Spring Studio Remodel

Hi Folks! :)

I hope all of you are starting to see the signs of Spring. :) We’re just now starting to get out from under the cold, rainy, overcast days, and are starting into the cold nights, crisp mornings, clear days, and soon we’ll be into the spring rain… Love that stuff :)

With the Spring, finally comes the remodel for the studio. Soon we’ll be putting the walls up, running electrical, soundproof insulating, running high speed cable, etc.. it should be a great time to be sure and I wanted to share some “before” items with you on the blog.

Studio

This is a shot from the far end of the Client room, across the client room and the skeleton frame on the floor of what will become the wall separating the Client Room from the Control Room. The wall will go very close to where, as you are looking at it from this angle, the far side of the hearth for the Ben Franklin stove.

This is a shot from the door that leads in and out of the Control Room  into what will become the new Control Room. You can get a better idea of the wall placement from this side. The closet that can be seen from this angle in the back on the left, will be remodeled into an Instrument Isolation Booth for Guitars and Bass amps, and will be wired for a second Vocal Booth / Whisper Room

View

This is a shot from the Deck right outside the Control Room that gives you an idea of the view into the Country Valley below. These next few pictures were the deal closer for me buying this house. I primarily purchased this home for the studio, because this space upstairs that will all be workspace and the view was the the clincher. I take one step out of my Control Room to the deck, and the sun sets over the mountains directly to the west. It brings me so much peace and harmony.

View number 2 of the view from the deck. I was going to make a panorama, but for compatibility sake, I’ll let you make your own. :)

View number 3 of the view. Let me take a moment and say that I am truly blessed to have been given such a wonderful place to live. :)

Layout

This is a (not to scale obviously) line drawing of the overview of the entire project. The total space I’m working with is 2500 Sq. Ft. It’s going to take some time, and I’ll be doing it in phases, but when it’s all done, this will be the layout.

This is another (not to scale) line drawing of how the control room and client area will roughly be laid out.

Please enjoy these pictures! I’m hoping to post pics during construction and remodeling. I’ll make sure to keep everyone updated. Now that it’s warming up, we can get to it and make this thing happen! :)

Feel free to leave comments!

Bye For Now,

Adam

Technical Stuff Part of Voiceover, and the Amateur Tradition

Yes, it’s a Tech Post.

I was making some updates today to the machine, and running along my busy little schedule for the morning and it occurred to me that a huge part of this craft, if you work from your own home studio is the ability to be a good engineer as well as voiceover talent.

In order to deliver a good voiceover performance, you need to have your acting chops tight, breath control, diction, warm up exercises and such, but to capture that sound and be able to deliver to the client a fully professional sounding recording for their purposes, you have to know a thing or two about running a studio.

Stephanie Ciccarelli made a very interesting point yesterday on the Vox Daily blog. She spoke about the need for an amateur tradition in our field. She’s absolutely right. I got thinking about that and how well that goes hand in hand with what I was going to write about today.

Most of us in this business who are working and making a living at it, have a lifetime of experience and training.

I grew up in the Theater. I was acting from a very young age and was heavily involved in the training programs that San Diego had to offer. I did my first voiceover at age 8, (I’m looking for that master reel today as a matter of fact, I had transferred it to Digital a couple years ago, but somehow it got lost in the vastness of an old hard drive.. :0 ) and took classes on Acting, Direction, Script Interpretation, Emoting, Movement, Voice Projection, Actor Interaction, Television Production, Audio Production, Video Editing (and we’re talking a 6 foot rack full of old analog tape gear type editing), Audio editing (another 6 foot rack of analog gear) and so much more. I was involved in the various programs until I had taken every class that they had to offer and had to move on to the Adult classes. I had to get special permission to do so from the Program’s Director, they agreed and at the age of 13, I was in the 18 year old and above Adult classes. Luckily, the Teacher of those programs, in a moment of pure unselfishness, realized it would be a great exercise not only for me to have to stretch a bit, but for her students to be thrown an X factor and make them interact in different types of situations with someone who was younger.

When I got into high school, I was involved in the Drama Department, and was still continuing to take Ballet and Jazz classes as well. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that in addition to the classes I was taking in Balboa Park, I was also being shuttled downtown to take Ballet and Jazz classes at Stage 7 San Diego, and was getting an opportunity to take my discipline up a notch.

