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.