Doing Voice Over in Your Retirement with Brad Avenyou

Brad Avenyou:
You stop time when they hear your voice in amongst the 200 other short clips of their script, and suddenly you stand out. It's your job to stop time when they hear your voice and you, and you're most likely to do that by being authentic.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
And that was the voice of Brad Giffin or Brad Avenue, depending on what he's up to. We're gonna talk about how a seasoned professional can take a broadcast career and turn it into a voice over career in their retirement. Take a listen. Well, hello Brad. Welcome to the show. So good to see you!

Brad Avenyou:
Stephanie, it's so good to be here. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Oh my gosh. Just always a lot of fun to see you, Brad. So we're grateful that you're here and to share your story. And you have a quite a, a long career in broadcast before you came into voice over, and you've made voiceover like your retirement career as well. So

Brad Avenyou:
Yeah.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Could you tell us just how, how did you, you know, get to where you are now? Because obviously this, this career in voiceover is as an extension of a 40 year career that began in broadcast.

Brad Avenyou:
Yeah. I really think you've hit the nail on the head exactly. There. It's an extension rather than a retirement career. It's really an extension of what I've been doing for almost 40 years, uh, starting off with radio. I was born in Toronto right out of a university drawn to radio, which led to radio stations in Central Ontario. And then I returned to Toronto three years later to begin a, a career as a commercial actor, followed by hosting a music programs with the CBC and City TV. One of those, uh, a daily show I hosted at the dawn of TV music videos called Toronto Rocks. And, uh, those are still on YouTube, some of the programs, some of the episodes. It was great fun back in those days in the eighties. Three years later, uh, uh, by happy accident, I was, uh, back to my first love radio, uh, when I was invited to join CHUM FM Toronto, which along with 1050 CHUM or two of the radio powerhouses in North America.

And in 1990, I made a major break from entertainment programming to transition to news as a reporter for Toronto's most watch Daily News Station, CFTO, uh, later known as CTV Toronto, three years later, with the help of, uh, the William Morris Agency and a helping hand for my friend John Roberts, who he and I worked at, uh, City TV. I was anchoring and reporting daily news, uh, newscasts, first with Fox News in Salt Lake City, uh, followed by ABC News in New Orleans, and later still ABC News in Sarasota, which is part of the top 10 Tampa TV market. And in 2008, uh, returned home to family in Toronto to Anchor News with CTV Toronto and Canada AM when it was still alive and running, and for 10 years, uh, CTV News Channel. But in 2015, after 25 years in news, I was ready for a change and I began considering retiring, the R word, but, you know, I was still too young to, to, to pack things in completely. And it dawned on me that one of my earliest loves, uh, voice and commercials and promos as part of my announcer duties with CHUM FM, uh, still appealed to me. So while I was still anchoring news with CTV News Channel, I quietly took acting classes, voice coaching business courses, to launch my career as a, as a voice talent three years later in 2018 when I said goodbye to news. And so now nine years as a voice talent, uh, the past five of those years, full-time. I love it, Stephanie. It's been great. And Voices.com has certainly been a, a huge, uh, help, uh, in, in my career as well.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Oh, thank you for sharing that. That is like an astounding, like I'm sure people are thinking, ‘wow, what an amazing career Brad's’ had and they're probably even like, ‘I know that voice. I know I've heard him before, I grew up with him’ or, or whatnot. Right. So I know that in your career when you were on TV and radio and like anchoring and doing all this stuff, like your name was Brad Giffin, that's your given name.

Brad Avenyou:
That's right.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Right?

Brad Avenyou:
Yeah.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
And so that's what people know you, but in voice over land, you're Brad Avenyou. So, uh, why don't you share a little bit about how you came to make that decision and why?

