Getting started in Voiceover

Deb Munro’s latest newsletter (link is a PDF file) provides these study opportunities in the UK and Canada in the coming few months.

• LONDON UPDATE!! Reminder – MIC & ME in the UK has been postponed to September 28th through October 1st. Contact us at info@debsvoice.com to register immediately. Check out www.debsvoice.com for more details.

• MIC & ME – Creating Voices Level 1 will be in Calgary August 25-26. This class is also filling up quickly. There is only 1 spot left for private coaching or demo sessions with Deb Munro in Calgary on August 24th. Register now to hold your spot. We will be teaching a newer variety of courses for upcoming classes, so this will be the last time for this course for a while.

•MIC & ME – Audition Voice Workout/Demo Prep will be in Regina on September 7/8/9th , Edmonton, Sept. 15/16, Vancouver on September 22/23, Toronto Oct 13/14, Vancouver Oct 20/21 .This popular class is filling up quickly, so advance registration is highly recommended. More dates to come.

•MIC & ME – TeleWorkout At Home each final Wed. of the month. This is your opportunity to learn from home on the phone and your webcam (if you have one). July 25th this month, Aug 29th for next month. Our most cost efficient way for you to stay in practice and discover new skills. All levels welcome. ONLY $75.00 for 2 hours of class time. (more registers means more free time for you.) Don’t forget our MIC & ME – CV 1 PowerPoint/Audiobook Home course. See www.debsvoice.com for more details.

•Special Guest JOYCE CASTELLONAS is coming to VANCOUVER Nov. 3/4/5 Joyce is from L.A. area this is her first time in Canada. Working for many companies such as, Warner Bros. and more, she’s recently started her own company. Joyce is happy to share her secrets, tips and tricks of the TV Promo and Narration world. She is more than amazing. Contact Deb Munro at www.debsvoice.com for more details. Joyce wants to discover more talent and loves to use Canadian talent.

There are only a few places left before registrations will close, so you should act immediately if you want to take advantage of a 3-Day Intensive on The Art of Voice Acting. The book is by James Alburger but this 3 day class is being taught by both James Alburger and Penny Abshire.

If you look right now at the VOICE 2007 DVD-ROM, (click the “Order CD” on the left side of that page, near the bottom) you’ll see the price is $357.00 with shipping included. I received my copy a few days ago, and just finished listening to Rodney Saulsberry’s presentation.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I had to miss much of that presentation when Rodney gave it live in Las Vegas; because I was overcoming obstacles to serve one of my clients, putting into practice some of the very things Rodney was teaching. So, this was my first chance to hear the entire thing. As far as I’m concerned, this one seminar was worth the price of the entire DVD-ROM by itself. Great ideas. Great stories. Great encouragement. I’m looking forward to hearing every one of these presentations from beginning to end, including those I heard in person.

By the way, yes, even though that button on the VOICE site says “Order CD” it’s actually a DVD-ROM that you get, but one that will allow you to burn CD copies of all of the presentations or even copy the audio to your MP3 player.

So, $357.00 is a good bit of money. But, there’s way more value stored on this DVD-ROM. Highly recommended.

Kristine Oller is one of the brightest ladies I know, and I know a lot of very bright ladies. What makes Kristine special? Her amazing ability to motivate and encourage folks to move forward in their pursuit of work in the arts: acting, writing, voiceover, and so forth. Her blog has had a couple of powerfully well written pieces, but both were written in January. Now, she’s started audio blogging and these audio snippets are very worth your time.

This is the introduction to her audio blog posts. And here is Showbiz Skills – Part 1.

Good stuff, Kristine. Really good.

Deb Monro is not only a talented voiceover artist, she also teaches voiceover techniques. Her latest newsletter notes the following dates and locations for her Mic & Me workshop series:

Calgary – August 26/27 (Creating Voices 1) (Private/demo sessions Aug 24 or 28 near sold out)
Regina – Sept 8/9 (Audition Voice Over Workout) (private/demo sessions Sept 7th still room)
Edmonton – Sept 15/16 (Audition Voice Over Workout) (private/demo sessions Sept. 17th)
Vancouver – Sept. 22/23 (Audition Voice Over Workout)
London (UK) – Sept. 28,29,30 & Oct 1 (Audition Voice Workout, The Voice Biz & Private Sessions)
Toronto – October 13/14 (Audition Voice Workout) (Privates available Oct. 12)

Details about these classes are available at Deb’s website.

Quite often in fact, I get questions about what it’s like to study privately with Nancy Wolfson, given that she’s in Los Angeles, CA and I’m in Charlotte, NC. Here are a couple of recent examples.

