Archives for March 2022

Stage Fright. We all get it sometimes. Whether it be on an actual stage, like a theater, or a virtual one, like your office conference room. You know, the rumbling in your stomach, the butterflies, the cold sweats. In take take a long time to get over your performance anxiety in the workplace.

I thought I had conquered mine in voice over and announcing. I no longer get nervous when reading on the mic in front of a group of peers,  and coaches. Not during a live session with a director on the line. Not even in a 12,000 person stadium when my voice comes booming over the loudspeakers.

Recently, however, I have been reminded of how our bodies can be affected internally, even when we have seemingly conquered our fears.

You see, I suffer from ulcerative colitis. The Mayo clinic defines colitis like this.

Ulcerative colitis (UL-sur-uh-tiv koe-LIE-tis) is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes inflammation and ulcers (sores) in your digestive tract. Ulcerative colitis affects the innermost lining of your large intestine (colon) and rectum. Symptoms usually develop over time, rather than suddenly.

Ulcerative colitis can be debilitating and can sometimes lead to life-threatening complications. While it has no known cure, treatment can greatly reduce signs and symptoms of the disease and bring about long-term remission.

I’ve suffered with this for about 20 years. It took a long time and visits with LOTS of specialists to get an answer, and even more to get things under control, but for the most part I did. With the help of medication, my symptoms were in remission, almost entirely.

That is, until recently.

I started to think about what might have been different to bring about this return of symptoms, with a vengeance. I can’t be sure, and that is one of the truly insidious parts of this disease, but…it may be my stage fright!

One theory about something that can exacerbate UC symptoms is nerves or anxiety. Nothing in my life has really been anxiety producing lately, except when I dug a little deeper.

You may have seen me post on social media, or on my podcast The VO Meter, talk about my large increase in my live announcing gigs. The pace has really picked up. This year, I have worked for 3 different Universities doing the public address announcing for: Wrestling, Gymnastics, Baseball, Softball, Lacrosse and Men’s and Woman’s Volleyball. Each of these sports were new for me at each respective school. Each one brought a lot of prep work, practice and excitement!

Now, after my years of doing voice over work and announcing previously, I thought my time getting “nervous” just before game time were over. After all, I don’t feel nervous. Well, maybe a little. I never was overly shaky, no stumbling, no fumbling and really, I all around Kicked Butt!

I started to think about my recent colitis flare up and thought, “Maybe it’s the new jobs”. As I said, all of these “gigs” as we call them in voice acting were new at each respective school. Could I have buried my nerves around each of these situations to the point that they were affecting me internally, even though on the outside, I was cool calm and collected? After all I was driving to new locations, sometimes stuck in traffic wondering if I would get there on time. Looking at campus maps to find the right parking lot to park in and walking directions to the venue. Using different equipment like microphones. Meeting new staff and trying to make a good impression. Yes, I was doing a good job, “on the mic” but was I secretly driving myself to illness?

Unfortunately, I probably will never know for sure. I know outwardly, I’m having a blast, still doing a good job (I think?) and learning more all the time.. I can only hope that as things become more routine, my body settles down, and I can keep doing what I love.

So, have you experienced anything similar? Have YOU conquered your Stage Fright?

I’ll never forget the day Bob Bergen told me I sucked… Sort of. Bob, the longtime Looney Tunes Voice of Porky Pig and Tweety Bird is WAY too much of a nice guy to use that kind of language. He did tell me my voice over demos were not at all competitive and I should remove them from the internet quickly before I did permanent damage to my career. As the saying goes, you never get a 2nd chance to make a first impression. I listened. After all, who am I to argue with Porky Pig? I took down all my horrible self produced demos, and went back to the drawing board. Well, started on the drawing board really.

I see this scenario play out again and again in the world of voice over. Someone has some itsy bitsy bit of training in acting, radio, television and the like and they think they can just buy a USB mic, setup in their kitchen and press GO. It’s much harder than that, however.

Let me backtrack a bit. When I got into voice over 7 years ago, I thought I knew what I was doing. I had a B.S. in broadcasting from Towson State University. A very good school that had turned out tons of great local media personalities as well as a few national ones. Dwight Schultz from the A team was probably the most famous when I enrolled. Now it’s Brian Stelter or Amy Schumer. During school I was on the FM radio station, and cable access tv station. I had tons of classes on broadcasting and production. I had also been an NCAA Division 1 public address announcer for years. So when I decided to hang out my shingle for voice over work, with NO VO training whatsoever, I thought I GOT THIS!

And, I was COMPLETELY wrong. It turns out I didn’t know a THING about voice acting. Luckily through dumb luck and maybe a bit of web savvy I found a few online resources to help. The VO-BB or Voice Over Bulletin board was extremely helpful. That was where I “met” Bob. Truth be told, however, this forum has been around so long that its really just a traditional bulletin board service. People post text replies and questions and someone replies in a thread. Even posting pictures is a bit hard. Still, there is a ton of information on the world of voice over there. If you have the chance to check it out, I highly recommend. Anyway…I posted a link to some horrible demos I produced myself. A simple music bed sourced from the music of my longtime friend Chris Ritsch, some really poor reads by me and no other effects or producing whatsoever. Bob (and others) told me they were terrible, and you know what? They were RIGHT!

It was ONLY then I found out there was a whole world of voice over classes, conferences, online tutorials and private tutoring. So, the next year was a crash course in learning as much as I could in order to be able to get “demo ready”. I did produce a demo within a year and started submitting it. That still probably wasn’t the best idea, but that’s a story for another day. Truth is I have never stopped learning. I still soak up as much information and training as I can every day. Still, that demo did land me with several agencies and booked me lots of work. YMMV.

Now as I’ve been in the business for a while I try to help “newbies” to the business as well. Hopefully you’ve heard of my podcast The VO Meter that is all about that. I post in facebook groups and reply to tweets. Some may say I’m too brutally honest, but that’s just the way I am. I hope, whomever hears/reads my words takes them to heart and puts them to good use, like I did when Mr. Bergen tried to help me.

So, moral of the story. Voice Over is HARD. I spend more time each day getting rejected than I do working. At this point, I’m pretty good. Good enough to be a full time voice over person, working every week, and even getting nominated for awards! But, it’s all because I listened to the seasoned pros who were so giving of their time and expertise who set me on the right path. Thanks BOB!