Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Visiting My Past.

Sometimes I have trouble getting myself out of the house. By now I should have learned that invariably I have a good time when I go out. But last Thursday instead of packing my suitcase and heading to New York for my high school reunion, I answered emails, did voice-over auditions, and generally dragged my heels before finally hitting the road - at just the right time for Manhattan rush hour – and I got a less-than-ideal parking spot as well. But once I was in the city, back at the family apartment and surrounded by familiar books and furnishings and all on my own, it was very relaxing to be away from the studio for the first time in months. The next morning I took the alumni tour of “Little Dalton” (the building that houses the preschool through third grade) and “Big Dalton” (4th through 12th grades) and had a blast. I sometimes dream about my old school and thought it was time to update the dream template since I had not seen most of it since I graduated (actually, I didn’t graduate, I dropped out after 11th grade and then went to college a year later - but I'm still considered a member of my graduating class). Joining me on the tour was someone I had not seen since I left Dalton – she had been a good friend, but she had married a Frenchman and lived in France, Morocco and Jordan so there wasn’t much opportunity to get together and we lost touch. We had lunch together after the tour and talked a blue streak. That evening at our class dinner I renewed my acquaintance with people I’d seen 5 years ago at the last reunion, as well as some I had not seen at all in the decades since leaving school.

I was astonished to discover how deep those roots are. Whether it’s just the formative nature of the middle and high school years, or something about these particular people and my school (very progressive) or the tumultous epoch in which I grew up, but I found I now have even more in common with many of the people I went to school with than I did when I first knew them. After staying well beyond the time when our reunion dinner was supposed to end, four of us went out to a restaurant and sipped tea or wine and talked for another two hours. I will definitely be staying in closer touch with these people. And, it doesn’t hurt that some of them are filmmakers!

Close on the heels of this trip down Memory Lane I had another opportunity to see an old friend with whom I’d lost touch. And again I dragged my feet – it was a hot night and I had trouble getting myself out the door. But get out I did. The featured speaker at last night’s meeting of the Hampshire Bird Club had been a good friend when I was an undergraduate and he a graduate student at Princeton. Bruce Beehler has been studying the birds of New Guinea ever since I've known him; now his research is part of his job at Conservation International. A trip to New Guinea in 2005 yielded so many new species of plants and animals that it got considerable media attention, and the 60 Minutes crew persuaded Bruce to take them back with him in 2007. They produced a 12 minute segment that was well received in December 2007, and Jay Leno even spoofed it last week! The original segment can be seen below, with a shorter segment showing the courtship dance of the golden-fronted bowerbird.







Someone videotaped Bruce’s talk last night, and I spoke with the videographer, who plans to produce a piece about it for community access television and he invited me to narrate it. I love finding ways to blend my current career in voice-over with my previous one as a biologist, and this is definitely one of those ways.

The moral of this story: Always, always say yes to opportunities to get out of the studio and be among people. You’ll almost always have fun, and you never know where it might lead.

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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Peter O'Connell responds.

audio'connell voice-over talentVoice talent Peter O'Connell took time from his busy schedule of bagel noshing to respond to my breakfast story with a wonderful & hilarious post about networking and marketing. Peter is a very funny guy, but his post is not purely comedy - it is full of excellent ideas for voice actors (and all business people).

And, I'm very relieved to report, Peter has excused me for the time being from the requirement to leave my grape-nuts, Kefir and berries behind and go out into the world for bagels with potential colleagues. It isn't the time, the venue, or the meal that matters, of course - it's networking early and often. Take karate for example - one of my few long-term rituals. A few weeks ago I read about a medical communications company I had not heard of (it's huge, so I must have been networking with ostriches before this). I entered a few key words into Google to learn more about it and try to find someone whom I might contact about medical narration. To my astonishment, Google Desktop turned up an email in one of my very own folders from a karate colleague in New York. She is the Creative Director at this company! And she put me in touch with the head of the video department there - who as it turns out attended the same small private school I attended in Manhattan years ago.

