The VO Meter Episode 34, Brad Venable and Tim Friedlander

The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. The VO Meter is brought to you by voiceactorwebsites.com, VocalBoot2Go, podcastdemos.com, Global Voice Acting Academy, and IPDTL. And now, your hosts, Paul Stefano and Sean Daeley.
Hello everybody and welcome to Episode 34 of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
We have a great show today, some fantastic guests, and some cool things to talk about. We’ll start off with our current events, but first, here’s a word from our sponsor, voiceactorwebsites.com.
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So up next, we have our current events. Anything new with you, Paul?
Yeah, quite a bit, actually. We talked about in our Meetup group, our Voice Over Vanguard group a couple weeks ago, how several of us feel like we’re going through a midlife crisis. I think one person actually said those words.
I’m not quite to that point, but I have been re-evaluating my Voice Over career and how to approach things. And what I’ve decided is that I need to chase the money, basically. So I’ve been doing a little bit of everything, and still do, and still plan to.
But I’m going to focus primarily on audiobooks while those are providing me some sustainable work, because it’s by far the genre where I get most of my work, and I’ve been pretty successful at it lately. So, that’s what I’ve been focusing on. And recently, actually New Year’s Eve, right before the new year, my new book, The Happiness Paradox, that is done by best-selling author Richard Ayer, came out.
And that has done really well so far. It’s been a couple of weeks, and it’s sold over 20 copies, which may not sound like a lot, but I have books I’ve done two or three years ago that have sold less than that. So it’s off to a good start, and I’m excited about that.
And then I have another book in the can, so to speak, all the recording is done. I’m waiting for the rights holder to approve it. It’s called The Falls, and it’s a supernatural thriller.
That’s pretty exciting. And it’s also a series. So the first one’s done, and the next one is out there, and I’m waiting for the rights holder to talk to me about it and officially offer it up.
But we’ve talked about it, and he said, yeah, I’d like you to do the series. And that’s book two of four. Now the other two, three and four, are not written yet.
The author is currently working on them. In this case, the author is the rights holder. But it looks pretty promising to have two more books on the horizon as well.
No, that’s great. And I remember you talking about this, I think, last episode where you had just gotten this deal and it’s rare where it’s like, hey, I love you guys so much, I want to keep you on for multiple books. And I definitely think that’s a wise decision of yours to try and focus on where you’re getting the return on investment.
And I actually just finished leading a workout today where we talked about the importance of identifying your niche and where… When you get started, sure, you want to experiment and try a variety of genres, a variety of scripts to figure out what your wheelhouse is. But when you’ve been doing it for a while, like Paul and I have, you kind of figure out what elements are in your wheelhouse.
And I’m kind of in a similar boat right now where it’s just like, I can see where I want to get with my voice over career, but a lot of it is patience involved, right? And like I’m trying to just kind of like build a nest egg for myself and kind of invest in some training and some new marketing materials to kind of bring myself up to that next level.
Yeah, in fact, this book I’m working on sort of brought me to this conclusion and I shared it with the rest of our workout group who I thought it might help. It’s all about noticing the things around you that are making you happy. But you can also relate it to work.
The author talks a lot about serendipity and how he equates that to taking the cues from the world around you that are telling you the direction to go. More in line towards personal growth and happiness. But while I was doing this book, it also applied to the work I was doing where I realized I was getting a lot of notice in these books.
I had several auditions that have come recently to me through my website where people just reached out to me for auditions for audiobooks. That doesn’t happen with anything else for the most part, honestly. I don’t get hired off my character demo very often or my commercial demo where people are actually reaching out to me on my website.
But audiobooks it does. As it was happening and I was doing this book, I thought to myself, hey dummy, this is actually happening to you. Pay attention and follow what’s going on.
That’s super important.
That’s wonderful. I don’t know where your opinions fall on it, but you shouldn’t have any shame in being a good audiobook narrator. It’s a very specific skill set as far as VO goes and one that not a lot of people are good at.
I even do similar projects, long form. The bulk of what I do is corporate or documentary narration stuff. Even me, I can do hour long projects, but 12 hour ones is difficult.
It’s not something I don’t like doing, and don’t get me wrong if it sounds like I’m saying I don’t enjoy doing it or there’s a stigma attached to it. It’s not that. Really it’s the first thing that I had success with, and that should have been my clue three and a half years ago.
Because I’ve been chasing all these other types of VO, just like you said, to find my niche because I didn’t really think I knew what it was. I’ve done a lot of workout groups. I was supposed to do one tomorrow actually.
I was supposed to go to Philadelphia to do an in-person workout with Everett Oliver and a bunch of the Philly meetup group. So Everett’s going to be on Zoom and the rest of us are going to meet at Martha Mellinger’s house and we were supposed to do that in person. But we’re getting our first snowstorm of the season and we actually had to cancel it because it’s about to snow any minute here on the East Coast and we had to put it off.
But I still do workouts with Everett. I do workouts with several other coaches and don’t plan to stop because, as we talked about, we have several agents and they’re not going to stop sending me auditions, at least I hope they don’t. Please don’t.
I’m going to keep doing those, but it’s good to have a defined focus, like you talked about.
So yeah, and it’s great because it’s important every couple of months or annually to kind of sit down and reassess, like you said, where am I getting the bulk of my income from? What areas should I focus on? And that doesn’t mean that, say, maybe Paul has a passion for character work, like he said, or he might need more training or something like that.
So you want to try and recognize as quickly as you can where your strengths are, what your potential weaknesses are, and then get both to a competitive level. Because that’s the only way you’re going to get bought is if you have something that’s undeniably good, right, or a product or performance that the people want.
So yeah, totally makes sense. So that’s basically what’s happening with me lately. What’s happening with you?
Well last, I know a lot of people complain that like this time of year is very slow, and it can be. For me, honestly, I kind of needed a break. Last month was very difficult for me because on top of all of the usual, just like the nature of my work, I mean I kind of worked throughout the winter break and stuff like that for doing my own VO work and GVAA membership stuff.
But I got sick for like three out of the four weeks of December. It was really frustrating. And of course, it was mainly like throat-based illnesses, so I could…
there was long periods where I just couldn’t voice anything, and it was very disheartening. I don’t know about you guys, but I get a little sad when I get sick, because I’m just like, well, not going to perform today.
Unfortunately, you can’t really help that, because it is your instrument. So if you can’t talk, you can’t work.
Yeah, and we know all the shortcuts, right? I mean, my pantry is loaded with throat coat tea, and I have vocal sprays that I like and all that stuff, but none of it is a good substitute for rest and recovery. So some things that I did do to fill the time, I figured out everything in my business that I could be doing other than voicing actual stuff.
I researched some more. I reached out to potential clients, heard back from some potential clients, so that was good. And figured out, kind of went over my expenses for the year, figured out what my goals for the year would be.
So there’s definitely things that you can do during your downtime to sort of make it feel like you’re not just sitting on your laurels, in case you’re just ridiculously sick because I had a couple of days where I’m just like, I can’t do anything. And sometimes you just have to listen to your body. And like, if anything, I feel like I was kind of just burning way too many candles trying to like trying to be there for family and friends and try and get all my work obligations done.
And so you have to like, self care is very important, right? So you can’t let your you especially when you’re trying to build a business, whether you’re working part time or not, you just have to be it’s even more important to make sure you’re eating enough, that you’re resting well enough, that you’re like washing your hands often enough. And like, because like we said, your voice is your instrument and you just can’t afford to get sick for long periods of time.
Luckily for me, it happened during the holiday season where everyone else kind of just shuts down anyways. But you really have to be mindful of the circumstances that might have caused that so you can do your best to prevent them in the future.
That’s awesome.
Even in sickness, we can learn.
Right, exactly, because most of the things you mentioned, I still have to do to close out 2018 and haven’t really done any of it, which is a problem.
It’s alright, you still got three-ish months.
