Align Your Voice and Find Your Power with Aurelia Michael

And I think sometimes you can also choose not to do an audition.
I have so many recordings where I'll start the first line
and I'm like, nope.
I wanna make sure I'm also doing a product justice.
Yeah, the money's great, but it's my voice.
So sometimes I will skip an audition,
even if it pays very well,
if I just don't feel connected
because I do believe that there's enough gold
out here for everyone.
And sometimes if we take every single audition,
it's because we're scared.
So we're just throwing everything at the wall,
hoping something sticks,
hoping something flows.
But I think you also have the option,
being a Superman, superwoman, superperson,
is to pick and choose the auditions that you wanna do.
Cause I think sometimes on this side of the mic,
we can feel powerless.
Like we're constantly begging for a job.
And no, I have just as much power on my side
as they do on their side.
And you'll hear it when I audition.
["Mission Audition"]
Welcome everyone to today's episode of Mission Audition.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Mission Audition is the voiceover podcast
where we listen to real auditions from voices members,
and we get to hear feedback
from world-class voiceover coaches.
My name is Tara, senior manager, brand communications,
and I'm joined by my very special guest co-host Jeff,
the audio specialist here at Voices,
who, fun fact, also produces this podcast.
Hello everyone.
Today's topic is My Voice is My Superpower.
Before we get to the auditions,
let me introduce our amazing guest, Aurelia Michael.
Aurelia Michael was born and raised in the Bronx, New York,
and a graduate of the University of Maryland College Park,
and the Fan Fashion Institute of Technology,
jumping right into the professional dance world
after college.
Her credits include Netflix, Gap, B-E-T,
Black Girls Rock with Janelle Monet,
and the international tour Every Little Step.
In 2018, Aurelia also ventured
into the world of musical theater,
and her credits now include Legally Blonde,
Grease, Damn Yankees, In the Heights,
and the original cast of Summer, The Donna Summer Musical.
Most recently, she was the associate choreographer,
ensemble member of A Wonderful World,
a world premiere musical about jazz legend
and singular American icon, Louis Armstrong.
Love that.
Aurelia took her passion for motivational speaking
and voiceover, signing with Atlas Talent Agency,
and created Voice on Demand.
VOD is a community-based organization
dedicated to connecting, supporting,
and uplifting BIPOC corporates and creatives' skills
to find love, honor, and project their voice daily
as their superpower.
VOD has several offerings via voiceover,
public speaking, and communication empowerment.
Aurelia currently resides in sunny Los Angeles area
with her husband and puppy,
where she is also focused on her career in theater,
voiceover, and motivational speaking.
We're so happy to have you here,
and thanks for joining us.
Thank you so much.
I'm so excited to be here.
Thank you so much for having me.
I am honored, and I'm ready to rock and roll.
Love it.
I am so ready.
Let's do this.
OK, so let's talk about the artistic direction.
The commercials should pique the listener's interest
about a truly versatile floor-mopping product.
The voice can take on a Generation X spokesperson role,
but be cautious about sounding authoritative.
The goal is to inform not to push.
The product is being sold at select retailers
along the east coast of Canada,
so listeners are being prompted to visit the website
for details emphasizing the website is critical.
All right, I'm excited to jump into audition one.
Aurelia, we know she's ready.
Oh, yeah.
And here we go.
Gone are the days of using disposable mopping pads.
Dreamsteam machine-washable mopping pads
are an environmentally friendly mopping pad
that can be used on all types of flooring.
Its one-size-fits-all functionality
makes it easy to adjust to fit any popular floor mop
on the market today.
Visit dreamsteam.ca to find a retailer near you.
All right.
All right, take us away, Aurelia.
What do you think?
So my initial thought, I actually
went to the other auditions to check the timing,
because I thought maybe they just wanted 15 seconds,
because they were zooming.
So my first thought was to just slow down a bit,
especially if we're trying to approach the Gen Z style,
or it's just a little bit more laid back.
It almost sounded a bit like legal copy.
So I can only imagine if we had some legal after,
how fast that would be.
So my first initial thought I wrote was slow down.
They can speed it up if they need to,
or they can reach out and say, hey,
could you do this a little faster?
But I think it's important when I'm auditioning,
it's like I take up my space.
If it says it's going to be 30 seconds,
and I feel like I'm getting close to that 28, 29,
I'm going to go for that, as opposed
to let me try to push it as tight as possible,
because I actually lost the name of the company, which
means I lost the website of the company.
I couldn't really tell what was the name of the company,
because everything was going so fast.
Because I think people forget that we see the script,
but the audience doesn't.
And let's say, for instance, this is radio.
They also don't see the product.
So we have to slow down.
Like if I'm talking about McDonald's or something,
I'm like, ooh, those golden, juicy.
