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Aging Angst

29 Thursday Dec 2016

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This coming year I turn 40.  It’s kind of terrifying and unhappy-making, even while older friends point and laugh and tell me I’m young yet.  I don’t feel 40.  In my heart I feel maybe 32.  I keep forgetting it’s the whole four-oh, and have to pointedly remind myself.  Reminding myself is what’s freaking me out, man, that I didn’t realize all the years gone by.

But anyway, I’m a-gonna turn 40.  When I was about to turn 30 I felt like I couldn’t wait.  My 20s felt weird, I wasn’t suited to them somehow. 30s seemed more established, like I wouldn’t be kidding myself if thought of myself as an adult.  Perception is such a weird thing.

Obviously, in retrospect this is all ridiculous (thank you, weird perception).  I felt weird in my 20s because I was largely wasting that time.  I had more energy, a faster metabolism, better health, to say nothing of holding down a steady job for most of that time.  I look back in chagrin thinking of the things I could have done – worked harder to get back into acting, studied Japanese, or even taken financial investment classes.  I try not to get caught up in regret or what-ifs because it’s completely pointless, but for all that I may feel young now, my body constantly reminds me that I’m not.  You don’t really need the gory details, suffice to say my health isn’t the product of misadventure or really bad luck so much anymore.

Still, one’s 20s are for banging around in the world and not fretting too much about bruises.  And I know this for I am old and wise now. So if you’re under 30 quit reading this and go have an adventure – before it’s too late!

I couldn’t see my future when I looked so hopefully at my 30s.  I was such an idiot.  I couldn’t see what would come either from my misfortunes or the misfortunes of the world that twined with mine (see banking collapse & Great Recession).  I couldn’t see how my forward movement would disappear, swallowed whole by depression that would take years to even think of escaping.

Maybe I want to be 32 so I can get those years back, goddammit.

But now, I’m headed into 40 and time and tide are not known for their patience.

I hope for 40 what I’ve always wanted from years previous – satisfying, lucrative work that I can be proud of.  Some other things too, I guess.  Good health, physical & mental, getting fit, not feeling like it’s extra complicated for me to get healthy thanks to being flat broke.  Getting to see friends regularly, not having to exhaust myself constantly just to see a few people once in a while.  Traveling would be extra nice.  Unlikely, but still.  But it really is all about the work, the career.  I have so little to speak of in that direction and regardless of what I “should” do with “shoulds”, DUDE, I should have a career by now.

You know, one nice thing that happened in 2016, though, was that I got a really nice voice over project over the summer. It was for a Spanish language video project that few people will see, but it was a nice payday (given the amount of work the pay was probably low, but no matter).  I got to attend a couple of classes with people I look up to in VO and they complimented me nicely, so that’s always really cool.

Finances got a little rocky though and I couldn’t get one major ticket item off my list, which was a Spanish language commercial demo.  I know I’m leery of it.  I know I drag my feet when I consider the tasks necessary for it, but it’s honestly a big deal.  If I can get it done I’ll open up a whole new area of work I can do.

So 2016 was looking pretty good for career stuff and at least by the end of October I had a lot to look forward to there.  It gave me the nerve to get into a theatre project and see it through to the point that now I’m part of an ensemble cast, and we’ll be putting on our show at the end of next month!  Now that is a big deal.  While voice acting IS acting, stage acting uses different muscles.  And I haven’t taken these muscles out for spin since I was in college.  Thanks to VO and thanks to working with generous artists I’ve come to a point where I’m more confident in my acting ability and have the nerve to think I can do a whole show outside of the protective confines of school.

For work that I love doing, 39 was not too bad.  Wasn’t great financially, all told, but there was forward movement.

I’d like to hope I’ll see more of it at 40 and beyond.  I keep hedging because there’s a lot of turmoil around me and I can feel the nervousness in the air.  Trying to get a job in a tense environment is *tough* to say the very least.  I’ve never been able to.  And other people’s nerves make me second guess myself.  All in all, one of the worst things that happened this year is casting a long, deep shadow over next year (and years to come).

