Body piercing has been used as an art form for thousands of years. Everyone from ancient cavemen to ancient cultures and civilizations has used body piercing to express a variety of thoughts. Some cultures, including the ancient Aztecs, use body piercing to commune with the gods, whereas other cultures, including those in several African tribes, use body piercings to express beauty, status, or wealth.

Men and women choose to pierce all parts of their bodies for a variety of reasons. The most popular reason given for body piercing is to add a unique feature to the individual. Many people to either want to pierce their body parts or have already pierced different parts of their body wish to break out of the norm that our society has set. Although body piercing is a more permanent way of expressing yourself, it can be done in a subtle and tasteful fashion for those individuals worried about how their personal expression will affect different aspects of their lives, including their public, private, and business lives.

By far, the most popular body piercing involves the ears. From simple holes on the lobes of the ears to piercings in the cartilage, earrings are available in all shapes, sizes, colors, and styles. For individuals looking for more envelope-pushing piercings, consider piercing noses, labrias, eyebrows, or even tongues. Just like the selection of earrings, most reputable jewelry stores or body piercing salons offer a wide variety of quality body piercing jewelry. Use different styles, colors, and jewels to further showcase your personality through your body piercings.

Before you make a rush decision to pierce a part of your body, carefully consider how this decision will affect all aspects of your life. Individuals with visible body piercings often complain of discrimination in their public or business lives. This is often a fact that you should take into consideration. Consult your business’s policy on piercings to prevent any problems later down the road.

Expressing Yourself through Body Piercing Art is a post from: The Best Movie Review, All Movie Information and Review | Cedarhilllandingonline.com

Sending and receiving a greeting card does not require any special occasion. You can send them anytime, anywhere.

These days, online greeting cards are proving a popular choice. People all over the world are exchanging greetings within a few clicks.

The origin of Greeting cards

The tradition of sending greeting cards to friends and family can be traced back to the mid1800s. Initially greeting cards were sent by the elite to share their private messages. They were hand-made cards and were quite expensive. With the introduction of world’s first postage stamp in 1840, greeting cards gained immense popularity. By 1850 printers and manufacturers hired the talented artists and incepted the idea of designing affordable greeting cards for the public.

The world’s oldest greeting card was made in 1400s. It was a Valentine’s Card and is preserved in the British Museum. Until 1700’s Valentine’s greeting cards and New Year greeting cards were the most popular categories of sending these cards. During 1800s Valentine’s greeting cards began printing in factories. A series of different varieties of greeting cards shot up. Greeting cards for St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, and thanksgiving are to name but a few. Today almost every occasion has its own greeting card following.

By conventional standards, you can classify greeting cards into various categories:

The special occasion of family and friends such as their birthdays and anniversaries welcome a host of greeting cards. These special occasion cards are the popular greeting cards’ category and it can be further categorized into various sub-classes.

Birthday cards get categorized as son, father, mother, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunty, daughter, friend, lover and almost for every other human relationship. Birthday cards cover almost all the relationships that are possible on this earth. Birthday greeting cards come with exquisite illustrations. You can get the designer as well as custom made greeting cards in a very wide range for sending birthday wishes.

Birthday cards are also available with cute and funny messages. They come with humorous illustrations and variations. If you want to check out these cards, simply walk into a greetings shop and see for yourself. The other thing you can is have a look online and view a wide variety of greeting cards.

The same categories apply for anniversary greeting cards.

Festival cards are an important category of greeting cards. Christmas cards storm the markets during the Christmas season. People buy Christmas cards and send them to their relatives, friends and loved ones. Christmas is an important festival and is celebrated worldwide. So there are numerous varieties of Christmas greetings available in the market. Greeting cards manufacturers make handsome profits during the Christmas seasons as the sale of greeting cards soars tremendously.

Then there are special occasion cards like Halloween greeting cards, Valentine’s Day greeting cards and New Year greeting cards. These special occasion cards include special messages for the special occasions. These cards come with romantic messages for the loved ones. The illustration and content is specially designed so as to create a romantic mood and express the most inexplicable feelings of a person.

There are other types of greeting cards available in the market, like get well soon cards, miss you cards and much more. Friendship cards and love cards are also available in the market. Then there are greeting cards that even help you to say sorry.

These greeting cards in some or the other ways have become an essential part of your life. You send or receive greeting cards marking the special occasions often. Greeting cards are truly a great way of telling someone that you really care.

Express Your-Self With A Greeting Card is a post from: The Best Movie Review, All Movie Information and Review | Cedarhilllandingonline.com

Actually the process is like taking simple everyday dough, giving it a shape of bread or cake and putting it in the oven for a certain time. Although the text is written by a playwriter everything else is being shaped and brought to the stage by the director. He or she) is the key factor. He chooses the actors, he guides them starting with their lines to their acting, creates the scenes, movements on the stage, design – together with a professional designer – the whole set, selects the clothing for the actors, makeup, music, lighting.

