The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hi, everybody, and welcome to Episode 27 of The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. Today, we’ve got the lovely, squacky VO, Val Kelly, the coordinator for MAVO, the Mid Atlantic Voice Over Conference, and we’ll be talking with her in about 20 minutes right now. But first, we have current events.
So, Paul, tell us what’s up with you in current events.
First of all, I’m kind of gassy. I just burped while you were doing the intro. Hopefully, I didn’t come across the microphone.
They have a mute button for a reason, pal.
Yeah, I know. I should really make use of that. Well, the currentest event, I don’t think that’s a word, but it’s the last day of school for the kiddies here on the East Coast.
So, it’s about 9.15 here on the East Coast, and it’s happy hour, and we’re celebrating the first day of summer for the kids. Just got back from the pool, and yeah, like I said, celebrating the first day of official summer for the kids. So, that’s pretty exciting.
Very cool, very cool. Got any big trips planned for the summer?
We do. We have a couple of beach trips. We’re lucky that we have family in two different beach towns.
So, we always go visit my sister-in-law, who has a house in Duck, North Carolina. Our fans may remember I recorded an episode from there, last year, where we interviewed Paul St. Perida.
With all the crickets and cicadas in the background.
And the dump truck that was dumping sand, I think during that time too. Then we go to Ocean City, New Jersey, where my parents actually live full time. So we’re basically freeloaders the whole summer.
But we take advantage of it while we can. And you know, the family likes to see us and the grandkids and nieces and nephews too. So that’s a lot of fun.
Just charm them with your presence. Maybe do the dishes every once in a while. It’d be fine.
Yeah, something like that. As far as work, I do have a couple of exciting things going on. I just, while I was at the pool, actually, with the kids, I got to notice that my second book ever with Find A Way Voices has been approved for full production.
So they have a quality control process that they go through when you submit the files. I submitted those, I guess, about two weeks ago now. And today I got the note that the author approved it, passed quality control, and they should be sending it to retail to appear on all the usual suspects in a couple of weeks.
Very cool.
And this is the sequel to the last book I did. I’ve had a three-book deal with the same author, all about the Balkans. And this is the second one that’s called The Balkan Network.
Nice, Tales of Military Intrigue.
Yeah. And along those lines, I’m in the throes of the third book in that series. I’m about a third of the way through.
This one’s called The Credible Dagger. It’s the same cast of characters, but a prequel to The Balkan Network where all the characters that were retiring or older in that book are now in their 20s and 30s. So it’s a look back.
Sort of like the Star Wars franchise right now. This is a prequel to the ones I’ve already done and that are published.
I wonder if they’ll ask you to change their performance or their vocal types a little bit to make them sound younger.
Well, I thought about that because there’s one character where he passed away in the book as an older character just on the last legs of life, and now I had to do him as a youngster. So in that last book, I sort of did a real raspy and heavy breathing book almost like on a respirator. Not book.
Heavy breathing voice, almost like he was on a respirator the whole time. So now I have to think how I can incorporate some of that raspiness into this younger, 20-something person, and it is interesting. But I think I’m pulling it off.
Excellent, excellent. You’re in your element.
Yeah, exactly. So I think that’s really all that’s going on with me work-wise. I did have a couple other leads out there.
Oh, I do have one cautionary tale, which I always like to throw in. Oh yeah, go for it. I had a job on Craigslist today, where I guess, admittedly, I didn’t read it all the way through in the beginning.
I just saw a documentary film and I was excited, so I sent off my standard cover letter and my demo, and the person came back and said, yeah, we love your voice, we think you’d be a great fit for the project. You’ll get an IMDB credit. And I said, uh-oh, wait a second.
Exposure bucks.
So I went back to the listing, and it literally said, you’ll get exposure and an IMDB credit. So, ugh, I replied back and said, I didn’t even address that comment. I just said, great, looking forward to getting started.
I’ll do this for $250. It’s just a couple of minute piece. And I haven’t heard back yet.
I probably don’t expect to.
But hey, that’s good, right? You never know. They’re like, oh, maybe once they work with a few free talent, they’ll be like, maybe we should pay someone.
Yeah, that could be the case. Or maybe they’ll come to their senses when they realize that they really like my voice. So we’ll see.
Absolutely.
And who wouldn’t?
Yeah, of course. So that’s it for me. What’s happening with you?
Well, speaking of fair compensation, we just had an incredibly amazing and just… I’m speechless. I can’t even describe it.
But we had an incredible event this week on Tuesday with the… It was several groups coming together. It was…
I represented GVAA, Global Voice Acting Academy. And I was there alongside David Rosenthal, our CEO, and David Tobak, our CFO, our Chief Financial Officer. And then we also had some great guests from the VOAA, or the VO Agent Alliance.
We had Deborah Duckett from DB Talent. It’s a Texas voiceover agency. We also had Stacey Stahl from In Both Ears.
It’s an agency out of Portland, Oregon. And then we had Eric Sheppard of Voice Talent Productions and Jeffrey Umberger of the Umberger Agency. So on top of that, we also had some representatives from WOVO, or the World Voices Organization.
We had our previous guest, Peter Bishop, and Dave Pravasier, who are both sort of champions of the industry in trying to defend fair compensation for voice talent in various genres and just kind of maintain the overall integrity of the business and offer a lot of educational and mentoring opportunities for talent in trying to make sure that we’re all kind of at a competitive professional level so we can defend professional rates. So I was honored to be alongside this panel of just eight amazing paragons of change in the VO industry. And then we had over 500 attendees.
It was amazing. Apparently people were watching it together in their homes, like the Super Bowl or something. It was amazing.
Did you get to participate as a panelist? Did you talk?
I talked a little bit. My job is mainly talking about GVA’s involvement and our goal to really educate talent of all experience levels in the industry and basically create competitive quality talent to ensure that the quality of the industry itself does not degrade. So I got to talk a little bit.
I definitely felt like the neophyte in the room. I was just like, wow. I’m the closest to an audience member it could have been.
