Voice123 Blog has moved to a new location...

Hello!

This blog will qualify as the shortest we have ever written! Our blog has moved to a new location.

Please click here: http://voicethedream.com/

We invite you to our new voice over blog, and thank the loyal and commenting readers!

Our team hopes you like the new look, too!

Steven Lowell
Community Development Guru
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123

Voice123 Seeks Voice Casting Advisers!

Hello!
Voice123.com is looking for Account Managers/Customer Service Specialists aka “Voice Casting Advisers” to work remotely from anywhere, while handling a wide variety of responsibilities. This position requires, a trustworthy, highly innovative and energetic personality with an eye for making things better, and a problem solving attitude with the passion for collaborating with others in the voice industry, and the desire to learn and teach users how to grow their own online career.

If you are interested, please see more details!

Steven Lowell
Community Development Guru
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123

Voice Over Projects During The Past Holiday Season

The Holidays are behind us all now, but in December I had the chance to work in Account Managing for Voice123, and I directly communicated with many voice seekers during that time. In doing so, I came to find reasons why certain voice over projects received fewer responses than others. I would like to share with you some helpful hints on getting voice over projects approved quickly, getting more auditions, and hearing the right voice for your project!

Transparency:

• This is the day and age of transparency. It will help you to be upfront about what the job will be all about. We see sometimes in the ‘director’s mind’, projects may be created under a false scenario; almost to trick the voice talent into giving the best voice over audition; maybe a form of 'method job posting'. However, the attempt to ‘trick’ leads more to confusion. When you are honest, upfront, and detailed about what you need, the artist will speak for you more often.

Details:

• Yes, but it deserves mentioning twice. The most common cause of receiving the wrong audition is because ‘something was left out’. Think of it this way: The time spent now on explaining details is time you will save later when you have to re-post a job because you left an important detail out.

Grammar and Spelling:

• In digital communication, for some reason, people are less forgiving when they see spelling errors or poor grammar. Proofreading what you are about to send in takes only a few minutes, and will help you get auditions. Taking these extra couple minutes tells a person you care about the project; a great reason to audition.

Emails and Phone Numbers:

• Use an email and phone number that works. It helps Voice123 staff get in touch with you, and it also lets us know that you are a legitimate business or person. Voice123 protects your privacy at your request. You will see that in the project posting form.
  

In closing, you may notice I did not touch on ‘budgets’. The fact is, working online is about building relationships. Those who ‘think of the bigger picture’ will work with an honest person, even if the budget may be smaller than normal. Honesty is the strongest foundation of any long-term working relationship. It is the same mindset behind why people find a car mechanic they can trust, and stay with that person for years, regardless of cost...just because they trust them for being honest.

Comments? Let us know!

Steven Lowell
Community Development Guru
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123

Community: More Living With A Voice Actor - 'Do's & Dont's'

In 2010, we presented four blogs written by Dianne Russell; partner to successful Voice123 talent, Adam Behr, from South Africa. It was an insightful and fun look into the lives of a very successful voice talent, and the partner who is there to support his career. Today we present part V: The do’s and dont’s when living with a voice actor:

It is now 2011 and I have been living with my voice actor for about a year and a half. During this time, we have moved twice (including a move to Africa), and I feel like I have a much better understanding of what it means to be a supportive partner to a voice actor, who works from a home studio. Here are some of the thing I have learned in the last year:

• Do not go on a trip to Africa and let your voice actor use one of your suitcases for his equipment. You never know if you will leave Africa again, and if you leave all your precious shoes at home so he can fill your bag with equipment, you will certainly be sorry. Put your foot down and spring for the extra baggage allowance; do not sacrifice your shoes.

• Do not attempt to help your voice actor set up his home studio unless he/she asks. Having no comprehension of the mechanics of sound reverberation, it is silly for you to offer advice on how the studio should be configured from an aesthetic point of view. Stand back, watch the transformation of blankets, dresser drawers and pillows be transformed into something hideous, and say nothing. In the end it will sound great and pay for the food on your table.

• Do make sure you find out when your voice actor will be recording in advance so that you know when it is acceptable for you to open/close doors. Otherwise, once the recording has started, you could find yourself either trapped inside or outside for hours, unable to exit/enter for fear of disrupting the recording.

• Do give your honest opinion when your voice actor plays his/her recordings for you. I used to daydream a bit when listening and say that it all sounded great, but then I realized that it is not helpful to stroke a person's ego if it really does not sound good – better to give constructive criticism than have your partner lose out on a job.

• Do not sit in the room while your partner is recording. It means that you have to stop everything you are doing again and again (including breathing), and any slight noise on your part will result in an eye-roll and the need to re-record, which means you have to sit perfectly still and silent again.

