Advertising Space Available In The Voice123 Industry Directory
The online voice over and media industry directory offers adverting space for companies to promote their products and services. [SANEPR 13 April, 2007]
What if Life Had a Soundtrack?
I received an e-mail this morning from my friend Stephanie Ciccarelli about something new they have put together at Voices.com. This is just one of the many reasons I love that website (and company!)- they are always trying to find new ways to attract clients- thus giving ‘us the voice actors’ new leads as well!
If you’ve ever wondered what a difference a good voice over can make for your project, check out ‘What if Life Had a Soundtrack?’.
These are just the first two videos they have put together, there are more on the way!
Female Voiceover Talent F/T
Rare opportunity for female voice talent to join the staff of our well established audio advertising company. This a full time position 9am to 5pm m-f but there is some flexibility. We are looking for a pleasant, upbeat personality. You should be familiar w/sound forge as this is how we currently mix our productions. Most of the work consists of on-hold productions for business telephones; we also do some radio commercial work. Please email a small mp3 demo (less than 6mb) & resume/qualifica…
Widening the base, amplifying the citizen voice
The primary season saw the beginning of a new kind of politics in Philadelphia, one that must be carefully nurtured if it is to grow. One facet of this new kind of politics is evident in the number and variety of mayoral and city council candidate forums held in virtually every neighborhood across the city and sponsored by a wide range of groups. Great Expectations sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Inquirer was joined by the Next Great City sponsored by Philadelphia Future and the Next Mayor project sponsored by The Daily News, WHYY and the Committee of 70. Some others included two forums on education sponsored by Cross County Collaborative sponsored two forums on education and the 2007 Future Leaders Mayoral Forum sponsored by the Philadelphia Youth Network and the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition. In the midst of all this candidate talk, it is easy to miss something what is perhaps a more important kind of talk: citizen talk. Not citizens asking questions of the candidates, but citizens talking with each other about the issues and about the campaigns. The Great Expectations Project is the prime example of this brand of citizen talk. With more than 50 citizen forums in neighborhoods across the city (and two in the suburbs), it was one of the few projects in which citizens talking to citizens came before, and formed the basis of, citizen questions to the candidates. Why is this important? Why does this signal a change in politics in this great city? Think of politics in Philadelphia (or in any democracy) as a triangle ? a triangle in which each side represents a different kind of political actor ? one side representing elected and appointed officials, another representing professional stakeholders (such as developers or well funded special interest groups) and the base representing the citizen voice. In Philadelphia ?politics as usual? is like an isosceles triangle with two very long sides, but a short or narrow base. That is, the voice of citizens is often dwarfed by the voices of officials and professional stakeholders. And, if what we?ve heard in Great Expectation citizen-driven forums is accurate, citizens are tired of getting the short end. What they want, and what Great Expectations has helped create, is for this isosceles triangle to grow into an equilateral triangle ? a triangle in which citizens and the citizen voice is equal in strength to that of officials and professional stakeholders. – Harris Sokoloff
Updated Voiceover Script Bank Published
Voice123 updates its selection of royalty-free sample scripts that voice talents can use to create voice over demos. [SANEPR 9 March, 2007]
Yolanda King Dies
With sadness we learn of Yolanda King’s death today. An actor, activist, speaker, and daughter of the Civil Rights Movement, Ms. King was a voice of hope and a symbol of empowerment. I once had the privilege of hearing her speak when I was in college. She was a powerful and dynamic speaker and she had a commanding presence. An inheritor of her parents’ nobility and an accomplished leader in her own right, Yolanda King will be missed. “Let light perpetual shine upon her.”
VoiceProfessionals.com Voiceover Talent
This talented group of Actors and voiceover artists from the U.S. Northwest can be contacted through the website for work on your televsion, radio or other voice project.
Fifteen minutes on agni with voice
Filed under: Stories
Well, I downloaded the voice-enabled First Look viewer, and went out to one of the PG welcome areas to have a listen. Results were … mixed, to say the least.