Yeah, exactly. Although 1099s are due. If you hire any independent contractors, the 1099C has to go out by the end of January, so get on that.
I did, but it was under the monetary requirement.
Yeah, $600 I think is the last check, the monetary requirement.
But who might we be employing, Paul, just for our audience who you might not know?
Well, the editors that work on my audiobooks, so I’m not going to give names.
I have a couple of editors that I work with who, now that I figured out punch and roll a little bit better, I don’t have to use them as often, but it’s still great to have if you just have a high volume of projects that you’re doing. So definitely, even if you don’t intend to use them, at least get familiar with a few, because you never know when your workflow is just a little bit too high for you, and you just want to get your projects or make sure that your projects are finished on time or even earlier within deadline. So those might be expenses that you might have to pay out for.
You might be working with an audio engineer or someone like that to sort of dial in your studio sound, so that would definitely fit if you spend that $600 towards that. Or even paying someone like Joe Davis at Voice Actor Websites to help you get a new website up. Things like that.
It all applies.
Oh, right. I’m glad you mentioned that.
I’m glad I reminded you.
Yeah, and I was going to say sometimes hiring other talent for jobs too. We hired Marisha Tapera to do our intro, the fabulous new intro we have for The VO Meter. So yeah, sometimes when you’re hiring colleagues to do joint projects, that applies too.
So yeah, so we just want to instill in you guys that even though for the most part, freelance voice talent are one man bands, at some point in your career or several stages of your career, you might want to build a staff that you can work with to help you out, to either improve your efficiency with projects, to do some of the tasks that you don’t feel strong or as confident in or don’t like to spend time on, say email marketing or client or reaching out to new clients, things like that. So again, it’s all just about thinking how to be an actual business or however big you want it to be.
Yeah, some people I know actually hire virtual assistants or in-person assistants, sometimes the family member who might be in the house, to do the clerical work for them. Sometimes that even crosses over to marketing. People will hire people to do cold calls for them or cold marketing.
Again, it’s all about figuring out what makes you a more efficient business person and sometimes, yeah, you’re spending extra for staff, but again, what is the return on investment? If you’re able to make more money because you have staff, power to you. Keep working with that system.
Exactly. So this is totally unrelated, but because we’re talking about current events, it’s something that came to mind. My family and I went to Florida for the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and we went to Busch Gardens Tampa.
So we’re on the tram ride out of the parking lot on the way to the park, and I hear the voice saying, Welcome to Busch Gardens Tampa, please enjoy your tram ride as we make our way through parking lot A or B or whatever the heck it was called. And I said to the people with me, I know that voice. So I thought about it a little bit more, and I was like, it’s Sean Caldwell, who, as you may know, lives in that area.
So I emailed him while he was on the tram and said, Are you the voice of the tram at Busch Gardens Tampa? And he’s like, I sure am, and a few of the safety features for the rides too, so listen up. And then sure enough, later on, we were on a roller coaster.
And again, I was like, Oh, there’s Sean, I hear him, where is he? And it was the ride next to us as he was giving the warning to strap yourself in. And that’s just so cool whenever that happens when you’re somewhere, you’re not even thinking about VO.
Like I was just talking about the roller coasters and how exciting it was to go to the park. And here I hear Sean in my ears over the tram loudspeaker, it was really cool.
That’s really awesome. At first I thought you were going to say Terry Daniel, just because I know he does a lot of amusement park rides. It’s so cool when our friends, we get to hear them doing their things.
Yeah, the ironic part was Sean was actually in town at that point. He was in Tampa and said, do you want to get together? And I said, well, we’re going to be at the park and I got six kids with me.
We were with another family. So it didn’t really work out. We just spent the whole day eating cotton candy and riding roller coasters.
But it would have been cool maybe next time, Sean.
Still sounds like a productive day.
Indeed.
Well, that pretty much wraps up everything for current events. Before we get to our questionable gear purchase, we have a quick word from our friend Tim Page over at Podcast Demos. So let me tell you about Tim’s team, who has produced over 1,000 podcast intros for some of the biggest podcasts on the planet.
Each demo includes custom written scripts and hand selected music, and is guaranteed to showcase your voice and talent in the best light possible. With a finger on the pulse of what podcast producers want, you can be sure your podcast demo will sound professional, current and competitive. And you guys know this, but Paul and I actually got our demos produced by Tim and his wonderful team.
And all I can say is that those guys are amazing. His script writer created original scripts perfect for my voice and personality, as well as reflective of current popular podcast genres. I recorded in the comfort of my own home studio, and Tim worked his mastering magic.
The whole process only took a couple of days, and I couldn’t be more pleased. Tim is a consummate pro and so easy to work with. Thank you, Tim, and podcast demos.
And Tim, as you may know, has recently ventured into audio books himself as a narrator, and has talked about how much he’s enjoying it, and I’m listening to a book he’s doing right now, and he’s really good.
He’s just an amazing talent all the way around. I mean, he’s just an inspiring individual, and I’m not just saying that because we both love Marvel Comics, but he’s just a really cool guy, and I just feel like if you want to see someone who was able to kind of make… did everything right, got all the right training, had very clear goals of where he wanted to take his career, he’s definitely meeting them.
You can hear him doing promo in Sketch VO for the Jimmy Kimmel Show, and he’s just killing it in various markets and wherever he sets his VO goals to. So, Tim, great work, man. We’re rooting for you.
We hope you have a great and successful 2019.
Yeah, so the audiobook I was talking about is called Ancient Echoes. It’s by Joanne Pence and narrated by Tim Page. If you haven’t looked him up based on our glowing reviews, it’s P-A-I-G.
So, look him up and download that book.
Very cool. Awesome, Tim.
Questionable Gear Purchase.
All right, so questionable gear purchases. I’ve done a lot of stupid things. Well, it remains to be seen, I guess.
Do you want me to go first or do you want to start?
I don’t really have anything. I can’t think of it.
I don’t know. All right, so I’ll start then. I have actually sold a lot of things this month or this last couple of months.
And the reason is because of what I talked about before with my greater focus on audiobooks. I am starting to do everything I narrate or everything I do standing up. I used to sit down both when I did this podcast and when I did audiobooks.
And I think it was kind of constructing my diaphragm where I found I was running out of breath a lot. And that is not good for either a podcast or audiobooks. So I stood up for the last couple of audiobooks I spoke about.
And I think it made a big difference in my delivery. So with that, I started using my Sennheiser 416 exclusively. And as I did that, I didn’t need as much of the processing on the background I was doing with my Apollo Twin audio interface.
I was using some of the live plug-ins. The… what’s it called again?
USP processing? DSP processing. DSP.
I was using a lot of the DSP.
DSP processing.
Right. So I was using some of those plug-ins at digital signal processing, and I don’t really need those with the 416. So, and as I mentioned, I was using the SM7B while I was sitting down.
So I got rid of all of those and have simplified my life considerably. And also made a nice…
You finally got rid of the Shure? Really?
I did get rid of the Shure. I know, I liked it for a while, and you know, it’s still a venerable mic. In fact, we’re doing a mic shootout.
This is what we call a tease in the biz. We’re doing a pretty involved mic shootout in our upcoming episode, where you’ll hear that mixed in with a bunch of the other mics that we have on hand. And it still sounds good.
Oh yeah, and I think you’ll be surprised, because we kind of, like, I don’t know, we had a weird variety of microphones in Paul’s and mine studio. So everything from very affordable microphones, like the Shure SM58 and the MXL 990. I’m sure you know the 58.
It’s a very popular, like, live performance microphone. Very durable, affordable, dynamic microphone. Then the MXL 990 is another $99 mic that’s very affordable, but certainly surprisingly useful for voice over.
And it’s also very popular to be, like, modded by, I know that, what’s his name, the guy over at Octava Mods.
He actually retired, Michael Jolly.
Yeah, he actually retired. But you can still get one through microphoneparts.com as well. A lot of my engineer friends were like, ooh, mod that MXL 990.
