Getting Out of the Studio

Today’s expedition was to the media production studio at the local college – with a stop along the way at the Technology Fair at the Campus Center where I saw a Mac running Windows and pigs flying. The audio engineer at the media studio gave me a tour of the facility, which was awfully generous of him considering I had simply dropped in without calling first. His recording chain goes from the humble war horse Shure SM-58 mic to an external Media 100 interface and into a Mac running Media 100 software. What blew me away about this studio is that it has six ISDN lines (2 channels each). SIX! What riches!!! Only to be used for College business though…. Darn!!

A Producer a Day ....

I visited a producer yesterday of whose existence I’ve been aware since almost the first day I started in the voice-over business, a bit over a year ago. His company is situated a scant dozen miles from me but we had never met. In addition to doing voice-over and production, he can duplicate CDs, which is what finally brought us together as I needed to duplicate and print my newish demo CDs and did not want to get an entire 100 this time. This producer, whom I will call Mr. R. to protect the innocent, has a beautiful studio amongst woods and rolling hills. His indoor environment exudes wicked feng shui – as soon as I walked in the door I felt relaxed, as if I could jolly well knit up the raveled sleeve of care without eight of the dreamless (oh dear, Shakespeare and P. G. Wodehouse in the same breath – there should be a law). We spent a very pleasant half hour chatting about the industry – he has been in the business for 20 years – and I left with a great feeling about Mr. R. He has created an intensely professional studio, complete with ISDN, in a serene setting where he can do exactly what he needs to do and then step out his door and take a walk in the woods. I paused by those woods as I drove away, just to listen – a solitary chickadee sang, but in about a week the songs of hermit thrushes and warblers will ring from those trees.

I love the voice-over business. My reasons for loving the voice-over business are many and are material for later blogs, but I do enjoy it tremendously. The downside of the biz, at least the way I do it, living in a beautiful region outside of a large metropolitan area, is that I can do everything from home and not see people. Not even people like Mr. R., who are so nearby. There are scads of producers within 2 miles of my home and I’ve only met a few of them. And that’s my bad.

Back in my days as a biologist I saw my immediate colleagues every day, got invited to give seminars at other colleges, universities and museums, and every year there were the annual meetings to look forward to. The opportunities in the business world are just as great; one just has to figure out where they are. That’s my new goal: to see people every week. To exchange energy. Wonder if therapists talk about this at their meetings these days – isolation-induced pyschosis in telecommuters.

Funny goal, huh? To see people. Simple. But important. Hold me to it, okay?

Protecting Your Digital Audio Workstation from the Slings & Arrows of Outrageous Fortune

Ever notice how much more often things go wrong with computers than in the old days? I notice it a lot. I wish I could just "set it and forget it" as the Fidelity ad goes. But I set it and then play with it until it breaks. That's what happened to me last Saturday night. I mean, what kind of an idiot starts playing with volatile programs between finishing a long narration for a client who wants it the next day, and actually editing the narration and sending it to them? And on a holiday weekend? But that's what I did, and my system crashed, and I ended up having to reinstall the OS. And re-do the narration.

Apart from the narration and a lot of sleep, I didn't lose much. Oh, I lost 2 years' worth of email, but it's probably high time I got rid of all that. The most important data I have are the contact information from all the production companies and ad agencies I've ever written to - and that's over 2600 names. The program I use to manage those data is Time & Chaos, and it backs your data up every time you exit the program, if you let it. I had backed up my data onto an external hard drive a few days earlier, so I only lost a few dozen entries. It was incredibly easy to restore the database - I downloaded the program again, entered my registration number when prompted (I called T&C to get that number, no problem), stuck my little dehydrated backup data nuggets in the right place, clicked on Restore Data and watched in stunned relief as those 2600 + entries reappeared, fully hydrated. Wicked.

Morals:
Back up yer data at least weekly
Have a separate Digital Audio Workstation that is not on an internet-accessible machine.

By the way, I will be starting to send out newsletters soon. The database is long past being too big for individual emails. When I got Time & Chaos reconstituted, I saw in my ToDo list that I had 368 updates to send out. Something snapped - I've been just way too old-fashioned and it's simply untenable to send out a quarterly update to 2600 + people and counting via individual emails. It won't be quite as personal, but I think you'll like 'em. So, look for newsletters in the near future, and look for 'em every 6 weeks. I like to write. So watch out ;)

Alternatives to ISDN postscript

Although iSpeek isn't out yet, and although it has been in beta-test within the U.S. for some time now, Frank tells me he tried it for the first time today with a European client! And that latency was on the order of 50 ms!! That's better than ISDN! The session was to record a perfume commercial that will air on Italian television soon. I would call that the sweet smell of success. Can't wait to try iSpeek...

