Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Server Upgrade Means Planned Outage This Weekend!

This weekend, Voice123 will be making a much needed server upgrade to meet the growing demands of its user community.

This does mean the site will have to come down for Sunday, May 31st, 2009, between the hours of 3:00 am and 7:00 am (USA ET).

Some of you may have experienced a slow response time from the web server recently. We thank you so much for your feedback and patience in recent weeks. We hope this upgrade will serve our Voice123 Community by having faster site speed, which makes for a much more pleasant experience.

If you are a Voice Seeker planning to post a project this coming Sunday, we suggest that you do so after 7:00 am (USA ET), or send us the details of the project via email to help@voice123.com, so we can process them for you.

If you are a Voice Over Talent-Producer, please schedule yourself to send your pending auditions and proposals before or after the planned outage.

Cheers,

Voice123 - The Voice Marketplace
Juan Salcedo
General Manager

Friday, May 22, 2009

Talent Finds 'Terminator: Salvation' on Voice123!

We are very happy to announce that Voice123 talent, September Day Leach, booked a great job through Voice123, doing promotional materials for the movie, 'Terminator: Salvation', which premiered last Thursday! We thank her for letting us know about this great job, and she agreed to answer some questions about how this came to be.
Q. First, tell us about the job!
A. I was hired for promotional work for the film. I'm on www.skynetresearch.com, and all the cool viral stuff they did including infomercials for the SciFi Channel! It was just really, really cool!

Q. What exact project did you find this work through?
A. This one: http://voice123.com/lv/Corporate_Site_2.html

Q. When did you realize exactly how big the job was going to be?
A. When the production company told me who the real client was, I think I giggled like a schoolgirl for a good half hour! I was thrilled that my sexy, monotone voice was chosen as the most iconic antagonist, Skynet!

Q. How many auditions did you go through to get the job?
A. Just the one SmartCast audition. It was weird because the client hid the real name of the company in the script. I actually thought it was a security firm of some sort.

Q. They hid their name, so how did you know who it was, and what is the process of signing an NDA? Did you negotiate anything ahead of time?
A. I got a phone call while I was in a cab on my way to the NYC voice over mixer that Erik Sheppard, and I held in early December 2008. The production house e-mailed me a copy of the NDA the day before I got the phone call. The name of "Warner Brothers" was on it, so I had an inkling it was going to be a big deal! All it said was that once I found out who the client was, I would not tell anyone in detail about the scripts I would be recording. I had signed it and faxed it back the day before I left for the New York City VO Mixer, and didn't think I would hear back until Monday. They called me on Friday while I was in my cab from La Guardia, going to meet Erik at the NYC (34th St.) Macy's to see Santa. I was all calm and cool on the phone, but freaked my cabbie out a bit when I started doing the victory dance (which looks an awful lot like the "Snoopy dance") in his back seat! When we finally got to sit on Santa's lap (and we have picture proof of Erik sitting on Santa's knee!) I told him that I had already gotten my Christmas present! :) I knew the general price range for the initial recording, but I did negotiate prices as we recorded more scripts. The people with the production house were very nice and professional. All of the sessions were recorded via phone patch from my home studio.

Q. How about other jobs you have booked on Voice123?
A. Voice123 allows me to book the bread and butter jobs that makes it possible for me to be a full-time VO, while at the same time granting me access to career-changing jobs for clients like MTV, Subaru, IKEA, and now, Warner Brothers! The return on investment is incredible! No matter how successful I am able to be in this industry, Voice123 will always be in my marketing arsenal.

Voice123 thanks September Day Leach for sharing her success story with us, and we wish her all the best in future auditions! Nothing makes us happier than to hear people are working in a voice over career they love!

We thank you for reading!

If you have a voice over casting success story of your own you would like to share with us for the future, please let us know by writing us, or in our Voice123 Premium Forums!

Thank you always!
Voice123 - The Voice Marketplace
Steven Lowell
Public Relations Manager
My Blog
Twitter: @stevenNYC123

Monday, May 18, 2009

'My Voice Tags' in Your Profile!

Demo tags are finally here! The work put in by you, the professional Voice123 talent, has helped us create a great new feature for helping all Voice123 voice over talents to be found much easier than ever before!

When the new Voice123 Search Feature comes out soon, the very tags you choose to keep in your new 'My Voice Tags' section of your profile, can assist you in being found quicker and easier. Simply put, these are keywords that have been anonymously left on your profile demos by other professional talents throughout the last year.