Brad Avenyou:
Well, the reason why was because primarily I didn't want casting directors, uh, to be mistaking the guy who was reading news as the guy who might be able to do something other than a news read. So primarily that was the reason. So that's what my agent, my agent, uh, that I was signed with at the time went with as well. So jobs began coming in as, uh, being directed to Brad Avenyou. That was a good thing. And, uh, even after I left news, of course, Brad Avenyou was established, so there was no point changing horses midstream. And, uh, so it has remained, but the, the simple reason why I chose Avenyou A V E N Y O U was simply because I live on Avenue Road in Toronto. And I thought in amongst all the other things, when you're establishing a, a business, gosh, the last thing you want to, oh, now what am I gonna call myself?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah.

Brad Avenyou:
You know? And I thought something that's going to end up at the top of most agents rosters, um, something that's easy to remember and for better or worse avenue. And, uh, and I thought, well, you know what? I live on Avenue Road, I'm just gonna make it avenue and just change the spelling of avenue to avenue, uh, to, to make it easy.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah.

Brad Avenyou:
Check that off the box and move on to one of the other things that are necessary in this establishing a business.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Well, how strategic, because you would be at the top of any alphabetized list,

Brad Avenyou:
Yes.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Like, you know, with your first name, but then with an avenue there, right. Like that. Right. That makes sense. I mean, everyone remembers back in school, roll call was always alphabetical order.

Brad Avenyou:
Right.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Like, you kinda knew that they'd sometimes reverse the order just to get things, you know, a little different

Brad Avenyou:
Yes.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
giving the kids at the end of the alphabet, a a leg up. But, um, you know, that, that's interesting. But also I think when we were talking before, um, you had mentioned, and you kind of talked about it a little bit just now, but how being a news anchor and a broadcaster, like you have a very, um, I would say like a persona that is, uh, it gives you the facts, the news. Mm. There's no bias, or at least that's what one would hope, right? In the world of news.

Brad Avenyou:
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
So you couldn't necessarily, you know, maintain like your personality, that name was, was so well known in, in the community, in the broadcast community and in our country, that you had to like say, okay, well Brad Giffin belongs to, you know, this channel and, and how people knew me, but because I wanna pursue voiceover and I wanna tell stories, I wanna get into the fun parts of the, the acting world. I, I can't necessarily bring the news anchor in with it too. So that was strategic.

Brad Avenyou:
Yeah. That was strategic in the sense that, again, I didn't want casting directors to think that a news read was the only thing that I could do, even though news channel was very, uh, relaxed and very natural. But, uh, the other aspect too, you know, was the con potential conflict of interest. I just became a different persona.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
And that is wise and smart, kinda like a stage name. Some people are more familiar with the idea of a stage name. It's, it seems like that might have been, but you have a business now, or that is your identity and that's what you're doing.

Brad Avenyou:
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
And, and that's really, really interesting, I think. So as we go along, and I know you have a long track record in, in the arts, and so just wanna ask you, um, what skills that you had developed during your broadcast career have you found useful in your career as a voice over talent?

Brad Avenyou:
That's a good question. I know my way around a mic, and I know my way around a camera. Uh, I guess in fact, I look back and I realize that just about every room I ever worked in, uh, since I was 20 years old, had at least one mic. And usually three or more studio cameras, news reporting, taught me the essential building blocks of good storytelling. Radio taught me the power of a microphone and the art of speaking to hundreds of thousands of people, but relating to them one by one, very, very important. Uh, radio's very, you know, intimate. The solitude of a studio where radio or television studios are prepared me for the extended periods of time that we spend in our voice booths at home. And I also sight read very quickly. So, you know, all those kind of skills came from doing what I did.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Sight reading, some people really don't like to have to just rip and read, right. And, but for you,

Brad Avenyou:
Oh yeah,

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
for you, that was something that just came naturally. And then

Brad Avenyou:
It’s a fact of life. Yeah.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, well just give us an idea, like, uh, just how often would something just appear in front of your face and you'd have to read it like right then and there and, and have just perfect delivery basically.

