Voice Over Vernacular - The "Three in a Row" Edition

Term: "Three in a Row"

AKA: "A-B-C takes"

Correct use:
Often used on shorter pieces of copy, a direction of "three in a row" or "ABC" denotes allowing the talent the autonomy to tackle three ideas of a piece of copy within the boundries of the direction set forth by the producer or director. The expectation is for three distinctly different takes from the performer.

Incorrect use:
As quickly as possible, rattling off three of the exact same reads without pausing for air, leaving the listener with a breathlessly urgent feeling.

Growing Up - Going Back to Stanislavski 10 Years Later

So before I was 'SomeAudioGuy' I was 'SomeTheatreGuy'.
One of my biggest influences came my freshman year of college while studying with an incredible acting professor. After a gruelingly intense scene study, focusing on character motivations, we were turned on to Constantin Stanislavski, and my attitude towards performance changed forever.

I read everything he wrote in a period of about 5 months.

His ideas behind emotional imagination, context, and physical action were a personal thought revolution for me. Before reading Stanislavski, I was a firm believer in transference, or substitution.
My characters couldn't experience an honest emotion unless I had experienced something similar.
Constructing the emotional context would often be a more painful experience, but was incredibly effective. Studying the physicality behind characterization (I also studied a lot of dance in college) helped establish a two front attack on any character analysis. These were tremendous tools to add to my repertoire, and really laid the foundations for not only my performance career but also my current directorial career.

It's been ten years since I've picked up Stanislavski.

I've been feeling a little stale lately.
For no good reason I picked up 'My Life in Art' and started paging through it. It's sort of incredible, and there's so much I didn't fully understand reading it in college. It's not only taking me back to one of the most creative, explorational periods of my life, but it's also showing me how far I've come, how much I've grown.
Anyone needing a shot in the arm should seriously take a look.

I'm probably headed for another Stanislavski binge.

It's just so easy to be motivated by those that have led incredible lives.

Seasoned voice actors make me happy...

Being a booth director can be REALLY tricky. I'd say I'm a pretty bright guy, and after years of theater and radio, I think I have a pretty good ear for how copy SHOULD sound. I was always pretty good at script analysis, and tearing into a :30 radio is something that comes natural to me (if you ever need anyone to OVER-analyze copy...).

I certainly don't think I'm special in any regard, but having been recording for ten years (the last five of which with an almost exclusive focus on VO) has left me with at least a little perspective.

I know the biggest challenge for me was getting out of my actors way. On stage or in the booth, I always had an idea of what a particular character should sound like. In my head that WAS the character, and it was so clear and apparent, how could an actor possibly come up with any other idea. It was very frustrating, and it took me a while before I learned how to communicate ideas, rather than just line reading the crap out of people.

It wasn't long before I started getting excited by the possibility of performance, what I wouldn't think of right away, and what a particular performer could bring to a role that I couldn't foresee. The unexpected, yet still appropriate.

It's sort of addictive. It's also very gratifying, that the better the performer I got, suddenly the better a director I became (partly because I had to up my game, but also because they made me look good on stage, lol).

Case in point, over the last week I've had the opportunity to help produce a union TV spot and a non-union internet spot. The union spot paid scale (about $600 for the session), and the producers had booked a studio for 1 hour to record. The non-union producers were going to pay talent $300 per hour of recording, but were assuming it would only take about 20 minutes to record.

I was brought in on both sessions pretty much just to push record, button-monkey that I am...

The union actor was a very experienced VO pro, easily 20 years of credits to his name. He read through the commercial three times (with one pick up), hit a legal-like disclaimer twice, and was out the door, about 15 minutes max. Everyone happy, session fee well spent, early lunches all around.

The non-union actor was a VERY nice guy, but was a TOTAL VO NEWB. This was his first ever voiceover session, or at least that was the impression I got from recording him. I can't remember how many takes we did, but what should've taken about thirty minutes, took over an hour and a half, and the end of the recording session boiled down to the director walking into the booth to line read the talent because the actor "wasn't getting the direction". The finished product (after a lot of editing) was merely acceptable. The bill for the talent came to about $600 (not to mention additional studio time), and no one was really happy about it.

Both sessions ended up paying their talent about the same for very different results...

My first thought looking back on these two wildly different experiences was "there you go, hire good talent, it'll save you in the long run", but after reflecting a bit, I've come to a slightly different conclusion.

I think a good director would've gotten a much better read out of the VO Newb, and much sooner. Letting the session drift on into line reading after line reading for an hour and a half was a bit unreasonable, and who's to say that if the non-union "director" had gotten his hands on Mr. VO Pro, that they wouldn't have had a similar melt down.

So what's my point with all of this? I guess I don't really have one. Really, it's just a bunch of stuff that happened...

Internet Income Big Issue as Hostile Hollywood Labor Talks Begin, Are We Looking at a Strike?

Hollywood Today has a long and well written article on the impending WGA negotiation, and it's impacts on "New Media". I see these being instrumental to the future of the entertainment industry, especially as the people that actually create this content seem to get hosed on every new platform that emerges (Cable, Home Video, etc).
Now some people think that October is going to be the hot month, but I think it's more likely that serious action wont be taken until actors contracts are up in June 2008.

