Wheat Kings looking for new announcer, Fran Capo YouTube Video, Voices.com 60 Second Pitch Contest, Elie Hirschman on Allergies, Adam Fox with Bob Green, and great feedback for voice over experts Julie Williams and Bob Bergen.
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Wheat Kings, Hockey, Announcer, Voice Overs for Commercials, 60 Second Pitch Contest, Contest, Fran Capo, YouTube, Bob Souer, Elie Hirschman, Allergies, Adam Fox, Bob Green, Julie Williams, and Bob Bergen.
Transcript of Vox Talk #36
Matt Williams: Episode 36
You’re listening to VOX Talk! The voiceover industry’s number one podcast brought to you by Voices.com. It’s about voice acting, growing your business, and sharing your knowledge. VOX Talk is a show that you can be a part of. Getting involved that’s both fun and rewarding. It’s time for this week’s episode of VOX Talk with your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Hey there, I’m Stephanie and welcome to the show. In this holiday edition, we’re ready to go with segments from Elie Hirschman and Adam Fox. But before these gentlemen take center stage, let’s consume some voiceover news.
Matt Williams: The Loop, informing you of news and current voiceover events.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: In voice over news, the Brandon Wheat Kings Hockey Club in the Western Hockey League is looking for a new PA Announcer. That’s Brandon Manitoba in Canada, by the way. The person selected will be responsible for attending all regular season and playoff home games, managing all aspects of the Wheat Kings’ Game Night portfolio including commercial “voiceovers” and coordinating the many in-game promotions during the course of a contest.
To learn more about the position and how to apply, visit wheatkings.com and that’s right, it’s like the plant, wheatkings.com.
Now for our second story. If you think you can talk fast, you should watch the YouTube video of Fran Capo clocking in at speeds 10 times faster than an average human being. There’s got to be something about her brochus. How does she do it? Watch the video either at YouTube.com or by visiting Bob Souer’s blog linked from our show notes.
And in closing, if you’ve ever found it hard to tell other people what you do for a living, check out the Voices.com 60 Second Pitch Contest. On Monday July 9th, we’ll be hosting a webinar that will teach you how to structure a pitch about your business and give you tips on how to enter the contest to win some great prizes!
To register for the 60 Second Pitch workshop, sign up for the webinar at voices.webex.com. You can also find that link in the show notes.
Matt Williams: The Biz, helping you grow your voiceover business.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Today in The Biz, Elie Hirschman talks about a timely and I might say, a thoroughly disgusting topic, you guess it, it’s allergy season.
Elie Hirschman: Hi. This is Elie Hirschman recovering from just about the worse start of the allergy season I’ve ever experienced. I had a total lock-up of my nasal pharyngeal system pretty much from the neck up was swimming in various sorts of fluids that I won’t go into detail describing now. But it made think about what is like to be a voiceover artist with allergies.
Every spring, I go through the same ordeal where the pollen and the general growing things of the world conspire to destroy me by trying to drown me in my own juices. It’s really disgusting time to be alive and it’s especially difficult for a voiceover artist. I was affected in every body part that could detrimentally affect my voiceover performance, my eyes watering so that I couldn’t read copy. My nose so stuffed that I couldn’t pronounce words. My lungs so congested I couldn’t breathe, my entire head and chest unable to produce any other sound other than a croak. It still hasn’t completely cleared up. So what does a voiceover artist do when afflicted with this type of allergies that can prevent them from pursuing his craft?
Well, ironically with all the fluid that fills up your head when you’re suffering from allergies, cold or any of these things, the solution is to add more fluid and this is in a form of nasal saline. You can get these bottles for very cheap at any pharmacy. Usually with just one to keep the nasal passages hydrated and give it a good healthy squirt up there a bit soft and make sure to drink plenty of fluids which I’m sure a voiceover artist starting the habit of doing anyway.
A severe measure which I’ve recently undertaken is to buy something called a neti pot. These are actually also found in most drugstores. I had to go to about five Walgreens before I actually found the one I was looking for. What it is, is a kind of an enema for your nose if you’ll forgive the imagery. The neti pot can end up looking like a watering can, a little tea kettle, or Aladdin’s magic lamp. It’s about eight ounces, generally. You fill it up with saline, tip your head a certain way above the sink and pour in the entire mixture into one nostril and have it come out the other nostril, without letting it come down your throat into your mouth. Disgusting, yes. But it cleans out your entire nasal passages or so it’s supposed to. I’ve only tried it once so far and I’m not sure of the effect that it actually had.
There are folks that swear by it. It’s been featured on Oprah and in theory sounds like a very good idea. You wash out one nostril, and then the other, and supposedly you wash away all the blockages, all the congestion that you might be having and your nasal passages do react very positively to saline solutions so that balance of moistures maintained and you get back to sounding like yourself more quickly than usual. I’d recommend looking into these types of remedies in addition to moderate allergy medications. The allergy medications can dry you out, but give them the hydrating solutions I’ve illustrated before, you should be able to keep that balance that we need. Wishing you good health, this has been Elie Hirschman.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Elie, thanks for bringing this issue up, particularly with all the pollen in the air lately. Hope your feeling better.
