Very cool link to a geographic map of WHERE voice-actors ARE globally.
Check it out HERE.
CourVO
Map the Voices
April 30, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Best E-Mag You’ve Ever Seen
April 30, 2008 By Leave a Comment
You hear about E-Magazines…or E-Zines…but when you get to the site, it pretty much looks like another website pathetically dressed up with some journalistic columns or some other mark of a print publication.
EQ’s new online edition changes all that. It really has the look and feel of its print edition. You see the front cover, click on a headline, and you’re taken to the article inside, or you can go to the articles from the table of contents, or just page through one by one, like you would the real paper thing…do searches, and see thumbnails, zoom, send, bookmark, take notes, print, link…nice!
Maybe you’ve seen something like this. I haven’t.
The media partner in this is nxtbook.com which claims to "…optimize print materials for use on the Web…"
In this issue, a critique of the Studio Projects CS5 mic, and the Art TubeFire 8 …among other articles you’ll find useful as a voice-artist. Keep in mind EQ is probably more geared for musicians, and studio producers…but much of the same equipment and techniques featured in EQ translate well to voice-over, and I’ve quoted them extensively in past blogs.
I’m a subscriber, so I hope this link works for you, too…and I hope I’m not breaking some copyright or subscriber agreement by linking, cause I really want you to see this.
This is a great idea done well.
Click HERE or on the pic above to see what I’m ranting about.
CourVO
Counting Words
April 29, 2008 By 1 Comment
Sooner or later as a voice-actor, you’re going to have to count words…if you want to get paid what you’re worth.
Sure, there are other methods, formulas, algorithms and rules that help you quote prices for your work, but some of the best metrics come back to a word count.
I’ve seen all sorts of formulas for charging by word count, and I may blog about that on a future post, but my bottom line is first, you have to be able to count the words.
Sounds simple enough…open the document in Word and click the ‘Word Count’ option under ‘Tools’. Bingo!
OK, that works a good bit of the time, but what about a .pdf file or .rtf, or .txt, or .csv, or .htm, or .pps, or .ppt or .xls etc.? Then what?
Some new office suites that look a lot like Microsoft’s set of Office programs now open and convert .pdf files to .doc files. Sun Microsystem’s Open Office comes to mind…and it’s free. HERE‘s the link. One of my favorite softtware programs: Serif‘s PagePlus translates .pdf as well, and will do a word count.
But I ran across some fairly inexpensive shareware the other day that will do a word count on just about any file type you could imagine.
It’s called AnyMini W, and you can find it on the web HERE. When you visit that site, you’ll also see it offers line count software, and combinations of line and word count software, as well as character count, cut ‘n’ paste word count, and more.
This is not an endorsement, and I have not personally tried AnyMini W… so I can’t speak to it’s reliability. If you’ve tried it, let us know what you think.
And if you have a sure-fire formula for charging by the word, or a word count forumla that you’ve found your clients really like…I’m all ears.
CourVO
Special Guest Announced for VOICE 2008
April 28, 2008 By Leave a Comment
VOICE 2008 Organizers James Alburger and Penny Abshire have managed to secure an appearance by one of the best-known names in voice: Dick Orkin.
Below…the announcement verbatim.
————————————————-
DICK ORKIN founded a commercial production business in Chicago in 1967. At first, Dick was joined by B. Ziggy Stone ("The Creative Monopoly") and later with Bert Berdis (as "Dick and Bert") and then they all moved to California where Bert went off on his own. Dick named the new company, "The Radio Ranch" and then, with Christine Coyle, he later co-founded the "Famous Radio Ranch with Dick and Chris." They collected a healthy score of radio award trophies, IBA’s to Clio’s and more.
Dick was inducted into the NAB Radio Hall of Fame in 2001.
CHRISTINE COYLE is a Chicago native. She was passing out tutti fruitti gum samples on Michigan Avenue (a Kelly Girl assignment), when she handed a free sample pack to Dick Orkin. They talked. They laughed.
