If you can’t play by the rules… change the rules.

OK, this is gonna be a long one so strap in.

Before I started teaching, writing and directing, I was in a tough space.  As it says in the header above me, being an adult with not one but TWO degrees in Theatre makes me uniquely qualified and also not qualified at all.  I was in a place in my career where things had stagnated.  I was doing a lot of VO auditions and booking some here and there, auditioning for on-camera work and booking low to no pay jobs every once in awhile and to make ends meet I was working at a local coffee shop.  I was tired, frustrated and unsure what to do to make the future look a little brighter.  I had always had a desire to teach but had no idea how to go about it.  In fact, I had just gone through an unsuccessful round of applications to universities as a teacher.   It seemed that schools weren’t interested in someone who had a semi-successful career in the performing arts; they were only interested in someone who had prior collegiate teaching experience.  Harrumph.

So it was at Disneyland that I related my problems to one of my best friends:  Mr. Geoffrey Long.  Not only is Geoff the smartest person I know, he is a rock star.  Seriously.  In his field (transmedia storytelling, writing, world building etc.) there is hardly a soul who doesn’t know his work.  Currently he is working at the Annenberg Lab at USC, but at the time he was working at Microsoft Game Studios.  Seek out his website (www.geoffreylong.com) and follow him on twitter (@geoffreylong), you’ll be glad you did.

In any event, he gave me the best advice I have ever received:  “If you can’t play by the rules… change the rules.” 

To be fair, at first I dismissed the advice as nothing more than a nice sounding platitude.  Change the rules?  I can’t change the rules; I can’t even get in the game!  How could I possibly change the rules to a game that no one will let me play?!?  Yet the more I tried to dismiss that thought, the louder it kept rolling around in my head.  “Change the rules.”  What did that even mean?  More specifically, what did it mean for me?  The more I thought about it, the more it started to take shape in my mind and give me some guidance.

“Ok,” I thought to myself “if they don’t think that having success as an actor is good enough to teach at a university maybe they will be more interested if I start teaching on the professional level.” 

So that’s exactly what I did.  I started coaching people on VO privately, and some of those clients, became interested in monologue coaching as well.  Before long, I was teaching more and more and had garnered myself a reputation as a good coach.  Soon, one of my students asked if I would be interested in making their VO demo.  I told them that I had never done it before, but if they would be willing to give me a chance, I would love to give it a try. 

So we cut a demo… and they got signed right out of the gate.  Before long, I had a reputation as a solid and affordable demo producer.  Meanwhile, I was teaching more and more and started developing my own approach to VO:  Commercial Theory. 

I started taking notes on the specifics of Commercial Theory and how it related to Shakespeare First Folio technique and the acting theories of Stanislavski and Chekhov.  This led me to remember my Viewpoints training from my graduate work at DePaul University and how, using Viewpoints, Suzuki and Commedia Dell’Arte exercises, I had developed the bulk of my animation voice stable.  This information started showing up in my private coaching sessions.

Before too long, I had attracted the attention of one Matthew Jayson (http://matthewjay.net/, @mattjay_son) who ran a weekly VO workout group in Studio City.  He approached me to come in to his workout group and lead the class.  I did this several times before we noticed that we shared a very similar approach to VO work, so we decided to partner up our separate teaching endeavors and form The VO Academy (www.theVOAcademy.com).  Through the VO Academy we have offered weekly workouts, beginning VO classes, Viewpoints intensives, meet the pros nights, one-on-one instruction and demo production services. 

Soon, I was contacted by Mary Weiss (www.mariweiss.com) at the SAG Conservatory to come and teach an acting for the mic class.  Which I did, and was then asked to teach another one, and then to teach at their summer intensive.  Huzzah!  My teaching resume was growing… and growing…

One of the demos I made was for a gentleman named Tom Crehan (www.facebook.com/killercopy), he was tapped to narrate the new HGTV show “You Live In What?” and he used my home studio to record the sessions.  After two sessions with the producer on a phone patch, I was asked to serve as the VO director for the show… which I have now been doing for three seasons.  I was also asked by my wife’s improv group ADD (www.comedyADD.com) to direct their newest pilot “Book Group” that is designed to pitch to Amazon.  Directing resume growing…