Matt Williams: Tech Talk, walking you through the technological landscape.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: This week in Tech Talk, we have a feature from our Defiant Digital correspondent, Adam Fox with some VO from Bob Green.
Bob Oakman: You are listening to another Defiant Digital pod cast for Voices.com. Here’s your host, Adam Fox.
Adam Fox: Hey folks and welcome to another edition of the podcast. Summer’s here and I hope you’re enjoying with the warm temperatures that are continuing to rise, a rise in your business and I hope everything is really kicking and you just stand busy and just being in your own studios there. And let’s just jump right into the podcast today.
Well, so last time I put the call out for people to send in examples of how they do and what they do, and you definitely responded so we’re going to cover one today and this comes from Bob Green of bobgreenproductions.com. He sent me a great sample of the difference between EQ’ing and a flat signal. And I think this is important to examine here. A lot of people who will send something flat to a client because that client is then going to take that flat signal and they’re going to, you know, put it in to their overall mix and take the other voice talents that they may have in the job and makes the whole thing together and individually EQ it.
So this is an important point to consider. It’s okay to send flat tracks to clients especially if they ask for it. They always want to give the client what they ask for but I also find it if you kind of warm up the signal a little bit and get them something that really add some bite, who knows? It might influence the rest of how they’re going to do their project. It’s oftentimes a wonderful way to inspire them to bring their project to the next level as well. Maybe they weren’t thinking about it, you know. Who knows? Maybe all of their previous assemblies and their productions, maybe they end up a little flat and by sending them something that’s a little beefier, a little higher quality than what they might be expecting from you and have to work with. It might help them to take their game to the next level too.
So here’s the first sample from Bob and this the flat reproduction of about a 9-second clip of a commercial that he just been working on.
Bob Green: In a world like nothing you’ve ever seen. One woman with a mysterious past will risk everything.
Adam Fox: Okay. Now, let’s hear that same track with his EQ patch that he uses for his voice.
Bob Green: In a world like nothing you’ve ever seen. One woman with a mysterious past will risk everything.
Adam Fox: Now, you see that is a subtle difference but it can make a big difference. Does that make sense? Yes, it makes sense. A subtle difference that makes a big difference, we could make the argument with amplifiers, being the difference between solid state in tube with microphone preamps. The difference between a flat preamp and using a tube, preamp microphones, something that has a little warmth added to it. And that can make a huge difference. It can help to attract a business to your particular voice style and making the difference between them wanting to work with you or not. It can help you develop your own sound and help you become attractive to those businesses. It’s all about signature sound. We all do something a little bit different and that’s what will make the clients that we work with want to come back us time and again.
Well so, there you have it. Great example of particular type of EQ to help someone design their signature sound and next time, I’ll be covering one of mine. I want to cover it a little more in depth. It’s an effect trick that I use that it’s – well, we’ll just leave you hanging on that but I know you’ve seen it in movies and heard it n music and it’s definitely something that’s going to be fun to cover and you know, keep sending those submissions in. I still want to pepper these segments with how you do, what you do and we’ll just continue to keep that as a topic of conversation. So I hope you’re all enjoying the warm weather. Try to stay cool and hope your business is just booming right along for the summertime and work with all the sun shining, folks. Until then, bye for now.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Thank you to Adam and also thank you to Bob Green for sending in your audio file. To let Adam know how you do, what you do, send him a quick e-mail at [email protected]
Matt Williams: VoxBox, sharing your audio feedback.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: In the VOX Box today, I’d like to share some feedback presented to our Voice Over Experts, Julie Williams and Bob Bergen.
Here’s some praise for Julie Williams:
David K. Jones said, “I’ve been doing this for many moons, but I frequently surf the demos, listening to how others sell their copy. I’m always picking up new tricks or inspiration just like I did by listening to your podcast. Thanks!”
And again, that was from David K. Jones. Now, let’s move on to some praise for Bob Bergen. This comes from James Dawson. “I think Bob’s comments are invaluable especially, as one who is transitioning from a producer and editor to voice talent. Bob identified all the same problems I encountered with training and a demo I had produced by a New York City studio. Too soon, too little variation, inadequate backing tracks. Many thanks! Now I’m off to find an acting class.”
And last but not least, this comment comes to Bob from Paul. “I’m about to attend the Connecticut School of Broadcasting and these podcasts are very valuable. Before I start creating any kind of voiceover demos, I’m going to do a significant amount of practicing and learning from this site’s tips as well.”
Thank you, guys for commenting and supporting our coaches. If you’d like to listen to Voice Over Experts, go to podcasts.voices.com
Well, that’s all for this week. We love hearing from you and thank you for staying subscribed to VOX Talk! You can subscribe to this podcast, the iTunes Podcast Directory, by RSS feed or by email on the VOX Talk website at podcasts.voices.com. I’m your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli. Don’t forget to look into the 60 Second Pitch and sign up for the webinar at webex. Take care and we’ll be seeing you next week!
Links from today’s show:
Fran Capo YouTube Video on Bob Souer’s blog
Elie Hirschman
Voice Over Experts Podcast
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