I Survived My Audition.

I received a call Thursday afternoon from a Manhattan media production house asking me to audition on Monday (today) for a web commercial for a major national product. The audition was to be held in Manhattan, no remote recording please (my friend Drew was also invited to audition but since he's in the Dallas area he was told he couldn't be considered after all). Over the next few days I did some serious market research, as the product is one about which I had preconceptions, and yet as soon as I was faced with the possibility of being its spokesperson I found my ideas changing dramatically. I went to a store that sells only that product and paraphernalia, and spoke over the weekend with a number of people whose lives are enriched, if not dominated by that product. The company website was also very informative and I didn’t even make it through half of their material. I learned a great deal and was looking forward to the audition very much.

It’s a 3 hour drive from my home to Manhattan and I left my house at about 8:00 this morning and headed for the interstate. Around 8:15 the car ahead of me suddenly braked and came to a stop. All my attention was focused on avoiding a collision and fortunately I did not hit anyone or anything. The driver of the light pickup behind me was less fortunate and crashed into my car, and in my rear-view mirror I saw another pick-up slam into his. I got my minivan off the road as quickly as possible and called 911 to report the location of the accident and that it looked pretty bad behind me. I saw a small sedan pull over and a man dressed for his job at UPS hopped out and ran full speed back down the road to the scene of the worst of the accident. The man whose vehicle had hit mine pulled over in front of me so I got out to see how he was; he thought he had probably suffered a mild concussion and his pickup looked pretty bad. Eventually the police and paramedics arrived, took our reports and checked us out. I started to see tow trucks arriving, and some miserably smashed-up cars being removed from the scene. Miraculously, nobody was seriously hurt. The police officer at the scene pronounced my van drivable, although he advised me to go to a garage to have it checked out if I planned to continue on my way to New York. After we were cleared to leave, I headed south. My car seemed fine (although it looks “butt-ugly” now) and I decided to go ahead with my plans. I never knew what caused the cars in front of me to stop, and it kind of boggles my mind that none of them waited around to offer information or assistance - surely one of them must have noticed the multi-car pile-up behind them?

I did not make the audition on time, but a call to the recording studio informed me that late was fine, and I arrived at 25 minutes past my scheduled audition time. I pulled into a parking garage and asked their rates for an hour – it was the same as for a day, $16.95. As a native New Yorker I couldn’t stomach that and drove on, and was fortunate to find street parking a few blocks away. The recording studio was in a lovely old building in Chelsea – I love visiting other studios, and present were – the recording engineer and myself. No client, no casting director, just the two of us. The RE was very nice and personable, but he told me, “it would be pointless for me to give you direction because I have no idea what the client wants.” So we “did the needful” and got the job done, and I was on my way in less than 15 minutes.

It was a bit of a let down, I gotta say – I don’t mind the drive – usually – but I’d like to have a bit more of a reason for the trip than just going to another microphone in another state. I talked with my friend, fellow voice artist Anthony Mendez on the phone afterwards, and he said that’s the way it is in New York: “face time” is considered very important, even if there’s nobody there but you and the engineer. Maybe I’ll understand that some day. At any rate, the overall experience was a good one, and the market research I did reminded me, I hope, to keep an open mind about everything and everybody. And, not least of all, I’m very glad to be alive. I’ve never been in a collision before and although I don’t yet know how much it’s going to cost me, at least I had the relief of knowing that my driving was not responsible for it and that I didn’t hit anybody, and that nobody was seriously injured. On the ride home, as I watched cars zipping in and out of traffic at high speed, I wished I could tell their drivers, “don’t be stupid!” The reminder I got this morning of how vulnerable we all are was an important one, and I plan to be, if possible, even more vigilant on the road.

And it would be very nice to get a gig out of it too ;)

Taking Direction.

Karate thoughts again. It’s just so woven into my life. I went down to New York last weekend for an outdoor “system-wide” workout in Central Park. Hanshi Scaglione was up from Florida, and one of our Kyoshi and 6 Sensei were present. We could not have asked for a more perfect day to be out of doors, and I got a GREAT parking spot on 69th just off Madison Avenue (yeah, I grew up in New York. A good parking spot can make the difference between leaving Sunday night or going back home sometime on Monday or Tuesday). The workout lasted 4 ½ hours, which was enough time for a LOT of corrections to be suggested – in technique, stance, all kindsa stuff. And quite a few of the corrections went against what I had been taught, so there was a fair bit of discussion about that at the next class I attended back home, among those of us from our dojo who had attended this event in New York.

