Archives for December 2024

The VO Meter… Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode 26 of The VO Meter…
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
And today is going to be a very special episode. We’re going to spend the whole time bashing Terry Daniel. Woohoo!
Take it, Terry.
No, not really, but a little bit. We’re excited to welcome our special guests, Trish Basanyi and Peter Bishop. Trish and Bish.
We’ll talk to them in just a minute. But first, we have our current events. Sean, what is happening with you?
Well, I just got back from Hawaii, some personal stuff. My girlfriend is moving back to Washington after two years abroad, or actually six years abroad. Why?
You ask this every time.
I know, I cannot fathom leaving the islands.
Oh, yes, for the ever-gray state. But she grew up in Washington, she’s been in Hawaii for the last six years, finishing college and working over there. And she just wants to be closer to family and some guy, I don’t know.
And some guy. And some guy. But yeah, so, I mean, we had a wonderful time up there.
And I swear this has something to do with Voice Over. I actually brought my travel rig with me because she was actually, usually when I go over there, I just kind of like fill her closet with whatever pillows and blankets are available. But like I said, she’s moving out.
So that’s just barren closet right there. So I brought what I usually bring, my little mic case. It’s got my microphone and my Audion 94 and all my accessories and sundries and that.
But I also brought the carry-on vocal booth from our friend of the podcast, Adil Aliyev, the owner of vocalbooth2go.com. He used to call it the carry-on vocal booth, but now they’re actually kind of changing the name to the VoMo or Voice Over Mo… Wait, yeah, Voice Over Mobile Booth.
I don’t know. They haven’t changed it officially, whatever, but marketing. I think it’s because despite the name, you better check it.
It’s a gamble if you’re going to have enough space to put that thing in there. But other than the size, I love it. I think it’s still one of the best sounding portable acoustic solutions out there.
Certainly one of the more affordable ones. And I definitely think you should check it out.
Yeah, it has been modified a little bit. And I actually spoke to Jeff, as he’s now going by, to see if we could possibly borrow one for our trip to MAVO. Because I think they’re going to be a sponsor again.
And they said yes. So when that comes around, I’m going to borrow one of the new models and review it on the fly while we’re doing our interviews at MAVO 2018. So that should be fun.
Very cool. Yeah, so like you said, they’ve had a few different iterations over the years. They have…
When I reviewed their first unit at MAVO… Wow, was it two years ago? Crazy.
Yeah, it’s crazy. But anyways, so when I first reviewed that unit two years ago, it was their second 2.0 version. And it made it a lot more aesthetically pleasing.
They used a little bit thicker blankets for it. And you got a lot more space. And then recently, they reissued it.
And they made something called their SSH, or surround sound hood. And it pretty much fixed the one problem that I had with it, or the one issue that I had with it before. And like most of these portable solutions, like say the PortaBooth or the chaotic eyeball, they don’t really have any treatment behind you.
So except for, I think the PortaBooth Pro does. It does have a little hood that’s tucked away inside. But anyways, so he went all out.
He made this sort of framed acoustic blanket. It’s the same kind of blankets they use for all their products. And it just kind of attaches to the back of the booth, goes over your head and creates a nice little space.
I would caution you depending on which mic you’re using, it can sound a little boxy. So you might need to like do a high pass filter or edit some of the low end out. But if your mic already has one, or if you’re in a particularly reverberant room, I think it’s a perfect solution for travel.
Yeah, that’s cool. And not to go too far off topic, but because they just announced it, I’m pretty excited about another product they have coming out. You may have seen they took their sound proofer booth off the market.
Oh, yeah. It’s like your acoustical vocal booth, but with the mass-loaded vinyl sheets inside. They took it off the market.
I’m proud to say partially because of me, because when I was talking, I actually tested one here, I think I’ve talked about in the episode. And I said to the owner, you know, if it just had a door, it would be really cool, the perfect solution for me, because I have my studio computer outside the booth. And anytime I have to go look at the actual screen, at least for a while, I do have a monitor in here now, but for the majority of my career so far, I had to run back outside to make any changes on the computer.
And I was opening the door, you know, 15, 20 times a session if I was doing a lot of editing.
Oh yeah.
So they went back to the drawing table and actually created one now that has a swinging door attached to it. And they’re about to re-release it. I just saw a video that they released this week from the factory in China, which is pretty a neat video.
If you get a chance, watch that at pokobooth2go.com. And I’m pretty excited for the relaunch.
Yeah, very cool. Cause I mean, it’s a good idea. And it would certainly be, or like unlike most acoustical booths, it does actually reduce some ambient noise a little bit.
It’s not completely isolated, but it is a nice idea for sure. And it certainly sounds good. I’ve never had an issue with how their products tend to sound when it comes to dampening reflections, but it’s like what?
That’s like a 40 or 50 pound slab of vinyl you have to move aside?
Yeah, each panel. It’s pretty heavy. It’s not as easy to set up as you might think.
I’ve done it several times now, both in my own house and at VO Atlanta, because whenever they set up at VO Atlanta, they say, hey, Paul, you go do it. So that’s a lot of fun. Do you have experience?
But it does take some time.
Yeah, that reminds me. They actually had, wasn’t it sort of what they use, like the Sound Proofer booth at VO Atlanta, just the really large one?
Yeah, that’s what we used. I say we because, as most of you know, I was on the technical team there. We used that as the booth where people were doing spots on the fly if they needed to get some work done while they were at the conference, and it worked out really well.
Yeah, I was really impressed. I know, I believe George Widom was kind of manning the audio engineering side for that, helping people make sure that it sounded good, but nobody complained, and it was pretty much booked throughout the weekend. It was pretty awesome.
Current events, other than that, just kind of doing my e-learning work. I actually tried my stint at just audio editing, my repeat client over at englishanyone.com, he put out a new audio book, so just like an hour long thing. So it was funny, we had a bit of a back and forth, and this is why communication is very important, guys, because he’s like, yeah, I need some audio book mastering.
I was like, okay, I can recommend someone, because that’s a little bit outside of my editing expertise. And then as we talked, he’s like, actually, I just kind of need someone to edit out mistakes, and more to like proof editing and stuff like that. He was like, well, why didn’t you tell me I can do that?
And so I did. And so I felt bad, because we had spent a week trying to find someone for him, and then we found out that something I could do, and then we did it. Although, Paul, I don’t know, I’m still at a kind of a three to one ratio, which isn’t terrible, which means it takes like three hours to edit one hour of audio.
But you audiobook narrators, man, just respect. If I ever pursue it professionally, because I do love the storytelling, I do love the narration aspect, but the editing just destroys my soul.
You know, I don’t do it much anymore. I pretty much outsource everything for audiobooks. I still edit e-learning and narration pieces, anything under an hour for the most part.
But anything that’s over an hour, I will send to several editors I work with because it just saves me so much time. Absolutely. At this point, if I can move on to one of my topics right now, I’m working on an audiobook that I picked up this week on one of the freelance sites at union rates.
Woohoo! So, ooh, maybe I shouldn’t have said that because now my editors will know how much I’m getting paid. But anyway, I’m getting the union rates on the narration and outsourcing the editing, which is about a sixth of that cost.
And it’s well worth my time to do that because I don’t have to do any of the editing. I can work on more projects at once. So I’m doing this three-hour book and sending everything out to be edited.
And I do it now even for royalty share books. If I have one that I think is going to do well, I will outsource that editing too because I just don’t have the time. I’m so busy right now with so many projects that I don’t have the time to work on editing.
I’d rather just keep working on the things that will make me more money in the long run.
Absolutely. And there are certainly things that you can do to speed up that process even more. Like I know Sean Pratt is a huge proponent of punch and roll recording.
I know a lot of people are. And that kind of brings me to another topic, though. If you’re interested in voice over or if you’re looking for…
I mean, Paul’s great at kind of having a multi-faceted voice over business. I know he casts a lot. And he’s just a great networker.
But if you have a facility with audio engineering and stuff like that, you can market yourself as a voice over editor and kind of network with voice actors that you want to work closely with and then practice editing their stuff. So that’s another way to build your business in that area as you kind of work in building your own voice over career.
Yeah, one of my audio book editors, I’ll give him a shout out, his name is Christopher Rain. And that is actually a pseudonym because he’s also an audio book narrator himself. But he’s doing a lot of editing of other people’s work while he has some downtime.
And I didn’t even know that wasn’t his name until like the third book we worked on. Wait a minute, who’s this guy sending me an invoice? So yeah, it’s a great way, like you said, to make money if it’s something you already have the skillset to do, then use that.
So yeah, but make sure it’s something you’re good at before because I mean, you’re dealing with someone else’s livelihood here. So make sure that you have some facility with it and you can get those tracks out efficiently and in a timely manner. But yeah, it’s just another option for expanding your business and being more than a, like sort of a one-stop shop.
So as far as a couple of the other things I’m working on, I am working on that three-hour book that has sort of slipped in this week. Well, I’m supposed to be doing two other nine to 10-hour books. I just finished one for Find Away Voices.
It was the second one in the series. It’s called The Balkan Network and it’ll be coming out pretty soon. I haven’t heard back from Find Away yet, but I don’t think there’s any issues.
And about two weeks ago, the first book I did for Find Away, The Nimble Dodger came out on Audible finally. It was out on a couple other of the other platforms like Scribid and Libro and Downpour, but it was released on Audible about two weeks ago. So go ahead and download that, please.
I would appreciate that. And then there’s a third book in that series from the same author that I’m supposed to work on in any minute now as soon as I can find some time. It’s called The Credible Dagger.
And they’re all three books in a series about the same cast of characters in parts of World War II and then the Gulf War. No, I’m sorry. What was the operation in the Balkans?
I actually can’t remember what it was called. The US version of it.
Oh, man, I can’t remember. So obviously not Desert Storm.
The ousting of Slobodan Milosevic basically is what we’re looking at, that time period, and the breaking up of the former Yugoslavia. And then the last one is a prequel that takes place in World War II. So those are a lot of fun.
Yeah, so it sounds like you’re doing a lot of… would that be historical fiction or…
Yes, exactly. I don’t think they’re real characters.
Well, it’s cool because I know you’ve been hitting the audio book pavement for several years now, so it sounds like you’re kind of honing in on the projects that really resonate with you.
Yeah, things that are sort of in my wheelhouse. It goes back to what we talked about so much is finding your niche and finding what you’re good at. And history, historical fiction seems to be a good fit for me as well as some of the darker macabre and horror things I’ve done.
So it’s a good fit for my voice.
Interesting. Yeah, you do have kind of a Vincent Price thing, if you will.
And then other than that, I have a couple of cautionary tales that I’d like to share with the audience about setting rates. And it fits in with a discussion that we have pretty much every couple of weeks about setting proper rates, knowing your worth and making sure that you stick to your guns. So I had a company who hired me for a session.
They told me it was a huge national company. And I said, great, it sounds fantastic. And they were going to pay me $500 for the session, just on web usage.
And that is not a great rate, at least for a big company like this. I won’t say the name, because ultimately I did not get it. But what happened was, this company, the production house, pitched it to me as a job.
And they said, here’s a session, we’ll do it this day, and we’ll pay you $500. And I said, okay, because it’s this company, I’d love to have them on my resume. Let’s do it.
So we did the session. They asked me for a retake, which should have been a red flag. And I said, okay, I’ll do that too.
And then a week went by where I did not hear back from them. So I finally heard back after following up, and they said, oh, sorry, we didn’t get back to you. The client ended up not liking the take, so we went with another voice.
We’ll pay you $100 for your effort. And I said, no. You do not know, you don’t understand how this works, apparently.
You sold this to me as a job, not an audition, not a spec read. This was a job. So you’ll be paying me in full for this.
And at first they didn’t respond back right away. Then they got back to me and said, okay, we understand where you’re coming from. How about we give you $200?
And I said, no, again, you told me this was a job. I’m not sure where you’re coming up with this idea that my time is not worth the money that you promised me. But just to make things go over easily, the lease I’ll accept is 300.
And we did settle on that, they paid me. And I’m sure now I’ll never hear from them again. But I felt good about sticking to my guns at least three quarters of the way and knowing my worth.
Absolutely. And yeah, don’t, like, I’m glad you’re, like, I never called you a pushover or anything. But yeah, you do need to stick up for yourself.
And sometimes you, like, and you have to educate clients and not be afraid to lose them if they don’t agree to what you’re offering. So I’m glad that it, for the most part, it was ended up favorably in your position, but unfortunately, it’s a real struggle these days to get to educate clients on what a proper rate is. And some people, like, unfortunately, there are different tiers of clients where some will never pay you more than, anything more than $100.
Like, they’re perfectly used to fiver rates. You know what I mean?
And sometimes it’s not just a small client. It may not just be a mom and pop shop. This particular case was a huge multinational children’s toy company.
And it’s so frustrating to see that rate come back.
Yep, yep. And it’s like, I mean, they’re savvy. They’re being sharks.
They’re trying to save money. And so that’s why it’s all that much more important to educate yourself on proper voice structures, or excuse me, on proper rate structures and stuff like that. And so, do a bit of a shameless plug for GVAA right now, but many people have benefited from our free industry standard rate guide.
So, I mean, you can go over to the Global Voice Academy website. You can check that out. It’s free to use.
However, if you would need specific support or you’d like negotiation advice or assistance, we do offer that as part of our VO Pro membership program. So, that’s all I’m gonna plug for that, but it’s a great service and you get a whole bunch of additional ongoing support and educational services that are just wonderful. Honestly, there’s nothing like it in the education, or the VO education market, I think.
And I know it’s hard. It’s hard to have that structure and say, this is it, I’m not gonna go below this point. But it really comes down to coming from a position of strength.
Whereas right now, I have a lot of work, thankfully, and I was able to make that decision. But I know it’s really hard when you’re staring at a bill and there’s no other money coming in, and you think, yeah, I’ll take that. What’s gonna happen is, it’s gonna set you up for a mindset in your own mind where you’re just gonna think that’s all you’re worth.
And I’ll give you a perfect example, because I did it again, almost, last week. I had another client who came to me with a promise of 2,000 hours of an e-learning project and pitched me at a rate of $100. And I did the math in my head and said, that’s a lot of money.
I could do that. So I took it. And I sat down and did the first couple of the sessions, and then after the fact, after I had signed a work-for-hire agreement with them, said, this is insane.
What am I doing? It was also because, again, I had a ton of other work coming in. I said to myself, I can’t finish this for this rate and do all the other things I’m supposed to be doing for other clients.
So I actually took it to our mutual agent at TAG, Jimmy Cobble, who, by the way, is still recovering from a recent health spell. So Jimmy, we wish you the best and hope you get well soon. And this was last week.
Of course, all the bad luck in the world came at once. So I was talking to Jimmy about renegotiating, and he said, yeah, that’s something that we can do for you. So they contacted the client and said, this is what it’s worth.
I actually went to the GVA rate guide and pulled that rate and said it was, I think, $750 for the e-learning rate and took it to the client. And the client said, maybe. But we did already agree to this rate, and we’d like to at least finish out this first set of modules.
So Jimmy and I both said, yeah, that’s fair, because we are kind of reneging on an agreement, at least that I made.
So just to make sure, because you’ve tossed out a couple of different numbers, was that a $100 versus $750 per finished hour?
Yes, per finished hour.
Okay.
So a huge gap there. And again, I did not have the faith in myself to accept the… or to go for the proper rate, and I caved.
But then came to my senses later. So anyway, we are going back to the client. We finished the first set of modules, which was five, total five jobs that I did for that $100 rate.
And now the client said, yes, we can renegotiate. Let’s talk sometime next week. So thankfully, Jimmy is getting better and is going to be back at work soon.
So next week, we’re going to talk and try and get that done to renegotiate it at a proper rate. And I’m sure it still won’t be the top of the guide, but at least we’ll get something more fair that’s more worth my time for doing the work.
Absolutely. And like, I mean, you certainly strive for that, but sometimes you do need to make compromises and the context is important. Some companies really can’t budget more than what they’re offering.
But like say, if it’s a project that you’re particularly interested in, you might be willing to take like a slight hit for that, but only you can make those choices. But one thing that I did want to kind of delve into a little bit more was this idea of not selling yourself short, especially when you’re starting out. Because a lot of people were like, oh, I don’t have experience.
I’m willing to work for exposure bucks. Like, please don’t do that ever. But there’s this idea, they’re like, oh, as I gain experience, I can raise my rates and stuff like that.
And there is an element of truth to that, but you really need to start pricing yourself at standard rates, because it’s an uphill battle to try and raise your rates as you do gain more experience. And honestly, if you’re getting clients, you’ve already proven that you’re voicing at a competitive level, so charge competitively. So many people think like, oh, I don’t have that many years of experience in the industry.
It doesn’t matter. It’s talent-based, not experience-based. So charge yourself…
And that conversation with older clients really sucks too. I can tell you from my experience this week, having that conversation with a client you’ve already told you’ll do the work at a lower rate is not fun. It’s a lot easier if you have an agent, but it’s still not fun.
Yep, yep. And sometimes, and a lot of talent will tend to raise their rates annually. So, or just kind of like, incrementally each year to kind of meet cost of living expenses and stuff like that.
And sometimes you might lose clients that way. But again, start in an acceptable minimum, and then you can start building your rates as your experience goes up. So please don’t go for fiverr rates, ever.
That pretty much wraps up everything for current events, but that brings us to our…
All right, so I’ll start off. I don’t have a purchase per se, but I have a, let’s say, reconfiguration of previous gear, which I’ve been known to do a lot also.
It could be like a retroactive Questionable Gear Purchase. Something you loved, and you’re like, oh, maybe I don’t need it.
And I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve come full circle on this, i.e. I’m a freaking hypocrite. But what I’ve been doing this week is using my 416 for everything, including audio books.
The reason behind it is so stupid. I should have just done this a year ago, or when I had a 415, I should have stayed with that, but regardless, now I have a 416, and it was my commercial and video game mic, and my SM7B was my narration mic, because I could sit down. But what I was finding, I was hearing so much background, so much mouth noise and nasal sounds out of the SM7B, even though it’s supposed to be not that sensitive, that when I was doing the audio books, I decided to just go to the 416 for everything.
So that’s what I’m using now.
Well, how closely were you working the SM7?
I’m sorry?
How closely were you working the SM7? Was that still from like five to six inches away?
Probably a little less, more like three or four. Not right on it, like a radio DJ would, but pretty close to it, because you had to be pretty close to it to get a good sound out of it. And I do have a Fethead plugged into it, but I was still getting…
I thought you said a Fethead. It’s like no need to self denigrate, Paul. Yeah.
The Fethead is an inline amp booster for the interface, and that did help with the sound, but I was still getting a lot of sounds from my head. I think it’s just the allergies this year. We’ve had so much rain on the East Coast.
You may have seen some of the historic flooding we had here in Maryland, and it’s made allergy season the worst in probably a decade. So that’s probably what’s contributing to it, but the hyper-sensitive direction or hyper-focused direction of the 416 helps with that. So I’ve gone back to my Wobble stool, which I also bought on a whim and haven’t used.
That was a questionable gear purchase. I think I mentioned it in an episode. I’m using the Wobble stool with the 416 to read off the monitor I have outside the booth and just use the 416 for everything.
And again, I know I’m a complete hypocrite because I’ve talked so many times about how I need to have two mics and I’ve shifted so many mic purchases, but that’s the essence of the show. Questionable gear repurchase.
Well, I mean, think about that. How many times have I gotten a Yamaha AGO3 and sold it again? At least twice.
But it happens. Last episode, I sold my TLM 103, and I’m sure everyone’s like, but I wasn’t using it for like eight months, and got a nice chunk of change for it. So, and I hear this again and again.
So many people are kind of downsizing their studio and usually just sticking with the 416 or going with like a, like say $300 mic over one of the industry standards. So, I mean, I know the guys on VOBS are saying this a lot now. It’s just like, the gear is so good.
It’s so, if it sounds good, it is good. So, it really, like we’re spoiled for choice these days. And like honestly, if you’re spending like 200 plus on a mic, chances are it’s gonna sound great.
And Paul and I are lucky that like our businesses have allowed us to get a 416. And they’re wonderful mics. And I know many people are like, oh, it’s not good for long form.
Not for everyone. I use it for e-learning and audiobook work all the time. No complaints.
I know fricking audiobook titan, Simon Vance, loves the 416. And so…
Bob Sauer uses one as well. Actually, Bob Sauer uses the 415. And yeah, same thing.
Are you sure about that? I’m almost positive it was a 416.
No, I’m not sure. But it’s one of the two. And either way, they both sound almost the same.
It would have that same complaint, so to speak.
Well, yeah. I mean, the 415, I think would be even better because I know a lot of people described it as warmer or more pleasant. But honestly, give it a shot.
I definitely recommend, if you’re at that level, because I actually had an interesting conversation with someone over in the Voice Over Camp group because they were working with a sub-$100 MXL mic and they had mentioned to one of the admins over there, hey, does anyone know about modding your mic or DIY mic projects? And somehow my name got dropped because I’m a mic nerd. But anyway, so they reached out to me and I’m like, you know, I’ve never actually bought a mic mod or anything like that.
I’m familiar with the people who do it, but I never bought it. And then he’s like, okay. But before he left, I was like, all right, what’s your problem?
And then so by the end of it, he’s like, oh, maybe I should just get a new mic. I was like, yeah, you think? Because it’s like you’re spending the same amount of money.
Instead of trying to mod a mic to get the sound that you want, just buy a mic that has the features that you want. Stop trying to make a, what is it, a silk purse out of a sozeer, you know?
Yeah, just shop around too. You can find them eventually. Like I have a great price on my 416.
Exactly, and like nowadays, you can get, like you can easily get a 416 or a TLM 103 for about 600 to $800, like just about $300 less than market price. So I mean, a lot of the 416 tends to go on sale at least once a year, especially around Christmas. And then the 103, you tend to find used in great shape for seven, like easily for 600 to $700 regularly.
Maybe a lot of failed rappers or vocalists who are dissatisfied with the mic, I don’t know. But their loss is your gain.
And for our listeners, please tell us what you think. We’d love to hear your comments in the comment section. I’m using the 416 right now for the pre-show, but I did use the SM7B when we recorded this interview a week ago.
So tell me what you think, which one sounds better?
And we’d love to hear about your questionable gear purchases or your sensible ones. Like we said, there’s so much new gear out there that we’d love to try ourselves, but we don’t come from old money. But we love hearing about gear.
We love talking about gear, as you know. So if there’s anything that you’d like to share in our comments or in a VO Meter schtick, go ahead and let us know.
So that’s it for me. Did you have any questionable gear purchases this month?
I actually just brought my laptops into a local PC repair guy because I wanted to make sure that they were all tuned up and basically do a clean install of High Sierra. So they’re both working in the same OS environment and all my peripherals will work with both. So that’s certainly important.
And this guy was great. I mean, he cut me a lot of local discounts, which was just awesome.
He paid you in fish.
What was that?
He paid you in fish, you mean?
Oh. Fish and grapes, right?
I mean, you’re paying him in fish.
I’m sure there’s like a Christian reference in there somewhere, but anyways…
I’m thinking about Pacific Northwest. I know you’re not actually in Seattle, but…
Oh, paid in salmon?
Yeah, my enduring vision of Seattle is the fish market and people throwing fish across the counter. Fresh fish, we catch them, you buy them.
But anyway, only in Pike Place. But anyways, it completely derailed me. But other than that, I’m just kind of looking for it.
I’m kind of future planning right now. I’m thinking of adding some additional treatment to the Blanket booth. I’d like to pick up some Audimute panels because they’re about the same price as the Vocalboot to Go blankets, but they’re a little bit more aesthetically pleasing.
And since I do do a lot of YouTube videos for myself and for GVAA, I thought it’d be nice to have something that was a little bit more pleasant to look at than like white blankets and PVC behind me. Because professional perception is important. But speaking of gear right now, last thing we’ll talk about.
So I mentioned that my computers are at the shop right now. I’m actually using my phone to record the podcast. It’s crazy.
We’re using the Twisted Wave app to actually record the audio. And meanwhile, we’re simultaneously running Zoom, which is a video web conferencing app. And the audio is going into my 416, into the SBL Creon.
So it’s a powered interface. So it actually has like an AC plug. And then it’s iOS compatible.
So I got like a little camera connection kit adapter connected to a USB going into the phone. And everything is going through that. And it sounds awesome.
So…
Yeah, I was actually surprised that worked so well. I didn’t think you’d be able to pull it off, honestly.
Yeah, yeah. Well, we did spend about 20 minutes trying to troubleshoot and figure out what would work.
Nobody needs to see behind the curtain.
I know. But anyways, no, it’s fun to have those troubleshooting things. I don’t know if I would recommend this for like a directed session, but it’s always nice to have those options available.
And I know a friend of the podcast, Rob Marley, he, when he started recording Voice Over, he had a really noisy computer. So he actually set his studio up around a little netbook, like a tablet, in his closet. So he would record to the tablet, because it’s silent, and then he would just offload it to a computer and then edit there.
I did the same thing, actually, when I first started.
Yeah, it’s a great solution.
I used a little Dell Hybrid PC, tablet clamshell removable keyboard type of thing.
And if you want to go like super lightweight, there are a number of great USB and IOS microphones that you could just plug directly into your tablet or device or whatever you’re using. I know Apogee has, or a lot of people are really happy with the upgraded Apogee Mic or the Mic Plus. Looks pretty slick and they fixed some of the problems that were in the earlier models, like they had inline monitoring and a little bit more control for it.
So I personally had a bad experience with Apogee, but that might have just been a lemon. So I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. And then you’ve got the Sennheiser MK4, the Blue Raspberry, iRig Mic Pro.
Like we said, there’s so much gear out there. Try something that interests you, send us some samples, and then we can tell you if it’s good or not.
So we’ll get to our interview segment with Trish and Bish in just a moment. But first, we’re gonna continue the theme of bashing on Terry with a VO Meter stick from Jordan Reynolds.
Okay, everybody, it’s time for the VO Meter shtick.
What did he say?
It’s time for the VO Mea… Oh, nevermind.
The VO Meter shtick?
Oh, got it. Yo, Jordan Reynolds here. I was asked to record something super, super interesting for the VO Meter podcast.
But first of all, I just needed to also jab at Terry. Apparently he couldn’t make this interview with Trish and Bish because, well, he’s too busy, what, training for his next marathon and probably rejecting all of our posts in the Voice Over Pros Facebook group. Let’s face it, he’s a jerk.
No, really, he’s a busy man and we’re all busy. And I know I’ve definitely prevented plenty of Voice Over Cafe episodes from being scheduled or recorded or completed. So we’re all guilty, all right?
I love you, Terry. I had to really think for a while, I’m like, what interesting story. I don’t have any stories where it’s like, Jordan, that take was great, but this time, could you actually just, let’s see, remove your left sock and tie it around your throat like it’s a necklace?
All right, rolling, take three. That would be a cool story, but that was a lie. There is a site, which I’m sure a lot of you are aware of, called freesound.org.
And on here, I spent a lot of time, not only because I was getting into audio and voiceover at the same time, back in the day, which is around 2009, 2010, almost 10 years ago. Like crap, I’m getting old. So, but there’s a lot of people on there who have requests for sound effects, and there’s plenty that require voice.
So I spent a lot of time on here because it was the only place I could like practice without having to buy a membership anywhere. And I would fulfill requests is what it’s called. So I’m gonna share a few of my samples of me fulfilling people’s requests.
These are pretty much one-liners that people would ask for a few takes for, and I would do a lot of takes. So here’s a good little sampling of some DJ drops and random lines of dialogue in games. Enjoy for a moment and I’ll chime back in.
Wow, first of all, you hear the mouth clicks in there? Oh my God, I’m so sorry, but hey, you gotta learn somewhere, right? And every time I’d upload one of these free voiceover requests on Freesound, there was this one guy and he was the mouth click police, no joke.
He took his job very seriously. And my audio was decent compared to most people, but I was really new with audio. He would always download my voiceover samples that weren’t even related to his project and then clean up the audio, like fix plosives and especially mouth clicks.
And he’d always be like, re-posted previous voiceover clip was full of mouth clicks and was purely unacceptable. All right, moving on to the second best performance of my life, here we go. Your arcade radio.
Your arcade radio. Your arcade radio. Oh, good thing I gave him that super robotic one there at the end.
That was probably really useful for them when they wanted a supernatural read. Your arcade. All right, and one more.
One five seven lounge. One five seven lounge. One five seven lounge.
Oh yeah, this is how I talk. I’m so sexy. So these were in the early days and we all start there, right?
Oh, and again on this one, let’s see. I’m sparing you from the… About 19 more takes of that one line.
Yeah, point being it’s totally cool to just go for it and do tons of practice reads. But as you could hear, I was trying to force my voice into something that I’m not. I’m not this suave, hey, hey, hey guy.
I wanted to do that and it’s fun for character work, but in strictly commercial, which is where a lot of us are going to work in or training or even corporate, they don’t wanna hear a put on voice. How I’m just chatting with you right now is what most projects want. So if you’re first getting started and practicing on your own, cause maybe you can’t afford coaching yet, which is obviously the position I was in there.
And at that time I was in my early 20s and probably like all dudes in their early 20s, I was quite insecure and had to make up for it by talking like this. So moral of the story, just be you. That’s what most people want.
We all have something interesting about us that makes us us. And we gotta figure out how to bring that to the microphone. I have to work on it every day, trust me, I have to try not to sound too polished.
But when you get comfortable in your own skin and with your own natural voice, man, people are gonna hear that in your auditions and want to work with you. All right, summer’s here, I’m getting sweaty and gnarly in the booths, so I should probably check out before you guys can start smelling me through this MP3. Just keepin it real.
Thank you, Paul and Sean, for doing this awesome podcast and it’s an honor, seriously. Peace.
It’s almost like a roast of Terry Daniel. I mean, you’re probably never gonna listen to it, but if you do listen to it, Terry, we love you, man. I’m sure you’re gonna be a good sport about this.
So in case you still have some ego left, better hold on to it, because we’ve got some tough love coming up from Peter Bishop and Trish Basanyi coming up next.
All right, everybody, and welcome to the interview portion of this episode of The VO Meter. And we are really excited to have two people that, at least in my mind, are idols of mine in the industry. And I’m sure Sean has some fun feelings of them as well.
I know they’ve taught us so much, both virtually and in person in a lot of cases. So first, let’s welcome Trish Basanyi. She is a full-time voice talent since 2004 and is a host of another podcast that you may have heard, a co-host at least, The Voice Over Cafe.
Also from The Voice Over Cafe, we’re featuring Peter Bishop, a Londoner living in New York since the mid-90s. He’s a full-time voice talent and also vice president of the World Voices Organization. So welcome to the both of you.
Let’s talk a little. How are you doing?
Oh, thanks.
I’m great, Paul. Thank you. Hi, Sean.
Hey.
Thanks for having us on.
Absolutely. Now we’ve gotten like what? Three-fifths of the VO Cafe.
We just need Jordan and Sean to join at some point.
Well, and Terry, if you want to count him.
No, we’ve had him on the VO Cafe before.
Good luck with naming him now.
Oh, that’s what you meant? Okay.
Yeah, we’ve had him on, although it was the first time we had to use the sensor button, so it was a little dicey.
Oh, oh, me and Bishop will work that one out, too.
It has to be stated that the rest of us were a little miffed that he came on your podcast, but trying to pin him down to do his own podcast is a little more difficult.
Yeah, guys, we haven’t done a show in a year. It’s been a year, almost exactly. It was last May, the last time we actually did a show, and so there was this joke going around that because we host the Voice Over Cafe Mixer, there were the sponsors on it, that we do more parties than we do shows a year.
I don’t see this as a criticism.
What’s the problem?
The standard joke, we used it for a while. Well, we say it’s a joke, but it’s actually the truth. Terry spends most of his time in rehab.
This is going exactly as I hoped it would.
So I’m glad.
I was talking to another colleague, and they said, you should introduce Terry. And I said, I think they’ll talk enough about Terry without me having to do it.
So everybody listening, what we need you to do, if you really want to listen to another Voice Over Cafe podcast, is actually email Terry and tell him to get his ass in gear and actually meet us for a show. It’s one hour out of a year, literally the last year, that we can’t seem to pin him down. So if you guys want to hear another show of The Voice Over Cafe, then email Terry Daniel and just tell him what’s up.
In all seriousness, you guys were the inspiration for this show, at least for me, when I was looking for, when I was talking about doing a podcast.
Well, when I was looking for a partner, I said to Sean, I really enjoyed The Voice Over Cafe. I’ve learned so much from them, and I’d like to pay it forward. And that was the whole thrust of this show, was to help people that were in a similar situation as we were.
Starting out in the business, now it’s been a few years, so we’re not in the exact same position. But trying to pay it forward because of all the information we gather from you guys.
As a serious comment, that’s nice to hear, because one of the things that’s important to me anyway is the whole thing about community. And I hate the phrase giving something back. It’s too cliched and often gets misused.
But seriously, the reason we do the cafe when we do it is because we just enjoy doing it. And if people get something out of it, that’s great. I mean, I think we’d still do it even if we had like five listeners.
And one of those would be Terry because he never hears the show, because he’s never on it.
Well, because Sean Caldwell fills in for him. We’ve had him fill in occasionally a few, well, several times actually as host. Because I personally, I’m the terrible host.
I cannot keep things in line. Sean is good about keeping things moving and Terry’s really good at that too. So that’s why I kind of hesitate taking the show over and just, because Terry occasionally just say, well, guys, just do the show without me, because I can’t today.
And there have been times where we’ve tried to do that and I’ve tried to take the reins and it just doesn’t work as well. Because Terry just keeps things kind of moving forward and I tend to get stuck on, it’s like herding cats. I mean, seriously, especially when six of us or five of us are on the show at the same time.
But when everybody’s got a different opinion and we like to go through all of the discussions and sometimes it just winds up getting too long-winded and we wind up with something that’s completely all over the map. And then I don’t even, I’m not even comfortable producing it. That’s why what?
We have an expression in the UK. I’ve never heard it over here, but you probably have it as well. There’s no show without Punch.
It’s a reference to Punch and Judy shows and the cafe isn’t really the cafe without Terry because I don’t feel comfortable insulting Trish. I’m certainly comfortable insulting Terry. You need a foil.
We all like to insult Terry.
That’s his role as his raison d’etre.
It is. He’s kind of the punting bag, but he kind of asks for it sometimes.
As much as I wanted to make this the Vash-Terry Hour, I did have some actual topics to talk about. The way I want to do this was sort of a roundtable discussion about general topics about the voiceover business in general, and then some current events, things that we may want to talk and discuss. First of all, since our audience, a lot of them still are newbies, I hate that word and I promise I wouldn’t use it after episode one, but I slip every now and then.
So anyway, a lot of our audience is newbies, and they’re looking for information about how to get started, what equipment they need. So let’s start there. Beck, if you can remember that far, Peter, when you were starting in the business, what are the things you think you need, first and foremost, to start a VO career?
Well, first of all, everyone’s situation is different. Everyone brings something different to the table. Now, in the early 70s, because it would be in the early 70s, get me, I was a failed musician basically because I can’t play to save my life.
So I went on to the engineering side and, you know, was having fun recording the bands. So I knew my way around SM58 dynamic, LDCs, phantom power, mixing desk, revox tape recorders, tape, splicing blocks and everything like that. So I bought all that engineering, and I was an engineer anyway, into it.
So the tech thing to me was, it was a no brainer. It was just, oh right, I need the right mic, the right preamp and some recording software. And that was it.
It was as simple as that. It was not having to think about it. So that was the easy part for me.
Getting into it was simply because I was in an environment where I was supported. The whole follow your dreams thing. I still have a little wooden plaque given to me.
And the environment I was in, we had an actor who was trying and has gone on to quite reasonable success. And I was told, just go for it. And I also brought in a history of corporate speaking and that sort of thing.
I can string two words together in the right order and make them sound reasonable. So I brought that with me, my technical background, and what I needed to do more than anything was learn the business, not learn the tech or actually learn how to speak, really, to be honest. So it was because of a supportive environment and just being told to get off my ass and bloody do it.
That’s the short version.
Trish, what about you? What do you think is absolutely necessary if you’re going to start either when you did or in today’s world?
The landscape was so different when I started than it is now. But I mean, nowadays, it’s so… I mean, the equipment is so much cheaper, and that seems to be a real attractive thing for a lot of people, and that’s unfortunately the first thing that they go for.
They’re like, all right, I’m going to be a voice over talent, so I need to go out and buy a microphone.
Yeah, guilty.
And that’s not really… I mean, yeah, you’ll need one, but you kind of need the training first. And for some reason, people tend to look at this business as like a get rich quick scheme, and it’s not.
They’re like, oh, I’m just going to talk, and people are going to throw money at me. And it doesn’t… Yeah, it’s not…
They find out quickly that it’s not really that simple. And so I would say, I mean, yeah, definitely get training first. Like, you have to.
It’s just, you know, because you’re up against people that have a lot of experience. And, you know, no matter where you are in your career, you’re going to still need training because trends happen. You know, when I…
I remember when 9-11 happened, and it was… I wasn’t full time yet, but I was doing voice overs. And I was actually…
That was right before I got my very first commercial demo produced. And I was working with a coach. I worked with her for a whole year before I decided that I was ready for my demo.
And when 9-11 happened, all of a sudden, all the commercials started to get a little more somber. They had a different feel to them because the country was in such turmoil at that point that it was… it wasn’t something that you wanted to be…
You know, there wasn’t a lot of commercials and whatnot that was really happy and joyful because of the feel, the general feel of the country at that point.
Couldn’t have fun anymore, right? A perfect example. Do you remember the Real American Heroes campaign from Budweiser?
I think it was Budweiser. They actually changed that after 9-11 because they were afraid it would offend first responders. And maybe there’s some truth to that.
First responders, police officers, firefighters, because those are real American heroes. So it became real men of vision, I think, and it just failed after that.
They put a lot of movies at the time as well. A lot of feel-good movies were due for release. They got pulled and held back about 18 months or two years.
I was working in radio, and there were songs that we pulled from the playlist because they were too… They either mentioned… We actually pulled Tuesday Morning from Linnard’s…
from Skinnerd. I think it was Skinnerd, Tuesday Morning, because 9-11 happened on a Tuesday morning. So it was like we actually pulled it from the playlist because it might stir up feelings.
You know? So we were… You know, yeah.
So anyway, going back to the original… my original point was that trends change in the business. And sometimes fairly rapidly.
