The Voiceover Multiverse

The voiceover world is diverse. It is made up of many different and talented people and a lot of them disagree on how things should be done and how voiceover artists should present themselves. This is normal in any mix of creatives whether it's the entertainment business of business in general.

I have viewed this as a multiverse that is horizontal in nature. One universe is not better than another but different in it's views on whats most important. Because of this structure it's important to decide what is best for yourself. There will always be people who will tell you your approach is wrong. You can spend your life changing everything all the time and never make everyone happy or get anywhere. The question is not does everyone like what you're doing, the question is do you like what you';re doing in the universe that resonates with your own taste and talent. And of course you must develop your skills to the highest level possible

An old mentor told me when I was starting out:

 "All you need to know kiddo is find someone who likes your work and stay there. Them find another person who likes your work and continue that process and don't waste any time on people who don't want you. They aren't your people ya big dope!"

Bless his soul. It was his way of saying it's just a numbers game. You have to keep moving and keep auditioning and to de personalize the process. Sales people understand this very well.

I read a meme that came in on twitter. It said,

"You cannot make everyone happy. You are NOT a Taco"

Follow your own intuition...Keep laughing and have fun out there:)

There's No Sense In Just Being Who You Always Were:)

Our entire creative lives depend on our striving to improve our skills and our talents. We must expand our abilities and take on new challenges with our voices. If we don't, we risk doing an imitation of ourselves... an imitation of what we've always done in the past. I hear some people say that what's worked in the past is good enough for the present. I just don't find any inspiration in using formula's that most likely are not as fresh as they might have been in the past.

This is not a vote to go outside the compass of your voice or your personality. It is encouragement to develop greater control and nuance by pushing the boundaries of what your voice can do.

Some people have 30 years of experience, while others have 30 years of the same experience.

Very often friends and or agents don't want us to "rock the boat". They might want us to do what we have always done. The admonition comes from fear of loosing present success, or thinking that we are trying to be something that we aren't.

It's not a vote to be something we aren't, it's a vote to not jeopardize our success by sitting on past accomplishments. That fear or laziness is the biggest threat to continued success in any career.

Does Your Presentation Sound As Good As It Looks?

Your expertise is your ability. Your credibility is your presentation. The ability to present effectively determines your financial success. In fact, everything in life is about vocal presentation.

We connect with people, get hired, teach, and close deals based on the effective use and clarity of our voices. Whether you’re a teacher, receptionist, lawyer, salesperson, politician, program coordinator, CEO, team leader, doctor, negotiating or interviewing, it is your voice that carries your ideas to people. Success is a voice driven activity.

Voiceover artists use techniques that represent the human voice in it’s most effective natural state. They know how to personalize ideas and sentences in ways that can make them millions of dollars. They are in a word, persuasive. Taking voiceover classes can vastly improve your communication and presentation skills.

I just listened to a financial expert give a power point presentation to 200 hundred people in San Francisco’s Financial district and it was simply boring. Even though he was an expert, no one talked to him at the reception... bad for business. Everyone seemed to swarm around the presenters who brought energy and life to their presentations.

Rapport with people isn’t magic, it is composed of certain elements in a person’s presentation. Are you ever frustrated because the training you’ve had doesn’t give you the results you want? Whether the training works or not depends entirely on delivery. The secrets for achieving your ambitions are contained in your own voice. All of success in business and personal relationships depends on your tone of voice. Think how often our entire day has been changed by how someone spoke to you.

Success is a vocal skill that you can develop. None of it is magic. It’s common sense that if you develop your voice and improve your delivery, you can increase the effectiveness of your presentation and have the power to persuade that will give you the edge you need for greater success.

Revelations Come From Allowing Process

Someone in class asked a great question last night. A talented voiceover artist had just finished a great read, and the new person asked a simple but important question. The question was this. What made his read so perfect. There are of course many things that could be said in answer to this question and they would all be correct in their own way. However, I felt at that moment that there was a need to explain in a more global way, a more practical way that would help everyone in class understand that they can achieve their own great reading ability using their own gifts to do just as well. The answer begins with these five words. Patience, Process, Familiarity, Realization, Revelation.

