History

My first encounter with Pat took place 2 years ago at the Dan O’Day sponsored 2004 International Radio Creative and Production Summit. His presentation was on creating and using characters. Since Pat is a very successful animation and character voice-over talent in Los Angeles, this was great fun, but not all that practical to me, since this isn’t my niche.

Then last year, Pat was back for a second session at the 2005 Summit. In 3 hours, Pat Fraley taught us practical and immediately useful techniques about how to approach copy at auditions. How practical? In the last year, I’ve earned at least $5000.00 more than I would have, because of the auditioning tools I gained studying with Pat Fraley. In fact in less than a year, I’ve won multiple high-paying jobs using the ideas I learned from him.

I’ll write about my expreriences of putting the audiobook class lessons into practice as time goes on, so there’s more to come on that subject.

The Audiobook Master Class presented by Pat Fraley was everything I hoped it would be and more. It was really 3 master classes in one. We each received a wonderfully detailed book of notes, saving us the trouble of writing like mad and hoping we weren’t missing something important in the process. Instruction both in the classroom and in the studio came from our three very talented teachers: Pat Fraley, Hillary Huber and Kimberly Breault. (Hillary’s link is to a page on Pat’s site. I can’t find a site specifically for her. Here is another page with some good comments about Hillary.)

First, it was training in how to approach the reading of an audiobook. It’s a very different approach than doing a commercial voice-over. The word picture Pat gave us was “it’s like a train,” running for a very, very long time in the same direction. Recording sessions for audiobooks often last 3 to 6 hours, with just short breaks each hour and for the longer sessions, a stop in the middle of the day for lunch.

Second, it was training in how to find work recording audiobooks. There were many helpful suggestions here, not just about web sites to look at but suggestions about letters to use for contacts and follow-up. This was the part I expected to get the least from, because I’m such a poor self-promoter, but even I believe I can follow through on these simple, and practical ideas.

Third, it was recording our actual audiobook demos. There were 3 voice booths in use, with four of us moving from booth to booth in turns. (One group had 5.) I was delighted to get to record with three talented artists: Connie Zimet, Dwight Harmon and Cindy Shoemaker. Hillary, Kim and Pat each provided direction and notes as we recorded.

This week they are taking our raw tracks to a professional editor to prepare the finished demos. We’ll receive them in a few days.

In addition, Kathe Mazur came in during lunch to offer us her insights as a successful voice talent recording audiobooks for major audiobook publisher, Books-on-Tape. It was wonderful to hear her thoughtful comments about both the delights and the challenges involved in recording audiobooks.

Having now attended three training events with Pat Fraley, I strongly recommend you jump at your next chance to take one of his classes; at least one that makes sense for your specific area of interest. The price of the serminar, the air transportation from Charlotte to LA and back, the hotel, rental car and meals…all of it combined was worth every penny based what I learned in one 8-hour day. I’m very confident I’ll make it all back, and lots more before this year is finished.

Best of all, its was a load of fun!

I received a note today from a friend named Dick. Here are the salient comments:

Just wanted to let you know I’m starting to get a little business. Voice123.com has produced two projects so far, and I’ve done a corporate narration for GlaxoSmithKline. Also doing some pro bono radio spots for a local Christian school’s basketball team. I’ve been signed on to the roster of an audiobook publisher in England for when they need an American voice, but no actual work yet from them. They’ve said I should be seeing something early next year.

And my reply, picking up on a memory sparked by the “very good idea” I noticed in Dick’s comments:

The pro bono work is a good idea. There’s a young lady in Pittsburgh named Kelly who did some pro bono voice-overs for our station for about a year, just to gain some “real world” experience. She is now a busy and well paid female talent in Western Pennsylvania. The experience you’re gaining can only stand you in good stead going forward.

Yes, if you’re just getting started in voice-over work, and you can find a radio station that will help you gain real experience, that’s a very good idea. Indeed, were I in that situation today, I would listen to the various local radio stations and pick the one that’s doing the best local production and volunteer there.
Two reasons: because they almost certainly need more decently talented voices because of the amount of work they have to do and because the direction you get will more likely be the kind that you need. Gaining experience doing cheezy, crummy voice-overs is worse than no experience at all.

The 2004 International Radio Creative and Production Summit in Los Angeles was notable for a couple of things. It was the first time that Dick Orkin officially didn’t co-present the event with Dan O’Day. And it was the first time no live critiques of attendees work were done, what had been known at the Critique-A-Spot-A-Thon.

