Chapter 13 - Charlie in the wild and in a children's book.

A little section over on an end cap is where I found the few items of Northpole 1820/Polariffic.

When I was out today, I stopped by a nearby Hallmark Gold Crown, to see how they had this stuff set up. This is the one over in Lee Summit, and they had this little area where both the plush larger characters from Polariffic, as well as two itty Bittys versions, and a children's book, were being offered for sale.

The book is based almost word for word from what I could remember of the mini animated adventure of the Polariffic characters.

I was out getting cough drops, hunting for a few other things, and before I'd even gotten to the Gold Crown store, I was already annoyed with the people and crowds out and about.

Still neat to see this in stores! - Mario, the Artisan Rogue

Chapter 12 - We meet again Charlie.

I was walking past the holiday display here at Hallmark, and noticed that they were adorning one tree with assorted plush animals. I walked up and thought one looked really familiar... one of them was a YETI!!!!!

The ladies installing the display were smiling because, (man I'm a dork), I picked Charlie up and hugged him. I hugged a little Yeti at work.

I thought for sure this was one that was not going to be released. 

The lady that took this right after I said I had done the voice for him, was nervous or something so I came out a bit blurry, like a bigfoot photo...

That was so freaking... I am the voice in a toy that is coming out in stores soon. Nevermind my love of legends and cryptozoological animals like the yeti, just holding a toy that made my kid dream of having my voice in a toy was an amazing early Christmas present.

I recorded for this little guy over what, two years ago? Sometimes it takes a while, but if you don't give up, and you have a bit of luck, good things do come.

- Mario, the Artisan Rogue

Chapter 11 - Video game voice actors begin strike.

In a crossover event that hits two interests very near and dear to me, SAG-AFTRA, which represents unionized voice actors who work in video games and other interactive media, has announced that the right to declare a strike has been authorized.

Many of the industry's biggest names, including Jennifer Hale (Mass Effect) and David Hayter (Metal Gear Solid), showed their support for the motion to unionize when the vote opened a few weeks ago. #PerformanceMatters was adopted by voice actors and their sympathizers on Twitter as a rallying cry. Tweets featuring the slogan were meant to encourage members to vote in favor of the strike, as well as increase visibility for what the performers consider to be their undesirable working conditions.

Some of the companies issues have arisen with include Activision and Electronic Arts.

Over 95% of the members of SAG-AFTRA voted to move forward with this strike. In a move that parallels the plights of so many members of the effects/animation/art teams on many of these games (as well as into the realms of television and movie production), there could be a lot of dirt and dust riled up in this. But it needs to happen.

I for one, am not union. I work internally for Hallmark, but even if I had an opportunity to get work out of this, I firmly believe that creativity should be paid for accordingly, that true skill and talent should be recognized and highlighted by taking the steps to treat the performers with respect and dignity due the jobs they do.

I completely understand where they are coming from, and hope that if this strike goes through and happens that it goes a long ways in resolving with good motion on the side of the Union actors.

- Mario, the Artisan Rogue

To learn more, please go to http://www.sagaftra.org/

Chapter 10 - A nice Friday interaction.

Just sharing this because Steve Blum is a big idol of mine, and I laughed out loud at work over this...

Have a great weekend all! - Mario

Chapter 9 - Along came an audition

So, literally, today, I ended up with an internal one hour session, here at work, where I got to chill and chat with two very cool fellows, Chris and Josh, and take a shot at doing some voices for three distinct monsters. Now of course, I can't talk about the scripts or what they were for until, A) I get approved, and B) the actual things utilizing my voice work come out.

BUT, I can touch on something that came to bear today that is super important. Warming up, and practicing. The work I did today, pushed me into some vocal styles that were very gritty and deep resonating sort of hits on my throat. I usually pride myself on being able to hit a wide range of variation and depth, but my limit that I am still working to overcome is to be able to sustain a heavier voice effect or range for a long period of time.

I warmed up and drank tea before I went in the booth, and that helped. But I probably could have stood to have done the voices in practice a bit more closer to the energy level I was putting out today.

Regardless of all of that, it was a lot of fun, and I feel that even though I was a bit out of practice, it came together well. Here's to hoping I find my voice out there again later on, in some new Hallmark stuff.

I think wearing my Oscar the Grouch shirt was a good luck stroke today.

Chapter 8 - the Absence of work.

So time flies when no roles show up. Sometimes that happens, and in a small market like Kansas City, even with an in house voice over studio at my daytime job. Then before you know it, months have flown by, because thankfully I had enough other stuff to keep me insanely busy, and I didn't have much time to reflect on not having any voice work come my way.

Now to be fair, externally, I'd not been auditioning, much less looking to see if anything was even available. I think because I needed to get some other things aligned professionally, I tried to look for a way to utilize my fledgling skills at voice over, and produce something that could benefit me creatively, and perhaps round out my website entries and updates, while allowing me to keep in practice and learn how to use audio editing software and equipment even better, while I wait for more opportunities to present themselves, or I decide to pursue them more diligently.

