With VOICE 2012 [...]]]>

When you have an audio challenge, who you gonna call? EWABS!!! – Last time we saw members of the “International VoiceOvers” panel having lots of fun getting ready (10.30am Wednesday, be there!)… but it took 6 year old William to spot the problem – they need to be heard in English!

With VOICE 2012 just a matter of weeks away, here’s the second in a series of fun promo videos (check out Episode One here if you missed it). If you have any doubts about the value of the connections formed at VOICE, the reality of the community, make sure to follow the whole series. We may often work alone in our studios, but when there’s a problem be sure that someone will step in to help… make sure not to miss the upcoming episodes!

Produced by:

• Andy Boyns (British VO – Turkey)
• Mehmet Onur (Turkey)

With members of the VOICE 2012 “International VoiceOver” panel

• Lofty Fulton (Australia)
• Pocholo Gonzales (The Philippines)
• Simone Fojgiel (Uruguayan – Spanish VO – USA)

EWABS (East West Audio Body Shop – www.ewabs.com)
“Audio Processing: Demystified” at VOICE 2012

• Dan Lenard (USA)
• George Whittam (USA)

and from the VOICE 2012 “Social Media and the Voice Over Industry” presentation

• Dave Courvoisier (USA)

and special guest appearance… William Boyns

Looks like the EWABS solution is going to get us back on track, and just in time with VOICE 2012 just around the corner. Many thanks to all those who’ve made alternate suggestions, if we can’t find a Translatinator we may all have to start studying the book suggested by Dave Bisson…

Have you booked yet? Got any suggestion? Leave your comments…

Where can we find a Translatinator?????

Baba's coming!

With VOICE 2012 just a matter of weeks away, here’s the start of a series of fun [...]]]>

Baba's coming!

With VOICE 2012 just a matter of weeks away, here’s the start of a series of fun promo videos. If you have any doubts about the value of the connections formed at VOICE, the reality of the community, make sure to follow the whole series. We may often work alone in our studios, but when there’s a problem be sure that someone will step in to help… make sure not to miss the upcoming episodes!

Produced by:

• Andy Boyns (British VO – Turkey)
• Mehmet Onur (Turkey)

With members of the VOICE 2012 “”International VoiceOver” panel

• Lofty Fulton (Australia)
• Pocholo Gonzales (The Philippines)
• Simone Fojgiel (Uruguayan – Spanish VO – USA)

and… William Boyns

Have you booked yet? Got any suggestion? Leave your comments…
 

As a voice artist, a producer, or a potential client this [...]]]>

A new exciting chapter in the VoiceOver industry has just been opened with the inauguration of World-Voices. This newly formed member-driven and member-controlled organization will set standards of professional quality and skill to produce recorded audio in a home environment for the expanding commercial market.

As a voice artist, a producer, or a potential client this is great news!

Check out the Press Release below, and get involved in the conversations to enable World-Voices to become the torch bearer of industry standards, enabling all to work together confidently and effectively.

Press Release: Wednesday April 25, 2012

World-Voices Organization Is Founded

Freelance Voice Artists To Have Their Own Industry Association

Las Vegas, NV. World-Voices – a member-driven and member-controlled organization — will set standards of professional quality and skill to produce recorded audio in a home environment for the expanding commercial market. It will also serve as a guild to train voice artists on how to attain those standards.

Advancing technological changes in digital audio recording, and the ability to produce that audio in a home based setting, is prompting rapid growth to the voice-over business. With the growth of this new cottage industry, the Founders of a new VO association and guild representing freelance voice artists who work out of their homes announce the opening of World Voices Organization. (World-Voices.org)

Founding President, Dustin Ebaugh says “…It was time to create a certification organization for the members, run by the members and existing to serve only the members.”

Mr. Ebaugh and the other founders — five other respected members of the world -wide community of home based voice over artists — filed their not-for-profit incorporation documents today in Nevada. A website presence is imminent, and invitations will go out in public notices for people to join.

The newly established World-Voices Organization will also actively work to promote certified members to potential voice seekers through its website and in an aggressive marketing campaign. Materials explaining a proposed structure will be posted on the website.

Founding Executive Vice President, Dave Courvoisier says “All of us organizing members have well-worn experience in another group that failed to value the deep well of member resources. We plan to use that strength in collaboration, and we’re excited about helping others.”

