VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

Jason Huggins · Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 7:40 am Post subject: The ever shrinking hard drive

I was just curious, how long do you keep auditions on file? I have kept everything for the past year (just because I have been lazy about organizing), and have found my hard drive shrinking. Is there really a reason to keep auditions? Potential demo material? "Game films?"

Bish · Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 8:32 am Post subject:

I keep everything. I'm a self-confessed pack-rat. I record everything in aiff format, and everything I've ever recorded is filed away for posterity. This includes the aiff files for a dozen or so audiobooks.

Drives are so cheap nowadays. Every so often I archive a bunch from my working drive onto my DroboFS (which is currently stuffed with 5 x 2TB drives).

I know. It's sad. Medication doesn't help.... but one day, I'll find a perfect phrase on one of them that will slot into my demo and make it a killer.

Yeah. Right.
_________________
Bish a.k.a. Bish
Smoke me a kipper... I'll be back for breakfast.
I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls.

Jeffrey Kafer · Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:18 am Post subject:

I keep everything, too. Worse yet, I back it all up to the cloud.
_________________
Jeff
http://JeffreyKafer.com
Voice-overload Web comic: http://voice-overload.com

imaginator · Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:33 am Post subject:

i cull auditions every so often. listening to the good ones where i didn't get the job makes me feel just as bad as listening to the ones even i can tell were so bad i never had a chance.

guilty on the packrat-pack status. although i finally started throwing out some old reels from the 70s...figuring that documentary about me on the Biography Channel is probably not going to happen.
_________________
rowell gormon
www.voices2go.com
"Mr. Warm & Friendly Voice...with Character!"
Rowell Gormon's Clogged Blog - http://voices2go.com/blog

Lee Gordon · Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:49 am Post subject:

I, likewise, keep everything. If my hard drive starts to get a little crowded, I will dump a batch of stuff onto DVD.
I don't believe Carbonite routinely backs up audio files, so I think I probably need to specifically designate my audition folders for backup. I should do that.

By the way, a day or two ago, one of our VO-BB members posted on Facebook that one of her clients had lost a bunch of audio files dating back a year or so and she was able to be the hero by digging into her archives and re-supplying everything,
_________________
Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

Bruce · Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 10:17 am Post subject:

Every few months I toss out all my auditions. They're in totally separate project files, month by month. If I haven't heard from these potential clients in 90 days or so, I'm pretty sure I'm not getting the gig. Hasn't hurt me in over 14 years of running my own studio.

I do however go through them all and save anything that might be good demo material later. Many of my auditions are much more interesting that the paid stuff I do every day.

Regular work folders I keep for at least two years, longer if I have an inkling they might come back for it. Files that I know will be idle for a long time I move to a separate storage drive, called "Old Files" of all things, and that and everything else gets backed up daily when I've been busy.

By tossing out files I don't need I've kept my backup material under 500 GB. If I do many more audiobooks that will certainly change.

B
_________________
VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

Donna · Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 10:52 am Post subject:

I'm a dedicated 'throw-stuff-outer'. Commercial/corporate auditions I keep a week, maybe. Audiobooks maybe a little longer, but not usually.
Actual work gets backed up to external HD, thumb drive, and cloud where it will probably live forever, or until I decide to ditch it.
Commitment issues? You bet.
_________________
Dangerous.

Donna Postel
donnapostel.com
donna@donnapostel.com

Frank F · Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 12:05 pm Post subject:

I am a bit more like Bruce. I keep a few (dumping them off to CD or DVD's); the rest I toss after a few months.

All actual paying gigs are kept for a couple of years, at least. I recently had a
client come back after six years and wonder if I still had a file - "Yes, I did"!

It's a bit like spring cleaning when I clear my hard drive(s) and leaves a breath of fresh air in my cluttered mind.

Frank F
_________________
Be thankful for the bad things in life. They opened your eyes to the good things you weren't paying attention to before. email: thevoice@usa.com

Jason Huggins · Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 1:34 pm Post subject:

I do enjoy looking back, and noting improvement. I only have a 500GB backup also, so it looks like DVD archives are gonna have to be the way to do it. Maybe I'll just archive to DVD every quarter and delete everything on the working computer.

Jeffrey Kafer · Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 1:42 pm Post subject:

Auditions, BTW, I don't keep. Send and delete. If I REALLY need to review an audition, I can grab it from the email I sent or go to the P2P and listen. Never had to, though.
_________________
Jeff
http://JeffreyKafer.com
Voice-overload Web comic: http://voice-overload.com

Lee Gordon · Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 8:53 pm Post subject:

I even save the audition notifications from the P2Ps. I just checked my Voice123 folder and it contains 16133 messages dating back to 2004. Perhaps I should think about cleaning it out. Gasp

_________________
Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

Donna · Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2012 7:00 am Post subject:

Lee, accepting that you have a problem is step 1. Inoccent

_________________
Dangerous.

Donna Postel
donnapostel.com
donna@donnapostel.com

jsgilbert · Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2012 10:19 am Post subject:

I have an e-SATA dock for my computer, which allows me to use relatively cheap and fast internal e-SATA drives as external drives. I generally fill up one every 4 - 6 months and keep them as archives. I write up a reference sheet that lets me know what's on it.

Otherwise, my main system has a 512 gig SSD drive as my boot/ program drive and a second internal 1 tb drive for storing data. On the 1tb drive I generally keep everything that's relevant for the past six months or so. I will generally archive auditions every 60 - 90 days, depending.

I keep some auditions around strictly for reference purposes, as in I liked my tone, delivery or a particular character I came up with. Billing and marketing and other things I generally keep 3 years worth of on the system. I also have 5 years or so of emails live on my system. And I have files for ongoing projects, such as e-learning. If I haven't worked for a client or on a particular project for over 18 months or so, I'll generally archive it as well.

I also record all my auditions as 24 bit wav files. My agents know that if a client wants to use one of my auditions "as-is", that I can send over the wav, so that the client doesn't have to settle for the mp3.

I have also taken many of the sound effects and music from my CD's and burned them onto a drive as well. It wakes it a lot easier to plug in a hard drive and have it all there in one place. It's saved an entire bookshelf in my office. I have the CD's in my storage room, just in case.

I'd also recommend using some sort of back up software or service. It's a great idea to have those backups kept away, whether in the clouds or some safe place off-premise. I try to do this weekly, but sometimes it's every two weeks, still it's a lot better than having to reconstruct everything. I actually use a cloning software to backup my programs and live data.

Some of the more important items that I have archived are also backed up as well. You probably don't want to risk losing any early work you've done or your very first demo.
_________________
j.s. gilbert

js@jsgilbert.com
www.jsgilbert.com

"today is the first day of the rest of the week"

Lance Blair · M&M Joined: 03 Jun 2007 Posts: 2281 Location: Atlanta

Definitely save my auditions high res and keep for a while. Plenty of times where the client wanted the audition as a keeper or they come back asking me to 'do it like the second read'.

For projects, I keep for 1-2 years, and save both on a drive and at my website and sometimes in the cloud as well depending on the client.
_________________
Skype: globalvoiceover
and now, http://lanceblairvo.com the blog is there now too!