I assure you that no bagels changed hands in all of this. And no grape-nuts. No food at all. As in karate, I realised (again) that you must always keep your eyes open and be aware of your surroundings.

Which is what Peter O'Connell has been saying all along. So take a marketing and networking lesson from Peter. He knows his stuff. And if you ever have him over to breakfast, give him a cinnamon raisin bagel, not toasted, with butter. Hold the Pepsi. Now, stop reading this post and go read his!!

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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Why I Don’t Conduct Voice-over Business Over Breakfast Like Peter O’Connell Does.

My friend Peter O’Connell is a voice talent, producer and marketing expert, and he is one of my heroes. He’s full of ideas and of energy that he invests in his business and in his family, friends, and colleagues and he’s always coming up with something new. So, when Peter says that over the years he has conducted a lot of lucrative business at the breakfast place he visits every single morning of the work week, I feel I should be listening, but the fact is I cannot bring myself to do what he does. Why is that?

In science one often speaks in terms of proximate and ultimate explanations. The latter are the “real” ones, the former are the superficial ones that sort of masquerade as explanations. Let me first talk about the proximate explanation for why I breakfast at home. This is best represented by the photograph I took of my breakfast this morning: Grape-nuts and Kefir with flax seed meal, topped with fresh and frozen berries, with a side of Celestial Seasonings Honey Lemon Ginseng green tea.

Yummy Breakfast Chez MCM


OMG. So yummy. The only place I know that serves this nutritious repast bursting with beneficial phytochemicals is my own place here by the river with the newly arrived Eastern Phoebes (the first insectivorous migratory birds of the season in this region) buzzing their euphonious song from the leafless branches. So there’s that. Then the fact that I seem to spend my first waking hours in service to the other members of my family – getting the kids to school since invariably they miss their ride these days because they are young teenagers and the school system’s start times are designed to give the most sleep to the kids who need it the least (the elementary schoolers) while those who need it most have to be out the door at an inhumane hour (or maybe it’s because they have a lousy mother who lets them stay up too late). And to save on gas my husband takes public transportation to work, but I drive him to the bus. Three days out of five, I then park the car at the college and spend the morning in my Spanish and German classes (you really don't need to point out that we should be riding our bikes. We already know it and are actually going to do it today). The other two days I get to spend the whole day in the studio and am glad not to have to go anywhere.

So the truth is, fitting a business breakfast into my daily routine is not something I have felt strongly motivated to do – the quarterly Chamber of Commerce breakfasts are a different story entirely – I look forward to those tremendously, as well as the monthly Arrive@5’s and the Chamber’s Tourism Committee meetings. But I often think of Peter’s daily ritual and wonder what I am missing out there. I wonder, does it have to be breakfast? Perhaps this fixation on breakfast is a matter of convenience and economy – breakfast is early and cheap. But what about a mid-morning coffee or tea – we could bring back “elevenses”! And, would it have to be every day? I don’t do well with ritual that requires effort. And finally, where would be the best place in my area for this to occur?

I have thoughts of experimenting with breakfast and elevenses and visiting a different local establishment each week to try to determine where the most interesting people are hanging out, and if it is a regular occurrence for them. But I suspect it’s an experiment that’s doomed to fail. This is because you can’t go out a few times and expect something to happen RIGHT NOW. Business relationships are cultivated over the long term - and many of them, as with Peter's breakfast, probably start out as a social thing, not as an overtly business venture. You meet people and get to know them and trust them and vice versa, and maybe some day one of you can do something for the other in business. And I just know that I don’t have the personality for a daily or even weekly ritual that requires what would be required for me to have what Peter O’Connell has developed over many years. I think you have to LIKE doing it in order for it to work. The closest I have come to ritual is going to karate class several times a week, which I’ve been doing for 7 years – but that is a ritual with infrastructure that makes it easier for me to go (I have friends there, my husband also goes, there are health benefits and a sense of accomplishment as well as spiritual peace). As for voice-over and marketing rituals, though, if it’s daily and it requires going somewhere, it just isn’t going to happen, which is a much simpler explanation and among the penultimate reasons why I don't do it (for clues to the ultimate reason, see yesterday's post on brain chemistry).

