There are many great things about FaffCon (as I often remind myself) and one that immediately comes to mind was getting to meet North Carolina Voice Talent Vance Elderkin at FaffCon 3.

Another great gift for me at that particular FaffCon was getting directed in a voice-over session by my long time friend (feels like forever, in a good way) the Imaginator, Rowell Gorman.

Well on this trip to lovely Raleigh, NC, I got to enjoy dinner with both of my friends and catch up on news of their great voice-over lives. They both offer to me, each in quiet, unassuming way, so much insight into how to be a better VO professional (and I can ALWAYS use the help).

Plus they are fun to be around. Thanks to both Vance and Rowell for coming out to visit with me.

Today’s 5 Questions for a Professional Voice Over Talent are answered by Todd Schick, a professional voice-over talent based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada .

1. The beginning: When did you know you wanted to be a voiceover talent; how did your career begin (please include what year it started) and then when did your passion for voiceover develop into something professional?

I would say that my professional career started when I got into radio in 1984 – my brother inspired me to get into radio broadcasting; he had a few years behind the mic at that time. It’s funny, but I really didn’t “know” I want to be a pro VO talent, but I was keenly aware that every radio station I worked at, I always got the lion’s share of commercial work.

I didn’t have a “passion” for doing VO – I was simply good at it – it was part of my job.

About a year before I left radio (1996 or so) I recall saying to a producer I worked with daily that “Guys in Toronto are getting paid $750 for a local spot, you know…..” In fact, I said this so many times, he got pissed off and told me to shut up and read the spot. I remember getting hot under the ears after that and I think that ultimately led me down the path to VO.

The only thing positive I took from radio was the experience – everything else was horrible. Lousy money, horrible hours and tons of stress led me to the point of a nervous breakdown. When I left for good in 1997, I recall saying to myself that I’d be happy mowing lawns if that were my fate.

Things came full circle when I ended up back with my brother at his house in Oakville outside of Toronto, literally stranded there after being dumped by Girlfriend From Hell back in Ottawa. I was a mess. He lent me his vintage 1966 Mustang to get around (in winter, no less). His only advice to me at the time:

“Make the choice to be happy.”

I had to start all over with less than nothing, I was carrying debt. So, I decided I’d try to do freelance VO. It was a tall order. I had a buddy in Toronto I knew for years say…….”So, you’re going to do VO…..fulltime?” I’m sure he thought I was smoking something…lol.

2. What is the one thing you know now that you wish someone had told you when you first started out in voiceover?

There’s a few technical tricks I’ve learned over the years I would have liked to have known at the start, but really, I would have done a much better job of protecting my intellectual property.

When I started my web presence in 1998 there were about 30 guys (no gals) on Yahoo! with a website up. Most, if not all of them, were tantamount to a flashy business card. No one was sharing information on the trade…..primarily because it was so new (running a home studio and delivering audio via the internet). Everyone held their cards pretty close to their chest for fear of losing….whatever.

I knew all along that – in respect to VO – one can have all the information on the subject in the world, but if they don’t have talent for the work, they won’t succeed. Kinda like someone reading about playing the guitar….but never having the skills to play it.

So, I chose to share information from the start. Gave it away for nothing. I figured that if it worked for Microsoft, it would work for me….and it did. I was bombarded by so many questions from both clients and talent that I kept writing content for my site and pointed everyone to look at toddschick.com. My site grew by about 3-4 pages a week at the start. It’s at about 160 pages now and enjoys fantastic rankings.

What I didn’t expect, was how badly I got plagiarized and ripped off….again, much like Microsoft. Audio from my demos started showing up on other people’s demos – SFX and transitions. I had a guy from Calgary send me a note asking if I’d link to his site. I went to have a look, only to discover that he had “copied and pasted” my index page……verbatim. He didn’t even try to change the wording! It was my thinking that he had hired someone to compose his site, they found me at the top of Yahoo! and ripped off my content.

