VO Peeps

Upcoming VO Peeps Meetup with Special Guests James Alburger and Penny Abshire!

2012-01-25T16:07:00.000-08:00

Happy Wonderful 2012 VO Peeps! I am so excited to announce our first meetup for the New Year - Get ready and mark your calendars for Feb 18, 2012 at 6:30 pm - featuring our very special guests James Alburger and Penny Abshire! Mark those calendars and Register Now - Limited spots are available and these should fill quickly - We have some GREAT things in store for you!

If you’ve done any research at all on voiceover, you’ve undoubtedly come across the names James Alburger and Penny Abshire. You probably also know that James and Penny are considered by many to be among the top voiceover coaches in the US. Their coaching and writing styles, and the fact that they are executive producers of the VoiceOver International Creative Experience - (VOICE), the only International conference for voiceover talent, have made their names among the most recognized in the world of voiceover training.

Let's take a closer look at this dynamic duo and get to know them a bit better!

James R. Alburger

As a teacher, James R. Alburger works with people who want to break into voiceover. As a producer, he works with business owners and advertising agencies who use radio advertising, and with other clients who want exceptional sound design and audio production. As a director, James takes an actor’s initial performance to a new level through his understanding of the nuance of interpretation and timing.

For more than 35 years James has worked with voiceover artists as a director, performer and studio engineer in Los Angeles and San Diego. For 25 years, he was a director and audio producer for television station NBC 7/39 in San Diego, receiving eleven Emmy Awards, Omni Intermedia Awards, and Silver Microphone Awards for his work. He is currently an independent audio producer, voice-actor, speaker, author, and teacher. James also works as a director and audio consultant for specialty variety performers, including magicians, illusionists, ice skaters, and professional ballroom dance teams. He has clients in Los Angeles; Las Vegas, San Diego, San Francisco, New York, and other major cities.

In addition to his skills as a teacher, speaker, audio producer and creative sound engineer, James R. Alburger has more than 35 years of performing experience on stage (as a professional magician) and in the recording studio. His extensive knowledge and experience in radio, television, theater, communication, and sound design is brought together in his workshops and seminars to teach the skills needed to break into the business of voiceover and develop a successful voiceover career.

His critically acclaimed book, The Art of Voice-Acting, focuses on the voiceover performer as an actor. The book is the foundation for comprehensive workshop and seminar training in which James R. Alburger teaches his voice-acting techniques with his partner Penny Abshire. James, and Penny also provide a training resource to help business executives and sales/marketing staff more effectively communicate their company's message to their audience.

James has also written one of the most comprehensive books on how to build a home studio, The VoiceActor’s Guide to Professional Home Recording and a pocket book titled How to Get Jobs for the Voices in Your Head designed to give anyone interested in voiceover the information they need to make an intelligent decision as to whether voiceover is something they should pursue.

Penny Abshire

Penny Abshire is a born actor! She is a classically trained concert pianist and has been performing since the age of 7, when she first discovered the world of theater. Penny quickly developed a natural talent for acting and communicating with audiences of all sizes. She was also trained as a dancer and performed professionally for many years. However, as often happens, life moved Penny away from the performing arts into a 26-year career in the world of Estate Law.

To keep her fingers on the pulse of the performing arts, Penny opened what might best be referred to as a “finishing school” where she taught personal communication, presentation, and performing skills to young women. In the mid 1990’s, Penny began her move back to performing when she was personally trained by John Gray as a facilitator of his “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” seminars. Her unique combination of legal experience, and talents as an actor, coach, and professional speaker developed into a powerful ability to connect with her audiences on an emotional level through the use of both humor and drama.

Moving away from her career in law, Penny began to explore other performing options and attended one of James Alburger’s Art of Voice Acting Workshops. It was here that all of her experience and training became focused. Not long afterward, she discovered yet another talent as a creative copy writer – where she truly found her niche! Penny joined Jim at VoiceActing.com as a writer, voice talent, and producer of award-winning radio commercials. She co-teaches The Art of Voice Acting Workshops with James. She is now a gifted director and loves the opportunity to guide others on their performance paths.

Penny is the recipient of the prestigious Omni Intermedia Award for excellence in copy writing, the Communicator Award, and multiple Silver Microphone Awards, among others. She is also the author the very popular book Demo and Marketing Magic for Voice Actors.

For more information on Penny’s dialog voiceover work with James Alburger, please visit www.thevoiceoverteam.com.

For more information on Penny’s professional speaking and corporate training with James Alburger, please visit www.speakingmagic.com.

If you live in Orange County, CA area and are interested in becoming a member and attending our bi-monthly meetings, please make sure to fill out our membership application. Also, make sure to sign up for our email list to keep up with the latest happenings of the group.

Thank you for your interest and hope to see you all at the meetup!

Best Wishes and Much Success,
Anne

"Be the Ball, Danny"... Creating characters out of thin air....

2011-12-07T15:45:00.000-08:00

Hey Peeps!
Today we are featuring special guest blogger and VO Talent, Mark P. Coyle, who provides us with a truly entertaining and in depth look at the creative process of developing character voices. A big Thank You to Mark for sharing such wonderful and valuable insight!

by: Mark P. Coyle

Most of us remember that comedic transcendental scene from the cult comedy classic, "Caddyshack"...in which an exceptionally gifted, albeit eccentric character named "Ty Webb"- (played by a young Chevy Chase) extolls the zen like philosophies of letting go... by imagining and becoming the very thing you are engaged in trying to do....He blindfolds himself and proceeds to successfully sink a series of difficult putts into the intended golf hole, only barely missing just one!

His impressionable, young caddy, Danny Noonan-(played by Micheal O'Keefe") after witnessing this amazing display of uncanny talent, simply mutters..."Amazing"....to which Ty nonchalantly replies "Thank-you very little"....and saunters off the course as unfazed as when he started.

There's a lesson in there-(somewhere) for all of us crazy, character actor, voiceover artists, that are asked to create and come up with voices on demand. How do we do it? What's the technique? What about the technical skills that we need to remember to utilize and call forth when creating behind the microphone?

Answer:

BE THE CHARACTER!

That's right...at the end of the day, we need to remember that our creative imagination is the most organic tool available to tap into....I have always viewed this process of creation, of simply becoming, of being....as a bit of a mystical gift...the God given talent/ability to morph and match a unique character voice to what we are presented to work with, perhaps a drawing or artists rendering of a toothless gorilla....an old beat up jalopy...or an old withered plant. Our job...(or process, if you will) involves taking an intangible and breathing life and soul into it, through a selected, created/adapted vocal... thus making it a TANGIBLE entity. Again...how do we do that?

This process can be highly individualized to be sure, and certainly subjective...the variables being...are you skilled in the art of mimicry...or impressions? Can you look upon a person, place or thing... and call forth and believably employ a voice or vocal inflection to match your intended subject matter?

While some voice teachers may teach how to create and perform different types of voices and vocal effects by altering the voice-(ie...speaking with a nasal tone...from the top of the head....from deep in the throat, etc.)... I simply harken back to the Zen teachings of ol' Ty...BE THE CHARACTER!

Inhabit what you see in your script...BECOME, with every focused concentration in your being, what you desire this intangible to BECOME. You are... giving birth in a way-(minus the contractions...well...sometimes) for lack of a better term. Who is this character? Where do they come from? How did they get here? Do they like people? What's their sense of style?

When I create, and then immerse myself into an intended character, so strong is the concentration at hand, that if I looked into a mirror, I would physically see what my minds eye had created, matching with what was coming out of my mouth vocally. I expect the transformation to be so complete, that I want to be amazed and thrilled at the lack of any trace of me upon playback...If I'm unrecognizable-(character voice-wise) to my own ears...then I know I have successfully transformed my very being into that character. Check please...

Creating a history/background in your mind...(some write it down) of the character that you're creating, can be helpful to the process...I once auditioned for the part of a talking convenience store shelf to be used for a 7-11 Training film. The angry shelf-(according to the script) kept spitting out cases of cigarettes that the jobber kept placing upon it. In the development of this particular voice, I went into a quiet meditative state, and saw this store shelf from fabrication-(its birth if you will)...delivery to his current destination, and infused him with his current dispostion. In his current situation, he felt disrespected, put upon, was "mad as hell...and not going to take it anymore"! What came out of ME representing HIM, (at least vocally) was a "Gilbert Gottfreid" (think :Geico" duck) type screeching voice. Perfect! The character had its soul... and was complete!

This is a great trick of the trade by the way, when creating character voices, if you are gifted with an ear for impressions or mimicry. I sometimes will loosley base the character voice on a celebrity voice, which is very freeing as far as creative flexibility goes. (If you're auditioning for a spot on impersonation, that becomes another story, and you need to be able to deliver the goods per the casting directors direction).

When we performed the Rocky Stone radio show, nearly half of the characters that I created and voiced were based on celebrity impersonations. The main character, Rocky Stone, who reported on traffic patterns from a Hot Air balloon called Skyhook One, was a nerdish, shy character. Thus, he was infused with a "Woody Allen" type voice. The voice for the domineering Airfield Base Officer...Col. Braggard, was based on Jack Nicholson. And finally, the Base Therapist, Dr. Psychie ,was based upon famed therapist, Dr, Ruth Westheimer! Again...I simply matched the qualities and nuances of the assorted characters and channeled the appropriate celebrity voices into them! Sometimes, when studying a potential character, you can create a celebrity hybrid if you will....whereby you take the voice of one type celebrity and fuse it with another for maximum effectiveness. It's a bit like creating a character stir-fry dish!

Let me illustrate this process for you:

I was once called upon to provide the voice of a 1000 year old ancient troll. EXCITING, right? Here is an example of my creative process in creating that particular character voice....

I was provided with a black and white artists rendering of the character. He reminded me of a character from an old Cecil B. Demille film, the way Charlton Heston might dress while playing Moses. (My little artists drawing even had a wooden staff).

I withdrew to that still quiet place where the magic starts to happen...I silently stared into the trolls eyes...he stared back into mine...then I shut my eyes...and focused....I mean REALLY focused...I felt the hard canvas of his old robe upon my tanned, weathered old skin....I felt the desert sand in my eyes, and the scratchy stubble upon my cheeks and chin...until.....I ...BECAME! His voice found ME...and upon playback, he sounded like a cross between an old Walter Brennan and the American Indian actor Chief Dan George! (Think of the Clint Eastwood classic-The Outlaw Josey Wales, for a memory peg...he played Clint's second sidekick in that one).

I had simply taken both actors voices from my ingredients list...combined them in just the right measure...and voila! A New Character voice was born!!

Creating and performing character voices upon request is probably the most fun you can have with your clothes on...getting PAID quite well to do it is the GIANT cherry on top! If you assess your current skill sets, and realize that you possess a booming baritone announcer type voice...congratulations! The Voice-Over world needs your talent! If you have a profound articulation of medical subject matter, and 12 syllable medical jargon type words flow effortlessly from your lips like honey from a jar...congratulations, for they need your talents as well!

Now...if you've been creating funny little voices since before the age of 10... imitating teachers, then assorted bosses later in life...if you find yourself during the course of a day speaking in different dialects and character voices 80% of the time...if people sometimes beg you to talk to them again in your REAL voice...well then...Congratulations...you just may BE a Character Voice Over Actor! So...Go and Get your Freak on! :)

About the Author:

Mark P. Coyle has been in the Radio-Voice-Over Industry for over 16 years, and spends the majority of his days speaking in OTHER voices...He also wrote, produced and performed the Rocky Stone show on WERA radio. He can be reached at: markpcoyle@gmail.com

JOIN US as Six OC Media Organizations Party Together on Dec 6th!

2011-11-10T11:54:00.000-08:00

Hey VO Peeps! :) Dig out that reindeer sweater or snowflake muffer and wear it on December 6th—when you join fellow media pros, their spouses, sig O’s and friends for the annual year-end Holiday Party! There’ll be hearty food, great door prizes as well as a gift exchange and of course, a festive atmosphere in which to meet new friends and renew acquaintances .

This year the OC VO Peeps is sharing hosting duties with PVN, the Professional Videographers Network. Joining us will be members of the Media Alliance of Orange County, The LA/OC chapter of the MCA-i, OC Digital Arts and the OC Screen Writers Association. You’ll also likely run into a few errant members of the OC Multi Media Association and possibly, just possibly, a few stragglers from the Professional Communication Exchange.

Besides a lot of charming people we’ll have doorprizes and—if you choose to bring a gift (max value $15) —a fun gift exchange! (or is it a RE-gift exchange?)

Our location is the legendary Fullerton trattoria, Angelo’s & Vinci’s. They’re known for good food and good times. Dinner is included in the price per person and there will be a cash bar for adult beverages.

We expect a good size crowd so make plans now and go on line to RSVP and pay. Price is $22 per person and you must pre-pay!

If you are a member of PVN, please RSVP to their website and get a member discount! The rest of us media mavens must RSVP and pay $22 per person at the MCAI Meetup site: http://www.newmedia.meetup.com/82/

The event is $22 per person if you prepay online at http://www.newmedia.meetup.com/82/
PLEASE REGISTER ONLINE SOON SO WE CAN GET AN ACCURATE COUNT FOR FOOD!

EVENT: Annual Six Media Org Holiday Party & Dinner
DATE: Tuesday December 6th, 2011
TIME: Event starts at 6:30 PM with socializing and cocktails followed by dinner, door prizes and gift exchange. Laughs throughout.

LOCATION: Angelo’s & Vinci’s Restaurant, 6:30 PM
550 N. Harbor Blvd, Fullerton, CA 92832-1516
Phone: 714-879-4022
http://www.angelosandvincis.com/

GENERAL DIRECTIONS: Angelo’s & Vinci’s is in downtown Fullerton—halfway between the 5 and 57 Freeways north of the 91 and just N. of Chapman Avenue. From either the 5 or the 57 take 91 and exit at Harbor Blvd and head north bout 1 mile.

Can't wait to see you there!

Best Wishes and Much Success,

Anne

VO Peeps October Meetup - An International Experience!

2011-10-12T15:14:00.000-07:00

With guest speaker Natalie Cooper!

It's hard to believe another meetup has come and gone already! Our VO Peeps October Meetup was a wonderful event filled with amazing networking, great friends, and an abundance of laughter and fun! An extra special thank you to our International guest presenter Natalie Cooper, (who traveled all the way from the UK), for her delightfully entertaining and insightful presentation! Having Natalie on hand to share her experiences as a voiceover talent, talk about the business, and answer questions was extremely informational and educational for our members. It's no surprise to us that her incredibly charming and warm personality are a contributing factor to her amazing voiceover success!

Many thanks go out to those who attended and who also helped us to celebrate honorary Peep and chef extraordinaire Jerry Ganguzza's Birthday! Many thanks Jerry, for sharing your special day with us!

Happy Birthday Jerry!

A warm welcome and shout out to our newest members, Kathy Johnson, Andrew Swingler, Blake Gould, and Brian Kelly. So nice to meet you! :)

Also, A big thank you to those of you who attended via our live broadcast on our exclusive Ustream channel. If you missed us, no worries! You can always view our archived video of the meetup.

An engaged audience

The evening lasted till well past the midnight hour, with many people staying to enjoy the wonderful company and great food.

VO Peep member Eila Ulyett had this to say:

"Thank you Natalie for a very interesting and fun evening on Friday. It was great to hear how you got started in the business and what you're up to now. Just wish you could be at our meetings on a regular basis!"

If you are from the Orange County area and are interested in joining our meetups live and in person, please visit our Membership page to apply. We'd love to have you!

A heartfelt and sincere thank you to of all our members for your continued support and friendship. We couldn't do it without you! Can't wait until our next meetup!

Best Wishes and Much Success,

Anne

MCA-I Joins VO Peeps to Create Scholarship

2011-09-13T06:56:00.000-07:00

Anne Ganguzza, VO Peeps

Performers who specialize in voice work have some unique challenges. Anne Ganguzza, founder and president of VO Peeps as well as a VO artist and nationally recognized trainer, knows that many are struggling. Anne created the concept of a career education scholarship fund specifically for qualified members of the voiceover community and along with Tim Keenan of Creative Media Recording brought it to the LA/OC Chapter of MCA-I.

At the September Board of Directors meeting board members were very enthusiastic. So enthusiastic, in fact, that MCAI and VO Peeps are currently working out the details to make the scholarship fund a reality!

Tim Keenan, Creative Media Recording

In broad terms, the scholarship fund—to be administrated jointly by MCAI and VO Peeps—will respond to a number of both need and merit-based requests from existing members of the professional voice acting community. Some provisions may be made for student level scholarships as well. Scholarships may be granted in the form of equipment, software, training and mentoring services as well as cash.

While no timeline has been set, the educational scholarship fund is expected to become operational sometime in early 2012. Obviously, fundraising will come first followed by call for applications and awards of scholarships. Appeals to fund the scholarship will be made to media businesses and individuals as well as the general public. Tax-deductible donations will be made to MCA-I, which is a registered 501c3 charity. So look for more announcements this fall.

VO Peeps, a support organization for voiceover artists founded in 2010 by Ganguzza, has now gone international, streaming their bi-monthly meetings over the internet and this October hosting British VO artist, Natalie Cooper, in person.

MCA-I’s LA/OC Chapter is one of the oldest in the over 40 year old association. The Media Communications Association-international (MCA-I,) which started as ITVA, is an association of professionals from every media: television, film, radio, print, the internet and more. Members represent every job category from producer to performer, engineer to copywriter and everything in between. The MCA-I is dedicated to serving its members, the professional media community and the community at large. To find out more about our chapter, please visit us on the web at http://mcai-oc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=627&Itemid=154.

If you live in Orange County, CA area and are interested in becoming a member of the OC VO Peeps and attending our bi-monthly meetings, please make sure to fill out our membership application. Also, make sure to sign up for our email list to keep up with the latest happenings of the group.

For more information, or if you are interested in donating to the Scholarship Fund, please contact Anne Ganguzza at anne@vopeeps.com, or call 949-630-3208. Thank you so much in advance for your generous support! Your contribution will make a difference in someone's lives!

Upcoming VO Peeps Meetup with Special Guest Natalie Cooper!

2011-09-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

Hey Peeps!
Wow! I am so excited about our next fun-filled meetup! Mark your calendars for Oct 7, 2011 at 6:30 pm for the next International Orange County VO Peeps meetup! That's right - International - you heard me correctly!

