The Voice123 Team Blog

Voice123 Blog has moved to a new location...

2011-01-20T18:25:00.000-05:00

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!

2011-01-11T16:46:00.000-05:00

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

2011-01-04T09:37:00.014-05:00

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'

2011-01-03T08:48:00.028-05:00

In 2010, we presented four blogs written by Dianne Russell; partner to successful Voice12 3 t alen t, 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

2010-12-30T19:18:00.020-05:00

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

2010-12-29T10:50:00.009-05:00

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!

2010-12-28T14:43:00.027-05:00

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

2010-12-27T08:34:00.024-05:00

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, Twitt er, 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

2010-12-24T09:33:00.025-05:00

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!

2010-12-23T11:07:00.012-05:00

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!

Recording Booths: How Do You Do It?

2010-12-22T09:39:00.035-05:00

Good day, and Happy Holidays! I am a staff member at Voice123, Leo DeLope, with the chance to write a blog this morning for voice talent. Some of you may already know me from Voice1 23 Live Chat and help desk emails. As an aspiring photojournalist, I can identify with running into economical obstacles, in the pursuit of working in a career that demands passion. Equipment can be expensive, and not being able to afford it, or not being sure what to buy, led me to the Internet to do research.

I came across the acronym, ‘D.I.Y (do it yourself)’, and fortunately, I found a large community willing to share ideas on how to get work at a great price. In the process, I continue to have fun, meeting new and interesting people from the Voice123 Community. Recently, I found a story of a voice talent on Voice123, who built his own recording booth. It caught my attention because the voice talent took ‘before/during/after’ pictures of the process. I know he is not the only one with proud photos of his recording booth! We would love to see your booths, and talk about how you did it! Being creative can not only save you money, but it can also earn you some free subscription time on Voice123!

Show us your photographs of your booth, and let us know how you did it!

The cheapest and most creative solutions will win a 6-month subscription on Voice123! We promise to share your tips with the voice community and promote you; maybe I can offer ideas that could work for your profile picture. If you would like to see some of my pictures you can go to www.leeooh.com, or check my flickr profile.

Let us know what you think, and how you 'do it yourself'!

Happy recording and Happy Holidays!

Leo Lopez
Account Manager
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123

Community: Change The Voice123 Motto!

2010-12-20T09:05:00.006-05:00

Since opening in 2003, Voice123 has always had the ‘title’, ‘The Voice Marketplace’.

Simply put...it is time for voice talent to change to a ‘motto’ and we would like you, the voice over community, to give us your ideas!

Please go to this survey to let us know in four words or less, what motto should be used for Voice123!

If your idea is chosen, we will give you a 1-year Premium Subscription to Voice123!

You can leave comments to tell us what you think, too! Just remember to leave your name to be considered for a 1-year Premium Subscription!

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

Soundproofing and Recording Part II: Recording

2010-12-17T09:33:00.009-05:00

In our last blog from December 15th, 2010, we shared with you soundproofing advice from voice coach David Zema, as part I of this series. Today, we share part II: Recording!

"There are many tutorials on line for using Audacity and other software for recording. Learn how to set levels for your voice and how to fix some of the unwanted background sounds in post-production until you can set up a quieter recording environment. Using noise reduction and other post- production processes may help, but they add unnecessary time to your busy schedule. The time spent setting up a permanent quieter environment is time better spent than fixing it in the mix for every recording. Learn the best practices for recording sound:

Get a fast, quiet computer with as much RAM as you can afford.
Use only 7200 RPM or solid state hard drives.
Use a second hard drive for recording your audio and not the same hard drive as your operating system.
Use the best uni-directional or cardioid microphone you can afford.

You are welcome to send me an mp3 of a recent audition recording you have done. I will send back a brief note telling you what, if any background I can hear as well as what I think may be the problem. If you would like a private consultation regarding soundproofing or recording or voice over coaching and demo production, I am available for that as well. Soundproofing and recording take time to learn, troubleshooting and problem solving to get right. Be patient and persistent and you will succeed! - David Zema"

Coming up on Monday, look for a very special blog that will invite you to talk about how YOU, the voice talent, 'do what you do' from home! If you have pictures and info you would like to share from your Voice123 Meetup, please do not hesitate to write us, or share with the Voice123 Community!

Tell us what you think! Was this helpful?

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

Soundproofing and Recording: Part I

2010-12-15T12:46:00.019-05:00

Last Friday, Voice123 held a Meetup at David Zema’s recording studio in New York City. We all discussed soundproofing and recording from home. David Zema wrote a blog on the topic. Today’s blog will be about ‘soundproofing’, and you will see the extreme limits one must go to when working in the 'city that never sleeps' as a voice talent:

"I have been recording audio since I was 12 years old and shooting video since I was 18. I have sound proofed over twenty spaces in the last 20 years. One thing I have learned about soundproofing is that I am always working to improve it.

When I finally got my last studio to the point that I thought was perfected, I had to move because a noisy performance space had set up operation on the floor below. Their speakers were located right beneath my sound booth. It was going to take layers of lead and concrete to muffle that noise! In 2008, I moved to my current location at 1123 Broadway. The room I rented had previously been a recording studio, and the building has solid walls built in 1896. But it took layers of plexi-glass (acrylic) and homasote to muffle the sounds reverberating up from 25th Street.

Then along with hanging many baffles made of Berber carpeting and soundproofing foam from Marketek, I found a used soundproof isolation booth on ebay. I added more soundproofing materials to the isolation booth and now everything is quiet enough to record. Additionally, I use pipe insulation on an iron based mic stand for a second corner area used for recording. This area uses a cork board, Marketek foam, Berber carpeting and a vinyl mat on top of the carpet to deaden sound before it reaches the mic. Remember that separation of your computer equipment from your microphone will reduce unwanted noise and vibration. Using the quietest equipment you can get is the ultimate goal. Consider a solid state digital recorder that is noise free as an option for small spaces. The microphone enclosure is another option if you can't soundproof an entire room. Materials that have mass or density are used to stop sound.

Homasote and even special sound resistant sheet rock called QuietRock, fiberboard, soundboard, fiberglass insulation and another materials when used properly have enough density to stop some frequencies. However, these materials will most likely need professional installation by a soundproofing contractor to be done properly, or require a patient ‘do-it-your-self’ craftsman with tools and a lot of time. Concrete, sand, lead and mass-loaded vinyl are used in professional sound studios, but are very expensive and not an option for most apartment renters."

Coming up on Friday...Part II: Recording! David Zema is a voice over coach with Voice123. If you are ever interested in sharing a blog, please do so with the Voice123 community, or please email it to help@voice123.com! We would love to hear your thoughts and ideas!

Tell us what you think, and if you found this helpful!

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

If I Was An Agent...Why I Would Use Voice123

2010-12-14T09:56:00.018-05:00

I had this conversation with some Voice123 staff over dinner last Friday: “If I was an agent, I would be using Voice123 everyday.” Here is why:

Union-friendly job posting procedure and search feature

‘My Preferred Voices’ feature would allow me to save people I should work with, ‘paperlessly’, simply by clicking ‘Preferred Voice’ under the audition, or ranking the talent.

Time-saver: Voice over agents have used Voice123 in the past to find talent. These jobs receive the quickest response out of any other job posted. In addition, Voice123 is a global marketplace, meaning I could very well post a job at 11pm EST, and get plenty of auditions before I go to bed, either from the pacific coast, or other parts of the world!

Shared inbox link to give to people for consideration, which also allows for me to hide that I used Voice123. You will not find any reference to Voice123 here. This feature was created for the job poster to take the credit for finding talent.

The website co-founders and staff are comprised of voice talent, artists and skilled web developers. I can trust the website will be sensitive to the business needs of the voice talent, and the job poster who needs an organized, time-saving technology for voice casting.

Finally....It is free to find voice talent. Voice123 only cares that voice talent get work, and does not take commission. So...no intermediaries. I guess that is a time-saver, too.

When I used Voice123 as a voice talent, I was contacted by agents a couple of times through the search feature. For this reason, I especially like the Voice123 voice seeker interface because it promotes loyalty and relationship building.

After a while, you start to realize you found more voice talent than you ever could have without the use of technology.

What do you think?

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

Community: Unique Success Story

2010-12-13T10:39:00.012-05:00

We want to share a success story today reported to us by Voice123 voice talent, Vanessa Lee, taken directly from email with her permission. Thank you Vanessa!

"I recently went to Space City studios in Kensington, London, as I had been chosen to voice a Mudd face pack commercial which is currently on TV. As I left the building I received a phone call from another producer at Space City, who asked me to voice an AxaPPP radio commercial, so I turned around and went back and made that recording, too. It was a complete coincidence that my audition had been ranked "finalist" by two separate producers in the same company, on the same morning, and both jobs came from the Voice123 website. Thanks Voice 123! That was the best paid morning’s work ever."

Here is her voice in action!

If you have a success story you would like to share from a voice over gig, simply drop us an email with your permission to post it! We will gladly share it with the voice community!

Thank you!

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

Voice123 Meetup! See You Tonight!

2010-12-10T10:59:00.012-05:00

Tonight at 7pm, Voice123 staff and voice talent will be holding a Meetup at 1123 Broadway, suite. 1012, in NYC, NY; the studio of voice coach, David Zema.

For more info please check here.

This meetup will have a particular theme to it: Discussing soundproofing and recording. If you dislike cold weather, or cannot make it, we are going to Livestream the Meetup, going online shortly before 7pm!

Voice123 Livestream Channel

The video will be available for viewing immediately following, if you miss any of it. Please take a look at these other great Voice123 Meetups in your area!

Voice123 thanks David Zema, Bettye Zoller, and Ben Bledsoe; voice over coaches with Voice123 looking to connect face to face with voice talent!

If you are a voice coach looking to promote a Meetup through Voice123, please organize one today!

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

Usage: Don’t Knock Yourself Out!

2010-12-08T09:33:00.017-05:00

Over the past few months, Voice123 has been featuring voice talent through social media. We do so by posting a project, that usually has a relevant theme to what is being talked about online. We somewhat ran into a snag this month, when it came time to promote the shared inbox on this voice job. Only 3 followed directions. Please don't knock yourself out of work doing the same!

Now, I do not like people beating up on voice talent by saying, ‘They never follow directions! (grumble grumble)’. I have heard it talked about before, but I think its unfair to single anyone group out. Why? A statistic recently showed that if you ask 100,000 people to do something on a website, you can expect less than 200 people to do it. In short, everyone is guilty of it at some point e.g. How many can actually say, ‘I read all the terms of service agreements for everything!’.

The problem is...In short, people are just people. Imagine you are a voice seeker, and you post a voice job, and you have a boss to give auditions. Listen to this and think about how many followed the script note: Record your audition in the voice of the VO Job you always wanted, and tell the world why you want it!

There is great talent on here too! However, that greatness has to translate into an online environment, and it may just start with the way one interprets or reads directions!

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

Image from IGN.com

Is Seeking Voice Talent Like Ordering Pizza?

2010-12-07T11:31:00.024-05:00

The idea for this blog came from an experience with trying to use The Dominos Pizza online ordering website, while working late one night last week.

The Common Thread
Pizza and voice overs...both can be ordered on a website, but they are two entirely different businesses. But the fact that they can be ordered, or sought, on a website creates a common perception as to ‘how things should work because it is a website, after all!’.

The Bad Experience With Dominos
Now living in New York City, it may seem I betrayed brethren by ordering pizza from a chain restaurant; online no less, but I was in a bind. I was working alone and could not leave my desk. I placed an order asking for Buffalo chicken wings, cheesy bread, and diet coke; yes, from a pizza place. The website showed me this really cool graphic, that I could track my order, and I thought, ‘Great, back to work. I got this graphic telling me what's up!’.

Then, the food arrived...kind of...

The Buffalo wings were the wrong type, the sauce was wrong, they sent me Sprite and Coke, and the delivery man had no pen to sign the credit card receipt....because it is a website, so I paid online. I was forced to ask, 'Did you bring me the wrong order? Maybe this was meant for someone else?'.

It got worse...
I tried to call the store, the delivery guy, and the supervisor; numbers given to me by the website. No one answered the phone.

Back to voice overs...
Imagine, you are a voice seeker and you 'go to a website', ask for a female speaking voice talent who has ISDN, and you need the voice over work within a day. For that reason, you agree to pay a little more than usual. Now, because the money looks good, some voice talent who are the complete opposite of what you requested (perhaps men), decide to submit auditions, state that they are experienced (and they are...offline), and therefore they should be considered.

Did someone just show up at the door with a bottle of coke? These two anecdotes are taken straight from my work experience here.

Human Nature
When it comes to doing anything with a website, the fact a person takes the time to request something, means they want what they asked for, or as close to it as possible. You can be a chef straight out of Sicily, or a union talent with decades of experience, any client ready to spend money simply wants what they requested; the chef's/voice talent interpretation of the request...not the polar opposite. Creative license expires when you offer the 'absolute wrong', in a business with no 'absolute right'. Artistic interpretation aside, do not be the voice talent who makes great pizza, but has no business plan in place to deliver it in the manner expected of a website.

Websites
Be it a pizza or a voice talent, websites in any service industry have to provide solutions, and therefore the same psychology applies across the board for a ‘paid more when pleased more’ business:

‘Please...I know what I want. Show me you know what I need.’

Epilogue: Ending on a positive note!
Over the weekend, the corporate offices of Dominos called me to apologize, and refunded my money. Even still, we all know how impressions can lead us away from something; opportunity has been lost.

I took what happened Friday, as a sign someone was telling me to eat healthier.