While I was doing all of this directing, teaching and note taking, I decided I should do something with all of those notes.  So I started work on my book:  Starting Your Career In Voice-Overs (www.StartingYourCareerInVoiceOvers.com.)  Originally entitled “From Shakespeare to Soap Flakes:  Commercial Theory and Voice Over” it focused mainly on the First Folio technique aspects of the Theory.  I approached several publishers and quickly heard back from Allworth Press.  They loved the book and the concept and were interested in publishing it.  But they thought I had more to say.  They asked if I could write a second half to the book that expanded on the theory and discussed how to get started in the world of VO.  I obliged and the new incarnation needed a new title:  “Starting Your Career In Voice-Overs."  The book comes out on November 4^th.  Resume continuing to grow…

As a result of the book, I was contacted by a friend of mine from my undergraduate work, Mary-Tyler Upshaw (@blogfilledlife), who is teaching at Salisbury University.  She asked if I would be interested in coming and giving a masterclass in VO at Salisbury and possibly some other universities in the area.  She reached out to some contacts at those universities and I had another class lined up.  I now had university level teaching on my resume, a published book, directing credits and years of professional level teaching. 

Meanwhile, my performance career also benefited.  Because I was not so focused on booking the next job and worrying about not booking that job (see previous blog post), I started booking more.  I had so many things going on that I didn’t obsess over auditions… and booked the job as the narrator of the hit syndicated show “Divorce Court.”  During my run as narrator (which was two years as they are revamping the show in the new season) the show saw it’s highest ratings ever, and was even nominated for a Daytime Emmy.  I also ended up in GTAV as well as several commercials, one of which was nominated for a Radio Mercury award for Radio Commercial of the Year.  Resume, resume, resume.

I’m not bragging, I swear.  This is all about you and how you can do the exact same thing.  Just listen to good ol’ Geoffrey Long.

You see, I credit Geoffrey Long with all of this, thanks to his life changing advice.  The “rules” said I couldn’t get teaching experience without getting a teaching job… which makes no sense.  The “rules” said that having a successful acting career wasn’t enough to teach young actors how to have a successful acting career… which makes no sense.  So I told the “rules” to take a walk and I changed them.  I believe I am now in a much better position than I was 3 years ago to get my foot in the door at a university.

So what does this mean to you gentle reader?  I don’t know exactly.  Changing the “rules” means something different for everyone in every field.  I can’t tell you what path you will take, but I can tell you that doors are never locked just because the “rules” tell you they are.  Figure out what it is that you want out of life, figure out the “rules” to that thing and change them, pick that lock.  It’s your life and this here is ‘Murica… you can do and be anything you want.  So go, do and be.

A word or two (or 5 or 6 or 818) on value.

Part of the danger of having a degree in any performing art and then trying to make a living doing that art is how to attribute monetary value to what you do.  There are, of course, union rates to help us do that, but for those who are not in a union, deciding how much to charge for work can be extremely difficult.  It becomes especially vexing when the people who are purchasing your work refuse to pay a fair amount for it. 

More often than not, the “talent buyer” does not view the performing artist’s job as “real work.”  As a result, they throw out some lowball quote and expect the artist to just accept it.  After all: “it’s not hard work and the artist should feel lucky that I am willing to pay them anything at all.” 

While it is true that we are not out in the hot sun digging ditches; implying, or outright saying, that what we as artists do isn’t real work is insulting in the worst possible way.  Many, if not all, artists have spent years and countless dollars training and building the equipment, expertise and reputation required to compete in their field.  A lowball price basically tells the artist that they have wasted their time and money and what they bring to the table has no value.  Ouch.

If you are not a performing artist and you are reading this, put yourself in our shoes for a second.  Imagine that what you have spent your life doing and building was suddenly considered worthless by a huge part of the population.  When you try to work to keep a roof over your family’s head and put food on the table, you are told that your skill isn’t worth enough to do these things.  Yet those people who are telling you that, keep coming back and asking you to work, demanding quick turnarounds and being generally unreasonable.  How would that make you feel?

People are constantly asking me what they should charge for their services.  It is honestly a very difficult question to answer because in this new age where there is a glut of non-union work, the rates are all over the board.  I have recently heard of a major company offering someone $30 per COMPLETED radio spot.  Not just the VO that they can take and have someone put into a produced commercial, but the entire thing.  They expected this actor to record the VO, edit it, and fully produce the spot.  All for $30.  That is potentially hours and hours of work for what amounts to pennies.  Needless to say this is not a good rate.