What I fear for 40, I guess, is that I’ll have to push out harder and more persistently than I ever have.  In fact, I’ll have to get up with the conviction that I can meet my goals leading me there. And that is far harder than it sounds.  Not only am I prone to depression, but I can’t begin to figure out how to have a positive attitude and be upbeat about my opportunities when people around me are feeling morose, if not in a panic.  I can do steady, cover the basics, make sure the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed.  But I can’t do hopeful. Not while everyone is telling me to worry about eroding rights, cut offs in access to medical care, runaway environmental destruction, and urban neglect.  I can’t disconnect what I do from what goes on in the world, or at least my country.

And that leads me to think that at 40 I’ll have to work on both levels, both for myself and for my society.  And here again, I wish I had the energy I had when I was 20.

I turn 40. In 2017.  Good Lord.

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Acting is Hard, man

15 Saturday Oct 2016

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One of my biggest flaws is overthinking, and when I’m on the spot I can easily end up in a loop, the noise in my head overwhelming what I have in me to say.

I left last week’s voice acting class really off balance.  Who knows what really put me off balance from the get-go. Stress, hunger, having  a meh week, a lot on my mind…  I try to clear all that from mind before class but I’m not always successful.  So I try not to let it take over when I need to get to work.

And it’s a really peculiar state to be in, when you perform and everyone else likes what you did, but you’re not sure.  You don’t think you liked it, but it’s hard to say, it’s hard to feel anything for sure except uncomfortable.

There are all those aphorisms about doing one thing that scares you every day.  All over the Web there are versions of this image that visualizes the idea that growth and success are outside of one’s comfort zone.comzone

And it’s more or less true. Reaching out of the usual, the (relatively) easy, the comfortable is the only way to get to a new and better place.  As an artist this is essential for growth, and in the arts growth = improvement.

But of course that means spending a lot of time afraid and uncomfortable.  And who wants to be afraid and uncomfortable most of the time?  I have anxieties enough without inviting more!

Happily I’m not on the verge of panic any more.  Anxiety makes my view of the world narrow down until all I can see and think is how much I suck and I hate myself and what I should do to myself… etc. And part of what gets shut out as the view narrows down is my training, my belief in myself, and the very spirit I have in me to play and to create and to act.

Nurturing that spirit is harder than it sounds.  It’s not terribly respected or understood (it’s kid’s stuff, not suited for adults, in particular not suited to adults who want to get paid), and it requires completely different muscles from the ones I use to navigate most of my life.  But it’s all I want to do.  Creating and acting is so fun and satisfying that it often very effectively quiets my anxieties and comforts me when I feel down.  It’s so clear to me that this is what I’m supposed to be doing, even though it’s scary.

For Paul (and also for me)

23 Saturday Jul 2016

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I haven’t been able to write very much in the last several months.  So much has happened that getting meta about talking about it actually isn’t as interesting to me right now (which should be quite startling to anyone who knows me).

I keep meaning to write and then I don’t and so all kinds of things fly by me, experiences and realizations, losses, wins, connection and destruction have all been going on, all suitable for blog entries.  But for whatever reason, things are actually happening at the same time that I don’t feel up to raising my voice about them.

I’ll tell you one thing and maybe ramble on from there.  Today I went to a memorial for Paul Backer, one of my college professors.  Paul passed away very suddenly less than a week ago.  It was deeply shocking to me and to the rest of his students and of course to the USC School of Dramatic Arts faculty.

Today I listened for a few hours as a stream of students recounted how Paul touched their lives as one of the warmest, most supportive and generous teachers anyone could ever hope to have.  I got up and talked, well, rambled and forced my voice to stay on despite the deep sorrow that made it shake terribly, mentioning how seeing Paul could improve my day in an environment (college) that could be, by turns, bewildering and frustrating.  How he knew so much about seemingly everything and when he couldn’t solve something with words and wisdom, his hugs were the perfect cure-all.

And I had to tell everyone there, which included his mother, that when I was looking into voice over Paul was one of the people I got in contact with, asking for advice.  This was only some five-ish years ago, well over a decade since I’d last seen him at my graduation.  I wasn’t even sure he’d remember me.  He remembered.  He not only took the time to write back to someone who only bothered to write because she needed something, he answered my questions, pointed to professionals he knew and wished me well.