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

Community: Building Community Any Which Way You Can

2010-12-06T11:38:00.013-05:00

Meetups!
Voice123 is holding a Meetup this Friday, December 10th, in NYC! You can see that many voice talen t are planning to come out! We hope you can too!

We are looking to discuss building home studios that day! Please take a look!

Did you know about other Meetups for Voice Talent?

Organize a Voice123 Meetup!

Skype Calls!
Skype is turning into an important networking, business, and support tool in various ways every single day! Voice talent already use it as a ‘phone patch’ for voice over work, and it is also a way to talk face to face with other voice talent, supporting each other, and building a voice over community!

On Friday, December 17th, I will get to do my first Skype call with voice talent, just to talk about working in voice overs. Thank you to Loren Gursky and Chris Kendall for inviting! You can read more about it on their Facebook group!

Please check us out, too, on Twitter and Facebook for updates, blogs, and great info!

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

Trend: Working Around An Obstacle

2010-12-03T10:39:00.015-05:00

Over the summer, Voice123 did a survey asking about the various ways that voice talent get work.

You can see that forum post here!

Each month voice talent are surveyed on Voice123, and the most common statistic is that 6% to 10% of Voice123 voice talent can make a full-time living off of Voice123 alone. There is no voodoo behind it. There is a common thread among all of them:

They have repeat clients
They know how to market themselves online
They are talented
They have a brand to them that requires no explanation
They think creatively as a voice talent, and as a business

What is meant by ‘creative business thinking’?
As many know, or find out, Voice123 uses a software that aims to fairly distribute auditions among ALL paying subscribers. SmartCast can be viewed many ways, but the end result is that it is still a software with rules, and when these rules are learned, it is only at that point that a person can create his/her own; sounds very ‘Matrixee’.

Do the people working full-time do anything unfair?
No, but they know that believing the way to ‘win more jobs’ is to ‘constantly audition with blind online rigor’ is a mistake. You can only go out for that which fits you, and will not waste anyone's time.

“But what if I am in high demand”?
To get to the point, some voice talent realize that maybe SmartCast does limit them, and they would rather only use Voice123. They realize this because they get work on Voice123; not because they got work somewhere else.

Working Around an Obstacle
Many...but not all...purchase more than one profile, and when one seems to be getting limited, they jump to the next for a while. We never thought of it, but someone did, and it worked for him/her, so they told their friends...and they told their friends...and so on...and so on....This is a great reason to study how people succeed, and not study how others failed. You will always find both, but only one way teaches you how to get work.

Is this ‘cheating’?
It is hard to call something, ‘cheating’, when someone has taught another a way to work a system, by creating their own rule. The web allows for one to create a ‘persona’, but the industry always had stage names, no? A creation always takes on a life of its own. We have heard stories of amazing voice talent creating a false persona, and booking more work from the profile where their approach to work is more of an ‘act’, and they are shocked to find they are rarely hired from the profile where they sell themselves by stating how they have great experience, but more so where they simply can do the job.

Isn’t this a business about 'getting paid by pretending to be someone else anyway'?
To conclude...if you find you can get lots of work, and feel our system limits you, go for a second profile. Clients are reaching the same voice talent, and you are not shelling out a fortune to 'pay for privilege.'

It happens, so we want you to know about it. What do you think?

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

Image by Pease on Earth

Usage: 'Tis The Season To Be 123 Savvy!

2010-12-01T10:21:00.019-05:00

If you have been using Voice123, or are just starting, and still get nagged by that question, ‘Are they using my audition?’, this blog is for you.

So far in 2010, Voice123 has posted more than 1,000 SmartCast voice over jobs a month. I mention these because they are the jobs that were screened, as private jobs are not screened. :

January (1073)
February (1112)
March (1357)
April (1280)
May (1193)
June (1191)
July (1085)
August (1287)
September (1234)
October (1268)
November (1211)

Why bring this up now?
Did you know less than 1% of voice over jobs on Voice123 turn into a troubled business transaction; stated as such because dropped communication leads to more problems than one “trying to steal”.

However, we had the higher activity of non-payment and/or troubled business transactions resulting from dropped communication during December 2009, and resolved in 2010.

What you need to know for yourself...
1. How to spot ‘spam’. It is easier for some more than others. Ask around.
2. How to investigate who you will be working with, and how to not overreact.
3. Know when you have to be ‘flexible’ vs. ‘when someone is ‘breaking you’

Perhaps, I have seen this to be very difficult for voice over talent to do, only because they aim to please in a business that has no ‘absolute right’; not to mention for years there was a fear if one told an agent, ‘I am busy.’ there was a fear they would never call again. Fact is...Everyone on Voice123 is a ‘DIY’ business, and sometimes a business has to say, ‘No.’ No one ‘gets in trouble’ for being their own business.

What you should never do...
Never lose your head in a situation. Working online is not war. "Give peace a chance". It may be romantic to be the "working class hero", and really tear into someone, but instant "web karma" will get you...and you will find yourself chasing more business away than attracting from overly emotional business behavior.

"Imagine" what you will find out when you stop to ask questions to protect yourself. Sure it may seem like starting over, but the info is out there for free. Just google it. Cooler heads always prevail.

Never ‘assume’. (see: 4:20). It is always important to laugh off spam. Taking online behavior personally will destroy your spirit. Websites are opinion and trend based, and we all have opinions:

Have a great Holiday!

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

Image by Pease on Earth

A Voice For Every Need: Voices for Documentaries

2010-11-30T10:59:00.010-05:00

Did you ever need someone to translate the feeling behind something that is happening, or has happened in the past? If so, you need someone who has great voice talent, combined with a unique ability to be sensitive about the topic of your documentary, and transmit the 'grit' behind the topic!

Have you heard of that beautiful city, that great hero, the way they built that gigantic bridge, or how the space was conquered? If so, you may have noticed the common link in all of them... the documentary voice over, that voice that keeps people on their seats waiting for the commercials to be over and listen to more.

With close to 90,000 voice over talents registered to Voice123, you have thousands of specialized options to choose for your documentary.

Post a voice over project now! Listen to those that best suit your project in just a couple of hours, contact them right away, and get your project going!

Check out the documentary demos of our talents!

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

Photo by Me the wanderer

Community: Some Good News For a Monday!

2010-11-29T13:30:00.022-05:00

Always fun to report Good News of Job Bookings! This week’s comes from someone you may know very well: Zurek!

The job posting...
http://voice123.com/lv/Standing_ovation__1.html

Why it was a good idea to audition for it...
Many who equate ‘dollar amount in budget’ with ‘value of job’ may want to think twice. The value in this job comes from its:

1. Professional script and description using industry lingo
2. The seeker has been on the site since January 2008 and posted before
3. In ALL the jobs posted on Voice123, the voice seeker listened to 100% of the auditions!

If you are one who ponders, ‘Why does no one listen to my audition?’, keep all this info in mind because it is displayed for all voice over talent on every project!

Thank you to Zurek for sharing this with us!

Quick news!
We hope to see you this Friday at The Voiceover Mixer being held in Times Square, or at this Voice123 Meetup in NYC on December 10th!

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

New Term: Globally Accessible Voice Talent

2010-11-24T13:49:00.038-05:00

Back in October, a blog was posted on Voice123 discussing the social implications of calling someone a ‘remote voice talent’.

We held a contest to replace the name, and after a month of receiving dozens of suggestions, we wish to present the winner today!

GAVA - Globally Accessible Voiceover Artist

The initial survey to get suggestions yielded 30 responses! Voice talent voted last week for the contest to win a free 6-month subscription to Voice123!

Winning suggestion was proposed by Sam Glickman! (click chart)

Honorable Mention for coming in Last Place:

Fat guy in his underwear voice talent

Oh well. I guess 'TMI' gets fewer votes. :)

Have a great Holiday, and thank you for being a part of Voice123!

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

Does Art Imitate Life Or Shape It?

2010-11-23T11:06:00.016-05:00

Anyone who has to travel this week, watched an episode of Star Trek, knows about the usage of iris scanners replacing fingerprints in the NYPD, or simply dares to think differently, will appreciate this blog.

A creative talent or group of creatives, can be one of the most innovative thinkers on the planet, maybe just for having the ability to ‘plant a seed’ for a business to figure out later on.

Three things come to mind; the ideas were seeds planted by artists, and manifested into reality years later...for good and bad:

Airport Body Scanners - “Total Recall”

Cell Phones/BlueTooth - “Start Trek”

Iris Scanners (replacing fingerprint records) - “Minority Report”

Given the recent advancements in the video game industry, I am poised to see if 'being inside the actual game' will in fact one day become a reality:

Sounds crazy? Well, so did the concept of voice over talent being able to work with you directly on voice over projects. Seven years later, Voice123 still runs very strong because of the creative, professional voice talent, and business clients who post amazing work, preferring to deal with no intermediaries. It gives light to the famous quote:

What is now proved was once only imagined.
- William Blake

Do you have any favorites of your own?

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

images: StarFleet.com

Community: Worldly Voice Coach Information

2010-11-22T10:56:00.023-05:00

This week, Voice123 wants to mention voice coaches that we have been in contact with over the past week about joining our Coach Partner Program. If you have done voice coaching on how to use Voice123, and have success stories from you or your students, we would especially love to hear from you! Coaches this week!

Marc Graue out of Burbank, California!
If you love animation, there is an animation class coming up you should know about!

Mona Shetty out of India!
If you go to Facebook @Voice123, you will see the communication going back and forth. See more by clicking on the image.

Michelle Falzon out of Michigan
Her voice can be heard on many of the 'ShakeWeight for Women' infomercials. These videos have been viewed over 3 million times on youtube, and featured on talk shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Ellen. Michelle attended a ‘How To Use Voice123’ training back when she first started on the site. She does very well on Voice123 for both SmartCast and her repeat business from SmartCast auditions, as well as, working elsewhere. Her type of training involves, ‘How to Work Online’. There is also a Meetup in Sterling Heights, Michigan, which needs an organizer, and venue!

David Zema out of New York City
He contacted us for ideas on Voice123 Meetups! Voice123 organized a Meetup at his studio to discuss soundproofing and recording.

Please take a look!

It will be a pleasure to meetup and discuss voice overs face-to-face!

About Meetups...
Voice123 has attended Meetups for various industries, including voice overs. If you are not sure how to organize a Voice123 Meetup, or not sure what to do after you have decided to organize a Meetup, please take a look at this blog:

25 Best Practices from a Meetup Organizer

Quote of the Week:
"Playing the game is not about hoping the QB throws you the ball more. It is about making big plays each time the ball is thrown to you, you catch it, and you know what to do next".
- Lynn Swan, Pittsburgh Steelers.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

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

Youtube ‘Like’ Contest Winner Announced!

2010-11-19T13:10:00.026-05:00

Back on October 18th, 2010, Voice123 began a ‘Youtube Like’ contest looking for the video that would liked, viewed, and voted for via survey, in order to give two voice talent each, a 6-month subscription to Voice123! The votes were tallied and as of this morning, this is your winning video!

Kellie Fitzgerald, winner of a free 6-month subscription, booked this job through Voice123. It originally air during an NBC event, “Stand Up to Cancer”, on September 10, 2010.
Felecia Angelle was the winner of a 6-month subscription, drawn from those who had voted!

VO Props - Debbie Irwin (Viewed 2nd most!)

Ever curious who is watching?
Click on the demographic chart of age groups and percentage of views (taken from Youtube Insight) since opening the Voice123 Youtube page to display voice talent work in February 2010.

One more contest...ending shortly!

Thank you so much to all those who contributed!

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

QA Talk: Boo? NO!...Hiss? Yes.

2010-11-17T10:59:00.008-05:00

Voice123 screens auditions for audio quality to make sure that your audition get to the client sounding the way you expected!

This past week, we were looking for topics to discuss that were ‘real-time’ and could directly help anyone who experiences audio issues. A member from QA spoke up and mentioned, ‘Just this past week, we have noticed an increase in auditions with hissing noise’.

The Voice123 Community of talent is the most professional group of voice talent online, so this may not apply to everyone. If you have been experiencing audio issues lately, there are amazing forum posts from the voice community to help you!

David Swineheart offers advice regarding ambient noise!

JS Gilbert and a voice seeker chyme in to assist Kim Somers!

Here’s a discussion on Preamps, and what that can do for you!

Hey! Note from me!
I would like all in the Voice123 community to know that when we disapprove auditions like this one, it is nothing personal. As a voice talent who once used the site, I have learned that, beyond technology, if an extra set of “ears” is not looking out for the community (did that make sense?), more harm is done than good. There are very talented professionals who come on Voice123, but may not be used to home recording yet, and we want everyone to succeed. If something is disapproved, you will be emailed immediately, or within 15 minutes.

We look to build trust with the Voice123 Community, so you can have a job resource site you can believe in.

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

Photo by Pablo Gregor

Seeking Voice Seekers to Guest-Blog!

2010-11-16T11:43:00.010-05:00

Voice123 is a community made up of voice over talent, job posters aka. voice seekers, and the Voice123 company. The Voice123 website is made up of two interfaces; one for talent and the other for seekers.

Yet...

Many times both sides do not understand what the other person is seeing! Voice123 is doing some seeking now. We are ‘guest blogger seeking’ for voice seekers, who would like to write about their experiences using the website to find voice talent.

If you are interested, please let us know, or post your blog in this forum. We will add it to our blog for you and promote your business, which is great for your company's web exposure!

You never know. Your thoughts and opinions may go a long way towards promoting your business, and communicating to those who audition to help them...help you!

This offer is of course extended to voice talent who work as voice seekers, too. Help your community make for a better voice over industry!

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

Community: 'Tis The Season To Meetup

2010-11-15T10:22:00.010-05:00

Typically, this time of year involves a change of pace. For some, the days are shorter. For many voice talent, the work slows down a bit because of the holiday season.