I was exposed to this unique and outstanding experience some four months ago when I decided that playwriting without taking an integral part in the process of bringing the play to the stage is not complete. It is a must.

In order to fulfill my wish I had to locate a director who was prepared to grant me the privilege to sit through the rehearsals from the first reading of the play to the premier. I had to promise him that I will not miss a rehearsal so that the cast will regard me as one of them and not an audience. I was fortunate to find such a director who gave me the insight in the play creation.

The rehearsals went on for three months, five hours a day. We sat together for hours discussing the parts and the meanings behind each one of them, the background of the character and what he (or she) brings with him to the stage. The playwriter can write that the play takes place in “a sitting room in an apartment in a modern building in London” but how does such an apartment look like? What kind of furniture? Color and material of upholstery? What kind of objects should be placed in the room and Where? Lighting fixtures? Everything on stage should be coordinated with the type of play and the characters to form a complete and true to the play or the audience will not “live” the play…

In “our ” play several of the actors had to sign as well as have a short fight. Vocal and boxing instructors were brought to the rehearsal. There was no way that the director would accept anything less than professional. One of the actors had to dye his hair because the director decided that the certain character must have red hair in order to create a certain image. A broom in one of the scenes looked too new so it was changed to a used one.

I was lucky enough to be given the right to express my points of points of views during rehearsals and I did comment, some of my comments were accepted. I was so much involved with the play that when – during a final dress rehearsal – one of the furniture could not be moved I lowered my head in embarrassment as if it was my own play.

It was a kind of experience that I believe everyone who wants to write a play should go through.

Experiencing The Stage Play is a post from: The Best Movie Review, All Movie Information and Review | Cedarhilllandingonline.com

Free gay dating sites bring many people to a virtual place where men and women get to know each other in a new and a unique way. The revolutionary technology of the web has paved the way for new relationships between individuals – be it love at first site, love at first chat, short-term dating or a brief sexual encounter. Some free gay dating sites have provisions for premium services, such as increased space for photos and multimedia, but you must pay for these. Decide how serious you are about finding someone, and then dive in.
Most free gay dating sites also consider the individual tastes and preferences that might vary from person to person, and their rich data bank of members is cast in a systematic and logical way to help individuals locate the right partner for the right purpose.
Love is something that makes us feel completely alive, heightens our senses, magnifies our emotions and leaves us with everlasting memories. Everyone possesses the penetrating desire to experience love. You know that somewhere in this world exists your perfect soulmate but finding that person can be extremely difficult.
Free gay dating sites may help facilitate your search for the ideal partner. Many international online dating services offer you an opportunity to spark a beautiful relationship with someone special, and various free gay dating sites are committed to offer you fast and efficient dating services.
Take the time to browse through the many different free gay dating sites and find the one that’s right for you, then register yourself as a member….and do not be surprised if you soon find the perfect partner!

Experience the thrill of a lifetime with free gay dating sites is a post from: The Best Movie Review, All Movie Information and Review | Cedarhilllandingonline.com

My Name is Yingying and I am a Chinese Tattoo Artist. I have been providing custom Chinese tattoo translation and design service during the past three years.
Western people sometimes ask me some questions when they are planning to get Chinese symbols tattoos.

I have listed some of the most FAQs as below. you may find the answers are very useful information if you are planning to get one soon.

Can anything be translated and written in Chinese symbols?
Yes, anything can be translated and written in Chinese symbols. Chinese has more than 4000 years history. The most ancient Chinese symbols called oracle were written on animal bones. Chinese is a fully developed writing system with over 70,000 symbols (characters), capable of recording all nuances of contemporary language.

What are the differences between kanji and Chinese symbols?
Kanji is the term for Chinese symbols that are used in the Japanese language. Kanji in Japanese are typically characters from the Chinese language that have been adapted to mean Japanese words. The meanings in Chinese and Japanese can be the same but pronounced differently, or they may have entirely different meanings.

Why do I need the custom designs for a Chinese tattoo?
Your tattooist needs the design as a clear reference while inking. If you get free translation from web or somewhere else, it is usually a small and blur image which can not be used for inking purpose. If the tattooist does use it for inking, then your Chinese tattoo is worse than do not have one at all. (You may find some vivid samples of both bad and good Chinese tattoos on my website). Comparing the free crap, the custom tattoo design is large clear image come with stencil outline which your tattooist will use it to ink a high quality Chinese symbol tattoo on your body.

