Labels: biz, business, tools

Is there one word, a pinnacle, that describes you? What is it? Why?

-if you have a package, show us that too!

"Technology Manager. Independent Creative. Llama Wrangler."

"A Voice & Film Actor, living a Mortal life."

"Living a passionate, ecstatic, and urgent life."

• Voice Actor Adam Creighton.
• Film Actor Adam Creighton.
• Business and Technical Development Adam Creighton.
• Tipping Point Adam Creighton that connects people to create mutual opportunities (business, technical, financial, and support).
• Video Game Adam Creighton (twenty thousand monthly readers can't be wrong; and wait for bigger things on this front).
• Toy Collector Adam Creighton.
• Guitar Player Adam Creighton.

Labels: acting, biz, business, ramblings, tools

All headshots are by my photographer, Rhea Willis (http://www.rheawillis.com/).

Labels: biz, business, headshots, tools

After the wring-out session, I went away, focused on headshots, pulled music and sound effects together, then Jason and I spent yesterday afternoon mixing / mastering / finalizing the demo.

Jason was adept at maximizing the sound (without losing the fidelity), and appropriately prioritized the vocals over the music and sound effects (without making the latter two sound like they were just "slapped underneath" the former).

Like I said, I feel great about this demo. Not just for the finished product, but because I ostensibly self-produced this project (with Jason's spot-on collaboration) -- I feel great about the product and the result -- and it's the demo I'm talking to Comic-Con this week.

Jason's available to do this for you. You should contact him. Or me, if you prefer an introduction.

And there's more to come, because we also recorded clips for my new commercial voice demo. But that'll have to wait until after I shake things up in San Diego.

Labels: acting, acting process, animation, biz, comic books, inspiration, tools, voice acting

• Plaxo
• LinkedIn

The first is a contact synchronization service, and the second is a resume / profile / contact management service. Both have free versions that are pretty robust and useful.

By way of caveats (besides telling you to read the original post first):

1. I'm not associated with either of these companies.
2. These are only a couple of the tools I use. I cover my bases pretty liberally with intelligent, safe, proven software, services, and social networking sites.

Plaxo:

Plaxo, again, is a contact synchronization tool that makes it wicked easy to have the latest version of your contact's information, and make sure they have the latest of yours.

Ever change your Email address? Switch from using your home address to a P.O. Box for your Biz work? Want to stay "on the radar"? If you use Plaxo, and your contacts use Plaxo, you'll both have each other's most current info. And you'll be notified of any changes.

If you're a Plaxo user, you enter your contact information -- professional and personal -- and decide what you want to share with whom. For example, I share just my business information, and I choose to share it with all Plaxo users (whether I know them or not); my personal (home) contact info only goes to family and close friends.

Then, any time I change anything (like when I switched my business address to a P.O. Box for anonymity), I updated that info, and my Plaxo contacts got it right away.

The beauty of Plaxo is if you (and your contacts) are using it -- and have it integrated with your mail clients. As you add Biz contacts to your Email's address (contact) book, you'll be notified if they're a Plaxo user.

As far as "staying on folks' radar" , if you update your Plaxo contact info (like your "personal message"), and your contacts have elected to receive notifications, they'll get updates about you, too.

It's not perfect, and you have to remember to update your Plaxo info. But it's a good, pretty simple tool.

Oh, and don't be that person who updates they're personal message every day / week / month. I remove those people.

Linkedin:

LinkedIn is a professional relationship management site. Sounds wonky, but think of it as a social networking site for professionals, with the tagline, "This isn't networking—it’s what networking should be."

Think an entire site based (loosely) on the Kevin Bacon / six-degrees of separation idea. You use the service to stay in contact with people you know, create and participate in opportunities with each other, and extend your networks to create more opportunities for each other.

With LinkedIn, you can build a profile for yourself, a resume, and a "personal network" of folks you know. You can see folks in their network, and request invitations to them. You can endorse folks. You can get endorsements. You can recommend people for jobs. You can job hunt.

And when you update your profile or other LinkedIn information, if folks in your network have elected to receive notifications, they'll get 'em (think ("co-star, 'Friday Night Lights'").