But I did get a few good words in and it was just a really amazing, empowering experience for everyone involved. And I was so happy to hear so many people who were just getting involved, who had no idea about some of the issues we talked about largely. It was about how the fight for compensation has never been tougher because there’s just so much work out there and people have been agreeing to less than acceptable rates for a long time now.
And there’s just so much going on between the growing influence of pay-to-play sites and their control over the industry. Was that a good or bad thing? How much control can we take back?
What exactly are agents doing to try and defend rates? Like, what was their job before? A lot of talent don’t know all the work that agents do to try and make sure that they are fairly compensated.
And then, so we really got some invaluable perspective from that side of the business. And we talked about a lot of things that talent can do individually to ensure that they can make a sustainable living wage on this. Because so many people when they’re just getting started, like you said, might be willing to work for very low pay or no pay or exposure to get themselves out there, to build experience.
But the truth is, is this is not an experience-based industry. This is a talent-based service. So if you have the talent, if you have already proven that you can be competitive and that people want your voice, your product, then why not charge professional rates?
And then you’re welcome to reevaluate your rates each year and raise them accordingly, but start at a minimum accepted level. So we talked about all these things and a whole bunch more. And if you’re interested in this and you weren’t able to see it or if you want to watch it again or if you want to share it, it’s over on the VO Agent Alliance YouTube channel and we’ve actually sent several links up in the GVA Community Facebook group and business page as well.
So once again, that’s the VOAA Town Hall Meeting and you should be able to find that on their Facebook page, on the GVA Community page, and on our GVA Business page.
That’s great. I’m so glad you were able to pull that off. I saw that, I was not able to attend.
Sorry, go ahead.
Yeah, yeah, sorry. Just being like a fly on the wall at a moment in VO history. It was pretty amazing.
That’s great. It actually reminds me of something else I forgot to mention that I’ve been doing. Dave Courbassier asked for some help on, I think, the Facebook group for World Voices organization in booking the Race Roundtable that they host.
It’s usually every couple of months. Maybe it’s quarterly. I don’t know the exact timetable.
I think you’re right about quarterly, maybe every three months.
Yeah. I appeared on one a long time ago. Some of you may have seen that.
It’s also that same discussion about upholding rates and standards in the industry, so it’s a great forum as well. I’m helping book the guests for that, so I can take some of that off of Dave’s plate. They actually recorded it yesterday.
The guests were Gabby Nistico, Brad Newman, Hugh Edwards, David Rosenthal. I’m not sure where he found the time to record both of these.
Right?
Ramesh Matani, Dave, and then Anne Gangusa were the hosts, and then Allie Murphy was on as well. If you’re listening to this, go ahead and check out that race roundtable. It should be published by the time we publish this episode.
Yeah, and if you’re not familiar with some of those talents like Ramesh and Allie, I mean, they’re offering an international perspective from Europe and from the Canary Islands of all places. These are always incredibly informative events, and if you’re ever wondering about if you want to stay current on the sort of compensation trends on newer forms of media, on newer kinds of projects, this is a great way to stay informed, to ensure that you’re charging proper rates. And this kind of gives me an opportunity to give a quick little shout out to Paul.
I think he’s absolutely perfect for this kind of position because you guys may not know it, but he’s actually responsible for the scheduling and the coordination of all of our guests, and I am so grateful to Paul for that. Sometimes I joke that all I have to do is to show up. So thank you very much, Paul, for all the work that you do for the podcast.
And actually, I’ll go ahead and let you cover our next announcement, but because of that work, tell them what you want to tell us about our current event for the podcast.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. What?
The subscribers. We haven’t talked about the subscribers.
Okay, and pick up. Yes, we are really excited to announce that between the last episode and this, we crossed over the 8,000 download mark for our podcast. Woo hoo!
So thanks to all our fans. That is amazing. Yeah, it’s amazing.
Like you’ve been fond of saying, I didn’t think we’d have aah listener when alone. 8,000. So thanks to everyone who’s downloaded and listened live.
We really appreciate all the support.
Yeah, and lately we’ve been getting a lot more requests or questions, and we absolutely love this. We like to address them on the podcast. We love to just help you guys out because we’ve either been there or we’ve seen these pitfalls or obstacles like come up into Aspiring Talents’ wake, and we really want to do what we can to kind of lend you guys a hand.
So we’re so happy to hear that you’re finding the podcast useful, and as long as you guys are listening, we’ll keep pushing them out. So thank you all so much.
Yeah, again, thanks to all of our fans and listeners. We can’t do it without you. Well, we could, but it wouldn’t be nearly as fun.
Well, you know Sean, we actually have one other very exciting bit of news. We have our first sponsor. Very cool.
I know. So voiceactorwebsites.com, fine purveyors of voice actor websites, as the name would imply, is the very first sponsor for the VO Meter. I actually am a client of theirs and love their work.
I love what they do with my site. And they’ve done so many other voice actor websites out there. We’re extremely happy to have them on board.
And so let’s hear a little bit more about them.
As a voice talent, you have to have a website. But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you. And when they finally do, they break or don’t look right on mobile devices.
They’re not built for marketing and SEO. They’re expensive. You have limited or no control.
And it takes forever to get one built and go live. So what’s the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voiceactorwebsites.com.
Like our name implies, voiceactorwebsites.com just does websites for voice actors. We believe in creating fast, mobile-friendly, responsive, highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use. You have full control.
No need to hire someone every time you want to make a change. And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time. You can get your voiceover website going for as little as $700.
So if you want your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options, go to voiceactorwebsites.com, where your VO website shouldn’t be a pain in the you-know-what.
Thanks to Dan Leonard for providing that commercial. You may have heard it on his show, The Voice Over Body Shop, or VOBS, that he does with George Widom every Monday night. And we thank him for letting us use it.
So we talked about some of the events. What else is happening work-wise for you, Sean?
Work-wise? I’ve actually been getting kind of just all sorts of different auditions from various agents. I don’t know if it’s just because of the season and maybe everyone’s preparing for the fall, but all sorts of interesting projects that I’d love to be a part of, like corporate narrations, commercials, even a couple of video game things that sound really fun.