A cluster of ten people were standing around talking. It only took a few minutes to identify six distinct issues. We could call them the big six, but that’s already taken, right?
Firstly, the Active Speakers window isn’t much help in a group. At any moment four or five people were lit up as speaking, but with several seconds delay between someone lighting up as ‘speaking’ and the voice arriving, it doesn’t really help much in identifying who’s voice you are hearing at any moment.
Second, someone is occasionally screaming or howling in the background. I’ve no idea who.
Third, every few words is fardling or spoony or abfold or snurble (Confused? See here). Who is swearing like a sailor? A few people, by the voices, but I can’t tell who. Never mind this is a PG sim. If you use SL for work, you’ll probably want to stay away from public gathering places if anyone in the office can hear your audio.
Fourth, crosstalk. Miss a word or two because someone is talking over the top of them, and you’ve got no idea what they said. People are going “What?” “What did you say?” “Can you repeat that?”
Fifth, I can hear everyone’s tv, radio, cd-player in the background. That doesn’t make it any easier.
Sixth, unlike all other sounds, voice doesn’t go away when you minimize SL.
Issues. There are definitely issues. Mostly, of course, they’re social issues, not technological ones.
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“Real” Beauty
Dove soap has a campaign now for “Real Beauty”. It appears to be a self-esteem issue they are tackling where they emphasize that the womanly ideal presented in advertising campaigns isn’t attainable and that women should be comfortable with their own real beauty.
To punctuate their message, they have created a short, time-lapse film that details a model’s transformation from regular girl to super model billboard beauty. It’s pretty interesting, especially after the photo shoot is done and they move into Photoshop territory.
It seems that some folks are up in arms over a corporation as large as Dove developing such a campaign. They feel that it is hypocritical for them to “dismiss” the very same advertising techniques they themselves have used in the past. Most feel it is just a corporate ploy of “Look, see what those other bad companies do to make you buy their product? You can trust us.”
Personally, I see nothing wrong with it. Any voice, be it large or small, that can champion the normalization of body image to the public today deserves to he heard.
Some advice about unsolicited advice
A few weeks ago, Drew told me that he found himself critiquing the voice-over actors on local radio commercials. He said he could recognize voice talent who need more training because they haven’t learned how to sound conversational in their reads. Among other things, he astutely detected that amateurs invariably let their voices trail off at the ends of sentences. That same day, I called a major entertainment venue here in Atlanta to learn information about an upcoming event. I was rather shocked to hear a voice message in which the events and ticket prices were read in a choppy, uneven manner by someone with an accent. While some local commercials are produced by people with limited budgets, this complex has revenues in the millions each year. Its operations department unquestionably could afford to hire professional voice talent but has not. In both cases, a professional voice-over artist like me could be tempted to offer her services to these businesses to fix their problems. However, both the people producing the commercials and those at the entertainment venue don’t think that they have a problem. My efforts therefore would fall in the category of unsolicited advice and most likely anger the people that I most wanted to impress. I learned this lesson the hard way. As I was beginning my voice-over career, I wrote an e-mail to a local car dealer who runs a lot of radio ads. With my infinite wisdom, I explained that the dealer’s ads about Jenny in the office making a Bundt cake for all of the salesmen was offensive because it presented a very sexist and condescending attitude toward women. Mind you, I sent this message in the late 90s or early in this decade. The ad WAS sexist, but as a new voice talent who had no connection to this advertiser, it wasn’t my place to point out that fact. Naturally, I happily identified myself as a voice-over talent and offered to assist the dealer with future commercials. I have auditioned for that dealer’s spots on numerous occasions but have never booked one. I have listened to my auditions against the ads that ran on the air. My vocal qualities and copy interpretation are eerily similar in many cases. Since I’m a positive person, I believe that maybe the producers knew the talent selected for the ads or perhaps never heard my auditions. I have to be honest, though, and acknowledge that an equally likely scenario is that my unsolicited advice was considered criticism and destroyed my chances of booking work with that advertiser.
And now for something completely different!
Click To See Film