People use LinkedIn in different ways. Many people use it just to create opportunities for themselves. Others are trying to get as many people in their network as possible, gotta-catch-'em-all Pokemon style.

Not me.

I use LinkedIn to create mutual opportunities. I made all but a handful of contacts in my network personally.

And I try to diligently write applicable, meaningful recommendations for people, and never request or expect an endorsement in response. (As an aside, two folks who previously worked for me were hired -- at least in part -- due to my LinkedIn endorsements, as the hiring companies used my LinkedIn recommendations in lieu of reference checks.)

LinkedIn's not perfect. It only let's you have one profile, though I'd much rather have separate "Corporate Professional" and "Actor" profiles -- right now, my profile is a mix of the two.

If you know me and want to connect, check out my LinkedIn profile. If you don't know me but would like to connect, you can do so via LinkedIn, or you can drop me a note, and we can go from there. Remember, I like to know people as part of networking.

Oh, and check out Guy Kawasaki's blog for details on specific ways to leverage LinkedIn:

1. Increase your visibility.
2. Improve your connectability.
3. Improve your Google PageRank.
4. Enhance your search engine results.
5. Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks.
6. Increase the relevancy of your job search.
7. Make your interview go smoother.
8. Gauge the health of a company.
9. Gauge the health of an industry.
10. Track startups.
11. Ask for advice.
12. Integrate into a new job.
13. Scope out the competition, customers, partners, etc.

Labels: acting, biz, business, tools

Labels: acting, comic books, inspiration, ramblings, tools, toys, voice acting

Labels: site updates, tools

http://www.adamcreighton.com/blogs/
ramblings/2007/04/voice-acting-
mocap-and-video-games.html

http://tinyurl.com/272x9w

Labels: site updates, tools

Labels: acting, tools

Labels: acting, site updates, tools

"Digg is a user driven social content website. Ok, so what the heck does that mean? Well, everything on Digg is submitted by our community (that would be you). After you submit content, other people read your submission and Digg what they like best. If your story rocks and receives enough Diggs, it is promoted to the front page for the millions of visitors to see.

What can you do as a Digg user? Lots. Every person can digg (help promote), bury (help remove spam), and comment on stories... you can even Digg and bury comments you like or dislike. Digg also allows you to track your friends' activity throughout the site — want to share a video or news story with a friend? Digg it!"

"del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website -- the primary use of del.icio.us is to store your bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere, too. On del.icio.us, you can use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders.

You can also use del.icio.us to see the interesting links that your friends and other people bookmark, and share links with them in return. You can even browse and search del.icio.us to discover the cool and useful bookmarks that everyone else has saved -- which is made easy with tags."

"A source for what's new and popular on the web -- personalized for you. We want to democratize the traditional model by giving editorial control to the people who use the site, not those who run it. Your votes train a filter, so let reddit know what you liked and disliked, because you'll begin to be recommended links filtered to your tastes. All of the content on reddit is from users who are rewarded for good submissions (and punished for bad ones) by their peers; you decide what appears on your front page and which submissions rise to fame or fall into obscurity."

Labels: site updates, tools

"The idea is we become a self-sustaining entertainment community with an unprecedented amount of freedom over the films we create."

"In return for their investment, 'angels' get to have a say on all aspects of the creative process, access exclusive content, and in some cases even become part of the film crew. As the project progresses, the aim is to recruit 50,000 'angels' (hence the million-plus dollar budget). The finished movie will be released under a Creative Commons license so that it can be shared and remixed freely."

"Our project is about a Return on Entertainment, rather than a Return on Investment. If it's about a capital return then that interferes with creative decisions, and the fact we want to give it away, and let people remix it. My emphasis is on creating a model for cinema that can produce more distinctive creative work rather than being boxed into commercial genres in order that it make its money back."

It's not that it won't make money, per se, but that's not its restrictive goal.

And Hanson's parting shot:

"Here's my big pitch… If you're sick of being sold 'product' by mainstream media, and are serious about the power of the web and social networks to create cultural change then you need to become a member of the project. A Swarm of Angels is a revolutionary process to create the future of film. Join, and you can make it happen."

