Fast Free Nuggets!

Pat Fraley has a great website I just discovered, and he's been generous enough to post a whole audio series of free tips every voice actor should hear. I started with his take on the VO market for 2009 (encouraging!) and then took in a few more. I'll be back to his site frequently to see what's new here. Thanks, Pat!

Happy New Year to all my readers, all 2 or 3 of ya! I hope 2009 brings us all a greater sense of peace, true joy and more friends.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

Ok, so it's two nights before Christmas, but I saw this and wanted to share it anyway. Happy Holidays!

How to get a free online demo reel

I just discovered that I can upload demo reels to my voiceoveruniverse.com page for free! Woohoo! Even better, I can embed the hyperlink in emails or on my blog, like this. This is great, since if I come across the random craigslist VO gig that is asking for a link to a reel, I now have something to send them. Sweet!

My other recent discovery, thanks to Angel Yau, is how to subscribe to blogs that I read regularly. I'm using Google Reader for my subscriptions. Every time a there's a new entry on one of the subscribed blogs, it shows up at my personal Google Reader site. That way, I don't have to spend time going to each blog to see if they've posted anything new. Google Reader does it for me! Here's a great little video to explain how subscriptions work.

And if you haven't already done so, you've got to check out faceinhole.com. Fun times!

Pedigree Demo Reel

I learned a little bit about Audacity software over the past two days, and now I have a super-short demo reel! Click here to hear it. It's just one commercial for Pedigree dog food, cobbled together from my recording in MJ's studio and some free music I found on mp3.com, but it's something! I know I'm not on the same level as David Duchovny, who voiced the original commericial, but I think I sound pretty good! I sent it to two ads from craigslist, so I can say that I'm actually getting myself out there! Woohoo! Exclamation points!!!!

Mr. Duchovny's work is here:

Vision Board

Whew! When you're as much of a perfectionist as I am, a vision board takes a lot of time! I started last night with a huge stack of Daily Variety, Billboard, Time, Emmy, Playback, Sports Illustrated and Entertainment Weekly magazines. I spent about two hours flipping pages and ripping and clipping images, words and phrases. Next was the editorial process, sifting through the things that really struck my eye and heart, looking for certain letters, carefully cutting things down to size, and finally laying out my board.

I finished the project in (just) seven hours! SEVEN HOURS? Hey, this is my vision board for my exciting career as a voice actor! Here's the final product. You can click on it to view a larger image:

No voiceover class tonight...what to do now?

I've had so many things going through my mind since Sunday's post...bills, family, classes, equipment, marketing, holidays... and I let too many days go by without giving my blog some love!

My husband's latest facebook fixation is his vision board application. He's been creating a vision board with things he loves and things he dreams of obtaining/attaining (like 6-pack abs!). I did a little reasearch into vision boards and found that they are part of the formula for "The Law of Attraction" and "The Secret." There are a whole lot of programs, books and coaches out there that will take your hard earned dough to guide you through goal-setting and envisioning what you want. I think a lot of it is purely greed-based (who really needs a Maseratti or a 45,000 square foot mansion?), but I do think it's a helpful exercise to spend some time focusing your dreams and goals, and then creating a visual representation of those goals.

So, that's what I'm going to do tonight in place of my voiceover class, which ended last week. There's a gap in my evening schedule, and I'm going to focus my energy on a vision board for my voiceover career. Hopefully I'll be able to do some more general visioning as well for other areas of my life that need some attention, like friends, spirituality and recreation. Tomorrow, I'm commited to posting my board so that you can see what I've envisioned, and I'll have a physical connection to my dreams of a voiceover career!

Living with Decisions

While reading voiceover blogs in the middle of the night, I came across this interesting analysis of Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken." It raises interesting questions about assumptions, interpretation, reading in context, and decision making.

First the poem, then the video.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Perhaps Frost was urging us to commit to our decisions, and not dwell so much on what might have been or if we can ever go back to take the different road. The decisions we make are loaded with consequences, sometimes good, sometimes bad. We always have opportunities to change our course and gradually get closer to the direction a different path might have taken us, but is it possible to turn around, retrace our steps, and choose the other fork? Whenever I have tried this, I end up stuck in one spot, "spinning my wheels."

I've already stuck my toes into the voiceover pool to test the waters, and I'm slowly lowering myself in. I'm already a few steps down that road, so I can't really "go back", but I could trample through the brush between becoming and not becoming a voiceover actor, yet years later, if I looked back at this moment, and sighed would it be a sigh of satisfaction or of regret?

Whichever road we do choose, it does make all the difference.