Just did a bit of voiceover for a short animated film. Drew Radley, the guy who animated this project is so clever. I love it! I voiced the part of the old lady, Mrs. Odeski.
Cheers….
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VOICEOVER POTPOURRI
September 26, 2009 — stefsvoice
Many hands make light work! Move ahead faster with helpful friends!
“The only factor separating success from failure is the determination to work hard, and the willingness to engage with prospects.” Mark Hunter-The Sales Hunter
Just learned via my email that James and Penny over at the VoiceActing Academy, are holding another FREE Tele-seminar titled “No Mater What You’ve Heard…Voiceover is a Business” — The Nuts & bolts of Voiceover with James Alburger & Penny Abshire.
It’s going to be on Monday, October 5, 2009 for about 60 to 90 minutes.
Here’s a little bit of blurb from the email:
“In these changing economic times, being an excellent person has become every bit as important as being a good performer. On this call, James and Penny will discuss the “Nuts and Bolts” of the voiceover business – the things you must know and do in addition to mastering your performing skills.
Here are just a few of the things that will be discussed on this call:
- How to find clients, make them happy and get them to love you forever!
- Why social networking can help you find work
- How to set up a functioning office and keep efficient records
- Why keeping your name “front of mind” with producers and agents is critical
- How to discover the right branding for your talent
- How to know when you have a good demo, or if it needs some re-working
- How to target your best marketing strategies
- How to discover your uniqueness and use it to your best advantage
- How to prepare for your first website, or improve the one you have”
If you can’t make the phone call, registered peeps can get access to a recording of the call for one week after the date of the call. I used this method for their last tele-seminar and the info was most illuminating.
You can get more info at their website: http://www.voiceacting.com
This week I got my mitts on two videos for which I did voiceovers. One is an animation, and the other is a corporate promo piece. I’ll have to post them here soon. A cut from the animated wacky Christmas one is on YouTube (YouTube channel: animedolphin).
So, what’s your favourite voiceover gadget that you find really helpful, and couldn’t imaging being without? Mine is my Olympus Digital Voice Recorder. It’s pocket-sized. I can record on it and then transfer it to my computer. The quality is quite good, and it’s handy enough to take anywhere and catch all kinds of different voices of interesting people around me; or if I get an idea for a project or a voice, I can record it before I forget. I have a couple of other gadgets on my wish list, which I hope to acquire in time as well.
Another thing that I find helpful is a site called MediaFire. You can store and transfer files there. I chose the paid option, which lets me transfer files without adverts. If I am travelling, or away from the office, and something comes up [peeps want a file, they don't want to go to the website; or for an audition demo]– I can just nip over to MediaFire and send a file from there. I also use it for sending large files to clients. I send them a link and they can download it.
It’s time for show and tell. Have you got any gadgets, tips, hot sites that you want to share? We’re all ears!
By the way, anybody got any suggestions on good recording applications for the ipodTouch?
Cheers…
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Whistle While You Work
September 7, 2009 — stefsvoice
AUTUMN MOON is a time of prosperity and reaping what you have sown, both literally and spiritually.
The Chinese symbols in the red box are: happiness, good fortune, and abundance. Original Art by Dina Dargo
The above lovely piccie was found in an email newsletter which I received from Inspiration Line.
My voiceover life is coming along, bit by bit, eyes ahead…keep busy. Was recently cast as the Vampire queen in an internet drama, and am waiting to hear of any revisions on a corporate video project that I’m voicing. Both of them require me to use my British dialect. Hows about that. It’s all good. I’m quite comfortable moving between an American and British dialect — as required. I’m also very grateful that referrals and nibbles are coming to me from my fellow voiceover colleagues.
I found this lovely article on the Inspiration Line Forum Board, and I reprint it here. You can find a permanent link to Inspiration Line else on this page!
Improve Your Mood in 5 Minutes
You’re in a lousy mood and want to feel better fast. What you need is a happiness fix—right now! Try one of these spirit-boosting tips to jump-start joy in 5 minutes or less.
1. Take it all in. “Little things in life that inspire joy are often subtle and don’t always grab your attention,” says Barbara Fredrickson, PhD, author of Positivity. So be on the lookout for small wonders: butterflies in your garden, an amazingly bright full moon.
2. Make up a ridiculous story. If someone is fueling your sour mood, create a goofy character in your head based on that person. “Imagine an outrageous comic calamity befalling him,” says Amy Riley, a life balance consultant for Tiara Coaching in Chicago. You’ll get a good chuckle out of it.