• 'A Swarm of Angels' crowdsourcing film production (ZDNet.com)
• 'A Swarm of Angels' (Official Website)

Labels: acting, biz, business, tools

Labels: acting, business, site updates, tools, toys

Labels: acting, biz, business, site updates, tools

There's a relatively easy, inexpensive way to make your thank you cards stand out from off-the-shelf thank-you cards.

Here's some secret sauce recipe:

1. Get a box of thank you cards you like at a grocery or drug store (generally cheaper than a greeting card store) -- you can generally get a box of 12-20.
   
2. Get reduced copies of your headshot -- like at a grocery/drug store, Sam's Club/Coscos, etc. You can scan your headshot (or better, print from the CD/DVD from your session), and get a sheet of 16, 2"x2.5" photos. Use a paper cutter (not scissors; better lines) to cut them out.
   
3. Get a 2-in-1 glue (like Aleene’s 2 in 1 Glue).
   
4. Put glue on the left side of the card (for Horizontal cards) or top of the card (for vertical cards) where you'll put your mini headshot and your business card (you do have business cards, right? ;-).
   
5. Let the glue dry first, then put your headshot and business card on the spots glue. They'll stay secure, but are easily removable if your recipient wants to. The reason you put the glue on the card, and not on the headshot/business card, is this is less likely to leave residue on your business card.
   
   You can also ask you agent if you can have some of their cards, and you can place them below your cards.

Voila -- you have 16, ready-to-go, custom Biz thank-you cards, probably for around $10 and a little effort. Buy a book of stamps and save them just for thank you cards, and you're always ready to say, "thank you".

Is it ever too late to give a thank you card?

Probably, but opinions vary.

Send it as soon as you can -- the day after being best, but at least within a week. Two weeks is pushing it. Besides, you should have at least a couple more auditions by them right?

Ask yourself why you don't' want to send a card. Do you want to work with the person again?

All good questions, but realize the professional courtesy is to send a thank-you card. If you had a particularly bad, abusive, or otherwise negative audition experience, and (justifiably) don't want to work with the person(s) again, don't send a card. Those should be rare cases.

I've heard people say, "I didn't send a card, because I sucked at the audition."

Get over yourself! Send a thank you card, and acknowledge the person for taking out of their day to spend with you. You're sucking didn't make their sacrifice any less.

I've had other people tell me they don't send cards because "that's not me", or "I don't want to come across as kissing up."

How about coming across as lazy? Because I'd argue that's what's at the root of those excuses.

As an aside, thank-you cards should be rigor de jour for toy job interviews (unfortunately, they're not). Auditions are job interviews.

And I send thank-you cards constantly, and not just for auditions. I am so freaking thankful for all of the amazing stuff that happens to me as an actor, I have a lot of opportunity to say thanks -- "Thanks for the encouraging words the other day!"; "Thanks for offering to do storyboards for my project!"; "Thanks for being willing to trade screen printing services for Web site help!"; etc.

Oh, and is this what I do for cards? Not anymore. But my way takes more work, computer savvy, and patience. And I need to save something about which to write later.

UPDATED: A kind reference to this post from voice actor Bob Souer.

Labels: acting, biz, tools

Labels: acting, tools, voice acting

The 300GB LaCie Brick Desktop Hard Drive

Labels: tools, toys

• Tuesday, July 18, 2006: "... photo uploading and serving will be down ..."
• Monday, July 24, 2006: "We've been having some database issues this morning, causing Blogger.com to be inaccessible for some users...."
• Tuesday, July 25, 2006: "Some users are noticing problems with photo uploading timing out or taking a very long time to respond..."
• Thursday, July 27, 2006: "Some folks are finding that some of their emailed posts get dropped and don't reach their blogs..."
• Tuesday, August 01, 2006: "Due to a configuration change made earlier this evening, around 10% of requests made to Blog*Spot will not be successfully returned..."
• Friday, August 04, 2006: "We are having problems with one of the Blogger databases. Posts and commments to blogs that are stored on that database are failing..."

I appreciate that they're up front with what they're seeing (it's not like they can hide it from their users, though).

So, did Blogger.com just become a victim of its success, or did Google screw something up when it bought them?

Labels: site updates, tools