Doing it RIGHT

A few people you run across just resonate with something inside you. 

I've never met Michael Minetree (Minn'-uh-tree) in person, but his posts on the VO-BB, and other online VO forums grabbed my attention from the get-go.

His thoughts had a sort of refreshing REALITY to them…an economy, mixed with worldly common sense that appealed to me.  With Michael you know immediately where he stands, as his personality oozes from his well-chosen words.

I understood he was a voice actor, and a coach, and adept at technical challenges in this business.  His online presence belied his facility with marketing and the internet…but lots of us fall in that category (Peter O'Connell immediately comes to mind…and Bob Souer).

But what seems to distinguish Michael from the masses, is an energetic passion for what he knows is right; and his willingness to put his money where his mouth is.

Michael's investing huge resources of time, talent, and (I'm sure) money into preparing to launch a new casting site where quality voice actors can be matched with appropriate "seekers" (for lack of a better term).  So far it's called: 

“MineWurx Studio: Online Voice Over Talent
Casting Directory”

Having lots of questions about all this (and him), I approached Michael out of the blue to see if he'd be willing to submit to a few questions that might explain his background, his business model, his philosophy, and how (and why) he could make a casting site after his own heart.

His reply was so worthy…so courageous (yes, I mean that), and so packed with thoughtful (gestalt) wisdom that I'm choosing to break it up into three parts.

Three.

Michael is not one to spare his opinions or his keyboard, but he's one smart guy who has obviously given some deep thought to some of the most vexing issues that lie before voice-actors today.

You will do yourself a favor to come back for parts 2 & 3… 'cause he really dissects subscription sites of today, what's intrinsically sick about them, and how he plans to do them one better.

For now –  Part 1 — a chance to see where Michael's come from,  and why he's so well tempered by experience, business, and life's hard lessons. 

Michael, just by way of
introduction, how long have you been working in the area of voice-overs, is
this your full-time job, and when did you become a VO coach?

First Dave, let me say thank you for taking the time to ask me some
questions. You're a brave man, or at least one with a fair amount of free time
on your hands, because you knew going into this I'm not very short winded when
it comes to writing about my passions. Maybe your blog readers will learn a
thing or two about me, and by the end of this hold up a single digit in salute
to me. The real question lies in whether or not it will be a finger or a
thumb…

 

I cashed my first voice over check in 1994. I had trained one on one
with a coach for 2 years before that and spent a lot of time practicing how not
to be, and sound like an idiot. I was a mess when I started this stuff. Some
day I'll put it in a biography, probably when I know people care, but suffice
it to say, I trained for so long because I was a train wreck when it came to
voice over in the early days. I knew jack. Even after all the coaching I was
shocked at how much I still needed to learn once I was out beating the streets.

 

Over the years I have floated in and out of full-time status with voice
over, sometimes out of sheer necessity and on a few occasions because I floated
in and out of love with voice over. 
There were times when I loved this business and others when I hated it
at blood-boiling levels. Voice over can be a mind job at times, and when I mix
that with my overall passion for it, I either want to elope or get a divorce.
Right now I'm in one of those stable, content, middle grounds with it. As with
everything, VO needs to be a balance, and usually if I've got a bee in my
bonnet about it, something is out of whack, and most likely out of balance.
Currently I'm full time at it, and have been for a while.

 

I kind of became a voice over coach by accident. In the early days, while I was
training and for a short while after I was out in the market, I was just like
any other young actor looking for a break. I used to attend a lot of open calls
and do a lot of background work here in DC as well as NYC. If anyone who is
reading this has ever done any background for television and film, you know how
much sitting and standing around is done throughout the frequent 16 hour days
that are put in on set. During the down time on set, conversation would switch
to networking pretty fast, and I was surprised to find how many people
absolutely lit up when I mentioned I was into VO.

 

People kept inquiring about training, and I would hand out business
cards at craft services and talk to people between takes about how exciting
voice over was for me, and many of them started to call on a regular basis
looking for voice over coaching and instruction. I had never really seen myself
as a VO coach, but people kept coming back and I began to take more students.
Eventually, after coaching students in my living room for a while, I built a
little production studio in which to coach them and record demos for them. That
studio led to me building another larger one (that still isn't complete, but
functional). This is the coaching studio I'll be in for the foreseeable future
here in Fairfax, VA. I have no urge to move, or uproot and go back to NYC or
LA.

 

What is your main focus in your voice-coaching business? 