Basically, one needs to be able to take direction. On the deck or in the booth. If Hanshi or the client wants you to do it THIS way, then that’s what you do. Later, when you’ve sorted through it all and decide what advice you want to keep and what you don’t, you’ll arrive at your own style – well, not exactly style, but maybe your karate “happy place”, and hope that it doesn’t get you into trouble when you’re testing for black belt (for example). Maybe you can look like you’re doing it one way and actually do it another – like when they say, “speed up your read, but make it sound slower”. LOL.

Yeah. Anyway, it was a glorious, tiring day. Nice people, lots of exercise, no traffic on the trip down or back. And Kyoshi runs a production company in New York, so it was great to make that connection too :)

Central Park Workout September 2006 (photo courtesy of Sensei Michael Mackay)

Energy.

I’ve written here before about karate and voice-over. Both are physical and anyone who does physical activity and voice work on a regular basis can tell you that the parallels are numerous. But use of the voice in karate is what got me thinking about the relationship most recently. The subject of psychological and kinetic energy came up in Pat Fraley’s voice-over master class last weekend. One of our exercises was to read a number of lines using one or the other of these two energy types, and to mix up the two types within one line. One common choice for kinetic energy is volume – make it LOUDER. There are other ways of expressing kinetic energy and I was experimenting last night in karate class when my turn came around to count for whatever exercise it was that we were doing. The count is tremendously important in karate – it can motivate or it can depress one’s fellow students, and it is “spirit” – more precisely ENERGY - that makes the difference. I wanted to motivate with kinetic energy but not at great volume - to minimize the risk of hurting my voice (volume doesn't hurt if produced correctly, but I don't always multi-task well and wanted to focus on one thing), and without showing expression – because in karate you don’t want to your face to give away your emotional state.

In the booth, smiling is a huge help in adding energy to a read. It may be the single easiest way to change the feeling of your words. So trying to convey energy while counting for karate, without smiling or showing other expression, is a very challenging, interesting and fun exercise. The way I approached it was to “show” expression in my mind. To think it and try to get it into my voice but without showing the expression on my face. I believe that it worked pretty well. I don’t think it would work if one’s physical carriage were also removed from the equation – energy also serves as a sort of skeleton, a vertebral column of sorts, or maybe it’s the other way around – that one’s body provides the scaffolding for energy. Without good posture and a proud carriage, I don’t think the “show kinetic energy without showing facial expression at all” would work.

So how can this help in the booth? Maybe this is just a long-winded, B.S. Zen way of saying, watch yer posture and if you have to do a narration on a subject for which a smile is not appropriate, there are other ways to put energy into your read. You can be sure I’ll be experimenting with it further.

Warning: Spending the Day with Pat Fraley Could be Habit-forming.

Yesterday I spent the day at Rumblestrip Audio in Brookline, MA at Pat Fraley’s 9 Critical Skills to Voice-over Excellence Master Class. The class went from 10 am to 7 pm and included a lot of partner work and a lot of time at the mic. I’ve never gotten so much concentrated great information in such a short period of time before – oh, sorry, there was one other time – my Women in Animation class with Pat Fraley last May!

The class was organised by the incomparable D. B. Cooper, whom I had never met but felt I knew well from her velvet-gloved & iron-fisted rule of the vo-bb, an online discussion forum for voice actors, or perhaps I should say “the” online discussion forum for voice actors, as there is nothing like it anywhere else. She is a tremendously talented and generous person as well as a very savy businesswoman, and she and Pat made this a terrific learning experience for the 12 participants. Greg Capolino, engineer at Rumblestrip, was an indispensible part of the team.

Pat’s years in the voice-over industry make for fascinating stories, and he shared some of these with us but his focus was on his students and how to make the most of our time together. And make the most of it we did. We worked hard and we worked well together - it was a privilege to spend time with the other New England voice actors who attended this special event, and I hope to see all or some of them again.

Sigh. I think I’m hooked. I’m looking forward to a busy fall so I can support this Pat Fraley habit….



MCM with Pat Fraley