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Voice-over is still magic for me
Feb. 27th, 2006 10:26 amI'm the emergency weekend fill-in person for the engineers at my old voice-over school and until this weekend, they didn't need me. Saturday night for three hours I was supposed to just be there to lock up afterwards because the newest animation teacher, Bob Bergen, doesn't record the first night of this class. I'd been wanting to take his class because Miss Johnnie says he's incredible, but I haven't had funding since he came on board. He's Porky Pig!
Apparently, he likes engineers to play along with the class so I got to learn how to bark like a dog, screech like a pterydactyl, squawk like a parrot and crow like a rooster. All four involve sucking air in rather than exhaling and the first one triggered my asthma. My inhaler fixed that so I could continue playing. He was very surprised when I was already able to cry like a baby convincingly. I gave credit where credit is due to our original animation sounds teacher, Pat Fraley whose 79 voice tricks class taught me a lot of sound effects.
When he had everyone do introductions, he included me. When he heard that I'm taking a forced financial break from classes it seemed to upset him. There was some doubt as to whether the other emergency fill-in engineer was going to be there for the seven-hour Sunday class and he told me to come back. He'd given me a script to perform, hadn't he? He had. I told him that if I did come back, it would be to engineer. I'd be working. He said he'd get me into the booth anyway. Woot!
The only trouble was he wanted to start the class at 9AM instead of 10AM, and because I thought I was only going to be there for the evening session, I hadn't arranged accomodations with my aunt and uncle. That meant over an hour drive home and return trip at a time I'm usually fast asleep. Plus I needed to do laundry to have anything clean to wear.
I was so glad I'd started my homework early this weekend. Eric has a cold so he slept most of the weekend. I took advantage of the quiet on Saturday to get most of my homework done. Usually I take Saturdays off to rest my weary brain. But since I'd done most of the homework, I agreed to come back. I told him up front I wasn't sure I could get there by 9, but I'd try.
He'd mentioned how performing is addictive. Once you get the rush of it into your system, you need the high it provides. Yeah, we all agreed with him and whoa, was I sailing high on the drive home... and most of the night. Between the storm system moving in and making my old injuries ache, going to bed too early and the emotional high of playing in class, I had a tough time sleeping. It was when I woke up for the third time at 4AM that I finally remembered I'd meant to take muscle relaxants but it was too late. I made do with ibuprofen and finally got to sleep soundly for three hours or so.
If there had been parking close by, I would have been on time. But there wasn't parking so I had to park several blocks away. Theo, the engineer they were worried about was sitting there smiling at me. I hesitantly entered tohe room and was gestured to the one empty chair. Bob talked about his plans for the day and asked if there were any questions. Theo had been looking over the student list for my name in vain. I put my hand up and asked, "Since Theo's here, should I leave?" He said he didn't know how things worked there but he wanted me to stay if I wanted to, if only to observe. He'd get me into the booth if there was time. Miss Johnnie said "I'm not working. I'm a student," as if to say, "I see nothing! I know nothing!"
So I stayed. I know these things always take longer than the instructors think they will so my chances of getting in the booth were nil, but I wanted to absorb as much as I could from his methods. He had a lot of new ideas I hadn't heard before and I took notes. After years of classes, I hadn't heard anything new for a long, long time. What was cool was that he went into the booth with everyone and he had both mics on so we could hear him direct. He gave examples of how far he wanted people to go with their characters, and for cartoons, you really go over the top. Theo is obviously new to engineering so I pitched in by setting the mics for everyone as they went into the booth so he could do the paperwork of noting who was where on the track and getting it ready to record. I figured if I streamlined the process, there'd be more chance of me getting booth time! Still, we were behind the schedule he wanted to keep.
At lunch, we all went to the health food store. Bob was behind me in line. I told him not to worry if there wasn't time to get me into the booth. I was learning so much from listening! He said he appreciated that and my patience. We all brought our lunches back and talked about the business end of voice-over, home recording booth set ups, demos, etc. For the second round of the day, he wasn't going to record people. It was going to be an express through the booth.
He told me to go near the beginning of the group. I looked at Johnnie. She shrugged and gestured I should go. He'd given me a script of a frumpy real estate lady who has a slight southern accent and a chihuahua - though they'd drawn a dog that looked more like a wolfhound. That was one big chihuahua! She was supposed to have the charm on full tilt boogie until she sees her dog chewing on her customer's leg and she goes ballistic.
After hearing everyone else on the first round, I had a good idea of how he wanted me to do it and I got into it totally with gestures and physicality while staying on mic. It felt SO GOOD! He had me go more extreme with it than I've ever gone with any script before, by starting at the angriest point I'd gone to the first time and ramping up from there. Then he had me go deep south on the first part. Then he had me switch the attitudes on them. By this time, my anger sounded like a drill sergeant from the start of it. teehee! Imagine trying to sell a house when you're barking at your customers then switching to a sweet southern belle to yell at your dog as he munches on the customer's leg. We could hear the class laughing through the soundproofing. He said, "Now, THAT's funny!
People who've known me for years said they didn't know I could sound that mean. LOL I told them my secret on that. I just channeled back to the time my Boo cat tried to bite me when I was getting him out of his carrier at the vet. I spoke very harshly to him that day, "Don't you bite your momma! He came out chastened. I know that feeling/voice works because it comes from an organic place.
I continued setting the mic for people for the rest of the day and we actually finished half an hour early, just as he wanted to. That way we had more time to talk to him about the business end of things.
So now my dream of returning to voice-over has been refreshed. Oh, I'm definitely going for it again as soon as I can afford to.
