Well folks, I'm officially accredited. :D

I received the a-ok from SaVoa last week, after jumping through some technical hoops and proving to them that I knew my stuff.  Apparently, they actually thought I did - because lo and behold, I was issued a SaVoa number. 

For those who are unaware (which I'm assuming is most of you as this organization is fairly new - even to voice over folks), http://www.savoa.org/ is the Society of Accredited Voice Over Artists.   Their front page has this explanation:

Accreditation by SaVoa is recognition of a voice over artist's ability to provide vocally and technically proficient broadcast-quality voice over services and to conduct business in such a way that it enhances the profession as a whole. We focus on establishing excellent standards and then promoting education and public awareness to achieve those standards.

Well cool.   It's a small step, but it's great to be able to add that small little stamp of approval to my new venture. :)

I was so tickled to be able to share Rand & Erin's super special day with them.  It was a BEAUTIFUL wedding, there were so many really interesting little touches to the way it was arranged, from the flowers to the centerpieces on the tables and the little quiz that happened around the pictures of couples that were arranged on each table, to the place they had the wedding - which was an old brewery turned into a restaurant, all the way to Adam doing caricature sketches of the wedding guests. :)   A wonderful evening spent with friends, and folk who became friends as the weekend went on.  (Both Rand & Erin have wonderfully warm and friendly relatives.) And it was truly fantastic to see how happy Rand & Erin were.  I'm so very happy that they found one another and that *they're* happy - and believe me - in just about every picture out there, you'll see the two of them beaming at one another (and Erin, you have one gorgeous smile! ;)).

I wish them both every good thing in the universe and hope they have a fantastic honeymoon - and a fantastic life together. 

I'm not a photographer, but keep an eye on ohiblather's & lord_korak's blogs for more official photos.  allisona has some available too.

And while I'm at it, I wanted to wish pafuts a VERY happy belated birthday.  I haven't been in LJ for a while so only managed to make a comment in Scott's LJ, but thought I'd mention it here.  I hope your day was special, Amanda!

It's now online - a story I read for Aberrant Dreams.  It's one of their more popular works of fiction - a story by E.N. Wilson called "The Misfortunes of Bar Dan".  This link leads to the Aberrant Dreams podcast of the reading.  I'm looking forward to doing more for these folks.  This particular story was hugely fun to do. :)

If you have a listen, be warned that it's about 30 or so minutes long.  But if you do manage to listen to the whole thing, feel free to let me know what you think.  And have a look around the rest of the Aberrant Dreams website, if you get a chance.  I think you'll really enjoy it. :)

Just as a little aside, the folks at Aberrant Dreams found me through my work on Librivox.org.  So ... you never know!

I'm doing my Kermit The Frog impersonation and waving my arms about here. ;-)  I have a new commercial demo online now at http://www.voiceoversandvocals.com/sounds/JodiKrangle-CommercialDemo2.mp3 and I'm pretty happy with it. 



Nothing's perfect, of course.  But I think it turned out pretty well.  I'd love to hear your opinion on it if you'd like to comment.  Or you can visit my website and comment privately if you'd prefer. 

It was a TOTAL blast.  Everyone was *so* nice and friendly (even the customs people at the airport, if you can believe it. :D).  The Convention Committee definitely deserve a round of applause for putting together a truly fantastic Memorial Day weekend party :) and I was SO honoured to be a part of it, with Urban Tapestry as the musical guests of honour.  Wow.   Met so many great people I'll look forward to keeping in touch with - learned a great deal (to those of you that were on the voice acting panel, you did a *great* job and I really did learn a lot.  My apologies for having to leave a bit early but I had a prior obligation and didn't want to be late).   Our concert was very well received, the masquerade simply ROCKED, and much fun was had by all. :D

The filk was wonderful, too!  So many hugely talented performers - and a few new faces too!  Both Debbie and Allison have mentioned specifics so I feel a bit silly adding them here.  I'm really not very good at con reports at all so I leave that to my more than capable music partners. :)  But I did want to send out a general thank you to all those that made Balticon so very special.   Thank you again!