I had to tell them because I had to tell Paul, his vacant body in a casket, his mother in her chair, that I have a career because of him.

Right now I am spending my days creating Spanish narration files for online videos.  I’m still in the earliest of early days as a professional voice actor.  I am constantly fretting that I’m going to ruin this job, that this is a one-off and I can’t expect to ever find work like it again, that this work is meaningless when it comes to what I ought to be doing with my life…

The one person who could always convince me that I could take on the challenges ahead was Paul Backer.  I am such an idiot for never considering contacting him earlier or for staying in touch.  I didn’t even ‘friend’ him on Facebook.  I can’t believe that I squandered that connection.  And now I can’t ask him for one of his hugs that made everything okay.

PaulHug

From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much, Paul.  Fare you well, wherever you may fare.

Un-thinking

22 Friday Apr 2016

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I’m feeling some stage fright.

Well sort of. It doesn’t seem to be as petrifying as I remember the stone cold grip on my lungs was when I stood in the wings waiting for my cue.  But I’m still nervous.

I know it’s because I’m caught up thinking about how I’m going to impress people who have deeply impressed me.  And I’m likewise caught up in being convinced that I’ll never impress them, only disappoint them.  I won’t disappoint myself, I already know I’m a loser.

I’ll just irritate myself and that’ll set off despair at myself and then I’ll lie around wondering what point there is in getting up and attempting anything.

Do I get ahead of myself?  Yeah, of course, that’s overthinking things in a nutshell.  Not only am I already thinking ahead, past my inevitable failure, but I’m skipping over the part where I am present to the work that I am doing while I’m doing it.

Performing has little do with thinking. I’ve already written about that. Thinking helps set things up but does not do the performing.  My thinking muscle is very strong.  I’ve worked it out every single day since I was wee thing.  But my performing muscle is flabby.  Sometimes I pay careful, persistent attention to it, sometimes I ignore it. Every day problems come up that need attention from the thinking muscle and they eclipse the opportunity to workout the performing muscle.  And then along comes a problem, or really the chance to show off, that only the performing muscle can handle.

But sort of like instinctively lifting with your back instead of your legs (and subsequently hurting yourself), the thinking muscle wants to jump in and plan out All the Things, including failing at what it is no good at.

Performance is play. It’s in the body and the soul.  Thought keeps it all together, so I don’t just flop around and scream incoherently, but the impact of performance is created by physical effort and inspiration.  There is no anticipation there, no planning ahead, just doing.  Just right now.

And it’s frightening.  I’m used to relying on thought to help me through everything.  Performing feels like heading out on a tightrope – if I start to tip over how will I keep from falling??  But again, that’s only a concern because thought won’t help.  Performing will.  It sounds weird to say performing saves performing, but… well, what else is there?  If I stay centered in what I’m doing – performing – I won’t lose my balance.

Shhh, thought. I’m doing something.

Out on a Limb

24 Friday Jul 2015

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I don’t do things that scare me or make me uncomfortable too very often.  I keep meaning to fix that, but I’m so busy with all the things that are inside my comfort zone I often forget to go ahead and take a chance on something Out There.

And I mean, everyone is full of the “do one thing that scares you every day” like that’s so easy.  Like there aren’t really good reasons for why it’s scary.  You’re being told to take risks, to gamble and take chances – the people who tell you that certainly aren’t the ones who are going to take the financial hit or lose the relationship or damage their health if things don’t work out.

But still.  There is no growth without losing some skin, right?  The world you have built up around you was once scary itself, and eventually became the status quo, also became the stagnation trapping you in place.  At least that’s how it tends to go for me.

I was thinking about this last night, sitting on a workout-type paid-hangout-with Grey deLisle-Griffin.  It’s really tough sometimes to tell the difference between when I’m holding back due to nerves, fears that I’ll screw up and everyone will hate me (or more likely I’ll be awkward and everyone will think I’m weird (and not worth working with)), and when the hesitation is actually practical, when I can’t squeeze out the time or I can’t afford it or (hardest of all) I’m not ready.