"With the threat of a strike looming, tense talks kick off today between movie and TV producers and unionized script writers over . While aimed at a contract expiring in October, some insiders believe that ultimately the acrimonious battle over digital compensation could push a final agreement to June 2008, when actor’s contracts are up as well.

That could set the stage for an epic labor showdown in Tinseltown pitting corporate owned, bottom-line oriented management — facing a rapidly changing marketplace – against creative talent (writers and actors) who feel short changed seeing their work pop up on broadband, digital, online, wireless and in other new media markets."

While I do believe something NEEDS to happen here, I'm just not convinced that a strike will accomplish anything. One thing I've learned using these here intarwebs, is there's a lot of user generated (NON UNION) entertainment to consume. Just like the last big strike left us in this reality show hell, I think production will find ways to produce content, and will be able to wait the unions out (thereby "winning" the right to shove another crappy contract down everyone's collective throats).

It's just really frustrating, as there's so much more money to be made out there, and production and unions just seem more interested in "winning"...

Anywho, read on. It is a great write up on what got us to this point and what the potential out comes could be.


read more | digg story

Bout Time the Unions Got Pissed! FIX RESIDUALS!!!

I know, they're technically "guilds"...

Out of the Hollywood Reporter yesterday, Borys Kit writes up a quick article about the WGA possibly hooking up with SAG and the DGA. I've been hearing grumblings of possible strikes happening, but lately it seems that the heat might be turning up soon.
While it would suck for the company I currently work with, I can't say I blame the unions.
Writers, as well as Actors and Directors, were hosed on home video, cable, DVD, interactive, and look to be getting screwed on VOD and "new media". I'm actually surprised that they didn't consider working together sooner...

"Unwilling to go on record for fear of staking out positions that haven't been officially sanctioned by the guild, a number of writers agreed to step forward on the condition of anonymity. Many already are getting their financial houses in order, others are writing furiously to finish scripts for companies that are stockpiling. But one theme comes through loud and clear, and it's a heated paraphrase of the great writer Paddy Chayefsky: Scribes are mad as hell, and they aren't going to take it anymore."I think writers in general are getting sick of being kicked around. There's a lot of fury out there," says one screenwriter who writes for A-listers.
The big issue is money -- specifically, money as it relates to new technology such as Internet downloads and VOD."The model for Internet downloads shouldn't be any different than the model for pay-per-view, or the model for DVDs, or any other means of watching entertainment. What the fuck is the difference how someone watches it? If they're watching it and I've written it, I should get paid for it," the writer says."

Read the rest Here!
someaudioguy some audio guy voice over SAG aftra voice acting auditions work business career guilds demo production audiobooks radio tv commercials

Another day in the Trenches...

Almost quite literally.

I had all these great posts to start this blog off with, and trying to find some fun clips to audio blog, so what happened?

Today happened.

A royal schedule-fuck of epic proportions. From 9:15am to 7:45pm (with a 30 minute lunch), I was bombarded by a constant stream of audio.
AND, while I love my actors, not very many of them were prepared today.

See, the thing is, auditions in voice over land work differently than other auditions. Thanks to digital audio, the game moves MUCH faster, so a lot of talent agencies now run their own recording booths (the reason why I have a full time job). SO, often a job notice comes out with spec for the auditions, then the AGENCY casts the project, the AGENCY holds auditions, the AGENCY narrows the field, and the AGENCY selects the top picks, and then submits the auditions to whoever is running the casting.
That's a lot of overhead for an Agency to handle, especially considering that, for the cost involved, the agency might only make say...$40 booking a client on a radio spot (after taking the time to audition maybe 15 people for the same role).

So what does this business breakdown have to do with why I had such a crappy day?

Well, the "in-house" audition process creates a second problem.
Actors.
When an actor goes "out of house" to audition for something, they have to be prepared. They have to be warmed up. They have to be on their best behavior to maintain a good working reputation. They know they aren't going to get "do-overs" for their audition, and know that they might only get a slate to show off their personality.
When an actor comes "in house", they know it's in our best interest to send an audition which best represents them and the Agency. Those that really work in voice over understand the business margins above, and aren't about to waste our time or their own time, coming prepared like they would for an "out of house", which is probably a major reason why they work in voice over, and book regularly.
Those actors that do take up time range the gambit from newbies that don't know any better all the way to the self obsessed.

Now an extra minute here or there doesn't seem like it would be such a huge deal, but multiply an extra minute or three by the ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY times I pressed record today, and we now have hours of wasted man hours piling up over the course of the week.

So, whats the moral of this little story?
Actors, if you're lucky enough to have a good voice over agent, prepare your copy, warm up, run a few articulation drills, stretch, BEFORE you enter your booth, and give your booth director a big ole hug.

He probably needs it...
some audio guy, voice over, voice acting, talent agency, abram's artists agency, voice over directing, booth director, recording, auditions, rant