So, after spending a lot of time listening to the radio, especially Johnny Dare on 98,9 the Rock here in KC, and a whole heck of a lot of NPR, I came to the decision to make a radio program of sorts of my own. It took the form of a podcast published on Podbean (available on iTunes as well), that got me out of my creative acting block, and gave me a vocal outlet.

It's been an incredible amount of fun, and it's allowed me to do some opinion and inspirational bits, a few NPR flavored ones, and to re-record a demo song. Thankfully, a good number of people that follow my blogs also started listening, and I'm averaging a good number of listens per episode.

From a technical standpoint, it's begun to allow me a purpose to begin to develop my voice again for the microphone, to play with putting energy and emotion out there, which has steadily begun to be something more apparent and jubilant as the episodes progress.

From a creative standpoint, oh man, I set the standard that this was going to be a creative effort that ran the spectrum across my professional and hobby interests, with a bit of personal story telling thrown in. Some of this came about really from my newly found love of independent press publications in the form of Zines (which I cover in one episode), and the raw presentations they have.

But this has also become a wonderful compendium to my main site, www.theartisanrogue.com as well as the others, in that I'm able to produce radio quality broadcasts that are quick and timely, with average running times of about 14 minutes or less. And I get to cut loose and be even a little bit entertaining while doing them.

So in the meantime, while I work through a lot of art show preparation and try and adjust to the new challenges in my day job, and create new comics and books, I will keep adding to the podcast. Hopefully more of you will give it a listen, give me some feedback, and maybe even more topics to talk about or cover.

Here's the link for the Artisan Rogue Podcast!   

Chapter 7 - Trying to sound like an ass in the soundbooth.

So some days after the mental and physical work over that was the Charlie session, I was lucky enough to be picked for another session recording, this time around pretending to be an ass.

Literally.

It was a voice over for a talking donkey destined to be included in an upcoming Father's Day card.

There was no imagery this time to spike any sort of understanding of character, and the direction I had gotten via email was urging me to take sort of a Family Guy "Stewie" sort of approach, but with no oddball British accent attached.

This was the session where I found myself still filled with some trepidation, and because of that, overcompensating and unintentionally being unprepared. Mainly because I was so focused on staying calm and collected, that when the day came to record, my performance was very, very flat at first.

I have to say this now as I reflect back on that day. Thank goodness for super understanding people, and thank goodness they were all in the studio that day. I think it was apparent I was struggling, that I was having issues getting into a comfortable zone. That try as I might, I could not think of one thing that would allow voices or impersonations to flow freely. I was literally reading the script in front of me. In a dry and fairly emotionless way.

That mental rolodex I carry with me? The one that I'd been filling all these years with voices, quirky accents, and off beat impersonations? It was like it was full of blank cards.

I remember thinking, the lights felt hot in that booth, that man, I was tanking, and somehow, I convinced myself to remember that if I want to do this, you have to rise above it ALL the time.

Finally, after some coaching and very forgiving direction, Julie managed to help me get out the performance in piecemeal that they would be able to use. But when I got out of the booth, I knew I'd messed up, I know that I could have done better. She told me to practice, to keep working at it, and to slow down my phrasing, clear up my diction, and to really push myself.

That day marked a sobering moment that in many ways was worse than the prior session's aftermath had been for me. In any other studio, I would have been cut out. Completely. Regardless of how nice a guy I am, or how much range I could showcase..., without control, without attention to detail, and without a tenacity to want to improve each time, well, there is always someone else that can step in that booth instead of me.

I chalked this one up to one of those times that they'd replace my session with someone else's take.

That was many months back, and just today as I was at my local grocery store getting a few things, I walked past the Hallmark display, and looked over to see the Father's Day cards offerings were out. I then remembered at the exact moment I saw this donkey's face looking back at me from a card, that I had recorded a card for that holiday.

Pretty sure my face was looking similar to this as I held the card.

I immediately reached out for it, and then hesitated for a second, and actually walked around the display to the back, before I pushed down on the "Press Here" button on the card. To my relief, to my surprise, the sound of my own voice, my final takes, along with a bizarre lower lip mechanical movement, happened.

This, as far as I know, currently, is the first of my voice over efforts to make it out to mass market.

Do you know how surreal that is to be standing in a Hy-Vee and be wanting to scream out "THIS IS ME! I AM A TALKING DONKEY!!!!!"

It was me. It is me.

I took it and my basket of groceries to the checkout counter, and paid for it. I'm still looking at it here as I type out this update. I'm a talking Hallmark card. This is a little bit probably how the insanely funny duo behind Hoops and Yoyo must have felt like, and maybe still do to this day (except they are way funnier than I am).

The card standing, and the interior message.

So if by chance, you happen upon this card, and want to have a bit of additional conversation for that father or father like figure in your life, maybe pick this up. And say Happy Father's Day, from you, and the ass who recorded this card.

Until next time!