The worst culprit was the P2P sites. They stole everything, right down to my color scheme (guess which one). The now widely used Custom Audition, rates, delivery method(s), how to categorize and structure demos….everything. They ripped it off, because they (like the guy in Calgary) had nothing else to go on – my site was – literally – “The Bible” in respect to the subject (business model) of home-studio based VO talent recording and delivering audio via the internet.

I guess the only other thing I wish I knew beforehand was just how much of a waste of time P2P sites would be. Had I spent more time working my existing client base and less time auditioning via P2P sites, I’d be better off. Hours and hours of my time I’ll never get back. I wrote extensively on the subject here: http://www.toddschick.com/VoiceTalentFAQVoice123.htm

3. What do you see as the biggest professional or personal obstacle you face that impacts your voiceover business and how are you working to overcome it?

Without question P2P sites. Here, we have websites selling people the “dream” of becoming a VO talent. A person can wake up one morning, decide they want to get into VO – someone told them they have a nice voice. So, they give a P2P site $300.00 and get all the validation they need to get their “career” underway.

P2P sites have de-valued the work to the point where people are reading commercial spots for $10……some even less. What have I done about it? Ha! I’ve been fighting the “good fight” ever since they appeared back in 2003 and still continue to this day. Don’t get me started…lol.

As for me personally, I don’t view P2P as an “obstacle.” My business is very healthy and continues to grow, despite the advent of P2P sites. That’s because true professionals in the industry (producers and other clients) know full well the difference between quality talent and the crap that’s rampant on P2P sites.

Indeed, if anything….P2P sites have served me well in that regard. Many of my new customers today come to me because they want quality and no longer wish to waste their time and money hiring talent off P2P sites.

The “obstacle” I see for the industry in general is P2P sites…and that is something that should scare the hell out of anyone getting started today. I fear for those people, because P2P sites are destroying the industry’s bottom line via their bidding-based business model – a very short-sighted approach. There’s simply too many people competing for a smaller and smaller slice of the pie.

4. What personal trait or professional tool has helped you succeed the most in your career so far?

I can’t name one, but many. Indeed, many people getting started in the business think that simply having a “nice voice” is all they need, when in fact – to be successful at VO – there are many factors involved.

I have entrepreneurial spirit; always prepared to fail. I have recording engineering experience, to play with the big boys who can tell the difference between me and buddy with a USB microphone. I have marketing skills from my radio days, along with business (sales) acumen. I have a trained and skilled voice that took 12 years of reading thousands of commercials and other content to hone. I live in a city where the VO market is huge. I have several agents, a staff to manage my business and schedule, contacts from my radio days that have helped me get imaging contracts….the list goes on.

5. In your development as a voice over performer, who has been the one particular individual or what has been the one piece of performance advice (maybe a key performance trick, etc.) that you felt has had the most impact on your actual voice over performance and why?

Forgive me for saying this, but that question I find somewhat offensive and a clear indicator of what’s wrong with the VO industry today. There is no “one thing” someone can teach someone else…and suddenly, the clouds clear, the sun comes out and the voice talent rises like a phoenix….lol.

What I learned, the skill I have today is the culmination of:

A) A god-given gift for reading anything aloud and

B) Decades upon decades of repetition, thousands and thousands of commercials, rolls and rolls of teletype paper when I read news, writing, producing and voicing radio documentaries….etc.

So tell me, do you have a “performance trick” you can teach me that’s going to work in lieu of the aforementioned? This….is what these P2P sites and VO coaches out there are telling people….that they can teach these “tricks” and make a voice talent out of someone, when nothing could be further than the truth.

I digress. On the subject of inspiration, I can mention three things:

One was my ninth grade English teacher Mrs. McNabb. She would do a reading exercise where the class would read from the same book and she would pick students at random to read a paragraph. Whenever she got to me, she’d only let me read a few sentences. One day after class, I went to her desk and asked her why she wouldn’t let me read more of the book. She said:

“Todd, you’re an excellent reader – very entertaining. The thing is, there’s other kids in the class that need the practice.”

