Monday, January 26, 2009

The Results Are In

Two weeks ago I posed the brilliant question: What are we calling our industry? It was really quite something in case you missed it. There was a cool poll widget and everything. Ah, good times...

Amazingly, this nonsense was picked up by a few other VO blogs on the interwebz and it resulted in a flurry of half-witted responses. Over a hundred people chimed in by voting or leaving comments. You guys are really the best. Anyway, after an appropriately unscientific tabulation, the winner by a landslide was "Voiceover."



Here is a sampling of comments culled from The VTP Blog, the Boblog and Vox Daily:
"I have always said and spelled it, “Voiceover”. Some have been cute and written it as VOiceover or VoiceOver. I started using Signature Voiceover Actor around 2000 and just last year, shortened it to Voice Actor. Cute or not, we are Voice Actors if we put our character and personality into our reads. If you strictly “read” copy without any emotion, skill or attitude, please do not add “Actor” to the end of your title. That’s only for those of us who MUST read with experience, understanding and grasp the meaning our clients are trying to convey with their written words in order to brand their products successfully."
-Johnny George

"I’ll stand with Merriam Webster and VOICE OVER. I can’t be bothered with hyphens."

-Diane Havens

"The Oxford English Dictionary only shows the hyphenated form, so it would be the voice-over industry."
-Grammar Girl

"First, I consider "voiceover" to be industry jargon and unquestionably correct within that context. Outside the industry, and IMHO from purely a linguistic perspective, I consider "voice-over" to be the correct form as an adjective and "voice over", with the quotation marks, to be the correct form of the noun for the field. Personally, I prefer voice acting in most cases. Go figure."
-Corson Bremer

"It should be "voice-over" because you add hyphen when you need to join two (or more) words together to form a compound or single expression. Also, you use a hyphen to join words in a compound expression that is put before a noun. ie: Voice-Over Artist, Voice-Over Actor. But I admit, I write "voice over" all the time."
-Alexandra Barta

"I will be happy to suffer whatever scorn you wish to heap upon me, but voiceover is the term I will use because it’s the one with the least false positives for searches."

-Bob Souer

"Personally, I say we are in the voiceover industry. I think most of us actually say it that way. Think about it...we say it as one continuous flowing word with the emphasis on voice - VOICEover; not as two separate words - VOICE OVER. Plus, while the dictionary hyphenates the word, I think they do that whenever a phrase or term has been coined, to fit the usage as understood by the general public. However, in the industry itself, it's not just a coined phrase, it's our jargon for what we do, and our spelling would be the official spelling."
-Susan Wade

"Not many people now remember that "Voice Over" is short for "Voice Over Film". The course of most terms in English is to go from separate words ("Base Ball") to hyphenated words ("base-ball") to a single word ("baseball"). With all due respect to the dictionary folks, they can only reflect the usage of the public, and must always lag behind the curve. So the historically accurate can use "Voice Over," those on the cutting edge can use "voiceover", but the one destined to be dropped as a transitional placeholder is voice-over."
-Dan Popp

"Anything but "voiceover," which is not a word."
-Catherine Campion

"Dictionaries and spellcheckers reflect, and are not meant to lead the lexicon of any given occupation or endeavor. We are only in the third generation of whatever this thing is. We're making this up as we go along. When I started teaching voice over in '74, I remember making up terms for what we do. There were very few terms for what we do. I made lists, borrowing from acting, speech, and music terms, and struggled to come up with terms, attempting to avoid confusion. There are two different areas of nomenclature, which are of interest: What is the category or genre called and what are those who perform the jobs referred to as? Personally, for the genre, in 2009, I weight in with, "voice over JOBS." JOBS, is less self-aggrandizing than any of the alternatives I can think of. I like "Voice Over PERFORMER" for what I do. Voice Over "ACTOR," may very well describe what I personally do, and the skills I employ for the lion's share of voice over jobs I get, but those who narrate, or do promo work, for examples, do more "presenting" than acting. And I do not cite "presenting" as a pejorative. I so wish I had more skills at presenting. Lot of money in promo work, and I stink at it. "Voice Over TALENT" possesses the connotative meaning of possessing formidable skills, and I don't like conveying that meaning. I find the same problem with using Voice Over ARTIST."

-Pat Fraley

So what does it all mean? Probably nothing. Surprisingly, I am going to go with the majority and start unapologetically using "voiceover".1 I think it looks nicer and rolls off the tongue easier than the two word "voice over" and I'm just not really down with the hyphens.2 I trust that now that you have been hipped to my usage it will become de rigueur and those of you who voted otherwise will see the error of your ways. I'm glad we can all finally get some sleep now.

