Voice-Acting in Vegas

The Mamas and The Papas Had It Right....

"Monday Monday...so good to me"

You're probably reading this on Monday.

Monday is not my favorite day of the week, 'cause the weekend is just long enough to give me a taste of freedom and a change of pace.  Then back to reality.

That makes me resent Monday...but I digress.  For whatever it is to you...Monday IS a fresh start to the week, and just like you can wake up in the morning and decide to be grumpy or happy, you can start out your week choosing to set a new height on the bar, or continue with the same ole, same ole.

It doesn't have to be rocket surgery...just pick one thing you'd like to step-up, or move ahead with, or make new...and set that as your priority for the week.  By Friday (or maybe earlier if you're lucky), you will have achieved it.

If you do the same things, you'll achieve the same results.  If you don't like your current results, change what you do.

What's the old saying?:  "...Nothing will be different until the dissatisfaction with the status-quo overcomes the fear of change..."  (that's gotta be a paraphrase, Confucius could say that in about 5 words somehow.)

Personally, my goal this week is to find, approach, and have a compelling conversation with one new possible client.  Maybe two.  We'll see....it's Monday.

CourVO

Equivocating E-mails

OMG!  Who would've guessed 10, even 5 years ago what slaves we would become to e-mail!

The jury's still out on whether e-mail makes us all more relational and better communicators, or whether it separates us through a digital boundary, and unecessarily distances us physically.

Bottom line: It's not going away, and if we're GOING to use it, let's do it with maximum impact and civility.

I ran across the following set of suggestions from Steven Lowell, the "Quality Assurance Manager" at V123.  Steven's picture paints him as a young man...but his suggestions betray a wisdom of experience in things e-mail. 

Here's his list of how to be better at e-mails...I know you'll find several things in here that will make sense for you.
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1. Before beginning formal email correspondence, take a moment to stop and think, 'What are you trying to do?'. Make sure that is clear in the subject line. Missing & vague subject lines could be misinterpreted as spam, and this is definitely bad form. We always want our emails to be more effective.
   
2. As the email conversation progresses, think about updating the subject line of your email. The reason being is psychological. For some reason, the same subject line popping up over and over again in an email begins to make one feel frustrated because it looks like the conversation is not going anywhere & time is being wasted. The harsh truth is that people use internet for speed and progress, and anything else is just wasting time.
   
3. Emails bring out the worst in people, and many times it is just an accident. We may not even be aware of it when it happens! Things like sarcasm are easily misinterpreted like a bad joke at a funeral. Even worse...due to the anonymity of emails, people become bold enough to start saying things they would not normally say to someone. Emails will sooner lead to anger, aggression, and self-righteous behavior, before leading to someone being kinder & friendlier. The best way to avoid this is to read & write your emails with the respect you believe you would deserve as the recipient. Remember, you are trying accomplish something positive.
   
4. Emails are convenient for those who wish to avoid uncomfortable conversations, and confrontation. However, using a customer service chat or phone can ease the pain of feeling like one is talking to him/herself, which leads to emails that can be incoherent or angry. If the point of the email is to solve a problem, one must be clear and honest with their intention to get a faster reply.
   
5. There does come a time when being 'too polite' can be annoying. You can always thank someone for something, and they can always say thank you in return. If you begin an email 'thank you' war, stop it. Ask yourself, 'What will happen if I do not send this email?'. If the answer is 'nothing', you do not have to send it. HOWEVER, if there is a time when you need to say thank you for something done via email, and it seems that doing it in email is not enough, make that phone call to say thank you personally.
   
6. You know email conversations/threads are over when you find yourself replying with one word. It means that all that can be said has been said on the subject.
   
7. You can also stop an email conversation when you know the original email has served its purpose. Many forget that we do not always need to answer everything in an email! For example:

   Email 1: It was great working with you!
   Reply: Yes! I enjoyed it as well! I hope to be in touch with you soon!
   (not needed): That is great! I look forward to hearing from you!)

   That last reply is not needed because you are repeating the sentiment. Seeing that third email in the inbox, even if just a couple of words, has the effect of someone being asked to read a book. By not answering, you are also showing understanding that you agree with him & do not need to always get the last word in. As well, if someone sends you an 'FYI', it usually means they wish not to hear back from you. By human nature, if someone throws us a ball, we look to throw it back. This is not the case with emails. Some just wish to give info, and not hear an answer. On that note, if you do an FYI email, always be clear in your email that you do want an answer from someone specific.
   