I was like, I can’t, it’s my uncle’s.
I actually bought one and tried to mess around with it at one point, of course. Of course.
You know you can pay them to replace those parts for you.
I thought it would be a cool project to try. I didn’t do a whole lot. I just cleaned out the mesh in the head gasket and tried to improve the sound.
It wasn’t bad.
That’s cool. You get to know your tools a little bit. We’ve got those.
We’ve got some interesting dynamic microphones thrown in the mix. I happen to have an interview mic on hand for field audio interviews and stuff like that. Tried that out.
Of course, we also had our 416s and some higher level microphones as well, at least in the price department.
So both those videos are out now. We actually both did videos to showcase it. If you’re so inclined, go check those out now and let us know what you think.
Then you’ll have the full shootout in an upcoming episode.
Absolutely.
But the point of all this was simplifying my process and my booth. Now I just have the 416 in here. Don’t even have another mic mounted anywhere.
I’m using my Yamaha AG-06 audio interface, which surprisingly I did keep. And I’m still using that now.
Well, I know you use that a lot in some of your own field audio situations and stuff like that, taking it to sports events and things like that.
Yeah, we use it in Maybo to record all the interviews too.
Indeed, indeed. And that’s another… That’s something that I’m seeing a lot.
If you’re ever debating on buying a really expensive piece of gear, like will it really help my sound? I’m seeing more and more people with, say, just a nice industry standard mic, like the TLM 103 or the 416, and a really affordable interface, something in the $150 to $300 range. So, while it’s important to have aspirational goals with the kind of gear and setup you want, I think people are finally discovering that the financial barrier to entry with a quality sound is much lower than you might think.
And I matched those sounds pretty closely. I sent it to you and all of our friends at the VOV, where I did the onboard DSP processing with the Yamaha and what I was using with the Apollo and the 416. It was almost indistinguishable in my mind.
It’s crazy. Keep in mind, Felix, this is like a $200 interface versus a $700 interface. So, like I said, the proof is in the pudding.
So…
So, yeah, questionable gear purchases? Not so much, but maybe smart financial decisions? That’s not as catchy.
I know. It’s sensible gear purchases, right?
Yeah.
But for me, I actually… You guys know a few episodes ago, I finally got my own dream microphone, the Gefele M930. Something that was really fun about doing the mic shootout for me was really getting to put this through its paces, and I got a lot of compliments on it.
So I was just like, oh, thank God, I justified the decision to get it. Are you using it now? No, not now.
I think maybe next episode I will. But it’s just a beautiful microphone. It’s very different.
Some people compare it, saying it sounds very similar to the Neumann TLM103, and I’d say they have similarities about it in the level of clarity and in the super low noise floor that they both have. But they have their very own distinct sound. I loved how the Neumann sounded on me, but like I said before, I was not a huge fan of the shock mount it came with.
The mic itself is surprisingly heavy. The build quality, you want that kind of confidence in it, but it’s also, despite that heaviness, that weight, it’s still very fragile. You never want to drop it.
It had this wonderful, rich, almost… I was telling my friend, it had a really ballsy sound to it. It sounded great, but I felt like the Gafel was kind of captured things more as they were, with maybe just to smooth everything out.
It was just really pleasant. So I’m really happy that I have it, and I hope for the time being my gas has been cured. So speaking of questionable gear purchases and sort of slimming down your audio chain, we have a VO Meter stick slash questionable gear purchase from one of our listeners.
But before that, a quick message from GVAA.
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I like what I do.
And you will too when you’re learning your craft at Global Voice Acting Academy. Find us at globalvoiceacademy.com.
Because you like to have fun.
Hey, everybody, it’s time for the VO Meter shtick.
What did he say?
It’s time for the VO… Oh, never mind.
The VO Meter shtick? Oh, got it.
Hey, everybody, this is Curt Bonnem here, and this is my questionable gear purchase. Sorry, I had to. Anyway, I was in the mood for a new mic.
I think it’s because I’ve had this microphone of mine that I’m talking on now. It’s a Mojave MA-201 FET. I’ve had it for about six months, and I really loved it when I got it, and got a great deal on it off of eBay from an engineer that only used it in an animation studio.
It was in perfect condition. Got it for $400, a few hundred off of the new retail price, and really liked it. But I think over the past six months, I sort of got ear fatigue listening to my own voice through it, and started to pick apart every little thing, and decided it wasn’t right anymore.
I’m looking at frequency charts and saying, oh, I’m pulling out frequencies that it’s boosting, and maybe this isn’t the right mic for me. So I decided I was really interested in the Sennheiser MKH416. Everybody knows it’s an industry standard.
A lot of big pros use it. It’s in a lot of studios. I actually used it at the SAG VO lab to do all my commercial spots that I recorded for my demo, and I thought that would be great.
Unfortunately, it was out of my price range. I just really couldn’t afford that right now. So I decided to take a look around and see if I could find anything comparable that would be something I could afford.
And I stumbled upon a YouTube video comparing the 416 to a Rode NTG2, and it was done in a professional sound studio, highly controlled environment, matching gain levels, no effects, no compression, nothing raw audio. And to my ear, they sounded the same, practically. And I thought, fantastic, this mic is way cheaper.
I can try this out and maybe get what I’m looking for. So I went and looked around online and decided on eBay, I found a deal for $199, new, no shipping charges. Discovered later, I could get it brand new from BPH photo, BHP photo, I forget what it is, for $179.
Hope you won’t talk about that. And I pulled the trigger and got it. While I waited for the seller to get back to me to ship it, it took about five days.
And in that time, I started looking around again and found a cheaper one and decided, well, I’ll go ahead and get that and try and cancel my other order, which I couldn’t, or I’ll just sell one, you know? And I ended up pulling the trigger on that. So then I had two NTG-2s on the way to my house.
And I got them on the same day, very excited, headed into my studio here and hooked one of them up right next to my Mojave and decided to do my own, you know, mic shootout for my own sake. And pretty much immediately realized how much better my Mojave sounded. There was a marked difference in their sound.
Not to say that the NTG-2 is bad. It sounded good. It just didn’t have the resolution or the crispness.
The Mojave seemed a lot brighter, more detailed, also warmer. I did a shootout that I posted on a few of the FB pages and everybody pretty much seemed to agree on that, that the Mojave sounded better. So here I am with two NTG-2s that I now am going to get rid of.
I don’t really need another mic right now. And since it’s not working for me and I’m not going to be doing fieldwork with a shotgun at any point soon, I think I will probably have to just go ahead and sell them so I can take that money and put it to good use in something else, like some X-Sessions at VO Atlanta or maybe a ticket to APAC or something like that. So that was my questionable gear purchase.
And I know now to be a little more careful and I’m going to just keep loving on my Mojave, which actually sounds fantastic and I’m very happy with it. So thanks all, love The VO Meter and hope to see you all in the new year.
Thank So thank you, Curt, for that. As I was listening, I was thinking about my own stupid questionable gear purchases. I had a very similar experience, but with a much higher price item, boots, if you remember an early episode, where I did almost the same thing he did, where I had two boots that I had to buy.
But yeah, I’m so glad that you brought that up, Curt, because it’s very easy to romanticize about, will that new microphone or that new piece of gear cause an improvement, a really noticeable one? And sometimes, no. So do your research, get the best gear that you can afford, when you can afford it, and just use it for as long as is necessary.
Yeah, thanks again, Curt. So we’ll get to the interview portion in just a moment. This time we have two thirds of The Voice Over Collective.
We have Brad Venable and Tim Friedlander. And we’ll get to them right after our word from our sponsor, IPDTL. So if you don’t know, IPDTL is the cost-effective ISDN replacement.
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So without further ado, here’s the interview with Brad and Tim.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the interview portion of this episode of The VO Meter. We are honored to welcome two stalwarts of the Los Angeles voiceover community who have also taken upon themselves to do something to make it easier for working pros to practice their chops and hold up the industry standards that are so important to the VO world. So let’s welcome first Tim Friedlander and Brad Venable.