One thing bugs me about the demo conversation. He said you should never ever use scripts from classes on your demo. The people who cast those cartoons will be the ones listening to the demo. They'll know how they expected that character to sound so it works against you.
Sam had me record my commercial and animation demo from scripts we had in classes. That's nearly $2,000 of demos that can work against me. Crap.
Apparently, he likes engineers to play along with the class so I got to learn how to bark like a dog, screech like a pterydactyl, squawk like a parrot and crow like a rooster. All four involve sucking air in rather than exhaling and the first one triggered my asthma. My inhaler fixed that so I could continue playing. He was very surprised when I was already able to cry like a baby convincingly. I gave credit where credit is due to our original animation sounds teacher, Pat Fraley whose 79 voice tricks class taught me a lot of sound effects.
When he had everyone do introductions, he included me. When he heard that I'm taking a forced financial break from classes it seemed to upset him. There was some doubt as to whether the other emergency fill-in engineer was going to be there for the seven-hour Sunday class and he told me to come back. He'd given me a script to perform, hadn't he? He had. I told him that if I did come back, it would be to engineer. I'd be working. He said he'd get me into the booth anyway. Woot!
The only trouble was he wanted to start the class at 9AM instead of 10AM, and because I thought I was only going to be there for the evening session, I hadn't arranged accomodations with my aunt and uncle. That meant over an hour drive home and return trip at a time I'm usually fast asleep. Plus I needed to do laundry to have anything clean to wear.
I was so glad I'd started my homework early this weekend. Eric has a cold so he slept most of the weekend. I took advantage of the quiet on Saturday to get most of my homework done. Usually I take Saturdays off to rest my weary brain. But since I'd done most of the homework, I agreed to come back. I told him up front I wasn't sure I could get there by 9, but I'd try.
He'd mentioned how performing is addictive. Once you get the rush of it into your system, you need the high it provides. Yeah, we all agreed with him and whoa, was I sailing high on the drive home... and most of the night. Between the storm system moving in and making my old injuries ache, going to bed too early and the emotional high of playing in class, I had a tough time sleeping. It was when I woke up for the third time at 4AM that I finally remembered I'd meant to take muscle relaxants but it was too late. I made do with ibuprofen and finally got to sleep soundly for three hours or so.
If there had been parking close by, I would have been on time. But there wasn't parking so I had to park several blocks away. Theo, the engineer they were worried about was sitting there smiling at me. I hesitantly entered tohe room and was gestured to the one empty chair. Bob talked about his plans for the day and asked if there were any questions. Theo had been looking over the student list for my name in vain. I put my hand up and asked, "Since Theo's here, should I leave?" He said he didn't know how things worked there but he wanted me to stay if I wanted to, if only to observe. He'd get me into the booth if there was time. Miss Johnnie said "I'm not working. I'm a student," as if to say, "I see nothing! I know nothing!"
So I stayed. I know these things always take longer than the instructors think they will so my chances of getting in the booth were nil, but I wanted to absorb as much as I could from his methods. He had a lot of new ideas I hadn't heard before and I took notes. After years of classes, I hadn't heard anything new for a long, long time. What was cool was that he went into the booth with everyone and he had both mics on so we could hear him direct. He gave examples of how far he wanted people to go with their characters, and for cartoons, you really go over the top. Theo is obviously new to engineering so I pitched in by setting the mics for everyone as they went into the booth so he could do the paperwork of noting who was where on the track and getting it ready to record. I figured if I streamlined the process, there'd be more chance of me getting booth time! Still, we were behind the schedule he wanted to keep.
At lunch, we all went to the health food store. Bob was behind me in line. I told him not to worry if there wasn't time to get me into the booth. I was learning so much from listening! He said he appreciated that and my patience. We all brought our lunches back and talked about the business end of voice-over, home recording booth set ups, demos, etc. For the second round of the day, he wasn't going to record people. It was going to be an express through the booth.
He told me to go near the beginning of the group. I looked at Johnnie. She shrugged and gestured I should go. He'd given me a script of a frumpy real estate lady who has a slight southern accent and a chihuahua - though they'd drawn a dog that looked more like a wolfhound. That was one big chihuahua! She was supposed to have the charm on full tilt boogie until she sees her dog chewing on her customer's leg and she goes ballistic.
After hearing everyone else on the first round, I had a good idea of how he wanted me to do it and I got into it totally with gestures and physicality while staying on mic. It felt SO GOOD! He had me go more extreme with it than I've ever gone with any script before, by starting at the angriest point I'd gone to the first time and ramping up from there. Then he had me go deep south on the first part. Then he had me switch the attitudes on them. By this time, my anger sounded like a drill sergeant from the start of it. teehee! Imagine trying to sell a house when you're barking at your customers then switching to a sweet southern belle to yell at your dog as he munches on the customer's leg. We could hear the class laughing through the soundproofing. He said, "Now, THAT's funny!
People who've known me for years said they didn't know I could sound that mean. LOL I told them my secret on that. I just channeled back to the time my Boo cat tried to bite me when I was getting him out of his carrier at the vet. I spoke very harshly to him that day, "Don't you bite your momma! He came out chastened. I know that feeling/voice works because it comes from an organic place.
I continued setting the mic for people for the rest of the day and we actually finished half an hour early, just as he wanted to. That way we had more time to talk to him about the business end of things.
So now my dream of returning to voice-over has been refreshed. Oh, I'm definitely going for it again as soon as I can afford to.
One thing bugs me about the demo conversation. He said you should never ever use scripts from classes on your demo. The people who cast those cartoons will be the ones listening to the demo. They'll know how they expected that character to sound so it works against you.
Sam had me record my commercial and animation demo from scripts we had in classes. That's nearly $2,000 of demos that can work against me. Crap.