Brad Avenyou:
Back in the day, they used to actually write scripts and it would arrive to the anchor on hard copy, and the anchor or production assistant would bring in this sheaf of scripts into the studio, and the news anchor would sit down and adjust 'em, be ready to do the news. I don't think I ever did that, but it changed. And news became, instead of just, uh, you know, five or six o'clock and 11 o'clock at night, it became continuous.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Mm.

Brad Avenyou:
News gathering became continuous news. Presenting became continuous. And so consequently, there was no hard copy, for instance, at CTV News Channel, it would come up in the teleprompter, right? So you see in this teleprompter, essentially five lines of a story at a time. And you're just praying that they've got a good writer on this story, subject verb object, you know, sometimes it wasn't.

And, and, and it would scroll up and you would have to be natural in presenting it, not stumble. If that was part of your job, one of the great things is you would understand the story ahead of time because you are constantly researching. You're on top of the news at all times. And if you're doing news every
day, there's a certain, what I call an institutional knowledge of current events that builds up within you. So as soon as you see that story coming up in the, in the, in the rundown, you know, the basics of it, the who, what, when, where, and why of this story. So no matter what comes up in the prompter, you know
the basics of the story and if you have to, you can ad lib your way around some of the rough points. That's probably one of the greatest skills that contemporary news reading, because I had the old way when I was in Salt Lake City with Fox, for instance. It was, you know, the great big packet of scripts, but CTV, CTV News Channel, by the time I was there 2008, it was paperless and everything was immediate, fast. And, you know, hopefully accurate.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah, I'm sure I'm not the only one who's always wondered this, Brad. And maybe you can, you know, demystify it for us. But, but at the end of the newscast, the new, the end of the news broadcast and the anchor is sitting there and they're shuffling their papers and looking down, what are they actually doing? Cause you're like, they're just there and, and it's like, awkward moment camera hasn't cut yet. Like, what's going on like?

Brad Avenyou:
That? That's actually just theatrics. That that,

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Okay.

Brad Avenyou:
You know, so usually they go from the head-on shots one to, to an overhead shot. Yeah. At that point it's high and wide, and you've gotta be doing something. You've gotta do something. You can't just sit there looking at the camera you've been looking at. So you know, your attention is now going to be turning to the other things, um, you know, looking busy. Yeah. It's performative so's perform. It's performative.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
They gave you guys like ideas. Oh no, look over here. Shuffle the paper that way. Take a note. Look pensive.

Brad Avenyou:
Well, you know, and that, and that. And that's always built right into the end of the newscast too. And some, some news stations used to have that right up at the top too. Yeah. To say, look, this is a busy news anchor, and he is working right up to the last second. Oh yes. You know, changing or, you know, good evening everyone. This is the latest news from Cairo, you know, so, um, uh, it was, it was in fast, and that's, that top padding at the top with the shuffling of the papers ended pretty quickly so that they could get immediately to the news because they knew their competitors were getting straight into the news. So,

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Right on. And it's a continuous news cycle now, as you said. And there's the, the teleprompter and who knows what not in the studios these days. Yeah. But obviously a lot of great skills came out of that. I think a control of your voice, knowing how to, to share information, all of those wonderful things would translate as well. Mm. Um, so how much time and effort do you dedicate to voice over in developing your craft now?

Brad Avenyou:
My, my Business Avenue voice services is open nine to 9:00 AM Eastern time, Monday to Friday. And some, sometimes I'm around on weekends too. Um, this really is a, this really is a job. And, um, and it really has to be, I mean, I've put in whatever was necessary as a full-time gig. I'm working nine to nine
Monday to Friday, some weekends, as I mentioned. Uh, as much time and effort as necessary to make a, you know, voice a full-time career instead of just a paying hobby, if you know what I mean.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Avenyou:
Frequent coaching, promoting marketing, investing in my business, auditioning, working hard to develop multiple streams of voice income that now feature my three very hardworking agents, along with a handful of online casting sites of which Voices is an important one. And, uh, and of course, the projects that show up over the transom of my website, avsvoice.com, as any voice talent will tell you, you are a solopreneur who wears many hats to make voice a full-time career. So, you know, you have to treat it accordingly.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Absolutely. You do. So, and your days in the studio, when you, you got to work with all kinds of very expensive technology, you know, at the stations you were at. Um, did you find that inspired what you wanted to put in your own home studio?