Just briefly in other news, and since I tend to talk about voice over work in this journal these days with a lot more frequency, while I was at the con, I was contacted in email by Joe at Aberrant Dreams - a site that posts speculative fiction in both written and spoken form.  They heard some of my story readings over at Librivox and want me to read stories for them. :)  I accepted their invitation immediately.  First off, I love the type of fiction they publish.  Secondly, it's a great way for me to expand my horizons.  And possibly thirdly, though I have yet to ask, they might allow me to use an excerpt in a future narration demo of mine ... THAT would be really cool and helpful.  But whether they do or not, I'm totally thrilled about the opportunity.  I'll be working on the first piece they've sent me to do over the next couple of weeks (though hopefully, it won't take that long).  When it's online, I'll post a link to it here. :)

In the mean time, the quest for a better commercial demo continues ... I'm less pleased with the one that's online now, then I should be.  And I've been working on other stuff to replace it.  I'll let you know when I have a link to that, too.

I just recently posted my two new demos (the commercial and narration demos) on a couple of the voice over message boards so that I could get critiques.  One of the boards didn't say much at all beyond a few "Good job!" comments.  And that from only a person or two.  Otherwise, the message thread was pretty silent.  I suspect most of the folks who have been doing this sort of thing for a while, avoided it like the plague because they saw so many things wrong with it ...

On the other site, someone really cut it apart.  I should qualify that by saying  that everything mentioned was actually constructive and at no point did I feel like the person was telling me that I suck and I should just call it quits and not give up my day job. ;) 

But it brought home (very clearly), a couple of things. 

It's all a work in progress.  And yes, I still have a LOT to learn.

They're finally here.  I did the recording for them over a month ago but they were delivered to me last night.  Yay!

Have a listen at http://www.voiceoversandvocals.com/demos.html if you're interested.  I'd love to hear what you think!

:)

Just to clarify - this will NOT be a con report.  I have absolutely no talent for that, and I'm sure both Debbie and Allison will do a far better job than I will.  I'll mostly just summarize.  I hope you'll forgive me.  Still a little brain dead. :)



As mentioned, this is far from a con report and I know there's LOTS I'm missing ... but I'm going to end it there. Thanks to all those who attended this year's FKO and made it so very special.  And for those of you that weren't there, I hope you make it next year!

Yup.  The subject says it all.  I landed a nice project on Voices.com today - advertising for a Florida golf course called "The Witch". :D  (Yes, I'm sure some of you will find that hugely amusing).  It's just an Internet thing (for their website, I believe) but it was a nice little project, they needed it asap (I mentioned I'd be away from Thursday through Sunday so they asked me to do it TODAY - and I did!) and I was able to accommodate them using my little home studio here.  When I sent in the file to the fellow who was producing the spot, he said "you've outdone yourself" (I spoke to him on the phone in order for him to tell me if what I sent him would work for him).  He seemed very pleasantly surprised at what I could do on such short notice, from my own home, and with a minimum of direction on their part.  (I find myself doing a LOT of self-direction these days.)  It's always nice to hear when you got it right. :)   They got what they wanted and hopefully, they'll think of me again when they have another spot to fill.

What was especially nice was that I actually got it from sending through my regular commercial demo - and a few days back, after the project closed, I wrote it off assuming I didn't get it.  I'm starting to learn that if you audition, just do it and forget it.  Much less stress and pain - and it's far nicer to have a surprise of getting the job than to be supremely disappointed that you *didn't* get it.  (Of course, there are jobs I really want and don't get, but I'm talking about in general).  From the producer of this spot, I learned that originally, the client hadn't wanted a female voice at all.  But when they had him listen to my demo, he changed his mind. :)  After all the let-downs and disappointments (though I haven't let it stop me from continuing to plug away!) of NOT getting lots and LOTS of jobs on Voices.com (the ratio is almost 100 to 1 - ie: 1 job for every 100 auditions!  That's not to say that I do a custom audition for everyone - but it's still a LOT of auditions) , it's nice to know that I *can* actually land something. 