And DAMN the last one is the hardest, because so much of being “ready” is just nerve.  Sheer confidence often trumps actual skill, particularly in performance.  Which is not to say that skill and talent aren’t valued – quite the opposite.  The quality of talent can determine what kind of a career you have, but your boldness will be the make or break point of actually having a career.

When I went on mic in front of Grey it was hard to figure out which affected me more, performance nerves or the frosty cold booth.  (Grey commented on shaking my voice as if it were intentional…um it wasn’t an affect, it was effect but I don’t know what caused it.)  I decided to go with a character I’ve worked on before – ethereal, calm, wise – knowing that the challenge there is to get the life as big as any wacky, loud goofball.

The greater challenge was actually to put on a very slight British accent.  I wanted the character to have a polished sound, articulated and enunciating properly.  Right away Grey came back with instruction to put on a British accent.  I just wanted a “proper” sound, but I didn’t want to go full on Emma Thompson simply for fear of screwing up.

It’s continually a lesson to me when the note I’m given is to play a note I started out with for myself.  It’s like I’m waving at a place I want to go to and the direction comes back “Go to that place.”  Why didn’t I do that from the beginning?

So.  I’m never allowed to forget Grey offhandedly tossing out “the British accent is great” without a second thought and then moving on to other things.  It was fine.  I was fine.

Fear is stupid.

Connection is Participation

29 Friday May 2015

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I recently started up the habit of listening to one of Rob Paulsen’s Talkin’ Toons podcast per day, going all the way back to 2011. I’m often working out while I listen, but sometimes I’m cleaning. When I have absolutely nothing to occupy my body with I play mahjong on the computer while I listen.

I’m often laughing. I’m frequently moved and I’m always, always deeply impressed.

It’s a common refrain for Rob Paulsen and many of his guests that the best part of working in voice over is getting to work with wonderful people, many of whom become friends – if not family! And that’s something that I instantly loved about voice over, that sense of good people populating its ranks. It was true from the very first time I got connected with a VO actor (Stephanie Sheh) who patiently answered my questions for a half hour and showed me more than I think she realized from her professionalism to her generosity.

My VO acquaintances and friends are largely from among my classmates in the workshops I’ve taken in the last few years, and the camaraderie is unparalleled. There are some good folks I met in the theatre, don’t get me wrong. And there were some stand up people from the office jobs I’ve worked. But in the grown up world I just don’t expect people to drop what they’re doing to answer my silly questions or correct my assumptions. I expect honesty, sure, but I figure it’s always going to be couched in polite distance, if not some dismissiveness.  Encouragement and a helping hand are something else besides.

In VO it can be really tough to find work (how hard is it compared to acting in any other medium? I’m not sure it’s really that much harder but I’ve never tried crunching the numbers), but there’s rarely a shortage of people willing to trade supportive messages, sit down for some coffee or tea, offer advice or point to authorities that helped them out or generally give assistance to whatever degree possible. Over and over again voice actors go over and above to help out – just because they can. It’s easily my favorite part of voice acting.

I’m still very much in the process of finding my way but I like being able to point newer folks in directions that I think can help. I *love* being able to recommend friends to gigs, or gigs to friends.

Obviously the talent is paramount for being a good voice actor. But I think right on its heels is a personality that is low-b.s., highly supportive and patient. ❤

At Marc Cashman’s studio.

Whiffing at Life

06 Monday Oct 2014

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I was thinking it’s been a while since I wrote on just my general state of affairs. Then I looked at my entries and realized I haven’t checked in at all.  There was some navel gazing, a bit of theatre and some silliness about loud music.  What in the world have I been up to, what have I seen and what have I learned?