The other person was a Program Director back in my radio days at 66CFR in Calgary. After about 6 years in radio I came to that station with a lot of experience reading spots – I had a killer commercial demo and the copy writers (and sales people) were licking their chops to get me in the booth to record.

The PD was a control freak and told me that she felt that I “wasn’t ready” to record spots for a market as big as Calgary.

Ever since then, I decided I will never let her – or anyone else – hold me back. Today, I voice everyday for a pretty big market – Canada – as the brand voice for the (national) Global Television Network.

The third and final inspiration is my theater experience. I was great at doing VO before I got into theater…..acting put my craft way over the top. Acting taught me skills I never knew I had…..again, not one person or one trick, but a cumulative experience.

Today at lunch with the kids, I saw this article in the Buffalo News which I think is a wonderful reflection of how military service decades ago is still appreciated…even across continents.

On a solemn day, it’s stories like this that CAN make today a happier Memorial Day.

The thing about Smart Phone Apps is they are supposed to be helpful.

The challenge is there seem to be about 1,000,000 Smart Phone Apps on the market. If you press your nose up against the computer screen and do nothing but read the blog and web reviews about each app, you might get through 10% of them before you go nuts.

So this post will introduce you to three apps that have made my voice-over life easier and more organized. I am not a pioneer on applications and in fact, I often understand them better when someone shows me how they work rather than when I just read about them. Maybe that’s why I’m so slow on the uptake…in our new digital society, it seems we don’t talk about these apps, we just learn by doing.

I did the doing for you here, you can just enjoy them (I hope).

EVERNOTE

Do you use lists…like on paper, any sheet of paper that you often misplace?

I did and they only helped make me feel slightly more organized. Evernote is that sheet of paper except that it connects your lists to your Smart Phone, your i-Pad and every computer you want. It syncs up your notes, audio, web site, photo…almost anything and organizes them in a variety of ways to suit your style; it stands at the ready to keep your digital life organized. Just started using the free version and I really like it.

TRIP IT

I travel a bit and if you do too, organizing flight, hotel, car, appointment and event data can be a pain. I now use TripIt to organize me.

TripIt has been around for a while. I’ve been signed up since 2008 but I only started using it recently because someone SHOWED me how it worked. The lightbulb went off in my head and I love it.

It’s as simple as this: when you get an email confirmation from, say, your airline, confirming a flight you just booked, simply forward that email to a special email address and it syncs up ALL the details of that flight. It connects to your computer and smart phone calendars and you are good to go. And you do that with ALL your trip details. A thing of travel organization beauty. And it’s free.

DROPBOX

I’ve spoken about this site before but I keep running into people who still haven’t tried it so I thought I’d share it again. It’s a daily part of my professional and personal life.

It’s cloud storage…every darn thing you have on your computer right now (if you’d like it that way) on a server that can accessed on any computer or Smart Phone device anywhere at anytime. For small businesses or individuals, this is a big deal. For my business, it’s amazing.

Today’s 5 Questions for a Professional Voice Over Talent are answered by Matt Dratva, a professional voice-over talent based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

1. The beginning: When did you know you wanted to be a voiceover talent; how did your career begin (please include what year it started) and then when did your passion for voiceover develop into something professional?

From an early age, I was imitating cartoon voices and making sound effects but just figured you couldn’t make a living doing that! Then in 2006, I landed on a local voice over talent’s website, here in Toronto and after he critiqued me, the rest is history. It took approx. 3 yrs of auditioning everyday until I could walk away from my desk job and pursue my dream of being a Professional Voice over talent.

2. What is the one thing you know now that you wish someone had told you when you first started out in voiceover?

Well quite honestly, I was told the truth upfront…that it would be EXTREMELY hard work but if I dedicated myself to this…it would be possible. And I never gave up, I just kept plugging away, keeping a positive attitude, knowing I would succeed.

