Once a month, I meet online with 9 other voice-actors. They’re awesome. I’m just pedaling fast to keep up.
We are the “board of directors” for each other’s voice-acting business (roughly). We call it our “MasterMind” group. MasterMind is a fairly common concept for meet-ups. It’s an idea that works, no matter your profession. It just seems especially applicable for voice-actors scattered to the far corners, and not often able to compare notes in real time.
On Google Hangouts, we listen, we offer feedback, we share trends, ideas, and sometimes the tedium and frustration of our lives and our work. The moments are immensely fulfilling and cathartic. I would highly recommend you hitch your wagon to such a group. It’s great if you can do it in person in your geographic area. The group I belong to is spread across all time zones in North America. Yes, Canadians are Americans, too!
Today, a couple of uber-cool websites came out of the conversation that are OK to share with you.
First is Spot Talent. Here’s their elevator pitch: “…Spot Talent gives you real-time visibility into the national airings for all spots you are in. See all of the networks (broadcast and cable), shows, airing times for your spots and download HD copies of the creatives for your portfolio…” Unlimited access for $119/year. A must have tool for those of you booking national, even regional TV and radio spots on a regular basis. I was just reading the other day, a convincing argument for tracking your spots, so you don’t end up in a topical conflict for any certain city/area that could really get you in trouble. “Spot Talent” sounds like a great way to avoid THAT embarrassing scenario.
Second is savefrom.net. This site lets you download files from a host of popular websites. Most of us would find that a big help, especially for YouTube, Vimeo, FaceBook, and other sites. Among those “other” sites are quite a few with the .ru (Russian) domain name, so this makes me think the site originates on the far side of the Urals, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. You just enter the URL of the info you want to download in a dialog box at the top of the site, and click “download”. Presto!
A similar site I use also works well: KeepVid.com. Just be careful which “download” button you click. The wrong one might initiate a program download you may not want.
See? Get your own MasterMind going, and enjoy sharing great info like this all the time!
CourVO