Brad Avenyou:
No.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
No?

Brad Avenyou:
I think that's one of the, the biggest mistakes that I think beginning, uh, voice talent can do. They, they turn into gearheads and they think the the equipment is gonna make them better. No. Um, it's all about coaching and having a, a decent, sonically suitable area in your home to record. And it's as simple as that. If it sounds good, it probably is good. So, you know, but I, I, I know a lot of guys who buy, you know, all the shiny objects and bells and whistles. It won't make them better put that money into coaching, you know, so that's, uh, I, I, I was never really inspired by that, otherwise I'd have four cameras in here and, you know, a 15 foot ceiling. So

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Absolutely. Well, because everybody wonders about that ‘cause you're surrounded by amazing gear. Like, I'm just thinking my husband David, whom, you know, um, he, you know, went to this amazing recording, um, school and they just like, you know, pictures of the stuff you see in there, it looks like the Starship Enterprise, like it's crazy full out tech. But for someone to be able to afford any of these sort of things, like certainly 20, 30 years ago was just like, you just couldn't, like, unless you, you had hundreds of thousands of dollars to play around with, but

Brad Avenyou:
yeah, that's for sure.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
But these days, um, and, and as you've been in broadcast, you know that you just need the bare minimum for voice over.

Brad Avenyou:
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
you know, you don't need to have a humongous setup of any kind. No. And, and I think that's really important. So thanks for mentioning that and a shout out to any gearheads, we're kind of like going, but, but, you know,

Brad Avenyou:
But we've just saved them a couple of thousand of dollars. You know, and that's not to say that there's expenses associated with this. You know, you really do have to, along with time and effort, dedicate, um, you know, at least, oh, I'm gonna guess I know what I spent to set things up cost about $10,000.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Avenyou:
All right. Not insignificant, not huge, but not insignificant. And, uh, and I wanted to make sure that, that I was able to provide good quality voice, and so I bought what was necessary to do that, but no more.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Right.

Brad Avenyou:
And even to this day, I walk past Long & McQuaid and go, okay, look away. Look away.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah. Don't, don't go in there. Don't, don't. Yeah. I get you, that that store is dangerous, in a good way, but dangerous, because I, I sit down at one of those baby grand pianos and I'm like, ho ho, ho. I'm like, no. Probably not coming home with me today.

Brad Avenyou:
Yes. You are a trained singer. I think sh people should know, I think that you studied music in school, correct, Stephanie?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
I did, yes. At a, it's now called Western University, but it was University of Western Ontario when I was there. So, wonderful music school. But yes, absolutely. I think that anyone coming into voice over, be it from music or broadcast or theater, you have built-in chops like you honestly do. And I think that you take it for granted. Some people they just think, oh, I'm artistic. But it's like, you've got so much going on for you. A lot of people have to learn or have to be become, you know, a little more aware of their instrument than, than people like you did, so.

Brad Avenyou:
That's the key word instrument. It's learning how to use your voice. And, and, and I would touch on that later if we wanted to, but, you know, people talk about having a good voice. Well, everybody's got a good voice. And the practical matter is you don't really need a good, in the traditional sense voice, uh, to do what we do. You have to however know it's an instrument. And like any instrument, you have to learn how to care for it and how to develop it and, you know, basically play it like an instrument.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Right. Yeah.

