Next up, I headed off to Liz de Nesnera ‘s presentation on “Talking Telephony”. I don’t get many jobs for that type of voice over, but I know that telephony-based voiceovers are some of most ubiquitous out there, and for people like Liz, it’s a way of life.
This was a sleeper of a panel for me. Before the hate mail starts rolling in, I mean a sleeper, not a snoozer. I wasn’t expecting to get a lot out of this panel, but I was still drawn to learn more about it. I have often said that I’ve learned the most when I didn’t think there was much to learn… this held true for Liz’s panel. Yeah, the technical stuff was pretty easy for me, and not too much was new there (although I can see some great uses for Word2Wav, especially with some of the industrials I have to do). However, the actual voice acting, general schema, etc. related to things such as IVR, voice prompts, and the like were completely new to me and a total 180 from what I expected. Add to that the approach that Liz defined, the marketing techniques she identified, and the simple (yet effective) methods of finding clients (either via direct contact, or by finding production houses which specialize in telephony VO) made this panel a very educational and entertaining one for me.
After the 11AM panel, I headed down to the exhibit hall and toured through the place to see what was being offered. Popped by the Voice Over Extra booth, and greeted John Florian. One of the big things that hit me during VOICE so far was the number of great people whom I met and converse with on a regular basis, but rarely get to see in person. If there’s one thing I do like about VOICE, it’s the ability to meet and catch up with so many people in the industry that I wouldn’t normally get to see otherwise. Unfortunatley, I’m digressing though…
John was nice enough to let me use some space at his booth to set up some gear and get a few roving interviews to share with others. First off was John himself, who was gracious enough to take some time away from what he was doing to give me a few minutes of his time to test out the recording chain. Unfortunately, I only had time for one more interview before the next panel, and I was lucky enough to get Pete Rofe’ to agree to join me for what turned into a monster interview (but a really good one, as Peter’s insights into voice over and acting in general are spot on). Once I get a chance to upload the clips, I’ll share them via the blog (and John was very kind to host the clips as well). I can’t promise the best quality due to the environment, but for those who wanted to attend, but couldn’t or weren’t sure that VOICE was for them, I think these clips will be a great way to see just what you’re missing.
After snagging those two interviews, I was able to bounce between George Whittam's panel on the Technology of Voiceover and Erik Sheppard's panel on Simple Mistakes that Talent Make. Now for those who don't know George Whittam, he's the guy behind Eldorado Recording Services. Prior to VOICE 2010, I heard one talent who was critiquing the Guests of Honor ask the question "who is George Whittam... I've never heard of him." Well, this is George Whittam, and any guy who can build a studio for the likes of the late Don LaFontaine, Joe Cipriano, and a veritable "who's who" within the voice acting community (not to mention the Don LaFontaine Voiceover Lab) is A-ok in my book. George's panel is always a good one, especially for new talent or those who don't have some kind of recording background. Even gearheads like me can pick up a few things with some of the newer technologies out there which we may have otherwise ignored. For example, I would never have bothered to utilize something like a CEntrance MicPort Pro for my "VO 2 Go" kit if I hadn't read George's reviews of the device.
(Besides, George originally hails from my hometown, West Chester PA. You've got to support the locals :)
Erik Sheppard's panel was also very good, and highlighted mistakes that pretty much any voice actor has made over the course of their career (most of which he probably enocuntered first hand in his position with Voice Talent Productions). I heard more than a few groans and such from folks who'd committed the very same faux pas that Erick discussed. It was a great panel which discussed ways in which voice over talent manage to work themselves out of a job via oversights, snafus, and by not following directions.
That last one is in bold for a reason, because while some items can be overlooked (one of my better clients was landed by a fauz pas on my part which might have seemed fatal at the time, but was turned into a positive experience for the client by the way in which I handled it), an unwillingness to follow client/agent/casting director/director directions is a very quick way to make certain that your demo gets tossed into the "ignore" pile.