This need not be a wasted time of year! Through all innovations in technology, still nothing beats face to face encounters, and reassuring handshakes with good neighbors, bloggers, forum contributors, website developers, voice talent and voice coaches whom you read and write to all year!

Here are some great ideas!

The 2010 New York Voiceover Mixer!

“The 3rd annual mixer will take place on December 4th, 2010 at Tonic Bar in Times Square. Past mixers have seen the attendance of approximately 300 guests including voiceover talent, coaches, talent agents and other industry professionals.”

Voice123 Meetups!

Feel free to start your Voice123 Meetup, and strengthen the bonds of the voice over comm unity, world-wide! Voice123 Meetups are free and organized by community members like you!

Your voice...Seeking guest bloggers or interviews!

Have you ever wanted to contribute to this blog? If so, please check out this forum post.
You can always reach out to me directly through help@voice123.com

Thank you!

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

Your Chance To Replace The Term 'Remote Voice Talent'!

2010-11-12T10:31:00.020-05:00

Back on October 22, 2010, announced a contest:

“What Would You Call Yourself?”

We received 30 replies, and now it is time for you, the Voice123 Community, to vote for your favorite! You can do so on this survey below, or Voice123 Facebook, or Twitter! Leave your name and be entered into a drawing to win 6-months free on Voice123!

Click here to vote for your favorite below!

InWeb Voice Talent
WWW V/O Talent On Demand (Waiting World-Wide)
"Voice Talent".
on call talent
Cybervoice
freelance voice
Domestic Voice Artist
Independent Voice-Over Artist
Independent Voice Over Specialist
Home Voice Flair
freelance voice actor
echoes from everywhere
"Global Village Talent"
Distance Voicer Talent
Globally Accesible Voice Artist "GAVA"
Independent Voice Talent
Voices from the Cloud
Voice Solutions Specialist
Voice Talent
"stay-at-home" voice-over artist (you know, like "stay-at-home" mom - although we all do go out and work in the world, too, right?
Home based voice talent
iTalent
Voice talent on air
Independent Voice Artist
inter-linked voice talent
Domesticated Voice Talent or Voice Talent Solopreneur
Global Voice Artist or Global Voice Talent
Voice teleworker
Fat guy in his underwear voice talent
Independent Voice Actors

Don't Forget to Check Back!
The winners will be announced next week, along with the winner of the Voice123 Youtube Video ‘Show Some Like’ Contest, currently in action, and announced on the October 18th blog!

Thank you for being a part of the Voice123 Community!

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

Premium Subscriptions With Social Responsibility!

2010-11-10T11:12:00.035-05:00

Voice123.com has teamed up with Rally Earth to make sure your purchase of a Voice123 Premium Subscription offers more than just voice over services. It now offers social responsibility!

Rally Earth is a refreshing new company that is working to help make a big difference in the world we live in. If you purchase a Voice123 Premium Subscription through the Voice123 Rally Earth sponsor page, you will be part of a whole new way of giving to needy causes, without ever paying an extra dime, and pursuing voice over work!

How? When you purchase a Voice123 subscription, or extend it through the sponsor page:

Rally Earth donates the dollars you spend to important causes and charities.
You can vote on the causes and charities that you want to help.
The top 10 charities split the funds at the end of each quarter.
You can even suggest a charity close to your heart, but not on the list.
There's also a “Sponsor” section for business owners to receive special recognition and bonus services while supporting the Rally Earth Action (REACT) Fund.

Using Rally Earth makes it grow, which gives more to the causes that are important to you! Make it a habit to go to rallyearth.com every time you shop, or upgrade your Premium Subscription!

If you have any questions on the Rally Earth website itself, please use this link to find out more.

What do you think? Let us know!

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

‘Faking It’ Just Isn’t ‘Making It’

2010-11-09T16:03:00.015-05:00

In Voice123, we see a common issue with voice talent from the United States mistakenly selecting ‘British-English’ for a ‘native speaking language’, but they can only do a ‘British accent’. Feedback has even shown us that job posters may even feel insulted, if they need British native speakers, and they hear poor attempts at the accent.

Many assume, myself included, that British accents once were prevalent in the US, but we completely ‘evolved’ out of them. Not exactly! Look at this article: "Did Americans in 1776 have British ac cents?"

As a voice seeker posting a job, remember that details are key to the success of what you receive. Specifically choosing a native speaking language of a country will get you mostly what you want, but it helps to specify, 'Native speakers only' in the project description.

Please post a job today!

We have professional voice talent from around the world, and a system to help you find them!

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

Community News: Contest Winners, Phonecalls, Meetups!

2010-11-08T10:53:00.022-05:00

Contest Winners!
If you have been reading up on Voice123’s blog and emails, you may have seen our contests from the past couple weeks. Voting was done via ranking system, email, Facebook, and Twitter. We give you today the contest winner of the ‘Voting is Spooky’ Contest!

Congrats to Dawson McKay and Kyle McCarley!
Each won a free 1-year subscription voucher to Voice123, redeemable anytime!
You can hear all the submissions with this shared inbox!
Be sure to read this blog for more Voice123 Community contests!

Talk With A Pro at Edge Studio
Tomorrow night, I will have the honor of doing a teleseminar with Edge Studio, the voice over industry center!

Please read more about it here!

Voice123 Meetup!
Bill Brewer is heading up another successful Voice123 Meetup this month!

Please read more here!

Thank you for making the Voice123 Community the largest group of professional voice over artists!

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

Doing It Yourself To Earn An Oscar!

2010-11-05T10:15:00.032-05:00

After writing about a Voice123 job last week that almost went to the Oscars, I had the chance to follow up some more with the lead voice actor in Dolphin: Story of a Dreamer, Robbie Daymond. He agreed to share this information, and we hope you will get some amazing insight out of it!

I have come to learn with the many success stories voice talent write to me; they all display an amazing balance of flexibility, talent, and desire to create a work of art, that all voice talent ‘doing it for themselves’ should study:

Executive Name-Calling?
(I played two roles). Carl is the main sidekick in the film, and since Dolphin Films and Fox weren't sure about billing the two main characters as the same actor, they used my Christian name; not my stage name for that character. Random, but funny.

The long and short in 10 Steps!

The auditions were pretty standard. Just your regular Voice123 job posting; budget undefined, international animation, dubbing from Spanish to English, multi-character ADR project working remotely.
Open auditions, then direct contact with the producers for callbacks.
Conversation with director and Bada bing! Hired!
The original idea was for them to send all of the actors syncing material over the net.
Then we were to do our own ADR, and send it back for them to mix and match.
It kind of worked for the smaller parts, but we soon realized it wouldn't for all of the material needed for the main characters.
So, the director flew myself, and another cast member down to Peru!
We recorded for two weeks, got an awesome paid vacation and solid pay.
We thought it was over. No!
Four months later I got a call from the director, saying that the dude, originally cast as Daniel, needed to be replaced and we needed an English singer for the theme song.

Flexibility & Networking...

I brought in my friend and old college roommate Steven Booth to redo one of the parts I had done that had a similar sound to Daniel.
Then I agreed to re-voice the main character as well.
We did a couple of tests with Fox to make sure they couldn't tell both Carl and Daniel were the same guy!
A week later I'm back in Peru for 10 days! This time with Steve Booth and Debbie Repashy; an incredibly talented vo artist who did, multiple female voices as well.
We banged it out, and got a rough mix done less than a week before the 20th Century Fox deadline. Made a lot of friends, did a lot of work.

Reflecting...

I think the best thing about this was that when we were hired, it was never specifically for the movie itself to be aired or sold. Our voices were being used as a selling tool for the USA and International market. There was no guarantee that it would be us in the final English version. But, we really put our hearts into this little Peruvian Indie film and Fox loved it, and here we are!
They're using our voices for the DVD. It is also getting a full, North American DVD release.
It was the #1 box-office film from Peru, all time.
It was one of the top 20 films being considered for an Oscar last year.
It all came from just your normal, maybe even "risky-no-budget-might-pass-it-up" type of project on Voice123. Gotta love it, and it goes to show, you never know what could come out of any audition, no matter how small it may look.

Speaking of animation! Webinar!
News came to us today that Voice123 coach Bettye Zoller is offering a webinar this Monday night on voice overs for video games and cartoons!

Click here for more info on how to register!

If you are a voice over coach, and wish to be part of our program, please let us know!

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

Busy Voice Over Bees And Voice123

2010-11-03T16:01:00.020-05:00

For this blog, we wish to show you just how much activity takes place in Voice123 Customer Service! We think you will find the numbers amazing from last month!

If you are dealing with the front line of customer service you are either talking to Jack Svez, Charlie Peres, Leo Delope, Giselle Geney, and myself. As you will see from numbers below, the size of the team is not important. Caring for the voice over industry is what matters, and so is ‘Voice123 Community’.

Last month, Voice123’s community and our customer service accomplished the following:

(Say this in your best movie trailer voice):

5 staff
22,378 emails received!
576 Live Chats!
1737 hours of work combined!

Whether a voice over profile is registered for free or Premium, through good times and bad, we answer your emails! Contact us anytime! We also do not take commission, so after your $295 tax-deductible Premium subscription, what you earn is yours!

Brand of the day!
It is always great to hear from all of you! You, The Voice123 Community, is what makes this site so special! Sharing this brand from Sid Whatley!

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

Tips: Saving Some Dough, Make More Bread

2010-11-02T16:12:00.035-05:00

Working at Voice123, our staff gets to see the way businesses hire voice talent, and how Voice123 talent are forever changing the ways they deliver work.

We have a new one today, and for those who think, ‘ISDN needs to be replaced’, it is already happening! Saving money on not using services like ISDN is better for your bottom line, and better for the voice talent you hire; less tech costs more payment for labor!

Here is what we are talking about!

Now, one can easily say, ‘You just wont get the same quality’, and to that we say:

“Saying no to technology will set you back for when Skype or Google perfects it, and it is offered at no cost; then the expectation is that you must know how to use it.”

Skype also displays technical information (click that image above), which is helpful for recordings, even if simply using a phone patch. You can read more here.

Skype is also FREE.

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

Community: Shake Off Halloween Hangover

2010-11-01T08:56:00.020-05:00

Contests for you! Showing some love!
If you missed it, Voice123 has a few contests taking place!

Voting is Spooky and Youtube Contests

‘What would you call yourself?’ Contest

These are great opportunities for you to have some fun, while getting some extra time on the site! We encourage all voice over talent to take advantage! Results coming soon!

Voice123 Meetup News!
Bill Brewer recently held a Voice123 Meetup, and had this news to share!

We had our second Oklahoma City Voice Over meetup group and voice 123 meetup group this evening. A great evening with some very talented members . I rated it 5 stars. We now have 29 members.

Organize your own and speak face-to-face with other voice talent!

If you are a voice over coach, and would like to do a Meetup on a specific topic, such as, ‘Building a studio’, let us know! We would love to share and promote the Meetup with the community, and get you more attendees!

In case you missed it...
Voice123 held its monthly Voice123 Webinar on using Voice123 to book work.

Please take a look! (it starts at 1:30)

It may be longer than you expected, but it is a fair trade off for months of trial and error!

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

Story Of Voice123 Talent Doing Oscar Perfomances

2010-10-29T10:14:00.018-05:00

A year ago, we caught wind of a voice over job booked on Voice123 that we had been waiting to write about for over a year! If you have ever booked a voice over job with a non-disclosure agreement that left you dying to tell someone about it, but could not, you may get some insight out of this into the far-reaching chain of business decisions that have to be respected when working with high profile companies!

The Movie That Almost Become An Oscar-Nominee:
“The Dolphin: Story of a Dreamer” (released on DVD last week)

Where it all started:
A job posted on Voice123.com by the director of an animation film out of Lima, Peru.

How We First Found Out: Talent Talking To Me
I had received a phone call from one of the voice talent in the film telling me about the job he had completed.

What happened next? The full story...
Having very little to go on, we started doing some research. Fortunately, one day a person came on live chat to tell us more about it!

See below actual transcript between one of our Voice123 staff:

"Leo, I have great news for Voice 123. Our company, DOLPHIN -FILMS, based in Lima Peru, made an animation movie called "The Dolphin - Story of a Dreamer".
It started as a very small project until 20th Century Fox set their eyes on it, initially in Latin America. We dubbed all voices in Spanish and Portuguese (Brasil) with our own talents.
Later, 20th Century Fox asked us to dub the voices to neutral US English, so that´s when we used Voice123!
Our English version of the film; all voices came from Voice123, thanks to your excellent service! Now, 20th Century Fox has bought ALL RIGHTS for North America that will be released in the USA and Canada beginning of next year, initially in BLU-RAY!
To put the cherry on top, "The Dolphin" is one of the 20 Animation movies that will be competing for the Oscar Awards for Best Animated Film 2009...ALL voices (but the singer) were contacted and contracts signed thanks to Voice123.
This is the trailer!"

How It Was Recorded...
Voice123 was used to cast the voices for this job, but of course, there had to be a final recording! Voice123 talent were flown to Lima, Peru where they recorded with the film’s director. This is not unheard of because even though Voice123 is a powerful casting tool, some directors prefer having everyone together, and the streamlined casting process saves money to allow for directors to afford such costs.

Why We Never Said Anything About It
Are we crazy? No, not at all. What happened was that 20th Century Fox became a teeny-tiny bit preoccupied with the release of a film called ‘Avatar.’ The director of the film asked us to keep this under wraps until they were ready to promote it.

Congratulations to the Voice123 talent involved in this production!
We would like to congratulate Robbie Daymond, Melissa LaFore, and Michael Ferrrei; not only for achieving something so wonderful! It is an honor to have you using Voice123!