Brad Avenyou:
And, uh, your singing would be terrific as an asset for, for doing what we do because so much of the way we express ourselves is in musical terms. And when we speak, it's almost like a series of notes. It's a melody. And we try to just like in music, avoid repetition as much as we can, working within a range, a key, so to speak. And, and so I would think that your voice training would be a terrific asset and for voice work, for, you know, commercial voice work,

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
It, it certainly is useful. And I'm not using my voice in the exactly the way that I thought I would. I actually, at one point in my life thought that I would be the next Celine Dion, but, you know

Brad Avenyou:
mm-hmm.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
that was a goal of a young teenager, not necessarily where you end up, ‘cause your life changes, things happen. And that's so true. And you, you go down a different path. But the the important thing is, is that you've got your voice and you know you're gonna use it for something. It's just what, and so every day you must wake up being like, ‘oh my gosh, what's coming at me?’ Now we've got auditions from here, from there. Um,

Brad Avenyou:
Yeah. And it's good though.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah. It's all different. And I'm just thinking because you come from a broadcast background, so you emphasize the importance of studying and having coaching and invest more in that area. Um, but how did you kind of find a way as a former broadcast professional to kind of leave the announcer voice at the door, if you will, and then become a voice actor?

Brad Avenyou:
Gosh, I hope, I, I, I hope I never really had what you would call an announcer voice. Um, but I know that that's a struggle for a lot of radio announcers. Maybe not so much television, which is a little more face to-face. I guess my approach to the business has evolved along with my voice for that matter, from chasing every project to where I am now, a place where hours of experience and dollars invested are measured by thousands, uh, I don't have to swing at every pitch that crosses my plate. So I'm able to focus on projects that appeal to me and follow, uh, you know, the GVAA rules and rates, I shouldn't say rules, but suggested rates and, and if those, uh, suggested rates aren't, uh, compatible with the, what the voice seller is offering, well, I just go hiking with my girlfriend who happens to be a star on the development side of the industry. So my job is causing them to remember me, uh, with, in terms of clients. Uh, sometimes opportunities come along simply, you know, by appearing on a client's radar, just by being in their inbox.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Avenyou:
So you're, you're a quick, reliable solution to their challenge of finding a voice. And the clients I've worked with in the past lead to working relationships in the present.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think it's interesting that coming from TV, it's not necessarily as much of the announcer that people are kind of prone to having as it is in say, radio. So would you say more of your colleagues from radio have had, um, a harder time transitioning to voice over than those in television?

Brad Avenyou:
I don't know if I could characterize with a, with a word like most or even many, but I know it can be a challenge. You are presenting differently and it's sometimes hard to break out of that tune,

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Right.

Brad Avenyou:
so to speak. Going back to the singing analogy again. So, you know, a little bit of training, coaching can go a long way, breaking those kind of habits, you know?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Absolutely.

Brad Avenyou:
It's actually what you're trying to do is be yourself, you know?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah.

Brad Avenyou:
And, but sometimes that's the hardest part of the job.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah. Just like, and how so explain.

Brad Avenyou:
Well, you're really making yourself vulnerable by being yourself. And if it's a product that you're selling, that's one thing, but if the product is you, you're racing, you're, you're not presenting a pair of shoes to the client, you're presenting yourself.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Avenyou:
And if they don't accept it, you have to have a fairly thin skin. Now, in terms of voices that you might use on a radio. Okay. Say, say it's a, a station that plays metal, you're going to have a much tougher read just like you would as a voice talent every day on the air

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
mm-hmm.

Brad Avenyou:
in this kind of Rock format than you would if you were doing Adult Contemporary music as it was known at the time. So, you know, the delivery is different. It's just having to coach yourself out of this one area, you know, of, of delivery that perhaps you've been using in radio

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Avenyou:
Into a more versatile, flexible, uh, form of communicating that is more naturally centered.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Right. Yeah. And being yourself is also what makes you stand out. Makes you different. Makes someone say, oh, I didn't think of it that way. Or, I like how that talent positioned this read. Because if you're reading it, you know, I'm just thinking some method, acting like if you can bring your own experience into a read, then it's something that no one else has had.