It is perfectly natural to say things like, “why can’t I do that,” “I wonder how to do that”, oh I could never do that.”

Learning to allow time for process is the single most important thing that we can learn in this life. Process is how the earth was made. Process is how math, science and art achieve all their great accomplishments and inspirations. 

Some will simply say, “well you have to have patience to learn any skill and of course that is true. But it goes far beyond that simple true statement. Becoming good at anything, developing a high level of skill always follows a series of events and processes.

When we are starting out on a new path to learn some new skill….we must use our patience to allow time for process. Notice I didn’t say allow process, but allow time for process. People work on a new skill for a bit and then say, I don’t know why I can’t do this. The brutal answer is, you can’t do it as well as you want yet because you haven’t taken the time to become familiar enough so you can see how to do it. We must allow process to continue so that we can build up familiarity with the task. As we become familiar with the task, we see more clearly. We sometimes unconsciously have no regard for the time it takes to learn. We make a generic judgement... I have put in SOME time so why aren’t I better. The question isn’t have you put in SOME time... The question is have you put in ENOUGH time. It’s so obvious it’s funny and yet this is exactly what goes on in peoples minds all the time.

If we don’t allow process because of impatience we are literally making the choice to NOT understand because we have interrupted the process of building up familiarity.

When we practice Patience, we allow Process. That helps us build up Familiarity, and then we start to Realize what’s going on, and then we start having Revelations... about how to do things.

t is far more important to have in depth experiences with how to read a few pieces of copy than it is to have perfunctory experiences reading dozens of pieces of copy. Now of course, perusing vast quantities of copy helps you get a certain overview. But learning how to read a piece of copy requires delving deeply, playing with the cadence, the tone of voice. If a person works on a complicated piece of copy that is, say one page long and they read it 20 times and it sounds really good, then that is a great start.

But all the learning takes place after you get it about right. If you continue to work on it and read it a hundred times after you’ve gotten it down pretty well, you will hear it completely differently than you did when you had first, “gotten it right”. People simply usually stop when something is pretty good AND THEN wonder why it isn’t BETTER!!!!!

Once you realize how to read it, you don’t want to stop there, for heaven's sake. Realization is the last stage before REVELATION. If you stop at realization you have just made the decision to prevent revelation and that is why you can’t do it. It’s not that you couldn’t do it, you just quit the process before you had gotten to the revelation of what would have been brilliant instead of merely good.

Many people have an awful lot of talent and don’t go as far as they might have. And a great many people seem to have less talent and go way beyond what we might have thought possible for them. They, through their persistence and determination build up their familiarity to the point that they have greater and greater revelations from their realizations.

Sometimes people who have a lot of up front talent are too convinced of the superficiality of the task, so they never get beyond their natural talent that makes it easy for them in the beginning.

So when you find yourself saying I wish I could understand... I have one thing to say to you…snap out of it!!!!!!!!! You will understand if you stay with it.

Not understanding is most often a product of interrupting the process that , if allowed to continue, would always result in understanding. It is rarely about can you do it, it’s almost always about…will you stay with it long enough to achieve what you want.

Lets examine some of these elements and specify what is meant. We'll take them in order:

Patience-Patience is NOT working on something while you roll your eyes….patience is NOT tolerating something while you work on it… Patience has nothing to do with begrudgingly working on something….. patience is clearing your mind of these negative traits and dialogues so you can concentrate on the process of learning. This process should not involve self critical dialogue in your mind while you’re working. It’s important to remain observant but neutral while you are working. You just can’t have whiney distracting thoughts going on in your head and expect your mind to learn anything. Patience is: detached participation. You are completely focused on what you’re attempting and observing whether you are succeeding or not, but you are not saying negative things to yourself WHILE you’re making corrections. You are making an effort without the anxiety of fear coloring the attempt.

