conference, Alexis Pellek, a dependable & curious storyteller

Happy New Year! Welcome 2023!

January 4, 2023 by Alexis Pellek, posted in voiceover

image credit: CSA Images

Happy 2023!! Here’s wishing a very happy and healthy year to you and your family!

Before jumping into another year’s worth of…everything, I wanted to pause for a moment to think about 2022.

In some ways, the last year felt like it flew by at the speed of light, and in other ways it feels like time took forever to pass and that I’ve aged 10 years. Reflecting on my professional adventures in 2022, a few things stood out.

First off, thank you to my wonderful VO and writing/editing clients for another successful year! Working with you is a pleasure.

I had many opportunities to learn new things last year, and I’m thankful that I was able to attend several online conferences, including the Actors Summit, the Women in Voice Summit, eVOcation, and Voice 2022.

A photo of a streetcar in New Orleans on a sunny day with blue skies.

In addition to learning and networking online, I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to attend PsychCongress in New Orleans last year. I learned so much and explored a new city while covering this conference for Psycom Pro, where I attended sessions about psychiatric questionnaires, anxiety, suicide, and ADHD, to name a few.

A photo of a tray of beignets and coffee from Cafe du Monde in New Orleans.

Professional development comes in many forms, and I’m happy that I was able to continue and expand my voiceover training by taking improv, singing, and acting classes. I’ve also been adding to my YouTube channel. Last year I also found some great VO resources on Clubhouse to learn from the pros (see rooms by Marc Guss and Liz Atherton) and to connect with colleagues (looking at you, The Working Voice Actor!) Toward the end of 2022, I was delighted to join the National Association of Voice Actors, a nonprofit organization that offers healthcare plans in addition to many other benefits.

Last year I continued to study French (shout out to Chloe Dash Ines for being an amazing teacher) and it brings me much joy. Another area of interest was learning about conversational AI and how to design conversations for chat and voice assistants. Women in Voice is an amazing resource for those interested in voice and technology.

Wrapping up last year’s wrap-up, I wanted to say that I’m grateful for the relationships that are a part of my professional and personal life. I’d like to thank my clients, colleagues, and friends for being a part of my journey. (And if we haven’t met yet, thank you for reading.) I look forward to working with you, learning from you, and getting to know you better!

Let’s face the new year with a mindset of openness and courage – we can do it!

Clubhouse Recap: Carin Gilfry and Jamie Muffett on the Marc Guss Voiceover Club

June 15, 2022 by Alexis Pellek, posted in voiceover

Huge thanks to Marc Guss and his guests tonight on the Marc Guss Voiceover Club, Carin Gilfry and Jamie Muffett!! Carin and Jamie talked about their awesome conference, eVOcation, which took place last weekend. I attended, and what a valuable, educational, inspirational, and fun weekend it was (see my write-up here)!!

Carin and Jamie are both voice actors who started Facebook groups for local voice actors in New York and Philadelphia, respectively. In addition to the online groups, they also held in-person events. The eVOcation conference came about around 2018 when they met and realized that they were doing similar things in cities not far away. They thought, “Why not have a conference that focuses on the business side of being a voice actor?” And in September of 2019, the first VOcation conference took place in New York.

Since then the conference has been held virtually, hence the addition of the “e” in eVOcation. This year’s event covered a comprehensive range of topics applicable to voice actors as well as to others who own a business. As Jamie noted, an issue like work-life balance is something that all entrepreneurs have to deal with. Streamlining your workflow, negotiating rates, marketing, optimizing online casting profiles, website design and SEO — hearing other voice actors talk about these topics as it applies to us was a goldmine of information.

The workshops after each presenter were gold, too. The idea that Carin and Jaime had was for the workshops to provide steps that we could take away that could improve our businesses, and having the virtual conference means that you can be sitting in your workspace and make progress in real time. As Carin said, with the workshops it’s like a working weekend and a learning weekend.

In just a few months, there are plans for an in-person event this fall in New York! The conference returns to Symphony Space from September 10-11. Carin and Jamie said that they don’t have any announcements yet, but they are organizing it now so stay tuned.

And mark your calendars for February 9-12, 2023, and pack your bags for Cancun! Plans are in the works for a conference at the all-inclusive Moon Palace Resort. The plan is for classes to run from 10am-3pm every day and have the afternoons/evenings free.

