Share
With those words above, Amy Snively kicked off Faffcon 2 in Atlanta and crystallized for me what the weekend was all about.
Voice Over Talents from Around the Globe at Faffcon 2 - Atlanta, 2011
I specifically took some time following Sunday’s close (which came quicker than any of us wanted) to really reflect on what I came away with.
* I came away with a greater respect for voice talents – who we are, what we do and how we do it
* I heard some voice over performances that infused me with the desire to get better – some were so good I’d quit now if I had any talent at all to do anything else but, oh well
* The challenges people in our industry face are universal – we don’t train enough, we don’t market enough and we are all held back by something – sometimes external and often times internal
I noticed that I think we (me too) are all too often held back by some level of self doubt with in our business. When it is paralyzing, our voice business stalls or worse, fails.
But when we force ourselves to move past or at least forward from our self doubt, we succeed, even a little. I saw this more than I expected among my new and old friends and I saw it most often in the mirror. Because I was among peers, that realization felt a little safer to recognize and build upon for me.
I don’t know if this reads as earth shattering or game changing – it felt that way for me. Your mileage may vary.
What happens at Faffcon stays at Faffcon – many talents generously share intellectual property that rightly shouldn’t be spread everywhere. So if you want diagrams and recordings, you will not find them here.
Besides, the greatest value of what is learned by participants at Faffcon is ingrained individually based on what each Faffcon participant gleans from a shared presentation or conversation. What helped me might be useless to you and vice versa.
I will say this: it is that act of universal giving and sharing -that spirit – that permeates the air of Faffcon and provides maybe the best reason to secure your spot in Hershey this September.
If you can trust in that thought, you’d probably benefit from Faffcon.
If not (and that’s OK) you’ll probably want to pass.
Thanks, Amy, very much.
Tags: commentary, faffcon, voice actors, voice over training, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
7 Comments »
