General

My friend Steve Stone emails today with a link to this interesting article in Variety about George Del Hoyo, who is doing his extremely high level of voiceover work from his home studio.

There’s a report about Hal Riney, the advertising man behind the “It’s morning in America” campaign for Ronald Reagan among many others on NPR’s site. Mr. Riney died on Monday at the age of 75 at his home in San Francisco.

My thanks to Nancy Wolfson for passing along the link to this story today.

Update: I should note that Peter O’Connell was several days ahead of me on this story. Good for you, Peter. My very best to you.

If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when someone is recording radio imaging voiceovers, Alan Bainbridge has been nice enough to provide a YouTube of one of his sessions.

It’s fun to see, and hear, you work Alan. And thanks for posting this on your blog. I’d never have found it otherwise.

The voice of my friend Jeffrey Kafer. Go to the Health Channel on AnswersTV and on the left choose “Say ahhh”. Then click any of the 30 second videos! Nice work, Jeffrey.

I’ve been remiss in not posting some additional thoughts about my weekend in Seattle, studying again with Marice Tobias, especially my reflections on my experiences on the second of the 2 days. Here are a couple of thoughts that I hope you’ll find helpful.

One of the things I like best about these weekends with Marice is getting to study as part of a group, and in particular a group of really talented people. There’s something about being around really talented people that brings out the best…at least that’s the way it works for me. We all brought our A game to the weekend and every one of us went home with a new definition of our A game, a definition that’s in sharper focus than it was.

The other thought I’d like you to chew on has to do with perspective. Maybe a brief story about a conversation I had with my daughter last week will help illustrate the point. Karen and I were talking about how we both know a lot of people here in North Carolina who don’t have stereotypical “Southern” accents. This is mainly because Charlotte, and the entire state for that matter, has become a destination for people from other parts of the country, especially the Northeast and the Midwest. As part of that conversation I mentioned in passing that there’s a difference in accents in different parts of the South. Folks who are natives of North Carolina have a distinctly different sound than do those from Alabama or Kentucky, etc. Karen commented that my ears must be more finely tuned than hers because she can’t distinguish those differences. Now, I’m not an expert on dialects, but I am beginning to hear these finely shaded gradations of difference from one regionalism to another.

Those same kinds of finely shaded distinctions apply to the best voiceover work. Narration for a corporate marketing piece might bear a resemblance to a documentary narration, for example; but there are differences. Sometimes subtle. Sometimes considerable. Voiceover for a national television commercial has a different tone than work for national radio, even if the commercials are for the same client and about the same product.

So, whether you do a lot of dialect and character work, or almost none, tuning your ear and your voice to these distinctions and differences will make a difference on whether you book work or not. Because the clients know what they’re looking for and if you adopt the wrong tone or style for your audition, they are just going to move on to the next talent. Working with Marice is like putting a finely honed edge to my instrument, and helps me tune my ears to the shadings and levels I have to be able to hear to do my best work.

Update: Kitzie Stern has some wonderfully insightful thoughts about studying with Marice that she’s just posted on her blog. Well worth your time.

Stu Gray has tagged me, asking for some insights into success. Specifically he’s asked the following questions.

1. What habits have enabled you to become successful?

First, persistence. No one wins if they quit. Second, not being afraid to ask questions. While I was offering a small bit of advice to a friend the other day I started thinking about how I learned how to edit audio in a digital workstation. The single biggest answer is that I plunged in back when digital editing was new, but second to it is that I’ve asked a lot of questions of people who know more than I do.

2. What habits have blocked you from success?

The single biggest block to greater success, at least for me, is fear. I’m learning to turn my fear on its head and to use it as a motivator to move forward, but it’s not easy.

3. What advice would you give a young VO professional?

Read out loud every day. Record yourself as often as possible. Listen to what you’ve recorded. Compare the results to the kind of work you hear coming from the television. Even more importantly, study with a reputable coach. Don’t rush. Treat the voiceover business like the business it is. Recognize that the vast majority to people trying to make a living at voiceover not only fail, but never make any significant amount of money at it.

4. Whats the best book(s) you have read to help you become successful at what you do?

With all due respect to my several friends who have written books on voiceover, I don’t think this is something you can learn from a book. The books that have most influenced my voiceover work were The Bible, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Velveteen Rabbit, The Little Prince and the three Wizard of Ads books by Roy H. Williams.

On this voiceover blog, my friend Brian Haymond details an experience where that was the case. By the way, the fact that he handled things very well is clear from one of the comments left on this site, a comment from the client in question. It’s an interesting opportunity to read both sides of the story.

My friend James Lorenz has been digging into some of the various dialects of English as it’s practiced in its home country. That would be England, of course. It’s just the tip of the iceberg, but a very nice start.