And my local agent, Colleen Bell Agency, out of Bellevue, Washington, has actually been sending me some cool mixes of VO and on camera and sort of hybrid projects. I got this really cool one for sort of an educational product for something I’d really love to be a part of. And the spec was pretty much just like, we need a teacher with a unique and fun personality.
I was like, well, I was one of those for four years. Maybe I could be good for it.
Not according to your students. Bum bum.
What was that?
Not according to your students.
Oh no. Why did I publish those surveys? Anyways, but it was really fun.
I got to show up. I got to read to a teleprompter for the first time. They were incredibly helpful.
And it’s just really interesting comparing the on camera work versus the VO work because you get a thing or something in your inbox, and then you just go into the booth and you record it. Might take you an hour at most to kind of like do your research and figure out what read you want. But with on camera, depending on where you are, you might have to drive an hour to the audition and like just prepare and wait and then drive back for an hour.
And then for something that could be five or 10 minutes. So it’s a really interesting, it’s a different world. Then it’s interesting to experience different aspects of the entertainment industry and figure out where you want to present yourself as an actor.
That’s great you’re able to do that. I actually signed on with a local casting agency a couple of months ago where they send me those roles. I just don’t have time to do it.
So I basically blow them off every single time. I’d love to be able to try and do some on camera stuff at some point, maybe when the kids are in college.
Yeah, yeah. Well, absolutely, that’s the things like when you have time for it. Cause I mean, if you can’t clear like half or a whole day for it, depending on the project, depending on the audition or the shooting schedule.
Absolutely. So, but Paul, I’m sure when you started with this agency, you explained like, hi, I’m primarily a VO talent. So I might not audition for some of these on camera things.
I did explain that, and yet they keep sending them to me.
And yet they keep sending it to you.
Maybe they just love me that much.
I’m just trying to chip away at your resolve.
Yeah, it has happened. There has been one where I applied where I was like, okay, fine, I’ll go.
Here are my headshots, you bastards. No, we love our agents. And if you don’t, then you should, because you need to watch that VOA town meeting and see just how much work they do for you to maintain the integrity of your business.
And speaking of loving our agents, today is the birthday of a shared agent we have, the super talented and lovely person, Liz Atherton. So happy birthday, Liz.
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday…
We’re not gonna finish it.
Oh, okay, let’s do it again. We’ll pick it up.
Happy birthday dear Liz. Happy birthday to you.
And you smell like one too.
I don’t know if she’s a listener, but I hope so.
Yeah, and she’s an amazing agent. She sent me some really interesting projects lately that I’ve absolutely loved. So thank you so much, Liz.
And I hope you have a wonderful birthday because you’re a wonderful person.
So that pretty much wraps up our current events. But before we move to our interview with Val Kelly from the Mid Atlantic Voice Over Conference, we have our…
Questionable gear purchase.
I don’t have anything, so it’s all you this time.
Oh, wow. Okay. Well, nice.
Well, actually, first off, I’ve been actually getting a lot of questions on some of the equipment that I use because I’m pretty generous with the pictures I put up on Facebook of my setup. And primarily, people have been asking me about mounting gear, like how, because I got kind of a PVC…
Hey, keep it clean.
I don’t even know where to start with that, but like, what do you mean? Wow. Welcome to the Taxidermy Podcast.
But anyways, so, wow, conversation derailed. But anyways, it’s like I was saying, I have a PVC framework with a blanket booth or with an acoustic hanging booth setup from VocalBooth2Go. And I’ve experimented with a couple of different configurations, but one thing I found out is that I don’t really like having a traditional microphone stand in here because it really takes up, even though it can take up almost half of the space.
And of course, it’d be so easy to hit the mic when you’re trying to be really expressive and freeing in your gestures and stuff like that. So I tried to think of a way that I could mount things to the ceiling so I had more room to move around and to gesticulate and stuff like that. So I’m a huge fan of the Stage Ninja Mic Arm.
So you can find that at B&H Photo, Amazon, Sweetwater, all the usual suspects. And then a couple more things I use to keep the, like to make those even more efficient for swapping out mics or holding an iPad or a phone is that I have these sort of these quick-release connectors from OnStageStands. They’re only about $10.
And there are more expensive, more sophisticated products, but I’ve had these for years and they work just fine. And I actually got the idea from James Arnold Taylor, who’s incredible, amazing talent. And he’s like, he highly recommends them.
He doesn’t recommend you getting anything more expensive than that. Like they hold heavy mics upside down for years. So don’t worry about that.
And then depending on the sort of thread adapter you have on the shock mound or the microphone mount that you’re using, you might need what’s called a, I hope I get this right. So five eights to three eights, female to male mic adapter. So you can do another mounting gear joke there somewhere, Paul, if you want.
But anyways, so that’s a five eight…
Those come with a lot of mics, by the way.
What’s that?
Those come with a lot of mics in the package. I have like six of them that came with different mics I purchased over the years.
Oh, interesting. So don’t confuse them with the little ones that come inside of the shock mound that you can kind of screw out with a screwdriver. So these ones kind of, or like I said, it’s just a five, or that, because I’m trying, I’m pretty sure that’s the opposite, like male to female or whatever, versus the female to male that you would need to get this to work.
But anyways, once you have all of those, you can easily, like if you have multiple mics, you can swap them out easily, or if you put any other mic accessories, like a pop filter on one or something like that. And then one last thing that I have is a tablet holder or an iPad 2 holder from Koenig & Meyer, that’s K&M. And they have a variety of different, they have universal tablet mounts, they have ones for specific iPad models, like the Air, the Air 2, and the Mini.
And it’s just been such a nice way, like it can even turn between vertical and landscape mode. And it’s just been so helpful in having like just a, like I said, I just mount that on the ceiling with all my other stuff, and then you just have a script right there at eye level. You don’t have to crane your neck.
