MY VOICE ACTING GOALS – 2024
1 – Full Time Job
2 – Make myself known to Casting Directors
3 – More Regular Voice Over Auditions
4 – Book Voice Over Roles
5 – Start a regular Stream
6 – Be part of an Improv Group
7 – Play at least one Dungeons & Dragons game
8 – Be able to afford more VO training
9 – BLOG MORE
To celebrate All Hallow’s Eve this year, I’ve incorporated my Voice Acting training and done readings of gothic poems.
The first poem is Edgar Allen Poe’s “Annabel Lee”.
The second poem is H.P. Lovecraft’s “Hallowe’en in a Suburb”.
Recently, I did my third speech for Toastmasters.
My wife and I are members of Toastmasters 4 Writers in Burbank, California – District 52.
My second and third speech were connected because what I learned from giving the second speech would be applied to the third. The Second speech was about my family, especially my grandfather, James Shaw, who was from Ireland and came to America. There are many great stories I could tell about him and his life. When it came to telling the third speech I chose to focus on him as a Marathon runner, especially winning one in Belfast Ireland.
I have always liked the musical MY FAIR LADY (I don’t like the ending, but that’s a different discussion), and the other day I began mouthing words to the son “I’ve grown accustomed to her face” and a thought struck me. So I came home and wrote my own version of the song.
Will all apologies to Lerner & Loewe, and apologies to your ears. Here is my bad singing of a my parody “I’ve grown accustomed to this mask.”
Been a while since I last posted, so here’s a brief run down of what I’ve ben up to.
I’ve continued to take Voice Acting classes through the year. As much of a struggle this past year has been, being able to take classes by Zoom has been a great blessing. If I had completed my original Voice Over class in the studio, I know I would have pursued this goal further but I don’t know if I would have ever have taken as many classes in person in such a short a mount of time. I have been very blessed.
As part of my Voice Over training, this past semester I took a class at Pasadena City College entitled: ANNOUNCING FOR ELECTRONIC MEDIA. There were many projects we did, including Voice Over, music radio intros, and more, was being able to create my own radio program and do an interview. Of course I called the radio show FOUR NAMES OF PROFESSIONAL CREATIVITY.
So I asked my good friend Craig Miller if I could interview him about the book – STAR WARS MEMORIES: My Time In The Death Star Trenches.
Is that a word?
During my recent Voice Over Workshop/Class with actor Richard Horvitz I was determined to have my own Home Studio Recording Booth. Working with other students and Mr. Horvitz, I researched a lot of potential booth concepts. From the far too expensive (and would never fit in the apartment) down to seeing if I could rearrange my closet (not possible). All the research finally lead to VocalBoothsToGo.com where they have numerous types of booths from large to small, permanent to portable, and I found what I wanted and could afford.
They have a DYI booth made of PVC pipes and sound dampening moving blankets. I chose to have them pre-cut the pipes to the size I needed and a couple of weeks later I began to assemble the booth. Have a look.
At the start of the year I had great 2020 Vision (go back and read the blog) – that vision had such great plans for the year ahead…
It didn’t go at all as planned (for none of us). Even before Covid struck, on the second day of the year I was told I was being laid off from my job which I had for 10 years.
So I was home, and soon my wife would be working from home as well. I truly believe that to be a blessing.
A family member is in the hospital (praise God not with Covid).
That all said, the year wasn’t all that bad for me. Being home most of the time allowed certain things to happen, or things for me to discover, that I wouldn’t have if the world was still going as it had a year ago.
I had already planned to take Voice Acting Classes, by the end of that first class I was determined to make Voice Over as part of my career. I soon found other classes and workshops I could do online that I wouldn’t have been able to do previously. Joined Toastmasters, got back into college courses, and became an Improv actor.
With 2021 about to start, I am confident that there many blessings that came to me through 2020 even as stressful as it was.
What is to come next, I am not entirely certain but am Determined to grab hold of each and every blessing that is to follow.
God Bless you all. See you in the new year.
A few Halloweens ago I wrote this story in homage to some of my favorite H.P. Lovecraft tales, it also was influenced by Ray Bradbury’s series of October Country tales.
