Anyone who is in the voice over business knows that it’s a people business. Still, there are those prospective voiceover talent that come to me thinking and hoping it isn’t that way; they’d actually rather end up alone in some dark booth with only an engineer on the other side, voicing some documentary or book and then quietly slinking off into the night. It’s amazing how many peoples’ bubbles I have had to burst concerning this oddly reclusive vision of the business.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that voice acting is anything but a solitary venture, even if you are voicing most of your auditions and job from home. You’re always meeting new people, conversing, making connections, relating to agents, engineers, producers, directors, and casting people, constantly putting your energy out there for anyone and everyone to see and hear. Every time you go to or get a job, you are putting the best of who you are on the line. Now, being continually outgoing and charming does take a lot of energy, and it is one of the only businesses where you are selling yourself, not just your voice, as the product needed for the job.

Put into its proper perspective this can be tremendously fun, but it can also leave some people feeling depleted and vulnerable. This sets up the subtle expectation of recognition and even praise in return. Because this experience is so personal there is the hope of some kind of personal response. This is where a lot of voiceover people get hung up. If they don’t get a personal response for all of the energy they are putting out, they take it personally. It affects their mood and their ability to follow through in an industry that’s all about follow through. In this business you’ve got to get used to the reality that your voice, your persona and your charm are commodities. The better you’re able to represent these personal qualities the more attractive they become to any potential buyer. So it’s important to remain extremely personal in a sometimes very impersonal business. And that’s not always easy for everyone, because not everyone can always separate their own self worth from their perceived worth as a voice over talent. You have to decide who is going to be the keeper of your self-esteem: you or some industry to which you have given away your power. Is some director not picking you for a particular project going to overwhelm and negate the amazing amount of fun you had auditioning for it?

When I was a young actor in NY I defined my sense of accomplishment and self worth by whether I was acting or not. If I was, then you saw a guy on top of the world, but if I wasn’t then I was a worthless nobody. That up and down roller coaster of an existence is tiring and debilitating, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. The world of actors, agents and directors had power over me, not the other way around.

Too often we give away our power in hopes of acceptance, recognition, a feeling of belonging to some elite club. We make the mistake of desiring status over fun, recognition over the exhilarating act of creation. Why do people yearn so much for these things? Just take a look around. We live in a culture that pimps these qualities as being the most rare and attractive and desirable. We want the unattainable. But that status, especially in the oh so fickle entertainment industry, can be quite ephemeral. It will build you up only to leave you at a moments notice for the next great thing.

Gaining a perspective from the much larger framework of community, of your place in the world, allows you to see your relationship with this industry from a more encompassing vantage point, and to create a much healthier working relationship with yourself as a voiceover artist. Find that inviolable sense of self inside you and let it burn bright as you venture into this enjoyable and demanding world of voice over. The only expectation I would love for you to have going into an audition or a job is that you’re going to have fun, and to know that the fulfillment of that expectation lies solely on your shoulders.

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Recently, I’ve seen many posts crop up about the contest BioWare is having. One such post even qualified the contest by basically saying:

“Hey, even if you lose, you’re not losing anything! Character practice, amirite?”

I wanted to post about this in light of other recent discussions I’ve seen about topics like Union vs. Non-Union, and of course, Fair Rates.

Many times I have seen this article, and many times it’s because a well-meaning friend has passed it on to me. What a lot of people don’t realize is that this is a fan-focused contest to find someone to do unpaid voice acting work.

Of course, it does come with free travel and accommodations. For someone who is a big fan of the franchise, that might be all they need to fulfill their dreams of taking part in their favorite video game’s latest release. But essentially, the “prize” is that the winner (a non-union actor, to boot!) gets to say they’ve been in a Mass Effect game, and not much more. In other words, “Exposure!”

It’s hard when someone inevitably passes this contest on to me, because most of the time I just smile and say through clenched teeth, “Thanks!”

That’s because I don’t expect most people who send me these articles to understand right away. Other times, like when my fiance (bless his soul) shares it with me, I actually try to take the time to explain why I personally wouldn’t take part in such a contest.

There are plenty of reasons why! But then I immediately get shut down with a, “Sorry, I just thought you’d like it because you’re a gamer. Plus, it’s something you can add on to your resume! That’s gotta count for something, right?” In other words, “Exposure!”

Trust me, I definitely am very conflicted on the inside about this. I LOVE video games, and yes! It *would* be awesome to be able to tell people that I’m in a major video game!

But what about my principles? What about how hard VAs work to ensure that they are getting fairly compensated for the hard work and preparation that goes into voicing things like video games? What about the unions that are created specifically to protect the actors whose job it might be to voice the character whose role is currently now a prize in a big contest?

In the meantime, I shall, probably for a very long time, remain nose to the grindstone, trying to make ends meet without undercutting what many VAs have worked so hard to achieve while also trying to make rent and pay my bills like any other millennial out there with a ton of school loans and other obligations still left to pay.

What makes me upset about this contest and low-ball jobs we often find on P2P (Pay-to-Play) sites is that some (possibly very talented) schmo is going to win this contest, or take that job, and end up using it to launch their career while I am stuck grinding my face into that stone. Spinning my wheels, so to speak.