I beat the odds, folks.  That means that maybe - just maybe - I'll be able to do so again. ;)   Working on it ...

Looking forward to seeing a lot of you at FKO this weekend!
And VERY happy for Debbie.  Hope you get the phone call from the doctor tomorrow, Deb!  We'll do everything we can to keep you relaxed and distracted. :D

...there are some recordings of the Play It With Moxie performance from GaFilk 2008 online at http://www.myspace.com/playitwithmoxie .  More are being mixed as we speak.   We're hoping to have enough recordings to make a CD in the near future.   (Yay! :) )

VERY cool to actually hear it on a recording rather than while it's being performed. :)   I think all of us in the band are just so concentrated on getting it out there that sometimes we miss the subtle nuances of what the audience might actually be hearing.  A recording gives us the opportunity to experience that too.  I'm truly honored to be a part of making music with this fine group of talented people!  I SO look forward to my time with the band every year.  Sometimes geography truly sucks eggs.  HARD. 

Well, I screwed up. :-/  I answered a posting on Voices.com yesterday at around 11am before I was going to head off to meet friends.  I was away for the entire day.  And silly me, it didn't even occur to me to FORWARD MY OFFICE PHONE TO MY CELL.  I really should have done that.  I came home to find out that the person who's audition I'd answered, wanted to use me for the job - and had left a message on my machine - but as I got home at about 2am, I wasn't able to get back to him until this morning (he was in PST - so three hours behind me).  By the time I did so, he'd gotten another person for the job.  He had to.  I TOTALLY don't blame him at all.  He needed to know last night that someone was on the job as the project needed to be completed by 5pm PST today.  So he went with someone else.

And because I didn't forward my office phone, I missed out on it.

Definitely a valuable lesson learned.  Had I caught his phone call when he called, I probably could have talked him into waiting to work with me today and I easily could have gotten him what he wanted - and been paid for it.  Because I forgot that simple thing, I'm out of a job.

There IS a silver lining here ...  A couple, really. 

1) I've auditioned for about 105 or so projects on Voices.com and have heard nothing from ANY of them - until this one.  So it gives me hope that there are at least some people out there who put up a job on Voices.com and actually listen to the auditions and choose someone - who has a chance of being me. :)  That's good to know. 

2) Also, when I called up the fellow later on this morning, he said that while he went with someone else, he'd keep me in mind for other projects.  I never know whether a potential client actually MEANS that or not, but it was nice to hear anyway.  And I can hope.

It does give me hope that I can actually GET a job from an audition at Voices.com ... even if this one didn't work out.

*sigh*.  Ah well.  I'll DEFINITELY be remembering to forward my phone when I'm out for the day from now on though (I even went to the Bell Canada site to make sure I knew how to do that and put up a note on my desk beside my phone so that I won't forget!).  That was just straight stupidity on my part.  Bleh.  Lesson learned, like I said.  Wish I hadn't had to learn it the hard way...  But I guess they're more memorable that way, hmm?

Ok.  This is probably something newbies do all the time, but I listened to The Ocean (98.5 in Victoria, BC) to see if they'd broadcast the tagline I did for the ending of the commercial... and I heard it!  :D  So it's online now.  I still find it HUGELY cool to hear my voice on the radio. ;)

Had a fantastic full day practice with Allison and Debbie at Deb's house yesterday (Allison's on March break at the moment).  Debbie cooked in the slow cooker and it was truly YUM.  She's a great cook.  Has WAY more patience than I do, even though I have bought myself a slow cooker.  I'm just not much of a cook, I'm afraid ... ( which was the point of getting the slow cooker in the first place).   I haven't entirely given up yet.  I just need to experiment more and find recipes that both James and I like.  Allison made poppy seed bread and it was YUM too!   I introduced them to Lesser Evil Kettle Corn style popcorn.  (Those of you local to me, you'll find it in the organic section of most Dominion stores).   That was hugely yummy too.   Ok.  Enough about food. ;) 

We got a ton of stuff done and I'm very happy with how the songs are coming together for our concert at FKO.  It should be a fun concert!  I'm really looking forward to hearing the other concerts too!  And of course, to seeing Tom & Sue happily married. :)  They make such an awesome couple.  :D

Ok.  It's not a regularly PAYING job ...
Also, received my Reflexion FIlter screen today ... I set it up (it was pretty hard for a bit and I'm still worried it'll topple over ... but it seems to be holding well enough at the moment) and haven't yet had the chance to test it out.  But soon.  Likely Friday night - and mostly for singing (doing the singing for a demo a friend asked me to do. I love this stuff...

