Times are tough all over...

Backstage magazine has an interesting article concerning the current state of the economy.

Despite my overwhelming desire to be snarky due to the facts and research done on this article (for example, use of stats during what is normally the weakest time of the year for actors, use of statistics that do not match case examples, and the use of two very troubled industries to correlate the rest of the economic situation), I'm going to take a more positive approach.

I know, I know, the VO actor who is also an infosec professional is going to be jocund in his posting about the economy. Sorry to disappoint, but I am.

Here's the deal, you can be in business, ANY business, unless you recognize the fact that you're going to have lean years, as well as fat years. Barring major calamity, there's about a 15-20 year cycle between recessions. The current economic climate reminds me of the late eighties, which wasn't all that different from spots in the late 60s. My point is that you can't be surprised when these things happen... simply put, the sun can't stay shining forever.

As a voice actor, especially for those who are just starting in the field (and one thing the article and I both agree upon is that there are a LOT of new folks entering the field) you've got to recognize this fact. But above all things you have to remember this one little phrase...

A career, or any long-term endeavor is a marathon, not a sprint. The sooner one recognizes this, the better you can prepare for it. This is where (for the voice actor) diversification, long-term planning (financial and professional) comes into play. Sure, the commercial market for voice acting is many areas is a bit drier than normal, but several sources (and my own experience) state that companies are keeping things more "in-house", by increasing the number of industrial voice overs that are being produced (it seems as though you can't shake a stick without hitting someone who's looking for talent to provide a voice over for a corporate presentation ).

Like most things in life, perception is reality. But if this recession turns out to be anything like the last one, you'll be hearing the stories of people and companies who not only survived this economic downturn, but exceeded everyone's expectations (Google is a great example of one of these). What's going to separate those who succeed from those who don't survive...? Simple. Those who are still around after it's all said and done will be the ones who best utilized the resources available to them and paced themselves long past the point when things are expected to get better...

not much different from long-distance running if you ask me.

A direct link to the article can be found here.

Cheers!

Own your mistakes!

A lot of new, and even experienced talent fall into this trap... myself included. A lot of voice actors far more talented than I have mentioned it in passing. I just want to offer my take on it.

When something goes wrong, when we make a mistake, we beat ourselves up over it or we simply view it as a negative. It's a common practice, and definitely one which is not unique to voiceover. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard people grumbling about the quality of their auditions while going over copy before heading into the booth at any number of casting sessions in Philadelphia or New York City. One professional talent called them "the mistake mumbles" because we all knew what they were complaining about, but it was done in such a way that all you can hear is mumbling as they walk past you grab their stuff and head out to the car.

I'm not so subtle, but I leave my complaints about my performance to the car ride home. Driving on the Schuylkill Expressway and dealing with the traffic gives me plenty of time to vent my frustrations. I'm sure that my fellow motorists stuck in traffic think that I've lost my mind (probably even more so when I'm taking NJ Transit on the way home, lol).

It's natural, it's human, and it's really self-defeating. Don't get me wrong, we need to get out the negativity. To bottle it up is really bad for your long-term mental health. However, when we get to the point of being negative, we've basically just lessened ourselves. That's a bad thing, but we do it anyway because so much of society and our own nature as people is to look at mistakes as a negative action, as a weakness. We then equate that negative action, not with the action itself, but with the person who committed that act. Sometimes it's an appropriate response (without getting political, I can point to examples in Darfur, the Middle East, acts of terrorism, etc.), but in a lot of cases it's overblown (a teenager working the register for the first time at my local supermarket). In voice acting, or nearly any kind of creative art, it's almost always an overblown thing. After all, you can't have people who are doing emotional work, using their inner feelings, hopes, and fears to draw out the emotion from a piece of paper, and then act surprised that they get emotional about their performance.

