I love my Ad Club.

Today was the season finale for the monthly luncheon series sponsored by the Ad Club of Western Massachusetts, a group I joined last December. I enjoy their events tremendously, always finding congenial people to talk to. Most of their gatherings are sit-down affairs, a venue I as a shy person find much easier than cocktail party-type get-togethers where I have to seek people out actively in order to connect. Today’s event was at the lovely Delaney House, a setting guaranteed to put guests in a convivial mood. I headed for a table with just one person seated there, thinking that relieving somebody else’s solitude would be a better idea than crashing a crowd, and thus I spent a very pleasant meal talking with a man who works for a company that produces in-theater advertising.

The program speaker today was Randy Snow, V.P. and Creative Director at R&R Advertising in Las Vegas. Randy is in charge of the highly successful “What happens here, stays here” campaign for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). He’s also an accomplished speaker and had our rapt attention for 45 minutes while he told the history of that campaign. Some of the ads are super funny and I loved them all (even though none of them had voiceover!).

The LVCVA is obviously a big client. After 9/11 they were very concerned – about a lot of things, of course, but one big concern was what would happen to the tourism industry in this country. Randy Snow had an idea (borrowed from Sam Walton), which was to ask the customers. Thousands of people were stranded in Las Vegas then and Snow and his team went out with note pads and talked to people. They asked them – "what should we do?" Almost everyone they spoke with said the same thing: when we start to recover from this disaster and start to think about traveling again, we probably aren’t going to feel like going to the Middle East or even Europe. You need to be here for us. Keep doing what you’re doing. So that’s exactly what they did. They’ve been doing it ever since, and there has been no diminution whatsoever in travel to Vegas since that time.

I don’t know where I’ve been in the years since these ads started running but I had only seen one of them on television. Here’s a great one: "The Wedding". I’ve never been to Las Vegas and have never felt the urge, but after seeing all those ads, I just might up and go and be somebody else for a few days. Not sure who, but I’ll find out when I get there!

When it came time to pick the door prize winners, Randy Snow pulled the business cards from the basket and handed them to the President of the Ad Club. I saw him pull mine out and the President looked at it and turned it over and felt it and said, “ooh, what a nice card!” Score another one for Vaskevich Studios, who designed those as a gift. I’m a very lucky gal to have such beautiful cards (and I made sure that Mr. Snow got one to keep).

I seem to have gotten myself onto the Event Planning Committee for next season. Not sure where I will find the time, but usually the busier I am the more efficient I am. And busy and efficient are both good things.

Voice-over demo scripts.

I’ve written on this subject before, and it’s a popular topic of discussion. My comments here deal primarily with commercial and narration demos.

Selecting the right pieces for your voice-over demos is of critical importance, because these are the words that will showcase your voice. Producers will use the demos to help them find the right voice for their project, and the more the words reflect you, the better you will be able to make them sound wonderful.

What does it mean to "reflect you"? What interests you? What are you particularly good at? What kind of voice-over work do you most enjoy, or would most like to be doing? What is your "money voice"? Like it or not, certain kinds of voices evoke imagery in the mind of the listener. This is cultural conditioning, of course, and maybe you don’t want to buy into it in every spot you record. For a first voice-over demo, however, I would advise the beginner to go with the flow unless he or she has a very good idea about how to swim upstream. If you’re a woman and your voice is low and smooth, with a cultured and classy sound, you might include a spot on diamond jewelry or a high end cruise line. That same voice might not be as convincing in a piece on fast food or baby products, but if you can pull it off, go for it! The more versatility you can show in your demos, the more work opportunities those demos can bring you. I hate rules, but I would offer two to keep in mind in creating your demos: don’t hold back vocally, and don’t offend anyone.

Things to think about:

• As well as showing vocal versatility, you should also try to display product versatility. Don’t put 3 car commercials in your demo. Some combination of cars, food, travel, the arts, electronics, family-oriented products, cosmetics, tools, or finance would be good. Only one of each. You don’t want to bore the listener, nor do you want to suggest that you would voice for competing products (it’s fine to do that, just not in the same market).

• The question of whether to include nationally known brands in your demos - brands you were not actually hired to represent - is controversial. My first demo was entirely national brands (what is sometimes ignominiously called “fakes”). One voice-over instructor in a Continuing Ed class I attended 2 years ago commented on it. I don’t see a problem with it, myself, provided you don’t simply use the same words that are airing or have aired in a broadcast ad (show some imagination!). I adapted magazine ads for use in my demo, re-writing to make them work for voice-over. A year later I made a new demo and used primarily work I had done, except in one case where a national product offered a better avenue for displaying a certain style of delivery than anything I had done up to that point.