The final panel for the afternoon session I attended was Beverley Bremer's panel on "How to Weat 3 Hats". I viewed this as a panel which was really good for beginner and intermediate voice talent, as too often they focus on one aspect of the voice over process (usually the talent). While that's not a bad thing per se, it can quickly lead to a myopic view that causes the talent to lose out on various opportunities. Within the voice over world, the voice actor needs to put themselves in the position of talent, director, and engineer. The talent portion of the presentation is pretty self-explanatory, however the other two are often overlooked by voice talent that is less experienced. Interpretation of what the director wants, and the ability to self-direct are as important as the acting ability according to Bremers, and I wholeheartedly agree. There's an old VO adage which states that your first take needs to be what the specs ask for, but the second should be what you think they actually want. That's self-direction for VO in a nutshell... you need to be able to understand what the copy is really asking for and then to do it.
The final item, Engineering, is a bit of a no-brainer if you have a home studio, but you'd be amazed how often people forget to do a little audio engineering during their auditions. A poorly edited file is a quick way to work yourself out of a booking that would have otherwise been yours. Especially in today's VO market, it's become more and more of a critical skill to have, and one which cannot be ignored.
On that note, I'm going to try and get some rest before Day 2. There's nothing worse than trying to attend these panels when you're batteries need major recharging.
By the end of Beverly's panel, I was pretty well wiped out. That's the thing with VOICE. If you try to hit everything, you're going to be wiped out at the end of the day. It's not a bad thing, but you need to be judicious when it comes to what you choose to attend, because some panels are more intensive than others.
Managed to have a slightly saner wakeup call this morning (6:15AM), which was a most pleasant change from the day before. Got a quick breakfast, showered, shaved, and ready for the day’s activities. First off was the introductory speech by James and Penny, which was similar to what was at VOICE 2008, but thankfully the issues which kept the keynote speaker from appearing did not occur this time.
This year, the opening speaker for VOICE was none other than Pat Fraley. If you haven’t worked with, trained with, or seen a presentation from Pat, then you’re missing out. Without a doubt, Pat is one of the nicest guys in the business, and one most well respected (the man is a VO machine; just check out his imdb page... it's nothing short of astounding). For VOICE he didn’t disappoint, but then again he never does…
Pat opened the convention with the premise of voiceover comedy. As voice over folks, we often bring comedy into what we do, but how often do we actually think about the comedy within the copy? Not as often as you might think. To do this, Pat started to cast for a spot that he wanted to use to kick off the show. He asked for what was nothing less than an unusual character (gruff, Jewish, and 6’9”). If that sounds a bit off, you’re 100% right, but that’s because Pat was setting us all up for his co-host, who was none other than Brad Garrett… hey, I told you that Pat never disappoints.
What followed was one of the most riotous panels I’ve ever seen in my life.Pat and Brad riffed on pretty much everyone and everything, and frankly, this event was worth the cost of admission alone (for me at least).As Pat, Brad, and a host of volunteers demonstrated throughout the 90+ minute panel, there are a multitude of ways to raise the stakes of the copy to the point of hilarity, and still get the message across.All too often, I think these are things which get overlooked (or can be) in the morass of the process.It reminded me a LOT of improvisation, and the things I’d learned during my time training with the People’s Improv Theatre in NYC.
I'm trying my best not to give anyone eye strain from all the stuff that occurred at VOICE 2010, so I've been breaking these up as best possible. I'll have the second half of the the first day of VOICE 2010 up later tonight.
Wow... what a night Wednesday night has been! I got to meet a lot of old friends I haven't been able to see in the past few months/years, and got to meet some new ones whom I only knew from our interactions online. Best of all, I got to meet a bunch of new people, whom I might not have had the opportunity to meet otherwise.
For those who weren't able to make it.... here are a few pictures of the Red Carpet event that I promised yesterday.
Here's the kickoff to the night's festivities (and to VOICE 2010) with Bobbin Beam and Dave Courvoisier.
Next up, we have James Alburger and Penny Abshire, the organizers for VOICE 2010.
Of course, John Florian from Voice Over Extra can be found with a camera (sorry John... couldn't resist).
The Red Carpet Reception is one of those events that's designed for voice actors to congregate and socialize. As you can see, we had a lot of that going on last night...