3. Put yourself in the movies. Think of your favorite film scene, one that makes you feel great every time you see it—like Bridget Jones kissing Mark Darcy in the snow. Now picture yourself as the main character. “Embracing that moment triggers optimism,” says John Ryder, PhD, author of Positive Directions.
4. Soak up the sun. Go outside or stand beside a bright window and bask in the warming rays for a few minutes. Sunlight ups the level of vitamin D in your body, which in turn keeps serotonin (a feel-good hormone) high, explains Mehmet Oz, MD, coauthor of You: Being Beautiful.
5. Touch your toes. “It opens up your hip joints, which is where most people store tension,” says Dr. Oz. Hold the position for a minute, then slowly roll up. As you lift, so will your mood.
6. Start a blog. Like journaling, it gives you an outlet for your feelings. “But it may be even better for triggering happiness because people can leave you positive comments,” says Caroline Adams Miller, coauthor of Creating Your Best Life. Begin one at www.Blogger.com/start.
7. Turn on the tunes. Listen to your favorite upbeat song and you’ll be happier in seconds. “Music has a powerful influence over state of mind,” says Alice Domar, PhD, director of the Domar Center for Mind/Body Health in Waltham, Massachusetts. That’s because music—especially songs that make you boogie—activates the part of our brain that’s hardwired for pleasure.
8. Show off your moves. Speaking of boogying, that’s another quick way to break into a smile. Got two left feet? It doesn’t matter. “Any form of movement will release endorphins and elevate your mood,” explains Dr. Domar. So while you’re listening to that favorite song, get up and dance.
9. Put photos on the fridge. We look at our refrigerator about 27 times a day, so make the most of it. “Research shows that the happiest people have many joyful family photos displayed in their homes,” says Adams Miller.
10. Get plant-happy. Deadhead the spent flowers on your gardenia or buy a bunch of tulips at the market. Studies show that being around foliage or colorful blooms relieves stress, soothes sadness and increases calmness.
11. Create a new code. Change one of your passwords (e-mail, voice mail, ATM) to a word that primes you to think in an optimistic way—the name of your much-loved pet, the funny nickname you call your husband, or even the word love.
12. Break out of the box. Do one small thing that’s new and unexpected. Put a temporary tattoo on your ankle. Top off your morning coffee with some whipped cream. “Novelty makes people feel good,” says Adams Miller.
13. Mark your calendar. Make a note of an upcoming event that you’re looking forward to—a weekend getaway with your best friend, an outdoor concert with your husband. The sheer anticipation you feel every time you see it penciled in is almost as good as the special event itself.
14. Be generous. A recent study found that when people spent as little as $5 on others, they reported greater feelings of joy. Shopping at the grocery store? Pick up a few staples for your neighbor. Just bought a cup of coffee? Give the barista an extra $5 to pay for the customer behind you.
15. Turn the negative positive. List five to 10 things that went wrong today, then read them out loud, says Riley. It may sound counterintuitive but it works: When you hear all of it together—you dropped your morning bagel on the floor, noticed a new gray hair, discovered that your teen used the last of the shampoo—you’ll see how minor it all is. And a little perspective goes a long way.
16. Send out good vibes. “Text three friends and tell each of them one thing you like about her,” says Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD, author of The How of Happiness. Your kind words will make them (and you) feel terrific.
17. Lend a hand. Call a local nursing home, shelter, church or charitable organization and ask how you can help. Those few minutes on the phone are all it takes to kick your spirits into high gear. Knowing that you’ll soon be helping others—and then following through—makes you feel good about yourself, says Susan Ouellette, a health care educator in Baltimore, Maryland.
18. Think of the good stuff. Spend a couple of minutes reflecting on your accomplishments over the past five, 10, 15 years, recommends Dan Baker, PhD, author of What Happy Women Know. Maybe you’re a more skilled cook now than you were then, or perhaps you have developed a lifelong hobby into a successful part-time business. Recognizing and acknowledging your growth will provide an immediate sense of gratification. You’ll be cheered instantly.
By Jennifer Matlack Woman’s Day www.womansday.com
Over the Bank Holiday, I took a litle trip to the Scot’s Grotto in the town of Ware. It was great. The whole house inside and out is made of stones, shells and bits of coloured glass. Here are a few piccies.
Now it’s back to working on another prospect list and then shoot off a few more email demos!