Wondering how to connect and stay in the loop with all of these upcoming events? Join the Facebook group Vocation Voiceover, follow Vocation Conference on eventbrite, and visit vocationconference.com

Thanks so much to Marc, Carin and Jaime for the behind-the-scenes look at eVOcation, and thanks also for the audience questions that helped everyone listening learn even more! Check out the Marc Guss Voiceover Club every Wednesday night on Clubhouse at 8:30 pm ET or catch the replay later.

Conference Recap: eVOcation 2022!!

June 14, 2022 by Alexis Pellek, posted in voiceover

eVOcation 2022 took place last weekend and WOW!! What an amazing, jam-packed 3 days of learning, networking, and fun!! The conference covered so many important topics about the business of voice over, including:

Tips to streamline your workflow
Web design and SEO best practices
A demo review
Rates and negotiation tips
AI voices
The basics of the non-broadcast genre
A casting director panel
Social media strategies for voice actors
A working pros panel
Finding your work-life balance
Optimizing your online casting profiles
Relationships with agents & managers
Email marketing advice
And SHHHhhh, don’t tell, but a panel discussed Fiverr and similar platforms. I loved the name for this panel: “We don’t talk about Fiverr, No, No!”

Many of these topics were followed by a workshop, where we had the time and guidance to take what we’d learned and put it into practice. Things like creating meta title tags for our websites for better SEO, helping find voice descriptor keywords to use on online casting sites, and discussing time management techniques to help achieve the work-life balance that we want.

Sometimes these workshops consisted of breakout rooms where we worked in small groups, and other times we worked with the presenters all together. This time was so valuable because we could apply what we learned while it was fresh in our minds.

Thank you so much to conference organizers Carin Gilfry and Jamie Muffett for providing an excellent program, and thanks also to all of the amazing presenters and panelists for sharing their knowledge and inspiration!! This conference really helped me understand steps that I can take to improve my voiceover business.

Recap: Summit Week! Actors Summit & Women in Voice 2022 Summit

May 29, 2022May 29, 2022 by Alexis Pellek, posted in voiceover

The past week featured two amazing summits back-to-back, and I’m still processing all that I’ve learned. First was the Actors Summit, presented by Acting & Voice Studios. Next up was the Women in Voice 2022 Summit. Whew, what a whirlwind of information — let’s cover some highlights.

The graphic for the Actors Summit, which shows photos of celebrity actors who spoke at the event. The date was May 20-22, 2022.

The Actors Summit took place last weekend, May 20-22, and each day was packed with sessions! Each day featured speakers on three stages happening simultaneously, and sometimes it could be hard to choose which session to attend. I enjoyed hearing from casting directors, agents, voice actors speak about topics like what they look for in auditions, advice on working in commercials & animation, and why improv is good for actors. Two speakers, Joanne Baron and Donna Morong, talked about the Meisner technique, which was really interesting because I recently started reading Sanford Meisner on Acting. On Sunday, I loved hearing Sean Astin answer questions about his early career and how he became an actor. His session was a half hour, but I could have listened to him all day!

The graphic for the Women in Voice 2022 summit, which shows the date of the event, May 23-26 2022. Also the website womeninvoice.org/summit

On Monday, the 2nd annual Women in Voice, or WiV, Summit began and ran until Thursday afternoon. WiV celebrates voice technology and the Summit included sessions on topics like conversational AI, linguistics, voice acting, voice AI in medicine, and voice tech in cars, to name a few. Tuesday’s keynote featured Bev Standing and Susan Bennett interviewed by Kayla Pitts about their perhaps not-ideal experiences with voice technology as voice actors. They discussed what it was like hearing their voices used by TikTok’s TTS in Bev’s case and by Apple in Susan’s case as the voice of Siri. They also talked about their backgrounds and how they got into voice acting, the business side of VO, and AI voices.

I attended the WiV Summit last year, not sure what to expect, and discovered the field of conversation design. I became really interested in that, and although it’s been a little less than a year, I feel like I’ve come a long way in learning more about it. I’m even in an internship program working on a project based on mental health, which is something I care deeply about. Thanks to WiV, and to all the connections I’ve made through it, for the encouragement to jump in and learn new things!