But I would love to enjoy these rituals vicariously – and I hope Peter will now oblige me by writing a blog post about the famous Fire-Up-the-Toaster-‘Cause-O’Connell-Just Pulled-Up Daily Breakfast Routine. How about it?

If you have a social/marketing ritual, I’d love to hear about it.

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Thursday, April 10, 2008

Voice-over Networking: NATURE Edition.

NATURE logo


You just never know what cool events are going to pop up in my little town. A few days ago I heard, rather at the last minute, that the local PBS station was hosting an evening with Fred Kaufman, Executive Producer of Nature. I love those shows, and documentaries are of course of great interest to a voice-over artist since they are almost always narrated. So I inquired and there had been a cancellation and I managed to get a ticket. The event was held at my beloved Garden House at Look Park, just a mile and a half from my house, so that made it all the more appealing.


The Garden House at Look Park



The lovely stone fireplace was once again blazing with a welcoming fire, just as it was the last time I attended an event at the Garden House. On exhibit were the winning photographs from the WGBY Wild About Nature Photography contest, as well as a number of other excellent nature photographs by local artists. I marveled at these wonderful works and had a very pleasant conversation with a WGBY staffer, who kindly requested my business card so he could pass it along to one of his colleagues at the station.

Ample h’ors d’oeuvres prepared by the Blue Heron Restaurant were available, and I helped myself and took a seat next to the small band, Cidade, which was playing Latin music. A guitarrist, violinist, bassist and percussionist made up the group, and whereas I suppose I should have been networking, I couldn’t tear myself away from this wonderful music. I had never before heard a band play tangos as listening music – most bands don’t even seem to know what they are.

Before long it was time for the warm-up act for Mr. Kaufman: Julie Ann Colier, a raptor rehabilitator from Wingmasters, brought along several owls and hawks to show us. Julie grew up in western Massachusetts and she talked about some of the changes in status of these birds since her childhood, such as the drastically reduced numbers of the American Kestrel – our smallest falcon – due to pesticide use. The owls she brought, as well as the Red-tailed Hawk, are doing fine, but numbers of the beautiful Golden Eagle have declined sharply in the northeast in the last 40 years.

Fred Kaufman gave a wonderful talk about some of the highlights of the projects he has worked on over the last 25 years with Nature. He also showed film clips from several of them including the famous footage of a fox hunting mice during winter at Yosemite, and an incredibly touching scene of two female elephants being reunited after two decades apart. One clip he did not show is included in a two-part program currently airing entitled “What females want and what males will do” (6 April and 13 April 2008). Featured in this footage is the courtship dance of a manakin (I believe it’s the red-capped manakin, Pipra mentalis). I found a video of this on Youtube, set to Michael Jackson music (you’ll see why). [UPDATE: The video has been removed from Youtube, for reasons unknown to me. My apologies for the inconvenience.]





I talked with Mr. Kaufman after the program, and learned that they now have one narrator whom they use for all their Nature documentaries – the wonderfully talented F. Murray Abraham. A great choice! Of course, I had hoped that they were adrift and scanning the small towns of western Massachusetts for a voice actor to take over this job, but I cannot deny that Mr. Abraham has more film credits than I. I’m working on that though!

A most enjoyable evening! As always, the WGBY staff did a super job of organising and publicising a wonderful event.

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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

I love my Ad Club.

Today was the season finale for the monthly luncheon series sponsored by the Ad Club of Western Massachusetts, a group I joined last December. I enjoy their events tremendously, always finding congenial people to talk to. Most of their gatherings are sit-down affairs, a venue I as a shy person find much easier than cocktail party-type get-togethers where I have to seek people out actively in order to connect. Today’s event was at the lovely Delaney House, a setting guaranteed to put guests in a convivial mood. I headed for a table with just one person seated there, thinking that relieving somebody else’s solitude would be a better idea than crashing a crowd, and thus I spent a very pleasant meal talking with a man who works for a company that produces in-theater advertising.