3. What do you see as the biggest professional or personal obstacle you face that impacts your voiceover business and how are youworking to overcome it?

The disappointment factor of not booking a VO gig after you and the Director/Sound engineer think you really nailed the read. From experience, of course I know it is so subjective and it could have nothing to do with the read, the client was just looking for a different sound. I regard every audition as a valued opportunity and grateful for the experience….BUT sometimes, it’s still difficult.:)

4. What personal trait or professional tool has helped you succeed the most in your career so far?

My professionalism, timeliness, sense of humour and the fact that I love what I do is transparent to the client and makes them feel at ease.

5. In your development as a voice over performer, who has been the one particular individual or what has been the one piece of performance advice (maybe a key performance trick, etc.) that you felt has had the most impact on your actual voice over performance and why?

There are too many pieces of advice but the few that stand out for me are “lift the words off the page and make them your own” “it doesn’t matter what you say, it’s how you say it” And lastly, “give the client 1 take for them (their wishes) and 1 of your own, because sometimes, they don’t even know what they want”

I was honored to be asked to serve as the Master of Ceremonies (i.e. Emcee, i.e. Waiter with a Microphone) of the 2012 Sisters Hospital Black and White Gala on Saturday, April 21, 2012 at the historic and beautiful Connecticut Street Armory in Buffalo, NY.

Mrs. audio’connell has been on the committee for the event seemingly since it started but my primary purpose there in past years was to serve as eye candy. This year, I had a script and kept the night moving with a few laughs along the way.

Yes, I own my own tuxedo. I make a fetching penguin, don’t you think?

Kudos to Sisters Hospital Foundation Executive Director Anne Snyder (shown with me at the podium) and her team for putting together a terrific event for an amazing place from whence three fine little people I know well made their first appearance – safely- into the world.

Today’s 5 Questions for a Professional Voice Over Talent are answered by Dan Hurst, a professional voice-over talent based in Kansas City, Missouri.

1. The beginning: When did you know you wanted to be a voiceover talent; how did your career begin (please include what year it started) and then when did your passion for voiceover develop into something professional?

It all began back in 1985 after I had lost a radio job. One day while driving in the car, my wife asked, “Who does the voice for all those radio and tv commercials?” I had just assumed that DJs did that. But I knew most of the DJs in the Kansas City area, and I know those weren’t all their voices, so some of those unknown voices had a pretty good gig!

I started checking into it and eventually made contact with a talent agency in KC. The owner of the agency had compassion on me and took me under his wing and gave me my start. He was great about helping me to play from my strengths, which included my Spanish abilities from having grown up in Honduras.

After my first gig – a radio/tv spot for a local hospital – I was hooked. There wasn’t that much local work, and the internet thing hadn’t really kicked in yet, so I still had to find another job. I did end up back in radio for a great career in KC, but a few years ago I saw the writing on the wall and knew the radio thing was not going to last much longer so I started developing the VO biz more and more, built a home studio, and planned ahead.

Sure enough, a few years later, I got fired again. But this time, I was ready and stepped right into a full-time VO career that was already able to support me. The transition was quite smooth.

2. What is the one thing you know now that you wish someone had told you when you first started out in voiceover?

How to interpret and act voice copy. Early on, I was just a plain ol’ DJ announcer. It wasn’t until I discovered voice color and character, and how to combine that with good interpretation, that things really started opening up for me.

3. What do you see as the biggest professional or personal obstacle you face that impacts your voiceover business and how are you working to overcome it?

Hmmmm. Good question. I think it’s just getting known by the right people. I don’t mean just meeting the right people, but actually building a business connection with them so that they’ll remember you when they need a voice job.

That’s tough, no matter where you live, but for those of us who don’t live in the main production markets, it especially difficult to make those connections and get remembered. So, it’s a constant battle of making connections and getting known.

4. What personal trait or professional tool has helped you succeed the most in your career so far?

I’d say a combination of capitalizing on my strengths and some intuitive marketing. I’m a big proponent of the blue ocean marketing concept that came out of Harvard a few years ago.

