Friday, March 18, 2011

REALLY MEAN BUSINESS NOW!

My VO learning journey continues...

So, now I have announced to the world that I intend to make a 'go' of my voice over work, it seems the pace has hotted up a bit.  During what has been an amazingly busy week with my learning and development work, I found some time to listen to some wonderful webcasts from the VO Ninja himself, Kevin Delaney and his awesome interviews with casting producers such as Steve Reisberg and Ilko Drozdoski from the TGMD Agency in Hollywood.

No, I am not thinking of emigrating however a trip there WOULD be nice at some point.  Picked up some really cool tips about how to audition and produce a showreel that stands out so now the challenge is to do something with what I have learned.

This week I have also found myself a wonderful new voice coach who has complimentary (yet quite different) skills to my existing voice coach and dear friend, Fergus McLelland, who is just the most amazing recording VO artist, ever (and his live speaking performances are just so powerful).

My first visit with my new 'guy' takes place next week and will write more after this which is to see if we can work together.  I really hope we can as I am looking for him to use his background and experience to bring out the 'characters' that lurk inside of me - an absolute must if I want to progress at some point in the future from just straight corporate reads.

More next week!

Józefa
< BACK TO MY MAIN VO WEBSITE

Friday, March 11, 2011

SPLIT PERSONALITY!

The VO learning journey continues...

...Something I have discovered during the last 9 years of working for myself is that I love diversity.  During this time I have done many things in many different places here in the UK, across the rest of Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia.  None of this would have been possible, had I not taken the chance to work for myself. It also appears that along the way, I have adopted quite a few different personas depending on the work role, these have included:

  • Formal educator (aka Senior University Lecturer)
  • Instructional Designer
  • Trainer
  • Facilitator
  • Learning Specialist Adviser
  • Conference Key Note Speaker & Chair
  • Career Coach
  • Professional Supervisor
  • Mentor
  • Quality Assessor

and now.... VOICE OVER ARTIST!

I have long harboured the dream of becoming an musical performer and actor, but as someone who cannot sing a note, felt it was beyond my reach - if I had known then what I know now (as demonstrated on X Factor), I could have simply used microphone technology and software to alter my dreadful singing voice.  Whereas I cannot sing, I can certainly speak and now am splitting my personality even further by exploring and expanding the Voice Over side of my business interests.

To reflect these changes, this blog will now focus exclusively on my journey into the world of the voice-over (VO) artist, whilst my other business developments will feature on my LearningVoice Blog.

A new VO website is planned and some new recordings will soon be in production - so listen up and enjoy my split personality.

Józefa
< GO TO MY MAIN LEARNINGVOICE WEBSITE
< GO TO MY NEW VO WEBSITE

Monday, March 07, 2011

TOPPING UP YOUR LEARNING

The learning journey continues...

Last Friday, I attended another wonderful ‘Trainer Talk Live’ event with the superb Sharon Gaskin from the Trainers Training Company at which I met Jo Dodds, an authoritative and engaging speaker who proceeded to tell us all how to use social media.

Not only did we learn so much, it was fun too – a rare combination!

The important thing I reflected upon after the event is a) how much I already knew and was doing and b) how valuable it was to have what I knew endorsed – and then some!

It is so easy to assume that just because you have done something quite successfully for years and there are no particular problems, that you know it all – in fact it is quite dangerous as we can all slip into bad habits or even the perennial, “I know I should be doing X, but haven’t got round to it yet”. This can compromise the quality of what we do, which becomes much harder to rectify as time goes on.

This is also true when trainers start to think about their training, facilitating and coaching ability.  Those who have done it for a long time,  should also consider reviewing their skills and performance with another professional.

At the above event, I mentioned a brand new service that I have introduced whereby trainers can do just that, engage in Professional Supervision, to improve the quality of their provision.

“Learning is an ongoing process”, or so we say to those who take part in our various sessions – so then it must apply to us too!

Józefa
< GO TO MY MAIN LEARNINGVOICE WEBSITE
< GO TO MY NEW VO WEBSITE