Can one English word be translated into either one symbol or two symbols?
The answer is it depends on the English word to be translated. Some English words can be translated into either one symbol or two symbols. For example, beauty can be translated into either one or two symbols, and the meaning is the same. Whereas, some words must be translated into two symbols, hope is an example, there is no single Chinese symbol which can be express the meaning of hope.

Having your body inked can be a very rewarding experience which can last for the rest of your life. Many people who have Chinese symbol tattoos feel that they are very much symbolic representations of their inner feelings and personality. That is the power of choosing a Chinese symbol tattoo that represents your true self, so it is of the up most importance to select the Chinese Symbols perfect match the meanings you want to express through your tattoos.

Everything You Need to Know About Chinese Symbol Tattoos is a post from: The Best Movie Review, All Movie Information and Review | Cedarhilllandingonline.com

“In the beginning, we couldn’t get on Good Morning America, or the Today Show or any of that. Elite newspapers wouldn’t review the book. We had to rely on talk radio,” O’Reily said. “Talk radio has shown a much better return (than our advertising dollars).”

There’s no doubt that talk radio is a great vehicle for authors, because it allows them to give in-depth answers and puts them in direct communication with people who may want to buy their book.

But talk radio is not what it used to be.

The hosts of major-market radio talk shows with great audiences used to bring authors into the studio for long chats. An author could knock off a couple of those interviews and send sales on the way to the top. Those days are gone. Unless an author is a truly big name, the chances of hitting pay dirt with a couple of big radio interviews are history.

The reasons for this are two-fold. First, there are not as many big stations that accept talk show guests – many have gone to a music format or no longer accept guests that have a product or service to sell. Secondly, the amount of time an author will probably be on the air has dwindled. Radio talk shows have found that listeners are more likely to stay tuned if they have 3 10-minute guests on a show than one guest for 30 minutes.

So if you want your book to sell, you now have to pound the pavement and knock on every door.

Fortunately, in radio publicity, quantity works. There are hundreds of radio stations, and book authors shouldn’t thumb their noses at some of them just because they don’t have a hot host or 5,000 watts. Even with a 1000-watt station, you are still reaching an audience. Look at it this way. If a 1000-watt radio station has only 100 listeners, you might say it is not worth the trouble. But what if you could go to an auditorium and talk to 100 people about your book? Would you go? Of course you would. Not only that, but small stations allow you to practice for that big interview down the road.

A rookie baseball player doesn’t throw his first pitch against the New York Yankees. In print publicity, an author’s first interview is rarely with The New York Times. But an author who has had an interview with a hometown newspaper and a couple of magazines will be more prepared if The New York Times does call.

The Plus Side of Small-Station Bookings

It is the same thing with radio. It takes at least 10 radio interviews before most authors get comfortable behind the microphone. Small power radio stations allow you to practice how to be a great guest.

Some people seem born to be great communicators but an author’s expertise is in the written word, and it is rare to find a great author who is also a great verbal communicator. First time authors are especially prone to stage fright – yes, even on radio.

Typical errors for first time guests include not giving out the Web site address or 1-800 number, or not giving them out frequently enough. It’s also a mistake to mention these too often and upset the host, who will let you know that the show is not an infomercial. Technical authors have a tendency to slide into techno-babble, and even good guests inevitably walk out of their first few interviews knowing they could have been better. When first-time authors make these mistakes (and they will), it is best if huge audiences do not hear the error.

Booking small stations in quantity to get a high number of interviews helps you to get the explanation of your book down to a succinct few words. Talking with multiple interviewers, even though they don’t have huge audiences, will enable you to crystallize your thoughts on your book. It may even give you new ideas about your topic that you never realized before the interviews.

Booking small stations can be also an adventure. Be prepared to run into some hosts who are unprofessional, and make sure you confirm an interview at least twice before you will be on the air. Most of these hosts will not be as prepared as their big-time counterparts (meaning they probably have not read your book), so you’ll have to be ready to walk them through the major topics. Prepare for these interviews as though you have just met someone on the street for the first time and you are telling them about your book.

But if the hosts are not as prepared as they should be, you should still be on your toes. Very bright people listen to some very small radio stations; so don’t talk down to your audience.

Sorry; nothing will surely save you from the 1000-watt radio station in Peoria that is being hosted by a kid right out of broadcast school. But remember, even that small-time interview may prepare you for the big time.

Every 1000-Watt Station Can Help: A Strategy for Today’s Talk Radio Scene is a post from: The Best Movie Review, All Movie Information and Review | Cedarhilllandingonline.com

But do not expect an all you can eat buffet or players with baseball caps and cool shades. Come dressed elegantly and only then will you be let in to share a baccarat game with pure-bred European aristocracy.