Please share comments below!

If you have a story of your own about a job booking on Voice123, let us know!

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

image: DeviantArt

Usage: Working In 'Multi-Horse' Towns

2010-10-27T11:16:00.032-05:00

A common 'first lesson-learned' in working online is finding out that what you did offline will never transfer into the online environment. It may work if you are only working with those you know, but what happens when other visitors to your voice over website, who do not know you, want in?

If you answered, ‘They cannot, unless I say so.’, you are making a mistake; a bold statement made from hard lessons learned. Their exists grand psychological reasons as to why, but I want to touch on beliefs that lead to failure online for voice talent. Below, I explain why there are no ‘one-horse towns’ online:

No one ‘owns’ it...

Websites are not real estate. Any business online understands that if they are the first to do something, sure, they cornered a market, but having a market cornered does not mean you have bought real estate! Even more so, if you treat people you talk to online with a sense of, ‘I own you’, you will slowly build resentment against you.

Put away the knife...No need for cut-throats online.

I remember very well being at auditions and on sets as an extra where I commonly heard, ‘I was here first!’, and watched people make clever moves to be first in line for whatever reason. Online, that behavior (a common survival instinct) is surprisingly viewed as childish through the psychology of an entire world watching and thinking behind the keyboard, brazen enough to share opinions without consequence.
If you think 'paying to be first' helps, you are buying into the offline ‘country club’ ideal and it screams of 1987. The technology has to allow for everyone to build, share, and grow a successful career while keeping in mind, ‘We are all businesses. No one is above the other, until earned...online.’

It is good to have competition...

I notice that some believe the way to work is to claim to be the only one who can do something. Believe me...that is not a good thing online. Why? Buyer options.
One amazing thing by itself is a freak of nature.
Two amazing things gives a buyer the ability to compare and contrast, and in that process, both find work. Without competition, your product becomes very lonely. A creative industry is about ‘expanding on ideas’, so you will be used less by the majority, if you have no one that compares to you.
Offline, this may not be the case. Online...it works this way. We know we have competition, and many times exactly who, which is good for you if they are doing well. Thank Google for that one.

Saying ‘No’ to technology and evil numbers? Bad idea....

Technology can be scary. Stepping out of a comfort zone can be even more scary. There are some who truly believe that if they learn how to use a laptop or a blackberry, audition online, or learn how it works; that they are somehow betraying their brethren. As a result, they do not learn what to do with it. Why is this bad? Technology never stops.
Sure, there may be ways to get work, and maybe you do not need the Internet, but what are you going to do when the people hiring start working online more. If you think a business will be ‘loyal to the resistance of change’, after they find out how much easier it is, you will be left behind.
Life is a journey of learning. We are only as smart as the past and present has taught us to deal with the future.
As for numbers, simply put...They are difficult to accept because most of the time they prove our gut instinct was wrong.

Greed is a ‘no no’...Sorry Gordon.

Remember those easy days of ‘Greed is good’, and ‘all I need is a job with benefits’? They are simply gone. These days, there is no such thing as a ‘steady job’.
If you are not passionate and creative, dig deep inside you.
This ideal used to only apply to those in the arts, but now, it applies across the globe. You have to love and commit to what you are doing.
Working online, sometimes you do have to offer something for free (NOT in a job posting), in order to earn more than you would if you made everyone pay.
It does not mean becoming a charity. It means having a solid online business plan, whereby that which you give now, you will be able to take back in volumes later.
Some have asked me, ‘Why doesn’t Voice123 charge a commission?’. Aside, from it being illegal in New York State to accept commission on a paid service, it goes against the very foundation and moral obligation of Voice123 to operate as a marketing service to help the voice talent ‘do it him or herself’.
If we got somewhat greedy and started charging commission on jobs booked, we may make quick money, but Voice123 would soon ‘go bye bye’ because we disrupted the very fabric of what people like, ‘They can be their own business, make their money, and not worry about subversive behavior’. You cannot build a website on greed.

Food for thought...What do you think? Want to know more?

Come to my webinar tomorrow night at 8PM!

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

A Voice For Every Need: Voice Overs for Video Games

2010-10-26T09:54:00.007-05:00

The interactive entertainment or video game industry, considered by many to be a simple curiosity in the 1970's has blossomed into the largest entertainment industry, today, surpassing even blockbuster movies. And you know every successful action film debuts with a video game release along side it. In the business of entertainment, moving from niche markets to a mainstream audience takes skill. Producers, developers, programmers are essential to the success of this industry, as are the voice actors behind our favorite characters!

Voice talent can make the success of a videogame! Just ask Voice123 talents! It is best to find the right voice over actor to enhance the amazing job done by the game developers to give your video game that extra punch, kick, scream, or yell!

Long gone are the days when video games could be completed with a barely decent performance in a couple of words. Now it is not only a matter of amazing graphics, stunning effects, thrilling stories, but also an impressive voice over actor behind the images one sees on the screen. In the fast growing industry of interactive entertainment take the lead by having a professional voice over actor in your game, bring your characters to life and help them create a link with the players.

Get the voice over actors for your video game now!

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

Photo by The_Jay

We Are All Artists by Dr.Felicia Ruff

2010-10-25T12:52:00.018-05:00

I graduated from Wagner College in 1995 with a B.A. in Theatre/Speech. Earlier this month, I had a chance to go to my class reunion. I did not expect to leave heavily inspired to share this speech with every voice talent, who forgot that they are artists. The opening speech by department chair, Dr.Felicia Ruff, will resonate in the hearts of all those out there who believe in being a ‘voice over artist’, first.

If you stepped behind a mic today, and maybe felt for one second, that you were not a voice over artist, I invite you to read below:

“...A night like tonight allows you all to reminisce but also connects our artist community across generations. The beautiful thing is that success takes our alums in all sorts of impressive directions: to law school, to graduate school studying theatre as well as history, global justice, education; we have alums who are serving their country as members of the Air Force, TeachAmerica and AmeriCorps; some alums serve as local missionaries and others have founded AIDS relief missions in Africa. And all our alums are amazing spouses, partners, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, and friends—and that matters and should be noted.

I hope you will allow me to digress for a moment. I just decided that I had to say what I am about to and that you all should hear it--because this is a room full of artists and people who have devoted their lives to the arts. I am not talking about ‘how you pay your bills’. I don’t care if you are living at home raising a family, playing the piano in your living room and taking your daughter to ballet lessons.

You are all artists.

And in our society, where corporate bankers can pillage our bank accounts and then be bailed out, where shows like “Jersey Shore” rob actors and writers of legitimate work, where drug addled heiresses become celebrities because they do not wear panties, the true artist—People like you who have devoted your life to singing, dancing, acting, composing, choreographing, playing music, painting, photography, writing poetry, lyrics, histories, biographies, reviews, scripts, or teaching music, art, voice, dance and theatre to another generation of artists--you are robbed of your value. And in a room full of artists, I thought it was important to remind you that you are the most important people in the world, engaged in the most important work in the world. Because it is art that connects us, art that inspires us, art that changes the world.

Who do you think inspires social change? Politicians and lawyers? No, it is the artist.

What teaches us more about our common humanity, than artistry.

Where would the civil rights movement be without Billie Holiday singing ‘Strange Fruit’, or Arlo Guthrie’s ‘This Land is Your Land’, or Paul Robeson performing ‘Othello’.

Who inspired the peace movement, more than musicians like the Weavers or the Beat Poets or even Broadway shows like ‘Hair.’? Artists. Today, it is that socially dangerous Lady Gaga, who stands up to bigotry as she becomes an ordained minister in order to perform civil services at her concerts and stands up for gay men and lesbians, who want to serve and die for their country. It is the artist who changes the way we see the world—we see things differently after Picasso.

I was thinking maybe we could give doctors and nurses their due and say they are more important than we are, but then I thought of all those studies that prove that composers and conductors live longer than those in other professions. And don’t they tell parents to play Mozart to newborns to make them smarter? Mozart wasn’t a pharmacist or geneticist—he was a musician. Ancient Greek theatres were built not only in the precincts of Gods but in what we would call spas—where the soul, not just the body, could be cleansed.

It is through art that we can transcend national boundaries, and overcome language and cultural barriers. Balanchine’s choreography is not just in Russia and America, but Korea, Norway, South Africa, Japan. I hope you will forgive my evangelizing on an evening that is meant to be celebratory. But it is so easy for us to feel marginalized and negated, when artistic success becomes a commodity through ratings, ticket sales, and the duration of a run, artists are reduced to salesmen. You/we are so much more.

And I just thought that while this is a celebration of our artist community, it is much more because we need to value ourselves and our work. And you need to remember the value that you bring to your home, your community, and this world when you bring art into it.

Now I will return to my formal responsibilities, introducing my colleagues, past and present.”

What do you think? Comment below!

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

image by: DLC Artists Market

Trend: What Would You Call Yourself?

2010-10-22T10:21:00.025-05:00

This week, I had a chance to listen to Arianna Huffington of the famed Huffington Post at a NYC Symposium in New York City, held by Citrix.

One thing she stated struck a chord, as a guy working from home often:

“I don’t like the term ‘Remote Employee’. There needs to be a name for it that displays more pride and strength.”

Voice talent working from home often go by the name, ‘Remote Voice Talent’. Now, we know you are not robots, and you know it, too! Technology is not the problem. If you figured out how to use it, you deserve a better name!

BOOOO! Robots!
Tell us on Facebook and Twitter exactly what the voice talent booking jobs from home, and making a living at it, should be branded!

Click here to take survey, to try and win 6-months!

You cannot change how people think (cough* ‘pay2play cough*), but when people understand why they all think the way they do, they can all change together!

Meetup of Community Managers

This week, I had the chance to go to a Community Manager Meetup at the actual Meetup HQ!

You can read about it here!

Building community is essential for all businesses, large and small!
Start a Meetup for voice talent in your area.

Share information that will help you grow your voice over career. It does wonders for the creative energy you need each time you get behind a mic!

Rock your mic!

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

image by: Thinking Ape Blues

Community: Talent Pool Resources To Get The Job Done!

2010-10-21T17:09:00.023-05:00

Today, I received a wonderful email from a Voice123 Coach Partner, David Zema, based out of New York City. Yesterday, he wrote customer service stating a talent he coaches had been booked for a job off her demo on her profile, but she was in Memphis, Tennessee. Please see how a community of voice talent worked together, and how it was beneficial for everyone!

Email bag:

"The job for Barbara Ann Davison went off very well in Memphis today. Here's the story!

After a producer of election campaign TV spots heard Barbara Ann Davison's demo posted on Voice123 she was chosen to be the spokesperson. Barbara had recorded about a dozen tags and the body of their campaign TV spot a couple of weeks ago at my studio here in NYC.

The client called yesterday and needed her again right away. I realized she was in Memphis, Tenn. Well, the first person I contacted for a recording studio lead in Memphis was Voice123.

Then I searched the Voice123 database for voice talent in Memphis with recording studios. Your team also helped by getting back to me quickly with alternative studios for me to send to the client. I was able to get all of the information I needed for the producer by being part of the voice123 community. Brad Carson, Voice123 member and radio personality at WKQK/WMFS/Entercom-Memphis, also got back to me quickly as well. He referred me to Dan Barron, the manager of their studios.

I sent all information about the various studios and rates to the producers of the spots. They were OK with the rates of Brad's station, and recorded Barbara doing two tags for high profile senate campaigns today and met their deadline.

Thanks for your help with this!"

Voice123 sends a big THANK YOU! to David, Brad, Barbara, Dan, and the fine people in the city of Memphis, Tennessee for displaying what makes the voice over community so special!

Great community stories deserved to be talked about always!

Write us with your special Community story!

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

Usage Tip: You Must Come To This Webinar

2010-10-20T08:32:00.010-05:00

I can offer no more direct advice than this for Voice123 talent:

You must come to this Voice123 Webinar I do on the fourth Thursday of each month, in which I show voice talent of all experience levels, how to adapt their talent to Voice123.

The word ‘audition’ does not mean all websites are the same! I will show what makes Voice123 special. I will show you why the software involved is healthy for the voice over industry, while explaining case studies, and stories of how I have seen people get work online.

If you only want to see the recorded session, you miss the no-holds barred discussion, and the opportunity for you to ask me anything (I do mean anything). This webinar is as real as it gets, and so are the people who get work because of it.

Please register today!

As a former teacher of how to use software in previous lines of work, I can tell you this:

If you just started on Voice123, or have never come to one of these before, no matter who you are, two hours with this webinar will save you time, money, and years of trial and error when auditioning in an online environment.

By the way...it is free.

Voice123 Webinars are held the fourth Thursday of every month at 8pm EST.

If you have taken one of these before, leave some comments on how you feel it helped you! (if it did not help, that is ok, too! We all learn from our experiences! Your comments matter to us!)

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

image:Today in SciFi

Community: Frightening Contests And Friendly Meetups

2010-10-18T08:36:00.024-05:00

“Voting Is Spooky! But I Will Do It Anyway!” Contest
Voice123 will be holding a special contest from now until Election Day! You may have seen the project posting already!

Submit your political impersonation, current or past, talking to your favorite Halloween character.
The script should be talking about why the Halloween character should vote this Election Day.(e.g. Dracula being lectured by a former president about why he should vote...)
We are giving away two full-year subscriptions to Voice123, for the best submissions!
All submissions will be promoted via shared inbox link on Twitter, Facebook, and random Voice123 channels in social media!
If you did not get invited, simply go to http://voice123.com/lv/10008490.html and use the following verification code when asked: 35D727

Voice123 Youtube Contest!
From now until November 18th, Voice123 will be holding a contest that can win you and your favorite Voice123 voice talent a 6-month subscription on Voice123. This is REALLY easy!