Now, Summer time.. in the Summer, I would spend most of my time at Stage 7. They would offer two sessions of a Summer Symposium, which included classes from 8 in the morning until 11 or 12 at night. I would take my first ballet class at 8 in the morning, then take various classes throughout the day and ending with Musical Comedy at night sometimes until Midnight. At the end of each of the month long Sessions, there would be a performance at San Diego City College in their rather large theater. I did this for years.. and I got an opportunity to work with some of the best in the business. I took Musical Comedy from Tanis Michael, one of Bob Fosse's right hand men, Jazz from Barry Bernal, one of the original cast members from Cats and Starlight Express, Modern Classes from Alvin Ailey, etc.. you get my point… I took those opportunities when I had them, and by the time I took a breath, I was through High School and had a rather healthy resume of Acting, Dancing, Musical Theater, Stage Direction, Technical knowledge, Audio and Video production and editing, and all the while I had been a musician in my own very thin personal time to unwind.

I say all that because many of us put a lifetime into what we do, and it’s not to make ourselves better than anyone else, far from it, it’s just the path we chose, and the set of talents and gifts that the big man upstairs gave us to develop. We all work and start at different times in our lives, different paces and take different paths to get to where we want to go.

How does this relate to Voiceover? Well, after my pretty lengthy diatribe, I bring it back to this: Everyone starts somewhere! I was lucky enough to have had come into my life, a long list of people that from the kindness of their hearts, taught me to be who I am today. This was all done as an Amateur Tradition. They took the time to share their knowledge with me while I was open and receptive, not because of the money involved, (Most dancers, and actors at that stage don’t make much and often not enough to survive, far from it.) They did it because they felt the responsibility to share those talents with those coming in the door.

Technical stuff is no different. It can be just as intimidating to sit in front of a machine with bells, whistles, buttons, faders and screens as it is to walk into a class of 40 people in the middle of an open theater floor and have to audition in front of all of them so that the instructor can get an idea of where the skill levels are in the class and who will be good for what..

It’s now our responsibility to help these folks just now getting their feet wet any way we can, and to never forget that however far we go in our careers, we can’t forget to throw a rope back over the wall for someone else to climb up.

Thoughts?

By For Now..

Adam

Auditions: To Custom or not to Custom?

Hi all,

Had a thought this morning. I was in the midst of my daily auditions, and found myself engaged in a curious little observation I’ve developed.

Before I put in for the Audition, I like to see how many people have already put in for the project. Then I do my audition and get the quote together, and after I submit the Pitch, I look at how many people have put in for that project in the time it took me to prepare my pitch for the prospective client.

I’m often surprised at the number. I’ve done the experiment in the past, to take a slow production day, plant myself in the studio and try and catch auditions as soon as they get emailed to me, and put in for them immediately, comparing the numbers.

What have I found? Well, today I was in front of the computer when I happened to get an email for an audition. I jumped on, put in for the audition and by the time I had submitted the package, 5 people had auditioned. I thought. “Hmm… let me give this a minute” and waited approximately 2 minutes just to be sure.

When I refreshed the status of the job, it was now 33 people that had put in for that particular project. “Whew!”

I’ve had lots of chats with other voiceover friends of mine as to which is better, putting in the general demo that we all have for the audition or taking the time to create a custom audition?

Both have their advantages. Putting a general demo in, many times will put you in a higher position on the response list. If you’re a busy ad person, then you may only be listening to the first ten seconds of the first 15 or 20 people that put in, and if you find someone you like, they get the job. If you take the time to produce a custom demo, the prospective client gets to hear their copy in your voice, an obvious advantage. They can envision you as the voice delivering their message and can make it easier for them to pick you.

BUT, what do you do if you go through the time and effort to create a custom demo on a really hot project that you want badly to do, and by the time you submit the audition, you’re number 101 and they’re only listening to the first 100 to submit?

It’s a quandary for sure.

I am of course only talking about online submissions. If you have an agent the process is very different, but with this scenario that I’m describing it can be a tough choice to make.

If the posting says “Only custom demos will be considered” well then your choice is obvious. I generally submit my latest fresh tasty demo if it doesn’t specifically request a custom audition be created. The reason I do this, is that I’ve found through my own experiences, that a client will generally funnel down the voices that they want from a large pool, to a smaller group of voices they like and finally to the voice they choose.