Cheers…
Keeping the Faith – 2
August 18, 2009 — stefsvoice
- Grand Canyon photo taken by my friend, Michelle
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately refreshing and improving my knowledge on the technical aspects of voiceover recording. Here are two links that I found to be most helpful.
Dynamics Processing Explained, A Tutorial
and
Click Removal in Sound Forge 5.0 Even though this is an old edition of sound Forge, the technique is probably still valid.
Here according to one of Pat Fraley’s (one of my fave VO tutors) voices.com podcast lecture are the
9 Critical Skills to Voiceover :
Acting
Reading & Voice
Relaxation
Character and Accents
Energy
Microphone Technique
Business
Sense of scene and Text analysis
Improvision
Ok, got that? Now here’s Susan Berkeley’s interpretation, which I found in Susan’s e-book -
The 7 core voiceover-competencies:
Voice Quality
Diction
Reading skills
Acting Skills
Relationship/Networking skills
Technical skills
Marketing skills
One of my favourite tools for keeping my faith and energy in a positive place are ‘Oracle Cards.’ I discovered them on a couple of my trips to Glastonbury [England].
To me they are quite good for inspiration or guidance, and for focus.
I usually shuffle them while thinking of my question or a statement about some aspect of my voiceover career. Then I pick three — turn them over, and have a read and a think.
The artwork on them is quite beautiful – so that’s a creative, uplifting blast right there.
I’m drawn to the card sets that express the ideas in practical, easy-to-understand language. These cards are brilliant, easy to understand and quick to use, as I often don’t have time to go through a whole drawn out ritual. I like to pick out three at the start of a day — sometimes plucking a few cards from one deck and a few from another deck — and then get on with the business of the day.
The cards that I currently use are “Magical Mermaids and Dolphins” by Doreen Virtue [because I've been very fond of dolphins for years], and “Cosmic Ordering Oracle Cards” by Barbel Mohr.
The “Angelic Abundance” cards by Angela McGerr are really cool as well. They’re divided into various categories for different aspects of the user’s [the person using the cards] life.
Of course Oracle Cards don’t replace the marketing, learning, networking, etc. that one needs to do to keep any type of career on track, but the cards are darn good little helpers and good friends.
How do you keep yourself focused and moving in the right direction?
Cheers!
Pimp my Voice Box
July 28, 2009 — stefsvoiceDecided that my voiceover booth (or as VO champ Rodney Saulsberry puts it — “The Money Box”) needed a little upgrading. I don’t know how I decided, the thought just came to me. My little miccie needed its very own home.
So, I ordered some accoustical foam from a brilliant vendor on ebay and set to work to make a Hogan-style Porta booth, but one that was bigger and sturdier since I’ll be working with it everyday.
I made it with a sturdy surround and covered the outside and floor with thick curtain-quality fabric; the inside is lined with the wonderful accoustical foam.
What a difference in the sound. It enhances the quality, and certainly “pumps up the volume” a few notches. I was so surprised and pleased!
view 2 doing the business with the pop shield:
view 3 miccie’s very own new wee huttie — side view
Met up with my new friend Mike Rhys – a British voiceover artist who lives in Japan, his brother, cute little daughter and his colleague Nicky Faint. Nicky’s a VO now based here in England, but she lived and worked in Japan for 5 years. It was brilliant! And so good to talk with them about their VO lives in Japan.
Will be producing and voicing a serialised version of a mystery audiobook soon. I’ll keep you posted on the progress. You might even want to have a listen…might even get hooked on the plot and come back for more, to see what happens in subsequent and future episodes! It’s going to be a long one. 
“Those who are fired with an enthusiastic idea and who allow it to take hold and dominate their thoughts find that new worlds open for them. As long as enthusiasm holds out, so will new opportunities.”
Cheers all…
Following the Dream
July 6, 2009 — stefsvoice
Sometimes we are quite busy, with auditions, marketing, networking, checking our life timetables to see if we’re where we want to be yet. Maybe it’s ok once in a while to just say –’everything’s cool right now!I’m happy.’
Today’s big thought comes from the Inner Space center in Covent Garden London:
“Give yourself the permission to be happy right here, right now. Be satisfied with what you have when you are in pursuit of what you want.” Yeah!
Thanks to all my wonderful Voice Over mates for their friendship and encouragement. It’s truly most appreciated. And, I’m grateful for my family and friends as well!
Ok, enough musing and sharing…back to work!
Cheers…..
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A Walk on the Wild (Nature’s)Side
June 25, 2009 — stefsvoiceA little bit of Voiceover/Life Advice which turned up in my
email in-box the other day.