Familiarity-As these multiple attempts pile up in our minds we find that we are becoming familiar with the results and the reasons why things work. This familiarity is the beginning of control…the development of skill. The ability to steer our efforts and control the result. We only start to get the idea so to speak after we have been immersed in any skill for a while. People often question themselves and wonder why they can’t do something correctly when in fact they simply haven’t invested the time to be able to do it correctly

Realization-Always happens when we are immersed in activities that are producing familiarity. If you keep at something you will always start to understand what is going on. Perception is a by product of familiarity. It’s how our minds analyze things and come to conclusions and develop skills that enable us to progress in our training. As we get familiar with things, and techniques, we stat to realize the relationship between tasks, and that’s when we start to understand the causal relationship between skills and tasks.

Revelations-Only occur if we don’t interrupt this process. As you keep reflecting on your realizations..that very process will produce revelations that are far beyond your current realizations. The main characteristics and differences between realization and revelations are simply the depth of understanding. A realization may reveal how to do something but a revelation will tell you why, and how and take your skill level to a much higher level because you have connected your intuition to your physical skills in a much more profound way.

You can be excited about your voiceover future, because there has never been a time when there are so many opportunities to do voiceover work, and so many new ways to find them.

Hang in There and Work On Your Skills

I always get a lot of questions about success; What's the best way to network? Whats the best way to get an agents? How to make more money and get more jobs?  There are many correct answers to these important questions. I would like to point out what, in my opinion,  is one of the most important factors in achieving "success". Improve your voiceover skills.
I know a lot of people who do good work and at the same time complain  that they'd like to achieve "more". Very often the limiting factor is they don't work on improving their skills as a VO artist. They do the same thing year after year and get the same results year after year. It's important to be on a lifelong quest to improve ones speaking skills and voice development which includes breathing skills. The are thousands of really talented voiceover artists. You are competing in an olympic size market and have to prepare with the same in intensity as those athletes do, If you want to make A-List money, you have to have A-List skills:)

How Success Actually Shows Up:)

The reoccurring question is: How to Become Successful? Insert slogans here I suppose.
Obviously there are many things people have said and written to guide everyone. All I'd like to add are my personal observations over the last few decades about the nature and process of success.
My experience is that success doesn't show up as one huge opportunity as much as it's created by putting one foot in front of the other come hell or high water and simply being persistent and unrelenting in pursuit of ones goals. This approach must include developing ones skills as a life long habit. There is always something that could be better and the fun is in solving the puzzles that will bring improvement. So my approach is to stay focused, keep laughing and have a great time in the journey to the destination of choice:)

- The Importance of Being Relentless

There are many questions that come in regarding success. How to achieve it, how to maintain it and how to expand upon it. There are always many things that can be said about the process. It's my personal opinion that one of the most important keys is being relentless in pursuit of ones goals. There is just no substitute for sustained effort. Many people try to achieve their goals in a sincere way but simply become weary during the process. People who achieve success tend to love what they're trying to do above all else, so they are more able to keep up a sustained effort in they're careers. If one can maintain the spirit of the adventure instead of viewing experiences in terms of validation or defeat, it's much easier to observe how it's going, make corrections and then try again. Keep laughing and don't give up:)

Here's My Book About Escaping Personal Traps and Achieving Success:)

Everything I needed To Know I learned In Hell: Some Thoughts on Turning Darkness Into Light, or How To Escape The Mess You've Made

The Life Changing Importance of Voice Development

Voiceover artists, actors and all professionals have many skills to learn. Perhaps one area that is overlooked or doesn’t get enough focus is voice development.

Our Voice is the Engine that carries all of our ideas, thoughts, and  plans to everyone we come in contact with. Voice development benefits not just voiceover artists and actors, but everyone. People with superior speaking skills have an enormous advantage over others who are less polished. All great athletes have workouts and its not because they don’t know what they are doing. It is because in this competitive world communication skills need to be honed to the highest levels. A trained voice is more responsive to a persons intent in a conversation. Having control over ones tone of voice and breathing is not only an asset in voiceover work, but also critical in communications both professional and personal.

- Correcting Speech & Breathing Problems

Through the years may people have come to me for help with certain speech and articulation problems that were slightly defective as well as accent correction and of course shortness of breath (non medical).