The program speaker today was Randy Snow, V.P. and Creative Director at R&R Advertising in Las Vegas. Randy is in charge of the highly successful “What happens here, stays here” campaign for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). He’s also an accomplished speaker and had our rapt attention for 45 minutes while he told the history of that campaign. Some of the ads are super funny and I loved them all (even though none of them had voiceover!).

The LVCVA is obviously a big client. After 9/11 they were very concerned – about a lot of things, of course, but one big concern was what would happen to the tourism industry in this country. Randy Snow had an idea (borrowed from Sam Walton), which was to ask the customers. Thousands of people were stranded in Las Vegas then and Snow and his team went out with note pads and talked to people. They asked them – "what should we do?" Almost everyone they spoke with said the same thing: when we start to recover from this disaster and start to think about traveling again, we probably aren’t going to feel like going to the Middle East or even Europe. You need to be here for us. Keep doing what you’re doing. So that’s exactly what they did. They’ve been doing it ever since, and there has been no diminution whatsoever in travel to Vegas since that time.

I don’t know where I’ve been in the years since these ads started running but I had only seen one of them on television. Here’s a great one: "The Wedding". I’ve never been to Las Vegas and have never felt the urge, but after seeing all those ads, I just might up and go and be somebody else for a few days. Not sure who, but I’ll find out when I get there!

When it came time to pick the door prize winners, Randy Snow pulled the business cards from the basket and handed them to the President of the Ad Club. I saw him pull mine out and the President looked at it and turned it over and felt it and said, “ooh, what a nice card!” Score another one for Vaskevich Studios, who designed those as a gift. I’m a very lucky gal to have such beautiful cards (and I made sure that Mr. Snow got one to keep).

I seem to have gotten myself onto the Event Planning Committee for next season. Not sure where I will find the time, but usually the busier I am the more efficient I am. And busy and efficient are both good things.

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Thursday, June 07, 2007

Volunteering at the “Making Media Now” Conference.

A few weeks ago I learned via the Beanywood website that the Boston Filmmakers’ Collaborative was hosting a conference at Boston University on June 1st. The registration fee wasn’t in my budget so I responded to the call for volunteers, and spent a delightful and extremely long day greeting, smiling at, listening to and directing people at the Photonics Center at BU. I learned a lot from the talks, met some very nice and interesting people, and now have many new connections in the Boston film-making crowd. This will undoubtedly be very helpful as I am navigating those waters myself (I’m producing a documentary and don’t always know if I’m sinking or swimming) – and one never knows when a Boston filmmaker might need to collaborate with a narrator in western Mass….


The Volunteer Crew (MCM at left)

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Thursday, October 26, 2006

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.

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Friday, October 20, 2006

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.

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Monday, September 25, 2006

I Survived My Audition.

I received a call Thursday afternoon from a Manhattan media production house asking me to audition on Monday (today) for a web commercial for a major national product. The audition was to be held in Manhattan, no remote recording please (my friend Drew was also invited to audition but since he's in the Dallas area he was told he couldn't be considered after all). Over the next few days I did some serious market research, as the product is one about which I had preconceptions, and yet as soon as I was faced with the possibility of being its spokesperson I found my ideas changing dramatically. I went to a store that sells only that product and paraphernalia, and spoke over the weekend with a number of people whose lives are enriched, if not dominated by that product. The company website was also very informative and I didn’t even make it through half of their material. I learned a great deal and was looking forward to the audition very much.