“Turn your dream into a vision, then into a goal, then into a plan and then into reality! After all, a goal is nothing more than a dream with a deadline!
Had a chance to take a little break recently in the form of a 6-mile walk along the South West Coastal Path, along the cliffs from a place in Devon called Budleigh-Salterton to Exmouth. I thought it might be too much, but it was great fun. Good exercise. Devon is a lovely area of England. What is it, I wonder, about open spaces that makes one burst into song while hiking? Rather than rabbit on further, I’ll just show you the piccies…
The Starting point
Stop and smell the flowers along the way!
Clowning around with hubby.
Looks like we’re in good company here!
Seagulls getting a free lunch by following the potato farmer
as he turns over the soil.
This made me feel like we were walking through
a secret fairy garden!
The end of the hike at Exmouth. Done! Where’s the pub?!
After our little sojourn, it was back to work. Finished off and uploaded an e-learning video last week focusing on improving listening comprehension skills for beginning/intermediate learners of English as a Second Language. (Please see “Voice Over Videos -3″ page.) Ready to roll now on the next voiceover project. Where are you? Bring it on!
Cheers…
VOX 2009 and all…
May 16, 2009 — stefsvoice
Bob Soeur, myself, Deidre Cooper, and Philip Banks
Attending VOX2009 was fantastic. It was so good to meet some voiceover peeps whom I’d only known through the VO-BB (see sidebar for a link to this forum) and to hook with some vo colleagues based here in London. Above are some of my mates from the VO-BB.
Trish Bertram and Anthony Richardson
London-based voiceovers – Trish and Anthony
David, and Mike Cooper
More London peeps — David (not sure of surname)
[just found out! David Vickery],
and Mike Cooper
Meeting the various producers was a wonderful opportunity to present my voiceover services to people whom I don’t ordinarily have a chance to interact. Speed networking is something else! 15 seconds for producers to tell about themselves,and then 1-minute for me to present myself, then the whistle blows and it’s move along swiftly to the next chair and producer. Wow! It was very exhilarating experience. But if you’re clear on your purpose, know your services and where you’re coming from, and listen carefully to the producer’s intro… it’s very do-able.
Now all the excitement is over and it’s back to gigging, marketing myself and everyday life. I’ve just received a script for a Dr. Who internet radio drama. My character wasn’t ravaged by the monsters…she’s back. Hooray! I love acting. I love voice acting.
I’ve also produced two real estate/travel oriented video tour narration demos. They’re in the videos section of this blog. Just did an audition for what looks like a fun project — so fingers crossed on that one!
Keep smiling, keep positive, keep voicing!
Cheers
Keep the Faith!
April 7, 2009 — stefsvoice
Niagara Falls – Canada side
I’ve been having a little bit of a busy time lately. I’m working on editing and cleaning up the VO for an audiobook project. It’s great fun finding bits of sound effects to be judiciously added to the action. Not too many, but enough to give an idea of the energy of the chapter. Next will be a mystery audiobook project.
There are also plans for three YouTube voiceover videos in the works. Add to that the usual round of auditions (fingers perpetually crossed!), and marketing. Looking forward immensely to VOX 2009 next month. It’ll be my first time to attend, so I’ll tell all in a future blog.
Found this beautiful inspirational poem in an email the other day.
CHEERFUL THOUGHTS
LIGHTEN DARKEST FEARS
|
And when the face is smiling, For the nature of our attitude And since fear and dread and worry And if you’ll only try it For when the heart is cheerful,
|
I really sincerely hope this brighens your day as much as it did mine. Keep the faith, it’ll all be right in the end! Don’t let any gloomy media stories bring you down! We are all winners!
Cheers… Stefania
FULL SPEED AHEAD!
March 25, 2009 — stefsvoiceHi all – clients, prospective clients and VO pals!
I’m working on editing an audiobook, and then looking forward to starting on the next audio project. Starting artwork for a new animation production soon to go on my YouTube channel. And, busy with increased marketing activity as well, whilst waiting for a few “projects in discussion” to materalise. So, today’s blog is a quickie!
News of two valuable VO resources from Edge Studios arrived in this morning’s email.
3,500 Free Practice Scripts
http://www.edgestudio.com/scripts.htm
Free Industry (VO) Guidebook
http://www.edgestudio.com/guidebook.htm
That’s all for today…see – told you this was going to be a really quick chat!
Cheers…
Stefania
