Voiceover Rambles – Happy Thanksgiving

I’ve been happily a bit busy lately with various commitments and projects…so this blog is a bit of a ramble… but I missed you all!

My colleagues James Alburger and Penny Abshire at the Voice Acting Academy in San Diego, California are holding a Voice Acting Performance Intensive Workshop running on various dates from 24 November through 30 December. There are twelve dates on offer at $597 per ticket. It’s a little too far for me to attend from England, but I have some of their teaching materials and have found them very very useful. One day, I’d like to get some coaching from them. [There are other teachers on my list as well like Pat Fraley, and Nancy W., but that's another day's blog entry!]

The description of the workshop that came my way ran thus ” This 2-1/2 day voice acting workshop will take your performing skills to an entirely new level. Whether you are an on-camera actor, stage actor, or just interested in breaking into voiceover, this workshop will give you the skills you need to work as a professional voiceover talent or improve your verbal communication skills. Taught by James Alburger and Penny Abshire of VoiceActing Academy in San Diego. ..”

Go to their website for more particulars, and the latest info on available dates (things might have changed since I received the above news) at http://www.voiceacting.com . Or, you can find them both on Facebook.

Ramble number two.  Many people look way down their noses at USB mics, but I think they do have a place in one’s voiceover toolkit.  They’re good for travel, quick auditions, and a good many actual VO gigs. If that’s what you have, work with what you’ve got and don’t worry about the opinions of others. Just do your best! There are many people with Neumanns and other super duper powerful mics, who haven’t work a VO gig in donkeys (that’s a UK expression for a very long time). But do dig in your pockets and invest in a decent mic. Tinny, weak-sounding voiceovers are not on! Ramble no. 2 done.

App of the week — Daily Affirmations –This is an Android app which I’ve just discovered. It’s very good for keeping us focused. You just write one affirmation several times a day, or for several days,  whilst it sinks into your subconscious. It’s great because you must write the entire affirmation each time. There’s no shortcut copy and paste mechanism. After a while you might find yourself avoiding old behaviour patterns because they’re no longer in harmony with the new vision that you’ve set for yourself. It’s all about persistence and repetition.

What kind of techniques do you use to keep yourself on target with your professional and personal goals and dreams? Feel free to comment and share.

All for now…Happy Thanksgiving…we are blessed…let’s be grateful for that, and for all of the good in our lives!

Taking Control

Continuing on with my self development theme for voice artists/actors and people of all trades, really.

Here is a brilliant article which came in my email from the fabby, inspirational people at Success [ http://www.success.com ].

It’s about keeping balanced and taking control of one’s life. As an entrepreneur one may sometimes wonder if this is even possible with the ups and downs which a business can go through.

Here are some tips from the “Success” online newsletter:

Take Control of Your Life

You wouldn’t drive your car without checking all the internal gauges and determining your destination, so why would you lead your life that way? If you let life happen to you and you’re just a passenger along for the ride, you have given away your control! Take it back by grabbing the steering wheel, plunking down into the driver’s seat and taking a serious look at where you’re headed. SUCCESS experts tell you how:
Best-selling author John C. Maxwell:

List your core beliefs.Then abide by your core beliefs each day, and refuse to be swayed by outside factors and influences. These become the tenets of your life that will ultimately deliver a fulfilled existence. Compile a daily-dozen list you adhere to each day.Your list should include the most important values and goals that will be influential in shaping your life and achieving your successes. Ideally, this list should be a basic outline of how you want to live as a person and what you want to achieve. If you refer to your list each day, it will help you stay on course.

Motivational coach and author Denis Waitley:

Know the person in the mirror. Quality of life begins with self-assessment, and is about the fulfillment and joy we experience every day—not someday, or during vacations or retirement. Keep a close check on what you are exposed to most.You are not only what you eat, but through repetition you become what you watch, read, listen to and internalize. Set benchmarks to see if you are making progress.Throughout the day, frequently ask yourself: Is this activity moving me forward to achieve my most important lifetime goals?

On a personal note:
This blog was composed on my fabby new Samsung phone which is turning out to be one of my best business tools ever! Highly recommended.

http://facebook.com/BeadedDelightsByStef

The New Year has begun-Mother Nature says Good Morning!

