After several weeks of false starts and reschedules that just couldn't be helped, I finally got together with Terry Daniel and Trish Basanyi as their Voice Overs On Demand Podcast guest. (Here's a direct link to the mp3.)
Honestly, I don't stammer and stutter like that on most days. (Note to self: caffiene is b-b-b-bad for you.) I had a great time nonetheless, and they have my continued thanks for the invite.
Many thanks are due to John Florian and the gang at VoiceOverXtra for a terrific write-up on the NBC Voice-Off contest.
While you're there, have a look at the Home Studio section, and check out the wealth of other excellent VO articles.
Over at the VO-BB, member Adam Bullock posted a list of interview questions for the more experienced VO talents there. Here are my answers, some serious, some not so much...
1) How did you decide to get into this field of work?
Hawaiian Shirt Day at the office is just not as much fun as TV and the movies make it seem.
2) What’s a typical work day like?
Sometimes a typical work day likes to drag on, sometimes it likes to zip along. Sometimes it does both.
3) What do you like about the job?
The fact that I got hired for it. Credit to a smart boss. (For once in his life, anyway.)
4) What’s the worst part of this job?
Post-production on long narrations.
5) What’s the best part of this job?
The fact that the worst part (see above) still beats the best part of answering phones in a cubicle.
6) What kind of people survive and do well in this field?
To paraphrase PB (Philip Banks): those who take their work seriously, while taking themselves much less so.
7) What kind of training/education do you recommend as the best way to prepare for this career?
Let's see... go to college embarking on a Music Education degree, drop out, work in radio for a while, do some community theatre in the meantime, work in the medical field for a while, pursue a fledgling music career in the meantime, work in tech support for a while, then slap yourself across the face and do what you love.
8 ) What skill and background are needed?
The ability to spell one's name correctly, so that one can insist clients do the same on the paycheck.
9) Do you think this field is expanding, taking any new directions?
See DB Cooper's new animated series The Hyrde, coming soon to a mobile device near you. Hint, hint.
Ask any civil engineer: the more roads you build, the more the traffic increases to fill up the lanes. Wherever your voice can sell an idea, that's where you go.
10) What are the perks of this biz?
Yes.
11) Is there anything else I need to know?
Yes. "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." - Groucho Marx
This blog isn't intended solely as a repository of YouTube videos, but I couldn't pass this one up. I'm commemorating the receipt of my autographed Bart Simpson print with this clip of Nancy Cartwright herself. Enjoy.
I confess I know relatively little about the vast world of anime, but I'm also somewhat fascinated with it. One aspect of the genre that lends to that fascination is the fan support; not just for the films and TV shows, but for the voice actors. While actors like Chris Patton are far from household names in the entertainment mainstream, you'd never know it to observe the adoration heaped upon him and other anime actors like Monica Rial.
Given the skills necessary to be a successful anime voice, this adulation is well-deserved. This Interview with Patton is worth reading for any fan of voiceovers, or acting in general. Here he discusses his latest role as Sho Fukamachi in a new production of Guyver. (Note how the conversation is geared toward the characters and story moreso than about mic technique or voice inflection.)
Thanks to Dan Nachtrab for the heads-up on this article. The three above-named voiceover artists are profiled at, of all places, CourtTV's website.
All three are hugely successful and sought-after, but the interviews do illustrate that voiceover success is different for each of us.