Alternatives to ISDN

The subject of ISDN does not come up on a regular basis for me, but it does come up. When a producer asks me if I have ISDN or access to it, I have to tell them that, well, yeah I have access to it but it would cost $100 an hour in addition to my own fee. I had a call last summer from a large producer of audio that colleagues have described as “the real deal”, inviting me to join their ranks, but I had to have ISDN. No guarantee of work, so making the investment in ISDN would have been a big leap of faith. The average ISDN codec is around $3500 US and the monthly charge is about $85 if you commit to 12 months – month-by-month it’s closer to $110 – and that’s if you can even get an installation. In some areas you can’t get ISDN at all anymore.

Many people who have ISDN and use it regularly insist that it’s not going anywhere. Those of us who don’t are waiting for a good alternative. Source Elements has come out with Source Connect, a VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) software that is considerably less costly than ISDN: $395 for the basic version with limited audio quality settings and $1495 for Source Connect Pro (which is customized for musicians and has a wider variety of audio settings). The catch is that it is only for Pro Tools users. Among voice-over professionals, Pro Tools is just one choice for recording and editing. Adobe Audition and Sound Forge have a significant share of the market as well. So what is one to do?

I was pretty jazzed to learn recently that my friend and colleague Frank Frederick will be offering a new answer to the problem of how to get studio-quality audio between remote studios in real time, which is platform-independent. It’s a VOIP called iSpeek, designed with voice-over people like me in mind. The software will cost $150. Or you can get it on a jump drive for $175 and take it with you wherever you go. Monthly service fee is $25, but for $40/month you can share it with up to three of your clients. If you need more iSpeek Clients they are only $15.00 per month each – and even if they have ISDN, surely they will be happy to try it for free (they will only be able to use it with you, unless they buy it for themselves). You can read more about it at http://www.ispeek.org/. It certainly sounds like the way to go!

Scripts for the Voice-over Demo

The Art of Voice Acting Newsletter notification arrived in my email box last night. I always enjoy reading it and hearing about what other voice actors have been up to in the last month, and I especially enjoy reading Penny Abshire’s advice column. Her suggestions are always wise and her perspective is always one of “you can do it”, which is what everyone needs to hear. I have no use for those who say deflating things to people with dreams (although if the dreamer does nothing but dream, a well-placed kick in the trousers may be salutary), and it’s refreshing to hear Penny’s old-fashioned and much-appreciated optimism. She’s absolutely right – you CAN do it if you put your mind to it.

This month’s column was about the assembly of the demo – all really important stuff and right on the mark – except I must disagree with one part of it – the advice about where to get scripts for the demo. Penny suggested the script vault at Edge Studio.

The Edge scripts are great for those starting out who don’t have material at hand or who aren’t sure what to do with the material they do have at hand. I don’t think the folk at Edge intend for these scripts to be used for demos. I feel VERY strongly that demo copy should be as unique as you can muster – it could be something from the media edited by you or someone else expressly for your demo, passages from books, magazines or newspapers, from placards at museums, anyplace you can find words, there you can find material for your demo. I have heard people say, “I can’t be bothered finding magazine ads and editing them; where can I get scripts?” You had jolly well better be bothered – this is your career we’re talking about. Nobody is asking you to write a dissertation, but you should care passionately about the words you choose to showcase your voice and talents. You’re competing against 40,000 other voice artists in the U.S. alone, and this is now a global marketplace. Your interpretation of copy and the way you use your voice need to stand out. Give yourself the advantage and give producers and casting directors a break – choose copy that is interesting to listen to! When I hear demos that have old worn-out copy I think, there is a VO with no imagination. I ask you, would you hire an actor with no imagination?

I rest my case.

