Jodi's Misc. Musings

An officially accredited Voice Over Person

2008-07-15T18:57:28Z

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. :)

A Beautiful Wedding & Happy Belated Birthday!

2008-07-14T22:16:08Z

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!

A Speculative Fiction Story - read by me. :)

2008-06-17T04:56:47Z

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!

New Commercial Demo! Yay! :)

2008-06-04T04:45:57Z

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.

It's the result of several things. First off, the fellow that critiqued my new (now NOT new, but anyway) demo on the message board I posted it to for critique? The one that lambasted it? :D (For good reason!) He and I struck up an email correspondence (the value of taking criticism well, folks!) and friendship where he showed me WHY he thought the other demo wasn't any good, and I practiced on some other pieces he tossed my way. After I'd done a few of these, only stopping work on a particular piece once I'd done it to his satisfaction :) , I thought about it ... and thought that a few of those with some other stuff, would make a great new demo - one that I'd be much prouder of. In general, Lee started me thinking about the voice ACTOR in this equation. It's nice to have a nice voice, surely - but it's not quite enough to truly get somewhere in this biz. Lee Kanne, a fantastic voice over artist and actor in the Chicago area, got me thinking about that "not quite enough" portion of what I was missing. Then I took a course with Debbie Monro (what a DYNAMO! :D I highly recommend a course with her, if you're interested in this stuff - or if you need a voice - and you don't want to use mine. ;) She's truly awesome.) just this past weekend. That provided the other half of the "clue by four" that I needed. I need to PICTURE who I'm talking to! What a novel concept. :) Or it certainly was to me! While it's going to take practice, that conversational read is starting to come a little more easily with every piece I voice. And I owe that in VERY large part, to both Lee and Debbie.

The final part of this equation, came in the form of a fellow in the Oregon area named Dave DeAndrea - ANOTHER hugely talented voice over artist and character voice actor that I met online in the voice over message boards. He's been so HUGELY helpful from day one and very encouraging. But there's something unique about Dave. Not only is he a voice talent, but he also HIRES voice talent as he works for two radio stations in his area. What does this mean? It means that he makes a truly unique sounding board, for one - but he also makes a great producer for a new demo - ie: putting it all together into one seamless, fast-moving piece. He's done that with this, I think.

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.

Balticon Briefly :) and Other Stuff

2008-05-29T03:44:24Z

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.

Demo critiques that bring home just how much more I need to learn about this voice over stuff...

2008-04-24T04:41:42Z

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.

First off, I still have a LOT to learn about this voice over business and technique. I have to find my acting chops (classes will help. If anyone knows of anyone offering this sort of thing in the north of Toronto area, I'd love to hear about it) - because this really is about voice ACTING and connecting with the material you're given. And about clearly pronouncing words without falling back into lazy slurring or other sloppy stuff. About just how nitpicky this business really is (and deservedly so).

Secondly, it also made it pretty clear to me that a demo isn't everything. Sure, it certainly helps. But I also do a lot of custom auditions for potential clients. And I've gotten projects from folks hearing my *previous* demos before these professionally produced, polished ones were even a glimmer in my eye. :) (The ones I produced and found copy and music for all on my own.) You never know what a client will latch on to in an audition or demo that he/she likes or doesn't like. It's kind of all a crap shoot. And like a lot of acting-related professions, a lot of it has to do with being in the right place at the right time.

Partly, I'm sort of "thinking" to myself about all this as, yes, hearing negative things about my demo is kind of a blow, even if it's well-deserved and probably long overdue. ;) Partly, I'm formulating in my mind, precisely what I need to do to work on changing those demos and improving my craft.

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

New Commercial & Narration Demo - FINALLY! :D

2008-04-13T03:55:44Z

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!

:)

FKO

2008-04-07T14:07:02Z

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. :)

FKO is a very special convention for Urban Tapestry. It's our home con. But not only is it right in our own backyard, it's also a really well-run convention with a tendency to choose fantastic guests (Vixy and Tony were GREAT as GOHs this year. Way to go, guys!). Ok. UT are the Filk Waifs (toastmistresses) next year - so that probably makes me a little biased. *grin* But the con com never cease to amaze me - and this year was certainly no exception. Well done. :)

All the guests were wonderful - Vixy & Tony made *fantastic* GOHs and were friendly and approachable the entire weekend. And their CD is AMAZING! I got a chance to listen to it in the car on the way home and I can only say WOW. Truly awesome. I highly recommend it to anyone. (Click here to find out more information on it.) And I must say that Vixy's is one of the voices in filk that I most love to listen to. While of course, Tony's guitar is utterly flawless. Both of those facts made the CD enjoyable from start to finish.