8. We must all take some responsibility for what people expect from us. If you train people to believe that you reply quickly to everything, they will expect that from you. If you do not reply quickly as you have led one to believe you can, they become anxious or nervous. As well, if you train people to believe that it takes you a long time to get back to someone, they will most likely avoid you in time-sensitive situations. If you do reply quickly, make note of it in the email, so one thinks you are not being insensitive to their requests. You do not want to give a speedy reply to a very thoughtful email, and not acknowledge that it was thoughtful.
   
9. If you find yourself ready to fight an email battle, stop what you are doing! Take 30 minutes to think before you write back! This will teach you what battles to pick as well, if there is one at all. 'Cooler heads always prevail' Written word is forever, so you do not want to lose composure, as people will hold that against you for as long as they have the email, and then some.
   
10. If your thinking is toxic, it will make someone sick. Before you have an email conversation about something negative, write yourself first & read it. If you have to edit it or if it makes you upset, re-write the email to show you can negotiate a problem to find a solution. Again, write in the style you would like to see written to you.
    
11. One tip from Voice Coach and Voice123 Premium Member Deborah Sale-Butler: "If you have a conversation regarding some aspect of your project, immediately send (and save a copy) an e-mail detailing the points you covered. For example, 'Thank you for your time this afternoon. As we discussed, future pickup sessions will be billed at a rate of $(Your rates) per session. . .' The point of this is to be sure everyone is on the same page and that there is a record of it in writing. Sometimes, if there are many people involved on the client end, details are not communicated and you may end up having to defend your position when the person you spoke to earlier (now under pressure from above) doesn't remember the conversation the way you describe it! Just keep it professional, quick, and to the point."

Finally... and most importantly... during an email conversation, remind yourself, 'People may write you the way that they do because they are unaware of what you find irritating, but that does NOT make the people insensitive or unintelligent'.

I hope you find this serves you. I speak only from experience & what I have witnessed to give you better insight, so that you may draw your own conclusions......Steven Lowell
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CourVO

Great Feedback

In case you missed J. S. Gilbert's timely and authentic response to my previous post on a request for rates, I'm re-posting it below. 

He raises a number of issues many a voice-actor should be aware of in working with a broad spectrum of clients...exposing an equally broad spectrum of abuses of your good will and good faith.

Thanks J.S.

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Oh, the good old days - when you would just go to a studio, not worry about having to be cheap cook and bottle washer, and when you could just charge by the hour.

My expereince is that much of the e-learning work out there carries the lowest rates going and there are tons of traps and pitfalls. I have produced dialog and been voice talent for many, many educational projects. Currently among other credits, I am the narrator for all of Disney/ Pixar Ratatouille educational products produced for Leapfrog.

Some e-learning, like that I do for Leapfrog pays quite well and follows the format of most often using talent in person, in studio. Much of the other work doesn't.

Often the "lure" of the e-learning work is that it can represent a massive amount of work. In the Summer of 2006, I was responsible for producing 40,000 prompts, which involved myself and 11 other actors as talent. Each prompt was approximately a sentence long. All files had to be recorded on specific equipment at very specific levels and had to all be batch processed and then each prompt saved as a specific file with a unique and long file name. All files also had to have heads and tails removed to within 1/10th of a second.

The work required a very flexible, yet controlled work-flow scenario to ensure that delivery dates were met and that recording, editing and delivery were all handled properly. If, for example, the files would have had to have been named by hand, as opposed to using  a batch processing program, it might have doubled the number of man hours on the project.

Here are where problems can and often will occur.

The client pays late. I have worked for over 20 e-learning companies and only 2 have paid in anything that would be considered close to on time. There were a few clients who did pay some upfront (an extreme rarity) but managed to slip into arrears as projects dragged on.

Potential for large amounts of work to be rejected.

Extraordinary amounts of time involved to work out issues and problems. Often dealing with amazing time-zone issues, whereby talent is expected to call at 2am.

Numerous script typos, grammatical errors, logistical problems and other script errors that effect timing, etc.

Scripts that often require reformatting or have other issues in terms of usefullness by actor.

Consistently dangling the sword of Damacles over your head in the form of them getting someone else to do the work cheaper.

Using some small issue as reason to withhold final payment or more than just final payment

Failure of the company to provide proper scope-of-work documents, which make you work 3 times as long as you had originally thought you would.