I'm telling you that all of this is normal, and much of it is part of how we deal with things in society. I'm also telling you that when it comes to voiceover it's wrong, it's bad, and it's self defeating. As a species, we've become so trained to avoid mistakes that we run away from them, we look down upon ourselves for making them, and normally, we will do anything but the one thing that's necessary when we make a mistake... admit it, own it, and move on!

It sounds easier than it is, but if you watch a professional actor, a true genius of the craft, you'll see that even when a mistake is made, it's owned. To be certain, some of this is based on ego (the irony of ego in acting is an amusing thing to me - if you get into acting for your ego, you'll be disappointed, yet you need your ego to have the confidence to be an actor... it's a twisted circle), but mostly I think it's based on experience. I don't know of anyone who has done anything and become proficient without making a mistake. Even those who are proficient make mistakes, they've just learned to own them in order to better their craft, and so should you. You need to accept the fact that practice, and the experience which we learn from our mistakes that is going to make us better at pretty much whatever we do.

If you have to, think of it like this - the only job you're ever going to have where you start at the top, is when you dig a hole.

Instead of digging a hole for yourself by ignoring your mistakes, I say that you own them and use them to learn how to do things better.

Now if the idea of owning your mistakes makes sense to you, and you want to see how one particular voice actor was able to use a post mortem analysis to do exactly what I'm talking about, then you're going to want to check out Jeff Kafer's blog to see how a good example of this.

Cheers!

CISSP and Voice Over? Learning to "own it".

For those who didn't know, I recently took the exam to become a Certified Information System Security Professional. Normally, you want to take a few months to prepare for the exam since you have ten domains of knowledge upon which you are tested, and the adage "mile wide, but inch deep" is very true when it comes to the exam certification.

And true to course, I was given less than 10 calendar days to prepare for the exam due to the nature of my employer (who, unfortunately, does not understand the nature of the certification). That okay though, because at least they were offering me the opportunity and covering the bill.

Since this is a voice over blog, you know that I'm going to find something from one and use towards the other. And you'd be right in stating so. In this case, it has to do with confidence. Both with the CISSP and in your own voiceover career the confidence you have in yourself will often make or break you. Without turning this into a self-help posting, how often do we go into something and simply say "I own this!"?

Probably not as often as we should, and as I scrambled through the 3500 pages of material that I needed to know for the exam, I found myself at wits end about 4 day prior to the exam. Quite simply, there was too much to do and I hadn't been given enough time. Were I allowed to put my job on hold, in addition to my coursework, and all other responsibilities, then I know I could have done it. However, in the state I was in I just couldn't see it.

And then I looked at it from the point of view of a performer. I remembered what I'm so often told by those I train and perform with. Simply put, it's to stop worrying about what might happen, and to go in with guns blazing knowing that regardless of the decision that I owned it as best possible. From that moment on, that's exactly what I did. When I was able to study during the rest of the week, I told myself to own it. When I did the practice exams, I told myself that I owned it. Reviewing the materials one last time before the exam, I'd remind myself to own it. And regardless of the outcome, I knew that I owned the exam. Pass? Fail? It doesn't matter anymore... the important thing is that I got the experience. If I didn't get it this time, then I continue working on it until the next exam and I'd get it then.

Precisely what you need to do in voice over. I'm as guilty as the next of getting into my head and psyching myself out over the audition. I mentally beat myself up on the drive home, or worry about how I did, if I'll hear anything, or if I just bombed. Does that help anyone? No. Instead, you need to go in with the attitude of owning the audition, moving on to the next challenge as soon as you're done. Leave the worrying to someone else, because it's out of your hands now. The only thing you can do is to continue to train, strengthen up your weaknesses once you've identified them, and go after the next audition with the same philosophy of owning it.

Ironically, it took an infosec certification to really learn the message that people have been telling me for years. If you don't own these challenges, they're going to own you, and regardless of how you learn that lesson, you'll never reach the next step of your career without it...

-Happy Easter!

BTW: for those interested, I passed the exam on the first shot.