Brad Avenyou:
That’s so true.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
You know, one has with you. So true. And just thinking back to Don LaFontaine, who I know a lot of our listeners are familiar with

Brad Avenyou:
That's looking way back.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
It's looking, I know he's been gone since 2008. It's, it's crazy to think it's been that long.

Brad Avenyou:
In a world.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Oh wow, good. That's good! I think he'd, he, I don't know if that would've worried him too much cause he was always saying,

Brad Avenyou:
Oh no, no, I don't think he would've been worried about that.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
No. But, uh, it's just so funny ‘cause um, that what he would say is you obviously, you're, you're working in the service of the words. I'm paraphrasing him now, but your voice is in the service of the words. Um, but he also believed that no one person could be somebody else. So like, because everyone in the room, I remember it was voice 2007, um, James and Penny put the conference on and, and um, Don LaFontaine was the featured guest who was there for everyone to meet. And I met him and there was a tremendously long line of hundreds of people waiting to meet Don. And he met

Brad Avenyou:
no doubt

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
every single one of us and signed autographs and took pictures and, and thank you Kara Edwards for taking the picture of me with Don, ‘cause that's the only reason why I have a picture of it. But, um, you know, it, it was just something that he would say is like, you know, like no one else is going to be the next Don LaFontaine. Like you can't true. Because, uh, he would say things like, no one's had my experiences, no one has lived the life that I've lived. You don't think like, I do like this sort of thing where the, the things that made Don, Don made him Don

Brad Avenyou:
mm-hmm.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
And, um, yeah,

Brad Avenyou:
The industry was different back then too, obviously

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
mm-hmm.

Brad Avenyou:
But he was, you know, and I, and I take your point, your most three-dimensional, if you are being yourself and most three dimensional makes you the most vivid.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Mm.

Brad Avenyou:
Makes you the most likely to stand out with all your flaws, you know? But it's all there flaws. Flaws are beautiful, especially nowadays in voice where authenticity is everything.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
It is absolutely everything because it, it, people can tell if you aren't in it, you know, if you are not feeling what you're reading

Brad Avenyou:
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
And like that is just, I think authenticity, being genuine, auditioning and doing the work that you feel connected to is the best way forward for any talent. Um, because then you feel good about the work, but the audience will also get so much more from it and the client will actually hire you ‘cause you'll be compelling enough to, uh, to share their message.

Brad Avenyou:
You stop time when they hear your voice and amongst, you know, the 200 other short clips of their script and suddenly you stand out, stop time, as one of my coaches described it, it's your job to stop time.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
I like that

Brad Avenyou:
When they hear your voice.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Wow. Yeah.

Brad Avenyou:
‘Cause it's, and you and you are most likely to do that by being authentic, being yourself.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Exactly. I know everybody on the casting side of things knows when you hear the voice that will book it. Like you just know, like, I remember one of the earliest projects that was done, um, in, uh, the, the professional services managed service part of Voices, and when we first started that arm of the company and, and, um, anyway, but you know, just listening through some of those voices and making a short list, like you could tell who was gonna book it more than likely

Brad Avenyou:
mm-hmm.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
you know, you, they, they just, you just know that there's a, and so one of the stories we have from those days is there was a, a, I think there was a job looking for a male and a female talent to voice separate, you know, PSAs and spots and whatnot. And in any way, like the client listened to the women's voice, like the, the female voice talent who auditioned for it and listened to the male voice talent who auditioned for the other ones. And they liked the one lady so much that they actually rewrote their other spot.

