VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[bobsouer]

The first event of the Summit took place this afternoon, an event closed to everyone except those of us that Dan O'Day calls "Repeat Offenders." (People who've been to at least one previous Summit.)

There were about 40 of us there.


The guest of honor was Howard Hoffman, who works at Imaging Director for ABC Radio in Los Angeles, and has also been doing more and more voiceover work in the last 10 years. That's Howard in the blue shirt. And here's an example of his writing and production brilliance. (Howard just gave me permission to post this audio.)

http://bobsouer.com/pix/HowardHoffmanAugust.mp3

This first session every year is always an open-ended discussion. Some of the key things I thought worth writing down:

1. If you now or ever have worked at a radio station, you might imagine that working at a Los Angeles station would be much better. It's not really. The same pressures, demands, difficult sales people, etc. are there. Most LA radio stations have copy written by the account executives, just like at most radio stations in smaller markets.

2. Because of the satirical use the "classic announcer voice", there are at least some radio guys are doing well even in voiceover work in LA these days. Howard said his voiceover success, such as it is, is the result of dumb luck and good timing.

3. Don't say "no" for someone else. Let them do it, and at least some of the time we can be pleasantly surprised when we're not rejected. This comment was made in the context of someone's comment along the lines of "Oh, they'd never want me anyway, so there's no point in asking."

4. On the other hand, we hold the power of "no" regarding our own work. Probably goes without saying, but we can always turn down an offer we don't like. Never allow someone else to push you into doing something that you don't want to do.

5. The greatest value of the Summit is often the stuff and conversation that happens in between the sessions. This was an obversation made by Dan O'Day, but really it could have been made by almost anyone who's been here before. The opportunities to talk with other, like-minded, people is truly invigorating.

6. There were also a spirited discussion about doing voiceover work from the road, with several of us who do that sort of thing chiming in. I noticed lots of folks taking notes.

By the way, there are folks here from Europe (UK, Germany), Far East (Singapore), Australia as well as North, Central and South America.

I'll post additional photos and comments over the weekend, as opportunity permits.
_________________
Be well,
Bob Souer (just think of lemons)
The second nicest guy in voiceover.
+1-724-613-2749
Source Connect, phone patch, pony express

[Deirdre]

Thank you Bob!

I am looking forward to more dispatches from the West.
_________________
DBCooperVO.com
IMDB

[bobsouer]

[Dan-O]

[Pam]

Thanks so much for your posting. Good stuff to hear. I appreciate you sharing!

[Hart]

Bob,

Let me add my voice to the chorus of those saying thanks for the updates. Sounds like a great event so far. I'd love to attend next year perhaps.
_________________
Hart Voice Overs Blog
Brian Hart Productions

[bobsouer]

[Philip Banks]

As Bob doesn't know http://thecorporatevoice.com/aircheck.mp3

[Dan-O]

It makes me smile every time I hear it.

[Glenn Moore]

Good info, Bob. Did they happen to record that session for sale on CD or tape? O'Day does that alot. Thanks!

Glenn Moore

[BenWils]

I love the Bob take.....very glottal (spelling) and very hip. You need your own XM Station....alllllll Bob....alllll the time.....with hair on your head and cans on....errr whatever else you said.

Banksey....member of the day for that one.
_________________
Ben


"To be really good at voiceover, you need to improve your footwork and hip snap."

[bobsouer]

[bobsouer]

[bobsouer]

This was a great day. In fact, in the 10 years that I've been attending this seminar, this was probably the single best day of all of them. Since this is the VO-BB, I'll just mention quickly that half the day was devoted to writing. Since I write quite a bit for one of my jobs, I found both of the segments on writing beneficial. Also, here's a complete list of the countries represented this year, in alphabetica order.
Belgium, Denmark, England, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, The Netherlands, Wales.

Here's a shot of Dan O'Day getting ready to read the list of countries.

And this is the room filling with attendees after a break. That's my giant Diet Coke from Carl's Jr. on the front row next to the center aisle.


Kristine Oller gave an exceptional talk on organzation titled Pursuing Your Dream; Creativity without Chaos. Here are just a few of the highlights from my notes.

Oh, before I begin, in his introduction of Kristine, Dan O'Day read a note written by Pat Fraley. I didn't get it word for word (and Pat if you read this correct me if I'm wrong) but it was along the lines of "my income tripled after working with Kristine for a year."