And so… and sometimes it’s a voice type, and sometimes it’s a feel, it’s an energy, just styles in the business change. And that’s why you always…
you always need to keep up on it. And so that’s why you need a coach, no matter where you are in your career, to kind of keep on that… you know, keep on those trends and stay relevant.
So, you know, that’s my biggest advice, is don’t go out and buy equipment right away. Make sure you get the training. Do a ton, ton of research on the business.
Just be a sponge for information and listen to the people that give you advice that know what they’re talking about. Don’t listen to the people in your family that are not… that are probably not in the business.
Talk to somebody that’s in it, listen to them, and try to really take heed and advice on what you need to do.
Oh, thank you both so much for that.
I want to cycle back to something Trish said there, and it’s also to one of my earlier points, is what do you bring to the table? Being a niche talent, a Brit in New York, basically, I’ve done a few bits and pieces, yes, but I can’t usually get arrested for commercial work where you have to be current and trendy and on top of your game and have a killer demo that’s no more than 30 seconds old. You’ve got to be that current.
I was going more for the corporate market because I knew that’s where my strengths lay, e-learning, corporate, and then you try for anything else and develop those skills as you go along. But for anyone starting out now, you can’t shotgun, I don’t think. I think you have to decide with help of people that know what you’re good at.
You may really want to do commercial work, but you may have a perfect e-learning voice. And when you do commercial, I don’t mean to be disrespectful for anyone, but the last thing the commercial world needs at the moment is another soccer mom. And that’s almost a cliche.
So maybe decide what market you want to go into. Where do your strengths lie? A good coach and good advice will help there.
Because when you start, generally speaking, you don’t know what you don’t know. And you’ve got to find help.
Well, in my opinion, you have to start somewhere. But in my actual experience, it was actually the opposite of what Bish is saying. And for me, my very first coach told me that she heard…
She told me I had a newsy voice, meaning I was good for journalism and news type, more official type things. And I actually landed a couple of months later, I landed a campaign for the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City where I was playing a party girl. And so it was literally…
They heard something on my demo that they really liked, and it was fun and bubbly, and that’s what they hired me for. And honestly, I get hired for the snarky stuff, because that’s where my natural voice is, but I’m able to fake the kind of fun, bubbly…
It’s not fake, Trish, it’s called acting.
Right. But it’s not my natural personality. I’m kind of a little more…
Oh, you’re fun and bubbly all the time….
sarcastic. Well, no, I mean, but yeah, but I’m not like a giggly, like super giggly type of girly… Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I’m just saying, it’s just not my personality. So anyway, so it’s good to have a goal, like if it’s something you really want to do, but listen also to the market and what the market is saying to you once you start booking work. Because if I had listened to my first coach, I probably wouldn’t have even gotten the opportunity to work with the Trump Taj Mahal.
So it was something that… and they were a great account. They were with me for 10 years.
Do they pay you? No, no political. So yeah, they were a 10 year account and until literally they closed their doors when they went out of business or whatever a couple of years ago, I was still doing stuff for them.
So listen to them, I mean be open to other things. You may really want to do audio books or medical learning, medical e-learning, whatever, but listen to the market and listen to what people are responding to.
One thing you left out there Trish was that you did have a little bit of radio experience. So a lot of people when they first get in front of a mic are afraid of it, but if you’ve done radio, you learn that the mic is just a tool. A lot of people use the mic when they first start.
They’re talking to the mic, and that’s wrong. You talk to everyone on the other side of the mic. Too many people…
I mean, addressing the mic is one thing. You’ve got to have it in the right place, but it has to be transparent.
Yeah, and radio… I mean, it’s a totally different mindset. Being a DJ, there’s a ton of radio DJs that are now trying to get into voiceover, because they have that voice.
But unfortunately, that’s not all it takes these days to be a voice talent. So they’re learning, and it was a big deal for me. I remember…
I wasn’t in radio for that long when I started pursuing voiceover, but one of the first things I ever said to my second coach, who wound up being my commercial coach who did my demo later, I said something about, well, yeah, I’m a DJ. And she pointed to me, she looked at me, she’s like, never repeat that to anyone in the business.
And you’re head in shame.
Yes. Because I was like, oh, my ego was up there. I was like, yeah, I’m on the radio, and I’m making…
whatever. And so there is an ego to it, but it’s your natural… There’s a ton of DJs that, yeah, they talk differently into the mic, the projection is different.
They don’t know how… I mean, if you hear the radio ads from each station that the DJs are producing with their own voices, they all sound the same. They don’t read copy any differently from a radio ad, not from a sandwich shop to a car dealership.
It’s going to be this… yeah, it’s going to sound exactly the same. They don’t know how to translate copy.
Yeah, exactly, the nuances are not there.
They don’t know how to be conversational, one of the buzzwords nowadays.
Yeah, and that’s what’s the hardest transition. It’s like you have to get out of your own head to do VO. And a lot of DJs think that they’re just…
they’re doing it because they have this great voice, where it’s not like that anymore. It used to be, but there’s so many people with great voices that don’t know how to read copy.
It’s not a one-sided conversation. You’re not just shouting out to the masses. You’re trying to communicate with them.
And also, you don’t have to have a great voice in the classic way. What you have is an instrument. You need to know how to play it or be fashionable.
The one I always quote is, Gilbert Godfrey gets a lot of VO work. Has he got a great voice? No, but it’s a character voice.
People will buy anything if it’s done well. That’s the thing. So you don’t have to have a classically good voice in some genres.
If you’re doing radio spots and whatever, be Mr. Character, but do it well. Because the casting directors know what’s good and what isn’t. And take acting lessons.
Awesome. Speaking of training and transitioning from that journeyman to actually working voice talent, how do you know when, say you’re working with a coach, you’re actually taking your guys’ advice, and you’re working with a coach for maybe half a year to a year or longer, however long you need, when do you know it’s the right time to produce a demo? And how do you go about it?
That’s a difficult one, because there are a lot of people making a lot of money out of making demos. You’ve got to go by word of mouth with a demo producer who, when you approach him, is just as likely to turn around and say, you’re not ready yet, and he’s not interested in making the quick sale. There’s a real danger with getting a demo out there when you’re not ready, because it’s this whole thing.
I think Bob Bergen said it once on Facebook. You only get one chance to make a first impression. If you send out a substandard demo because someone’s talked you into it, you’ve stumped up 500 bucks, and the guy down the road has knocked you up a commercial demo, it’s going to hit agents or whatever, and it’s going to go straight in the bin.
Then two years later, you’d be surprised. They’ll remember your name, and they won’t even listen to your second demo. So it’s difficult, but you need an honest opinion about it.
It’s not when you think you’re ready, it’s when someone with good ears thinks you’re ready.
And your coach, again, if you’re in this business, you should have a coach no matter where you are, especially at the beginning. So your coach, unless they’re also a demo producer, which I worked with them separately early on, but those were the roles back then. My coach was not the same place that produced my demo, so she was honest with me.
And also it was me too. I knew I could get better. I didn’t want to just cut a demo to get out there.
I wanted to be the best I could be, because I was in the New York market when I first started. I was promoting myself and trying to get agents in New York, in the city. So I knew that I had to really be on my game to be able to compete with the current market at the time.
So, you know, to me, listen to your coach. Your coach should let you know, you know, when you’re ready to cut a demo and when you’re comfortable.
Also, don’t forget, there are plenty of markets now, and it’s become… I think it’s a little silly. Some people have like 10 different professionally produced demos for every genre.
You may be ready for corporate, but not commercial, because you haven’t quite tuned in to the current voice. But if you can put together a good e-learning or corporate demo, that may come at a different time than your commercial demo, or the other way around. You don’t have to saturate the market with three or four different demos.
If you concentrate on one thing, you get there with that, you can put that one out there. Then maybe follow up with the one that’s taking a little more time to perfect. So it’s not all or nothing.
You can have a drip campaign on it.
I would say if you’re brand new, and you’re looking for advice on whether something you’ve done yourself or something you’ve had done by a demo producer that you may have questions about yourself, like you did it and you’re having second thoughts, send it to a colleague that you know is well respected in the business. A lot of you have actually sent me demos already. They’re just out of the blue and said, hey, what do you think of this?
And those people know, I’ll be honest, and tell you whether it’s any good or not. And I’m not even the most experienced, but once you’ve been in the business for three or four years, you can tell whether something is marketable based on what you hear from your colleagues and what your own demos are if you’re working in the business.
I will do it, but I hate it. I am not the arbiter of whether someone else is saleable. I can pick up on diction things and this stuff that sounds wrong to my ears, but I’m not the guy with the checkbook.
So I’m very reluctant to say to someone, yeah, you’re ready. That’s great. Or that’s not quite ready yet, because I’m not a buyer and I don’t trust my own ears when it comes to someone else’s livelihood.
Yeah, I should caveat what I said by what people mostly ask me about is their studio space and whether what they’re playing is… Right, and I usually send a disclaimer saying, I’m not a coach, I’m not going to critique your performance, but your space does sound like garbage, is what I’ll do.
Would you stop using the bathroom?
One other follow-up question I had about demo producers, do you think there’s only a few that are really worth going to? Because we all have friends and colleagues that do demo production, and it seems that there’s really a small cadre of people that are referred to over and over again. Do you think that’s the end-all, be-all?
Or do you think you can get a demo from those that may not be all over the Facebook groups?
Facebook isn’t the be-all and end-all of VO. Plain and simple, you cannot live and die by Facebook. Facebook is a small section of people.
You get a VO group with 10,000 people in it, and everyone’s an expert. Social media is an interesting tool for being social. I have my doubts as to whether something like Facebook can do anything but harm to someone’s profession.
There, I said it.
I would have to agree. You know, I probably… Well, I don’t know how much flak I’m going to get for this, but I haven’t paid to have a demo produced in a really long time.
I actually do my own with snippets of work that I get back from clients, and I just produce my own… I understand why people go and have a new one done and refresh it or whatever, and spend some places are charging $5K for a demo, and I’m not saying that you don’t get your money’s worth. You certainly can.
There are big names in our Facebook.
Circles that I know are the real deal, and they’re great coaches, they’re great demo producers. Is it something that you absolutely need to do? In my opinion, no, but not so much that you don’t need a demo producer at all, but especially when you’re getting started, obviously.
Like I said, my first demos I had produced by someone else, and it worked out for me. But there’s certainly demo producers that I’m sure that are good that are not on Facebook. But at least with the Facebook circles, in the community, in the voiceover community, you have people that are involved in those circles that have used those people and have gotten results.
And so you have that personal connection to people that you know that have used that demo producer and have had good results.
There’s a lot of producers out there that don’t go on to social media because they’re too busy because they’re producing demos over time simply by word of mouth and recommendation. They don’t need to market themselves because their work markets them.
Right. And, Juan, there’s plenty of voice talent that do the same thing. There’s people in this business that make a living doing what we do but we’ve never heard of because they’re not part of the online community.
And they’re just doing their own thing.
I envy them sometimes. Because social media is such a time sink.
It really is. Yeah, but it’s such a lonely business, though. You know, it’s so isolating to be in a room…
I’ve seen the pictures.
Well, that’s at night, though. Like, I go out a lot during the week at night. But, you know, during the day, I’m here all day by myself.
And it’s, you know, without Facebook, I would freaking go bonkers. It’s like, you know, you need some sort of water cooler. You know, I’ve always told people, Facebook is our water cooler.
Like, those, you know, we’re at our home offices. And, yeah, for the people that live with other people, have kids, families, whatever, but I live by myself. If it wasn’t for online, I would go berserk.
Yeah, but it gets a bit old sometimes. Sometimes I think 50% of my feed is people trying to sell me stuff.
Yeah, I get that feeling too. Just to go off script for a second, do you think Facebook in particular is going the way of MySpace? Because my feeling is, and it may be this algorithm thing that I haven’t figured out, but I see the same ten posts every couple of hours from the same ten people.
And I know there’s people that have opinions that I value, for instance, Bish. I haven’t seen him post anything on Facebook in months, and it’s probably by design. But I feel like there’s just not enough content there anymore other than pictures of cats and people’s kids.
Or the same questions being asked again and again because nobody uses the search function.
What mic should I get? Should I sit or stand?
But I want answers from this week, not last week. And Trish, I totally agree. I mean, when I was living in Japan, that’s when I started.
And so, of course, my only access to other talent for information and trying to establish a connection was through Facebook. And I wonder if people… If you’re on Facebook that much, how much VO are you doing?
But what I love about what Trish and Bish have been talking about besides from just blowing open so many misconceptions about the business is that, again and again, you don’t take anything at face value. You’re presented with a resource, but you still do additional research, and you really delve deeper into that, and then make your own choice. And I love that.
It’s like so many people are looking for the shortcut, the right answer, and there’s not one. It’s really dependent on the research you do and finding something that works out for your situation. And I don’t know if that segues too much into our next question, but I’m going to do it anyways.
So you’ve got the training, you’ve got the demo. Where do you find work? Are pay-to-plays still an option?
Is that acceptable? Do you go the agent route? Do you have to go the agent route?
Where do people look?
Trish, do you want to go? I’ll rat one forever on this one, so I’ll let you go.
Sure. The pay-to-plays minus v.com, to me, are still certainly relevant. Vidalgo, and you have Voice 123, and there’s a…
I mean, honestly, when it comes to… I’m not going to tell other people where to find work. If you can’t find work, you’re going to have a really hard time in this business.
It’s everywhere, but you have to learn where to look. And, you know, honestly, sometimes it’s just as simple as plugging in, you know, voice over, voice overs into Google. It’s like just, you know, do a search.
There are plenty of ad agencies and production companies that hire talent directly, getting on rosters. That’s how I built my business, was calling, direct calling, you know, cold calling, basically, ad agencies and production companies to ask if they accepted voiceover demos, because there still are a good amount of them out there that have their own in-house talent rosters. And they will, there’s no, and most of the time, the beauty of that is that they hire you multiple times.
They keep you on a regular list and they submit your regular generic demo to clients when a client comes to them and says, we want this kind of voice for our campaign. And they present your demo and they’ll just email you and go, hey, client chose you. There’s no auditioning.
It’s fantastic. It’s like there’s no auditioning for the script. They like your voice, they want to use you, and that’s it.
When can you have it done and how much? And that’s most of the emails that I still get. So if you need practice in auditioning, then the pay to plays are really good to do that way because they’re just constantly coming in.
And it’s a good way to just get comfortable if you’re just starting out. It’s a good way to get comfortable on a microphone and start recording and editing and just starting to really practice doing all the things that you would do if you were full-time. So to me, it’s everywhere.
I’ve gotten jobs off of Craigslist. Yes, you have to be very specific and very finicky with what you even.
Sure, but honestly, I’ve gotten five-figure jobs from Craigslist ads and Twitter, or not so much five-figure jobs, five-figure clients. I did get one five-figure job on Twitter a while back, and it was great. It’s nice.
Most of the stuff that you’re going to do is going to be a couple hundred bucks, 500 bucks, 1,000 bucks here and there. But yeah, I mean, honestly, it’s just as simple as a Google search. Do a search for voices or voice talents, and see what comes up, and see who’s listing, and then you email that website.
If it’s a list of voiceover talent, then you email them and ask if they’re open to receiving new demos, and see if they will add you to their list. It’s not as hard as it sounds.
Bish, any thoughts?
I agree. I have lots. You can take two VOs.
Let’s say they’re at the top of their game, six-figure VOs. One will do everything via an agent. One may not even have an agent, because he does exactly what Trish is talking about.
Agents are useful. They can find you a route to work. They’re a necessity if you’re union, obviously.
But if you’re not speaking specifically from a non-union point of view, most of the work for non-union talents comes from their own marketing efforts. And they may be 10, 20% from agents. That’s my feel anyway, with discussions I’ve had.
Pay-to-plays are here. There are a couple of honest ones. V123 has its weird rating systems and stuff, which I hear they’re getting rid of.
But they’re straightforward. They’re just a middleman, just a matchmaker. Armin is a rock star with Bidalgo.
He’s really involved with the community.
And he’s hosting this call, by the way. Thank you again, Armin.
And he’s hosting this call. Yeah, he gave Bidalgo a call to the world. This is not a plug for Armin.
Oh, bugger. We’re shills for it, it’s okay.
Not a shameful one, anyway.
We cannot ignore them and hope they go away, because they’re not going to go away. But I will echo what Trish said about production houses. So much of my work comes from being on production house rosters.
You’re on the roster, they want you to get the work. They don’t want to outsource it. They want to keep their customer happy, so they’re going to present you.
They’re going to present you well. I had one the other day. It was an audition, rush audition.
Did it one day, got to call the next day about five o’clock. It’s like, oh, that audition you did yesterday, client likes you. You’re going to be ready in 15 minutes.
It’s duh. Can I get the script, please? And that was it.
Done and dusted. One big panic. But the audition was, the production house came through, basically said, you’re one of three people.
So, oh, these are good odds that have been shortlisted. So you work with people that want to work for you. So that’s agents, production houses.
Everyone gets their slice of the pie. A production house or an agent will earn it, and it will be good for everyone. You’ve just got to watch the people that want all the damn pie and just give away the crumbs.
Quick question about production houses. Quick question about production houses. My strategy up until now has been to scatter spray and just contact anybody and everybody I can find online, and if they add me to the roster, great.
I’ve been pretty successful, but it’s gotten to the point where I’m starting to lose track of where my demo even sits anymore. Are there any ways to vet a production house or roster if someone is looking to add you to them?
I always look at the roster itself. I listen to the demos that are there. You can get a feel for it.
Sometimes, and it’s the same with agents, some production houses and agents will take everyone with a microphone and a pulse. They just want a big list. They’re playing the numbers game.
And that’s fine. That’s their business model, but you’ll get lots of auditions, but so they’re cattle calls. But no, you do your research as much as possible.
I’ve been approached by some smaller houses and you look at the work, you look at the roster, you go, meh, nah. And you look at the rates, you discuss rates. You say, no, I don’t get out of bed for that.
You know, seriously. I’m not cheap.
Which you can be.
Worth every penny, Bish. I said, worth every penny, but.
Oh, absolutely. But this cycles back to the, what do you do when you’re starting? You’ve got to take the lower paid jobs.
Yes, when I started, I was taking hundred dollar jobs and grateful for them and smiling sweetly. And then you realize, hang on, this isn’t where I want to be. This is not how I want to position myself in the market.
I am not a hundred dollar talent. Maybe that’s all I was worth back then. I don’t know.
Probably. But you slowly raise your game. I raised my minimum session fee this year.
Haven’t lost a single customer, which means I should have raised it last year.
Talking further about getting work, the last question really we want to talk about is, where do we see the future of the business going? Something that came to mind was the Google Duplex demonstration this week, which scared the bejesus out of me. If you’re not familiar with it and you’re listening, it’s an artificial intelligence that can actually naturally respond to questions.
So the demonstration they did at the Google AO Conference was to actually make an appointment for a hairdresser only using the artificial intelligence. Do we think that is coming faster than maybe we thought or hoped? Will our robot overlords take over anytime soon?
Well, obviously we’re all hoping not, but it’s certainly a possibility. You know, on the other side of it, I would say on the human side of it, I kind of, a couple of years ago, I think I did, I think I talked about this on the cafe. See, a couple of years ago, there seemed to be a bubble that started to burst.
I know that we still see a ton of people that are new to the business, but what’s happening in my experience is that there have been a lot of people because the industry has had so much publicity and glamorization in the last probably five or six years, there are a ton of people that have tried to get into the business, failed and quit. And so, but a lot of people now know what voice overs mean and what it is. I still run into somebody that I tell them what I do and they’re like, what is that?
But generally, to me, the business has gotten a ton of publicity and a lot more people know what it is and what it means in the last, like I said, five or six years. And to me, like two or three years ago, I started to really see people posting on Facebook chit chatting with various people. When I tell people what I do and somebody says to me, oh yeah, my sister tried that and found out it wasn’t really easy.
So she kind of quit and she’s working a regular nine to five now and she decided not to pursue it. So that’s happening. And so to me, it’s only gonna take a couple more years before people really start to realize that it’s not what it’s cracked up to be or what they think that it’s cracked up to be when they first get started.
And it’s just like free money for talking basically. And so that bubble has started to burst and word has started to spread about how difficult it is to make a living. So I’m hoping that that will continue.
I’m sorry, but you know…
There’s still time for us to get out, Sean.
Never. And people that have pursued it, that didn’t do it correctly to begin with, didn’t really do it… Like I said, they went out and bought the equipment right away and decided to cut a really crappy demo.
And then they found out it wasn’t that simple. So to me, it’s like that’s been a little bit of a relief for me, is like, okay, people are fine with it. The word is getting around that we’re not just…
The people that are successful in the business are not just lucky or… And we certainly don’t have lazy lives. So on the robotic side with the software that’s coming out, I really doubt that it’s going to get to the point where we’re completely replaced.
If that ever happens, it’s not gonna be anytime soon.
Yeah, a lot of what you say there makes total sense. Just to riff on one small thing there, I actually was asked a couple of years ago what I did for a living. I told them reluctantly and they rolled their eyes.
And I was like, no, no, really, I do. I pay my mortgage, put food on the table and everything. Because they come across a couple of people that were these, buy a mic and get a bad demo and call themselves a VO because it’s show business.
So I found I was defending myself. Okay, specific to this question, I’m going to be very self-serving here because I’m at least what? One or two years older than Trish?
It’s not going to affect me. And that’s a very selfish attitude. I don’t see it coming along before I decide to retire.
Yes, it’s going to work on IVR. It’s going to work on very basic instructional videos. I think, to be honest, it’s not going to take work because I think it creates its own market.
It’s the same with cheap VOs. To me, they come in the same bag as cheap VO. I don’t see cheap VOs threatening me because cheap VOs are being bought by people that wouldn’t buy me anyway.
Their choice is cheap VO or no VO.
Yeah, it’s the Walmart versus Tiffany.
Well, actually, what I’ve got is… I scribbled some notes earlier. Many people buy their cookies from the dollar store.
Their choice is the dollar store cookies or no cookies. I’m selling premium cookies. They were never going to be my customer.
So, yes, it’s there, and the demonstrations are impressive.
You still have to buy the software. So, you know, that’s the thing. And software isn’t cheap either at that level.
And maybe it eventually will be, but again, when it comes to all the nuances of the human voice, and, you know, I think that time-wise, it would actually, it’s going to be cheaper and faster for them to ultimately stay with real voices.
I want to listen to, let’s say, a good corporate narration or a piece of e-learning, and then someone tell me, well, that was all computer generated. Auto-response, something that’s a straightforward explainer video that’s been fine-tuned. I really, 10 years at least before it has any impact on the business, and even then, I’m not sure it will be the part of the business that most of us work in.
I have a feeling it will be price-driven. I think I said this on a different podcast episode that if it’s cheap, that’s one thing. People may say, you know, I’m going to pay for quality.
If it’s free and Google starts rolling it into the Android operating system, that scares me a bit.
Yeah, but I don’t know. I think people will become… It’s a novelty at the moment.
I still think there’s a bit of uncanny valley in there. It’s good, but it’s a little freaky because it’s not quite good enough, and people will become attuned to that. I mean, I know it when the phone rings.
I know when it’s a robot voice. Even one of these really good ones I’ve heard recently. And you can have fun with them.
I think people will get attuned to it, and it will actually end up being a bad reflection on the person that bought it. That’s…
I don’t know.
I haven’t thought that one through fully.
Yeah, it’s sort of like when you get a customer service rep that you know is outsourced, and they don’t have any idea what the product is, and they’re just reading from a script. You know that’s a cheaply done service enter.
Bang, can I end up speaking to someone in Mumbai because they’re cheap bastards and won’t keep a call center in where you are. And it’s like… And they say their name’s Roger.
Your name’s not Roger. Please just tell me your real name.
I understand you would like to know my real name. How can I help you today, Mr. Bishop?
But that cheapens the brand. And I think people do realize that there is a downside to cheapening your brand, which takes a hell of a recovery. It’s like having a demo out there.
You send a cheap, a bad demo out there to 20 production houses. Recalling it is difficult, I mean, to actually get that off the streets, because it’s out there in a digital media, and it’s there. So, calling it back is difficult, you know.
Well, I said I was going to end on this question, but I don’t want to end on such a downer, so let’s just go around the room and tell me something cool you’re working on this week.
Oh, Trish, you go. What have I been doing that’s cool?
I can start if you like.
Sure.
Alright, so yesterday I actually, well, took some of your advice, Trish, because I’ve heard you tell that story before. I was searching on Craigslist and found a job for my son. You probably, or maybe you guys haven’t heard, but our guests, I mean, sorry, our listeners have heard that I’ve been doing some work with my kids in VO and I found a documentary film for my six-year-old.
It’s about the, well, kind of depressing. I said I was going to be depressing, but it’s about the glaciers melting and how we just save them by stopping global warming. So that was pretty cool that he’s going to be doing a voice job right here in the studio next Tuesday with a live session.
That’ll be hilarious. He’s going to have the headphones on that I’m wearing. I’m going to be outside with the dual set of headphones on and listening to the director.
Fun. That’s cool. I don’t know how we stop global warming, to be honest, but that’s another discussion for another day.
Or perhaps not. I’m sorry, Sean.
Well, I was just saying, way to end on an up note there, Paul. My son has gotten a documentary before I have, but…
My dream, stolen by a 14-year-old.
Or an 11-year-old.
A six-year-old? Oh my God. Well, I mean, he’s going places, man.
I had the standard thing, because I took some extended time when I went to London for the One Voice Conference, which was great, by the way. So I was piled up right up until the day I left, and I got back on last Tuesday. And I haven’t stopped since.
But it’s all been business-to-business, corporates, nothing fancy. That last-minute piece I did on Wednesday was for a famous shoe brand. I actually did sign an NDA on that one.
And I’m going to be the internet voice of a famous chocolate bar.
Cool, cool.
So I do get those little ones like that. But most of it, it’s… I’ve forgotten the amount of times in the past three months I’ve used the word de-fenestration in a medical instructional video.
I mean, it’s glamorous, I know, but it has to be done.
Yeah, I mean, I hate to say it, but I’m kind of, you know, I’m the same way that Bish just said. Like, I do, I don’t know, probably five to eight projects a day, so I don’t really think about anything. Like, there’s nothing that really comes to mind from this past week that I really can…
that stands out. It’s like I do a lot of different things, but there’s not one in particular that was, like, particularly exciting. I guess a couple of weeks ago, I did a…
I’m in the Lego store in Rome, or is it Milan? It might be in Milan. The Lego store there, I’m on some of the announcements in the actual Lego store, like, you know, those…
the in-store kind of product advertisements and stuff.
In English or Italian?
In English.
I didn’t know.
No, nope, nope. Nope, in English.
Not everyone in New Jersey does. Just most of them.
Their names all end in a vowel, but they don’t necessarily speak the language. I got you.
The most exciting thing I’ve done this week, really, is send off a bunch of invoices, which is always exciting.
That’s very exciting.
Almost as exciting as getting the checks in the mail.
Mm-hmm.
Because it’s a business. Let’s not forget it’s a business. We’re not all unicorns and snowflakes.
It’s about paying the damn mortgage.
That’s true.
I mean, you get a lot of people who are like, come on, guys, why won’t you support me for this fan dub that I did? And it’s just like, well, what are your goals? Is this a hobby or are you trying to sustain a living from it?
So honestly, guys, I can’t thank you enough for joining us today because it’s just so beneficial for our audience to see these or to hear these living examples of people who are continuing to work day to day of voiceover. And it doesn’t take as much as some people think. I mean, you guys work hard, you research, you have common sense, and it has worked out for you.
And I just love that we come to this theme of just examining the resources that are available and deciding what’s best for you, like not taking everything as gospel and really carving your own path. So thank you guys so much for joining us today.
Thanks, Sean. I appreciate you guys having us on. It was a lot of fun.
Yeah, thanks. It was great. Sorry, I witter on a bit sometimes.
I did want to say, why don’t you tell us where people can hire you if they want to?
Oh, you can’t afford me.
Well, la-di-da.
La-di-da. peterbishopvo.com. All my contact details are there.
Yes, I mean, it’s all marketing. So if your client needs a Brit…
And if your client needs a snarky, smartass, or a party girl, as we found out earlier, I’m at voiceoversbytrish.com.
Do you want to plug the Cafe or not?
No, sure, we can. Yeah, I’m the co-host of the Voice Over Cafe. It’s voiceovercafe.org.
And we’re also on iTunes and pretty much… I think we’re on Stitcher and a bunch of other podcast apps. So if you just do a search for a Voice Over Cafe, you will find us.
And listed in the Necronomicon and the Book of the Dead. I will add one thing. Your introduction, Vice President of Wovo, everyone should join, it’s very cheap and good value.
I will be assuming the presidency after beginning of June.
Congratulations.
Corvo has done a wonderful job over the past few years. I’m stepping up to be president. And my aim is to put the world in World Voices.
So there’s going to be a lot of outreach to back to Europe, things like that. We’ve pushed out quite nicely down into the Spanish speaking community. And now we should really attack the proper English speaking community.
Very nice.
And for our listeners who aren’t familiar with WOVO, that’s the World Voices Organization. It’s a trade organization, not necessarily a union, but just a group of professional voice actors who are working together to ensure and maintain the integrity of the voice over business internationally. So I think it’s an amazing organization.
I’m a member. And if you’re looking for… They actually have a mentorship program.
So if you’re looking for feedback on studios, demos, or people to ask questions to, it’s a wonderful resource for that.
Yeah. My favorite mentoring thing is the sanity check. So you just need to talk to someone because you’re going crazy.
That’s there as well. So yeah, worldvoices.org. Check it out.
So thanks again to Trish and Bish. That was so much fun. I didn’t really want it to be a huge roast of Terry.
All right, I kind of did. And I’m glad it went that way. But it was just so fun to have those two on.
They’re just a hoot every time I talk to them, both on…
That guy needs to be knocked down a peg.
But every time I talk to them, both online or in person.
Absolutely. They’ve been incredible mentors, both, like you said, live and in person. And they’ve both been extremely helpful to our own careers, helping, like, steering us away from some of our questionable gear purchases, if you can believe it or not, and really helping us have just a more realistic and professional mindset when it comes to pursuing this, and kind of helping us avoid some of the pitfalls that we try and help you guys avoid.
So that pretty much wraps up this episode of The VO Meter. A couple of things we have coming up pretty exciting. We are going to have the host and creator of the Mid-Atlantic Voice Over Conference, Val Kelly.
She’s coming up in our July episode.
Ms. Squacky Voices herself.
Yes, exactly. And then we will be presenting live from Otacon 2018. It’s the Japanese Anime Convention at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.
That’s August 10th through the 12th. And then we’re also going to be at the Mid-Atlantic Voice Conference itself, broadcasting live from there.
So I sadly will not be at either of those events this year, but I believe, will Chris Datoli be joining you again for Otacon?
Yep, Chris Datoli for Otacon. And Ken Foster will be filling in for Sean at Mabo.
Excellent, excellent. He did a fantastic VO Meter shtick for us several episodes ago. Should definitely go check it out.
The purple-haired man with the purple heart, I guess. So thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. We hope you enjoy it and catch us next time on the VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Goodbye, everybody. Thanks for listening to the VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.

The VO Meter… Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
So welcome to part 2 of our International Roundtable episode, and this time we’re featuring two special guests who due to scheduling had to join us at a different time, but also we want to give them enough time to talk about their experiences, and it just became so much content that we wanted to give it its own episode. So without further ado, here’s part 2 of our International Roundtable.
So got to admit, I’m a little intimidated to introduce our next two guests, because not only are they extremely talented and generous with their time and all of their experience and expertise, but one of them is actually my boss. Oh my God. That is the amazing and talented Cristina Milizia.
And then the other one has been just making incredible strides in the last couple of years in the voiceover industry in both the English and Spanish markets. He’s done animation, commercial, promo, in just all various forms and formats, the inimitable Christian Lanz. Hello, hello.
Cristina, thank you both for coming today.
You got it.
Delighted to be here. Thanks for having us.
Thank you. So for people who might not know who you guys are, why don’t you just tell us a little bit about yourselves, what kind of areas of voiceover you’re focusing on right now, and just where you’re at in your careers.
Hi, everyone. My name is Cristina Milizia, and I’ve been a voice actor since I was eight years old, so about 26 years now. Although most of that, it was more just a fun way to miss school.
So full time, more in the last six or seven years, and I specialize in animation, video games. I do commercial work as well, toys, and a lot of kids’ media. I do children’s voices quite a bit.
But yeah, I kind of dabble in pretty much everything, except for promo, so that is the one area that I… Perhaps someday I will pop up over there. But yeah, and I work here in Los Angeles.
Wonderful. And you, Christian?
Well, yeah, as you guys know, Christian Lanz. And I’ve been doing this since 2000… I’ve been doing this since 2005, but full time since 2007-ish, voiceover.
I mean, I started kind of on camera in 2005, and then I was doing a little of both, and then I just migrated into voiceover full time and decided that was what I really wanted to do. And it got to the point where voiceover got busy enough where I would actually lose money if I took on an on-camera gig, because for anybody who’s done on camera, you know how time-intensive that is, and you gotta go a full day for the auditions and the callbacks and then a full day for the fitting and then maybe two or three days for the shoot. And so, long story short, it might take a whole week to shoot, like for example, a commercial spot or an on-camera commercial.
And during that time, I’d have to turn down three, four, five VO jobs, and then suddenly it just dawned on me. I was like, I’m losing money. So, I went full-time VO, and I do miss the on-camera side of things, but I love VO, so you really can’t ask for a better career than VO.
Who doesn’t love VO? So yeah, and I specialize in commercials, promos, a lot of trailers, animation, video games, narration, and a fair amount of live announce, too. I’m actually getting ready this weekend.
Join the three-timer club for the live announcing the Daytime Emmy Awards and the Creative Arts Emmys. So that’s a little niche that’s not quite as well-known in the VO industry, but it’s a lot of fun. So yeah, so that’s a little bit of what I do.
Wonderful, that sounds so much fun. Well, thank you both for coming today. And Paul, would you like to start with our first question?
Sure, as you know, the focus of this episode is bilingual talent, although Sean is barely and I’m not at all. But the two of you, we’re wondering, which is your mother tongue and mother dialect?
Well, when I was growing up, it was Spanish. My father came to this country speaking no English whatsoever and so my earliest years, both my parents speak Spanish. My mother grew up in Mexico and so my dad, again, was from Peru.
So it was mostly Spanish when I was very young. However, once you start going to school and everything, English becomes a lot, being in this country, that’s the main language spoken in school. And so English quickly became a little bit more dominant for me.
However, the original language that I did speak growing up was more on the Spanish side.
For me, it was Spanish. I was born and raised in Mexico City. I lived in Mexico for about 16 years.
My father’s from Mexico, my mother’s from Chile. So, half Mexican, half South American Chilean. We moved to the US when I was a young kid.
I was about five, six years old when we moved here. And I actually learned to speak English by watching cartoons and watching TV and listening to the announcers and the voice actors. So, kind of, you know, I kind of hit the ground running in the sense that as I was learning to speak the language, I was also kind of training to be a voice actor, albeit unconsciously.
I didn’t know that that was kind of what was happening until later on in life when I realized that, you know, that I learned to speak the language kind of in the vein of what professional voiceover sort of sounded like. You know, so that was, I guess that kind of helped me. I don’t know.
Well, you hear that sort of innate talent for just that sort of vocal oral awareness for accents and articulation, like you said before. I know Carlos Elzraki has had a similar story as well. But it’s so great to hear the similar stories that you guys have.
And sort of moving on to the next question, and I can guess the answers for both of you, but how often are you guys asked when you perform jobs in English, to do accented English?
Quite a bit. And there’s something really wonderful to that, even though I don’t have a Hispanic accent. Having somebody do a character for animation or video games or even a commercial with who actually is Hispanic and who can actually pronounce words that do come up that are in Spanish authentically, there’s a really nice authenticity to that.
And also, the accents that we put on, I think for many of us, it’s one of our parents, probably, or your relatives, someone who was in your house, you grew up listening to. And so I think there’s a lot of culture and memories and history when you bring something like that to your work that’s special and unique, and hopefully that all kind of bleeds into the character as well. So yes, quite a bit for animation and video games and for commercial as well.
Yeah, I mean, I think my experience has been pretty similar. If you take a quick glance through my IMDB, you’ll see that pretty much, I’d say about 70% of what’s in there is probably accented English reads for animation, for video games. And I totally agree with Cristina.
I mean, when I… I lost my… I don’t speak with an accent in either language now at this point, but I did when I was little, and I lost it as I grew up, but my…
every male in my family still speaks with an accent, so when I put on a Hispanic accent, I’m, like she says, I’m basically… I’m doing my dad or I’m doing my uncle. So I can definitely fall into it in a place of authenticity, because it’s what I grew up with and it’s what I hear every day from my family, even though I speak Spanish with my family, when I hear them speak English, that’s how they speak.
So it’s just sort of a natural sound that we’re used to. And it’s funny because I’ve noticed that in the animation world, in acting in general, it’s beneficial sometimes for casting directors or for producers to hire somebody who has sort of that bicultural, bilingual background, because oftentimes if you hire actors who have, who naturally speak with an accent, even though the accent obviously sounds authentic and is dead on, especially for things like comedy. Comedy is all about rhythm, and it’s all about a certain melody and rhythm and flow.
And it’s very diff… Comedy for Anglos is very different from comedy for Hispanic speakers. There’s just a different rhythm to it.
So sometimes you’ll have an accent that’s authentic, but it won’t nail the rhythm. The rhythm of the jokes and the comedy. And sometimes it’s beneficial to get somebody who understands both languages so that they can deliver the appropriate accent, but also with the perfect rhythm for the jokes and to make the comedy land.
So that’s kind of a… That helps us. That helps me, at least.
I don’t know, some people might find it differently, but so it’s a good place to be in, to be able to kind of fall into either the accented, the non-accented and to understand the structure and the rhythm of both languages, so.
That’s a really good point. That’s a really good point. And vice versa, just to expand upon that, there are melodies in Spanish, there are melodies to English voiceover that don’t translate in Spanish.
Totally, totally.
And it was one of the interesting things when I began to work on improving my Spanish, because, obviously, I spoke conversationally growing up, but working to work more professionally in terms of commercial reads, and when I’m actually going up against native speakers, I discovered a lot of the melodies that were part of a normal English commercial read were totally different in Spanish. You can’t handle it the same way. And so even if your accent is perfect, it’s just not going to hit in the way that it needs to.
