Vimeo Voiceover Group for Voice Over Artists

YouTube is great for sharing videos of your coworkers tripping over a chair or your cat swatting at a lazer. However, if you are a Voice Over talent and want to share something that looks and sounds professional with video and audio that isn't overcompressed like it is on YouTube, then Vimeo is the way to go. Sure, millions of people will see your work on YouTube...but they are more likely to be people that have nothing to do with professional video or audio production. So far, the comments and messages I have received via YouTube have been from under-30 audio hobbyists who do not seem to have any real profession. Vimeo is full to the brim with media producers, directors, filmmakers, and writers. You know, the people who are actually worth knowing? With this in mind, I set up the first Voiceover group on Vimeo in September 2010. I didn't actively promote it, but I still got some voice over talents that I admire like Chris Turbiville, Joe J. Thomas, Brad Venable, Andy Boyns, Paul Strikwerda, and Mary McKitrick among others to join. Even the excellent Catalan VO talent Penelope Saray is a member. In 2012, I will be actively promoting the group and trying to recruit new members. Too often we hear voiceovers without seeing how it all comes together with picture, and frankly YouTube doesn't do justice for the fine work that voice over people and media creatives do - the picture and the audio is just too compressed. Vimeo provides excellent audio and picture. Looking forward to having you be a part of our group whether you are a Voice Over Talent or have any role in media production. Visit http://vimeo.com/groups/voiceover to sign up. All the best, Lance

American Voice-Over for UK and European Markets

American male (and female) voice-overs for international programs, videos, and corporate presentations/imagefilms are very much in demand. Especially for voices that are non-accented and don't have that announcery harsh tone to them. For my American voiceover clients, I try to be a relaxed, engaging, re-assuring voice that is sounds like I'm an expert on the matter but is friendly and approachable in the way I talk about it. I try to teach and inform and be upbeat and pleasant about it without having a detached self-importance. In the past month, I've done new videos for Bangkok Hospital's general international presentation video as well as surgery videos for Matsudo Hospital just outside of Tokyo. I've also been doing more videos for voice over productions from India, and that has been rewarding to work on as well. Now I'm directing my efforts to have more of a presence in the United Kingdom and Irish markets for voice over. I'm happy to now be on the rosters with the wonderful people at Piehole and BigFish Media. I've also launched a new website americanvoiceover.co.uk to attract new clients and work with current ones. I'm very happy with the design of it, (I do it myself using CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer) so I'm going to incorporate most of it into my existing American Male Voice Over website lanceblair.net. I'm American born and raised but I went to the University of St. Andrews in Scotland where I got my M.A. in English Language and Literature. I started off in voice-over doing a lot of English and Scottish accented work for American clients (and I still do a lot of work with a pan-European soft English-accent voice for international voice overs) but now I'm working internationally as an American Voice for United Kingdom, European, and Asian clients. If you need a male American voice, or one with an international accent-neutral English Voice for your voice over production, I'm your guy. Also, if you need recommendations for American female, Spanish-language, or French-language voiceovers, I can help too. Cheers, Lance

On Not Being the Voice of God

Christopher Hitchens the famous atheist essayist died yesterday. I'm not here to talk about God, but rather his voice. Or, really The Voice of God (VOG) as it is called in the wacky VO biz. When I first started in voice over, I thought that's what voice over is: The Voice Over, the detached Lofty Perspective presenting the script from On High. I wanted to be a messenger of The Voice of God, or play that role. But really, the role isn't of God. It's of an arrogant jerk. It's annoying, insulting to the intelligence of the listener. It's emotionally restricted and not creative. It's monotone, gravely, and nasal, and the boominess is fake. It's sexist, as women aren't allowed to play it (how many female Movie Trailer voices do you hear)? The Voice Of God is from an era where Men Told People What to Think. It's from the age of dinosaurs. It's irrelevant. People need to cut it out. Do real voices, and hire real voices and write real scripts for real speech. You can have the voice of an Action Trailer without sounding like a haughty congested putz. It's fun to do VOG gigs, but honestly, whenever a client requests it I think it's just stupid and sloppy and lazy creative. Rant over. Have a nice day, and Keep the Faith for quality voice overs that make a meaningful connection to the audience. :)

New Voice Over for Open Span

This is a new voice over I recorded with the good folks at OpenSpan. They're a great company located here in Atlanta, and well...what they do is what I tell you about in the video! They created the video all in-house, so it was great to collaborate closely with them on the project from start to finish. They really made me feel like part of the their team, and made sure to let me know how well it was received by their partners as well. I love working for clients like this!

WAZA Online Multi-Media Learning Programs

I had the great pleasure of working with Boston-based sixredmarbles as the character voices of their WAZA and JUBA online multi-media learning programs. It was a huge project that required recording over 5,000 prompts for kids of various ages to interact with and learn about math and the world around them. I knew it was going to be a terrific project from the moment I started having conference calls in the development stages with their excellent creative directors, but I'm now really pleased to discover that this project has won many educational awards for 2011:

Bessie Award
Eddie Award
Tillywig Brainchild Award
The National Parenting Center's Seal of Approval
Mom’s Choice Gold Award

...and it was also a finalist at SIIA’S 2011 Ed Tech Industry Summit. To read more about the awards and the reviews of WAZA, JUBA, and CABANGA (I did the promo voice over for that) read the Digital Journal or this Press Release.

For more info about this fantastic company and their educational products, visit sixredmarbles here.