So, she started with a story about the best archer in a village many years ago; who went off in search of someone who could help him become an even better archer. Months of searching were fruitless. So he began to return home when, as he rode through a forest, he noticed an arrow centered right in the middle of a target painted on the side of a tree. A bit farther, another target, another arrow, right in the center. He followed these remarkable examples of great archery until he came to a small cottage in the middle of the wood. Knocking at the door, he's greeted by a withered old man. The archer asks the man if he is responsible for these extraordinary examples of archery. He confesses that he is. The archer asks if he would teach him how. The old man says, "Certainly. Shoot an arrow at a tree. Then paint the target around the arrow." Kristine then explained that is a good illustration of what she does. She helps people figure out what they're already aiming at, or what they really want to aim at and then organize their lives in that direction.

The 3 greatest problems for us as creative people are: 1. Lack of clear focus. 2. No clear strategy. 3. No momentum. In other words, many of us have a bunch of little flower pots. Each one with a plant in it and we run around day after day trying to give enough attention and water to each little pot. But, this leaves us exhausted and frustrated.

The place of clear focus is our central passion. What do we really want to do? What we must do is bring all of these little flower pots and consolidate in one large pot everything that feeds our central passion, our focus. And, then eliminate those things that don't. We can then evaluate new opportunities as they come along in light of this focus: Does this opportunity feed my focus? Or distract from it?

Once we've identified our focus, we need to develop a strategy that moves us forward toward that central passion, that focus. She used the example of "doing a mailing." Many voiceover people put a mailing together, and send it out; but without any sort of strategy for what follows sending out the mailing. Calls? Emails? Additional notes? When? How often. Etc.

If we prepare our strategy, taking one step at a time, and planning in advance, we're going to be in a much better position of actually reaching our goals, hitting our targets.

Another key point: Organizing is mainly a process of removing the stuff that's clogging our lives, our rooms, our whatever. It's not so much about moving things around, it's about removing clutter. And as we do this, we free up resources, energy and time to concentrate on the key things we should be doing as well as on the even more important things like family, recreation, recharging.

Last notes from Kristine. She described the process of networking as being like creating and connecting dots. If you meet someone at a seminar like this, and send a "follow-up email" that makes a dot. If a few months later, you send another note asking how things are going, that's a second dot. Now you can connect those dots with a line. Do this with a number of people and eventually some of your lines with various people will intersect. And those places of intersection are where referrals and references come from.


Harlan Hogan (talking here with another of the attendees) gave us some extremely practical and useful ideas. The single most important thing he said is that we have to think about what we're doing as a business. And only 2% of our business is actually talking into the microphone for money. The other 98% is looking for clients, keeping the clients we find and expanding our work with our existing clients. He also said "Getting the work is the real work of the voiceover talent."

Other key quotes: "Don't say 'no' to everything. Don't say 'yes' to everything." "No one wants to become a commodity." "The voiceover business has changed from the way it used to be. Embrace the change or forget about being able to work."

Harlan also spent some time discussing the SWOT method for decision making. Strengths. Weaknesses. Opportunities. Threats. Divide a paper into quadrants. List each of these four areas in one quadrant. Determine whether an idea is worth pursuing on the basis of these four factors. He gave his own evaluation of audiobook narrations as an example. While he has a number of strengths to bring to the table, and there are some decent opportunities, the weaknesses and threats outweight (for him) the potential benefits. So, he's decided not to pursue audiobooks. This doesn't mean he wouldn't work on one, but it's not going to be an area of focus.

He mentioned that we much be relentless and ruthless in promoting ourselves. Because much of the time now, auditioning people isn't about choosing the right voice it's about eliminating the voices that don't work.

I'll close this lengthy post with this. Both Harlan and Kristine spoke about the importance of giving. Not giving with the expectation of return, but just giving to truly benefit someone else. The real benefit of being a giving person is that we're helping to make the world better.
_________________
Be well,
Bob Souer (just think of lemons)
The second nicest guy in voiceover.
+1-724-613-2749
Source Connect, phone patch, pony express

[Pam]

This is AWESOME. Thanks Bob! I feel as if I was there with you. Thank you so much for sharing. I am going to print out your post and keep it for reference. Sounds as if you are getting you money's worth of extremely valuable information. Even if we've already heard some of it, it never hurts to hear it again. We can't forget this is a business and like Harlan says, artists spend 98% of your time finding the work, and 2% doing it. Thank you again for the post. Have a great time.