Joe Cipriano’s latest blog post gives us a glimpse into what he calls The Perfect Weekend. Enjoy, it’s a very pleasant read.
General
You have to see this to believe it
Over at the American Small Business blog, there’s a photo you just have to see to believe; part of a publicity stunt pulled off by KFC. No, this post doesn’t have anything to do with voiceover, but there’s a lesson here about publicity stunts that’s worth taking to heart of you decided to try one.
You’ll find an interview with Don LaFontaine…
Over at the Voicemarketer.com blog. Ryan’s done a nice job with this interview. It’s certainly worth your time.
Packing it in, more thoughts
Whether you agree or disagree with what I wrote below under the title “Packing it in”, I hope you’ll take a few moments to read the superbly written post from my friend and fellow voiceover talent Mary C. McKitrick titled “How do you know when to quit?”
Mary provides some thoughtful commentary that puts much of what I wrote in exactly the right perspective. It’s a long post, but well worth your time.
Now that you’ve finished reading Mary’s comments, I want to be sure that my advice to you is clear. Do I want you to quit your attempts to build a voiceover career? I don’t have any standing to even offer an opinion. I can’t possibly know enough about you or your specific circumstances to advise you, what ever level of success or lack of same that you currently experience. And if you do quit, one thing you know for sure, you won’t be a success in voiceover.
But, as Mary has so cogently pointed out, you’re not limited by anything except your persistence and effort to achieve success in many different fields. And that success need not come easily. Indeed, it will be doubly sweet if it comes after much effort and struggle. (I cherish my college degree because I paid for all but $45.00 of it from my own pocket.)
Only you can decide if you should quit or keep on trying. But, then that was the point of my previous post. Or to put it another way, not deciding is a kind of deciding too; and if in your not deciding you’re hurting your marriage, your children or yourself then…fill in the rest for yourself.
Thanksgiving 2006
Today is the Thanksgiving holiday 2006 in the United States. There are celebrations in other countries that parallel to some degree this holiday. Canada has a Thanksgiving holiday in October. Australia’s is in July, I believe. And as was mentioned in our church service this morning, the roots of a “day of thanksgiving” stretch back at least 4500 years to ancient Israel.
For an insight into the distinctive nature of this holiday for one who is a native of the USA, I would be hard pressed to find better words than these, which come from an editorial first published in the Wall Street Journal in 1961 and reproduced again today as they have been every year since.
…we can all remind ourselves that the richness of this country was not born in the resources of the earth, though they be plentiful, but in the men that took its measure. For that reminder is everywhere–in the cities, towns, farms, roads, factories, homes, hospitals, schools that spread everywhere over that wilderness.
We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth.
And we might remind ourselves also, that if those men setting out from Delftshaven had been daunted by the troubles they saw around them, then we could not this autumn be thankful for a fair land.
Read the entire thing. It’s well worth a few moments of your time.
You never know who might see
Adam Creighton is a talented actor both on camera and as a voiceover talent. His blog post Toy Job resume lies is a classic illustration of why it’s never a good idea to boast about something you didn’t really do…especially in your efforts to find voiceover or other acting work.
What about the voice?
Today a few thoughts about working in the studio.
A few days ago I congratulated one of my correspondents, Noel, on landing his first paying job through Voice123.com. He wrote again today with some additional observations that I’ve asked his permission to copy here. And then below, an observation that I hope is helpful not only to him, but to you as well.
Noel writes that he’s beginning to understand…
…not only is it the sound and range of one’s voice, but the ability to not get all hung up on listening to the sound of one’s own voice. The ability to lift the words off the page counts for something as well.
Best regards,
Noel G
Not only is Noel right that the ability to lift the words off the page counts for something, it’s very nearly everything. This is critically important, so please take note. It’s not about you or your voice.
Really, it’s not. There are literally hundreds of millions of people with pleasant sounding voices in the world, millions of whom speak English as their native tongue. And of those millions, most have a voice that’s more pleasant sounding than your voice…at least to some people.
You know all those times when you auditioned for a job and someone told you they hired you because you “had just the right voice for this project”? Here’s what they were really saying: “we loved what you did with our script.” How do I know that’s true? Because if they didn’t love what you did with their script in your audition, they would have hired someone else. Think about it for a second. If you mangled their script, gave no indication that you understood the message, they would never hire you.
Having an interesting, or pleasant, or appealing voice is the price of admission. It’s like a restaurant that advertises tasty food. What? As opposed to all of those other restaurants with bad tasting food? No, of course not. And for that matter, a pretty long list could be created of successful voiceover people with annoying voices. AFLAC!
It’s not about you. It’s not about your voice. It’s about your client and the message that client is trying to convey. You’re either helping deliver that message effectively or your not working. At least not for long.
Let me know what you think. Comments are open.
Packing it in?
