything.

The day started out like a typical Tuesday. Walk down to the coffee shop for my 7-8 AM solve the world’s problems group, but the phone rang and I had to race back home to get the car to drive out to my mom’s Assisted Living Community to call off the Paramedics. You would think after 7 months […]

What Do Voiceover Folk Say?

The flood of S*%t People Say videos isn’t stopping apparently. Just saw one posted to Facebook by my good buddy Trish, the Dish.

This one was done by a bunch of Australian talent who work in studios. Pretty funny stuff. But considering that so many of us work primarily out of our own studios these days – the bits about the color of the cable or asking for a different set of “cans” – just wouldn’t happen.

But I have so many memories of working in the different studios around town. Some with cans that squeezed your head. Some with cans that fell off because they were so loose.

Watch the body language of the “mushroom” bit. I so wanted to hear what she came up with.

And I do that warm up in the shower! Well, not exactly that warm up, but something goofy.

RMK Management Pty Ltd is […]

2018-02-06T06:48:18+00:00February 27th, 2012|Categories: Musings|Tags: , , |

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: , |

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 […]

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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