Acoustic Panel Shenanigans and New Training Update!

"When you can hear your blood moving you've gone too far."

Very helpful advice on placing my new acoustic panels given to me by my old dorm neighbor, from back in college when I was racking up a bunch of debt getting an education that ultimately didn't go anywhere.  But really, isn't the real student debt the friends you make along the way?

Anyway, back on topic, I got some new acoustic panels!  For those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, acoustic panels are basically foam squares with a kind of egg crate-esque texture on one side that's designed to diffuse echoes.  I'm still learning the technical side of it, but they keep a lot of the annoying reverb from getting picked up by my microphone when I'm screaming into the void at home.  That said, I severely underestimated how many I'd need for my messy, little recording nook.  I also realized that I'm going to need several different types to help me with different frequencies of sound, such as looking into getting bass traps for my corners.

Notice the duct tape?  Tip of the iceberg.  The glue I got, Liquid Nails, is supposed to be really good but I'm incompetent at simple things so all the panels kept falling off the wall.  The duct tape was supposed to just be there to hold it steady for half an hour while the glue dried, but I ended up using a combination of liberal amounts of both glue and tape to get them to stay.  Apparently you're supposed to put down lines of the adhesive across the surface instead of just dots.  At least next time when I go to add the roughly twenty or thirty more panels I'm going to need to cover more of the wall space I'll maybe sort of almost know what I'm doing.  And yes, I've come to terms with ruining the paint a bit.

Also, new training update!  I've scheduled by first initial lesson SPECIFICALLY for voiceover with actual booth time and focused instruction!  I don't live in LA where you can hit up a bevy of famous voice actors for classes -- I live in Portland, where there's maybe one voiceover studio searchable on Google.  So the only reason I even found out about Inside Voice here in town was through a classmate of mine in my on camera acting class.  (Thanks, Aaron!)  I'm scheduled for a few weeks from now and I'm trying to manage my excitement lest it get the better of me.  I may get there an hour early that day, but I'll try not to scream "HI!" in the teacher's face.  I'm an actor now, so I can at least pretend to not be a total overzealous geek for a couple hours.

Maybe.

We'll see.

For those of you seeking voiceover instruction like I am, here's what I've been told to watch out for:

1) Anyone who guarantees success is probably a scam.  This career doesn't really do guarantees as a rule.  It's a lot of hard, hard work and being trained and ready to jump on the right opportunity when it comes up.

2) Be seriously skeptical if they want you to produce a demo.  If you're still new to this, you're probably not ready to produce a quality, competitive demo yet.  A good teacher will only broach this subject if you're both absolutely sure you're ready to take that step.

3) Seriously consider your potential teacher's resume.  Best case scenario, you want someone who is currently working in the industry as either an actor, a director, or something like a dialect coach.  But like all learning, it's better to be empty than to be full of shit.  Having a bad teacher can hurt you more than no instruction at all.

Lastly, this isn't really specific to go on the above list, but just in general about this kind of thing: Look out for warning signs, trust your gut, and when in doubt get more general training.  You can never take enough acting classes or get enough experience.  Get into community theater, say yes to opportunities that even peripherally have to do with voiceover like checking out a puppetry group or singing class, research the recording and sound editing software you're using and especially what the pros are using, find excuses to get onto film or television sets, sign up to be an extra, see if you can shadow a casting director, etc.

At no point should you or I be wondering what to do next.  There is always something more to learn.  Keep your schedule full, see what else you can apply to your career, explore other creative outlets, and make lots of friends and acquaintances.  Surround yourself with other creatives and you'll always be inspired by them.