Like I had to make sure you remember those nuggets
for any of my 80s, 90s babies.
You remember those nuggets back in the day.
With the sweet and sour sauce, and you mixed it,
you dipped it in, it was fabulous.
So just making sure that I always say,
give the product its flowers.
Make sure that you give it that moment,
even if it's a beat before.
It's the way you emphasize the name,
so that at least when I finish listening to it,
maybe I'm in the car and I didn't have a chance
to write it down, the name of the company sticks with me.
I also noticed that the words mopping pad
kept being said the exact same way,
which is usually what we do when we're reading something.
Interesting.
So if I'm mad at someone, I'm like,
I can't believe they did that.
I mean, I really can't believe they did that.
Could you believe they did that?
I say it three different ways,
because I'm processing it different ways.
So just being aware that if a script has the same words
over and over, to try to vary it up a bit.
So if the sentence starts with here,
I'll say here, here, here,
just to give it a little bit of flavor,
because that's what we do naturally when we speak.
Love it.
You have more?
Oh, absolutely.
Go ahead, yep.
I really think it's important to let the words affect you.
When I hear words like easy,
I'm like, man, that test was easy.
Words like that should affect us
and give us an opinion as we're saying them or all types.
So that as you're saying all,
I'm thinking about what types of floors
do I have in the house?
So that means that they'll definitely more than likely
be able to, I'll be able to use that product in my home.
So yeah, I missed the name.
I missed the website
because everything was just going so fast.
And I think sometimes speed can read
as lack of connection to the script.
And I mean, I think it makes sense.
Like I'm assuming the person that audition
does not work for this company may not use this product.
So I more so would think about who someone in my life,
who makes my life easier,
who I can call on for all aspects of things
that I have going on.
And then I think about that person
as I'm sharing this information with someone.
So just finding your own personal connection
because most of the time you're not a car salesman,
you don't work at Target, you're not a school teacher.
So you have to find your own ways to connect.
Yeah, that's great.
I really felt like I was watching a late night infomercial
where you have 10 seconds
and it's like you're getting as much as you can
in on that 10 seconds.
And it was so fast for me
that I actually just couldn't process.
I couldn't, I heard the words,
but they weren't processing in my brain.
So it was really tough for me to absorb anything.
Right, right, right.
It was going so fast.
I was like, I wanted to catch it
because the voice quality was beautiful.
It just almost felt like this, it was done
and then the tempo was turned up.
So everything was going at lightning speed.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
I feel like this individual definitely went
for like the speed up version.
And this talent, what I like about what they did
is they actually, they made a decision.
They said, I'm gonna do a quick read
and it's like they're planting their flag.
They're saying, hey, this is the decision that I'm making.
And if you like it, you'll like it.
And if you don't, well, I tried.
I think from a casting perspective,
it's really important to remember that
we listened to 70 of these auditions
before we sent this short list off to you.
And a lot of them started to sound the same.
So for this individual, they made a decision
and that's what I liked.
And maybe it didn't hit the mark
for what we want artistically.
But I think it's important to know that
if you're a talent and you have an idea
and a creative decision to make about a script,
that you take that decision and you run with it
because that's gonna make you stand out
from the other 70 auditions.
And personally, I think even if you don't get that job,
you made the decision, you stuck out, you're memorable.
So maybe they have a new job in the future.
Oh, who was that person that did that really quick read?
Right, when they need something that is 15 seconds.
Exactly.
They're like, oh, I know who can deliver that.
Absolutely.
And I really do believe in that.
I'll be the last person to say, what do I think they want?
That's a waste of time.
Time's more important than money.
You can't get it back.
I'm not gonna waste time thinking about what you want.
Who am I?
How do I see this script?
And maybe they were thinking, oh, it's Gen Z.
I've gotta move quickly to keep their attention.
Mm-hmm.
But whatever it was, like you said, it still stood out.
I'm still gonna keep that person in my file.
So to me, I think that was a much,
I think that was a stronger choice
than to go with a safe read.
Mm-hmm, for sure.
And I'm just curious, what do you think about
that style of read for this type of product?
Like, and is there a place for reading fast like that?
Maybe not on socials, like if it's for Gen Z,
like we're gonna put this on on socials.
Maybe that doesn't hit for socials,
but it definitely gave me that,
like Tara said, like that infomercial feel.
So do you think there is a place for that type of read?
And where do you think it would belong?
I think we just needed a little bit more variation.
Okay.
Because now we lost the product name.
That means all I'm thinking about now is a mopping pad.
So if I'm in Target and I see a mopping pad,
I'm like, oh yeah, I did hear this commercial,
but I don't remember what the name was,
especially because I can't pick it up in store.
I have to order it online.
So I think if we could have just slowed down
right at the name and right at the website,
which was a clear direction,
I think this could be anywhere
because I definitely would have tuned in.