But hey, who am I to squash someone’s dream? I’m working on making my own a reality, just like most of the world.

http://screenrant.com/mass-effect-andromeda-bioware-fan-contest/

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It is important to make an audition script bend to your will, not the other way around.

Think of it this way. A lot of people, when given a script, make the mistake of thinking that they have to make it sound like what the ad agency wants it to sound like. But how can anybody ever really know what that voice sounds like inside that ad agent’s head? Oh sure, most commercial copy comes with voice specifications (specs) but these often offer little help, and should only be used as the most general of guidelines. As a matter of fact, one time I was auditioning for a commercial, and the spec said they wanted a Don Pardo sound-alike. Now I do a pretty spot-on Don Pardo. So I did exactly what they said, figuring I had a good chance of bagging that one. They came back and told me that I sounded too much like Don Pardo (maybe they were afraid of being sued) and they went in a completely different direction (I heard the commercial later on…it was voiced by a very energetic, lower-voiced woman!) Anyway, by trying to get into the head of the ad agent, you are getting too much into your own head, which is never a good thing just before going into the booth to record. Always remember that your ego, that nagging voice that never seems to shut up, is going to want to take over your audition. DON’T LET IT. From the get go, you can hear it saying and fretting, “Oh, they probably want it to sound this way,” or “It seems like they want a gruffer voice. Darn, that’s one I don’t do so well, but it doesn’t sound like they want my voice for this one so I’ll just have to give them something I’m not as confident about, but it’ll probably be closer to what they’re looking for even if I don’t do it as well so it’ll give me more of a chance of getting this job.” YUCK!!! Does that sound like you are having fun?

So what do you do? Stay with your own strengths. When you get a piece of copy, read it and say, “I want it to sound this way.” The specs be damned. You become the ad agency and the director. You become your own specifications for the piece. That’s the amount of confidence you need to have in this business. If you do it your way, you know it will be authentic and spontaneous, and that’s exactly what agencies and directors are looking for. Don’t paraphrase yourself. Be yourself. Oops, there’s another Davidism for you.

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Did you know that as I write this there are deadly vipers living in your closet? Have I grabbed your attention yet? If not, guess what? You’ve probably moved onto something else by now. In this ever busier and more demanding world we live in today, the old 3 second rule has now become the 1.5-second rule. For those of you who have never heard of the 3-second rule I will now bring you up to speed, no pun intended.

First of all, 3 seconds is not a long time in the big scheme of things, but it’s definitely long enough to make an impression. A number of marketing studies involving commercials for both radio and TV back in the early 90s established that a listener’s attention span hinged upon their initial interest in the first 3 seconds. If the voice, sounds, or images engaged the listener in the first 3 seconds they were apt to listen to or watch the whole commercial. If, however, for whatever reason that commercial did not grab them in that short amount of time, more than likely they would change the channel or move onto something else.

Fast forward to now. Those 3 seconds have now become 1.5 seconds. People’s attention spans have just grown shorter, their impatience has become more judgmental, and they have become more demanding of their time, so we as voiceover artists have to make our first few words of an audition count more than ever.

There’s a strange kind of beauty in this demand, however, for if I can get the general tenor of a script correct in those 1.5 seconds, then the rest of the script just flows, it all comes together, it’s happening. It’s as if the energy and the spirit and the attitude that you come in with in those first 1.5 seconds carries the rest of the copy.

A number of my voiceover friends who are also making money in this business are quite aware of this fact. They know you have to hit the ground running. They know that there is no time to “hit your stride”: it’s now or never.

Obviously, it’s extremely important to get those first 1.5 seconds humming with energy and attitude. So while I concentrate on the idea and feeling of the whole script, my concentration is even more focused on that first sentence or two, because I know that if I get it right from the top, the rest will follow.

What do I do to make sure that those first words out of my mouth have the right spirit, the right energy, and the right style for the script? Well, once I get a sense of what that script needs, what it is looking for, I make sure that the first sentence or two is infused with the energy of the whole piece. It’s like I’m letting the listener know what the whole script is going to be about in the first sentence. If a script is written well, then that makes your job much easier. They’ve kind of written it in there for you. The scriptwriter’s coming from the same place you are. But when the script isn’t written well, and we all know that can happen, it’s still your job to make sure that first sentence introduces the importance and the attitude of the rest of the script.

So read the whole script through. Really understand what that script is about. Get the attitude of that piece of copy in your body and in your imagination, and then let that first one and a half seconds be a microcosm of the whole script. If it’s asking for elegance and style, give it to them. If it’s asking for playful cynicism and sarcasm, give it to them. If it’s asking for pride and assurance, the fact that they’re in good hands, give it to them. Whatever it is, do not wait to make your point because the sooner you make it, and make it well, the sooner that casting director or producer or agent will know that you are aware of the 1.5 second rule. And they will like you for it. If you don’t do it in those first 1.5 seconds, that casting director/ producer/ agent may have already changed the channel on you. Once the recording light is on, so are you my friends.

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