Good afternoon, my fellow second-quarterers! Ready to start this fourth of a year with a bang? I am! I’m fully recovered from my cold that was so generously given to me by a caring stranger on the flight to LA last week. Sharing is caring, you know…
Being sick for all of last week & losing my voice was a mixed blessing. It gave me time to reflect on FaffCon 4 and incorporate what I learned into this month’s Action Plan as well as update my Annual Goals. So what’s gonna change…?
I will have two main focuses (foci?) for the rest of the year: booking more commercials and landing more agents. When I started my VO career, the only kind of voice work I knew of was commercials so I focused solely on that. Once the industry “spoke to me” told me that e-learning was the majority of my revenue, I largely abandoned pursuing commercials. Also because I had a very young sound and the announcer-y style was still dominant. Things certainly have changed! My voice has evolved over the years so now I can sound like a grownup, so to speak.
The commercial thing and the agent thing kind of go hand-in-hand. The majority of VO work that agents submit talent for is commercials. So, since I stopped pursuing commercial work, I stopped pursuing agents. On top of that, I got so busy doing long-form narration and was so productive working from home that I couldn’t be bothered commuting three hours round-trip to NYC just to audition for a spot that 200 other dudes were also up for. It just didn’t seem efficient or cost-effective. (It still doesn’t, actually)
So with all that in mind, I’m gonna make another push. Any recommendations of agents to submit to would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to PM me and I will return the favor!
TIP OF THE WEEK: Basics, basics basics. Over the past few years I have lost sight of the basics of both my profession and my craft. Book commercials. Land agents. BREATHE! Yes, I forgot to breathe. Long story, don’t worry about it. My point is that you have to stay focused on the essentials. The fundamentals, as they say in sports. Practice your dribbling and your footwork, keep your eye on the ball, all that crap. They call it fundamentals for a reason!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: There’s no such thing as early. There’s just on time and late. Chris Rock
STUFF!: I want to give a shout-out to Lisa Marie Latino of Longshot Productions.
She’s the client whom I’ve had the pleasure of narrating the McGraw-Hill FCU Financial Literacy Series for. I got the chance to meet Lisa in person last week and she is a force of nature! Not only does she own her own production company, she is developing multiple TV shows, does on-camera work for the New York Giants, and is an aspiring voice actor. I strongly recommend her to produce your next project!
From Tom Dheere’s apartment, this is Tom Dheere, GKN News…