How are you guys?
Hey there, very well.
Well, thanks for joining us. I know that it was a bit of a struggle to get going today because Tim is actually with Sean in person in Washington. Guys, how’s the studio out there?
It’s really nice.
Yeah, this place is awesome.
Yeah, it’s a place called Binary Recording. I’ve actually come here before for some of a… So we’re in more of a control room, so if there’s some echo, I apologize.
But anyway, so I came up here for some narration work one time and the guy was just great. It’s like, he’s open 24 hours and I sent him an email at like midnight begging for openings today. And he’s like, oh yeah, it’s fine, just come by.
And he even remembered me too, it was nuts.
That’s awesome, yeah, it’s a great… It’s a place I actually grew up here and I had never been here. In the 20 something years I lived up here, I never came to the studio until I moved to LA and came back to Washington and then came to the studio.
And it’s actually in a barn. I drove up and I sent Sean a text, I’m like, is it in like a big red barn looking thing? And it is, and it is awesome.
It’s very cool, and it was so crazy because I remember, I think it was like two years ago, like Tim and I had reached out to each other. I was still in Japan, but I had seen him mention something about Western Washington University, which is where I went to college. It was like, dude, you went to, and there was this like bromio and bruliet from then on.
And here we are back in our old college town.
That’s right, causing trouble and painting the town red.
Yeah.
That’s awesome.
Well, the barn’s already red.
The barn’s already red.
That’s right, that’s a good point.
That’s awesome, I’m so glad we could make that workout.
Yeah.
So guys, why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about yourselves and how you got started in voice over, or started in voice over. Who wants to go first?
Tim, go ahead, buddy.
Okay, hey, thanks. Well, my name is Tim Friedlander. I am from Bellingham, actually I’m out front in Washington, but we’re in Bellingham, Washington right now.
I actually started in voice over in about 98, 99 or so in Seattle, studying with a coach in Seattle called, her name was Veronica Weichel. And she was kind of the only coach that I knew of. My dad actually was in theater and he kind of tracked her down for me.
And that’s how I kind of got into voice over. But, you know, obviously the differences between 98, 99 and here we are in 2018 are substantially different. And so kind of this transition, it took me, you know, 15, 16 years or so to actually get back into voice over and learn how to do it correctly and to get caught up with the times and to get caught up with, you know, the trends and things that were happening in voice over.
And I got back into voice over in about 2014 or so and went full time in 2016. And here we are in 2018. And, you know, working in voice over full time and flying to Washington for interviews.
Living the dream.
It’s great, yeah.
And Brad, how about you?
Well, I’m Brad Venable. And I grew up in the hotbed of voice over activity that is Eastern Oklahoma. And I say that with tongue firmly, firmly in cheek, so much that I could probably bite at every other word.
Yeah. About the biggest claim to fame is the fact that Carrie Underwood and I grew up in the same hometown and her mom was my fourth grade teacher. I always say that because she played softball with my sister growing up.
And so it’s so fun to see her be successful. And I’m like, you set that bar so high, it’s like all I need to do is just be the second most remarkable person from my hometown and I’m great. So what’s funny about my way into this industry is, Tim already said it, it’s funny because I made a comment the other day of some folks I was working with about how panel discussions go, especially with these really hardcore established people who are wonderful and awesome in their given area.
And they’re like, tell us about how you got started. And they go, well, in my day, I’m kidding, but they talk about how things were in the early 80s and late 80s and early 90s and getting started when there was literally like 35 people in the industry. And I’m like, that’s great.
It’s awesome to hear. And it’s really great for the people who are totally lay people and just interested in voiceover as a construct and a concept, but it doesn’t help you at all because how you get started in the 80s and 90s is so not how it happens now. And thank you for saying that, Tim, because I mean, if you didn’t say it, I probably was gonna say, yes, when I got started, this is not how you do it now, just so you know.
But what’s funny is, though, is that there are some things that I did getting started that I actually would say are a good thing to get started. And that was, I was a huge fan of every cartoon on Earth as people of a certain age are now, and nerds in general, of course. And I was a big, huge fan of the GI.
Joe’s, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Transformers G1, and all this other stuff that was just integral parts of it. And found out that there was this really, really just wonderful fan community that took a whole lot more of what we knew as cartoons, like Transformers specifically. And my good friend Daniel Ross and I did this together, just to preface it, which is really great.
And they have these fan dub projects where they take Japanese versions of Transformers cartoons that never made it over here and are never going to see the light of day in an official English release, a dub almost like anime. And so they basically took all of the sound effects and the music beds and stuff from various iterations of Transformers and made a complete audio track, almost like Riff Tracks does, when there wasn’t such a thing as MST 3K for the longest time. And that’s kind of how I got started doing character work, is basically doing the Optimus Prime characters and a couple of these rando, wacko voice characters on these Transformers fan dub projects.
And like I said, my friend Daniel Ross, who’s also here in LA with Tim and I, he is now like one of the voices of Donald Duck. And so it’s like two of us from back in the day, fan dubby projects. And this is only 15 years ago or less.
But I got started with live announce really, if you wanna get technical. I mean, the fan dub stuff was like, oh, this is the fun stuff that I’m gonna learn how to do character work, or I’m gonna teach myself, or I’m just gonna face plant, whatever. But I did live announce for sports.
I was the announcer for all the Olympic sports at the University of Tulsa, where I went on an opera scholarship. So it’s a weird hodgepodge of vocal weirdness that I had that got me into the industry, and then realizing this is a crazy business, and one, and two, I’ll never do anything in Oklahoma because nobody does any commercials on the radio or TV unless you own a car a lot, or if you’re a radio jock that’s making $15,000 a year and only making more because they do sales in radio. And so I left because there was just no place for me there.
And I went to Dallas in 2010 and got some good coaching because I started a company called Superhero University, which sole purpose was to bring coaches to me so that my large girth did not have to muffin top into an airplane seat and travel all over the place. Made you laugh. So I kind of worked on that from there.
And two years ago, June in 2016, my wife and I moved from Dallas to LA. And the first night I was in Los Angeles, I visited Tim’s studio. And Phil Bakke was there that night.
And that was my first experience connecting with Tim in person. Jay had connected us through the Collective and stuff outside of that. But it’s been just kind of like a whirlwind ever since.
It’s crazy how it’s just taken off in so many ways for us.
I didn’t know about the live announce stuff. Did you know we actually had an episode on that a couple of weeks ago? Because that’s how I started as well.
You mentioned it, or I scanned it. I didn’t listen to the episode, but I knew that it was a thing. So I was like, I’m definitely going to mention this, because that’s going to be one of those I’ll be damned kind of moments.
I mean, you guys didn’t thoroughly research our podcast before you joined. So funny story, Brad.
I actually found out about you from your VO Superhero website, and the funny story is I wanted VO Superhero to be my business name.
So this was back when I was getting established, and I was like, but… I mean, first off, loved the site, loved the comic book appearance and everything like that, but I was just like, but… dreams deleted.
But now that I know you…
That URL is for sale if you want it. I’m kidding. I will eventually get rid of it, but I don’t know.
It’s just one of those things. There’s too many things going on here now to keep that thing going as a thing.
Absolutely. We’ve talked about the importance of just kind of being… Marketing yourself as yourself, like Brad Venable VO versus VO Superhero or whatever else.
There was just so much gold in your guys’ stories that I wanted to unpack that a little bit before we moved on to the next question. Because both of you said you see these industry pros with 20 or more years of experience. We actually had an episode recently where we went to a comic or anime convention, Otacon, and so many of them would start their stories with, well, you can’t do it like I did.
We’re aware now that that’s not…
Thank goodness.
The avenues for entry are different now, and it’s not really relevant. It’s great. It’s more important to learn about the skills and the mindset and the attitude of these people that helped them be successful rather than exactly how they went about it.
