A few months back I got the idea that the Voiceover community is in dire need of a repository of knowledge. Or if you want to use a more modern term... a Wikipedia site dedicated to the voiceover industry and its members. Now I can't use that term... Wikipedia... because that is a registered company that has its own site etc. but the more acceptable term is that the voiceover industry needs a wiki. I'm a pretty DIY kinda guy and went on a search to find out if the community already had a site like that. Turns out there was an...
Read More
I figured out a long time ago that I’m not the kind of person that equates financial success with personal success. It’s a part of it, I mean it denotes how intelligent you are and how capable of supporting your family etc. but through the years I’ve realized that being rich won’t make me a better person. Just one with more money.
I don’t know if this is because my Voiceover Specialty is in Arabic, I mean you guys know this already I don’t have to repeat it but just in case you didn’t know. I’m bilingual. I speak both English and Arabic… I guess my Canadian accent has degraded a little since I moved back to the Middle East because…well there aren’t many Canadians around that I can speak to. But I made a decision a few years back to not contend with English language voice talents cause I mean why bother? It’s a huge ocean with thousands of fish, whereas the market for Arabic Voiceovers, although smaller has less competition. So big fish in small lake rather than small fish in ocean.
That is not to say I don’t work in English… some clients still contact me and ask me to voice stuff for them in English… and I won’t refuse that because hey its a skill and they are the ones that came to me… I’m not going after those jobs. In fact the last 3 voiceovers I did were all in English so … I get by I guess.
Popularity: 1% [?]
It's still hot and humid in Egypt, but thankfully the nights are cooler if not outright cold. Today's post is another iteration of Bits & Pieces except it won't just include bits about the voiceover industry... it will also include things I've found online that have both surprised and impressed me: We'll start with an article by my friend Paul Strikwarda about the blame game: 1. It's the stupid economy I don't think its just the American's that play this game... I feel like it has an international flavor to it since I've experienced it in the 3 or 4 countries I lived...
Read MoreIt's been a crazy few weeks ... the company I work for has been working on a new product and once it was completed everything switched into high gear. Lots of meetings and brainstorming sessions. Yesterday I got home at 10 pm and had to be back in the office by 8 am. So pretty hectic. It brings to mind a adage I recently came across: Meetings are occasions where Minutes are kept and hours are wasted. Brings to mind a different yet relatively similar situation when you invest time communicating with clients about a job. They haggle and you agree on...
Read More
It’s always sad when a relationship ends. Personal relationships are the worst to get over but even business relationships sometimes can be as upsetting when over.
I used to have an agent in Denmark… they have offices in the UK but their base is in Denmark. When I first got my voiceover business online they were the first people I contacted and the first to give me some good feedback regarding sound quality and delivery.
I remember back then the sound engineer in charge was a brilliant guy called Jacob.
Jacob has since left that agency and gone on to bigger and hopefully better things. But for the past 2 years these guys have sent me work relatively steadily. My agent in charge had left to live in Copenhagen with her boyfriend and a new set of people where placed in charge of me.
The Break Up
During the past 2 years a few things had happened that bothered me. First they had changed their payment policy from payment upon receiving the invoice to net 60… they skipped net 15, net 30, net 45 and went straight to 60. Blamed it on the economic situation and how that SOB Madoff had made our global collective lives hell.
At the time they were a lucrative source of work so I had no option but to say … fine. I hated it to be honest… I hated the fact that they forced this upon me… that by the time my payments came through I had forgotten for what job I had done them for… but hey I’m a professional… these things happen.
A few months after they changed their policy I got an accidental email from one of their agents telling me not to forget to add my paypal fees to the total so they can expedite the payment. The email was supposed to go to someone else.
Wait? So you guys did that? But you never told me that! So now I knew that you can request that your client pay for those transfer fees if this is their preferred method of payment. They said that was not our agreement with you so we will not be adding transfer fees to the total.
Sonfa….
Popularity: 1% [?]