The European casinos listed here are the largest and the most luxurious casinos in Europe. Their appointed clientele is less the seasonal tourist gambler and more the upper crust. So, if you are looking for a stylish way to spend your latest lottery winning, you can shoot the dice in one of the casinos listed below while your traveling partners lie around the French Riviera beaches or go on wild shopping trips in the streets of London or Moscow.

1) Casino de Monte Carlo, Monaco:
Monte Carlo has been the favorite gaming destination of Europe’s rich and famous for almost 150 years with the first casino that was founded by Prince Charles III of Monaco in 1863. Casino de Monte Carlo is a complex of five posh casinos located by the seashore and decorated in French rococo style with marbled columns, golden ornaments and crystal chandeliers. The overall environment would make you feel like an extra in a French history movie.

2) Casino Metropol, Moscow:
The Russian Federation has the biggest number of casinos and slot machines in Eastern Europe. The best casinos for tourists are obviously the ones located in hotels. Casino Metropol is part of the five star Hotel Metropol, which is not only one of the most elegant casino hotels in the area but it is also conveniently located in the center of Moscow within a walking distance from the Red Square and the Kremlin. The lowest minimum table requirement is 25 dollars and a night at the presidential suite will cost you 2,000 dollars.

3) Baden Baden Casino, Baden Baden, Germany:
The veteran European casino was founded in 1809 and although it has changed several ownerships since then, its reputation as one of the finest casinos in Europe in general and in Germany in particular has not change. Nowadays, the Baden Baden Casino is one of the city’s landmarks along with the famous thermal baths. If you ignore the table games and the slot machines, walking through the 32,289 square foot casino looks as similar to a visit in an European art museum with permanent exhibits of oil paintings and sculptures.

4) The Clermont Club, London, England:
If you are visiting the UK, you cannot just pop into a casino but have to apply for a membership at least a day ahead. If you plan to follow this procedure, the Clermont Club in Berkeley Square is one of the most reputable gaming clubs around. Set in a 17th century building, the Clermont Club was designed to resemble the Great Hall at Holkham. In addition to its friendly and convenient gaming room, the Clermont Club includes a bar and a clubroom where members and their guests can lounge over a banquet of a vintage bottle of champagne. Note that playing at online casinos is legal in the UK, so you can just pop into any internet cafe for online games.

5) Casino Barriere de Deauville, Deauville, France:
The elegant seaside casino resort had inspired Ian Fleming in depicting the Casino of Royale les Eaux in his first James Bond novel Casino Royale. First founded in the 1860s by the Duc de Morny, the extravagant palace is one of the most beautiful casinos in the world. In addition to its gaming facilities, Casino Barriere hosts variety of exclusive entertainment shows as well as cultural and artistic events.

Europe: Places to Meet Pure Bred Aristocracy and Royalty is a post from: The Best Movie Review, All Movie Information and Review | Cedarhilllandingonline.com

En el Póquer:
1) No debes mirar ni intentar leer las cartas de los demás jugadores antes de que ellos mismos expongan las cartas en la mesa. No es considerado apropiado.

2) No debes revelar el contenido de tus cartas antes de terminar ese partido o mano. Si lo haces los demás jugadores sabrán si has mentido o como es tu situación. También podrán saber que otras cartas quedan en las manos de los demás jugadores.

3) No debes comenzar la jugada si todavía no llego tu turno. No lo hagas ni en broma, y si lo haces por error, pide disculpas a los demás jugadores ya que es un acto que no es aceptado en el poquer.

4) No debes amontonar las fichas del partido apiñadamente o desordenadamente. Probablemente va a molestar en la mesa a los demás jugadores, e interferir en el reparto de las cartas.

5) No debes ayudar a demás jugadores ni decir cosas que influyan sus a sus decisiones en el partido. Puede causar problemas entre todos los jugadores. Cada uno deberá tomar sus propias decisiones y equivocarse es parte del juego.

6) No debes usar el teléfono celular en el casino. Si estas en medio del partido y debes recibir una llamada urgente pide disculpas a los demás jugadores y retírate del partido hasta que termines de hablar.

7) No debes hacer trampa ni estafar. Pretender que tienes mejores cartas de las que tienes es parte del juego, pero la trapa y la estafa están prohibidos.

No debes maldecir o usar lenguaje obsceno en el partido de Póquer. Tampoco debes amenazar al repartidor del juego ni a cualquiera de los jugadores. Es importante mantener la calma a pesar de los resultados del juego.

9) Es importante respetar el partido sin quebrar, llorar, estropear las cartas a la mesa o a las fichas.

10) Finalmente, no traigas objetos electrónicos como cámara fotográfica o filmadora, radio, etc. Son artículos inapropiados para mantener el estado neutral en un partido de Póquer.

11) No debes fumar deliberadamente en medio del partido. En muchos casinos esta prohibido, y si juegas con amigos asegurate que no moleste a ninguno.

