Perhaps one of the only forms of mental and emotional torture worse than taking my teenage daughter bathing suit shopping is when I enter, quite unknowingly, a technology twilight zone of sorts. Imagine that one minute I am blissfully on the end of an ISDN session and everything is working perfectly, and the next my wave form has shrunk to a quarter of its size, the audio sounds tinny, and the worst part is I did not, in my mind, change a single setting. So, forget going down the rabbit hole of “how did this happen” and let me share some real world strategies to get through this because it will inevitably happen to you so you might as well be prepared.
First and foremost, have a really strong back up. I use both a seagate hard drive and Time Machine on my Mac. There are so many things that you can use, but purchasing them is not enough. You need to actually attach them and run them so that should you need to wipe your computer clean, you are backed up.
Next, you need support. You need to surround yourself with two types of support. You need go to tech savvy experts who you can pay to fix this and you need emotional support as this is extremely stressful. The two are kind of linked so I will start with the latter. Your voiceover friends or “VO Family” as we often call each other are really important and they will understand this like no one else. They are there for you to vent to. They may have had the problem you are having. And if your list of go to experts falls short, they will very likely have excellent suggestions for you of who to reach out to next. When in my twilight zone I don’t know what I would have done without these folks. Remember, it’s not who’s there on your best days, you need people by your side when everything goes to sh** too!
Now, you also need legitimate tech people. There are so many talented folks in our industry, but here are some go tos to help you the next time the rug is pulled out from under you:
- Uncle Roy Yokelson- Antland Productions www.antlandproductions.com/
- George Whittam www.georgethe.tech
- Dan Leonard www.homevoiceoverstudio.com
- Tim Tippets https://timtippets.com/
Depending on what your issue is, whether you are a Mac or a PC user, and what program you are running, one of these folks can help you and if they can’t they will point you to the right person for sure!
At the end of the day, I jinxed myself. Someone had literally just asked me if I ever had technological issues and I swore that I did not and that was not a challenging part of the job. Huh. Go figure.