Now that I am training to be a Voice Actor I decided to do a reading of the story.
As with my first two recordings, I did this using my Logitech headset and Mic. (My professional AT2035 Microphone is still back order, nearly two months now). For editing and clean up I used Audacity.
I still have a lot to learn, but hope you enjoy this haunting tale.
“The Crypt”
Written and Read by
Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity
The year 2020 hasn’t turned out the way any of us had planned it. But looking now my 2020 Vision from the beginning of the year and isn’t all that cloudy.
Along with being an artist and writer, I had begun training to become a voice actor for animation.
Things may have slowed down some, but they haven’t stopped. I’m still writing, and am regularly doing artwork for books by Airship 27 Productions.
I continue taking more classes towards my acting career.
At my wife encouragement I have joined a local chapter of Toastmasters – Toastmasters 4 Writers. What could be more perfect.
At a meeting nearly a year ago, before I officially joined I did an Impromptu ‘Table Topics’ speech which I won, and it set off my Determination to become a Voice Actor.
This past Saturday (August 8th, 2020) I gave my first speech. An ‘Icebreaker’ speech they call it, introducing myself to the group.
As I wrote my speech I began to realize the moment in my life that set me off on the road to being an artist, writer, and now actor. It all began with ‘Old Time Radio.’
What follows is my Toastmasters Icebreaker speech, entitled:
“Tales of Yesteryear Told in Future Tense”.
(Points to those who know what two radio programs that is a reference to.)
Nearly forty years ago I went to my first comic book convention.
It was fun, and quite small.
Next I would attend a Robotech convention, it was fun, and even smaller.
A few years later I went to my very first San Diego Comic-Con.
At the time it was held in the old San Diego Convention Center downtown, I’m not old enough to have attended in the hotel where it first began. But that year, it was quite an amazing experience for the kid who had his hopes set on becoming a comic book artist.
Two things stand out in my memories of my first Comic-Con. Getting inking lessons from Dick Giordano, (especially how to create ‘Kirby Dots’) and hoping to meet one of my favorite writers. Unfortunately, he missed his panel, afterwards a few of us attempted to have him paged, but he never showed.
Many years later I spotted him across the lobby of one of the San Diego Comic-Con hotels and I rushed across to talk with him. I told him how much his comics, his writing, his research, influenced the young boy that I was and the man I am. That was probably one of the best experiences of all my Comic-Con visits.
The year of my first San Diego Comic-Con the attendance was 5,000.
That sounded like a massive amount of people at the time, but it is nothing compared to the 120,000 to 160,000 that have attended each year over the last decade or so. Many more who hang out in the Gaslamp District.
In over 30 years I only missed San Diego one time.
I’ve always been a loner geek, and in a massive con crowd even more so. I’d have to find someone to go with me.
With in weeks of when the woman who would become my wife moved to Southern California, I took to her to her first convention. To the San Diego Comic-Con. She’d later say I should have started her off small, but she enjoyed it all the same, and has gone with me every year since. Both of us with Pro-Badges now.
This year things are different, for all of us. Convention season hasn’t been canceled; it has gone virtual. The Convention Center, Exhibit Hall, The Masquerade, the Panels, they all exist in The Cloud right now. On YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, and more.
For San Diego Comic-Con they are now Comic-Con@Home. Wednesday, July 22nd. to Sunday, July 26.
It’s disappointing, but it’s not gone.
As for the future, no one really knows yet. Conventions will probably never be that large again, but maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s time that our love for comics, movies, video games, science fiction, and fantasy returns to being more intimate. Where a small group of fans can enjoy their shared love for a comic book, or good naturedly argue over how a movie didn’t quite get their favorite character just right, and not be crowded out and have to shout over one another. Where Disney Princesses and Transformers don’t have to worry about thousands of feet tramping on their costumes.
The Cons are about us, the fans, and our love of stories that exist in four-color comics, books, celluloid film, digital pixels, computer screens, smart phones, and much more.