Well, as it happens the year so far is best explained by the theatre I’ve worked on, yet highlighted by some voice adventures here and there.  As two posts from earlier this year show, I was the dramaturg for a one-act play called SEX & GOD by Linda McLean.  It was part of a night of one-acts we called “Woman Parts” since the other one-act was also by a woman and concerned with a world seen through women’s eyes and experiences.  When the show opened I changed roles to assist the stage manager.  It wasn’t how I would have preferred life to go; working on a production always eats up a great deal of my time and energy until I hardly have anything left to give to other priorities.  Furthermore, the pay is far from adequate so the only use for me was in making myself of service to my company.

I got far more out of stage managing our inaugural Solo Creation Festival this summer.  I was exposed to a much greater variety of characters – real, live ones – and for three weeks straight through I had to stay on the ball and flexible in order to make it all happen.  That was a brand new level of stage managing I don’t want to try again any time soon.  Exciting as it was, it was also exhausting and the time demanded from me left absolutely none for any other interest, project or job.

The best and greatest forays into voice over I’ve gotten this year happened before “Woman Parts” got very busy.  It was a mixed bag, auditioning via Voice123, beginning to attend the Voices Anonymous meetups, attending THE REELS, a workout group headed up Melique Berger, and lending my voice to a couple more walla sessions.  It was mixed because the highs were very affirming and fun (meeting and chatting with some of my heroes) and the lows have persistently regarded money and the frustrating feedback loop caused by lacking it.

I still haven’t made any money in VO, and I’m not spectacularly bothered by this.  It would be nice but I’m more preoccupied with getting my name known by more people and connecting with industry professionals so they know who I am and what I’m capable of.  However, my progress is hampered by not having money.  Without it I can’t take classes that are the best connection with pros, soliciting the advice of knowledgeable and successful actors, and, importantly, getting competitive home recording done.

Most of the time people new to the process are expected to have the cash to begin this career from non-acting work.  Well, of course I haven’t had a non-theatre job of any kind for years now.  Going back and getting one not only feels like a serious case of “taking my eye off the ball” but presents a number of huge obstacles all on its own.  I’ve effectively been out of the job market for years.  Explaining how stage managing skills might apply to a job in editing and proofreading is a very long walk that few employers are going to entertain.

So right now I’m trying not to give in to feeling too defeated.  Every one has rough patches and increasing one’s resourcefulness is just another task for a mature adult.  I do swing at opportunities when they show up – a part time gig writing facebook blurbs for a particular brand of tequila, another ASM gig – but I’m striking out at the moment.  I sure don’t take it to mean I’m bad at writing or stage managing.  Just…  I really could use the cash.  (Look at me not getting distracted by how weird it is to connect money with creative skills!  Oh wait, oops…)

The cash I was going to budget into the career has gone instead to fixing the truck as it has desperately needed some repairs this summer.  Absent those repairs I would be taking a few more classes before the year is out.  Instead I’m scrambling to grab opportunities to talk to pros without going further into debt.

In a way I’m still waiting to hit my stride this year and I keep stumbling.  Huge chunks of time have been given to projects that weren’t entirely mine and thanks to other circumstances I feel like I have little to show for it.  If I put so much work into a job and it can’t help me make headway in my career then what was the point?   So… that’s more or less why I haven’t written much.

But the beginning of the year really was pretty dang awesome.

Heroes 'n me

Heroes ‘n me

Korean Spa to Walla, and Dallas to Dallas, with a layover in the kitchen; and what I learned there.

30 Monday Dec 2013

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If I put together all the voice over that I did this year that wasn’t in a class, it would probably take three or four, maybe five days.  Maybe six, when counting email, the Web site, business cards, etc.  But the last professional thing I got done this year, before holidays and overeating killed all forward movement, was a walla session.  So I am doing stuff.

I just need to do more.

It’s been a hell of a year, huh?  I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been figuratively booted in the head at least once in the last 12 months, and plenty of us were still reeling from previous sucker punches from life.

I knew it would be trouble from the moment I decided to stop stage managing FOOTE NOTES through yet another extension. It sucked up my January and I really wanted to get going on my goals…  The problem immediately manifested as how was I doing to get anything done without any structure to my days.  To say nothing of the added chaos that comes with living with someone who is schizophrenic.