In speaking, the principles of articulation, clarity and naturalness are the primary skills required for effective communication. These qualities can be refined and dramatically improved by using voiceover articulation techniques.

Learning cadence exercises and other voiceover techniques provides the reframe of coordination to help resolve a wide range of these problems. Fixing these kinds of issues can contribute in a major way to success in any professionals career.

Whether you're a teacher, sales professional, lawyer, CEO, public speaker, voiceover artist, broadcaster or presenter, contact me for a free consultation and lets see what can be done to resolve anything in your speech that you feel is a distraction in your communications with people.

- Your Voice Is A Wind Instrument - Cardio Will Improve it Dramatically

People ask me quite often what one of the single most important things is that they can do for their voice. The answer is "Get some regular exercise, cardio" (Always check with your Doctor before starting any exercise program).

There are about 126 muscles in the cricoid thyroid structure ( voice box) that are directly involved in phonation. That doesn't include all the muscles in the chest that are involved in breathing. When you are getting some kind of regular cardio exercise you are not only strengthening the whole support structure you are perfecting the coordination between the bellows of the lungs and how you speak. When you combine exercise with your voice and breathing exercises you will be amazed at how your voice will bloom into it's full beauty giving you more presence more authenticity and greater confidence.

If Not Now, When?

We all have to deal with the timing of events in our lives. Sometimes the timing is great and sometimes it is not. We know the saying that we use when we're stuck; "There's never a perfect time to start, just start".

The main issue however, is feeling motivated to start. We don't start something because we don't feel motivated. But, the way it usually works is, if we start we will feel the motivation kick in as a reward for our commitment. We feel better when we take action. We feel better when we are proactive. Finding ways to be responsible for pursuing our dreams is obviously an elusive business sometimes, and yet it can be great fun solving the mysteries of how to engage in activities that will help us realize our goals.
We often think very deeply about thinking deeply and it becomes a substitute activity for actual engagement. Keeping a sense of humor and looking at the adventure side of accomplishing goals can make us bolder and more successful participants  in our lives and in our dreams:)

Superior Speaking Skills Will Create Greater Success

People who have the most responsibility in business need the most effective communication skills. Our Voice is the Engine that carries all of our ideas, thoughts,and  plans to everyone we come in contact with. A leader with superior speaking skills has an enormous advantage over someone who is less polished. All great athletes have coach’s and its not because they don’t know what they are doing. It is because in this competitive world communication skills need to be honed to the highest levels.

How often after a meeting or presentation have we felt that we fell short of what was needed to succeed? The coaching of speech for business success is one of the most important investments an executive can make. It can literally increase ones income in ways that are life changing.

The most limiting factor in a persons career is often as simple as not developing their speaking skills. We don’t listen very closely to people who don’t impress us, and the main reason we aren’t impressed is because of how someone speaks.

We have entered a great new age where communication is dependent upon our ability to connect, and our ability to connect depends on what we decide to say and our manner of delivery. This is the result of the intensity of the information age. We cannot rely solely on the fact that we have the authority or the answer. We must have the ability to organize and personalize thoughts in order to be heard and understood. This has become of paramount importance in, corporations, hospitals, organizations and all of the service industries. How we communicate with our voices and how we organize ideas has never been as important as it is today. Our voice is the engine that carries our thoughts to people. Our voice and presentation is the point of first contact. The point of first contact must be maximized in order to achieve success consistently.

A business person gives many kinds of presentation to many different kinds of groups.

The vocal game plan needs to be different for each different circumstance. When giving a presentation, “one size dos not fit all”. The manner of a presentation to a group of sales people is different than the manner that is used to talk to investors, or a board, or a jury. Those different approach’s need to be worked out using a persons natural speech patterns and personality to communicate successfully.  Voice coaching is designed to orchestrate the various vocal elements for maximum natural impact without going outside the natural compass of ones voice or personality. Learn the secrets that Hollywood voiceover artists use to make millions, to take your career to a whole new level.