1. Show your fellow voice talent community some ‘Like’ on Youtube!

2. After you vote... Click here to take survey

One month from today, we will collect responses and announce the winners! Note: All voting is confidential, and you may win, even if the voice talent you vote for does not.

Voice123 Coach Activity!
Bettye Zoller, Voice123 coach, writes:

The next Voice 123 meetups in Dallas, Texas are Nov 9 and Dec 9. Go to www.meetup.com/university-park-dallas-voiceovers/ to sign up, RSVP, attend.
My annual AUDIO BOOK WEEKEND SEMINAR is in Dallas Nov 13-14. It's $315 and includes breakfast and catered lunch both days and all ground transportation.

Click here to register!

Voice123 Meetup Action!

October 26th, 2010 in Riverton, New Jersey!
December 17th, 2010 in Fairfax, Virginia with voice acting coach, Michael Minetree!

Thanks for reading!

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

image:Today in SciFi

Wellness: Mo’ Caffeine Mo’ Problems

2010-10-15T10:56:00.015-05:00

This blog is being written to address one tiny thing voice talent may do, before auditioning, that may seal their fate when they step behind the mic. Important to remember: Caffeine is a ‘drug’. It can be found in soda, coffee, pain relief medicine, energy drinks etc. If part of your audition routine is to make sure you have any of these before you get behind a mic, you may be harming your ability to effectively audition.

Now, no one need write and explain their morning habits or how they work. I refer to those times when one thinks the way to ‘wake up’ for an audition, or give it more excitement, is to pour on the caffeine.

Please take a look at this article.

What leaps off the page, related to auditions?

“Even when moderate amounts of caffeine are withdrawn for 18 to 24 hours, one may feel symptoms such as headache, fatigue, irritability, depression , and poor concentration. The symptoms peak within 24 to 48 hours and progressively decrease over the course of a week. To minimize withdrawal symptoms, experts recommend reducing caffeine intake gradually.”

Losing it?
When you are speaking behind a mic, you must have control of your:

Diction
Concentration
Thoughts and thinking clearly, in order to connect with a script and convey a point.

Irritability and depression lead to negative thoughts that will vibe through your reading, which is the ultimate trigger for...not succeeding. It also affects the ability of a person to be confident in his/her creative decisions when reading copy.

The Crash Test Dummy
I am not one to make statements without having ‘street cred’. I remember an audition specifically in 1998, when I had to go to a studio, but I felt tired. I stopped at a cafe, first. I definitely woke up, but...I also remember sitting in the waiting room was just a nightmare, and I could barely talk behind the mic. If we ever meet at a Voice123 Meetup, I will tell you more about it. That was indeed the last time I ever drank coffee before an audition. I have also worked some late nights in customer service, purely on Red Bull. Alas...my wings were clipped at some point, and I crashed, leading to some interesting posts on our Twitter and Facebook pages. In closing, caffeine is not a solution; just an additional problem.

If you have any audition stories you would like to share, please let me know!

Thank you!

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

Usage Tip: Making The Best of No Voice

2010-10-13T17:14:00.013-05:00

Voice talent, voice actors, and entertainment jobs alike all have one thing in common, in that each day they wake up, a new job search takes place, even if they worked the day before. Perhaps the most frustrating thing, if not painful, is to have days when you know you cannot look for work. What can you do? People get sick, and people lose their voice.

However, working online means taking the voice away from the voice talent does not mean one must ‘stay quiet’ or stop marketing. What does one do when faced with the situation of not being able to audition?

Try the following:

Read this blog about voice overs, and how people are working on Voice123.
Get involved in social media. See who says what and interact with them.
Familiarize yourself with websites and web tools by looking around for them.
Read up on forums, and ask questions you now have the time to ask.
Look around the search feature. Investigate the competition. Every business does it. I used to select parameters, and listen to people’s demos. I learned quickly who I would be competing with, and also which were voice types that basically sounded like my brand, and had booked work I hope to achieve.(take this example: Chris Emerson)

The amazing thing about all of this...
It is free. You will not hurt anyone by generating your web content, or educating yourself on things that just twenty years ago cost thousands of dollars to figure out. The toughest thing talent deal with online is finding the time to truly invest time in investigating online activity, and networking. As a voice talent online, it is all important, and related to working online.

Make time for rest!
The day(s) need not leave you feeling that you are falling behind because you could not audition. You can even check websites for advice on how to take care of your voice!

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

Usage Tip: Knowing What To Say, Building Communication

2010-10-12T10:29:00.024-05:00

A challenge the voiceover industry always faced, whether online or not, is the process of the ‘business’ communicating to the ‘creative’ exactly what is desired. It may just come down to knowing what to say to get everyone on the same page. Voice123 wishes to give you ideas for filling out your next voice over project form in order to find the best voice talent.

Basics...
Voice talent are less likely to audition for voice over jobs when the description is weakly documented. Why? It is very difficult to give someone what they want when the description is poor, and it may feel like a waste of time, as in this ‘worst case scenario’:

Need voice for my store

The hidden psychology behind a turn-off:
A voice talent may assume by the lack of detail and attention paid to the description, that it is an indication of the person’s feeling towards the importance of the voice over. After they look at such things including grammar, and spelling (because it does matter to them), they also have concerns when they do not see the following:

Pronunciations
Request for delivery style
Logistics of the job

Best case scenario...Usage Tip?
When you are filling out a project form, or sending a direct contact email, include the following:

Special pronunciations
Delivery style (sexy, sultry, smooth, friendly, maybe something about pacing)
Logistics: “The voice talent must be available on these dates”
Budget explanations: Is the amount listed per person, or the whole job? Currency?

In short, you cannot go wrong with details. The effort spent in describing more will lead to positive results when you start listening to auditions! Take your time and relish in the fact you are about to save yourself a great deal of time!

Post a project today!

Brand-tastic!
Taken from our Voice123 Forums, a brand created by voice talent Doug Turkel.

Thanks for reading!

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

Trend: Disadvantages And Advantages Of Major Market Voice Talent

2010-10-11T14:31:00.017-05:00

Voice123 talent, used to working in major markets, such as Los Angeles, New York City, Atlanta, London etc., have advantages and disadvantages that successful voice talent from smaller markets may not. The difficulty surrounding working online is keeping up with rapidly changing trends and clients, which will always involve listening to varying opinions, and research..

You may be experienced, and well-recognized in a traditional market, but then you audition online, and find out it is a new market to be explored all over again, and the one-sixth of the world's population using the Internet, who never heard of you, may need some re-introducing. Keep in mind, that with all I say here, there will always be exceptions. This is the case with creative environments; no absolutes.

Disadvantages: (some bad news)

1. Voice talent working online from a major market face a higher cost of living. Take this example:

If you make $40,000 in New York City as a voice talent, those living in Cleveland, Ohio, may only need $19,353 to have the same cost of living expenses (food, rent, apartment, home).
Housing is 87% cheaper in Cleveland, Ohio.
If you make $40,000 in Los Angeles, CA., you would need only $26,842 to live in Fresno, California.
Housing is 67% cheaper in Fresno.
Check your city and state.

2. Booking voice jobs online is more successful through repeat work, and building relationships with clients through proper online etiquette. It is very difficult to find 'that one big job' to cover all expenses for a month, and when you see such a job, you will go up against a more experienced group of talent similar to you (you can check this on your profile), from a global market. You may want more than one way to get work, if your cost of living is high.

3. Websites are ‘do it yourself’. If you are used to traditional methods of casting, this will take getting used to, in the beginning. It may seem cold and insensitive at first, until one sees how to do business, and separates that from being creative behind the mic.

Advantages: Good news!

1. Competition: Sound production houses in major markets have explained to me that they view the ‘do it yourself’ voice talent, as competition because they supply both voice talent, and sound engineering. It is good to have competition because it means something is working well enough to compete against. Hiring and paying you, saves the client money and time, which makes you more attractive as a business option. This is great because sound production houses do post jobs and hire from the website. If you are local to these studios, you will like my next point.

2. Home-field Advantage: Major market voice talent have Voice123, but also the local traditional casting environment with intermediaries. SmartCast, in this case, can work in their favor because they can wait for bigger jobs with other opportunities keeping them busy. Also, the majority of SmartCast jobs posted with geographical requirements, usually come out of New York, and Los Angeles; a good sign they are starting to see Voice123 as the best choice for finding voice talent.

A voice talent from Los Angeles, who does a great deal of union looping work for films, recently explained to me that this work has enabled him to pay for a home set up. Although he is not a sound engineer, he states he has the ability to audition 'when the phone stops ringing', and if he needs help recording something professional, he knows of many studios he can rent out when in a bind. This does require raising his price a bit, but he leaves his efforts out of online communications, and just promises results. His ability to deliver has led him to getting work offline and online consistently, while building a network of industry contacts.

He also acknowledges to me that this did NOT take place over night, and that working online involved meeting a new group of people he had never heard of before, but the marketing costs were incredibly cheaper, if it cost anything at all; saving him thousands of dollars.

3. Observation: Major market voice talent appear to have a thicker skin from understanding what it means to audition, face-to-face, everyday, in an industry with people who unfortunately at times feel obligated to tear someone else down. They may have had the chance to make dealing with rejection, and those who reject, into a reflex habit. Creativity comes from the heart, and it is not easy to handle. The ultimate challenge of working online is understanding that you are working globally, and on a world stage, you will see opportunities you had never thought of the day before you set up a profile.

Yet, still, one thing has never changed: Quality voice talent are always in demand.

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

Usage Tip: Requirements In Auditioning

2010-10-06T08:05:00.013-05:00

If you did not know, we Voice123 sends auditions back to the talent to submit again, if the audio quality is poor, or the person submitted something other than what was requested. We also email the voice talent what went wrong. Our team has listened to over two million auditions over the last 3 years, and we hear how ‘audio quality’ has become the ‘norm’. Of course, not everyone who auditions will be hired, and that is up to the client.

Feeling inspired...
The inspiration behind this blog came from seeing profiles with amazing credits, but after hearing their auditions, it left me wondering if they knew what it meant to audition from home. I never wish our staff to be perceived as arrogant. We wish only to state how we have seen things change since 2007, and what has changed when it comes to auditioning on Voice123. When I started here in 2007, voice seekers seemed to be somewhat forgiving of audio quality, as long as the copy reading was excellent. As online casting has grown, there has been a subtle shift, which we had started to write about close to a year ago.

What has changed? Usage tip?

The necessity is audio quality. Make sure you have this nailed down.
The deal breaker is how one is reading copy.
Make sure you practice, either with voice coaches, or on your own.

The competition on Voice123 is more professional than ever before, but given the anonymous nature of the Internet where everyone is equal, a person with credits beyond credits, and amazing talent, may in fact lose out only because the audio quality is not there. Therefore, if you are reading copy that is connected and original, and you happen to have great audio quality, if you started 30 days ago or 30 years ago, you are both on equal ground.

What does this mean?
Reading copy is a skill that the best of them will make it look easy. That took practice. By comparison, a person does not become a chef simply because he has the best oven, nor does a great studio indicate one can book voice over work. This does mean that if you get work offline because you have the skill to read amazing copy in a studio, but when reading from home, your copy reading is muffled by a poor mic, you will not have much luck. Indeed, this is what many should never forget; traditional casting and online casting are two completely different ways of getting work that changes the way one ‘does business’, but the creative skill behind the mic must be there. Even with two markets, the same skilled voice talent work in both.

Thanks for reading!

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

Online Voice Casting: Workflow Perspectives

2010-10-05T08:54:00.022-05:00

I work as Community Development Manager for Voice123. For a very brief period of time in 2003, I worked as an assistant to an agent. Watching the processes behind the scenes at Voice123, it is simply amazing to me how the work flow of a day has changed over the last seven years due to websites, such as Voice123.

I reflect on this today to show you why this website is the best choice for finding voice talent, and how my agenda would look today, in comparison to 2003.

October 5th, 2003:

9am - 12pmEST

Gather information about upcoming jobs
Field phone calls of those looking for talent
Go through the talent that may be best suited for it
Concern myself with who will actually book the job

12pm - 3pmEST

Begin “Can you be here tomorrow?” and ‘Explanation of audition’ calls
Explain why we thought of them for something

3pm - 5pmEST

“How was he/she?” & “How to proceed because you know you want whom I sent” follow-up calls from day before.
I eat somewhere during this time.

5pm- 8pmEST

Investigating new talent, meeting new talent, and research

Fast forward....

October 5th, 2010:

9am - 10amEST

Post job on Voice123 for anyone looking for voice talent

10:30 - 11:00 EST

Listen to auditions
Make notes
Share inbox link with client

11:30 EST - 12:30 EST

Contact voice talent the client showed interest in

12:30pm - 1:30pm EST

Eat lunch

1:30pm - unknown

Work on decision process
What you do after this may take some time to figure out, but it is nice to know you have the rest of the day to do it!

How times have changed...
Voice123 allows for anyone, from top agents down to local small businesses, to connect directly with voice talent, who know how to work as their own business. Voice123 is an online casting director of sorts that simply connects you to voice talent using our SmartCast software, or Search Feature.

In the days of, 'Time is money!', saving money on office space, supplies, and dealing with intermediaries that expect payment for their time (which costs money and delays the decision process), doing it all yourself with another voice talent is the smart choice!

Please post a project today!

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

Community News: Making It More About ‘You’

2010-10-04T08:20:00.015-05:00

If you follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Voice123 forums, or Linkedin, you may have noticed that over the past few months, there were posts appearing promoting voice talent and voice coaches on Voice123. We would like to mention today how to get involved in these efforts, which are all about promoting the voice community of Voice123!

