Housekeeping
Oddly enough I don't have a single voice over job today. That almost never happens, but I am really glad because I have two on-camera auditions this afternoon and I would prefer to take the morning to get organized. I keep throwing scripts, bills, schedules and other mail into a drawer and the mess is growing!! I was at TJ Maxx and saw an item called "Wonderfile," on sale for $4.99. I had seen the infomercial about a year ago and really wanted to buy one. They are $19.99 on their website and Amazon so I was so excited to see it at TJ Maxx for $4.99. I still wasn't clear on how they work but I thought it would be a good item for my screenplays. It seemed like I could keep track of a lot of little notes and handwritten pages. I get ideas while I am out of the house so I have to immediately scribble them down or I will forget. I decided to buy one and see if it was good for what I was thinking about and then I would go back and buy more. The guy that was ringing up all of my purchases stopped when he got to the Wonderfile. He looked it over carefully and started to read the box. At first I thought he was looking for the price, but then it was clear he was reading about what it is used for. Then he said "this looks really dumb." I had to laugh!! What would his manager think about him passing judgement on his customer's purchases? So now that I have it at home, it isn't good for screenplays but it is definitely good for things I need to attend to like bills, invitations, maps, scripts, headshots, resumes,etc. Since I go back and forth to LA so much this is a good thing to keep everything in one place and then I can throw it in my suitcase to take with me.
That Italian voice job was interesting yesterday. It was broken down into "scenas" which I assumed meant "scenes." And next to the scena it said "durata 17,89653 sec" or some other time allotment. So, I figured it meant the duration was just under 18 seconds. When I was in Italy I noticed that they use commas where we use periods. When he first hired me I took a quick look at the text and didn't think the timing would be a problem. I should always take out my stopwatch and time myself before agreeing. The text looked simple enough but I always forget that once you start coloring words that extends the time it takes to say them. And I never want to sound rushed, so needless to say the job took me a little longer than I thought it would. There were two scenes where it was absolutely impossible to make it in the time frame they allowed so I recorded them anyway and got as close to the timing as possible, and then I recorded again changing the text to make it fit while still saying essentially the same thing. Since he doesn't really speak English I was hoping that he knew what I meant by "alternate track." I sent off the tracks and within minutes my Paypal was dinging with an account full of Euros. Now that is the kind of client I love!!
This morning Linkedin suggested several groups I might be interested in. For some reason lately a lot of guys from Sweden have requested to add me as a contact. When I look at their profiles it seems they all work for various sound production studios, so I figured "what the heck?" and added all of them. I have booked several voice over jobs through social media so I guess it's all good. I wish there were more on-camera and modeling groups that I could join. There are several out there but they all seem to be filled with beginners or hopefuls and I like to join groups where I can network or learn something new. The voice over groups are filled with seasoned professionals so they are very beneficial and fun. A lot of voice over actors are comedians so their conversations are always hysterical.
Ok, I had better get my ass off Tumblr and go do my run, then start working with my dumb Wonderfile.