And when I would have heard the product twice,
nice and slow, I would have said,
oh, this is a really interesting different take
on selling a product.
Let me look it up.
Wow, I love that.
So it's not necessarily the speed was a mistake.
It's more, you would have loved more emphasis
on the product, make the product more memorable.
And definitely just mopping pad
should not sound like mopping pad every time.
Right, because that's the only word I really understood
because I've never heard of this company.
So I just keep hearing mopping pad, mopping pad.
Now I know I've got mopping pads on my mind,
but from where I can't remember where
and I can't, unfortunately, I can't rewind
like you can in an audition.
Yeah, there's no brand recognition,
which as a marketer, that's our whole goal
is we want that brand recognition
and we will repeat the same thing over and over
because it takes a mind time to absorb
and they need to hear that repetition numerous times
in order for it to sink in.
So like you said, if they're just hearing mopping pad,
well, there's probably in Target alone,
10 different mopping pads they can choose from.
So if it goes to our competitor,
that's a big brand issue.
Absolutely.
That's so interesting, so interesting.
Okay, let's jump into our second audition.
Gone are the days of using disposable mopping pads.
Bye-bye, but Dreamsteam machine washable mopping pads
are an environmentally friendly mopping pad
that can be used on all types of flooring.
It's one size fits all functionality,
makes it easy to adjust to fit
any popular floor mop on the market today.
Visit dreamsteam.ca to find a retailer near you.
Okay, I liked that he added in that bye-bye.
It was not in the script, but it fit with the voice,
it fit with the personality, but what are your thoughts?
No, I totally agree.
Sometimes I'll throw a word in in the beginning,
like girl, especially if I know it's like something
that's in the realm of like hair care or beauty products.
That's how I talk.
If I call my friend, I don't start with,
there is this product that I know, my girl, listen.
So I love that he just threw that in.
I actually went to check the other ones
and was like, was that in there?
And I liked that it wasn't the beginning,
I would have loved, gone are the days of,
like just a little bit stronger of an opinion
so that that bye-bye stuck out.
It all kind of felt like,
da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na.
It all had that same,
if he had really leaned into like,
sometimes I'll wave like in the booth,
like gone are the days of da-da-da, bye-bye.
It just would have made that pop even more,
but I definitely would have shortlisted this
because I absolutely loved that he took a risk.
I think sometimes when we get caught
in the what do I think they want,
50 people send in the same thing because they're,
so my thought sometimes too is like,
okay, who stereotypically would they assume
are mopping in the house, the mom?
So throwing in those cute little cheeky things,
like bye-bye, I'm like, oh, that was kind of cute.
What's this commercial about?
So I felt like he was also leaning into like,
or if it's Gen Z talking like,
mom, did you hear this commercial?
It was so nice.
They said bye-bye and it,
like I would add that into the script
if they had enough time to do it.
Being aware of commenting on a word,
this is something we say in theaters,
like if you say your line
and then you do like a little kind of action,
it felt like each time he went to say easy and any,
there was like this abrupt,
it almost was like when you edit
a little bit of a word by accident,
it was like, easy, all.
Easy and all can do their work all by themselves.
Let the words work for you.
It just felt almost like the words were clipped
in the beginning, like a fade-in kind of happened
and it just kind of was abrupt.
Those were the only things that caught my ear.
And then just the ending that near you,
maybe just a little bit of a shrug with it,
it kind of ended, it didn't land,
it didn't necessarily go up, it kind of stayed flatline,
which just felt a little bit like I'm reading a script
and everything else just felt,
the pacing was really, really nice.
They presented the problem in the beginning,
they presented the solution at the end.
I just wanted that ending,
I would have probably suggested for them to do an ABC
on that last line and then just choose the one
that flowed with the rest of it the best.
Cause the ending just felt, I just missed that,
but I would totally bring them in and then say,
hey, can you just land the plane a bit on that last line?
Easy.
Interesting.
So when you say you would bring the person in,
how often do you find clients are doing that
where they're listening to an audition
and there may be one or two tweaks that they wanna make,
are they gonna take the time in general
to bring the talent in and say,
hey, I really loved the audition,
but can you make these few tweaks?
Or will they normally go with a talent
that gets it like 99% correct the first time?
I think, well, it depends on how people feel
about something because 99% could also be,
I said all the words, I said them at a nice pace,
but the energy behind it, chemistry can't be denied.
You either feeling it or you're not,
which is why for me personally,
like if a script says want to, going to,
I say wanna and gonna because that's gonna flow better
for me when you hear it than me saying,
I was going to the store and I'm going to store.
And I wanna do this, not I want to do,
or this is important.
No, it's important, don't ask me how to spell it,
but that's how I was raised saying it,
that's how I'm gonna say it.
So I think for something like the ending,
that was enough for me to bring the person in for the job.