I think one of the things we’re at right now is that there are so many different ways to get into it. There’s so many different opportunities, so many different ways to make your own avenues into this. Absolutely.
I’ve been saying this for the last couple of years, is that we’re in the VO Wild West right now, and yes, there are still certain do’s and don’ts and things along those lines, but for the most part, if you want to do it, do it. Try it. If you have an idea, try it.
If it doesn’t work, there’s no governing body of voiceover that’s going to tell you what you can and can’t do. I think that that kind of opens you up to different ways of getting into voiceover, different ways of creating content, different ways of getting heard that you couldn’t have heard… even five, six, seven years ago, I think that weren’t as available as they are now.
Absolutely. And Brad, I’m actually really glad that you brought up fan dubbing, because I know that it’s not thought of very highly in the professional VO community, and I can understand why. There are a lot of amateurs and hobbyists who want to do it, but in the same vein, there’s fewer opportunities for better character practice, and you’re practicing being part of a production team.
So those skills are useful, and if you’re interested in it, it might be your only way to practice or get involved with it until you can afford to invest in training and things like that. So I think as long as you go in with that mindset of practice, rather than, I wouldn’t want to send anything that you’re doing, I wouldn’t advertise that to agents or anything, but like I said, you could build connections, and who knows, maybe the person that you did a fan dub with became a producer or a caster, and they want you back.
On that same note, the assistant that you’re dealing with now, the person getting you a coffee, whoever it is in the studio, they’re going to be the agents in a couple of years. They’re going to be the ones who are going to be making the new content. They’re going to be the ones who are hiring you in the future.
So, be respectful of everybody that you work with, regardless of where they are in the chain.
Especially people at the bottom of the totem pole.
Yeah. That’s just general, I think, just general respect, but know that it’s things… I’ll use this as an anonymous example, but somebody that I first met in 2014, who I’ve come across…
crossed paths with over the years, came across and very blatantly and personally insulted a group of voice over talent that I was with and has no idea that they did this. And years later, this is somebody that when I cross paths with, I don’t really care to engage with because of something that happened four years ago because it was a bunch of newbie talent that we weren’t… We were nobody.
We were just a bunch of people in the corner of a room talking and somebody decided to come up and either show off or something. And now all of us who were in that room are working actors who are now peers with this person, who are now sharing opportunities and now crossing paths with this person.
Or withholding opportunities.
Or withholding opportunities or ingratiate them very nicely into a community.
So it’s very easy to forget that this is a people-centric business. And very often we work in isolation, but we work with people. So whether that’s in person or online, just be respectful.
Don’t be a douche. Nobody likes douches.
Well, Tim, you mentioned when you were a newbie, some of the things you observed. Let’s talk about that a little bit because a lot of our audience, honestly, is still people getting started in the business. What are some of the mistakes you think newbies make when they’re getting started in the business?
You know, I think the biggest mistake I have seen recently in the last few years, and I think this is with the rise of some of the movement to the online opportunities, is that people think that it’s going to happen faster than it is going to happen. They expect it to be, well, I’ve been doing this for a year and I’ve done 50 auditions and I haven’t booked anything and I’m just going to quit, you know, and that is, you know, you’re just getting started. You’ve got another few years of doing this.
And then I think also, I think it’s one of the things that I say in the workout groups that we run is like, I love you all, but get out of here. Go somewhere else. And I think, you know, it’s great to have like a coach or somebody or a home place to work with that people know you.
But, going back to what I was saying before, a coach’s information and feedback is subjective. And there’s lots of great coaches and there’s lots of great feedback. And take what works for you, but you need a different perspective.
And if you get stuck working with one person for the entire duration of the beginning of your career, you’re just getting kind of one element of this. And I go back to kind of like Brad, I come from a music background. I got my…
originally I got my degree in clarinet performance. And kind of coming through that, as a musician, the idea of coaching and training and taking lessons is something that is just… expected in what we do.
And I think that same thing can go for voiceover. People are like, well, I trained for six months and I got my trainings done and I’m ready to go out there and be a professional. Well, you keep training, you keep learning, you keep having somebody…
You need a different ear to be able to tell you what you’re doing, where you can improve, to hear all the things that you don’t hear. Because no matter as good as we are, we don’t really hear ourselves authentically, I don’t think. I think we hear ourselves through our own filter of what we think we’re going to sound like and through our own filter of how we’re feeling in that moment and our emotions.
Exactly.
Plus your ego gets in the way.
Absolutely true, no, absolutely true.
I use a sports analogy a lot that Tiger Woods still has a swing coach all these years later and every baseball team has a hitting coach because you just have to keep training the entire time.
Absolutely.
Well, the funny thing is that I feel like that’s the area of biggest resistance for new talent is pursuing coaching and it’s usually financial reasons why. I understand most coaches charge about $150 an hour and up, but you just, like you guys said, it’s expected. It should be expected.
I mean, we are doing Olympian level vocal gymnastics and the fact that people don’t think that requires any training is really upsetting.
It’s just talking, Sean, didn’t you know?
It’s just talking. How can I forget that, right?
I wouldn’t expect… I play guitar mainly now, but I wouldn’t expect to pick up guitar at 35 and just watch a bunch of stuff on YouTube and be a great guitar player. You know, I mean, that is an avenue and not to dismiss anybody who can do that.
For me and for most people I know, that’s not an effective way to be as good as you can be. And so, you can learn at 35, you can learn at 40, you can learn at 50, whatever age you choose to get into music or acting or any of these artistic endeavors that you choose to get into, you can do, and it’s so much easier if you have somebody helping you along the way. Learning, passing along all that information.
I use this as like, you know, the best example that I use is like, you know, great, I’m learning how to play all these scales and I’m playing what I think is a D major scale, but the entire time I’ve been playing the D7 scale and I’ve been playing it for years and I sound so great, but it’s the wrong scale and it takes one person to walk in and go, oh, in three seconds I go, oh, sorry, you’re missing that one note right there, and now all of a sudden you’re going to be booking all those jobs because now you can play the right scale when you thought you were playing the wrong scale. Yep.
So, like, long story short, why coaching? Objective feedback.
Yeah, absolutely.
That’s… When I moved to Los Angeles two summers ago, I kind of made it a point of pride for the first year I was here to take a class or attend an event every single week. And the only really…
I remember that. That didn’t happen. And that was…
And a lot of people would say, okay, that’s a bit much. And it’s true to a degree, it was a bit much, especially poor Charlie Adler, who I love. He’s like, who’s my father in this industry?
I mean, I’m not kidding. He’s a VO dad to me. Last time I went to his class, I guess it was probably summer, May of last year, 2017, he’s like…
And I can’t repeat what he said.
He’s got a mouth on him.
Because he walks into a room, and sailors run out screaming. So, he was like, what are you doing here? I’m like, you’re my safe space.
What can I say? And he’s like, well, you need to get more dangerous. So, but yeah, coaching is everything, everything.
I did that in 2015. I worked with a coach every week in 2015 for the entire year.
But, yeah, to put things in perspective, some people actually recently asked me to lead a workshop on choosing a voiceover coach. And I had done some research in preparation for it, and I was like, wow, over the years, I’ve been with 30 different coaches, either at just like one day events or like, yeah, they weren’t all like extended periods. They might have found out about them from various things.
But yeah, it was amazing. And for me, it was more about just kind of exposing myself to as many different perspectives as possible. And just because I fricking love VO, I wanna learn as much about it and be able to experience different perspectives and different genres.
Because I mean, not everyone’s good at everything.
Yeah, absolutely true. And you need that different perspective of other people. And you need, kind of this goes to kind of the education side of things.
I think Brad would chime in on this as well. You know, is that you need, not everybody explains things in a way that everybody understands. And I think it’s, you know, I come from education as well as music.
And I think it’s being able, kind of the secret to being a good teacher is that you need to be able to explain the same thing 500 different ways so that 500 different people can understand it in exactly the same way that you understand it. And being able to explain something of like, well, you know, I just do it. And you know, that’s how it works.