Getting Involved!

Youtube!

Have you done a voice over gig through Voice123, and wish to upload it onto Voice123’s Youtube channel? Please send it to me at steven@voice123.com with a short description, and your Voice123 profile! If it is on youtube already, let us know about it! We will share it through Facebook and Twitter posts for the world to see!

Featured Talent
Occasionally, Voice123 will post projects looking for specific criteria. We then take the shared inbox, and begin to post it through social media. Here is an example!

Voice123 Meetups!
Voice123 has a Meetup page where you can organize meetups to talk with Voice123 talent in your area! To date, there have been over 100 Voice123 meetups scheduled, and shows how the voice over community on Voice123 has gone global! It is great when Voice123 Coaches get involved, too!

Coming up on October 10th, voice coach Ben Bledsoe is holding a meetup in Los Angeles, CA! We also love attending them in New York City! (hint hint)

Coach Workshops
Voice123 has a Coach Partner Program, where voice coaches can refer students for 30-day trials to Voice123, and much more! We also share news about their upcoming workshops, and events! For example, this workshop coming up in Los Angeles, CA!

Spend a day in a professional Hollywood recording studio with voice coach, Michael D. Cohen and learn about the business of animation:

You will work on mic several times throughout the day.
Come away with a copy of your work.
There will be a lunch and lecture with a Los Angeles voice-over agent.
DATE: Saturday, October 16th 10:00am - 6:00 pm
FEE: Special rate of $95 for Voice123 members.
If you are interested, please read more here or email him at info@michaeldcohen.com.

If you have any thoughts, questions, or ideas, please write us to help@voice123.com!

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

Trends: Harmful Beliefs To Reject As Online Voice Talent

2010-10-01T09:13:00.026-05:00

In the quest to figure out how the voice over business has changed, and share this with a voice over community, we share info on a trend that has been around since 2004, that over the past three years we have seen do more harm than good. For those jumping into online voice overs now, after 7 years into it, it is important to know what beliefs are no longer a part of the online voice over industry! We thought to write this because of some recent heart-felt emails sent to customer service, that expressed beliefs we know are damaging for a voice talent who is just starting online.

“I lost my job. I should work online in voiceovers in the meantime.”
As much as I wish voice overs could be a regular job, where you are hired and everyday is like waking up and going to the office, you have to consider recent surveys in August 2010:

70% of premium subscribers booked a voice over job on Voice123.

Out of the 70%:

6% - Booked 5 jobs or more
30% - Booked 1 job
20% - Booked twice
14% - Booked 3 or 4 times

Key facts to remember:

40% of the jobs mentioned were booked because of old clients.This does mean there is a period of time that one should expect to not make money while they gain traction, and network online. Those in the 6% range have been doing the online voice over thing for a while, so they have that head start.

This leads to another belief that must be rejected, if one wishes to succeed.
“Getting work is easier online...It is like paying to play.”

The business tools may have changed, but the professional level of talent has not changed. At Voice123, we have the opportunity to hear thousands of people auditioning, and they book serious work, too. Do not be fooled. No is one playing. Sure, sitting at a computer instead of a sound production house removes an excited sense of urgency, but to the people hiring, and getting hired; they take their business online seriously. To approach another business any other way is a mistake. Perhaps a mistake I made as a voice talent on Voice123 was viewing things this way. I figured, ‘Cool. Turn on the computer, send in some auditions, and then go to work or other auditions offline.’ A year later, I realized I had much to learn about ‘being my own business’.

“TBD Budgets Indicate Bad Job Poster”
This is the furthest thing from the truth because there are variables that come into play when you see a TBD budget:

“Is the voice seeker not showing their budget to avoid receiving spam, which may happen if someone tries to audition just because the money is nice, but the job is completely wrong?”
“Is the voice seeker professional, but just not clear as to ‘what buyers should quote’?”

Best way to decide:

Read the script and description. How a person writes says a great deal about their level of experience. Look for industry lingo and signs it may be fine. Most importantly, it is a chance for a voice talent to teach an industry what the standard should be, and that opportunity should never be passed up. Under-quoting does not work in the online world, by the way. Many learned long ago that with a extremely low price, you get what you paid for in the end.

Have a great weekend!

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

Usage Tip: Leave Myopia For Web Utopia

2010-09-29T10:35:00.012-05:00

This type of website usage tip is part 6 in an on-going series of tips to help Voice123 talent work online. It covers the methods to working online that I have seen NOT get voice talent work. Try to follow me...'Deep thoughts' warning.

Where is 'Myopia'?
I consider ‘Myopia’ to be ‘The Land of Believing That Everything We Feel Must Be What The World Feels’, when all we truly have done is created our own world. Anyone who travels a great deal has experienced this. For example:

You leave the hustle and bustle of your daily life, and go to some far away country where their main concerns are completely different. Then, you return home to realize that friends and neighbors, who never took a break from the daily grind, still believe their grind is ‘what is happening in the world’.

When it comes to professional relationships and voice over work, the scope of 'how' talent get work these days has changed so dramatically, that if one person says to another, ‘Do this and your career is over.’, or ‘Do this and everyone will love it.’, this person probably is living in Myopia. Myopia is also the 'Land of Simple Solutions', which never work online, and making judgments before knowing the entire story i.e. Making a decision on how one personally feels. Do people in Myopia get work? Of course they do! But do they limit their opportunities based on the opinions of other members of Myopia, hurting their abilities to work in the future? They will never know.

Web Utopia...and the Website Usage Tip
Regardless of what anyone says, you can create your own world within Web Utopia. Myopians may not understand you, but then again, that is the way of their land, so it becomes a matter of, ‘Who do you wish to surround yourself with?’. Web Utopians think in a manner that is grand, and worldly. They listen, yet rarely care what people have to say when it is negative. They do not label what they do because to label is to set limitations. They also know to sit in one place and condemn another Web Utopian’s method is wasteful energy because they are focusing on building their land.

Not to long ago, I spoke to people from the voice over industry in Canada, Europe, and the USA, and most of them had no idea online casting existed:

The ‘Myopian’ may respond: “You don’t know? What is wrong with you?"
’The ‘Web Utopian’ would respond: “Let me tell you about it. I think you will like it.”

Strange Words...
Yes, I made words up for this blog. There is no need to share Webster’s Dictionary links to correct me. I was illustrating one simple point:

‘If you believe you can do voice overs, or believe you cannot do voice overs because of what someone else says; either way you are correct.’

Remember this the next time you get behind the mic!

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

Usage Tip: Webinar Tomorrow Night

2010-09-29T08:51:00.019-05:00

Voice123 is holding a webinar on ‘Working in Voiceovers Online! Voice123 and Online Street Smarts!’, tomorrow night at 8pm EST.

This is the registration link.

We can be no more direct than this:

If you want to audition on Voice123, and get behind the mic each time with a fearless and creative mindset, you have to know what the business-side of the online industry expects, from the online perspective.

This webinar will be perfect for any voice talent, regardless of their experience.

It is two hours of free information that you may spend years trying to discover through trial and error; all about getting you back to basics of being a voice talent, and doing so, online.

These are done once a month, but this is the busiest time of year!

We consider this a 'usage tip' because Voice123 has been doing free system webinars for the past three years, and we do not see enough voice talent taking advantage!

Don't miss out! It is two hours of your time to solve months of frustration you may be having!

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

Does Your Book Need A Little Audio?

2010-09-28T11:04:00.010-05:00

Voice123 is the #1 place for finding voice talent to be the next voice of your book! Audiobooks are a great way to emphasize text, and make your book accessible for listeners whether they are sitting on a beach relaxing and listening, or perhaps, driving a car when there is no time to stop and flip through pages! In addition, audiobooks are paperless; perfect for a changing world that is environmental awareness!

If you would like, hear some samples of great voice talent for your next audiobook!

The shared inbox is part of Voice123 technology that puts the hiring process on the fast-track for you, so finding voice talent is easier than ever before!

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

A Voice for Every Need: Voice Overs for IVR, Phone Systems, and More!

2010-09-28T08:45:00.009-05:00

Being placed 'on-hold' is unpleasant for everyone, so if people are calling your company you may want to have a nice voice message to welcome them. Let them know more about your company, and make your voicemail unique. Most importantly...Make a great first impression!

When presenting your company and greeting your customers, image is what it is all about. If you want your company to look good, you want it to sound good as well. Find the greatest voice over artists for IVR, Phone Systems, On Hold Messages and Voice Mails at Voice123!

Listen to our voice overs ready to give your company
the sound it deserves!

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

Community News: Meetup News Galore!

2010-09-27T09:39:00.006-05:00

Voice123 Meetups are taking place throughout the voice over industry! Whether it be big or small, there is nothing more important than meeting people who work in an industry that you have a passion for, yourself.

We want to take this day to promote Voice123 Meetups!
Voice123 coach, Bettye Zoller, holds meetups every month in Dallas, Texas! The next two meetings are on October 14th and November 9th. She gave her Meetups a theme:

"Setting Goals and Achieving Dreams"

Bettye states, “We are "The Official Voice123 Meetup Group in Dallas! We have 48 members now, and it is growing all the time!"

Coming up tonight!
Bill Brewer has 28 members in his Oklahoma City MeetUp and Voice123 Meetup group.
The owner of RK One studios will be a guest speaker.

Speaking of Themes...
Voice123 Meetups can be held anywhere, but if you are looking for some ideas, why not try the following:

Meetup in a voice studio to discuss reading copy!
Meetup to discuss how your studio was built!
Meetup to practice some copy with other voice talent and get some feedback!
Meetup and talk about how you, as a voice talent, use Voice123.

Please organize a Voice123 Meetup for yourself!

If you are in and around the New York City area, we would love to attend one of your Voice123 Meetups!

Thanks for reading!

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

Trends: What's in a Name? Plenty.

2010-09-24T10:42:00.037-05:00

Since starting at Voice123 back in 2007, I have held the job titles:

QA Associate - July 2007
QA Manager - December 2007
PR Manager - December 2008
CS Manager - September 2009
Community Manager - March 2010

Now it is changing again:

“Community Development Manager” aka "CDM"

You may wonder why a business would change a job title several times. This trend is something every voice talent, or brand, should consider: There are ways that your name can appear online that can impact the way another business will think of you, positively or negatively, before they think to work with you. Consider this video on the ‘Baloney Detection Kit’:

What you may be doing by the way you describe yourself to buyers, is creating a pattern of belief or claim about you that may be negative; a pattern that requires overcoming a ‘hurdle of proof’. The end result: You will make buyers skeptical before they know you, and when they do hire you, if the smallest thing goes wrong, you will have validated their fear. Titles also need to change because sometimes you discover that the job title appears to be a ‘claim of status’, that leaves one feeling you have exaggerated.

Finally, web trends change very quickly, so you need to keep a sense of humor about it. Your title does not determine what you are, but your quality as a business will. Below, I would like to share some descriptions/titles that have been described to Voice123 customer service as 'exaggerated'. Keep in mind this applies to working online:

expert
seasoned professional
big time

Alternatives I have seen that use humor to open the door:

"ninja"
"lightly marinated"
"has the voice"

Thanks for reading!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager (oops! wait...) Community Development Manager

Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Video by RDF TV

Usage Tip: Best Day To Modify Profiles & Demos

2010-09-22T08:08:00.013-05:00

This is part 4 in the series of usage tips for better usage of Voice123.com! I am bringing you information that I know will assist you in ways you may never have the chance to research on your own!

Usage tip #4: Best Day to Modify Demos and Profiles
The best day to modify your voice over profile and demo when using Voice123 is Friday!

Why?
When you modify anything with your profile it comes out of the search feature because it has to go through Quality Assurance. This is common for websites to screen content. When it is passed through, it takes 24 hours for the Internet cache to update for the website. If you did not know, we work weekends, too!

This way, every Monday at the start of the busy work week, your profile is in the search feature when voice seekers do most of their searching!

It may seem like something small, but it is always the little things that make a big difference!

Please stayed tuned for more usage tips in the future! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter because we post small tips everyday for using Voice123!

Thanks for reading!

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

Image by WTNK

Website Usage: Voice Over Job QA

2010-09-21T11:38:00.026-05:00

This is long, but worth it. The online world is a much safer place to find work. There is a growing responsibility each day in all websites, not just Voice123, to pay attention to the 'small things' that take place in the voice over community.

There are two types of Quality Assurance at Voice123 when one has posted a voice over job:

Proactive: Using proven experience to stop things before they happen.
Reactive: Fixing issues when something new has happened and must be corrected.

Quality Assurance is done for several areas:

Profile content
Voice over demos on the profile
Voice over auditions
Voice seekers and voice talent website problems
Voice over projects
Customer service

How it works:

Profile content is screened for typical things like spam, or damaging content that could affect our ranking on search engines. Profiles are also screened to make sure that the person's profile belongs to them, only, and no one else. The reason for this comes from past experiences with profiles that lacked truth or integrity, which is something that is costly to all members of the Voice123 community.

Voice over demos are screened to make sure that the audio quality is good. We do not screen the copy read. We also watch for problems that affect the professionalism of Voice123. This may seem somewhat 'harsh', but we have over 125,000 users, and not all understand the importance of online professional behavior.

Voice over auditions are screened for spam and audio quality. Spam is considered the 'junk mail' of the Internet; basically the 'I did not ask for this. Why are you sending it?' type of file. If a demo cannot be heard, or there is significant background noise, it is sent back to the voice talent, and the voice talent is emailed that there was a problem, and to send it again. As a rule, if an audition is not sent to the client, for any reason, the voice talent will be notified immediately to fix any issues. We do not do 'creative QA' for copy reading, as we play no role in the hiring process.