When I did, one of the first jobs I did for Vivint,
they, I mean, I was in the booth doing all types of shoes
in my body so much.
And then when I came in, they said they loved it,
they just said, let's just turn it down a hair.
I think if you go the furthest,
whatever you think is far for you,
they'll always be willing to dial it back.
But if you don't give them enough to work with,
then they can just move on to the next person,
especially if you're somewhere
in those higher numbers of submitting.
The higher up, I say the more risk you better take
because that's where you really wanna stand out.
And they may have already listened to the other ones
and they're still looking for something
they haven't heard yet.
So I don't think they always know what they're looking for,
but they can't deny the chemistry of the ear.
Yeah, I absolutely love all those comments.
And I just also wanna just reiterate that again,
this talent made a decision.
So, and that's again.
That's the biggest challenge.
I always say I coach people to be themselves.
Nice.
And that's great because again,
that's what's gonna stand out in the sea of 70 auditions.
And stepping into the casting role,
it's like we want that.
We don't want to hear the same thing.
And I love what you're saying about,
don't think about what I want.
Because this whole time, yeah, the beginning of the show,
we read the artistic direction,
but how much should we actually talk about that, right?
Like we're thinking about like, what is speaking to us?
Like, and it's kind of hard to just put that in words
and put that into an artistic direction
because I don't know who's gonna jump on the job.
And yeah, I don't know who's gonna,
and what they can bring to the table.
I don't know.
So I'm gonna give you a few pointers
and maybe these pointers are putting you
in the right direction.
But I'm not an expert casting director,
but I feel like I can safely say that it happens all the time
where people put stuff in an artistic direction
and then maybe someone comes in there
and just sweeps you off your feet.
It's like dating.
Oh, I want that person to be six foot tall, chocolate.
I want this.
And then somebody walks in the total opposite.
They open in my, I feel like, oh my gosh, this is the one.
You can't deny it.
And I think if the person knew exactly what they wanted,
they know who they've previously worked with.
They'll just go hire that person.
I've done that a lot with dubbing.
They'll just call me back in for the same actress,
for the same, like, because then it cuts out that.
So if they're doing an audition, to me,
that means they're looking for me.
And if they think they know what they want,
I have the confidence to believe
that I can change their mind
unless I'm what they're looking for.
Then we won't change their mind.
We're gonna go with the flow.
But yeah, I really felt like this talent
made a really strong opinion with that bye bye.
It's gonna stick out.
I'm gonna, if anything,
I'm gonna keep that person in mind for the next thing.
Cause I know when we're,
also when we're in a directed session,
I believe in directed sessions really being collaborative.
I consider myself also a director in there
because I'm directing, I can only,
no one in the room can direct my voice better than me.
And so they may have said like,
hey, do you want me to keep that bye bye in there?
Like, oh yeah, we loved it.
Let's throw that in there.
Or the client really liked it,
but unfortunately due to time,
we can't throw it in there.
For sure.
Yeah, and I think the only other thing that I noticed
is sometimes we put the space between sentences
instead of just leaving the space in the sentence.
So if I'm talking with someone,
I'm not like, oh my God, it's so crazy what had happened today.
I'm like, oh my God, it's so crazy what happened today.
I put the space in the sentence versus in between.
Because we don't talk like that.
I always like to do my auditions as if I wrote the script.
So if I wrote the script, I may, I leave space,
but then I'll tighten it up.
And if I'm listening back and I'm waiting for the next line,
I'm waiting for my own voice,
I'm assuming that casting will be waiting as well.
There's just that little feeling you get,
like when you're on a call and all of a sudden
you don't hear the person,
you're like, you there?
I like to just give, so sometimes I'll reread it
while it's playing before I submit it.
And I'll check to see like, was there a moment,
I don't want it to be super fast
where you can tell that it's like really tightly edited,
but enough space that a person could take in what I said
and then boom, we're on to the next.
Love it.
Yeah, that's great, thank you.
Okay, let's move on to audition number three.
Gone are the days of using disposable mopping pads.
DreamStream machine washable mopping pads
are an environmentally friendly mopping pad
that can be used on all types of flooring.
It's one size fits all functionality,
makes it easy to adjust
to fit any popular floor mop on the market today.
Visit dreamstream.ca to find a retailer near you.
Gone are the days of using disposable mopping pads.
DreamStream machine washable mopping pads
are an environmentally friendly mopping pad
that can be used on all types of flooring.
It's one size fits all functionality,
makes it easy to adjust
to fit any popular floor mop on the market today.
Visit dreamstream.ca to find a retailer near you.
All right, so pretty strong audition, I would say,
my opinion.
Yes.
Aurelia, take us away.
My first initial thought was like,
that voice just stood out to me.
It wasn't an announcer voice.
It was that person's true authentic sound.