With that being said, I am excited to announce our very special guest speaker for this meetup - UK Voiceover Talent extraordinaire, Natalie Cooper! Natalie will be to travelling LA for the That's Voiceover event and we are so incredibly lucky that she has agreed to take time out of her trip to the States to speak with us! I'd like to extend a special thank you to Natalie in advance for sharing her time so graciously with us - we are incredibly fortunate to have her!

What's that? You don't live in Orange County? Can't make the meetup? No worries! We will be broadcasting LIVE from the party on our Ustream channel for those of you unable to attend. You won't want to miss all the fun - I have lots of exciting news to share with the group as well!

Let's take a more in depth look at Natalie's history and career:

I'm a British voiceover artist, based in the UK, and I'm fortunate enough to live in a beautiful village, just 20 mins from Stonehenge. When I'm not voicing, I'm chasing chickens, herding children and baking cakes :-)

I've been working as a voiceover for 12 years, and have spent the last 2 years working full-time.

After completing my degree in Media Studies (Broadcast Journalism), I began working for BBC radio, before finding my voice and moving to BBC TV Continuity. A stint as a Traffic and Travel presenter for a rolling news station in London proved to be enormous fun, the thrills and spills of live bulletins every 10 minutes, but it was meeting my amazing mentor (Patrick Lunt - goggle him! and swoon at his wonderful voice) that got me established as a voiceover.

I work mainly from my isdn-equipped home studio, voicing radio imaging and commercials, tv ads, on-hold messaging, corporate videos and more, and with London 2 hours away, I also travel up for tv promo sessions with Sky, and to voice the occasional (and very welcome) tv ad.

I work with clients all over the world, and recent clients include an isdn session for Vodafone via my US agent, and Marriott Hotels and Infiniti cars for studios in New York.

In the UK, I'm currently station voice for the UKRD Group of 14 commercial radio stations, the on-hold voice for theme park Alton Towers, and the newest promo voice for Sky Living TV.

I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be able to earn my money this way. My very BBC lecturer at university warned me that I should never become "a gob on a stick", I can't imagine a more fun and rewarding way to earn my living.

For more information about Natalie:

www.nataliecooper.co.uk
studio@nataliecooper.co.uk

Phone: +44 (0)1747 810 118

If you live in Orange County, CA area and are interested in becoming a member and attending our bi-monthly meetings, please make sure to fill out our membership application. Also, make sure to sign up for our email list to keep up with the latest happenings of the group.

Thank you for your interest and hope to see you all at the meetup!

Best Wishes and Much Success,
Anne

Special MCAI Event - Nonprofits Need Media

2011-09-08T07:44:00.000-07:00

Media Pros and nonprofit org reps join together for mutual benefit on Sept 21

Philanthropy is a multi-billion dollar industry. To help people, they need to spend some of that money on communications: PSA spots, promoting fundraising events; direct appeals for donations; newsletters; websites; training; public awareness and more.

How do charities and nonprofits use media to further their causes and how do they pay for it? What are the unique needs and challenges facing these organizations? What's the best way MCAI and media professionals can do business them? Bring your experiences to share and media ideas that may help support and expand the good work of philanthropic organizations.

The OC/LA Chapter of MCAI is joining with the OC Chapter of AFP, the Association of Fundraising Professionals to bring the worlds of professional media and nonprofit organizations together. This special panel discussion is being organized by AFP President, Scott Evans, and moderated by MCI Past President, Bill Ennis, who also serves on the board of AFP.

Join So Cal media professionals and representatives of non-profit orgs to discuss working together to solve the media communications needs of the multi-billion dollar philanthropic industry.

The event is $15 at the door and $12 if you prepay online at http://www.newmedia.meetup.com/82/
PLEASE REGISTER ONLINE SO WE CAN GET AN ACCURATE COUNT FOR FOOD!
As always, bring a friend and plenty of business cards

EVENT: Media And Nonprofits / Monthly MCAI Meeting
DATE: Wednesday September 21, 2011
TIME: Event starts at 6:00 PM with networking over refreshments and food. Program starts 7:00 PM
LOCATION: OC SOUND STAGE
17518 Von Karman, Irvine CA 92614
Just East of Main Street in the rear of the Von Karman Business Center Free parking on site
COST: MEMBERS of MCAI pay $5 All others pay $15 at the door or $12 if you pre-register online at OC New Media Meetup Group at http://www.newmedia.meetup.com/82/

No Place Like Home

2011-09-06T12:54:00.000-07:00

Anne Ganguzza and Mark Sevi

Question: With all the video production (and Voiceover!) talent here in Orange County why would an Orange County ad agency go to Los Angeles for their production needs?

Answer: We don’t know. Let’s ask them.

That simple and brilliant premise posited as a result of an MAOC board of directors meeting one afternoon drove the event and the evening at the glorious Fairmont Hotel in Newport Beach on August 17, 2011.

The Media Alliance of Orange County (MAOC), in cooperation with the Orange County branch of the Advertising Federation, gathered companies who hire video producers for their ad campaigns, and video producers who normally don’t get a chance to compete in that production arena because the ad agencies go to L.A. for their needs. The convergence created, by design, a conversation that would help illuminate the process of why that doesn’t happen and what could be done to change that paradigm.

Fabulous Food!

The evening began right with one of the more amazing free finger-food spreads seen in recent memory. Rei Strand, media director of the Fairmont, is to be congratulated for hosting the event for the Fairmont. Her and her impeccable staff made the evening really work. The food and setting was, in a word, spectacular, and set the tone for a fantastic open and honest dialogue about the whys and why nots of ad agencies hiring locally rather than continuing to take their business to agencies not situated in Orange County - more specifically Los Angeles, the undisputed champ of film production in the world.

Current MAOC president Gregory DePetro (CVFStudios.com) himself a local and highly-successful video producer, moderated a panel of notable O.C. video producers and ad people. The panel included:

Panelists from Video Production/Post-Production side:
Jonathan Fackler, The Narnia Group
Brad Hagen, Video Resources
Robb Hart, An Ideal World
Tim Keenan, Creative Media Recording

Panelists from Ad Agency side:
Joe Burke from Denizen USA
Jonathan Gasteiger from OC Media Works
Lisa Marie Smith from Sprint

MAOC President Greg DePetro leads the animated discussion

The panelists were asked to give brief introductions, and then DePetro led the discussion with a few prepared questions followed by questions from the audience.

“Would the ad agencies represented here tonight take unsolicited demos?” an attendee asked.

All panel members agreed that they would be more than happy to take unsolicited demos but they challenged the audience to "wow" them; show them something different; a unique perspective as to why they’d want to hire someone new (and from the O.C.) when they’ve been successfully using other video production companies elsewhere.

In response to a question of why ad agencies tend to look outside of Orange County for services and talent: “Most (of us) are simply not aware of what is available in Orange County, as well as the more ‘global’ aspect of the industry where we can find resources and talent quickly online.”

Panelists Joe Burke, Lisa Marie Smith, Jonathan Gasteiger

It was agreed that all panelists routinely utilize online resources in their day-to-day tasks in doing their job quicker and more efficiently with their existing clients, as well as looking for new ideas.

Tim Keenan, an MAOC board member and panelist from the production side mentioned as part of the response that he worked all around the world to emphasize that the O.C. label is only geography and not a measure of quality or skill.

Discussion and questions regarding savings cost by staying local and working within Orange County were presented. In response it was agreed by panelists that they would rather stay local if they could get the same quality services and talent within Orange County.

Video Production/Post Production Panel:
Tim Keenan, Jonathan Fackler, Brad Hagen, Robb Hart

Ad panelist Joe Burke mentioned that he moved from Santa Monica to Orange County for better "living" - and loves it here - but also stated that there was an impression that O.C. people close their doors at 5:00 pm. This is a perception problem and one that needs to addressed industry-wide he said.

Also mentioned as still lacking in Orange County are major stages where a huge set could be built. Implicit in that comment was that L.A. has a myriad of stages large and small. This, again, is an O.C. industry-wide problem and perhaps not one that will be resolved any time soon.

One of the panelists toward the end of the evening mentioned that people in L.A. “burn the blue flame” for this business. He said that they do it to obsession and do whatever it takes, and will do a demo to get work.

MAOC Board Members Art Kirsch and Anne Ganguzza

When the floor was opened to comments, Rick Sherman (Sherman Sound Suite) took slight exception to that statement and spoke passionately to invalidate it. “I am willing to do anything it takes, and I'm willing to work 24/7 at my job, just like the L.A. people you mentioned,” he said. “And I know, from working with a lot of the industry pros present in the audience tonight, that media professionals here in Orange County feel that way too.” Many heads nodded in agreement especially those who knew of and shared Sherman’s excellent and uncompromising work ethic.

Anne Ganguzza (V.O. Peeps/annespeak.com) mentioned that becoming aware of the jobs the ad agencies do on a daily basis increased her level of understanding as to how to compete in the market more effectively. All who were polled after the event seemed to be in agreement with this.

By evening’s end, in the balmy Newport Beach night, there was more than a glimmering of hope that there were many more opportunities in Orange County than were once thought of, and that a dialogue had begun that would help foster those opportunities. There was agreement that there really isn’t anything separating the sides, or reasons why an ad agency, at certain levels, would seek to go somewhere else, as opposed to staying local, to get video production and post-production services, voice talent or actors. "Los Angeles may have more but they don’t necessarily have better", was the consensus.

Nanci Washburn, from Artist Management Agency wrote to say: "The August event at the Fairmont was outstanding. As the new "kid" on the block, I was warmly received by the members, introduced to those I didn't know, found the panel members most interesting, informative and the hospitality was most gracious. The martini's weren't bad either. I look forward to seeing everyone at the next event."

The MAOC has committed to having similar events in the future.

Jump start your Voiceover Career with Tim and Sylvia's VO Workshop!

2011-08-16T16:59:00.000-07:00

Hey Peeps!

Summer’s almost over! It is time to jump start to your voice-over career this Fall! Dates are locked in for the next Tim & Sylvia voice-over workshop and we already have 2 spots filled! We hope to see you there.

We’ve been pulling together more sample scripts from actual voiceover sessions as well as industry related articles to share with you. The voiceover business is constantly changing and we plan to update you on the latest trends & techniques for finding voiceover jobs. You’ll walk away with some great resources for your V.O. business.

Join us Thursday evenings, 6:30pm to 9:30pm for FOUR weeks in a row – Starting the 1st Thursday after Labor Day– September 8th - September 29th. Here's our web flier: http://creativemediarecording.com/vo.asp

The spots have been filling up quickly and we limit the class size.

To lock in your reservation, send a deposit check (at least $200.00) payable to Creative Media 11105 Knott Ave., Suite G, Cypress, CA 90630. The balance is due at the first class.

We hope you’ll consider joining us at this next voice-over workshop.

Best regards,

Tim Keenan

Creative Media Recording

MAOC Presents... There's No Place Like Home!

2011-07-19T13:23:00.000-07:00

Hey Peeps!

If you're a voice talent or media professional from Orange County, you won't want to miss this event! When it comes to shopping for professional media production services, talent and resources, sometimes it takes a farm house falling from the sky and landing on one’s head to realize you don’t need to travel miles up the road to find the best of what you seek. Forego that headache, and look in your own backyard... Orange County, California.

Since 1999, the Media Alliance of Orange County has stood behind our media industry and watched it blossom from the inside out. It’s taken years of growing pains... being overshadowed, underestimated and yes, overlooked. We’re not in Kansas anymore, and that’s what this event is all about.

On August 10, 2011 you’re invited to join us, for a wonderful evening of socializing and discovery. A meeting of the minds, where we examine the logistics behind agency outsourcing and how the Orange County Media Industry can put its best foot forward to secure more work from the regional advertising agencies and other local media marketing entities.

This MAOC Special Event will generate more answers than questions - a must to attend. When it comes to superb, professional media production, quality facilities and talent...

“There’s No Place Like Home”

What:
An open panel discussion between representatives from selected Orange County Ad Agencies and several representatives from within the Orange County media industry.

Meet top OC ad agency creatives
Hear OC Production & Post-production experts
Wizards... don't forget to bring your business cards!

When:
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Cocktails & Appetizers - 6:00 PM
Panel Forum - 6:45 PM

Where:
Fairmont Hotel
4500 MacArthur Blvd.
Newport Beach, California
(949) 476-2001

Bamboo Garden Patio

Cost:
$22.00 online pre-registration - maoc.org ($25.00 at the door)
$8.00 valet parking
No-host bar

Want To Help Sponsor This Great Event? Contact - Jonathan: 949-945-8036

JOIN OUR QUEST and Register Today!
www.maoc.org

OC VO Peeps July Meetup Success!

2011-07-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

Guest speaker David H. Lawrence

Thanks to all who attended our July 16 meetup with special guest David H Lawrence XVII! Carmageddon didn't stop the OC VO Peeps - Great fun, food, and networking was had by all! The evening was filled with laughter and great friends, networking with a healthy exchange of business cards, and some serious dining on Jerry Ganguzza's exclusive VO Peeps cuisine! :) I think we may have to start a cookbook!

A warm welcome to our new members Danelle Parker, Evelyn Brookins, Amy Gardikas, Kathleen Koche, Carl Symons, and Carla Turner - it was great to meet you all!

An engaged audience!

I'd like to especially thank our very special guest David H. Lawrence XVII, who gave a wonderfully insightful and informative presentation on effective VO demos, followed by a super informative question and answer session afterwards. Make sure to check out David'sVO2GoGo web site for more information on available classes and demo packages. I myself am looking forward to taking some of his classes in the very near future! David is such a valuable resource for our group, and for the entire VO community!

Buy now at our VO Peeps store!

We rounded out the evening with our raffle of awesome door prizes including our exclusive vopeeps.com QR code t-shirts, VO Peeps water bottles (to keep those vocal chords hydrated!), a handy VO Peeps mousepad, and a great VO t-shirt donated by Tim Keenan from Creative Media Recording. Thanks so much Tim! Congratulations to our lucky winners George Whittam, Mike Laponis, Michelle Kennedy, Betty Parker, Curt Byk, Chris Garcia, and Carl Martens!

A big thank you to those of you who attended via our live broadcast on our exclusive Ustream channel. If you missed us, no worries! You can always view our archived video of the meetup.

If you are from the Orange County area and are interested in joining our meetups live and in person, please visit our Membership page to apply. We'd love to have you!

A heartfelt and sincere thank you to of all our members for your continued support and friendship! Can't wait until our next meetup!

Best Wishes and Much Success,

Anne

How to Increase your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a VO Talent: Part 4

2011-07-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

Hey Peeps!

Last week in Part 3 of my series on SEO, we talked about how you can optimize your web pages to get higher search rankings. This week we talk about the importance of links, especially inbound links, to increase your SEO.

Links and SEO
A couple of things to note about your website and links in general: When looking at the overall design of your website, make sure it has a clear hierarchy and, in the interest of SEO, make sure to include text links within the pages. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link. When creating links to other pages, try to incorporate your keywords in the linked text. When a link incorporates a keyword into the text of the hyperlink, it is called anchor text. For example, if you offer narration services, create a link with anchor text that says "Narration services" and not "Click Here" (which says nothing about the content of your web site) for your narration services page.

This not only allows search engines to index your site more accurately and efficiently, but also ensures that relevant information is associated with your links within the search results. Of course, make sure regularly check for broken links and correct HTML!

Outbound Links
Outbound links start from your site and lead to an external site. There is much discussion in the SEO community about the overall effectiveness of external links. However, having relevant outbound links on your website adds value for your visitors by providing them with links to additional information on your subject. Also, if search engines see that there is a lot of activity on your site, it demonstrates that people are getting value out of your site and that can have a positive impact on your rankings. For example, I happen to link to both Orange County and LA studio informational websites from my front page. This is a relevant set of links that provides my clients with more information about studios that are local to me that I am available to record in, as well as giving me location information with hyperlinked text that helps me in a local search. It is also a way to hopefully promote reciprocal inbound links or backlinks (see below), which come from an external site to yours. It's all about building meaningful relationships! Be careful to use outbound links sparingly- too many links may cause the search engines to see your site as a spam site or link farm!

Inbound Links
Inbound, or Backlinks are one of the main building blocks to good Search Engine Optimization. One example of a backlink would be if you have a profile on voice123.com with a link back to your website for more information. The link from voice123.com is considered to be a backlink (inbound) for yourdomain.com. From voice123.com's perspective, however the link to them is an outbound link. Get it? :)

Getting inbound links to your website or blog is not always easy, and can be a time consuming process. The best way to get inbound links is simply to create web pages with content which other webmasters will want to link to. These are known as natural links — the type of link which is created purely to increase the knowledge based usefulness of the internet. Natural links have many advantages including the simple fact that they are free :) and you don't have to work to get them - except for the work you do in creating valuable content! Check out this great article on 25 reasons why another site will link to yours.

To find your a sampling of your current backlinks, you can search in any search engine search field using: link:www.yourdomainname.com. Note that Google only returns a selection of inbound links — it will not show all links to your site. Other search engines have the same feature and may provide more detailed results.

Additional Methods to Acquire Inbound Links:
Directory Submission: Get yourself listed on as many directories and affiliated voice over sites as you can - Don't be afraid to piggyback off of other web sites that have high SEO ranking for common voice over search terms, such as Voices.com, Voice123.com, boldalgo.com, Voiceover Universe, etc. You can also list your site in directories such as Yahoo, and DMOZ - Make sure to add your site to the most relevant category.

Local Business Listings: Don’t forget about the power of local! Whether your location is critical to your business or not, making connections locally is still an important part in growing your business. As a voice talent, I have friends who live nearby with home studios, as well as local studios I work with. These connections allow me to offer additional and value added services to my own voiceover business. There are many sites where you can submit a link for your local business. Some of the most popular are:

Don’t discount the effect you can have on referrals and even signing up local clients by attending networking events (such as the OC VO Peeps meetups!), sponsoring local charities, and joining local media organizations. I am currently involved in my local chapter of the Media Communications Association International as well as the Media Association of Orange County, and of course the VO Peeps. :) Make sure you have a directory listing on the websites of these organizations as well!

Ask for a Reciprocal link: Contact other voice over talent websites that link to colleagues and ask for a reciprocal link.

Create a Blog! We should all know by now, that In the world of the Internet, as well as SEO, content is king. And blogs are well known to be great ways to enhance your SEO. Your web page could be a blog by itself, or your website could link to a blog that you maintain. Fill it with valuable content and make sure to link back to your website in the sidebar or footer, as well as in your posts, or wherever relevant. Link to other blogs and ask them to link to you for even more inbound links! You can also get your blog on a list such as Networked Blogs.