Voice seeker and voice talent quality assurance is both proactive and reactive. There have been isolated cases of payment disputes, undelivered work, website abuse, dropped communication between parties, and poor online behavior. This has to be attended to at all times. Most of these QA issues are reported to me personally, but our entire team can be reached through Customer Service.

Voice over projects require quality assurance because, even though the voice seeker interface offers a wide variety of explanations as to how to help a voice seeker request voice talent, not all understand the process, or know how to fill things out to get the best results. We do our best to help in such situations.

Customer Service QA has a technical end to it that many seekers may not know. When your project is maybe being ignore, or someone is not listening, our CRM tool (Live Person) tells us! That is when we reach out to you and try to help! It helps us manage many accounts at once, and is one of the most challenging part of this job!

Yet, if your ever find something is not right, please grab hold of us on Live Chat!

Oddly, QA has been made a great deal easier because of social media. Someone is always talking about something, and we can always see it! Almost all businesses using Voice123 have a social media profile on Twitter, Linkedin, or Facebook. Given that one-sixth of the world uses the Internet, all you have to do is talk to someone online, or search Google, and you will find out who you are working with.

Post a project and find out what makes us so special!

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

Community News: Voice Over Happenings!

2010-09-20T09:10:00.039-05:00

We want to bring you some community happenings from this week, last week, and the end of the month that you can use to improve your voice over career, by learning from members of the voice over community!

Succeed Using Voice123!
If you ever wanted to know how to succeed using Voice123, this is the webinar you will need! This webinar will discuss business tips behind using Voice123 to get voice over work, and also pivotal online business skills that will allow voice talent the freedom to be creative and fearless!

Voice Over Coach Event with Don Morrow!
Voice over coach, Don Morrow and “Everything you wanted to know about voice overs, but did not know who to ask.” being held in Danbury, CT! Email VoicesofDM@aol.com for more information! During the event, you will be able to create your own voice over demo for Voice123!

Congrats to Amy Snively and FAFFCON!
Congratulations to Amy Snively as well, for her successful FaffCon event out in Portland, Oregon! Voice123 was happy to offer two free subscriptions for the event. We heard it went great, and we look forward to more! September certainly has been living up to its National Voice Over Month title!

Voice123 Meetups
Remember you can meet great members of the voice over industry when you organize a Voice123 Meetup in your area! Voice123 will be looking to organize meetups, too, with helpful info for the voice over community.

We hope you will follow us on twitter, facebook, and youtube, by using the links below!

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

Trends: Top 10 Voice123 Deleted Tags

2010-09-17T09:41:00.017-05:00

Fear not!
These are not used! Where ‘demo tagging’ stands today at Voice123; it is a powerful informational tool to see if ‘what you think’ matches ‘what they think...the anonymous talent community’. Note: It has absolutely NOTHING to do with SmartCast.

You see...A couple of years ago, Voice123 set up something called ‘demo tagging’, which you can find in your Voice123 profile. The process includes listening to demos anonymously, and then tagging it with a 'description'. After, a voice talent would be emailed that they were tagged. If he/she wanted to, they could delete it.

Why it helps to know!
Knowing if your ‘brand’ is ‘on the pulse’ takes place when strangers hear your voice, and you find many agree with you on how it should be marketed. It is also called ‘knowing your type.’ It means you and the buyer are on the same page before you even make contact. Some people spend years and thousands of dollars to find out. This result is pure on Voice123, because no one knows who is tagging who. You get straight opinions from the entire Voice123 community. Myself, I was tagged, ‘boy next door’ and ‘conversational’, which made me smile because that has always been my A-game. I also, like I said, do not know who did it.

So, this week, I felt it would be interesting to find out what demo tags voice talent have deleted. Before looking at the chart, keep in mind we have had over 30,000 demo tags on Voice123, out of which only 1315 were deleted by voice talent. It is great to see a voice over talent community help each other this way!

Tag and Amount of Times Deleted:

Nope - 78
Great - 57
poor - 54
NPR - 51
wannabe - 51
blah - 41
bland - 32
bad - 29
muffled - 28
loud - 21

Conclusions to draw from this:
This is a free, educational resource at your fingertips! Given that opinions and trends drive websites, it helps to know how other colleagues describe your voice!

Thanks so much!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Image by Vector 4 Free

Usage Tip: Say What You Want Know What to Believe

2010-09-15T08:32:00.012-05:00

This is part three of our series of usage tips for better success while working online in voice overs! This week’s Usage Tip?

Understanding what really happens, regardless of what is said, and making it work for You!

Some thoughts...

Do you know that section of the profile called My Demos?
Did you know studies show it takes only 3 to 20 seconds before someone completely gives up on a website?
If that mouse click did not turn out to be what you said it would be, regardless of ability, what do you think will happen?

How To Make This Work For You:

Take your compilation demo, or your regular demo, and edit it down to 20-second spots.
If the recording category is audiobooks for your demo, when that mouse-click happens, and they hear something other than the stated category, they will pass.
SO...That 60-second demo you created offline...upload three :20 targeted spots to that category.

Why do this?

Online, you simply need to be found in Voice123’s search feature, and Google, but you cannot compromise integrity, or be dishonest.
The more you are found in searches, and your demos are what they say they are, the better.
Funny...not much different from offline casting; just a different business tool .

Things about Voice123 you may not know:

The SmartCast software and job posting process was indeed set up to be very user-friendly for Union jobs and agents, in order to connect them to the right voice talent.
They do use it; we just wished a little more, if not always.
What this means for you: Profile integrity and demo quality are of great importance.

The software is set up to build a more professional voice marketplace. Stay true to what you want, and over the course of a year, you will find people reaching out to you, that you may have been told did not use online casting.

Why does no one talk about it online?
Well...best kept secrets usually work that way in a competitive industry.

All the best to you!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Usage Tip For Voice Job Posting: Enough Already

2010-09-14T15:42:00.015-05:00

At Voice123, we do our best to make sure that all business transactions occur without the possible issue of someone saying, "Oh, I must have missed that email.” As a person posting a job you may get several follow-up emails, making sure you have reached the talent.

Unfortunately, given the importance of each voice project to everyone involved in the community, and the quirky nature of Internet spam filters, we take such measures as a safety net to keep everyone communicating. We do hope you understand that it has helped more times than it has led to one saying, ‘Enough already!’. SO...

"Yes. I had enough."
If you have had enough of our email system looking out for you, you can:

Click the link in that reminder email, which asks if the message was answered
Write us and let us know you would like to "Opt-out of mailing lists"

For some more fun! Brand of the Week!
For those who love to study branding, we bring you a new brand created by a Voice123 community member this week, Paul J. Rose; also found here!

Thanks for using Voice123! If you ever have any questions, please stop by our Live Chat!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Voice of Speed Racer Passes at age 83

2010-09-13T15:51:00.018-05:00

Peter Fernandez (seen here) was one of the first voice over talent/celebs/heroes of mine that I met in a New York City voice over class back in 1996. He truly did light up when asked for autographs. Several years later, I saw him at the 2002 Auto Show in Los Angeles, signing autographs by a Speed Racer car. The fact he remembered me reminded me how special it feels to be remembered for doing something positive. I hope you will read more below.

"Peter Fernandez, who provided the rat-a-tat voice of Speed Racer when that animated Japanese television series came to the United States — and who wrote the American lyrics for the show’s theme song — died Thursday at his home in Pomona, N.Y. He was 83. The cause was cancer, his wife, Noel, said."

Read the entire NY Times article by Dennis Hevesi.

- photo by Librado Romero/New York Times

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Trend: The Happiest Country In The World?

2010-09-10T09:41:00.010-05:00

In my position, I talk to a voice over talent community from around the world. Today I spoke with people from Egypt, England, Canada, Germany, Colombia, South Africa, the U.S., Thailand, Japan, and China. I hear things from different cultures that I never could have learned by reading books.

I often wonder, ‘What country has a culture that leads them to be happier than other cultures’?

Voice talent work on a global schedule. It is a career that requires almost a surreal business schedule of ‘Anytime, anywhere, name it’. In fact, those at Voice123 do the same! You are reading this on September 10th, but I wrote this at 9pm last Friday night before Labor Day Weekend, because we were open, and love the industry. Labor Day is a holiday in my culture, but other countries may not know this. Most people I know left for vacation hours ago. Yet, I often wonder why we are the last to leave the office, work longer, we are happier, while those who live scheduled, structured lives work less hours and complain more. Personally, I do not like to see people unhappy. So...I searched for the happiest country.

In my search for the ‘Happiest Country’, I came across several different surveys, all with very different results. Most were geared towards building tourism, but there were two that appeared to be removed of selling plane tickets:

Forbes.com used a ‘life evaluation score’.

Huffingtonpost displays a study done based on positive and negative emotions.

Interesting point...Denmark:
Denmark is repeatedly in the top 3 of all surveys researched as being the 'Happiest Country' in the world. Yet, did you notice this fact?

“Denmark is a Nordic welfare state with most of its services free to the citizens. Denmark has the worlds’ highest taxes. When buying a car for $20 000, you have to pay an additional $45 000 as taxes for the government (total of $65 000). That’s why people in Denmark ride bikes or use one of the best public transport systems in the world.”

Now, that statement, would make many I know unhappy, so I guess it boils down to, 'Happiness' is a choice determined by the individual, and how you decide to deal with things in life that do not satisfy you!

Keep smiling!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Usage Tips: Making Sure They Hear You

2010-09-08T08:55:00.046-05:00

As part of the series of blogs for 'Usage Tips', this week I am bringing you a Voice123 website usage tip for all those out there who believe 'not being heard' is an uncontrollable symptom of working online!

Usage Tip #2: Making sure you are ‘heard’!

This is a simple one. Go to the bottom of every project details page, and you will see a link, ‘Click here to learn more about this seeker’.

It will take you to this page.

Inside that link, you will see a number that displays their listening behavior from the last six months of project posting, and even better...you can see older projects they posted.

Getting to the point!

If the seeker is typically listening to 80% or more of their auditions received, this is someone who will give you comfort that your audition will be heard.
If the project is constantly being re-posted, and you are constantly invited, DO NOT audition unless the description of the project has somehow changed dramatically.
Why? They heard you, or someone else, and realized, 'My client did not want to go in this direction.'
They also may wonder if you are aware your name repeatedly shows up in the same project.

Last set of variables...

If the person is posting a job for the first time, of course there is no listening behavior on record.
When that is the case, look at the project description and script.
See if you can find info about the company using your web browser.
Try to spot common industry lingo. (e.g. Need a VO for a :30 and :60)

Let all of the data on project details page convince you:

‘This is a voice over job I want to be a part of, now and for the future.’

If it is not convincing:

Remember being picky determines future traffic on the site, and pass on it.

I will be sharing more in the coming weeks, and my goal is to get everyone back behind the mic, focused on being creative and fearless! I know it makes a difference.

Keep an eye/ear out for it!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Business Tips: Using Voice Talent To Create a Brand

2010-09-07T09:04:00.035-05:00

Not too long ago, we sent out a survey asking voice talent to let us know what they considered to be their ‘brand’. We did this, so that we may share their skills with you.

The most interesting thing about the creative industry is that their is no ‘absolute right’, but everyone sees when something is just ‘absolutely wrong’. So, what sets the two apart? Usually, it is a great marketing strategy, knowing what rules you can bend a bit, and hiring great voice talent to help you! The beauty of hiring voice talent is that there is no danger of the voice over becoming a ‘mascot’; bigger than the brand itself.

Post a job today and find the special voice to make your business standout!

Here is just one of the thousands of brands from around our
Voice123 Community!

Scott Pollak and his business card

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Trend: The Copy'left' Movement?

2010-09-03T09:20:00.010-05:00

For decades, a ‘copyright’ tradition existed, and it seemed somewhat basic:

‘You own a license to copyrighted work you have created, and no one can touch/alter it unless you give permission.’

For the common good?
So, what would you do, if you had a chance to obtain a license that seemed somewhat ‘copyleft’, and it seemed as if only some rights are reserved? Creative Commons is a non-profit organization working to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in “the commons”. This refers to the body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, re-purposing, and remixing. In 2008, there were an estimated 130 million works licensed under Creative Commons.

At play here is an example of the ‘Copyleft’ psychology of the Internet, and how it has drastically changed the way voice talent should evaluate their possible revenue stream. Take an example from my experience. Someone took my demo from my Voice123 profile, and turned into a ring-tone on a website. What should I do next?

Track down who did it and have it removed from the website because I did not allow this.
Send him a thank you note.

Choice #2 is what I went with. Why? Whomever this was helped get my profile on page 1 of a Google search, which helps me, and not only that, the demo is a promo I did for Voice123....the company I now work in. He did a great deal of work for me, and it will help us be found more online. That exposure can lead to work. My coach is on it, too, so I am fine with it!

Forget me...this is about you! We want to know what the voice over community thinks on this topic!

Have a great weekend!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Usage Tips: SmartCast ‘Generally Speaking’

2010-09-01T10:20:00.017-05:00

After doing a webinar recently for Voice123, I began to see that what this blog may be missing are some direct explanations and unspoken secrets of working on Voice123. As I like to say it, 'Fast food maybe fast food, but you cannot expect onion rings at Wendy's.'

The truth is that what you read in web content regarding experiences in online casting, actually represents just a fraction of what is ‘really happening’. Making business decisions based on 140 words of a micro-blog, leaves so much to be discovered, and to study others failures only makes one experienced in knowing how to fail. In the coming weeks, every Wednesday, I will be giving usage tips shared every week in our Voice123 system training. My first usage tip will cover a general overview of the way SmartCast works best. I will get into the details of Voice123 in the coming weeks! But first....

