For less than 24 hours, I left the VOICE2010 conference for the best of reasons: my middle daughter’s HS graduation in Las Vegas.  Some told me they thought I was being a good dad by making that decision.  Here I thought I was a lousy dad for even being in LA on a graduation weekend.  Yes, I was at her graduation, but I missed some of the context and the nuance of the weekend event by being at VOICE.

Luckily, my daughter seemed fine with it all, and I WAS able to share the important moments well enough.

When I walked back in the door at the Century Hyatt Plaza the next morning at 9am after a quick turn around of SW Airlines flights, I honestly wondered if I had been gone (??) at all.  Strangely confusing, but not all bad.

The rash of Saturday seminars are excellent, and I was back in the swing of introducing the presenters, and trying to get around to talk to all of the amazing attendees from whom I can learn so much.

As I’m here blogging, I’m sitting in on the “VO in the Trenches” panel with the likes of Philip Banks, Bobbin Beam, Bob Souer, Zurek, Janet Ault, DB Cooper, and hosted by the acerbic John Taylor.  The information is golden… these are salt-of-the-earth working voice-actors…some are union, some are not, some have agents, some do not…but they are all full-time, working professional voice actors sustaining themselves and in some cases, even their families with their VO work.

The talk was of marketing, and cold-calls, and the value of Pay-2-play sites …what value Fi-Core, finding your niche, follow-up, demos…yes the topics were far and wide, and the advice was imminently usable.

Were you to consider buying the DVD recording of VOICE2010, this session alone would be worth the price.

Yet to come:  Joe Cipriano’s panel on promo’s…but it was oh-s0-much-more in 2008.  In fact THAT was the session that gave me more impetus than any other almost two years ago.

More later on Joe and a few more observations in general coming up later.

CourVO

Pat Fraley’s General Session Presentation on this first day of the VOICE2010 conference promised a “mystery” celebrity guest, and it was Brad Garrett, TV star of “Everybody Loves Raymond” and the voice behind may animated characters.  Brad began as a stand-up comedian, and has a host of film credits as well.

Pat’s presentation was on the topic of comedic timing, and having Brad there for the entire hour-and-a-half was the perfect complement to Pat’s impeccable instructional insights.  In other words, the whole session was hilarious!

Brad was gracious in meeting many of the attendees and having his picture taken with many.

The rest of the morning and afternoon was filled with sessions by experts who know the business in one way or another, and shared information in their niche area of expertise.

Deb Munro delivered her presentation on the advantages of using online tools in  your VO business, fittingly, on SKYPE from her studio in Vancouver, CA.

I sat in on several other sessions, as well as introduced the speakers in sessions all day.

One of the more candid and useful seminars came from Erik Sheppard, a NYC-based talent and agent who did not mince his words talking about the common (and frustrating) mistakes VO talent do when submitting or relating to possible clients.

And, Marc Cashman, LA-based talent and producer had a wonderful presentation on “taking it to the next level”.

I didn’t get to see much of it, but home studio master Dan Lenard had a rapt audience for his session on making sense of a quality home studio at an affordable price.

Now you might understand why I say this is where the VO rubber meets the road.

There’s no success in ANY endeavour without practice, know-how, consistency, and attention to detail.  Attendees got an earful today!

CourvO

VOICE2010′s lofty goals are: Education, Networking, Technology.

Tonite, at the opening Red Carpet Reception, Networking took center stage.

That’s me on the left with co-host Bobbin Beam kicking off the program.

For 3 solid hours, people just talked and mingled and talked and introduced themselves and talked and laughed and talked some more.

People whom I consider to be giants in this business were there: Pat Fraley and Joe Cipriano and Paul Pape.

I am humbled to be a part of such a vibrant, supportive, giving community of artists.

Then, Thursday, the fun REALLY starts.

My thanks to Greg Takizawa for posting the above picture n FaceBook.

CourVO

The drive in from Vegas was nice, and before I knew it, there I was standing in line to check in at the Hyatt Regency Plaza, and recognizing the guy in front of me was Andy Boyns, all the way from Istanbul, Turkey!

From there it was downstairs to deliver the SaVoa promotional stuff I brought to the SaVoa booth.  Dan Lenard helped with that (he already had the SaVoa banner hung in our booth).

James Alburger and Penny Abshire were there setting up their booth, and going through registration, I met all sorts of people I know:  Jodi Krangle, Dave Kaplan, Leslie Diamond, Curt Byk, etc., etc., etc.

This is the way it’s going to be for the next few days.  My face already hurts from smiling.

(top) Dave C, James Alburger, Penny Abshire

(middle) Dan Lenard, Jodi Krangle, Leslie Diamond

(bottom)  Dave & cohost Bobbin Beam