And it’s just really, it’s been great for my workflow. And I just wanted to pass that on to you guys. But anyways, I do have an actual purchase this month that I’m excited to talk about.
And so a little backstory, a friend of mine who’s actually a member of our membership program through GVAA, reached out to me about getting her first microphone, like her first big boy, big girl voiceover microphone. She had a budget of about $300. And there’s a lot of great candidates in this category.
Like for example, I’ve been really happy with the Rode NT1, not NT1A, the cool black one with the kit, not the old one. I swear you have to make that distinction every time. But anyways, so I had great success with that.
Before that, I was using the Sennheiser MK4, which is another great clean, quiet, no frills mic.
The CAD E100 fits in that range.
Which one was that?
The CAD E100S fits into that range?
Oh yeah, the CAD E100 definitely fits in that range. You can usually get it used or refurbished anywhere from like 230 to 450, depending on when and where you get it from. So like another great mic, Paul and I have both used it.
Certainly competes with the 103 and the 416. And then, and to tell you the truth, so do the Rode and the MK4. And recently I’ve heard of another great mic from MicTech, who was recommended by audio engineer and voice talent, Emmett Andrews, who’s actually a former Sweetwater rep.
And that’s the MicTech MK300. So by all accounts, this guy kind of punches above its weight in sound quality, sounding both clear, but very warmth and punchy and stuff like that. Like almost like a thousand dollar mic, or if that’s important to you.
But lastly, I had my eyes set on this mic from Lewitt in that price range called the LCT 440 Pure. So part of their latest generation of mics. And Lewitt has really been kind of stealing the stage for being like really innovative and just having a unique style and just really feature rich microphones.
You might’ve seen reviews on their LCT 640 and 940. I believe Jordan Reynolds wrote one for, what was it? I can’t remember which sound magazine it was.
Maybe it was Sound, or Sound on Sound. That’s what it was a long time ago. And then some of their other microphones like the LCT 550 and the 240 have been on Booth Junkies videos.
But I really wanted to try the Pure because it’s like right at that competitive price point of $300, it’s got a full kit. It’s got an integrated pop filter and shock mount. It’s really compact.
It just looks really professional and nice. And unlike the reason why it’s so affordable compared to some of their other models like the 640 and the 550, which are about $900, $700 range, is that it doesn’t really have a lot of extraneous features like an attenuation pad. That’s for when you need to kind of knock down the signal by 10 or six or 12 dB to ensure that the mic doesn’t clip.
Far more useful for recording like jet engines or really loud guitar cabs than voiceover. So you don’t really need that. And then another one feature that’s missing from this mic is a high pass filter.
So, and we’ve talked about that a little bit on some of our other, excuse me, on some of our other episodes where that really just kind of allows the higher frequencies beyond a certain fresh threshold, threshold, usually 80 to 100 hertz, and that just helps eliminate like bass buildup, lower frequency stuff and rumble from, or just kind of helping reducing your ambient noise in your room by removing those lower frequencies that aren’t in the human voice. So even though that sounds useful, very often the high pass filter in a microphone is not as good as the one you can get on a preamp or in your software, because sometimes it can actually introduce noise into the mic because it requires a little bit more power and stuff like that. So frankly, that sounds kind of like they really slimmed it down and this would be an absolutely perfect microphone for voice talent, for audiobook narrators, for podcasters.
And so I’m really excited and I’m so grateful that Anna Maria was willing to let me try out this mic before her and make sure I was giving her a decent recommendation. So if you’re listening to this, Anna Maria, thank you so much. And if any of you other guys have gear you want me to review, please just send it my way.
So Paul will probably take you up on that too.
Yeah, definitely. I’m always interested in trying out new gear. And as booth junkie Mike DelGaudio said, I promise to pack it up real nice.
I know, absolutely. We’ve actually bought and sold mics to each other and we always make sure that they’re well packed and they’re in great condition when they get to you. So like I said, if you want to take us up on that, we’d be happy to recommend stuff for you and review it for you.
Manufacturers too. You listening there, Sennheiser or…
Or Neumann or Lewitt, if you’re listening, please.
Yeah, exactly. So before we get to our interview segment with Val Kelly, we have a VO Meter stick from Brad Hyland.
And…
Hey, everybody, it’s time for the VO Meter schtick.
What did he say?
It’s time for the VO Meter… Oh, nevermind.
The VO Meter schtick? Oh, got it.
Hey, Paul and Sean, thanks very much for having me on the VO Meter. I do have a quick funny story, at least it’s funny to me. I do a good bit of video voiceover stuff for German customers that I got through Bedolgo.
And some of the work is really, really fun. It’s different. Some is sort of promo.
Others are more like e-learning or training. But this one that I got is for a product for high-end restaurants in Germany. And it’s a product called the Dryager, which is a huge walk-in meat cooler that you can see while you’re in the restaurant.
It’s like part of the decoration with all the fancy, beautiful, giant cuts of meat you can pick from. So I did the video and he said, everything is perfect, and this is just my, in my brain is what I’m hearing. Everything’s perfect, Brad, but we need you to say the product name correctly.
And I’m thinking, how do you, Dryager, just, you know, D-R-Y-ager, how else do you say it? I asked him to send me a file with an example of how he would like me to say it. So he went to several non-English speaking members of the firm in Germany and sent me a quick wave file of how they want it to say.
And the way they said it in the file was, the three samples was kind of like this, Dryager, Dryager, Dryager. So I had those three samples of how to say, Dryager, the way they wanted it. So I just sort of sped it up and I said, Dryager.
And it sounded better for them. Anyway, so sometimes getting help from customers with pronunciations really isn’t that much help, especially if they’re not native English speakers. But man, I love my German customers and I love Budongo.
And I hope I get a lot more. And thanks for letting me be part of your schtick section. Have a great day.
Awesome, well, thank you so much for your VO MeterStick contribution. Up next, we have the lovely and talented Val Kelly, the owner and coordinator of MAVO, the Mid Atlantic Voice Over Conference. So without further ado, we’re going to take you over to BDALGO Call.
