Throughout this year, I've received a number of emails asking for VO advice. I'm flattered and grateful people feel I can help them with voice-over and most of these messages have been wonderful but one or two have lacked in some basic courtesy and politeness. So I just wanted to share some thoughts on politely asking for advice, based on the things I used to do when writing to voice actors and things people have done when writing to me that I have liked…
Beau's Voice Acting Adventures… AND WHY IT ALL TIES INTO Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
This past weekend, on Saturday 26th June 2021, I celebrated 3 years since I moved to the USA from England to further my voice acting dreams! On social media, people may have even seen me post about this special anniversary with an accompanying image from the classic Nintendo GameCube game "Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door". In fact, before moving to America and for my first few anniversaries, I done posts with a picture from the game. But why? I thought it may be fun to explain…
Happiness is a lifestyle
If you lift weights once, are you strong enough to lift a car immediately afterwards? No, of course not. What about the second time? Still no. But if you keep lifting, if you consistently put in effort, one day you will be able to, a day will come where you'll just find that you're as strong as an ox.
The same goes for happiness…
The Power of Being Underestimated
We all have hidden talents. We all possess abilities that others wouldn’t expect of us. Nobody is ever going to know everything we can do or know everything that we are. As such, there are times when people don’t expect much from us. It’s not malicious or nasty, they just don’t know. Yes, there are certain people you meet who will look down on you and that can be incredibly irksome. The idea of a person thinking less of you than you are may sound like it is a bad thing but I think that often it can be a good thing, you can use it to your advantage.
The Timing of Everything
Whenever I want to accomplish something in life or when I want something to happen, I find it incredibly irksome if someone says "it's not meant to be just yet" or "it will happen at the right time". Recently I realized a reason I find hearing this particularly frustrating: because annoyingly... it's right.
An Englishman in America
I recently began a very, VERY exciting new chapter in my life - my voice acting career has taken me from England to the USA. I am having a lot of fun so far and though TV and movies have taught me well, there is still a lot about America that I have to learn and figure out. Now based in the United States, with today marking one week since I flew out here to Los Angeles and tomorrow being Independence Day, I thought I would take a humorous look at all the questions I have about this great country.
The Difficulties of Waiting...
Waiting is hard, isn't it? It's like the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song goes, "The waiting is the hardest part." When there's something you really, really want, having to wait for it can be tough and the longer you have to wait for it, the tougher it can be. I have been interested in writing a blog post about waiting for a while, yet in a weird way, I have kind of waited to write this blog post. Nevertheless, I have been thinking a lot about waiting recently. For a start, I think there are different types of waiting.
Love the mundane
There's something that I personally feel is incredibly important and try to hold onto in life, a motto I'll occasionally remind myself: never lose your ability to be grateful.
Depressed VS Depression
There is an important distinction that I personally like to make between being DEPRESSED and having DEPRESSION.
Due to its many ways of being undetectable, depression is a funny topic for people to understand and thus it makes it even harder for them to talk about. A disease that makes you think irrationally sounds irrational to a rational person. A lot of people just don't really even comprehend what it is, how severe their problems are or even recognise that they (or someone else) have even got it.
All this naturally led to me thinking up this distinction. It is my personal way of understanding it all, both for myself and for others.
Is Going To University Right For You?
Deciding whether or not to go to university, can be one of the biggest decisions you ever make. With university fees increasing (in the UK), it's more important than ever to know beforehand whether going will be worth it.
I am a person who on the surface, looked like a great university candidate – I was an academic, hard-working kid who liked Maths. However, my time at university was quite disastrous and – despite getting a good degree in a good subject – it set me back very far. Maybe I wouldn't have gone on to accomplish all that I have done or be the young man I am today without the hardship, it's hard to tell. Nevertheless, I have very mixed feelings about whether my university experience was ultimately a liability or an asset.
It is my wish that young students going to university not only feel that they are making the right choice but also that they are proved absolutely correct throughout the rest of their lives with no regrets.