But I felt like the second take felt more them
than the first take.
The first take felt like, what does the casting want?
The second take felt like, what do I wanna deliver?
Even just in the opening first section,
I felt like they really connected in the second take,
which is often, so I would have just switched the takes
and did that one.
I know some people say, like,
no, give them what they want in the first take,
but then once again, if everyone's thinking that same thing,
we're all emphasized.
I can tell sometimes in a script,
what words everyone's gonna emphasize.
It's sometimes very obvious,
but I wanna give them the unobvious choice.
So I really felt like the second one went against the grain,
and because they have such a profound voice,
everything they say is so profound.
So they don't have,
I just felt like they could have sat back a little bit
because their voice already was doing the work.
They're one of those people that can say,
like, have a good day.
And it just felt like you were on the pride,
you know, on the rock of the Pride Land of the Lion King.
I'm like, oh my gosh, this person just said,
have a good day.
So I just felt like they could have just sat back
a little bit.
Towards the end, the cadence got the same.
There was a little rhythm that was going,
and we don't talk, it's just going back to,
we don't talk like that.
We don't talk like that.
We don't talk like that.
If we, I think it's so important sometimes too,
what I'll do is like, if I'm talking with a friend,
I'll record myself.
Just to listen to, how do I sound
when I'm having a conversation?
Because that's what we're doing.
We're not selling products for all my Apple people.
When you go into an Apple store,
I don't know how they do it at Google,
but when you go to an Apple store,
they don't sell you a product.
They tell you about it.
Here's the iPhone, it connects to the computer,
it connects to your watch.
You feel like, you could be like,
hey, when you get off, do you want to grab lunch?
It's so casual.
And that's part of their marketing strategy,
is that if you think of that versus like,
going to a used car sales place sometimes,
they're like, oh my gosh, this is the best car
you'll never find.
And then like the seats are all ripped up
and the engine's a mess.
And there's an authenticity that comes
with just being relaxed.
So I felt like if they would have just dialed back a bit,
we would have lost that cadence that was happening,
particularly toward the end.
It just kind of turned my ear off a little bit.
But the sound of the voice,
I would absolutely hire this person on another job
because I felt like that voice is gonna get noticed.
So I may even say, if it comes down
between them and someone else,
and I'm like, man, but their voice gets noticed,
I may still go with them.
Wow, yeah, I feel like what the thing
that I personally really liked about this audition
was just, it's an environmentally friendly,
like just the way-
Yeah, those little moments.
That first cadence felt like to me,
it just felt really strong.
It's almost like the way he said,
environmentally friendly,
felt like a solution to a problem I didn't even know I had.
Right, I didn't even know that the mopping pads
could be not environmentally friendly.
Let me go research that.
Yeah, exactly.
And it's definitely like a thing that can make you feel good
about the product that you're buying.
So he really lead into that, which I loved.
But also what you said about just a repeating type of rhythm,
a repeating cadence,
it's almost like I didn't know what lost me
in the second half, but you nailed it for me.
So thanks for shining a light on that.
It kind of felt like comedy.
It had a beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat.
But I think that honestly, like I still would have,
or I would have messaged and said,
hey, could you just give it to me one more time?
But let's just make sure X, Y, and Z.
I think it would have been worth that.
And the way they said the name of the product
was the first time that I was like, oh, that's the name.
Okay, let me go.
It not only was clear, but it was interesting.
Yeah, it's almost like in his audition,
you can tell that he's probably directable, right?
Right, yeah, yeah.
Absolutely, and people don't think you can tell that,
but that's, and I think being directable is not just like,
can I take direction, but am I confident enough
when I'm in the directed session,
if they say like, hey, could you do this another way,
not to get caught in your head?
Because I think a lot of times,
most directed sessions you'll go on,
they will ask for the last line three times.
That's pretty standard.
To be able to get out of your head,
and because when you're in your head,
the first two sound the same,
and then the third one, you're like,
did I just do that out loud?
But when you have that confidence coming into the room
of like who you are,
and you allow your mind to just kind of relax for a second,
that really makes you really good with directed sessions
because they wanna know,
they wanna be able to feel comfortable enough,
because not everyone that's on a directed session
is a director, let's be honest.
Sometimes there's someone just in the company
taking the spot, so you want everyone in the room
to feel comfortable.
So the more the voiceover talent comes in
with their superpower, like I know what I'm doing,
the more they can kind of relax
and sometimes let you take the lead.
So this audition was the only audition
of our shortlist that had two takes.
And you had just mentioned that usually the client
will ask for the last line to be read three times.
So if someone does wanna do two takes,
would you recommend they do the full read
and then just read that last line a few times,
or how would you recommend if someone does choose
to do more than one take in their audition,
what that looks like?
