Read The Art of Voice Acting: the art and business of performing for voice over Online
Authors: James Alburger
Before leaving the studio, make sure you sign the contract for your services. If you are a union member, the producer will probably have a contract already filled out for you. Read the parts of the contract that apply to your session before signing. If you were booked for one commercial (spot announcement), and the producer had you do three spots plus tags, make sure the changes are made on the contract. Also make sure you call your agent and let her know about the changes. If you are unsure of anything on the contract, call your agent
before
signing the contract.
For union work, send your AFTRA form to the union within 48 hours of the session to avoid any penalties. The union form is the only way AFTRA has of tracking your work, and making sure you are paid in a timely manner. If you are working freelance, make sure you are paid before you leave the studio, or that you have a signed invoice or deal memo—and make certain you have the contact address and phone number of your client. If you have a merchant account, you can take a credit card number to be processed, or to hold as a guarantee until your check arrives. You’ve completed your part of the agreement, and you are entitled to be paid. It’s up to you if you agree to have your payment sent to you, but keep in mind that you take a risk of delays or not being paid if you do this.
It’s good form to thank the producer, engineer, client, and anyone else involved in the session before you leave. Keep the script for your files, if you like. If you think your performance was especially good, you can ask the producer for a copy of the spot when it is finished. You can ask for a CD but don’t be surprised if you only get an MP3 file emailed to you. If the project is a TV commercial, there may be a charge for you to receive a copy. In this digital age, finished commercials are increasingly being distributed to stations via ISDN networks directly from the studio’s computer, emailed as MP3 files, uploaded to a website, or sometimes mailed as a one-off CD. One way to ensure that you get a copy is to include a clause to that effect in your agreement. However, even with that, you may find yourself waiting several weeks, or even months, before you get it.
Once your session is over and the paperwork is done, you are free to leave. Your job is done, so don’t stick around for the rest of the session or to talk. The producer and engineer have lots of work to do and your presence can cause delays, costing time and money. After you are gone, the process of assembling all the pieces of the puzzle begins. It may take from several hours to several days before the final audio track is complete.
If your session is for a TV commercial, the completed audio will often be sent to a video postproduction house where the video will be edited to your track to create a final TV spot. In some cases, just the opposite occurs—the video may have been edited to a scratch track, and the purpose of your session would have been to place your voiceover against the preproduced video. Once mastered, a number of copies are made and distributed to the radio and TV stations scheduled to air the spot.
Follow up your session with a thank-you note to the producer. Thank him or her for good directing or mention something you talked about at the session. Be honest and sincere, but don’t overdo it. A simple note or postcard is often all that’s necessary to keep you in the mind of the producer or director and get you hired again. If you haven’t already, be sure to add their names to your mailing list for future promotions you send out.
1
Adapted and compiled by Marc Cashman from the following sources:
Alburger, J. R. (2006).
The Art of Voice-Acting
(3rd ed.). Focal Press.
Blu, S. & Mullin, M. A. (1996).
Word of Mouth
. (revised edition). Pomegranate Press.
Apple, T. (1999).
Making Money in Voice-Overs
. Lone Eagle Publishing Company.
Whitfield, A. (1992).
Take It From the Top
. Ring-U-Turkey Press.
Thomas, S. (1999).
So You Want to Be a Voice-over Star
. Clubhouse Publishing.
Berland, T. & Ouellette, D. (1997).
Breaking into Commercials
. Plume Publishing.
Douthitt, C. & Wiecks, T. (1996).
Putting Your Mouth Where the Money Is
. Grey Heron Books.
Jones, C. (1996).
Making Your Voice Heard
. Back Stage Books
Clark, E. A. (2000).
There’s Money Where Your Mouth Is
. Back Stage Books.
The world of voiceover is not only a unique area of show business as a performing craft, but it is also unique in that professionals in this business are, for the most part, far more supportive and generous than those working in many other areas of the entertainment industry. While some performers may appear to be protective of their processes and techniques, most voice actors are more than willing to help those who sincerely desire to learn more about this craft. Perhaps it is because these professionals are very confident and self-assured in their work, or perhaps it is simply a reflection of their passion for what they do. Whatever it may be, I am proud to be a part of the voiceover community and to consider so many of these professionals as friends.
This chapter is a gift from some of the many professionals around the world whom I’ve come to know over the past several years. Each has many years of experience from which they have gained unique insights and wisdom. Please join me in thanking them for sharing their knowledge, and use this chapter to learn from their experience.