Johnny George wrote me a few days ago to ask:

Hi Bob,

I am interested in working with Nancy. I‘ve done a couple of Webinars with her and Anna and I’m trying to budget some $$ this summer for coaching with her. Please elaborate on her style, her caliber and any particulars that would help me in making the decision and how I can best get my most bang for my buck.

I appreciate your time and insight.

Here’s my reply:

Johnny,

Nancy is one of the most out-going, expressive and vivacious people I’ve ever encountered. At the same time, she’s very real and direct. Even though she has lived many years in California, Nancy is one of the most honest and unpretentious people I know.

So, if you want to study with someone who will tell you the truth, consistently; while filling your brain with almost too much information to process in one sitting, she’s the person for you. On the other hand, if you need to work with someone who will treat you with much gentleness and move through things very slowly, she’s probably not for you.

The other thing to know is that Nancy’s coaching is totally based in reality and practicality…stuff you can put to use now…not someday by and by when you’ve managed to internalize it enough.

While I don’t live in Southern California, I am friends with a number of working actors, voiceover folks and other professional talent out there. I know that among those (at least those I know) she has a sterling reputation as one of the very top of her field.

In my view, while I wish I could study with her in person, I’m thrilled with the phone patch experience. It’s worked great for me.

I hope that helps answer your questions. If you wish to send some follow-ups, please feel free.

And Cookie Colletti wrote to ask:

Bob:

Could you tell me more about studying with Nancy? Does she do classes over the internet? What exactly does she teach? I live in So. Florida and we have a “superstar” v/o artist/teacher here…but she’s very hard to get to commit to classes. I’ve studied with her on and off and she even produced my commercial demo, but I really want to learn more…including branding, what’s right for me, marketing myself, etc…..Anything you provide would be helpful. Thanks alot.

And my reply to Cookie:

Cookie,

I live in North Carolina and Nancy is in Los Angeles so we work over the phone. Here’s what studying with Nancy is like, at least for me:

She provides some copy and concepts a few days in advance of each time we’ve scheduled a class. Then, I call her at the appointment time and we talk through what she’s provided. Sometimes she wants me to work on the copy. Sometimes we spend more of our time talking through the specific concepts and ideas.

Nancy is a ball of energy and a wonderfully encouraging person. I’ve been a working voiceover professional since 1983, but she has helped me tremendously with practical, immediately useful ideas that I’ve been able to incorporate in the way I approach auditions and work from the very first lesson.

You can get a lot of good information at her website: http://www.braintracksaudio.com
Please let me know if you have additional questions.

I hope these questions and responses are helpful to you. And please remember, if you tell Nancy that you decided to study with her because I recommended her here, I get a free lesson from her. Whether you mention anything or not is, of course, entirely up to you.

I’m making my first ever trip to Upstate New York this weekend, to attend what promises to be a fabulous day-long voiceover marketing conference in Albany, New York and sponsored by Voicecoaches. These folks run a first class operation, and I’m honored to be here and to have been invited to take part in the closing panel discussion this afternoon (Saturday, June 2nd), though the title of the panel should be several experts and one guy who wandered up here from Charlotte!

In any case, I know I’m going to learn a great deal from everyone here, including the presenters and the folks attending. We had a mixer this evening at which I had a chance to meet several of the attendees. It was great fun interacting with folks of various backgrounds, but all of whom have a strong desire to pursue voiceover work.
I’ll update this post after the event is done with some further reflections. But, I can already tell that I’m very glad I have Voicecoaches on my blog roll under Career. They work with folks here in the Northeast directly as well as over the phone with people all over.

First update: We’re on a lunch break now, half-way through the day at the Marketing Conference sponsored by Voicecoaches. I’m deeply impressed with the quality of the presentations. I’m very glad I came because I’ve picked up several valuable ideas on how to continue to grow my voiceover business.

The top ideas were:

1. A brilliant presentation from Jay Silverman about how to prepare an introductory letter when sending your demo to a potential new client, a letter that doesn’t read like everyone else’s but stands out as something fresh and original. (Stephanie has posted her usual superb notes about Jay’s presentation over at

Vox Daily

1. .)

 

1. Some excellent insights from Stacey Nooney and Warren Garling (Warren, I sure hope I got your name right) about networking organizations and opportunities I’d never thought about.

 

1. A tremendous presentation about marketing voiceovers in the Google era from David and Stephanie Ciccarelli of

Voices.com

. As I was listening to them speak I finally put together an idea of how to do some pay-per-click marketing of my voiceover business that I think may work.

I’m so glad I’m here. And I look forward to everything that’s still ahead this afternoon. More updates later.