Some of my best, the best musicians I’ve known have been some of the worst teachers because they didn’t know, they just did what they did naturally, but didn’t really understand how to explain their process or how they did what they did in a way that somebody else could emulate it.
Wonderful. And you see talent who get frustrated because I worked with this like, highly recommended top of their game coach and it wasn’t satisfying for me. Or like, I didn’t feel like I got anything out of it or just had a frustrating experience.
That doesn’t mean that you’re a bad talent or they’re a bad coach. They just might be a bad fit for you. Well, it may.
Given the benefit of the doubt, guys. This is a positive. This is a glass half full podcast.
But that’s the thing. It’s like, it’s important to try and don’t feel like you have to be married to this coach if you’re not feeling like you’re getting the most out of it. So now there’s a glut of voice over coaches available.
So whatever your snowflake educational needs are, you can find someone.
You can. And along those same lines, explore it. Ask people who have worked with them.
Find somebody who works for you because not every coach is going to work for you. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with that.
It’s not like, same thing, you go to college here in high school, people are like, oh man, my favorite teacher is this person. You’re like, God, I hated that person. They were the worst.
How could you like that person? It’s who you connect with. And are they a better or worse teacher?
Well, for you, there were a better teacher. And for somebody else, they were a worse teacher. So don’t be afraid to move on if who you’re working with doesn’t give you what you need.
And along the same lines, just because somebody comes highly recommended does not mean they’re the right person for you.
Absolutely. So that took a really interesting turn on the importance of coaching. But I love that we’re all on the same page.
It is important. And like I said, there’s lots of opportunities to do it or to try different coaches in more affordable ways, like maybe at a workshop or a webinar or a digital product or like our convention. So there’s lots of different…
Maybe.
Or maybe.
Maybe at a weekly workout.
That’s a great idea. Maybe we should look into that.
We should check into that.
Speaking of…
Yeah, speaking of weekly workouts.
Speaking of, you two have, along with Jay, have started yourselves a weekly workout to do with the exact thing we’re talking about. Get working pros to hone their craft and get some practicing. Can you tell us a little bit about how that started?
It was in direct response to the substantial changes of the industry that happened last year in August or so with some of the consolidation of the players, these big players in the game.
There we go.
Diplomatic, bringing it back.
One of the things that disappeared or that we thought was gonna disappear was this opportunity to do these online workouts that was offered by one of these companies last year. And going back to education, I come from education, Brad comes from education. I just finished my master’s in education about a year and a half ago.
And so, for me, I know I can bring the education side of things. There’s no way that I could compete, that any of us could compete against the juggernaut in helping, in posting jobs and trying to find a workup for these. But I sure knew that we could compete with them when it came to education.
Brilliant.
So we took that component of it that we knew was missing and which, unfortunately or fortunately, we were absolutely right. As soon as this consolidation happened, the education portion disappeared. And the online workouts disappeared instantly.
Not even like, hey, they’re gonna go away. It was like, they’re there one week and the next week they’re gone. And so we kind of jumped in.
I think we heard about the change at about seven, eight o’clock in the morning. And by noon, I had the website domain. And by the end of the week, we had already started talking about it in advertising and had the first mockup of the website done.
And we went live, I think, about three weeks after that. Which is something, you know, it had been in the back of our minds something we had been talking about, that at least Jay and I had been talking about for a long, for about a year, but no reason to do it when there was opportunities out there already. And as soon as that opportunity disappeared, we knew that we could step in and fill that void.
And it’s, you know, it’s been great. It’s been challenging. It’s been exciting.
It’s been frustrating. It’s all these things that you do with, hey, let’s do it.
Great.
That was our plan.
How?
Well, let’s, we’ll put it together and see how it works.
It sounds like our podcast, actually. That’s how we started that.
Now, why don’t we get along so well?
Absolutely.
And going back to what we said before, it’s the Wild West. I mean, who do you have to get authorization from somebody to do a podcast? Do we have to get approval from somebody to do an online workout?
Do we have to get, you know, again, going back, you know, this isn’t to say that just go out there and, you know, run over everybody and do exactly what you know, what you want to do, regardless of what, you know, maybe some of the social conventions of Voice Over may be. But that there are, if you have a good idea, you see an opportunity, you see something that’s there, do it.
After a thoughtful research and…
After a thoughtful research.
Yes. Yes.
You know, take your time. But, you know, like, you can put it together. We didn’t go, you know, we definitely consulted with agents and people who had been guest before with talent to see if this is something that they would be interested in.
You know, we, I did a mock-up and had a few people run through it to see, hey, is this going to be beneficial? Is this better than what was happening before? Is this going to be more, you know, bulkier than what was happening before?
And, you know, we’re here a year later. We’re still running, actually. Just posted, you know, our newest workout yesterday, which went live.
You know, we try to do it every week, but it’s, you know, life gets in the way, work gets in the way. We don’t always can’t follow, we always find a coach that’s available every week. We do our best to try and do it every week if we can, but, you know, it’s also something that we just, we do for the community in, I say free time, I don’t know when any of us have free time, but, you know…
In our made time.
Yeah, I mean, you know, we make time for this, but it’s also something that we do because we know that it’s needed.
How does it work exactly? Because not all of our audience, I’m sure, is familiar with it, and if they want to get involved, tell us a little bit about the process.
Sure. Well, it’s voweeklyworkout.com, and basically what we’re trying to do is give people a chance to be heard and to try something and have an opportunity to get heard on a regular basis, which if you’re not in LA, New York, Chicago, some of the larger areas where there is a bigger community, it’s a little difficult. It can be lonely.
It can be isolating. I mean, it can be isolating in LA. You know, I was in LA for 12 years before I even knew that there was anybody else in voice over in LA, which is just insane.
But what we do is we have a special guest each week. It could be a cast director. It could be an agent.
A lot of who we have are agents. That’s a lot of who we have our connections and friendships with. But we post up a script or a variety of scripts.
You get to download that script. You get to read one or two takes of that. You upload it back to the website and the guest director will listen and provide feedback.
Very cool. After that, then everything gets posted on an archive page with everybody else’s reads, everybody else’s feedback. So you can go and listen to what other people did.
If you got a specific feedback, say, hey, try doing this, you can find somebody who read it the way that you wanted to read it. Listen to what they did. Exactly.
I think one of the greatest things is somebody gets feedback on something that you’ve been doing. You listen to them and you go, oh, okay, well, I hear what you’re talking about. Now I hadn’t heard it when I did it, but to hear somebody else do that, now I understand what you’re saying.
Man, that’s huge. I love… because a lot of people are so focused on improving their own performances that they forget to listen to others and to learn from the interaction of them and the coach, or just maybe just being around another talent.
Be like, wow, that was a really great technique. I should pay more attention.
Absolutely. And I think that you can learn more. This goes for any of the workout groups that we do in LA and all the classes that we go to.
You get your 10 minutes or so in the booth. Use the other rest of those three hours and learn. You can see so many of the people in that booth.
You can hear all this feedback. You get to hear all of this stuff. Take those notes.
Take what other people are doing. What are people doing great? And try that.
Here’s somebody stumbling over something and go, I remember when I used to do that. So how did I get out of that? You know, let’s see if this person gets out of the same way that I did.
And use that time to learn. And this kind of goes to the conventions. This goes to working with coaches.
This goes to doing any of the workout groups. You will get out of it what you choose to get out of it. And if you just go in and say, okay, give me all your knowledge and just throw it on me and I’m going to take this out of here and leave, you can leave very frustrated.
You can leave not feeling like you learned anything. But if you take the time and really pay attention to other people and what they’re doing and what they’re learning, listen to that feedback. Read the feedback.
Listen to people’s takes. Listen to some really great takes. Listen to some stuff that people need to improve on and learn.
I love that. You can definitely tell that you come from an educational background. But just the way that you approach it from this level of conscious critical awareness and critical analysis.
