With great Internetting comes great scumbaggery.
Alas, just as email has allowed voiceover artists to connect with producers that much easier, it has allowed scammers to try make the world a worse place.
This article detailing a voiceover scam was written last year, but I understand that these delightful maggots have been hitting the DC area in recent weeks.
Be aware!
(thanks to Steve Ray and Diane Samuelson for alerting peeps in posts elsewhere).
Indie producers always need to wear lots of hats — and one of them is often that of marketer. And since we don’t have the funds for a conventional ad buy…
Welcome to social media marketing.
No Film School has a post about promoting your film on social media — and while it has some nice tips and tricks throughout, I especially like the thought given to voice and what the different channels (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) are good for.
For the producers among us who are also writers, the talk of “voice” can be a character, and the channel or platform can be a genre. And that’s something we can energetically explore.
This weekend, I will be doing my 19th or 20th short film competition. I’m not sure on the number.
I’d like to say “everyone loses count after a dozen or so,” but it might also be because I’ve passed the big two-five (I say this purely to make 30-somethings uncomfortable). If you’re not aware of the 48 Hour Film Project or its sister competition, the Four Points Film Challenge (formerly the National Film Challenge), check out their website.
The films include some of my favorite times directing as well as one of my all-time favorite “day player” appearances (if you see it, yes: I did that makeup). I’ve done just about all the different jobs one could do in cast and crew.
This year, I’ll be working with one of my “home teams” again, Tohubohu Productions. This will be their second 48 this year — they’re kind of addicted.
One of the nicest things about these weekend film competitions is that –good, bad, or ugly– you have a film at the end of 48 hours. So if you need a kick in the pants to get going and make a film: see when it’s coming to your part of the world (it happens on six continents).
Since some of my previous voiceover updates either have no audio online or have audio that has been removed, I figured I’d point to another bit of voice work I’ve done in the past year.
Ripcoil is a game for Oculus Rift. I can’t help but think of Tron — and one reviewer deems it every college freshman’s dream come true.
I got to be the stadium announcer you hear during the matches, which required me to record roughly 147,000 different responses depending on whether the players triumph or fail. Here’s a video review with some game play. You can see the match and hear me at about 1:30 in the video, but he actually responds to one of my quips at 3:10 or so, which I love. It makes me feel like I did my job as a voice artist (NSFW Caution: the reviewer uses some profanity).
Those of you who find the announcer really annoying may be slightly gratified to know that my voice was bit hoarse after the multi-hour session needed to get every variant line laid down. Of course, that was only the case for this Sunday, SUNDAY, S U N D A Y ! ! !
This is the 30th entry in a surprisingly long series of posts about Star Trek’s future and its fandom called Crisis of Infinite Star Treks.
A lot has happened in the months since my last Crisis post, so let’s focus on Discovery.
You mean we should check the orbit?
Fine, Star Trek: Discovery. We now have:
Aja Romano has a nice summary on Vox of what we know, and perhaps should know, about the upcoming series. The article is cautiously optimistic, as am I (and I’m very excited about both Michelle Yeoh and Jason Isaacs as Starfleet captains — they’re usually good in any role in which they’re cast).
Bill Allen on TrekFanProductions.com sums up many of my feelings about encountering new Star Trek TV series. His specific misgivings are different from mine, but they echo my journey through each new iteration of Trek, a journey that has always ended well (maybe not good final episodes, but good endings).
In the end: we have a brand new, official Star Trek series. And as Mr. Allen points out: that’s cause for celebration in Trekdom.
Given my previous installments, I should mention that, yes, Axanar continues (Not like Star Trek Continues, but still…). In case you hadn’t picked up from my last Crisis installment, I don’t have any hopes for us seeing further Axanar: certainly not the feature-length version and probably not the “two 15 minute segments” version. Posturing and acrimony remain should you care to throw yourself into that particular Briar Patch. I keep an eye on things, but at this point, my flying leg kicks on the matter are known.
In the meantime, if you’re itching for Star Trek fan films to tide you over until September 24th, there’s plenty to choose from. (This is assuming you have already re-watched all the canon TV series on Netflix). You can check out some of the latest episodes of the aforementioned Star Trek Continues. In fact, if you go to that same website with the Bill Allen post, you’ll see a whole page of fan film productions you might want to check out.
Fall will be here before you know it. It’s no longer a training cruise, people.
Prepare for warp speed.
P.S. Oh yeah, this Fall, there’s a Star Trek homage/parody from Seth MacFarlane which looks like it could potentially pick up the torch of Galaxy Quest. I’m hoping both shows are good.
Posted in Various and Sundry
Tagged Axanar, Crisis of Infinite Star Treks, Fandom, Star Trek
Not long after I shared an article about some of the latest innovations in self-driving cars, news broke that Volvo was planning to have all its cars be electric or, at least, hybrid by 2019.
Well, Volvo isn’t the only one with grand plans for the automotive future. Alexis Madrigal in The Atlantic goes over the plans of about a dozen car companies for the cars of the future.
Though, spoiler alert: none of the car companies have plans for flying cars. None.
What’s he supposed to drive? A Corolla?!? Shame!
I suppose that’s for the best.
Still, if all their lofty dreams come to pass, streets and highways will look very different by 2025.
Continuing the last few Monday posts I’ve done about motivation, I figure it’s time to add in a link to something that serves as cold water in the face: a wakeup in both ways. Mark Evanier, whose series on rejection is one I’ve referenced, has a certain speech he’s delivered on occasions to fellow writers and creatives… and occasionally he’s needed to hear it himself.
Maybe you need it because it’s Monday. Perhaps you’re just wondering if you’re cut out for creative work. But some days, you just need The Speech.
One of the trends I casually, yet actively, watch is how “self-driving” automation is coming along. I’m sure many of us have followed Google’s efforts as well as Tesla. So I was shocked to read Alex Davies’ piece in Wired about the self-driving technology of Cadillac… which I suppose may mainly point to my pre-conceived notions of Cadillac.
But I bet I’m not the only one.
Since I wanted to cover motivation for the next few Mondays, as I mentioned last week, I figured it was important to bring up procrastination.
One of the most entertaining articles about the subject was written by Tim Urban on his longform blogging site, Wait, But Why. In fact, the procrastination article is actually several articles, but well worth delving into.
Now, I enjoy Wait, But Why quite a bit, but what if some of you are already putting off reading through what I already said are a couple articles?
So, to combat the procrastination you might have about reading Tim Urban’s several posts about the topic, why not start with a 15-minute video on the subject? Come on, it’s under that 20 to 25 minute technique we were talking about last week. It’ll work!