- Make Your Voice As Good As Your Sales Call - Really

Make your voice as good as your sales call by  learning voiceover breathing, voice exercises and phrasing.

Our voice is the engine that carries our thoughts to people. Our voice and presentation is the point of first contact.

 None of it is magic. It’s common sense that if you develop your voice and perfect your delivery, you can increase the effectiveness of your presentation and have the power to persuade that will give you the edge you need for greater success. Make sure YOUR voice is as good as your presentation with this 4 hour course. Click on this link to learn more and watch our video.

http://masteringvoiceover.com/wp/voiceover2

- The Single Most Important Thing You Can Do For Your Career

People ask this question of me all the time. It's a natural and good one. The most important thing you can do for your career is practice. When you practice on a regular basis you naturally will experiment and explore your voice and how to control it. It's way too easy to keep approaching things the same way year after year. Success and progress requires a life long effort to refine and improve expression and reading skills. Nothing can be more limiting than having "some success". This can trigger an endless repetition of the formula. Greater success requires building on what works not just relying on what has worked. Practice, experiment, evolve, have fun:)

- How you use your voice can change your life

 The Power to Persuade can create unlimited success. Our voice is the engine of that success. We can use it to create empires or a successful life, or to complain and explain why we are victims. Our tone of voice is very often a reflection of how we view the world. If we’re nervous and up tight the voice often has an edge and puts people off. Whether a person wants to be a voice over artist or more successful in their own profession it is extremely important to look for the good or opportunity in all situations and be patient. The things we say to ourselves control our mood and tone of voice. It is useless to do voice exercises to improve how we sound if we are saying negative things to ourselves because the voice will reflect the sound of mistrust that is in our minds.

We want to be optimistic, but not delusional of course. It’s important to use our voice to bring a positive experience to other people; To work at being pleasant. Then we notice that we have positive experiences ourselves. We really do attract and create the situations we are in. All of this is a process and takes time.

It is perfectly natural to say things like, “why can’t I do that,” “I wonder how to do that”, oh I could never do that.”

In order to develop greater ability to persuade people we must practice and be patient. Learning to allow for process is one of the most important things that we can practice in in our lives. Process is how the earth was made. Process is how math, science and art achieve all their great accomplishments and inspirations.

If we don’t allow process because of impatience we are literally making the choice to NOT understand because we have interrupted the process of building up familiarity, understanding and skill. Voiceover artists, teachers, sales people and everyone can become more persuasive and successful as we improve how we speak to others and the things we say to ourselves.

- You Could Make Big Money With Your Voice

Advertisers and casting directors need a wide range of voice types in order to sell to all kinds of people. Sometimes there is a misconception that only dramatic or impressive voices can do voiceovers. That simply is not true. There was a time in the '50s and the '60s when the sound of the “announcer”, big, deep voice, was completely dominant, but not any longer. So, if you love speaking and playing with words, if you like language and expressing yourself, you could be part of this very lucrative industry.

Your own uniqueness could be the reason you make a lot of money. Often, people try to be like everyone else. In voiceovers, being different can make you rich. Of course you have to fit in to the various styles, but your individual sound can bring a richness to someone’s project that will be perfect for them. One type of voice might not be able to convey the ideas to a listener, that another person saying the exact same words can explain with perfect clarity. 

Many times a less dramatic voice is perceived as more accessible. Obviously this depends on the person who is listening, what is being talked about, and what they like. Having said that, if we are seeking assurance or affirmation, then we tend to prefer a more authoritative voice. On the other hand, if we are trying to learn new concepts, or instructions in a new field, a more gentle voice can often help us understand better. Why? Well we sometimes feel slow or foolish if we don’t understand something new right away. It’s a basic human tendency to want to understand right away and to be impatient about the learning process. Consequently a more gentle, less dramatic voice allows us to relax more and not feel as impatient or embarrassed if we are having trouble grasping a concept.

So, there is a need for all voice types. Making money with your voice is a great way to make a living.