Though, the truth is I did start to get somewhere. And it started on my last day at FOOTE NOTES.  (The two one-acts were located in a small town outside of Dallas.)  After several good-bye whiskeys and hugs to the cast, I met M and we went to a spa in Koreatown.  I’d never been so I had a few minutes to get used to the idea that the “co-ed” section one wore the facility-provided uniform of t-shirt and shorts, making it look like a bus station overflowing with Korean tourists to Disneyland, and in the women-only section one wore only one’s birthday suit.

I’ll skip over the details – which I remember keenly – and get to what I’ve taken with me.  And it’s that I’m enough and there’s nothing really wrong with my body.  And if I change it’s just a change.  In the years to come I’m going to lose as much as I could possibly gain when it comes to physical looks, and the point of that is it doesn’t mean jack when I’m laying down on hot clay marbles and my mind is wandering while impossibly insane Korean TV shows are playing in the background.  From the tiny little naked girls chasing each other around to the old grannies pushing walkers and letting it all hang out, we’re all here.  It’s all good.

The last trip to Dallas was aboard DALLAS NON-STOP, stage managing with a tiny bit of voice over thrown in for shits and giggles. I’ve always loved theatre for the chance to see the world through different eyes and this was something new and different still.  It was all located in the Philippines and imagined and realized by Filipinos and Filipino-Americans… and as much as it reflexively touched on the realities of Filipino life and culture, it was situated so that it looked squarely back at America.  I found I was looking at my own country and my own (Western) culture through their eyes.  Quite a heady experience.

Layovers are such a pain in the ass.  Enough time to not know what to do with yourself, not enough time to really go find an adventure.  That’s what it felt like this summer.  True, I was hitting a patch of depression by late spring, so I was forced to get up and take care of things when my mom had surgery.  Nothing else was getting me to productivity.  But some two-three months of pretending to be mom, cooking and cleaning, etc, at the same time that mom was around being mom and no one else was helping it out…  It just put on pause any attempts to work for myself while I couldn’t do anything to get away and relax.

And at the end of all that? My sister moved in and I started sharing my bedroom with my niece.  Hey, I love these people, even my asshole schizophrenic brother, but this house is ready to pop.  I was staying up until the wee hours before simply from being nocturnal, but as I tried to rearrange my life so I could get life moving in a more productive direction, I was starting to make good on getting some decent sleep during the night.  Now I’m back to nearly fully nocturnal because it’s the only time I can hear myself think.  This is the hardest part.  Making the life I’m aiming for work while the place I live in is slightly completely crazy.

At the least I have awesome friends who are generous with their resources.  S let me crash at her house while I worked on DALLAS and on a few occasions I got some recording done there.  It maybe that I have to do all my recording there.  It’s still not a studio, but it’s far calmer than my house.

Those are just the places I landed.  Spots where my feet touched the ground and I saw clearly what I was trying to get done, whether I was close to or far from my goals.  I coasted over fitness & weight loss, sometimes going to the gym regularly, and sometimes taking a month or more off.  I skimmed some Japanese without serious demands that I improve and commit more to the long-term memory banks.  I’m trying not to get too frustrated about these.  They’re important to me but I can have only one No 1 goal.

Walla is a term for the chatter produced when a group of people in a sound booth fill in the background conversation for scenes on TV or movies.  I can’t get into detail about the ones I’ve done, but I can say it’s a fun exercise in semi-free form improv.  Anyhow, I like that someone thought of me and called me in.  Next up: getting someone to think of me and pay me to come in.

Days in Between

25 Thursday Apr 2013

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Yesterday at the gym I got annoyed, I mean really pissed while working out on the cardio machine. Not all that far in I developed stomach cramps and generally felt crappy about pushing myself and sweating and carrying on doing the basics that theoretically will carry me to my goal of fitness and weight loss. I hit a point where the pain and distance to my goal caught up with my attitude and dragged it down into the dumps. It’s just frustrating to think all the effort and discomfort will really only have minimal effect – and only if I keep subjecting myself to it.