Yeah, and different vocal qualities also mean different things.
It’s like font. It’s like when we say, I wish we had sarcasm font, so I can tell when you’re being sarcastic. There’s a certain rhythm and a certain melody to languages where in English, for example, you can say a joke or you can be joking, even though it might be kind of deadpan what you’re saying, but there’s a certain lilt, a certain melody to what you’re saying that preps the listener to understand, oh, this is a joke.
What’s coming is supposed to be funny. And that’s what sometimes is necessary for a joke to land. And that’s very, very different in Spanish and in English.
And you kind of have to understand and know both, in addition to the accents, sometimes, to make those jokes land, to make it flow the way it needs to flow. So, yeah, I totally agree.
Getting that emotional message to come across the way you want it to, it’s varied. And including the vocal pitch you use, the vocal quality, and the rhythm, as he mentioned. Yeah, I’m really glad you brought that up, because it’s a subtlety that I think a lot of people don’t think about.
But if you’re in it, then you realize that these small things do make that difference.
Well, that’s wonderful, because we talked about it a little bit in our discussions regarding international voiceover and stuff, but it’s almost like you’re creating this third form of communication, because you have this awareness of two different cultures, of two different languages, and you’re just kind of, like, you have to understand who your audience is and how you can approach it. Because we’ve talked about, when doing a character accent, the importance of authenticity over accuracy. Because like you were saying, if you did just 100% dialect, then there’s an exclusivity about that.
Like, you risk distancing or alienating your audience. Like, they might not understand you or the joke might not land. So you have to come up with this sort of evocative, like, this evokes the idea of an accent rather than being 100% accurate.
So that’s fascinating that you’re both able to articulate it so well.
Not to go crazy with this, but there’s even, like, I feel like there’s actually even a rhythm and a tonality and two people who speak both. Like, the people who are actually in the middle who do speak, like, but you’ll hear a lot on, there’s certain radio stations that are actually completely bilingual now. They’re like, the announcers speak half of the time in English, half of the time in Spanish.
It’ll go in and out between each phrase. And there is this growing population in the United States of people like Christian, people like me, people, there are so many people that come here from Latin America because it’s a neighboring, they’re in terms of proximity, especially Mexico, where it’s their own culture. It’s a different culture in and of itself of the people who do speak that are the second generation sons and daughters of immigrants and that bilingual language has its own slang and rhythm into it.
Yeah, that’s lovely.
Wonderful.
Thank you.
We’re getting so cerebral here. But now that that’s a problem, it’s a smart show. So kind of moving on, since you guys do such a variety of projects in a variety of markets, I’m curious if there are specific kinds or if you specialize in multiple accents of Spanish or in multiple languages.
Or dialects.
Or dialects, that would be the more appropriate term.
I, you know, as I mentioned, I mean, the Hispanic comes up the most because again, people are looking for that authenticity. And so there’s a lot of casting that we’ll say, you know, we’d like someone who is Hispanic or of Latin descent. So yes, that one is really common.
And they will ask for accents all within, you know, Latin America. If I get to do my dad Peru, then that’s awesome. A lot of times they ask for something kind of neutral or it’s not anything specific or Mexican.
You know, it really ranges. So, but yeah, a lot of that. I do other accents as well for my character work and definitely have occasion to use them.
You know, obviously British and Russian, New York. I mean, these things come up on a fair amount in character work, but yeah, Hispanic definitely prevails, I would say.
How about you, Christian?
Yeah, for me, it’s kind of the same thing. I mean, for my English work, I do a lot of different dialects in English for my video game and animation work. I’ll do, obviously I’ll do just standard American English or Southern or Boston or New York or British, Scottish, et cetera.
But also within the Spanish work that I do, because I’d say about half of the work that I do for Voice Over is in Spanish for the Hispanic market. But I think what a lot of people don’t realize is that when somebody says, you know, this is for the Hispanic market, it’s as rich and varied as it is in the general market English world. You know, a lot of people tell me, oh man, you work so often for the Hispanic market, I should brush up on my high school Spanish so I can do that too.
And it’s like, no, dude, like it’s not just a matter of being kind of fluent. It’s like, you know, when somebody comes to you and says, do you speak Spanish? And it’s like, yeah, but what Spanish do you want?
Do you want, you know, Mexican, Mexico City, you know, Chilean, Peruvian, Argentinian? It’s, they’re vastly different dialects. And even within like Mexico City Spanish, I mean, Mexico City’s a, you know, it’s a city of 25 million people.
It’s an enormous city. And there are different Mexico City dialects within the city itself. I mean, it’s like the same as like you would say, oh, well, you do, you know, you have a Valley Girl accent or, you know, this accent or that.
So even within Mexico City, there are probably eight, nine, 10 distinct dialects of Mexico City Spanish that you can use. And that I do bring out very often because once you’re in the session and the producers, you know, kind of are from Mexico or they, you know, they’ve lived there, they get that too. So it’s like, even within that, there are subcategories of dialects within the Spanish realm that are very useful to have.
Because depending on what dialect you use, you’re conveying different demographics. You know, you’re conveying the, you know, whatever the snooty rich kid or the, you know, the blue collar working guy or the, you know, whatnot. So this knowledge of those specific dialects are really what help those of us who work in the Hispanic market to really be, you know, to really book all these jobs because that’s kind of, that’s not something that anybody can do.
You know, especially not somebody who goes, oh yeah, I’m gonna brush up on my high school Spanish and I can, you know, do all these spots. You know, that’s really important to know is that a lot of people think that the Hispanic market is just sort of a, you know, a secondary sort of subcategory, but it’s not, it’s huge. It’s really the only commercial market in the US that is still experiencing growth.
So it’s super rich and varied, and it demands, you know, an authenticity, and it demands perfection just like the English market. So that’s really important to know. You know, it really kind of deserves its place in the VO market as something that, you know, requires authenticity.
Wonderful. Certainly not for the faint of heart. Wow.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And actually the rest of the panel mentioned that specific to e-learning and narration, that when someone sees a spec for an audition that says they want a native dialect, that that’s the only one that is really worth doing. So I’m curious, and Christian, you sort of covered it, but I’m curious if you think it translates to other genres of VO out of animation and commercial.
If, when you see something that’s not your native dialect, if it’s always a good idea to try and pull it off, if you know that accent or dialect, or is it something you should leave to someone who is native of that specific dialect?
Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I like to leave certain dialects. For example, sometimes what we’ll see a lot in the Hispanic market, because we’re divided sort of in West Coast and East Coast. West Coast tends to be very Mexico-heavy.
Mexican, Colombian, et cetera, which tend to be sort of what we would call a neutral Spanish dialect. Whereas if you go East Coast, especially Florida, Miami, et cetera, that’s more of the Caribbean Spanish. So we’re talking Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican.
And these are vastly different dialects in Spanish. I mean, they sound as different as what Scottish English sounds to an American.
That is exactly how Humberto described it. And he said…
Oh, totally, yeah.
Because no one from Scotland would not necessarily understand someone from America and vice versa. It’s the same comparison he made.
Completely, yeah, it’s totally different. So I know that if I get an audition for, let’s say, a commercial campaign that’s airing just in the Miami market or on the East Coast market, and they’re asking for a Caribbean Spanish dialect, I can do it. I can do a fairly decent imitation of it.
But to be honest, it’s like there are voice actors who are native to that, who are going to be much more effortless in doing this dialect. And to be honest, I prefer to leave that to the experts, to the native speakers. Because like I said, this is a growing market, and I don’t say this to be braggy, but I have more work than I can take on within my genre of West Coast, Mexico City slash neutral Spanish.
So I think it’s great that we can leave that to people who are very good at what they do, and everybody gets to work in this industry. So yeah, I see stuff come in, and I go, you know what, I’m handing this off to somebody who’s gonna do it better than I can.
That’s how I feel about when I’m sent something with Castilian Spanish that’s been requested. I’m like, that’s so different, so different. And people don’t realize how different Spain, Spanish is from over here, you know what I mean?
Just as Christian mentioned, there’s enough variation even just within the West Coast and in Mexico and all of the above. And then when you throw in from Spain, that’s just a whole other thing. Yeah, I totally echo Christian’s feelings on all of that.
If my agent sends me something and they want me to read on it, I’m gonna do what my agent asks me to do.
But, you know, I definitely… And I’m very… I’m always very conscious of doing my very best to get as close to authentic as I possibly can.
I usually do dialect coaching before every single job that I do with the dialect. And if I have to do an accent, if I have time to get coaching before an audition, I will often do that as well. Because, you know, I just, I feel like, you know, even if I listen and mimic, there are going to be things that I miss.
And it’s always very important to me to try to, you know, just try to do honor to the cultures as closely as I possibly can. You know, I think that. So I try to make that effort.
But, you know, again, there are always going to be those times when you get an audition and you have, you know, 12 hours to turn it around. And how well can you do that, really, in that time frame? So, you know, you do your best, but there are definitely things that it’s, you know, that are closer to home that are going to be more authentic and ones that are going to be more of a stretch, so.
Yeah, agreed.
I mean, that’s huge, because it’s like, you both have such a unique skill set, and you already have a facility, like you’re both incredibly talented with years of experience, and you have a facility with accents, but even then, you have an awareness of your limitations, and you don’t put yourself out there on a project that you feel someone else might be better for. And that’s a huge thing to consider.
What would you say are some of the benefits of being a bilingual talent, as well as some of the challenges?
Well, as we mentioned before, I think the benefit is, I mean, you can add authenticity to an accented read, and if there happens to be words in both languages, you’re going to be able to pronounce both languages in a way that’s authentic and more native. You can add lib, potentially, in that language, which can add a lot, for sure, in animation and video games as well. I think one of the biggest benefits is that you could potentially voice the same product in two different languages.
And that’s a huge advantage for the client as well, because it saves them time with casting. They find one person and they’re like, oh, I really love their voice, and now, oh, we can use this for the Latin American market as well, or for Mexico. I mean, that’s a huge time saver for them.
It creates consistency for the product in terms of the tone they want. Now, again, it may not be ideal for all products. Maybe you don’t want the same sound, depending on what the localization is.
That’s possible, too. But having that option, I think, is a huge advantage for them. So I think those are potentially some of the benefits, especially in commercials and things like where you have words in both languages that go in and out.
I think that’s something… Because clients want the name of their product pronounced correctly. And sometimes the product name is in English if they’re in a Spanish spot.
If they have a talent who actually can say it in English properly, that’s a plus. So I think that’s a huge benefit.
Benefits… I mean, I think the benefits are pretty clear. The benefits of being bilingual is you get twice as many opportunities.
Especially in the US and with the Hispanic market burgeoning and growing at such a huge rate and especially because Hispanics tend to consume media more actively than the general market Anglo population, especially movies. That’s why we do so many trailer campaigns in Spanish because Spanish-speaking residents of the US are the number one movie-going demographic. So now movie studios are realizing, oh, this is the demographic that we need to market our movies to because they’re the ones that are actually going out and watching these movies more than any other demographic that’s in the US.
So, yeah, benefits, you get twice as many opportunities. And I’d say drawbacks. It’s hard to think of a drawback, really.
I don’t know that there is a huge drawback. If anything, maybe a possible drawback is that once somebody… The industry is very much about labeling people and kind of pigeon-holing people.
Because that’s what works. That’s what makes the casting process efficient, is to label somebody and go, oh, this is my Spanish guy. This is my accent guy.
This is my… So sometimes you do run into some situations where if people know that you do a lot of Spanish work, you get pigeon-holed as, oh, this is my Spanish guy. And then you come to the session and people hear you speak English and they go, wait a minute, you don’t have an accent at all when you speak English.
Why aren’t you doing the English side of this campaign? And you’re like, I don’t know. And then they’re like, ah, we should have hired you to do both.
And it’s because once you get kind of labeled as the Spanish guy, sometimes, occasionally, you can get pigeon-holed and maybe not considered or not… People might not realize that, you know, guys, I speak English too. I can do the general market side of it too.
So it is a constant sort of… You got to remind people, hey, by the way, you know that Spanish audition I sent? Just so you know, I speak English as well.
And so I do run into that situation where you kind of have to gently remind people pretty often that you can do both. And that’s where, you know, that’s where opportunities are. And as long as you remind people, then the work opportunities are always there, and it becomes a benefit again.
Well, Christian, I think there was another podcast you were on, not to promote our competition, but didn’t you mention that you initially picked up a lot of Spanish-language work in reverse, where you showed up for the English session, and they said, hey, you can speak Spanish.
Oh, totally. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
I mean, that’s, you know, I would show up to, and vice versa. I would show up to a session, and I’d be recording the session, and they’d hear, you know, me speak the other language, whatever, if I was at a Spanish session, they’d hear me speak English to a producer, to somebody, or vice versa. And that’s when they would realize, they go, wait a minute, you can do both?
And that’s how I started picking up a lot of this dual market, like Cristina says, all these dual market campaigns. And there was something that she said that was also really important, where it’s brands like for their brand names to be pronounced properly, correctly in whatever language it is that their brand name originates. You know, I was the voice of Verizon for many years, a long time ago.
And one of the biggest, I think, one of the biggest selling points, one of the biggest reasons why I think I might have gotten the job is because Verizon is a name that in Spanish isn’t necessarily naturally pronounced properly because there is no V sound in Spanish. It just doesn’t exist. And that’s true.
I never even thought about that until right now.
In Spanish, the letter V exists and the letter B exists, but they both sound the same. They both sound like a B. So in Spanish, Verizon is actually pronounced Beraison with a B.
And I remember that for the clients, the people at Verizon, this was very annoying because they were like, no, it’s not Beraison, it’s Verizon with a V. And so because I came in with that knowledge of both languages and understanding that there’s a difference between the B and the V sound, that was really attractive to them because they were like, oh, this guy speaks perfect Spanish, but he pronounces our brand name correctly. You know, correctly in quotation marks, obviously, but not because the Spanish pronunciation of V is incorrect.
It’s just that’s the way it’s pronounced in Spanish. It’s a different language. So what she was saying, it’s really important to know those differences and to know what the client wants.
And so whether you’re voicing a spot in English or in Spanish, just be respectful of what the pronunciation of the client’s main brand is. I mean, that’s really what’s most important. That’s what you’re there for, is to be the spokesman of a brand.
So, you know, you got to be mindful of that kind of stuff. And that’s where it helps us to be, bilingual and bicultural especially.
Yeah. Amen. That’s so funny.
I never thought about that with Verizon in particular, but that’s true. That would be a major issue. I think, for me, in terms of…
I agree with Cristina. I don’t think there are any drawbacks at all to being bilingual. I think there are zero drawbacks.
I mean, you really have to nitpick. I really had to nitpick.
I do think there are challenges though, depending on what kind of bilingual you are. And what I mean by that is, in what country did your parents teach you? I mean, for example, if I was here, but my parents were Cuban or Puerto Rican, that would be much harder for me to be in the market here because it’s a little bit more honestly Mexican-based here on the West Coast.
So I think a lot of it depends on where your Spanish is from. Some accents are a little cleaner or more proper than others. Some are much more laid back and a little messier in terms of their enunciation.
So I think those can potentially be challenges depending on what sort of Spanish market you are attempting to enter into and work in. That’s something I’ve encountered since my father, again, is Peruvian, so my accent is more South American. And so being here on the West Coast in California, they really want more Mexican, Spanish, most of the time.
And so that’s a challenge for me to try to, you know, kind of go more in the Mexican direction. However, I tend to book more work in like Florida for Spanish because the accent, for whatever reason, it’s a little bit more. And again, also, I have an accent where my mom was from, you know, grew up in Mexico, but she also spoke perfect English.
My father was Peruvian. I grew up here, which is a huge melting pot. So my accent is much more…
It’s a little… It’s kind of a mix of many things. And so for me to work in Spanish, you know, I just…
That’s one of the challenges that I have, because my accent is a little bit different than one, you know, one particular thing, especially being here. And then, you know, again, for me, another challenge… You know, Christian, maybe you have your family around you more.
I don’t as much here anymore. So a lot of the people that I spoke Spanish with on a regular basis are now no longer in my life. So I have to put a lot more effort, not no longer in my life, but no longer like in my every day, like I speak to them every day kind of thing life.
So, you know, I have to work a lot. I have to work regularly in terms of practicing my Spanish, because otherwise, you know, I’m just not speaking it on a daily basis aside from when I work. So I have to listen to radio constantly.
I have to keep it in my mouth and, you know, because it’s different muscles as well. So that’s one of the challenges for me is that in a primarily, you know, English speaking life that I live, you know, maintaining the Spanish where it needs to be at the level that it needs to be to compete here in Los Angeles. That’s, you know, again, one of my challenges.
So my, I guess my point is I think the challenges of being bilingual really depend on who you are as a bilingual talent, where you’re from, at what point you came in. And some people like, you know, like Christian, they maybe came here later or maybe they never lost their English accent. It’s they’re just a little bit, you know, that might be a challenge for them trying to enter into that English, stronger English side of the bilingual market.
So that’s my point is I just, I think it would really vary depending on your personal history and where your biculturalism and bilingualism originates.
It’s gold. Sweet, sweet gold. That’s, I really can’t thank you guys enough.
I mean, there’s just so many, like you’re both so knowledgeable and articulate about this and sort of kind of bringing everything together because you’ve touched on it throughout the discussion on considerations you need to make in order to be successful in both of these areas. So say you recognize that you’re bilingual. You might be a talent, you might not be, but you want to start marketing yourself as a bilingual talent.
Where do you start?
Make a demo.
I really like… there’s so many people like, oh, you know, I’m bilingual too. How do I start working?
And make a demo. You can’t… you cannot market yourself as a bilingual talent without a demo.
But it’s on my resume.
You need a demo in a specific language too, correct?
That’s what I mean.
Yeah, yeah.
No, no, that’s what I mean. I mean, you need a… in that other language that you say that you speak.
Okay, great. You have to show that.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, totally. I mean, it’s like, you know, it’s the whole don’t tell me, show me, you know, sort of thing. It’s like, for me specifically, like, I have…
just my English commercial demo, my regular English commercial demo, I think it’s the second spot. I want to say it’s like the second or third spot in is like a Taco Bell spot where I’m speaking Spanglish. So I bounce back and forth between perfect English and perfect Spanish in that one spot.
So because I always want people to know, even if they’re listed, like I said, you know, that it doubles your opportunities if people know that you can do both languages and they can hire you, especially for commercials where here in the US commercials are generally shot twice. They’re shot for the general market and they’re shot for the huge, massive, you know, Hispanic networks that are growing and growing. So, you know, you got to…
people need to know that. So even within… it’s not that I specifically have…
obviously I have Spanish demos and English demos, but even within my English demo, I’ve got some Spanish thrown in there so that people right off the bat hear it and go, oh, oh, this guy’s bilingual. Aren’t we shooting this thing in Spanish too? Oh, let’s mark this guy.
You mark this guy because, you know, he might work for both. So yeah, you got to, you know, you got to always put it out there. But then the other thing is too, is what I would tell somebody who wants to market themselves as a bilingual talent or as a Hispanic market talent is be honest with yourself.
You know, it touches on a little of what I was saying before. If you just, if you took a few years of high school Spanish, it’s not going to cut it. You know, it’s the, you know, the quality control aspect of it in the Hispanic market is just as stringent as it is in the general market.
It’s not just people who kind of speak Spanish. You got to be as flawless and as fluid and as perfect in that language as you would be if you were auditioning for a major national spot in the general market. It’s got to be that good.
So just be honest with yourself. If you are truly and honestly bilingual, go for it. You know, it’s a huge market.
And if you’re not, you know, maybe it’s just not your niche, you know, in this industry. But either way, yeah, make a demo. Let people know, you know, let people hear it and judge for themselves, obviously.
Yeah. Amen. On my Spanish demo, I have an English Spanish spot as well.
No, because you do. And that was the same thing. You want to be able to show.
And then on my Spanish, I also have Spanish words.
Totally, totally.
And I put a kid’s voice in my commercial demo as well, because I got to like make sure I do that one too. So no, it’s important in terms of the marketing, show everything you can do in a shorter period of time without making people go, what the heck is going on?
And the commercial demo might be the only one they listen to. Exactly. They might be looking specifically for Spanish or kids.
Oh, that’s amazing. That’s wonderful.
One more question about the demo for either of you. Do you think it’s important to have a demo producer who speaks the language in which you’re recording, or can anybody produce the demo, who normally would produce your demo, if they had the skills? But do you think it’s important to have that person speak the same language that you’re recording?
I mean, I think it depends on your… I think it depends on your experience level as a voice actor. I mean, it basically comes down to, do you need to be directed, or do you not?
And if you’re kind of at the beginning of your career, you’re probably going to benefit from having a demo producer who can direct you through the session, and if you’re doing a Hispanic demo or a bilingual demo, then yeah, I would recommend that you get a demo producer who understands the nuances and the rhythm and the delivery that sells, that works for the Hispanic market as well as for the English market. Now, if you’re a little bit more of an established talent and you’re used to self-directing and you do a lot of self-directed sessions and that’s just how you work, then just have somebody produce your demo who can handle all the production and technical aspects of making a great demo, but then you can obviously self-direct yourself in whatever language you’re doing if you’ve got that skill set, if you’re at that point in your career.
I don’t really have much more to say than that.
Can’t you guys be more argumentative?
I think there’s benefits to, again, just as you mentioned, if somebody speaks that language, especially in terms of branding, marketing, making sure it hits in the way that you want it to. Because again, especially when it comes to commercial, because this is advertising, which is very specific in terms of a specific market that you are trying to reach and sell to, and it needs to be communicated in a very specific way. But yeah, again, if you work day in and day out in Spanish, and you know what you’re doing, you don’t need somebody to hold your hand through that or to guide you.
Not hold your hand, but to guide you. But if you’re not constantly working and booking in Spanish, then I think it’s a good idea.
And again, it comes down to being honest with yourself as far as if you feel like you absolutely need somebody who speaks Spanish to direct you because otherwise you have no idea how to give a convincing performance in Spanish, then maybe that’s not your niche. Maybe you’re not ready for that. So yeah, it all comes down to being honest with yourself and understanding what point you are, at what point you are in your career, and taking it from there.
I think Cristina made a really good point that I just want to repeat again because I don’t think people realize how hard it is to be that flawless, perfect level in both languages. People don’t realize, even if you’re a bilingual, again, like me or Cristina, you grew up speaking two languages in the home, achieving that high level of performance in two different languages is very difficult. So even if you already are a fluent speaker and you can go to another country and have a wonderful time and get around and have conversations, professional voice over as a skill set is not the same thing.
It’s a whole new level of communication, because you’re not just communicating in small groups and the standards are higher. It’s for an entire country.
This is professional. So just know that even if you are bilingual and you speak fluently and you have no problem speaking in that other language, know that it is going to take a lot of extra work to actually book on a national level those kinds of jobs, because you are competing with native speakers who have studied many, many years and are true professional voice over talents in that language.
Yeah, I mean, if you compare it to just the general market, there are a handful of us who are working, who are actually making a living in the US as professional voice over artists. And if you think about it, there are 300 million people in this country who can speak and sound like flawless native speakers. And if that were the only thing that mattered, we would be out of a job because all those 300 million people would be happy to take our jobs.
And the fact is, they’re not. They’re not because in addition to sounding natural and flawless in their language, there’s also a skill set which is the acting part. So again, it’s not just, but my Spanish is really good.
Well, yeah, but can you be flawless? And in addition to being flawless, can you act in that language and bring that sensibility and bring that native, you know, cultural fluidity to it? And that’s where it’s…
that’s where you gotta be honest with yourself. It’s like, can I do that, you know, realistically?
Amazing points, you two. And again, I just keep returning to this idea of awareness because even like the bare minimum is that flawless fluency in both languages and the level of acting talent that is required to be successful in any area of voiceover. But like that being said, that’s just the beginning.
You have to consider, like we said before, where you fit in the US market, where you potentially fit in your native language market. And like you’re essentially doubling your opportunities, but you’re also doubling at least the amount of work you have to do in order to take advantage of them.
Oh my god, yes, exactly. That’s exactly the point. I sometimes, for once in a while, I used to get overwhelmed, because I do have to work on my Spanish all the time.
I’d be like, oh, if I had to practice my Spanish, I could practice all these other things, you know. Then I was like, Cristina, you’re ridiculous. It’s a privilege to have this other thing that I can continue to…
It’s such a huge benefit. But again, yes, that benefit has a tremendous amount of responsibility attached to it, if you really do want to succeed with it.
You’re saying with great power, there is great responsibility.
It’s true.
Yep.
It’s true.
Well, guys, Cristina, Christian, thank you so much for joining us. We’ve come to the end of our time together, sadly. But before we go, even though Christian told everybody he’s too busy to take on more work, tell us where people can find you if they want to hire you.
Well, I’m at SBV Talent, Sutton Barth and Vinari, here in LA. It’s my primary agency. I’m also with Jason Marks Talent Management.
And yeah, anything you need, commercial, trailer, promo, animation, video games, narration, live announce, you can find me there.
I’m with AVO Talent, AVO Talent, here in Los Angeles. And yeah, you can find me there. My animation agents are Sandy Schnar, who is absolutely incredible, George Carmona, that does my video game work, and Peter, Verona and Rebecca do my commercial.
And yes, I’m there, primarily do animation, video games, but I also do commercial as well, narration. Just did my first audio book, which was a really fun thing the other day. And yeah, that’s about it.
Thanks so much for having us.
You’re welcome. And I just wanted to extend my thanks to Paul’s. I’m just so happy to have you both on here.
Like, I mean, Cristina, we work together, and I’ve been trying to get you on the podcast for a year now.
I know. I’m so sorry.
It was. No, and I’m so glad you could join, because like we said, we know that it’s a topic that you’re passionate about and you’ve worked with Christian before. And I’m just so glad to have you both, because you’re both sort of like paragons of the VO community.
You may not realize it, but you’re both just so… I mean, you both come from a place of gratitude. You’re both incredibly intelligent and articulate, more so.
And you’re just so generous with that knowledge. Like, I have never seen you get irritated by a silly question or… And if you’ve ever seen…
I mean, they have to have an award for Novella Facebook responses, because Cristina is just a literal encyclopedia of voice over knowledge. And she is always happy to give it. So thank you both for being on here and just encouraging this spirit of generosity in the VO community.
Thank you. I’m blushing. Thank you.
We got her on video. She’s not lying.
Well, thank you guys. It’s been a pleasure and a privilege. Thanks so much for having me.
Awesome.
Thank you both. Thanks for listening to The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.

The VO Meter… Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hi, everybody, and welcome to Episode 24 of the VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
So today we’ve got a little bit of a… We’re going to do things a little bit differently. We’ve actually got a two-part episode this time because we got so many…
A two-parter.
Oh my gosh, To Be Continued. Didn’t you already hate that when, like, back when it was kind of a novel concept? I was just like, no, I have to wait a whole nother week.
Except it always meant something special.
Usually it did. I think it’s overdone now.
Probably, but let’s just go back in time and pretend like we had something cool to talk about.
All right. Well, we do. We do.
In fact, we had such an amazing panel of international voice over talent, some from the US, like Christina Melitia and Christian Lance, some from… or in Sophia Cruz, some from all over the world, like Simone Kliass and Humberto Franco… Oh, that’s right.
Thank you for pronouncing his name correctly. So, Simone’s all the way in Brazil and Humberto’s all the way in Portugal. And we also got Susie Valerio, I hope I pronounced that correctly, who is also a Portuguese talent but living in the UK.
And so truly international sound there. And then…
Oh, God. And Sophia Cruz.
And of course… Well, I mentioned Sophia. Yes, so another US talent who specializes in bilingual Spanish and English voiceover.
So we had such a huge information-packed panel, we realized that we couldn’t possibly fit it into one episode and still have time for our hour-long rant. So we made it into two parts.
Well, we put it off more than we can chew, which is typical fashion for the way we do things. But nevertheless, it’s better for our listeners.
Yes, yes, indeed. So even more information. Because we know this is something that I’ve heard and it kind of makes me chuckle when I see it online.
When people feel like they can’t pursue work where they’re at. Because they feel like there’s still this idea that you have to be in New York or Chicago or LA. And if you’re not in any of those places, then you just shouldn’t even try and pursue voiceover.
Couldn’t be further from the truth. Not only are there regional agencies throughout the United States, but there’s all sorts of work that’s not necessarily agent-based, but people need voices for their projects. They might be individual businesses needing a phone message.
They might need corporate narration. There’s really… The opportunities are only limited by our imagination.
And your background doesn’t matter either. The other takeaway from this panel that most of you will hear is that no matter what accent you have, there’s a market for it, most likely.
Exactly. Exactly. Especially if you’re living in another country and pursuing voiceover within it.
So, we’ll get to our fabulous guests in just a few minutes. But before we do that, we have current events. So what has been happening with you, Sean?
Well, I’ve been doing a lot of work for GVAA recently, the Global Voice Acting Academy. Some of you guys know I kind of… I’m the membership liaison.
I kind of… I’m your go-to guy if you’re a member with us or if you’re interested in becoming a member with us. And we’ve gotten…
We’ve got all these great workouts and coaches and events coming, and I’m really excited. I got to do interviews with Joyce Castellanos. You might know her as the promo queen or the VO mama.
Just an incredibly sweet woman who’s been a casting director for promo, commercial, and narration for over a decade now. And she’s just a wonderful woman to work with. We had a lot of fun doing our interview session last weekend.
And then I also got to talk with a video game veteran, Brian Summer. He’s just an amazing character actor. He’s done a number of games for Telltale Games.
He’s worked on The Wolf Among Us, which is sort of based on the Fable series from DC Comics, or Vertigo, I forget, as well as The Walking Dead series, and just a number of video game titles reaching back a decade as well. And we also have a new dialect coach and speech therapist, Eliza Simpson. So we’re going to have an interview coming up in a couple weeks.
But I’m really excited about that, because people who know me know I have a penchant for accents. I just love… It’s just like oral candy for me.
So that’s A-U-R-A-L, not O-R-A-L.
Big difference. Ew.
Well, most candy is the oral type, right? I mean, yeah, you eat it. But we won’t go down that rabbit hole.
Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. This is dangerous territory.
Danger, danger, Paul Stefano.
Moving on.
Moving on. But yeah, so I’ve been having a great time. I’ve been leading a lot more workouts, too.
It’s kind of funny because some people have actually approached me for my coaching rates, and I’m like, ah, I don’t market myself as a coach. I love directing people. I love helping people improve their performances, but I am not a coach.
But I appreciate the compliment. I really do. And on top of that, just my regular voiceover work.
I got a new… I’m actually trying to cast a project for one of my main clients right now for English Anyone, and they had a really unique commercial that they were trying to cast, because they wanted a native, like either Chinese American or Asian American actor, to convey a very authentic sounding Chinese accent at the beginning of the spot, and then transition into an almost neutral American accent by the end. So that’s a tough cookie to crack.
And I’ve got a few submissions in. What was that?
It’s a hell apropos based on our current episode.
Absolutely, absolutely. And I love that some people, like nobody was like, why does it just have to be this specific person? Everyone was just like, oh, this person would be great.
This person would be great. And I was like, oh, man, I love this community so much.
That’s great.
So that’s pretty much everything going on with me. What about you, Paul?
Well, I had a very busy couple of weeks, actually. I know you have. You’re right.
So I’m glad you asked. Last week was probably my busiest week since I’ve been in the business, which was weird because there was no real rhyme or reason to it other than the themes of constant effort and marketing. So I did a series of narration dubbing from Russian for videos on cryptocurrency.
That was interesting. Interesting. Yeah, it was a funny story because the way it came to me, it was from one of the freelance sites that I worked with, and I’d been on the project and they sent it to me.
There’s a lot of negotiations about what I could do and what I couldn’t do based on the bid as far as matching up the voice. They did not want to pay me to match up the voice with the Russian version. I offered based on a fair rate and they said, well, just do it however you would and we’ll match it up because I offered them a fair rate based on the GBA rate guide.
Thank you, thank you.
Chain drop.
And then they asked, does that include dubbing? And I said, no, here’s what that would entail and I offered them another rate. I basically charged two-thirds on top of my normal rate to sync to video.
Yeah, that’s an incredibly time-intensive service.
Yeah, it almost doubles the work. And depending on what the work is, I sometimes will actually double the fee. If it’s something I think it was going to be that long.
So they balked at that, but then said, fine, we’ll pay you the regular rate. So long story short, or too long already, I did that job and was paid for it last week. It was about five hours of audio, so that was pretty intense.
And then I also did a live session for kind of a weird request. It was a video game, at least that’s how it was pitched to me. And this came from a studio who I reached out to two years ago, 2016.
I sent them an audition. It was at that point for a, I think a radio ad. They said, no, no thanks, we have somebody already, but we’ll keep your information on file.
And I thought, sure, they will, you know, they’ll probably just recycle it and I’ll never hear from them again. Lo and behold, two years later, they come back to me and say, hey, we have a video game we’d like you to do. So let’s do a session this week.
So we dialed up the studio on Wednesday of last week. And we did the voice…
Was it Codogo Call, I guess?
Actually, we used Skype. It was just a directed session. They didn’t need to record on their end.
I recorded on my end. But we just used Skype for that. And it turned out it was a video game for a human resources department of a company, a very large company, actually, that cannot mention, sadly say, but you would know it if I did.
But anyway, we did the session.
Wait another two years. Maybe you’ll get permission.
Maybe, yeah. So it turned out to be a video game as an interactive way to train their employees, which I thought was pretty cool. I hadn’t really heard of that before.
Yeah, I believe it’s called gamification, or just turning instructional, especially e-learning materials, into more interactive, entertaining media.
Oh, really?
I’m all about that, yeah, definitely.
Yeah, it was a new field for me, but I enjoyed it. It was doing two different voices, an alien, and sort of the mission control of a space station.
Oh, interesting. Yeah, it would be great for that one.
Yeah, I actually did a job like that a couple of months ago as a mission control for another video game, so that was kind of in my wheelhouse. So that was done, did that last week. I finished my first book for Findaway, which I’m just waiting to come out.
Findaway Voices, they’re a publisher of audiobooks that is out there.
I’m with them as well, I haven’t heard from them in a while, but I am.
So I have my first book done, I think I’ve talked about it in other episodes, and I’m waiting for it to come out on Audible. It’s out on some of the other services out there like Playster and Librio.fm, but it’s not out on Audible yet, should be out there any day. They said there was some issue with the cover art that they had to fix.
So I keep checking frantically the Audible results to see if it’s out yet, and you can find it soon, it’s called The Nimble Dodger, or you can look for my name, Paul Stefano, obviously, on Audible or Amazon. And then on a related note, my daughter’s audiobook finally came out, it’s been published on Audible. It’s called Bianca Finds Her Bounce.
It’s a children’s story about a little girl who suffers with depression, and it’s now rated by Anna Stefano, A-N-N-A. So check that out, and you can buy it now on Audible. It has two reviews so far, they’re both five stars, so pretty excited about that.
And wow, what a heady topic to tackle for her first book.
Yeah, it was something that was pretty easy for her to identify with, so she picked it up and did the story. It’s only four minutes long, so it’s not like it was labor intensive, but still the first one, and the first one is always the most exciting.
Well, I mean, it was way smarter for her to do that. I mean, my first book was almost 200 pages, and it took me forever to complete. Yeah, I’m sure.
And the last thing I want to mention…
Oh, no, go ahead.
And the last thing I want to mention, and hopefully it’s still there by the time I release this, depends on how quickly I can edit it, but I’m currently featured on Voice Over Extra, thanks to John Florian. So that’s Voice Over with an X, tra.com, and I’m one of the featured articles on the front page right now talking about networking, so that was a lot of fun.
Yeah, and if you want an organic Voice Over textbook, basically, there’s no better resource than Voice Over Extra. I’ve said this a few times on the podcast, but when I really started pursuing Voice Over, it was one of the first sites I could find. I studied it for an entire year.
I read all of the current articles they had, and then whenever they had a new one, I would read that. They cover all different areas. They have Voice Over Tech, ideas for editing workflow, or just workflow in general, marketing, different performance techniques.
Studio setup. It’s an amazing resource, and it’s free. I highly, highly recommend it.
We’re still featured there. If you go to the resources section or the bottom right-hand column of the front page, the VO Meter is there, front and center, with a link to our website. So check that out, too.
Is it front and center? It’s not like bottom right, tiny little icon?
It’s bottom right, but it’s the first one in the list. So that’s pretty exciting.
I just don’t want all our podcast fame to go to our heads, you know.
Too late for that, obviously.
Too late for that. Paul’s head just grows three times every time I see him. It’s just massive now.
So that wraps it up for current events. But before, er, it would not be an episode of the VO Meter if we didn’t cover some…
Questionable Gear Purchase.
All right. So I’ll start off this time because I haven’t had one for a while. I’ve actually been good to my wallet and my budget.
But I tried to go out and buy an iPad Pro to do all of my script reading and annotating for a script prepped for audiobooks. And it failed miserably.
Well, I’d love to hear more about that because so many people were like… Some people had had similar issues with the previous iPad models and that was the biggest complaint is the styluses don’t work or I can’t mark things up as fluidly as just a pen and paper. And then when the iPad Pro came out, you started getting more positive reviews because it’s a bigger screen and the stylus works and what have you.
So I’d love to hear a negative experience for once.
Well, what happened to me, and it’s a little bit of can’t teach an old dog new tricks, I did get the Pro that has the Pencil support built in, and it came with a keyboard and a camera connection kit to allow you to plug in a USB card for transferring files. But what ended up happening was the stylus wasn’t really usable for some of the things I was hoping it would be, namely editing on the go. So I downloaded the Twisted Wave app and was hoping that I could use this as a mobile recording rig as well.
And the Pencil is really done for annotating and maybe signing documents like PDFs or Word documents. You can’t use it as a stylus replacement or a mouse replacement.
Oh, so like you can’t really drag and drop with it or anything like that?
So I was hoping I could use the Twisted Wave app and the Apple Pencil to drag the playhead in Twisted Wave and it didn’t work at all. All it did was… well, it didn’t do anything with the Pencil.
You still had to use your finger with the Twisted Wave app. Now, that’s not to say that Thomas, the developer, couldn’t change that in the near future, but for that, it still doesn’t work. The Pencil is really just for marking things up on the iPad Pro.