Right, I think if the script is 20 seconds or under,
I would definitely say do two takes if you have
two different opinions.
That's a skill in and of itself,
is to take the same words that you know these words,
but they're not in an order you've ever said them
and make them sound like yours twice.
It's like telling a story to a friend twice
and varying it up.
Now does it have to be completely different,
but if they sound so similar,
I say pick the one that you feel is the strongest,
because especially if it's a higher paying job,
more people are auditioning, we're moving.
I may not have even listened to that second take,
unfortunately.
So I would say if you're gonna do two takes,
if you're gonna play with speed,
maybe you're playing with the audience
that you wanna engage, maybe you throw in a word or two.
I usually do one take because if I feel really strongly
about a second opinion, I'll do it twice,
but usually I'm a one take, two take, Tina.
Set it and forget it.
That's such good advice.
Because then 56 takes later, you're like,
oh yeah, that was the one, it's not.
Number six was the one, probably.
That's so great.
Okay, let's move on to audition number four.
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Okay, so I liked this audition,
but it felt to me that he was really speaking
from the back of his voice and he was running out of breath.
What do you, how do you feel about it, Aurelia?
Agreed, I felt like it almost felt a little put on.
Like it was their voice with some extra like
trying to connect to the Gen Z,
which I think is what turns them off probably the most.
It's like, they want you and you're most like authentic way.
The main thing I noticed is right
when we got to about 14 seconds,
it got a little stuck in that upper register
and I felt like they couldn't come back down.
It was like too late, you know, it was like a roller coaster.
They were already going up and it was like,
well, there's only one place to go.
So I just felt like they got a little stuck up there.
So I think sometimes, well, not sometimes,
our voice isn't for every product, right?
That's, we don't, we don't not book something
because our audition wasn't good.
It just may not be the voice
that they want to put to the product.
So I felt like if I had to put this
on a Harley-Davidson commercial
or something with cars, something fat,
like it would have been a no-brainer.
I would have said, hey, just get on top of your voice
just a little bit more.
Don't feel the need to go up in that higher register
and I probably would have direct booked them.
I just think sometimes our voice doesn't lend
to the script and that's fine.
Yeah, he kind of has, I would say,
like a raspy quality to his voice.
And when you said like Harley-Davidson,
I'm like, oh yeah, like maybe, yeah, he could definitely-
Come on down.
This week, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna go.
I mean, I don't ride motorcycles,
but I can put the brain-
I would have got a jacket or something.
I definitely would have bought a jacket.
Yeah, leather jacket.
Yeah, I can definitely like put that product in my mind
and like put that voice in my mind.
I'm like, oh yeah, that's just it.
It's like he made the decision.
He put his voice out there.
And if I know somebody in Harley-Davidson
and I'm a casting director and they're putting on an ad,
I can be like, oh, hey, I think I remember this guy
that we had for this product.
He wasn't a good fit, but how about this one?
And-
Right.
Yeah, we don't need to go over that again,
but it's just putting yourself out there.
You don't know the types of opportunities
that it can open you up to.
And that's one of the challenging things about voiceover
and I would say most creative industries is just,
because you can't predict the future,
you don't know what's gonna happen.
You don't know who's gonna hear you.
And that's also what makes it so exciting.
No, absolutely.
I think sometimes you can also choose
not to do an audition.
There's times where I have so many recordings
where I'll start the first line and I'm like, nope.
Because my idea is like, if I'm not connecting to this,
I know there's already somebody
who even with a baseline connection,
it's gonna just sound, it's gonna just have,
I wanna make sure I'm also doing a product justice.
Yeah, the money's great, but it's my voice.
Like sometimes, I mean, I think we forget
like in a directed session,
like no one's gonna say when they hear the spot,
like, oh man, those directors in that session,
no, they're gonna say something about the voice.
So I wanna make sure, so sometimes I will skip an audition,
even if it pays very well,
if I just don't feel connected,
because I do believe that there's enough gold
out here for everyone.
And sometimes if we take every single audition,
it's because we're scared.
So we're just throwing everything at the wall,
hoping something sticks, hoping something flows.
But I think you also have the option,
being a Superman, superwoman, superperson,
is to pick and choose the auditions that you wanna do.
Because I think sometimes on this side of the mic,
we can feel powerless.
Like we're constantly begging for a job.
And no, I have just as much power on my side
as they do on their side.
And you'll hear it when I audition.
Yeah, that is such a powerful message
because I think a lot of voice actors,
especially when they're starting out,
they just audition for every single audition that comes up
and they do lose themselves.
And I mean, we hear it on our end too.
We post jobs as a client would at voices.
And you can really tell,
it's like your comment Aurelia on that first audition
to really bring yourself into the audition.
Don't worry about what the client wants
or what you think they want you to sound like,
sound like your authentic self.
And that will book you the gig
if you're the right voice for that product.