So what should you charge?  Well, that all depends on you.  If you want to take a ridiculously low rate for whatever your services may be (music, visual arts, acting, editing, whatever…) and you can still look yourself in the mirror and be ok, that is your call.  But by doing that you are effectively depressing the market for the rest of the people in your industry and making it harder for us all to eat and pay rent.  I advise to stick close to the union rates for your industry.  With union work, there is usually a charge for usage of the material, IE you get a fee for just showing up and doing the work, but then if they want to use that work, they have to pay to do so.  With non-union work, it is usually done as a buyout, basically allowing the client to use the work as much as they want for an agreed upon length of time.  If you keep your non-union price quote close to the union rates, but cut a discount on the usage, you can help the entire industry from getting screwed.

I recently had an issue with a contract.  A company signed a contract with me for a certain amount of money and when it came time to pay (after the work had already been done) they said that I was charging too much and refused to pay.  This is, sadly, typical of the attitude that is taken toward performing artists.  If the project came in over budget, take advantage of the artist.  But listen artist, don’t let yourself be taken advantage of!  Always make sure that you have a signed contract in hand, you are a vendor and deserve to be paid for your services.  If someone refuses to pay, you can point to the contract that they agreed to and hold them to it, the law is on your side.

YOU ARE VALUABLE.  WHAT YOU DO IS VALUABLE.  Don’t let anybody ever tell you that your work is not worth anything, because they are simply wrong.  Stand up for yourself.  We will all be here applauding you when you do. 

Remember to Forget

“I did a HUGE audition yesterday and I hope I hear today.”

“I did a HUGE audition two days ago and I hope I hear today.”

“I did a HUGE audition three days ago, and I hope I hear today, but I most likely won’t because it’s Friday and I’m sure they want the weekend to think about it.”

“I did a HUGE audition four days ago and I can’t wait until Monday to get that call.”

“Only one more day until Monday!”

“I did a HUGE audition last week and I hope I get a call today!”

“I did a HUGE audition…” OK you get the pattern here.

Imagine this scenario.  You send out applications to several companies for a contract job.  One of them contacts you and schedules an interview.  Huzzah!  When you show up to the company, they hand you a pre-prepared statement that you will have to use in the interview.  They tell you that you have 15 minutes before you have to go in to the interview.  When you get into the room, the person who has the final say on whether you get the job or not is not there, instead you are meeting with someone who, due to previous experience, probably has a pretty good idea of what they are looking for, but isn’t completely sure.  You give your pre-prepared statement and then the person “interviewing” you tells you to do it a little different.  This happens one more time and then you are sent on your way, with absolutely no opportunity to follow up because you don’t even know who you were interviewing for.  What are your chances of getting that contract job?

Pretty slim, right?

 This is what actors go through every day.  We walk into a room, give our best, walk out and more often than not, never hear anything.  Factor in the fact that some of the jobs we are auditioning for are potentially LIFE CHANGING contract jobs, and the level of stress that is on an actor becomes huge.  Those who think the life of an actor is easy, or doesn’t involve stress or hard work just doesn’t understand the crushing reality of the situation. 

To make matters worse, actors often take that extremely stressful situation and make it harder on themselves by holding on to the last audition for days, weeks and even months!  Letting the stress of every audition build on top of the next until we are tight bundles of ulcers… and that doesn’t help us audition, it only makes auditioning  harder.  But put yourself in an actors shoes for a moment:  we don’t know when we are going to book the next job, so if money is tight, we don’t know how we are going to pay or mortgage, our rent, our cardboard box bill or even eat.  Can you blame an actor for being stressed out, a little crazy or having a chip on their shoulder?

Actually, yes you can.

Being an actor is a silly stressful way to attempt to make a living, but once a person makes the choice to be an actor they need to realize what they signed up for.  I’m not saying that we should be sausages and rainbows all the time, because being stressed out about money, work, and life is normal, and we have every right to be so.  Especially when most “normal” people look at actors as little more than furniture and definitely not real people.  But an actor can help alleviate the stress of the situation and live a happier life if they just remember to forget.

What?  That’s crazy talk, Talon.  You are just stringing together random words that don’t belong together to sound clever.