Bill, being able to make witty banter with the audience while carrying a toddler in your arms is truly impressive - not that you don't make a wonderful toastmaster *without* holding Katie. :D And Marilyn Miller was just the sweetest woman I've met in a long time. She was a great Interfilk guest and I hope she'll be back to FKO again some time soon! Heather Bruton is someone who's artwork I have always admired and I'm running out of adjectives here. :) :) We bonded a little over RPGs and running our own businesses and I hugely enjoyed her guest presentation where she let us in on a few of her painting processes. Also got a chance to hear in concert and meet in person, the Bedlam Bards - who are just a riot - and hugely talented, both. Thanks so much to the folks responsible for bringing them to FKO! That was a rare treat and I hope they'll be back some time just for the fun of it.

This FKO was particularly special because it was also where Tom & Sue got married!!! Woohooo!!!! You two make the most adorable couple - you always seem to light up when the other is anywhere near and I'm so happy for you both. Congratulations! :) :) (For those of you that want to see pictures, I'm sure a ton of them will be posted over the next little while, but Debbie took some great ones over here.)

All in all, a wonderful con full of good friends and good music and way too little sleep, as per usual. Thank you also, to those folks who congratulated me on voice over successes. I really appreciate your following that and the encouragement helps more than you can know. :) Thank you again!

Also, a special thank you to Walter - who just plain rocks. :D Dude, when you do something, there's just no half way with you, is there? You made a *great* addition to UT's concert on Friday night. Thank you so much!! :D

As Debbie has already mentioned, a HUGE congratulations also, to those very worthy folks inducted into the Filk Hall Of Fame this year: Colleen and Steve Savitsky, and Bob and Annie Passavoy.

(And thank you SO much for the tea, Colleen! Planning on having a cup of that this morning! :D )

Just a wonderful time and I heartily look forward to next year when Urban Tapestry will have the honor of being the filk waifs/toastmistresses and Heather Dale will be the Guest of Honor. If you haven't heard Heather Dale, WOW will you be in for a treat!! Seriously. Visit her website and you'll get a small inkling of just how wonderful she's going to be (and she's a really sweet person too!).

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!

I actually got a job! :D

2008-04-03T05:50:21Z

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

In case you missed it ...

2008-03-17T02:13:27Z

...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.

A Valuable Lesson Learned...

2008-03-16T19:18:21Z

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?

Newbie Happiness & Other stuff

2008-03-14T18:45:34Z

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

I got a job! Woohoo! :D

2008-03-13T02:12:57Z

Ok. It's not a regularly PAYING job ...

It's a voice-over job. :D The fellow found me on Voices.com just from searching (I now have a Premium account there so it gets me a bit more exposure) - and I'm very amused to say that he originally decided to audition me (along with, from what I understand, three other women and one man) because he liked my last name. Hey - I'll take any excuse! :) But it turns out the client liked my audition best. So it looks like I have the job. It doesn't pay much - at least to start with, but there will be :30 commercials coming at some point (they apparently do three a year, for special holiday occasions). I have no idea how much those will pay, nor if I'll receive anything in the way of residuals ... I suspect not, since I'm non-union. But it's still pretty darned cool and I'm very happy. It's a confidence booster, to say the least.

It's also not going to be airing anywhere near me. :) In fact, those of you in the Vancouver area, have you heard of Jack Ocean FM? That's where I believe it'll be airing ... I've done the taglines already. It's for a shopping mall called Tillicum Centre. There will be :30 second commercials in the future as they do seem to want me to do the whole imaging thing for them. But my contact is a fellow handling the advertising end (at least some of it - I'm not sure if he handles all of it) at Jack Ocean FM. So if you listen to the station and you end up hearing it (it's just a little tagline at the end - "Tillicum Centre - There's more inside!") please do let me know!

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...