Second update: The afternoon kicked off with a brilliant presentation on graphics, design and a solid dose of branding advice from Dan and Phil from OveritMedia. I was very impressed with the focused approach these guys demonstrated, and equally impressed with their passion for staying current and adapting to the winds of change that continue to blow through the voiceover business.

We then heard some of the life story of Billy Serow, commercial voiceover agent with Abrams Artist Agency in New York. (The agency has an office in Los Angeles as well.) As Stephanie Ciccarelli posted on Vox Daily, Billy is that rare sort of agent, a person with a genuine heart for people. It was a sheer delight to hear some of his life’s journey and especially how he feels about developing promising talent.

I made an uncharacteristically bold move during both of these presentations when the time came for questions, I asked Dan (President of OveritMedia) and Billy if they ever worked with guys outside their local markets (Albany, NY for Dan and NYC, NY for Billy) and they both responded with “yes.” So, being even more uncharacteristically bold, I asked each of them during their respective presentations if I could give them a business card. Again they each said “yes” so I got up from my seat near the back of the room, walked up and handed over one of my cards. Honestly, I surprised myself a bit when I did this, because I’m normally too shy to do something like that; but I think some of what I’d learned earlier in the day about marketing and networking actually penetrated my thick skull, so it was easier to step up and make a move like this when the opportunity presented itself.

The final session of the day was a panel featuring a number of brilliant contributors, including David Ciccarelli and Billy Serow, as well as actor and television personality Evan Farmer, Heather Frenz (a very talented actress and voiceover talent working full-time in Albany), Jim Sciancalepore of Media Logic, David Bourgeois (president of Voicecoaches) and me. We spent over an hour and a half answering questions from the 60 or so in attendance. It was great fun. I’m so very glad I was invited to be a part of this excellent day.

My friend Jeffrey Kafer has written a post for his blog that underscores something I’ve long believed: many times the best solutions are the simplest. In Jeffrey’s case, he was trying to figure out the best way to set up his home studio to do a phone patch. Our mutual friend Frank Frederick (yes, Jeffrey, he is a super nice guy) gave this exact advice about not picking an expensive and complicated solution when a simple one will do.
Good for you, Jeffrey. May there be many more.

My friend Karen Commins always gets my brain cells working with her blog posts. Her post How to lose friends and irritate people is a perfect example. While my experiences haven’t paralleled Karen’s exactly, I do see the dynamic of “keeping you the same” playing out in interesting ways. Thank you, Karen. And if you’ll take some time to read the whole thing, I think you’ll say “thank you” to Karen as well.

According to my server logs, quite a number you dear readers, are located in Canada. Since I’d hate to leave you “out in the cold” as it were (ahem), here are some study opportunities coming to various cities across Canada. All of these are classes offered by the brilliant Debbie Munro.

MIC & ME Voice Workout – $375.00 (full weekend) or $225.00 one day only. All levels of experience.
Work for two intense days on mic. Be directed as you work on a variety of current scripts. Tips, tricks and amazing stories throughout.
Toronto – June 9/10, 2007 (NOTE: Check this post on the Vox Daily blog for more about this event.)
London UK – June 16/17, 2007 (see info sheet for prices)
Calgary – August 25/26, 2007
Regina – September 8/9, 2007
Saskatoon – October 6/7, 2007

MIC & ME Voice Biz – $375.00 (full weekend) or $225.00 one day only. All levels of experience.
Learn all about the business for day one, time on mic and basic editing day 2. Perform an actual audition as I direct you, then you edit it and submit it yourself.
Vancouver – Sept 22/23, 2007 10-5 p.m.
Calgary – TBD Fall 2007
Edmonton – TBD Fall 2007

As far as I know, the prices quoted are Canadian dollars. But, to be sure check Debbie Munro’s website for all the latest updates and details.

Rather than trying to live blog this evening, I’m just going to pass along what I see are some of the key thoughts. We began with Nancy talking with about some of the core concepts of Nancy’s instruction, the material that forms the basis of many of her private lessons. The thing that is different here is that Nancy (with Anna chiming in from time to time) is doing all the talking rather than the interactive experience that studying with her in Private Lessons is like. (I confess, I like the Private Lessons better; but this has been great review of some of these very basis ideas.

Here are a couple of examples of ways to sound like a real person: Don’t emphasize conjunction words. (and, but, then, etc.) Don’t emphasize “you.” (The person seeing or hearing the commercial isn’t thinking about anyone else listening, so emphasizing “you” telegraphs that this is a [small time] commercial.)

In the question and answer time, one of the questions had to do with “what about those times when the client insists on one of those words being emphasized.” Nancy’s response: Ignore what I said and do what the client wants.