So if that’s all you want it for, to mark up scripts, to sign documents, then it’s still maybe a viable option. But what I use my portable setup for is an actual laptop replacement. So I take it with me on the road to record.
I use the stylus as a replacement for the mouse. So you can drag Windows, you can actually click on applications and icons and double click, open them up, use it as a mouse replacement. And that’s not what the iPad is set up for yet.
So in my case, it really wasn’t anything that I needed. And I spent a lot of money for it, where it was basically something just… that was a luxury that I did not need.
So I did get rid of it, and I’m back to using the Windows computer with the stylus. And I guess audacity at this point, when I’m on the road.
I wish you could say you were happy as a clam, but the disappointment is prevalent in your voice.
Well, it was an experiment. And the reason people love the iPads is because they just function so well. It had great battery life.
It’s super thin. It’s like an iPhone on steroids, just wider and bigger. And for that reason, it would have been great to be a portable solution.
But for me, it’s just not ready for prime time yet.
And depending on what you’re used to and what you can get used to, the iPad can be a great… I don’t know. I personally view it as a supplementary tool.
I like using it as a script reader as part of my mobile setup. But I admit, even though I’m pretty facile about using Twisted Wave with just my fingers and stuff like that, it’s fun if you’re on a bus ride and you have nothing better to do, just edit some tracks. But yeah, for most people, I understand that it’s not the most conducive or productive way to edit audio.
I’m so much faster on just a laptop. So I don’t really have a questionable gear purchase this month. I do have a questionable gear sale that I’m in the middle of.
And I’m actually, after hemming and heying about it for a couple of weeks now, I’m deciding to sell my Neumann TLM 103. And I can already hear the collective gasp. In the interwebs.
So let me first say that the mic itself is amazing. It sounds great. But I have to be far more selective about when I use it in comparison to my 416.
Because, I mean, my space is treated, but it’s not isolated. And usually, in rural Washington, that’s not a big problem. But I just realized that this thing has sat, this beautiful mic has sat in its case for six months.
And that’s an atrocomacy to me. So I really wanted it to go to someone who could get better use out of it. And so right now, somebody from an audiobook production house is talking with me about selling it to them.
We’re still negotiating a price, but hopefully it will work out in both of our favors.
Did you tell them the history behind it and this show?
Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, no, I didn’t tell him this one. But I will back up a little bit because it’s kind of relevant.
So, like I said, MySpace may not be the perfect one for a $1,000 condenser that can hear… The most common analogy I hear is that it can pick up a mouse farting in another state, and that’s pretty true. Yep.
But the 416, I mean, I live with my family. They don’t have to worry about being as noisy and stuff like that as long as we’re a few rooms apart. And no one’s ever complained about my audio.
And the thing is, it’s like I realized unless someone asks me to use a different mic, do I really need one? You know? Like, I’ve used the 416 for e-learning, audio books, all the things that they say you’re not supposed to be able to use it for, no one has complained.
So it really got me to think about that. And the truth is, if like I love the 103, but it’s not my dream mic, it’s not the one that my dream future studio features, if you will. And that one is actually a similar mic called the Gefele M930.
So you might know that…
Oh no.
Oh no. Oh no. And it’s so silly because it’s just like, if you’ve been following the podcast, I literally haven’t had a questionable gear purchase in months.
Well, that’s all about to change. It’s all about to change.
Well, I’m not going to go rushing out and buying everything, but the thing is, it’s just like thinking of your business in stages. What is the best use of that investment? You’ve got $1,000 sitting in a box that you’re not using when you could be reinvesting it in any other area of your business.
For example, my laptops need an upgrade. That would be great. Or you might need additional acoustic treatment.
So it really got me to kind of rethink and kind of see that I might have been putting the cart before the horse a little bit and just kind of reanalyze where I really want to take my business, where I want to take my studio. Well, you really wanted to try it. I did want to try it.
You’re right.
The way you came about it was the same way I came about it. I said, oh, there’s a good deal on a 1.0. Well, you know the story by now.
Well, we thought it was a 1.0, too, which would have been fine in this environment because I hear it’s got a more controlled, smaller pattern.
But you always want to try the 1.03 in your studio, just like I did, and that’s why we traded and I sent it to you. And now at least you’ve had that experience. You can say the 1.03 was blank for me, and it wasn’t this, and now I know.
Well, again, it was not the audio quality that was an issue. It was sort of like the user interface, I guess. The 416 is far more user-friendly to use, and it’s lighter, it’s low profile.
Heaven forbid if I drop it, I’m not going to have a heart attack. Like, you know? And also, I freaking hate the Neumann shock mount.
I’m sorry. It’s two pieces that you have to connect with elastic bands, and it’s $120 by itself. And I’m just like, this is not…
After moving from a Rycote custom one, I’m just like, no, I don’t like this at all.
I had to watch a YouTube video to figure out how to connect it when I got it shipped to me.
It’s one of those… I mean, they’re very traditional and ubiquitous. The spider mounts that you see everywhere.
Neumann tends to use them for a lot of their mics. But it’s just… I don’t know.
The technology has changed enough that you can have a little bit more… I mean, me, I love the Rycote mounts. I found out about it from Paul Stracuerda and Jordan Reynolds.
They’re just these great little… I think they even partnered with Rode for the new NT1 kit. But it’s just these little adjustable shock mounts.
It works really well. They’re nice and compact. They’re easy to figure out.
And it’s great. So you can already see my tech lust coming in droves now. But the truth is, I can get a similar sound or a different condenser for a third of the price.
And I doubt anyone will complain.
Or not. And just save your money, like you said, or invest it somewhere else more wisely.
Exactly, exactly. So I have a little bit more flexibility. I have room to aspire, room to dream now.
And if I can help another talent have a wonderful mic, all the power to me. So before we get into our international panel, actually our VO Meter stick this month is from the husband of one of our guests today. So that’s Jason Bermingham.
He’s married to the lovely Simone Kliass. And he talks about being an American working in a foreign country recording in English. And a little bit about being a sort of a husband-wife VO team as well.
So without further ado, Jason, take it away with your VO Meter stick.
Hey, everybody, it’s time for the VO Meter shtick.
What did he say?
It’s time for the VO… Oh, never mind.
The VO Meter shtick?
Oh, got it.
Paul, hi, it’s Jason Bermingham here in São Paulo, Brazil. Thanks for including me in this. I’m Simone’s husband, and Simone brought me into the voice over market probably about ten years ago.
We met when we were both working with Pay TV, and she kept encouraging me to do voice over because it’s a big market, and I had no idea there was English language voice over in Brazil, and today it’s my main gig. Now, I’m sure Simone talked a lot about the work I do in English, and we’ve done presentations about our work at VO Atlanta with our accession for voice over in the global community, but one thing we don’t talk a lot about is the challenges of working together as a couple. You know, we have our own home studio, which we’ve built ourselves, and often I record Simone for international jobs, which means I’m basically her sound engineer.
Which can be a little trying sometimes because you get a client on the line and you don’t really want to introduce yourself as Simone’s husband because that’s not your role in that job. You’re basically doing what you do every day, which is working as the sound engineer, playing back takes, making choices for editing. So often I’m just introduced as Jason the sound guy.
However, sometimes during the sessions we let our intimacy show probably more than we should without really thinking about it, and Simone starts calling me Amor. And we start having a little bit more intimate conversations. Sometimes I think clients probably wonder what’s going on in that studio in Brazil.
But then if we ever catch ourselves doing that, then we do say, Jason is also my husband, he’s not just my sound engineer and everyone’s relieved. But it’s a challenge working as a couple. It’s wonderful.
It’s unlike anything I’ve ever done. We grow together, we work together. And I help Simone promoting her work in the United States, and she helps me promoting my work in Brazil.
So, we grow as a couple, and it’s been a wonderful, wonderful journey.
Thank So that wraps up our questionable year purchases, as well as our current events. And we have such great content coming up, we don’t want to waste any more time, so let’s get right to our Zoom room with our International Roundtable.
Hi, everyone, we are joining from Zoom right now, and I’m so excited because we are doing our first truly international panel. We have guests from three different continents, four different countries, and so we’re just gonna go ahead, rather than me introduce them, I’m gonna let them do that themselves. So why don’t we start off with Ms. Sophia Cruz.
Hi, thank you so much, Sean and Paul, for having us. And really touching on the international aspect of voiceovers, I feel that there isn’t enough information about this, so thank you so much for taking the time to have us here. My name is Sophia Cruz, and I’m a Los Angeles-based voice actor.
And I have been doing voiceover for the past 10 years as a professional talent. And I’m really excited to share about what it is that I do. I was born in Mexico, in the city of Orizaba, Veracruz.
And that is where I hail from. And obviously now I’m in the United States as an American. So I call myself the perfect blend of Mexican and American, because that is what I am.
I’m a bicultural talent, understanding both sides of the, you know, the countries and everything that comes with that.
Very cool. Thank you. All right.
Ms. Simone Kliass.
First of all, thank you so much for having me at your podcast. It’s a great show. And congrats.
And it’s an honor for me being with the other talents that you invited. They are great people and wonderful professionals. So it’s a pleasure.
So I’m Brazilian, as you can hear. I live in São Paulo. I have been…
I’m an actress since I was nine years old. And I’m in the voiceover area since 99. So yeah, basically that.
But there’s a lot of things to talk during this podcast.
Well, absolutely. I had no idea you almost had two decades of experience with that. All right.
Up next, we have Humberto. Wonderful. And what about you, Humberto?
My name is Humberto Franco. I live in Portugal. I’m a Voice Over Talent full-time that speaks English, non-American, non-British.
So it’s an international English. I speak Portuguese from Portugal, which is different from Portuguese from Brazil. And I also speak Spanish, but it’s a mix of Spanish from Spain, from Latin America.
So it’s also an international Spanish.
My name is Susie Valerio. I live in England, and I record in Brazilian Portuguese and in international English. I also speak Spanish, so I can do it like I have recorded in Spanish, but my main languages are Brazilian Portuguese and international English.
So thanks to everybody for joining us again. As Sean said, we’re really excited about this panel, and it’s something I think will benefit all of our listeners greatly. So the reason this came about was in Rio Atlanta, I was talking to Humberto, actually having lunch with him, and he was talking about the difficulty he had as a bilingual talent, specifically speaking Portuguese and being a native of Portugal, and looking for jobs and finding that there was a greater demand or a lot of demand for Brazilian Portuguese.
And later on, at Rio Atlanta, I met Simone, obviously, and said, hey, I think I have an idea for a topic. So that was where the initial conversation came up, and I think it’s a great one that we can tackle. But really, the first question I had for all of you is, as bilingual talent, which is your mother tongue, and which of the voices do you use more?
Is it your mother tongue or is it your region now where you’re living? So let’s start with Sophia.
Sure. So my story is a little bit unique, I think, in the sense that I was born in Mexico, but I was raised in the United States. However, no one, being an illegal immigrant in the United States, we didn’t speak English, obviously.
And so my mother actually to the state does not speak any English. So I only talk to my mom in Spanish. So when you grew up with a family that doesn’t speak, you’re in a brand new country, you don’t even understand the language.
It definitely presents itself as challenges. So I say that to say this, that I feel that I’m Native in both because to a certain degree, I am. I had no ability to speak English.
There was no ESL back in the day, not that I’m super old, but there just wasn’t those resources available in my elementary school. And so I didn’t learn English until ESL finally came to my school, which was in third grade. So up until third grade, however old you are then, seven, eight, I didn’t speak any English.
I only spoke Spanish. So my native tongue is Spanish, 100%. However, from third grade to eighth grade is how long it took me to master English and master it without an accent.
I feel that then I switched to natively speaking English because I work so hard to not have the accent and really learn all there is to learn about English. So from that side, I feel like I have to. And so to answer your question, I actually speak both fluently and well.
I get requested to speak both on a very frequent basis. And thankfully, the voice over market in the United States is to this point in time in 2018, a very important commodity that did not exist when I first started in voice over back in 2005. In fact, in 2005, I was dreaming for the day that today we have, which is that you can speak English and Spanish in the same project, voice over project, commercial or e-learning or app or whatever.
So today, I actually get requested to speak both of them in the same project. And I do book on the same amount of English and Spanish on a regular basis. So both of my work is 50% English and 50% Spanish.
That’s great. So a quick follow-up question that’s a little off script, but because you brought it up. My great grandmother was from Spain and grandmother was an influence Spanish speaker.
And she, my mom, tells stories about encouraging her not to speak Spanish outside of the house. Is that something your mom did as well? I know you mentioned that you only speak to her in Spanish, but outside the house in school, did she encourage you to speak English?
I remember my mom saying my grandmother would always be saying, English, Barbara, English.
No, I did not have that, actually. And I know there’s a really successful voice actor in Los Angeles. Her name is Silvia Villagran.
And she has that story where her parents told her she could not speak English in the house. I did not have that. My grandparents and my mom all were happy once I was able to speak English because I became the official translator in the house.
I translated everything, and every meeting, every work, I went to my grandparents’ work to do their employee reviews. I translated everything. My grandfather thought I was going to grow up to be a US embassy official translator because I translated everything, every document.
And that’s why I actually learned to not like Spanish because it just became such a burden to me. I mean, when you think about a small child having that kind of responsibility. And so I didn’t like it.
And so I kind of shied away from like translating even to this day. I have an official translator on my staff, Sophia Cruz, VO, because I don’t want to translate anything ever again. I mean, obviously I do it.
But yeah, but no, I was not discouraged. I was actually encouraged because I became a valuable asset to my family being the only person who spoke English.
Interesting. Well, thank you for that. And Simone, which is your native tongue and which do you use more often?
My native tongue is Portuguese and I live in Brazil. So most of my jobs I record in Portuguese or some of them, like Sophia, I can record in both languages, but only when they need a strong and Brazilian accent. Because I don’t record…
If they request native speaker, I can do that. I have a strong accent, so I have been doing, for example, I’m the voice of the International Airport in São Paulo, Brazil, and I do in Spanish, Portuguese and English with a lot of accent, with my accent. So because they requested that, because they said this is a Brazilian airport, so the voice has to have accent.
So, I think it’s a wonderful thing nowadays that people accept and the market accepts our accent. And I have been doing the same thing for Latin Airlines. I’m the voice of the Latin Airlines, airplanes in English and Portuguese with accent.
So I think it’s a wonderful thing nowadays.
I get quite a lot of requests for English. And I would say that it’s now shifting. It used to be that most of the requests I used to get used to be for strong Brazilian or Latin.
I still get quite a lot of that. But it used to be that I would do maybe 80% in Brazilian Portuguese and 20% English. And then as time has passed, now at the moment, I would say that it’s perhaps 60% in Brazilian and 40% in English, sometimes even 50-50.
I also get a lot of requests for accented English. But I will say 50-50 would be like the ratio of work in Portuguese and in English. And I’ve been, because I’m trying to reach out and get more into the American market, that English numbers are growing and have been growing since the beginning.
So I think it will be more English than Portuguese really soon.
That’s wonderful. And that actually touches on our next question. And you’re welcome to jump in this too, Sophia.
So, Simone, you’ve already explained a little bit yourself, but I’m just curious for the rest of our panel, when you’re asked to do a voiceover in English, do they ask for an accent or do they want more of a neutral, like more standard American dialectal English? And Simone, as you said, they actually request the accent. So I’m curious to hear what some of our other panelists have to say about that.
Well, here in the UK, actually, I have to say that most of the stuff I do in English is not for the UK, interestingly. Lately, I’ve been getting more auditions for America. Here in the UK, they are a little bit old-fashioned in that respect, I would say, maybe, I don’t know, if old-fashioned is the best way of explaining it, either that or maybe they’re not as diverse as you would get with the international market, because I feel that in America, you have more of a sense of a global market, whereas here, the work is more sort of local.
So you don’t really hear, you know, many accents on TV, for example, on TV commercials. Yes, if it’s a French product, you have a French accent during the commercial. If it’s an Italian product, they will have an Italian.
But unless the product is specifically from a country, they will use sort of a British accent. So yeah, at the moment, I would say that most of my work in English is actually for clients in the US.
How about you, Humberto, is there a request for English specifically in Portugal?
Not specifically, in Portuguese I work with a couple of production houses, two or three that give me regular work. All the rest of the Portuguese work that I do is through production houses in Germany, in the UK., some in the United States.
And then I get the feeling that the majority of the work I do in English is for the United States. For some reason, they like my accent that you cannot tell from where I am. I’m understood, but they don’t know exactly where I come from.
So the majority of the… I believe all of it goes to the United States, the work that I do in English.
That’s a spec I see a lot, even on my editions, where it says, we’d like him to have an accent not necessarily discernible. He has to be sort of mysterious, which drives me insane, because I don’t have any of that. I’m wondering why my agent is sending it to me.
No, I mean, I find… I was honestly so amazed in Atlanta to find out that there’s this whole massive wide world out there, because I mean, I’m with lots of agents here in London. A lot of my work is in London.
The stuff I do in Portuguese is always through agents. I have very good agents because as a foreign voice, I can be represented by many. I’m with the best guys in London.
I do have amazing agents, and I get really good jobs in Brazilian Portuguese. However, somewhere along the casting process, they don’t even think of anyone that is not British for adverts and stuff here. It’s just incredible.
It’s completely different to America. This whole thing of the mysterious international hasn’t really happened here yet. I’m hoping that it will change, you know.
If not, I might need to move across the ocean to the other side.
We’d love to have you.
I had people telling me, you know, if you lived here in the United States, you would book a lot more jobs than you are booking in Europe, because a lot of them, you have to be in the studio to record.
Get a flat together.
For instance, Sean knows we had a training session with MJ Lalo, and she just then emailed me and said, send me your character demo, because your accent is what a lot of people are looking for. I said, I don’t have a character demo, I have to do one. So that is the thing, that’s why I believe that the English with, not a Latin accent, but that accent that you cannot tell where it’s from, is being requested more and more and more in the United States.
And in my case, that’s good.
Yeah, I mean, like what Simone said, that I’m really grateful that finally we’re at a stage that accents are welcome instead of seen as something negative, because I was told that I would never be able to do any kind of national work because I have an accent. And so I’m thankful for that shift, and it’s a beautiful shift. And so today I would say that it’s not so much that they want an accent, as much as they want that there is a difference in…
It’s not general American standard anymore, it’s the coveted voice, that they want some ethnicity to your sound, and it’s not that it has to be a heavy accent. And so I can only speak to the Mexican, Hispanic accent, because that’s the stuff that I see mostly. But for the Mexican, there is…
You had said this earlier, and I didn’t answer your question, but there’s neutral Spanish, then there’s Latam, Latin American Spanish, and then there’s Mexican Spanish. Obviously, I specialize in Mexican Spanish, being Mexican. And so they will ask for an English with a slight accent, accented English.
I’ve had to relearn that. Never did I think that was going to happen. I had to relearn how to speak English with an accent, and that is now more…
I see that more frequently than I ever have. Now, most often, though, they don’t want it super heavy. Like when I go into like, when I was two, my mother brought me to America.
No, they don’t want it that crazy, right? They just want me to sound like me, which is I’m kind of a blend. I am a blend.
I don’t sound 100% American. I don’t necessarily sound like I’m Mexican unless I’m going to go, you know, or something like that. So they just want you to sound you.
And so that’s the beautiful thing is that I can sound like myself. I don’t even have to, quote unquote, put on an accent. I can just sound like myself.
And they’re like, oh, that’s good. That’s exactly what we’re looking for, even though I don’t really have an accent. So I think it’s beautiful and I’m really thankful.
And then there are times where they do want it more heavy. So it just depends on the project and how much they want it to be, quote unquote, neutralized and how much they want it to be depending on the market. But yes, there are more and more we’re getting asked for that English with the slight Hispanic accent.
And I want to add something. Can I, Sean?
Please.
They request me the accent in my case because I have accent. I am different than Sophia. I have a strong accent.
So, but for example, my husband is Jason, and he lives in Brazil with me and he’s American, as you know, Jason Bermingham, and he records, he records only in English here all the time, and they ask him to do a neutral accent. So, yeah, he has been recording for, I think, almost 10 years, and he has to neutralize his English because the jobs that he records here in Brazil, most people, it’s their second language, English. So he has to adjust and make it very clear.
So I think if you want to enter in the Latin America market, you should learn how to neutralize your accent to get more jobs.
Very interesting. I’m sure it’s something a lot of our listeners haven’t really considered or thought about. And where is Jason from, Simone?
Does he have a regional dialect?
He is from Oregon, but he was raised in California.
He might have a little bit of a Western… Not when you call it a drawl, but…
Yeah, he was raised in a farm. And in Nevada, in Phelan, Nevada, and in Paso Robles, California. So, he has to learn how to neutralize his accent to get lots of jobs.
Interesting. Very cool.
This is very interesting for you to have in mind.
So, I’m curious, and you can talk about this for both your native work and your English speaking work. Are there specific markets or genres that you specialize in for your various kinds of jobs? You mentioned that with your accented English work, you did a lot of work for Latin American Airlines, but are there any other large brands or markets or areas of Voice Over that you specialize in for each language?
So, I do a lot of radio commercials, and for my radio commercials, I do both English and Spanish, equally the same. And I also do a lot of telepony, and that’s also English and Spanish. I just booked a very big contract, e-learning contract for Spanish only.
But I do equally as much work in English as well. So, for me, I’m really half and half for everything. I also did an app, which I’m really thankful to say for the American Bar Association, for one of a kind for the Hispanic population in the United States.
I can’t disclose exactly what it is yet, but it’s very, very important, and I’m really thankful that I can lend my voice. And they had me do it for both English and Spanish, which I thought was really interesting, because I thought I was only going to do the Spanish aspect of the rollout, and they wanted me to do both the English and Spanish. So I would say that I find myself equally doing the same amount of work, whether it’s an app.
I’ve done Texas Speech. I was a voice for a GPS system in the Texas, and that was all Spanish. And they wanted someone that was authentically Mexican, even though they didn’t make me pronounce the words the way that they should.
So instead of saying Alameda Avenue, they wanted me to say Alameda Avenue, which I thought was very interesting. But nonetheless, I find myself really equally doing both English and Spanish. And I don’t know…
I think it’s how you brand yourself, and I have branded myself as that seamless, flawless English to Spanish voiceover. And so that works. It’s worked for me really, really well.
And I find myself booking those jobs on a consistent basis, which makes me really happy because that’s truly what I wanted to do. So I do commercials, e-learning, corporate narration, telephony, apps, text-to-speech projects all the time in both languages. Oh, and I have to say, I’m also gearing up to do the political season as well.
Ooh, very cool.
Great question. I have never thought about that, but you’re right. I do different jobs in different languages.
In my native language, I do commercials, I narrate TV shows, I’m the voice of Sky on air shows. I do promos in Portuguese. I do everything.
Not everything, but I can do much more in my native language. And in English, I do telephony, corporate videos. And now I’m thinking while I’m talking, I’m doing the projects that I’m recording voice over for virtual reality.
I have to do them in English as well because of the international market. So I’m doing this. But when they need a native speaker, I recommend Sophia and other friends, because I really think that it’s very important to know what kind of jobs you can do and what kind of jobs you can’t do.
And you have to recommend the right person. And that way, as you talked to me before we were live, we can have a strong relationship with our clients if you recommend a right person for the job. So I think we have to think what are our strengths.
That’s very important. Like you said, you look a lot better to a potential client if you recognize that I might not be the best person, but Sophia, she’s exactly what you’re looking for. And if you’re right, you both just look like superheroes to the clients.
That’s an incredible point, Simone. Thank you for bringing that up.
And vice versa. I never would try to even start with Portuguese. I know my limits.
I can do Latin American Spanish, but if they wanted to be… I know a ton of people in the Latin American market that could do it better than me. And if I felt that project would be better suited for something, I absolutely recommend people, refer people all the time as well.
It is important for everybody to know what their strong suits are. This is what’s so great about the Voice Over community, is that we have each other and we have a strong community and we know the people that are good in our community and we can refer them. I’m so appreciative of all the relationships I’ve been able to build and having Simone and Jason and knowing them and obviously Paul and Sean, you as well.
It’s good to know people and know what their strengths are so that you have an ability to refer somebody because we were saying that earlier. When someone refers me a client, I want to make sure that that client will go back to the person that referred me and feel incredibly grateful for having recommended me because then they know they got a true professional and I treat every client like they’re gold because they are.
And not only Sophia, but I can refer Susie because she speaks Portuguese and English fluently. She’s native in both languages.
That’s great. Well, both of you actually, Sophia and Simone, you answered my next question a little bit, so I’m going to rephrase it. Because what I wanted to know is when you see specs for a job and it says, in Sophia’s case, Latin American, Spanish, or in Simone’s case, it may say native Portuguese, do you ever try and pull it off and say, well, this person doesn’t really know what they’re asking?
I’m going to do it as me and hope that it gets through. Or is it something you absolutely will not do and refer to someone who you know is a native in that dialect? And Humberto, if you’re there, you can jump in on that too.
Never. Never. Because, for example, Portuguese from Portugal is totally different than Portuguese from Brazil.
I prefer speaking English with Humberto than in Portuguese, for example. Yeah, it’s like American and British English. Or I think it’s worse.
I don’t know. What do you think, Humberto?
I would compare Portuguese from Portugal and Portuguese from Brazil, like American and Scottish. The same base of the language, but instead of potatoes, they say nippies. So if you don’t know, if you never lived there, you won’t be able to understand them.
So if I go to Brazil and I speak my Portuguese that I speak daily here, for sure 75-80% of the people will not understand me.
And that’s really important. I think that that’s one of the things I would like to say, because I think that it’s important for us to remember that hopefully the buyer is an educated buyer and they’re going to know the difference. Maybe the casting director won’t know the difference, but the end buyer will.
And so trying to portray something that you’re authentically not, it’s going to come through and you’re going to look bad. And there’s no point in looking bad when you can look great and you can refer somebody who is qualified. So I too would agree that I never submit.
If I’m not qualified on the specs, I will not submit, or I would absolutely refer somebody else who would be exactly what the client’s looking for. So I see a lot of people for the Mexican market, for example. So I would just say like Mexican Spanish has become very popular in the United States.
It is the most requested form of Spanish just because there is such a big Mexican population here. And I’ve noticed that some other people who are not Spanish, native Mexican Spanish speakers, will say, well, it doesn’t matter. I speak neutral Spanish anyway, or I’m from Latin America.
That will work. And it’s like, no, it won’t. It actually won’t work because I know when someone isn’t a true native Mexican Spanish speaker, like I can hear it.
And so it’s just important. There’s no reason why we need to pretend to be somebody we’re not. I think it’s important to embrace our ethnicity and do that well and then let whoever has the right language, the right accent, the right everything do what they do best.
So that’s my two cents on the subject.
Does it matter based on genre? So for instance, eLearning, Glefiny, obviously they’re looking for an accurate dialect. If it’s a character, animation, does that change your point of view?
Maybe creating a voice anyway?
Right. I think… and Christina and Christian would be definitely the ones I’m sure they’re going to speak up on this, but I would say if you’re creating a voice, that’s a different story because you can definitely…
and actually one of the ways that I view accents is the way that Pamela Vandewaay teaches it, which is it’s not about neutralizing your accent. It’s about learning how to add on the accent that you want to have because who you are, who we all are, we all have accents. It’s not about my accent is better than yours.
It’s about learning how to add on the right accent that books you that next job that you want. So I would say with animation, absolutely, I can learn how to become a tortuga for Latin American versus the Spanish version, the Mexican one. So I think that there is room for you to learn how to add on other accents.
And if you master it, then absolutely, if you’re the right fit for the job, it should always be who the right voice is for the job. Now, if they’re looking for the right native person to have those skills, then it’s up to the native person to ramp up those skills so that we can book the job. So we shouldn’t be upset if somebody else who isn’t quote unquote native books the job if they have the right skill set.
So if we want more jobs to come to the native people, then it’s up to us to build up our skill set so that we are bookable and not find fault in whoever did book the job.
I heard somebody once say that, you know, like a bad imitation of somebody or a bad imitation of an accent when you’re talking about cartoons, probably it’s an amazing character. So I believe that Casey is very specific. But, you know, regarding still, for instance, the Portuguese from Portugal and Portuguese from Brazil, I receive a lot of scripts that they say it’s Portuguese native.
And I start to read and immediately I see that this is not written in Portuguese from Portugal. So many times the clients don’t have a clue. They just know that they have to do in X number of languages.
And Portuguese is Portuguese, so it will be understood in everywhere. And that’s not the way it is. I think we need to educate the clients also.
I agree with Sophia and with Humberto, because I also get a lot of stuff that is actually for European Portuguese. So, no, I wouldn’t try and just try and pull it off. I would speak to the client, if it is in Portuguese, and explain and say, look, it’s very different.
Because sometimes they don’t realize that actually the different accents are even there. So, I would try, first of all, approach them, speak to them. I do actually have a pretty good Portuguese accent from Portugal.
I have a lot of Portuguese family. So, I have recorded sometimes in an emergency, but I always say, I’m not native, I’ll give you a sample, you can pass it on to the final client, but if they want to go with my voice, then yes, but I’m always very upfront because I think it’s completely different, it’s a totally different accent. And if I see something that is Portuguese from Portugal, I wouldn’t attempt to do it without telling the client that I am Brazilian.
I think it’s sort of similar with the Spanish as well, because it is very different, they’re almost different languages, I would say. And certainly I would not try to pretend that I’ve got a Spanish accent, because I can’t pull it off as a native. You know, to my ears it doesn’t sound right.
That’s fascinating. And Humberto’s metaphor of comparing American English to Scottish English is perfect. That crystallizes my mind perfectly, because whenever I’ve spoken to someone from Scotland, it is like they’re speaking a completely different language.
And I will… Can I add in this two cents, because I think this is important. One of the things that I disagree with Spanish Voice Over Colleagues is the purity of language, of Spanish.
Because our job is to… My job is to give the best Spanish performance I can give to whoever is requesting… whatever client is requesting it.
But by the same token, I’d like to use the example, in the United States, there are a lot of people that book a British English that aren’t Native British, and from a Native British standpoint, their English sucks. But the market in the United States bears that kind of British accent as acceptable. It’s not a purest…
in any way, shape or form, it sounds awful to the UK people, but in the United States, it’s a marketable British accent. The same happens with Spanish. And so it’s really important for me to say this because there’s a lot of disagreement within the Spanish voice over community.
Oh, Sophia, the way you speak Spanish isn’t as good as it can be because you’re not super pure, you didn’t grow… you know what I mean? And it’s like, well, that might be true, but the market bears the kind of Spanish that I speak, which is this blend of being raised here and being born in another country and having that immigration factor built into my Spanish speaking.
And so there’s a market for that. And so I just want to make that clear because there is a lot of debate about this, but our job is to just… I’ve been working on my Spanish actually for the last five years, knowing that I was going to enter the Spanish market again.
And so I had to polish it up, for sure I had to polish it up. But there was this debate early on that, well, you’re not 100% pure, so therefore you shouldn’t be working in Spanish. And that’s like…
you can’t say that because the market bears the kind of Spanish… you know, that’s like saying somebody recently recorded a spot that was kind of like a Spanglish version of Spanish and English, and that’s acceptable too. So we are not the ones that get to say what’s acceptable.
It’s what the client is really looking for. And as long as we’re honoring what the client wants to the best of our ability, at the end of the day, that’s what pays the bills for them, is that they’re looking to connect to people that are like me from both countries, blended together, if they wanted to market to the Mexican people in Mexico, it’s even going to be a different Spanish than the one that we offer here in the United States and vice versa. So every market has its own need and marketability of different accents, and that’s something to keep in mind as well.
The thing with the Portuguese that is quite interesting is actually, that doesn’t happen at all. Like in Brazil, if you have someone that has an accent from Portugal, that will never be, you know, it just doesn’t work. People don’t even understand.
And same token, if I record something for Portugal, they will understand me, but the market doesn’t want my accent and the clients are not aware of that. And also, I think there’s one thing I’ve noticed quite a lot on a few sites is people, and I’m sure you get that with Spanish as well, people that speak Portuguese, I mean, you know, that speak Portuguese to a very good standard, but they’re actually selling themselves as bilingual when actually we can hear that they are not native speakers and that again in Brazil, for example, wouldn’t work because we don’t have that kind of in our market that doesn’t work. Even accents within Brazil, people from the Northeast will find difficult to work in the main markets because their accent, even though it’s Brazilian, it’s not the accent that sells.
So I think it’s a bit more, you know, with the Portuguese accent is a bit more specific, I guess.
Yeah, and that’s a good point. It’s just important for everybody to understand their market and what accents are really what that market bears, so that you are marketing yourself intelligently and will actually book the work that you’re marketing. Because I also specialize in marketing, so I have to say that.
You know, like, if you know how to market yourself well and your brand is exactly what you bring to the table, you’re going to book way more work than if you pretend to be something that you’re not. So I think it’s really important to understand the market that you’re marketing to and understand your own skill set, so that you can be able to sell yourself well. And book work.
Exactly, like Sophia said, because, Susie, I brand myself, my marketing is Portuguese, and when I talk and when I speak English, with a strong accent, strong Brazilian accent. Now, this is my brand, this is my marketing, so if I have a job with these characters, I can do it, but if not, I recommend I refer you, Sophia, you know, because you don’t have an accent. But talking about character animation, like Paul Esquedas, yeah, in this situation, we can do, we can try to do other things, we can try, always being honest, because I think the honesty is the rule number one that we have to have, but we can try in animation, you know.
And you need to be honest with yourself. If I try to record in Brazilian, in Portuguese from Brazil, you know, I’ve seen Brazilian soap operas since I was, I was born, basically. So, and they were very, very popular in Portugal.
And that’s why I can, you know, I can, joking around and messing around with friends, speak like Brazilian, you know, with the accent. And if you listen to Brazilian with Portuguese from Portugal, it’s like one is spoken, the other one is, it sounds like a song. You know, it’s very melodic, Portuguese from Brazil.
It’s, I usually do this comparison to this Portuguese from Portugal. It’s like a cube, it’s square, you know, like straight lines. And from Brazil, it’s like a circle is round.
It’s a round melodic language. So I would never emulate, but there are unfortunately a lot of people emulating Portuguese from Brazil. And when I listen to that, it’s like, wow, don’t you have ears?
Don’t you have self-pride? That’s, you know, I speak Spanish. I was hired once to do a TV commercial in Spanish for a South American country.
And I said, are you sure you want me to do this? And the client said, yeah, I want your Spanish with that accent that is not from Spain. It’s not from anywhere.
Okay, I’m okay with that. I can do that. You know, at this moment, I’m doing an e-learning recording and I am a guy speaking English with a Latin accent.
Latin is a broad thing. It’s like I’m Portuguese, I’m Latin, you know. So, but if it’s something specific, if I get an audition saying, you know, like English with Mexican accent, I cannot touch it because I don’t have a clue about the Mexican accent, like Sophia said, you know.
So I’m not going to touch it because I’m going to waste time recording the audition, and then the client hears it and say, oh man, this guy is trying to get some money and probably will take my name off his list forever. Why take that chance? It’s crazy.
Well, it’s good to hear that some of the truisms of Voice Over is coming through in the international market as well, and that you be true to yourself and market your own skills. For instance, I wouldn’t try to do an audition for a 9-year-old boy because I’m going to sound ridiculous, and it’s no different if I was trying to pull off a different language that wasn’t native to me or at least trained very, very well. So, to move on to our next question, let’s talk about some of the other challenges that are involved in being a bilingual talent, as well as some of the benefits that you enjoy being able to speak more than one language.
Anyone who wants to start?
It’s tough. It’s tough. It’s like, you know, this year I went and I met all of you in VO Atlanta.
Like, I’m trying to, you know, like, trying to get in a market that I don’t understand. But yeah, I’m actually, I speak three languages fluently. So, I want to use this broad spectrum that I have, you know, I have my market.
It’s not focused in one point because I speak all these languages. I have like a huge horizon where I want to reach. And I want to try to improve in getting into this market.
Even once I spoke with, I believe it was with Christina Melizia, and I asked her about, you know, do you think I can get like, can you advise me an accent coach so I can improve my accent? And the answer was, why you want to lose what you have that is unique? Why?
Don’t do it. So my English is this one. My Portuguese is native, and my Spanish is a mix of Spanish that I learned when I was in Galicia in Spain from working with people from Colombia.
And you know, it’s like a fruit salad. You know, everything is mixed, and I can pull exactly what I want. And many times the client hears it, and yeah, it’s different.
It will work for me, and that’s it. But it’s a tough job. And just try…
I just want to be myself. People will recognize my voice if they don’t see me, because they already know my accent and say, oh, that’s Humberto. And that’s amazing.
That’s amazing.
Yeah, I would… Gosh, I just… I can’t…
I hope this makes it to the final podcast, but I cannot stress enough how important it is to love what you bring to the table. Like everything. The beauty…
there’s beauty in not belonging 100% to one language, to one country, because you become this beautiful blend of all things, and that’s what makes us unique. And I think the challenge is, or at least I can speak to myself, the challenge for me was when I wasn’t willing to accept that, when I was bent on becoming 100% American because, gosh, I was so tired of getting bullied and being told that I don’t belong and that I’m not welcomed here and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I ran away from my heritage and wanting to embrace this new one, and it wasn’t until I finally accepted, no, I am a mix of the two and that’s okay.
And not only is it okay, it’s awesome because it’s who I am. And so the beauty has come finally accepting that, including all the naysayers who thought your Spanish isn’t good enough, your English isn’t good enough. Like there’s a thing in Mexico called La India Maria ni de aquí ni de allá, but it doesn’t matter.
I am from both. And so for me, the challenge was when I wasn’t willing to accept it now that I have, it’s incredibly beautiful. And I book a lot of work with everything that I bring to the table today.
And that’s what makes me unique. And that’s why I love what Humberto said. Absolutely, don’t get rid of what makes you unique.
Add on additional things that you want because you want to book more work, but never change what makes you unique. Because if you can accept yourself, you’re going to see a lot more success because the confidence that you will bring to the table with your clients is going to be unlike any… I have clients who think I’m African American.
Seriously, I do because they don’t know where to place my accent. They’re like, well, she sounds not neutral, so she must be African American. I don’t care what you call me, just book me.
You know what I mean? You want ethnicity and ambiguity? Sure, I’ll be that.
And then I tell them I’m from Chicago. Oh, that’s why you sound that way. You’re from Chicago.
I don’t care. I could be from New York. Just book me.
So that’s the beautiful thing is that you can be booked for whatever the client wants you to be. Sure, that’s what I am. No problem.