Website Usage Tip #1: Using SmartCast in general!
The thing about websites is that you can never force anyone to use them. It goes against web culture. They have to be friendly, inviting, and allow for transparent sharing of information to make for better website usage. So, why would a software for a job placement site for voice overs knowingly decide to not invite people for jobs at certain times, which is seemingly an 'unfriendly' thing to do, and counter-intuitive to the offline ideal, 'I see, therefore I audition.'? .......The ‘bigger picture’.

What was never discussed when SmartCast was released is the trend it has created:

Make for a healthier online voice over community by creating a software that allows for professional talent to decide the future of what jobs will be posted on the website and will be invited to, through their professional decision-making.

Wow! Blurry line warning!
Well, not exactly. By deciding what and what not to audition for, and building relationships with great voice seekers (repeat customers), while those who used the site in the past with lesser integrity learn this is not the website to grab a cattle call of cheap talent. In fact...SmartCast, with its software technology, actually is a 'tier system' for voice talent; created by talent. Why?

You decide what tier you are on by the jobs you audition for, and the results will direct you as to how that is working on Voice123.
'Results' meaning - Return of investment, relationships built, and repeat business.
SmartCast is web technology that erases the 'I am in a black hole, talking to no one', feeling.

"Huh? How is this a usage tip?"
Think about this before auditioning online:

The first job I was ever awarded in voice overs was for $50 to do an answering machine message for a dating service.
The last job I booked before working here was for Adidas, which occurred 11 years later.
If a system is set up to allow voice talent to set their preference for jobs they would like to see in the future, each decision to audition for something is like deciding what you wish to see more of in the future i.e. The tier of talent you will go up against.

So, are you competitive in that tier of competition you are deciding to go up against, and the trend you are creating for yourself? You may be amazing, but over-priced for that tier, and vice versa. Answering this question is a great place to start before working online, where you must be your own agent, businessman, marketing team, and creative team. Is the software perfect? No, but to understand its rules and the theories behind it will allow one to take more advantage of it!

More to come next week!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

A Voice for Every Need: Voice Overs for Movie Trailers

2010-08-31T10:46:00.014-05:00

In a world or maybe just a website with a search feature...You will find your movie trailer voice overs are right here at Voice123!

With a combination of 'voice' & 'fire in the belly', movie trailer voices leave people breathless and looking to buy tickets for the next big hit at the box office! Trailers are usually heard through deep, resonant, and enchanting voices. These voices can give your movie a spirit you had never dreamed possible!

What you need to propel your creation is a professional voice behind it, the most professional voice over artists ready to introduce your creation to the world!

Listen to voice over talents of Voice123 that can provide your next movie trailer!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Community: Sharpen Your Voice Over Vision!

2010-08-30T07:09:00.035-05:00

Voice talent Shawn Maroney let us know about a special event coming up from Sept.23rd - 25th, called ‘Voices of Vision’, presented by Boss Entertainment and Shawn Says It! This is event will offer voice talent time behind the microphone, and a chance to speak with voice over professionals across North America, as well!

Are You Busy Tonight?
I have a date with Bettye, and you should, too!Voice123 coach, Bettye Zoller, will be holding a webinar tonight! We hope you will look into it! It is great information from a great voice over coach! I look forward to attending this myself! Voice123 supports all efforts that make for a better online voice over community!

Voice123 Meetups!
Remember that Voice123 Meetups are free to create and a great way to organize meeting other voice over professionals! Special thanks to Bill Brewer for his Voice123 Meetup last week!

We hope great info was shared! Organize one of your own, and see how big or small, Voice123 Meetups are great ways to get acquainted with those within the voice over industry!

Thank you!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Special Community News: ‘VH’ Celebrates 1st Birthday!

2010-08-27T08:30:00.031-05:00

An up and coming website, VoiceOver Hispano, a voice talent community of Spanish voice talent run by Carlos Estanga, is very proud to celebrate one year of operation on August 28th, 2010!

In the past three years, the entire voice over talent community has truly gone ‘global’, as more talent go online each day to find voice over work on Voice123, and community support from sites like VH, Voice123, and many others. The world is so small in fact that staff member of Voice123, Giselle Geney, was able to reach Mr.Estanga via skype for an interview about this special day!

To read the full interview, please go to this forum post. Quote from interview:

“I think everything is changing as people are becoming more familiar with computers and Internet. A voice over talent depends on a computer to be able to get some work. That’s something we need to have very clear: We cannot do a thing without a computer these days. If there’s no computer in a studio we cannot record properly; if you don’t travel with your computer, with your laptop, you can’t respond to any jobs. These things have developed a sense of trust between technology and VO talent. There’s a sort of marriage. We cannot get divorced of the technology reality.”

We hope all voice talent will recognize the growing global community of voice talent this weekend, and celebrate along with VH!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Trend: A Game Of ‘Kindle, Paper, iPad'?

2010-08-25T08:36:00.024-05:00

And...Shoot!
In a world, where ‘time is money’, there are always studies being done on how to save time. Although the inventions of Kindle and iPad have given people a unique tool to read books, and are slowly replacing paper book publications, a recent study showed it actually takes a longer amount of time to read books iPad and Kindle. Dunder-Mifflin’s Scranton-branch can rest easy for a day or two, but not very long.

Please go to this link and read about it! It will not take very long:

“...the printed book was the clear winner in terms of speed. Users were reading 6.2 percent slower on an iPad compared to paper, and 10.7 percent slower on the Kindle 2. Nielsen did not provide any statistics on the reading time for the PC monitor.”

So much for resting easy:
“Regardless of how fast people can read on an electronic device, the e-reader is becoming more popular every year. E-books raked in $313 million in 2009 growing by 176.6 percent compared to 2008, overtaking audio book sales. In 2010, e-book sales are currently growing at a rate of 217.3 percent versus 2009, according to estimates by the Association of American Publishers.”

Do you record audio books?
Tell the Voice123 Community about it, if you have noticed a change in the amount of audio book jobs being offered! Go to our Facebook, Twitter, or Forums, and let us know what you think about this!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Trends: Demands of a Paperless Business

2010-08-24T10:27:00.026-05:00

Last Friday, a person working with another company in our office asked, ‘Are you using the fax machine? I need to use it’. Rather than answer, ‘Faxes? That is sooo 20th century!’, I simply said proudly:

‘Not us. Voice123 is a paperless business.’

It is pleasure to make such a statement. A company with paper filing systems spends money on paper (of course), but also storage space, which over time takes both a toll on a business, and on a global scale, the environment.

As for demos and auditions on Voice123, it is important for us to keep it digital. We are aware of the amount of cd’s, and marketing materials that go to waste; most of the time before it is even considered. This is why we have things such as our shared inbox.

If your company is aiming towards ‘100% Paperless’, you will face demands you may or may not have expected. We offer this article to you today, if this has been something your business was considering:

"There are the costs of new equipment and software to consider, as well as that of converting paper records into electronic files. And there are decisions about how to make the move and when, how much existing paper to convert, how to handle paper that continues to flow in from vendors and customers, how to get employees onboard with the idea and trained in new systems, and how to simply keep doing business as usual during the conversion.”

Thank you for reading! Voice123 LLC is currently pursuing our own ‘Green Certificate’.

You can see an example here of a site that is certified 'green'.

Thank you for reading!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Community: “What’s Your Brand” The ‘Non-Contest’!

2010-08-23T08:22:00.034-05:00

What This Is About and Why?
Did you ever go food shopping and find there are certain types of drink that you must purchase? Did you ever stop and think about why you feel that way? It may just be because of the ‘brand’.

Even though it is tough as humans to think of ‘voices’ as ‘products’, every single voice talent has to have their own ‘brand’ to offer something no one else does, which can be only ‘you’. Simply having amazing talent is not enough, and if you do not know your ‘brand’, the buyer will not figure it out for you.

Share your ‘brand’ with the community, so we can share it with voice seekers!

So! The Non-Contest...Well, it is just about you...

Please go to this forum post on Voice123 Forums.
In 10 words or less, describe your ‘brand’.
Add your image, if you would like. (Please make sure they are originals)
Make sure, you add your demo!!! After all, it is you!
Voice123 will be using your entries to send individually to voice seekers, share on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Decisions on when you will be shared will be decided by community voting on Facebook and Twitter! Keep your eyes open for it!

Now...I am off to get a diet coke; not because I like the taste. In fact, I hate it. But maybe because the silver and red can, and the brand name reminds me of no longer feeling thirsty, much more than the no frills types of soda, which costs less, but I pay more anyway for a brand name. Interesting.

What is your brand making others think about you?

Voice123 Meetups This Week!

Please organize your own, and network with voice talent in your area!

Voice123 Meetup in Bogota!

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of talking to Voice123 staff the night of their Voice123 Meetup via web cam! In attendance was voice over coach, Rene Figueroa. (click on the photo)

Thank you!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Image courtesy of Stoneyroads.com

Coach News And Meetups, Too!

2010-08-20T09:04:00.015-05:00

We wanted to bring to you some great news reported on our Voice123 Forums!

Bob Bergen’s 1-Day Special NYC Event – Speaking of Voice over:
"Speaking of Voice over" is a special full-day lecture presentation on all things Voice over! The event will be held at Actors Connection, 630 Ninth Ave (bet. 44th & 45th Sts.) on Saturday, October 2nd, from 10:00am to 5:00pm.

If you would like to be a part of our Coach Partner or Affiliate Programs, please contact us!

Voice123 Meetup in Latin America!
Several staff members from Voice123 will be holding a Voice123 Meetup tonight in Bogota, Colombia. It was a pleasure to meet Voice123 talent Rene Figueroa and Felix Riano at the last Meetup in Colombia! They shared feedback with the staff that was enlightening, and one of our staff has started taking classes with him, too!

Oklahoma City, too!
On Monday, August 23rd, Bill Brewer will be holding his own Voice123 Meetup in Oklahoma City.

Special thanks...
I wanted to thank Scott Gentle of Voice123 for coming to Meetup with me in Manhattan. I was able to recognize him from his avatar. Admittedly, it was not a typical place. It did not matter. It was great to talk face-to-face with a talent, and get some valuable insight into his day-to-day usage of Voice123.

Organize your own, too! There is no software that can replicate a handshake!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Trends: Do You Speak App-ish?

2010-08-18T09:14:00.028-05:00

App-ish?
There are many discussions on mobile apps, and you will hear anyone on any given day tell you how much you need to have it. Before building up a graveyard of bad purchases, see the various types provided by mobile app developer, Mark Kirby.

Through all the discussions of apps that ‘you must have, or you are just not keeping up with everyone’, as an online business of being a voice talent, take a moment to reflect on how much these apps are actually being used in the business you work in, and for your purposes of getting you work; not just contributing to a social network.

Take a look at this slide show. It will display interesting numbers from studies in the past.

"I want one of those!"
The bottom line always is, ‘Will I make a profit from my efforts when apps are a business expense?’. Well, if you are a person who uses mobile apps for social networks to get work, you will find survey results in this Voice123 forum post interesting.

When all is read and done, we hope voice talent find an answer to the question, ‘Do I need to speak App-ish?’.

Thank you for reading!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Trends: Growing Freelance Market on Voice123

2010-08-17T08:00:00.029-05:00

Sorry Jim...It’s Not The End, My Friend:
The voice over industry has gone through some changes in the past seven years, and it has been new for those finding voice talent online. Where some see the Internet as ‘the end’, websites like Voice123 are truly a ‘means to an end’. We have watched Voice123 grow, and 2009 to 2010 were two of our strongest years thanks to those seeking voice talent online.

This is a chart of our project growth from 2009 and 2010:

Why has it grown? Logically speaking...
We take this quote from Economist.com’s article: ‘A Clouded Future’:

“Technology is driving the trend. Over the past few years a host of fast-growing firms...have begun to take advantage of “the cloud”—tech-speak for the combination of ubiquitous fast internet connections and cheap, plentiful web-based computing power—to deliver sophisticated software that makes it easier to monitor and manage remote workers.”

Possible rebel activity? Emotionally speaking...
We quote the same article:

“Although numerous online exchanges still act primarily as brokers between employers in rich countries and workers in poorer ones, the number of rich-world freelancers is growing. Gary Swart, the boss of a (freelancing site), says the number of freelancers registered with (his freelancing site) in America has risen from 28,000 at the end of 2008 to 247,000 at the end of April.

That may, in part, be a reflection of American bosses’ ruthless cuts in full-time jobs, forcing those laid off to scramble for whatever work they can find. But it is also a sign of another notable trend: the range of work available is growing to encompass more complex and better-paid tasks.”

For years, there was a belief Voice123’s activity would drive the market down for the voice over industry, where in fact all it has done is remove middlemen-intervention and given buyers and sellers efficient tools to communicate and work more often with each other, directly and quickly.

In closing, we need to share a quick thanks for being loyal members of Voice123, and hope we can help you in the voice over industry for years to come!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Community: Contest Winner and Meetups!

2010-08-16T09:36:00.023-05:00

Autographed-Poster Contest Winner!
The votes are in! We sent out an email campaign, invited voice talent, and used Voice123's Facebook and Twitter to seek votes for a contest giving away a Spanish Buzz-autographed Toy Story 3 poster by Javier Fernandez-Pena!

We congratulate Amy Elk (listen to the demo) for receiving the most votes, mostly on Facebook, but Twitter, too!

It will be a pleasure for us to send her this poster, seen at the end of this interview!

If you would like to hear the entire set of character voice submissions, you can do so at this link!

Voice123 Meetups This Week!

This week there will be Voice123 Meetups around the world! See if one is in your area!

Do not forget to organize your own!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!