• If you have specialties, make sure your demo(s) reflect them. If you do or want to do medical narration, use medical scripts. If you’ve never done a medical narration, you’ll have to find your own copy which you can easily do via the internet by looking up abstracts from medical journals or descriptions of medicines from pharmaceutical company websites, and adapting them to your use. If you want to narrate nature documentaries, adapt some copy about a unique animal or plant or natural phenomenon. If you don’t like to write, get help. Don’t let your words fall into the hands of amateurs!

Dos and Don’ts for voice-over demos:

Don’t use scripts from other voice-over demos (especially famous VO demos)
Do use “script vault” copy for practise, but don’t use it on your demo
Don’t copy a broadcast ad unless it's yours. Rewrite the copy!
Do get help with writing if it isn't your strong suit
Do choose interesting subjects and interesting copy (your listeners will thank you)
Do include a (short) dry and dull piece in your narration demo but make it fascinating!
Do represent a variety of vocal styles
Do represent a variety of consumer products on your commercial demo
Don’t use offensive language or ideas and if you’re in doubt, leave it out
Do enjoy yourself
Don’t stop having fun!!

Going the extra 104.7 miles for a fellow voice artist…

Last week I exchanged some email with my colleague Peter O’Connell of Buffalo, NY, who had posted a request for foreign language voice-over for a piece he was producing as a gift for Freedom Radio in Baghdad (I sent him some German). Peter mentioned that he would be in Boston at the end of the week and wondered if there was a chance that I might meet him and D.B. Cooper for dinner. It sounded grand but I wasn’t sure I wanted to make the 2-hour drive there and then back again late at night, and I had just been out that way to see my brother a few days before so the trek seemed unusually onerous in the contemplation.

So, I was IM-ing with D.B. the afternoon of the dinner, and told her, well, I don’t seem to be going. I was about to head out to an early karate class and she said, “Please try to come”. At that, something snapped, and the lameness of all my excuses struck me in vivid technicolor. The kids were at a friend’s house for the evening, so they were all set, and my husband was planning to be at the karate class following the one I attended so I was able to discuss my plans with him briefly and he said, “Go! Live it up!” So off I went. It was close to 8:30 when I reached Boston, and later still when I got to the rendezvous point thanks to Boston’s egregious lack of useful signage. I dove into an underground parking garage that I hoped was somewhat nearby and had a rather longish walk in the rain to try to find where the Marriott was hiding, but I finally arrived.

As is almost always the case, I would not have wanted to miss this occasion. It was an absolute pleasure to meet Peter, a generous and very talented man, and a joy to see the incomparable Deirdre again. We talked non-stop for at least two hours and DB and Peter had had an hour before my arrival in which they also talked non-stop. The two of them got into an Irish riff together at the dinner table and I just settled back in my chair and let it wash over me like a gentle ocean wave, too tired to participate but so thankful to be with people who, like me, just can’t help “talking funny”. They get it. They get me. We get each other.

I love this crazy business. And I’m so glad not to have passed up the opportunity to turn an internet voice-over colleague into a real-life friend.

MCM, DBC & PKO

Surf’s Up.

Penguins are much less a part of our lives than dogs and cats or even skunks and racoons, so three movies about penguins in three years makes me feel like Hollywood is "constantly" thrusting the dapper sphenisciforms in front of us. March of the Penguins (2005) was a masterpiece, an unromanticized tale of the hardship of life in Antarctica. I confess I never made it to Happy Feet (2006), so it seemed that I was overdue for another dose of penguin. I’m so glad I went. This was a movie about a young aspiring surfer following his dream, and the animation was superb, with breath-taking waves and a scene of “luge-ing” through lava tubes that was truly magnificent. The movie actually had a plot – a rather predictable one but good nevertheless. The voice-casting was well done – James Woods was terrific as the M.C. of the annual Penguin World Surfing Championship, Reggie Belafonte. This was apparently Jeff Bridges’ first animated voice-over role (as Cody Maverick’s hero, the legendary surfer Big Z). I loved the laid-back Chicken Joe and was astounded to learn he was voiced by Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite – a movie I will never be able to stomach). It was well I didn’t know his identity until after the show was over.

I daresay this film will be lost in the sea of this summer of sequels but it’s well worth a look.

Volunteering at the “Making Media Now” Conference.

A few weeks ago I learned via the Beanywood website that the Boston Filmmakers’ Collaborative was hosting a conference at Boston University on June 1st. The registration fee wasn’t in my budget so I responded to the call for volunteers, and spent a delightful and extremely long day greeting, smiling at, listening to and directing people at the Photonics Center at BU. I learned a lot from the talks, met some very nice and interesting people, and now have many new connections in the Boston film-making crowd. This will undoubtedly be very helpful as I am navigating those waters myself (I’m producing a documentary and don’t always know if I’m sinking or swimming) – and one never knows when a Boston filmmaker might need to collaborate with a narrator in western Mass….