Well, I was packed (more or less) and ready to head out to the airport for my flight to Los Angeles sometime around “dark 0-hundred”. Now I love to travel, but the idea of getting up at the crack of dawn to get on to a plane is not quite my idea of a good time. Love heading out to LA to network and learn with some of the best voice over people in the business, but don’t mess with my sleep…
Get to the airport, which was unusually busy at 5:40 AM on a Wednesday, bags checked, and got to play with the folks from TSA (who were surprisingly nonchalant about me waltzing through security with a DSLR kit in one bag and a bunch of recording gear in the other). Hop on the plane and get to enjoy Southwest’s hospitality for the next 7.5 hours.
When I finally landed in LA, I was fortunate enough to arrive about 30 minutes or so early. Good stuff… lets me get more done before the festivities begin. Got to the hotel, checked in (ironically, I’m only about two doors down from the room I was in at VOICE 2008, which was one of the nicer hotel rooms I’d been in over the past two years). Another item of irony (and unexpected pleasure) was to spot the person who was checking into their room right before me. None other than D.B. Cooper, whom I haven’t seen in far too long for my tastes (not only a talented voice actress and Website designer, but D.B. runs one of the larger and more popular forums on the net). After spending some time chatting with D.B., I did something which I probably should have done earlier… eat (save for a bag of peanuts on the flight, and a 100 calorie pack of cheese-its, I’d not had much chance to grab some food). For those who’ve never been to the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza where VOICE is being held, I’ll say two things about it:
1. Very nice hotel that will cater to nearly any need you might have, with a restaurant that is staffed by one of the friendliest groups of people that I’ve met in my travels. 2. If they could figure out a way to charge you a fee for using the air, they probably would. If you can get past the second item, I highly recommend staying here whenever you’re in Los Angeles.
It seems that my penchant for running into people was in high gear today… as I’m heading out of the restaurant, I run into none other than Ron Levine, the venerable Santa Claus that everyone remembered from VOICE 2008. After helping Ron to settle in a bit, we headed over to the local mall to stretch our legs a bit after spending several hours on our respective flights, and to pick up some supplies to get us through the conference (as much as I do enjoy the hotel we’re at, I’m not crazy enough to pay some of the prices they’re asking for at times). Headed back to the hotel after grabbing some supplies and somehow managed to catch about 30 or so minutes of rest before getting changed and ready for the Red Carpet Reception which kicked off VOICE 2010.
So after getting a bit of rest and changing into something a bit more appropriate than jeans and a wrinkled shirt, I headed down to the Red Carpet Reception. What follows is the stuff that voice actor’s dreams are made of (at least I’d like to think so). Penny Abshire and James Alburger managed to put together an event which literally drew hundreds of voice talent from all over the world. While it was obvious that VOICE 2010 was going to be a smaller event than in years past, it was also apparent that it wouldn’t be for lack of effort. A large contingent from Europe and Japan, not to mention Canada, and at least one person from Turkey were in attendance. Regardless of what happens during the course of this conference, it’s obvious that VOICE has developed an international reach, which is nothing short of impressive in the years since the event first took place. Where else can you meet such amazing talent as Bob Bergen, Pat Fraley, Joe Cipriano, Beau Weaver, Stu Herrera, Bobbin Beam, Dave Courvoisier, and a host of others all under one roof at the same time?
Unfortunately, I did not have one of my better cameras with me last night, however, I did manage to take more than a few pictures of people while I was at the event, and I'll be putting up a few once I get a chance to upload them. They’re a little dark, but if you’re reading this I think it will give you a good understanding of just what the folks at VOICE have going on.
Here in Philadelphia, we've heard a lot of powerful voices. You've got the impassioned speeches of the American Revolution, some of the most famous theatres in the country (FYI: Philly has the oldest theatre in the country), and a remarkably rich history of music and broadcasting).
We're pretty aware of the power that one's voice can have.
As a voice actor, as any voice actor can tell you, the use of one's voice can bring a power to the words that often doesn't exist on paper, at least not on their own. Now I recently said that it's not just about the voice, and I stand behind that comment. Turns out that I was more right than I knew.
There's a report that just came out from the Proceedings of the Royal Society B stating something that I've been saying for a while. There is an inherent power with what we choose to do with our speech that can affect those around us. Most voice artists out there should know this by now, but if not, the study found that the affect of a mother's voice has the same chemical and emotional affect on a child as if they had made physical contact.
