So I was looking at Paul Strikwerda’s blog earlier as he was participating in Mahmoud Taji’s blog post discussion when I saw the above graphic that caught my eye.

How nice, I thought, that Paul would offer his VO services if someone donated to his participation in the Multiple Sclerosis walk and how great he put it on his blog.

Then I read further and was even more impressed.

However, no one had seemed to donate yet. Well I fixed that and I hope you’ll add to the pot too if you can.

While it would be lovely I’m sure, I don’t need Paul to read anything for me so I hereby offer my read up as an “extra” for anyone who might want it.

Our voice over industry is almost as amazing as the journey it takes us on everyday.

Tags: blogs, commentary, community, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover blog by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I got a nice newsletter….more like an e-letter than an e-blast, because they are writers after all…from the folks over at Wordsworth Typing and Transcription Services.

They’ve provided transcription services for U.S. Presidents, Saudi Kings and late nights hosts named Conan.

OK, no they haven’t. I made that last part up but they have done work for me and they were good.

The part of the email they sent me that caught my attention was:

At Wordsworth we have been struck by the downturn in the economy. However, we are keenly aware that our customers are also affected. That is why we continue to keep our rates at $32/hour for all of our work. Our rates have not increased since the fall of 2006, in fact only being raised once in the past six years. We hope that keeping them at this level will be a help for those of you having hard times as well.

Pow! Honesty!

‘Our business got wacked by the economy but we’re still plugging along and we’re not planning on nailing you with rate increases to offset our losses.’

Fair enough. I have nothing that needs typing or transcription at the moment but I want these guys to get a leg up so please check out their link and give them a call. Retweet this post (note I don’t very often directly ask that). Or better yet, put them in your database now so when you need the service, they will be there.

My business is doing well but I’ve also known the tough times…we all have. They are times you shouldn’t forget…especially when you know others who are going (and getting) through them. Wordsworth is doing OK but they’d like to do better and I’m glad to help them do that here.

Long before social media, ours has always been known as a business community.

Tags: commentary, community by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Even though he didn’t know it, Bob Souer reminded me of something today in his blog post.

I had asked for any bloggers who wanted a link on my blog and who were not already listed to ping me and I’d add them to my voice over blog roll on this site. You may see it better if you scroll down a bit in the columns on to the right of this post.

I also asked for a reciprocal link which I hope those I link to will put on their blogs but I don’t have the time to check on each and every one of them. HEY, but YOU might have the time, so if you see a voice over blog that doesn’t link to mine, ping me and there will be a major cash reward…not from me as I don’t HAVE any money).

Bob’s post noted that John Florian on VoiceOver Xtra had a blog link page which, sadly, I didn’t realize until just now, even though he gave this blog a link on his page. BUT since John’s news service now accepts comments on stories, that enters it into blog territory so John now has a link on voxmarketising. Thank you John, for all you do for your fellow voice over professionals – it is appreciated and valued.

Also added to the voice over blog roll now are blogs from George Whittam, Michael Stuber, William Spears, Nikki Saco, Jason Bishop, Scott Brick, Lance Blair (whose link was already there but is now updated to its new address), Cartoon Brew, Mahmoud Taji, Mairead Curran and Matt Colrick.

An IMPORTANT point: some blogs I found recently were NOT added as they had not posted in over a year. While its not my place to tell people how often they want to write, I gauge the credibility of a blog by the frequency of its posts. I get that blogging isn’t for everyone and I am not judging. I am committed to providing information on all current voice over blogs. If this is you and you increase your post frequency, please let me know and I’ll pop you right up there.

And for goodness sakes folks, how can anyone have a blog WITHOUT an RSS button or link. It’s one of the main ways people SUBSCRIBE to a blog. If a blog post is uploaded to the internet and nobody reads it, does the blog really exist? And yet I saw a bunch of them today; it’s a darn shame no one can easily read them regularly. Oh well.

Thanks.

Tags: blogs, commentary, community, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover blog by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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FRONT ROW: Jill Perry, Pam Tierney, Kara Edwards MIDDLE ROW: Peter K. O'Connell, Caryn Clark, Melissa Exelberth BACK ROW: Bob Souer, Rowell Gorman, Alexander Vishniakoff, Debra Webb, Beth Whistler, Robert John Hughes CUT OFF ONLY DUE TO PHOTOGRAPHER ERROR: Mike Stoudt

So I packed a bag on Friday and flew down to Atlanta for the Marice Tobias workshop on Commercial and Narration voice over at the very nice Captive Sound Studios. My friend Bob Souer has been singing her praises for a long time; Kara Edwards and I were talking about maybe attending about 6 weeks ago and since I could see some family while I was there, I decided to pull the trigger.

Kara Edwards, Bob Souer and Melissa Exelberth

It was completely different than ANY other voice over workshop I have ever been to and I have been to many.