Inordinate amounts of calls, emails and other commmunications that add to the time and aggravation spent on the project.

Unfortunately, clients often expect to use fee structures of large projects as a base for even small projects.

There are far too many factors that go into pricing a project. For example, the mere difference that a K-6 project may have with a high school or college learning project in terms of the difficulty of the pedagogy can be very significant. (Reading lines like "I love to plant vegetables in my garden vs. The regionally nonspecific blockade was suggested to be due to serotonergic modulation of dopamine synthesis.)

There are reasons why there are agents and lawyers and dentists. I know that there are a bunch of talent out there who do this work and claim to have never had issue. My hat is off to them. I haven't had many problems and I'd like to think that the reason is because of experience in both audio production (voice-over) and also broad based business experience.

I would also ask for an RFP (request for proposal) or some SOW (Statement of work) from the client before quoting. This would need to include any assumptions they have, audio conformities, and actual copy. The more information, the better.
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CourVO

Friends, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Rate Sheets

This blog invites your input.  If there's a good response, I will collate the results, and provide everyone with a summary.

Recently, I was asked to quote my price for a 36,000 word e-learning narration.  The client likes the final product divided up into numerous files....some just a few words in length, other files are the length of a paragraph.

Like most independent freelance contractors in ANY business, I struggled to quote a fair price.  I have a rate sheet, but there always seems to be some extenuating circumstance...some variable...that throws a monkey wrench into the calculation.

I've lurked on enough online VO forums, read enough newsletters, and poured through enough literature on the subject to know there's little agreement on a singular way to calculate a price for a script. 

I know, I know...the unions have well-publicized rate card.  I'm not talking about that.  I'm talking about the rabble... the non-union, agentless voice-actors plying our trade on the internet.

From what I've seen formulas for pricing fall into about 4 categories.

COUNTING WORDS
COUNTING PAGES
COUNTING TIME
COUNTING STUDIO USE

Then there's the consideration the time and trouble it takes to EDIT/PRODUCE the final product, save to whatever format in however many numbers of files, and the cost of sending.

I'm going to exclude ISDN or Source-Connect sessions from this discussion. 

I'm also going to ask you not to get into TV/radio use/re-use issues -- or local/national exposure considerations.

Would you be so kind as to share with me/us what basic formula you use to estimate to your clients how much you charge for sessions involving non-broadcast products that require you to use your home studio to achieve the desired result. 

I also invite you to let others know, so we get the best possible sampling.

Please feedback by commenting at the bottom of this blog, or e-mailing me personally at courvo@courvo.com.

 

Thanks!

CourVO

VOICE 2008 Headliners

VOICE 2008 will be here before you can say Pat Fraley.  Organizers are stepping up plans, and new developments are happening daily.

Remember, May 15th, is the absolute (extended) deadline for early-bird sign-ups.  Savings of $100 for meeting that deadline.  Hey, it all adds up!

AFTRA is now signed-on as a major sponsor, and below, I've cut and pasted some of the latest info on presenters.

I met both Larry and MJ at last year's conclave, and both have a LOT to offer.

                                         

MJ Lallo & Larry Maizlish We hope you've enjoyed learning about the VOICE 2008 Presenters.  We enourage you to visit the VOICE Website to learn even more and to hear a special audio introduction from each of these great people. I