Quick cut to Hollywood-three months later and Christine is writing and directing for the Radio Ranch.
Today, as Creative Director, Christine supervises the scheduling, brainstorming and writing of Radio Ranch assignments, and directs virtually all original production. She also performs in many of the commercials.
What a TEAM! Dick
and Christine co-facilitate the Radio Ranch Creativity Workshops,
RADIO: ADCRAFTING WITH SOUL throughout the United States, Germany,
Belgium, Ireland and South Africa. Christine is also Dick’s partner in
the writing and production of two animated children’s specials for
CBS-TV. Click on the image at the left to hear some of their recent spots. They are brilliant! Come to the VOICE 2008 Celebrity Banquet to meet Dick & Chris in person.
Woopra Folo
April 28, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Yay! Less than 24 hours after I blogged about Woopra — lamenting the fact that this blog site had NOT been approved for their service, I get confirmation that it is!
Now, I finally get the dirt on who is REALLY reading my tripe!
CourVO
Woots for Woopra
April 28, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Weeks have passed since I asked to be a subscriber to Woopra. I’d completely forgotten about it. The site promises to be: "… the world’s most comprehensive, information rich, easy to use, real-time Web tracking and analysis application."
I was impressed enough on my first encounter to sign-up. That was months ago. Yesterday I got my notification that my main website: www.courvo.com has been assigned a "code", and I could go ahead and complete the installation of the software, and begin real-time tracking of ALL that traffic to my website.
Launching Woopra analytics amounted to a download and install of their software on my computer, then cutting and pasting a custom HTML code for my website onto the pages I want to have tracked. Once that’s done, you can launch the application, and watch the web-hits roll in, with data analyzed more ways than you can imagine.
I had also asked — and would’ve preferred to have tracking of my blogsite…www.courvo.biz — but that permission is not yet granted by Woopra. However, they said they now have their ducks in a row (more or less) and will be granting more and more access to their free service now that their servers and software are up to snuff.
A quick glance at their website would tell you why I was intrigued.
*Live tracking and Web statistics
*Rich user interface
*Real-time analytics
*Manage multiple blogs and websites
*Deep analytic and search capabilities
*Click-to-chat
*Visitor and member tagging
*Real-time notifications
*Easy installation and update notifications
*Developer tools
So far their software meets all my expectations… but it’s probably better suited for a company that actually gets loads of website visits everyday, and has someone tending to SEO as a full-time job.
Still, the application has a wonderful interface, and gives a trove of information. Any voice-actor serious about improving their visibility to customers on the web certainly needs a tracking tool of some sort to keep abreast of their web traffic. Maybe Woopra is right for you.
Click HERE to see their site.
CourVO
Tooooobs
April 27, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Camera film and vacuum tubes. They’re sooooo…..20th century.
But there’s a great article in the April online issue of MIX on the use of tubes in pre-amps and other audio processing modules using this antique technology.
MIX is a periodical dedicated to professional audio and music production.
Their online site homepage is HERE.
The article on equipment using tube technology is HERE.
Excuse me now, I have to go check the balance in my bank account.
CourVO
Internet Trolling for Voice Jobs
April 27, 2008 By Leave a Comment
How much time do you spend on the internet on average? My ball-park guess for Dave Courvoisier is roughly 5-6 hours/day over the last few months.
Coming up with that number makes me think I should put a stopwatch on it, and I’d probably be surprised to find it’s much more.
The stuff you find! The internet-less world of my youth was certainly different. I’m reserving judgement on whether it was better/worse…but entirely different in terms of time spent at activities.
Luckily being a voice-actor these days requires being technologically savvy. Some do it only to the extent they have to…I go beyond — way beyond what’s needed, ’cause it all fascinates me.
The following are links to sites on the internet that from time to time (or exclusively) post jobs for voice-actors. I’m registered on some, planning to register on others, and will drop a couple for the absolute lack of decent leads in several month’s time.