“The home-based voice over industry has grown exponentially in the last 5 years.” says Founder Dan Lenard, VP of Technical Standards. “And its not just commercials on radio and TV. Businesses use of the Internet for advertising and promotion via their websites, a changing audiobook publishing industry, and the rapidly expanding use of computer E-Learning material via the Internet also has created a demand for talented voice artists. Voice artists who can cost effectively create the audio at home for this are in great demand.”

CONTACT:

World-Voices.org

 

Dustin Ebaugh, President dustin@dustinebaugh.com

Dave Courvoisier, Executive Vice President CourVO@CourVO.com

Dan Lenard, Vice President of Technical Standards dansvoice@verizon.net

Chris Mezzolesta, Vice President of Membership chris@voiceguy1.com

Kathleen Keesling, Secretary/Treasurer kat@katsvoice.net

Andy Bowyer, Founding Member abvoices@gmail.com

In fact his first pictures were online within a few hours, which even in history as recent as 2006 was quite an unusual feat. Today marks the “official launch” of his own website williamboyns.com – still fairly basic, this will be [...]]]>

Six years ago today, William Boyns came into the world: Happy Birthday, William!

In fact his first pictures were online within a few hours, which even in history as recent as 2006 was quite an unusual feat. Today marks the “official launch” of his own website williamboyns.com – still fairly basic, this will be the place to go to catch up in more detail about what he gets up to.

The new site is designed to complement his existing Facebook page, but don’t forget to keep track of that too!

For his first birthday, several world leaders wrote to William to send their best wishes (Check these out - they’re genuine!)… now you can do the same, directly on his site!

williamboyns.com launched!

Happy Birthday, William!

Everything you need to know about VOICE 2012 the world’s only [...]]]>

We had so much fun making the unofficial promo “VOICE 2012 in 30 Seconds“, we couldn’t resist bring you an out-take version! See how it really happened… and then make sure you get to VOICE 2012 to have a great time with us.

Everything you need to know about VOICE 2012 the world’s only international convention for voice artists. Brought to you from around the world by members of the “International VoiceOver” panel, and a couple of Voxy Ladies…

VOICE in 30 Secs - Out-takes

Produced by:

• Andy Boyns (British VO – Turkey)
• Mehmet Onur (Turkey)

With members of the VOICE 2012 “”International VoiceOver” panel

• Lofty Fulton (Australia)
• Pocholo Gonzales (The Philippines)
• Priscilla Groves (Ireland)
• Simone Fojgiel (Uruguayan – Spanish VO – USA)

and… Voxy Ladies

• Diane Merritt (USA)
• Lisa Biggs (USA)

The international convention for voice artists, the VOICE 2012 Convention (now in its fourth year) will be held at the Disneyland® Hotel and Resort in Anaheim, California June 13th-16th, 2012.

Other VOICE 2012 promo videos

VOICE 2012 in 30 Seconds

VOice Studio

VOICE 2012 with Mr Snow

Since all the best secret agents I’ve ever heard of seem to work on a “need to know” basis, why should this be any different for us working as voice artists. If it’s good enough for someone defending us, it should be good for our profession, too. [...]]]>

Read this: You Need to Know

Since all the best secret agents I’ve ever heard of seem to work on a “need to know” basis, why should this be any different for us working as voice artists. If it’s good enough for someone defending us, it should be good for our profession, too. Unfortunately you’ve probably already misunderstood what I mean, thinking that I’m referring to the suggestion that they should work with limited and often insufficient information.

Sure that’s the story line in many a novel. The character is told just enough to get started, but I’m thinking of the best secret agents, not the ones which invariably get killed off somewhere during the proceedings!

The fact is that the ones which survive and are successful (OK, I’m really not just talking about secret agents) are the ones who find out what they need to know. Which reminds me of a favourite line of mine from the original stageshow version of the musical “Starlight Express”

“The sad thing about experience is that by the time you have it, it’s just about all you have.”

Not so. Fortunately we’re not rolling stock, and we have a great sharing community of friends in the voice industry, regularly sharing their wisdom…

wis·dom (n)

1. The ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight.
2. Common sense; good judgment: “It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things” (Henry David Thoreau).
3. a. The sum of learning through the ages; knowledge: “In those homely sayings was couched the collective wisdom of generations” (Maya Angelou).b. Wise teachings of the ancient sages.
4. A wise outlook, plan, or course of action.