I have found success with getting my demo in the door, and with having a higher chance of the client hearing it, they have often just sent me an email saying “Hi, really loved your voice, would you shoot us a couple lines of this copy so we can gauge your read?” Of course I get it done for them, and I’ve booked a lot of jobs on that formula.

It doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily right for what you do, but for me personally, I’d rather they hear it, than not. They may hear my demo and say “Hmm.. you know, he’s not right for this project, but that one we haven’t posted yet? Let’s ask him about that one, he’s perfect for it!” That has also happened to me.

SO.. To custom or not to custom? Your thoughts?

Till next time,

Bye for now.. :)

Adam

The Greater Good

Good Morning.. :)

Today I was doing my morning updates and checking in on Facebook, and I saw a post that caught my eye..

It’s from Linda Ristig, a Voiceover Artist and on my friends list. It struck me, because she was posting a project she’s been working on, a YouTube video, and she mentioned that she was asking for input.

This is a great thing. Many of us in the business have guidelines that we have to follow when we do spots for others, and thusly become accustomed to doing things in this fashion. Even when we produce projects for friends and our own promotional efforts, we get into that groove, push through and finish things based on the specs given to or created by us.

Linda was asking for comments, because she wants to make this project the best that it can be, and I can’t applaud her enough for being brave enough to put her own work out there for people to comment on and make suggestions on what things might be great, and what things might need to be changed.

It’s a great video too. I’ve put a link in above if you’d like to check it out, but I’ll put another one HERE for you to enjoy.

Once again, Kudos to you Linda for putting yourself out there. Great attitude and an open mind! :)

UPDATE:

Here's a great update.. after posting this blog, I spoke with Linda.. and the video was posted by a Dr at Kansas State.. He accidentally posted the comments in his link hypertext..

That's awesome for irony in a video relating to hyper text huh? :)

She had no connection to the video except to have Googled it..

BUT..

The best part is that while Linda and I were chatting.. she stayed true to that original post and said "How about the next YouTube video I make, I give you first crack at it for feedback?"

Just goes to show, even with the little mix-up.. that she has that same attitude to reach out and receive suggestions on how to make the things she does better! :)

Way to go Linda!

If you'd like to visit Linda's page,

CLICK HERE

Bye for now,

Adam

Stress and Decision Making

HI all..

Today my horoscope said:

“You need more options in your life. That doesn't mean it's time to skip town and start up somewhere new under an assumed name, but it does mean you can open that door you've been curious about.”

I saw this and realized that although horoscopes are just for fun, they can sometimes provide us with some great perspective. I’ve been mulling over a few big decisions lately, and seeing this horoscope this morning, made me really start to think about how true this was in my life at the moment.

Yes, it could be true of anyone, at anytime, but I realized that for me, it was providing some interesting advice.

I’ve been curious about some new possible opportunities I’ve been mulling over and I, being my own worst critic, have been thinking about the impact on my life, career, family, etc in an effort to be responsible prior to any decision making I may do.

Well, it’s great to be prudent, but sometimes you just have to be spontaneous and go for it or some of those great things that could happen, will most certainly not. If you miss windows like that in life, they have a tendency to not repeat themselves and you find yourself saying.. “Man, I really should have bought 2 pairs of those boots I like”

I certainly don’t want to act without thinking, but in my former career as a Cop, sometimes you think things through and other times, you have to act right now, or things will become much worse in a hurry.

I’m going to take that piece of advice from my horoscope today, and open the door to some of those new and exiting opportunities and have faith that the details will fall into place as they are meant to. :)

Bye for now,

Adam

Ahh.. Norton Anti Virus..

Ok..

So today’s blog will be relatively short, but I felt the need to vent. Yesterday my machine started to act pretty weird, and it was time to diagnose the problem on the weekend before another busy week in the studio.

While Diagnosing the issues at hand, the machine started performing more and more poorly. I decided, I would nip this in the bud and take care of the problem before I found myself in the midst of a session and a computer crash at the same time.

I backed up everything that I needed from the main drive, (Luckily I learned long ago that I keep all storage and production related media and files on a D: drive and execute regular backups to insure no loss of client files or data) and double checked it for accuracy.