Todas estas normas, como mencione previamente, no están escritas en ningún reglamento del Póquer pero si son importantes de respetar y recordar a la hora que te propongas jugar. Disfruta tu juego y buena suerte!

Etiqueta de Poquer is a post from: The Best Movie Review, All Movie Information and Review | Cedarhilllandingonline.com

So ok already, enough with the justification for writing it. Get on with it…

In several years of learning the ins and outs of the voice over business, I have always wondered if voice over might someday become a great pillar of equality. Something that leveled the playing field for the diverse multicultural society we call America; a business with open doors for all, regardless of where we came from or what color our skin happened to be. As I continue to ponder the possibilities of such a level playing field, the answer to the overall question is a resounding no. It will not be a playing field of equality anytime soon, but maybe not for all of the same old reasons you might suspect.

In no other business would it be acceptable, or for that matter legal, to post a job opportunity or listing with criteria or parameters such as “Wanted, African American male or female.” or “looking for north American Caucasian male for this job.”; job postings that in their limits not so subtly say, “No others need apply.”

But in the voice over industry, the ability to pick and choose between male or female, black, white or Hispanic is not only an every day occurrence, it is the way business is done. Producers and casting directors are at liberty to be as finite as they like in their pursuit of the perfect match for their part. Does this make them evil, horrible people? No. But there is no shortage of talking points when it comes to how equally opportunities are spread among performers in the movie and television industry. Imagine the front doors of a large American corporation covered in posters to this effect: “wanted, computer programmer must be black female with a slight urban tinge to her voice.” The idea should be so far from the realm of possibility as to be laughable, at least in this day and age. But in the voice over industry there are daily postings that don’t imply or infer this. They come right out and say it.

No one will ever be able to tell the true intentions behind the people hiring for the project, and for our own sanity we might as well assume their intentions are good and with merit. With all of the attention and criticism Mel Gibson received for his hand in The Passion of the Christ, I don’t think the thought of a black male lead ever crossed the minds of the people in the casting department, and oh what a ruckus there would have been had that been the direction they decided to take that movie in. Did they cast a white male lead actor for the part of Jesus in order to preserve the accuracy of the story? If so, there are many in this country and the rest of the world that question that accuracy.

Wait a minute… I can feel this article spiraling… Apply breaks, return to original intention, and get back to the topic…

Ok, I think I got it.

Suffice it to say, that people’s true intent is generally buried so deep it is pointless to begin looking for it. If we want to move beyond the possibilities of prejudice and exception in this business, we will have to find a way to fool the directors and casting people. A way to beat the system that may or may not be in place. A way to overcome, so to speak, an obstacle that to this point remains faceless and so illusive it may never be tackled. We wont know what we are fighting, or if we are fighting anything at all. Not a very bright prospect.

Breaking Down Barriers.

When I have the opportunity to coach voice over talent with ethnic backgrounds different from my own, my mind opens to the fascination of the unknown. I am peering into a crevasse so deep and different from my own, that my receptors are on high alert. Inside that crevasse are many things I haven’t ever seen, culture I may have never witnessed, beliefs and experiences that I may have never considered. Many are portions of human existence that I have never encountered, and as they have shaped this person, might shape me a little as well. I must witness them, learn from them, feel them and hear them in order to better mold my approach to teaching this craft. That is usually much easier said than done. Many times I encounter actors or broadcast talent who have fought so hard to suppress their regionalism, ethnicity or nationality that getting them to lower the wall they have been at times forced to create, is not an easy task.

Much of my ability to break down these barriers is simply a developmental approach to building trust. You may ask why I would try to break these walls down at all; why not just leave them be and skim over them? Probably for the same reason when I speak to someone I want them to look me in the eye. As a coach, it is my job to dig as deep as I can to find the raw talent. Then I need to bring that talent to the surface where it can breathe, grow and flourish. This is a performance art, a human business, an art form that requires people be their true selves. I am trying to teach voice actors how to create characters, not teach one character how to become another. I need to be able to see the real person. It is there I will find the voice I am trying to coach. I cannot coach the person adorned with a shallow façade. I need to talk to the real person behind the wall.

Reality dictates that societal pressures and socioeconomic status along with cultural background will be the strongest influences governing how a person presents themselves to others. In the far from Utopian community of commercial voice over talent, producers, and companies that hire freelance talent outright, if the above mentioned factors lead you to speak anything but “The Kings English” (along with his accent) the world of opportunity in voice over will be forever very small for you. The way we speak, our intonation and the regional artifacts in our sound play a huge role in whether or not we see any success in this industry.

Becoming better versions of ourselves.