You can start a blog for free at Wordpress, Blogger.com (owned by Google!) or Typepad.

Guest Blog: If you don't think you have time to start your own blog right now, you can always guest blog! This is a great way to build up your name and reputation in the industry as a professional, as well as a being known as a valuable, contributing member of the community. Of course include a link back to your website in the "About the Author" section. The easiest and the most natural way to start guest blogging is to contribute to blogs you read regularly. Consider the blogs you read and know - Hey, how about guest blogging for the VO Peeps! Just send an email to anne@vopeeps.com - we'd love to have you!

Comment on Industry Blogs: Engage in your community - You can start by posting a comment on this blog! :) Again, mke sure you have a link back to your website when you log in, or include it in your comment. Try to avoid unrelated comments or any hard sell. Bob Souer has one of the most comprehensive voice over blog rolls (lists of blogs) in the industry - Check out his list, follow those blogs, and start commenting!

Article Submission: Once you have written a blog article, you can re-purpose your content on article directories. Most of these sites allow you to have an About the Author or Author Resource section. This is a small blurb that talks about you, offers more information on the subject at hand, and can include a link back to your blog or website. In addition to giving you more backlinks to your site, article directories help to spread your name, build credibility, and help with *brand trust*. Here are some great ones to start with:

Social Media: There is a definite push and pull SEO effect of Social Media Marketing. Social media marketing efforts create conversations and buzz, and can influence queries on keywords used in a search in the same way advertising and public relations through media coverage can, thereby increasing your SEO. Have you noticed that Google is now including Social media in its search results?

Make sure to check out the great new Facebook groups that have recently emerged in our industry such as Voice over Friends, Voice Over Pros and Voice Artists United. Don't forget about Twitter and Linked In groups as well. Use your URL as part of your signature in discussion forums and newsgroups but be careful not to overdo this — keep your signature brief and never spam forums. Make sure you are genuinely contributing to any discussions!

What NOT to do:
There are no official rules about what is unacceptable linking, but try to avoid "free-for-all" link pages and "link farms". These can potentially hurt you more than they can help your rankings. Also, try to avoid buying links - Search engines such as Google have been known to identify and blacklist the websites involved.

Finally...
Just remember the one golden rule of SEO - It's all about content, content, content! Create valuable content for your readers, and you will reap the rewards not only in your search rankings, but in your business and community relationships as well!!

A big hug and a sincere thank you to all of my followers and dedicated readers of this blog. I hope this series has been helpful to you! Feel free to post your comments and/or questions below. Until my next post,

Best Wishes and Much Success,
Anne

Please feel free to refer to my previous articles in this series for reference:

How to Increase your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a VO Talent: Part 1
How to Increase your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a VO Talent: Part 2
How to Increase your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a VO Talent: Part 3

About the Author: Anne Ganguzza has an undeniable passion for all things voice-over and especially enjoys sharing her knowledge with others. This led her to a full time career in voiceover and inspired her to form the local meetup group for voice over artists affectionately known as the Orange County VO Peeps. She is a current member of the Media Communications Association-international (MCA-I.), the LA/Orange County chapter of Media Communications Association-international, and was most recently elected to the Board of Directors for the Media Alliance of Orange County. She is also a current member of the Society of Accredited Voice Over Artists.

As a voice over artist, her voice is described as professional, believable, warm, and friendly. Her experience includes voices for corporate narration, E-learning, IVR/On Hold Systems, commercials, infomercials, Audio Books, Live Theatre Broadcasts, and Government/Educational promotional videos and advertising. For more information, please visit Anne on her website at http://www.annespeak.com/

How to Increase your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a VO Talent: Part 3

2011-07-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

Hey Peeps!

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series we talked about the basics of search engines and the importance of keywords and site structure. Today we will take a look at some web page strategies that you can utilize to help increase your SEO ranking and get those pages closer to the top of the search engines!

Web Page Considerations:

Assuming that you have already determined and established some good key words for your VO business, consider purchasing domains that have your keywords contained within the name. For example, a domain such as http://www.telephonevoice.com/ or http://corporatenarration.com/ would certainly be handy to have in addition to your main domain. (Too bad these are taken already!) :) Purchasing domain names is fairly inexpensive these days and can really help to boost your online marketing. I personally own about nine domains so far! Each one of these will be tailored for SEO and point back to my main VO website. A great place to start if you haven't already purchased your domain, or want some competitively priced domain and web hosting services is godaddy.com. Another good one to look at is bluehost.com.

Use the KISS principle!

Remember to keep your web pages simple so that they are functional across all platforms and browsers. Avoid too many graphics, flash files, etc. that may make your pages take a long time to load. If a visitor has to wait too long for a page to load, they will spend less time on your page. You certainly wouldn't want to frustrate a potential client if they have to wait too long for your voice demos to load!

Your SEO rankings will most definitely be affected by the speed at which your page loads. Current data has shown that speeding up your page reduces the overall operating costs, and as a result, most search engines integrate a speed factor in their algorithms for rankings. A great place to test your pages for speed is at WebPagetest - they will give you loading time results as well as suggestions for improvements for your site.

Tailoring your pages for SEO can sometimes be a time consuming task, but certainly not impossible if you focus on one web page at a time. A certain amount of writing flair combined with a focused marketing objective is necessary. Writing tags to entice both your clients and search engine spiders is not a trivial task. Pick your most important pages first - the first one that you should concentrate on should be your home page.

Web Pages: The Basics
Every web page is written in code called HTML, which stands for HyperText Markup Language. Essentially, HTML code is the basic building-blocks of all web pages. HTML is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of tags, enclosed in angle brackets, <html>, within the web page content. HTML tags normally come in pairs like <h1> and </h1>. The first tag in a pair is the start tag, the second tag is the end tag (they are also called opening tags and closing tags). Between these tags, web designers can add text, images, scripts, etc. Certain tags such as the the title, h1, h2, etc., and meta tags can be tweaked to help increase your SEO ranking and are discussed below.

The purpose of a web browser is to interpret HTML documents and compose them into visual or audible web pages. The browser does not display the HTML tags, rather it uses the tags to interpret the contents of the page.

View Page Source

View Page Source
In order to see the source (HTML) code for any web page, simply right click anywhere on the web page except on a link or an image, and a menu should appear where you can select "View Page Source" A new window will pop up with the source code for the page. You can also get to the Page Source by selecting the "View" option on your browser menu. Once you are looking at the source code page, you can use ctrl F to find specific tags in the source code. Make sure to go to those high ranking sites and check out your competitors pages! What are the tags and keywords that are used for the site?

Web Page Title
<title>Your Keyword-Rich, Descriptive Page Title Here</title>

Your web page title is the title that is displayed at the top of the browser, and weighs heavily in the algorithms of the major search engines, so identify your primary keyword phrase and craft a good web page title. Use your keyword phrases and existing web page titles (from competition research) that already rank well to come up with good titles.

It is also helpful to identify a secondary keywords and keyword phrases for your web page. You can use these keywords as part of headings (<h1>, <h2>, etc.), normal web page text, anchor texts, image alternate or title texts, etc.

Meta Tags, & Description
<meta name="keywords" content="KEYWORD1 KEYWORD2 KEYPHRASE1 etc.">
<meta name="description" content="An accurate, keyword-rich description about your page">

Meta tags are tags that describe your webpage, but are not visible in the browser, similar to comments in a program. They are placed after the </title> tag, but before the main content, or <body >, of the web page.

Meta tags were introduced in the mid 90's to assist with the rapid growth of web pages, and to help the search engines in indexing sites. In the late 90’s, a large number of site owners began to abuse the use of Keyword Meta tags, mainly those who ran adult-orientated websites. Unrelated keywords were placed in the Meta tag section, causing their pornographic sites to begin appearing on the first page of search results unrelated to topics such as "Basketball". Eventually the major search engines began discontinuing the use of Meta tags as major criteria for listing sites.

The general consensus among SEO experts is that meta tags are no longer used by major search engines, however, meta tags may still matter to certain smaller topical and country-specific search engines. It certainly doesn't hurt to place these in your code, however, avoid keywords and phrases that have nothing to do with your page. Be mindful not to abuse, or "stuff' them full of too many keywords. If you do, your site may be penalized!

When composing your keyword meta tag, many search engine optimization experts suggest listing your keywords without commas to allow for multiple combinations of search terms. Your description meta tag should be an accurate and informative description of your page. Some search engines may use this text for their web page description, and it may also assist search engines in grading the relevance of your site.

Web Page Headings - H1, H2, H3, etc.
<h1>Your Keyword-Rich, Top Level Heading Here</h1>
<h2>Your Keyword-Rich, Level 2 Heading Here</h2>
<h3>Your Keyword-Rich, Level 3 Heading Here</h3> etc.

Use CTL F to find tags and keywords in source code!

Headings are critical to a good SEO rating. A good main heading will always grab the attention of the site visitor and will entice him or her to read further. Make sure to use your keywords in your headings! Especially your main <h1> headings.

Use good sub-headings (<h2>, <h3>, <h4>, etc.) to structure the rest of the web page and to create natural pauses that flow when the visitor browses your web page. Create logical and informative bullet lists that will make your web page interesting and useful. Use your secondary keywords in headings if it makes sense.

Images And Alt Text
<img src="image.gif" alt="Your alt text goes here">

Add ALT tags to your images

All images should include descriptive, keyword-rich ALT text. These are the words that show up when you hover your mouse over the graphic. This will not only make it user friendly and usable by people of all abilities and disabilities, (ADA compliant) but it will allow search engines to provide meaningful links to your graphic content.

Web Page Content

Always remember - good content is key for SEO and for your website! Determine the purpose of your web page - What should your ideal customer do when she reaches this page? Is your call to action very clear and is it easy for the visitor to see it without scrolling?

Incorporate your keywords in the content of your website in an accurate and informative manner. Well written content will not only engage the reader and encourage links to your site, but will help search engines determine how “relevant” your page is to your key words and enable a better overall ranking. Your ultimate goal with every written page should be to entertain, inform, and entice the reader!

In my next article, we'll talk about the importance of links, both internal and external, as well as blogging and other strategies for SEO. Until next time,

Best Wishes and Much Success,
Anne

Please feel free to refer to my previous articles in this series for reference:

How to Increase your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a VO Talent: Part 1

How to Increase your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a VO Talent: Part 2

About the Author: Anne Ganguzza has an undeniable passion for all things voice-over and especially enjoys sharing her knowledge with others. This led her to a full time career in voiceover and inspired her to form the local meetup group for voice over artists affectionately known as the Orange County VO Peeps. She is a current member of the Media Communications Association-international (MCA-I.), the LA/Orange County chapter of Media Communications Association-international, and was most recently elected to the Board of Directors for the Media Alliance of Orange County. She is also a current member of the Society of Accredited Voice Over Artists.

As a voice over artist, her voice is described as professional, believable, warm, and friendly. Her experience includes voices for corporate narration, E-learning, IVR/On Hold Systems, commercials, infomercials, Audio Books, Live Theatre Broadcasts, and Government/Educational promotional videos and advertising. For more information, please visit Anne on her website at http://www.annespeak.com/

What the heck am I reading aloud here??

2011-06-29T08:55:00.000-07:00

Hey Peeps!
Many thanks to today's guest blogger and esteemed VO Peeps member Tim Keenan, who shares some valuable insights on the importance of knowing your material! Now that's some great advice!

by Tim Keenan
http://creativemediarecording.com

What the heck am I reading aloud here??

Someone recently asked the question “what’s the difference between a ‘good’ VO talent and a ‘great’ one.” I had lots of ideas off the top of my head that related more to the business side of being a VO talent. Showing up on time, pre-reading the script, being open to direction, etc. are all important. If you got selected for the VO job you must be good - or good enough, right.

But on further reflection, I’ve decided the one true benchmark between good enough and really good is the ability of the voice talent to express (using only their voice) the feeling that they know what they are talking about.

So often, as a seasoned professional, you fall into a routine of getting a script, going over it for pronunciations and grammar and launching into a read. But did you really UNDERSTAND what you were reading?? Did you know where you were going with that read and what all those terms meant?

This is particularly important with corporate narration projects but even applies to commercials. The true pros, the people who build a loyal following are the narrators who genuinely SOUND like they know what they are talking about - like they live this subject matter every day and are sharing their wealth of knowledge. Well, really the WRITER’s wealth of knowledge.

How do you get to “great?”

Stop a minute. Ask yourself: What am I talking about? Where is this script going? How does this thing I’m talking about work?

Don’t be afraid to ask the client questions. How does this widget get made? What’s really going on when I talk about X? What did you mean about Y? Look up words that are unfamiliar to you - not JUST for pronunciation but for MEANING as well. Take the time to educate yourself about the client’s product or service.

The payoff? The client will know you truly care about the voiceover job you are doing - which builds client loyalty. Also, your read will be genuine and that “truth” of the copy will totally come though in your voice - much the same way as when you plant a big smile on your face the listener can HEAR that smile come through.

About the Author:
For over 30 years Tim Keenan has owned and operated Creative Media Recording, a successful media recording studio providing award winning audio production to independent producers and major corporations.

http://creativemediarecording.com

How to Increase your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a VO Talent: Part 2

2011-06-20T09:38:00.000-07:00

This article is the second in a series of articles on increasing your SEO as a Voice Talent.

Hey Peeps!

In Part 1 of this series, we talked about the basics of search engines and searching techniques as they relate to SEO. In this article, we will focus on some key elements for Website Optimization, specifically Keywords and Site Structure.

Keywords

Keywords are one of the most important things to consider in SEO, and Keyword research is an extremely important part of marketing your online business. You should carefully consider what key words you will use to represent you and your business. These will be the words that people use to search for your product in the search engines. Start by learning and researching the top ranked web page titles and search result snippets - what were the search terms you used to generate the results?

Some important keyword terms you should know:

• Keyword Density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. In the context of search engine optimization keyword density can be used as a factor in determining whether a web page is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase.

• Keyword Frequency Keyword frequency refers to the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears within a web page.

• Keyword Prominence Keyword prominence refers to how prominent keywords are within a web page. The general recommendation is to place important keywords at, or near, the start of a web page, sentence, TITLE or META tag

Essentially, Keyword Research = Knowing Your Customer. Start by learning everything you can about your customer. Define your target market. Who is going to use your product? In the voiceover industry, this can be any business directly that needs to advertise their product, as well as production companies, marketing and advertising agencies, and even talent agencies. Think like your customers. What terms or phrases would your customers use to describe your product or service?

Adding your VO “niche” to your keyword list will help you to target your market. Keywords that are too broad or general will not reach users as effectively as keywords that are highly targeted. Be specific and relevant with your keywords. The more specific your keywords are, the better chance you have at building value with search engines. For example, the term “Voice over” is very general and it will take a lot more effort to stand out than if you were to use a more specific term such as “corporate narration voice over” or “audio book narrator”. It is also a good idea to include both singular and plural versions of your best keywords.

The Google Keyword Tool

Today there are lots of online tools that can help you to determine good keywords to increase your SEO. One of the best, and one that I use almost exclusively – mostly because it is easy (and free!) is the Google Keyword tool: http://www.adwords.google.com/keywordtool. Simply start typing in search terms and Google will generate a list of keyword ideas and related search terms. It will also let you know the approximate amount of Global and Monthly searches for those terms, as well as a competition factor. Words that have low competition and a large amount of searches would be good choices for key words. Play around with different combinations of words to help determine the ones best for you.

Once you know which keywords are important, your web pages should reflect and target the users who use those keywords. Your goal is to get listed on the first page (and preferably at the top!) for all popular keywords in your site category. You will need to convince the search engine algorithms that your pages are the best results for those keyword searches. In other words, you will tweak and adjust the web page contents in ways that will cause it to be ranked high. We will talk about the specifics on how to tweak your pages in subsequent articles in this series. There is also an entire industry called Search Engine Optimization Services that caters to this; and for a fee most claim that they will get you first page ranking for your key terms.

Site Structure

Your Site Structure will also affect your SEO ranking and how search engines process your web site. Search engines send programs known as ‘robots, ‘spiders’ or ‘crawlers’ to research the internet and find out what’s on sites. They also use complex algorithms to process the data returned to them by these "robots" to determine the popularity and relevance of sites to be listed on their results pages. Site structure is important because it will affect the ways in which crawlers perceive its content.

In terms of website design for optimization, use the KISS theory! Your site should have a straightforward and logical structure, very similar to an outline. This not only allows for user-friendly navigation, but it will also help to facilitate search engine discovery of your pages. For example, if your site has multiple pages, it should be broken down into logical categories, such as

· Home

· About

· Demos

· Contact, etc.

The URLs to these pages should be short, meaningful and not stuffed with keywords, i.e. http://www.annespeak.com/about.html, http://www.annespeak.com/demos.html, etc. Using search-engine friendly URLs allows users and crawlers to find the pages they want with ease.

A side note for those of you with Flash-based web sites: Most search engines don't like and don't index these sites - not all search engines are able to crawl and index the content of Flash, and if they do, there could be errors, and therefore may not be able to direct visitors to the proper page. If you have a Flash designed web site, make sure to find out if it's been optimized for SEO. Personally, I am not a big fan of Flash sites in general. They may be pretty, but they are not always designed to be cross-platform friendly. Check to see if your site is viewable on your mobile device, or on an iPad! Also, unless you know Flash and have developed the site yourself, you are at the mercy of your web designer for any small design modifications, including SEO, and that can cost you a pretty penny!

It can also be helpful to generate and submit a site map for your web site to various search engines. This is basically a list of pages that represent your web site that you have allowed the search engines to index. You can see an HTML example of a site map on the voices.com website by going to http://www.voices.com/site_map. Using a site map generator can be a quick and easy way for you to see how search engines interpret your site, as well as to help troubleshoot any issues that search engines may encounter when indexing your site. Most search engines require you to submit your site maps in XML format. You can easily generate an XML sitemap for free at http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/. They will give you instructions on how to submit your sitemap to Google, Bing, and Yahoo, etc. They also give you an option to create a text sitemap to have a plain list of all your pages, or an HTML site map (similar to the one at voices.com) to allow human visitors to easily navigate on your site.

In my next article, we will discuss specifics about your Web Page Strategy and how to effectively optimize your pages using the Title, Meta, and Header tags. Thanks so much for looking and until next time,

Best Wishes and Much Success,

Anne

How to Increase your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a VO Talent: Part 1

2011-06-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

This article is the first in a series of articles on increasing your SEO as a Voice Talent.

