Over the last couple of weeks I’ve gone to two software company dos – Adobe’s and Autodesk’s. These are both well worth attending for me as the companies tell me all about what they’re adding to the new releases of their software… it’s very enlightening and it’s also a good chance to catch up with people I work with or for, but only ever see at press events.

They’re also usually a chance to eat minaturised versions of proper food arranged painstakingly and artistically onto little china spoons or cut into bite sized cubes…

Plus I get to hear about all the free foreign trips other, better connected journalists are getting to go on, and, in recent cases, see how the credit crunch/recession/depression/global armaggeddon is affecting the various bits of the industries I’m connected to.

The answer to that last one is that it’s affecting them pretty badly, or at least most people are expecting it to. The media seems to be locking down right now with nothing much going ahead anywhere (although I’m not close enough to it to really be able to say that with any authority).

On the other hand, I’m choosing to see a couple of positive sides: Firstly, everyone in the creative industry has a whole list of personal projects they’d really like to be getting on with if it wasn’t for all this damned paying work.

Now the paying work is drying up, those exciting projects should be coming out of the closet and everyone in the industry should be working for free on what really fires them up…. At least if they’re not having to get jobs as waiters, that is.

Secondly, if you’re able to be a shark (see my previous blog), there should be new opportunities appearing around every corner as things change suddenly.

Personally, I’ve taken a quick dart back towards writing articles and proposed a few pieces for magazines which should support me for a couple of months (along with all the other bits and pieces I’ve got on).

Voiceover
I’ve recorded the first part of my voiceover for the Vegas documentary. It’s a big test for me as it’s the first time I’ve done my own voiceover work (or, the first time since I did a couple of packages for BBC radio 5 years ago and had my confidence as a presenter shaken by a producer who quite rightly didn’t think I was up to the job).

Anyway, my two big personal projects for this year, really do depend on me being able to be a strong and credible presenter, so recording the voiceover for the vegas documentary is crucial

What do I think of my performance? Well it’s hard to judge. I’m not at all sure I’m any good, and even if I am, I still need to find a tone of writing and a tone of speaking that work together. I feel a little like I’m PRESENTING too much and need to be more energised and conversational. At the same time, I feel I need to slow down and enunciate better – and I think the two are contradictory. You don’t have conversations at 60 words per minute, do you?

Anyway, until it all gets edited in, I won’t know. In fact I still won’t know then until other people hear it.

I guess the real problem is that even if I do get to be good at presenting, I’m going to be critical of myself as I edit, so I’m not going to have full confidence in the project…. Hmm… I need to get over it.