So many people pursuing voice over or broadcasting careers are forced by some unwritten word of law to mold their sound into something considered more user friendly. Who makes those laws or sets that policy is unknown to me, as well as the rest of us, but more often than not it dictates that: Urban accents and dialects are eliminated or suppressed. Culture is lost and regional flavor is buried. What is left over is a completely manufactured sound which in turn becomes the person’s permanent public or professional voice. Many times it sounds forced, which in turn makes it sound fake. When it sounds forced or fake the announcer sound starts to creep through. Forced, fake announcer style reads are not at the top of the hit list in the voice over business.

Producers and even regular people who might be casting voice talent are looking for the voice and/or feeling of real people; the guy or girl from the coffee shop, a person they met at the bank, the people who provide their daycare services, the people at the deli’s and small shops they frequent. In essence, people they choose to interact with during the normal course of business. When many voice over jobs are cast, it is the feeling we get when we see a familiar face or hear a familiar voice that producers and casting people are trying to recreate.

When we see a familiar face, or hear a familiar voice and it is one we want to see or hear, it is generally comforting. When something is foreign to us, or strange and unrecognized, we are usually anything but comfortable. That in a nutshell is why we don’t want our voices to be strange, unrecognizable or foreign to the general audience. Our ability as voice actors to create the desired imagery with our voices is what gets us hired and lands us jobs. What gets us overlooked if not pigeon-holed completely is not being able to deliver these voices without some sort of regional, urban or ethnic affect. When a voice actor auditions with any of the above artifacts in their voice for a job that does not expressly require or request them, they most likely will not get the job, and the person hiring for that job, by making a discriminate judgment, will have in essence discriminated against them because of the sound of their voice.

Understanding the brisance of the word “discrimination” I ask that you please entertain all definitions of that word before going off the deep end over my use of the word. It is not at all meant to imply the producers in the world are directly discriminating against anyone who sounds as if they are anything but white. That was not the intention of the comment, but the reality of that idea, is we will never know if they are or not. The only way to remove it as a possibility is to subvert it by becoming a better, more versatile voice over talent and learning to speak with or without our regional or ethnic affect. Essentially through training and practice becoming better versions of ourselves.

Embracing our natural character.

I can think of nothing more hurtful, insidious or nefarious than telling a person of any color, culture, race, nationality or creed that the way they were born into this world isn’t good enough to participate in and prosper from its harvest. However, that is the message received daily by people of various cultures from directions and sources that are too many to name. There are some who may conclude by my simply writing this article, I have become one of those sources. I beg to differ, but at this time decline to argue. Once again, I will not allow this article to spin out of control. My only comment is this: The longer we go on without talking about these issues, the longer we will ultimately end up talking about them.

Our natural character, more than how we sound when we speak, is what makes us whole. Though some of us might not entirely like ourselves, when we are free to be ourselves we seem to be most at ease. When it comes to the business of voice over, being at ease is one of the main keys to success in front of the microphone. We want to be relaxed. We want to be able to focus and concentrate on the task at hand. Both of which are quite difficult when a portion of our energy is spent trying to be someone we are not. The best example would be the type of discomfort a singer experiences when they try to sing a piece that is out of their range. That experience is identical to the experience of the voice over talent who is trying to bury an accent or dialect, and sound like someone he or she is not.

However, if our natural character is one that speaks with a southern draw, an urban accent or foreign dialect, any time we speak as ourselves, we will be speaking in fashion not very well suited to performing voice over here in America. So what are talents of various regions and ethnicities to do? To answer that question we need to explore the implications of hiding or learning how to perform around who we really are. That brings forward the dilemma I alluded to a few columns back; how do you wake up, look in the mirror and accept that the way you were born into this world isn’t good enough to participate in this business? It’s a rather tough pill to swallow.

On every forefront, in every corner of our society forces are struggling to preserve their culture, and this industry in many more ways than one, asks that you abandon it. Not to say there aren’t opportunities out there for people of different culture, color and dialect, but the majority of voice over jobs are going to the average Joe or Jane that speaks with a typical middle America type affect.

My first opportunity to coach an African American student came several years ago. She was a young woman, very poised with a charming smile. She came to my studio with a fair amount of acting experience which was a true advantage for her. Due to some of her Shakespearian stage experience her regionalism and dialect were only very subtle attributes to her voice. I found her to be a very pleasant speaker, and after hearing her behind the microphone, thought that with a little tweaking, we could produce a demo reel that had no identifiable characteristics that would announce to the listener what she looked like, how tall she was, what kind of shoes she liked to wear, and yes, what color her skin was.

