Richcraft Studios

Why you? You’re the BOSS! As a solopreneur, it is so easy to get wrapped up in your work and forget the importance of taking care of yourself. It's even harder to find the time and energy to stay active when working from home day after day. But the truth is, investing in your physical health can have a positive impact on all aspects of your life - not just your career. And so, prioritizing exercise as part of your daily routine should be viewed as an investment worth making for any solopreneur looking to optimize their personal performance. Read on and find out how you can make fitness an integral part of every workday while staying at home! Schedule yourself! Setting a daily routine is one of the most effective ways to balance work and personal life. It can be a simple yet powerful tool that can help you stay focused on priorities that matter such as exercise, meals, work, and relaxation. While many of us tend to overlook the importance of having a routine, it can actuall...

    Just Released  —       Cherry Hill Publishing         http://www. CherryHillPublishing.com Click on cover images for audio samples Perfect Harmony Barbara Wood, read by Barbara Rich   No corporation is quite like Harmony Biotech, the ultramodern health products dynasty based on ancient Chinese remedies. And no greater challenge has ever confronted its CEO, Charlotte Lee, than the series of deaths that strike users of its products in a single terrifying week. And because all the victims were known to be her enemies, Charlotte Lee had become a prime suspect.   Her hunt for her nemesis will lead her through the midnight labyrinths of the Internet―and to a place and a time where today’s technology was barely a whisper, where the voices of her female ancestors will lead her to the secrets of her soul.     Now, as precious seconds relentlessly tick away, Charlotte Lee must trust instincts deeper than she knows...

  Central Oregon Music News Want to share COMN? Sign Up For COMN Here! Messiah and more! Handel’s  Messiah  returns as part of the Central Oregon Mastersingers’ traditional Holiday repertoire in three December performances at Bend’s Tower Theater.    The three concerts, presented by The Tower Theatre Foundation, will include the  Messiah  and several holiday carols. Concerts are scheduled for  Saturday, Dec. 10 at 7 p.m.  and  Sunday, Dec. 11 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.  Tickets are available through the Tower Theater Box Office,  towertheatre.org , telephone 541-317-0700.   Artistic Director and Conductor Christian Clark is thrilled to lead Handel’s glorious  Messiah  for the first time, having previously performed the tenor solos. “We hope the thrilling choruses, soaring solos, and triumphant orchestration will be a joyful and powerful beginning to your holiday celebrations!” said Clark.   The ensemble will ...

As an actor, I am a study of character and one interesting aspect of the pandemic was the stark divide between how extroverts and introverts responded to physical distancing. One extrovert blogosphere post I saw bemoaned everything that the writer was missing while others by introverts simply adjusted and went about their business in the new norm. Well, prior to the pandemic, I classified myself as an ambivert where I could, depending on the circumstances, be a kind of switch hitter. But now, contemplating my early experiences in the peri-pandemic (not quite post) world, I find I've swung much more to the introverted end of the spectrum. And it’s forcing me to reacquaint myself with me.   • • • • • • I’ve spent the past 18 months of the pandemic reading about, watching and absorbing the conflicts between those who proclaim the need for personal freedom from any kind of requirements to care for themselves or others to those who wanted to protect the world.   Perhaps you can i...

What a crazy year, right?  We're starting to see signs of how we'll recover but probably not until the holiday surge in cases is well behind us. All in all though, I have to say that my business was much more resilient than I anticipated. Surprise! In looking back, it makes sense - I do a lot of #training, a lot of #eLearning and a lot of #audiobooks. These things all surged along with COVID-19. And, if I had not had a forced hiatus in the summer for reconstruction of our road (the noise was pretty incredible) then I would have had my best year ever. Hmmmm, so, note to self: Keep up the good work in spite of how depressing things are!   Here's to 2021, Cheers! #voiceover #voiceactor #elearning #videoproduction #corporatetraining #narration #audiobook #audiobooks #COVID19 #SocialDistancing #ACX #Audible

In addition to voice recording, I also lend my services for theatre sound design/tech. Recently I used #StageTracks and I'm sorry to say that my experience was pretty terrible. There's no way to preset fades, volumes, etc. within the program. The vamp feature was nice and me and my partner figured out how to hack durations, but it was really an unforgiving program. The double whammy was that we had our sound effects operating within #QLab and had to switch back and forth between the two programs to trigger music cues or sound effect cues. What a mess! And this was a production geared for high schools where the sound effects and music cues were a package deal! Too expensive and too complicated! So we ended up ditching a huge number of the canned music cues and creating our own to be able to load new cues into QLab as substitutes so that we could run cues simultaneously or time them to start automatically and eliminate as much of the switching back and forth between programs...

As a small business owner, I have to make all the decisions about my business. Good or bad. I can bounce things off of other people to get their take on the situation, but ultimately it comes down to me. So when I found this article about breathing and decision making, I thought, "What better place to start for a #voiceover artist? After all, my business would not exist without my breath, right?" Absolutely true. And, calm breaths are the key to clean audio so you don't end up having to edits the giant gasps that do not lend themselves to the artistic integrity of your work (unless you are voicing an #audiobook where the character is running or similar). And as the article discusses, slow, calm breaths are the key to good decision making as well.  I wonder what would have happened recently if I had stopped to breathe before jumping on an opportunity that, in retrospect, was not a good fit for me in terms of my personality? In taking a moment to breath, I might have ...

I periodically get the accusation that I am a robot and am delivering a machine voice. At the beginning of my voiceover journey, this would make me pause and send me into a bout of self-doubt as to whether I knew what I was doing. When I was first starting off and getting those first precious jobs, it was so easy to get sucked into the gaping maw of believing that the client's word is the truth. The imposter syndrome kicked in big time and regardless of my training and investment in my business (good equipment, professional booth, practice, coaching, practice), I would have to give myself a good talking to in order to get my mind back in the game. Then, as I got more "real" jobs and experience and started to gain confidence in my own abilities, I started to form a theory:  "You sound like a robot" = "I don't want to pay for your service" Now, "I don't want to pay" does NOT mean, I don't want to use your product. I'v...

Have you ever used positive affirmations? I didn't have huge experience with them even though I would often be that arm chair Olympian living the course as the athlete of the moment would visualize their routine or course or trick. And you know that they are visualizing themselves performing each element of their event perfectly. It is so common in sports and so yes, it makes perfect sense to have a similar process for everyday life. I had the good fortune recently to get a job to record about an hour's worth of affirmations for success, health, confidence, motivation, forgiveness, plus a few more. I was eager to take this on, because I thought that my voice was a good fit for this kind of work. What I didn't expect was the payback would be much more than what I earned for that job. My client partner on this job encouraged me to take my time on the job, which I took advantage of and spread the recording and editing and mixing with background music out over perhaps three...

I admit it, I resisted learning punch and roll recording for a long time, (I also resisted taking on audiobooks for a long time but that is another story) but about a year to year and a half ago, I literally forced myself to learn the technique. I did have to be a little strict with myself for a bit but it was OK - this is such a short and shallow learning curve that you, too, may find it a good short practice for self-discipline. I use ProTools for my DAW (digital audio workstation) and love it (yeah I know, I think I'm a bit of a weirdo there, but it was also an awesome investment) and it was just a little investment of time to figure out how it supported punch and roll. Then it was a little investment of time to play with the thing to figure out what length of time I was most comfortable with for the pre-roll (turned out to be 0.5 seconds), then figure out where best to insert the cursor, and then it was just practicing on the job to become fluent. I would guess that by well...