• Do try to listen for your partner's voice on local radio and TV. It is fun when I unexpectedly hear my partner selling whiskey or Italian food on the radio while driving to work, and he always appreciates the recognition.

• Do not touch your voice actor's computer or sound equipment. Moving one of the dozens of cords or USB’s could result in a catastrophe of seismic proportions. Forget about dusting the equipment or trying to straighten it up – just leave it be and accept the fact that this one room in your house will always look chaotic.

• Do invest in a good pair of earplugs. Self-explanatory, I think.

Finally, be thankful that you are lucky enough to live with a talented, creative person whose job allows him/her to work from home, have flexible hours, and, most importantly, provide hours of entertainment. Living with a voice actor has its ups and downs, but at the end of the day, it's a pretty sweet gig.

- by Dianne Russell

Voice123 thanks for Dianne Russell and Adam Behr for this transparent, intimate look into life with a voice actor. If you have a ‘Do-it-yourself’ story you would like to share with Voice123, we would love to share what the Voice123 Community is doing!

Steven Lowell
Community Development Guru
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123

The Most Important Ingredient For Success

The end of 2010 leads many to reflect on New Year’s resolutions. Yet, there is an ingredient for success that must exist before any New Year's Resolution gets off the ground. This ingredient is important because a career in voice overs, or any form of entertainment, is a career where one seeks approval from complete strangers for artwork created, in order to be paid to fund more creating. It is a career where one wakes up everyday to start a new job search. It feels impossible without the most important ingredient for success...Love

Love serves every person as a foundation; a cornerstone engraved with a purpose. Love serves as a free pass for when the entire world seems to say “STOP!’, but you say, ‘GO!’. Love serves as confidence and a safety net to make choices when others think you have gone crazy. Love makes you right when all signs, all people, and all opinions, tell you that you are wrong. Love gives an artist the ability to romanticize the times they are considered, ‘Struggling’. Love just makes living life, and sharing, much easier.

In that respect, Love is the ultimate wisdom, for without it we will never be sure why we are building a career in a business considered to be ‘unreal’ by those whom have never dared try it. This is the one career that demands a person love him/herself, support group, and belief in his/her own talent, before they can even get started as a business. Love is most important, simply because if one does not love what they do, feel loved, or have no love in life, they may never know how good it feels to share what makes them special with the rest of the world. Love is the ultimate force against negativity, and that voice that says, ‘It's ok if you make a fool of yourself....I still love ya’.’ Love also helps people take responsibility for what they do.

For me, Love was a voice that said, “Hey it is fine that you want to quit your Wall St. job at AIG, and work as a manager at a website with staff in Latin America despite the fact you do not speak Spanish. We can buy Rosetta Stone. No big deal.” Love is also that voice that leads one to make smart decisions, and smile at challenges. Love drives people to express; when there is doubt one is being too 'mushy'. I had doubts of writing this, but my wife expressed, ‘You should not be shy especially because you sleep well at night knowing the company you work for loves the people they serve everyday. Be thankful.’ Love, for all its magic, brings us back down to earth, humble, and understanding.

Love will carry Voice123 into 2011 and beyond because it is a creation based on loving intentions for helping a loved one find voice over work. When Love is well-placed, it is impossible to deny.

What ‘Love’ inspires you to carry on into 2011, and for years to come?

Happy New Year from Voice123, and may 2011 be exciting and prosperous!

Steven Lowell
Community Development Guru
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123

A Voice For Every Need: Voices For Commercials

Announcing, hard-sell, real, conversational, and energetic voices will help your product stand out above the rest. The selection of the right voice over for your commercial is critical. Many times people remember the voice that is selling the product, as well as, the product itself!

Voice123 allows voice seekers to listen to voice over demos online and select the best voices for their commercials. Create and post a project online to be answered by voice over talents, or browse Voice123's voice over talent database and select voices for commercials. Voice talents will send you custom voice demos with your script and a price quote in a few hours.

Start using Voice123 today and learn how to manage voice over castings for your commercials!

Find the Best Voice For Your Commercial Now!

Steven Lowell
Community Development Guru
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123

Voice123 Thanks The Voice Over Community For 2010!

Voice123 wants to take a moment to thank the entire voice over community (we know voice talent work as voice seekers too) for helping set a record of over 1000 voice over jobs posted a month in 2010 with our SmartCast system; not to mention the private jobs posted!

On the chart below, you will notice that Voice123 continues to grow, and continues to provide voice over jobs for the voice talent, who is all about ‘do-it-yourself’!





This has been an exciting year, finding out that jobs passing through the site came close to earning voice talent an Oscar-nominee, and also landing a major motion picture voice over job for the highest grossing animated film of all time!

