THUNDERSTORM KILLS KITTENS AND PUPPIES! …. nah just kidding

You know the phrase “It’s raining cats and dogs”? Well I would say that this storm that happened tonight just killed them.

I recently got a Flip Mino for review while I was in Hamilton, and I wanted to record some stuff.  I was invited to join in a playing of Fantasy Flight Games’ Twilight Imperium.  A board game that has a sci-fi galatic domination flair, but has a Battlestar Galactica kind of feel to it too.  So I thought with the footage I recorded I would make a small video as a nod to my favorite modern sci-fi franchise.

Hope you find it entertaining.

As always I remain obediently yours.

Steve

Writing on the Patio – Part 2

Writing on the patio while I discuss the pressure of writing, good and bad.

Writing on the patio

A few thoughts on writing in different environments.

Orson Welles was a Master of Voice Acting.  His voice is so recognizable even today that you can’t help but be entranced with his deep and calming voice.  He is foreboding a narrator but subtle.  Welles once said, “I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won’t contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you….it becomes a social act.”  This can be said about anything regards to the art of performance.

I remember growing up in the Niagara Region of Ontario Canada where every Sunday night at 11pm there was a one hour show on the radio called “Theatre of the Mind.”  They would play Old-Time Radio Serials from the 1930′s up until the 1950′s.  I tuned in faithfully each week to hear “Amos and Andy”, “The Shadow”, “Flash Gordon”, and of course “The Third Man” and “The Black Museum” narrated and starring Orson Welles(as you can tell, I am a huge Orson Welles fan).  I listened to those shows and my imagination ran wild.  Stories came to life through voice and sound, which gave me the passion for Radio, Storytelling, and of course Voice Acting.

So to begin this journey into Voice Acting, I thought I would chronicle my attempts to become a Professional Voice Actor here at stevesaylor.net.  I will chronicle my failures, my success, and hopefully showcase my passion for the art of Voice Acting.

My first challenge for myself is this:  To start I have signed up for a one month account at Voices.com.  My goal for the month of May, up until June 5th 2009 is to book at  minimum 1 Voice Acting job through voices.com.

I have created two voice over demos that you can listen to here on my site at http://stevesaylor.net/voice-over

There are several other challenges in the works such as getting an agent, booking a recurring role on an animated cartoon series, and more to come.

So I hope you will join me in my quest to become a professional paid voice actor, and if you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them and let me know.

If you are an audio producer and would like to get in contact with me for any voice over project you think I would be good for, please feel free to email me at mail@stevesaylor.net

Thank you all, and as Orson Welles likes to end all his broadcasts; as always I remain, obediently yours.

Steve

I love it when someone who is creatively inclined takes pieces of technology and makes something super creative.  Theresa Andersson is that super creative.  What she does is uses music effects pedals normally used for guitarists and other musicians to get a certain sound that they need or need to loop while they play something else.  My brother does the same sort of thing(minus looping sounds) with the effects pedals he uses for his band Arcadia. This technology had only been perfected with great quality within the past decade or so, but Theresa takes this one step further and creates her own band with full instruments, all by herself!   Just think about this for a second, without this kind of technology today she would not have found her voice or sound!  That’s incredible!  She has such a creative mind that I’ve literally soaked up all her music that’s online for the past hour!  I love this!

Her myspace page is over at www.myspace.com/theresaanderssonmusic where you can hear her music, but you really have to watch the videos she has of her performing her music to really get the hawesomeness of what she does.  I have a video below of what I assume was a live concert she did.  It’s a long video over 22 minutes, but if you are creative like me, you will soak up those 22 minutes to watch something really hawesome!

My question to you is after watching that video, what kind of technology do you use to be creative?  Are you creative with that technology?  Leave a comment and let me know.

As always I remain, obediently yours.

Steve

One of the great things about Podcamp, especially about the one in Toronto, is that even though it’s a free event, it takes sponsors to make it run.  Podcamp Toronto has grown thanks to the help of the organizers able to put on an awesome event, but it’s the Sponsors that help them make that event awesome.  I know the one that I always go to in Toronto since it’s inception couldn’t have come close to the awesome event that it was without them.  So first of all for all the companies that sponsored Podcamp Toronto 1 2 and 3, you rock, and I like rocks!

At any rate, one of those sponsors was WHIR, Web Host Industry Review, and they are an awesome company that I hear good things about all the time.  One of those great things is WHIR TV, which interviews people in the Web space and finds out what makes them, or their companies tick.  It’s fascinating!  Now granted, I have two friends who work with WHIR TV, but that doesn’t stop me from saying they run an awesome show, and I hope they don’t stop.

So to say it was an honour (that’s the Canadian version of honor, which is far more awesome), to be interviewed on my thoughts about Podcamp Toronto 2009, it is a huge deal for me.

They recently posted the video of the event over at http://thewhir.com/tv, but I have embeded the video for you below.  What’s cool about this video is I get the last word about Podcamp Toronto, so watch until the very end!

As always, I remain, obediently yours.

Steve

Hello all,

I’ve been wanting to talk about this for the past week, but haven’t been able to wrap my thoughts on the subject matter until now.

There was a post made by a prominent radio show host here in Toronto at Q107 FM which he talks about Twitter.  If you would like to read the post, you can go to http://bit.ly/q107twitter.  This host is not a fan of twitter and doesn’t quite understand it as much as myself, not as an expert, but as a Twitter veteran.  Sometimes it’s hard for those of us on Twitter to understand as well that there are people who don’t understand it and sometimes can mock the site as well as those of us on it.

At any rate, read the post, then watch this quick video I made to get my thoughts out there.

Now what do you think?  What do you use Twitter for?  What is it about Twitter that you like the most?  Comment on the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c1TLvYYKnc or by posting your comment below.

As always, I remain, obediently yours.

Steve