No, I’m not.  Remembering to forget is crucial to making it as an actor.  We audition most every day, and while it is stressful, it doesn’t help you to hold on to all the what-ifs, possibilities, and maybes after you walk out of the audition room.  Once your audition is done, there is absolutely nothing you can do to make it any better; it’s done.  You have done your work and put it out into the world, so let it go.  You will make yourself crazy if you hold on to every audition you do, and “that ain’t no way to live, son.”

Auditioning is all about how many things are in the hopper.  The more auditions you have done, the better the very slim chance that you will actually book one.  You need to approach each audition fresh, without any baggage from your life.  So remember to treat each audition like Vegas… what happens in the audition room, stays in the audition room.  Just remember to forget.

Welcome to the blog!

Let's start with an article I wrote to promote my upcoming book... it was never published so it won't step on any toes.  It talks about getting started in VO and how important it can be to an actors toolbox!  Enjoy!

Fill Out Your Tool Box

            Trying to make your living as an actor can be hard. 

            That's not quite right.

            Trying to make your living as an actor can be monumentally, impossibly, ridiculously, mind numbingly, soul wrenchingly terrifyingly hard. 

            That's better.

            Most actors get out of school or finish their training knowing little to nothing about the different tools available to supplement their income.  They are solid on acting theory but the actual practice and business of living as an actor is something that is barely covered, if at all, in their training.  An actor who is successfully making their living in their field must have a full and useful toolbox of skills to compete.  This often means (gasp) commercial work.  In the artistic havens of academia, commercial work is rarely mentioned and when it is, it is looked down on as "selling out."  The truth of the matter is that "selling out" often means being able to eat food, a necessary staple of living.        

            Of the many ways to "sell out", dipping your toe into the Voice Over world is among the most agreeable.  But just like any discipline of acting, it is a skill that must be learned and constantly perfected.  Taking that first step down the path to VO work can be confusing and a bit daunting, but with a little patience and research, it can also be quite rewarding. 

            The first step toward learning how to do VO is to find a beginner class or a coach who will teach you the basics.  Do your research when looking at a school or a teacher to study with.  Ask other actors who they recommend and who they have worked with.  There is currently a glut of options on the market, and some are more interested in stringing along the actor to drain them of the little money they have, and less interested in preparing the actor to compete in the highly competitive VO world. 

            Every school of thought on the approach to acting (Meisner, Stanislavsky, Chekhov etc.) has an accompanying text often referred to as "acting theory."  Just so, the study and performance of commercial VO has a set of rules that can be referred to as "Commercial Theory."  This "Commercial Theory" is the how and why of commercials, how and why they work and how we as actors work in them.  The trick to any good commercial read is to play by these rules, while being different from everyone else that plays by the same rules. 

            Confused?

            Think of it this way:  everyone plays the game of Football by the same rules.  Yet every player who plays the game has their own special way of playing that makes them unique.  The world of commercial VO is just like that.

            When you are shopping for a teacher/coach to start you down the path of VO, you want to find someone who is going to explain the rules of the game to you and not just toss you in a booth to figure it out for yourself.  A classroom filled with 10 actors trying to figure out VO is great, but if the teacher is not explaining why things work or don't work, it is not much use to the beginning VO actor.  This is something you want to look for when looking for that first teacher:  someone whom you trust to be honest and show you the ropes.

            It can be a long journey from learning the ropes to auditioning for work, but that should be expected.  The eventual goal is to make a VO demo, get representation and start auditioning.  If you cut a demo before you are ready, the chances of getting representation (and work) are extremely slim.  Any producer can make someone sound good on a demo, but if you are not able to back up the work that is on your demo in one take, you are not ready to have a demo.  This should be your ultimate goal in training:  the "one-read".  You should be able to get a piece of copy, read it through once and deliver a read on-mic that could go on the air tomorrow without any direction. 

            Getting to this skill level involves a lot of work and there are a lot of ways to get there.  There is no one right or wrong way. Some aspects of one school of thought may work for you and other aspects of that same school may not.  I use Shakespeare First Folio technique as a tool when working on and performing commercial copy.  For some people this works, for some it doesn't.  Ultimately, whatever works best for YOU is the right way to sharpen the VO tool to put in your toolbox.  In my upcoming book "Starting Your Career As A Voice Over Actor," I discuss the specifics of "Commercial Theory," the specific steps to start your career and different ways to get to the "one-read."  How you get there is not important, all that matters is that you get there... because we all have to eat.  Check out the book at www.StartingYourCareerInVoiceOvers.com.