I bit the bullet. (Ouch. I think it bit back.)

2008-03-08T20:03:56Z

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. ;)

Previously, I've gotten away with hanging a whole lot of blankets all over the place, trying to ring myself in (loosely) around my recording workstation. But that is a bloody pain in the you-know-where to get out and rig up every time I want to do an audition. And I have to do a LOT of auditions before I get a job (this isn't unusual at all and hopefully my ratio will improve as I continue doing this. :-) ).

I tried building myself a "voice box" - a 15" x 15" box lined with 2" acoustic foam - but it muffled things - I think because as much as I love my Rode NT1-A, it's a bit big for such a small box. So that didn't work ... And that was about as cheap as I could go without totally acoustically treating my entire room. Or hanging blankets all around me every time I wanted to record.

Soooooo.... Been talking to a Sweetwater representative (they are, by the way, the only large American, online musical equipment store I've found that actually ships to Canada for a *reasonable* amount. If you want anything to ship to Canada from Musicians Friend, for instance? FORGETTABOUTIT. ;) It's about three times as much. Nearly $30 in shipping for instance, compared to Sweetwater's $13. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'. Now if only they'd get themselves a freakin' affiliate program! :D ) and he suggested this little baby:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Reflexion

So me? Well. After all the research I've done - including looking into hanging curtains (only I'd use blankets) like the kind they have around hospital beds (ie: from the ceiling) - including stand-alone booths that you can buy and assemble yourself (for thousands of dollars, I might add. NOT gonna happen any time in the next CENTURY...) - I just thought this made a relatively inexpensive (ha!) solution to my problem. I'll still hang a blanket behind me when I record - but ONE blanket as apposed to three or four, is a definite improvement. I ordered it today. I don't know if it'll do what I need it to, but I'm hopeful. It really does *sound* like it'll work.

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. :-)

Actually, I've already gotten an inquiry through Voices.com where the person wrote to me directly from a radio station in BC to do a possible spot for a client of his out there. I don't know if it'll pan out or not, but it's still cool to even be personally asked to audition. And I'm pretty sure that was made possible by having my profile a little more prominent in the Voices.com talent directories.

And yesterday was hugely busy. Did three auditions in the morning, then in the evening, I did the lead vocals and two backup vocals for a song I was commissioned to sing (it's a lovely little folk song and if I'm able, I'll put up a link to it at some point once it's mixed and everything. I think the fellow might put it up on SoundClick where he has an account. We'll see). I also did some dialog for a Librivox reading I'm collaborating on with a fellow reader (The Chemist's Wife by Anton Chekhov - I was (I'll bet you can't guess) the Chemist's Wife and did all her dialog in the story so that he can mix it in with his reading.). It was a lot of fun and I hope to work with Alan again some time soon. Then I did the radio imaging (actually, I sang four short phrases) for a small smooth jazz radio station. They're like little musical tags. Only I sang the four phrases ... in four part harmony. A jazz chord. So slightly discordant (but still works. Those of you that like to play with harmonies will know what I mean). :D It was fun. I've heard from the other two folks that they liked what I got them (the fellow I did the singing for said he played it for his brother and sister since they were in the room when he downloaded the files, and told me that I now have a mini fan club. *grin* That's always nice to hear!). Haven't heard from the fellow I did that radio imaging for yet. I'll see what he says. I probably gave him way more than he needs and he'll just use the lead voice after all that *laugh* but we'll see.

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!

FInally...

2008-03-01T17:53:24Z

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 ...

Happy Birthday! :)

2008-03-01T16:57:41Z

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

JodiMeez...

2008-02-21T16:39:20Z

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.

jodimuse @ 2008-02-16T00:08:00

2008-02-16T05:20:41Z

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 ):

1) I'm a Gamer Geek. Specifically, a role playing game player. As in D&D, L5R, White Wolf, Castle Falkenstein, Star Wars, etc. I have two regular gaming groups - one that meets on Friday nights and one that meets on Saturdays for long periods of time that start in the early afternoon and usually go well into the night or early morning. Some of you knew I did this. Not many of you would have known that I did this with such frequency. For more information on my Saturday crew, you're welcome to visit our website at http://www.thecompanyofstrangers.com where you'll find lists of our games and what's going on some of them, fiction, photos of miniatures painted by some really talented folks, and even a message board. If you're a gamer and you'd like to talk about stuff related to gaming, feel free to register yourself and join the conversations. :)