If you watch TV, you’ve heard Beau Weaver’s voice. Considered by his peers as one of the top voiceover professionals in the world, Beau is among the handful of voice actors who regularly voices national network promos, movie trailers, and major documentaries. Coming from a radio background, he knows what it takes to make the transition to voiceover. Beau is also one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet and I’m honored that he not only wrote the Forward for this edition, but has shared what he considers to be one of the secrets to his success.
One of the most important tools you need to cultivate is a way of being what the Buddhists call, “beginner’s mind.” If you already know everything, there is no room to learn.
Radio was my first love. I weaseled my way into my first on-air job at age 15, after having already spent years hanging around radio stations learning the arts and sciences of broadcasting. In just a few years, I managed to make my way to the biggest of the big time: the Number One pop music station in Los Angeles, the legendary 93/KHJ. It was 1975, and my dream had literally come true. I was working with cats who had been my radio idols at the station everyone in America wanted to work for. Our pictures were constantly in the trade press, and the record companies were only too happy to give us front-row tickets to all the hottest rock concerts and take us backstage to meet the band. I got fan letters from deejays in big cities, asking for tips on making it to the big time. Pretty heady stuff for a 24-year-old.
One night, I came in to the station, located on the Paramount lot in Hollywood, and noticed a light in one of the production studios, which should have been dark and locked. I stuck my head in there, and saw one of the other KHJ air personalities (fancy word for disc-jockey) at the console, plugging in patch cords.
Something was very wrong with this picture.
At KHJ, and most other L.A. stations in those days, the air personalities (AFTRA members), could not even so much as touch the equipment. That was the exclusive territory of our NABET union engineers. We could be fined for even leaning up against a tape machine. But there he was, in flagrant violation, my friend Dave Sebastian Williams (today, the owner of Dave & Dave, Inc., publishers of the
Voice Over Resource Guide
and the
www.everythingvo.com
website). “Oh my God! Dave, what are you doing in here, man?” said I in a panicked tone. “You could get in big trouble for this!”
He nodded at me to close the door. He had small spools of tape cued up, running dubs of what sounded like a string of commercials. Dave: “It’s cool, man, I gave a twenty-spot to the shop steward… I’m making copies of my voiceover demo.” Me: “Voiceover demo? What the hell is that?” Isn’t that just a bunch of spots?” Dave patiently explained: “Beau, don’t you realize that the commercials are the
real
business. What we do as disc-jockeys is just filler.
This
is where the real money is.” A moment of transformation occurred. The scales fell from my eyes, and in that moment, as Dave went on about the world of opportunities available the freelance voice actor… my life changed.
“Voiceover demo, huh? I gotta get me one of those things!”
Not so fast. Dave informed me that radio guys were
persona non grata
in the advertising agency world. They think we have a “radio accent.” If you sound like a radio guy, you are sunk before you even start. I was stunned. We were at the very pinnacle of our industry. Everyone wanted to be at KHJ in Los Angeles. And now he was telling me that everything I knew was wrong? You don’t get to the top station in the country without a healthy ego, so this was more than a little hard to hear.
“But, there is a kind of therapy for the problem we have,” Dave reassured me. “There is this workshop for voice actors taught by Joan Gerber, where you can practice reading copy, and taking direction. I go every week. You can go with me.” So we made a plan to drive together up into the Hollywood Hills that Wednesday night.
Joan Gerber, known to many as Gary Owen’s “Story Lady,” was the voiceover field’s first true female superstar. In her spacious living room, she had set up a copy stand with a reading light and a script for a television commercial. As a warm-up exercise, each actor would come up to the front and “cold read” the script with no rehearsal. In my on-air job at KHJ, I was required to deliver a lot of live commercial copy. While I was nervous in this new environment with “actors” (not radio jocks), I was completely confident (cocky perhaps?) in my ability to nail it, first time. So, I strode up to the copy stand and got half way through the first line, and Joanie interrupted my performance: “Disk Jockey! Right? Ha! I can smell you guys a mile away.” A bit of a ball-buster, yes? But, remarkably, I did not bolt. (Partly because Dave drove!) And, I learned some things that night.
The fact that there was a whole set of skills that I did not have did not insult or offend me, but rather I felt intrigued, challenged, and invigorated. Sure, I had been recording and delivering live commercials professionally since I was 15. But, it was dawning on me that there was a completely different way to approach commercials. And, for some reason, I was willing to stay and see what possibilities there might be that had not yet occurred to me. Against all of my big-time radio guy instincts, I was willing to be… a beginner… at something I had been doing all my life.