1. Voiceover. Voiceover, voiceover, voiceover! Oh that feels good.
2. I saw a hyphen kill a box full of puppies once. True story.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

MO$T BLOGGABLE BLOGG***BARACK H. OBAMA INAUGURAL VIDEO BLOGG-1/20/09***

Today, I am proud to the 20th power-- today, America is proud--The WORLD is watching and waiting. Today, Barack H. Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of these United States, which is a First for this nation. We have truly come a long way and we have a long path before us- it will take each of us to keep the momentum flowing.
From many there comes "ONE", that "ONE" will lead the multitude.
Here is my MO$T BLOGGABLE BLOGG, THE BARACK H. OBAMA INAUGURAL VIDEO BLOGG-1/20/09.It's raw and uncut [ok, that just means that the mistakes were'nt edited...lol]




Peace, Blessings, Love & Light,

Ladie Mo$t...

Sunday, January 11, 2009

VO legend Don Morrow

"The Last Don" Don Morrow is accepting 15 ppl max for his VO workshop, and will produce your next demo. See more at www.VoiceoverUniverse.com

Mobile post sent by voiceoveruniverse using Utterlireply-count Replies.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

HELP FOR CONNIE ZIMET

In South Florida I subscribe to Lisa & Laura's newsletter "Actor's Info Booth," and was saddened to hear this news about a lady I've always wanted to work with, but never got around to it....

Connie Zimet is the former SO. Fla. President of AFTRA and an extraordinary Voice Over artist and Coach.

—————————————
Dear Friends,

I am sure most of you have heard by now that Connie Zimet is battling
late stage ALS. At this point she is no longer able to move or speak,
and requires 24 hour care.

Her son Zach has found a device that works with eye recognition
technology that will enable her to communicate with her eyes via aid
of a computer. To go through Medicare could take 6-8 months. She needs this device now.

It was brought to my attention that a lot of you out there would like
to help, so I am asking to please reach into your pockets and send any
donation you can spare to Connie, no matter how small, to help defer
her escalating medical care costs and enable her to speak again with
the help of this device. If you have any questions please feel free to
contact me, or Zach via email or by phone.

Connie’s address is 827 NW
79th Terrace, Plantation, FL 33324, and also has a Paypal account at
czimet@comcast.net.

We appreciate anything you are able to do,
Pam Lipschitz
pam.checksinmotion@gmail.com
zach@zachziskin.com
954.367.3363

Tuesday, January 6, 2009






Bob Bergen is, as we say, the nice Jewish boy who grew up to be Porky Pig. He's also sometimes the voice of Tweety, Sylvester's Son and other characters introduced by his hero, Mel Blanc, and he does other non-Blanc work, as well. Bob's a fine voiceover talent and when I do convention panels on the nuts and bolts of that biz, he's one of the first people I try to get because he really knows the business well.

You can hear his story and his sage advice tomorrow (Wednesday) on Stu's Show, the must-hear gabfest hosted by Stuart Shostak which "airs" on Shokus Internet Radio. January is Animation Month so each week, Stu will welcome one or more guests to talk about the wonderful world of cartoons. This week is Bob. Next week is Paul Dini. The week after is a special program on how to be a voice actor with Gary Owens, Janet Waldo, Earl Kress and me. And then the week after that is Jerry Beck. I'll be nagging reminding you to tune in.

Okay, now let me explain one more time about Internet Radio. This is not a podcast. You can't download it and listen to it whenever you want. You have to "tune in" when it's on...which in this case is from 4 PM to 6 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM to 9 PM Eastern. Stu's Show is done live on Wednesday and that's the best time to listen because, among other reasons, you can call in and ask questions. You can hear the show on your own computer by going to the website of Shokus Internet Radio at the appointed hour and clicking where you're told to click. (The show reruns on other days, usually in the same time slot. Check out the site for a full schedule...and while you're there, take note of some of the other fine, free programming.)

Monday, January 5, 2009

Mic Shootout

Shopping for a new mic? Watch this first! The video has made it's way down the chain... I first saw it on Bob Souer's blog and he credits Wille Edwards with initially posting the link on VO-BB. It's a side-by-side comparison of several mics (including Neuman U87, Sennheiser ME66, Sennheiser 421, Rode Podcaster and MXL .009) by Jeff Dykhouse, instructor with HowAudio.com.