Okay, everybody, welcome to the interview portion of this episode of The VO Meter, and we are very pleased to welcome Val Kelly. Val is a bilingual French and English voice actress. She started her career in 1999 and has been actively booking voiceover work for years.
Val’s specialty is invoicing characters for cartoons, talking toys, apps, video games, children’s e-learning, radio and TV commercials, and short films. Some of her clients include Hasbro Toys, Hungry Howie’s Pizza Place, Roman Wander, Me Muna, I hope I pronounced that right, The Foreign Candy Company, Theory Films, and many more. In addition to being a voice actress, Val is the owner and president and CEO and executive producer of Mid Atlantic Voice Over, LLC.
And with that, Val is in charge of running all aspects of the company and is the executive producer for the Mid Atlantic Voice Over, Get Inspired Conference that takes place in November. So Val, welcome to The VO Meter.
Thanks so much for having me on today. I appreciate it.
That’s great. We’re really excited to have you.
You’re very welcome, Val. It kind of takes me back to two years ago when I met you at Uncle Roy’s Barbecue and was like, hey, do you mind if I promote your Mavo event?
Oh my gosh, that was so much fun.
It was. I can’t believe it’s already been two years. But anyways, thank you Val for joining us today.
It’s so wonderful to have you. And please just tell us a little bit more about how your career got started in voiceover.
Well, basically I’ve been in the industry for quite a while now since like 1999, which makes me sound completely ancient, but it’s true. Let’s pretend I’m not. But I kind of was told my whole life that I had an interesting or unique voice and that I should do something with it, and so I basically got into some voiceover classes.
There was someone offering a class near my hometown, and so I went and it was one of those sessions where the guy like listens to your voice, and then he’s like, I’ll call you the next day if I think you have any talent, you know? And so you’re like, okay. And so he called the next day, and he was like, what are you doing with your life?
You need to be in animation. And I was like, really? Oh my gosh, okay, let’s go.
But I lived in upstate New York, which is where I grew up, and there’s really not a lot of animation work there. At least there wasn’t back then. And so from there, I just kept pushing forward and just took a lot of training, took a lot of classes, trained with Edge Studio, and have trained with a number of coaches over the years.
And then had some demos made and started marketing myself. And yeah, everything has kind of gone from there.
Oh, wonderful. It sounds like you definitely took the right path in trying to… Because I mean, too often you find people with this sort of like horse before the cart mentality, like, I’m gonna get a microphone, and then maybe I’ll get some training and demos, but after the money comes in…
You know, as much as I wanted to do that, I really just didn’t have the knowledge to even say, like, this is the equipment I need and all of that. That really didn’t come until later when I sort of… I didn’t give up on Voice Over.
I just kind of put it to the side after college for a little bit because I didn’t know how to get into it. So it just kind of basically fell back into my lap in 2011, which that’s a big gap of time, and I never really forgot about it, but I just didn’t know what to do with my first demo that I had. So I was like calling radio stations and being like, hey, don’t you want to use my voice?
And they’re like, yeah, you have a great voice, but not for radio. And I was like, oh. I was like, oh, they’re like, you should move to California and do animation.
And I was like, okay. But I grew up in upstate New York my whole life, so I didn’t know how to make that move. It was really big for me to try to say, I’m gonna move to LA.
And so in 2011, I basically, I had my second daughter. And at that point, I was just like, I can’t give up on this. It’s my dream to do this.
And I really just need to do everything possible to make it happen. So I kind of just told my family this was what was happening. And hopefully they’ll accept it.
And they did, they just kind of went with it. And I have just kind of, like I said, pushed forward from there and just really started training and training with a lot of different coaches. And I still to this day, of course, continue to train and try to improve my skills and work really hard and just audition as much as I can.
Wonderful. That’s not an uncommon story. It actually sort of mirrors my story.
My initial undergraduate degree back in 1996, also dating myself, was in broadcasting. And I thought I was gonna be on the radio or maybe even TV. And I did try to send out at that point, demo tapes to people and get some traction that way.
And it just didn’t really happen. And I did the same thing. I sort of put it in the back of my mind and said, all right, it’s time to get a real job, start a family.
And then when we had our third child, my six-year-old son, who’s now a professional voice actor. Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
I said, you know, I need to find something that I can do where I can be with the kids a little bit more. And that’s where I started looking back into voiceover, a little bit less time on the relaunch than you. So back in 2015, I started doing this.
And you know, ever since then, I’ve gone full throttle as much as I could. But that sort of brings me to my next point. I haven’t really publicized this much on the podcast, but I do still have a part-time job and it’s 30 hours of my week where I’m working for a university.
And I understand that you also work as a teacher, Val. Can you tell me a little bit about that and how you managed to balance it all?
Yeah, that is definitely one of the biggest challenges in my career is just that I am a full-time, I’m actually a full-time French teacher as well. So I’ve been teaching for 19 years and I studied French in college, French in education, and my intent in college was to do something with French. And then by the time I got to my senior year of college or late in my junior year of college, my professor, my advisor was like, okay, Val, what are you gonna do with French?
And I was like, speak it? And he was like, Val, that’s not a career, Val. That’s not a job.
Just speaking French, like no one’s gonna pay you for that. And I was like, oh man, now what? So which I was kind of disappointed, but reality hit and I was like, okay.
So he was like, you can go two routes. You can either go the education route and be a teacher or you can do the business side of it. He’s like, but let’s be real.
Your math skills are not what they need to be to do international business. So I was like, okay. So I went into, you know, French education and I didn’t know still when I graduated if I wanted to be a teacher or not.
And so, but I did, you know, and then that was kind of like right around the same time. I graduated from college in 1997. And, you know, at that point, I, my dad was still like, you really, you know, if your passion is to do something with your voice, then you should do it because I had acted in college.
I had kind of fallen into the voice over thing in college with a professor who was like, you have a great voice. You should try out for this play. I did, you know, audio plays in college and things like that.
And so it was always sort of there and part of my life. It’s just that the stable part of what my parents were pushing me for was to be a French teacher, you know? So I have done it for all of these years and I love it.
