Talking funny is serious business... MCM in the News.

My local paper ran a story about me this morning. I think the photograph will allow me to continue to avoid autograph-seekers....

Link to article

Audio linked to the online version of the story

Voice artist wins big at Ad Club of Western Massachusetts event.

My friend and fellow voice talent Steve Anthony reminded me a few weeks ago of the existence of the Ad Club of Western Massachusetts. Although I had looked at their membership list some time ago, I have not really given them the attention they deserve. And after hearing a testimonial from Janet Ault on Pat Fraley’s Gypsy’s Guide to the Business of Voiceover (she describes how her experience volunteering at her local ad club’s golfing tournament led to a VO gig that covered her own investment and then some) I decided to explore and get out of the studio again. I reserved a spot at this month’s Ad Club luncheon, which took place yesterday at the Sheraton in Springfield.

I arrived about 15 minutes late since my directions took me as far as Main Street and then dropped me like a hot potato, so I had to do a bit of hunting to find the place. When I walked into the hotel ballroom and saw the sea of over a hundred unfamiliar faces I just took the first seat I saw and hoped for the best – that whoever I was seated next to would be open to talking to a stranger, and that I would be able to make intelligent conversation.

I needn’t have worried. To my left was the Director of Communications at the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation, who told me fascinating things about the history of his organisation (my family was adopted last month by a terrific German Shepherd, and I love hearing about guide dogs). Next to him was a gentleman in sales from a production company I had been trying to get noticed by for 2 years. When I told him I do voiceovers he got animated and asked for a business card as they are always looking for new talent. That was as far as I got with my table mates before the program started – a talk by internet journalist and blogger Tish Grier. We heard about some of the key elements of blogging, such as the importance of having biographical information on your blog page so that readers can connect with you, the ethical ramifications of blogging, and much more.

After the talk there was, unexpectedly, a raffle. Several companies had contributed prizes and the winners' names were pulled from a basket that had been at the registration table labeled “add your business card if you would like to be on our mailing list”. The first three winners received a teddy bear from Hampden Bank. After that, I suddenly envisioned myself winning a prize. I rarely win anything in raffles or contests, and yet I felt this so keenly that I actually took my little satchel off my lap so I could get up in case I won something and had to go claim my prize. And can you believe it, my card was the next one pulled from that basket. This prize had been donated by Business West, and it was two tickets to an Arlo Guthrie concert next month. I LOVE Arlo Guthrie. How did they know?? I bounded up to the front of the room to receive this amazing gift, and floated back to my seat with it. Luckily for me my benefactor at Business West stopped at my table on her way out of the room and I had a chance to tell her how very much I appreciated those tickets – but I think she had already figured that out.

Yes, this particular expedition away from the studio was definitely a winner. I came away with much more than I brought, and gave away my last business card, which is a good thing, because my new ones are waiting for me. Which may mean another road trip. Oh and by the way – the gig I missed by being away for a few hours last week? That gentleman called me yesterday and told me his client had not liked the voice he’d had to hire instead of mine.

The karmic forces of the last week are making me dizzy.

Charles Michel’s Voice Over "Fun"damentals.

My voice-over coach and friend, Charles Michel is giving a 3 hour workshop on Saturday, 4 November at PPI Recording in Manhattan. The price: a 25th anniversary special of $25. My jaw dropped when I saw that number. Charles is on the west coast these days more than he’s on the east coast, so if you’re in the area I highly recommend you reserve a place at this event no matter what your level as a voice talent. Charles is a terrific coach with a wonderful sense of humor. I got so much out of my work with him at a time when I really needed support.

Clean up the studio and find inspiration.

I’m doing a major clean-up today and found this newspaper clipping showing my horoscope from I don’t even know when – way before voice-over was even a gleam in my eye. I kept it because it was so full of promise (also I get a kick out of horoscopes that begin “Born today” rather than “Born on this date” – it always makes me want to say “Born today, you are very young indeed”). So, I’m posting it here where it can inspire me and other Scorpios, rather than continuing to let it gather dust in my studio.

Now, please pardon me, I need to get back to my persevering (and my cleaning).