Absolutely, I always relate most things to dating.
It's like if you come to the table,
like I wanna be exactly what this person's looking for.
And I've been there, okay, am I calling myself out?
It did not work, that's not who I'm married to.
I came to the date, got in a little altercation.
I'm in front of the Bronx, what you gonna do?
But I came there as my true authentic self.
And he still put a ring on it.
So if you see this like dating,
you will come to the mic being who you are.
Maybe you don't wanna date this person and that's okay.
Maybe you don't wanna do this product and that's okay.
It's not about the quantity of auditions.
I know it's more auditions we do the more we book.
But it's about the quality.
Will Smith talked about in his book,
it's not about he was building a wall all summer.
It wasn't about building the wall,
it was about putting each brick down as perfectly as possible.
So every audition I do, if I don't end going,
ooh girl, you ate that, that was cute.
I probably won't submit it because I just,
I know the competition out there.
And I'm like, if someone even cared 50% more than I did,
they're probably gonna get the job.
And because I believe there's enough gold out there
for everyone, I'm like, you know what?
Someone else deserves this one.
Let me keep it moving.
I'm just curious, do you think there is a place for,
cause we have lots of different perspectives on voices
and we've talked to lots of different voice actors.
And some people will say audition for everything.
And if you're asking me, I think if you're just starting out,
maybe that makes sense.
Like, you know, you're trying to get the process down
and you're trying to, you know,
you're trying to like get your mic technique right.
You're trying to get your audio editing technique right.
Like those types of things,
I think there is value for trying every audition.
Yeah, maybe it doesn't speak to you.
You know, you don't get that feeling,
that connection that you're talking about.
But those practice, maybe they're just practice auditions,
but is there a place for trying everything?
And when is that?
Well, I think for starting off,
you also don't have the pressure.
You don't have to have the pressure to submit it.
I can just use an audition to practice my editing.
I think editing is the most important thing.
When I tell people like how many auditions
back in the day I could do in an hour,
it was blowing their mind.
But it's because my hands were moving faster
than my brain could even do.
So I think when we start thinking about submitting,
when you first start, sometimes you'll put that voice on
and you'll do 15 takes because you think
that you're trying to find that sound.
But I would rather do 10 auditions a day
and maybe I'll submit two.
But the other eight, I was just working on editing.
I was just working on my sound quality, my booth quality.
To me, my time is valuable.
You will not find my time at the dollar store.
It's at Neiman Marcus, it's expensive.
I'm focusing on musical theater,
I'm doing my life coaching.
I don't do this full time.
I give it my full time attention.
That's the difference.
Someone once told me that I couldn't compete with people
who do this full time.
But when you give it full time attention,
they can't tell the difference.
Nice.
And sometimes it's even better because you get,
it's like you get to step away from it for a second
and then come back in.
And sometimes there's days where I don't want to audition,
I just don't want to.
But I find the more I put that little space in between
and go do other things and not sit and wait for the statistics
to tell me like if I got how I'm doing,
then when I come back, I'm like doing it full force.
I'm excited, I've got a smile on my face,
I'm doing it with joy.
And I'll book it over the person that's sitting at the booth
eight hours a day, cranking them out.
To me, I'm past the place of doing work just for money.
I'm not afraid to leave money on the table.
I'm not.
Because when I'm going after it, I'ma get it.
So your audition better be good
because mine's gonna be slamming.
That's so good.
So powerful, every voice actor needs to hear that,
every human needs to hear that.
Don't be afraid to leave money on the table.
That's real power.
Wow.
Yeah, that's amazing.
You're making editing this for me really easy.
You can just, got my pointers.
You can replay that clip over and over and over again.
Turn it into a script.
Don't be afraid to leave money on the table.
We'll get you backup dancers, lights, it's all.
It's happening.
Yeah, it's gonna happen.
Okay, let's move on to our last audition.
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All right.
All right, take us away.
Well, one thing I would say, I love the energy.
That was the first thing that caught my attention.
What got tricky though is that we started at a 10.
When you start at a 10, we have nowhere to go.
So we kind of got stuck in that like high energy
that I forgot what the product was
or what we were talking about.
Now, if this would have been advertisement
for an event coming up and they're listing every event
and we're keeping that flow going,
but I lost the product, the voice overtook it.
And so if you think about like an argument,
if you watch a show, the argument never starts at a 10.
I hate you.
It starts with, so you didn't do the dishes again.
And then it goes somewhere.
So I think if we would have just kind of eased
into it a little bit more,
because once we got up there, we stayed up there
and it just, it kind of turned my ear off a little bit.
I think there were really great choices.
I saw also some of those pauses
that made me kind of lean in and say like,
oh snap, did I press pause or something?
So just making sure that we're tightening that up
and putting that space into the sentences.