The Volunteer Crew (MCM at left)

Customer service – ever hear of it?

In any business that is service oriented, the customer is the most important commodity. Without customers, there is no business. If an existing customer is treated poorly, they won’t be a customer for long. To a voice-over professional, treating customers well is something one hardly thinks about, it is just so obvious a part of the success of the business, that we give our best and go the extra five miles as a matter of course. Similarly I feel it’s in my best interest as a customer to treat service providers well, to give what I would like to get back. It continually amazes me in my life as a customer to see just how blatantly this basic tenet of business is being ignored by the people providing services to me, and nowhere is it more obvious than in the car repair sector.

I don’t have any particular allegiance to any car repair service in my area. I’ve been to nine that I can think of in the last 10 years, not including the specialty shops that just sell and maintain tires, align front ends, fix exhaust systems or lubricate the stuff that needs it. Several factors come up when I consider where to take the car for repairs: the cost of the repair, the make of the car (we have several makes represented), the place where we bought it, the quality of customer service and the location of the shop. My residential street actually has a repair shop at each end. I gave up on one of those when I had to keep taking the Volvo back for the same repair (the parts kept failing – after years of keeping that car on the road I suspect it was nobody’s fault). The other shop, I discovered, is simply too expensive. One car needed a speed sensor last year and that shop diagnosed the problem and wanted $1200 to fix it, but the dealership in town fixed it for $748. It’s really a pity, because the owner always treats me with respect and explains the repairs without either dumbing it down or talking over my head and I appreciate that so much. Plus, he sends out occasional newsletters that are full of interesting articles, not just about cars, and he has literature in the waiting room about cars that has obviously been written locally and with considerable thought and care – I have a few of their flyers just in case I need something for a voice-over demo that has to do with car repair! And of course, the shop is very convenient – I can drop the car off and walk home.

Both of our cars were purchased at the same used car dealership in the next town over (I don’t even know where our truck came from – it’s 40 years old this year and is usually repaired by family members since it’s old and simple enough that mere mortals are able to do that). A decent warranty period was offered with our cars and one of them is still under warranty. This dealership has the lowest used car prices around, the mechanics are really nice, and the business is extremely well run, except for one thing. One MAJOR thing. The two ladies who do most of the dealings with customers are very brusque and are quite skilled at making customers feel like they’re intruding. I dropped off my car this week for some repairs that were estimated to take 2 days. I asked, “shall I just pick it up tomorrow afternoon or will you call me?” “Call us” I was told. Excuse me? You want me to call you to ask if it’s done, and if it isn’t, I should just keep calling? Picking up vehicles from this business is always awkward, since I have to arrange my own ride, they don’t give rides or offer loaner cars. So, I called, the car wasn’t ready. Should be ready Thursday morning. I thought, okay, I’ll schedule an oil change for the other car for Thursday morning so when we go to pick up the first car, we can take care of the oil change at the same time. Well, guess what, I call Thursday morning and the car still isn’t ready. Would it kill them to pick up the phone and let me know? And guess what else? They tell me they’re filming a commercial so I’ll have to drive around to the oil change bay and wait there. As I’m sitting there waiting for the oil change – sitting right down on the pavement outside since there is no place there for customers – I am absolutely fuming. Did they not know about this commercial when I scheduled the oil change? Why are they trying to serve customers that morning when their attention is elsewhere? And while I’m waiting, the repairs on the other car are completed. I’ve somehow never been able to manage driving two cars at once, so I’ll have to get a ride back over there to pick up that car.

One last story of vehicular woe – the old Chevy pickup needed some body work some years ago. We did some research and got suggestions and took the truck to a specialty shop for the work. They did not do a very good job when you looked closely. After a few requests to fix the problems, we were told to take a hike. And as it turned out, they had left the engine block outside and it got water in it and froze and cracked. So it cost us another $2000 to fix that. Elsewhere, of course – we did not let those crooks touch our truck again.

I truly do not get why there are so many lousy car repair establishments. I’m sure my voice-over business would die a quick and spectacular death if I treated people the way I’ve been treated by some of these places. How do they get away with it? And what can I do about it? I think my first step is going to be to write a letter to the place up the street and tell them how much I like them and why I don’t go there. Maybe I will write a letter to our current shop and tell them what I like and what I don’t like and why I won’t be going there anymore. Beyond that, I think I’ll ride my bicycle more and hope the cars keep running with as few visits to the shop as possible. But I do think there’s a niche out there for somebody who knows cars, charges a fair price, and likes people. In my town, that niche is empty.