Think about that for a second. As far as the subjects in the study were concerned, merely hearing the voice of a concerned parent had the same affect on them as if they had been physically comforted.
That's pretty powerful stuff if you ask me. I've always used mental imagery to help determine my choices with copy. This included the usual who, what, where, when, why, etc. One of the most important for me has always been "to whom am I speaking", and I know from experience the affect it can have on my delivery. However, I never once thought that there was the potential to have so profound an affect as to actually alter one's biological chemistry with nothing more than the power of my speech.
A good synopsis of the study can be found here for those who are interested in learning a bit more.
I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a comic book geek.
I've got boxes and boxes of comics in my house, ranging from selected silver and golden age comics to stuff from a few years ago (sorry, but the mainstream titles stopped appealing to me when the storylines turned more into merchandising than, oh say, an actual story). Yes, they're bagged (mylar) and organized, like any good comic book fan should do.
Why is this important? It isn't... I just felt the need to get it off my chest.
However, on May 7th, 2010, it was Free Comic Book Day. For those who don't know what it is, Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) is the first Saturday in the month of May when comic book shops give away comic books for free. Now obviously you're not going to go in and get a Detective Comics #27 from them for free, but it's a nice way to show your support for the industry by stopping by your local comic book shop and maybe picking up a couple of extras... since you're already there for the free stuff.
Now since May 7th has come and gone, you're just going to have to wait till next year. However, the organizers of FCBD put together a simple, yet amusing commerical with Kevin Smith behind the voice over. It's pretty apparent that the production quality is low, but I found it amusing none the less.
I don't know how many times I've heard the ole, "people say I have a really nice voice, maybe I should get into voice over..." I don't think that there's a single voice actor out there doesn't have a few stories to tell in this regard.
It's part of the game.
Frankly, I'm always more than happy to help most folks out as best I can. For the most part, I think most voice actors would say the same (and some... I'm looking at you, anime VAs, can be veritable saints at times). Sure, the VO community is very tight knit, but we're always willing to welcome folks into the fold. It's one of the many great things about this art, and one of the many reasons it's become such a large part of my life.
That said, I remember (and often echo) the words of one of my voice coaches. During our first session together she browbeat me with the words "it's not about the voice". I needed to hear that a LOT of times before I truly figured out what she meant. Once I did, it became part of my response used whenever anyone asked me about voiceover, or voice acting in general.
Turns out that I'm not quite alone in that regard. In a recent blog post I found on Blogging Innovation, Mike Brown talks of a similar approach where "it's not about the voiceover". In his situation, Brown talks about a Marketing Lead who directed that there would be no voice over in a particular piece. Members of his creative team pleaded that a voice over was essential to what they were doing (something I'm sure every voice actor loves to hear), but the Lead was adamant.
What they discovered was that they'd been relying on voice actors to fix their mistakes with the copy. What the Marketing Lead had done was to force a stronger, better performance out of the staff by not having them rely on someone else (i.e., someone outside of their general control) to fix their problems for them.
It's somewhat brilliant if you think about it.
Now for voice actors, we need to take a similar approach. All too often, we begin to rely on something external to help us elevate our work. In a lot of cases, we do the same thing that these marketing people were doing... we're counting on the "voice" to get us through the copy. Well, it's not about the voice. Never has been. Never should be. It's about our creativity, our ability to make a choice related to the copy ,our commitment to the choices we made, etc. In short, it's about all the creative aspects of what we do.
Too often, in my opinion, I hear people talk about "the voice". Brown's posting, and his example, should serve as a good reminder to all of us that it's not about the voice, but what we bring to it, what we bring to the copy, and how we do so, that makes a voiceover worth listening to.
It's one of those posts which you can't help but to chuckle at, groan, and take a little bit of wisdom from. If for no other reason, than the fact that anyone who has ever been on either side of the booth has witnessed at least a few of these telltale signs, this blog post is worth taking a read.
I only wish Paul had added a few comments about regionalisms being used in the wrong context or for the wrong audience (trust me, living in Philadelphia you see/hear less experienced talent do this all the time).
FWIW: Paul was half right about his comment regarding Neumann. They manufacturer a shotgun microphone (the KMR 81), but have never built a ribbon mic.
