You buy a car, but don’t follow recommendations on the proper types of fuel and oil to put into it, or keep it regularly maintained. It’s not going to perform well. You build a garden, yet ignore basic care and feeding instructions. Your garden won’t last very long. You use professional editing software, but disregard recommendations on how to best “feed” the program. You’re notRead More »“I shouldn’t have to…”
Three years ago yesterday was my last day of full-time employment. Three years ago today was the beginning of an adventure. When that adventure began, I thought I new roughly how it would play out, not unlike the way that I thought I knew how my animation career would play out. Entering the animation field back in 2001, I envisioned myself steadily growing and improvingRead More »Three-Year Thoughts
While doing some computer cleanup today, I ran across a bunch of old VO files. These were all pre-training, pre-demo, pre-agent, pre-actual-professional-gigs. And boy did it sound like it! The saddest part is that I didn’t know how bad I sounded. I thought I was doing all right. Boy was I wrong! This reminded me of my first interview with an animation studio (back whenRead More »“The greatest of faults…”
My apologies for the inaccessibility of the blog for the past several weeks. I’m migrating the site to a new domain, and somehow it didn’t register in my brain pan (until it was too late) that if I redirected the entire domain, the blog would be effectively dead. I’ve nixed the redirect for now, and have simply put a pointer link on the main page.Read More »Moving mayhem
Update 10/22/2013: Want to watch a walk-through to see exactly what’s happening? Check out the video version! For those VO artists who aren’t blessed with ISDN or SourceConnect, getting a good phone patch setup can be very beneficial, yet it can also be very frustrating. In my case, I prefer to use Skype to connect with clients, and so far I haven’t run into oneRead More »Don’t know JACK about sending audio to Skype?
I went to a local business networking meeting the other day. I hadn’t been to such an event before, but I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. One of the first things that happened after I entered the room instantly reminded me of this video by fellow voiceoverist Philip Banks: While I wasn’t exactly pelted by business cards, my first few interactionsRead More »Notworking
My wife is pursuing a Masters degree in Music Education, and it’s interesting to see how her view of certain types of music is affected by the things she’s picking up in her classes. While driving home after her last class yesterday, she was listening to a strong orchestral-choral track from an album full of music composed specifically for film trailers. She later told meRead More »Beware of Epic Fluff!
I just ran across a fascinating example of interactive multimedia. The thing that kills me is that I didn’t know that it was interactive until the “show” was almost over. It might have helped if I could read the text used throughout the piece. I have a hunch that somewhere on the splash page are simple instructions that explain how visitors can play a partRead More »Remember to Bring Yourself!
Homework is like exercise. The only time you regret it is when you haven’t done it. Are you doing yours?
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” I forget how long ago I heard that wise bit of wisdom, but it has always stuck with me. It hit close to home many years ago when the mother of a high school friend told me about the first impression she had of me. She saw me in church, where I was sittingRead More »Impressions