MCM Voices Newsletter: Volume 2 Number 5: Birdwatcher's Edition

MCM Voices with dapper sphenisciform friend

MCM Voices Newsletter
Volume II No. 5 - May 2008

_________________________________________________________________________

Show me your bird list and get 20% off your next voice-over. Bird-watching is a great hobby - it gets you outdoors and using your legs, your eyes and your ears, and lets you forget your responsibilities long enough to recharge your batteries. And, it can save you money! Just send me a list of the birds you saw and/or heard on your last bird walk and get a discount on your next voice-over from MCM Voices.

________________________________________________________________________________

MCM News

a few highlights from April...

New client Ciné-Med has been keeping me extremely busy in the last month with a Continuing Medical Education piece for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. It has been (and continues to be!) a pleasure working with this team, and I have learned a great deal about a complex medical topic in the process.

ACOG logo

NAR logo

I've been doing real estate tours for AgentCasts since last summer, as their exclusive voice. Last month the National Association of Realtors announced a strategic alliance with AgentCasts "as a leading developer and distributor of electronic real estate marketing solutions, including full-motion video tour production; photo-based virtual video tours; agent profile marketing videos; and video editing, hosting and distribution services". Congratulations, AgentCasts!

A new venture for MCM Voices. I got into the voice acting business for a number of reasons, but chiefly because I like acting but prefer not to be seen. That started to change last year when I took Dialects for Actors at the University of Massachusetts. We had to present monologues on stage at the end of the year and I enjoyed it tremendously, and started to think maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be seen after all. Nevertheless I didn't go right out and start seeking opportunities that might take me away from the microphone.

Last month I was asked to to provide a voice-over audition using British, Irish, German, Polish, Italian and Dominican accents for a piece on immigration at a Boston museum. The producers have not made a decision on that yet, but they subsequently invited me to an on camera audition for another exhibit at the same museum. I was to play the part of a wealthy British Loyalist of the 1770's. The audition was a good experience - but it's very different from voice acting!! I still don't plan to go out looking for opportunities at the moment - my days are already bursting at the seams - but I do believe in opening doors when opportunity knocks!

________________________________________________________________________

Avian Bloopers.

MCM Voices' never-ending quest to
get the right bird sounds into the
soundtracks of the world

Serious spring migration is finally underway here in New England after a rather slow start. This week the warblers started coming in numbers, and the list includes Black-and-white, Chestnut-sided, Black-throated Green, Black-throated Blue, Nashville, Blackburnian (my favorite! and its song is a great measuring stick to check your hearing in the upper ranges) and Yellow-rumped Warblers and they're still coming. The annual Biology Department Bird Walk at Smith College the day before yesterday was actually pretty quiet due to the rainy and chilly spell we've had, but the birds have been moving in the last couple of days. The pandemonium I referred to in the last newsletter has not quite occurred and of course, by the publication of the next newsletter, it will all be over and everybody will have settled down on their nests (except American Goldfinches, which don't breed until July).

For suggestions about appropriate springtime sounds for other parts of the U.S. or the world for your production sound tracks, just ask!