Absolutely.
And so, because as we’ve said many times on the podcast, you need to know what your voice sounds like, what it’s capable of. And you need to be able to analyze and articulate performances. Because if you can articulate something, you can do it.
Yeah. One of the things that I always… We do the in-person workouts at my studio a couple of times a week.
A lot of times, people give a great read. And instead of me saying, that was a great read, I say, great, tell me about that read. What was it?
How did that feel? What did you do that changed? What did you do?
Explain to us why that read was different. I know why it was different. I want you to explain to us why it was different, so you can articulate what it was that you did to make it different.
And going back to kind of one of the earlier questions about one of the mistakes that newbies make, I think one of the biggest mistakes people can make is just going into this passively. And not… One of the things that I found is the very first convention I went to, which was Voice 2014, was how insanely friendly everybody is.
And welcoming. And, you know, we always say like, oh, I mean, the voice of people are so nice. I keep waiting for people for that to change.
It’s been four years now. It’s not changing. We’re all…
I mean, everybody is… You know, everybody is just… Everybody is nice.
Everybody is helpful. And everybody wants to help. But if you just sit in the corner and expect things to come to you, it’s not gonna happen.
You have to go out and make it happen.
Yeah, it’s just like, you know, okay, I’ve signed with an agent. Now I’m just gonna sit back and wait for the phone to ring. That’s the same attitude that gets you that subsistence at best, honestly.
If that, yeah.
Yeah, if that. If you’re lucky that. But then again, there’s also the mindset of, okay, an agent is gonna take 10% of what you do.
You need to be doing the other 90% of the legwork.
Mm-hmm, yes.
So I mean, that right there, to me, it changes the mindset completely to, oh, they’re the gatekeepers to the work opportunities, but you need to be doing things, too, and making a partnership. So that whole idea, Tim, everything Tim said, it’s like we’re straight in a parallel line when it comes to approach. I know that I would never have been able to absorb as much stuff from workouts and workshops and seminars and everything if I had been passive, and I only go in there to go, I’m going to do this, I’m going to try to wow them, and then I’m just gonna sit there on my phone the rest of the time.
I mean, what’s the rule, Tim, when you walk in, phone’s down, right?
Put down your phone, yep, put down your phone, or at least let us know that you’re taking notes on your phone.
Exactly.
Because that’s now.
Because I mean, I lead a lot of workouts, too, through Global Voice Acting Academy, and even Paul and I will occasionally work out together. But anyways, I get so frustrated when I see people who are obviously muted, but practicing their next take. And I’m like, that’s great, I know you wanna do a good job, guys, but you’re no longer present and you’re missing out.
And I love that you brought up the word gatekeeper, Brad, because I feel like, and this is going back to that sort of antiquated idea of how you get in, we don’t view ourselves as gatekeepers to our own careers. Like, we always assume that someone else is going to get us in, to give us access. And agents do give you access to jobs that you might be unable to find on your own, but that doesn’t mean they do all the work for you.
Yeah, so like you guys are saying, you get in what you, or excuse me, you get out what you put in, and if you’re extremely active, you can see the people who just, you guys probably know who I’m thinking of, but just in a year or two or three have just gone from zero to full-time. And the drive is apparent. It’s obvious in this person and their interactions.
So that, more than anything, is just don’t sit on your laurels and just constantly try and move forward in your career.
Yeah, and I think it’s, sorry, go ahead, Tim.
Oh no, go ahead, Brad, I’ll pick up after that.
What’s funny is that it’s a balance to strike too, where it’s like there is a, you need to be doing more than the minimum of beating the pavement and doing what you need to do to be well known amongst your peers and everything, but then there is a limit on the upper side too, where you don’t want to end up being the person that’s introducing themselves to new people with their resumes and stuff.
Yeah, yeah. That goes back to being respectful and understanding what you’re doing, because agents don’t want to be solicited at a workshop.
Oh, God, no.
Yeah, that they don’t. And we’ve worked with agents in our work groups, and one of the things that more than one of them says is, don’t come in here and show me what you can do. Don’t come in here and show off.
This isn’t a showcase. Come in here and work. If you’re not here to work, then let somebody else come in here who is here to work and get better at what they do.
And it’s a big distinction between workshopping and showcasing.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And agents can see that, and casting directors can see that, and people know.
And it goes back to that, like, I mean, VO is a collaborative effort. It’s not, like, you’re not the star of the show. And if you’re going in this for fame or recognition, like, then stop.
Like, it’s not for you. Your job is to help give agents, casters, directors what they want. And so, like, there’s a partnership there that you need to respect.
Very much so.
Well, Tim, you talked about your workouts having the phone be… check the door. You’re talking about the in-person workouts at your studio, Soundbox LA, right?
Correct. Let’s talk a little bit about that. How did you start this studio, and what kinds of work do you do there?
Man, that was… I started this place in direct response to the fact that I had no idea what the heck I was doing, and I was failing at voice over, and I basically am a great example of how to do everything wrong. Get a demo, make a demo made.
Good, I’m done. Move to LA. Great.
Send that out to agents. Great. Nobody picked me up.
Okay, great, I got an agent. Well, let me take another year, and a year I’ll send out that. And in this year, I’m not going to study voice over for that year.
And let me take another couple of years off from voice over, and then I’ll go out and try and get an agent. And then I’m going to wonder why the agents don’t want to listen to what I’m doing, because I don’t sound like me. And let’s just isolate yourself and not talk to anybody and not know anything.
And part of that is the fact that it’s as overwhelming as it is, you pick up the Voice Over Resource Guide or look for a list of coaches. There’s what, three, four, five pages of coaches? They all look the same.
I can’t tell it’s between one coach or another. If you don’t know anybody, don’t have anybody to ask, don’t have anybody to hear feedback on, you don’t know, it’s like, here, let me pick, I can’t afford to go to every university I want to go to to find out which one I like. So then you just don’t go to any of them.
So I didn’t coach with anybody. I didn’t study with anybody. I didn’t train with anybody.
I would send out demos once a year and then wonder why I didn’t hear back from anybody. So talking about being passive, I was doing all the wrong things. And I was hours away from quitting Voice Over, and I decided to get out of bed and go to Voice 2014.
And there I met a bunch of people who were, as I say, failing the way that I was failing. And all of a sudden I was like, well, wow. So I’m not an outlier here.
I’m not completely lost in what I’m doing. And I have a great opportunity. I have the space.
So why don’t I invite some people over and we can all just kind of learn about Voice Over together and we can maybe all fail together. And from there, it kind of became a place that I kind of have built around the community. I built the studio was never supposed to be public.
It was supposed to be just a place where I do music and where I practice. And people came over and they needed opportunities or they needed a place to record. Well, here, let me come over.
You know, you need this mic. Well, okay, I’ll have this mic for you next time you come over. And I guess you need this and we need this kind of connection.
You need ISDN. Well, let me look into ISDN and see about this. ISDN kind of grew around the needs of the community and kind of became just, you know, I had this, I had a place and I wanted to share it with people and not keep it to myself.
And it’s grown into this, into something way beyond anything I had ever thought it would be. And we actually, you know, kind of opened two satellite studios earlier this year, one in Studio City and one in Sherman Oaks, where we’re going to start, you know, the responsibility of offering workout groups at those locations as well at some point. I do three workout groups a week most of the time, two that I run myself and one that Jay Preston and I run together.
And we don’t, I don’t advertise, it’s all word of mouth. And I just try and give people a place that feels safe and comfortable, and you can come in and do the best work that you can do because it feels like being at home.
That’s amazing. So I’m sure Brad will agree with me on this. And we were just talking about how amazingly, just generous and kind voice over people are.
I feel like Tim is an exceptionally kind VO person. Just a cut above. Because of all, I mean, just this idea, you’re incredibly community minded, and you’re always thinking, like, I don’t need all of this stuff, but someone else does, and I would like to provide it.