Demo tagging is a very complex web development feature, which makes it faster & easier for people to connect in order to be hired. Bottom line, you can only benefit from it!

You may check at any time what tags your voice has received in the 'My Voice Tags' option of the 'My Profile' section (you can remove tags you don't agree with). And if you want to tag other talents, you can do so here.

You can never connect if a tag does not match what you are, and because you can remove these tags, while leaving some for others, you now have a voice in shaping the professionalism of Voice123!

This feature works because the Voice123 community made it so, and we thank you so much for being a part of Voice123.

Read more about it in our Resource Center article about Demo Tagging, if you have questions.

Cheers,

Voice123 - The Voice Marketplace
Juan Salcedo
General Manager

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Demo Tagging Winners Announced!

The demo tagging promotion to give away five premium subscriptions ended last week. Over the weekend, Voice123 spent many hours looking through them to see just who tagged the most demos. We are happy to announce the following five winners of Voice123 Premium Subscriptions!


We received over 25,000 tags throughout the past year. Over 9,600 voice demos were tagged, belonging to 8,500 voice talents. The tags left were very professional, and it was a pleasure to see such high community participation!

We thank all who took part in this promotion. You may continue tagging demos as you wish. The ability to see and remove the tags given to you will be available very shortly as part of a new feature to help you increase your online exposure!

If you have any questions about Demo Tagging, and how it will be used, please ask us here on the Voice123 Premium Forums.


Thank you always!
Voice123 - The Voice Marketplace
Steven Lowell
Public Relations Manager
My Blog
Twitter: @stevenNYC123

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Copy Reading - Some Tips and Thoughts

In a creative industry, there are no 'absolutes', yet the one thing that seems to have changed very little over the last 20 years is 'how to read copy', even with all the technology out there, which changed the way business is done.

Back in the 90's, I read the book 'Word of Mouth', by Susan Blu & Molly Ann Mullin. When it comes to copy reading, I still refer to tips in this book. Of course, the way we do business has changed with online casting, in that it is now more 'do-it-yourself'. So, as someone, who listens day to day to demos and auditions on Voice123, I would like to share some thoughts and tips about copy reading, a main component of booking voice over work.
  • Know who you are talking to, always, while you read copy
    Each script has an audience. It is important to sound as if you are addressing someone while you speak. I have always believed that 'if you talk to someone specifically, you talk to everyone at the same time', and if you are listening to a voice over, the voice that stops the audience in their tracks is one that sounds as if it was directed at one person.
  • Do not try to sound like anyone else. Be yourself
    In a business with so many talents, you have to sell a product, that being your voice, and there is no other person out there like you. Trying to sound like what you perceive voice over artists to sound like, actually makes you sound inexperienced.
  • Creativity & originality is a must, BUT know the basic rules first
    I live by the motto, 'You can only break rules, once you know the rules.' That said, true creativity and originality can be implemented when you know what is being done, and should not be done. For example... Announcing in an audition that you are 'Trying something new here...', actually scares people into thinking you do not know what you are doing. Why? Because true creativity and originality that holds the listener's attention requires no explanation, before or after. Just do what you think is best, based on what you know. If you are having a creative block, just change up the cadence, and try inflections on words, even if they make no sense. Remember though... do this when you practice, so that when you audition, it is second nature to you. On this point as well, all creativity you have may be lost if your recording quality is poor.
  • Repetition and practice is key
    The best way to learn a new skill is through repetition of educated steps. The best way to learn how to read copy is to practice reading it consistently. Doing this in classes and with coaches is better than trying it for the first time when auditioning. You want scripts and copy to become a new language for you. Practice also helps your diction, and also gets you 'out of your head', almost so that you are not thinking so much about how you sound, but more so whether or not you are accomplishing the goal that the script has set before you.
I still remember the day I felt like something clicked inside me while reading copy... I was reading something, and I knew while I was reading it, that I was not getting the point across, I was speaking too fast, and that my NYC accent slipped in there by mistake, and it was out of place and not asked for in the script. It was very much an 'in the zone' feeling that came after many months of working diligently with a coach, and classes on what types of voice overs I sell best. I also remember that when I auditioned on Voice123 as a talent, I read the script almost 20 times before recording, just to make sure I knew what the script was really trying to do, backwards forwards.

I hope this insight helps. You can always share your opinions or ask for Demo Advice on Voice123's Premium Forums. Opinions may vary, but you can never forget practice, and dedication.


Voice123 - The Voice Marketplace
Steven Lowell
Public Relations Manager
My Blog
Twitter: @stevenNYC123