I performed a low level format on the C: drive and wiped the whole thing clean. This basically resurfaces and prepares the drive by erasing everything and I mean EVERYTHING from storage. It’s like wiping the dirt clean with a washcloth. :)

I then put in my fresh factory Vista install DVD and performed a clean install of Vista, which pretty much took a majority of my afternoon. Of course with that install, comes all the updates and additional software that comes with Vista and I purposely keep my extras to a minimum on this machine so as not to reduce performance with Digital Recording and Editing software.

I finished all that, and then installed all my digital audio software, device drivers for my Interface, Photoshop and Web software, etc. I left it for the day, as I was very tired and just wanted to chill out and play some Xbox. I knew everything was working all right and the machine was screaming. I was loving this.. :)

This morning, I got up, got the dog fed, made coffee and went right to the studio and turned it all on. I found that the machine was still working great and wasn’t having any problems or errors in the regular use area.

Now I was looking at what kind of Virus software I was going to install. I installed my Norton as I had done numerous times before, and all of a sudden, my machine performance was tanking and the errors were back. Needless to say I ripped that thing out of there faster than how do you do, and went back to the drawing board.

I remembered that Charter Cable had advertised free virus software to high speed clients, and jumped on the website to check it out. Low and behold I found that they offered a pretty comprehensive package and it was free, so I downloaded and installed it, and wow.. much better. It doesn’t slow the machine down at all, my web surfing got ALLOT faster, and it should be for having 10 meg high speed service, and runs seamlessly in the background.

Moral of the story, If you’re having issues with Norton, check out your service provider and see what kinds of free protection they may offer, you never know, it just might solve the problem..

That’s what it’s all about anyhow right? Problem free operation?

Bye for now,

Adam

Brand New Location

Hey everyone :)

I just wanted to take an opportunity to welcome you all to the new home of the Adam Fox Voiceover blog.

I was using the same provider that I use for my Web Hosting for a while, but it was a little too difficult to stay on top of blogging and I found myself not really using it as a daily or even regular thing. I decided to move servers and use the Blogspot! I gotta say this is so much easier and will translate into much more regular updates and will allow me to stay more in touch with all of you. :)

To kick things off in this new Spring season, I’d love to share with you a little of what I’ve been doing the last few days.

Spring Cleaning! Oh man.. I got an early jump on it by a day or so, but needless to say, I looked around the studio yesterday and said, Allright, enough is enough.

It’s a great lesson that never leaves me. I get so busy doing the day to day stuff, and for the most part it’s pretty organized, but when I had some rare down time to actually look at what kind of condition things had reached, I was truly shocked.

Now, I’m a pretty clean guy, but I get busy just like everyone else and I say.. I’ll get to dusting that tomorrow. It’s not that my studio was filthy in the way that it was strewn with trash and needed a good cleaning in that respect, but it really had become more of a storehouse of things that I felt were no longer items that I’m using on a regular basis.

I highly recommend you all take some time to do this in your own office and studio spaces.

What did I do? Well..*Deep Breath*

The Console and Work Space

Removed an old laser printer I wasn’t using anymore and was for some reason still hooked up to my main studio machine, I removed all my loop and sound libraries that had been stacked for ease of use, but when I realized I’m not grabbing them as regularly as I used to, because many of these are regular production elements, and are already on my machine, I put them in the secretary and cleaned the top of that shelf.

The Secretary

Well I reorganized all the items in the same fashion, removing those that I no longer use, and started using the Secretary as my media storage, paper storage, sound library storage, software, etc. You get the picture.

The Rolltop Desk

I had started just putting stuff there that I was grabbing quickly and realized that all those things had been moved somewhere else and my desk was now another storage area. This is my workspace for billing and invoicing etc. and it needed to be set free.

The Storage Space

It had also become cluttered with non usable items, DVD player that I no longer use, soundproofing foam, extension cords, etc. All items were removed and placed in their proper areas.

The Piano

Well I use that quite a bit, but the top of the piano had manuals, Hard Drives, etc on it and those were removed and placed in their proper areas.

Additionally, all areas got a thorough cleaning, dusting and wiping down, compressed air on all the controls, rack gear etc.

The Result?

I freed up space, made a WAY better energy in the creative environment, Feng Shuied the whole space and got all that lingering computer killing dust out, and in the creative environment, the better you feel, the more natural, relaxed and high speed you will become.

I urge everyone to take a look at your space and do the same. :)

I hope you’re all having a great Spring thus far!

Thoughts?

Adam