Business Expos and Voice-over

Today I went to a Business-to-Business Expo in a nearby city, sponsored by the chambers of commerce. That was some kind of fun! In two hours I made more contacts than I would have done in several days from my office, and this was face to face. I met people from ad agencies, marketing companies, a message-on-hold business, several TV and radio stations – all consumers of voice talent - Toastmasters, representatives of several area hospitals that actually have their own audio-visual departments (got some phone calls to make tomorrow!!) not to mention a company that rents out cappucino machines and a company that rents out all kinds of other stuff including a chocolate fountain, with samples…. I don’t know why it took me over a year in business to realise that I’m a business person and should be taking advantage of what local organizations of business people have to offer. It was great to get out of my solitary studio where I talk to myself all day, and make contact with 3D people. Business cards were flying as thick as the swirling snowflakes outside (really!), many hearty handshakes exchanged – just a very nice change of pace. My community is now a little bigger and my life a little richer as a result.

Karate and Voice-over

No, I’m not talking about voicing an episode of Jackie Chan. I’m talking about using the voice in karate. I was thinking about that during class this evening, as my mind sometimes wanders (telling me I am ipso facto insufficiently focussed on the art which is like OMG so totally not karatedo). That one needs to use the voice in karate to motivate the listener. We all get our turn to count for the class – counting kata, counting kihon techniques, and we carry a lot of responsibility when we do. An unconvincing count can suck the spirit out of the whole place – just as an unconvincing VO in a commercial fails to sell the product. I sometimes train with people who count as if they were singing a lullaby and I just want to lie down and take a nap. Or like – you know how newscasters talk, ending every sentence with a peculiar emphasis and on a minor key or something? It’s particularly weird-sounding when the newscaster is British, because the fashion in Britain seems to be to sort of slide down the scale on the last word. I dare say American newscasters drive the Brits nuts. So back to karate – my studied opinion is that the count should be strong and clear and energetic enough to lift people up, but not so in-your-face that one’s fellow karateka are distracted by it. Been there, seen that. Annoying. Who woulda thought a count could be annoying? Maybe I’m just a grump.

Being a Good Person is Good Business

A few weeks ago, a funny thing happened to me. A prospective client offered me the opportunity to bid on a gig – a medical narration (my favorite), and asked if I could recommend another female VO for the smaller part of the gig. I could and did. To cut to the punch line – my colleague was offered the bigger part of the gig, and I got - nothing.

Pan to MCM, sitting in corner and staring sightlessly into the void. Once the feeling started to return to my lifeless body, the brain screeched back into gear, and I pondered the meaning of life. What lesson could one learn from this? Should I play dumb in future when asked for recommendations? I know nuh-think, NUH-think a la Sgt. Schultz? I entertained that notion for a little while, but it gave me indigestion. Deprive colleagues of potential opportunity. No guarantee I would have gotten that gig anyway. Neglect opportunities to connect with other VOs in a substantive, career enhancing way. Turn one’s back on the chance to be a decent human being.

I learned a couple of things of substance from the incident. One, my ego didn’t suffer much-what a waste of energy that would have been. Two, I learned that my colleague is a frightfully good egg in more ways than I already knew, because she’s the one who told me the outcome, not the producer (wouldn’t you think the producer might have elaborated on the “other voice” the client chose in this case? Like there was no chance I would ever hear about it? Any negative feelings I may have entertained during the few days this all played out were due entirely or almost entirely to that omission). And a few weeks later, when my colleague dropped 15% of her fee into my Paypal account, I felt absolutely humbled.

The money was the icing on the cake. Doing an every day business-type thing like recommending a friend/colleague, and not letting an unexpected outcome change one’s way of doing every day business-type things, is the cake itself. The mind does not always take the shortest route to the right answer. It’s a relief to know that at least sometimes, it eventually gets there.

Avian Voice-over

The voices I'm hearing today are avian - it's really spring and the eastern phoebes have returned to Massachusetts. Red-winged blackbirds have been here for over a month, but the phoebes are the first truly insectivorous species to come back. I brag sometimes about being able to imitate bird sounds, but honestly, it's pretty hard to imitate a flycatcher's voice with verisimilitude. I keep trying though.

So, I'm enjoying this taste of the new season. Sounds of American robins, blackbirds, titmice, chickadees, downy, hairy, red-bellied and pileated woodpeckers - the kinglets, juncos and white-throated sparrows are still here or passing through - and it won't be long before the waves of warblers add their many and varied voices to Nature's multi-track mix. And the frogs - boy do we have frogs around here. Haven't heard 'em yet though. No rush.