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Some of you know (most of you don't) that I work stage production for concerts and theatre. I've worked for some of the biggest bands in the world both on the local and and touring end. I worked mainly as a lighting designer but I was pretty well rounded in all areas from special effects to automation to carpentry... I was even a lead prop guy for a while (which I loved cause it was the easiest gig in theatre. I despise theatre so it made my life easier) and audio. I have a lot of stories that can fit into pretty much every forum on this site, but every time I start typing them out, I end up getting lost in other projects.
Anyway, recently I "retired" from stagecraft. I no longer tour because I'm married and my wife says the next tour I go on better be my own and because physically, it was getting to be too much. Messed my back up from many years of trying to prove myself and now it's to the point where one day of work is a weeks worth of pain. Not worth putting myself in a wheelchair over. Plus, I learned that when you reach the top of the "corporate ladder" and you realize that if you jump off you will land fine on your feet, it's time to move on.
Thus starts my new adventure. I figured this was the best time to really start working on my own music and get an album finished that I've been promising to people for years. While I do that though, to help with the family income, I've been coming up with ways to bring in some money using my recording studio. Essentially, I'm doing something that many hipsters would call "selling out". I've been moving into areas of the recording industry I had not considered going into before: mainly commercial voice over and music as well as my main focus which is voice acting in video games.
I have entered into that fun filled world of self-contracting. I'm starting to get a first hand view of some of the comical-yet-not-so-comical things I've read by people such as Spark and Seraph who do a lot of commission type work. The first lesson I've learned in this is that perspective clients have a favourite word:
it seems the internet is full of bottom feeders. Not just people who are independent, starting their own projects on next to nothing. Even people who have put a decent amount of time or money into their work seem to think that others should be wanting to just donate their time and work to be part of their project because it's the "next big thing" or because "they didn't have enough money to pay someone".
Luckily, I got my first big fish pretty quickly and will be doing both voice acting and scoring music for a video game coming out next year, but while I wait for that to get going, I've still been looking for other projects and casting my line into the sea in hopes of some decent catches.
Wish me luck. I'm already headdesking at every turn.
Anyway, recently I "retired" from stagecraft. I no longer tour because I'm married and my wife says the next tour I go on better be my own and because physically, it was getting to be too much. Messed my back up from many years of trying to prove myself and now it's to the point where one day of work is a weeks worth of pain. Not worth putting myself in a wheelchair over. Plus, I learned that when you reach the top of the "corporate ladder" and you realize that if you jump off you will land fine on your feet, it's time to move on.
Thus starts my new adventure. I figured this was the best time to really start working on my own music and get an album finished that I've been promising to people for years. While I do that though, to help with the family income, I've been coming up with ways to bring in some money using my recording studio. Essentially, I'm doing something that many hipsters would call "selling out". I've been moving into areas of the recording industry I had not considered going into before: mainly commercial voice over and music as well as my main focus which is voice acting in video games.
I have entered into that fun filled world of self-contracting. I'm starting to get a first hand view of some of the comical-yet-not-so-comical things I've read by people such as Spark and Seraph who do a lot of commission type work. The first lesson I've learned in this is that perspective clients have a favourite word:
FREE
it seems the internet is full of bottom feeders. Not just people who are independent, starting their own projects on next to nothing. Even people who have put a decent amount of time or money into their work seem to think that others should be wanting to just donate their time and work to be part of their project because it's the "next big thing" or because "they didn't have enough money to pay someone".
Luckily, I got my first big fish pretty quickly and will be doing both voice acting and scoring music for a video game coming out next year, but while I wait for that to get going, I've still been looking for other projects and casting my line into the sea in hopes of some decent catches.
Wish me luck. I'm already headdesking at every turn.
sometimes.
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