I mean, I find for me, it’s quite similar. I’ve been in England for a very long time. And so obviously my accent has become more British as time progresses.
But here they booked me for Portuguese because it’s my native language. Even though I’ve been here for 30 years, what is my native language? And I’m now getting booked less for English because obviously I don’t sound as Brazilian as they would like me to sound because they sort of imagine someone with a stronger accent.
So for a while I was kind of trying to think about where do I kind of fit in because I come from an acting background. So obviously that has toned down my accent a little bit. To the English, I still sound foreign, but they can’t really place me.
And here they don’t really have the diversity you guys have in America of this sort of international accent. It’s not really quite here in England yet. Which to me was a revelation when I got to Atlanta and people were all mesmerized by my accent.
Because I thought, wow, awesome, there’s a lot of work out there for people that can’t be placed. So I’m feeling super happy at the moment because I’m thinking, okay, so I am not actually a bilingual Brazilian. I have international English.
I kind of feel that I kind of found my accent and hopefully that will reflect in me booking international jobs, I guess. Because the amount of times I get it in English, I have to change my accent and pretend that it’s a bit stronger and then they think it’s too much. It’s quite a tricky place, like no man’s land kind of thing.
Susie, I have to tell you that your Portuguese is amazing. And you don’t have accent. I was impressed by your Portuguese.
I talked to you in Portuguese and you don’t have accent. I don’t know how, because you don’t live here. But your Portuguese is…
yeah, you’re totally… You can book jobs in Portuguese, whatever job is, because your Portuguese is amazing, really. Yeah, really.
You don’t have accent.
I mean, I do. There’s a lot of stuff in Portuguese happening here in England. So, you know, by default, that’s kind of what I do the most.
But I do… like today, I had a job for the BBC that they left me on a pencil for ages. And then in the end, they went with someone else because they felt that, oh, no, you don’t really sound kind of Latin enough for what we need.
So I’m just now kind of trying to find my feet in the sense that, okay, I’ve just done a new demo, completely new demos in English, focusing on this sort of nondescript international voice.
Yeah, because your English has a British accent. Your English has.
So, the voice of the world, your English sounds British, just so you know. What?
But actually even here, because sometimes people think I am from different places in the United Kingdom. Like even them, they can’t really tell where I’m from. Like they think I’m from here because I look British.
Yeah. So, there’s that kind of confusion when I go like, Oh, actually I’m Brazilian. They go like, what?
Because it’s sort of… Then I kind of… I think that’s what it is.
If I didn’t look… If I looked more Brazilian, then maybe they would perceive me differently, even though I’m working with voice.
You know, for instance, if I met Susie on the street and I spoke with Susie, I would know that she’s from Brazil for one reason. For the end of some words. Like, a British would say, will.
And Susie says, will. The final L is round.
No, but it could be from will. That’s the thing.
Here they think I’m from will. But it’s like I told you, everybody that’s… Those many years watching telenovelas, you get, you know, like, that feeling gets like in your DNA.
You know, so…
Yeah, when I went to…
Yeah, Sophia, go.
I’m sorry. I was just saying, when I went to Brazil, everybody knew I was Mexican. Every single…
When I went to Puerto Rico, everybody knew I was Mexican. Like, you just… We think we don’t know our own people, but people know their own heritage and race.
And I’m not surprised, Humberto, you can say that about Susie.
Yeah, no, but to be honest, like, I go to Brazil and people don’t think I’m Brazilian. In Rio, for example, they don’t really… They don’t know where I’m from.
I get a very non-descript somewhere else kind of thing. I never actually…
Because now you have a mix of both languages. You’re not British and you’re not Brazilian. You’re like a citizen of the world.
You have, like, a unique… You have a unique voice, a unique talent, a unique accent. That’s the amazing thing is that each one of us is unique.
And that…
We’re all snowflakes.
Yeah.
We’re all international snowflakes.
That’s a wonderful point, Humberto.
I love that, Sophia.
All right.
So kind of touching on the points that we talked about before, I love that you guys are all echoing each other to some extent because again and again, you see this, you have to have this an awareness of where you sit in the mix, and you need to understand how the audience is going to perceive your particular voice, but in the same vein, you can’t be too married to the sort of ethnic standards of various genres and markets because you have to be true to yourself. And so while it’s important to, like you said, to be able to add accent tools to your skill set, if you know that you can’t do a convincing enough, like Castilian Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese or what have you, you refer it to someone who you know specializes in that. So like already, we’re just getting so many great tips and recommendations for how to go about this if you’re trying to break into international markets.
So with that said, if someone is trying, like if they know that they’re a bilingual or potentially bilingual talent, what kind of steps or considerations should they make to try and pursue bilingual work?
You don’t need to be bilingual to work in Brazil or in Latin America. For instance, you, Paul, Sean, Susie, Humberto, Sofia, you can… Okay, you are bilingual, but okay.
Talking about Paul and Sean. I know that Paul has been working internationally, and he doesn’t need to be a bilingual artist to do that. So you just have to know the market, know a little bit of the culture and how the market works.
And you can ask me how Brazil works. You can ask Susie how British market and Humberto the European and Sofia the Mexican. You can ask your friends how can you enter and how is the culture in each country.
But as I told you, Jason has been working as a voice over artist in English, in Brazil. So you don’t need to be a bilingual artist to work internationally. This is gold.
The world is waiting for you. Especially in countries that English is not the main language. They need English voice overs.
And they don’t have native. They have a few. Susie, I’m sure she’s working for Brazil as well.
But also, I do, lately I’ve been doing a lot of work for other countries in Europe because more and more companies produce stuff in all languages. So, you know, you might have a company in Holland that is doing stuff in multiple languages and you can enter that market as well, which is fantastic, I think. I think the main thing that I think is to identify, like, are you truly bilingual?
You know, how, what is your level of, you know, the other, the second language? So, then you can actually just sell yourself, as we’ve just said before, you know, appropriately to the client, you know. So, that should be the starting point for everyone because, yes, you could be fluent in three, four, five languages, but that doesn’t mean that you can actually record in all of them, isn’t it?
That’s the main starting point. But that, after that, then, yes, it’s like Simone said, kind of research the market and maybe, you know, speak to people on groups, different groups, and then try and get information from people living in those places, really.
Absolutely. So, maybe reaching out to native speakers, like native voice talent, like yourselves, and be like, hey, would this work? Would this be marketable or, like, kind of, like, just a safe space for them to get feedback before they try and, like, make a bad impression with their bad accent?
Absolutely. Absolutely. Because I think people are not very…
I think that you have to be a little bit honest with yourself and you kind of… Do I sound bilingual or, you know, do I not? So, maybe try and get a second opinion, I guess.
That would be good. But I think that also, I mean, I always… I love sending jobs to friends, you know, like if someone…
I have a Russian friend and I see someone that, you know, needs a rush, and I will always… I have like three or four people that I always suggest. It’s nice to pass work to other friends.
It’s quite important to sort of enter the bilingual groups and just sort of make friends, I guess, you know, and ask for help.
Humberto and Sophia, any thoughts?
Everything, I believe, it’s sad. It’s like, if you know if somebody comes to me and wants like, I don’t know, Spanish from Catalonia, and I know somebody, I will refer that person. And that’s through referrals, we can get, you know, like, I don’t care.
If I can do it, if it’s something that I don’t do it, I’ll give it to somebody, which in Portugal, that is not the general way of working, because, you know, even in Portugal, a lot of people, unfortunately, if they know about a job and they cannot do it, they will say, well, I’m going to keep quiet and I’m not going to tell anybody. And why? It’s, you know, just give it to somebody else and that person will refer you if something comes up.
And that’s it.
You just… Or not, you know, because you have to refer, not expecting anything, but yeah.
But usually, usually that’s, you know, like that interchange of information between voice talents that, you know, because we know each other, even if it’s through the Internet, but we know each other. So, yeah, just pass the job to somebody that is able to do it. That’s it.
Yeah, and I would say, you know, here’s the thing. This business is about building relationships. This isn’t about, I’m going to go knock on Sophia’s door because I can only speak for myself, and I’m going to see and get all the information she has about the Spanish market.
That’s never going to work. But if you are a person that genuinely wants to connect with me, you want to build relationships with me, a relationship with me as a colleague, and it’s a give and take situation, of course, that’s going to be more welcome than someone just coming to try to… You know what I’m saying?
So I think it’s really important because I know a lot of people will be listening to this podcast. This isn’t about finding Susie and we’re going to have Christian Lance on here. We have really…
We’re all professional people in voice over and we’re busy. And this isn’t about finding, oh, Christian, give me all your context for Disney and let me get… You know what I mean?
It’s not about that. We are a very helpful community, but we want the relationship more than anything else. And I think that’s what’s so beautiful.
If you take the time to build those relationships, go to the voice over conferences, get to know people face to face, that’s where you’re going to make the most out of your connections. And so I just need to say that because I think that’s important. But we are all here.
We are all available as best as we can. We’re all very busy. God knows trying to put this podcast together, right, Paul and Sean?
But we do love each other. We do support each other. And we do want people to see success in whatever market they want to be in.
But when I think about marketing and all my marketing students, I always tell them this. The secret is to focus on the one area you want to see growth in. Because where you put your energy, that’s what’s going to grow.
What I find that most people do, the mistake is that they try to be everything to everyone. And that’s why they look back and they’re like, well, I didn’t see any major growth. Well, that’s because you spread yourself too thin.
I’ve been focusing on the Mexican market. Guess what? That is where I have seen the most growth in.
The bilingual English-Spanish market has been my laser focus for the last two years. I just finished saying that I book work in English and Spanish nonstop because that’s where I’m putting all my energy into. It’s not trying to become a Portuguese talent.
It’s not trying to do, you know, Brazilian anything. It’s just Mexican Spanish and English. That’s all I focus on and that’s where I’m seeing the most growth in.
So that’s super important for everybody to pay attention because you’re not going to be everything to everyone. If you want to become an international voice actor, pick one country you want to expand on and become a master about that country and understand what works, get to know which voice over colleagues are in that country and start building those relationships and then you will see growth in that one area and then you can build on and keep going.
One thing I would like to say is that I think, yes, absolutely the meeting in person is fundamental. And from my experience, I mean, I love the internet. I’m always online pretty much.
And I was so surprised when I got to Atlanta and I actually saw everyone like in the flesh because I thought, I realized that I actually had, because I thought I was going to go with the British people I was traveling with. There were quite a few of us anyway. So I was like, okay, fine, we’re going as a huge group.
But I got there and I knew so many people. It was just awesome to meet, you know, Sophia, Humberto, Simone, and all the people that I had been talking to online for ages. And kind of just by building relationships on Facebook, essentially, I think it’s really important that you kind of try and communicate with people and try and be helpful and, I don’t know, just sort of just be nice, generally speaking.
Sorry. In our case, we met everybody here in Vio Atlanta. We have to be grateful for this wonderful conference.
And I agree with you and Sophia, this meeting in person, it’s very important for us. And the podcast that Paul and Sean are doing is not in person, but it helps creating this sense of community that we need. And to strong our relationship, like Sophia said, we have to be a…
I was talking to a friend here in Brazil today because we are struggling with this cachet, the money, the budgets, they are getting down here in Brazil. I know that they are getting down in other countries as well. So I was talking to him, let’s be strong together, let’s create a community and then we can fight with this chopping budgets.
We have to be strong and we have to be strong together. This is very beautiful. I’m very passionate.
I’m a Latina and this subject really makes me feel happy and I’m very happy to be with you talking about this and sharing with others our experience. So that’s why I’m so passionate.
Well, that’s a great note to wrap up on. I just want to say I appreciate everybody being here. Ever since The Atlantic, really, I wanted to put this together and I’m really excited that everyone was able to join us and I thank you all for your time and your comments.
Sean, any parting words?
Well, like Paul said, I just wanted to thank you all so much and I love that you were all on the same page and offered a lot of the same advice and mindsets to build that self-awareness to, like, more than anything before you try and jump into this. Like, if you know your strengths and if you don’t know them, find a coach or find a professional who’s where you want to be and reach out to them and get their feedback, get their advice before you, like I said, shoot yourselves in the foot. And one thing that I want to note is that even if you don’t specialize in being a bilingual talent, as far as I’m concerned, all of us here are international talent.
Any one of us could get booked for an international English voice spot.
Before we go, why don’t all of you tell us how clients can reach you if they want to hire you? Why don’t we start with Humberto?
Well, the clients can go to my website www.humbertofranco.com or through my e-mail, which is very simple, also Humberto at humbertofranco.com.
Great. And Simone?
I have a website in English, ourbrazilianvoice.com, and I have my website in Portuguese that is simonikliass.com. So, but thank you so much for having me, for having us.
Great, our pleasure. And Sophia?
Yes, I can be reached at sophiasophiacruzvo.com, sophia at sophiacruzvo.com if you choose to e-mail me, but thank you so much for having us.
Susie?
www.susievalerio.com, that’s S-U-S-I-E-V-A-L-E-R-I-O, susievalerio.com, and my e-mail is contact at susievalerio.com.
So, thank you guys so much for that validation, that encouragement, and just being here today representing your various countries. Thank you so much. Wow, so thank you so much to our international panel for just sharing that experience and giving us a whole new perspective on just not only if you are a non-U.S.
talent, how you might be able to integrate yourself into US or UK markets, but if you are a talent in North America, how you can sort of branch out to different countries and market yourself that way. So, but Paul, you wanted to talk about some of the little hiccups that we had as well?
Well, it’s just the theme being everyone spread all over the world was actually really appropriate because some of the issues we had, I think, were because of bandwidth in the home countries. So Humberto mentioned that he was having issues with Internet connection and actually dropped out and made a call to his Internet service provider in Portugal while we were on the call. So I appreciate him going the extra mile just to be with us, which is crazy, but we do appreciate it, Humberto.
Humberto’s fantastic, like on top of being a great talent, he’s one of our most loyal VO Pro members for GVAA and he’s so fun to work with and he’s such a humble guy and he’s always singing our praises. He’s really fun. It was so nice to meet him at VO Atlanta.
Yeah, and that’s actually kind of what sparked the whole episode, as I mentioned in the interview that talked to him about his challenges was what made me turn the wheels and say, hey, there’s an idea for a show. So I appreciate him sparking that in me as well. But like you said, everyone was so gracious, and I really appreciated their perspective because they definitely brought up some things I hadn’t thought about.
And they crystallized more in my mind how I should never, ever try and put on a fake accent for an audition. There may have been occasions where I thought about it or may have actually done it, but now I will never do it again. Thank you, everybody.
So the thing is that you can, for example, as Christina will mention in our next interview, you can work with a coach to get a more realistic, more authentic sound, if that’s within your budget. But you’re right, if you find… and this is true not just for accents, but for character, voices, or vocal types in general, if you don’t feel confident that you can do it in an audition, don’t audition, because they’re going to ask you to do that and ten times more when you get into the booth.
Even if your agent sends it to you. So, I’ll give you a perfect example. There’s a series coming out in the next couple of weeks, or has it come out yet?
The Netflix series, Spy Kids, starring Christian Lanz, who we just spoke to, or will be in our next…
Yeah, I mean, he’s… well, you’ll get to hear him more, but you might recognize him as, like, he’s probably the most famous voice double for Antonio Banderas. I recognized him back from the old Nasonex commercials, where you had that sexy 3DB telling you about the wonders…
Oh, that was him?
That was him.
Oh, I thought that was actually Banderas.
I don’t think so.
So anyway, what I was trying to say is that when that came out, I guess about a year ago, I got that from my agent, and they wanted me to audition for it. And I said, no, for Diego. There’s no way I was going to pull that off.
And I’m so glad that was one that I passed on, because that would have been ridiculous. Me against Christian for that role?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it might have been fun practice, but still.
Yeah.
And it’s just, like, remember your audience. If it’s for a video game or even a cartoon, depending on what the creative team wants, they might not want something that… They might want something that’s more evocative, that kind of connotes the idea of this place, rather than something that’s completely accurate.
But, like, again, if you don’t feel confident doing it, don’t. So that pretty much wraps up this episode of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
So our next episode is going to be a little bit different. We’re not going to do our usual current events and questionable gear purchases. We’re just going to go straight into part 2 of our international panel with Christina Melizia and Christian Lance, and we know you guys are going to love it.
And then coming up later in the summer, we’re going to be featuring Peter Bishop, the British voice talent living in New York, and that’s going to be pretty exciting.
Yeah, Bishop’s been great, and he’s offered a lot of sage advice to both of us over the Voice Over Bulletin Board and in private discussions, and I always enjoy talking to him when I can see him in person as well.
Yeah, we had a great time at Uncle Roy’s and hope to do it again soon. And then finally, we have committed, the VO Meter that is, to broadcast live from MAVO 2018, the Mid-Atlantic Voice Over Conference in Herndon, Virginia, in November, November 9th, 10th and 11th. So I’m really looking forward to that.
And I will be joined by Ken Foster, who will be guest hosting, since Sean can’t make the cross-country trip that time. So, sorry to hear that.
He’s replacing me, guys.
I keep trying, but it never lasts.
No one can match my charisma, but…
Definitely not.
I appreciate that. I really, really wanted to go to Mabo this year, but it just didn’t make sense with VO Atlanta. And last year was a very travel-heavy year.
So I’m kind of going to buckle down and refocus and save my finances. But I hope you both have a wonderful time. Val Kelly always makes an amazing conference every time she does Mabo.
I know this year our keynote speaker is no less than Kari Wahlgren, just amazing voice talent. She got her start in anime with things like Foody Coody and Samurai Champloo. She’s a regular on Rick and Morty now, and she does numerous characters for Marvel and DC.
And she’s just all over the map. Wonderful actress. And on top of that, you have Sarah Sherman, voice caster for Disney, Sunday Muse, wonderful character talent out of Canada, and just so many other great guests.
You’re definitely going to learn a lot. It’s a small conference, but the content is huge.
Yeah, it’s going to be fun. So that’s it for now. Please join us for part 2 of our International Roundtable, and we’ll see you soon.
Have a great day, everybody. Thanks for listening to The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.

The VO Meter… Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hi, everyone, and welcome to Episode 23 of the VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Today, we’re going to talk about public announcing. It’s a really interesting genre of voiceover. We’ve got a whole panel of guests who are talking about how they transition from public announce into voiceover, and sort of the challenges and pitfalls that that might actually have coming with it.
But before that, we’re going to talk about current events. So what’s been going on with you, Paul?
Well, I’ve got a few things going on. I just finished my first book for Find Away Voices. I completed it and uploaded the audio last night.
It’s my longest book to date. It’s 41 chapters, total of about nine hours. So that was interesting.
I hadn’t done one that long before. It was sort of intimidating at first, right? I looked at it and said, oh man, how am I going to tackle this?
But it was interesting. I found that once I got into it, it was sort of like when you’re reading a book and you really get absorbed in the story, I just couldn’t stop. So I sort of set a budget of two chapters a night to try and get through it by the deadline they wanted.
I sort of kept going. Every night I kept doing more and more because I got into the characters so much and I didn’t want to lose the momentum I had. So it was interesting to see that play out.
No, that’s wonderful. I kind of had the… One of my first books was actually or Volunteer for Learning Ally and that one’s probably at least six hours.
I’m like, man, I really wish I had started with something like a children’s story or a short story other than that. But yeah, like you said, there are some days where you just get that spark of motivation and inspiration and you really get immersed. And those are, like, that’s what we live for, you know?
That’s ideally what you have every time. But I’m curious how you find that motivation when it’s, like, when you don’t wake up in the morning and you’re, like, feeling great and ready to record.
Well, for me, it was pure necessity. This book specifically had several voices and several different characters, and it was even more interesting. I won’t give the title, so people…
I don’t want to do any plot spoiling for people who may be listening once the book comes out, but it was about espionage and several spies working for the CIA and other world spy organizations. So, there might have been one character who had three different voices because she was speaking in English, North American English, and then speaking in British English and then Arabic. And I had to maintain the same tone with the same character for all three voices.
And basically, I didn’t want to lose that. So once I got down the character voices and I knew that I was sort of rolling with them, I wanted to make sure I could maintain that. So I was trying to get through it as quickly as possible so I wouldn’t lose those tones of voices.
And there was like ten different characters that were like that. So it was kind of interesting.
Very cool. And were you collaborating with the author, like sending like, hey, this is the voice that I want to do for this character? Or did they just trust you to handle it on your own?
Well, the first 15 minutes I did, sort of, it was through, like I mentioned, find a way, but they operate similar to the ACX model where you submit the first 15 minutes and the author approves. So in that, there were several different chapters they wanted me to do to make sure I could do the woman’s voice, to make sure I could do the British accent, to make sure I could do the Arabic. So they had already gotten a taste of all the voices.
Not every one, because there were 10 to 15 different characters, but they got a taste of the different dialects I could do to make sure it would come off as well as they would expect.
Wonderful, wonderful. Now I want to hear your accents, because you never really do them around me, actually.
And you’ll never hear them.
And you never will.
You never will. It will be a surprise. So you can go buy that book when it comes out.
Now that I’ve ruined the plot for some people, I’ll mention the title at the next episodes when it will actually be released on Audible so people can go download it.
Very, very cool. Oh, that’s some good mystery marketing there.
There we go. Some teasing, we call it, in the biz. But other than that, all of my focus lately has been with my VO empire as a friend of the show.
Marisha Teppera dubbed it.
AKA your family.
Right, exactly. So right before VO Atlanta, actually the day before, my son Matthew did a job for Bodalgo. And we sent it off to the client.
I got paid while we were in VO Atlanta, I think while I was talking to Armand, almost the exact same time. So I want to thank Armand for that. For those of you that don’t know, I think we might have mentioned this, but if not, it’s worth re-mentioning that Bodalgo offers free premium accounts to child actors.
So if you’re interested in having your child, or your child already is a voice actor, you can get a free premium account with Bodalgo, which means they can receive direct auditions and audition for jobs, and that’s what my one son did. He booked a job, got it paid right away from the client in Italy, and had that out on… It was a corporate video, so I’m assuming they’re playing it, I haven’t actually seen it, but yeah, we’re pretty excited about that.
And then my other, my daughter, who has been dabbling in it as well, is about to embark on her first audiobook.
Cool.
And interesting, actually, I don’t want to prompt you on how to do your job, but could you ask me how we secured that job?
So how did you go about getting that job? But actually, before I ask that, I just wanted to point out that it’s, if you do have children that you want to exploit, I mean, who are talented actors, and you should definitely look into, because Armand’s situation, as wonderful as he is, isn’t completely unique. You’ll find a lot of agencies are a little bit more lenient about how they hire younger talent, just because the jobs don’t come in as often, but I mean, they still need to be hired, obviously.
And so it doesn’t make sense for them to charge a child for a year-long membership if there’s only going to be two or three appropriate gigs. But there’s still a valuable resource to have when they do come in. So you might find an agent or a casting site like Bedalgo offering incentives like that.
So if you’re involved with Voice Over and your children are interested too, it’s something you should look into. But back to your daughter, how exactly did you get that audiobook gig for her?
Well, I’m glad you asked. Because it was part of an in-person marketing effort I put forth. I reached out to a local author who was a friend of a friend and contacted her about her book that I had seen was just published on Amazon, the print version.
And it immediately shot up to the bestseller rankings of this category. So it’s a book about a young girl who has anxiety disorder and how her mom helps her deal with those feelings. So I reached out to the author about doing the book, not necessarily for me, but for my daughter, sort of an ulterior motive.
And she ended up referring me to her publisher. So I went to the publisher, who’s also a local company, and we had coffee over a Tuesday morning. And we talked about all of the authors that might have some benefit from doing audio.
So this one was immediately put out there, and they said, yes, we’d like to have your daughter do it, so we’re going to work on that in the next couple of weeks. And then meeting with the publisher, she said, there’s actually several authors that we would like to maybe investigate doing an audio version. So that could be more fruitful than I even imagined to begin with.
So word to the wise, if you haven’t started marketing locally, do that because there’s opportunities out there you may not even know exist.
We’ve talked about this a number of times on the podcast. You really are only limited by your own imagination in your marketing efforts. And as you’re just getting started, as long as you have a certain level of competitiveness, like you have a competitive sounding studio and some training under your belt and demos preferably and all that, by all means, reach out, find out what local businesses are out there and just figure out what their personal needs might be.
Like do they have radio advertising? Do they need it? Do they have IVR messaging systems taken care of?
Or do they suck? And could they be improved? These are all questions that you should look into and not really feel like you have to just, like your first step should be finding an agent and expecting them to do all that work for you.
Because as we’ve talked about before, that’s only one egg in your basket. As lucrative and as like, I don’t know, what’s the word I’m looking for? As fancy and celebrity sounding as it does to have an agent or agents, you can’t rely on them for all of your work.
You still, they still expect you to be trying to market yourself and finding gigs for yourself as well.
Yeah, it’s a really good point. Now, speaking of marketing your local services, one more thing I want to mention, current events-wise, is I rented out my studio recently to a demo producer. So a friend of the show also, Terry Daniel, who’s a demo producer out in Minneapolis, as well as voice talent and coach, he was looking for somewhere in Baltimore to have a demo producer for one of his talent.
He actually had a bit of a bad experience with a studio he booked in the city, and said, hey, Paul Stefano, you have a studio in Baltimore? And I said, yeah, we’ve recorded out of it for my own demos, but anyway, it’s neither here nor there. He said, would you be willing to host this person?
You know, rent the studio out, I’ll pay you for it, and have her do the demo with me doing the remote session in Minneapolis. And I said, sure. So talent came over.
I sat outside the other side of the window and engineered while she did the remote session with Terry, and it came off great. So another way you can leverage the resources you have and the investment you’ve made in yourself and your business to maybe have some additional income. Exactly.
I just kind of want to just gush about Paul for a second. I mean, look at how… Because so many people focus on just one aspect of how they can help a client, which is with their voice, and that’s wonderful.
But as a voiceover studio, Paul has already got this whole list of possible, or added values for ways that he can help potential clients, and whether it be as renting out a studio or exploiting, I mean, hiring his children or…
And producing to local authors doing their audiobooks too.
Exactly. So don’t feel like… And it’s all building connections, and I’m sure sometime down the line, these are all going to come back to him in spades in opportunities for work and all other sorts of networking opportunities as well.
So good on you, Paul. You always inspire me to get my butt to the pavement and make some phone calls and build some connections like that.
Oh, thank you. So speaking of, what’s going on with you?
What’s going on with me? Well, things have slowed down a little bit after VO Atlanta finally. I was riding high on all those positive energies and vibes for about three weeks, but things are finally starting to level out.
Still just been working consistently with my regular e-learning clients. My work with GVA has really ramped up, and I wanted to talk to you about that because you actually got to experience our membership program firsthand. Newt said some really nice things about it.
Yeah, I did. I signed up for your promotion at VO Atlanta and participated in one live coach workout with Steven Reisberg, and that was a lot of fun. Got some great feedback and reinforced some things I knew I needed to work on, and then took advantage of some of the marketing materials that were sent out.
So do you want to talk about how that works, and then I can talk about how I took advantage of it?
Oh, sure, sure. So yeah, we had this promotion at VO Atlanta where attendees were able to join their first month for $1. The usual cost is about $60 a month, $59.95.
And so for that level of our membership, it’s at our most exclusive tier, the pro level, you get one coach-led workout, which is led by one of our great coaches, like Steven Reisberg. He’s a Hollywood booth director. He’s even worked with greats like Don LaFontaine and some of the best in the industry, both celebrity talent and strictly voice-over talent.
Who else leads those? We also have Christina Melizia and David Rosenthal, as well as our other cadre of great coaches like Carol Monda and Katie Lee, MJ. Lalo, Brian Summer.
Brian Summer is great. He’s worked on a number of the Telltale Game Series, and he’s got a pension for Villain Voices, so it’s always fun to go to a workout or a workshop that he’s leading. And then on top of that, you also get a peer-led workout with myself, which is just kind of a safe space.
We’ve talked a little bit about accountability groups and workout groups in the past, and that’s essentially what this is. It’s just an opportunity to experiment with your performances and get feedback with your peers, and then practice giving feedback as well, because, I mean, it helps your ability to direct and self-direct by directing others. And so I know in my own experience, they’ve been just incredibly helpful just leading these things, and I’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback from the people who attend.
And on top of that, we also have just an hour-long Q&A session once a month where you get to pick the brain of a pro voice actor and get, like, career strategy advice or audition or demo feedback. And on top of that, we also send out just a small list of, like, production companies or agencies that have said that they were, or openly said that they are accepting submissions from Talent. So just a little, like, thank you and a little boost to your marketing efforts each month.
So as you were saying, Paul, how did you take advantage of those benefits?
Well, that last one, I took those leads, and they were from a marketing company, right, that you work with as a partnership?
Yes, it’s called Tailored Products Group, or TPG, and that’s with Al Richardson, who is another voice talent and has a number of connections with e-learning and video production companies. Excuse me, he’s got these large lists of companies that you can purchase in different regions, but he gives us a small sample of his current findings each month just because of the positive relationship we have with him and the Inspire Goodwill that way. But it’s a wonderful resource, and then that way for talent who are newer in self-marketing, this is almost a surefire way to get your foot in the door with a couple of these different companies and to build clients like that.
And you mentioned that you had quite a deal of success with this list.
Yeah, well, I mean, one. So the list was nine companies, right?
You lied to me!
I mean, that’s actually a pretty good shooting percentage, so to speak. So there was nine sample leads, three from each of the different lists. One was an animation company, one was a production company, and one was, I think, a production studio.
So I contacted all of them and immediately got a response from one of the production studios that said, yeah, we’d love to add you to our roster. So that may not sound great, but I mean, based on the thousands and thousands of cold calls I’ve done over the years, one out of nine is actually a really good percentage. So I was really happy with that.
And yeah, that brings up a good point, too, is just how much or how many contacts you need to make before you really start gaining traction and getting responses back. I remember I took Jonathan Tilley’s League of List Builders course a few years ago, and he’s like, if you’re limiting your potential contact list to a hundred or less, you are doing far too little. You need hundreds of potential contacts before you start really building those numbers into the dozens even.
So just keep building that list and keep building those potentials and then reach out to them every couple of months if you haven’t gotten a response back.
Right. So yeah, I enjoyed the membership with the GBAA. I was actually surprised to see how much work was involved from you.
I mean, I know some of the stuff is scheduled probably to automate the email process, but I was getting either Facebook posts or emails from you. It felt like every ten minutes.
I don’t know about that often, but it just depends on when workouts are scheduled and things like that because I’ll host a workout and then I’ll edit the recording of it and then we’ll upload that and then let people know that it’s available. Because not everyone can attend these things live, but one of the things that I love is that we have a huge library of all of our previous workouts and webinars. So even if you weren’t able to attend, you could still watch it.
You can still… And believe it or not, I’m a big fan of this. I think you can still learn quite a bit just from watching other people perform.
I know a lot of us really want to get that personal experience, that on-mic experience, and you can get that. But even just watching and taking notes, there’s still so much more you can learn from just doing that. So I think that’s a huge resource.
And we stockpile these things for an entire year before we start updating it with the current year’s workouts and webinars. So it’s just a huge, huge resource. And I love being a part of it.
Based on my previous educational experience in English teaching, it’s kind of like the perfect marriage of my educational experience and my love of voice over, because I get to teach people how to become better talent. I mean, it’s awesome. I love it.
Yeah, it’s good stuff.
Before we transition to our more light-hearted VO Meter stick, we did have some serious and downright startling news. A good friend and mentor of the podcast, Paul Struquerda, we recently discovered… He just suffered from a stroke recently, and it was just a shock to us, because if you’ve ever seen Paul, he’s just in the picture of health, and you would never have suspected him being liable to a stroke at his age right now.
But luckily, he’s his typical self. He’s in good spirits. He contacted everyone, letting us know that he was okay, and sent a few smiling pictures on Facebook, and just conducting himself with his usual grace and humor.
Paul, we just wanted to say we’re so glad you’re all right, and we hope you have a speedy recovery, and we hope that your family is doing all right as well. Hugs and healing thoughts going out to you, my friend, and we hope to hear from you more soon.
Yeah, same from here. It was really startling, like Sean said, but we’re glad to hear that at least you’re in good spirits and doing well so far. And as luck would have it, because of the Easter holiday, I’m actually going to be in his hometown this weekend, so I’m going to try and stop by and see him if he’s up to it and hopefully wish him well there in person.
I’m sure if he’s feeling well enough, he’d really appreciate that. That’s awesome, Paul.
Indeed. So we’ll get to our main discussion with our public address slash live event announcers in just a moment. But before we do that, we have our VO Meter stick.
Check.
Hey, everybody, it’s time for the VO Meter shtick.
What did he say?
It’s time for the VO… Oh, never mind.
The VO Meter shtick?
Oh, got it.
So this episode’s VO Meter shtick is actually done by me. Yay! Live and in person.
So I’m going to talk about a funny experience I had while doing public address for my local university, Towson University here in Towson, Maryland. So I was the public address announcer for the basketball team, and the men’s basketball team. And we were doing a game, I think it was towards the end of the season, the team was not doing very well, they were sort of out of contention for the playoffs, and I think the coach was tinkering with the lineup.
So, what you do as a public address announcer normally is get the lineup from both coaches, go over it and make sure you can announce, sorry, pronounce all the names in case you don’t wanna pronounce them wrong on the microphone and embarrass the kid, maybe his parents. So both coaches, you go get the lineups, go through the names, make sure there’s no surprises, make sure the star player is out that day for an injury, so on and so forth. So in this case, I got the lineup and the star point guard was on the bench and I wasn’t quite sure why.
So being also a fan and alumnus of this school, I was kinda perturbed. I thought, hey, why is he sitting this guy? This coach doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Ugh, frustrated, but you still have to do your job the right way. So the game starts and I’m doing the lineups and I go through the list, I announce the center, the forwards, I get to the point guard, and I announce who I think should be in the lineup. They get the star point guard that was on the bench.
I forget his name exactly, but I just go ahead and announce him and didn’t realize anything had happened. But then I look up and the entire bench and the coach are all giving me the stink eye, like, what the heck? What are you doing?
And then I look back down and thought, uh-oh, giant Freudian slip. So I had to say, excuse me, it’s actually Brian starting at point guard. Then everything was fine, we did the rest of the line up.
But I felt like an idiot because I had basically just inserted my own ideas of who should be in the line up into the live announce and that was not good. I came to find out later it was a disciplinary thing where the player had done something and that’s why the coach benched him. But it was just funny to see that reaction from the crowd.
Now I will say that was the last men’s basketball game I did. May have had something to do with it. After that I was relegated to just women’s basketball, soccer, field hockey and volleyball.
But just a funny little story about live announcing and how things can go wrong.
Your rise to PA announcing, or what was it, was that your journey to PA announcing ended before it began.
Yeah, I mean, it was just funny.
I’m actually really interested about our panel today because I dabbled in it when it was very young. We’re talking high school and college. They asked me to MC a few events at our school because I was in the theater program, and I remember having to announce Junior Prom, or whatever, the pep rally for that and stuff like that.
And I had to announce people’s names, and then one, I just straight up said the wrong girl who was coming up, but maybe I forget if it was how it was listed, or if I had skipped ahead on the list, or whatever, but I was just like, this poor girl just looks terrified as she’s halfway down the aisle, and then she just looks up at me. I’m like, oh, my bad. And then I just kept going.
17-year-old Sean, I didn’t care at all.
Well, that stuff happens all the time, even to people who have been doing it for years, as I’m sure our panel can attest to.
Yeah, and then, but like I said, I was really interested in hearing from a more professional side because my only other experiences was in college when I was doing this sort of media internship where we got to try all sorts of different aspects of media production, whether it be sports announce or color commentary or on camera work or working behind the camera and all sorts of things like that. And so I tried one of, or just color commenting, one of the basketball teams, and it was ridiculously hard.
I’d love to hear your perspective on that because it’s just like you have to be so attentive, you have to really familiarize yourself with these people’s names, and you have to be able to comment on what’s going on quick enough that it’s relevant, that people are actually able to see what you’re talking about rather than a few minutes afterwards and stuff like that.
Yeah, it’s a lot of hard work, as I mentioned. It takes a lot of prep. I would go to the game usually an hour, sometimes an hour and a half before, to make sure I had everything in my head and everything down on paper.
You take a lot of notes to make sure you don’t have to just remember everything in your head. And as our guests will tell us, it’s a similar situation for almost all sports or all events. There really is a lot of prep work both before and after.
Justin, during the call, Justin Brown mentioned that he was usually the first one there and the last one to leave when he was at Talladega, and that became an issue for him because he’d be leaving the racetrack after the race, two or three hours after the race, and it was a danger for him to drive home because people don’t necessarily take the best precautions when they’re at a NASCAR race as far as designated drivers. And it was bad, actually dangerous for him to get back to his house from the track with people weaving it out of traffic.
And wheeling around the parking lot, whoo, NASCAR!
But yeah, and I have friends even now that are still the announcers for local teams, and it’s the same way. You’re one of the first ones there, you’re one of the last ones to leave, and it’s in a lot of ways a thankless job.
Yeah, but you’ve got to be passionate about it, I’m sure. Like, otherwise, for each one alive.
I think that’s where it comes from, yeah. Everybody’s really passionate about what they do.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Well, we’ll get to that in a few minutes, but before that we have our…
Questionable Gear Purchase.
Why don’t you go first this time?
All right, so Questionable Gear Purchases. So, I’m in the middle of one right now, actually, because one of the coolest things about VO Atlanta this year is that, I mean, it’s… I’ve told Gerald Griffith and Ann Gangooza and all the head honchos or VO Atlantis, like, my life has changed for the better every time I go, because, like, the first time I went was when I was in Japan and I won the International Scholarship.
That was huge, and then by the end, like, I met Global Voice Acting Academy that weekend, and then that was the beginning of our relationship together, or, like, our working relationship together, and then by the end of that first conference, I won a 416, so, like, I mean, you don’t think you can even top that, but then the year after that, like, luckily I was able to pay my own way this time with my voiceover funds that I had made for my clients. Woohoo! And, but then I had been asked to do the team challenge led by Cliff Selman and I think it was, or, and Dan Friedman that year.
They tend to be the ones who lead that. And so this was something that I was completely unconfident in, and I was just blessed with a wonderful team that we had a great rapport with, and our team won that challenge, and so we got to come back to VO Atlanta again, and on top of getting some kick-ass headphones and a chaotic eyeball and some other cool stuff. And so we got to come back.