So, you’ve been trying for a while now to make some money doing voiceovers, right? You’d read on a website about all the money people make doing voiceovers. All your life people have told you that you have a nice voice and you really should be “on the radio” or a “voiceover person.” You know how to talk, so how hard can it be?
But…
After hundreds of dollars spent getting a demo made. Hundreds more having a website designed and hosted. And joining Internet casting sites. And doing dozens, even hundreds of auditions through those sites. You’ve tried low-balling the price. You’ve tried raising the price. And what do you have to show for it? Zip? Maybe a few hundred dollars?
So…
What now? You’ve heard that “winners never quit and quitters never win,” but you’re wondering how much more money you have to sink into your voiceover “career” before you start making those big bucks?
Well, where ever you are on the road I’ve just described, please believe me; the vast majority of people trying to make money doing voiceovers never do. Yes, the vast majority. And there are lots of folks who will happily take your money to “train you for a professional voiceover career” or “create that killer demo” or whatever. Maybe you’ve already met some of them?
Being successful in voiceover requires a host of skills, only some of which have anything to do with talking into a microphone. If you don’t succeed it’s both because and not because of the competition. There’s always someone more experienced, more talented and more driven than you are. Always. Someone with a better voice. A better demo. A better agent. Or something.
You can make excuses all day long. None of them amount to a hill of beans, except for the way they block you from actually getting where you want to go.
So, here are some concrete suggestions from a guy who’s learned more than a few things the hard way…
Don’t sign up for the first training opportunity you find. At least, don’t sign up until you’ve checked to see if the person doing the training actually knows his or her stuff. And until you’ve checked to see if the prices being charged are reasonable. In many cases, you’d be far better off taking an acting or improv class at the local community college. And then some singing lessons. If you have talent for voiceover work, you’ll learn everything you really need (except microphone technique) in theatre and singing classes.
Don’t make a demo until you’ve spent at least a few months listening to the demos of top notch working professionals. Here, I’ll save you the trouble of finding them. Click this link. That’s the Union/International house reels for voiceover talent agents. As you can see and hear, there are hundreds of people in line ahead of you. Actually, it’s not hundreds. It’s thousands.
Don’t build a website until you have a demo worth promoting. And when you build the site, again, don’t go with the first person you meet who can code a little html. Has this designer ever worked on a site for a voiceover person, or even an actor, before? Look at the sites. Look at lots of sites from other voiceover people. Take note of what you like and what you don’t like. Discuss these with your designer. Or, do what I did. Find a template you like, study some html, and build your own.
Are you depressed yet? Look, I’m deliberately trying to splash some cold water on your face because at some point you have to examine the question: is it time for me to quit this and get back to doing something else with my life?
Bonnie Gillespie is a brilliant Hollywood casting director, mainly for independent films. She writes a weekly column for Showfax called The Actor’s Voice. I’ve pointed to her work a number of times before, but this post was prompted by reading Bonnie’s column from October 16, 2006. While, as usual, the focus is on Hollywood actors, the lessons apply to all of use who earn our trade acting with our voices in places other than Hollywood. As Bonnie writes…
What I’m hoping to provide here is a nice little kick in the butt for those of you who hem and haw about leaving the biz. To paraphrase Yoda: Leave or leave not. There is no whine.
And this is, I think, the money quote…
Remember that what you do as an actor most of the time is pursue work. So I’m not talking about finding yourself jealous of those who are succeeding in ways you were not. That doesn’t count. That’s like being an astronomer and finding yourself jealous that you didn’t discover a new planet. Very, very, very few people have the level of success that draws people to the pursuit of acting in a major market. If you cannot be happy pursuing the work, improving your craft, and building relationships in this industry, you absolutely should consider packing it in…
Take a long hard look at reality. Are you putting your family in jeopardy? Are you spending too much time and money on this dream of voiceover success? Do you truly understand in your bones that voiceover work, like any other kind of acting work, is mainly finding work? This is a marketing and sales job far more than it’s a “talk into the microphone” job.
So, how are you doing? I’d love to read your thoughts and experiences. Comments are open.
Congratulations to my friend Brian
Brian Haymond is a talented and award winning voiceover guy. He relates the story of how he found out about the awards on his blog here. Congratulations Brian. Clearly the cream rises to the top.
Excellent thoughts about voiceover work
With my thanks to Karen Commins (for linking to an excellent article on her blog), you’ll find some tremendously valuable thoughts posted on Adam Creighton’s voiceover blog about the work of acting, including voice acting.
I’ve added Adam’s Ramblings blog to my list of voiceover blogs in my attempt to compile as complete a list as possible of voiceover blogs.
Advice worth reading
With my thanks to Stephanie at Vox Daily, I strongly recommend you take a few minutes to read this excellent article in Backstage, titled Voice of Authority. It’s well worth your time.
The Voice Cat blog
For some time now, one of the best blogs to visit as a voiceover talent has been Vox Daily, hosted by Voices.com. Now, the team there has added a new blog that features Marc Cashman. This blog is called Ask the Voice Cat it’s focus is on providing guidance and assistance to people who are new to the voiceover business.
