So, its been about a week since I posed the question:
“I have a question regarding your media campaign production. How much of your ad production for print, radio, and TV is actually done by talented people in NB? I am asking the same question of the A, B, C, D and F , as well. Thanks, Rick”
I received only 2 answers from 5 of the political parties running candidates in the province, as noted in my previous blog post. This was a question regarding how they made use of NB based companies or individuals. Only 2 took the time to answer and 3 others could not. Or can’t.
The Parties running in this election are listed below and have their order listed in no way indicates whether they answered or not, or my personal preference as to whom I may vote for:
So, when that party candidate or party leader starts extolling the virtues of NB small business, maybe you should be asking how these organizations actually utilize local business. Seems only 2 of 5 cared to reply, or could.
Feel free to share your thoughts.
See you at the polls! Be sure that you vote! It does make a difference, that day and everyone until the next election.
No one came right out and pressured me, teased me, or just plain shoved it in my face. I just started. It was a way for an insecure kid to fit in with new people at a new school. One day, I just bummed a smoke from a kid I got along with. It was a way to create a somewhat different part of my identity that I knew of myself from the kids that knew me from Grades 1 – 9. A bad choice, yes, we all know that. I did, too. My dad quit for me and my siblings when I was 4. I knew it was unhealthy but I did it anyway.
Somehow, 22 years and thousands spent on cigarettes passed and I was suddenly looking at a 4 year old copy of me. The one day that I decided that I had to make a change was the day that I went with my Dad to the cemetery in the parish where he grew up and where my parents had decided to move back to retire. Dad had volunteered to tend to some of the grounds keeping as a way of contributing to the parish and also to look after some family plots. I decided it was good time to show my youngest son some of his family history and where his great grandparents, aunts and uncle were buried.
We went by some and I discussed with my Dad and son who these people were, read their names and how they passed. But one grave marker really stood out and made me take pause as I read it from over my young son’s shoulder. My Dad’s older brother, who passed of a massive heart attack at the age of 43 just months before I was born . He left behind several children who were young and a wife. I was only 5 years younger than that. He was a heavy smoker, as was I at 2 packs a day, overweight ( i still am) and he enjoyed his drink. I enjoyed mine, too but less volume than he, I found out later. The similarities were a little too much for me to ignore, so I decided that some kind of change had to happen. The first one was that I had to quit smoking.
As with most smokers, I had attempted to quit before. I actually tried twice with smoking cessation products but to no avail. This time – cold turkey – and I needed a quitting buddy. Junior was a very willing recruit. I knew I’d have my weak moments and made a deal with the little devil – If Daddy wanted a smoke, I had to ask him if it was OK. His job was to say No. It was my job to not have any cigarettes or feel like a complete ass for breaking a promise to a 4 year old even if he did say yes just to be a little turd (its genetic – mother’s side). I still have nightmares that I started again and he’s found out. It wakes me from a dead sleep to this day.
Not really a spoiler alert but I did quit and have been smoke free since. 6 years and counting.
I started doing voice overs when my son was just coming up on the age of 1. His birth more or less prompted me to go for it and start making some money at what some people said I should be doing. So, I did. As you all know, when you wear headphones while recording, you gain an intimate knowledge of the sounds that come out of your mouth and into the mic, be it from vocal chords resonating down below or the sounds that the moisture makes in your mouth as you shape the words you’re paid to say. You also hear up close the sound of your breaths as it passes in and out of your mouth and windpipe to power your money maker. As a longtime smoker, this is where I started to understand the damage of my tobacco habit. The rumble of the phlegmmy gunk and the slight sound of wheeze crept into my recordings and were forever in my headphones when I wasn’t reading or when I was gathering breath to read the next bit of copy. It was always there. I was a little alarmed by this, at first, but after I had seen my uncle’s gravestone, those sounds of gunk and contaminants that were being captured by the microphone, I knew had to make this quitting thing happen and soon.
I haven’t had a smoke in 6 years, surprisingly no cravings and all those gross sounds are nowhere to be found unless I’m fighting off a cold. Every edit where I can simply erase a bit a breathing that doesn’t sound like it needed some kind of pipe cleaner to clean up is another reminder I made a good choice and that it was worth it. Did quitting help improve my sound or performance? I can’t really attest to that but I would really like to think so. What I can attest to is that I feel more confident in what I sound like, how i feel when I’m performing and happy that I don’t hear those unhealthy breath noises in the spaces between the words.