Observations from the demo evaluations: 1 minute and 22 seconds is too long. It needs to be right about one minute. Don’t leave mispronounced words on your demo. Make acting choices and then commit to those choices. Don’t just say the words. Don’t use a slate on a demo unless it’s part of a house reel. Have the first voice that’s heard be our money voice. Don’t lead with a partner voice, because an agent wants to hear money and partner reads suggest “radio” which is the lower paying stuff. Lead with a campaign sound, a Porsche not a Kia.

Lead with our authentic sound, the one that establishes our individual brands. Sometimes, especially for pieces that are TV spots, the background music should drown out our voices slightly, because that’s the TV spots really are mixed.

Nancy has done demos for people all over the world, including people she’s never met in person; by using Source Connect to direct remotely while connected with a studio where the talent lives.

And to cap off the evening, Kara Edwards won a free one year Premium subscription to Voices.com, when her name was drawn out of the hat at the end. (It was a good evening for Kara, as she was also one of the 4 who had her demo evaluated on the spot by Nancy.)

And for more information, be sure to visit BreakIntoVoiceOver.com.

From time to time Philip Banks backs up his Brinks Truck of insight and unloads a great pile of it at the VO-BB. Today was one of those days. Since he has previously given me blanket permission to quote him, I will do so here. And thank you, Philip, for these very thought provoking comments, buried as they are on page 5 of this thread.

I’m a $20 per month member of Voices.com and a $195 member of Voice123. My membership of both sites has helped me spend part of my marketing budget; it remains to be seen how effective this exercise will prove.

For several months I’ve been looking for value in my marketing spend and this has proved increasingly difficult to find. In order to connect with business people I joined ecademy.com at a cost of $20 per month. Most of the members are entrepreneurs (Bilkopedia = between bankruptcies) who talk the talk but do not walk the walk.

Never before have I encountered so many bedroom based CEOs. Why do so many business people spend time networking online, going to local, regional and national networking meetings? Because they have nothing better to do, in other words NO BUSINESS. My final test for ecademy was to place an ad in the so-called Marketplace offering the service of a Voice Over. I didn’t expect a response but did expect to see another ad to appear offering the services of a Voice Over. No disrespect to the other Voice Over, it just confirmed that ecademy was not the place for me.

I was taught a long time ago to test everything I do in marketing and to establish the £ (or dollar) value. As law student I was also taught that the most important question to ask is always the second one because people seldom answer the first. if you combine these two disciplines you will have a powerful marketing philosopy.
We need to be sure why we are doing something, is it business or is it pleasure? Guess what. VO-BB is of no commercial value to me at all!

“OUCH! How VERY dare you, Sir. I spurn you as I would spurn a rabid dog!”

Over 1500 posts, each has been a pleasure. I’m delighted to be in your company and I chose to spend the time I’ve spent thus far on here because I enjoy it.
Having placed the above on record there are sites like voices.com that work the voices but do not work for voices – Here’s what you do. Use the site to fit in with your agenda, never let things work the other way. Do you have a minimum session fee? Do you audition for jobs below your minimum session fee? When someone asks for a custom audition send them a note requesting that they listen to you demo’s and if they feel it’s appropriate get in touch for a custom piece of audio. You feel this may be heavy handed? What if you don’t get the job? There was only a 100-1 chance you were going to get it any way so you’re not losing much.

Pay to play sites – You pay them to get you work, you do not pay them to allow people to collect free auditions.

Agents – The job of an agent is to represent your interests and to help promote your career. An email that reads “do this audition” should always be followed up with a request as to why the client wanted an audition from you in particular. You would be amazed how many agents work on the “mud sticks” principle, that is not in your interest. If you honestly believe it is the following may be of use – You would be amazed how many agents work on the “mud sticks” principle, that is not in your interest

When I moved up to Scotland a journey of over 600 miles I was contacted by an agent. Would I go to a TV studio to audition for character voices for a new puppet TV series ? Qualifier was very important as the audition day was my moving day – “Why does the director and producer want to see me?”
The agent lost her temper, she snapped that she was very busy and this was a good opportunity. I asked the same question again – Keep asking your question until you get the answer. It turned out that the production team were seeing anyone from any agency. I was going to allow 6 people on salaries plus expenses to waste my time, fuel and not pay me a penny. Was it going to be an investment? 100-1 chance or over? No, I doubt it. Did I upset the agent? Yes. If someone took from you (or tried to) around $500, stopped you from doing something more productive and all for no good reason would you mind upsetting them?

The two great motivators in this business are vanity and fear, beat those and your career will go into orbit. Most people never manage to beat either, let alone both.