I mentioned in my last posting that VOICE was coming up, in addition to a few other events this summer (I've no clue as to all of them, but Bettye Zoller has some upcoming stuff, Pat Fraley usually has a few workshops in the summer, the NATF has their yearly event, I'm also aware of a few events with the National Association of Broadcasters, probably BangZoom!, SIGGRAPH always seems to attract VO talent, etc.).
Well those are all fine and dandy. But what is the working voice actor going to do if they're trying to audition, meet project deadlines, and the like while they're on the road? Being from Philadelphia, I can tell you that I put more miles on the road for VO than I care to admit (despite being the fifth largest media market, it's simply natural that I've got to put time in other places in order to train, audition, book work, etc.).
Some days, I feel like I'm a Philadelphia-based voice actor who is based anywhere but in Philadelphia, lol.
Well, there's an article put out last year by George Whittam of ElDorado Recording Services that is definitely worth your while, titled The Traveling Voice-Over. In it, George gives a brief, but detailed description and explanation of some of the more common issues which voice actors are going to face on the road, and some of the tools out there which can make your time on the road a bit more productive.
The article is definitely worth the time to read, if for no other reasons than the fact that it gives you new ideas on how to set up your own "VO2Go" kit. I'll admit that there are some items in the article which I disagree with, but that's mainly because I know what my own needs are when I'm on the road (for example, George's recommendation of netbooks is probably good for most folks, but I've yet to use one that I didn't overtax in a few minutes of normal usage... I'm pretty hard on the CPU with some of the stuff I do). That said, it's pretty apparent that this article is designed more as a means of providing options to the traveling voice actor than anything else.
In that regard, the article delivers in spades.
If you didn't catch the link to the article above, a direct link can be found here.
Swift was the voice of Mighty Mouse, Dinky Duck and, for a brief period, Howdy Doody, not to mention a host of other characters in over 30,000 TV and radio commercials.
What I enjoyed about Swift (and it's quoted in the article) is that he never minded being "unknown" in the public eye. “I’m perfectly willing to be the anonymous man of television.”, was his response in an interview for the NY Daily News. So long as he got to bring life to the characters in the copy, he was content.
I recently stumbled upon an interview at Computer and Videogames, with Mark Hamill on his role in Arkham Asylum, and his myriad of voice over roles in animation and video games.
If you're a fan of Hamill's work, or just interested to get a bit more insight into one of the industry's most versatile and successful talents, it's worth the read.
For those who frequent the usual VO boards, you've probably seen Scott's postings, comments, and musings. He brought that same wit and wisdom to a small class at Indiana University (which is the basis for the article).
As the descendant of a loyal Boilermaker, that's about as much praise as you'll get out of IU from me =-P
You can find out a bit more about Scott at his website, here.
Voice Over Xtra currently has part one of what I think will be a nice compendium of articles regarding home studio acoustics by William Williams.
From my own experience, I can tell you that soundproofing a pre-existing residential structure is problematic and expensive at best, downright impossible given most circumstances. You can do a lot to absorb and diffuse the sound, but true soundproofing requires DCID or ANSI style requirements to the room, and frankly there comes a time when even yours truly has to question the cost-benefit ratio (or in my case, the "would they lock me up for doing this..." ratio).
William takes a smarter approach IMO by assuming that the voice talent already has a setup and begins by addressing those items which can be removed from your recording chain that might be causing you to have a lower quality output than you should be, given the quality of equipment you're using (aka. "noise").
From an audio forensic perspective, I'm a huge fan of eliminating as much unnecessary interference from the chain as possible. This article looks like the first step in addressing such issues.
For those who are interested, the full article can be found here.
“I recommend seatbelts in your armchairs as the creator and cast of “Family Guy” assemble on our stage for a hilarious, irreverent look at themselves, each other, their characters and their spectacularly successful show. This is, quite simply, unlike any Inside the Actors Studio you’ve ever seen.”
Since I'm currently bombarded with a GSSP certification, I was unable to see Monday's broadcast of the interview. However there's going to be re-broadcast on the 20th, which I definitely plan on watching.
That's the first item of interest for all things "Family Guy" related. The second is this... Karl Rove is making a cameo appearance on the show. Details are a bit scant at the present, but that's the thing which makes this show such a hit with the audience; not only does the show go out of its way to be equal opportunity offender of pretty much everyone at some point (much like "South Park"), but they actually get the very people they're lampooning to take part in the comedy.