If you are a working voiceover talent, you already know that there is so much more to the business than just having fun in the studio. A considerable amount of time needs to be spent in developing, nurturing, and maintaining the business aspect of this creative and fun career. Naturally, one of the main goals of your business should be acquiring new business, as well as effectively maintaining existing customer and client relationships. To grow your business successfully in today’s economy, a primary goal should be for you to establish an effective online presence. This should include some, or all forms of, the following:

Website(s)
Your Social Media presence(s)
Blogging!

Pingdom released numbers about the Internet in 2010. Take a look at the HUGE Social Media stats below. If you think Social Media is a fad, you'd better think again! Here are some highlights:

The Internet

1.97 billion internet users worldwide

107 TRILLION emails were sent in 2010

There are 255 million websites

In Social Media

25 billion – Number of sent tweets on Twitter in 2010

100 million – New accounts added on Twitter in 2010

175 million – People on Twitter as of September 2010

600 million – People on Facebook at the end of 2010

250 million – New people on Facebook in 2010

Videos

2 billion – The number of videos watched per day on YouTube.

35 – Hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute.

186 – number of online videos the average Internet user watches in a month.

2+ billion – The number of videos watched per month on Facebook.

20 million – Videos uploaded to Facebook per month.

I just read this recently that Lady Gaga is the first personality to have over 10 million Twitter followers! Keep in mind with this type of audience, there is huge potential for you to grow your business!

So, What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization is the ability to have your website, and not just your website really – it could be your name, your brand, any affiliation or interaction that you have had on the web, show up at the top or within the first page of an Internet search. In order to better understand SEO and implement it effectively as a voice talent, it is prudent to first understand some basic key principles of search engines and search concepts in general.

Image from theword.co.uk

To start, let's take a look at the current Search Engine market share. As you can see on the diagram on the left, Google has the largest market share of all of the search engines. Not really surprising huh? J I know that I use Google pretty much exclusively when it comes to searching for things, unless of course some application has installed the Yahoo toolbar (Internet Explorer) or Bing (my mobile phone) – these applications tend to install their search engine as a default. For the purposes of this blog, I will be showing you examples with Google search, but just know that the process of SEO affects all search engines, each of them having their own unique way of mining all of that available data on the Internet.

Let's Google Search for “Voice talent”

If you were to go to Google and enter the fairly broad search term of “Voice Talent”, you’ll probably get close to a mere 12 million matches, or search results. Now at first that might seem alarming, and you might think that that means that there are 12 million voice talents out there. Well, not to worry, what that really means is that in terms of Google’s database, there are that many matches for those particular words. When searching, you need to think about how the page you are looking for will be written. A search engine is not a human, it is a program that matches the words you give to pages on the web. Use the words that are most likely to appear on the page.

Google search for "Voice talent"

When you look at the results page in Google, you can see that at the top of the page, highlighted in yellow, are the sponsored ads – If you have used Google for a long time, you’ll notice that this is different than how it used to be. They used to look a lot more like actual ads – now Google’s strategy is to have them look similar to the “organic” , or “un-paid” results, which are the ones that you see directly below the box in yellow. Now of course this strategy is to get more of those sponsored ads to be clicked on because there is revenue in that. However, only about 20% of those ads are ever clicked on, so everyone’s dream is to be at the top of the list of the organic search since there is no fee involved. A couple of things about the results page that you should note:

Location – If you have a Google account and have filled out a profile that indicates your location, Google will show relevant local matches for your search terms. You would really notice this if you use a generic search term such as “restaurant”. Google will display matches for restaurants in your local area first, as well as display a map with locations on the right hand side of the results page. If you do not have a Google profile, Google uses their self proclaimed "location detection" technology, which automatically sets a location for you based on your IP address.
You may have noticed that lately Google has been including results from Social Media - such a Twitter and Facebook posts. This is a recent test deployed by Google to improve their search engine. Presumably, you will see more integration with Social Media in the future that will enhance user searches even more based on your social circle.

In the world of SEO, Searches are defined and classified into three categories:

Organic Search – This is a natural, or "unpaid " search, and results can be Local, Regional, or National
Local Search – This is a search which is based on a local city or town. This is becoming increasingly popular with SEO companies who help you to optimize your pages. It has been shown that business owners who include local search engine optimization advertising as portion of their over-all marketing and advertising program will see a great improvement in their levels of success. There are some wonderful benefits that you can gain from concentrating on local advertising, and it is rapidly becoming a well-known strategy of generating cash online
Sponsored or Pay-Per-Click – This can be a local, regional, or national search. Statistically only 20% of people click on the paid advertisements – the other 80% use the “Organic” search.

Let's get Local

Google search for "Voice talent Orange County"

Let’s add a more localized perspective to our Google search and add "Orange County" to our original search term of "Voice Talent".

Here you will see that we have less results than our previous search - only about 887,000 results ! Notice that my VO website appears on the first search page for this type of search. My underlying strategy is that by localizing my SEO, I will increase my business by capturing the attention of local clients who might want to work with me in their studio! One of the main reasons I was attracted to Orange County was the fact that there are over 400 production companies based in the area. When I moved here, I decided that a good strategy would be to become friends with each and every of them! J One of the ways to employ this strategy, outside of face to face networking was to build local marketing into my online presence. Even if you live in an area that doesn’t have 400 production studios, you can still benefit from a connection with the one production studio, or advertising agency, large company, etc. that wants to have local access to you!

Let's get even more local...

Google search for "Voice talent Irvine"

Let's narrow our search even more and include my local town of Irvine. Again, you will notice that my website shows up at the top of the first page. I recently received a request for a quote off of my website just the other day from a local insurance company wanting me to be the voice for their phone system. When I called them, they explained that they wanted someone to actually come on site to do their recording. They hired me for the gig based on the fact that I was local talent - they also saved on travel costs! A great example of how advertising locally can be important for you.

Google Search Options

Google also is now incorporating more and more specific categories for you to search on the left hand side of the page: Let's try a video search for videos that contain the key words “narrative voice talent” – notice that this is a more general search term, and not localized.

I am a big believer that a standard procedure for all voice talent when they complete a job is to request a copy of the final product as well as a testimonial. These are great additions to your portfolios, as well as valuable marketing items for your business that you can use to advertise on your web site. I find that many clients are more than happy to supply you with the finished product if they can, as long as they have access to it, or are not under any non disclosure agreements. A lot of times, if a video is produced for a company website, and it becomes public, you can certainly ask them for permission to link to it. You can then take all of your demo videos and set up your own You Tube channel, where you can specify tags and a description for each upload.

Google video search for "narrative voice talent"

You'll notice that one of my videos shows up at the top of the search page for "narrative voice talent" These are key words that are placed in the video description and tag fields for each upload in my youtube account. Since Google owns youtube, doesn't it just make sense it to take advantage of this and optimize your descriptions and tags?

In my next article, we'll will talk about the essential elements that are critical for your website SEO optimization, including keywords, site structure, Web Page Strategies, and more! Many thanks to my good friend and colleague Dennis Backer for his amazing knowledge and generosity in helping me to improve my own SEO. Thanks so much for looking and please feel free to add your comments and suggestions below!

Best Wishes and Much Success,

Anne

MediaProCamp’11 Sponsored by Panasonic is Saturday, June 4th!

2011-05-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

It’s time to register for MediaProCamp’11, this year sponsored by Panasonic. Taking place at Santa Ana College’s Digital Media Center, we’ve lined up fascinating media experts, free food and fabulous prizes all for the low price of…FREE! But the real draw is YOU…

…because every media professional who attends shares their knowledge, experience and opinion in small ‘roundtable’ discussions! This makes MCAI’s MediaProCamp’11 a unique format offering career solution-sharing, training, brain-storming and professional networking. If you haven’t been to an MCAI MediaProCamp yet, get ready for a concentrated and powerful day of collaboration with fellow professionals from all aspects of the media.

We’ve also invited a number of media notables with whom you can exchange ideas—or simply pick their brains, including: Tommy James, Tech Rep from Panasonic; Co-Keynote Speakers Philip Hodgetts (author and master editor) and Marcelo Lewin founder and owner of FilmmakingWebinars.com; Internet businessman and multi-cast mogul, Walter Davis; VO artist, trainer and founder of OC VO Peeps, Anne Ganguzza; Colin Smith, one of Adobe’s top instructors; Pro Audio expert and engineer Tim Keenan and OC Film Commissioner, Janice Arrington. They’re all slated to appear. Are you going to join us? It may be Free but you do have to pre-register online at

MCAI’s Meetup group: http://www.meetup.com/newmedia-82/

OR find the link to register at www.mcai-oc.org

The day starts when you arrive between 8:00 and 8:45 with “coffee and…” (gratis of course) While you sign in (you must have pre-registered online) we gather and choose topics for the first round of seminars. Roundtable sessions start at 9:00 AM. Attendees suggest topics on any subject that interests them and the most popular topics are assigned a meeting space. We may have anywhere up to six roundtables running simultaneously. Many are intimate groups so the sharing of ideas, solutions and advice makes for powerful networking. All the sessions are deliberately short (45 minutes) to encourage concentrated participation.

We’ll raffle off doorprizes, including an Adobe CS5.5, Free On Demand Webinars from FilmmakingWebinars.com and more, when it’s all over at 2:45 PM.

This year we’re very pleased to have Panasonic http://www.panasonic.com/ as our primary sponsor. Panasonic is also sponsoring all the McdiaProCamps held by MCAI chapters around the country! A big thanks also to Adobe for supplying a CS5.5 to giveaway. Local sponsors include Creative Media Recording in Cypress and Voice Over Artist Julie Nagode and FilmmakingWebinars.com And of course the wonderful location for Media ProCamp is provided as a public service by both Santa Ana College and the Digital Media Center http://www.dmc-works.com/ We thank them for their support without which MediaProCamp would not exist.

SPONSORS NEEDED We still need more sponsors to help! Besides keeping this a FREE event, your name will reach a long list of media professionals a number of times through your sponsorship. Opportunities of all kinds are available for your support, so give us a call and let’s talk about what you can do to keep the OC media scene vibrant! And if you can’t give money how about your time? MediaProCamp is an all volunteer effort. You can make a difference. Contact John Coleman twinoakscom@cox.net or Art Kirsch art@ocshowbiz.com

EVENT: MCAI’s Annual MediaProCamp

DATE: Saturday June 4, 2011

TIME: On Site Check-in 8:00 to 9:00AM Event Ends at 3:00 PM

LOCATION: Santa Ana College’s Digital Media Center
1300 S. Bristol St
Santa Ana, CA 92704
http://www.dmc-works.com/
Free parking on site

COST: FREE to all media Professionals if you pre-register online at OC New Media Meetup Group http://www.newmedia.meetup.com/82/

Hope to see you there Peeps!

Upcoming VO Peeps Meetup with Special Guest David H. Lawrence XVII!

2011-05-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Hey Peeps! Some great news! Our esteemed guest speaker, Mr. David Lawrence XVII, was just cast in a new role for an upcoming film! Congratulations, David! Unfortunately for us, he will be out of town at a film shoot during our originally scheduled meetup date on June 11, so we have postponed our meetup for a new date of July 16, 2011 at 6:30 pm. Hope you all can make it!

Hey Peeps!
Woo hoo! Get ready to mark your calendars for July 16, 2011 at 6:30 pm for our next exciting and fun filled Orange County VO Peeps meetup! What's that? You don't live in Orange County? Can't make the meetup? No worries! We will be broadcasting LIVE from the party on our Ustream channel for those of you unable to attend. You won't want to miss all the fun - we have some great surprises in store for you!

I am so excited to announce our very special guest speaker for this meetup - Voiceover and Film Talent extraordinaire, Mr. David H. Lawrence XVII! I'd like to extend a special thank you to David in advance for taking the time out of his busy schedule to come and speak with us - we are so fortunate to have him! Let's take a more in depth look at David's history and career:

After a 30 year career in radio, David H. Lawrence XVII has been seen on ABC's epic series LOST, CBS' legendary CSI and military thriller The Unit, NBC's spy comedy Chuck, Good Luck Charlie on The Disney Channel, and is best known for his creepy evil role as puppet master Eric Doyle on NBC's smash hit Heroes. His film career includes on-camera and VO work on The Changeling, The Hulk, Iron Man, Percy Jackson, Unstoppable, Too Big to Fail, A Special Relationship and countless others.

On radio, the Emmy-award winning and Clio-nominated Lawrence hosted The David Lawrence Show, Online Tonight, and anchored The Net Music Countdown, heard on over 300 radio stations and both XM and Sirius Satellite Radio. Lawrence is at the forefront of the podcasting revolution, having delivered daily RealAudio and MP3 "podcasts" via email from early 1994.

Lawrence helps actors create their own voiceover careers with his award winning VO2GoGo voice demo service, and was BACK STAGE's Readers' Choice for Favorite VO Teacher and Favorite VO Demo Producer for 2009 and 2010. He also teaches regular VO classes on Sundays in West Hollywood, and voicework workshops at various studios around Los Angeles.

Lawrence created the industry standard Rehearsal app for the iPhone, allowing actors and VO talent to have a digital rehearsal studio right on their iPhone or iPad.

Lawrence is represented theatrically by Karl Hofheinz at Synergy Talent, and commercially and for VO by Beverly Kline at Independent Artists.

For more information, be sure to visit David's websites:
http://davids.com
http://vo2gogo.com
http://rehearsaltheapp.com
http://secretsofscreenacting.com

Best Wishes and Much Success,

Anne

How to Succeed with Voiceover

2011-05-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

Hey Peeps!
Many thanks to today's guest blogger and VO peep Lynnette Baum, who shares some valuable insights on the importance (and benefits) of giving back to the Voice-over community!

by Lynnette Baum
www.the-right-writer.com

When I first started out as a professional voiceover artist, my dreams were high and my experience low. But, enthusiasm can carry you a long way. Flying high on enthusiasm may be your first step toward succeeding in the voiceover industry.

For example, many years ago I attended the Jackson Hole Documentary Film Festival. If I had listened to professionals in the field, I wouldn’t have attended, and how much I would have missed! The first thing I did was offer my services to help festival employees. This opened a door that saved me over $500, as a volunteer. During this event, I helped festival staff and attended classes. While rubbing shoulders with directors and editors, I enthusiastically passed out my voiceover tape and writer’s resume. I still recall what one well-known director said, while scanning my tape with a critical eye.

“Why do you want to do voiceovers for documentary films?” he asked, frowning. “You only get about $7000 each, with no residuals.”

Seven thousand? I thought. I’ll take seven thousand dollars for spending a few hours in a studio!

The upshot was that, after three days at the festival, I landed both a voiceover job and a scriptwriting job. This amazed the very professionals that would have told me not to attend. The resulting video sold well for over ten years at the Yellowstone National Park Gift Shop under the title, “Wild Babies of Yellowstone!”

All this, after hearing nothing but discouraging things, from the pros.

“You can’t succeed by going to this event,” one engineer had told me. “It will take directors at least three years to trust you enough to hire you!”

It took me three days…

In all my years in the voiceover industry, I’ve learned two things. 1) Give it away. Give away your talent, your support, your skills. As you do, you will not only develop a loyal cadre of people that will recommend you at every opportunity, but you will hone your talent. 2) Put enthusiasm in the driver’s seat. Never allow the discouraging platitudes of established professionals to puncture the dreams that lift you up.

Keep on showing up, to events, to festivals, to service projects. This will keep you in the public eye, as well as keep your name on the lips of the people that do the hiring for jobs you want on your resume.

About the Author:
Ambassador for the Southern California Writers Association, Lynnette Baum is an active member of the OC VO Peeps and an experienced voiceover talent, with 2 Golden Microphone Awards and 3 Silver Microphone Awards to her credit. A fulltime freelance PR writer, marketing consultant, ghostwriter and voiceover instructor, her stable of clients includes many elite companies along the Golden Coast, as well as authors from across the country. For more information please contact her at:

www.the-right-writer.com
949.654.3891

VO Peeps April Meetup a Huge Success!

2011-04-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

Thank you everyone for making our April 23 VO Peeps meetup a huge success! We had a great turnout and lots of fun was had by all - Great networking, great food, and a great presentation! I'd like to especially thank Mr. George Whittam from ElDorado Recording Services, who provided us with such a fantastic presentation about Home studios, as well as a super informative question and answer session . What a valuable resource for our group, and for the entire VO community!

For those of you who were unable to attend - No problem! We invite you to view our video on our Ustream channel.

George has also graciously provided his Powerpoint presentation from the meetup available for download.
Click here to download George's meeting presentation.

Also, as mentioned in the presentation, make sure to check out George's Tut's on Demand - You can check out his Tutorials for Audacity at http://eldorec.com/audacity-tuts/ and his Tutorials for Twisted Wave (LOVE this software!) at http://eldorec.com/twisted-wave-tuts/ .

We are looking forward to our next meetup which will be held sometime in June, the date will be finalized soon! Check our blog and visit us often for updates - we have a great meetup in store for you that you won't want to miss!

If you live in Orange County, CA area and are interested in becoming a member and attending our bi-monthly meetings, please fill out our membership application. Also make sure to sign up for our email list to keep up with the latest happenings of the group. Thank you for your interest!

Best Regards and Much Success!
Anne

VO Peeps April Meetup Broadcast Live on Ustream!

2011-04-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

Hey Peeps!
I'm getting so excited for our meetup this coming Sarturday with special guest speaker George Whittam! For those of you who cannot attend the meetup live, feel free to join us on our Ustream VO Peeps channel to participate in all of the fun! Make sure to tune in on Saturday, April 23 starting at 7:00 pm at:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/oc-vo-peeps-april-meetup

To get started on Ustream watching live shows, live concerts, broadcasting your own events, and video messaging with your friends, you will need to sign in or register a new account at:

http://www.ustream.tv/login-signup

Once you have created a login and signed in feel free to chat and ask questions during the boradcast! There will also be an archived video of our event as well.

For more information and technical support, be sure to check out the Ustream Support Center at:
http://www.ustream.tv/support-center

Can't wait to see you all at the meetup!

Best Regards and Much Success,
Anne

www.annespeak.com
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Tim Keenan's Audio Gear Picks from the 2011 NAB show

2011-04-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

Hey Peeps!

Today we are featuring special guest blogger and VO Peep, Mr. Tim Keenan, who provides us with his audio picks and reviews from this year's NAB show! Thank you Tim, for your valuable insight!

by Tim Keenan
http://creativemediarecording.com

Listen to Tim's Review on Audio Boo!

Listen!

