I came across this post by my voiceover colleague Doug Turkel via Facebook. This is one of the most amazing articles that I have read on growing and maintaining a voiceover career.
Doug’s blog is titled “50+ Vital Business Resources for Voiceover Talent”. I’ll be reading, re-reading this article and applying this knowledge starting now.
Thank You Doug!
Here’s the link:
http://dougturkel.com/blog/2011/09/08/50-vital-business-resources-for-voiceover-talent/
Cheers!
Attention VoiceOver pals, non voicies…
Who’s on the winning team?
I am!
YOU are!
Here’s a fantastic video that was passed on to me by one of my podcast and twitter colleagues, @mikeleighcooper. Enjoy!
It’s so wonderful when you meet a voice over pal that you’ve only known via the internet. My friend from the vo-bb Chuck Davies was recently visiting here in London. Chuck, his wife Kate, and I met up at a pub in Covent Garden and spent some pleasant time getting to know each other.
Fabbo!
When I’m not voicing, I’m here:
It’s my Facebook page for cool arts, culture and crafts news! Please pop by for a visit and a “like”. >^..^<
This came in my email from “inner space” the other day, and it’s so short, so simple…yet at the same time so powerful.
It’s about how to grow and improve as a person, but on reading the article again I dare say this could apply to how we see ourselves as professional voice artists/talent as well.
Quality List
Ask yourself:
What am I good at?
What are my strengths and special attributes?
What can people rely on me for?
How do I make others happy?
How have I overcome challenges?
Today, make time to list your best qualities. Focus on the good
in you and watch it grow.
I’ve recently gotten myself listed on the new google+ site. One more bit to add to the social media soup mix. The interesting thing is, while many of those in my circles are my favourite voice over colleagues, I find that I’m meeting many new people who are outside of my career circle. Somehow, I’m meeting people from various groups with whom I didn’t cross paths previously – even though we were members of the same online (and offline) groups. It’s quite interesting and wonderful. It’s kind of like a ripples in a pond and the circles are getting wider and wider. Brilliant!
If you’re looking, I can be found here:
All for now….enjoy your summer!
Oh, I almost forgot…my new podcast episode is now live. I learned a little bit about The Pomodoro (time management) Technique, and speak of it in the podcast. It’s totally new to me, so I’ll be blogging more later about the results of my experiments with this technique! Here’s the link for the podcast:
Cheers!
Here’s my second video made on my BlackBerry 8520 phone. There’s a synching issue on this one between voice and video. I guess that could be a BlackBerry thing, as it was ok on the first one.
Or perhaps it’s because this one is much longer than the first video.
This is a mini-tutorial on mixing with Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio 8 software. I’ll get a Flip video cam soon, but it’s good just to be able to share and maybe the tips might be useful to someone! I’ve certainly received much assistance – in all areas – from my voiceover pals. Here’s my tiny contribution to the community pool of knowledge.
BlackBerry Moments – Mixing with Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio 8 from Stefania Lintonbon on Vimeo.
Cheers!
BlackBerry Moment-Recording with Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio8 from Stefania Lintonbon on Vimeo.
I’ve learned so much from the various forums, my VoiceOver colleagues and my teachers. I’ve wondered what can I bring to the party.
Well, I’ve been experimenting with my little BlackBerry phone’s video function, and discovered that not only can I have fun making videos but they can be posted on the major sites like Vimeo or YouTube. So since I have a little knowledge about editing gained from my experience with gigs and auditions, I thought I’d pass this on for beginners to recording – be they voice artists, podcasters, small businesspeople, etc.
I hope it’s useful and answers a few simple questions for someone who might be in “scratch head” mode with their Sony software!
Read a brilliant post by blogger Seth Godin ( http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ )on how, and I quote,
“Self sufficiency appears to be a worthy goal, but it’s now impossible if you want to actually get anything done.
All our productivity, leverage and insight comes from being part of a community, not apart from it.
The goal, I think, is to figure out how to become more dependent, not less.”
I think it’s most important to choose your friends well. I’m very happy that I’ve met some wonderful friends in voiceover and other circles. Their help and encouragement has been invaluable. You can find many of their blogs and groups on the right hand side of my blog page.
The best of luck and blessings to all my wonderful “online” and “real world” friends!
I found this article from the “innerspace” centre here in England in Covent Garden, whilst I was clearing out my emails this morning.
It’s a good one, so I thought I’d share it with my friends in cyber-space.
As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of changing the way I relate to the term “bad habits”…from now on, I’m going to call it “unproductive behaviour”. That motivates me to change things which have no purpose, rather than beating myself up over something that I perceive to be “bad”. This is a more positive and loving way to look at change & personal evolution, I think!
Breaking Bad Habits
Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of. How to break bad habits:
- focus on changing just one habit at a time
- acknowledge how the habit dis-empowers you
- realise how you alone can break the habit, no-one else can do it for you
- separate yourself from your habit and understand that you aren’t your habit
- visualise yourself without the habit
- replace the bad habit with something positive
- don’t focus on the “not doing”, but instead, focus on ” doing” the positive action
- don’t beat yourself up when you slip up, just break the habit as many times as it takes
Maybe we can take some of these tips to leave unproductive habits behind us, with regard to our VoiceOver careers as well!
I’ve started monitoring my auditioning, marketing efforts, etc. in journals on my iPodTouch. I’m finding this makes it much easier for me to keep track of things and see just how diligently I’m working (or not working) on the various aspects needed to keep a VoiceOver career more often in full bloom, vs languishing.
