Bobbin Beam - Female Voice Talent
Happy Blogiversary to a wonderful person and voice talent Bobbin Beam, who celebrates her third year in the blogosphere.
As a long and loyal subscriber, I thank her for her blog work and for almost as long, I thank her for her friendship.
the audio'connell YouTube page
I am not a pioneer on most things, including social media. I like to see where things are going, if they are going to build up a big enough head of steam and then decide to join in.
It was that way for me with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and now with YouTube where I have create my own page and produced my first video. Why?
Well, my college degree is in Radio/Television communication and I did own a video production company for six years so this is not totally unfamiliar territory. But I wasn’t sure on many fronts if I wanted to dip my toe in the video waters via social media.
Two things changed that.
One was when Jeff Kafer said he wanted to produce a video of the VO-BB voice talents recreating “The Night Before Christmas”. I didn’t have any of the tools needed at the time or a clue about the new way video worked but I decided to plod through it (embrace change etc., blah, blah). My finished work for that piece wasn’t stellar and Jeff had to tweak it a lot to make it presentable but it put me in to a more “I can do it” frame of mind. So thank you Jeff for that.
Next was the technology. I tried a Logitech camera for the VO-BB video but I thought it wasn’t sharp enough (or maybe the dullness was a result of the talent within my lens). Then I attended an Ad Club of Buffalo presentation featuring Kodak’s Chief Blogger, the very kind and knowledgeable Jennifer Cisney. Part of her presentation, not surprisingly included mention of some Kodak products including their Zi8 portable video camera. At the same time Steve Garfield, who I had met briefly some years ago at Podcamp Boston, published his new book (which I bought) on video and spoke highly of that same camera which had an input for external audio (which most cameras don’t have and which was something of importance to me). At $200 I figured I could make an educated mistake.
Calling around to some friends for editing tools advice and with my own trail and error (as is the way we all seem to learn, technologically, these days) I was ready to make my mistakes more publicly.
I am quite sure that after I do this for a while, I’ll look back at this video in disgust for its poor quality in any number of areas but for now, it’s not the worst thing I’ve seen and hopefully the content is a bit different.
I hope you’ll subscribe to my YouTube page and lets enjoy this ride together. Thanks.
Male Voice Talent Andy Boyns
….and while the blog is now listed on the blog roll, you can read it here.
Welcome to the blogosphere Andy.
If you’re a member of Voices.com it’s going to be a bit tougher to chat with folks there today because they are moving into their brand new headquarters. Congrats to Dave, Steph and the entire team.
Because of my negative opinion about the pay to play business model in voice over, I’ve been asked by some voices talents why I have spoken often in support of Voices.com. I have no trouble answering their questions – it has to do with the professional and personal respect I have for the Ciccarellis.
While I disagree with the business model overall – a model that is the foundation for Voices.com as a business, David, Stephanie and their team I believe are sincerely committed to helping their listed voice talents build their careers while simultaneously building the Voices.com business. I offer as my examples: the customer service I received when I briefly joined their service when it first started, their corporate openness through their use of a variety of social media tools and my numerous personal interactions with them. They are professional, they are respectable and their business practices as far as I have experienced are completely above board.
It is the model of their business (and those with whom they compete) that I find to be very problematic; briefly stated- pay-to-play voice over sites I believe undermine the quality of the voice over industry. So I don’t pay. It’s up to history to determine if my opinion is right or wrong – ultimately my opinion is only right for me. If one were so inclined to join a pay-to-play site, I would direct them to Voices.com first.
As an owner of many small businesses, a five year mark is an important historic milestone. To have been able to grow their business to a point where they are covering salaries, benefits, rent, etc. every month is a big deal. Being able to move and grow the Voices.com business into new space is pretty amazing as well. That benchmark needs to be recognized and appreciated for every business because it ain’t easy and it ain’t guaranteed for any of us.
I was heading off to bed when a last quick look at my email showed a note from my fellow Buffalo voice talent Dan Lenard who I haven’t heard from in a while.
Seems he’s been working with my friend (and his friend too I suppose) Nancy Wolfson from Braintracks Audio on some branding efforts for the web and he wanted to announce it to everyone.
I hope if you have a moment you’ll check out Dan and Nancy’s efforts.
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.