VOICE TALENT NOW – This is the only site of the ones I’m listing which seems to cater only to voice-actors and voice-seekers. (Author’s add 4/27/08: acclaimed voice-actor Peter O’Connell writes to tell me that this site offers Radio & TV ads for $50…sounds like a lowballer to me!)
HARD LIGHT PRODUCTIONS – "Bringing Modders Together" is the byline here. ‘Gotta admit, I didn’t know that meant, so thank God for Wikipedia: "The term modding is often used within the Open Source software movement
and within the computer game community, particularly in regard to creating new
or altered content and sharing that via the web." This site has an active forum where developers are often seeking voices. I have no idea what they pay.
ONLINE PROJECT CENTER – This site really throws a lot of stuff at you…covering a ton of different professions globally. ‘Took me some time to digest it all, and I have no idea how legit the leads are, but HERE is a recent VO lead, just to give you an idea.
NET4MANPOWER – Another site like Online Project Center, it seems, that tries to cover almost every conceivable job description world-wide. There site says: "an Incorporated service
of Eurostall LTD in Switzerland, UK, USA provding this online
service for the manpower related resources. using this service you can
find the suitable freelancer…" They do have a MultiMedia category, though, that lists "Voice Talent". Click HERE to see a recent job posting for voice needed.
SIMPLY HIRED – "Job Search Made Simple" Maybe it’s just another Monster.com… they claim: "Looking for a job shouldn’t be a full-time job!
That’s why we built the biggest, smartest job search engine on the web." When I chose "film documentary" in their search engine, HERE‘s what I got…just to give you an idea. I haven’t landed anything here, at least not yet.
STARSEARCHCASTING – This site claims it’s: "The #1 Site Casting Directors Use to find new talent!" That’s a lofty claim. I’ve registered here, it’s roughly $10/mo, and I must admit I haven’t worked it very hard…so maybe someone who puts a little more time into it would glean more leads. ‘Jury’s still out for me.
I’m sure this is a short list. But each one has DOES list jobs for voice-talent. Let me know if you have any luck!
CourVo
Rebound
April 25, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Whew! I’m beat!
The first few days back from ANY vacation time is always tough for me. Last week I was away from my day job…I took the time to focus strictly on VO, and it was fruitful. So fruitful that I’ve been swamped with the results. Jobs, people, challenges, decisions. This week has been packed!
Earlier this evening, I participated in an hour-long conference call involving the VOICE 2008 "advance team". This is a dedicated, committed, energetic group of voice-artists. We discussed many issues, not the least of which is our role as "ambassadors" for the upcoming August event in Los Angeles.
A significant discussion broke out about what we could do to nullify what we consider to be irrational, mean-spirited, and invalid criticisms of the event and its organizers from people within the industry.
The value of this event is such a no-brainer for me. So for the next few hours, I immersed myself in the online boards where there’s a lot of "banging" of the event. I understand some may not be able to attend strictly on the basis of available cash. Done. Regardless of value, the money’s just not there.
But some disparaging remarks are of such an vindictive character that I wondered if maybe I was somehow the naive, pie-in-the-sky Beaver Cleaver who just had blinders on about VOICE. After all, I’m pretty close to this event, and maybe I haven’t taken a close look at the motivations and causations here.
NOT!
Too many good people with sterling reputations and long track records are behind this thing to let me believe it’s run by charlatans for selfish motives. Too many top-notch VO coaches are committed to this event to allow that they’ve all been duped. Too many selfless hours of work, and earnest dollars have been already spent to permit this to fall short of its promises.
Sure there are some details that perhaps have been overlooked, or maybe an ego here ‘n’ there that’s been dismissed. It’s not perfect. But it is possible to create something powerful, positive,and personal here…a real community of artists trying to define a new season, and do with style.
Like I said, I’m tired. It’s been a long week back at work. VOICE is more than 3 months away…but already I’m buoyed by the camaraderie I see building around its promise.
CourVO
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