Speaking of that love, and of our fandoms, I’d like to recommend something:
ONCE UPON A CON
As I write this blog I am finishing reading a book for the third time. It seemed to be the right book to read in the midst of this Con Season.
It’s title is GEEKERELLA: A FANGIRL FAIRY TALE, part one of author Ashley Poston‘s ONCE UPON A CON series of novels.
This book is a love song to comic and science fiction conventions, to comics and science fiction television, to fans and fandom, to just plain being a geek no matter who you are. Are you an actor, a writer, an artist, a blogger, or just a good old fan of an old TV series, you exist inside the impossible universe of Geekeralla.
While not being able to go to a con and need something to pull on your convention heartstrings, this book will do it.
Then go pick up the second book in the series THE PRINCESS AND THE FAN GIRL, and coming in August BOOKISH AND THE BEAST.
Your Inner-Geek will thank you.
Are you looking for fast paced action adventure stories in the style of the old Pulp Novels of the 1930s and want to find great authors that write them. The pick up a copy of WHO’S WHO IN NEW PULP a directory of over 200 authors, artists, publishers and reviews in the New Pulp genre.
My wife Shannon Muir and I are very honored to be part of this directory.
You can purchase a copy through Amazon and all go to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Thank you Ron Fortier and Rob Davis from Airship 27 for putting this together.
For the last few years I have been working as an interior illustrator for Airship 27, a publisher that focuses on what is called “New Pulp.” Fast pasted adventure tails in the styles of the pulp novels of the 1930s.
Today I get to tell you that they have released the latest book that has my artwork inside.
Volume 3 of THE BAY PHANTOM novels by author Chuck Miller entitled “Midnight in Hell’s Cathedral”.
Here’s the Press Release and Cover Art by artist Chris Rawding followed by one of my interior illustration.
Check it out and pick up a copy you’ll be in for a thrill ride.
Airship 27 Productions is thrilled to announce the release of the third action packed Bay Phantom adventure by stellar New Pulp writer, Chuck Miller.
Once again Mobile, Alabama’s mysterious crime-fighter, the Bay Phantom, finds himself battling another criminal mastermind. This one is know only as the Kraken and has the power to turn people into mindless puppets and have them do his bidding; leaving chaos and destruction in their path. As if that wasn’t enough for the Phantom to deal with, his friend, Tom Dart, is about to be executed in state prison for crimes he did not commit. Can Maribelle Darcy devise a plan to rescue Dart before the fatal hour arrives?
And then a certain Federal Agent named Elliot Ness arrives in town with the goal of capturing the Bay Phantom.
“Nobody writes like Chuck, Miller,” insist Airship 27 Production’s Managing Editor Ron Fortier. “Chuck has a truly unique style that blends both black comedy with off-the-wall pulp action. You can say what you will about this series, but it is never boring.”
Returning to the series to handle interior illustrations is artist Kevin Paul Shaw Broden and Chris Rawding provides the cover all under the helm of Art Director Rob Davis.
Once again pulp scribe Chuck Miller weaves a zany, madcap pulp thriller like no one else can. This is action-adventure with a Southern Twist not to be missed.
Available in paperback at Amazon and soon on Kindle.
I have to really learn to to commit to writing a blog a week or more, especially when it’s the continuation go a topic from earlier posts. Sorry about that, you’ve been patiently waiting to hear what I have to say… Sure you do.
I completed the six week Voice Over Acting Class in North Hollywood. Though the final four were done on Zoom several weeks late.
Won’t go into detail, but I will say that I had a fabulous time, and the teacher really complimented me on my work and how I sounded at the mike. Took direction well. He even said I had a similar voice to another actor he’s worked with.
So I came away from that class feeling really great, and wanting to continue further into Voice Over work.
I’m awaiting to sign up for his second workshop, in the meantime I took a one day voice acting class through a studio that I have longed to visit, and taught by an actor I had listened to in my childhood. It was a great introductory experience to the work they do there, even though like all the other classes right now it was on Zoom.
Am really looking forward to taking more courses and getting a chance to audition for voices in animation and commercials.
Will see where the Lord leads me and where I will speak up next.
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