Stephen Fry will read: ‘Dudley had learnt a new word (’Shan’t!’).’

Jim Dale will say: “Dudley had learned a new word (”Won’t!”).”

Fry: ‘Would you care for a sherbet lemon?’

Dale: “Would you care for a lemon drop?”

Fry: he had hands the size of dustbin lids

Dale: he had hands the size of trash can lids

Fry: The rock cakes almost broke their teeth

Dale: The rock cakes were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke their teeth

George Bernard Shaw was right when he said: “England and America are two countries divided by a common language.”

I recently got a call from 20th Century Fox to translate a few songs for Wes Anderson’s new movie “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”, an adaptation of a children’s book by Roald Dahl. When Hollywood translates movies for worldwide release, localization is the name of the game. Some translators are good at it. Others…  smell at it! (yes, that was on purpose)

OOPS
Consider a simple word like “call.” Pick up Webster’s dictionary and you’ll find 15 definitions for the noun alone. Here are two actual mistranslations from movie and TV subtitles:

A priest explains, “That’s when I got my call from God.”

The subtitle reads: “That’s when God telephoned me.”

A general has to decide whether or not to bomb an urban target, and he says, “It’s a tough call.”

The subtitle reads: “It’s hard to make a phone call.”

NUMBER FOUR
Last month, my fourth audio book was released. When I had the final product in my hands, I remembered that I had had a less than easy time putting in a reasonable bid for the project. I’m obviously proud of my work, but it’s fair to say that I’m no Jim Dale or Stephen Fry (nor do I want to be). I am simply me, and the last time I checked, there’s only one of me on this planet. Believe me, that’s more than enough!

Unfortunately, this also means that I am bidding with the rest of you ordinary mortals when it comes to audio book narrations. Let me ask you this: do you always know what to charge? When looking at the budget range as proposed by the voice-seeker on, let’s say, a P2P, do you always feel that you’re looking at a fair compensation for your services? Or do you think that you’re being taken advantage of, when someone’s offering between $500 and $750 for 80 thousand words on the life and times of J.K. Rowling?

• What do you factor in when bidding on a project?
• Do you use voices.com, voice123.com or the Edge Studio rate cards?
• If you do, do you think these rates are realistic, optimistic, hopelessly outdated…?

For those of you interested in my “Chamber of audio book bidding Secrets”, I’ll tell you how I break down the process, step by step.  

Follow me…

The icing on the cake was the release of my fourth audio book “Trial of the Mystic”. It’s a medieval mystery novel, set in a dark and devious monastery. It doesn’t get much better than that! Truth be told, not every week is like this… but I’m sure you know what that’s like. If it rains it pours. Some projects were a long time in the making.

Meanwhile, I discovered a wonderful way to use and promote my voice-over skills to a live audience.  It fell into my lap, a few weeks ago, and I highly recommend you give it a try… continue

The second thing I’d like to share with you, is my frustration with the overall quality of voice-talent on some Pay-to-Play sites. I hate beating a dead horse, but some things simply need to be said. And instead of whining about it, I believe I came up with a few unusual solutions to persistent problems. But let me warn you ahead of time. You might not like my ideas. But if we’d all agree, life would be quite boring, wouldn’t it? So, it’s time we talk about the amateurs pretending to be voice-over pros, and in particular about this question… continue

David and Stephanie Ciccarelli, the team behind Voices.com, gave me a behind-the-scenes look at where your submissions land, once they’re in cyberspace. In addition, a former casting agent gives his side of the story… You won’t believe what is going on with these “Mad Men” of the advertising industry!

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But here’s the thing: at the end of the day, I wouldn’t want it any other way. I’m getting kind-of spoiled working for this boss of mine. He can be quite demanding and perfectionistic, but he’s a cool guy and some say he has a lot of potential…

During the past couple of weeks, I have been looking outside of my (soundproof) box, and I read up on things like web analytics, conversion management and interception rates. That doesn’t make me an expert, but at least I know where to go for info. In the process I was forced to take a good look at past audition submissions, and if you’ve been reading my recent blogs, you know that I wasn’t exactly impressed by what I discovered. Luckily, I found out that I was not alone. My ponderings struck an alarming chord.

In a few days, readership of this blog skyrocketed to unprecedented heights, and colleagues and pay-to-play site owners alike, contacted me personally. Of course this hype will be over in a few days, but I’ll take it as long as it lasts. To quote Jim Dale on the show ‘Pushing Daisies’: “The facts are these”… it looked like three quarters of all my custom demos had ended in a place called nowhere, simply because the voice-seeker had never bothered to award the job to someone. Is that what I was paying my subscription fees for? Or was this only part of the story?

The investigative journalist in me decided it was time to explore the issue further. One of the first things I did was look outside of my profession for some answers. That’s what lead me to a man named John. You should know that John hasn’t exactly had an easy time during this economic recession.  It was all due to his profession…

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I remember when I first joined a few of these sites. In the beginning, every new job posting seemed to open an exciting window of possibilities. I attacked my auditions with vigor. Every single demo had to be spot-on. Every letter to a job seeker was unique. And when I finally released my masterpiece into the universe, my adrenaline was pumping and my hopes were high. I paid to play, and boy did I play!

A few days into my membership, it happened: I hit the jackpot!! My very first booking was right up my alley: an audio book. I was so excited, I was glowing in the dark! This project was followed by another one, and another one… it was almost addictive. Soon -I told myself- I would join the ranks of the high rollers….

A few months into my subscription, the universe intervened. The gods of voice-over roulette decided it was time to bring me down to earth and pop my beloved bubble. It was early in the morning and the neighborhood was still asleep. I had…

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