MCM’s horoscope from antiquity

No rest for the weary…

The trip to Boston should have been plenty for one week, but I had an obligation to give a talk with a group from Hidden Tech at a forum on virtual companies at the New England Business Expo in Worcester, Mass., yesterday, so off I went. This time I had no audiobook to keep me company, but I dug up a 12-hour CD set on learning German that my mother had abandoned, and tossed that in the car for the trip. I studied German for 10 years but this production took a very different approach from anything I had heard before and it was a great refresher course.

In our room at the conference center I saw some familiar faces and many new ones; a fellow Hidden Techie asked me about my work and then quickly asked for my card, for as it turns out she is a video producer in Worcester. I thought I had already scoured the city of Worcester for contacts but it amazes me how many are still turning up. So the event started auspiciously. I’m actually rather enjoying the talk circuit – that was a part of my previous life as a biologist that was gratifying (I once was invited to give a talk about my bird research at UCLA – I sure would welcome an all-expenses-paid trip to Los Angeles now…). Still, I was a bit keen to get back to the studio so I high-tailed it out of there after the presentations, did a speed-tour of the exhibitors at the expo and got some information about commercial production at a cable company, then jumped into the car (lunchless this time), paid for parking (a mere bee-sting at $7 for 2 ½ hours), and studied German all the way home. No unwelcome surprises today and I had time to get some work done. I need to brush up on my Georgia accent now, as Miss Lizzy needs one – she is a lizard who will be helping young children read their letters home from camp. That’s on the books for today, along with a phone gig and a short corporate narration.

There’s no place like home.

To market to market...

I tried an experiment yesterday. To date I have focused my marketing efforts primarily on production companies and advertising agencies, but have been trying to pick up the pace in finding medical narration clients. I saw in last Sunday’s Boston Globe that there would be a life sciences career fair at the Sheraton Boston on the 18th. Admission was free but required business attire, 3 copies of one’s resumé and at least two years experience in the life sciences. I very much doubted they would be expecting someone like me in their midst, but I thought, what the heck, I’m sure to learn something. So I printed out my resumé, with information about my business on the other side, and off I went. I had a pleasant drive listening to Pat Fraley’s Tom Sawyer and managed to find the Sheraton without too many wrong turns.

What a great occasion for someone looking for a biotech job! Many big names were there – Merck, Genzyme, Wyeth, New England Biolabs, and many small, highly focused companies as well. I talked to lots of people, but none of them knew a thing about narration, had never thought about it, and did not get it at all – they kept trying to point me to full-time positions that might be vaguely related to it. A few twigged that their corporate offices in another state would be more likely to be involved in that side of the business. One gentleman from Mass General Hospital had a Powerpoint presentation running on a laptop at his table, with narration that it turned out his boss had done. We spent a pleasant quarter of an hour chatting, and when he looked at my resumé and saw I had graduated from Princeton he said “can we hug?” He had graduated 12 years before I did and we sang a few snatches of one of the fight songs together – he was awfully quick on the uptake (and I thought, egads, I never would have predicted this when I got up this morning).

Well, I finally gave up, after a valiant effort to hit as many exhibitors and get rid of as many copies of my resumé as I could. I made my way somewhat glumly out of the Sheraton, but as I did so I passed another on-going conference sponsored by the Harvard Medical School Department of Continuing Education which includes Continuing Medical Education and I swooped in like a harrier and got the name of the go-to guy at CME. I’m waiting for a call back from him. I grabbed a bit of overpriced lunch at Au Bon Pain, miraculously found my car again without any trouble, nearly fainted at the price tag of two hours in the garage ($24) and gratefully gave myself over to the final, gripping minutes of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I got home to find a job waiting from a brand new client in Madison, Wisconsin, offering much more money than I am accustomed to getting for a :30, only to find that because the email had been sent 5 hours previously with no word from me, the client had been obliged to find somebody else.

Aghhh!! Why do I ever leave my studio? Car crashes, expensive parking, burning excessive gasoline to drive my solitary self 100 miles from home, missed jobs – is it worth it? I dunno. I guess it gives me something to write about. Presently I’m in the red as far as my experiment went, but sometimes the payoff is way down the road. I’ll try to keep an open mind. And I'm seriously considering a Blackberry.