After some discussion about the concept of having her demo be ethnically neutral, she and I both agreed we would work to have it not be completely neutral, but instead trickle some of her natural flavor in with the more mundane, conservative reads on her reel. It was important to me that she was able to demonstrate her ability to turn her urban dialect on and off, and not have it lean more in one direction or the other. I didn’t want to suppress or try to hide that fact that she was a young, dignified, intelligent black woman. I wanted her demo to show that she was a young, intelligent, dignified woman who by the way happened to be black.

We both wanted to embrace her culture. My overwhelming desire was that she got a fair shake when someone listened to her demo. I wanted them to get a few tracks in before they discovered that there were more layers to the product. My primary concern was that someone would pop in her demo reel, hear the first track and disregard it as an ethnic demo, or add it to the black pile if there was such a thing, or worse throw it out. We discussed all of these possibilities and took them into consideration when crafting her demo. I knew from the beginning I was treading in ethically unknown territory by bringing these issues to the forefront, just as much as I am by writing this article. But I felt as strongly then as I do now, that until society finds a conscience and some decency, or we can turn back the hands of time, it may do more harm than good by choosing to pretend the world isn’t the way it is.

When it came time to select cover art for her demo reel, the question became whether or not she should put her headshot with her demo. My answer to that question was not to. After all, this business is called Voice-Over, not Face-over, or Where-Did-I-Come-From-Over, or What-Color-Am-I-Over. In this business, as with any other business, it should make absolutely no difference where you come from or what you look like. The only thing that should matter and often does is what you sound like.

Isolating your abilities

One of my greatest concerns when a new talent comes to my studio is that they understand the difficulty of achieving success. It takes a great deal of investment, time and energy to move forward in the industry, and informing a talent of what obstacles stand before them up front before they ever get started, or ever spend a penny on the business only seems fair to me. Most people have the same obstacles when getting started: Lack of experience, cold read ability, and audition technique, lack of technical knowledge when it comes to editing and uploading files to servers and configuring home studios. All of those obstacles are pretty general. But when a talent has a regional, ethnic, or cultural background that directly effects their delivery of voice over copy, it becomes much more of a challenge for them as a talent and me as a coach.

In my early days of coaching, commenting on someone’s cultural background as a hindrance to their success felt a little like walking a tightrope. I wasn’t exactly sure of what approach I should take and saying anything at all was a little uncomfortable. But when I considered the alternative of not telling the student and letting them go into their training only to have someone tell them later, I felt I might as well take the risk and tell them up front. Each time I have had to do it, there has been a mixture of responses, most of them non verbal so it is hard to tell exactly how the talent perceived what I was saying. I can think of no easy way of saying it. So up to this point I just come right out and tell people that their accent or way of speaking is going to have a negative impact on their success as a voice over talent.

I usually try to explain the process of installing a switch that rather than completely ridding them of their natural style of speaking, enables them to turn it on and off. Installing this switch takes time and effort, and time of course in the pursuit of coaching costs money. Money continues to be the one major prohibitive factor that keeps people for entering this business or continuing to pursue it for very long. When someone considers the prospect of spending some of their coaching budget on getting rid of something they never saw as a problem in the first place, it occasionally prompts them to throw in the towel early and decide this business isn’t for them.

Though it may sound cruel or untoward, when most students decide to back out at this point I am elated. Turning tail and running at the first sign of difficulty is what keeps everyone and their brother from having a voice over demo on the market. But when a talent from an ethnically diverse background decides to back away upon being informed of this, it hits me a little closer to the core. I can’t help but feel that I am just another in the long chain of people that has said throughout the course of their lives, “I am sorry, but because you are (place ethnicity here), this business isn’t right for you.” One, it is not at all what I am saying and two; it couldn’t be further from the truth. Though on a human level, this is what it feels like I am saying and I never wanted to be a person who said things like that.

I have known for a long time that the truth hurts and people’s perception is their truth. How people perceive what I am saying can lead to it being be misconstrued. I have also known that in order to be a leader you sometimes have to make some very unpopular decisions. This is why I continue to follow a path of honesty, and provide assessments of how I see this business to all comers and how I feel they will fit into it. I find it an act near criminal to take a person’s money, push them through training and launch them into the world with less than the appropriate tools and barriers standing in their way. I am afraid that not all in this industry share the same foundation of principal. This is certainly something I think voice over talent with ethnically diverse backgrounds should be aware of when entering this marketplace.

If you are a voice actor who feels some of the characteristics of your voice may have something to do with your lack of success in this business, then I try to offer you a hand of understanding. In such a detail oriented business where even the slightest variation in our voice can mean the difference between getting hired and not getting hired, it is of the utmost importance we are able to analyze our product and see if there is anything holding us back. If we lack the ability to self analyze, it is a process that can be learned through steady coaching. Also, don’t feel as if your natural style is something that needs to be crushed, wiped away or stuffed into some deep dark corner because it doesn’t. Look at it as a tool, another arrow in your quiver, and another voice with which to demonstrate your versatility. Try to look beyond it as your only voice and see it as one of the many things that make you unique, diversified and intriguing. It can be a very valuable piece of your portfolio, but as your only piece, may be a detriment to your success.

