How To Be Better in 2008

Stephanie Ciccarelli

November 27, 2007

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Join Voice Over Expert Rodney Saulsberry as he gives you 8 chores to pursue over the holiday season guaranteeing you a blockbuster New Year in his lecture “How To Be Better In 2008”. Rodney’s tips are empowering, revealing and insightful. Prepare now for the exciting adventures in the year ahead.

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Tags:

Rodney Saulsberry, Voice Acting, 2008, Chores, Voice Over Demos, Marketing, Scripts

Transcript of How To Be Better in 2008

Julie-Ann Dean: Welcome to Voiceover Experts brought to you by Voices.com, the number one voiceover marketplace. Voiceover Experts brings you tips, pearls of wisdom and techniques from top instructors, authors and performers in the field of voiceover. Join us each week to discover tricks of the trade that will help you to develop your craft and prosper as a career voiceover talent. It’s never been easier to learn, perform, and succeed from the privacy of your own home and your own pace. This is truly an education you won’t find anywhere else.
This week Voices.com is pleased to present Rodney Saulsberry.
The holiday season is approaching us quickly. You know, for as long as I can remember, I have used this time right around the thanksgiving to start thinking about next year. This holiday season, during that period of time between Christmas and New Year’s, when the whole business is down, when you are on vacation, you can have all of the cheer that you normally have. But this year, I want you to map out some time on your schedule to work on being better in 2008.
Here are eight things that you can work on. A new demo. Anyone who has ever taken one of my teleclasses or workshops knows how much I believe in updated demos. Your voice changes every year, the natural order of getting older changes your voice physically and your new experiences in life as well as your new jobs, your new auditions, they change the character of your voice. You should make a new demo, so that the industry can hear the new you in 2008.
Number two, tweak your home studio. For those of you who have home studios, take this time to assess your equipment. Take it to the next level with a better microphone or recording software. If you don’t have a studio, work on putting one together. You can go to my website, at www.rodneysaulsberry.com and go to the studio section to see what I use. There’s actually a ton of great information and advise about how to build your home studio online.
Here are some websites that I found helpful, www.peterdrewvo.com, www.harlanhogan.com, www.jamesalburger.com and www.debsvoice.com. A home studio is a must in today’s market.
Number three, improve your website. First and foremost, your website has to be clean and user-friendly. In other words, cut out the clutter and make it easy for a talent seeker to navigate your website. If you don’t have a website, use this holiday period to work on getting one. Yes, web designers will be on holiday too, I know, but you can take this time to visit other websites that you like and get ideas. So that when the working season is under way again, you’ll have a design plan to give to your web designer.
Number four, Update and improve your client and producer data base. This is one of the most important pieces of your voiceover arsenal. Your database, your email list of clients and producers. In many cases, this is how you will solicit work. Don’t just depend on your agent to get you work, compile a list of influential persons that you can e-mail your demo to on a regular basis.
Number five, review the business of the business.
Did you know that demos are shorter in length now? One minute for a commercial demo is lovely. If you must go on, a minute and 15 seconds is as long as you need to go. Anything more than that is pushing it. It’s important to know the business of the business.
Did you know that an mp3 is the industry’s standard for submitting demos over the internet? Recently, I have done several jobs where the producers just put the mp3 right on the air. Promos, trailers and commercials. Did you know that producers are now requesting voiceover resumes? Yes, just like actors and everyday office employees, we are now required to have a resume on hand if requested. Make sure to include any training that you have had, along with the list of your voice over credits.
Number six, read copy. The internet is full of websites that offer a variety of voiceover scripts. Voices.com has one of the best royalty free collections of voiceover scripts. Download their volume of 50 plus scripts and challenge yourself to be better in 2008. Use these scripts to make your new demo.
Number seven, look for new and unusual work opportunities. I believe that you establish a consistent monetary flow in our profession by coming up with new ways within the industry to supplement your voiceover career. Did you know that you can read station IDs for radio stations? It’s called radio imaging. Did you know that you can read voice prompts for businesses and websites? You can do podcasts, language translations, and video games. If you give it some thought, you can come up with employable voiceover ideas and convince some business, like your church or neighborhood recreation center to hire you to do it.
Number eight, voiceover trends. It was during the holiday season of the year 2003 when I realize that the latest trend in commercial voiceovers was the real person read. A conversational, relaxed approach was the way to go. So what I did is I sat home, I sat home that whole vacation. And everyday I listen to the radio, I watched and I listened to the television and I payed great attention to the reads.
As a result of that observation, as a result of practicing and working hard, in 2004, I had an exceptional year because I mastered the real person read. As a matter of fact, that is still the trend today. Another trend that I discovered during last year’s break in 2006 was the economizing of copy. I found that the voiceover in a commercial consisted of one to five lines on an average. That trend still stands today. I worked on the ability to get the intended point across with less copy during the holiday season last year.
Start making your voice over improvement plans today for this coming holiday season and be the best that you can be in 2008.
Julie-Ann Dean: Thank you for joining us. To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com podcast, visit the voiceover experts show notes at Podcasts.Voices.com/VoiceoverExperts. Remember to stay subscribed.
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Links from today’s show:

Rodney Saulsberry

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Rodney Saulsberry
Rodney Saulsberry is the author of the best sellers, You Can Bank on Your Voice and Step up to the Mic. The voice of Twix Candy Bars, Toyota Avalon and the Zatarain’s Jazzman, is also in demand worldwide for his voice-over coaching and commercial workshops. For more than two decades the Detroit native and University of Michigan graduate has given voice to many movie trailers such as, Finding Forrester, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Dumb and Dumberer, The Best Man, and Friday After Next. As an announcer, he has worked on the NAACP Image Awards and the Essence Awards television specials. Saulsberry, the voice of Joe Robbie Robertson on the cartoon series Spider-Man, resides in Agoura, California.
Rodney also has an upcoming three week Commercials Teleclass. Learn more about Rodney’s teleclasses by visiting his website, RodneySaulsberry.com.

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