I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and learned much. And while I participated in the workshop, I am at a bit of a loss as to how to effectively summarize it because I think unless you’ve been through it, it’s very difficult to understand it. So my first piece of advice would be to take a workshop with Marice.

Rowell Gorman

A lot of internal performer analysis (as it relates to vocal performance) for each student went on during her seminar. I think we all came away with a specific understanding of how effective personal analysis greatly affects the performance a voice talent gives. That kind of analysis helps performers to get out of their own way. The performance improvement was immediately evident and we (each workshop participant) all witnessed it and experienced it time and time again.

Now, you’ve likely just read that and had no understanding of what it meant. Well, some things must be personally experienced, not just read about. I’m not being coy or mean but instead honest.

Kara Edwards, Caryn Clark, Melissa Exelberth, Robert John Hughes

Each voice over talent (as does everyone) learns in different ways and her seminar needs to be personally experienced, not read about. I would recommend you look at Marice’s schedule and if it’s possible for you, take the seminar.

And if you are especially lucky, you’ll get into a class with as many incredibly talented voice over performers as I did. This might be a record because we had 6 of us – about ½ the class – who’ve been long time friends from the VO-BB. There was an immediate and invaluable comfort level learning, working and performing among friends.

Jill Perry and Pam Tierney

When I signed up for Marice’s workshop, I knew Bob was going and I knew there was a chance my friends Kara Edwards and Caryn Clark were coming (they did attend) but what I didn’t know for sure until I saw the list just before I came that the great character voice actor Rowell Gorman would be there, my pal Melissa Exelberth from New York would be there as well as the lovely and talent Pam Tierney from the toddlin’ town of Chicago. What a gift to have my friends there!

Mike Stoudt, Debra Webb and Beth Whistler

The voice talents whom I had never met previous to the workshop really capped off the experience for me and I am so grateful to have been included among them for a few days: Robert John Hughes, Alexander Vishniakoff, Beth Whistler (thank you for driving to the airport!), Debra Webb (who, I found out in setting up this link shares the same agent as me), Jill Perry and Mike Stoudt (who also shares mine and Debra’s agent).

Two VO folks who couldn’t make the seminar but who kindly came out to join our group at various times throughout the weekend were Smith Harrison and Craig Crumpton.

Not to put too strong a point on it, but there were certain voice over suspects who shall remain nameless (Karen Commins (complete with brand new web site), Lance Blair, September Day Leach) who call Atlanta home but had something (anything better) to do than visit with Team Tobias Atlanta after hours at our various pubs, taverns and dives (sometimes known as the mini-bar)! Hurmph! 😉

And finally, my most special thanks to my family in Atlanta who were so kind to let me stay with (or near) them. They had fresh hay in the stable for me to sleep on and let me borrow the mule’s blanket to avoid frostbite. 😉

I hope you get to enjoy a training experience at least once in your career a unique as the one I just enjoyed.

If you’ve trained with Marice, I would love to hear your general impression of the experience. And if you have already with any professional voice over teacher, tell us about it here.

PS. Here is a shot of the WHOLE group, (including and ESPECIALLY Mike Stoudt) courtesy of Bob Souer’s camera:

FRONT ROW: Jill Perry, Pam Tierney, Kara Edwards MIDDLE ROW: Peter K. O'Connell, Caryn Clark, Melissa Exelberth BACK ROW: Mike Stoudt, Bob Souer, Rowell Gorman, Alexander Vishniakoff, Debra Webb, Beth Whistler, Robert John Hughes

Tags: announcers, audio production, audio'connell voice over talent, commentary, community, voice over workshop, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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So I visited friendorfollow.com to catch up on those nice folks who are following me on Twitter but who I don’t currently follow. Boy it really feels like a “job” when I do this (who are they, where are they, what do they do, do they say anything interesting etc.) and yet I force myself to because there are people who I do want to follow on that list and just never got around to it.

I’m not an immediate follower of people who follow me. Mostly because of time and also because some people’s tweets don’t interest me. Hey, there are lots of people who I follow who don’t follow me so it works both ways and it ain’t personal, either way.

But going through this exercise yet again, I thought about these three things in no particular order:

• Who has the time to try and follow thousands of people and then make any sense of it while having a professional and personal life?
• Why don’t some people put up a picture in their profile? If you have that stupid twitter bird for your picture, I can’t be bothered with you…sorry, it’s a “thing” with me
• What’s the deal with people who block their tweets? If you need to hide anything from Twitter (and its cool if you do) you shouldn’t be on Twitter

What about you? Agree? Disagree? Do you have other pet Twitter peeves?

Tags: commentary, community, social media, social networking, twitter by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I think this is the third one I’ve participated in and you should consider being a part of it. Last year over 12,000 blogs participated.

This year’s topic for our October 15th posts is Climate Change.

If you have a moment, please let others know about the day on your blog leading up to the event.

It’s a cool thing – nobody tells you what to write on the topic, just write your thoughts. Discussion can make a difference…I hope.

Tags: blog action day, blogs, commentary, community by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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