Steven Lowell from Voice123 has some good bits of advice here...even for the seasoned pro. If you're new to the industry, google away and read as much as you can by as many VO artists that you can. You'll be sure to pull some little nuggets that might help you crack open the world of voice overs.

http://thevoiceoverguide.com/

Creativity and Independence.
(Extract from full story - see link below)

"...we should all be concerned that our system may be too extreme in rewarding conscientiousness and punishing creativity."

This is as close as a conundrum get's to answering a paradox...me thinkst...what say you?
 
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So the question is, to what degree is conscientiousness universally good - and to what degree is our society merely structured to reward it?

Our schools love to pay creativity lip service, but those aren’t the students that get celebrated.

Teachers rewarded repressed drones, according to Bowles and Gintis; they found that the students with the highest Grad Point Averages were the ones who scored lowest on measures of creativity and independence, and the highest on measures of punctuality, delay of gratification, predictability and dependability.

Teachers often say they love creative students. They don’t.

Judgments for the favourite student were negatively correlated with creativity; judgments for the least favorite student were positively correlated with creativity. Students displaying creative characteristics appear to be unappealing to teachers.

The workplace isn’t any different.

Bowles and Gintis then consulted similar scales for office workers, and they found that supervisors judged their workforce the way teachers judged their students. They gave low ratings to employees with high levels of creativity and independence and high ratings to those workers with high levels of tact, punctuality, dependability and delay of gratification.

FULL Story here: http://bit.ly/TIRG4V

AAATV Scooter Trip In Thailand - Phuket to Khao Lak Part 2

AAATV takes you on a 2 part trip by scooter from Phuket to Khao Lak in Thailand. You'll see national parks, beaches, street parties, boat 813 and other tsunami footage, waterfalls and a whole lot more. Join Glenn as he takes you on this scooter trip in Thailand.(C)2012gajtedproductions

Ian 'Molly' Meldrum interview with Glenn 'The Wizeman' Johns on LIVE89.5 Phuket , November 2011

Glenn Anthony Johns, aka 'The Wizeman' interview with Ian 'Molly' Meldrum, November 2011, before he left for Australia to induct Kylie Minogue into the ARIA Hall of Fame.

AAATV Scooter Trip In Thailand - Phuket to Khao Lak Part 1

Asian Hospitality & Travel Show Phuket, Thailand

Upwey Fire Photos

I arrived with the first fire truck to see this house in Mahony St, Upwey well alight. I snapped some shots off and they were picked up by the Herald Sun, Leader Press and Trader Mail newspapers.

My shots are also here on my Flickr website along with some other photoshopped pics http://bit.ly/nrqazg

The story on Herald Sun website here http://bit.ly/r7sAVD

Pics and local angle here on Free Leader Press website http://bit.ly/pdfwz8

Ho Chi Minh City, (Saigon) Vietnam

THIS VIDEO was a bit of fun filmed in Tao Dan Park, Saigon, Vietnam.
My friend Terry and I were 'on assignment' filming for AAATV (All About Asia TV) in Vietnam and the Philippines. In Ho Chi Minh City for New Years Eve, we visited a nearby park close to our hotel.
Tao Dan Park is a 'must visit' park as it has a market, many fine examples of bonsai plants, and a dragon made entirely of flowers greets you at the main entrance.

Make an Average Pic Look Good (sic)

I took this shot coming back into Kuala Lumpur from the airport late in the mid-July afternoon. The sun giving up in the west, I’m seated in the back of a mini bus and ‘shooting’ through the window at about 120km/h with the trusty 50D Canon.

AN AVERAGE ORIGINAL PICTURE

I then cropped it and played around a bit

AN AVERAGE ORIGINAL PICTURE CROPPED AND PLAYED WITH

Then I added a little magic.

AN ORIGINAL AVERAGE PICTURE CROPPED AND

PLAYED WITH TO CREATE A MAGICAL PICTURE

Goes to show you an average ‘snap’ shot, with a little imagination and some software, can create a unique image.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glennanthonyjohns/

Glenn (gaj/gajted)

All About Asia TV Channel

Hosting episodes on All About Asia TV (AAATV).

Travelling around SE Asia and bringing it to the web. Writing, directing, filming, editing, voicing...some of the most exotic places on the planet!

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Professional Voice Over's

For the professional VO (voice over) artist, there have been many changes in a relatively short space of time. The biggest change has been the adaptation to digital technology. I like to think that technology has come back to us. Personally, I find this change in voice over work refreshing and an opportunity to cast a wider net to engage clients all over the world.
The web and voice sites like voice123 and voice.com have really opened up opportunities that were relatively obscure for up and coming VO talent and experienced VO talent that want to break into or advance in an invisible world that was (and in some cases still is) reserved for those 'in the know' and with contacts.

Where you once visited a studio usually by invitation by people you knew in the industry, with huge desks, an audio engineer who flew around the console with great speed and purpose, a copy writer and sometimes clients on hand to direct your read as they saw fit, now, for little capital investment in equipment, talent around the globe can produce broadcast quality production in the comfort of their home.

Record, edit, email. Done!

There are however, traps for young players and benefits for old dogs.

It will always remain that without real talent borne from discipline and skills honed from years of reading scripts and doing voice over’s with guidance and nurturing, would-be ‘talent’ will be sent to the trash bin while those with the fundamentals nailed will flourish.

Simply having a ‘good voice’ just won’t cut it!

Let’s face it, the days of cutting a read by half a second in a one take 30 sec ‘live’ read to tape are long gone. With the click of a mouse and a time adjustment, scripts are magically pulled into line and made to fit the required time.

But if a generation of voice over talent only knows the cut-and-paste of voice work, then they stand a good chance of wondering why everyone else is getting the work even though they may think they are ‘better’.

It’s about perseverance, elocution, timing, pronunciation, enunciation, inflections et al. In a word, experience. It’s about the graft and effort in perfecting and harnessing the most difficult instrument in the world to master; the human voice.

For those from the analogue days, technology simply means we don’t have to read everything over for the full length of the read. We simply cut and paste and maintain synergy in the output. You wouldn’t know we’ve even edited it.

For the digital generation of voice talent who think that superb editing skills and the dexterity and knowledge of the latest digital editing suite is the be all and end all of being a professional voice over talent will sadly come up short.

For the analogue generation voice over talent who keep abreast of changing technology, the world is our oyster.

This is a first blog by an old dog that goes to show we can be taught new tricks.

Thanks for lending me your ears©

gaj