You know, there are days when I’m like, I don’t want to do this anymore, you know, because voice over is my complete passion. It’s what I love doing and I want to do it all the time. So I try to balance it.
I try to, you know, put my full attention as much as I can into my teaching during the day, during the school year. And then basically every second that I’m not teaching, I spend on voice over. I spend doing auditions and working on, you know, things for my company and promoting and doing coaching, taking coaching and doing coaching and marketing myself and things like that.
So it is tough to balance it. It’s very tough. But if you love it, it doesn’t seem like work.
So that’s kind of how I try to balance it.
Wow, that story sounds so familiar. I feel the exact same way. I’m glad to hear you share that experience, thanks.
You’re welcome.
Yeah, I definitely sympathize with that because our listeners know I was a teacher in Japan as well as a part-time voice talent before I transitioned and came back to the States. And it’s exhausting, but like you said, it’s completely rewarding. And if you’re passionate about it, you find the time and the energy to just keep pounding the pavement.
But as if that wasn’t impressive enough, aside from being a full-time teacher and voice talent, you have also found time to create and coordinate an amazing voice over conference. So tell us a little bit about MAVO, where it came from and how it’s grown since you came up with the idea.
Well, MAVO has been my baby since I started it. It was really a long kind of thought process that went into it, but it was an idea that had always, I think, sort of been in the back of my brain. And then I actually had gone on a trip to France with my students.
And while I was there, one of my friends, one of my good friends that was chaperoning the trip was like, you know, what if you started your own company? What if you, you know, did this? And I also had been training with Sunday Muse at the time.
And we had been to Voice Over Atlanta. And I was like, this is a really cool thing that they put together. And it’s a great way to bring people together.
And excuse me, Sunday had suggested, you know, why don’t you do your own thing? Why don’t you start your own meetup group and kind of get something going in your own area because you’re so good at putting things together. And so I was like, okay, maybe, you know, and I thought about it and I thought about it.
Then I went on this trip to France. My friend was like, you should just start your own company and then go from there. And so this small idea that initially started out as me saying I’m gonna start a meetup group, then turned into, guess what, I’m gonna start my own company and I’m gonna run a conference.
And everyone around me was kind of like, um, Val, that’s like, that’s a big, you know, I think that’s a really good idea, you know, like I had, I literally had people calling me, other people in the industry, they were like, okay, so it’s great that you started your own company, but maybe you should just like start out, you know, like gathering people together in your area first before you start this like conference, you know? And I was like, no, just go big or go home. Like that’s how I run things.
And they were like, okay, so, you know, so the first year, our first conference had 28 people, you know, so it was like a meetup group, you know, it was not, it was not a huge, huge event. And it’s not, it’s still not a huge event. And the reason behind that is because I wanted to have something really on the smaller side.
I didn’t want to have a massive event because I knew that by myself, I couldn’t handle planning something to that capacity. Now, it’s grown, we’re coming up to our fourth event this year, and it’s grown from about 28 the first year to in 2016, we had about 78 or 80 people. So it’s still not a massive event, but my goal in starting this was to bring people together, not just from the Mid Atlantic region, but from all over the country, and bring in some of the best people in the industry, as far as coaches, casting directors, and other types of talent in the industry, and offer that training to people in this region, because the Mid Atlantic region has so many voice actors, but there’s not a lot of opportunities for people to get training from the people that are living in Hollywood and living the dream, and doing all of that.
And I wanted to offer that opportunity to people here.
And you’ve actually gone international too, haven’t you? I know in 2016, we had Sunday from Canada, and Mark Scott is coming this year, and then Anna Clements from the UK. So you’ve actually gone international too, huh?
We are international. In fact, this year for 2018, we have all of our sponsors are international. So our platinum sponsor is Gravy for the Brain, who’s based in London.
And then our gold sponsor is the Voice Over Network, also based in London. And then our silver sponsor is Bidalgo. So we’ve reached international capacity.
Yeah, I don’t know what to call it.
That’s so wonderful, Val. And it’s absolutely right. I’ve talked about MAVO in the past on the podcast.
And even though it’s a smaller conference, it’s really only reflective of the size, because I mean, the guests that you bring in each time and just the quality of the content in the workshops and the activities that you have going on throughout the weekend, it’s just huge. And this small size is actually a benefit, because you really get to know all the other attendees and you can build that sort of a bit more intimate of a connection with them. And you really feel like you’re enjoying the experience as a whole group, which you might not get if you’ve got like a 400, 500 attendee guest list.
So I’m so just thrilled and impressed with what you’ve created with this amazing small conference.
Thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, that was, like I said before, that was my intent was I really didn’t want to have a large number of attendees. Like we’re looking this year to max out at 120.
And so we want to see the growth obviously, but I don’t really ever want to go bigger than that because I feel like then I would lose that sort of, almost like a family feeling to it, you know?
Absolutely.
You guys were both there in 2016. And I think that the feedback I got from everyone last time was that you really get to, like you said, talk to almost everybody there. And the training sessions are, the workshops are so, they’re small.
They’re 12 to 15 people. So you really have a chance to get to know each of the guest speakers and they’re so approachable. But at the same time, I also wanted to make sure that the people that I bring in and that I choose as guest speakers are really impressive, outstanding people in the industry.
You know, maybe people that you’re not gonna see at every other conference because I think sometimes you go to conferences and you see the same people over and over again. And yeah, there’s some overlap with that. But I’m really excited about, you know, all of the guests that we have this year.
Yeah, you talk about the family atmosphere. I went in 2016, as you mentioned, and I’ve talked about this on the podcast episode following, but I only came for the one day because I was sort of trying it out and I was also busy coaching a soccer tournament that Saturday, because I am local, just in Baltimore. So I came down just on Sunday.
And when I arrived, it was like walking into a family reunion. Everyone started coming up to me and saying, Oh, oh, you’re Paul Stefano, because the way you had set out the name tags where they were sitting there on the table. And because I hadn’t picked mine up on Saturday, it was still there on Sunday and all day Saturday.