I can only imagine what MacFarlane and the rest of the writing staff have up their sleeve for Rove, but I'm sure that it'll be completely irreverent and enjoyable.
I've no idea how everybody in the voice over community missed this one, so let me toss it out there for all to find...
There's a really nice article on TampaBay.com with voice actor Tom Kenny, who plays the voice/role of Spongebob Squarepants. This is one of those "should read" kind of articles IMO for anyone who is interested in voice acting, or interested/curious about the people involved in giving life to an animated character...
The article itself is originally about the 10 year anniversary of the Spongebob Squarepants series, but the reporter and Kenny turn the interview into a lot more than that, talking about some of the controversy that the character has stirred up (yes folks, apparently not everyone is a fan of ole' Spongebob), a bit about Kenny's past, and the correlation of how the survival and continued popularity of the show is akin to surviving a terminal illness (you have to read the article for that one, but I had a good chuckle with it).
Here's a link to the article, and I hope you get the same enjoyment out of it that I did. For anyone who has ever made a living off of the same stuff that got you into trouble when you were younger, this is worth the time.
What is SWTOR you ask? Well that part is simple, it's the new Lucas Arts MMORPG, StarWars: The Old Republic. But for all of the voice over folk out there, here's a little something which we don't often get, a blog post written by Shauna Perry. Shauna is the Director of Audio and Localization for SWTOR, and she goes into the process of voice acting from the writing to scripting to speaking.
I've got to say that what they're trying to do in SWTOR is nothing short of huge. The game is going to be fully voice acted which could mean a greater sense of involvement in what happens within the game. We're talking hundreds of voice actors being recorded in five major metro areas with enough copy to fill more than fourty novels. If that's not the definition of huge, then I don't know what is. The project is so big that they actually had to develop an audio pronunciation guide in order to deal with all the regionalisms and dialects that the talent brought to the project.
This is probably the largest commercially available voice over project ever produced, and you can read about it all right here.
This might be the one MMORPG that I actually find time out of my schedule to play, if for the voice over aspect alone...
There must be something in the air this week... this is the third or fourth interview for "The Spectacular Spider-Man" that I've seen. Whomever is doing the marketing for the show needs to be given a raise for all the hard work they've done as of late.
What makes this all the better is that it's a quality show. It's one thing to see a lot of marketing for something that's sub-par, and it happens often. So I'm more than a little pleased to see so much information about a quality show like this one.
The folks over at Comic Book Resources have a really nice interview with Robert Englund. Now most folks are going to remember Robert for his best known (and disturbingly, most loved) role as Freddy Krueger. What a lot of folks don't know is that he's also done more than a bit of voice acting throughout his career. In the current Spider-Man series he plays the role of Arian Toomes, aka. the "Vulture", and does so (in my opinion) exactly how you'd want to see him, brillant with some things and clueless about the rest, but totally remorseless about it all. It's what makes him a good villian.
Whether you're a fan of the show or not, it's an interesting interview than ranges from the series and Josh's start in show business to his love of comics and gaming.
A link to the interview can be found here, and a link to Josh Keaton's website can be found here.
For those who hadn't heard, Wayne Allwine - the voice of Mickey Mouse passed away yesterday.
Wayne started doing the voice of Mickey back in 1977, taking over the role from Jimmy MacDonald, becoming the third person to supply the voice (after Walt Disney, and later MacDonald). As of 2009 Wayne had been the voice actor for the character longer than anyone else, and was officially inducted into the Disney Legends Program in 2008.
Thanks to the folks at Disney Blog for a very moving and informative tribute to Mr. Allwine.
If you're a fan of BangZoom! (and let's face it, who isn't) then you know of their "Adventures in Voice Acting" clips and DVD. I had the chance to sit in their studio the last time I was in Los Angeles and was really impressed with both their professionalism and their friendly personality (they really went out of their way to let me into the studio and partake in a session, which I greatly appreciate).
Well, they've got a blog for their AiVA series now. If you're like me, and enjoy hearing the tales of voice actors and such, then you'll want to check it out for yourself.
