Posted by Dale on Jul 9, 2009 in
Voice Over From the outside in, Voice Over is one of the greatest jobs on earth. (Always: As long as you’re working.) To be honest from the inside out, it’s even better then that!
I love working in Voice Over and that is why I do it.
Unfortunately why most people get into it is for the lifestyle and/or the money.
Silly, Silly, People.
"I'm just in it for the Money!"
Though they both may be great products of a successful VO career, they don’t provide the drive for attaining a successful career.
The Hope must be fueled by the right desire. In my opinion, that desire is the WORK itself.
Money and Lifestyle make for false hope’s that are much easier to disappoint.
Tags: acting, actor, Add new tag, artist, How to act, la, Money, voice, voiceover
Posted by Dale on Jun 22, 2009 in
Voice Over Walked into a casting directors office today and had to make sure I was signing in for a voice over audition, and not for Kevin Costner’s roll in The Big Chill 2.
Never get cast as the Dead Man in a movie.
Things are slow, real slow. The office was scary quite, just as work for most is scary quite. The only thing you can do when it gets slow, is to get busy!
The more you think about the slow, the slower it’s gonna get. So get out there and do what you always wished you had the time to do. Do what you’re good at and get better.
Take a class, work on your craft.
One guy I know has dropped his golf handicap by 2 points.
I’m hitting the “To Do” list around the house, and our garden has never looked better. Might even make it to the Ukulele jam session I’ve been meaning to go to.
Never let slow draw attention to itself. It makes you do things like think about getting another job, and that’s almost as bad as thinking about teaching.
Tags: acting, actor, artist, business, Costner, la, Money, voice, voiceover
Posted by Dale on Mar 16, 2009 in
Voice Over 
Everybody want to be a Voice Over actor. I mean, it’s easy right?
The Good
You show up to work in your T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. You read a few words that you don’t have to memorize, drink coffee, eat free food, and then about an hour later go home to your fantastic VO pad, pour the Margarita’s and wait for the fat checks to come raining down like candy at a 4th of July Parade.
The Bad
You send out your demo, that cost you 1500 dollars, to potential agents for the 3rd time and for the 3rd time they tell you they have too many people with your voice on the roster. You take class after class, go to audition after audition, and then finally you get a booking… and it’s to be voice #2 for Sun Drop Soda.
It’s your big break! Your part consists of saying “Awesome!” and the commercial is going to run in the SouthEast and Wisconsin. You go home to your one room garden apartment, fire up the hot plate for afternoon Ramen and Beans and wait for your $250 check to arrive 2 months late.
The Ugly
Your Agent calls you in the morning (all good agent calls come in the morning), to tell you , that you just booked “The Voice Of…” You have multiple recording sessions from your new home studio, and you know spend more time on the phone with your agent then your girlfriend/boyfriend.
You buy the car/shoes/house/boat/ski condo on the beach (just cause you can). You pay for dinner… for the table next to you. The sessions just keep coming and the fat checks arrive in your mailbox like pre approved credit cards.
Then one day while watching your 70 inch Waterproof Hovercraft LCD that’s floating above the pool, you see your commercial… except the voice at the end isn’t you… somebody else is “The Voice of…”.
You call your agent, he says they went a different direction/lost the account/is as shocked as you.
It was your only account, the fat checks go anorexic. Your monthly bills rivals the GDP of Guam, but you’re so used to spending like Bradgelina and investing like Madoff that you find yourself sleeping in your friends garage next to his Ferret Farm wishing you could go home to your one room garden apartment, fire up the hot plate for afternoon Ramen and Beans and wait for your $250 check to arrive 2 months late.
Tags: acting, actor, Add new tag, artist, business, la, Money, voice, voiceover
Posted by Dale on Feb 9, 2009 in
Voice Over I’ve been a professional Voice Over Actor/Artist for the last 10 plus years. I spent the first few years perfecting my VO chops, literally, in one of the greatest cities on the planet, Chicago. A place, but for the 6 months of blue skin tinting winter, and 3 months of armpit sweat summer, could quite possibly be, in my biased mind, the most wonderful place to live in this place we call Earth.