5. In your development as a voice over performer, who has been the one particular individual or what has been the one piece of performance advice (maybe a key performance trick, etc.) that you felt has had the most impact on your actual voice over performance and why?

Wow, so many people have had such a great influence in my life. I try to learn something from everyone I meet in this business. But the greatest vocal coaches and teachers I’ve had are my clients. I’ve learned more from them by listening to their instructions and interpretations, and by asking them questions about what they wanted.

Voice talents tend to listen to each other and try to pick up the good traits and apply them to our work. Unfortunately we also tend to regurgitate the same ideas and tips over and over. But I’ve found that by spending more time with my clients and getting to know them, I learn far more about how to succeed in this business.

It must have been the mid-nineties when I was in New York City attending a Sports and Event Sponsorship Sales Conference at the Marriott Marquis. It was a fun NYC day complete with NBC Studio tour, a visit to Late Night with Conan O’Brien and a play – Sunset Boulevard.

Since I was by myself I was able to get a good price on a third row center seat. As I got to my row, who should be sitting next to me…Donna Summer. Very nice lady who I am very sorry to hear has died. This is the way I will remember her:

Today’s 5 Questions for a Professional Voice Over Talent are answered by Craig Crumpton, a professional voice over talent based in Atlanta, Georgia.

1. The beginning: When did you know you wanted to be a voiceover talent; how did your career begin (please include what year it started) and then when did your passion for voiceover develop into something professional?

I was already an animation fanatic by the time I was in preschool, and by middle school I noticed various cartoons had similar voices. Mel Blanc’s name was already familiar thanks to Looney Tunes, but I started to watch the credits for the cartoons I loved in the 80s and found sources at the library that helped me to identify who some of them were like Frank Welker, Daws Butler, Don Messick, June Foray, and Paul Frees. I was especially fascinated with how Mel, Frank and Daws could do so many different characters and I began to mimic what I heard and found I had a talent for it. But it wasn’t until I got to college in ’91 that a friend suggested that I look into voiceovers as a career — my small mind hadn’t even considered that people got paid to do voiceovers. So I started researching everything I could about the industry. A local library had copies of Susan Blu’s voiceover instructional tapes and Pat Fraley’s “How to Create Character Voices for Fun and Profit.” And it was Pat’s audio instructional that really fueled my passion for voice acting and the desire to become a professional voice talent.

In 1999, I started publishing “Voice Actors in the News” as a hobby but I lacked the confidence that I would ever “break into” the voiceover industry because I knew the realities of how competitive it was. Voice acting was also a hobby during that time — I booked occasional gigs as a storyteller for kids and as a comedian/impressionist until I started touring full-time with a couple music groups, so I put my interest in pursuing voiceovers on hold. And then in 2005, after performing in an Atlanta talent show I was approached by one of the show judges — a representative for the Arlene Wilson Talent Agency who said she would like me to interview with the agency for voiceover representation. I signed with them a week later.

2. What is the one thing you know now that you wish someone had told you when you first started out in voiceover?

No matter how talented you think you are, getting training and coaching from qualified, experienced (and recommended) professionals is a must. To succeed in the VO biz, you must know how to self-direct. You must know and understand what works and doesn’t work in various types of voiceovers. While you can find helpful info on the web and through recommended VO books/instructionals, it simply cannot fully prepare you for the reality of the work and what’s involved in being a professional.

I also wish someone had told me there was a very limited market for impressionists and that I should focus on commercial work first. And in regards to commercial VO, to get out of my head thinking I needed to *act* in commercial work when the reality is that it’s all about being genuine, real and believable, and that it’s more important to be a good reader in commercial work than a good *actor*.

3. What do you see as the biggest professional or personal obstacle you face that impacts your voiceover business and how are you working to overcome it?