- Why I Still Practice Every Day

The older I get the more I'm aware that there is a lot more to learn. I know some people who are very talented that rely on their skill and built up talent to do the voiceover jobs they get who do great work and don't "practice" much.
 I just have this endless curiosity about how it all works, how it might be better, how I might be better. For me it's not just about the gigs I have, its and endless kind of compulsion to figure out how my own speech and mind works. It certainly isn't the only approach, but it is how I try and improve my speaking and my reading skills...I practice a lot. Whatever approach you use make sure it's a deliberate choice and not just something you haven't thought about. It's very competitive in the voiceover world and it pays well to be at your best:)

- Voice Acting is Just Like Golf...

They both require endless repetition and are equally difficult. I get many many questions about the secret to success, the keys to success. The thing I have found in my own experience is that the secret and the key to success is patience and a desire to constantly develop  better and better skills. One has to have an insatiable curiosity about creating nuance, variations in cadence, melody and enthusiasm without ever sounding insincere. Authenticity must be the rule.
Sometimes people stay at a certain skill level approaching things the same way and wonder why they can't make more money.
It is totally possible to have a voiceover career, don't let anyone say you can't. However it is incredibly important to understand that you absolutely must keep training and keep improving all the time. Having a pretty good skill level often results in simply pretty good money, not great money.
Great success and satisfaction requires the dedication of an A list athlete not casual dabbling while wondering if things will work out. We often determine the level of success we achieve by the level of commitment we make to anything we love.

- Why Are Voiceover Classes Necessary ?

Many people who are actors ask me “Why does an actor need to take voice over classes to work in VO”? Acting skills certainly give a person an ability to deliver lines, so what’s the difference? There really are many differences and demands. Lets say there is a need for additional skills. The art of Voiceover or voice acting requires: a knowledge of voiceover styles, the ability to change cadence, tone of voice, range, and the rise and fall of your voice on demand in order to deliver what the client wants. To make a long story short you have to have control over your voice so you don’t get fired because you can’t take direction. For example, the direction in a voiceover session usually consists of requests to slightly change the tone of voice here, go faster there, take the pitch down on the end of that sentence, speak in a lighter tone on that next phrase, highlight this word a bit more... etc etc. In acting they are rarely scrubbing every line read for you. It can be a bit of a shock at first.

Another difference is there is no scenery, no lighting, no costumes/makeup, and no other actors to play off of for inspiration. Voiceover classes teach the art of creating an imaginary world in your minds eye where you see all the things the voiceover is talking about . 

We are always trying to comply with the request to avoid any hard sell, to make it more conversational. Yet as people back off, the energy drops and the read sounds un-convincing. Very real is often simply very dull. The reads must be completely natural and yet maintain enthusiasm. This requires vocal skill. Those skills are taught in voiceover classes. Voiceover classes provide the workshop where a person becomes aware of the harmonic geography of their own voice, their “Day Voice” and how to best use the voice to sell different kinds of products. There is a whole world of style to learn and learning it can make you a fortune. 

Certain narrations are always done in an intimate voice; other narrations are quick and lively. The booth director or the client expects a voiceover artist to know these things. No one in a voiceover session wants to run a training school. They are too busy trying to meet deadlines.

Another reason to take voiceover classes is that it will greatly improve an actor’s cold reading skills for auditions. When we are speaking, whether we are in an acting scene or on a voiceover job, everything must sound “idea driven”. It must never sound like you’re reading just the words. Voiceover is another great way to practice the art of sounding like you’re present, sounding like you mean what you’re saying.

There are many good schools and different approaches to teaching the art of voiceover and voice acting. It’s a great idea to explore as many of them as possible. Each approach has something to offer so it’s a matter of finding what works for you. 

Whether we are actors, voiceover artists or in any other profession, the human voice is a wonderful musical instrument. We rely on it to transmit the symphony of our ideas and feelings. Our voices provide the point of first contact with people. The more we train our voices the more we can clearly express our ideas both on the job and off.

We all want to be able to communicate effectively as voiceover artists, and actors, with people in our professional and personal lives. We all want to do it better and more successfully. Becoming aware of the techniques of speaking, and mastering them, hands us the keys to effective and successful communication which can take our careers to a whole new level of success.