And then fast forward to this year, I find out that I have been nominated for the Unicorn Grant, which is just this amazing opportunity for where just a number of agents, casting sites, branding strategists all offer their services, or donate their services to one lucky recipient who kind of encapsulates the generous spirit of the VO community. And so just being a nominee, my travel and attendance were gratis, were compensated. And you don’t find out who actually wins until the last day of the conference, but the finalists end up receiving a $500 gift card to Sweetwater, which is like my favorite audio store.
And I’m like, woohoo! And so I was elected a finalist. I didn’t get the full grant, but I still got all of those wonderful benefits.
And then I had this weird situation where I’m like, I have $500 to my favorite audio store, but I don’t really need anything.
Oh, poor baby.
Oh, poor baby, right? I know, it’s just like a lot of people, like our audience just want to throttle me right now.
Yeah, they’re all vomiting in their booths right now.
But no, that’s the truth. And it’s just like, I mean, you guys know me and you know Paul, we’re just unrelenting, not gear snobs, but we’re always drooling over new gear and there’s all these things that… Like, part of me, honestly, I was like, this would just be like a line of credit and I’m just going to use this as an excuse to buy all the things that I want to review and then send them back.
Just try them out, make videos and then send them back. But the truth is, one thing that I don’t have in my studio, because I’ve got great mics, I’ve got a good interface and all the accessories you need, like cables and all the unexciting stuff or whatever, well, one thing I don’t have are studio monitors. And those are something that I had been putting off getting for a long time because it’s like one of those less fun aspects of voiceover and they can get pretty expensive.
Most people recommend that you spend at least $300 a pair on them, and I mean, that can be prohibitive for a lot of people. But, so I had limited my choices down to two monitors, one being the Yamaha HS5s and then the PreSonus Aris E5s, which are like a newer monitor thing. PreSonus has made a name for themselves with their Studio One software and a number of interfaces since their AudioBox units a few years ago.
And honestly, the quality of their products has just steadily increased over the years, and they’re really building a name for themselves. And they come in these… Appearances aren’t that important, but they’re blue and they look cool and they’re compact, and I’m just like, ah, I want them.
And so now I have an opportunity to get them, but it was funny because you see that one purchase and they’re like, all right, that’s great, but then I need to spend this much money on monitor stands to get the best out of them. And I’m like, oh crap, my desk is too small to accommodate that, so I need a new studio desk.
Oh my gosh, spirals, huh?
It really does. We talked about this a few times on the podcast. Rarely is one link in the chain going to cause an overall difference.
Your studio is only as strong as its weakest link, and you can’t just buy things willy-nilly and expect a world of difference. There is a level of thought and planning that has to go into it. So yeah, luckily, with the gift card, I’m able to get all of those things except for the studio desk because it’s not at Sweetwater, but I was able to find one that would actually fit inside my booth and would make a much more ergonomic and professional-looking space, so I’m really happy about that.
And whatever I decide to get, I just wanted to thank everyone who offered their advice and Gerald and J. Michael Collins and Marilyn Whistler and all the other contributors to the Unicorn Grant for giving me this wonderful, wonderful gift. And I even had some leftover to donate to our local music programs because Sweetwater has a wonderful donation suggestion where they want to contribute to national music programs because of their own love of music, and I think it’s a wonderful idea.
So thank you Sweetwater, thank you Gerald Griffith and Anne Gangusa and all of the contributors and coordinators of VO Atlanta for inspiring this wonderful grant and for choosing me, of all people, to be a finalist. It’s huge. It’s really huge.
So thank you very much. But I mean, that’s me. Sorry I’ve been droning on about that for so long.
But I mean, it really was just kind of just an amazing experience to be rewarded just for helping people out in the industry I love so well, you know? But enough about me, Paul. You got any questions or gear purchases you want to talk about?
Actually, no. I know. Well, I have some bills coming due, which is why I haven’t been able to do that.
So along with finishing that last book, I have to pay my editor. So until I get the funds from Findaway, I need to fund that myself. So I’ll be paying him.
And then I had one leftover bill from the redo of my website that I have to take care of as well. So yeah, definitely not a good time to make any purchases. Plus, doing taxes this week.
Yeah, there’s one for you. Do you have to pay those, really?
I know. I wish we didn’t. I guess it’s the next two weeks, but still.
Well, that’s fun. I’m sure your wife’s happy about that.
Yeah, definitely. So with that, we’ll bring it to the main portion of this episode, our interview with public address announcers or reformed public address announcers and how that might affect their voiceover career.
Welcome to the roundtable portion of this episode of The VO Meter. We’re really excited to have our Public Address Roundtable with folks who either are currently doing public address or have done so in the past. And the reason this came about is because I myself have done public address announcing.
I was the public address announcer for a state university here in Maryland, the Towson State University. Or sorry, it was Towson University when I was doing the public address announcing, but my degree still says Towson State. I’m kind of partial to that.
And I did, let’s see, women’s soccer, men’s soccer, women’s basketball, volleyball, and one men’s basketball game. Apparently, they didn’t like me very much because they only got that one chance. But we have people that have done public address for a whole host of other events.
We’re going to jump into how that might have affected their voice over career, either negatively or positively. So first, let’s go around the room and have everybody introduce themselves. Let’s start with on my screen, Justin.
How are you doing today, Justin?
Yes, I’m Justin Brown. I used to be the PA announcer for the Talladega Super Speedway.
Great. And where are you out of now?
I’m in Birmingham now and I’m currently doing radio.
Okay, great. Next we have Mike. Mike introduce yourself, please.
Well, I’m Mike Norgaard and I’m full-time voice over artist and part-time sports public address announcer. And I do Gravevine Colleyville ISD football and former college basketball and baseball at high school collegiate and professional levels as well. And hockey too.
Okay, great. And Jay, welcome.
Hey there. Hey, great. Thanks.
Yeah. Jay Harper, my name. And I’m actually in Charleston, South Carolina based here currently, and I have done voiceover work for, gosh, almost 30-some-odd years.
But doing Public Address Announcing VO, you know, for gosh, a good part of that time as well at the high school and collegiate levels, the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, where I’m currently based, I’ve done a PA for baseball. I’ve helped with football pretty much at the high school level. Gosh, everything from hockey to soccer to baseball, softball, football.
It’s been an entertaining and educational experience to work all these different types of sports and get a real feel for each of these sports, being up in the booth and watching things from a PA announcer’s perspective.
Awesome. And Bob, tell us a little bit about yourself.
I am currently the public address announcer for University of Maryland. I’ve done upwards of 12 Division I sports for them. This will be my ninth year on the mic for them.
I had been doing some internal voiceover for the federal government when I was employed there. And then as a long-term, long-time season ticket holder to Maryland basketball, I was watching their public address announcer and I said, well, there’s a guy behind the mic. So maybe I might give that a try.
And so wrote to the University of Maryland back in 2010 and was picked up for a number of their sports. I currently do men’s and women’s soccer in the fall, women’s basketball, gymnastics in the winter, and lacrosse and softball in the spring. So I’ve been doing that ever since.
I switched over to full-time voiceover when I retired from the federal government in 2013 and have been doing a host of different genres in that realm, including audio books, narrations, documentaries and things of that sort.
Okay, great. So thanks for going around the room and talking about your voiceover experience. What we want to talk about is how you got into other forms of VO and transitioned or are working on transitioning or if you’re just trying to do both at the same time.
So who would like to start with that? I think that was Justin, so go ahead, Justin.
Sure. I was in radio and have been and still am in radio, started back in 1990. And when I was in another market in Amarillo, Texas, I was contacted by a local studio that said, when you get off the air at 9 a.m., would you be interested in coming down and recording some commercials?
We’ll pay you for it. And I thought, well, that sounds like the best thing I’ve heard all day. So I went down and read scripts, and they wrote me a check on the spot before I got out to the car.
And that really intrigued me a lot. And so I kind of have been playing around with VO part time for the last eight or nine years. And then I finally, with my wife’s blessing and urging to build a home studio, have been able to keep a couple of clients, but not really a whole lot of work, just kind of side work.
And then I just happened to, down the hallway at one of our other studios, a friend that was actually a full time VO actor, Scott Chambers…
Oh, I know Scott. Scott’s a good friend.
He was down the hall, and word got around, and everybody started coming up to me one at a time saying, you know, he’s a full time voice over actor. So I asked him to lunch and started picking his brain. Next thing you know, I’ve got a coach.
I’m going to VO Atlanta. I’m sitting with you, Paul, in an X session with Mary Lynn Wissner. So things are starting to move pretty rapidly in that area.
So I’ve got a goal to transition out of radio before radio transitions out of me to get into full time VO if I can. So that’s the big goal for the next couple of years.
That’s awesome. So you’ve made this transition pretty quickly, over the last couple of months?
Yeah, I started in December and I reached out to Eric Romanowski and he suggested that I get a coach. I had looked back at my email from Scott Chambers and he suggested that I get a coach. There was one name that was common on both of those lists and it was Jody Gottlieb and I reached out to her and asked her if she would take on a new client.
She said yes. That shocked me. So my first coaching session was the week between Christmas and New Year’s and so I have had basically one session a month and now I’ve booked my flight and studio time to do my demo in Los Angeles.
So that will be in April, so I’m looking forward to see what the next step would be.
Okay, so Bob, why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you started the transition to VO?
I had been doing some voice work for the federal government which got me the idea of trying to get into the voiceover world. As I was explaining to before, I’ve been a 35 year ticket holder for Maryland basketball and noticed the PA announcer behind the mic and I thought, well, there’s something I might be able to try. So actually, the PA work was actually my first outside paying gigs outside of what I was doing for the federal government.
Once I retired in 2013, I decided to branch out into other voiceover realms. And again, but just kept the PA announcing one. It was a nice paying gig.
It’s always great to get paid to watch Maryland sports as well, but I just saw it as an extension of the different types of voiceover work that was out there. My work as a PA announcer has led to transitioning more to live event announcing. I just had a demo produced by J.
Michael Collins on live event announcing. And so I’ve been able to market myself as a live event announcer to include work that I’ve done for the University of Maryland. So in that realm, in that vein, it’s worked out pretty well.
I still continue to pursue audio books, corporate narrations and the like. One thing I like about the PA world is that generally when you talk about being a voice actor, people always ask, is there anything that I’ve heard you in? And again, not referring to commercials or anything else.
I just tell them I worked for the University of Maryland and many of them have been out to games and have heard me there, just didn’t realize it was me on the mic. So it’s been a nice sort of foot forward when talking about the voice world, especially here in the Mid-Atlantic region. And so it’s kind of helped me from a marketing standpoint as well being a public address announcer.
Awesome. One thing I was curious about, Bob, because you had a similar experience that I did. When I first started, I had the same way I started with public address.
I looked down during a basketball game and said, hey, that guy is not a college student. I wonder if they’re looking for any more people to hire. And I sort of put an application and audition and eventually was hired.
Were you surprised that they weren’t having students exclusively do the work?
You know, I’ve seen them use students and specifically at Maryland and a few other schools that I’ve worked at. They tend to use students for the game operations, a lot of the videotaping and some of the radio work. They’ll use students who are majoring in journalism or that stuff.
But they tend to go with professional public address announcers actually. So yeah, I mean, I was a little bit surprised, but now that I’ve been in it now for almost 10 years, I really have only seen the PA announcer as the more, I’ll say experienced person in the press box.
Yeah, it’s true. And obviously Jay has the same experience. So Jay, why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you’re working on transitioning to other forms of voiceover?
Well, Paul, for me, actually, I was and still continue to do the quote unquote, other types of voiceover. That’s what I was doing initially. You know, I started in radio 1978.
Yeah, I’m old. Actually was in high school. So, but in, you know, being on air and getting out and meeting people and those of our other guests here that have the radio backgrounds, you know, I mean, you get out and you kind of, depending on your size market, you know, you become somewhat of a known voice, perhaps a known quantity, and you get invited to be a part of things.
And that was kind of the way it worked for me to become part of the PA announcing realm of things. You know, I was already in the market on air and radio and was asked to fill in for some Public Address events. And that transitioned over into sporting events.
And this was all at the high school level. And we’re talking, you know, gosh, the last 30 some odd years, you know, being able to be a part of all that. But I’ve always enjoyed again with the radio background and the spontaneity that that affords you, you know, if you’re not voice tracking or what have you, but nonetheless, just having that, the ability to be spontaneous, granted, being structured and sounding somewhat structured, but not too structured in the live announcing world of things with VO and so forth for public address announcing.
You know, that in and of itself is a skill to be able to, you know, dodge and weave. And you know, you’re not calling the game per se on the public address announcer, you know, on the PA system, but still having the ability to do live reads, you know, that’s becoming more and more of a thing. You know, when I started, you didn’t do ads and stuff to the degree we do now from the PA booth, you know, so getting all the little promos in and all the sponsors in and all the little activities and whatnot that the gig demands you to be a part of now.
I have found, again, the radio background certainly helped with a lot of that. And then transitioning into other forms of VO. I too, you know, doing the audio books, the corporate narrate, I mean, just a little bit of everything.
And like one of the other guests had said through VO Atlanta, just attended my second one of those and actually met Paul the year before last. I was part of the ambassador program and kind of ran into Paul setting up mics and stuff there that first year, but actually sat in with him on some X session, I believe this year, and learned that there are a whole host of people out there that are continuing to kind of tackle all these different little types of voiceover work, but the training and the skills and the technique, while there are some similarities, depending on the area of concentration, if you think you’re gonna be, you know, Ron Radio doing a corporate narration or something, that doesn’t work. So anyway, just being able to immerse yourself in the different types of styles of voiceover work out there is one of the things I enjoy.
I know there are a number of that they find their niche and they hang with it and hey, that’s cool. That bores me. I like to tackle a little bit of everything, but certainly knowing my limits and not going out there and tackling something that I would suggest, hey, you need somebody else for this, that’s not gonna be me.
That’s great. And you’re right about the X session. I was surprised actually that I think of the 12 that were there, eight or nine of the people, maybe even 10, including the three of us that are on this call said, yeah, we’ve done some live announcing, some public address work and I found that to be eye-opening.
And this is why I actually re-energized myself to schedule this episode because Bob and Adrienne, I had talked about this almost a year ago.
And again, there are so many other realms to this. I mean, I have hosted award shows for corporations, live event award shows here at the Convention Center in Charleston, for example. So it’s not just, a lot of people think public address, they think primarily sporting events and whatnot, but as we know, there are certainly more avenues to tackle than just that.
Right, so you mentioned VO Atlanta and I actually met our next guest, Adrienne, at the Mid-Atlantic Voice Over Conference last year, although it turns out, as often happens in this area, we have a lot of mutual friends. But Adrienne, welcome again and tell us a little bit about the other types of VO you’re trying to get into.
Well, I really enjoy audiobooks and I’ve done a lot through ACX. So I’ve really found that I enjoy, especially the non-fiction, the crime books. But I also like to delve into a little bit of everything.
I do annually the Merkle Awards, which are held out in the West Coast and I record them here in my home studio. And it’s people from all over the world that have won awards in advertising and it’s their little own kind of Emmy thing. And I’m looking to do more voice work.
I’m so spread out between the Bowie Bay Sox and Georgetown. I do about six of their sports that sometimes I feel my time gets limited. But I have done some like on Sirius XM, the Fantasy Sports Channel, I’ve done some of their promos that are airing right now.
So I really try to get out there, but I do find limitations when you’re spread thin.
And Mike, Mike Norgaard, tell us a little bit about how you got into other forms of VO, which was first, the chicken or the egg, so to speak, was it Public Address or was it voice over?
It was the chicken. No, similar to Jay, I’ve got a radio background going back into the mid-1980s, and so I was on the radio for a while, and then I was kind of out of voice over and radio for a while, about 20 years or so. And as home studio equipment sort of became more of a viable option, I started exploring, well, I wonder what I could do from home here to generate some voice over stuff and get back into that, because I’ve always really just loved, let’s just clump it under communications.
In general, and so I’ve always loved communications in general, and voice over being part of that, audio books being part of that, you know, e-learning, you need your voicemail, you know, whatever. I just love voicing that stuff, doing that stuff. Did get back into radio eventually, just about four months ago, part-time radio job back here in Dallas where I hadn’t been on the air in forever and ever and ever, and hopped back on and just, you know, really enjoying that.
There’s no money in it anymore, but it is still fun to do. At one point, I was actually standing at a Chinese food restaurant behind the assistant athletic director for my local school district. And it just sort of on impulse, I said, hey, do you guys need any help over there with Public Address at the stadium?
And he said, well, is that something you’ve done? And I said, nah, I’ve never done any of that, but I do voiceover stuff and I bet I could do it. And he said, okay, I’ll tell you what, I’ll put you on the list and if we get any, you know, third party sort of engagements that come in, we’ll give you a call.
And about two weeks later, I got a call and they invited me to come out and do women’s professional football. Yeah, which was really kind of a neat thing. Unfortunately, we had two local teams and they both folded since then, but it was really neat while it lasted and it was here.
It was the WFA, the Women’s Football Alliance, and you can look that up online if you’ve got time and interest in doing so, but it’s kind of a neat thing. It’s full contact women’s football. And boy, when they’re out there and padded up, you can’t tell it’s not guys on the field.
They are serious about it and they have a good time. And it’s a lot of fun to announce as well. So enjoyed that.
And then that springboarded into some high school football. And then that expanded into college baseball and then college baseball into college basketball and volleyball and softball and every other ball that kind of came along. So got into that and I’ve been working pretty steady.
Hockey came along as an opportunity about five seasons ago. So I’ve learned a lot about hockey in the meantime. So had a lot of fun with that.
But again, there are a lot of opportunities, not only sports, but I think Jay and Adrienne were both talking about some of the interesting different things, graduations, for example, or awards banquets. A lot of those go on locally in almost every community. So there’s that opportunity if you’re interested in getting involved in this side of it.
The other thing that’s been a route that I’ve heard a lot of people have taken into getting into the sports side of it, A, just to sort of see how they do with it, B, help a team out that otherwise wouldn’t have any announcing or would have sort of subpar announcing, and C, sort of get your foot in the door, is to approach a local high school or maybe even a junior high school if they have announcing facilities available where they play various sports and see if there’s any level of the sport that doesn’t currently have an announcer and just volunteer to jump in there and do it. And I think that that’s a great way for, if there’s anybody listening today that’s in VO that’s interested in, hey, how do I get started in this? That’s a great way to do it.
You can just pick up and call your local high school baseball coach or softball coach or whatever coach and say, hey, does your JV team have announcing? And if not, would you like me to come out and do that for you? And nine times out of 10, what I’ve found is the answer is, yeah, come on.
We’ll give you a free hot dog and a cap. And then you’re in and you’re started and you kind of at least can begin building that groundwork. So I think that’s kind of a neat avenue that a lot of people kind of take to get in.
That’s great. So talking about helping out your local school, your local rec council, if they have those facilities, that’s fantastic. But there’s a question I had before we jump into how The Public Address has maybe affected your reads and other genres.
What’s the biggest arena or stadium that each of you has announced in? I’ll go first. With the crowd was the 5,000 seat Towson Arena, or CQ Arena is called now.
And for an audition where I actually met Bob for the local arena football league team was the Verizon Center. Oh no, now it’s the… Oh, what’s it called?
Capital One Center? Bob, help me out. The Capital One Arena in Washington.
I got to do an audition there, and ultimately did not get the job, but to hear my voice in an 18,000 seat arena was pretty cool. So how about everybody else? What’s the biggest venue you’ve heard your voice?
Well, for me, it’s definitely Capital One Field at Maryland Stadium, which holds a good 50,000 plus. When I do lacrosse there, especially when Hopkins comes into town, we’ll generally have about 15,000 in there. After that would be Xfinity Center, which holds almost 18,500.
And when Connecticut came to play Maryland women, we had a full house there. So that’s the largest crowd I’ve announced in front of, about 19,000 people. And generally for women’s basketball, it will be anywhere from 5,000 to 7,500 people that you’re doing the work for.
That’s great. Adrienne.
My biggest one was the Baltimore Orioles, and I’ve done about 15 games for them. And on some of the games, there’s been about 42,000 people, some days less. But that was definitely the largest facility.
And I hope they’ll ask me again this year. It’s just incredible to do it at that volume and that amount of people and the energy you get back from the people. It’s just an amazing experience all around.
So my largest is the Baltimore Orioles, Cannon Yards.
Awesome. Mike, how about you?
The largest facility that I have worked is AT&T Stadium in Arlington. And well, I’m not sure, Cotton Bowl in Dallas as well. So I’ve worked both of those rooms.
And those are interesting. The Cotton Bowl was a very interesting experience for me. It was my first high school football game.
And it was the ESPN kickoff classic that they were showing, I think it was nationally on ESPN. And so we had a pretty full house for that. And it was kind of a neat experience.
But they’ve got this little bitty tiny thing, looks like a lapel mic on a stick at the Cotton Bowl. And you walk in there and I was like, oh my gosh, what in the world could this little tiny mic possibly do? And I popped it and did a couple of test announcements.
And I was very, very impressed with what that little tiny microphone could do. So I guess it’s not the size of the mic, it’s the punch behind it. And then AT&T, I did, that’s probably the biggest room that I’ve been in, but-
Is that the baseball stadium where the Rangers play?
That is the Cowboy Stadium.
Oh, okay.
And it’s about 100,000, I guess, is the seating capacity there. And we probably had about 4,000 for the game that I worked because it was a high school sort of reunion football weekend thing where they had a couple, three games go on. So I announced those.
So it certainly was not to a full house, but nonetheless need to be in there and be working.
Awesome. Jay, how about you?
Yeah, as I said here in Think Back on things, that’s a great question because I never really thought about that, to be honest. You’re just kind of in the moment and like the other guests here, you just, hey, you want to be a part of stuff and you enjoy doing it, whether there’s six people sitting out there or 60,000. But for me, I guess the biggest building would be the Superdome in New Orleans.
Granted, kind of like Mike was just saying, we didn’t fill the place up for the high school state championship that I was PA announcing for, but that was the biggest facility. I guess it’s the Mercedes-Benz Superdome now. And in terms of actual crowd, that would probably be my Arena Football League PA announcing Nashville Cats.
We’re going back a ways here. The facility’s gone through a myriad of different names. It was the Gaylord Entertainment Center back then.
It’s the Bridgestone Arena now, and that facility holds about 17,000, 17,000-something like that. Close to 18,000. And I’ve done a number of events there where they packed that place.
So I guess those would be the two up there for me in terms of size of facilities.
Okay, great. And I saved the best for last because I know he’s going to win. So Justin, can you still hear me?
What’s the biggest facility you’ve announced for?
The biggest event that I’ve been a PA announcer for is roughly around 200,000 people. It was the Talladega Super Speedway, and I tried not to blow that out of proportion. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and they had, at its peak, had seating for 175,000, and then when you add in the RVs and the people that are in the infield, it’s easily 200,000.
They joke about when the race comes to Talladega, it turns into the third largest city in the United States, in the state of Alabama. So it’s a pretty large venue and bigger than anything that I’ve ever been able to try to recreate in a stadium or an outdoor gathering. I’ve had 25,000 people I’ve been in front of on a stage, but to be able to be in that booth and on the microphone, realizing there’s 200,000 people, it’s just mind-boggling.
Yeah, that’s awesome, Justin. I knew you would win with that story. That’s why I wanted to have you last.
So now we’ve talked about our public address experience specifically. I wanted to talk about how doing public address or live announcing or maybe even radio has affected your auditions or work with other more traditional forms of voice over, commercial, narration, audiobooks. Because one of the things I noticed is that once I’m doing that kind of work, or I get that in my head, especially for specs that are announcer read, loud commercials, I get into that mode where I’m punching the end of sentences and getting really loud at the end to try and pump up the crowd.
And it’s hard to get out of it where they want to have a more conservative or conversational read. Has anyone else noticed that happening to them when they’re doing those types of reads?
I would definitely say that. I have not.
To me, being in front of a live crowd is just a whole different mindset. I think I’ve got a completely different hat on than when I’m in the studio doing reads. And I would say that probably initially I had to work pretty hard at getting rid of kind of the radio part of it when I started non-radio voiceover.
But I think that transition was more difficult than any sort of interference, at least in my case, that I’ve seen from bleeding over from live PA.
OK, who else had a comment? Was that Jay?
Yeah, I would agree with Bob. I mean, for me, getting out of that wrong radio thing, I mean, I still do radio today. And so being able to, you know, you gain experience and you get a little older and you’re able to kind of ascertain what kind of presentation is appropriate, then you’re able to transition between these different types of VO work.
But I’ll admit it, I find myself still falling back at times into the kind of Ron radio stuff and the, that in some PA situations, it’s kind of appropriate, but yeah, being able to just kind of weave in and out of that stuff. I mean, it takes some, at least for me, and that’s one reason I go to these conferences and do the coaching and work with various other professionals to just get different takes on things and to how to get my mindset and my presentation and my breathing and my vocal style and so forth to meet the needs of the project that I’m currently working on, whether it be live, recorded or what have you.
Bob, I think you started to say, how have you found your experience on a live mic has translated to your audiobook work and other voiceover types?
Yeah, I would echo what Jay was saying. It seems like I’ve been doing public address announcing now, this is my ninth year, that that type of read, that type of genre, that type of energy in the arena, I’ve developed sort of a muscle memory in terms of how to read it, how to punch it, how to get excited, when to get excited, and it comes very naturally to me. When I sit down in my booth and do a corporate narration, like Jay said, that idea that you have to consciously now take that level down and not punch in area, not punch in too much, you want a little bit, but at the same time, just keep it much flatter than you would say in an arena.
And for me, that has been a bit of a difficult transition. As I’ve worked with different coaches, they immediately hear the announcer and provide me with techniques to sort of tamp that down a bit. And that’s really helped me in the last couple of years to develop as a voice actor in other genres as well.
Well, for me, I believe that it affected me negatively. I’ve heard both sides of the issue. But for me personally, and Paul, you were right there with me in the X-Session, when I’m trying to do…
I’m instructed to do a level above a whisper. And in my mind, what I thought was a level above a whisper, I was stopped in the middle of my first sentence that said, if you were doing that in my ear, you would have knocked me on the floor. So I think when you’re normally trying to project and you’re trying to get everybody rowdy and you’re trying to get people to cheer and you’re in the midst of a sporting event or you’re mentally trying to figure out if everybody can hear you, you probably project more than you normally do.
And for me and other people that have been in radio, the way that it was been described to me is that when you’ve been doing this a long time, it’s kind of in your DNA. You have to work really hard to get to a conversational read. So I think for me being a PA announcer and a radio announcer, I’ve heard and learned the hard way that it’s a complete different animal when it gets to VO work because it’s not about your voice in VO, it’s about the acting.
Yeah, and that’s the same experience I had. Your experience with Mary Lynn, as well as Jay and me, is what made me ultimately decide to do this episode now. I planned it a long time ago with Bob and Adrienne, but they were the only ones that I actually had on board to say yes.
And then when we had that experience, because I felt like all three of us were in the same boat where it was the same thing. What we were hearing in our heads was not quiet and above a whisper at all. And the way you made that turn at the end, it was so impressive that I thought to myself, wow, there really is something there.
And wishful thinking is that that’s part of what’s holding me back right now, because I’m not booking a ton, and I’m wondering if there’s other reasons. And that might be it, because I had the same issue where when I finally hit one with a coach and it’s conversational, it sounds to me like it sounds unnatural, and that it’s not even my natural. It’s not even my real voice, because I’m so used to hearing what’s coming out of the cans either at the stadium or on the radio.
Sure. And by the time that I got through with that read for the pomegranate juice, and I was having people in the room applaud for me, I thought that was the worst read that I’ve ever done. And Mary Lynn said, no, you’ve found your sexy voice.
And so I’ve tried to recreate that for a few auditions. It hasn’t booked me a job yet, but it is nice to know that I’ve got techniques, just like when I saw the technique that you used that was brilliant. When you walked over from the corner of the room, I don’t know if you were describing what you had for breakfast or whatever, but you didn’t take a beat and you started reading your script.
The amount of change from what we think in our head is a conversational read to those triggers and those techniques that a coach can give you is really, really necessary, in my opinion, to be able to get to a different type, one of those five different types of reads that we learned about.
Yeah, that was amazing. But pretty much everyone that Mary Lynn worked with, the transformation was amazing, it’s a matter of remembering that when you’re alone in your soundproof booth.
But that’s been the beauty of coaching. I’ve worked with some coaches just recently, Jay Michael Collins, for instance, and the techniques that he provides you specifically helped me instantly, one, to realize it, but two, to be able to immediately address it, and it’s almost a stair step, start completely flat, and then work your way up, whereas public address announcing, I mean, you’re at level 10 to begin with, and the idea that you very rarely actually come down from that. The other drawback to public address announcing, I do almost 80 events a year, it does put a bit of stress on your voice, and with all my other voice work, I’ve had to actually tailor that a bit.
If I know I have something to narrate, I’ll narrate it prior to my announcing gigs, and then use the following day where I can’t use my voice that much, and use that for editing and other things.
Good point. So Adrienne, how has your public address work affected your work in audio books?
With audio books, I feel that I transfer and change that hat, so to speak, pretty well. But I have noticed, as you said, when I’m doing voice overs, that it becomes a little staccato, that it’s not flowing as well because I’m so used to emphasizing points and putting a lot of emphasis on a certain word or a certain thing they really want to get them across at the stadium. So when I am trying to do voice work, I definitely feel that my sentence isn’t flowing as well as it should, and I kind of have to really redirect and bring the volume down and bring my energy down and sound a little bit more natural.
But in books, I feel like I get so into it that I don’t feel a problem in audiobooks, per se.
I guess at that point it all becomes about the acting chops and making sure that you’re getting your characters right.
Right, and I just get so… When I’m into reading and I get into the characters, I just get so involved because I love to read, I get so involved in the book I’m not thinking about it, and it just flows naturally. But I realize that occasionally when I do commercials, that it becomes a little more staccato.
Right. Any other further comments on that before we move on? So our last question, and we’ve talked about this a little bit, some of you mentioned it in your intros, but for those of you that are still doing PA or those that have stopped, what are your plans for the future?
Do you think it’s something you still want to continue to do? Or if you stopped, like me and Justin, is it something you think you might get back into? Or are you focusing more on commercial audio books, narration, those types of genres?
Why don’t we start with Bob?
Yeah, I’m going to continue with it. It remains a revenue stream for me for RJ Voices. So until I have something that overtakes that revenue stream, which maybe one day it will, I’m going to continue doing it.
Plus, I really do enjoy it. It does take a bit more time, though, than your normal voice over work. You might have a two-hour event for a PA announcer.
You have to get there a good hour ahead of time. And with traffic in the Mid-Atlantic region, for a three-hour game, I’m often away from the house for six hours at a time. So in that realm, it does put a bit of a time suck on things that you can do for other work that you might have.
But yeah, I’m going to continue it. Again, it provides me with FaceTime, if you will. It allows me to advertise, especially for women’s basketball, where people have more of a tendency to want to come up to you.
A lot of people say you have a great voice. I hand them a card. And just like that, they want to work with the Public Address announcer for Maryland basketball, women’s basketball.
So yeah, I’m going to continue it. I enjoy it. I like it.
And I think as I’ve gone through a lot of the training and conferencing, you often hear in the voice over world that where everyone might want to do commercials because that might pay the most. You really want to focus on a genre and just get really good at it. And for me, I kind of like PA announcing and I think I’m really good at it.
So I’m going to continue with it until something better comes along. But for me, as a lifelong Maryland Terrapin, I don’t see me leaving the Terps anytime soon.
Well, you are good at it, Bob. I’ve heard you live on several occasions and I’ve always been a fan.
Thank you very much.
And Adrienne, who I’ve also heard live, tell me a little bit about what your plans are for the future.
Face Talk starts out on April 5th. I’m still doing Georgetown Cross right now. And I’m really hoping to get into some voice work, more voice work.
I’m finishing up a book right now, a science fiction book. And I’m really hoping to start pursuing auditioning for more voice work and getting an agent like yourself. That is my…
Pursuing, I really want to be out there doing more commercials and online and e-learning.
Okay, great. Mike, how about you? Do you plan to continue your live announcing work?
Well, for the time being, yes. I always take the approach, particularly with sports and live PA, that if I’m having fun doing it, then I’m hoping the crowd is having fun with me. And so at whatever point it becomes, I’m not having fun doing it, then I’ll know that that’s probably the time to step out.
And same thing with radio. You know, I pretty much just do that for the fun and enjoyment of it. There’s no money in that anymore, really, unfortunately.
So voiceover, studio voiceover work is really what pays the bills, followed by PA, followed by radio. So I think that’s kind of my answer is, as long as I’m still having fun doing it, and they’ll still have me behind the mic, I’m happy to be there. And if either one of those two variables changes, then it’s time to hang it up.
Good advice. Jay, how about you?
Yeah, I was sitting here thinking what Mike was saying. I felt like just saying ditto. So much of what he said is kind of right, kind of where my wheelhouse is currently.
And he’s right about the radio thing. I mean, I’m just doing it for fun these days. It certainly doesn’t really pay that many bills, but still getting an opportunity for that live interaction.
I’m a sideline reporter for Citadel football and color analyst for Citadel baseball on radio. So those experiences have kind of morphed into other things that I truly enjoy. But for me, it’s the studio work that pays the majority of my bills, everything from the commercial work to the e-learning, the on-hold messaging, so on and so forth.
And the radio just kind of, as we know, the cliché, getting your blood and all that stuff. And it’s true. I mean, it’s just an itch that I scratch that only seems radio can do it in one particular way.
And then the public address announcing for me, it’s all about the fun, frankly. I’m not doing it to the degree I once did, but I do get called occasionally to handle some things. I will be honest that I’m so pressed for time.
As one of your guests said, I believe it was Bob. You know, heck, you can put a good six hours into the one event gig there. And not that you’re not willing to put in the hours, but hey, you got to economize and maximize and prioritize.
So there are times when I just don’t have the time, frankly, to really actively go after the PA sort of announcing gigs. But I really do enjoy them. I do enjoy that live energy that everyone has spoken about.
And for me, PA announcing has just become a fun thing that if I could do more of and make more money at, yeah, I’d probably do it. But it’s not something that I’m out there marketing myself as.
Well, I didn’t really enjoy it as much as I thought that I would on paper. Being a PA announcer, I thought was going to be fantastic. I did a little on the radio at my first radio job as a color commentator at a high school football stadium.
But when I got the opportunity to fill in at the Talladega Super Speedway, I thought, boy, that’s the cool factor to be able to tell people that you’re the PA announcer at Talladega Super Speedway. It went great on Facebook, but when you’re there live and you’re only reading ads while MRN is taking their break, it gets really stressful because you’re having to wait for somebody next to you looking at the radio producer, giving them a countdown for when they go back live and you have to wrap up your script. So you’ve got people tapping you on the shoulder, giving you a wrap-up signal, and you’re basically reading whether or not, you know, who the sponsor is for the caution flags or when the bar opens at 10 a.m. in the infield or please don’t throw trash on the racetrack.
So it wasn’t as glamorous as I had hoped that it would. Plus, it didn’t pay that great. So that’s why I’m not planning on doing that anymore and hoping to transfer and transition into full-time VO work.
My wife just recently gave me the green light because I told her that you were kind enough to invite me to be a part of this podcast, and I was excited about being a part of it. But she said, well, you know, if you really want to do that again, that’ll be fine. And I said, you know what?
Getting there before the race starts, getting your credentials and having to get up in the exterior outdoor elevator and you’re sharing a bathroom that doesn’t have a cover over when you’re waiting in the rain with all the TV folks is not the most glamorous thing. And then when you have to be there after the race is over with and you’re the last one to leave behind all of those drunk people trying to drive home on a back road and almost getting hit head on kind of made me say, no, you know, I think I’ll just stay out of that and watch it on TV if I wanted to keep following the race.
Yeah, that makes sense. PA in general is much more work than I think people think.
Yeah, it’s really high stress and high pressure and low pay.
Yeah, I remember going hours early to a game and you have to interview each coach to make sure you know how to pronounce everyone’s name. You have to find out if anyone didn’t travel with the team so you don’t have them on your substitution list. You have to know which number goes with each player.
That can be a lot of time out of your schedule.
Well, I also had my job threatened one time when I was a color commentator for the high school football team and I was challenging the coach’s decision to keep rotating in and out quarterbacks. And I made the comment that I didn’t think that the offensive line ever got into the rhythm that they needed to because once they got used to one quarterback, they would change them to another quarterback. Well, the coach decided to call up the radio station and tell them in no uncertain terms he did not want me ever broadcasting for their high school football game again.
Oh, my gosh. What would they pay you, like $25 a game?
Maybe. Then you would have to help break down the equipment, bring it back to the station, and then get up to be on the air at 5 o’clock the next morning. It really didn’t pan out the way that I really wanted it to.
Well, that’s great. So Jay, you mentioned studio work pays the bill, so let’s try and help you do that. How can folks find you if they want to hire you for their project?
Sure, sure. Well, thank you, Paul. That’s kind.
Yeah, you know, like everybody, I’ve got the website that at the moment is… Seriously, I mean it is in transition, so when you do open it and go, eugh, then, you know, it is… I’m telling the truth, it is in transition.
I’m just moving it from a San Diego provider to a local provider, but jharperproductions.com, J-A-Y-H-A-R-P-E-R, productions.com, all spelled out. They can track me down there and hear a couple of demos and stuff, but again, here probably in the next two weeks, you’ll have a more concise, streamlined site that will be a little more user-friendly.
Great. And Mike, how can folks find you?
Well, if you’re looking for me, I encourage you to search Fiverr, and when you don’t find me there, then you can come to my real website at voiceovermike.com.
Great. Adrienne, how can people hire you?
Adrienne underscore Roberson at hotmail.com. I’m also on a WIC site web page under Adrienne dot Roberson. And at Facebook, I really…
At Facebook and LinkedIn, I believe LinkedIn has really helped me get a lot of work, especially in the sports community.
Okay. And Bob, how can we find you?
I’m at rjvoices.com. I just updated my website with new corporate narration, explainer and e-learning demos, as well as the live event demo that I just did to help me transition, really, some of my work that I’ve done with PA Announcing over to other type of live event work. So, rjvoices.com.