There are walls all around people of culture in this country, let alone the world. Some are made of granite; some are not so easy to see. Some have fallen in the last 25 years and some are still in the process of being constructed. Some are meant to keep people in, though many now are meant to keep people out. These are the realities of the world in which we live. They may continue to be realities for as long as we live. Though this doesn’t mean we have to bow to them, or attempt to tunnel our way beneath them, we only have to imagine there are ways to rise above them and make them disappear. In the faceless world of voice over, a little training can go a long way toward creating a new reality. A reality where we are not judged buy the color of our skin or where we come from, but by the content of our demo tape.

Ethnicity and regionalism in voice over, is your race or culture a burden? is a post from: The Best Movie Review, All Movie Information and Review | Cedarhilllandingonline.com

However, behind the mask was, ultimately, a man. Erik was not the overwhelming force of evil that people had portrayed him to be. Indeed, along with many of his contemporaries, Erik shared traits and attributes that were all too human. He needed to feel loved by the ones he believed he loved… he craved for recognition for his achievements… and desperately needed to interact with the world without having to strike terror in the hearts of those who see him. In this way, he echoes earlier figures of horror, such as Quasimodo of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and the Frankenstein’s Monster from “Frankenstein.” His quest to love and to be loved, as well as his aristocratic demeanor, also mirror the nobler qualities of an earlier literary figure, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In the end, like all of the above literary icons, Erik was more than the “Phantom of the Opera.” Erik was, underneath the mask, a human being, albeit one with a number of issues, including social anxiety and paranoia. Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical, despite having taken a number of liberties with the story, has lyrics that echo the various complex emotions that Erik had to endure in his lifetime.

This face that earned
A mother’s fear and loathing
A mask my first
Unfeeling scrap of clothing

From an early age, Erik instilled fear and anxiety in the people around him because of his deformed face. The interpretations and versions of the story vary in the details, but in the original novel, he was described to have looked like a living corpse. From Leroux’s description, one could deduce that his face was deformed such that it appeared more like a skull than a normal face. His mother, feeling overwhelming fear and anxiety over her son’s monstrous appearance, eventually abandoned him. He managed to make an early living in a carnival, where he inspired mockery rather than fear and anxiety. That mockery would eventually evolve into a total dislike of society and people in general, morphing into a twisted form of social anxiety.

Masquerade!
Paper faces on parade…
Masquerade
Hide your face,
So the world
Will never find you!

His social anxiety forced him into seclusion, though he was not completely without contact with the outside world. He gained a good handle on architecture and engineering, building palaces for two prominent rulers, while also serving as an assassin for one of them. His fear of society led him to go to great lengths to remain unseen and hidden in the shadows. With his mask, he was able to conceal his disfigured features to those whom he chose to reveal his presence. He also attained a high sense of appreciation for music, which turned out to be a natural talent for him. Indeed, it was this natural aptitude for performing and composing music that would eventually lead him to seek out Christine, which he probably saw as an outlet for his status anxiety.

Those who have seen your face
Draw back in fear
I am the mask you wear…
It’s me they hear.

It is easy to speculate that Erik’s initial reasons for training Christine stemmed from his desire to overcome his status anxiety. As he discovered his talent for music, it is possible that he developed the idea to showcase his talent to the world at large, and let them see how much musical brilliance can be produced by someone who was scorned by society. He wanted to use her as his mouthpiece, his “avatar” to the world and society above his shadowy lair. However, even a man that has lived a life alien to concepts such as love and devotion can be made to feel them, in much the same way as Frankenstein’s Monster and Quasimodo did in their respective stories. In a way, his pursuit and desire for the love of Christine was his own twisted way of achieving a sense of emotional healing.

Pitiful creature of darkness
What kind of life have you known?
God give me courage to show you
You are not alone

There is little argument on whether or not Erik loved Christine, albeit he expressed that love in a rather twisted manner. Despite the emotional healing that came with training Christine in music, he still behaved very much like the figure of darkness that everyone perceived him to be. This is likely because, despite having felt more human emotions, emotional healing cannot instantly undo a lifetime of psychological damage. His mind was, unfortunately, still damaged and incapable of seeing his actions as anything more than things done out of necessity, unaware of how monstrous his tactics would seem to others. In the end, his music was not able to remove the terror that came with his persona as the Phantom of the Opera.

Erik: The Man Behind The Phantom is a post from: The Best Movie Review, All Movie Information and Review | Cedarhilllandingonline.com