It’s a 3 hour drive from my home to Manhattan and I left my house at about 8:00 this morning and headed for the interstate. Around 8:15 the car ahead of me suddenly braked and came to a stop. All my attention was focused on avoiding a collision and fortunately I did not hit anyone or anything. The driver of the light pickup behind me was less fortunate and crashed into my car, and in my rear-view mirror I saw another pick-up slam into his. I got my minivan off the road as quickly as possible and called 911 to report the location of the accident and that it looked pretty bad behind me. I saw a small sedan pull over and a man dressed for his job at UPS hopped out and ran full speed back down the road to the scene of the worst of the accident. The man whose vehicle had hit mine pulled over in front of me so I got out to see how he was; he thought he had probably suffered a mild concussion and his pickup looked pretty bad. Eventually the police and paramedics arrived, took our reports and checked us out. I started to see tow trucks arriving, and some miserably smashed-up cars being removed from the scene. Miraculously, nobody was seriously hurt. The police officer at the scene pronounced my van drivable, although he advised me to go to a garage to have it checked out if I planned to continue on my way to New York. After we were cleared to leave, I headed south. My car seemed fine (although it looks “butt-ugly” now) and I decided to go ahead with my plans. I never knew what caused the cars in front of me to stop, and it kind of boggles my mind that none of them waited around to offer information or assistance - surely one of them must have noticed the multi-car pile-up behind them?

I did not make the audition on time, but a call to the recording studio informed me that late was fine, and I arrived at 25 minutes past my scheduled audition time. I pulled into a parking garage and asked their rates for an hour – it was the same as for a day, $16.95. As a native New Yorker I couldn’t stomach that and drove on, and was fortunate to find street parking a few blocks away. The recording studio was in a lovely old building in Chelsea – I love visiting other studios, and present were – the recording engineer and myself. No client, no casting director, just the two of us. The RE was very nice and personable, but he told me, “it would be pointless for me to give you direction because I have no idea what the client wants.” So we “did the needful” and got the job done, and I was on my way in less than 15 minutes.

It was a bit of a let down, I gotta say – I don’t mind the drive – usually – but I’d like to have a bit more of a reason for the trip than just going to another microphone in another state. I talked with my friend, fellow voice artist Anthony Mendez on the phone afterwards, and he said that’s the way it is in New York: “face time” is considered very important, even if there’s nobody there but you and the engineer. Maybe I’ll understand that some day. At any rate, the overall experience was a good one, and the market research I did reminded me, I hope, to keep an open mind about everything and everybody. And, not least of all, I’m very glad to be alive. I’ve never been in a collision before and although I don’t yet know how much it’s going to cost me, at least I had the relief of knowing that my driving was not responsible for it and that I didn’t hit anybody, and that nobody was seriously injured. On the ride home, as I watched cars zipping in and out of traffic at high speed, I wished I could tell their drivers, “don’t be stupid!” The reminder I got this morning of how vulnerable we all are was an important one, and I plan to be, if possible, even more vigilant on the road.

And it would be very nice to get a gig out of it too ;)

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Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Voice-over heaven.

I’ve been in the voice-over business for less than two years. Certain aspects of the business take some getting-used-to, particularly the way people don’t return calls and emails. That’s probably true of all of business, but I come from an academic background so I’m used to a world where people communicate (although not always well) rather than diving for cover when the phone rings. One time when a producer did return my call and I marveled at that, he said, “Woody Allen said, ‘it's not a dog eat dog world, it's a dog won't return other dogs' phone calls world’ .” That made me feel slightly better.

But one must persevere or wither on the voice-over vine. I recently got an email from a Boston-area company asking if I would be available for a job. I checked my database and saw that I had first contacted this company by email in March 2005. They had never responded, but I sent them an email every three months telling them what I had been up to. I go back and forth about when it’s time to give up on a company, and there are a few circumstances for that:

• When they go out of business
• When they tell me they don’t ever want to hear from me again (this is quite rare)
• When I realise that they don’t need VO in my areas of specialisation and I’m trying to focus on “warmer” prospects

My point is, protracted lack of response is no reason to give up. Apparently, it can take at least 16 months of steadfast silence before a company is ready to hire.

