In the Studio with Voice Coaches
Recording a commercial...
During my college days, I spent a lot of time in the studio of WJHU Radio in Baltimore, as their first News anchor.
In the years since then, I’ve missed the studio work, and folks frequently ask me if I’m not the guy they heard on some TV or radio ad. As a result, I’ve often thought of trying to get some work doing Voice Overs.
The one thing I was missing, aside from practice, was a demo. You can’t get anyone to hire you if you can’t send them a demo, and it needs to be properly produced.
Well, as I now have some time on my hands, I booked sessions with Voice Coaches in Schenectady, NY, and I’ve been working with them this week. I’m taking some courses on working in the modern production studio (they don’t use tape anymore?!?!?), and both improving and modernizing my presentational style. We’ve also recorded a number of tracks to use in producing my demo. I’m really learning a lot, and having some fun, as well.
Addendum
As of 27 August, demo production has been complete for several weeks, and the new web site is up and running! Check it out here.
Easter Weekend on Brit TV
Was it coincidental that two of my favorite British TV series “arose” during Easter weekend? I don’t know, nor do I care.
What I do care about is new episodes of both Red Dwarf and Doctor Who!
Red Dwarf returned Friday, Saturday and Sunday on Dave TV with a three-episode story, Back to Earth. It’s very Blade Runner-esque, and a lot of fun.
Even with all of the original cast, something seemed … different. I finally decided it was the absence of the laugh track, which had been in the earlier episodes.
Next, Doctor Who, with a new episode, Planet of the Dead. Shot largely in Dubai, and co-starring Michelle Ryan (of NBC’s Bionic Woman), this episode is one of the last four for David Tennant, and the last “romp” for the 10th Doctor. It ends with a dark, foreboding taste of what is to come in the episodes this Fall and Christmas.
The Fall episode will be The Waters of Mars, and the two-part Christmas story will be the regeneration and hand-off to the eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith.
The biggest difference…
Is the (relative) lack of email.
It’s been a week now since I was laid off, but so far, things haven’t changed much. I still get up at about the same time, and my day is pretty full. After all, I need to get my resumé up to snuff, start looking for prospects, and I’m also studying for a couple of new things (which I’ll tell you about later).
Before going to Sun, I was considered by most to be a heavy user of email. But, even back in 1992, email was the way things were done internally at Sun. We never sent around paper memos. As a result, I developed processes for dealing with the fact that, on a typical day, I would receive between 200 and 400 emails. And that was after all of the spam filters had done their work.
Now, I’m not asking to start receiving a flood of email. I’m simply pointing out that the biggest change I’ve noticed in the past week is that, with only a few dozen emails a day, my entire way of dealing with my on-line life is now very different from what from what it had been.
Opening Day at Millbrook
Yesterday was the first day of the 2009 diving season at our local mudhole dive training site, Lake Millbrook.
It was a bright and clear spring day, though very windy. Air temperature was in the 50’s (F), and the water temperature at the surface was 53F (for the first six feet – below that, it was 39F all the way to the bottom). We had had a lot of rain this past week, so visibility near the surface wasn’t great, varying between 5 and 15 feet. As we got below 50 feet, though, everything was much clearer, and the visibility was around 30 feet. We spotted several small Bream in the shallows, as well as a couple of 12 to 15 inch Bass.
It might be hard to understand the allure of this disused quarry, but it’s convenient and a good place to hone skills or learn new ones. I’d estimate that between 40 and 50 divers turned out for the day.
I had one Dry Suit student, Rick Albert, who came to complete his certification, and I was assisted by my good friend and Divemaster, Ken Chotiner. We got in two dives, with a maximum depth of 83 feet, and a total bottom time of 61 minutes. Everyone remained comfortable throughout, so I’d call it a success.
It was good to be back in the water, though I’m certainly feeling the aches from it today.
Cleaning Up an Online Life…
Since Sun didn’t turn my email account off immediately, I spent most of yesterday frantically trying to identify any web sites where I might have used my sun.com email address as my login and get it changed before it was too late.
Thankfully, the practice of using an email address as a userid isn’t as common as it once was, but I’ve been active on the web since 1993, and have a lot of registrations scattered about.
As I feared, a number of these sites allow changing your email address, but only after sending a confirmation message to the original address, with no clear way of making changes should that address become unavailable. I’m sure I didn’t catch them all, but at least the ones I still use regularly seem to be done. Now, I’ll have to make a habit of checking the settings every time I log in to a site to be sure that they’re not sending stuff to the old address.
It feels a bit strange, but after almost 17 years of having the same primary email address, I suppose there is bound to be confusion and cruft left behind for quite some time.
Of course, I have seldom used my work address for non-work stuff in recent years, but not too long ago, it was uncommon to have more than one email address. Today, I have seven email accounts going to my iPhone, and there are several more on top of that which I only check on occasionally.
While I was trying to do all of that clean-up, I installed WordPress and got my first blog entry published, and packed up gear I had at home. After taking the gear back to the office, I met with a couple of ex-Sun friends for dinner and a few beers.
My RIF package just arrived via FedEx, so I’m going to spend some time figuring out what my benefits are. Looks like Sun is being very generous, so I should have some time to reflect on what I would like to do going forward.
I don’t need to rush around for anything today, so I think I’ll take in a movie (probably Watchmen) this afternoon.