Well, I took the plunge.  One of the most difficult things about trying to record from home, I've found, is ambient noise - and the reflections off of walls in the room I have to record in - namely, my office.  Yes, I could probably pay a huge amount of money for a ton of footage of acoustic foam and plaster my walls with it, but this is also an office - and a house we're planning on actually selling at some point (not in the *near* future, but at some point).  I'd prefer *not* to have to re-dry-wall my office because I pasted things on the wall and the paint and plaster and everything came off when I was trying to remove it. ;) 



Yes, I am officially bonkers.  And I'm spending money like it's leaking out of my pockets.  *sigh*  Because I also upgraded my "Preferred" membership at Voices.com to a "Premium" membership (which is an extra $100 per year).  But you know, I figure this is the cost of doing business.  In any business, you have to spend money to make money.  Now this is one heck of a FUN business, but it's still a business.  So I'm investing.  In ME. :-)



So those are my musings for this Saturday.  Normally, I would be out playing D&D with friends (it's a regular thing) but this week, one of our group had other plans and with the snow coming down in piles like it is now, I figured it was best just to stay home and hibernate.   Friends are coming over tomorrow for D&D though.  I need my fix. ;-)  (Thank you, Gary Gygax - wherever you are now.)

Hope you're all staying warm!

Well, I finally bit the bullet and got myself a paid account.  I'm not into photography so I don't need to store pictures or anything, but it seemed as if I was starting to post more ... and that maybe it was time to make my journal look a little ... nicer. :)  I wish they had a journal design that had a microphone on it somewhere!  Unfortunately, they don't.  Ah well.  Maybe in the future ... 

Hope you have a fantastic day today, filkerdave.  You deserve that - today and all days. :)  *HUGS*

Ok.  I couldn't resist.  Saw a bunch of these around and had to try it myself.  It's a lot of fun. :) 



The room kind of looks like my office ... which actually has a futon and a couple of bookshelves.  There's a throw blanket on the futon ... but crooked pictures?  And clothing on the floor and on a bookshelf?  Naw.  That would drive me nuts.  Besides the fact that I have only one picture hanging on the wall and it's really small.   Plus, my office is a LOT more cramped when I'm recording.  But doing vocals lately from my home studio?  Yeah.. That's kind of what it looked like. :)  I should note also that my hair isn't quite that dark, but I couldn't find the right shade of brown that had a bit of red in it without it getting ENTIRELY red ... so ... I left it at black.  Which I guess matches my userpic well enough.  I should also note, that while the clothing is pretty accurate, I *wish* I looked like that. ;)

Still, Meez is pretty fun.

Edited to add: And a very happy birthday to quadrivium - who along with eringoblog, were the inspiration for this Meez in the first place. :)  Hope you have a fantastic day, hon. 

Ok. mysticfig just tagged me for this ... and I have to say that I *never* do these things so this will probably never happen again. :)  But just cuz I thought this meme was a bit of wacky fun, because HE very rarely does these things and decided to do it anyway, and since I rarely go into such details about some instances of my life, I thought I would actually take the time to answer it.  So here goes.

