I am quite literally stunned to realize that in two weeks I will be in Charlotte, NC with 100 fellow voice-over professionals attending FaffCon 5.

Five?!

Except for the first FaffCon, which I couldn’t attend without upsetting the then pregnant Mrs. audio’connell, I have attended every FaffCon (in Atlanta, Georgia, Hershey, Pennsylvania, Ventura Beach, California and now Charlotte, NC). The people I’ve met and the things I have learned have allowed me to grow my business and advance my way of thinking about voice over. I want to focus on that last part for a second.

The voice-over business is a very solitary business with most folks working in their home studios with occasional breaks to actually talk to clients on the phone (vs. only e-mailing each other, which happens too often for my liking) or the blessed trips to a local studio where somebody else does the work and you can focus on your performance (such bliss!)

But in that kind of insular environment, we as professional voice talents sometimes found ourselves with few peers through which we could share our business, performance or technological ideas. On a lot of our business stuff we were all making it up as we went along.

With the advent of chat rooms or in my case bulletin boards (like the infamous and invaluable VO-BB) new networks of professional voice talents were formed, initial emails were exchanged and in my case, meetings were scheduled between voice-over talents who could share, learn and develop all phases of their businesses together.

The natural evolution from these types of groups was a convention, which was first put together by my friend and fellow voice talent Frank Frederick…it was called VOICE and it took place in a hotel in Las Vegas I think in 2005, maybe 2006. The first (and only) VOICE I attended was in 2010. It was a nice networking event but I didn’t feel my professional education was significantly enhanced by it. I felt a lot of what was taught (with some exceptions) was very rudimentary (and I was one of the presenters so take that into account).

But I remember seeing my friend Amy Snively at that conference as well. This particular time we were on the trade show floor by a microphone display. She shared with me her disappointment about the content of the show as well. I can’t say I knew what she was thinking at the time but sometime after that on the VO-BB a discussion was held about a different kind of conference.

In that thread, FaffCon was born. Now we are five.

Monday night I had dinner in Toronto with voice talent Jodi Krangle, a FaffCon veteran. Thursday night I had dinner with Kelly Klemolin in Green Bay, who will be attending her first FaffCon in Charlotte.

They will be roommates during FaffCon 5. Knowing both Kelly and Jodi as long as I have, I am certain their professional connection will last a long time and their likely friendship even longer.

And they have two people to thank – D.B. Cooper and her idea for the VO-BB, giving us voice talents a safe place to gather and share ideas; and Amy Snively, who’s idea for FaffCon shared on the VO-BB has built an event unlike any in our industry.

For five, I think “we” are a pretty amazing kid.

Tags: commentary, faffcon, voice over training, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on only two weeks?!

What was started by Dave Courvoisier two years ago as National Voice Over Awareness Month has grown into VOAT (pronounced “vote”).

VOAToday reminds me that I want to put another Buffalo Niagara or Western New York Voice-Over Meetup together this month. We shouldn’t need an excuse to do it but if VOAT provides one, well, that’s good enough for me. National Voice Over Awareness Month spurred me to put one together in 2010 so we’re about due.

Here’s the formal announcement from Dave:
—————————————————-

NEWS Release

Voice Over Awareness Today Returns For 2012
VOAT builds on the success of 2011’s innovations

LAS VEGAS, NV, Sept 1, 2012: Voice actor, Blogger, TV News Anchor, and Social Media advocate Dave Courvoisier announces a September promotion to help build an informational database that benefits voice actors everywhere, while encouraging a sense of community and providing a fun program offering valuable prizes.

By lending a “VOAT” to a specially-designed website, voice-actors can contribute to a shared informational resource based on their answers to weekly questions. Doing so automatically puts their name in the running for some handsome weekly prizes specifically designed for voice actors.

VOAT in 2012 — building on last year’s success — plays off the ‘VOTE’ homonym by asking voice actors globally to ‘VOAT’ on 4 different issues impacting voice actors — one for each week of the month. The ‘VOAT’ consists of an answer to a “question of the week”. ‘VOATing’ in this manner allows the website visitor to be eligible for specific voiceover-targeted prizes provided by well-respected voiceover equipment, service, and client-seeking providers.

As an example, the question being asked of visitors to the site during the first week of September will be:
What does your recording studio look like? Provide a picture and a brief description, history, or special features of which you’re proud.

People responding, are required only to provide their name, and an answer (email is required to be eligible for the prize). No data is collected on the visitors for marketing purposes. The site also allows respondents to upload a picture or soundfile to accompany their comment if they wish.

“All the responses will be listed in a thread-like format for all to see on the website, creating a collective knowledge-base that will benefit the entire community of voiceover artists,” adds Courvoisier, “each week a new question, new comments, a new set of prizes, and a new winner.”

Prizes for the month-long event are generous.

High-profile businesses readily recognized by voice actors everywhere are contributing substantive prizes, including for instance, a free year’s premium annual membership to Voices.com, an annual subscription to Voice123.com for both male and female, a choice of demo or consulting services from Edge Studio in NYC. In addition, John Florian of VoiceOverXtra, is offering a free pass to an upcoming webinar, and Cliff Zellman, Founder and Organizer of the Dallas Voice Acting Meet Up Group (DVA) is contributing gift certificates from an online equipment site. EWABS’ George Whittam & Dan Lenard, and the Voice Acting Academy are also contributing. This is not a complete listing of prizes. We’re also pleased to announce that Harlan Hogan’s Voice Over Essentials.com is donating a new 3rd generation Porta-Booth Pro audio studio…just now being released!

