Voice over
If VO Atlanta is an action-packed weekend in Las Vegas, then WoVOCon is a little more like spending quality time at an AirBnB in a sleepy beach town with you and your besties.
Read MoreThe conditions are the conditions. You can choose to work with them and adjust, or you can insist that they should be different.
Read MoreIf you wonder where all of your opportunities are, and yet you’re turning down opportunities that are coming your way because you are judging them as “not for you,” you might want to rethink your strategy.
Read MoreStart improving your luck right now with these four SCIENTIFICALLY-PROVEN principles to create lucky opportunities for yourself.
Read More
Comparison is like a hammer. It’s not good or bad; It’s just a tool. But it can be used to build a house, or to bash someone’s head in.
Read More
Happy Valentine’s Day! Love, Voiceover
Voiceover has had its share of wannabes, trying to woo it with a “nice voice.”
To develop a serious relationship, it’s going to want to know you’re committed.
Read MoreNo…it’s not how to attract the attention of top agents…
Or that short actors are put in platform shoes or on apple boxes to make them look taller…
Nor is it how celebrities can manage to adopt eight children, travel the world, stay in shape, head their own charity, run a multi-million dollar company that sells luxury goods, film multiple projects a year while doing press for all of them…and still manage to look well-rested.
For the past two weeks, I was volunteering for an organization more secretive than the Masons.**
**Okay, I might be exaggerating a little bit there…
An organization that is over 100 years old…
An organization devoted to helping actors and anyone else in the entertainment industry—lawyers, burlesque performers, ushers, photographers, opera singers, costumers, grips, producers, stage managers, circus clowns...
Yes, even you, skeptical clown man!
Everyone that I have told about it has never heard of it, and I only heard about it after becoming active on LinkedIn during the early days of the pandemic.
It’s not a union.
It’s not exclusive.
And it’s not limited to New York or Los Angeles.
Are you stumped yet?
Originally founded in 1882 in response to the anti-actor sentiment after Lincoln’s assassination, The Actors Fund was created to help actors and other performers, who were often discriminated against, get a proper burial after death.
Since then, The Actors Fund has become a national non-profit organization that offers all kinds of services to anyone in the entertainment industry.
Some of the many initiatives the fund has supported throughout the years have included:
Senior care
Affordable housing
Retirement planning
Access to healthcare
Emergency financial assistance
Education and career counseling
Support for those with HIV/AIDS through Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS
And much more…
While some services are still restricted to the cities where the fund has offices (NYC, LA and CHI), the internet has made other services accessible to all.
You, too, can attend a class in New York from your rooftop in Seattle! Or Minneapolis! Or Phoenix! Or…Keokuk, Iowa.
Managing Cash Flow
Mindfulness Meditation
Budgeting Nuts & Bolts
Good Grief: Grief Support Group
How to Job Search During a Pandemic
Asian American & Pacific Islander Entertainment Professionals Gathering
Mind, Body, Spirit: A Group for Black Women Working in the Entertainment Industry
Your money is no good here!
Back in May, I took the LinkedIn Suite for Entertainment, which is a trio of workshops on how to use LinkedIn effectively, and I participated in the 15-day LinkedIn Challenge that followed.
About a month after the challenge, I learned about LinkedIn’s Social Sales Index, and discovered that I was in the top 1% in my industry and in my network (translation: I’m working LinkedIn’s algorithm better than 99% of people in the industry), and I have The Actors Fund to thank for that!
After the challenge, I have been telling everyone about the fund, and promoting their services to all of my performer friends.
When the September challenge happened, I signed up to volunteer as an ambassador, helping to support others doing the challenge.
If you want to sign up for any of these upcoming workshops through the career center, you must first take the Career Center Orientation, which is offered every Monday except on legal holidays.
The LinkedIn Suite for Entertainment and LinkedIn Challenge will ONLY be offered one more time this year, in November.
Next year, they plan to offer it, but fewer times overall, so if you want to up your LinkedIn game, sign up for November’s workshops!
And please—don’t keep this a secret!
Growth is not linear. It is not a steady process.
Read More
“See, kid…you’ll never work in this town again!” I’m kidding! Please stop crying. I know, my impression was terrible.
Dry spells can seriously feel like the end of the line for your career. You were cruising along, everything was going well, and then you come to a screeching halt.
Read MoreGetting all of your work from one source is like only having one kind of crop in your garden.
It’s hard to sustain yourself if all you grow is different kinds of peppers—you need a variety of crops to live.
Read More
There are some leaps you just gotta take
OOooooh, that Kool-Aid is good! There’s just something about how this event is put together that makes me feel all Kumbayah, like I’m friends with the Snuggle bear and we’re getting high in a blanket fort. I’m all warm and fuzzy inside, and I just want to hug everyone and make flower crowns for them.
Read More
There’s a LOT of info out there about this industry, but none of it is gospel. Some of it’s good, some of it’s bad, and some of it just doesn’t pertain to you.
What info is right for you depends on your type, what niche you want to get into, and what expertise you already have coming into voiceover.
Read More
Where we started…
This year was a blur of books, audiobooks, streaming TV, Zoom calls, and getting outside in any way possible. Mostly, it felt like one VERY long day that never ended.
But that doesn’t mean it was cancelled. I did PLENTY.
Read More…be careful not to let a well-deserved break break your momentum.
Read MoreIt’s been a pretty epic last four and a half years, mostly because I felt like I had to make up for all of that time that I spent THINKING about doing voiceover but not really going for it.
If you’ve made it this far, congrats. It’s a lot, and there’s still more to unpack here.
Read MoreIt’s amazing how obstacles can sometimes come disguised as opportunities…but they do.
If something is actively working against my goal of creating a career in voiceover, even slightly, it has to go.
Read MoreMy first full year of VO was full of a TON of ups and downs. Mostly downs, if we’re being entirely honest, but I was excited enough about the business to keep me going through most of that.
If you’re just getting started, expect your first year to be bumpy.
Read More