Take care friends, and thanks for all of your much appreciated support!
Cheers
My voiceover colleagues are a creative bunch — always up to something!
Here are the details of the new Voiceover Wiki set up by my colleage Mahmoud Al Taji (www.voiceemporium.com). I’m reprinting this from his LinkedIn notice and you can visit the website to learn more about it, and also if any of the links in his blog were not transferred to this article, you can probably go to them via Taj’s website.
“A few months back I got the idea that I the Voiceover community is in dire need of a repository of knowledge. Or if you want to use a more modern term… a Wikipedia site dedicated to the voiceover industry and its members.
Now I can’t use that term… Wikipedia… because that is a registered company that has its own site etc. but the more acceptable term is that the voiceover industry needs a wiki.
I’m a pretty DIY kinda guy and went on a search to find out if the community already had a site like that. Turns out there was an attempt to create one by one of the bigger online casting agencies but for some reason or another it just didnt take off.
So I decided to take things into my own hands to create that site.
It took me a while … it really did.. big learning curve… but I was able to setup the site and using the same software that wikipedia themselves use (to their credit they do post the software for free on their site) but I digress.
I tried to contact a few people of interest and was able to get them to contribute their information. The majority where pretty quick to reply (ok so I stalked them a little with my magicjack) but overall everyone was very professional.
I want every single voice actor, voiceover agency, studio to add their information to this site… Its an online encyclopedia for us, by us and the whole point of a Wiki is that it is driven by user contributions.
For those are not familiar with Wiki Markup Language please click here
But! I do have a few rules and they are that if you decide to add a page that it adheres to the following formats:
Click here to see the template
If you are a company, agency, studio that wants to add itself to the Voiceover Wiki by all means please do but your page has to abide by the following structure (more or less):
Click here to see the template
(you can copy the markup language from this template and paste it into the content of your page and fill out the appropriate areas)
If you are a Voice Actor, coach, agent and wish to include information about yourself then please do so using the following structure:
Click here to see the template
If you run a voiceover online magazine or information site then pleas follow this format:
I started this project a little over 3 months back and the point was that I wanted the search engines to have time to index the site and make sure it was visible online.
Oh and I’ve started the ball rolling by adding over 350+ pages of content.
I run the site and I have a few rules but other than that… I hope you enjoy my efforts and find benefit in them.
Taji”
All is still going well with my podcast. I’m reviewing several self-help books -a bit at a time in each podcast – as well as talking about events, lifestyle, travel, voiceover, and presenting audiobook narrations. The iTunes link can be found here:
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/stefsvoice4you-broadcast/id393291303
The mystery tales – Violet Strange Mysteries – podcast, can be found here:
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/stefania-lintonbons-boos/id393840324
All for now…
Cheers…
I started off the day with a lovely, giant bunch of flowers from hubby, Mr. Special Guy. Flowers always bring good energy to the heart and home, don’t you think?
Time to evaluate goals and make plans for the move up to the next rung of the VoiceOver ladder. I’ve been working on that. And keen to do it with style, just added the ME diary app to my iPodTouch to keep track of marketing plans, their status & results. The diary’s/journal’s top notch for me – I can add words and pics as well, AND it’s pink and black! Business and beauty!
This is a good time for personal, physical and spiritual reflection as well. I’m most certainly grateful for family, friends (real world & cyber), health and the voiceover success and progress I’ve made so far — with gratitude for the gigs to come as well. Takes work and planning, but I’m well up for it.
Many blessings to all…
Stefania
^•^
My colleague voiceover artist Tom Dheere recently posted some really helpful tips in his Good Karma Network newsletter about re-takes.
I had an email conversation with Tom and he graciously let me reprint those gold nuggets here. Tom was working on an audiobook when he wrote these tips…but, of course they can be applicable to most every voiceover scenario in one form or another.
Retakes usually are needed for a few reasons:
Technical Issues (feedback, low gain, static, etc.)
Background Sounds
Script Errors
Me Being a Doofus (I mispronounced a word, inadvertently changed a word, inserted a word, flubbed an accent, or stressed the wrong word)
These are all common errors, many of which you can minimize.
TIP OF THE WEEK: Here’s what you can do to minimize the amount of retakes needed:
Read the script. I know that sounds obvious, but I mean REALLY read the script. I try read it three times before I record. Once to enjoy it & understand the story, once to break down the characters, and once to review spelling and grammar.
Ask questions. If I’m not sure about something, I ask the publisher. If he’s not sure, he contacts the author and gets back to me. Once in a while you may get to talk to the author directly, but I’m not always sure that’s best. Writing something and reading it aloud are two different disciplines and it’s the publisher’s job to bridge them.
Take notes. I always build a pronunciation guide. Sci-fi stories tend to have a lot a big real words and even more fake words, some of which don’t feel organic. Get the correct pronunciations and practice them. Also, I like using accents so I track how each character speaks and make sure I get the subtleties right.
Have fun! If you do your homework and enjoy the session, your acting will shine through.
Thanks Tom!
Another exciting bit of news is that my podcasts have been approved and are now in the iTunes store to download and/or subscribe to!
The podcast names are: stefsvoice4u Broadcast
- audiobook narrations, travel, inspiration, travel and events; and
AudioMysteryTym
episodes of The Violet Strange Mysteries [searchable by AudioMysteryTym or stefanialintonbon].
Took some time, but we got there in the end!