Brad Avenyou:
Oh.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
And they made it for her. And she booked both the jobs, she only auditioned for one. But, you know, it's just like

Brad Avenyou:
I hope she got paid for both roles.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
She absolutely did. Absolutely did. But it just reminds me of how when you, you know, it, when you hear it, like if it's the right person, the right voice, the right delivery, it's gonna connect with that audience. Uh, you know, these clients, sometimes they will make big changes to a project

Brad Avenyou:
mm-hmm.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
or they will like invent work for you

Brad Avenyou:
mm-hmm.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Um, which I know that that's something I was wondering, like you create some of your own opportunities too as an entrepreneur and, and, um, you know, and being a senior voice in your retirement years. Like, uh, how do you find opportunities are? Like obviously you've got a lot of streams of opportunity coming to you, but Yeah. You find that there's, there's a lot of interesting work out there for seniors.

Brad Avenyou:
There is. I mean, you know, I, I instead of senior, I think of seasoned

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Avenyou:
A seasoned voice.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yes. I like that.

Brad Avenyou:
It exudes experience and gravitas and reliability and, you know, all the things that, you know, come with age and experience. I have found that, uh, the best way of looking at this is like an orchestra. An orchestra is, is made up of many, many wonderful instruments. And I consider myself a French horn amongst flutes and trumpets. So, and there's a lot of French horns in, in the, in the industry as well. Still making a living and uh, very much so. Uh, there are obviously going to be more calls for a younger, lighter voice in a lot of products. But I'm fortunate because for one thing, and this is an important thing to remember for, for anyone of any age, you're not trying to corner the market. You're trying to put your cup under the waterfall

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Avenyou:
and get your share of the business. There's lots of work for everybody in every age range. Whether you are a young voice or whether you are a seasoned voice. It's all there. It's a big, big bazaar, as I call it, great big open air market. Especially if you're working with the online casting sites. Um, you know, there's no need to worry about, uh, how old you are. Get in, have fun, work hard.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
I like it. That is really great advice for anyone of any age and of any seasoned… boy! I like that. I really like that. I was what degree of seasoning do we have here?

Brad Avenyou:
Yeah. I'm not trying, yeah. I'm not trying to suggest a euphemism here,

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Uhhuh.

Brad Avenyou:
No, I mean, you know, let's face it, I'm, I'm not 25, I don't wanna be doing roles that are meant for a 25 year old. Right. You know, I'd have to fold myself up into a pretzel mentally and probably vocally to even approach that. I don't want it. No. I want stuff that appeals to a seasoned audience who appreciates the seasoned voice.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
I love that. I do. I'm gonna start saying seasoned voice instead of senior voice, ‘cause it just brings so much more, so much richness to it, I think. Mm. So, um, thank you so much for sharing with us today, Brad. Um, you've mentioned your website earlier before, but did you wanna tell us again just so that people know how to find you?

Brad Avenyou:
Oh, I'd be happy to. It's AVSvoice.com is where you can find me. And, um, anyone is more than welcome to drop me a line, brad at avs voice.com if they have, have any questions or comments or want to, you know, clarify some of the points that I mentioned. And, uh, I think a big, uh, I think a big, big topic for discussion is rates and usage. And I hope you'll invite me back again, Stephanie, and we can talk more about that very, very big topic that, uh, really pertains more than anything, uh, to the online casting sites.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Well, thank you so much. We'd love to have you back on the show again, Brad. And, uh, yeah, we would definitely have to catch up with you again in Toronto or hear at Voices.

Brad Avenyou:
I'd love it. Have a great day.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
You too.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
And that's the way we saw the world through the lens of voice over this week. Thank you for listening and for following this show. Thank you also to our special guest, Brad Avenyou or Brad Giffin, depending on how you know him for sharing his stories and his tips for how to enjoy a career in voice over when you're retired, and how to use all those amazing skills that you may have from broadcast and singing to make it all happen. For Voices. I'm Stephanie Ciccarelli. Vox Talk is produced by Geoff Bremner. Thanks again for joining us. We'll see you next week.