Sponsors include: Voices.com, Voice123.com, Bodalgo, World-Voices Organization, Harlan Hogan’s Voice Over Essentials.com, VoiceOverXtra.com, The Dallas Voice Acting Meet Up Group (DVA), Bettye Zoller, The Voice Acting Academy, EWABS, and Edge Studio, Julie Williams, Deb Munro, and Bob Bergen.

“Voice actors are an extremely supportive, encouraging and giving people. Many of them have enabled and sustained my VO career, and this is an attempt to celebrate the generous nature of the business, while helping to inform and create a community of like-minded peers,” adds Courvoisier.

The site will become “live” on Labor Day, Monday, September 3, 2012.

http://www.VOAToday.com

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN:
“In 2010, the NVOAM (National Voice Over Appreciation Month) event struck a chord with voice actors everywhere who agreed it was time to celebrate the profession of voice acting,” notes Dave Courvoisier. “With very little foreknowledge, hundreds of voice artists around the world responded with enthusiasm to the month-long ‘appreciation’. A central website (http://www.nationalvoiceovermonth.com) collected the support of voice talent, showcased a series of collaborative Public Service Announcements, and kept a running and busy calendar of voiceover happenings in September.” The VOAToday event is a direct result of this early foray into online VO community-building.
-30-

Tags: commentary, National Voice Over Month, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
1 Comment »

As if you needed another reason to go to FaffCon, here ’tis: I used to travel pretty regularly to Grand Rapids, MI but I don’t as much any more. However, at a recent FaffCon I met voice-over talent Anthony Gettig who lives in nearby Kalamazoo and who said “next time your in Grand Rapids….”

So guess where I had lunch today with Anthony, and fellow voice talents Kim Elliott and Dave Bisson? All are a part of Voice-Over meet-up group that Anthony put together after hearing about such groups in other parts of the country during FaffCon.

My thanks to all of them for spending their lunch hour with me.

Tags: commentary, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on audio’connell in grand rapids, mi

I went to a high school that is renowned for pushing out lawyers, doctors and other big time muckety-mucks.

What they were not known for is graduating voice-over talents so I am not and will not be a star alumnus. Yeah, the comedian Mark Russell was a graduate as was Tim Russert but they were anomalies (and they had, you know…talent!!)

The point here is that, no I didn’t go to any high school resembling “Fame” and there’s rarely been any kind of business connection between anyone in my graduating class of Canisius High School and me. It is what it is.

Or maybe it was what it was because a connection WAS made this trip that tied my professional life to my high school.

About a year ago, a high school friend of mine, Trip Fanning, invited me over to his house in Seattle with his lovely wife and terrific children and he mentioned he knew a voice talent that I should meet. This voice talent was the wife of a guy, Mark Curtain, who I graduated high school with. Mark’s parents were pals with my parents and I had the great pleasure to play golf with Mark’s parents years ago when they and I belonged to the same golf club.

Mark’s wife is female voice-over talent Grace Regis Bennett who I finally got to meet on this trip, over a year after Trip suggested it (and I didn’t get to see the Fannings which Trip won’t care so much about but his wife is going to be pissed 😉 ).

What an amazing journey her voice-over has taken. Most recently she worked with some fella named Scott Burns on a new commercial demo and her wonderful talent resonates from beginning to end.

She’s been off the voice-over grid outside of Seattle but is looking to come back in a big way. If you’re a production house or agency looking for her demo, feel free to reach out to me and I’ll put you in touch with her.

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on audio’connell in seattle part 2

What your looking at is probably one of the few times these three men took a breath from laughing during a longer than normal dinner.

Much of the humor cannot be repeated but it should be noted that Scott’s new marketing campaign will include some of the most unique positioning statements ever considered within the voice-over industry.

Well, ANY industry, actually.

My thanks to Scott Burns, Jeffrey Kafer and to Corey Snow who had a change in plans at the last minute (but it was good to be able to chat with him by phone this week.)

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
1 Comment »

Say you are a voice-over pay to play site and you’ve got a pretty good reputation as far this particular business segment goes…those that like P2P sites use you and believe you treatment them fairly; those that don’t like P2P sites are never going to be won over so why bother with them. A reasonable strategy.

So say one day you decide that you want to change your Terms of Service (TOS) – the rules that you as the P2P site owner operate under and that users of your site must abide by if they want to use your site. Most every interactive site has them and there are updates made on all of them as business dictates.

But imagine you are a voice-over P2P site with this good reputation and you want to change your terms of service in what might be considered a controversial way…a way that might dismay or upset you primary revenue source – your voice talents who pay a membership fee.

For example let’s say via your revised TOS you’re going to:

1. Change your P2P site from a relatively open format where a VO can list his/her contact information on the site for prospects to view to, under the TOS revision, a site that bans that VO talent contact information from being posted on the talent’s paid page (as part of their membership fee) on the P2P site.

2. Change the P2P voice-over web site in such a way that any links to outside web sites would be removed on any communication between VO and client (for example, in a template proposal available within the P2P site and used to communicate to the client).

3. Finally, in this scenario, let’s also imagine that all financial transactions between the client and the voice talent on this site must now use the P2P web site’s proprietary payment system that pays the P2P site a 10% fee on the value of the transaction (previously service this was optional). This is in addition to, not in replacement of, the voice talent’s yearly membership fee paid to the site. The P2P site gets paid twice if there is a business transaction on the site.

All of this is legal. It all falls under legitimate business practices. There is open notification to all parties that this change is coming.

The questions always are:

What will the the customers (in this case the voice talents) say?

What will the customers do?

How will this all turn out?

And so the business study (the White Paper) begins.

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voices.com by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
3 Comments »