More on the New Media Forum

What a surprise to open the local newspaper today to find that our New Media forum (see my blog for 4 October 2006) made the front page!! It is certainly a subject that should be of great interest to everyone who would like to see the economy of the Pioneer Valley grow in ways that will benefit the region, while not polluting or causing traffic jams. Also, it will be of interest to anyone anywhere involved in New Media.

You can read the article here (page one) and here (page two). My talk was not mentioned in the article, so don’t expect to see it, but I couldn’t be more pleased about the publicity for Hidden Tech and New Media in general.

Out of the Studio Again!!

Hey, I crawled out of my catacomb again today and visited another studio, making the 1 hour-plus drive to Worcester, MA to visit Slav Vaskevich of Vaskevich Studios. Slav had sent some voice-over work my way last week and then had floored me with an offer to print some business cards for me. I wondered how he knew how desperately I need business cards? I thought this generosity was a result of a discount I had given him as a new client of MCM Voices, and because he seemed very pleased with the work I had done. But today he explained it to me. He just likes to help people. He said he understands the challenges of running a small business and he likes to feel that we are all in this together, helping where we can. He expects nothing in return.

What a wonderful way to live one’s life. I am trying not to think in terms of what I can do for him now, because clearly, that is not what he’s looking for. But I will definitely be inspired by this generosity, and am humbled. I hope I will be more aware in the future when opportunities come my way to do a good turn for somebody else.

So, I spent a pleasant hour talking with Slav about business card design and looking at his beautiful studio. By the way, no car accidents this time. The rear-ended minivan is in the shop, and I was driving a new, used car that we had been saving up for anyway and the occasion of a crunched vehicle seemed like a signal to make that purchase and donate our teen-aged Volvo to the local public radio station, WFCR. It has a CD player. This is a good thing, because now I can listen to stuff that was not available to me before. On the way to Worcester I listened to the first four chapters of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, narrated by Pat Fraley. What a treat! On the way home, I listened to Jill Connolly’s Venus in Transit – absolutely dreamily gorgeous – and another Fraley oeuvre, The Gypsy’s Guide to the Business of Voiceover, full of excellent advice for the business side of the venture. I don’t usually wreck cars in order to get a CD player, but golly, I can see the upside of last week’s audition-gone-awry.

New Media Focus Group.

Last night I found myself in front of a microphone again, but this time I wasn’t being recorded, I was giving a talk to a room full of people. The occasion was the New Media Focus Group organised by Amy Zuckerman, tireless founder of Hidden Tech and of the strategic marketing firm A-Z International.

Hidden Tech is a network of some 1500 small businesses in the Pioneer Valley region of Massachusetts, and it includes a remarkable number of talented “New Media” professionals. The goal of last night’s forum was to highlight these new media businesses and the potential for building bridges with other business people and academics in the region. More details about the evening and the speakers can be found at Hidden Tech’s website. It was a great opportunity to meet some of the extraordinary talent in this area, from documentary film makers and video game designers to other voice artists and audio producers. I have long been aware of the presence here of some of these people and had been in touch with many of them by email or telephone, but was still surprised to find how many I had not yet discovered. The chance to be one of the speakers was one that fell into my lap by great good fortune. Amy had posted a request on the Hidden Tech email list for help scanning materials for her presentation, and I responded. I refused payment so she offered me something far more valuable, namely a place on this program. One of the highlights of the evening for me was finally getting to meet Jill Connolly, singer and voice talent extraordinaire, formerly of Boston but now working out of her studio in the beautiful Berkshire foothills and her media collaborative in Greenfield, MA. Jill and I had talked on the phone when I was just starting out two years ago, and I am so looking forward to getting to know this lovely person better.

A few months ago after a business net-working event and a visit to a local producer’s studio, I vowed to get out more. Last night I was reminded that I still don’t do it enough. There are fascinating people out there and great opportunities. Despite working around the globe, this can be a very solitary business in the New Media Age. It’s important to fight the isolation, even if one doesn’t feel deprived. These reminders of what it’s like out there in the world are so important. I’m looking forward to being a part of Hidden Tech’s bridge-building enterprise and to seeing the realisation of the Pioneer Valley’s potential as a media hub.