However, in spite of these elements that were missing, there were several excellent reasons to attend. Not least was the workshop on creating characters and the voices that go with them, presented by Patrick Fraley. It was excellent, and I say this even though I don’t do cartoon/animation voices. (Not professionally, anyway. However, I have been known to come up with a few goofy voices for my children while reading them stories.)

Let me put my thoughts about Pat Fraley this way: If you get a chance to take a class from him, do it. He will be presented a completely different seminar at this year’s Summit. It will be worth the price of admission. I’m sure of it. You might even want to buy one of Pat’s books or CDs.

I’ve previously mentioned how much I’ve learned about voice-overs from Dick Orkin.

That learning started with a bang, to say the least. It was August 1997. At the time I was Production Manager of WORD-FM in Pittsburgh, PA. My assistant was Darren Eliker, one of the most gifted actors and voice-over talents I’ve had the privilege to know and work with over the years. (Darren replaced me as Production Manager when I was promoted to Program Director in 1998 and he’s been winning awards, and more importantly, helping businesses grow ever since with his brilliant campaigns, voice-overs and directing.)

Back then I was a member of CompuServe, and hung out a fair amount in the Radio forum. In the late summer of 1996 one of the other members posted a note about what an excellent experience he had at the International Radio Creative and Production Summit. Back then Dan O’Day and Dick Orkin jointly presented the Summit.

Based on what I read, I determined that if I possibly could, I would attend the next one. Which leads us back to where we started, August of 1997. Our boss gave his blessing for both Darren and I to attend the Summit, so there we were in Los Angeles, CA.

On the first day, among the various presentations, was a group class on voice-over by Dick Orkin. But with 80 people there, Dick decided to limit his “hands on” work to just 8 of us.

In spite of my lesson from a few years previous, I was still paralyzed with fear about volunteering. Providentially, Dick didn’t ask for volunteers. He asked for those who do voice-overs to raise their hands. So, I did. And he picked me to be one of the 8. Which is where the three questions come from.

After giving us some dialog copy to read with one another, Dick offered these 3 questions as a way to quickly get to the point of our copy:

1. Where am I?
2. Who am I talking to?
3. What do I want from them?

Answer those three questions and you know the Setting, the Audience, and your Motivation.

You may be surprised that “Who am I?” isn’t one of the three questions. I was too. But, the answer to that question is either explicit or implicit in the copy.

When I remember to ask these three questions, I nearly always do a better job of auditioning. Which gets me more work. Because, as you already know, the key to getting work in voice-over is doing lots of auditions, and winning at least a few of them.

It was, I think, April of 1993. In the span of an hour and a half one afternoon, I learned a great deal about the voice-over craft and yet missed a wonderful opportunity at the same time. I was at the Gospel Music Association convention in Nashville, TN. Marice Tobias taught a seminar class that year. I mentioned this experience in passing previously, but in that post, I didn’t deal with the real heart of the matter.

You see the single most important thing I learned that day was the single thing. Huh?

Marice taught us that every good piece of broadcast ad copy has a single point at its heart. If we’re going to do an excellent job of reading a given piece of copy, we have to be able to understand what the heart of the spot is, and build our read around that. To put it another way, to tell the story, we have to know what the point of the story is.

When I’m reading over a piece of copy for an audition, I’ll ask myself, “What’s the point?” Even sarcastically sometimes. Because, the copy has to make one point, and only one point, if it’s going to work well.

So, what do I do if the copy isn’t written well? Maybe makes two or three points? Even more?

A couple of things. Try to synthesize the multiple points into a single “heart-of-the-dog” message, if at all possible. And, commit myself to do the most excellent job possible, no matter what.

Several years ago I heard an interview with the Concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on WFMT in Chicago. The discussion turned to the matter of guest conductors, and how some of them were not quite a good as others. Which led to a question about whether a bad conductor could make the orchestra play poorly. The answer? “No, there’s a level below which we will not play. We’re the Chicago Symphony Orchestra!”

I may not be the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, but I know that I have to have that attitude about my work.

So, what was the missed opportunity? Marice asked for 5 volunteers from the audience to read copy. My heart burned within me to raise my hand, but I didn’t. I chickened out. Because I felt too shy, too fearful that I would make a fool of myself in front of everyone. The only good thing that came out of that experience was the internal commitment that when I’m part of such a learning opportunity in the future, I would never allow my fears to keep me from getting into the thick of things again. A commitment I’ve kept. And that has made such a difference.