So I guess everyone was looking at the name tag and wondering, what happened to Paul? Yeah, what happened to Paul? Or how come the schmuck didn’t show up?
So when I got there, at least 10 people came up to me and said, Oh, hey, we were waiting for you basically. And that was so great to have that sort of family atmosphere.
Yeah, I think it’s really important. Like, I just, I remember taking the group photo and having our great photographer, Ed Lue, take the group photo and just, we do one kind of serious one, we’re all kind of normal. But even in that one, everyone is just so smiling and everything, because the event is almost over at that point.
And then we do like a fun one and everybody was just so goofy. And at that point, everyone has had the chance to get to know each other and be in sessions together. And there’s really, you know, you kind of break down any sort of walls that there might have been when you started.
And if you were nervous to walk in, all of that just kind of goes away over the weekend because it’s just such a fun event. Everybody is relaxed and there to learn and everyone has the same goals of mind, you know?
I will offer one word of caution, if you can call it that. When you go to the conference, you’re going to be, it’s going to be interactive and you’re not gonna be able to help it. So I was in the one session when I first got there on Sunday and I was kind of not ready to participate.
I was kind of still kind of waking up. I made the drive down 66 and I was really kind of still in a fog. And next thing I knew, Jason White was throwing me a strip and saying, all right, you’re up, dude.
And I was like, whoa, whoa, I was not ready for this. So you will participate, but you’ll be better for it when you’re done.
Yeah, definitely. That is one of the things that I emphasize most to every guest speaker is that I don’t want it to be an event where people sit in a room and listen to people lecture because although that can be great and although you can still learn a lot that way, I really want it to be an interactive experience because I feel like that’s what you’re paying for. You’re paying for the chance to get to practice skills that you’re learning with these great people on the spot.
You know?
Yeah, it’s great. Absolutely.
So let’s talk about some of these great people for a second. So when we went in 2016, we had some amazing guests. You had Sunday Muse, who you’ve talked about before, who’s a wonderful character and animation actress out of Canada.
You also have Sarah Sherman, who’s been a repeat guest, the casting director for Disney. You might be familiar with her or some of the projects she’s associated with. And of course, you’ve also got great actors like Jason L.
White and Kara Edwards. I personally enjoyed my little anime dubbing workshop that I did with her. She’s amazing.
And then of course, you’ve got Sean-Alan Pratt, the non-fiction specialist and just a wonderful audiobook coach. And it’s just amazing. These guests come from all over and the quality of the content and the interactivity of the workshop is just so much fun.
So, can you tell us a little bit more about the guests that you have coming up?
Well, I thought that 2016, honestly, I didn’t think I could top that because Sarah Jane Sherman from Disney, I mean, it was just like, her keynote address was like off the charts. I mean, it was so good. I mean, everyone from 2016 was amazing.
So when I decided to skip a year to kind of revamp and get things together, I thought, okay, if I’m going to come back in 2018 and do this, I need to go like seriously, you know, bring someone like amazing in. And so the lineup of guests this year is like outstanding. I can’t even hardly put into words how excited I am.
So we have our keynote speaker is Kari Wahlgren. And Kari is one of the top voice actresses in Hollywood. She’s booking like everything.
She’s on every show you could possibly imagine, not only in animated series television, but she’s been in anime shows, she’s been in video games. She’s got her hand in the, or I should say her voice a little bit in everything. And so I don’t know how I come up with these ideas.
I guess I do my research, you know, and I think who would I really wanna meet if I had the chance to meet anyone in voiceover, you know? And I start from that and I kinda make a list. And then from there I go, now how realistic is it that this person is gonna agree to this, you know?
And that was really what it was with Kari because, you know, she is really, really pretty famous in the voiceover industry as an actress and she’s very, very busy. And I was like, I’m really not sure she’s gonna, you know, say yes, and we had been connected on Facebook for a while, but you know how Facebook is. It’s like, yeah, we’re friends.
Put the air quotes. Yeah, you know, put the air quotes there. We’re friends on Facebook, so that makes it real, you know?
And so, so I reached out to her and I said, this is, you know, this is what I’m doing. I would be honored to have you as a keynote speaker. I am such a fan of your work and, you know, because she books a lot of roles that are things I would love to do someday.
You know, everything, she’s been on Phineas and Ferb. She’s on…
Rick and Morty in The Avengers.
Yeah, Rick and Morty. So many great, there’s such a list of shows, it’s like hard to even name all of them, you know, but those are some of the bigger ones. So yeah, and I, so I reached out to her and she was like, that’s so far away, because this was like about a year and a half or more before the event, so a while ago.
And you know, she’s probably, she probably read the email and was like, I don’t even know what I’m doing like two days from now, much less what I’m gonna do. You know, most people don’t plan that far ahead. And so, so at the same time, I reached out to Sarah Jane Sherman and I said, hey, you know, this is, I, I invited Kari to be our keynote speaker, you know.
Do you have any like advice on how I can get her to agree to this? And she’s like, oh, actually I’m really good friends with her. And I was like, what?
So could you like, you know, maybe have a chat with her? And so, yeah. And so that’s kind of how it happened.
I don’t know if Sarah said anything to her or what she said to her, but Kari agreed to it. And she was like, I would be honored to be your keynote. And I’m so, so excited.
And she’s been great since then. You know, we’ve talked a number of times about what she’s gonna do and she’s gonna offer, you know, obviously the keynote address, but she’ll also offer a breakout session where she actually does, you know, coaching with people. And that’s so rare because Kari very rarely teaches when she goes to events.
So this is like a really, really rare opportunity to learn and train hands on with her. And then also, she’s also gonna do an animation panel. So with the animation panel, it will be Kari and then Sarah Jane Sherman is also coming back again.
And then Sunday Muse will be on the panel and then Herb Moore will also be on the panel. So we’re gonna do an animation panel where guests will have the chance to ask their questions about anything, you know, animation related, which is, that’s gonna be outstanding. So that’s our keynote and a few other people.
