Career Advice

According to his website, Harlan and Elaine will do a double-team weekend voiceover workshop on November 15 and 16, 2008 in Bethesda, Maryland. My thanks to my friend Liz de Nesnera for posting the link to this on the VO-BB.

Update: Registration information is only on Harlan’s site.

My friend John Florian wrote me the other day asking if he could publish some of what I’d written here on his VoiceOverXtra site. I was of course happy to say “yes.”

If you’re not a subscriber at VoiceOverXtra, and you are serious about pursing voiceover work, think about it seriously. The price is certainly right. (It’s free!) And there’s loads of good information.

My friend and mentor Philip Banks has posted a photographic summary of the Secret to Success in your voiceover work on the VO-BB. Take a moment to click through. I think you’ll be glad you did.

Following up on my post yesterday about patience, and with thanks to the thoughts sparked by my friend Dave Courvoisier in the comment he left to that post, let’s think for a minute today about another vitally important character trait for the voiceover professional. Persistence.

President Coolidge’s famous quote about this subject is a good place to start. (hat tip to Sling Words for the quote.)

“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

Being patient, as I mentioned yesterday, is vital. But you have to endure in that patience. This is where persistence comes in to play. I was asked during an interview a few weeks ago what’s the secret to being successful in voiceover work? My two word answer: “Don’t quit.” You must persist in your efforts at preparing, planting, cultivating and harvesting if you’re going to make a go of your voiceover career in the long run.

However, I need to sound a note of caution here, as well. There is a significant difference between patient persistence and selfish stupidity. If your children are going hungry, or your marriage is starting to fall apart, because you continue to persistently pursue a dream of being a successful voice actor … it’s time to make some changes. Do not destroy the lives of people around you while you are pursuing your dream. Do what you have to so that your family is cared for. This doesn’t mean you have to abandon your dream. It means you have to weigh the costs and pursue that dream prudently, not foolishly. The cost to your soul isn’t worth whatever fleeting wealth or fame you might achieve.

So, as President Coolidge said, “Press on” to your goals and dreams. Don’t quit. Patiently, carefully, generously prepare, sow, cultivate and then see what a remarkable harvest you’ll gather.

I received a very nice email over the weekend from someone who has been reading this blog for a little while. Someone who wanted to offer a word of thanks. It was truly a blessing to read.

The writer also mentioned being pretty early in the process of becoming a voice actor and commented that it was hard being patient, because of a strong desire to move forward quickly.

That comment triggered something in my mind, so I wrote back with some comments about patience. I’m not identifying my correspondent in this case, because I didn’t ask permission to quote anything that was said to me. However, what’s below is my reply, plus a bit of editing and clarification, and thus needs only my own permission to post.

Patience is indeed vitally important. I grew up on a farm in Minnesota. I think there’s a strong parallel between farming and voiceover work. You begin with preparation. You can’t just dash out into the fields in the spring and throw a bunch of seed around and expect to get a decent harvest. The soil has to be prepared, broken up and smoothed out. After that, you plant the seeds. And then you wait a while. Then you cultivate. Fertilize. Cultivate some more. And then there’s more waiting. The seeds don’t germinate, sprout, grow and yield a harvest in a day or even several days. It takes months of careful attention and cultivation and only then do you get to reap the harvest.

I don’t know exactly where you are on your voiceover journey. You may be just starting to explore this whole field. You may be a working professional. Or somewhere in between. Whatever the case, I’m sure you have to deal with this matter of patience. I certainly do.

If you’re new, you do because you want to see things get started. You want to start doing the work. What you don’t realize yet is that most of the time, even after you’re well established and working, you’re going to be preparing, marketing, looking for work. (Harlan Hogan said in his presentation at Dan O’Day’s Summit a couple of years ago that 98% of the time is spent looking for work and only 2% is actually spent in the studio doing it.)

If you’re a working professional, at whatever level, you have to deal with it too. Maybe it’s wanting to break through to a new level of the business. Maybe it’s getting into a different field of work. Animation. Trailers. Audiobooks. Network promos. ADR. The list is nearly endless.