 

I have to step back and take a look at the word business, and I ask that
everyone else do the same for a moment. If my voice over coaching is just a
business, then I am one of the worst businessmen on the planet. I spend 75 to
80 percent of my time talking people out of pursuing this craft. ‘Not very good
for business, and a lot of people don't like me for it…at least, not at first.
Let me give you some business numbers: I only take students after they suffer
through one of my free evaluations, which last upwards of 2 hours when
everything is said and done. Out of 50 inquiries for voice over evaluations, 25
people will write me back after I email them the evaluation information. Out of
those 25, 10 will call to make an appointment for an evaluation. Out of the 10
that made an appointment, 6 will show up. Of the 6 that show up for the
evaluation, 1 or 2 might sign up and take lessons. Those are the real numbers.
Part of the reason I think they are so scant is because I am a tough coach and
I don't freely accept students. I make it hard for people to give me their
money. I make it hard for them to want to pursue the business. I make it hard
for them, because in reality, I want them to know this is a very difficult craft
to get into and succeed at. Particularly the way things are done today.

 

Now, some people may call me a fool for doing things this way, but I have my
reasons as you might imagine. The main reason for being tough on people is that
I don't see anyone else doing it. Far too many people in the "voice over
coaching" arena are conveniently too quick to take people's money and then
tell them the business is hard. Or they take money from people and never tell
them, leaving them to find out when they head out into the real world with
empty pockets. Or they take money from young talent for an informational
seminar that leaves the talent with nothing other than information. Information
that could have most likely been harvested for free from the litany of
experienced talent on the internet willing to offer it.

 

My favorite is when they take money for a small slice of information and
then tell young talent that the rest of the information lies behind another
curtain which only opens with additional payments. Or maybe my real favorite
are the ones who take a whole lot of money from people, cram them with two days
of questionable instruction, make them a demo tape and fire them out into the
world. It's hard to pick a favorite with so many options to choose from.

 

No matter how you slice it, they're always taking people's money, which is the
first law of any business and appears to be their root inspiration for being in
business, at least from most of my observations. If you ask me, those are the
people who are in the voice over coaching "business". I just happen
to be a guy who coaches voice over talent; a working talent and voice over
coach who cares about people. I'm willing to take the losses in order to live
happy and humble. Maybe I'm dumb, but given a good number of my contemporaries,
dumb is just fine with me.

 

The main focus of my coaching, though it has evolved substantially over the
years as I have become a better coach with practice, has remained relatively
unchanged in one primary area; technical ability. I deal with a lot of
ground-floor, turnip truck talent. I'm not saying that to be mean or degrading,
but more to give you an idea of the types of challenges I face on a regular
basis. Many of my students started out with nothing. No studio, no real
computer aptitude. No exposure to commercial copy. No real time spent focusing
on the market and where they might fit in…just raw canvases.

 

I was always somewhat selective in whom I would take on, and have only
gotten more selective over the years, but many of the students I have taken,
aside from their given abilities, have been very raw. My goals for them
throughout the time they spend with me are to have them end up with a set of
tools they can carry with them along the road to voice over discovery after
they leave my studio.

 

I want them to know not only the ins and outs of copy interpretation,
breathing, pacing, timing, conversational development, scene development and
finding where they fit in the story and what role they play, as well as
figuring out who their audience is, I want them to be able to balance all of
these things with the technical requirements of delivery.

 

They should know all of the above, as well as where to stand,
appropriate mic proximity, preparatory breathing, focus and physical approach.
I want them to know when to reach for memory or emotional recall to help them
get into a script. I want them to be able to see the intention of the writer by
finding the keys in the copy. I want them to be able to feel comfortable
reaching inside themselves and trust their feelings with the copy. I want them
to know how to personalize it and make it theirs. In essence I want them to
know how to take possession of it.

 

I want them to be able to do all these things on a performance level,
while at the same time be able to record themselves, edit their audio
correctly, mix music with their scripts and churn out complete productions that
are broadcast ready. Those are a lot of requirements to teach raw students, and
I put a great deal of pressure on them sometimes to try to make things happen
for them. At any given time I only have 10 or 20 weeks with a student, and many
of the things I'm trying to teach them take more time than that to fully sink
in, commingle and coagulate into something they can reproduce effectively, on
demand, time and time again.

 

Now, you'll have to bear with me on this because some people find my analogies
to be a little weird at times… I wonder where that comes from?

 

To me, coaching voice talent is like working with a Hoberman Expanding
Universe Sphere® (http://www.coolstuffcheap.com/hobexunspher.html) To see one
in action you can look here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8fesJorUcQ) If you
have never seen one of these spheres before, they are ingeniously constructed
plastic spheres that increase and decrease in circumference depending on
whether or not you pull them apart or push them together. When they are fully
compacted they are extremely dense and strong. When they are expanded fully
they are quite fragile and difficult to compress. Anyway…

 

When I look at a new talent, I see them as one of these spheres,
completely expanded. In this state the sphere is very fragile. If you simply
took one in your hands and pressed together on the sides in an attempt to
compact it, the sphere would snap into pieces because it is actually a series
of several different moving parts that must be gently worked back into place in
order to get the sphere to compress. You must carefully and slowly twist and
mold the sphere back into shape in order to get it to compact correctly without
breaking. Each part of the sphere, particularly when they are new and haven't
been broken in, must be coaxed individually to get the sphere to do what you
want it to do.