We also have Dan Friedman will be back. He’s kind of our tech guy. So he’ll be doing something about Home Studio at least.
And then probably a few other sessions. So we haven’t like decided all of the sessions yet, but Dan will be there. We’re so excited and happy to have him back.
And we’re also having Tom Deere this year. So that’s gonna be great because I feel like for me and for a lot of other people in the industry, something that’s really missing is the business side of voiceover. You know, how do you pay your taxes and how do you organize your stuff in a manner that’s gonna make you more productive?
And so Tom is gonna cover some sessions on the business side of it and helping people to get organized with that.
Tom is great. We’ve had him as a guest as well on the show.
Yeah, he’s so great, right? He’s just like, this is what you need to do step by step. And it’s so easy to follow.
And he just kind of…
Yeah, it’s so simple, but so eye-opening every time I talk to him.
Yeah, I always take like five pages of notes when I talk to him.
Mm-hmm.
And also Mark Scott. So Mark Scott is gonna be there as well, and he’ll cover obviously the marketing side of the industry because he’s a pro. And the same with Mark.
Every time I talk to him, I’m like, hold on, Mark. I need to get a new notebook so I can fill it up. And it was funny because I had him as a guest on my Live With Squacky show.
And I was like, hold on, Mark. I need to write all this down. And he’s like, Val, you could just rewatch the show.
And I’m like, oh, yeah, hold on. Let me write all this down. Hold on, let me write this down.
He was like, oh, my gosh. So I took all these notes in the middle of an interview with him. It was so funny.
So Val, something you haven’t mentioned yet is the children’s program, which I personally am pretty excited about. I plan to sign up two of my kids who have been starting to dabble in the business. So tell us a little bit about the children’s program this year.
Yeah, the children’s program is going to be for part of the day on Sunday, the 11th. And so basically Sarah Jane Sherman is coming in to run that program for us. She’s one of the top.
She’s an Emmy nominated casting director. She used to work for Disney. And so I thought, who better than to run this program for us and offer the children.
So children need to be between the age of 10 and 16. And I think we limited it to 12 total for the program, so that they really have a hands on experience. So yeah, that will be part of the day on Sunday and we’ll get a really great animation experience with Sarah.
That’s amazing. And like you said, you got that really intimate, just small group, and those kids are going to feel like rock stars by the end of the weekend. It’s going to be amazing.
Oh, definitely.
So one of the things we’re looking forward to is the VO Meter representing our show at the conference. And we’re going to be recording live, hopefully getting some guests. And we are so looking forward to that.
We thank you so much for allowing us to come back.
Oh, it’s an honor to have you guys on board. I’m so excited to have you there. Thank you.
I’m just blushing.
So those of you who are coming by, come to our spot and say hi, and maybe we’ll get you on the mic a little bit.
Yeah, definitely. I’ll encourage attendees to stop by and get interviewed. That’ll be great.
All right, so that’s all we really had. Is there anything else you want us to promote or talk about?
We do have a great event lined up. We have Johnny Heller and Gabby Nistico and Celia Siegel also coming to the event. I want to make sure I don’t forget anyone and her more.
And Sunday Muse will be back. And Hugh Edwards from Gravy for the Brain will be there. And we’re just so excited about the great lineup of people that we have.
I think the content this year is going to be really outstanding. So people have that to look forward to.
I’m really looking forward to it as well.
Well anyways, Val, thank you so much. So, I mean, we’ve already talked about this a little bit on the podcast, but sadly, I will not be able to attend this year. But you should still come and visit Paul.
We also have another great representative for, who’s going to be my surrogate at the event. But if you’re in the area, or even if you’re not, I’ve flown out from Washington with Stopping U.
Val, tell us the website.
So you can visit midatlanticvo.com to register for MAVO 2018 today.
All right, Val, thanks again for coming on the show. And we look forward to seeing you in November.
Yep, November 9th through 11th. Don’t forget to register.
So thanks again to Val for coming on with us, because we had such a great time at the last one, where we were actually recording live. It was our first chance to record live for the show, and I think it went really well, don’t you?
Yeah, I did. And that was like the second time I met you in person, right?
Yeah, it was kind of a whirlwind where I was like, hey, nice to meet you, and let’s just do this.
Yeah, pretty much. First, they kind of blend together, because that first time in New York was really brief. It’s like for a coffee, like in between you packaging, like moving a booth to and from Fifth Avenue.
It was nuts.
Yeah, there’s a trend going, because I met you that day, and I was just dripping sweating bullets because I was moving furniture. And the exact same thing is happening right now, because it’s the first day where we crossed like 85 degrees here on the East Coast, and I’m in a booth just sweltering. Even though I had the fan on, it gives me air so I don’t die, but it doesn’t really help with the temperature much.
Next episode, booth ventilation.
Yeah, it’s not a bad idea. But anyway, we’re looking forward to recording live at this year’s conference. We’re going to have Ken Foster sitting in for Sean because sadly he cannot make it, but I’m looking forward to having Ken by my side.
And I think that’ll be a lot of fun.
Well, if you guys miss me too much, you can always but I’ll go call me in or something.
That’s not a bad idea. That’s actually what I was going to do in VO Atlanta for one of the podcasts. We should try and pull that off maybe.
Yeah, let me know. Sounds great.
I know I can do it because I did it, I tested it at VO Atlanta before we went live. I know it works. So assuming I bring the same gear, we should be able to pull it off.
Maybe I won’t be as starstruck by Kari Wahlgren from that distance. We’ll see.
Yeah, that’s my worry too. We’ll see.
All right, well, I hope you and Ken have an amazing time. Ken has contributed an amazing VO Meter stick to us in the past. So if you haven’t heard it, should definitely check it out.
And just really just couldn’t find a better contributor for the podcast. So I’m super stoked to see what you guys come up with.
Yeah, and it’s appropriate because that’s where I first met him was at MAVO 2016. So it all comes full circle.
Full circle.
So that’s it for this episode of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
See you next time.
Bye guys. Thanks for listening to The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.