It was in Chicago that I learned that, for my voice, the closer the microphone the better. How to talk across the mic to avoid plosives (Popping syllables from letters like P.), and that my job description is to Show up, Be a good person, Do my job as quick and professionally as possible, then Leave.
Chicago was also the place where I realized that Voice Over was a business.
I was hooked on the life of an Actor from the first moment I stepped on stage to deliver my lines as a white 16 year old pretending to be Japanese in “Teahouse of the August Moon” If Brando could do it why not my suburban soccer playing self? The only way I can describe how I felt the first time the audience laughed, is that it’s like the first time you catch a wave when surfing. It grabs you somewhere deep in your belly and connects you like a Lego to something that is far bigger then yourself and it triggers your brain to start thinking about how it can connect more legos, and if there is truly anything else worthwhile, except connecting Legos.
Living in South Austin, Texas, and then Stuart Dybek’s ever changing Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, I felt my self growing as an artist, learning technique, and overall getting closer and closer to my inner artistic Lego connecting soul surfer. During that time I was also learning that this whole living thing tended to cost money. To others my 375 dollar a month apartment was a steal, to me a ridiculous obligation with no real return. Then there was the hard truth that Peanut Butter and Tortillas cost more when you don’t have roommates who buy them. What’s more all those acting classes cost as much as rent. Turns out my life as a budding artist had a direct reverse correlation with my income. I looked around at my brilliant artists friends and realized, They Don’t Make Money! Any Money! And Neither Do I!
It hit me, there is the Art of an Actor and there is the Business of the Actor and with out the Business, for the most part, the Art is Art for Arts sake. Conversely the Business without the Art is akin to a salesman without a product. It is, as in almost everything, all about the balance of the two in relationship to the specific artist.
With that I set out to educate myself. Earning a degree in Business from The College of Borders, a Marketing degree from Barnes and Nobel University, and, due to lack of interest and the prerequisite math, failed to finish a Finance degree from Amazon U.
After learning in my 5th year of College that you could test out of classes by reading the books and taking a test, receiving A credit for 3 units by studying for two days, I realized that learning on one’s own simply meant having the will and a book on how to. Add to that the amazing resources on the Internet and truly it is all there for the learning.
I’m still learning and unfortunately what I’m learning is that the learning can never stop. A business that ignores changing trends finds itself irrelevant. If Starbucks, McDonalds, and Coke can lose their way, (New Coke anyone?), so too can the Artist refusing to change, to reinvent their business plan, and learn about the prevailing trends.
Just a few years ago a headshot in color was a sign of someone who didn’t know what they were doing. Now color is a norm, and oft preferred.
Voice Over, like all Art, is a business, and as a business it is ever changing.
Just like a business, have a plan, research the market place, have a great product, be a good person and then leave.
Tags: acting, actor, artist, business, la, over, voice, voiceover
Posted by Dale on Feb 4, 2009 in
Voice Over At a friends college graduation party, her mother asked my what I was going to do with my life. I told her , “Be an Actor.” She smiled at me and said, “Yes, Yes, I know you’re going to be an Actor, but what about when you want to have a family? What do you want to do then?” “Be an Actor.” “ Alright it’s great you want to be an actor, but when that doesn’t work, what then?” My eyebrows furrowed in misunderstanding, had she not heard me the first and second time? So like Peter on the shores of Galilee, I answered a third time. “Be an Actor.” Exasperated at her perceived refusal of me to understand her question, she changed tactics. “Well what is success?” Having never given though to that question before, I answered immediately, as if I’d been waiting my whole life to answer it. “ Making a living doing what I love.”
That is now what I do.
Tags: acting, actor, Add new tag, artist, business, la, over, voice, voiceover