 

New voice over talent are the same way. If you just take all this
information and slap them upside the head with it, rather than slowly work on
all the angles with them, they will break. This is why my lessons run so long
and why I take as much time as I do with people. You have to be able to shape
and mold the sphere slowly. Another fascinating correlation between the sphere
and new voice talent, is that the more compact the sphere becomes as you
compress it in on itself, the stronger it becomes at the same time,
transforming from a fragile state, to a state that is more dense, and able to support
more pressure from all directions.

 

Once the sphere is completely compressed it is exceptionally strong and
can handle excessive amounts of pressure when you squeeze it from all sides.
Voice talent that have gone through a long series of training sessions and
adapted well to the things they have learned along the way demonstrate the same
behavior. Once the information you have been feeding them is completely
compressed into a dense, understandable, resource-able ball of information
which they can draw from and utilize on a natural level, they will ultimately
be more in tune with the environments they find themselves in while
participating in voice over auditions and hopefully jobs in the future.

 

In my view, you must start out slowly and work at a pace the student can
absorb, or else you will simply break them. I have never been an advocate for
weekend voice over seminars and "learn it all in a week" type lesson
structures because of this philosophy. My approach isn't for everyone and I
completely understand. But it has always been the only type of lesson structure
I have been comfortable taking money for.

 

Unfortunate as it might be for me from a financial perspective; it is
one thing I have always adhered to. Even telling myself on a few occasions not
to give into the temptation of easy wealth that comes with operating a
"voice over training mill" with one way turnstiles on the back door,
rather, I should stick to my guns and keep doing things the way I do them. So
far, in over a decade, I've never faltered.   

 

I know there are many people out there who coach talent, who see this
business completely differently than I do, and have their own set of core
values when it comes to what students should know and learn. I'm not going to
fault them for their beliefs, but I will fault many of them for their methods.
No voice over student should ever enter your doors and hand you a check without
first being asked this one simple question. "There is no guarantee that
even with training you will be able to walk out into the market and land work,
you understand that don't you?" 
There isn't a student I have ever accepted that hasn't heard that
question from me before they ever handed me a dollar. I'd like to see others in
the industry begin to follow suit.

 

Those are my core concerns and primary focus when it comes to coaching
new talent.

 

How important is it for the voice actor of today to master the technical
aspects of the business?

  This is something I have rallied for since I started. I hammer my
students on this topic again and again, often from day one. There are two
primary types of voice actor; those who live in major market cities who will
never have to know the first thing about digital editing and audio production
because they will always go to a studio to do their work and all they have to
do is read and act. They are usually successful actors or celebrities, or
highly successful voice actors who have never had to have a home studio. Then,
there is the home based voice actor, who goes to other studios when required,
but is fully capable of delivering the goods from their home studio when they
can get away with it. The best example of this would be Joe Cipriano, or Beau
Weaver, who have excellent quality studios at home, but also go out to the
studios to do their work when they need to. They're both in Hollywood and that
type of life is accessible to them.

 

But what about someone in Kentucky, or Texas, Michigan or Virginia or
any other interior area where the term “voice over” will draw odd stares at the
local diner. What are people to do in those areas when they want to grab their
slice of the digital market that is available today? Do they fly out to one of
the urban areas, learn voice over in a day and fly back home and listen to
their new demo on their iPod? What good will that do them?

 

Those people, and there are many of them around, will need to learn
everything the highly successful home based voice actor knows in order to be
able to compete with them in the open market place. The quantity of learning
necessary is monumental when it comes to the time it takes, and the expense
involved in doing it right.

 

They'll need to be able to edit as well as, sound as good as and be as
technically proficient as the next guy or girl. If they don't know how to hook
up a computer and a sound card as well as all of the other required elements,
and then know how to use them once they get them hooked up – they will NEVER BE
ABLE to do this type of work unless they move to a major market. That is a
technical fact about the technical requirements.

 

If you can't edit a simple audition, nobody will trust you with actual
work when it comes to participating in the all digital, fast paced world of
online voice over work. Even with as much as I know, I still make mistakes and
can get lazy every now and then about my editing. But I know how to fix it and
can get away with it. A newbie can't.

 

I am also speaking directly of the product quality that is required when
you want to work for large clients. Big clients don't have to hire you, they
can hire anyone they want. So if they do decide on you because they listened to
a nice, polished demo tape, you better damn well hope you're the one who made
it, or that you know enough about audio editing, sound isolation and equipment
hookups to be able to deliver the same product to them. If you want to cut IVR
scripts and work for dopes for the rest of your life, then don't worry about
it. But you'll at least have to be able to convert audio in the digital realm.
You'll never escape it.

 

STARTING THE NEXT SEGMENT:  Michael's answer to this question:

You have voiced some strong opinions and
sensible advice about the realities of Voice acting to “newbies” in online
forums.  What are the main misconceptions
most people start with when they get serious about being a voice-actor?

Please check back soon!

CourVO