Voicing the Mixed Martial Arts “Worth the Fight” series by Michele Mannon has been so much fun. “Knock Out”, the first book in the series, has been very popular with listeners and I’m happy to see the same enthusiasm for the second and third books, “Tap Out” and “Out for the Count“, both released a…
Getting a voiceover agent can be a challenging part of any career. This is the first in a 3 part series.
This week I received a delightful and unexpected gift. I got paid for a job I thought I’d gotten burned on. Let me backtrack. My business is divided into two parts. There’s the agented side of things: I audition for jobs with my agent (s) either at home, in their office or at casting places…
Recording an audiobook at home is quite a project. The scope is much bigger than anything else you will do as a voice actor. I remember when I first started, I would become a slave to my internal anxiety. I didn’t even realize how secretly freaked out I was under the surface; it was this low-grade anxiety that would follow me around and be under my skin for days. Recording an entire book by myself felt like such a huge responsibility: I want it to be great and there’s no director or anyone giving feedback and it’s taking so long and I have to juggle all my other work and…it’s TAKING SO LONG and…ai yai yai…a recipe for a not so fun time. I would end up working every waking hour, pulling all-nighters, eating junk food and getting no sleep or exercise. My mindset was kind of like: Let’s just hunker down and get through this!
Thankfully, after two years I’ve figured out some coping strategies to quell that anxiety and make the entire experience more sane and enjoyable! There’s lots of great articles on how to actually prep an audiobook for record, but lately I’ve been thinking about how I’ve learned to prep myself for the task at hand. Here are five things I do to set the stage for success.
If you’ve been in the VO industry for the past ten, fifteen, twenty years, you will have noticed massive changes. I’ve noticed changes just in the past five years! Jobs used to pay more. There were more campaigns and long-term contracts. There were less voice actors and hardly anyone had a home studio. If you did have one, you had a serious advantage. And if it sounded good, even doubly or triply so!
Summer can be a little slow for voiceover. Particularly the month of July! Like all good over-achievers, I start to feel a bit lost if I’m not generally accomplishing things or doing something constructive. To that end, I offer up a list of 10 things you can do while it’s “dead”: 1. Organize your computer….
I’m so happy to be involved with the Deyan Institute, coordinating the VO Pro Series and contributing monthly to their growing blog!
June is “Audiobook Month” (#audiomonth), a month to celebrate the art form and for those of us in the industry, an opportunity to give back. To that end, I’m happy to be involved again this year with the Spoken Freely Summer Shorts project to benefit Pro Literacy, a natonal outreach and literacy organization! Over 40…
It’s happening more and more all the time. I book a job from my home studio. They forward me a script with an mp3 and a short note: “Use this to capture the tone”. Rather than getting actual direction on a piece, I get a scratch track of the director, writer or producer doing the…
Ahhh, the slate. It’s a part of every VO’s daily world. For most auditions, they’re required. For those unfamiliar with the term, a slate is when you say your name at the beginning of the audition to identify yourself.
People slate in different ways. Some just say their name: “Rachel Fuginiti”. This is what I do, as I’ve heard from most casting directors and producers that it’s their preference. Some will say “Hi, my name is…” or “This is…” If I’m in a group audition situation, I usually take my cue from the other actor, if they slate first. I match the format of however they did it, which I think gives a unified introduction.
There’s nothing wrong with a short introduction as long as it doesn’t go overboard. “Hi there, this is Rachel Fulginiti, reading for the part of x and I’m very happy to be doing this audition… My dog’s name is…”