VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Philip Banks]

1 - Stop implying how many items there are in a list. There are SO not 2015 to go.
2 - 99.9% of what we do is not ART. Allow the business to fund your artistic endeavours.
3 - Stop claiming you can't make decisions. Whilst driving a car 1 mile you will make 12,000 decisions. If you drive at 60mph that's 200 decisions per second.
4 - Be a girl! Girls want to get it right, guys need to be convinced they are wrong. You need to be open to learn not ready to pick a fight.
5 - Opt out of MOST social media dramas as they do not put money into your business and they take nothing out. Why risk an aneurysm over something neutral?
6 - Networking requires that you shut up and listen. Last Summer I took a friend to a VO networking event. Karen was the European Brand Director for a major international fizzy drink Co. We had a great time. She walked away with ZERO, nil, none, no business cards given to her by VO people or VO agents.
7 - ASK QUESTIONS. "Hey I've got a bunch of work for you if you shave your head and move to Portknockie!" How to reply "Wow I didn't know you made the Voice casting decisions. How do you do that?" Most people DON'T DO THAT and if they did they probably wouldn't tell you.
8 - Signals. What about you tells the big players (buyers) that you are a Little Leaguer? One GREAT casting director told the world about knowing the best (blah, blah ,blah) voice. Such a claim would see the voice concerned with a mega IMDB listing ...NOTHING! 27 pages about the GT4030 mic says more about you than people outside need to know ($10 lower at the CheapSh*TmicCo.com)
9 - Priorities. You, family, friends, work in that order. You first is essential because if you are not ok then everything else in your world will fall away.
10 - In a world, in our world there is a VOICEOVER UNDERCLASS and we need to strive to remove ourselves from it. 2016 The year of the Amish Voice Over ...Come out from among them and be ye separate!

[bobsouer]

An excellent list Mr. Banks. Thank you!
_________________
Be well,
Bob Souer (just think of lemons)
The second nicest guy in voiceover.
+1-724-613-2749
Source Connect, phone patch, pony express

[Bob Bergen]

Love it!!!! Only one I disagree with is #2. Be it acting, painting, dancing, writing, et, it's all art. It may not all be great art. It may not always take great artistic skill. It may not always be the art that you truly want to do or express.

I have a buddy who does IVR for a major airline and makes 6 figures a year with this contract. He says it's tedious and boring. But he's great at it. There is skill involved. He and I have discussed it as the tedium gets to him. But he also agrees that his skill as a voice artist is what got him the job and allowed him to go from a scale plus 10% gig to a 6 figure contract. Every time he walked away from it from boredom they raised his fee. They tried others but they all seemed to just go through the motions, not able to inject a style and personality into something so mundane/such dry stiff copy.

And over the years there have been many a successful actor who refuse to call themselves artists. Organic talent that often feels or appears effortless may make some feel pretentious when referred to art. It's in the eye of the beholder, be it the artist or those experiencing it. I cannot stand Jackson Pollock. I find him a splatterer. I don't see the "art" in his work. But that's just me. I don't deny he's an artist. I just don't appreciate his style of art. i think an elephant could do the same thing.

[Philip Banks]

In the true spirit of the above from the other Mr B, less an hour ago I refused to read a TV promo choosing instead to interpret it through the medium of contemporary dance, Anna my neighbour's Latvian Au Pair supplied the music as she is something of an expert on the Eflat Gadansk spawacze statków emaliowane wiadra.

That's real art that is coz everyone suffered and we are SO not getting paid for the gig!

[Mike Harrison]

[Lee Gordon]

I resolve not to make any resolutions.
_________________
Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

[todd ellis]

i'm making a chair. does that make me a small bit amish?
_________________
"i know philip banks": todd ellis
who's/on/1st?

[Mike Harrison]

[vkuehn]