7 surprising or obscure facts about myself (I'm not sure I have this cut linked, though I did try ... so if I haven't, my apologies and feel free to tell me how that works... This is the first time I've ever attempted it ):


So here's where I spread the misery. ;)  I'd really love to hear some obscure or interesting facts about
sexybass,fireskin,janeg,lord_korak,weirdsister,chirosinger & shannachie.  I know you're all busy, so if this isn't something you can do (or if you've already been tagged before), no worries.  No pressure. :)  I'm just curious. :D 

Well, the business continues apace... I have business cards (yay!), I have updated my voice overs and vocals website to include a new testimonial page and I've completed two voice-over projects that I'm very proud of (both clients gave me testimonials, so they were happy with them too - which is what really matters!) - plus, I was contacted by a fellow I did some backup vocals for (and he actually did pay me) some time ago - kind of out of the blue (I hope to do some more work for him in the future on a different project).  As we were talking and he was telling me that the project was finally going to be duplicated and distributed, I asked HIM for a testimonial too.  So I now have the required three. :D  (I always feel that if a testimonial page doesn't have at least three, it's kind of bare.) 

I also added a new banner at the top that I like much better than the pictures I had there before.  A fellow in Australia by the name of Mark Spivey heard my plea in my latest Muse's News newsletter (I really love the way technology has made it easily possible to interact and collaborate with people from all over the world, don't you?) and gave me a hand with that in exchange for some publicity on the website (an Artist Spotlight, actually).  I really like what he put together.  Now I just have to get some more jobs! 

Still auditioning tons on Voices.com - and getting nothing. (laugh) But I gather this isn't unusual and the jobs I've gotten so far haven't been through the audition process.  They've just seen my profile, listened to my demos and contacted me through the site.  So I'll be patient and keep my chin up.  Considering getting into Voice123.com ... but that's a major investment and I'd like to get a few more paying projects before I do.  I'll be doing a couple of new (and hopefully way better) demos (both a narration and a commercial demo) come mid-February.  I've been saving for it for a while.  This'll be a long distance project so we'll see how it goes. 

And just recently, I've done two vocal projects for folks.  I finally have my home studio setup working the way I want it to.  Another yay! :)  I was able to provide a lead and three backup vocals to one fellow for his project, and was able to provide four vocal tracks for unclechristo.  I'm very happy with the way everything turned out and this means I'll be able to do long distance projects from my own home without too much trouble.  (Yet another yay!)  I'm still no good at editing.  But I know enough to make several tracks in Cubase LE and to export them individually into either a .wav or .mp3 file.  (I can also punch myself in to particular spots if I need to fix something ... so the one track comes out the way I want it to - no editing needed THERE ... but all I do after that is Equalizing.)  I figure anyone I do a track for wants to edit it and mix it into their project on their end ANYway ... so I'm not going to worry about that sort of thing.  When I'm doing a voice over audition though?  I still export the file into a .wav file and then edit it using Audacity. :)  Silly, I know.  But Cubase's editing system still confuses the heck out of me.  I'll eventually figure it out, I suppose, but right now, it's just quicker to use Audacity.  Gotta say, my little Rode NT1-A microphone is doing a great job.  And I have a 15" square box lined with acoustic foam that I have the microphone in the middle of ... It seems to provide what I need as far as room "dulling" is concerned.  So... I'm good to go.

One more yay for good measure.

YAY!

:)

Well, it's finally finished - and in general, I'm quite proud of it. :)  Would love your opinions if you happen to have a moment to check it out:

http://www.voiceoversandvocals.com

I'm not happy with the graphic at the top - the two photos, I mean.  Don't mind the one with the headphones and mixing board.  The CD one with the pen seems pretty general and not all that indicative of what I'm offering ... but it's the best my friend could come up with when he put together the website template for me - and I'd already asked him to go back to the drawing board to change a picture that was there before, that I liked even less ... so felt guilty about asking him to go back to the drawing board AGAIN. ;)  I'd be happy to replace both pictures with a banner that's a bit more in keeping with the particular theme (and obviously would match the color scheme of the rest of the site).

If anyone out there has an idea for a different graphic at the top there - and would be able to actually *supply* it, I'm happy to pay for the work.  My budget is a bit limited at the moment since I have a couple of jobs trickling in but nothing substantial and regular yet - but we can certainly talk and I would want to come up with something amenable to you.  Maybe I can do a voice over project for you in exchange. :)  Let me know if you'd like to discuss this.  You're welcome to email me through the site.

Thanks, guys!