Hi, I’m Tim Keenan, audio engineer and owner of Creative Media Recording dot com. I wanted to talk about some of the audio gear we saw at last week’s NAB convention in Las Vegas. For those who don’t know what NAB is that’s the National Association of Broadcasters annual trade show. It used to be primarily for TV and radio broadcasters but has evolved over the years to encompass all audio and video post-production services and producers as well. I would say the mix is about 50/50 between broadcast folks and non-broadcast folks. We’ve been attending this thing for years!!

It was a very cool show this year and the mood seemed much more upbeat than last year - related to the economy. We got a chance to meet a lot of the folks from the production music & sound effects libraries and equipment manufacturers, we got to test mics from all the major equipment folks, check out isolation booths, the list goes on. Today I wanted to touch on 5 pieces of gear I saw that I thought both voiceover folks with home studios as well as video shooters & editors would be interested in - all to make their audio sound great. That’s what we’re about here at Creative Media - making projects sound great.

First off were these very interesting tiny fuzzy windscreens from a little company in Denmark called Bubblebee. They looked like those tribbles from the old Star trek show and they come in couple sizes to fit lavlier mics or headset mics. They cut down on wind noise outdoors or plosive sounds if you have a small mic close to your mouth. Very fun.
Bubblebee windscreens: http://bit.ly/gGRvDe

Next was a very cool microphone shock mount for large diaphragm voiceover mics from Rycote. I’ve seen a few reviews of this but here we got to actually see it, touch it and test it out on the show floor. 1st of all it has a windscreen that easily folds down out of the way if you want and easily removable and washable if you have a lots of folks on the mic like we do and want to clean things up between gigs. It is really well designed with no rubber bands that can stretch or break and does a fantastic job of isolating the mic from bumps or thumps. This is on my wish list for the studio here.
Rycote Pop Filter: http://radioworld.com/article/113076

3rd on my list was new VO mic from Sennheiser (the sister company to Neumann). It is called the MK4 and has very affordable price point for the quality of mic that it is. We got to talk into it and test it out on the show floor which is not the best environment for testing mics but it sounds pretty cool, was great looking - really sleek - and has great specs.
Sennheiser MK4 Voiceover Mic: http://www.proaudioreview.com/article/34160

The MXL booth - Marshall Labs - had a variety of mics we got check out - you’re likely familiar with these folks for their affordable VO mics. But one new product that they were showing was an acoustic reflection filter that fits around voiceover microphones on the mic stand to help isolate the mic from extraneous noises. It was adjustable and could close up to move out of way if need that. It was well made and had a great price point for this type of filter of $199.00
MXL MICs: http://www.mxlmics.com/

And the 5th product I saw and liked can be used in a home studio set-up, a video edit bay, in the field on a video shoot or just on the go with a laptop. It was a 2 mic pre-amp and direct USB interface from Sound Devices called the USB Pre2. Sound Devices is already known for their high quality pre-amps and remote recorders but this was a tad different. They were demoing this on the show floor with a mic right into a laptop running Soundtrack Pro - the same recording software we use here at Creative Media. The Pre2 gives you two mic inputs if you ever find yourself in an interview situation needing that extra mic input and a direct USB connection to your computer using their a to D converters - all very reasonably priced considering the design quality.
Sound Devices USBPre 2: http://sounddevices.com/products/usbpre2.htm

So there you have it. We saw lots of great stuff and I could have talked about more but these were fun new standouts for me.

About the author:
Tim Keenan is a an active member of the OC VO Peeps and has been producing award winning AUDIO post production projects for over three decades. Services provided at the two studio facility include, voice recording and editing, music scoring from over dozen stock libraries, voice talent casting assistance, foreign language conversions and ISDN Voice-Over connection to any ISDN studio or ISDN equipped V.O. talent worldwide. For more information, be sure to visit his website at creativemediarecording.com.

Upcoming VO Peeps Meetup with Special Guest George Whittam!

2011-04-11T06:31:00.000-07:00

Hey Peeps!

Happy Spring everyone! It's that time again for another long-awaited VO Peeps meetup! Mark your calendars for Saturday evening, April 23 - this is one meetup you won't want to miss!

It is my sincere pleasure and honor to have special guest speaker George Whittam for this meetup. As many of you know, I recently upgraded my home studio and George was instrumental in helping me with the process. I can't thank him enough for his invaluable support and am so excited that he has agreed to generously share his time and meet with our group!

George M. Whittam is owner and founder of ElDorado Recording Services.

George is a 1997 graduate of Virginia Tech with a Bachelor's degree in Music and Audio Technology with a Minor in Communications. George went on to acquire considerable expertise in music recording by working with various musicians and artists in the Philadelphia area. He also gained broadcast engineering experience working at a radio station in Philadelphia as the remote engineer for the NFL Eagles Radio Network.

George was introduced to the world of voice-overs through a producer at the station, Howard Parker, who asked the station’s engineer to help him build a home studio in New York City. George came along to assist.    George later followed Parker to Los Angeles and furthered his already diverse experience by working on over 15 film projects in 3 years as a sound mixer and boom operator.

From a handful of satisfied clients, George has now built a business that works solely with voice-over studios and clients. His extensive knowledge of computers, software, equipment, and troubleshooting abilities makes him a sought after expert and indispensable on-call technician.   He is globally considered a top authority in voice-over recording technology. He has invested thousands of hours researching studio design, recording equipment, and creating training materials for voice actors. In so doing, he has also become an industry innovator by developing specialized services that cater exclusively to voice-over professionals. Among his many successful clients are the late Don LaFontaine, Bill Ratner, Joe Cipriano and Scott Rummell.

Members - Make sure to RSVP asap so that we can have the best meetup ever!

For those of you interested in attending the meetup, but can't physically be there, we will be broadcasting live on our Ustream channel! Make sure to tune in on all of the fun!

If you are local to the Orange County area, and are interested in joining our premiere meetup group please visit our membership page at http://blog.vopeeps.com/p/membership.html

Thanks so much and we'll see you there! :)

Best Wishes and Much Success!
Anne

Voice-over Home Studio Upgrade!

2011-03-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

Dad and I in front of my newly upgraded studio!

It’s always wonderful to spend time with family, and this past month, I was fortunate to have my parents come and stay with us for the entire month of February. Now, anyone who has ever met my father knows that he just can’t sit still, and is an amazingly handy guy to have around! Yes, I am a lucky girl. Growing up, he was always sketching plans, tearing down walls, and building and constructing things, especially in and around our home. If it was broken, my Dad could most certainly fix it! I knew I had to find projects to keep him busy for the month, and what better project than to upgrade my home studio? :)

My Dad originally designed and built my home studio in 2009 (in just two days!), and we both learned a whole lot from the experience. You can read about it in my blog post here. When he left to go home, we both knew there were improvements we could make to both the interior and exterior parts of the booth once I had the funding. Well, now was the time, and I was super excited to get started!

Before...

I wanted to make sure I could get the best acoustics possible from my studio upgrade, so I enlisted the services of none other than the master of home studios himself, George Whittam. A great decision on my part, and one I highly recommend for anyone looking to improve their sound and take their studio to the next level! Prior to my on site visit, I sent George the pictures that I had taken from the initial construction of the booth so he could understand the underlying structure. Feel free to visit my original pictures on my Picassa web page.

George then visited me on site and was able to make suggestions for improvements to the physical structure of the booth. It was a great time for him to be at my studio, as there was major construction going on next door and he was able to hear and assess a worst case scenario. During his visit, he also was able to fine tune the settings of my equipment to reduce the noise floor as well as create custom filters for me for both my Pro Tools and Twisted Wave software. It was an awesome experience with George, and I learned an incredible amount. My sincere thanks and gratitude go out to George for such wonderful help and support during the process!

It all starts with a plan...

After taking furious notes with George’s booth improvement suggestions, I was ready to brief my father on the specifics. Our plan was to suspend the booth up off the floor on hockey pucks to eliminate as much low frequency vibration that was coming from the heavy construction equipment outside and other noises such as loud cars and trucks that periodically pass by my development. We would also seal and caulk the pre-existing ceiling to the top of the booth, which was currently just sitting on top of the structure. In addition, we would seal the existing fiber board exterior walls of the booth with a layer of drywall to eliminate as much external noise as possible, as well as adding acoustic material to the interior to improve the sound inside the booth and eliminating as much room noise as possible.

My father arrived on February first and we were ready to start work! I set up a teleconference with George, myself, and my father to confirm our plans and allow my father to ask any additional questions that he may have regarding construction and material recommendations. At this point we agreed to add in a suspended ceiling frame structure which would be filled with acoustic material in order to further improve the acoustics inside the booth. My Dad got busy writing up the bill of materials, sketching the specifics, and making Home Depot and Lowe’s his second home. :)

Of course, it was at this point that I all of a sudden became very busy with VO jobs and needed to use my booth, (NOT complaining at all!) and planning the actual times for the upgrade proved to be a bit trying. We decided that the easiest way to was for my father to essentially build in pieces in the garage, and then simply assemble them upstairs in the existing booth location. One of the challenges was figuring out how to move the booth out of the corner of the room in order to put the exterior walls on! No worries, of course my father had a solution!

Dad began the construction on a new “roof” of the booth which was constructed with insulated quiet rock drywall. This would replace the flat panels of plywood that currently just rested on top of the booth. We secured this new roof on to the walls with screws and caulked it to seal out any air space during my off recording hours.

Construction of the floor

A new floor for the booth was then constructed. The previous floor was a simply a few pieces of drywall and plywood that essentially sat on the floor and were not connected to the exterior walls. (Our initial plan for the booth was to be able to easily disassemble it in case we wanted to move it - This was no longer a concern for us, and we now concentrated on building a solid booth that would be permanently located in the corner of the room.) Since we did not want to disassemble the booth, the new floor was constructed into three sections which would then be bolted together and attached to the existing walls. Again, we were forced to do this off recording hours due to my busy schedule. It would be another couple of days before I would be able to schedule the next section of the upgrade.

During each stage, George was there to support me, and I sent him audio files after each step as a benchmark to gauge the effectiveness of each portion of the upgrade process. The feedback I was getting from George was super helpful, and kept encouraging us that we were on the right track.

Part II
As part of our testing process, Dad installed the floor in sections, however we would have to wait to secure it to the booth until we could move it out into the center of the room and position the hockey pucks in place. I was able to use the booth another day until our scheduled major upgrade, which would be to attach the exterior walls. When I stepped into the booth to record the next day, the floor swayed a bit, which then proceeded to rock the mic stand, :) causing unwanted noise in my recordings. I spoke to George about a solution, and he recommended that I get a mic boom that I could mount to the wall and replace the bulky mic stand. This was the perfect solution, as it would afford me some much needed interior space inside the booth. Done deal!

The suspended ceiling frame

My Dad then constructed the frame for the suspended ceiling, and my acoustic material finally arrived from the manufacturer! We used 2” Roxul Rockboard, a mineral wool board, that was both effective and economical. I definitely recommend handling it with gloves, as it made me a bit itchy! We cut the material to fit, and doubled it to 4” within the ceiling. This would hang above my head with cable ties on J hooks to improve the overall acoustics within the booth. As soon as we hung it in the booth I noticed an immediate improvement and made sure to send George a new benchmark audio for his review.

External Walls

We finished cutting the quiet rock drywall sections for the walls in the garage and then pre-drilled it for easy assembly once upstairs in my studio. Up until this point, I hadn’t really thought about the cosmetic look of the booth, but upon looking at the unfinished pieces, I decided that a coat of paint would add a nice touch. Fortunately, we had an extra gallon if paint in our garage that was the same color as our existing walls that we were able to use. We figured it would be easiest just to pre-paint the drywall in the garage rather than waiting until it was upstairs. Based on my painting skills, this was a good decision! :)

The new studio door

My Dad continued to prep the booth in the garage until we could set aside a day for the big upgrade. He designed a new door for the booth that would completely overlap the door opening by hinging off of the right exterior wall. This would ensure that there would be no gaps for sound to enter. He was also concerned about designing a new handle to open and close the booth door that worked from both the outside and inside at the same time. My current studio design consisted of door latches, one installed on the inside and one on the outside. He was concerned about the lock on the inside and my safety, in the event that something were to happen and I wasn’t able to get out. (Love him for thinking about that one!) The result was one of the most creative door handles I have ever seen, completely customized just for me, and I just absolutely adore it! The door was constructed from quiet rock and insulated, and by the end, weighed about 100 lbs - it was like a vault door! - and required three heavy duty hinges to support it’s weight.

Part III

Moving time!

Finally the big day arrived for the install! We needed sheer manpower to move the existing booth, install the exterior walls, move it back into place, and then complete the installation of the inside acoustic panels. My husband joined my father on Saturday morning to help out. Prior to the move, we removed the temporary floor to make it easier to move, as well as strategically place the hockey pucks in place underneath the structure. My father’s solution to move the booth was to set up a series of 1x4’s to slide the booth on, and, with the aid of a rope, pull it out of the corner. Wow - It worked like a charm! With a sense of relief, we secured all four exterior walls and touched up the paint. It was then time to move it back into it’s permanent corner. Considering the ease in which were able to move the booth before the quiet rock install, we didn’t think there would be any problem moving it back. Wrong! The quiet rock walls, at 2.1lbs per square foot, had just added a substantial amount of weight (roughly about 300 lbs!) to the entire structure! My father and husband huffed and puffed, tried all different angles, but just couldn't budge that booth even one inch! Frantically, I called my neighbor to see if he was available to help. Unfortunately, he wasn’t home and I tried to think of anyone that I could call for help, but I couldn’t get a hold of anyone! What

A family effort!

now? Finally, in frustration, I decided I simply had to get involved and try to help push the booth as well - too much was riding on this day to just give up! Well, somebody must have been watching over us, because having that third person pushing was just what we needed, and the booth literally glided like butter back into place! I am so grateful every time I think about that moment - our family, working together was what really made it successful! It just makes me smile!

Adding the hockey pucks

Once the booth was in place, we evenly placed hockey pucks under the exterior walls by lifting up the booth at the bottom with a crowbar on each side. Some minor damage was done to the drywall, but nothing a piece of moulding couldn't cover up. Then we placed the pucks directly on the floor carpeting on the inside of the booth, evenly spaced in order to support the weight of the booth floor. Two layers of plywood and a layer of quiet rock were placed on top of the pucks. The floor framework was then installed on top in three separate sections. The sections were connected to one another and bolted the structure to the side walls, ensuring a fully secured floor for the booth. Insulation in the framing was next, another layer of plywood, and carpeting were added. Our floor was complete, and the entire booth rested atop 31 total hockey pucks to help absorb the sound coming up through the floor. (BTW, we got a great deal on hockey pucks at Hockey Giant in Anaheim!)

adding acoustic material inside

Adding the acoustic material to the interior of the booth was next. This was probably one of the easiest tasks of the day as we added sections of the 2” Roxul Rockboard to each of the walls, securing them with screws and washers underneath the existing sound absorption blankets. The mineral wool is super easy to work with and super light - although a bit itchy if you touch it directly! I was quite happy that I would be protected by the heavy duty sound blankets over top of it! Since my booth is not very large, I made sure to step in afterwards to make sure I had enough room to move around! Thank goodness I did! (And this will certainly keep me sticking to my diet!)

The suspended ceiling was hung via simple cable ties to screw eyes that were inserted into the ceiling. Acoustic panels were cut to fit the ceiling frame and were doubled to give a total of 4” of padding above my head.

We mounted the mic boom to the existing shelving that currently housed my equipment. What a difference! I was one very happy girl - no more bulky mic stand taking up all of that room in my booth! Thank you, thank you, thank you George for the suggestion! Such a simple solution, but so incredibly effective! I now had even more room than before and with the added acoustic panels, it was just blissfully quiet in my new environment.

the best door handle ever! :)

Mounting the new door was next. As mentioned previously, the door was designed to completely overlap the opening and had to be mounted to the right side wall in order to accomplish this goal. The new door was insulated and made out of the quiet rock, so it was substantially heavier than the previous door, requiring three heavy duty mounting brackets to support it’s weight. Once the door was mounted, the most unique and creative door handle ever invented :) was installed. This took my father the longest to do, as it was totally custom made and couldn’t be finished completely until the door had been mounted, and we could test it’s operation and make any width adjustments that would be necessary. After a few trials and filing of the external shim to make it work easily, we were finished! Seriously, the handle could be my most favorite part of my booth, as I know my father designed it totally out of concern and love, wanting to make sure that there that there would be easy external access to the booth in the event that something were to happen inside. Prior to this, I had a latch that locked on the inside.

We then noticed that there was some daylight coming through the booth once the door was closed. Well, this simply was not acceptable to my father :) so we took another trip to Lowe’s, or was it Home Depot? to get a Wood & Vinyl Clad Foam weather stripping kit, which completely sealed the inside of the door. Worked like a charm! The booth was finally complete! I immediately made a new set of benchmark recordings to send to George, who noted a substantial improvement in both the noise floor and room acoustics.

After that, I decided to spruce up the look of the booth by adding some moulding around the top and door edges. Now it was both super functional and pretty! :)

My studio upgrade was a wonderful learning experience for both myself and my father, and I am so grateful and thankful to him for believing in me and for helping me to achieve my dreams! And again, many thanks also to the fabulous George Whittam, for all of his invaluable and incredible wisdom and support. My booth stands proudly in my office and represents an ultimate expression of love, heart, and giving. What a beautiful gift it is - it is truly priceless and I am so very very blessed. How fortunate am I, to be able to stand in that booth everyday, and feel love like that?

And thank you, my readers - I hope that in some small way I have been able to help others that may be looking to improve their home studios by sharing my experiences. I’d also love to hear from you - I invite you to share your experiences, comments, and suggestions below. Feel free to view complete details and photos of my studio upgrade located at: https://picasaweb.google.com/anngan/AnneSStudioUpgrade?authkey=Gv1sRgCPqLkabJ36W66gE&feat=directlink

Best Regards and Much Success,
Anne

Voice-over Web Site Basics

2011-03-14T14:59:00.000-07:00

by Phil Williams

Voice Actor

My name is Phil Williams, and like me, you've made the decision (or you're thinking about the decision) to reinvent yourself as a voice over talent. I spent a lot of years in management and the high tech business. The VO business is quite different, but it's exciting and it's definitely fun! Perhaps you’ve gone to voice classes, learned about the demos you need to have made, the equipment that you need to buy, and the marketing that you need to do to get your name and skills out there. It’s a bit overwhelming at first, but take heart…it’s definitely do-able and there are a lot of resources out there to help you get up and running. Including other VO’s and general information from others who have already done it.

