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Archives for June 2010

Making Professional Jealousy Work for Me

June 21, 2010 by George Leave a Comment

My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb. And all I remember was thinking “I want to be like them” – Gnarls Barkley, “Crazy”

 

Eight years ago, I was asked to be the host of a corporate video for my then current employer. That “gig” expanded a bit into being a semi regular host of the same videos as my company merged with another. It also gave me the chance to go into a recording studio for the first time in order to record some wild lines to go into the video. Walking through the studio, sitting in the booth in front of the of the first Neumann TLM 103 mic I had ever seen, reading the script: I was smitten. I asked the very friendly and helpful people at the studio how to get to do voiceover work. They directed me to research, practice and come back, and they would make my demo and give me some contacts to get me started.

I moved forward, getting a demo done, making contacts and getting gigs. Voiceacting was most definitely my side work to my main job, and I many times reassured myself that I was perfectly happy with that arrangement.

I’m here to tell you that I was not.

I have worked with some outstanding voice talents during the intervening 8 years. Men and women who had been in the game for many years, and were making the vast majority of their income in the voice acting arena, voicing almost every day. And that experience caused that little knot inside, the one that whispers in your ear “You can do that…you KNOW you can,” to grow. To make me jealous of their choices and their success.

Now, today, I am exposed to more talented voice artists than ever before. Twitter, Voiceover Universe, the reports back from VOICE 2010, Facebook, all of them give me insight to the motivated, talented professionals that populate this field in all of its many areas of expertise. And I’m not going to lie: that knot of jealousy is still there.

But now I am doing something about it. And that is the key: doing something about it. Taking that feeling of “You can do that,” and moving forward with it. Yes, it will be while trying to balance every other thing in a busy life, but that’s no different than any other aspiring, working voice actor. This is manipulating the “jealousy” into self motivation, determination, drive. So that I am like my “heroes” as the Gnarls Barkley quote lays out above, living life out on a limb.

My goal is at least one good project every day. I’m not there yet, but I can see it from here.

Can you?

Filed Under: Career Development

Got an iPhone? Use it to find VO jobs

June 3, 2010 by George Leave a Comment

Just a couple of days ago, I mentioned the use of Twitter to find voiceover work, and my buddy Jamee Perkins went right out and did just that. In light of that little bit of success, I thougt I would toss out another way to look for work.
Craigslist is of course the well known killer of local newspaper ad revenue. Besides that, it is a great way to find used electronics, computers and the collectible gems you are looking for. But have you used it to find voiceover work? It is possible.
Work that is posted on Craigslist is typically no or low pay work, granted. But for the new voice artist, it can provide you with experience, and that can be the key to getting yourself going in the field.
The Craigslist website is also well known for its famously spartan interface. No flash (and no Flash) here, just text and some occasional pictures.

It is searchable, but most of your searches are limited to the metropolitan area you have selected, in my case Charlotte. You would have to change your location multiple times to search multiple locations. That’s a drag.

But if you have an iPhone, you have a much more efficient option.

For the standard 99 cents, head to the App Store and pick up CraigslistPro+. It pretties up the Craigslist interface quite a bit, and makes it very easy to respond to listings directly from your iPhone, save listing and searches. It’s the saving of searches where the magic begins.

Once you install and open the app, you’ll see the prettified home screen:

 

To make this work, you need to add cities you want to search in and the category you want to search. To do that, tap on the “Location” button. You will have the opportunity to Add a city by tapping on that field:

Next, select “US Cities.” If you are outside the US, this should also work if you select your region.

When you tap that, you’ll get a list of all the major Craigslist cities. Tap on “Select All.”

You’ll get all of them added to your search options, and it will look like this:

You can go back and add more cities that didn’t appear in this listing, as it only contains the largest metropolitan areas. Once you have added all of your target cities, you can go back to the home page.

Back onthe home page, tap on the Search Category button, and select Gigs, then Talent Gigs. Once that is set, head on back to the home screen.

Once there, type “voice over” in the search field at the top of the screen. Your results will come up with every posting from all of your target cities. Neat huh? You can tweak your search on the home screen by tapping on the Filters/Setting button on the home screen, including filtering out no pay jobs.

But we haven’t reached the neatest part. Tap the “Agent Setup” button in the top right corner. You’ll be taken to a screen where you can set up a search agent.

Tap “Save Search as Search Agent,” name it, and your agent will be in place. You get push notification automatically to your iPhone if your search term comes up in any of your target markets. Your first 50 are free, and you can add up to 10,000 notifications for 10 dollars. That, my friends, is a steal.

The only downside is that you have to scroll through your search results to find a new hit, usually by the date you received the push. I would much prefer a button on the push notification popup that would let you go directly to the new hit, and I have submitted that as an improvement.

Your mileage may vary, but it is a cheap way to search one of the lower level sources for work to expand your portfolio. Obviously, you have be be selective in the work you try and get: as I mentioned before, there are a lot of low/no compensation gigs. But occasionaly, you may find that diamond in the rough. And you may have only paid $11 to find it. That’s a pretty good return on your investment, don’t you think?

I don’t intend to leave Android and Blackberry users out; I just don’t know their apps as well since I don’t have either of those smartphones.

Because of the way I have to import this blog, if you want to see this post laid out slightly better, trip on over to the actual entry. Good luck!

 

Filed Under: Marketing, Sales and Contacts

Twitter can be your friend!

June 1, 2010 by George Leave a Comment

This shouldn’t come as news to any of you tech savvy, Intertubez friendly folks out there, but I just wanted to point out something: Twitter CAN lead to contacts, which in turn can lead to voice work. Take for example my interaction with MarketHOLD.com.

Back on May 24th, @marketHOLD posted this tweet, with those charming Twitter friendly shortening conventions:

Seeking, seeking contact information for #voiceover artists. Tell me: Do u want 2 work? Do u want businesses 2 find you 2 ask u 2do work?

As I do a lot of on hold messaging in addition to commercial and narration work, I was interested. I followed up with a tweet of my own. We interacted via Twitter for the week, sending links to my demos and such. This morning, I was in direct contact with Sarah at MarketHOLD, and I will be added to their website as a talent very soon. No, it’s not a paying gig yet, but it is the start of it, and that is always the first step.

Terry Daniel over at VoiceOverClub.com had a recent experience with getting work via Twitter:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6-0zWF4fo4&rel=0&border=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

It is worth your time to get out there, if for no other reason to see the very interesting and helpful information that can come through the hashtags #vo and #voiceover. Many voice artists and production houses are there offering news, tips and information you shouldn’t miss. And hey….you may even get a gig out of it.

Filed Under: Marketing, Sales and Contacts

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