It’s the New Year. And as such time for the New Years Wrap-up. As with most New Years, it’s time to reflect on the previous year and prepare for the new one. And there is a lot to reflect on and prepare for. 2020 wasn’t what anyone would call a “good” year. But one of the few things that 2020 has allowed me to do was put the time and effort into making my Voice Over career a full time job.

At the start of 2020, I was bartending full time, and didn’t have a lot of free time. I had done some auditions and audio books in the past, and I had my podcast the HEMACast. But it was definitely more of a hobby than a job. When everything shut down for the pandemic, my bar closed it’s doors, put everything into storage, and that was that. So I started to work on doing more audiobooks and auditioning at cattle call websites, and I realized a few things.

First, I have ADHD, and years as a bartender, and before that as a Pharmacy Technician, covered up or made use of my ADHD. But sitting down to edit my recordings was difficult, if not impossible. So I took the time and got diagnosed, and combined coping mechanisms, systems, and medication to improve my quality of life, and be able to put in the time to do audio recording and editing.

Next, I realized that I had to do more than just audition on cattle call sites. I knew that Voices.com, Voices123, ACX, and the like can be very effective at making money and possibly build a career. But it’s much easier to be a professional voice actor, if I put the time and effort into being a professional voice actor. That means more than just auditioning and having a demo. It means that I should have my own website, have a social media presence, contact people with my personalized e-mail, etc. And I’m learning all that it means to be a professional voice actor. I’ve gone from not knowing what I don’t know, to knowing that I don’t know a lot, and looking for the resources to learn. Which brings us to . . . .

What’s New?

The website, for one, is very new. Pardon the debris. I copied a lot of what was on the old website onto the new website, but I’m not really happy with the layout or the color scheme yet. I have friends giving me some critiques for content, but I will be hiring someone to polish this up and make it look good. But with the new Website comes a new professional e-mail address. You can now contact me at contact@pfmccaffreyvoices.com.

New Year -> Resolutions. For myself, I will be doing 15 minutes of stretching every day, as well as taking some time to read and practice from at least one of three books that have been recommended to me. The three books are “Freeing the Natural Voice” by Kristin Linklater, “The Art of Voice Acting” by James R. Alburger, and “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” by Betty Edwards. ♫One of these things is not like the other♫ I can’t draw, and I’ve wanted to change that for a long while. I just haven’t sat down and put in the time effort and energy to learn. But they’re all designed to make me a better performer. Maybe I’ll even use a newfound drawing ability to design my own logo! . . . . . don’t hold your breath on that one.

What’s Brewing? What will we see (hear) from you?

Not much new for this week. Keeping this section brief this time. When I have more things to tell you, I’ll be shouting it, hopefully next week.

Statistics? Auditions?

This week was also pretty light. I didn’t do many auditions, and there weren’t a ton that I missed out on by not auditioning on New Years Eve and Day. My wife and I marathoned the Lord of the Rings Extended Editions New Years Eve, and recovered New Years Day. Then I spent a lot of time working on the website.

But for numbers: Voices.com – 21 new auditions, 14 new audition listens, and 1 new short list. I expect those numbers will increase this upcoming week.

For CCC, I did 5 auditions, and got 1 new job for “Super Cartoon Wars”. I also got some of the other jobs in my queue taken care of and probably will put a few auditions out this upcoming week.

On ACX I did 5 new auditions, and unfortunately haven’t gotten lucky with them, though I did get many kind words that they like my voice but are going in another direction. There are still 5 pending auditions, and there’s this one job that I’m interested in doing, but it’s a megalithic project if I do get it. It kinda feels like a megalithic audition.

Timular

It’s always interesting to see where you spend your time. And this week, I spent a *lot* of time dealing with the website. And I know I didn’t track half of it. But 4 1/2 hours listed as Marketing (which website development totally is). 2 1/4 hours for Voices.com and a little over an hour for Casting Call Club, ACX and Planning. With a sprinkling of other things for a total of 10 hours and 37 minutes tracked.

Samples!

Uhhh…… Check back next week for samples. I was totally planning on putting up a couple, but don’t remember what I did well or wanted to share.

That’s it for my New Years Wrap-up. I’ll try to be more interesting next week. And I’ll actually get my summary blog post up on Friday.