The focus of this article is about getting your web site installed and functional. The reality is that in today’s market, you really do have to have a web site for your business. Without it, you’re going to miss out on 90%+ of Voice Over opportunities. I’m sure that your VO instructor/mentor made it clear that you need to get your own web site up and running if you’re going to be successful…to create a market presence, plus a landing zone for people to listen to your demos and to be able to contact you for work opportunities. If you’ve never done this before, it can be daunting. There’s a learning curve that can be a bit steep, with new technology and terminology. The good news is that there are some simple solutions that will help you through the tasks with a minimum of sweat and frustration. If you have created a web site before, then you’re way ahead of the game and this piece.

Domain Registration

The web site creation process involves deciding on a web name, registering it, finding and signing up a host to support your web pages, and then designing and uploading your web pages, and then maintaining all of your work…Probably one of the more frustrating parts will be picking a name for yourself that's 1) meaningful, 2) memorable, and 3) available. So have several different ideas ready before beginning the process.

One site that can be of real help is http://www.godaddy.com. Not only do they do reasonably priced domain registration, they also feature web hosting, and some tools to get you up and running quickly. Typically most “.com” domains will cost between $8 and $12 per year for registration. There are other suffixes as well, like “.net”, “.org”, and many more. Each has its own registration fee. A lot of people will opt for several suffix versions of their web site to make sure that 1) they own them (eliminating any confusion from other businesses), and 2) people going to a .net site can be immediately sent to their primary web site. This is generally a cost decision you're going to have to make.

Web Hosting

For web hosting, you’re going to pay about $3-$8 per month (this will generally give you a web site, a lot of storage, email accounts, plus advertising credits). While you may not know exactly how much space and traffic your web site should have initially, the good news is that you can always upgrade later (read spend more $'s here).

Site Design

Most of the hosting plans include free access to a single page web site tool called Web-site tonight®/InstantPage but it’s more of a placeholder for information type web sites..not particularly useful for VO application. There is an extension of this web site builder that allows for a 5-page, 10-page, and unlimited web site development for a cost of $5, $9, and $13. Prices go down with your extended commitment…buy more, pay less. The application is pretty good and does allow for you to upload, modify and add/change things on your site very easily. There’s also access to lots of different design, color and images so you can really be creative. The other really nice thing is that Godaddy will also install (for free!) an application called Joomla! on your web site and (after a small learning curve), you can have a web site up and running. Joomla! falls into the category of “open-source” applications that lots of software people contribute to resulting in free public access. Another one is called Wordpress, which will allow you to create a blog (once you’ve actually got VO figured out). This one-stop goddaddy shopping experience is not unique on the web. There are certainly other “stores” out there, and you should look around to see if the pricing fits your budget and the apps fit your needs. I liked the experience because it minimized the effort, and got me up and running quickly.

Advanced Design

For the more adventuresome and experienced among you…after you’ve nailed down your web site hosting plan, you can develop your own web site using a wide variety of different tools. Personally, I like Dreamweaver, as it was similar to GoLive (both Adobe products…Dreamweaver replaced GoLive) and I was able to transition pretty easily. There is a serious up-front cost, and something of a learning curve, but it is one way to ensure that you’re totally in charge of the content on your web site. To get you started in Dreamweaver, there are lots of web sites like www.justdreamweaver.com/dreamweaver-templates.html where you can download some pretty awesome “free” templates for Dreamweaver that give you a great starting place.

If you really want to learn a LOT about web site development, try http://www.thesitewizard.com/gettingstarted/index.shtml

It’s got a pile of information that will help you learn far more than you even thought you wanted to know…

About the author:
Phil Williams is a contributing author and member of the OC VO Peeps. For more information, be sure to visit his website at www.philsvoiceovers.com

Brian’s Voice: Walla…

2011-02-26T07:50:00.000-08:00

by Brian Page
Voice & Theatrical Actor

Walla…
That’s not a new Australian greeting nor am I going to say it twice and call it a city in Washington state. It is however, one part of another area of voice over called either Automated Dialogue Replacement or Additional Dialogue Replacement, nobody seems to know which one it is so everyone just calls it ADR or looping for short.

Always interested in extending my skills, I recently took an advanced class in ADR from renowned teacher and overall super talented guy, Pat Fraley, and his guest instructor for the day, Barbara Harris, who’s company is responsible for the ADR aspects of hundreds of feature films such as No Country for Old Men, Inglourious Basterds, The Book of Eli and countless others.

This arena of voice over includes replacing inadequate or poor audio for specific dialogue, usually done by the stars themselves or it could mean bringing in another actor to voice match the star when they weren’t available. It also includes normal background “people” sounds that one would hear in any group setting (non-people sounds are done by foley artists and that’s a whole other subject). Those background people sounds can be either intelligible or unintelligible and that’s where the term “walla” shows up. Then there’s another term “shoutouts”, where you might have someone in a street scene yell “Taxi” or in a restaurant scene some anonymous voice calls out “waiter”.

Another area of ADR is that of “efforts” or exertion sounds where highly experienced actors are called upon to use another unique skill set, that of coughing or sneezing, laughing or even throwing up. There’s the grunts and groans and heavy breathing, someone has to do those as well. Then there’s the sound one makes when he or she is hit in the face or the stomach or when you fall down. Each and every one of these sounds is unique and specific to the position of the actor in the scene, all viewed on a monitor while recording the sounds. Does he have his mouth open wide or is he gritting his teeth, is he hunched forward or arched back, every position has a different sound and it’s the job of the voice actor to know just what that is.

That’s why the voice actor in this part of the business is just as important as any other, his performance needs to be so good that it’s never even perceived, if he’s poor at his job it may draw attention away from the main part of the scene. It’s an area of acting where you’re not drawing attention to yourself, where your performance must blend into the background, where it can be dull and lackluster, where you can mumble your lines or slur your speech… and you’ve done a great job!

My thanks to Pat Fraley, Barbara Harris and D.B. Cooper for imparting their talent and experience to further my education, knowledge and abilities. Also, to Andy at Buzzy’s Recording in L.A. for his expertise and hospitality.

Pat Fraley can be found at http://patfraley.com/
For more info on Barbara Harris check out her listing on IMDB at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0364456/
Buzzy’s Recording studio in Los Angeles http://www.buzzysrecording.com/

This article was originally published on the blog for MCAI-OC and is reprinted here with permission.

About the Author:
Brian Page is the owner of Vocal Images and is a voiceactor and theatrical actor located in Southern California, and is a current member of the Orange County VO Peeps. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Media Communications Association, International (MCA-I) Orange County/Los Angeles Chapter and has recently joined the corporate international board as well. He can be reached at 714-404-7591 or email at voiceactor@yahoo.com. His web site is at http://brianpagevoiceovers.com/.

Social Media Is Key To Your Success

2011-01-29T05:14:00.000-08:00

Hey Peeps!
Today we are featuring special guest blogger and very own VO Peep, Mike Laponis, who provides us with some valuable insight into the world of Social Media!

by Mike Laponis
http://mikesvo.com

Social Media is an excellent and necessary tool for your business today. Social media is moving forward at an incredible rate! Just to be sure you are up-to-date and travelling at the speed of light, take a look at this video:

No denying the speed at which social media is growing or the importance of it for your marketing. It is crucial from two main perspectives – first, it has become a primary tool for marketing your business, your work, your talents! Second, as your social media/networking becomes more prolific your ranking in web site searches is improved. It will help you improve your search engine optimization.

Lots to learn about social media! Brian Solis and JESS3 have created a fantastic visual representation of the Twitter ecosystem, the Twitterverse. It is quite useful to help you learn about the various tools and sites that are available. You can click on the icons to learn about each one and how they are used. Try it out!

With so many sites to take advantage of, you need to have a strategy and a plan to optimize your social media marketing. Here is a suggested plan for you:

Choose these four as your primary locations to network and market. These are the most important to be actively involved on right now:

1. Twitter

2. Facebook (include a business or fan page too)

3. LinkedIn

4. YouTube

There are many other sites and some up and coming sites that you may serve you well as Secondary sites too. Don’t take on too many though.

Four or five days a week you should be logging on to your primary sites and publishing valuable content, comments, links, and tips. It does not have to be too many - two or three things that others will enjoy and find useful is all you need. There are methods to link your posts/tweets together so what you ‘tweet’ is also posted on Facebook and on LinkedIn - or whatever combination you want to set up. Log into your Secondary sites for updates only a couple of times per week. Don’t forget, there are tools available to schedule your tweets at different times of the day to keep your business in front of the live audience available at any particular time. One of the best is Hootsuite.

Grow your network and make it prosper. Your network will experience the most growth if you practice these techniques:

• Provide valuable content - helpful links, ideas, and insight that will be helpful to others in your network or who are following you.

• Don’t post/tweet “sales pitches” or spam - instead discuss constructive ideas and thoughts.

• Once every month or two go back in to your profiles on all your sites to update your information. Keep everything current - up-to-date. Refine and update keywords, descriptions, bios, contact information, and discussion groups you belong to.

• Provide links to your web sites, and to your other social networking links. These links are useful in SEO - Search Engine Optimization.

• Join ‘Groups’ on your networking sites - You will find useful discussion groups especially on LinkedIn and Facebook.

• Once or twice per week, post and respond to a few messages in the ‘Group’ postings.

• Once or twice per week, comment in one or two blogs you check in on from time to time.

• Start a blog and write in it regularly.

Over time these comments, posts, replies, links, tweets, and blogs will add up and begin a ‘web’, if you will, of connections associated to your name or business. If you don’t believe that is true, do a search for your name now and take note of what comes up. After 2 or 3 months of practicing these techniques regularly then search your name again and see the difference!

Valuable Resources and Links:

As a voice actor, one of my favorite sites for social networking information is Social Media VO. It is a site run by Dave Courvoisier and Terry Daniel specifically for social networking as it relates to voice talent. It is a wealth of great information that will serve you well to visit. These other sites may be useful in getting a handle on how it all works:

http://jeffbullas.com/twitter

List of social networking web sites from Wikipedia

CNET Newbies-Guide-To-Twitter

Social Networking - Business Exchange

Mashable - Social Media

Mashable - 90+ Essential Social Media Resources

How To Use Twitter (YouTube)

Social media is a fantastic, free marketing tool. With some experimentation and planning you will be able to utilize it to your fullest advantage. Embrace it, utilize it and make it key to your success!

- Mike Laponis

About The Author:

Mike Laponis is a voice actor, award winning video producer, and Professor of Communications at the University of La Verne. You can find him on Twitter @MikeRaphone or email him at mike@mikesvo.com. For more information and demos, please visit http://www.mikesvo.com

Media Alliance of Orange County Mixer!

2011-01-25T15:48:00.000-08:00

Hey Peeps! You're invited to the Media Alliance new year Mixer on Thursday evening, January 27th, at the Auld Dubliner Pub. Network with other media and advertising professionals, meet the officers and board members of the MAOC, and get insights from guest speaker, Hank Blank, noted author and Ad, PR, & Networking Guru.

Located in The District shopping center, which is at the corner of Jamboree and Barranca in Tustin, the Auld Dubliner is a popular meeting place. The mixer includes free appetizers and a no-host bar. You'll find out what the Alliance has been up to, and learn how you can help in their mission to promote the talent and technology of our OC media industry.

The Media Alliance http://www.maoc.org/ is a forum for exchanging ideas, networking, sharing job opportunities, exhibiting talent and product, providing education, and honoring industry achievements.

Special Guest speaker Hank Blank www.hankblank.com has over 20 years experience at some of America's top Ad and PR agencies, representing a who's-who of corporate and product advertisers. He's also a respected author with three successful business titles to his credit. A charming and insightful speaker, Blank is known as a crowd-pleaser.

No reservations are required, but there is a small fee: $10.00 if you register and pre-pay at http://www.maoc.org/ or $15.00 at the door. Come, have some fun, meet new business associates and hear a fabulous speaker!

Media Alliance Mixer
Thursday Evening, January 27th, 5:30 PM
The Auld Dubliner Pub/ The District
2497 Park Ave, Tustin, CA 92782 (714)259-1562
http://www.aulddubliner.com/

We would also like to take this opportunity to remind you (in case you haven't already heard) that, along with Sponsor MAOC Memberships of $80.00, the Media Alliance now offers FREE Membership. The Media Alliance has been promoting the media industry in OC for over a decade, helping to elevate the image and awareness of the entire media industry in Orange County. In conjunction with the Orange County Film Commission, our goals are to both attract media industry business to Orange County, as well as to retain media industry business in the county. We actively promote the depth and quality of our OC media industry to: the general population; state, county, and city representatives; corporate executives; advertising agencies; other media industry professionals, and more.

The Media Alliance's ambitious mission benefits ALL media professionals in Orange County, and therefore requires the participation of the majority of our OC media industry. That means YOU, because if we work together to raise the tide of media production business in our area, we all rise with that tide. If you are not already a member, please go to http://www.maoc.org/ and join us now!

Upcoming VO Peeps Meetup with Special Guest Dennis Backer!

2010-12-20T19:34:00.000-08:00

Hey Peeps!
Our next meetup will be on Friday, January 14 - Mark your calendars! We'll focus on helping you build your goals - and your business in 2011. Everyone knows that a good marketing plan needs to include a plan for securing new clients. A large part of that plan should be developing and establishing an online presence - In today's market, you can't afford not to! And making sure your business and your brand is easily found by major search engines just makes sense.

In this meetup, we'll talk about methods you can utilize to establish yourself in today's online world - and then we'll kick it up a notch by discussing techniques that will really get you NOTICED! :) Start developing your 2011 business plan now by documenting and writing down your goals for the New Year! Make sure to bring your pencils - we'll be kicking off the meeting with a lively round-table discussion sure to get you motivated!

It is my great pleasure and honor to have special guest speaker Dennis Backer at this meetup. Dennis has been in the video production business for over 30 years, producing videos for businesses and corporations of all sizes. He started designing and optimizing websites several years ago, as he found the need to get his own video production business, Media by Design, Inc., more leads. He formed Seo Excell and has many satisfied clients on the first page of the search engines.

According to Dennis, "SEO Excell is a local search engine optimization, internet marketing and website development company. We drive traffic to websites by getting them ranked in the first page of search results on the major search engines including Google and Yahoo. Businesses’ are listed in national, local and industry specific directories, including mobile directories, thereby increasing exposure in their industry."

"SEO Excell specializes in local search engine optimization which allows potential clients in a local area to easily find your business listing, effectively increasing your customer base. It is crucial for local businesses to have optimized websites to facilitate being found on the internet. We use 6 effective ways to optimize your website and gain high rankings on major search engines, and look forward to sharing these with you in our meetup."

I, for one, can't wait! Hope to see you all there! Remember to bring those business cards - this group is growing and getting stronger by the second! :)

What are Your Goals for the New Year?

2010-12-20T17:56:00.000-08:00

Hey Peeps! Get ready to jump start your New Year and VO career with all of your favorite Peeps! Save the Date - Our next meetup is scheduled for Friday, January 14, 2011. More details to be posted soon!

Wow. 2011. Can you believe we've gone through another year? Time sure flies when you're having fun! :)

As 2010 winds down, let's all take some time to reflect on this past year and start thinking about our VO goals for the New Year. What are you striving for in your voice-over career? Is it landing that elusive national commercial? :) Oh yeah! How about getting that agent? Perhaps it's getting your home studio set up and fine tuned. (and by the way, I recently had industry expert George Whittam from Eldorado Recording Services stop by to fine tune my home studio - HIGHLY recommended! - Watch for my blog post coming soon!) Or maybe you have your eyes on acquiring some shiny new equipment. Perhaps you're contemplating finally getting more acquainted with Social Media! Hey - How about stepping up that marketing plan for your business?

For sure, those of you looking to grow your business in 2011 know just how important it is to establish an online presence. You also know that a good marketing plan will allow you to foster and nurture your existing client relationships, as well as secure new ones. You need to be able to showcase your talent and your business, and a big part of that is making sure that your name and your brand is found easily and readily online, as well as ranking high in all those search engines! Did you know that this is possible, even if you don't have a website yet? Well, you can find out how at our next meetup! Our special guest, Dennis Backer, will educate us on some key practices and techniques to help you get your brand NOTICED! :) Don't miss this one, folks!

As for myself, one of my own personal goals for the New Year is to continue to grow this group to national fame :) and unselfishly share the vast talent, knowledge and experience that is so extensive in our Peeps family. I'm starting to write down my goals for the coming year, and am dedicated to growing my VO business with a new and improved marketing plan, and am absolutely committed to providing my clients with exceptional customer service. I'm also looking forward to continuing my own personal voice coaching business and doing my ultimate best to inspire, motivate, and share my passion for this business with aspiring new talents. I truly believe I have found my calling, and it's a great feeling!

And one last goal for all of my Peeps, their families, and loved ones - May The gift of love, the gift of peace, and the gift of happiness be yours throughout the Holiday Season!

Many Blessings and Happy Holidays,
Anne

2010 OC Media Holiday Gala

2010-12-06T13:17:00.000-08:00

It was a great time this year at the 2010 OC Media Holiday Gala! Six (6!) different OC media organizations were represented this year. In addition to The OC VO Peeps, the sold out event included attendees from the OC Media Alliance, Orange County Digital Arts, OC Screen Writers Association, the Professional Communication Exchange the LA/OC Chapter of MCAI, as well as the Orange County Film Commission.  The gathering was held at Dave and Buster's in Irvine on Dec 1 and everyone had a great time kicking off the holiday season with lots of laughs, great friends, and great food.

The evening began with lots of mingling and networking over cocktails. It was great catching up with old friends, as well as seeing and meeting a lot of new faces! There were three large tables (actually covered pool tables) decorated festively for the season, with my favorite chocolates strewn across the top, thanks to Committee chairperson  Eva Crabbs. Seriously, I had to stop myself from snatching them all up! :) We then moved on to a wonderful buffet style dinner, complete with roasted chicken and blackened salmon over spinach - YUM!

Fabulous door prizes were then given out by the wonderful and entertaining trio of Tim Keenan from Creative Media Recording, Art Kirsch, Founder of OCShowbiz and Day Job Productions, and Brian Page from Vocal Images. Thanks to the many generous donations, everyone came out a winner! The VO Peeps donated two authentic VO Peeps t-shirts which went to lucky winners Rick Sherman from Sherman Sound Suite, and our very own Eila Ulyett. Some of the other door prizes included a series of Larry Jordan Final Cut Pro training classes donated by Travis, tickets to the Newport Theater Art Center donated by Brian Page, a collector's edition Avatar DVD from the Media Alliance, and a large selection of classic Hollywood film DVDs, enough for every attendee, generously donated by Grace McKay of Electric Pictures.  Other prizes were generously donated by Rick Sherman, Eila Ulyett, and Amy the Writer.