The new year has begun, and I’ve decided to clarify and work with developing my Core Values and Goals, rather than develop a list of resolutions. These values determine how I live my life, relate to clients and friends, and generally move ahead in 2012.

On the voice over scene this includes more training, focused marketing, networking with colleagues – helping out where I can, I’ve already tweaked my studio space a bit, and re-doing the website with a new host.

On the personal side it includes getting out and about more, and continuing my studies with inspirational, positive materials, people and podcasts. As well as developing my Japanese, and budding Italian language skills more fully.

It also includes appreciating nature. Remember to take time to look around and see the beauty in life. Here are some piccies which I took this morning! Walking forward there was a beautiful red, orange and rose coloured sunrise. Whilst behind me, the moon was still out. It was so cool! Then a few minutes later, I noticed the moon was disappearing and on its way to bed. Nature is wonderful. Total gratitude to start my day off with such wonderful sights!

jan 2012 sunrise

jan 2012 moon a m

jan 2012 moon2 a m

Environment Equals Energy

I decided the other day that it was time to change my Voiceover working environment. Short of tearing up walls, or building an addition on to the house what else could I do? I decided to try and change the energy of my recording environment. I moved furniture around and changed the location of the mic and installed a more sound absorbing material around the perimeters of my recording space.

Then I found some inspirational pictures and hung them on the walls of my recording space. These were just small changes, but what a difference it made in the feel of my little “booth”. It felt very comfortable and cosy. Next on my wish list was “smell”. I envisioned filling the space with a fragrance that energised, but didn’t overpower. I found my special spray at a Mind, Body and Spirit festival. It’s made from herbs and essential oils which I spray in the area before every recording session. NOTE: This would be a definite faux pas in an outside studio where perfume, etc. is a no no! So don’t try this in the field kids. But at home, it’s a kind of signal to my mind that it’s time to do some very special work.

One thing I discovered after shifting everything is I have more room to move around as I record whilst still remaining on-mic. Nice! Because the space has now become fresh and new, I feel more creative and ready to work. I’m also purchasing some additional software which has different capacities than my current recording programme. So I can be more flexible in meeting a client’s requirements by being able to switch between different programmes as needed.

It’s good to keep ourselves on our toes and always moving ahead in a positive way. It’s great how change in one area of life spills over into the others. It’s good I think to keep our personal environment in a way that pleases and enriches us. If we are happy and productive then we’re in a better position to be useful and serve others.

How are you enhancing your working environment – whatever your career might be? Or maybe you’ve already done the work and are totally content and cool with where you are right now! Life is grand!

Cheers!

Manage Your Mind

The other day I received an email from one of my favourite places in Covent Garden. The Inner Space centre. They hold various self improvement, mind improvement seminars as well as daily free meditation sessions.

I haven’t been there lately due to various work commitments, but I still think of it and the staff fondly.

In this piece of theirs, they make a great analogy between our minds and computers. A lot of this philosophy applies to general life, as well as life as a voiceover artist.

Once that audition is completed, or emailed…it’s done. There’s no need to have it hanging around occupying space in our minds. We did our best. We’re either the voice that the potential client hears in his or her head, or we’re not. It’s a matter of selection, not rejection. Off to the next audition, and our turn will come to shine. And we can make our OWN turn and fortune via self-initiated projects.

Here’s the Inner Space article!

Ctrl-Alt-Del
Just as the Ctrl-Alt-Del keys are used to interrupt the operation of a malfunctioning program on your computer, sometimes, we too, need to interrupt our mind by exercising Ctrl-Alt-Del.

Ctrl (Control): Take control of your life, take 100% responsibility and clearly understand what you want.

Alt (Alternate): Look for alternatives to get different results. See things with a different perspective.

Del (Delete): Delete all negativity in your life including attitudes and habits that are not working for you.

Cheers!