In the months ahead, I continued the weekly workouts at Joan’s, and I found two other voiceover workshops. I was soon almost obsessed with mastering this new skill set. While I continued to work in radio, for the next decade my main focus was on becoming a voice actor. Since then, I have had the privilege of working in almost every genre that uses voice talent: national television and radio commercials, documentary narration, television promos, movie trailers, and animated cartoon characters.
All because I was willing to be a beginner.
Mike Harrison has, since 1973, been writing, voicing and producing radio commercials, plus narrating and/or producing audio tracks for many Fortune 500 corporate/industrial clients. He was a two-time co-finalist, for copy and production, in the 1985 International Radio Festival of New York, and his voice is currently heard in various markets across the U.S. as well as in the United Kingdom.
There are some folks interested in becoming a voiceover talent who have become discouraged—a few even angry—after receiving the honest feedback they solicited from those of us who’ve been around the block a few times. What I’ll attempt to explain here is that our goal is NOT to take the wind out of your sails, but only to make you aware of… reality.
What probably makes a career in voiceover so appealing to some is that it has a lot of glamour attached to it. It’s very much like a career in film acting. The growing popularity of entertainment publications and television shows reflect the public’s fascination with people who make six-figure (and higher) salaries for what appears to the uninitiated to be easy work. After all, those who speak and act for a living make it seem so effortless.
Here are a couple of facts: Anyone with aspirations for success in any field first has to realize that we don’t often get from point A to point G without first having gone through points B, C, D, E and F. As we’ve seen in science documentaries, even laboratory animals learn that. Nothing in life that is worth achieving comes easily or for free. Success is relative: you get out of it only what you put into it.
For as long as Hollywood has been making motion pictures, there have been countless stories of everyday folks with stars in their eyes who have gone there to find fame and fortune. Trouble is, there are only so many roles to play and there are many more actors already there, waiting to play those roles. Most of them wind up waiting tables or doing some other work to pay the bills until their big break comes along. Voiceover, just like film acting, is hugely competitive.
This doesn’t mean you should give up. What it does mean, though, is that you’ll have to work very hard. And, that’s assuming there is a foundation of basic talent on which to build. It’s much more than having a “nice” or even “great” voice. Do you read well? Aloud? Are you able to properly INTERPRET what you’re reading so that you can sound as though you’re NOT reading… and be
CONVINCING? Can you read well, interpret copy well, and take direction? How about read well, interpret copy well, take direction well, and finish within the allotted time? And then do it all again but make it sound different? Are you able to do all that and still retain your composure and professional demeanor? Take after take?
Contrary to what some may think about the craft of voiceover, it ain’t just talking. What I mean by that is not everyone is cut out to be in voiceover. And an honest coach will tell you if you truly have potential, or if you are about to waste your money. If you’ve just been told you’re ready for a demo—after only a few lessons and/or workshops—you should clarify whether you are ready to have a COMPETITVE demo produced. Because, when marketing yourself, you want to put your absolute best foot forward. Your demo will be in the pile with those of others who have every bit the talent, experience, and drive that you have… and perhaps more. The agents and producers you send your demo to will know immediately whether you are a contender or not.
Sure, you can have a “quickie” demo produced; one that might get you some work doing local cable TV spots. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you want more, be prepared to roll up your sleeves, spend some good money on proper training with qualified coaches (know their background and experience), take the time to read as many books on voiceover as you can, and practice, practice, practice. And, while buying recording equipment may help you to practice, do keep in mind that simply owning a stove does not make one a chef. In the beginning, instead of spending money on professional recording gear, consider whether your money would be best spent on training. And don’t forget about all the marketing you’ll have to do after your demo is produced. There’s the 80/20 rule: even established talent spend roughly 80% of their time marketing themselves, with the remaining 20% on actual voiceover jobs. Included in the 80% is auditioning. And with auditioning, comes… rejection. You’ll do lots of auditions but will land only a few jobs. And you’re never told why you don’t get the part; in fact, you’ll never hear ANYTHING unless you DO get the gig. Finally, you’ll also want to keep your full-time job as you slowly get the wheels turning.
To sum up, you’ll need to spend lots of time working hard, and you’ll need to spend some money. But you will also need thick skin to weather some negative feedback and rejection along the way, and the tenacity to keep moving forward. This helps us learn and become better. When asking for advice, feedback, and/or opinions, we all hope to hear only positive things. But we all learn that we have to eat our vegetables before we get any dessert.