It was moving, so it wasn't moving too fast
that I couldn't understand it,
but it was at such a high register
and stayed there that I couldn't understand it.
Because our brains don't hear everything one noted
because no one really talks to us one noted.
If you think about like the guy that used to be for dry,
red eyes, like someone like that,
you knew that voice because it was all one note.
But generally we speak in color
and it just felt a little black and white,
but it was like the amp was turned all the way up.
So I think if they'd have done another take,
I just would have eased into it a bit more
so that we had somewhere to go.
Yeah, I love that.
It's just, and it's almost like a song, right?
Like you don't start a song with like all the instruments.
With the high note, right?
If you go to an audition, you don't start,
I mean, you might, that's fear sometimes.
You don't usually start with like the biggest thing
that beat drops in a little bit later so that we had,
yeah, it's taking us on a journey.
We got to the destination and then we went backwards
and we got kind of stuck.
Yeah, I mean, it is a bit of an art like building that ramp
up to like the climax or to the peak of the ad.
And that's a really challenging thing to do
in like 20 seconds, tell a story in 20 seconds,
but also that's kind of the world we're living in today
is if you're scrolling through Instagram,
you're on social media or you're listening to an ad,
like that attention is so short.
So you got to find a way, tell the story
and tell it quick and make it engaging.
And it's the name of the game, I guess.
And I do that a lot with my life coaching clients.
I'm like, concise, be concise.
It's really about not trying to impress people,
just be impressive.
Yeah, I love that.
Don't try to impress, just be impressive.
So when I ask you, tell me about yourself,
I don't need this long drawn out story.
My name is Aurelia Michael Holmgren.
I'm from the Boogie Down Bronx, New York,
currently living in sunny LA.
And I do whatever I feel like doing every day.
That's amazing.
Whatever I choose is my current occupation.
So just getting to that point,
because sometimes we can feel like we're defending ourselves
in an audition or like explaining ourselves,
but no, just dive right into it and allow it to build.
That's why I tell my clients to read out loud,
because that's all we're doing is telling a story.
If a really good book started with who dies at the end.
It's not a really good book.
You don't have a book anymore.
If you start a new TV series with the last episode,
it can only get so much better when you watch
for the beginning because you already know.
So I would have just suggested that this person just ramp,
could I just ramp into it a little bit more,
instead of just boom, hitting us at a 10.
Maybe starting around a six, seven.
But very solid effort, I would say, from the talent.
Engaging caught my ear, stood out from the 70.
So good on this individual.
But, you know, there can only be one Aurelia.
So we're gonna pass it over to you.
And...
Jeff will add a drum roll.
Yeah, we'll get the drum roll.
Hold on, now I need to think.
Okay, I'm good.
I'm ready.
That was quick.
You made it seem like you needed some time.
I know, like I really,
I just needed to see my sheet real quick.
And that's casting, everybody.
That's just what happens sometimes.
It's just a feeling.
But Aurelia, who is the winner?
Which audition?
And the winner is...
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It's one size fits all functionality,
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any popular floor mop on the market today.
Visit dreamsteam.ca to find a retailer near you.
Thank you so much, Aurelia.
Thank you so much for everyone who auditioned.
We had 71 auditions for this episode.
So that was amazing.
Oh, magical.
Yeah, it was,
we keep seeing these auditions get higher and higher,
which is so great.
And thank you everyone for tuning in.
This was a really, really fun audition,
or a really, really fun mission audition.
I feel like we got voiceover coaching.
We got some life coaching.
So thank you.
It's all the same thing.
I can't tell sometimes which one I'm doing
when we're in the session.
I love it.
It was great.
I mean, for me,
I feel like I just had an amazing therapy session.
So I'm leaving here feeling like a 10.
I'll be billing you later, don't worry.
Don't worry, Jeff will take care of that.
There you go.
Okay, so Aurelia, can you tell us,
how can our talent get in touch with you?
Yes, absolutely.
So my personal social media is aureliamichael.com
at Aurelia Michael on Instagram and Facebook.
And if you're looking to get connected
to an incredible community, all are welcome.
Ourvoiceondemand.com, Voice on Demand on Facebook,
and Our Voice on Demand on Instagram.
Feel free to email us at hello at ourvoiceondemand.com.
Amazing, thank you so much again, Aurelia.
I learned so much today.
And listeners, if you wanna brush up on your skills,
we have so many scripts that you can practice,
including today's, which is all at voices.com slash blog.
And for any additional resources from Aurelia,
feel free to follow and reach out to her on her socials.
Thank you all for tuning in to this episode
of Mission Audition.
My name is Jeff, and my amazing co-host is Tara.
And we're signing off.
Thanks, Aurelia.
See you next time.
Thank you.
Happy auditioning, everyone.
All right, that's our app.
You can hit stop on the recording.