And, when you’re in the mood for browsing, please feel free to nip over to my FB page for arts,crafts and jewellry news– http://www.facebook.com/BeadedDelightsByStef

The Four Agreements

A colleague of mine from the motivation, lifestyle group Morning Coach (http://www.morningcoach.com), recently broke down Mr. Ruiz’s Four Agreements – from his book The Four Agreements – into four easy-to-understand principles.

These, I think, are good rules to live by in our work as voice actors and generally speaking – in our lives as members of the human race!

Here they are:

1. Be Impeccable with your words- then we will not spread poison or spells

2. Don’t take anything personal- it is only personal when we view it through our own judgmental perceptions

3. Don’t make assumptions- realize that we do this all the time, thinking we know what someone needs before they are even finished speaking

4. Always – Do your best- this one brings it all home, for doing our best on any given day cannot always be measured the same way, when we are rested we perform better by external measurements than when we are sick or rundown, so are best can change from day to day.

Cheers!
Stefania

Find me on twitter:
@stefsvoice
@AudioMysteryTym

Voiceover Tip – Motivational CD by actress Wendy Braun

I’m a big fan of actress Wendy Braun’s Actor’s Inspiration website. There are so many helpful tips and motivational affirmations there. “Empowering actors to believe, achieve and enjoy the journey” is Wendy’s motto.

She’s come out with a CD of affirmations tailoured for actors. And, there’s a sample affirmation that you can download to see if it resonates for you. I was all set to order one of these CDs for myself, but the high postage cost to England put me off. Hopefully one day it’ll be offered as a download, which would make a better investment costwise. I purchased Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt’s “The Voiceover Warm up” in this fashion and it worked a treat.

Anyway, if you’re Stateside, this CD by Wendy could be a valuable tool in your voiceover arsenal. You can order it via the “store”section of Wendy’s website. I’m not getting any kickback on this, I just found the sample affirmation to be brilliant and want to spread the word!

I’ve also now discovered Wendy’s Twitter page and she’s always tweeting some lovely affirmations there as well.

That’s today’s voiceover tip…bye for now!

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VoiceOver/Life Bounceback-ability

Today is a sad day in terms of Japan, the earthquake and resultant tsunami. So much tragedy. I was horrified to see the video. Now I’m eagerly awaiting news from my friends livng there, that they’re ok and safe. If you want to know more about the situation, on twitter @timeouttokyo, is doing a fine job on updates. There are others as well!

***
Our life challenges remind me of the little tulip in our garden. It was growing so happily, then came the frost last week. I looked outside and saw that it was all bent over, floppy and lifeless. I mourned the tulip and growled at the cold weather. To my surprise within a couple of days it was back to life, and today it’s standing proudly in the sun with opened petals.

Maybe I need to be like the tulip, when the career and life aren’t moving as smoothly as I would like; take a breath, step back(go “all floppy!”), re-evaluate what needs to be done — more training? Different marketing? — and then step back into the sun with head held high and get on with it! Like the character in Monty Python & my little tulip said, “I’m not dead yet!”

***

By the way speaking of training, be sure to think and evaluate if a voiceover teleseminar or class is really right for you before you part with your dosh (cash). There seems to be an explosion of paid teleseminars now. So check out the teacher with respected colleagues and online. Check out their credentials aside from what’s written up in the advert. Can they really deliver what they promise, or is the advert just cleverly written. Read between the lines! Trust your gut, not your hopes of what you would like the class to deliver. There ARE good, brilliant teachers out there…so just be careful.

Cheers for now!

Stefania
@stefsvoice
@AudioMysteryTym
Podcast: stefsvoice4you Broadcast, on iTunes

tulip spring1

tulip spring2

Growing A Biz

Bit by bit, inch by inch (and sometimes with great leaps) we CAN make our entrepreneurial dreams come true. We ARE making those dreams come true.

Give the best service we can. Just keep working at it, trying different methods to create awareness and bring in the clients.

Here’s a quote from business blogger Seth Godin that came in my email today. He was talking about the usefulness, or not, of slogans.

“Not everything you do actually gets a response. In fact, most of it doesn’t. But each effort is a tiny brick in the wall of perception, even when it appears to be dumb and even senseless.”

All for now…Happy Sunday!

Breaking Bad Habits – Leaving Unproductive Behaviour Behind

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

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