Dessert and coffee were then served, along with a special surprise birthday cake for Dennis Backer, from SeoExcell. Kazoos were passed out, and the crowd all gamely participated in an award winning rendition of "Happy Birthday", as well as many other holiday favorites. And of course, it was then that I realized what a great warm up tool the kazoo is for all of us who are voice talents! Try it - you'll be amazed at how well it works! :)

The fun times continued long into the evening, and I found myself wishing that I had more time to spend with these wonderful, warm, and unbelievably generous people - who are now fast stealing a special place in my heart, and many of whom I am proud to say are my friends. My warmest wishes to all for a blessed and wonderful holiday season - I can't wait to see what the New Year holds for us!

Make sure to check out more fun party pics at my Picassa Web Site!

Oh - and by the way, speaking of holidays and gifts - shameless plug starts here :) - Are you looking for that perfect holiday gift? Look no further - Get your authentic VO Peeps merchandise for that special someone on your list - so hip, so fun and trendy - and they make great holiday gifts!

(end of shameless plug)

Go Peeps!

Member Spotlight - Rob Gallas

2010-12-02T10:29:00.000-08:00

Hey Peeps!
Today we are taking a moment to look at a more in depth view of one of our super talented members, Rob Gallas - how he got started, his history in the music business, and what really fuels his passion! The VO Peeps are fortunate to have such an amazing talent as Rob as a member of the group and wish him all the best and continued success with his career. Read on for more of his inspirational story!

"I feel very fortunate to be the youngest of six children. Music was always a part of whatever was going on in our home. Mom would be making her famous homemade pizzas on Saturday night and the Lawrence Welk show would be on TV in the background. At one end of the house my oldest brother would be spinning David Bowie’s, “Diamond Dogs” and at the other end my sister would be listening too Leo Sayers’, “Endless Flight.” Probably the most memorable was my dad singing. He was vocally trained and had a huge, full baritone that would not only fill the house, but if the windows were open and he was singing in the bedroom, you could hear him clearly down at the other end of the block. These are the sounds and people who sparked my deep love for music and interest as a singer, songwriter and performer."

"My professional singing career started 22 years ago. I answered an ad in the Recycler that read, “band looking for singer.” The description was, “singer wanted, influences the Byrd’s and The Cult,” a marriage between old school and new school rock at the time. I auditioned and got the gig. After playing and writing for about a year the band, Black and White World, were signed and recorded two albums. We were lucky enough to play around Southern California’s local venues, get some gigs out of state and some radio airplay. A few years later, I was approached by another band that had lost their singer. They invited me to one of their rehearsals, I sang a few of their tunes, and we hit it off. These guys, a band called Undercover, had been around quite a while and had a following in the Christian music scene. I was lucky enough to record another album with Undercover called “Forum.” This album led to more airplay internationally and bigger festivals around United States and Europe. After UC, I got back together with some other local musicians and formed the band Oscar. We hit it hard, wrote some solid, catchy songs and showcased for several labels in Los Angeles, but we never were signed. We did a lot of things right, but we also did some things wrong –one of them was not following our instincts. The band ended up dissolving about four years later. Regardless, it was a good run, lessons were learned, and friendships were gained."

"There were some other projects along the way, but that pretty much brings us to the present. I now play in a band called Straight 78, a cover band that plays funk, soul, R&B and disco from the 70’s –artists like Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, and Joe Cocker. We are one of the premier cover bands in Orange County playing all of the local venues, weddings and corporate events. It’s a great gig and gives me a chance to honor the heroes that influenced me and were a big part of shaping my voice. People love it because it’s fun, high energy music that makes you want to move. We have developed a song list of approximately 70 tunes and we are starting to write originals again, getting the creative juices flowing, and hope to record some of those originals in 2011."

"I love using my voice. I feel it is the conduit, the vessel I use to connect with others and myself. There is no better release for me than to get behind a mic and give it up, let everything go, and just let it rip. Some people are blessed and lucky enough to have that creative release, the ability to tap into something that is beyond consciousness, the unknown “voice” inside all of us. For some it is a guitar, some a paintbrush, some a pen, for me it is my voice. It’s that hand that reaches inside me and pulls out that thing that transcends. For me it is bliss to find that spot. It is all about connecting with the world around us. There is nothing like being in that moment where you know you have the audience, you’re playing “with” the crowd not “to” the crowd and they become part of the performance. Everyone is participating. To make a person smile, to make them dance, to help them forget or remember, to help them cope or understand, to give voice (literally) through song with no expectations other than throwing that cry into the universe and filling it up with love – this is what makes me tick, this is my passion. Some might think this is a bit dramatic, but for me it is the beat of my heart. I say this with all sincerity, I love to sing. I feel very blessed to have been given this gift and lucky to have family, friends and fans that have helped nurture and shape it along the way. To share it with as many people as possible is one of my lifetime quests. Thanks for letting me share it with you."

Sincerely,
Rob Gallas

Go Rob! Peeps are proud! :)

For more information, please contact Rob at:

Rob Gallas Talent
rgallas@cox.net
949-354-1455
www.myspace.com/straight78
www.facebook.com/straight 78

Thankful...

2010-11-24T09:03:00.000-08:00

As we get close to this Thanksgiving holiday and the end of 2010, I am reminded of just how very fortunate and truly blessed I really am. This journey has been an amazing experience for me, one that I cherish and look forward to every single day. I am so very thankful for all of YOU - my PEEPS - thank you for your friendship, love, and support as we embark on this new and exciting journey together. I truly am blessed to have each and every one of you in my life. And I am so excited for all of the wonderful things to come for our group - I know there will be an abundance!

As we sit at our tables this Thanksgiving and upcoming holiday season, let’s try to remember the importance and significance of simply being grateful, every day, for all of those things you just can’t put a price tag on - your friends, your family, loved ones. It’s green! And it’s bound to make you feel good - studies have proven that you’ll be healthier for it! Make it part of your daily mantra as a voice over artist - hey - why not put up a sign in your recording space! It certainly can’t hurt, and chances are it will just make you happy - and your voice! Who wouldn’t want that? And what a great way to achieve that warm sound before your next job or audition! :)

So thank you, my Peeps, from the bottom of my very grateful heart. You are amazing, you are strong, you are pure talent. Many Blessings, and have a wonderful and Happy Thanksgiving!

Listen to our Members in "Voices of a Never Ending Dawn"

2010-11-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

Honoring our Veterans on November 11th!

The Emmy-award nominated Voices of a Never Ending Dawn, a feature-length World War 1 documentary, tells the little-known story of America's first involvement in the roots of the Cold War, fighting the Bolsheviks in Arctic Russia. The documentary has already aired across the country several times, but it will air again throughout Southern California on KOCE (PBS) this coming Thursday, November 11th (Veteran's Day), from 9 pm to 11 pm. This film walks a very fine line by shining a disparaging light on war in general, while also truly paying tribute to our troops who make the ultimate sacrifice.

Member Rick Sherman recorded all of the voiceover actors, composed and performed several pieces of music, and also edited music by the awesome James Newton Howard. He also manually placed more than a thousand sound effects, and engineered the final mix. This film expresses the experiences, thoughts, and emotions of some of the soldiers through their actual diary entries, spoken by numerous talented voiceover artists from Orange County including VO Peeps member Tina Wilson, who is the voice of Dorthea York. Tina Wilson's incredible voice talent helps to bring the haunting and dramatic words alive as she plays a young woman who loved one of these soldiers!

Click Here to See a 5 minute Preview:

http://www.polarbeardocumentary.com/preview.html

Make sure to check your local PBS station program listings for additional dates and times in your area. Let's honor our veterans by watching and listening to this riveting documentary!

2010 OC Media Holiday Party!

2010-11-05T22:31:00.000-07:00

RSVP NOW: Holiday Party Dec 1, 2010

This year the holidays will get a special start! We’re joining with SIX (that’s right: 6!) other OC media organizations who are coming together to party and celebrate the holidays. It's a wonderful way to make new contacts and renew old friendships. It's time right now to RSVP for this great event on Dec 1st! That’s only a few weeks a way!

This year we’'ll be partying with members of the OC Media Alliance, Orange County Digital Arts, OC Screen Writers Association, the Orange County VO Peeps,the Orange County Film Commission, the Professional Communication Exchange and of course the LA/OC Chapter of MCAI! …and more! We're also expecting folks from OCMMA and PVN! Not a member of any of those? Come Anyway! Don't delay your online RSVP and Prepayment!

http://www.meetup.com/newmedia-82/calendar/15317680/

Our inter-organizational Holiday Party will be at Dave & Busters in the Spectrum. Last year everyone had a fun time and there were door prizes galore. (to see Photos of the '09 party click here) this year will be even bigger and better! join us! Register online now! And spread the word!

The per person cost of the 2010 Holiday Party is $26. it includes dinner and dessert, doorprizes, entertainment and lots of fun. Bring your spouse and other guests as well! If you like, bring a gift (under $15) to add to the pile of doorprizes.

EVENT: 2010 OC Media Holiday Party
Date: December 1, 2010

Location: Dave & Busters, Irvine Spectrum

Time: 6pm to 10pm / Cocktails at 6 with no-host bar, dinner, etc at 7. Dress: Holiday Casual

Cost: $26 per person YOU MUST PREPAY AT http://www.meetup.com/newmedia-82/calendar/15317680/

NOTE: We're using the MCAI Meetup Group Website RSVP for both the November meeting and the Holiday party so be sure to RSVP for the correct event!

Upcoming OC VO Peeps Meetup with Special Guest Rick Sherman!

2010-10-25T10:01:00.000-07:00

Hey Peeps!

It's getting to be that time again! Get those pipes warmed up and your vocal chords ready for another fun filled local meeting in the OC area on November 12th! Save the date and mark your calendars - You won't want to miss out on this educational and vital networking opportunity!

I am pleased to announce our very special guest speaker for this meetup: Mr. Rick Sherman, of Sherman Sound Suite. Since 1984, Rick has been providing original music and audio engineering for the video and film industry in Orange County. We are truly honored and thrilled to have him with us to share his vast knowledge and experience, and extend our heartfelt thanks to him for taking time out of his busy schedule to talk with our group!

More About Rick Sherman

Over the past 26 years, Rick Sherman has become widely recognized as one of the most skilled audio engineers and prolific composers for the video and film industry in Orange County. Working out of his own recording studio, Sherman Sound Suite, which is located in Irvine within the South Coast Media Center complex (one of the larger video production/post-production facilities in Orange County), Rick uses computers, analog and digital MIDI musical instruments, and digital recording technology to compose and record soundtracks, as well as provide a wide variety of audio engineering services (voice-over recording, editing/sweetening, noise reduction, sound effects, sound design, and ADR) for various television shows, commercials, films, and corporate videos. Sherman's client roster includes Century 21, Mattel Toys, Isuzu, Hooked On Phonics, The Vons Companies, Allstate Insurance, Mazda, Subaru, Carl's Jr., Tarbell Realty, Sea World, Toshiba, Toyota/Lexus, Taco Bell, Ditech.com (the national TV spots for 7 years), Disneyland, Universal Studios, and the list goes on. Rick's music can be heard (as it has been for the past 14 years) every weeknight on KOCE-TV with his theme song for “Real Orange”, an Emmy Award winning/O.C. Department of Education Award winning news magazine show about Orange County.

Sherman received an Emmy Nomination in 2010 for his music, sound design, and audio engineering work on the feature-length World War I documentary “Voices of a Never Ending Dawn”, which featured the voices of over 40 Orange County voiceover artists. Sherman also provided original music, noise reduction, audio sweetening, sound effects, and the final mixes for the 14-part Anatomy and Physiology video course series for Coast Learning Systems/Coastline Community College.

Throughout his 26 years as an audio engineer, Sherman has engineered and co-directed literally thousands of voiceover sessions for television and radio commercials, infomercials, dramatic film shorts, documentaries, and corporate videos. Sherman has also taught beginning, intermediate, and advanced voiceover classes at his studio.

Sherman has received numerous awards from the International Television and Video Association and the Association of Visual Communicators for his musical compositions. Rick is a proud composer and publisher member of ASCAP, one of the primary U.S. music licensing/performing rights organizations. For two years, Rick Sherman served as President of the Media Alliance of Orange County, an organization dedicated to elevating the awareness and image of the film and video production/post-production media industry in Orange County. Sherman was Executive Producer of the 2005 and 2006 Newport Beach Film Festival Awards Ceremonies.

Along with his studio work, Sherman is also a performing musician, entertaining every Saturday night at the Villa Nova in Newport Beach, with frequent performances at The Village Inn on Balboa Island, as well as providing live music for all of the annual Orange County Business Journal award ceremonies, and numerous City of Newport Beach events.

If you are interested in joining the VO Peeps meetup group and are local to the Orange County, CA area, please make sure to visit our Membership Page for more information.

Can't wait to see you all there!

“The VO Minute” – A New Resource for Voice-Over Talent

2010-10-04T14:16:00.000-07:00

First of all, let us introduce ourselves.

Joe McNeil - a veteran of the recording industry. Working for the last 30 years or so as a musician, composer, recording engineer, audio producer, and voice-over director. For the last 10 years, working under the company name Marktree Productions.

Allison Moffett – voice-over actress, voice-over director, recording engineer. Working in recording and production led to a full-time career as a VO actress and director.

We’re fortunate to get to meet and work with a lot of voice talent when they’re just getting started. We’ve found that there are some common questions that nearly everyone needs answered. While some of these questions require detailed responses, we knew we could provide succinct information to many of them. We thought a free podcast would be a great venue for this to-the-point Q&A and The VO Minute was born.

Originally, we figured The VO Minute would supply answers to technical questions. With the widespread use of MP3 auditioning, every voice talent has to have some knowledge of recording and that can be daunting, to say the least. But we quickly realized that there were many other types of common questions that needed answered: Questions about the business, script analysis, studio etiquette, and more. So, why limit it? We decided to start with the technical stuff and branch out from there.

We sincerely hope that The VO Minute will be a helpful resource to new and seasoned voice talent alike. We also hope that our listeners will let us know of any questions they’d like answered. Listeners can email their suggestions to:
info@marktreeprod.com

or tweet them to Twitter.com/MarktreeProd.

The VO Minute is available in the iTunes store or on Podcast.com (just do a search on “VO Minute”). It’s also available on the Podcasts page of the Marktree web site:
www.marktreeprod.com

A new episode is available every Monday.

Marketing Your VO Business Online

2010-09-21T10:21:00.000-07:00

The VO industry has gone through an incredible transformation in the past 10 years with the advancement of technology and the exponential growth of the Internet and online services. In today’s economy, it is unrealistic to expect that you can truly support your VO business without an Internet connection and a home studio of some sort. And if you are not advertising your services online, you are missing out on a very real and viable marketplace for your business.

Two and a half years ago, when I relocated to California, I needed to establish a strategy for keeping my loyal clients from the NY/NJ area without having the ability to conveniently travel to their studios, as well as a way to attract and meet new clients on both coasts. ( I did not have any West Coast clients at the time). I had already established the basic lines of communication with my previous clients through email, but I wanted to make sure they remembered me once I moved 3000 miles away. And since no one enjoys their inbox being “spammed”, my only options were to find other creative, “non-invasive” ways to increase my online presence and demonstrate my viability as a truly professional entity. I explored many possibilities - online of course - and, through my research, learned a whole lot about various online technologies, and found many wonderful and giving people along the way willing to share their ideas and experiences. (One of the many reasons I have always truly loved the Internet and have always been a complete and utter techno-geek!)

Some of the online strategies and lessons learned that have worked well for business include:

Establish a Web Presence
This is an absolute must in the voice over industry - Having a web site first and foremost, establishes credibility for your business, and gives you a central location where your clients and potential customers can hear your demos and find out more information about you. Luckily for a voice over artist, it doesn’t have to be complicated - a simple one page web site with your contact information and demo links can suffice. Keep it simple - due to the fast paced nature of the voice over business, the quicker your information and demos can be accessed, the better. Flashy websites can be incompatible across different browser platforms, so make sure your website functions on the most popular browsers. Make sure to check your site on your mobile device too! You can find great deals on domain names and web hosting at godaddy.com.

Update your Voice Profile Regularly
Make sure your profile information is always current on your “Pay-to-Play” online casting sites and any freelance sites you may be registered on, as well as your own website. Especially with any recent jobs you have completed or with new or updated demos. Even if you are not fully subscribed or participating actively in submitting auditions, your profile is a linkable web address that is found by search engines and this, in turn will help to advertise your services. For example, some of my linkable profile(s) look like this:
Voice 123 profile: http://voice123.com/anneganguzza
Bodalgo profile: http://www.bodalgo.com/voices/anne-ganguzza/index_e.php - (I do not officially subscribe to this, but have a profile filled out for the active link)
Elance profile: http://www.elance.com/s/anngan/

Google Yourself!
Make it a point to google your name and/or brand at least once a week. This will give you a good benchmark indication of your visible online presence, as well as showing you what you shouldn’t do! For a while, I was having fun posting comments on “Freebie” blogs in an attempt to win free prizes. Imagine my surprise when I googled my name the following week! There they were, linked in all their glory! Obviously, this can give the wrong impression to potential clients - winning that free pizza really has nothing to do with my voice over business! (And 6 months later, I still see some residual links!)

Market by Example
Read, Research, and Follow peers in your industry every day - Create a basic account for yourself on Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In. See what others are doing and see what works - and what doesn’t! One of my favorite “marketers” is Emille Barta. She is a popular trade show spokesperson who tweets and blogs regularly. She always makes sure to promote the company and trade show event she is currently working with. The appreciative company and trade shows respond in kind, tripling her marketing efforts!

Create a Social Media Presence
Building your brand used to be all about you, saying positive things about you. With the advent of social media, building your brand has become the process of bringing value to the market and having the market say good things about you. And (for the time being) - it’s all FREE! Create your business presence on Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In, at the very least. If you are a beginner at social media, start by “lurking” and learn the social media etiquette for each platform. Once you are comfortable, your Social Media Marketing Strategy should, at a minimum, enrich the relationship with your current clients and followers through meaningful, professional conversation. In time, these contacts will become “advocate agents”.