It’s amazing. I mean, I even saw a post recently, he’s like, I’m out of town this week, anyone need my studios? Keys are in the box.
It’s amazing.
Yep. The man does yeoman’s work. I mean, to use an antiquated term, but still.
I mean, it’s just so wonderful to know that that whole story of this being the most wonderful industry and everything. I think some people, they only scratch the surface when they understand that to a degree, because we circle the wagons and we take care of our own. I mean, I don’t know of any industry, especially an artistic one, where a person gets an audition and goes, you know what, this is not for me, but I know two other people that would be great for this.
I do that all the time. I’ve actually walked people to my agent. Well, I say walk, not physically, but just last week there was one where I said, I have a colleague who would be better at this than me.
You want to hear from him and maybe sign him? And they were like, yeah. So we did it.
Brilliant. Honestly, guys, thank you both so much. It’s not just about getting out what you put in, but you guys have given so much to the community and continue to do so on a daily, weekly basis.
Just to circle back to the weekly workout, Brad, what was something that surprised you from one of those weekly workouts, either from the presenter or the guest director or from a submission?
Oh, I’ll tell you what’s been surprising, and it shouldn’t be surprising. The funny part is I should have seen this. We should have all collectively seen it coming, but there is so much varied types and level of verbosity, if you will, of feedback that you get, because some of our most wonderful, great coaches that we’ve gotten wonderful relationships with over the years, they’ll sit back and they’ll record live, like what we’re doing here for the podcast.
They’ll record an audio version of what they have to say to any person that participates in the workout. Then there are others who are extremely concise and waste no words. And then there are others who type long, huge…
This is specifically what you did that I did like, what you didn’t like, and here’s how to improve it. And what’s been the greatest thing, the greatest gift, I think, out of all of this and all that variance of the kind of feedback that they have provided is the insight into the industry as a whole. As the fact that there are people whose whole reason of existence is to give feedback and lift others up and push them aside, push them further in their careers and make them better actors.
Then there are some who is like, I am a business person, and I’m going to give it to you straight, and I’m going to give it to you in a way that you may not like, but you’re going to hear something that you need to be more self-aware of. And then there are those who, you know.
Are moving yourself from that box, right? You’re no longer in isolation. You find out what…
You hear from people straight from the horse’s mouth. What is hiring? What people want?
What is the popular sound? So you’re able to provide it, ideally, because you’re listening and you’re just learning as much about what they want as you can.
The one thing that I really want people to take away from what both Tim and I and Jay together do versus what we do individually is, is we’re always trying to lift everybody. We really are. I mean, it’s not like we’re trying to do it to have people have high opinions of us or anything.
It’s just that this is what this industry needs, because we have seen corporate entities come in and just waylay the industry and try to literally, quote unquote, take over the world. I mean, it’s like a real live version of Pinky and the Brain some days, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. So we just want to make sure that we realize that we in Los Angeles have really a glut of wonderful coaches and agents and casting people that we all call friends, and we want them to know people that may not have that opportunity elsewhere.
And I think that has been one thing. Between Weekly Workout and between my old friends in Dallas who have been starting to poke the bear of Los Angeles and providing them an air mattress in my studio has been something I just want to make sure anyone knows, that when they come in from out of town, they generally, if they know me at all, then they have a place to stay with me. And it’s been great to see some of the projects that have actually been shown to be going live this week.
You know, something that one of my friends did, she just announced this week, and I remember a year ago when she was hanging out with us, my wife and I, here, and staying in our second bedroom, which is the studio, and now all of a sudden, here’s this thing that she was working on a year ago that’s now seeing the light of day, and I’m just sitting there just like shaking my head.
We’re like, oh my gosh, how does this all come together? And it just makes us feel like a giant spider web that we’re all interconnected in some way. And I just want to make sure that we do whatever we can to make this industry a better place and not a worse one at all.
Well, you guys are certainly putting a Herculean effort forth in that regard. I mean, honestly…
Well, one of us is. Tim. Tim is doing that.
You’re all great, but honestly, guys, I feel like you’re definitely kindred spirits. I love… I’m so happy to hear you.
And you can hear the joy in your voice from recounting people you’ve worked with succeed and excel. Yeah. It’s amazing.
He’s tearing up on me now. Big softy. But, I mean, honestly, I’ve felt for a long time that the biggest tool we have in maintaining and hopefully improving the voiceover industry is education.
And you guys are providing that in spades and you’re really bettering your part of the voiceover world. So thank you both so much. Or thank all of you guys.
Before we go, tell us where people can find you if they want to hire you as a voice actor or if they’d like to participate in the weekly workout.
Yeah, well, the weekly workout is just is voweeklyworkout.com. And you can see all the information is on there. There’s a login section where you can sign up.
And when you sign up, you get an email with all of the information about how it works, why we put it together, and kind of our goals with that. And then to find me online is just timfriedlander.com and it’s Friedlander like Frydlander.
Well, I’m not going to revisit the weekly workout because Tim made it more than clear where to find us there, but voweeklyworkout.com. And you can find me at bradvenable.com. That’s V-E-N like Venn diagram, but with one N, able, able to do things, or at atlastalent.com, one of the two.
All right, thanks, Edelman. We really appreciate you being here. It was a fantastic discussion.
Tim, thanks for making the effort to come to a studio in Seattle, or Bellingham.
Bellingham.
Hey, I had to drive farther than he did.
But you work here.
Sort of, sort of.
And we’re going for burritos afterwards.
Yeah, it’s a labor of love. And lay burritos.
Nice. Well, hopefully we’ll see you soon.
I see what you did there. Yeah.
I like portmanteaus. I miss you, man. Definitely.
And thanks again.
So thank you so much, Tim and Brad, for being on our podcast. And thank you, Voice Over Collective, for just offering an amazing resource. I highly recommend you check out their workouts and get to know a little bit more about them.
So you can find them at thevoiceovercollective.com or at their Facebook page, Voice Over Collective. It’s a wonderful community. It’s a great place to network and workout with your peers and just kind of practice those performances and maybe even get your ear in front of some very worthwhile casters.
So thank you guys so much for being a guest on our podcast. As you might have seen in sort of the promotional video teasers for this interview, Tim actually came up to… Tim and I actually recorded on location in a place called Bellingham, Washington.
I actually used to live up there when I was going to college. I was visiting my family that week, my brother and his family, and Tim actually had family, had grown up there himself in a neighboring city. So he came up for the afternoon and we recorded at a studio that I’ve worked at at the wonderful Binary Recording Studios in Bellingham, Washington.
Thank you, Bob Ridgely. And we actually used sort of… We weren’t in the actual studio per se.
We are in the kind of live room. So we used the VOMO, the Voice Over Mobile Booth, from our good friends at Vocal Booth to Go. So Vocal Booth to Go’s patented acoustic blankets are an effective alternative to expensive soundproofing.
Often used by vocal and voiceover professionals, engineers and studios as an affordable soundproofing and absorption solution. We make your environment quieter for less. So thank you so much to Jeff over at Vocal Booth to Go for supplying us with that VOMO.
And thanks again, Tim, for coming up. It was so great to meet you in person.
Yeah, thanks to both Brad and Tim from The Voice Over Collective and VO Weekly Workout. We really appreciate their time. The interview was really great.
Well, that wraps up this episode of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Come join us next month, like we said before, we have that epic mic shootout where we get to try over about a dozen different microphones at various price ranges, various polar patterns, just some really interesting choices.
Some other upcoming guests we have are Sarah Jane Sherman, casting director, marketing guru, VO marketing guru, Celia Siegel, and Peter Dixon and Hugh Edwards from Gravy for the Brain. Lots of good content coming up over the next couple of months.
Very cool, so don’t miss an episode, guys, because we’ll keep churning them out as the year goes by.
So that’s it for this episode of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Bye, everybody.
Thanks for listening to this episode of The VO Meter. To follow along, visit us at www.vometer.com. VO Meter is powered by IPDTL.