Once a company has hired me, I always look forward to finding out what kind of a client they will be. Frequently, I do the work, send it off, and hear nothing. I don’t like to send an invoice until I’ve gotten word that the client has what they need, although I’ve learned that certain of my peeps don’t say anything unless they need a retake. This doesn't bother me a bit; it's all in a day's work. For them I just wait a decent interval and send the invoice. Then there are the people who are enthusiastic and appreciative, and they even write to me when they don’t have work, they just like to keep in touch. Of course, I especially like those people. They are friendly, interesting, and a joy to work with. I also really like the people who have never hired me, but who nevertheless respond when they get my quarterly reports, and fill me in on what they’ve been up to. That is greatly appreciated.

And then, there’s Mr. S.

The first reason to love Mr. S. is that he found me, rather than the other way round. Also, he needed a character voice, with an Australian accent. Character voices, and in particular, accents, are my very favorite thing to do. Pat Fraley had mentioned, just a few short weeks before Mr. S. came along, that accents make up about minus 2% of what voice actors are called upon to do, and although I kind of knew that, I hated like anything to hear it articulated in that way. Another reason to love Mr. S. is that he took half an hour to tell me what he needed. He’s in the educational software business and I like the feeling that each character he uses has to be well developed and somebody that he can trust to give children what they need. And after I received the script and sent in the work, he took the time to thank me at length. I was so pleased to learn, when I got home from France, that Australian Map Girl was going to be around for a while, her character would be developed further, and additional lines would be needed. I even got a humorous “press release” announcing that she had a name.

It’s great to have the work, and it’s great to have a new repeat customer. But the best part is knowing that this friendly and generous educator will be in my life for a bit longer. Sometimes it's the person who sends the script that "makes" the job. You know who you are. Thank-you.

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Thursday, April 27, 2006

Getting Out of the Studio

Today’s expedition was to the media production studio at the local college – with a stop along the way at the Technology Fair at the Campus Center where I saw a Mac running Windows and pigs flying. The audio engineer at the media studio gave me a tour of the facility, which was awfully generous of him considering I had simply dropped in without calling first. His recording chain goes from the humble war horse Shure SM-58 mic to an external Media 100 interface and into a Mac running Media 100 software. What blew me away about this studio is that it has six ISDN lines (2 channels each). SIX! What riches!!! Only to be used for College business though…. Darn!!

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Wednesday, April 26, 2006

A Producer a Day ....

I visited a producer yesterday of whose existence I’ve been aware since almost the first day I started in the voice-over business, a bit over a year ago. His company is situated a scant dozen miles from me but we had never met. In addition to doing voice-over and production, he can duplicate CDs, which is what finally brought us together as I needed to duplicate and print my newish demo CDs and did not want to get an entire 100 this time. This producer, whom I will call Mr. R. to protect the innocent, has a beautiful studio amongst woods and rolling hills. His indoor environment exudes wicked feng shui – as soon as I walked in the door I felt relaxed, as if I could jolly well knit up the raveled sleeve of care without eight of the dreamless (oh dear, Shakespeare and P. G. Wodehouse in the same breath – there should be a law). We spent a very pleasant half hour chatting about the industry – he has been in the business for 20 years – and I left with a great feeling about Mr. R. He has created an intensely professional studio, complete with ISDN, in a serene setting where he can do exactly what he needs to do and then step out his door and take a walk in the woods. I paused by those woods as I drove away, just to listen – a solitary chickadee sang, but in about a week the songs of hermit thrushes and warblers will ring from those trees.

I love the voice-over business. My reasons for loving the voice-over business are many and are material for later blogs, but I do enjoy it tremendously. The downside of the biz, at least the way I do it, living in a beautiful region outside of a large metropolitan area, is that I can do everything from home and not see people. Not even people like Mr. R., who are so nearby. There are scads of producers within 2 miles of my home and I’ve only met a few of them. And that’s my bad.

Back in my days as a biologist I saw my immediate colleagues every day, got invited to give seminars at other colleges, universities and museums, and every year there were the annual meetings to look forward to. The opportunities in the business world are just as great; one just has to figure out where they are. That’s my new goal: to see people every week. To exchange energy. Wonder if therapists talk about this at their meetings these days – isolation-induced pyschosis in telecommuters.

Funny goal, huh? To see people. Simple. But important. Hold me to it, okay?

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