2) The very first movie I ever saw with my now husband (our first date) was Beetlejuice. I still remember it fondly. :) That was ... oh ... 19 years ago. ;) James looked a lot like Alec Baldwin (who I believe was the co-lead with Geena Davis). He had the glasses and everything. His hair is mostly gray now, but I still think he has a bit of a baby face. ;) Oh - and another little tidbit, I was local to the area and James had come from Alberta and didn't have a car - so *I* drove my dad's car. I was eighteen. And when I got home, I told my mom that this was the guy I was going to marry. She believed me. ;) (My mother knows me well.)

3) I am a huge fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Yes, I admit it. I *love* this show. If you haven't seen it, you *really* should. I'm a big fan of anything animated (yes, many people have asked me when I'm going to grow up and stop watching "kid" shows - but I ignore them), but Avatar actually has really great voice actors and a fantastic story to go along with it. I highly recommend it.

4) I am a bit of a slob. Ok. I've said it. It's not that I leave garbage all over or anything. But it's mostly a thing about dust. We have no rugs in our entire place - just wood floors. So the dust can get pretty thick. And I'm afraid I just don't notice it. My husband is constantly despairing of me.

5) I wrote a fan letter to Piers Anthony and he wrote back to me. This was years ago. I think I was about thirteen - and I drew a pencil drawing of him (with shading and everything) that I copied from the back bio on one of his novels. I think that's why he wrote to me. I have no idea where that letter is now ... But it was really sweet of him to take the time to do that. I still get warm fuzzies when I think of it. :)

6) My University degree is in English (would you like fries with that? ;) ) but I actually started out in Psychology. I switched about 2 years in because I had to take Statistics in order to continue - and my very first Statistics class, I sat in that huge auditorium and could have SWORN the professor was speaking another language. I was so totally freaked that I dropped the class and switched from Psychology to English for my major. I'd been taking English classes every year so it turned out I was pretty much set.

7) I sold computers when the 386-SX was new. Yup. Hardware. When there weren't very many women in that kind of a job at all. My love of computers started from the ground up. ;) When I graduated University with my BA, I didn't continue on to become a teacher or anything like that. I went from working part time at a computer store, to working full time at a computer store.

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

Various accomplishments - Updates and such

2008-02-11T03:00:07Z

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!

:)

New Voice Overs & Vocals website finally online :)

2008-01-19T16:42:35Z

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!

New LibriVox Recording & Helping a friend move

2007-12-16T06:16:20Z

Spent much of today waiting in some friends' newly purchased but mostly empty house for Bell Telephone to come by and start up the phone lines. Wouldn't you know it - he didn't show until everyone was already there. But I was happy to provide my friends some peace of mind that someone would be there just in case. A full day of helping bunches of people move them into their new home - which happens to be about 5-10 minutes from my own. :) I have serious house envy. :) Their new place is utterly gorgeous and I'm so very happy for them. They'll likely start having kids some time soon too. Their new place will certainly accommodate that. Nice to know there are such houses in my own neighborhood! Maybe one day, James and I will be able to afford one. ;)

And in other news. my second science fiction short story contribution to LibriVox is up in the 2nd, Sci Fi Collection here:
http://librivox.org/short-science-fiction-collection-vol-002/

I contributed the short story called "Second Sight" by Alan Edward Nourse. I'm rather proud of it. :D

The voice over work is starting to come in ... I'll have more info to report once I actually complete a few projects. And of course, if you know anyone who needs this sort of stuff, feel free to let me know.

Will be heading to northern Alberta for the Christmas Holidays ... My husband's family lives on a farm out there (about 220 miles north of Edmonton) and while heading to an even colder climate than where I am now isn't really my idea of fun, it'll be wonderful to see some family we haven't seen in a REALLY long time. I'm not used to actually celebrating the whole Christmas affair (since my family is Jewish) so it should be pretty interesting for me on that front too.

I hope you're all having a fantastic holiday season so far!

Science Fiction Short Stories - in MP3 Format!