Even if you’ve been doing voiceovers for some time, there are sure to be valuable pieces of advice here and there. One example would be this post. Sometimes the truth hurts, but it’s a good kind of hurt.
A great post at the Nice Blog
I’ve just finished reading this exceptional post at the Nice Blog. I think this might be one of the most interesting things I’ve seen in a long time.
No doubt about it, Americans love to win. We also hate to lose – witness the desolate despair of the losing team’s city. So when a group of researchers at Emory University in Atlanta conducted a gaming experiment, they expected to see the strongest reactions occur when participants experienced either the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. To their surprise, they discovered that players experienced the strongest response when everyone won – when the competitors cooperated.
Read the whole thing. After you do, tell me how you see this information applying to the world of voiceover. Comments are open.
Bob blogging by Ralph
My friend Ralph Hass, who does voiceover work for the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres, blogs about voiceover here. Recently he was nice enough to link back to me here, and then wrote a really cool riff about all the guys named Bob with whom he’s spoken recently. Read it here.
And on a somewhat related subject, several years ago I was given The Bob Book
A further Source-Connect update
Joe Cipriano emailed me this evening to clue me in that he’s done an interview that’s featured on the Source Elements site. (Source Elements is the company that makes the Source-Connect software.)
You’ll find the interview transcript here.
Update: You can see an illustration of the kind of remote to home studio set-up Joe is talking about at this page of the Source Elements site.
(An audio version will be posted soon, according to a note at the top of the page. When it appears, I’ll update this post with a link to that as well.)
A Source-Connect update
Buried in Joe Cipriano’s latest blog post about Apple computers is an interesting comment about doing a session for NBC using Source-Connect.
When I was shooting the Video Seminar up at Apple this past September, I did a few voice over sessions back to NBC using my MacBookPro, Apple Remote Desktop, my mBox2 and Source Connect over their internet connection.
As I’ve written previously, I think Source-Connect and other systems with similar, or even superior, capabilities, are going to make ISDN obsolete in the near future.
Along those lines, last Friday I did my first paying gig using Source Connect and it worked just great. In this case, I needed to do a patch to a studio that needed an ISDN connection. I contacted Dave at Digifon, who took care of everything. While the delay was a bit longer than it is using a direct ISDN or Source-Connect link, it was not a problem. And everyone was very happy with the sound. One more session and Source-Connect will have paid for itself. (In truth it already has, because I’ve saved the price of the equipment, installation and monthly service fees for ISDN.)
Winning the battle against comment spam
If you blog, you probably know that comment spam has become as much of a plague as email spam. As I’ve noted previously, Akismet has been a great tool in this battle; so much so that I’ve changed my comment policy to allow comments without moderation.
Lorelle VanFossen has written an excellent blog post on this subject that is well worth a few moments of your time, even if you don’t blog.
I love reading good copy
In fact, I love reading well-written copy so much that I’d probably do a commercial session for nothing just to have the pleasure of reading a great script. (But, please don’t tell anyone, OK?)
So, today I had the great pleasure of auditioning for a possible project being done by my friend, Dick Terhune through his company Captain Mercury Productions. (I first met Dick in 1997 when I attended the International Radio Creative and Production Summit for the first time.)
The copy for this audition was really well written, a delight to read. Even if I don’t get cast, the reward of reading this wonderful copy was worth it.
Happy news from a correspondent
In early October of this year (2006) I wrote a post here about Noel and his efforts to find voiceover work, especially regarding his efforts to find work through Voice123.com, based on some email messages I had received from him.
Today, Noel wrote to say that he’d been cast for his first paying gig through Voice123.com. Good for you, Noel. May there be many more.
And if you’re reading this and thinking, “I’m still looking for my first voiceover work,” realize this: the overwhelming majority of people trying to make it in voiceover work never make a career of it; just like the vast majority of acting hopefuls in Hollywood never make a career in the movies or television. But, if voiceover is something you love…something you can’t imagine living without…then don’t quit. At least, not until you’ve given yourself a real shot at realizing this dream.
However, you must remember that there are things more important that your dream. If you are married, and especially if you have children, don’t jeopardize your family for your dream…because if you do, even if you reach your dream it will turn to dust in your hands. Do what you have to do…but don’t betray the people who are counting on you. It’s not worth it.
The value of good writing
Whether you blog (about any subject), use emails for marketing, send out email newsletters or just have your own website you’ll find a treasure trove of good ideas from Susanna Opper through her own email newsletters. See past issues here. After you’ve read them, sign up to get her new issues here.
You can also hear an interview with Susanna here.
Either way, you’re going to learn a lot about how to write your marketing emails and web sites (including your blog) much more effectively.
My thanks to my friend Mary McKitrick for alerting me to this wonderful resource. Mary, by the way, blogs about her voiceover work, here.