Rick Arseneault Voice Overs

Lloyd Robertson signs off.

2011-08-31T22:24:00.001-03:00

A familiar voice that many Canadians have come to know and trust will sign off at the end of the broadcast day at CTV on September 1st, 2011. Lloyd Robertson will say farewell and end a 35 year career with CTV. Below is a letter written by Lloyd and posted on CTV.CA

http://www.ctv.ca/lloyd/

Its a great letter and there are some great videos about Lloyd at the bottom.

Just Keep Doing It! Part 2

2011-08-29T15:42:00.000-03:00

I ran across this today on Terry Daniel's Facebook group, Voice-Over Camp, and thought it had some good points about dealing with the naysayers (even the one sometimes in your own head). Terry does provide coaching and demo production services. I have not used Terry's services nor am I affiliated with him other than being a part of his FB group. His video does, however, get right to it: Work hard and stay at it.
For me, the pursuit of the work is the just as much fun as depositing the check. Here is terry's video:

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Storytelling is also part of being a VoiceOver Artist/Talent

2011-08-29T14:41:00.001-03:00

One of the great things about being a VO talent/artist (whichever way you want to describe yourself) is that you always have to learn. Whether its about technology, utilizing resources, marketing or even about yourself and exploring and understanding your strengths in front of and behind the mic. Here is an article submitted to Voices.com by a very good artist who is willing to share what he knows.

Xavier Paul - Recording Artists are Storytellers

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Keeping in the Know

2011-08-29T04:08:00.001-03:00

I'm a big believer in keeping on top of the latest that's going on, be it current events or the Voice Over biz. Sometimes you pop a search term into Google and - Voila - up comes something the really sticks with you. The link below has some great info if you are an active or budding VO. And provides a little perspective from the VO's point of view if you are looking to hire one.

VoiceoverCanada.ca

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Google offers peek behind its search results

JUST KEEP DOING IT!

2011-08-25T14:51:00.000-03:00

Its natural to wonder about or question what you are doing when things aren't happening fast enough or happening at all. I can't sit hear and type that I am a raving success in VOs and know all the ins and outs of the biz. I can tell you about what I have experienced and some of the successes I feel I have had. I can also tell you that I wanted, from time to time, just to say "Oh well, I tried". Then an email comes in, a call from a previous customer or a Facebook IM from an old friend that wants someone to help him with some DJ drops. And then it all gets fun again. Its all about being Johnny on the Spot. If your not on the spot, another Johnny/Janey will be and they will be raking in the fun (and the $$).
Lets be honest. Most of us who do this won't be millionaires overnight or ever. And these days, it seems the millionaires are the ones that are getting the cherry jobs doing VO.
But for me, just yesterday, when that old friend said that the simple one liner I did for him was "awesome" and how excited he was to use it in one of his mixes sparked that little ember a little brighter. Just enough to get this website buzzing a little more with posts from me and putting my foot that much further out there.
I saw a video today where Steve Jobs was giving the Commencement speech at Stanford back in '05. Its a video thats full of wisdom. I especially liked his comments on Connecting the Dots. It reminds me of something else I heard about VO work - "Work begets work".

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech from Iconisus on Vimeo.

Take what you want from that. Some pretty wise words from a pretty wise guy.
Hope your day is good and your inbox is full.
R

Jack Layton's Final Message

2011-08-22T14:15:00.000-03:00

A great Canadian passed today after his second battle with cancer. Even though he had his own battle to contend with, he still fought for what he thought was how Canada should be. For this, he shall be missed, treasured and referenced when we ask ourselves what it means to be Canadian. Thank You, Jack.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/mobile/iphone/Jack+Layton+final+message/5289265/story.html.

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Out of the Blue

2011-06-03T11:06:00.001-03:00

So there I was, sitting in from of my PC, tunes blaring as usual as I scanned the news, Twitter feed and various other internet distractions before I started my work day. Suddenly, the phone rings. I check the caller ID and its nothng I recognize. My first thought is that its a telemarketer. Down goes the music and I answer the phone. For the first time EVER, I receive a call from someone looking for a VoiceOver job to be done. Within the week, I was in to the client's studio recording for a YouTube video voiceover.

What made this even more suprising at first is that he didn't get my name from what I thought was a better known of higher visibility VO website. He found me from doing a net search for a VO talent from my area. He THEN found my name and made the effort to contact me.

So here is what I have gleened from this experience:

Yes, name recognition is important. But if your like me in a smaller market, maybe its best to put more emphasis on where you are located and give it the same weight as your name as your "brand"
Put it into practice now!
See the first bullet. Repeat if necessary

I'm just about to do those very things mentioned above. I'll let you know as soon anything pans out from it.

Have a great weekend!

