Back from Faffcon 2: Electric Boogaloo

I was pleased to be able to attend not only the first Faffcon voicever unconference last September in Portland, Oregon, but also the just-concluded Faffcon 2 in Atlanta.

Faffcon is the brainchild of LA voice talent Amy Snively, and is designed as a peer-to-peer idea-sharing “unconference” rather than a strictly-scheduled conference or series of marketing or training seminars. It is designed for working professional voice talent only, so that ideas shared may be useful to one or many or all talent. Egos were checked at the door, and everyone gave and shared freely over 10 hour-long breakout sessions, the contents of which were devised often on the spot by attendees. The result of this was 2 solid days of so-called “golden nuggets” of information that we could take away and use as we saw fit in our own voiceover career paths.

The ideas shared touched on the various technical, performance, and business/service aspects of the industry, and overall it was a sense of “This has worked for me, maybe it will work for you as well”. The layperson may think of actors and other creatives as guarded and hesitant to share anything that might possibly threaten their success, but this proves quite the opposite. It was a great experience, and I look forward to attending the next one, coming up in September of this year.

Uh-Oh! 2 Syllables, One National Spot

A voiceover casting went around in November 2009 for a national TV spot for Kaopectate, it was blogged about and discussed on the voice over forums around the web, I would imagine a great many VO talent auditioned for it – but I was pleasantly surprised to get a phone call from my New York agent Erik Sheppard, that I got the project, which consisted of just 2 syllables – “Uh-oh…” while an animated man on screen has a little tummy trouble! Connie Terwilliger got the woman’s “Uh-oh” and the resolving “Fast!”, while another male VO did the announcer portion.

This represents a great step forward for my VO career and I’m really thankful to the agency folks who saw fit to have me on the project.

“Let’s talk about sellin’ cars, Paul…”

It’s been a great stretch-out for the production chops as I continue to service KF&B Advertising in Dallas with VO and production on auto TV spots for various Southwest markets. Using Cubase multitrack software I can control the mix automatically, ducking background music and goosing important copy points where necessary, as well as adding any effects where called for. I also have access to fine female talent if your spot needs a more subdued or elegant female sound.

WHAT A SURPRISE – CM on C-SPAN!

On Friday November 6, I was watching C-SPAN as HearTheBill’s Kat Keesling was slated to be on Washington Journal to talk about the website and our volunteer efforts. Imagine my surprise when the host introduced an audio clip, and there was my voice reading a portion of the bill, framed by live video of the Capitol Building and my name emblazoned on the screen! Very cool.

NOVEMBER 2009: New Clients & Readin’ Bills

There has been a nice influx of activity in recent weeks – welcomed some new clients and continued serving my existing clients as well.

Of course I have spent a lot of time in the booth volunteering to read health care legislation for HearTheBill.org – we’ve been scrambling to keep up with Congress on all these revisions and new bills introduced, but we’re doing it! By this point I can read those subparts and subclauses with the best of ‘em!!!!

Thanks to the generosity of one of my fellow VOs, I am taking care of one of his clients and producing auto dealer spots for the agency. This has been a great exercise and learning process in production for me, as despite the fact that I have been producing music recordings for 25 years, I had never done actual spot production before, which is certainly a totally different animal…But thanks to the chops I do have getting around a PC multitrack recorder, it was quick work to arrive at some killer sounding auto spots. So thank you to Sid Whatley and to Martha Kelly of KF&B Advertising in Dallas, this is a great stretching exercise and I’m glad to be able to fill your needs quickly and effectively.

The ISDN is finally getting a decent workout, doing live hookups for spots for the Beau Rivage resort in coastal Mississippi (airing in Atlanta), First Energy (Cleveland), United Way (also Cleveland), and “MySims Agent” for EA Games, which is going to air on Nickelodeon. So I must say, it’s been a decent fall so far!

SEPTEMBER 2009: In Print and On Air

As part of the media push for HearTheBill.org, I have been contacting local and regional news and media outlets letting them know of the project. On Saturday 9/5 an article about the site, myself, and voice acting in general, ran in the Raleigh News & Observer! You can read it here. Then on Labor Day, a news crew from Wilmington’s WWAY-TV3 News came to my home studio to interview me about the site, and more about voice acting, it was quite interesting! You can read the article and see the video here.

Listen, then Decide. Voice Actors Read HR3200

In an effort spearheaded by my extremely talented and driven colleagues Diane Havens and Kathleen “Kat” Keesling, over 80 voice actors and other volunteers have banded together to record the entire text of House Bill HR3200, the current version of the health care reform bill. It was done in the spirit of public awareness and an attempt to make the task of taking in and digesting 1,088 pages of legislation, perhaps a bit less daunting.

Each talent took a chunk of 5, 10, or 20 pages (or more as needed) and recorded them following conventions for legislative text (sections, paragraphs, clauses, etc.), the files were then cataloged and matched to the corresponding text version so the public can download and listen as a podcast, as an audiobook, or in whichever manner they need to hopefully better understand the legalese behind the scrappling at town hall meetings. Voice actors will re-record portions of the bill that change with subsequent revisions and developments.

There is absolutely no agenda or position taken by the site or any of its participants, it is a strictly-volunteer, strictly-public service offering.

Listen or download for yourself at www.HearTheBill.org.

Hello, NEUMANN!

I have completely upgraded the signal chain in my booth, and am now recording on a Neumann TLM-103 microphone through a Grace 101 mic pre-amp, for broadcast-ready sound.

Director of SaVoa

I am pleased and honored to have been asked to become a member of the Executive Board of Directors of the Society of Accredited Voice Over Artists, and will be involved in overseeing the activities of the guild, as well as helping to develop programs and other items to educate and assist accredited voice talent members of the guild in their own voice businesses.

Now with 100% more ISDN!

I have taken “the plunge” and now have ISDN lines installed in my home studio. My codec is a Telos Zephyr Xstream and is capable of transmitting/receiving G.722, AAC, L2 and L3 audio up to 128k! I also offer APT DDD-2 (”3D2″) by appointment.  So if you are a studio or voice seeker in need of an instant voice, get in touch!

Added to StudioCenter.com and Skillsoft.com

I’m gratified that the folks at StudioCenter.com (the very busy ISDN-only production house) and Skillsoft.com (a major e-learning producer) have added me to their talent rosters. I look forward to serving many new clients through StudioCenter, and have had a good time providing narrations to Skillsoft on our Skype-to-phone sessions between my studio here in Wilmington, and their offices in Dublin, Ireland.

Talkin’ silly for Microsoft!

Via my California agent Shane Cormier at CWA, I landed a fun project from the Creature agency out of California, a web film for the Microsoft Windows Home Server. I play the server! It’s an animated film for the web called “Mommy, Why is there a Server in the House?”, and we did an ISDN linkup, once again with me at NorthStar Post at EUE/Screen Gems Studios, with voice actors and creative people in 3 different locations in California as well as Seattle! Gratified that the creative folks and the client liked what I brought to the character, can’t wait to see it! Thanks again to all!

Chris on MTV2!

The MTV Networks series “Invincible” has been airing on MTV2 in conjunction with its worldwide release on iTunes and other online media outlets. It is an animated comic using Bomb-XX technology to really bring the comic panels to life. Chris portrays Mr. Hiles, teen superhero Invincible’s high school physics teacher, a rather meek man who may well be hiding something. Check out the series! Produced by GAIN Interactive in association with MTV New Media.