Getting Animated with Stephanie Ciccarelli

I am pleased to feature guest blogger, Stephanie Ciccarelli, today. Stephanie is a communicator extraordinaire who is so connected tomany folks in the voiceover industry and shares her wisdom through her blogging and travels. I am lucky enough to call her a good friend! I like this animated photo taken by Rick Lance at the recent VOICE2010 conference in Los Angeles. PS This is not the same Rick Lanz who used to lace them up for the Vancouver Canucks. Stephanie is on the right while

5 Habits of Highly Successful VO Actors

If someone doesn’t succeed in the voice-over industry, chances are the person neglected one of the three legs of the stool that a successful voiceover artist relies on:voice-over training, marketing, technical ability. If one of those three legs is shorter — or non-existent, the stool will topple, taking the would-be voice talent with it. There are, however, common habits and attitudes that professional voice talents share. See if this sounds like you –or if it sounds like

Audiobooks: Pronunciation Research – How It’s Done & A ‘Ghostly’ Example, by Alan Sklar

Do audiobook listeners appreciate the homework that goes into an audiobook narration? How about would-be narrators? There’s much to do, and much to learn. Veteran voice actor and narrator Alan Sklar tells what it takes to be at the top of this form, shares his methods of research, and presents – as an example – an exhaustive Audiobook Vocabulary he compiled for his recent narration of “The Ghosts of Cannae” …

FaffCon 2010 – the Voiceover Unconference

Just got news from my voiceover pal Amy Snively, that there are  just two more weeks left of early bird registration for the FaffCon2010 conference!   Amy says,”Two full days of learning, growing, troubleshooting, connecting, and faffing about for just $149–how awesome is that? “   Here’s a brief description of the conference. It’s strictly for working voiceover professionals, rather than those just starting out in their careers!  “If you’re a

Sound Proofing with Drywall?

See, my little brother is in college working with lasers to get himself a real job, but it’s a lot of fun when our respective disciplines overlap, even if just a little bit. He had to build a chamber that could reduce external vibrations for sensitive equipment inside, and asked me about acoustic treatments like foam. I of course go through my spiel about the difference between shaping

Questions and Answers

                                                           Gracie Allen was the wife and comic partner of comedian George Burns.  Hiding behind a  “ditzy” character, she often got in some really wonderful zingers during their routines (Gracie was a very intelligent woman, by the way).      In one great bit from a Radio show in my collection, George feeds her the straight line for a joke.  She comes back with

two weeks ’til the end of the world – just an FYI

Maybe I should be more specific. Two weeks until the end of the world for voice talents who want to enjoy the amazing discount on the FIRST EVER voice over unconference: Faffcon. Two full days of voice over learning, growing, troubleshooting, connecting, and faffing about for just $149–how awesome is that? Sure, you can always go next year– but dontcha want to be one of the cool kids who was there at the very first one? If your not sure what it’s all about,

“We were wrong. So we changed it.”

Male Voice Talent Michael Minetree As a world, we seem to be mostly a proud bunch. But too much pride can be a bad thing. I know because I am better than you – smarter, better looking, more successful – so I know pride can be a bad thing and conceit is even worse. Wait a minute… Anyway, I mention this because I got an email blast from Michael Minetree of MineWurx Studio. In addition to voice work, he’s overseeing a myriad of other projects including

When disaster strikes

A couple of days ago I had just finished a phone patch session for a television commercial (a hospital in Michigan), said thank you to everyone on the line (2 guys with the production studio and 3 ladies from the hospital), hung up the phone and clicked over to my audio software to get the file saved in the requested format. Initially everything seemed fine, just like always. But then I noticed an odd bit of distortion that seemed to be part of one small bit of the file. Only, it wasn’t

Cold calls can heat up your business

My friend Maxine Dunn has written a brilliant piece on cold calling and voiceover that was originally only available to her newsletter subscribers, but has now been published on VoiceOverXtra. If you’d like to subscribe to her newsletter (something I highly recommend you do) click through and sign up via the link on her site.