This leads up to today’s very strong recommendation to check out Paul Strikwerda’s latest blog post, What Some Clients Won’t Tell You

READ THIS because you NEED TO KNOW!!!

Not without precedent, the article is packed full of information both as an excellent checklist for the inexperienced, and as a timely reminder for those of us who ought to know better.

After reading Paul’s article (you’d be crazy not to!) you need to subscribe to his blog (don’t forget to subscribe to mine first, though).

Finally, there’s one more link for you to follow, and that’s to support Paul’s fundraising for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. He has already raised $1390, and has just reset his target to $1750. This is a worthy cause, and I am sure that whatever you are able to contribute will be gratefully recieved – no amount too small… or too large Click on this link to donate.

Links

www.nethervoice.com - Paul Strikwerda’s personal website

What Some Clients Won’t Tell You – Read this blog post from Paul Strikwerda

Donations to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society – Help Paul Strikwerda raise funds to fight MS

VOICE 2012 in 30 seconds

Produced by:

Sitting next to me is a redundant stack of CDs and DVDs, once my preferred method of backing up data. I’ve kept tabs on the various forms of cloud storage, and want to draw your attention to a 50 GB of FREE storage via Box.net

First, cloud storage is a great [...]]]>

Cloud Storage

Sitting next to me is a redundant stack of CDs and DVDs, once my preferred method of backing up data. I’ve kept tabs on the various forms of cloud storage, and want to draw your attention to a 50 GB of FREE storage via Box.net

First, cloud storage is a great way to back up data, either for security or to enable you to access your files from different computers or devices. Flash drives are great, but can you really trust them? External drives are sometimes incompatible between different computers… DVDs… well, they take up room and are hardly mobile. Furthermore I once had a colleague who after losing data on numerous occasions to viruses, and accidental deleting, religiously backed up onto an external device. This was fine until a burglar stole both her laptop and external drives.

Free Cloud storage::

Box (50GB when you use with Android app!!!): http://www.box.net

Dropbox: http://db.tt/TfGWjEC

Minus: http://t.co/2fvpNjuO

SugarSync: https://www.sugarsync.com/referral?rf=dxqzp9zr5jdck&utm_source=txemail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=referral

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I’ve used Dropbox for years, and love the fact that with its desktop application, my files are automatically uploaded onto their system without my having to think about it. My style of working often necessitates that I work on different computers – and I don’t have to worry about accessing the latest file (or collection of files, if I’m keeping things together in a folder for a project) they’re just there, downloaded automatically onto my nominated computers, or available from a website.

 

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Box.net has a nice interface for LinkedIn through which I run my demos on that site… Yesterday my jaw dropped when I saw that for Android device users they are offering a FREE lifetime upgrade to 50GB – check out the link below!

 

 

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SugarSync has a nice app for my phone which backs up my photos via wi-fi (you can also use 3G, but for obvious reasons I chose not to use that), so I can be sure that my precious photos are safe as soon as I’ve taken them. I guess this could also make for faster file sharing, especially when I’m at VOICE 2012, this June.

 

 

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Minus is also a cool place to backup – before the Box.net offer this was offering the largest amount of free storage. So, I’d recommend this too, especially to iPhone users who unfortunately can’t benefit at the moment from that offer.

 

 

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Four options – no doubt you know of others. I subscribe to them all (and might have more than one account with some) because this is FREE backup!!! We all need it, and it really isn’t necessary to pay over the odds for these service (although you can choose to do that if  you wish – I just like hate spending money if I don’t have to!).

Here are some links. I get absolutely no benefit from sharing the incredible Box.net offer with you. If you have an Android device, for heaven’s sake snatch this up (the offer expires mid March) even if you don’t need the storage today, I bet you’ll find a use for it in the future. I also recommend the other sites, believing for back up not to put all my eggs in one basket (my son’s photos, for example are priceless, and duplicates are stored everywhere!!!). DropBox, SugarSync, and Minus are referral links, and we’ll both benefit from some additional extra free storage capacity if you use these:

Free Cloud storage::

Box (50GB when you use with Android app!!!): http://www.box.net

Dropbox: http://db.tt/TfGWjEC

Minus: http://t.co/2fvpNjuO

SugarSync: https://www.sugarsync.com/referral?rf=dxqzp9zr5jdck&utm_source=txemail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=referral