MJ Lallo Characters the MOVE!                                         MJ Lallo is an award winning VO artist, composer, and singer.She opened MJ Productions in San Francisco in 1983 as a post production house specializing in music and SFX. She expanded into Voice Over in 1991. In 1998 she moved to LA and in 2000 she opened her own professional recording studio and VO school. This lady does it all! In addition to her own VO work, she's also a VO director and producer. She's done voices for Fox Kid's Digimon, Disney's "Lilo and Stitch" for Disney Parks, Universal Interactive, Game Cues. Directed and Voiced  "Game Access" (written by Nelson Recinos animation for director Pinky and the Brain) staring the Power Puff Girls, 7 episodes of Mixed Nuts, a multi-cultural cartoon, Mr. Cupid, cartoon in Spain, The Possum Twins, Story of Krishna, Kiddo The Truck, and 7-11 Lucky Lane. She's voiced commercial work as well for Houghton-Mifflin Books, IBM, 3M, Hitachi, Red Wings Shoes, TV Guide, GNC, and Infomercials for Guthy-Renker and ADR for Miramax, and Columbia Pictures. She's cast VO artists from hermulti-lingual Talent Roster for Cartoon Network, PBS Kids, DreamWorks, Miramax, Paramount, Warner Bros, Infomercials for Guthy Renker, Audio books for Houghton-Mifflin, Penguin Books, trailers for Simon & Schuster,Law and Order promos, Amgen, Invitrogen, Game Cues, Obisoft Games, Johnson & Johnsons 5 multi-lingual DVD's on new product lines yada yada!! She also has a 90 minute DVD out "Marketing Yourself in Voice Over" and is currently writing a book on Animation Voice Over with Jean Wright for Focal Press. Visit MJ's website at www.creatingvoices.com                                                                                                                  Larry Maizlish VO from a Talent Buyer's Perspective As president of Voices On Call, a voiceover talent and production agency located in Los   Angeles, Larry is involved in hiring voice talent on a daily basis. Projects booked cover a wide range from network television and corporate productions to commercials and basic IVR and voicemail systems. Larry started in voice at an early age with singing on-camera at age 9. In his teens, he voiced multimedia presentations including a few jobs with live sound effects for theater plays (no kidding, live!). For several years he voiced a nationally known animatronic robotic bear before making a decision to enter the business world. After years of retail and service business ownership, with occasional VO and commercial spots squeezed in now and then, he decided to combine his passions for business and voice together and Voices On Call was born.   With clients located next door, across the country, and around the globe, Larry views the business from both the buyer's and talent's side of the aisle, a unique perspective that brings the best of both areas to the VO world. So, what would you ask a voice client buyer? Bring your questions. This is your time. Join Larry in a no-holds barred Talent-Client discussion at VOICE 2008. Visit Larry's website at www.voicesoncall.com

CourVO

Seth's Blog

Have I mentioned this before?

If I haven't I shoulda...or it bears repeating.

Just....read Seth's Blog. 

Seth Godin always has a fresh perspective on everything...esp marketing and branding, and rethinking paradigms.   

And besides....he uses TypePad.

CourVO

What's Wrong With This Advice?

The site is an online Business & Finance forum.

Here's the Q &A:
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How do I break into voice acting?

I would like to break into the voice acting biz... I am an impressionist with about 150 different voices that I do, and a few of my own original voices.
I am employed, so I would want to start out part-time and maybe always be part-time, but this is something I've wanted to do for quite a few years now. I've decided that I finally want to just go for it....any advice?                     

Best Answer

Do a web search, I think the site is Voice Over 123. You can post your vacal abilities and profile. I'm sure there are more like that as well. My husband is a voice personality and he uses that one.
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Where do I start? 

I suppose some years ago, I could've been the same person posing that question.  The person answering is genuine, but doesn't even get the V123 reference right.  And her husband is a "voice personality"...??  What's that?

I'm not trying to be harsh, but now that me and my friends are in the door, can't we just close the gate, and make voice-actors a limited edition?  Wouldn't that make us more in demand?  (can't believe I just said that)

'Course that runs counter to everything I learned from my daddy about Capitalism...but seriously, we're going to have to re-define "flooded market" pretty soon.  Let the market work it's magic...Darwinian principles, fittest survive...I know, I know...

I've just been contacted by a friend-of-a-friend who wants to get started in VO too.  She has a pretty decent voice, and is already a model and spokesperson. 

Take a deep breath, Dave, and be patient...you were there once.

I was... and usually I start by referring people to Bobbin Beam's wonderful discourse on getting started.  I've also written on this subject in a previous blog.

And besides, what's "vacal abilities"....that sounds fecund.

CourVO

Speed Racer

MovieWeb just posted what it's calling an "exclusive interview" with Peter Fernandez.

Apparently Fernandez is a voice-actor of many decades who's voiced almost every version of "SPEED RACER" since it first came out.  Now it's an upcoming movie of the same name, directed by the same brothers who did the "Matrix" series of flix.... The Wachowski brothers who also serve as co-producers.

Fernandez also has an on-camera role in the new film as a race announcer.

I keep hearing that video games are a huge potential market for voice-actors, but, #1 game developers have heretofore been loathe to accept paying professional voices for their characters, and #2, they're extremely hard to market to (at least in my experience).

At any rate, the interview, which can be found HERE, does give an interesting glimpse into the business and how one voice-actor prepares himself for the roles he's asked to play. 

CourvO