For 2011, we leave voice seekers with a quote...from a voice talent, Naomi Mercer:

“There is no such thing as a small job; just small thinking.”

Any plans for 2011? We hope they include posting voice over work on Voice123!

Steven Lowell
Community Development Guru
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123

Community: Living With a Voice Actor – Internet Blues

The blog below is part IV of a series of blogs written by Dianne Russell, partner to Voice123 voice talent, Adam Behr; a successful voice talent with Voice123. The series gives insight into what it means to be ‘living with a voice actor’, based out of South Africa:

"When I first started writing these posts about my voice actor, I really didn't understand a lot about the voice business – it simply provided me an endless and ever-changing stream of personal entertainment. However, in 2010 I have come to understand and appreciate the complexities of running a voice acting business from home, especially when trying to set up in a developing foreign country like South Africa, where Internet is an unreliable and frustrating luxury.

I now realize how North Americans take their fast, reliable, inexpensive Internet service for granted. South Africa is lagging far behind in the internet world; although somewhat faster internet has been available since the spring, it is expensive, limited, totally unreliable and apt to cause trouble at the worst possible times – a nightmare for internet-dependent voice professionals. It also comes “shaped”, a term I had never heard before. Shaped internet is internet that prioritizes certain functions during high traffic times. Email and YouTube are not priorities, nor are large voice files. During high traffic, the Internet slows to a crawl, and all one can do is wait...and wait...and wait. A voice actor in South Africa is doomed to the ebb and flow of connectivity, which requires immense patience when the connection is cut mid recording. I have spent hours of my time arguing with our internet provider, struggling to understand the foreign accents of the customer service reps and desperate to get my voice actor reconnected before a Voice 123 audition expires and he subsequently blows a gasket in frustration.

It has also been interesting to see how people in an internet-deprived country like South Africa try to grasp exactly what it means to be a modern-day voice actor. Although they seem to get the idea that it involves acting with one's voice (and therefore does not involve a camera), there is often confusion about the mechanics of how it actually works. For people who live without Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, the idea that someone can work from home by recording voices and sending sound files from Africa to North America through a phone line (Internet here is still ADSL) is a genuine puzzle. The concept of ISDN is mind-blowing to some, and the confused facial expressions make me think of what it must have been like when the telephone started coming into mainstream use.

At this time of year, we tend to think of our blessings and express gratitude for all that we have. I truly hope that voice actors in North America, who live with the joy of affordable, reliable, lightening-fast internet, comprehend how fortunate they really are!"

Voice123 thanks Dianne Russell and Adam Behr for the honest look into their lives, working in the voice over business. We hope you have enjoyed it!

What do you think?

Steven Lowell
Community Development Manager
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123

Trend: Skype And The Voice Over Industry

Two days ago, Skype experienced world-wide outages, and for the next 24 hours, it was easy to witness just how important Skype is to the voice over industry, as people scrambled to find ways to communicate with peers, or just took it an excuse to take an early Holiday. Back in 2004, when online casting began to explode, the major concern was that auditions were being sent into a 'black hole' and no one knew who was who, and only had forums to communicate; a somewhat two-dimensional way of communicating.

Since 2007, and especially in the last three years, Skype calls have enabled voice over coaches, voice talent, and voice over clients to record work, create voice over demos, 'phone patch' (maybe Skype-patch?), and hold voice coaching workshops. Perhaps the greatest advantages to Skype continue to be:

• Face to face reassurance that you are working with a 'human', which helps build trust
  
• Increasing sound and picture quality
• Low or no cost (On average Skype customers spend just $8 USD a month)

Skype has also allowed Voice123 staff to communicate; not just within staff, but also with members of the voice over community. There is just something special about being able to say, 'Look! The guy writing emails is a real person!'. Perhaps, this blog is inspired by a story today on Good Morning America, of a US Marine in Afghanistan, who was able to watch his daughter's birth via Skype, I will be using Skype to stay in touch with my large family during a Holiday party, and all of the voice talent I had the chance to meet face to face this year while working at Voice123 (Skype call with Chris Kendall and Loren Gursky). Simply putting a face and voice to the email is enough to remind us what makes people in the voice industry so special.

What do you use Skype for your voice over needs?

Happy Holidays! Here is a gift for you: Skype Smiles & Skype Flags

Steven Lowell
Community Development Manager
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123

Happy Holidays From Voice123!

The Voice123 staff wants to quickly take this opportunity to wish all of the Voice123 Community a very Happy Holidays!

In the past year, we averaged over 23,000 emails a month, and enjoyed every opportunity to help members of the voice over community with their voice over needs. We are grateful to be of service to the entire voice over industry.

This season leaves many thinking of Holiday memories and classics!

Do you have some you would like to share?

Leave us comments below!

Special Happy Holidays From The Voice123 Team!