Slogging away on the machines at the gym I can just imagine the parallels between working out and working on my career as a voice actor. It’s easy enough to intellectually grasp that it’s going to take a lot of work for me to become a VO success; I’ve accepted that it’s going to take years. But it’s when I’m sweating and hurting and getting progressively irritated that I have real appreciation of just how long that is. (Well, ok VO work doesn’t usually hurt, though sweat is occasional, the pain tends to be more emotional.)

Anyone who’s ever tried acting – for any medium – knows it’s tough enough just to get cast, let alone make some money. It feels like there is a ton of rejection, but in fact it’s the deafening silence that can end up really soul-crushing. Some days I just have to ask myself if I secretly love punishing myself, a la Sisyphus, by pushing a metaphorical boulder up an unforgiving mountain.

There are days, though, when I can sense forward movement. When something heartening comes by and it doesn’t seem entirely hopeless. It’s when the workout doesn’t hurt all that much, and finishing the weight lift reps leaves me feeling stronger than before I started. It’s also when I see my name printed on a program for performing in a screenplay showcase or when I hand someone my brand new business card. It’s definitely in every compliment I get.

Off days, whether I’m making mistakes or I just can’t fight off self-doubt, are sure to come. Some days my body and my mind will gang up against my resolve and convince me to back off. But that’s part of the process of getting somewhere, I’m convinced. There’s the squishy way out – be nice to myself, take it easy and come back again later – which includes forgiving myself for taking the easy way. *shrug* I guess if it works, then that’s fine. But I’m trying to accomplish something and I don’t intend to make “trying” a way of life. I’m gonna do it.

So… there’s no conclusion to this. I go to the gym with the intention of getting fit; I pursue voice acting with the purpose of making it my career. That was my opening thesis and the long hard slog of days that don’t seem to get anywhere are as much a part of the work as the occasional successes.

Yesterday, on that &#$*!@% cardio machine I eased up and pushed through the whole program. I went through my stretches, carefully pushing back on the nausea and finally headed home. The shower afterwards felt heaven-sent.

My Voice Acting Guides

19 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Voice Over

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I am a voice actor. I don’t actually make any money at this yet, but the fact remains if you ask after my professed career I’m going to answer with voice over: cartoons, commercials, book narration, and documentaries.

The funny thing is, over the past year or so mentioning this has prompted several people to exclaim that it sounds like fun and how does one become a professional voice actor? Ah, well see the part where I don’t get paid? When I figure out how to change that I’ll be happy to tell anyone and everyone.

In the meantime, what I can share is the resources I’ve found that have helped me a bunch to get a handle on the industry as well as sharpen my game.

In the first place I should say that in order to be a voice actor I have to set aside all of my other approaches to performance and stagecraft and think of myself as an actor. I have spent a lot of time not doing that. Not just because I’ve spent the last few years stage managing and the occasional dramaturgical turn, but spending the large majority of my 20s not even doing any theatre. However, before that I got a BA in Theatre from USC. Because for the longest time while growing up and pushing my way into adulthood I knew that performing was where it was for me.

Not everyone gets into voice acting with an acting background, but most do. Frankly, I tend to think of voice actors as actors with a focus on voice over. It’s the same with actors who focus on on-screen performance in their professional careers. Studying for these first requires class time in an empty space, working with plays. Counting up all of my schooling, I put in something like 10 years doing that. And I wish I could have gotten a whole, whole lot more.

Anyway, since coming around to look at voice acting I’ve found a few teachers and other resources that have been immeasurably helpful.

Probably first and foremost has been Crispin Freeman’s classes, each of which I’ve taken at least twice. And I may take them some more. Maybe. }:> And I really can’t say enough good things about his podcast, Voice Acting Mastery. All very insightful and, at least for me, coming from a point of view that I can get with.

Crispin has broad background in voice so he can speak to a variety of VO projects, but his classes and podcast are focused on animation, in particular dubbing for anime and video games. Very simply, it’s because these areas are where his fanbase is and his classes are typically made up of fans of his who have an interest in voice acting. (The in-person classes are capped at eight people so the Venn diagram of fans and VO hopefuls only has to be so big.) This is just to say that you don’t have to be an anime fan to get a lot of mileage out of the class, but you might find yourself adrift in language that sort of sounds like English but doesn’t quite seem like it.