There’s also the nice feeling of knowing that you don’t reek of smoke when meeting a client for the first time. (Sorry, that’s the quitter in me 😉 )
I’ve always been impressed with this guy and the work that he’s done. As he’s gotten older and as have I, I appreciate his work more.
After hearing more of his story in the interview audio, I even envy him now.
He’s been very fortunate and the breaks he’s gotten in his line or work are interesting stories in themselves. He refers to them as “breaks from the algorithm”.
He was asked if he had any regrets. He says he had tons. It made me think of one definite regret I have. Of not following a path in some form of broadcasting earlier in life.
Some good advice in there for that teenager looking at going on to post secondary education or currently in it.
Have a listen to the interview with “Strombo”. I’m sure it’ll impress you as much as it did me.
Bryan Cox. That’s a name I associate with generosity and just a nice guy when I think about my experience in Voice Over. He’s probably the first and only person I ran into that was welcoming when i started getting interested in doing voice over. Like many of us that want to begin doing voice overs, we have lots of questions. Bryan was a big help. He never asked for anything in return, just an honest pat on the back over the phone or on the net.
I learned a little more today after reading this article today Bryan and appreciate his generosity that much more now. Oh yeah, he’s a pretty funny guy, as well. Look him up for that stuff, too, and STAY OFF OF HIS LAWN!!
I’ve been struggling lately to come up with some relevant content to add to my blog since I last posted. After coming across this post on Twitter (shared by someone else on top of that) , I’ll gladly share it along to my readers and twitter followers as well. Very good advice and very good habits to start and maintain. Great work, Mr. Dunn.
As work from home voice-artists, we are a segregated lot. Our time recording is spent in the lonely convenience of closets, spare bedrooms, under moving blanket tents and for the truly fortunate, a sound booth. Regardless of where we record, we are usually solo, self-directing to the point of our best performance. Sure, there are patched or ISDN sessions with directors talking to us from some remote location. Still, we are standing by ourselves, behind a mic and putting our best VO effort forward. We are alone.
Since there is usually nobody but me, myself, and JC controlling how my sessions go in my home studio, there are a few things that I do for each session to make sure when I’m done recording my time editing is used efficiently.
The following might seem obvious for some and super simple to others. For me, these tips give me an extended…
In the lines of work I did, I used to get it all the time that I “should be on radio” or doing commercials – and those are all great compliments. Its does take more to doing voiceover than just jumping behind a mic and talking. It takes practice, patience and persistence.
Practice – Not just reading out loud to yourself, although it doesn’t hurt, but doing the read on a mic and recording it as a dry run or for the real thing
Patience – You are highly unlikely to be the next Don Lafontaine, Ted Williams, Bill Lyman or one of the multitude or trademark voices you hear everyday and can’t put a name on it. You are you, and you will learn with each script you read. You will get better and more people will like your work.
Persistence – Keep doing it. There is a saying I heard about doing VO‘s and that “work begets work”. Keep chanting that mantra in your head and keep archiving what you did. One job will lead to another.
But how do you get started? Whats “the” or “a” first step?
Try volunteering.
Yeah, I know, its free. Crazy, what? But here is the silver lining – “Work begets work”. If you can’t show someone you can do it, why hire you and not the next guy? When you’ve done it, someone will hear and believe.
And where would you go and volunteer? Well, for starters, there is always associations that do work for the vision impaired (in Canada, we have VoicePrint or CNIB). Also, some cable companies here in Canada (like Rogers and RogersTV) have volunteer programs that allow you to create some of the magic behind the camera and train you in various aspects, or just give you a chance to be On air.
Why would I advocate this route ? Because donating my time and skills for one of these volunteer organizations helped open doors to VO work for myself and helped give back to the community. And I am likely going to do it again, having just auditioned for another volunteer organization to donate my voice to some of their projects. Why not help make something a little better whilst trying to make your life a little better?
Of all the non-9/11 stories I have read today, this is the one I liked the most. Its a feel good story all its own. A TV remote that knows when to kill the volume when certain media “Whooers” ( thats how my uncle said it, and thats the best way I’ve heard it pronounced) come on to the TV. I know, why not just turn the channel? Because they might be there, too! I love it. Gotta get me one!
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
Rick Arseneault Voice Overs 