National Voice Over Appreciation Month!

Hurray! It's time to celebrate! It is National Voice Over Appreciation Month and I'm thrilled to hear about it. Even though Voiceover Gurl is not my "day job", I am passionate about the industry. I started doing professional voice over work about 7 years ago, and have never looked back. Besides getting my "ya yas" as a wannabe performer, I am happy to say that I've formed some very special online and offline friendships and professional contacts with people all over the world. I've also had the privilege of working on some very special projects!

The voice over industry is a special one. Although we "compete" against each other for work, there is a fellowship that is hard to describe. It is a truly supportive group of people, who hold each other up and cheer each other on.

Like any passionate group of professionals, voice over artists (at least the ones I know) are keen to make audio projects sparkle and shine. We like to please people with our gift and always strive for perfection. I can say with great confidence that most of us won't allow one audio file reach a client until we're satisfied that it is of the highest, professional quality. But who would expect anything less?

What I'm saying is... not only do we have great voices, but most of us have exceptional hearing as well - probably better than the average person. I have no data to substantiate this claim, but having worked many audio settings, the professional voice over artist has a very well trained ear, not just a well trained voice! (it only stands to reason, right?).

More and more, I see our industry growing stronger. With eBooks and video consumption rates on a huge upward swing, voice over artists are getting more gigs than ever before. Hurray for our industry! Pro voice over artists are busier than ever!

I'm proud that a month of September has been declared in honor of this group of very special people and I look forward to seeing tweets and posts about all the celebrations.

Here in Canada, later this month is Voices of Vision in Toronto, September 23rd to 25th. I'm going to do my best to make it. It looks like a fantastic line-up! But if I don't, I'll cheer them on from the sidelines!

Congratulations to our industry!