Add Social Networking to your Email Signature
Once you have established your Social Media business presence, include a “follow me” at the end of your e-mail signature with links to your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter accounts. This can be another way for you to reach out to clients and others that may have not been aware of your businesses presence on the social networking scene, and makes it easy for them to keep current with you and your business.

BLOG!
The concept of “blogging” allows you to be interactive with your audience, which allows you to develop and nurture important customer (both existing and new) relationships online. If you blog regularly and produce good content, you will be seen as an “expert” in your field, and can develop a following of readers who can be referrals for your business. Most blog software today is optimized for Search Engine Optimzation, or SEO, due to the fact that it allows you to categorize content and designate keywords. This makes it easy for search engines to algorithmically crawl your site, giving you the opportunity to rank well on your topic. Also, by nature, blogging regularly creates fresh content, which means that your site will be crawled more frequently, giving you more opportunities to score high in your search ranking.

Comment Regularly on Industry Blogs
Comments and trackback features in blog software encourage interaction, which are rewarded by search engine rankings. If you don’t feel comfortable creating and writing a blog yourself, read other industry blogs and comment on them. This will show that you, and your business, is current and relevant. You name and contact information (such as your website link) can be published along with your comment. On many blogs you can post by automatically by signing in with your Google, AIM or other blogger ID which automatically links your contact info - if you do this - be careful that you use a login that contains your professional information (perhaps NOT your AIM or other ID that you would use to chat casually with your friends)
Comment on this article and get your name out there! :)

Your voice is unique - there is no other voice like it in the world! Once you discover your true voice(s) as an artist, you have the opportunity to become distinctly adept at being the perfect person to market it! Combined with some smart online strategies, your success can be unlimited!

I hope these tips have been helpful and I’d love to hear your comments and suggestions! Please feel free to visit my website at www.annespeak.com for more information.

VO Marketing Tips - Part 1 (The Basics)

2010-09-07T16:30:00.000-07:00

For the past few years, I have had the distinct honor and pleasure of taking part in an exciting and wonderful career as a Voice Talent. Because I have such a passion for voice acting, it naturally drives me to want to succeed and see my business flourish. Most people, when I tell them what I do for a living, simply shake their heads in amazement and exclaim how cool it must be to get paid “just for using my voice”. I smile, shake my head vehemently, and agree. But, as all of us in the industry know, the fun part of using your voice is probably only 20% of the job! The rest of it is comprised of everything else that is required to operate and maintain a successful business. A large part of that is knowing how to market yourself to generate new business, as well as having an effective plan to nurture and sustain existing business relationships.

Along my journey, I have experienced many trials and tribulations, and have been truly blessed to have learned a few lessons along the way. I certainly do not claim to be a marketing expert to any degree, but I’d love to share some marketing tips that were effective for my business. I hope that they can, in some way, help you too, and allow you to truly flourish in this great industry!

Some basic tips that I have found to be really helpful in expanding my business include:

Get Your Demo Professionally Produced and Keep it Fresh!
This is your most important marketing tool and vital to your success as a voice over artist. If you are serious at all about your VO business, this should be your number one goal. As you grow as an artist and as a business, it will be necessary to keep your demos current and even add more to your current portfolio. Go to a professional studio and make it a priority to invest in your demo - it is your calling card!

Write a Great Bio
A foundation to marketing yourself - Even if you are just starting out in the business, you will need to provide people with information about who you are and your relevant experience. For many of us, this can be an immensely difficult task! Once your bio is developed, however, it can be used many times over - as part of your business introduction for new clients, a cover letter for auditions, Bid Response letters, as well as a section on your website.

Talk about what you do
All the time - to everyone! You never know who may be in need of your services. Even if they may not be in need of your services right now, they just might be later on down the road, or they may know someone who is. Don’t be shy! People are always seem to be fascinated with the concept of voice overs as a business - and it’s a great ice breaker and conversation piece at parties!

Figure out your “Brand” and Develop a Strategy
This is a vital step in creating and establishing your identity as a voice over artist. Exactly “who” are you and what is your specialty? Your brand identity will be repeatedly communicated, in multiple ways with frequency and consistency throughout the life span of your business. Famous for his innovative branding, Doug Turkell, the “Unnoucer” has flourished by creating and marketing his unique brand of voice overs. Just do it already! But do think carefully about this one - changing your brand once established can be a bit difficult, though not impossible!

Take classes and workshops in your profession
It will allow you to network with your peers and even better, establish a relationship with an industry “expert”, who can provide you with even more valuable business leads. Taking classes will not only add educational/ training credits to your resume, but will also allow you to establish and assess your “competition”, and strengthen your vision for possible “niche” markets which may not be covered by your peer group.

Make yourself Accountable
Write down your business goals and establish a system of accountability for your business. This will help you develop a clear picture of how you can better market yourself. Spend an allotted time each day working on new contacts - this includes cold calling! Make it a goal to meet someone new in the business everyday!

It’s all about Customer Service!
Go above and beyond for your clients. Give more than they expect - and you will find that they will come back again and again. When I book a job, I usually give at least two finished takes for the client to choose from, even if they are not requested. Since I usually record more than two takes for each spot anyway, it doesn’t add a lot of time to the job on my end, and my clients really appreciate it!

Take care of your existing customers!
The word “Marketing” is often thought to describe advertising activities specific to gaining new business, but keep in mind that enriching and nurturing the relationship of your existing customers can be critical to your business survival. Contact them periodically and let them know you are available for them and keep them abreast of any new projects. Many times during a new business “low”, my repeat clients have come through with flying colors and kept my business booming!

Get Testimonials and Publish them!
When you complete a job, especially when you know the client loved your work, always ask for a testimonial, as well as a copy of the finished product for your demo reel. You can simplify this process by creating a generic “Thank You” template or form email that includes your request so you don’t forget. You’d surprised at how many clients are more than willing to do this for you if you just ask! Let your clients do the marketing for you!

I hope you have found these tips to be helpful and I welcome all comments! Upcoming articles in this series will discuss marketing options for building and marketing your VO business online.

For more information about the author, please visit Anne on the web at http://www.annespeak.com.

How Accountable are you in your VO Business?

2010-08-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

As voice over talents, we naturally want to succeed, and continue to progress and move forward in our careers. If you seem to be stalled in your career path, one question you might want to ask yourself is just how "accountable" are you in your own business? Accountability means that you are answerable for your actions—and inactions. As a voice artist with a home-based business, there is usually only one person to answer to - yourself! If you think about it, anyone with full or part time job is accountable to others - it keeps them on track and on task. Shouldn't we be just as accountable in our work?

One method of establishing accountability that I have found to be very helpful is to start by simply writing down your goals, both short and long term. Sound cliche? Maybe, but it really does help! Once you have an idea of what you want to accomplish, you will have a clearer concept on how you can grow your business. Your goals can be as simple as:

organizing your VO contact list
finally signing up for that Pay-to-Play site that you have been talking about joining for months
updating your online profile
joining twitter (do it already!) and following other VO artists
creating a professional Facebook page for your business
attending a new VO workshop, or getting personalized coaching

Equally important in establishing accountability is to also develop a system to document and track your progress. This doesn't have to be complicated. Keep a journal handy in your studio or use the notes or task list in your favorite email program. One of my own goals consisted of auditioning for at least 15 voice over jobs per week. It was easy to write down as a goal, but a bit difficult to track, as my auditions came from many different sources. I ended up creating a simple database that recorded the date, company name, and project title. I was then able to easily generate reports to track my progress and see if I had achieved my weekly goal.

Even with the best of intentions, answering to yourself can oftentimes be a bit of a challenge. Sometimes, the best way to force yourself to be accountable is to be accountable to a group. Pick a group of friends that you see regularly and tell them about your goals and keep them updated each time you get together. Even better, find a group of like-minded professionals, such as a local meetup group, and have a round table discussion where you each state your goals and report on your progress at each meeting. You'll be amazed at how motivated you'll be to accomplish those tasks before the next meetup! My local VO Peeps group will be implementing this practice at the next gathering.

Keep in mind that once you have developed your own accountability system, you shouldn't be afraid to revise and update as needed. Your goals should change and grow as your business grows!

Being accountable includes an obligation to further your goals, pursue excellence, and puts *you* in control of your career. Best of luck and I wish you all much success!

Upcoming OC VO Peeps Meetup to feature Special Guest John Coleman

2010-08-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

Hey Peeps!

We're getting geared up for another fabulous local meeting in the OC area on August 20th, so get ready to network with the newest members of the group (we are growing!), refresh those VO career goals, and just have some fun! You won't want to miss this one!
.ne!

I am excited and honored to announce a very special guest speaker for this meetup: Mr. John Coleman, President and Executive Producer from Twin Oaks Communications Inc.. As a hands-on producer, director and writer, Mr. Coleman is credited with literally thousands of hours of television and video covering every kind of program content. His experience includes productions in studio and on location as well as live and post-produced. He has shot in 49 of the 50 states, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.

As the President and Executive Producer, Coleman develops his own concepts for television and serves corporate clients with creative and effective solutions for their media communications. He brings to his clients over 30 years of strategy and production experience in Television, video and new media. Mr. Coleman has worked at NBC and in executive programming positions at 4 different major-market TV stations, scheduling, creating, buying and selling programs. As the first Executive Producer and Director of Production of the historic Warner QUBE System, Coleman was a pioneer in interactive television, helping to create the prototypes for what would later evolve into MTV, Nickelodeon and other current channels.

Coleman is a long-time member of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) and currently serves on the Board of Directors of both the Media Alliance of Orange County (MAOC) and the Media Communications Association-International (MCAI). He started his career as a child actor (AFTRA) appearing on all the major networks during the Golden Age of live television.

We'd like to say a special thank you to John for taking the time out of his busy schedule to come and talk with us. I'd also like to say a special "Thank You!" to all of you who contributed to the Such A Voice Blog interview. Your comments serve as a wonderful testament to the success of these meetings, and I truly appreciate all of your kind words. I am confident that together, there will be no stopping our team of *highly* talented individuals! Go VO Peeps!

If you are interested in joining the VO Peeps meetup group and are local to the Orange County, CA area, please contact me at info@annespeak.com.

Can't wait to see you there and don't forget to bring lots of business cards!!!

Hear what our members have to say about the OC VO Peeps Meetup Group!

2010-08-10T12:08:00.000-07:00

Meetups are a fantastic way to network with other VO professionals and talents in the industry, and can be tremendoulsy beneficial to your career. Our meetup group, affectionately called The Orange County VO Peeps Meet-up, originally started as a small group of classmates that attended a local voice over workshop. Once the workshop was over, it was like - "Now what do we do?" :) We realized that we all needed to stay connected in order to help each other advance and progress in our voice over careers. The group has since grown through word of mouth, as well as though contacts made at other local workshops, meetups, and conferences, such as the Orange County New Media Meetup and VOICE 2010. We have also made contacts through social media avenues such as Facebook and Twitter!

What are some of the benefits of joining a local meetup group? Check out what some of our members have to say!

"Anne Ganguzza's Meet-Ups have been great for me to meet possible new voice resources for our studio's clients and to talk about current trends impacting VO folks these days. It is great to network with other like-minded working pros and Anne is a great "connector."
- Tim Keenan, Creative Media Recording

"As a newcomer to the group and having attended just one event, I have to say how much it helped to encourage and motivate me. As we all work independently and alone in our recording worlds, it's great to have a group of like minded people who understand the problems we face as we build our vo careers. Without doubt Anne's enthusiasm and professionalism is motivational in itself."
- Eila Ulyett

"I believe that a professional meetup group such as this one can be beneficial for so many of us who are in this business. As we all know, networking is about helping each other, and a group like this enables colleagues who are in the same profession to help each other to understand more about this specialized field, to answer each other's questions and to be a support to one another. "
- Tina Wison

"Anne keeps me in the loop, with updates on what's happening in the wonderful world of VO - I am a slow starter, but after our VO Peeps meetings, I feel a new enthusiasm to not give up my dream"
-Bobby Koch

"The last meetup was very helpful to me as I try to understand the nuances of the industry. I understand now that there is a lot more to being a VO actor than just standing in front of a mic and reciting. There is the whole promotions or marketing piece of the business that requires preparation for."
- Gary Costello

"I think the group is a tremendous benefit. On a personal level, it's a great opportunity to stay in touch with friends and have some fun. Professionally, it's great because you can get all sorts of information, feedback and encouragement from your group, and it also gives you the chance to work through some copy together (and you can never have enough practice =D ). "
- Reza Haghi

"VO Peeps is my source of "momentum." Without having a group of people to relate with in the industry, to compare stories and notes with, to share ideas and "the latest" industry happenings with, I honestly don't know where I'd be. I might have lost "momentum" long ago trying to move my vo career along with just my own resources. Networking has become the cornerstone to building my vo artistry business."
- Michelle Kennedy

"I personally believe that the meetups that Anne host are instrumental to my continued improvement and encouragement in my voice over craft."
-James Lumley

"I believe the VO peeps meet up group helps me professionally because I get a true sense of what the industry is all about from working professionals. That inside look is not fully appreciated or understood in classes. On the social side, you can't beat great friendships and encouragement!"
- Chris Gracia

"By its nature, the business can be somewhat solitary if one works from a home studio so I just want to let you know how helpful and enjoyable it is to have the opportunity to interact and share experiences with fellow VO artists and in such a lovely environment with all that good food!"
- Joan Harwood

"VO Peeps Meet-Ups have been a great way to network with all kinds of talented voiceover artists. In addition, I’ve actually been able to share first-hand my bilingual Spanish VO skills with a producer and look forward to many more opportunities to show what makes my voice skills unique!! If it wasn’t for our VO Meet-Ups I would not have acquired the arsenal of information I have today!"
- Diana Diaz

"I've just been to one event so far but can clearly see the potential in making a difference for all members of the group. There is strength in unity and the group provides that. A place where vo artists can go to stay motivated and current and speak to their peers about strategies to secure paying gigs. As we continue to meet and bond, our group will be a force to be reckoned with within the vo industry. Everyone is committed and enthusiastic and willing to help others make it in the biz." - Joseph Matic

If you are living in Orange County, CA and would like to check out the group, please contact Anne at: info@annespeak.com

Looking for a meetup group near you? Check out meetup.com to find one near you. Voice123.com also promotes meetups with other members. If you would like to meet other Voice123 Community members, please visit , and create your own Voice123 Meetup in your city or join other Voice123 Meetups to connect with community members.

Happy Networking!

Soundproofing your home studio

2010-03-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

When I first started my journey in this wonderful world of voice overs, little did I realize just how important sound acoustics would be when delivering my files to clients or submitting for that crucial audition. There is nothing more embarrassing than having a client tell you that you sound like you are in a "tube" and that they cannot work with your files. And if you think sound quality is not so important for your audition files, think again. That file is the first impression you will make on a potential client! Remember you are selling your voice, not the sounds of your computer fan or the lawnmower outside!

Now I am by no means a sound expert or a sound engineer to any degree, but I have learned some very basic principals and had some experiences with my own home studio that might help those of you looking to set up your own recording environment. The goal is to try and eliminate issues from parallel surfaces which reflect sound waves, as well as stopping unwanted sounds from entering your environment.

The first step is to try and find a quiet area of your home, preferably someplace where you can try to shut out extraneous sounds, i.e the television blaring, kids screaming, etc. ( you get the picture) Once you are in this room, be aware of the things inside of it. Is the room carpeted? What type of furniture exists? Do you have windows in the room? All of these will affect how sound will travel in and around the room. More than likely you will need to add some type of sound absorption material to help you reduce and control the echo and reverberation. Sound absorption materials could be acoustic foam such as Aurlaex, acoustic foam, blankets, movers padding or furniture wraps, etc.

When I first moved into my new townhome, I quickly realized that it was definitely not constructed with good acoustics in mind! I first set up in my office closet and quickly realized the fact that it had all sorts of untreated surfaces that created a nasty echo in my microphone. I hung some extra carpeting to help deaden the sound, which worked ok until someone flushed the toilet upstairs! Now I am fully aware of the plumbing flow in my home! Although the carpeting worked ok, I couldn't get to anything stored in my closet without taking down the carpeting every time. Needless to say, I had to find another solution. I enlisted the help of my father, who promptly sat down and starting sketching away plans. We came up with a basic plan for a 3'8" x4' booth which sits in the corner of the office. Now the good thing about this is that firstly, it is an isolated room enclosed in another room, which helped to eliminate a lot of the extraneous noises. And secondly, it is not a perfect square, which is helpful in deflecting some of the sounds from within the booth. The walls are insulated and covered with the carpeting that we saved from the closet, and in addition, I have sound adsorption blankets which also hang in the closet over the carpet. The floor and ceiling are also covered in carpet. The door to the booth (a mere 15" wide - which keeps me on my diet!) is made out of half of a bi-fold door bought at hone depot, and covered with 2" egg crate. There is a small cutout in the booth that gives me access to the electrical outlet right outside in my office. I even have a fiber board built in shelf in the booth to house my recording hardware!

Here is is an excellent article about acoustic Treatments for Voice Over Production Environments by the Voiceover Coach.

Harlan Hogan has a portable sound booth he designed for those of you who want to work on the go. I happen to love this solution - this will even help if you are in a pinch with your home studio until you have the resources to properly soundproof your recording area.

Early next year, my father will be visiting me again, and we are thinking on upgrading the booth to incorporate acoustic thermal insulation and/or massloaded vinyl. And I will for sure be adding acoustic bass traps in the corners of the booth. I'd love to hear your comments and suggestions, as well as your own trails and tribulations for soundproofing your home studio!

Suffice to say that the engineering behind sound acoustics is no simple task, and one that you could devote your life to studying. My small amount of knowledge came from lots and lots of trial and error, and the luck of having some very good sound engineering friends who were willing to critique my files every time I made a small change in my booth. There is a multitude of information on the Internet about creating a home studio and I thank all of those wonderful people out there who helped me along the way.

For more information, please visit me on my website at www.annespeak.com.

Voice 2010 - I'm going - are YOU?

2010-03-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

I've signed up for Voice 2010, the world's only conference for voice actors, and I am so excited! They have a great lineup of seminars with some of my favorite professionals and coaches. It's sure to be a great networking opportunity too. If you are in the business of voice overs, (and you're reading this post), and thinking about attending, Please click on the graphic to the left - it will tell them I sent you and I'll get credit at the show!!! Thanks so much - Remember to Dream Out Loud and I'm looking forward to meeting you at the show!