Rick

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End of the Monthly sign up for the Pay to Play site

2011-05-09T23:04:00.001-03:00

Well, the month of subscription has gone by and and it has been interesting to say the least. On two occasions so far, I received private invites to audition for jobs, meaning the field of contenders was much smaller than the usual general posting that they have. One was a "not this time but loved your voice and may have you in mind for something else later." The other was loved your voice but HIS client says he wants a "Canadian sound" (WTF). OK, client's the boss. In short, here is what I gleaned from my experience thus far:

When the job is posted, rest assured that there will be 20 submissions to the posting within the first 30 minutes. There must be people that just sit there and hit Refresh on the screen and race to the mic to record OR there is just that many people at one time looking to get one in out of the 100K this site boast as membership.
Some Voice searchers will acknowledge they reviewed your file. Mostly though, they don't. Its kind of discouraging but you can't get through to everyone all the time. Its a process, and persistance is what makes it rain.
My competition in my mind has nothing better to do but audition, better equipment, sounds better than me, etc., etc. Don't let yourself go there. You paid to use X amount of time to audition. Make the best of it and most of all, don't make this channel of access the beall and end all.
Keep track of the dollar amounts you proposed for the jobs you audtiioned for. This helps you stay focussed on the potential that you have in front of you for earnings.

I didn't get any jobs yet but I did get some nibbles. That is somewhat encouraging. People pay me for work outside of this pay for play site - not as often as I want - but they do. So, there is work out there that I can do and do well for someone.

Have a great week and chin up, summer is almost here!

Rick

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Paying to Play

2011-04-20T20:47:00.001-03:00

So once again, I am going to delve into the world of a Pay to Play website and audition for just some of the plethora of jobs posted on the site. This time I hope I'll be healthy through the whole month I plan to be registered - because the last time in '09, I got the flu (may have been Swine Flu) and I lost half of my registration to it.

Signing up for a pay to play site really lets it sink in how competitive Voice Overs can be. Within minutes of a job being posted, there are already several auditons posted for it. By the time you are done posting your own audition, there could be dozens, sometimes just a few shy of a hundred. It kind of leads you to conclude that there are some people who sit and just hit refresh to get the most recent job posting and get hammering on it OR there is just that many people monitoring the service that answer at virtually the same time, on different jobs. These jobs usually require a custom demo which is time consuming itself versus just pushing through a canned demo to the prospective client.

Now, at first I was looking at all the work I "could" be doing, then realized that I couldn't sit there all day scanning the listings. So, I've decided to pick my battles, do what I can and not regret what I can't.

I did receive a Private Invitation to audition for a project. Not sure exactly how that came about but I did the audition and submitted an offer. The official deadline is tomorrow so we'll see if anything comes out of that. Apparently, I was one of 6 invited.

As the old saying goes, ya can't win if you don't play. So, I'm playing - paying to do so - but playing nonetheless. I'll keep you posted.

Happy Easter Weekend,

Rick

March is closing in

2011-02-21T11:55:00.001-04:00

So with March closing in and spring surely on its way, I'm just glad that the year is on the same pace as it was this time last year for VO work. A recent change in mty work scedule is going to make recording easier and perhaps its time to activate a pay to play site again since it doesn't look like and flu pandemics are coming anytime soon, like the last time I signed up and wasted half of month I chose to pay for.

Thats it, thats all.

Later

Rick

Like finding money in last seasons jacket......

2011-02-09T11:35:00.001-04:00

It never ceases to give me that feeling like I found $20 in last seasons jacket/shorts/pants when I get an email asking me to record or come in to a studio to record a Voiceover. Its does actually pay better than finding $20 bucks that you forgot you had or had misplaced, but I think you get the picture. So, success again this week as I get to record for 2 clients, they are both repeat customers. And one of them I am the voice for a specific product that they promote - internally and externally to staff and customers.

Be that as it may, I still need to land a new client to become a repeat customer. Thats the goal for the first half of 2011. Modest, not agressive but realistic. "Work begets work" I once heard said about VO. So far, thats true to me. Just need to have patience.

Happy Hump Day!

The Acadieman Promo

2011-02-06T20:54:00.000-04:00

Here's one of the bits of work I did for one of my clients last year. I gotta say, being the English promo voice for Acadieman is an honor. I was told that this also ran in Ontario though I have no way of verifying it.

Testing a Blog app Part 2

2011-02-06T18:35:00.001-04:00

Ok, so that looks like it worked. Now just a matter of finding out which one of the blog formats works best for me and what I need to do to post audio files to either. Feel free to gve me some info on what you guys find best for you.

Rick

Testing a Blog app

2011-02-06T18:09:00.000-04:00

This is the first test of the Scribed. Hopefully it works

Reviving My blog

2011-02-06T17:54:00.000-04:00

So I claimed this space a long time ago. I'm getting a little more serious about using it for some self-promotion for my little VO Business that I've been trying to grow. I'm hoping that this will be the prototype of the type of VO site that I want to create.

So, with some experimentation with this and other stuff on the net, hopefully I don't end up posting midget porn or other oddities in error.

Stay tuned.

Rick