Well, thanks everybody for joining us today. As I said at the beginning, I was excited about this. I’ve been thinking about this probably for about a year and a half, ever since I ran into Bob at the Capital One Center for that arena football league audition I mentioned.
And it’s something I’ve always wanted to talk about, and I appreciate everyone taking their time and sort of dispelling some myths, as well as confirming some of my thoughts about the live announcing and public address as it relates to other forms of VO.
I appreciate it. Thanks for including me.
Same here, Paul. I enjoyed meeting the others as well.
So once again, that was our PA Public Address Panel, or Reformed Public Address Announcers Panel. And I just wanted to say thank you to all of our guests, and apologize that I was not able to join you in this meeting. We had a couple of glitches trying to get our conferencing software to work.
I think we were really just kind of pushing the limits of what Bodago Call was capable of, trying to have a conference with six people, some being on phone, some being in areas with questionable internet connections. And so, I just thought it would be easiest if I removed myself from the equation and tried to put less of a choke on the bandwidth that way. So thanks again for bearing with us in those technical difficulties.
And hopefully we can have a more stable call if we try this again.
Yeah, still, it was interesting there. It was fun putting together and challenging putting together. Really tested my editing skills.
But in the end, it was a lot of fun. I’ve been trying to put this together for a long time. Way back at the last Mid-Atlantic VoiceOver Conference where I met Adrienne and we talked about our experiences doing Public Address, I really wanted to get some people on that had had a similar experience to me.
And I was glad that we were finally able to do it with the awesome cast of characters we had.
So thank you for that, Paul. And thank you to our guests once again. So that pretty much wraps up this episode of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Stick with us. We’ve got some exciting episodes coming up in the months ahead, particularly our International Talent Roundtable. So why don’t you talk about that, Paul?
Yeah, that’s gonna be a lot of fun. This came together after Voice Over Atlanta, where I met a bunch of people who were international voice talents. We’re gonna have Simone Clias from Brazil, Humberto Franco from Portugal, Susie Valerio from, I think she lives in the UK, but she’s a native Spanish speaker from Spain.
And we’re going to have Sofia Cruz, and as well as Christian Lanz. So we’re really excited about that panel. I can’t wait to hear what they have to say about how their international flavor affects their voiceover career.
Ooh, fancy. So I can’t wait for that panel. I’m really excited about the guests that we’re gonna be having on, but I just wanted to say thank you to our audience for listening in every month.
We hope you’re enjoying all the things that we’re spouting out, and we hope that… I don’t even know. I don’t know, Paul, what am I trying to say?
Say goodnight, Gracie.
Goodnight, Gracie.
Thanks for listening, everybody. We’ll see you next time. And once again, get well soon.
Paul Strickverda.
Get well soon, Paul. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.

The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hi there, and welcome to our live stream from VO Atlanta, The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. All right, how are you? And popping the mic as we do it.
And pop, pop, pop. So I wanna apologize, we all have the dreaded con voice today. It’s the third day of our con, but if you want any deep voice radio or audio book romance reads, now would be a good day to do that.
But right now, I’m here with my friend and coworker, David Toback and Paul Stefano. We’re on our third day of the VO Atlanta voiceover conference. How are you guys doing?
I am super excited. But I do have the lurch voice too. I think we did a little too much screaming at each other last night.
Actually, David and I were talking quite a bit last night. And that, in retrospect, was a bad idea. How are you, David?
I’m doing good, all considering.
You sound the best out of the three of us.
I’m starting to think it was an evil plan. He’s like, let’s make Paul talk, to make him sound terrible the next morning. So we’re going to run this pretty much like a normal show, where we have a couple of our preset segments, and we’ll do those, and maybe get some audience participation, maybe.
But first of all, the current events. What’s going on with you, other than VO Atlanta, Sean, or at VO Atlanta?
Other than VO Atlanta? Why wouldn’t we cover the conference while we’re here?
We’ll do that too.
So, right now, spent quite a few hours over at the GVA booth at the exhibit hall. You should definitely come and check us out. We’re talking about our new membership program.
We’re really excited about that. Something that we introduced about a year ago, and now we’ve expanded it into multiple tiers. So, we have our VO Beginner, our VO Cadet, and our VO Pro membership tiers.
So, we really wanted to cover basically any situation based on people’s individual schedules and their budgets, and we’re really proud with what we came up with. We feel like we have a really comprehensive program of just ongoing training and support. So, no matter where you’re at in your voiceover career, whether you’re just getting started or you just want access to additional resources and support, we can give you that.
So, if you’re at VO Atlanta, you should definitely come visit us at the GBA booth to find out about what we’re about and see which one of those tiers might be good for you. So, what about you, Paul?
We talked to both of those smiling faces too, mostly.
Yeah.
Smile for the camera, by the way.
I’m happy to be here. We’re just like, I’m tired today, man.
We should mention, by the way, we’re streaming live on VO Atlanta TV. So, hi, everybody.
Hi, everybody.
We’re not used to being on camera, so.
No, I know.
Actually, Sean is. You’ve done some on-camera stuff, but I’m not used to being on camera.
Oh, my.
So, yeah, obviously, it’s all VO Atlanta all the time right now, and I’m just having a blast. I’m so happy to meet all of my friends and coworkers and colleagues. It’s really like a big, happy family when you show up here after the conference starts, and even before, Wednesday was just a lot of fun.
So lots of hugs, lots of reminiscing, and just great to see everybody.
So for people who might not know what your role is, because you’ve gotten quite involved with some of the inner workings, the sausage making, if you will, of VO Atlanta. So what kind of tasks do they have you doing?
I haven’t made any sausage, but yeah. So for those of you that don’t know, I’m with the Audiovisual Services team here at VO Atlanta, and I am behind the scenes mostly, except for right now, I guess, setting up equipment, making sure the presenters have everything they need. I’m in charge of all the X sessions, except for right now, our pal and show contributor, John Rorder, is actually handling the coverage for me.
So if Tom Pinto or Kay Bass have any issues, John will be happy to handle that while I’m blabbering on right now. So thanks to John for that. I really appreciate his help.
He’s been an extreme help. But yeah, there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes. It’s really like a full production, and it’s fun, but it is also a lot of work, I have to say.
But we love every minute of it.
It’s really apparent, and honestly, this conference wouldn’t be what it is without the work that you guys do. So I really appreciate it. And our viewers might recognize John as the guy who does our on three.
One, two, three.
Oh wait, let me cue it up.
Oh, okay. Well, I was just gonna do an impression of him.
Okay, do that first, then we’ll compare. All right. All right, here we go.
Our Questionable Gear Purchase.
Okay, and here’s the B sample. Questionable Gear Purchase. Give it a B plus.
It was one of my better ones. I’m telling you, the convoice helped, but it’s just because, I mean, he’s got such a lovely base tone.
Do you have anything you’d like to report this week? No, and I haven’t.
I remember in times past, I had my own sort of like iPhone mobile rig attached to a selfie stick kind of thing. I used some of, like, sure came out with this motive line of products a few years ago where you can just kind of hook it up into a phone, either into the audio jack or through the lightning connection right now. Unfortunately, with Apple’s change to like USB-C, that stuff’s all obsolete, unfortunately.
At least until I upgrade my phone. But no, long winded story longer, no, I did not have any question…
It’s kind of my style.
Yeah, it kind of is. Rambling, I’m rambling, R-A-M-B-L-I-N. Anyways, Toback, what about you?
No, none yet, almost. I was looking at me buying a new computer, saw some people getting some Apollo twins, made me very jealous.
I know, oh my god.
I almost, but I stood strong and saved my money for other things. All because I listened to the show. For wise investments and training?
What would you do that?
Well, I have been sort of drooling over at the BSW booth, excuse me. So that’s Broadcast Supply Worldwide, I think. And so they’re one of the exhibitors here, and they’ve got the, speaking of Apollo, they’ve got the shiny new Apollo Arrow.
Oh, do they, really? I haven’t seen that. It’s in the hall?
It is, yeah, it’s tiny.
I was too busy talking to you fools when I was in the exhibit hall, I had to go check that out.
It’s like, so sort of, we have a perfect visual prop, but we’ve got these nice tabletop stands. It’s about the size of the base, actually. It’s very compact.
And the Apollo Twin units were already pretty compact themselves. A lot of our viewers probably are familiar with it. Paul uses it.
I’ve gone back and forth about whether I’m gonna get one. I don’t need it, but I want it, and everyone has one. And it’s so shiny and pretty.
But anyways, it’s a cool little compact interface that has DSP, digital signal processing power. And what he said, yes. And the reason why the Aero kind of stands apart is not only is it even smaller and more compact than the previous models, but since it’s running on Thunderbolt 3, I believe, or USB-C or whatever the connection is called, it’s actually, it doesn’t have a power cord.
Like the data in power cord is like that one connection. So it’s even fewer cables.
Yeah, it is Thunderbolt 3. That’s the one downside. So if you have an older Mac or a PC, an older PC too, you can’t really use it.
So actually, I almost made a questionable gear purchase.
Two questionable gear purchases, it would seem like.
But I don’t have a computer that has that port right now. And I went so far as to even start shopping computers, but that was just a bad idea.
Oh no, that’s another rabbit hole for another day.
Can you not have a dock connector or like Thunderbolt to you as well?
No, it does not. You can’t use a dock.
It has to be direct.
Oh no.
It has to be native, yeah.
That’s horrible.
Because I researched this, obviously.
How can I make it work? I got a cherry-rigget. But it’s funny because it really was Apollo’s sort of way to kind of lower the price and lower the cost of entry into their great line of products.
But I mean, whatever money you save is gonna be going to a new Mac or PC, which can still do that, also has that connection as well. But anyways, any other questionable gear purchases?
I have not, actually. And what we wanted to do, really, was throw it to the audience. We have one audience member right now.
What’s your name? Keela.
Keela?
Have you made any questionable gear purchases?
Are you familiar with our show? Have you listened before? Okay, so.
Well, thank you so much for coming. Yeah, so we’re all about a bit of tech geeks and stuff like that. And particularly Paul, has a terrible habit of buying new equipment before each episode.
And then we commiserate about how much we spent and how it’s made our lives not as easy, not much easier than we thought. So the idea always is to buy something because you think it’s gonna make your auditions better, you think you’re gonna book more jobs with it. And as most of the coaches here will tell you, that’s really not usually the case.
It’s not the equipment you use, it’s not the mic, it’s you, our friend Dan Leonard is fond of saying. So that’s why we created the name Questionable Gear Purchases because that’s what really it has become. It’s not really to make yourself better, it’s to make yourself feel better sometimes.
Well, exactly, and it’s not, I mean, we’re unabashedly about it. You know, we understand that it’s like, like you’re saying, Dan, it’s always like, will it help you read better? Will it help you perform better?
Well, you can talk about the confidence aspect, like in, I like looking at the shiny buttons. But yeah, we do understand that that’s not the best investment. Once it’s, and nowadays, it’s, we were actually talking, Dan Leonard and I yesterday, because I asked if he was excited about any new gear.
He’s like, no, I’m still using a 2i2 or a Yamaha 803. They haven’t really made anything that’s wowed in that way. And honestly, the cost for studios, or for studio equipment just goes down and down every year.
So nowadays, what used to cost easily $1,000 to get a mic interface and some kind of acoustic solution, like a booth or what have you, is now easily $500 or less. So it’s far more attainable for people. And if you want any recommendations for equipment, just go back into our early episodes.
We have, I know our second episode was all about microphones. We talked about maybe two dozen different kinds that we had either tried or had referred from other talent. And then of course our interface episode, which we had also, well, not as many, about a dozen that time.
Yeah, but still too many.
Still too many, seriously. But that’s just us. And we don’t want, as we say a couple of times on the show, don’t follow our example.
That’s the whole reason why we have it, is so that you don’t have to make these questions.
I do what I say, not as I do.
Exactly, exactly.
You just say it at the same time? Wow, that’s awesome.
We need to get him on here more often.
Synchronicity.
That’s right.
Our dads must have been alike. Yeah.
Feet, legs. So the next part of our show that we usually do is the VO Meter shtick. And because Sean was so kind as to do even more work than he normally does.
So if you’ve been to the VO Atlanta before, you know Sean, he’s all over the place volunteering. He’s actually up for the Unicorn Award. Or Unicorns…
Grant.
Grant, thank you. This year, he’s one of the finalists, along with Scott Chambers and… Susan Mazel.
Susan Mazel, thank you. So you’ve probably seen Sean around. If not, you should come talk to him because he’s just a heck of a guy.
Oh, thank you. But anyway, we’re gonna do our bumper that Sean was so kind as to get me before the show for the VO Meter stick and see how it goes.
Cheers.
Hey, everybody, it’s time for the VO Meter shtick. It’s time for the VO Meter… Oh, never mind.
The VO Meter shtick?
So, this is the segment where we talk about something funny that happened to us, either at a conference… Hey, there’s a tie-in.
I was wondering what the segue was. I was like, he’s being so nice to me, but then we’re gonna do our funny, like our funny segue?
Or something that happened to us at an audition, or just some faux pas we might have made during the last week or since our last episode. So Sean, do you have anything that’s happened to you? And if not, we’ll throw it maybe to Keela to talk about how she’s enjoying the conference so far.
What do you think?
I like it so far.
Yeah? Let me grab you a mic. I’ll bring it over.
Oh, cool.
Woo. I’m gonna tangle it here.
Oh, was it live? Or she could just come up here.
Yeah, why don’t you come over here?
Is your back to the camera?
Tell us the best part of the conference so far for you.
I have learned about marketing, how to start doing some direct marketing, cause that’s a goal. I’ve been asked twice if I was part of the kids group, which is very flattering. I just turned 30, so I clearly am doing all right, and I look like I don’t know where I’m supposed to be.
I might do that. See how far I can get with that angle? Yeah, I haven’t been to where the gear is yet.
Oh, it’s in the exhibit hall.
Yeah, there’s a couple of booths.
I know SE Electronics has one, and then BSW as well.
It has the banquet level right next to the grand ballroom. This is my VO Meter. People always would ask me for directions, not just the exhibit hall or where the events are, but the bathrooms, where I can find water.
I’ll ask you where something is later. I brought candy, I’ll give you candy.
Come prepared.
She’s great, awesome.
Impressive.
Anything you’re looking forward to?
I’m just looking forward to learning as much as I can. And I’m really new to voice over, and so I wanna just take it all in and then leave feeling like I’m ready to just hit the road running.
Absolutely, no, I understand. That’s probably one of the best advantages of something like VO Atlanta, because a lot of people who don’t come to the event, they’re like, oh, it seems like such an investment, is it really worth it, what’s the direct return? And that’s gonna be different for everyone.
It’s really hard to measure that. But one thing I can say, it’s just the networking, the friendships that we make at this event, pretty much make, like, yeah, it’s worth the cost of admission alone. And like you were saying yourself, it’s really motivating just because, and some people come in wherever they’re at in their career, they are usually able to just get one golden nugget and find a direction and find a focus and then build to progress their business throughout the year from that starting point.
So if you have an opportunity to go to an industry conference like VO Atlanta, highly recommend it. So make it happen, folks. I mean, you can volunteer, you can get involved with it and reduce the cost that way, but highly recommend it, or maybe join one of the smaller conferences that are in your area.
But definitely build that network, meet people in person, shake some hands, and yeah, just spread the joy, spread the love.
And if I can interject, I mean, I think something that’s really good about our industry in general is how supportive everyone is, and you can come in here and talk to Townsend Coleman, who’s a teenage manager, a star in the industry, and he’ll just sit down and have lunch with you and talk to you. So you can learn a lot from the greats, and so that’s really encouraging.
Well, and that’s what I love, is because there’s a lot of big talent here, but there are no big egos. It’s wonderful. Everyone is so genuine, and they’re really open and supportive and generous in spirit, and it’s really motivating to behold.
I know my friend Jatem, we were actually on the team challenge last year together. She’s an on-camera actress as well. She’s spent many years in theater, and she was tearing up, because she’s just like, it’s so cutthroat compared to what we experience.
Yeah, thank you so much, Keela.
Since we had an audience, I figured we might as well use it. Wonderful.
Thank you so much, Keela, for our extemporaneous interview and joining us. Speaking of interviews, though, we have two wonderful guests today who have joined us. Like I said, we’ve got my buddy David Toback from the Global Voice Acting Academy.
Not only is he our Chief Finance Officer, but he does just about everything else. So, David Toback, for people who aren’t familiar with you, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your involvement with GBAA?
Sure. Well, I guess I’m the Operations Manager, but as you said, I do…
The everything guy.
Everything, yeah. So I manage the finance, the accounting, the purchases, the marketing, the website, and everything in between, making sure that the day to day happens and that we provide top level education to people consistently and with no hiccups. No, we wanna make sure things are at a professional level, not having…
We have a lot of classes and things, so there’s a lot of things to coordinate and organize, make sure that people know where they need to go. So just kind of all the day to day, making sure people get what they need when they need it and make sure they get the education that they’re looking for.
David, one of the reasons we wanted to have you on was because you’re a veteran of VO Atlanta. Can you tell us a little bit about what it means to come back as a returning talent and what you’ve enjoyed as… What’s your third or fourth?
Third year, yeah.
So as a third year member of VO Atlanta, what’s been good for you?
Well, I think every year I try to find something I wanna specialize for that year. I mean, my first year, I was a national sponsorship winner, or is it sponsorship?
Scholarship.
Yeah, he was actually, yeah, because I was the international winner and he was the national one, and that’s how we met for the first time.
And I came in and I was, like I’m sure, Kayla, right?
Kayla.
Sorry, I pronounced the bell wrong.
Nailed it.
You know, when you come, you’re overwhelmed. Well, the first time, you may not know that many people and it’s overwhelming and you kind of just fumble around and not really know what you need to do. And the next year, you’re like, okay, I’m gonna have a plan this year.
And so I tried to do that every year. And I think this year, my main focus has really been the GBA. So I do work full time for them.
So this is kind of a cross between a work conference for me for our purposes and then for myself, a educational. So I wanted to make sure I get an accession and go to a couple panels. But, you know, I’ve been able to see a lot of friendly faces, like you said, Paul, you know, I got off the shuttle and people were just running and hugging you and it’s just a really good time to recharge.
I actually had experience on the shuttle. I was waiting for the shuttle kind of by myself and all of a sudden Uncle Roy comes up and then Brad Hyland and John Rorda. So it was like a big party even before we got to the hotel.
It was awesome.
Exactly, and as I’ve been saying…
There were some poor schmoes who were not with us that were not going to our hotel. And I was like, oh my gosh, these poor people. Blabbering on non-stop the entire ride.
We were doing, what was it? We were doing voices in our Lyft drive last night. We were like, we’re sorry, we’re voice actors.
We’re at our conference. You probably get this all the time.
That started on the plane for me because there’s a talent that’s in Orlando. I live in Orlando. And we always wind up being on the same flight every year it seems.
And this time we sat next to each other. And from the minute we sat down, we didn’t stop talking until we landed. And I said, luckily it’s only an hour and a half flight, but these people must be pretty tired about hearing all this stuff around us.
But hey, at least it wasn’t a baby crying.
Yeah. You just have to entertain them with sock puppets or something.
There’s some present voices.
So David, as a returning person, I had this problem where I feel like there’s too much to do because when I was first coming, I didn’t really know a lot of the presenters or a lot of the sessions. So I didn’t know what I was missing, but now I do because I’m looking at the schedule and saying, oh, I need to go to that. How do you balance that, knowing all the things you want to go to?
It’s a challenge, I think. I think it’s even more challenging this year because there seems to be even more available. So there seems to be at least three things that seem to be pretty impactful at every time slot.
So I think it’s, again, finding that your goal for the conference, and is it marketing or business for this year or is it performance related and try to cater to those panels and try to find the things that are gonna be valuable for your business where you are right now. Some people, like, oh, I wanna go to a promo panel, or I wanna go to a promo breakout session. Are you studying promo right now?
Or is that something that you’re really gonna be looking to do or are you just doing it for fun? So I think putting too much on your plate can kinda scatter that. So I like trying to be a little bit more focused and try to pick the things that you think will be the most valuable for where you are right now in moving towards your goals for the next year.
Absolutely. Like we were saying, it’s almost like there’s four conferences going on at once just because there’s some pretty clear paths that you can take. For example, there’s a big focus on e-learning and narration this year.
There’s a bit of an animation track. And of course, the business and marketing. And so you really have to figure out…
And we’re not saying that you shouldn’t have any fun at all. Of course, you should take advantage of that. I mean, where else are you gonna be able to meet Michelangelo or The Tick or some of your favorite animation stars or idols in the areas of promo or what have you.
So definitely make time for that. And you really should… Like it’s impossible not to have a good time.
But for example, find the balance. Like for me, I’m trying to go to a few e-learning panels, but we’re also balancing our time promoting GVAA. And just for fun, I’m personally doing some character demos this year so I can actually rationalize going to a few of those funner animation character based sessions.
I don’t think that’s a word by the way. Funner.
Funner? More fun.
Oh God, I’m an English major. Shh, we can edit that.
You know, I would just say the other way to approach that is if you don’t have time to get to everything, try and find the people you are going to see as a presenter or as a host, and talk to them when you’re at lunch. And that’s one of the great things about VO Atlanta is we have these community lunches where everybody gets together, and there’s no pressure and no egos. You just go down, you can sit down with somebody, have a conversation about your kids, about your dog, about your favorite sports team, and maybe not even talk about VO, and everyone is really happy to do that.
Yeah. I think to segue on that, or not segue, but to take off on what you said, the first day, wound up eating lunch with Dave Fennoy, and it was with Brad Venable and a couple other people, and we were just chatting about all kinds of things. And all of a sudden, a real life situation that we were talking about came up, and Dave said, wait, I want to teach right here.
He started talking about how, you see how you were just doing this, you can apply that to VO. And he kind of had a teaching moment because he loves doing that. So even if you’re making a relationship with there’s a coach or a presenter, usually those people that are coaches, they’re coaches for reasons, or for reasons.
See, I’m doing it too. For a reason.
Maybe they have reasons.
But a lot of times they like helping people. And so you can get valuable lessons too while you’re networking and making friends.
Yeah, absolutely. So David, thanks for joining us. We actually have another guest who we want to introduce.
So Heather, would you mind saddling up next to me? Our open seat here. We are proud to introduce Heather Masters, who is a first timer here at VO Atlanta.
And what are you drinking? What is that?
That green tea. Or a magical confection. Label out.
Awesome.
Videoing? Oh yeah.
We’re live streaming to VO Atlanta TV.
I’m not an on camera actor.
There’s a lot of acting here.
As a first timer, Heather, can you tell us what you’ve enjoyed so far?
Well, I’d like to, but having been sitting here for the past 10 minutes, I believe everyone stole everything I was gonna say. That was really great. I appreciate it.
Would you ask me what I learned?
What are you enjoying so far? We’ll get to that. That was my next question, but thank you for stealing it.
Okay, because I have something for that. What am I enjoying so far?
Like has already been said, but it’s the truth.
I think the biggest thing for me is just the opportunity to be with everyone and to build these relationships. I’ve only been to one other conference, and that was WolfCon, and I came here with the thought, okay, I met people in real life there. Can I build on those relationships at that point, or am I gonna come here and have to start all over?
And they’re like, I have no idea who you are.
Who are you?
And because, which is reasonable, because they met me once. I think that’s been my biggest kind of moment, is that it’s not been like that at all. The people that I met there, they’re gracious enough to remember me and to talk to me.
And I feel like things, relationships, that kind of got initiated.
Kindled.
Started.
That’s the word, it worked. I’m a speechifier.
We’re here on the Synonym panel. They’ve been able to be slightly expanded here, and I feel like built upon. And that, more than anything, makes me feel like, and so I’m gonna come again.
Because if, okay, we met here, built a little here, well, I feel like that’s gonna continue. And for future conferences, we can build more like, okay, so what did you do this past year? And build real relationships, which is so important and vastly grander than, I like your Facebook picture.
Well, I mean, but I’ve just been watching you interact with some of these people who are like stars and idols for all of us here. But I mean, you would never know that this is her first time, that if she’s just going there, she’s composed, she’s confident, she’s funny and engaging, and she’s having a great time and she’s leaving a good impression on people. So it’s just like…
As far as you know.
I paid Sean to say that.
Just laying on the…
Can I?
No, go, my bad.
Well, I was just gonna say, what’s really funny is that I would like to say a little hint to people who are perhaps not naturally extroverted, which I fake it really well, but I’m actually not. I’m actually an introvert. And were it not for the fact that I had met a few people and could kind of like…
I told Paul in the very beginning, I was like, Paul, I may just kind of glom on to you. And so people that I met before, because I was brave enough to come to one, or brave enough to instagate, initiate at one point…
Every time, Heather, okay.
But because of that, then now, because I feel like the first conference I went to, I very much did just kind of stand in the back and just kind of made a few connections, but was very intimidated. And so I feel like for this one, those people that have been kind enough to remember me, now I kind of am bold enough to be like, I’m gonna come stand next to you. And that’s all it takes to be able to have a friendly face that you can recognize, even just come stand next to, and then conversation starts.
And then it’s organic and natural and hallelujah.
Lots of smart networking. I mean, that’s kind of Networking 101, which maybe you didn’t know, but you’ve created it now. But yeah, you find a wingman basically, or wing person to be a PC.
Heck, a lot of people will come with a friend or a partner or an accountability buddy or whatever you wanna call it, and to just kind of, like you said, have someone to fall back on. And it’s really cool, cause it’s like, and like we were talking about before, people wonder what you get out of the conference, exactly what you put in. So if you isolate yourself and you’re just kind of a wallflower, I mean you can learn a little bit, but I mean if you get actively involved and you push yourself out of your comfort shell, or lending things together.
I mean, economical.
It’s worth noting though that that only works when…
Walking on egg zones over here.
That only works when the community in which you’re interacting is welcoming. And that’s, again, it’s worth mentioning. That’s a great part of the voiceover community, is that everyone is so welcoming.
I’ve been in other businesses, as we talked about, in previous lives, and it’s not always like that. You can go into an event and you try and talk to somebody and it’s like talking to a wall, either because they’re not good at networking, or sometimes because they just don’t want to talk to you.
Yeah, or they want to withhold their information.
Yeah, that too. That’s the other great part about the community for voiceover, is that there’s no secrets, for the most part. People are willing to share what they’ve learned and sort of pay it forward, and that’s just so fantastic.
I have to say that that is something that I’m continually like, for real!
Because even, you know, I come from a theater background and sometimes in a theater world, I come from a very tiny pool of theater. And man, when I went there, I was like, hey, you know, I have a theater degree, I should be one of you, and they were like, we don’t know you.
I know.
And that was it. Like, they completely dismissed me, and I kind of laughed, because I was like, oh, you’re not LA.,
you’re not, you know, you’re a tiny little place, like really.
Yeah, where was this place that you mentioned that?
Well, Alaska, the foremost theater.
Right, it’s worth mentioning that this was Alaska.
Right, right, which is, yeah, but that kind of made it even more so, when he says things like that, you know, from an outside perspective, you’re like, but really? You know, and that’s one thing that I’m continually baffled by, because I don’t think it’s that way in the rest of the entertainment industry, but the people here, they genuinely want to help. I just passed Elly Rae Hennessey, who’s kind of a big deal.
Amazing.
In the hallway, and she may have been coming from an accession or, no, whatever. She was coming from something. And just people…
People… But people were stopping her as she’s walking, and you know what? I’m sure she’s tired.
I’m sure, you know, she has been going non-stop, but it wasn’t like, you know, she didn’t have her handlers by her that were like back off.
Ellie Ray is in the DaVinci room right now, on the lower level.
But she stopped. And she was completely engaging and completely friendly. And I just don’t know where else you can find a community like this.
Yeah, it’s so true. I had a business life in my previous life, and you know, people step on you to get over you, and here people take out the ladder and prop it up to help you come up as well, so…
They will offer you their shoulders.
Yeah, they’re like, here, get on my back. And I think it’s because there’s a common struggle that there’s no guidebook to voice over. You can go into the theater, and there’s schools and programs, and you can kind of have a guide, and here you just kind of fumble around until you figure out.
And so everyone has that same experience, and I think there’s also that ego at play. There’s not as much of a drive to be on camera, and I think it has something to do with just our personalities in general. And so it’s really refreshing.
I know Paul’s coming from different lives, and it’s so refreshing when you come into a place and you’re like, this can’t be real. This can’t be real.
Yeah, and it’s like you’re saying, so we were talking about people who might be, like believe it or not, I’m an introvert too. A lot of people are like, but yeah. And I will say, you gotta make time to recharge and self-care, but if you’re worried about being able to interact with people, keep in mind, this is an entire conference of 500, 600 people who love the same thing you do.
Except for the fine folks from Cotter Airways. I rode in the elevator yesterday with like four flight attendants and a pilot and all their luggage. It was kind of cramped.
Oh man, yeah.
Those poor people, I feel so bad for them.
What’s going on, this is so cool.
Yeah, I think they were kind of.
If I can make one suggestion as a VO Atlanta veteran, for other people, when they start to come back, find that person that looks like they’re a deer in the headlights and say hi to them. Pay it forward, because I think I found some people there, they look like they’re new, and I’ll just be like, oh, hey, how you doing? Don’t you know who I am?
Not at all. And then sometimes it gives them a better feeling, or that they’re, oh, okay, loosens things up and they feel like maybe I can talk to people or hopefully someone else will do the same. So if we all do that, then we’ll make everyone else feel comfortable.
There we go. I’m gonna throw a shout out to my friend David Gilbert. You should practice the three feet meet method.
Have you heard of this?
Oh yeah, if you’re within three feet of someone. So instead of just awkwardly acknowledging them quietly, just like, hey, and everyone’s got name tags. You can be sly and try and learn someone’s name that way.
It looks great as a hashtag, and I’m totally not being serious. That was a joke on Facebook. David put that out there and I said, David, did you say that out loud or look at it in print?
Because it comes out a little different. A friend of ours, Rob Marley, he’s got a fabulous blog about just the various, like getting into voiceover and stuff like that. And he’s got a great series on not just VO Atlanta, but networking events in general.
Like, everything’s from, like, pretty solid advice, like bathing, you know, having a breath in on hand. Yeah, exactly, because you want to leave a good impression, not just be like, not a stanky face over there. But…
But that might have been where he got the three meet greet rule. But like we were saying…
No, it’s three feet meat. You gotta get it right.
Oh, no wonder. Yeah, I hope he used the right vowel combo there.
All right, enough shenanigans.
Oh, God.
So we’re about a little over halfway through the conference, and I’m wondering what everyone is still looking forward to. What’s the thing you’re most excited about going into Saturday? Heather, why don’t you start?
You’re already like visibly backing away.
I’ll start. I’ll start then. I’m looking forward to the closing ceremonies because last year that was very inspirational, where the inaugural…
Oh my God, I used that word again. The inaugural. We started our podcast journey with that word and it didn’t go very well.
So anyway…
It just sounds like one of those words, like I’ve only seen it in books.
So the very first Unicorn Grant was presented last year to Jen Henry and the response and just the outpouring of support was just amazing. There were tears everywhere. And I’m hoping that is a repeat on Sunday or tomorrow at this point.
Yeah.
So what people, for people who might not be familiar, they introduced this new thing called the Unicorn Grant and basically, it’s just a huge step up into the industry. And it goes to someone who really encapsulates the giving spirit, not only the hard work and the talent that you would expect from a voice talent, but really that support and willingness and generosity of spirit to help out and give back to the community that’s been so good to us. So this included mentorship, demo production, money from studio equipment.
A lifetime subscription to Bedalgo.
Lifetime?
Yeah, a lifetime membership. And I’ve talked to Armie, he’s like, we’re not always going to do that. But it’s an incredible gesture.
And the thing is, this is huge, and it would be really easy to be jealous or envious of someone getting all of these wonderful benefits, but it couldn’t have gone to a more deserving person. And I’m going to use this to say, we’re going to talk about myself, but I…
If you weren’t, I was going to, so.
Okay, well, thank you. And for people who don’t know, I have been nominated as a finalist for this same grant. And just to be this far, because apparently finalists already get their own list of benefits, so it’s like…
It’s amazing, because it’s like basic. Some people are like, what are you going to do if you lose? I’m like, I already won.
It’s like they basically told like, hey Sean, you won, and you might win more. So like, how can I be disappointed about that? And I’m alongside two wonderful people, Scott Chambers and Susan Maisel, who I’ve met at VO Atlanta and have become fast friends.
And we already said, like, no, even if we lose, we win. Okay, because we have an entire community of people who recognized, like, it’s not like any of us were actively doing this for accolades or praise or anything out of it. We just wanted to help people.
And the fact that the community has seen that and recognized that and validated us is huge. I honestly…
I’m gonna… It’s gonna be epic.
It’s gonna be epic. And so if you’re here tomorrow, and like, no matter what happens, I know I’m just gonna be like…
Just watch the stairs this time.
Yeah, watch the stairs. So thank God nobody saw a recording. But when my team won the team challenge last year, I was so excited that I was just like, I don’t know, I ran up there like a baby giraffe.
No, I almost hit my temple on the freaking stair rail. I don’t know how I just kind of… No, it was ridiculous.
No, no, no, I don’t know how this happened. I kind of like, I tripped right as I got to the stairs, and then my arms kind of gumpied out or spider monkeyed out. I grabbed both and I kind of just like shimmied.
Like I was a kid on a jungle gym, and I managed to just barely graze my head on my hand. And I was just like, seriously, I’m going to knock myself out right now. They’re going to have to stop the conference.
That video is out there. You should YouTube it. David, what are you looking forward to other than Sean falling again?
That was it, really.
What was your biggest part of the conference?
Well, I’m looking forward to heading back to the GVA booth, but I’m also going to be looking forward to the Rates panel that’s going to be going on today at 2 p.m. I may be going up and talking, so we’ll see. I’m going to be in the audience. I think I’m going to be in audience participation, but for those that don’t know, the GVA introduced a rate guide about two years ago.
We’re coming up on two-year birthday, so that’s been a big player in the industry, and we’re going to be talking about that.
Don’t undersell it. You were incredibly instrumental in that. You technically spearheaded that.
Can I say that I have that printed out? I use it all the time. Because I’m in Alaska, and I have only been in this industry for four years, so, I don’t know.
And so, it’s been such a godsend to be able to have something that’s like, okay, well, I know that this is… I’m not selling out my industry. And it’s fantastic.
And we just came out with a brand new update, so if you’ve been using it and you didn’t catch our live stream or get our email, we did do a massive update, so go back and check it out and enjoy it, because it’s pretty good.
Yeah, and we want to remind people that it is really a resource for everyone. It’s a free resource. And we just want to maintain the quality of the industry and fair compensation for all talent.
And a lot of newer talent undersell themselves, because they’re like, yeah, I’ll work for exposure, I’ll work for experience.
It’s $200 for a national commercial.
That’s good, right?
But it’s just unconscious incompetence. And it sounds bad, but it just means you don’t know what you don’t know. And so you have this example, and it is a guide, it’s not a gospel, okay?
It’s just to give you ideas, like a starting point. Because you can negotiate up or down based on those rates, but it’s just to make sure that you’re not damaging the industry as a whole. Because as we continue to see, there is a fight to maintain fair rates for us.
Absolutely.
And people have embraced it. There’s some cool stuff. There’s some pay to play that have embraced it.
And there’s one that mandates that their clients have to acknowledge that they’ve read it before they post every job. And there’s others that are putting it into the algorithm so that there’s going to be rates that will be standardized. So that’s really cool.
So every year it gets more adopted. And we’re hoping the goal is for it to be kind of a non-union industry standard. And I think we’re heading that way.
I think it’s there already.
It’s amazing.
That’s great. Fantastic work on that. So Heather, have you had a chance to think, what’s the thing you’re most looking forward to the rest of today or tomorrow?
Okay, so I’m torn because part of me wants to give like this scholastic answer that’s really going to like, you know…
Give us the real answer.
The real answer is…
I’m really excited about the imbrab tonight.
How often do I get to go to a show? Come on. So I’m excited about that.
And just because last night was really great as an opportunity kind of outside of everything just to talk with people that I was in X sessions with and kind of like, wow, yeah, it was just a really great after hours. Yeah. So that’s what I’m looking forward to.
All right. That’s great. So we’re almost out of time, unfortunately.
I can’t believe how fast this went. But any parting words anyone wants to impart on our audience, either in the room or live on VO Atlanta TV?
Yeah. First off, I want to thank our audience member, Keila. She was charming enough to fill the room, guys.
But I just want to say for any attendees who are here, who see this, please come see us at either the GBA booth, or if you see Paul or Heather walking around, say hi, introduce yourselves. And again…
Do you know where the bathroom is?
I’m happy to answer those questions.
I know everything.
He can help you out. Whether or not you have access to a conference like VO Atlanta, find your tribe in other ways. It might be through social media.
It might be through a workout group in person or locally. Build that network to help you maintain your accountability and give you something like a leaping off point to keep you accountable and…
Maybe a leaning point. Maybe to lean forward.
This podcast was brought to you by VO Atlanta.
Lean forward.
Lean forward.
I just want to say thanks to everybody for watching live one of VO Atlanta TV. Thanks to Gerald for allowing us to do this. Yeah, absolutely.
And helping me set it up, honestly. Equipment wise. Thanks to Brandon Faxton and Cam Cornelius for setting up the streaming.
And thanks to Kerry Donovan for saving my bacon right before we started where we had a tech issue. So, appreciate all the help and thanks for having us. That’s it for The VO Meter live at VO Atlanta.
All right, so can you guys join it? Well, first off, we didn’t thank our guests. Oh, sorry.
They’re sitting right next to us. Thank you to Heather Masters.
And David Toback for coming on.
And Keila for coming on the spot.
Yeah, very brave.
All right, so since we have you guys here, we’re going to wrap up. Paul and I are going to say thanks for watching The VO Meter and then you guys say measuring your voice over progress.
It has to be one take.
It has to be one. I know. You already got your practice.

The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hi, everyone, and welcome to Episode 21 of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
We’ve got lots of stuff to talk about. We’ve got a great episode coming up for you today. It’s a short month with lots of stuff to fill it in.
We’ve got a great guest with us today. It’s Tom Dheere. He’s a voice actor and marketing specialist and coach.
And he’ll be coming up with us in a few minutes. But first up, current events. Current events.
Right. Current events. So, things that are happening with me.
First of all, this past weekend, not VO related, but I’m celebrating because I’m a native Philadelphian. Is that the right way to say it? Yeah.
