Voice of an Irish Blogger

Well, I've been assigned my first blog to narrate by FirstBlogMedia, and I got a good one - a personal development blog, written by a 28-year-old Irishman named Gleb Reys. He lives in Dublin. I recorded the first podcast today, and the subject was procrastination. It should be posted soon to Gleb's blog. I am scheduled to create a new podcast every two weeks for Gleb.

Charlie Black - Secret Agent

I had fun over the weekend editing the next episode of the radio dramedy “Charlie Black - Secret Agent.” In this episode Charlie must thwart an evil Brazilian scientist who has aimed an “asteroid timebomb” at Earth. Xavier (X-man) Paul provides me with the voice files, and I mix in the music and sound effects. This time I got my old cohort Bob Hunt involved as the episode announcer. The screen grab on the right shows the complexity of the mix of sound effects, music, and actor's audio.

I just voiced three scripts for “The CJ Files.” This take-off on TV reality crime shows (think Dateline NBC) is being produced by Matt McClain in New York. He’s shooting over the next week or so, and I’ll try to provide a link to the videos after they are produced. Matt has been working in TV since the turn of the century (dramatic pause), and is currently producing educational films that kids will like watching. As he says " I avoid using the word EDUTAINMENT... Oops, there I said it."

Behind the Scenes at QVC

Another appearance on the QVC shopping channel this weekend. The power of QVC is a little frightening. They say they are one of the largest digital TV production operations in the world. They have over 20,000 square feet of studio space in West Chester, PA. It consists of a variety of "home" sets (the living, bathroom, home office, garage, bedroom, etc.).

When you are on, you face two large monitors on the floor, and the TV cameras (duh). The cameras are robotically controlled by joystick in the control room upstairs. The floor monitor on the left shows how many minutes are left in your segment, the name of any callers on the phone, and the next camera shot being set up. The monitor on the right is the live feed. You wear a ear piece so the director can talk to you, and so you can hear callers. You are usually given 5-7 minutes for your "sell." The director is watching a line graph plotting phone calls and orders. If sales don't materialize fast enough, you may be cut short - or you may be given an extra minute or two if you're successful. The metric they watch is dollars per minute - and it's in the thousands.

Wyobraska?

I’ve said it before - one of the great things about my work is learning new things. Today I learned where WyoBraska is. Wooly Bugger Productions asked me to voice a car commercial for the “largest auto dealer in WyoBraska.” (I was thinking to myself it might be the only dealer in WyoBraska, but I wisely held my tongue). Turns out that WyoBraska is the far western corner of Nebraska, where it runs into Wyoming (but you had probably already guessed that). The auto dealer is in Scotts Bluff, and judging by this photo of the bluff, it’s pretty spectacular country.

Stever Robbins

Ok - that’s NOT my photo - it’s Stever Robbins, a new podcast client of mine. Stever is a Harvard MBA-type, corporate consultant, and a fountain of knowledge.

I just finished editing a podcast interview he did with Bob Burg about Bob’s new book, "The Go-Giver". The interview will be available on the Business Explained podcast. Stever also hosts the Get-It-Done Guy podcast, consistently one of the top-10 on iTunes.