2007-11-18T17:22:37Z

Well, not many of you would know this, but I've started to read text in the public domain, into MP3 format on a volunteer basis through LibriVox.org, a really fantastic organization. It's a great way to keep up practice in voice-acting while I'm doing my darndest to actually get a paying gig - and it's a lot of fun, besides. :-)

One of the collections I've been involved in, is a bunch of Science Fiction short stories and I thought I'd post the link for you guys to check out since a lot of you like that sort of fiction:

http://librivox.org/short-science-fiction-collection-vol-001-by-various/

I'm reading a short story called "Image of the Gods" by Alan Edward Nourse. There will be another of these collections coming soon. Right now, there are 8 out of the 10 needed stories before the finished collection can be cataloged. In that second collection, I've read another story by Alan Edward Nourse called "Second Sight". I find that I really appreciate the poignant nuances of his storytelling, besides the fact that he always has interesting twists at the end of these short stories of his.

I'll post a link to the second collection when it becomes available.

Congratulations!

2007-10-28T05:50:17Z

I just wanted to write a short note to congratulate all those folks who won a Pegasus award at OVFF this weekend. WELL deserved - each and every one of you. :) Wish I could have been there to give you a hearty round of applause and hugs personally, but since I can't, please accept this as the virtual equivalent. :) You all ROCK. :D

Wow. Twice in one day. ;) - home studio advice & A visit with Tom & Sue

2007-10-20T03:25:49Z

This isn't blatant self promotion now. This is asking all you incredibly knowledgeable and intelligent people out there who are into home recording, some advice. I hope that's ok! :)

So any voice-over work I've done so far has been done in a studio environment. There's a fellow that lives just down the street from me, who charges only $25 per hour and is really great to work with. He's the one that helped me with my demo and it was an extremely enjoyable experience.

That said, it looks as if, if I'm going to make a living from this, I really need to be able to make at least rudimentary recordings within my own home studio. I've been thinking about this a while. And I'd also like to be able to offer vocals for songwriters who don't sing (ie: demos) or backups for people who might like to spruce up a recording. Voice over work is a lot of fun (and can be a lot of - though enjoyable - work). Singing is my passion. :)

So here's the question. I already have a Sennheiser e835 microphone and I'm intending on purchasing a Behringer Xenyx 1222FX. I'll be recording using the USB interface and my laptop computer. Are there any (fairly inexpensive) software programs you'd suggest? Any tutorials around or advice you can give me on how to learn more about this? I'm pretty much a complete newbie at recording on my own but I'd like to learn more without hurting my brain too much. ;)

Thanks, guys!

Oh - and Happy Birthday khaosworks! I hope you had a fantastic day. :)

And in other news, had a wonderful visit with Tom and Sue who are back from their world traveling in Germany and the surrounding area. Debbie hosted myself, Tom and Sue and Allison with John (Allison's husband) joining us later. It was great seeing everyone and spending a relaxing evening just chatting, watching videos and the like. And as per usual, Deb was a great hostess (and a fantastic cook!). Thanks for taking care of us all so well, Deb! John went home with cheesecake. I'll be surprised if it lasts the night. ;)

A new page for Voice Overs

2007-10-19T14:05:05Z

Well. This seems to be my time for actually posting here. Though ... I guess it's usually for blatant self promotion. :} Ok... maybe not. My last post was just made out of frustration. :) (Not that *that* situation is getting any better. But I digress.)

This time, we're back to the blatant self promotion. ;)

I've started getting more seriously into voice over work and I've gone into a local studio here to make a demo of what I can do. With that demo, I've put up a site for my voice overs and vocals (there will be more than one page probably by the end of November) that contains sound samples. I've also joined Voices.com - so if you have a problem hearing any of the audio there (Debbie mentioned she did ... though I'm not sure why that would be ... Let me know if you experience any problems? If you're at all interested in having a listen, that is. Certainly no obligation for you to do so.) you can go to my page on Voices.com at http://muse.voices.com/ .

Just spreading the word out there in case anyone might have need of something like this. I figured it couldn't hurt. :) While the demo's are unable to be modified at this time, your comments are welcome. Though a "you suck" with no explanation probably isn't going to remain in my comments for very long. ;)

Incidentally, though I appear to have missed it, happy birthday, Judith! I hope you had a fantastic day! :D