Recap of 2021, Bring on 2022!

January 12, 2022January 21, 2022 by Alexis Pellek, posted in voiceover

Hello and Happy New Year! I hope 2022 is treating you well so far.

This is my first blog post, and I wanted to reflect on 2021 and share some highlights from my voiceover journey that were helpful and inspiring to me. Sort of a recap of 2021’s greatest VO hits.

Voiceover Practice: Workouts and Classes

Nothing beats working out with trusted workout buddies and friends, and I’m thankful to have many of these wonderful people in my life who help me practice and improve my craft.

One workout group/class that I’m happy to be a part of is led by Domingo Castillo. His VO Workshops are limited to small groups and it’s a very supportive environment. I’ve learned a lot and made some good friends!

Domingo offers an optional monthly project to anyone who has taken a workshop with him, and I have completed several of these challenges. I had never used Headliner to create a video before taking on the first monthly project assignment, and learning this new skill felt great.

These short projects offer a sample of my voice and style, and they are available on my YouTube channel – another new thing for me in 2021! (Don’t forget to like and subscribe 😊!)

Voiceover Conferences: Learning the biz

This past summer, I attended my first voiceover conference: eVOcation. This was a great opportunity to learn a lot about the business of VO. Some panels featured topics like how to market yourself, questions about rates and negotiation, and tax issues.

In the fall, I attended the That’s Voiceover Career Expo 2021, a conference full of VO greats who shared their advice and stories of success. Anime casting, audio description, diversity in casting, demo trends, and performance techniques of different VO genres were just some of the topics covered during this 3-day event. Some big moments were when Mahershala Ali presented the Backstage Vanguard Award to Denise Woods, as well as seeing a live competition of 6 finalists in the CBS Audition Spotlight. Watching the finalists perform and respond to the judges’ direction was such a valuable learning experience.

Voiceover Learning: Free Webinars/Conversations

This past year, I have found several resources that have been extremely helpful in my VO journey. These are not only wonderful opportunities to learn, they are free! The Society of Voice Arts and Sciences offers free biweekly webinars called The State of VO (which take place on Zoom). These Q&As feature a variety of industry heavy hitters interviewed by hosts Joan Baker and Marc Guss. Be sure to stay for the dance party at the end!

Over on Clubhouse, Marc Guss hosts interviews with VO industry leaders on his weekly Marc Guss Voiceover Club. Also happening on Clubhouse, CastVoices founder Liz Atherton shares interviews and audience Q&A.

I’ve written about a lot of these events on LinkedIn, and going forward I will also post them here on my blog.

Putting Myself Out There

2021 presented a few opportunities for me to put myself out there and participate in some events that were new to me. Speaking of the CBS Audition Spotlight that was featured in the That’s Voiceover conference, I was proud to be selected as one of the Top 40 Callbacks (out of 800+ submissions!) Although I didn’t move on to the third and final round, I had a blast performing for the judges and being a part of it! What a fantastic experience!

I also submitted auditions to the Get Mic’d Ultimate VO Survivor Take 2 contest, where creativity and out-of-the-box experimentation was encouraged. It was a lot of fun watching the finalists compete live in November.

And what 2021 wrap-up would be complete without a Squid Game reference? I participated in the Voiceover Squid Game hosted by Marc Guss on Clubhouse and survived several rounds of elimination!

Apart from VO, I wrote for both Psycom Pro and Practical Pain Management in 2021 as a freelancer. I didn’t end up pursuing psychology beyond my bachelor’s degree, so it’s nice to contribute to the conversation about mental health because it’s important to me.

On a personal note, I’ve been studying French this past year, trying to remember what I learned in high school and college. It’s so true that if you don’t use it, you lose it! I studied a little Japanese back in college too, which I am also trying to study again (definitely lost all that I previously learned!). I have really loved the language-learning rooms that I’ve discovered on Clubhouse – what an inspiration to keep going with it! (And shout-out to Chloe Dash Ines for being THE MOST encouraging/patient/fun French teacher!)

I had a lot of fun and enriching experiences in 2021, made a lot of connections, and learned so much about the art and science of voiceover. Here’s to keeping that momentum going in 2022!

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