Philadelphian. I’m always thinking of Ron Burgundy when he says, San Diego, San Diego, Philadelphian. And my Eagles just won the big game.
So I’m super excited about that. Can I get a Fly Eagles Fly? Fly Eagles Fly on the road to…
No, nobody wants to hear that.
Too much sports in for this non-sporter.
You’re not a big fan, huh? Not a huge fan.
I appreciate the event, the experience, but I’m not a huge fan of football.
Yeah, anybody who knows me knows that I, most recently, have not been either, and it was kind of a conscious decision. I didn’t want my kids to grow up to play. They both are…
I have two boys, and they both were interested in it early on, and I tried to steer them away from it. But once the Eagles were in the big game, for the first time ever that they actually won it, we jumped right back on the field.
They’re kind of near us. It’s your team.
Yeah, I mean, I’m not that far from there now, and we actually drove up to spend the time with my parents and my cousins and aunts. So it was a good time to just experience that camaraderie and fun. So that was this past Sunday, and we had a great time.
I, unfortunately, was not able to watch The Big Game because I was busy editing a large audio project, but other than working with some return and regular clients, lots of stuff is going on. I’m taking some character coaching to work towards a character demo with the awesome David Rosenthal, the CEO for the Global Voice Acting Academy.
It’s been a lot of fun. Right now, I’m working on a swaggery anti-hero voice. Think Jack Sparrow, but a little bit more articulate, less drunk sounding.
A little bit of swagger to him, kind of going in the deeper register there. Very sexy-like. So that’s fun.
Other than that, just been doing a lot of work for GVAA. We’re introducing some new membership tiers that we’re going to talk about officially when we launch them at VO Atlanta next month. We’ve got this great new webinar coming up with talking about the new tax laws and how they might affect you and your voiceover business.
We got a friend…
Very timely.
Yeah, very timely indeed. We got an actual CPA, John Lascoe and Rob Siglund…
You said Matthew Lascoe?
John Lascoe. So I don’t know if they’re related.
Do you remember Matthew… I accidentally met Matthew Lascoe. He used to do these crazy government tax self-help books, and he would dress up in a blazer covered in green dollar signs.
Oh, yes.
You can say, millions of dollars just by signing up for government programs. That guy.
That guy, yeah.
Not related, probably.
Kind of like Maury if he had been on amphetamines for too long.
Yeah, exactly.
But no, we got an actual CPA and Rob Siglim… I can never get his name right. Rob Siglim Paglia.
Siglim Paglia.
Who is a voice actor and entertainment lawyer himself. And so that webinar, once again, is New Tax Laws and You. It’s going to be happening live on February 27th at the end of the month, at 530 Pacific Time, 830 Eastern Time, and it’s only 30 bucks.
It’s $29.95. So, I mean, we’re going to learn all sorts of stuff about how these new laws can affect you. So if you’re interested and or you’re just getting started and you want to figure out more legal or some of the legal ramifications of a small voice over business, then this webinar is for you.
What about you?
Yeah, I have a few things going on. I recently started a new vertical in the business, actually several new verticals, in bidding for e-learning jobs. I decided to try and eliminate the middleman, so to speak.
So, there was a lot of jobs on some of the various freelance sites, where I was getting hired as the voice actor, and then being, the service being sold to another client. So, essentially, there was a middleman between me and the end client. So it was usually a video producer who was hiring me as the voice and then selling the whole package of the video and my voice to an advertising agency or a computer, an IT firm, so they could use that for their training.
So I started gathering up a list of contacts that I had from doing all these jobs and bidding myself as the video creation company. So I’ve actually started a separate entity. It’s something I might want to talk to Rob Sagan Pugley about.
But I’m now bidding on jobs as a whole project where I have several animators and graphic artists that I work with and we bid together on the jobs. So I’m taking the lead on getting the voice done first and then the animation and then it’s a whole package for the client.
Cool.
So like expanding into production. Yeah, more or less. And what that’s done more than anything is allow me to bid with fair rates because what typically happened was people would think of the voice last and it’s not only in the voice and the people I’m working with but there’s a lot of projects where the voice is the afterthought and what I’m trying to do is get that out in front and say the voice is probably the most important part because it’s the tone of the project you’re working on, especially if it’s a video or a presentation.
And in fact, when I set up this sort of, I put out a contest on one of the freelance sites to get these people to come and apply to work with me. And one of the first comments was, isn’t it usually the other way around where the voice is an afterthought? Actually said afterthought.
And I said, no, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong. The voice needs to be the lead and the most important part of the project. So I’m hoping this works out where we can gain some traction this way.
So far the results are pretty positive. I’ve had a ton of people get back to me and I have several projects I’m working on right now and we’ll see how it goes.
So, what is the next step for Stefano Productions?
Actually, I’m glad you asked. Because the other vertical I was talking about is marketing my kids as voice over artists. I’ve mentioned this before and I think my oldest two have actually had demos done when we did the last episode, but now all three, I’m proud to say, have demos out there and are signed to multiple agents.
The same ones that I’m with, no new agents, but they each have five agencies that are representing them around the country and in Canada and are getting auditions and my middle son is going to be working on an audiobook starting next week, so things are really picking up for them as well. It’s like a whole family affair now.
That’s really, really cool. What about your wife? Is she doing any voicing or is she just the accountant?
She’s the accountant right now. We actually thought about it because we’re working on a project where I needed a mom. They wanted a whole family of actors and my wife just wasn’t around because it is tax season and she’s a CPA, so I did bring in a colleague to work on that to play mom, but maybe down the line we’ll see what happens.
It’s your work wife.
Right. And then finally, the last thing I want to mention is that I am now a graduate of the Sean Allen Pratt Narration Coaching School.
We’ve been going at it for almost two years with a hiatus built in there, so don’t be scared away by working with Sean. He doesn’t always take that long, but he is pretty flexible if you have to take a break and come back, which I did for a while. But after two years we have finished and he’s mailing me a certificate, actual certificate that says I’ve graduated the program.
So this is just strictly for narration coaching. He does do other forms of coaching now and actually offer it to go forward with fiction. But I’m going to try and do some other things and see how that goes before I go back with him.
Maybe at some point I will do some fiction coaching with him, but right now I’m going in a different direction for the time being.
Yeah, when it comes to nonfiction, there’s fewer coaches that you can do better with. Sean is fantastic. I’ve done a couple of sessions with him as well, and I can’t recommend him highly enough.
Yeah, he’s been on the show as well. So if you want to listen to that episode, what was it, Episode 14?
Yes, our audiobook roundtable.
Yeah, go back and listen to that episode. It’s one of our most popular ones. There’s a whole lot of information there with not only Sean, but Stephen J.
Cohen, Andy Arndt, Deb Dion, and Scott Brick. Just a fantastic cast of characters.
And one more cool thing that’s happening to the both of us is we are actually going to be doing a podcast live next month from VO Atlanta.
Woohoo!
We’re going to have a whole room for it. Gerald Griffith is doing an entire room, sort of a mini event for different people who have their own voiceover-related podcasts to actually have a space where they can even have a live studio audience or just do an episode and comment on the event as it’s happening. So I think that’s a really cool thing.
And we’re kind of spearheading it, aren’t we, Paul? He’s actually asked us to be the sort of administrators for the podcast event within VO Atlanta.
Yeah, which means you and I are going to be crazy busy because I was already on the tech team, so I have a lot of work to do, and now we’re doing the podcast thing as well. And you’re going to be pretty busy with some other activities as well, aren’t you?
I’m going to be at the exhibitor booth for Global Voice Acting Academy. So if you’re at VO Atlanta, come say hi and talk about or ask us about our new membership. And some of the other services we offer.
And add us on the app. If you’re going to come to the conference, there’s that new app by Zorista. Look that up on Google Play or iTunes and add us and come say hi.
Yeah, it’s Zorista or Z-E-R-I-S-T-A. And then do you just have to put in whatever login information you used for VO Atlanta. You might have to do an email or username for that.
And then it should be able to find the appropriate event. And then you can adjust your profile, figure out what your personalized agenda is, connect with other attendees and even some of the agents and big names who are going to be there. And yeah, just get a…
That’s a pretty cool thing. Have you had a chance to check it out yet? Sounds like you have.
Oh yes, just a little bit. I’m still figuring out all the nitty gritty navigational details, but it looks pretty… I mean, Gerald went above and beyond this year as he always does.
But I mean, I think inner conference communication is sort of the theme that he’s trying to tackle this year based on some of the connectivity problems we had last year with just like hotel Wi-Fi and stuff like that.
I will say the app caught me off guard. I wasn’t aware it was even out. I guess I missed that live broadcast.
Sorry, Gerald. But I all of a sudden started getting all these ads from people. And at first I was kind of blown away.
I was like, wow, David Rosenthal just added me. He knows who I am.
Marilyn Whistler just added me.
Oh my gosh. And like Tom Pinto. And then, right, exactly.
And then I was like, oh, okay, it’s the app. I was wondering where all these connections were coming from. First I was like, oh, my new website is awesome.
And then I said, oh wait, it’s VO Atlanta. Not that it’s still not awesome, but it took me a while to realize where I was coming from. So it just, again, it goes to show how much effort Gerald has put into the communication.
I think it’ll help a lot. So we’ll get to our featured guest, Tom Dheere, in just a moment. But before that…
Questionable Gear Purchase.
So believe it or not, I was kind of tame with the questionable gear purchases. I only bought one mic this time.
Chest-wide.
And the reasoning, it doesn’t make sense anymore. I’ll give you my cockamamie reasoning behind it. But, and you just laugh at me.
So I don’t mind being a comic relief. So I bought a Shure SM7B for long form narration and audio books. And I’m using it now, which I usually am during the podcast, whichever Mike DuJour is up.
And my reasoning for it is because it’s not that sensitive. And we talked ad nauseam about my issues with long form. And the other reason is because it’s another one of those quote unquote industry standards, not necessarily for voiceover, but it’s a mic that most engineers…
Right, recording in general, and almost every engineer will know very well. I had been using the Audio-Technica BP-40, which I think I talked about in the last episode, another large diaphragm dynamic like the Shure, and similar sort of capsule and form factor. But it’s a mic nobody knows, almost nobody knows.
In fact, it’s the first time I really had trouble reselling a mic. So it took a bit of a bath on the resale on that. And I’m happier now that I have two industry standards that if I do a live session or send it off to an engineer, they’re going to know the Sennheiser MKH416 and the Shure SM7B.
They can work with that.
So again, it’s crazy logic, but it’s some sort of logic in my head.
Well, it’s something that I’m hearing a lot too. I mean, thanks to you, I now have two industry standards too as well. So I’ve had the 416 for a couple of years now after winning at VO Atlanta two years ago.
But then a few episodes ago, you’ll remember Paul’s and mine’s interesting exchange where I thought I was trading him for a TLM 102, which is a great mic, but it’s not necessarily an industry standard, whatever that means. But it turned out that it was actually the larger and more well-touted 103, which neither he nor the previous owner happened to like on their voice. So it was like, bonus.
And honestly, since then, I just haven’t gotten another mic since then. It’s that simple. Like I still drool over him sometimes, but it’s just like, I don’t need any other mics.
It’s a little sad, really. Still, I mean, I’ll still go through interfaces and stuff like that though, but it’s just like, what’s the point? And I was actually listening to our friendly competitive or friendly competition, VO School.
They had a great episode on microphones recently. And they were mentioning, it’s like, yeah, these industry standards may not be the absolute best mic on a given voice, but chances are they’re gonna be pretty close and they’re certainly not gonna sound bad. So with that in mind, it’s like, if you’ve got the budget in the time, yeah, find that perfect mic that’s custom tailor-made for your voice.
But if you’ve got the budget for it and you can afford an industry standard, there are far worse choices out there.
And I always wanted to at least try a TLM 103 and a 416. So I can know.
A couple of times over.
But I mean, several years ago, when I was first looking into the business, I thought, oh, if I could only hear how that sounds, you know, this 416 especially has this sort of aura around it. Right, this legendary status, this magic mic that should be great for everyone. And it’s not always, like you said, but I always want to at least try it, and now I can say I have, and I’m still using it, believe it or not.
I know. Well, I actually was thinking about you the other day because I was reading another article about microphones. So like, obviously the sickness isn’t dead, but…
But at one point they are mentioning it’s how you should never actually sell any microphone that you’ve used on a previous project, because you never know if they come back and they need to do like pickups, even if it’s years down the line. And now first off, I thought that was a little exaggerated, but still I was just like, good luck Paul, because I mean, how many different mics have you gone through at this point? I’d say two dozen easily right off the bat.
Yeah, I was going to say 20, but yeah, 24 might be more accurate.
Oh, man.
Of those, I still have four.
Oh, good.
So, yay!
You can redo those four projects.
So we’ll get to the interview idea with Tom Dheere in just a few minutes. But before we do, we have this episode’s VO Meter stick, this time brought to us by Barbara Quesada with a funny story about her dog voice.
Hey, everybody, it’s time for the VO Meter shtick.
What did he say?
It’s time for the VO… Oh, never mind.
The VO Meter shtick?
Oh, got it.
So I thought in honor of Valentine’s Day, I would tell a voice over love story. Well, it’s sort of a voice over love story, but it has to do with voices anyway, so I guess bear with me. Like so many voice over people that I know, I make animals talk.
Specifically, I have, at this point, a geriatric miniature dachshund named Taylor, who’s 16 years old. But he was much younger when I first met and started dating my husband. And I, of course, in some of our dates, would just start talking to him as my dog.
And the fact that he didn’t run away immediately tells you that he’s a special kind of person to put up with that. But, you know, he would just let me chat away with him, pretending to be my dog, talking to him as my dog. And he also had two miniature dachshunds at the time, which is kind of how we met, but that’s a whole other story.
And anyway, we’d been dating for some time, and, you know, I’m talking to him as my dog always. And one day, he talked back to me as the dog. And that was the day I knew he loved me.
And then we got very crazy and, of course, started talking to one another as the dog, having entire conversations as the dog. But that tells you what kind of crazy people we are, I guess. And now we have two children, a six-year-old and an eight-year-old, who try to do the dog’s voice, but they’re not that great at it.
But they will ask to talk to the dog and, like, mommy, no, I want to talk to Taylor now. And so, you know, it’s just… It’s become a very special, special thing for our family.
And, of course, Taylor has more than just a voice, he has a personality, too. That’s right. I’m awesome, and I brought this family together.
Happy Valentine’s Day. Now go away and just let me sleep, because that’s all I want to do.
Thank you.
Thanks for that, Barbara, that was a charming story. I always love when we can involve our families in what we do.
All right, so our guest for this month is Tom Dheere. Of course, he’s a voice actor, but he’s also a marketing specialist and coach as well, helping talents of all stages of their career develop business plans, financial plans, and just get a better understanding of the marketing aspects of a voiceover business. So without further ado, let’s take it to Tom Dheere.
So now we’re getting to the meat of our episode, our interview with this week’s featured guest. He’s a voice actor, a coach, an icon in the world of business marketing. The H is not…
The H is silent, but he’s not. Please welcome to The VO Meter, Tom Dheere. How you doing, Tom?
Icon.
Icon.
I’ll take it.
I said it.
I’ll take it.
I said it. How are you today? I’m good, Paul.
I’m doing great. Thanks for having me on.
Thanks for being here. So, Sean and I, well, I should mention that Sean is not able to join us today. He had an in-person audition, which is pretty exciting for him.
So, it’s a good reason not to be able to join us for an interview, but we will miss him dearly. But Tom has been kind to still do the interview with us. And we are both so excited to have you here because we planned this a long time ago, or at least planted the seeds.
And we’re so glad you could join us.
Yeah, no, thanks for having me.
So, tell us a little bit about your background. Like I said, you’ve been in the business for a while, and most people know you, but a lot of our listeners actually are new to the business. We tend to attract a lot of newbies, as it were.
So, tell us a little bit about how you got into voiceover.
Okay, so I dropped out of graduate school in New York City. I went to the National Shakespeare Conservatory in Manhattan a long time ago for… I originally wanted to be a classically trained New York-based Shakespearean actor.
That’s what I wanted. I had a very specific goal of what I wanted to do. For various reasons, it didn’t work out, so I dropped out.
And I’m at home with my mom. She’s reading New Jersey Monthly Magazine, is looking at the back of the magazine and says, what’s voiceover? And I said, I don’t know, you talk for money.
It turns out I was absolutely right. And she said, there’s a coach nearby. You’ve got a good voice.
You should try it out. So I went to this coach, Hope Noah, and did a diagnostic. She said I had some potential.
So I worked with her for about six months. And then I went to a nearby studio to cut my commercial demo. Cut the demo.
And then she gave me a little certificate of completion and a ream of Xerox copies of production company directory listings and said, okay, start your cold calling and good luck. This was 1995. So there was no Facebook, there was no Twitter, no Bedolgo, no pay to play sites.
You know, most people didn’t have home recording. So basically all you had was a demo in a dream. And you just had to, you know, figure it out.
So yeah, that’s how I got my start.
So what was the toughest part initially once you had that sort of, well, basically pushed off the ledge by Mama Bird? What was the toughest part to get started?
The toughest part was figuring out, and it took me a really long time to figure this out, is that if you want to be a successful artist inside the booth, you need to be a successful business outside the booth. You need to be an effective business. When I started in 1995, you know, there was a very small amount or much less voiceover talents out there.
They were in the big cities, and almost none of them had home recording facilities. So you could have a career by functioning as an employee, as an artist. Now you can’t do that anymore.
You have to be a business. And the people who think like artists, employees, starving artists, the American Idol chorus line, God, I hope I get it mentality, you’re going to fail, and you’re going to fail hard, and you’re going to fail fast. You have to think like a business and have effective systems of thought and systems of execution like a business to even have a chance at being successful in this industry nowadays.
Okay. So what were some of the ways you overcame that initially?
I didn’t. I sucked.
I struggled for a really long time because I didn’t know how to think about what I was supposed to think about. What changed everything for me was going to my first voiceover conference. TheftCon 3.
This was 2011. So I started pursuing voiceovers in 95. I got my first gig in 96.
I struggled doing this while having a job in 2005. I got fired from the last job I ever had, which was probably the best day of my life. And that’s when I really needed to figure out what was going on.
So I joined the VoiceOver Bulletin Board. I learned how to build a home recording studio. And then five years later, still kind of figuring this out, but making a living, I went to my first voiceover conference, FAFCon.
And it taught me that I deserve to be here. I deserve to be successful professionally. And I realized a huge thing.
And this is what has been pounded into our heads since we were born, is that if you’re not a star, you’re a loser. And there are no stars in the voiceover industry. There are just people trying to do this.
There’s no celebrity voice talents. There’s no famous voice actors. There’s movie stars who do voiceovers, like Morgan Freeman or Kiefer Sutherland or George Clooney or Alice in Janey.
But you can’t find someone walking down the street and go, hey, do you know who Joe Cipriano is? They’re going to be like, no. Do you know who Bob Bergen is?
So once I rubbed the stars out of my eyes and realized that this was a job, it was a business, and the only person who’s going to make the phone ring is you, that was a big help. The other big help is when I realized that the most important ingredient to my success as a voiceover talent is my fellow voiceover talents. Just a couple weeks ago, I did a cost-benefit analysis class, and I showed them a breakdown of my revenue, not how much I make, but how much I make per gig and by genre and how I got the gig.
Two percent of my work came from agents. Fifty-nine percent of my work came from recommendations from fellow voice talents. Wow.
So who’s more important to you in your industry? The agent who’s going to make you a star or your so-called competition? The answer is clearly your so-called competition.
And they’re not your competition. I truly believe there is no competition in the voiceover industry. That’s how I turned the corner of my voiceover career when I discovered that my friends and colleagues were my secret to success.
Not the things that we’ve been told our whole lives are the secret to your success, which is getting discovered and getting your big lucky break, whatever that even is.
That’s great. Well, that cost-benefit analysis you mentioned sounds pretty in-depth, and that brings us to one of the reasons we wanted to have you on, because you are known for your marketing strategies and your business acumen, quite frankly. Tell us a little bit about your consulting business and the work you’re doing with Edge Studio.
Okay, so I am known as the voice-over strategist or VO strategist, and you can check it out at vostrategist.com. And I’m a voice-over business and marketing consultant. I’m not a performance coach.
There are others that are far more qualified and interested in that. I do voice-over business consulting. There’s very few of us in the country that does this.
And I started doing it because I realized there was a big need that needed to be filled. And I also figured that that was the best way that I could give back to an industry that has been so good to me. Because a big part of being effective as a voice-over business is having the ability to be a contributing member of the community and being able to give back.
I’m a true proponent of karma, and that’s what I like to call my karmic penance, is being the VO strategist and helping out and sharing with everybody all the things that I wish I knew 20, 15, 20 years ago that would have saved me a lot of time and energy and money. So as a voice-over strategist, I function in a couple of different ways. One, I do one-on-one business consulting, where I do a diagnostic of your business and ask you a series of very uncomfortable questions about your business, help you figure out where the holes are, and then we come up with an action plan.
And it’s not just for aspiring voice talents. I work with voice talents of all levels, regardless of experience, because sometimes you need to tweak your voice-over business model or overhaul it, because times change, and what worked even a couple of years ago doesn’t work now on a business and marketing level. So you need to look at what your business is and what genres you need to explore and how strong your goals are and how specific your goals are.
One thing I’ve also learned is that vague goals will get you vague results. Specific goals will get you specific results. So I work in a one-on-one capacity.
I also work for Edge Studio, and I teach webinars. I also work for Abacus Entertainment in New York City, and I teach webinars there as well. Live sessions and group sessions on Skype or actually Zoom, our go-to webinar on Edge Studio, and I use Zoom at Abacus.
And I also do live appearances at conferences like FAFCon and VO Atlanta. I’ll be appearing at the Mid-Atlantic Voice Over Conference in November this year. So my job is to help you figure out how to think like a voice over business and how to execute like a voice over business.
That’s fantastic. So you mentioned the one-on-one consulting and some of the group work you do. Something I wanted to touch on is the conferences you just mentioned.
I was going to promote you at MAVO, but you did it for me. Thank you.
Oh, you’re welcome. And thank you.
We actually did a recording of an episode there the last time it was held, 2016. It’s a great conference. I highly recommend everybody check it out if they can.
We’ll be there again this next time. So what can a voice actor gleam from a conference that they may not be able to get in a one-on-one atmosphere or as a prelude to consulting with you one-on-one? Is there some key takeaways you try to get across to a larger audience like that?
The most important benefit from an aspiring or veteran voice talent to attending a conference is the ability to be a part of the community. We are all trapped in our little booths all over the country, all over the world, frankly, and have become overly reliant on the internet as a marketing tool. There is no marketing tool that is more powerful than interacting with a human being in person.
I define marketing as the art and science of developing meaningful relationships. And the only way that you can truly develop a meaningful relationship with someone is if you interact with them in person. That’s why, like I said, FAFCon 3 was so monstrously successful for me.
As a result of attending that conference and speaking there, I got picked up by Edge Studio, and that turned into The VO Strategist, and that’s how you and I got here today talking about all this fun stuff. So go with an open mind, go to learn, go to give, and don’t view the other attendees as competition. Like I said, they’re the biggest part of my voiceover business.
So go to learn, go to give, and go to think. Go to think about yourself and learn to think objectively about who you are as a voice talent, what your relationship is with the industry, and what you can do to be the most effective. And I mean that in what genres can you master and what relationships that you can form.
And not so you can claw your way to the top, because I think that’s a lot of garbage. The voiceover industry is not vertical, it’s spherical. It’s not about being more and more and more successful.
I mean, we would obviously all like that, but that’s not always how it works. My first audiobook that I narrated was Danielle Steele. You know, only the Bible has sold more copies than Danielle Steele.
That and 50 cents got me a phone call, because what am I going to do, just narrate the Bible for the rest of my life? No, I don’t have the voice for it anyway. I sound like I’m 19 trying to get into a bar.
So your voiceover business is spherical. It’s learning to make as many meaningful relationships with as many people as possible. Clearly, agents aren’t the most important people in my voiceover business.
My fellow voice talents are. And so are the recording engineers and the receptionists and the interns and all the other people that make all of this stuff work. They’re just as important as any union rep, as any agent, as any big honking end client.
I think they’re more important, frankly.
Yeah, I agree. Let’s stay on that networking theme for a second. When you’re at a conference, in spite of you saying there are no VO celebrities, and to a large extent that’s true, but there are those in the industry that are put up on a pillar, rightfully so, and people that are new to the business or seeing them for the first time can be a little starstruck.
You mentioned Joe Cipriano. Who else did you mention earlier?
Bob Bergen.
Oh yeah, Bob Bergen, obviously. So people like that, you see them in person the first time, it can be a little overwhelming. Now I don’t have this problem, because I spent years cold calling people in other businesses, and I have absolutely no filter.
But for someone who’s approaching a conference for the first time, what do you do to approach somebody like Joe Cip?
You remember the old cliché that, you know, Joe puts on his pants one leg at a time, and he’s there to learn and he’s there to give. So you should be there to learn and you should be there to give. So a couple of things.
Number one, don’t try to impress anybody. I don’t care who they are. Everybody, like a Joe Cipriano, has fresh batteries in their BS detector.
And they can smell you coming a mile away. So I have a couple of rules when I go to events like that. Number one is, if I’m trying to develop a meaningful relationship with anybody, a Joe Cipriano or a first time voice talent, I talk about everything but voice overs.
The reason why is because people work with people that they like. So I don’t care what microphone you use. I want to know how your daughter’s soccer team is doing.
I want to know how many dogs you have and what music you like to listen to. Because I want to get to know you as a person. I’ll put it to you this way, a few years ago I wrote a blog about questions you should and shouldn’t ask other voice talents.
And a voice talent asked me, is there some form of insider click that gets voice talents’ gigs via agents through their demos and not through their auditions? And I said, yes, there is a click. I said, the conspiracy is massive.
The conspiracy is that people work with people that they like and trust and have developed a relationship over a long period of time because as voice talents we have demonstrated that we not just have the talent, which is by the way the least important part of our business model, but we show up on time, that we take direction, and we’re not a jerk. So yes, I audition almost every day, but also agents say, hey, I booked you for this gig, you know, be here at this place in this time or they’re going to call you and lay it down. Because my representation is communicated to those end clients that this is a guy that will get the job done.
So if you consider that a conspiracy or a clique, call the FBI.
Yeah, it’s so true. And it really goes back to just, it’s a business. And if you’ve ever done any other business in your life, you know that the best sort of business or best client comes from referrals.
And if you can get a referral from another voice talent, that’s the best kind of endorsement you can get.
Yeah, referrals are everything. Relationships are everything. And another myth is don’t audition all day.
Auditioning all day is one of the biggest wastes of time you could possibly have. Most people audition all day because they don’t know what else to do. And they say, well, Tom, what else should I do?
Well, the answer is everything, anything. Auditioning is part of a balanced breakfast. But that means you’re just focusing on the starving artist, employee part of your business model.
And you’re not focusing on developing your craft or developing relationships or just becoming a student of the industry. Also, if you’re auditioning all the time, you’re not looking for relationships. You’re just looking for jobs.
I don’t want jobs. I want relationships with clients, long-term relationships with clients, where I wake up in the morning and there’s a few emails in my inbox from clients I’ve worked with for years saying, okay, this is the gig we’ve got for you this week. And I bang it out and deliver it and invoice them and go to the next one, which is what my business model is like right now.
Sure, I audition regularly, but I don’t give a rat’s nose about the audition once I’m done with it. I don’t care. It’s such an arbitrary lottery-like system that audition is anyway.
I don’t care because if I get it, great. If not, that’s okay too. It’s just part of the things I have to do.
I consider auditioning part of the… making sure I have enough staples in my stapler. It’s just a thing I have to do, but I don’t fixate on my stapler all day.
It’s a nice one. It’s a lovely one. It’s a red swing line.
I was told I would get my stapler back.
Right. Exactly.
Thank you.
You got the office space reference.
Oh, funny. So, that’s great. Obviously, relationships are the best way to build a business.
But one thing I’ve been dying to ask you is about cold calling, because I know you’ve done a ton. And in the most recent episode of The VO Meter, we featured our friend Stephen George, who just got signed with his first agency by literally walking in the front door and introducing himself, which was probably below the mind of most of the people who are listening to this episode. So, I know you’ve done a lot of cold calling.
How did you build your business using it? And is it still a viable option in today’s VO world?
I would like to state for the record, Paul, that I hate cold calling with the burning passion of a thousand dying sons.
Agreed.
I hate it. I avoid it as often as I can. I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’ve done an actual cold call in at least five years.
Oh, good for you.
I don’t do them because they’re largely ineffective. Because you’re just wasting their time. Here’s the thing, Paul, is that most marketing techniques that you’re going to be taught these days just don’t work anymore.
Whether it’s cold calling or emails or postcards or whatever, most of them don’t work anymore. And the reason why is because there’s just too damn many of us now. Every yut with a deep voice in a USB microphone is trying to do what we do for a living.
And they are constantly bombarding these poor bastards that are the voice seekers and agents and marketing reps and recording studios with their horrible demo-milled demos and their cliche two-dimensional pitches and their lack of branding and lack of efficacy. So it’s exponentially harder to be effective when it comes to marketing these days. So I don’t bother with cold calling anymore.
I don’t bother with postcards anymore. I do a newsletter and that helps a little bit, I guess. If nothing else, it keeps top in mind.
So the thing that I enjoy most about sending out a newsletter these days is updating my contact database with all the people unsubscribed. That’s where I get my jollies now. Because it’s like, oh good, now I don’t have to deal with that person anymore.
Not that there’s anything wrong with them, but it’s like, okay, they don’t want a relationship with me? Fine, thank you for letting me know. I’m going to focus on this group of people now.
So yeah, cold calling. I mean, it sounds all romantic and stuff that Stephen George, is that you said, did that? It sounds great.
But also, you know, for every… you try that 10 times, you know, eight times security may escort you out.
Yeah, that’s a good point.
You know what I mean? So you got to be really careful about stuff like that. I mean, I’ll be honest, I cold called almost everybody in the Audio Publishers Association Directory, and that was 2005, 2006, and that got me Danielle Steele.
But that’s when there was a heck of a lot less of us running around. There’s just too many of us to do that. Because think of it this way.
Every agent, every agent’s assistant, every casting director, casting assistant, every voice seeker or anyone who’s in the office of every voice seeker has a physical mail inbox. They have an email inbox. They have a text messaging inbox.
They have a Facebook messenger inbox. They have a Twitter direct message inbox. They have a LinkedIn inbox.
And you can even get messages on Instagram nowadays. All of them are full to the brim every day. And it’s like fighting back the ocean with a broom to be able to keep up with all that stuff while they’re still trying to do the other parts of their job.
So I’m not saying you should never email anybody ever again or cold call anybody ever again or do some form of analog marketing campaign ever again. Just keep in mind that there are 2,000 schmucks just like you trying to do the same exact thing in the same exact way. So what are you going to do about that?
How are you going to make yourself distinct? How are you going to provide value to the voice seeker that those other 1,999 yutzes aren’t? And the answer is that’s entirely up to you because you are you.
You are your own distinct, individual, unique little snowflake who has your own set of background and culture and education and training and value system. So you got to figure out who are you, what’s important to you, what values do you have, and what value can you provide to that voice seeker to make you different from that tsunami of solicitations that they’re getting from everybody else in the voice over industry.
So let’s talk about some of the strategies that you suggest to people without giving away too much of your secrets. What are some things people can do to make themselves different?
I don’t have any secrets, really. I mean, I’m not a particularly talented voice talent, and it’s not like I drop thousands of dollars in my marketing campaign. I mean, basically, rule one is just, you know, don’t be a dick.
You know, be, you know, be a decent human. Like, be a good human, try to collect good humans. Try to attend as many live events as possible, and try to let your honesty and personality and sincerity shine through.
Be there to help. Be there to realize that even if you are a new voice talent, you do have something to offer as a human being, because nobody as five years old says they want to be a voice talent when they grow up. Being a voice talent is most often a second, third, fourth, or post-retirement career, which means all of you have skill sets and abilities that I guarantee on some level will be of value to you as a voice over business.
My friend Liz Ayala was a nurse, and now she’s a voice talent who specializes in medical narration. Sometimes it’s just that simple. So use what you have.
You have a lot more to offer than you think that you do, and try to interact with as many humans in a live setting as much as possible. Some of you may think, I’m in this business because I prefer staying in the closet because I’m terrified of people. And a lot of people are.
A lot of you are introverts. I’m lucky, I’m kind of an extrovert. I like to call myself an extrovert who needs to recharge frequently, if that makes any sense.
So if you see me at FAFcon, there’ll be 10 or 15 increments where I just won’t be around because I’m in my hotel room just lying on my bed for 10 minutes just going… And then I just get up and I go back downstairs and I dive right back in. That’s just how I operate.
Well, here’s a secret about that. There are quite a bit of introverts in the industry, which means if you’re not, or you can at least pretend you’re not at an event, you can just rock the house and get all those referrals and business for yourself, while those people who are a little hesitant are standing in the corner like a sixth grade dance.
Right. Amy Snively, who is the golden goddess of FAFCon, says that whenever she goes to a networking event or a conference or a live seminar, she refuses to leave until she has gotten help from somebody and helped somebody, and she will not leave until that happens. And it’s not necessarily a voiceover-related referral or recommendation.
It can be anything. It could be like sharing a recipe for peanut butter cookies or recommending a landscape or anything like that, just so you can make a connection with somebody, making a connection on a human level. If you can do that, even with one person at one event, you’re off to the races.
Yeah, I wrote a very similar blog post that was featured on Voice Over Extra a few months ago where I said the exact same thing. You put two people together and make a connection for them, then you’re the star of the show and people remember that.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, Tom, we’ve been talking for almost 30 minutes now, and I really appreciate you coming on and sharing some of your tips and some of the ways you got to where you are in the business today. Is there anything you’d like to tell our listeners about how they can hire you or book you for coaching?
Oh, sure, absolutely. You can find me at edstudio.com and Abacus Entertainment. You can also contact me directly at viostrategist.com.
Just to give you an idea of some of the stuff that I do, I’ll just give you a list of my upcoming appearances. January 25th, I’ll be talking about the sales funnel for Ed Studio. Monday the 29th, I’ll be appearing on The Voice Over Body Shop at 9pm.
Thursday the 15th, I’ll be teaching Ed Studio Business and Money 201 students, plus anyone else that wants to join in, how to build an effective rate sheet. I’ll be teaching a basics of marketing class at Abacus Entertainment, which will be live in New York City on Tuesday the 20th, but you can also attend online. And Thursday, February 22nd, I will be teaching for Ed Studio four words that will kill your marketing, just to give you an idea of the kind of stuff that I offer.
Well, Tom, that’s fantastic. Go out and check him out. Hire him.
We really appreciate you coming on, Tom Dheere, and we will talk to you soon.
All right, great. Thanks for having me.
So once again, thanks to Tom Dheere, that was a fantastic interview. You know, we had quite a bit of technical problems on this. First, it was an issue with Chrome, which is kind of a widespread issue, I found out, where a lot of people are having trouble, and me, for the last three weeks now, where I cannot hear incoming audio on any of the OPUS-based programs on Chrome only, which is a problem because a lot of them recommend Chrome, and some only let you use Chrome, so I can’t listen to incoming audio on Bodago Call, or Skype, or IPDTL.
None of them work for incoming audio, or Google Hangouts, which is run by Google. So it’s really annoying. So Tom and I tried Google Hangouts, we tried Skype, we tried Source Connect Now, we tried Bodago Call.
Turns out that I think he’s also having a problem with his interface. So the way we actually did it was a double-ended phone patch. Wow, that sounds dirty.
Oh, God. It depends on where you’re putting the phone.
So I had ear buds in my ears listening to Tom. He had ear buds in his ears listening to me. And we both recorded on each end.
And then he sent me the file. It was a nightmare, technically. We actually had a reschedule where we were scheduled to start at three, I think it was.
We ended up recording until 4.30 because it was such a mess. So if you had any problems with Chrome, it’s not you, it’s Chrome. There’s something going on.
It’s not you, it’s Chrome.
I put in tickets to Google.
You need to make a T-shirt.
I put in support tickets to Google, and I have a thread going on the Hangout Support that it’s all over the place. And actually, another friend of ours, a competitor, Jamie Moffat, and I had a call a couple of weeks ago where he was losing his mind thinking that his hardware was crapped out. And he put out a SOS on Facebook and said, is anyone able to help test, put the alcohol call with me?
So I jumped in and again, I said, no, Jamie, it’s everybody, it’s not just you. And he was like, oh, that makes me feel a lot better, although we both are still having problems technically. So the only workaround I found is using another browser.
They all seem, all the Opus Codecs seem to work with Mozilla and Safari if you have either of those. I haven’t tried Internet Explorer just because I don’t have it on my Mac, but or Edge, I think it’s called now. So that might work, but that is a workaround to use a different browser.
I don’t really have anything to add, aside from this terrible forced update thing that… Er, I don’t know. It just seems like all the larger tech companies are just continuing to update their products without working together with other companies to make sure their products work.
I don’t know, it’s frustrating. I’ve had issues.
Which ones, then?
Oh, like you were saying, Google, Mac, Microsoft.
Oh, yeah.
And various levels, but that’s just a diatribe for another day.
Well, I think a lot of it is they’re chasing malware, like there’s this huge Spectre meltdown bug that everyone’s trying to chase down, so I think that’s part of the problem. I think that’s when Google last updated when that came out. And that’s probably the issue, but they have yet to fix it for the incoming audio.
It’s a minor concern, probably, for them, as opposed to the millions of other users they have that aren’t voiceover people. But it’s frustrating for us.
So enough about paranoia about forced updates and conspiracy theories. Once again, I just wanted to thank Tom for coming on to the podcast and sharing his wisdom and dropping some knowledge. And if you’re at VO Atlanta next month, come stop by, come be in our live audience, or just come visit us in the exhibit hall, if you have a minute.
Yeah, we haven’t lined up any guests yet, so if you want to be on the show, come by and say hi, and maybe we can squeeze you in.
That’s right. So you got a funny story or an interesting one, you could join in our VO Meter stick. Of course, we once again are opening the floor to questionable gear purchases of all sizes and budgets.
So if you’d like to be on for a few minutes, just come by and be great. It’ll be fun.
So that wraps up this episode of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. Thanks for listening to The VO Meter, measuring your voice over progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.