Being dilligent to record auditions as soon as I receive them, but I have also been hindered by faulty, inferior equipment for the last few years. And that’s the other obstacle — lack of finances to get better equipment and new demos produced due to difficulty finding steady work and periods of unemployment.

4. What personal trait or professional tool has helped you succeed the most in your career so far?

Pat Fraley’s audio instructional products (and having him as a mentor).

5. In your development as a voice over performer, who has been the one particular individual or what has been the one piece of performance advice (maybe a key performance trick, etc.) that you felt has had the most impact on your actual voice over performance and why?

There isn’t just one individual. I have gotten something great, practical and useful from every VO coach/instructor I have had the opportunity to take a class or workshop with.

- Pat Fraley for his ability to teach in a refreshingly simple way that’s easy to understand and put into practice.
- Bob Bergen for his ability to make learning the craft of voice acting fun, informative, entertaining, and memorable. (His techniques are so effective, I booked a gig at an audition within two hours after taking one of his workshops.) He also has an uncanny ability to coach a poor or mediocre performance into a great one.
- Bill Holmes for his practical approach to commercial reads.
- MaryLynn Wissner for her expertise from her experience in voice casting and directing.
- James Alburger for literally writing the book on voice acting and his excellent skills as a coach/instructor.
- Bob & September Carter for offering an affordable, effective workshop that is like getting two workshops in one.
- Scott Hilley for creating an excitement and enjoyment for the craft of voice acting that makes you want to run out and audition for anyone who will listen.

As for the “one piece of performance advice”, see my response to #2.

Today’s 5 Questions for a Professional Voice Over Talent are answered by Melanie Haynes, a professional voice over talent based in Houston, Texas.

1. The beginning: When did you know you wanted to be a voiceover talent; how did your career begin (please include what year it started) and then when did your passion for voiceover develop into something professional?

I actually started out acting and dancing which eventually evolved into voice-over. My first performances of any kind were standing on the kitchen table, at the age of 2, reciting nursery rhymes to a captive audience! I was always performing all through school in any way possible – plays, piano, band, debate, drama competitions, twirling, cheer-leading, and trying to get laughs by imitating voices I heard in Film, TV, and Radio as well as real life, which got me into trouble more than once. The first time I was “on mic” was when my high school drama coach in my tiny Kansas hometown had me narrate a live program. I received a lot of encouraging comments on my voice, but I still had no idea about doing voice over as a career. In Houston, I had several jobs after college as a receptionist and had been hired because of my “good phone voice”. I started pursuing my acting career professionally in 1980 and decided to go after voice over work because I’d always been told I had a good voice, and it sounded like fun and a good way to expand my marketability as a performer so that I wouldn’t have to have a “real” job. Sound familiar?

2. What is the one thing you know now that you wish someone had told you when you first started out in voiceover?

So much of casting, direction, and even engineering is just a matter of personal preference. It’s not simply a matter of good vs bad or right vs wrong.

3. What do you see as the biggest professional or personal obstacle you face that impacts your voiceover business and how are you working to overcome it?

I think the biggest obstacle I face may be my “feeling” that location (not being in LA or NY) and my “voice age” determine whether I’ll be able to snag more national work. Having my own studio for the past 10 years has helped to overcome a lot of that. I’m working with some great studios and agents all over the country (and the world), and I’m finding that although there’s a lot of call for “the hip/young” sound, there’s still a need for my deeper, more mature sound (and my characters, too).

4. What personal trait or professional tool has helped you succeed the most in your career so far?

Persistence! Tenacity! My Taurus stubbornness!

5. In your development as a voice over performer, who has been the one particular individual or what has been the one piece of performance advice (maybe a key performance trick, etc.) that you felt has had the most impact on your actual voice over performance and why?

The one piece of advice that helps me the most and which is sometimes the hardest to achieve is to remember that “Less is More”. Every good acting and voice over coach I’ve worked with, read, or heard of seems to address this in one way or another, although the terminology may vary. I think the best way for me to get there is to keep “honesty” in mind.