Friday, May 25, 2007

Evolution of the Voice-over Career.

It’s my guess that most voice artists start their careers telling prospective clients that they do everything – commercials, corporate narrations, on-hold messaging, documentaries, audio books, you name it, they can do it. I know I did. As I got more comfortable with my new life (which is a vastly different life in so many ways from my old one as a biology professor, researcher and museum curator), I discovered what worked well for me, what I was particularly good at and what I did less effectively, as well as what I really loved and what I hated (but will still do, so I won’t mention the kinds of VO work that I don’t enjoy). Pretty early in the game I was marketing to several niches, particularly to the medical and museum narration market, while continuing to approach advertising agencies since I have always loved the energy of commercial voice-overs (and there is much less editing required). I don’t expect to give that up, ever. I guess you could say I was specialising from the beginning, while still offering to do everything.

For several months now one of my voice-over friends, whom I will not name to protect his privacy but who is doing spectacularly well himself, has been “on my case” to ramp up my targeted marketing and focus on one market. This is something that is working well for him in a very specialised VO niche. I have had my doubts about it because there are several areas of VO in which I am very happy. These have always been medical, health care and museum projects, and increasingly I have begun to focus on dialect work. And on top of that, my dream is to produce a kick-butt character demo and get a TV series. Will I really prosper more if I choose one of those to the exclusion of the others? My friend insists that this doesn’t mean giving up the other areas, at least not permanently – that they will take care of themselves and opportunities will arise to work in those areas as well. And probably all I really have to do is lead a double or triple life – have several websites, each one marketing to one of those specialties. With business cards and other marketing materials to match. One for the medical and health care market, one for museums, one for characters & dialects. And then there’s MCM Voices itself. Not to mention my consulting business to keep avian bloopers off the large and small screens. I confess it is tiring just to think about it. I’m still not sure what I’m going to do about it – and my friend would not agree with me about leading a double life – time spent in one area means less time for the other.

No matter what the niche, it’s important to identify its hub. Last weekend, I came across an article in a business journal that spelled it out for me for one of my markets. It even told me the number of employees at each of the agencies mentioned. All of them were large companies, which told me that my usual approach of sending an email of introduction wouldn’t work, because once a company is over a certain critical mass you need to pick up the telephone in order to find who you’re looking for. Of all the agencies mentioned I had only heard of one, a company I had emailed over a year ago (without results). I started my telephoning campaign with that company, was transferred to the appropriate person’s voice mail and left a message. While I was dialing the next company, the first one called me back and enthusiastically asked me to send her my materials, which I have now done. Two calls exhausted the telephone-shy MCM, so I put off the rest of the calls until yesterday. All but one company had a live receptionist, and each receptionist transferred me to the appropriate person, and none of those persons was in, so I left a detailed message in my loveliest voice and marked my calendar with the date on which I will try them again, after the holiday weekend has come and gone. So there, I have made a superhuman (for me) effort in one of my targeted areas.

There is no question that success requires a concentrated investment of time and marketing effort. I don’t know where my various paths are going to lead and when or whether or exactly how to focus the effort. For now I'm still focussing on all of my favorite niches. I guess I’m waiting for a sign and am just not quite ready to make a decision. I like to think that I’m in a period of “creative chaos”, and that soon the way will become clear. I dare say you’ll read about it here when it happens.

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Thursday, May 10, 2007

Dialects for Actors.

Today was the culmination of all our hard work in Dialects for Actors, in which we presented our scenes and monologues to a small audience at the Curtain Theatre.

The Curtain Theater

I should have been a nervous wreck, since I had never had to perform memorised lines on stage before, ever. I was far more nervous the first time I had to give a presentation at a professional meeting, to the extent that I leaned over and said to the person next to me, whom I did not even know, “I can’t do this”, and then got up and coolly gave my talk. That was years ago and since then I’ve given more public lectures than I can count, to hundreds of people at a time. Not memorised ones, but at least I’m not a stranger to public speaking. For Dialects, we had done a dress rehearsal on Tuesday and we knew in detail what we were supposed to do. I had seen a few costume glitches that I had time to correct and had thought of some new angles for my performance in Scottish dialect as Miss Jean Brodie that I felt would enhance it, and fortunately my professor approved this. I had been over my lines so many times that I couldn’t get them wrong, so that left only room for “productive butterflies”, the kind of nervousness that helps the performance rather than hindering it. My Cockney monologue as Nancy from Oliver Twist (see below for the text) was the first performance on the program and it went off without a hitch.

Nancy – Oliver Twist

Unfortunately I couldn’t watch my fellow students but I could hear them from backstage and they were all brilliant. I kept thinking how glorious it must be to be starting a career in acting at a young age. When people ask me why I went into voice-over I always say, “because I love acting but don’t like to be seen”. This experience, even though it was not a full-fledged production, made me start to think that maybe I don’t actually mind it that much after all.

Miss Jean Brodie

Of course the main thing is that I am now a Certified Dialect Specialist and voiceover dialects expert. Okay, that’s a complete fib. But I have the resources, or know where to find them, for most of the dialect work that is likely to come my way, and that is a very satisfactory thing indeed.

Note: Many people search Google for "nancy monologue oliver twist" and find this blog post. I'm not sure what you're looking for, but in case you need a script I'm posting the text of the monologue I used, which I got straight from Oliver Twist; you can read it here. I edited the text to shorten it in the interest of time, and that modified version is here. If it's a listen you're after, you can find that here (if I were to do it over, I'd make sure all the th's were more "f-ish").

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Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Time to Get Out of the Studio Again….

I wrote last year about the first business expo I ever attended, at which I had a jolly good time. Today was the 2007 iteration of that expo, which I also attended. As I pulled into the parking garage, next to an outdoor lot bearing the legend “All-day parking $20”, I grumbled inwardly and wondered if my ROI would even offset the cost of parking. As I walked into the exhibit hall I left a stack of my brochures on a literature table and went on in. Loud music greeted me, which emanated from the exhibit by DiGrigoli Salon & School of Cosmetology. This was a curiosity. They had set up a stage, had a bevy of sweet young girls clad in white who were offering bags of hair styling products, and the owner of the salon was up on stage with several other stylists, keeping up a running patter about his terrific students and how long he had been cutting hair and how much he still loved it. It was the work of a few seconds for them to get me up there for a free haircut, so I had about a half hour of listening to the studio owner talking about his business. It was truly impressive – he had great stage presence and his enthusiasm was remarkable. I definitely needed the cut, since the last person to cut my hair was myself. This was a tremendous treat and I was thrilled that whatever my parking fee turned out to be it would be worth it (I admit I’m a tightwad). I spent another hour touring the exhibit tables, said hello to a few old acquaintances and left a few cards with selected business owners. It was a pleasant morning. Coincidentally, while at this event I got a call from a contact I had made at this same event a year ago. His was a new business at the time so I was delighted to learn that he is flourishing (and that he has potentially got work for me).

My parking fee was $2.25. w00t!!

It was the day for networking – today was also my local Chamber of Commerce monthly “Arrive @ 5”, hosted by our town hospital which has just completed an impressive new surgery center. Tours were offered (I love tours) and I left feeling strongly tempted to just check in, if I could be sure that all they would do was feed and entertain me and change my sheets…. My luck has certainly changed since I started attending these business events. In the last year I’ve won tickets to an Arlo Guthrie concert, a bread board, a 1 GB jump drive, and today, a pair of handsome garden lanterns. What a day!

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