In every case, there’s a whole lot of tilling, planting, and cultivating involved. None of it is fun. At least not in the traditional sense of the word. But, it’s all necessary to get you where you want to go. I don’t like it either. But, the harvest makes it worth the wait and the effort.

There are two differences between farming and voiceover work, though. The first is that you can prepare, sow, cultivate and harvest at any time of year. You don’t have to wait for spring to plant or fall or harvest.

The second is that, even at its hardest, voiceover work is a whole lot easier than working for a living.

Bob Bergen will be holding workshops in several cities this fall. Dallas and Atlanta in October, Boulder in November, New York City (that one’s all ready sold out) and Sarasota in December. Details are available on Bob’s web site.

My thanks to my friend Marian Massaro for posting the details on the VO-BB.

Here’s another in the on-going series of posts from Bob Fraser that I’ve been featuring.

THE TRUTH ABOUT INSPIRATION

by Bob Fraser

In our little part of the business world we hear the word inspiration a lot. “His performance was inspired.” “Her voice inspired a generation.” Not to mention the claims of inspiration we lay claim to, when we relate our own successes … or once in awhile our qualified failures – which the French call “success d’estime.” (Please don’t write in about spelling, I don’t really know a lick of French.)

My humble opinion (LOL) is that there are many mistaken notions about the entire concept of inspiration and what it means to those of us who ply our trade on “the boards.”

For instance, there are those actors who don’t believe in inspiration at all. Who think that everything we do is a function of methodology, rules and plotted out behaviors. Not to put too fine a point on it … they are just wrong.

Or those of us who think that inspiration will come out of the blue, like a bolt of lightning, a falling Granny Smith, or a brilliant performance by Pauly Shore. They are also mistaken.

Most at risk are those folks who believe that inspiration is a gift from God. They are almost right – but generally use their belief as an excuse to skip over the most important part.

THE GIFT MUST BE OPENED

No matter who (and let’s not discuss the various Entities who might be the benefactor to our muse) gives us the gift of inspiration, it is important to recognize that it is a gift. And, as with all gifts, inspiration must be unwrapped, opened and used – for it to have any impact on our actual results.

Like a set of golf clubs, a food processor or an exercise bicycle, your inspiration won’t help you at all – if it’s left in the box it came in, and never used.

Here’s where many of us ‘come a cropper.’ We are often inspired to write the great American screenplay, but somehow never manage to sit down and start typing. Oh, we can tell you about our “great idea” until the cows come home – but pages are not forthcoming. Those of us who act, too, are subject to this ‘slothful’ phenomenon.

One week we are a flurry of crazed activity, doing all we can to pursue our dream of performing success. But the next week we vegetate in front of the idiot box (pick your poison … TV, Playstation, or computer), or we waste time at parties filled with other actors, like ourselves, who are doing their best to remain calm, collected and – above all – cool. Oh, we will hear a lot of “balloon juice” at these conventions, which generally never helps our forward progress an iota.

There is just no question that we all get inspired, it’s true. Almost constantly, in fact. But we, invariably, forget the dictum of Thomas Edison (who was probably not the first to say it):

“Success is 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration.”

The truth is that too many of us have a half-right, totally wrong or grotesquely twisted vision of inspiration – which is why we often expect it to do more than it’s required (and limited) 5%.

Worse, because of our less than perfect understanding of this phenomenon, called inspiration, we generally don’t even bother to find out how to use it. Believe me, inspiration must be USED – to have any value at all.

So how to use inspiration?

It’s my deeply held conviction that you must use it to encourage yourself – to convince yourself – to exhort yourself – to compel yourself – to shame yourself if necessary – into DOING the other 95%.

In other words, it’s in the DOING of the 95% where inspiration shines. DOING always results in something real, something concrete, something special, something useful – in other words, something worthwhile. Even failing at what you DO, has great lessons to impart.

If you don’t believe in inspiration at all, or you totally depend on it for forward motion, or you think that it is the “be all and end all” – then take my word for it, inspiration is as useless to you as a Christmas fruitcake from my Aunt Imelda.

My advice? Get inspired – but then get sweaty, too. It’s the only way to enjoy our precious gift.

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