Check out the podcast, poke around the various topics and listen in to the interviews. That should reveal a lot about Crispin’s outlook and whether or not his teaching insight could help you as it has helped me.

Everyone else comes in…somewhere after. These are in no particular order.

I’ve started taking some coaching sessions with Juan Carlos Bagnell or Some Audio Guy in the last year. Juan has quite the take-no-prisoners approach to voice acting. Given he is a casting director and audio wiz, soft spots for flawed performances would cost him dearly so keeping that out of his booth is a matter of survival. However, he is also really – really – good at guiding the unwary noob actor to something that a pro should produce. For myself, I don’t relish getting beat up just because my work isn’t up to snuff, but I go back because I get better every time. That’s all there is to it.

Like people are talking to me now, demanding info on how to become a pro voice actor, I once talked to friends who made the mistake of mentioning somewhere near me that they were taking a look at voice acting. And from them I heard about David H Lawrence (XVII), his classes and insights. His blog and newsletter contain all sorts of tidbits of info all up and down the mechanical parts of voice over, from gear to financial considerations to industry details that can be very confusing.

His workshops are absolutely loaded information and are actually presented as a lecture with whatever visuals David can think up to further explain his point. These mechanical aspects are so easy to miss when you’re used to focusing on artistry and acting that it’s essential to have a resource like this. Over and over he has presented information that anticipated a question before I had even thought of it. For me, the down side is a lot of his workshops are repeated by request and so the ones I haven’t gotten to catch get harder and harder to get to as they get requested less and less. Also, and this is really a minor point when it comes to recommending, David’s artistic aesthetic and mine don’t mesh very well. It’s minor especially in David’s case because friends of mine have gotten a LOT out of his direction and on-mic instruction that they’re making money in this crazy VO world. So if money talks, then, hey, listen to them and get thee to a VO2gogo workshop. And even if you have cold feet about being directed by David, the on-mic portion of the class is actually separate from the lecture and admission is priced differently if you’re only auditing (listening) or also participating (going on mic). These days David has bunch of other offerings too, like video classes.

A really fun complement to Crispin’s classes has been the Adventures in Voice Acting workshops and workouts, led by Tony Oliver at one of the Bang Zoom! studios. A workshop is a day long class that goes back and forth between a sort of a lecture and booth time. The information and experience relates heavily to anime dubbing and video game voicing, hence complementing (for me) the lessons from Crispin’s classes. Tony has extensive voice acting credits himself, but he’s also put in a hell of a lot of time in the director’s seat. This has put in him at the perfect position to move a production through the breakneck pace necessary to meet logistical needs and still coax out terrific performances from actors.

If I may, he’s also a dear. Now, I don’t actually know him outside of these classes and workouts (no lecturing, just go-go-go! in the studio) and I don’t mean to say that the other teachers I list here aren’t supportive and warm – quite the opposite or I expect they wouldn’t have taken up teaching! But Tony has surprised me more than once with a hug and a couple of words of praise. An actor who goes around looking for support and praise is just setting herself up to be horribly, horribly disappointed, that’s simply a fact. But still, having Rick Hunter tell you you’ve got some game goes a hell of a long way toward keeping your spirits up!

Over and over I heard that the chops honed by improv would be called into service while in the booth. For that I looked for an improv class and Crispin recommended his teacher, Melanie Chartoff. I actually wrote an blog entry a while ago on my experience in just one class session. It was inspired by having to face exactly those factors that had kept me away from improv for a very long time. A lot about its demands scare the crap out of me. But it’s for that reason that taking the classes was so necessary for me; avoiding weaknesses and fears never helped anyone grow and I’m deeply indebted to Melanie for giving me the tools to handle situations that once would have left me frozen and lost inside my own head.

Melanie runs a regular improv class with games for a group to play in a given space. She also has an occasional on-mic class where we work one at a time on a piece of text to bring out the most heart in it. This has been incredibly instrumental in learning to suss out the emotions of a piece or as Melanie put it, to fall in love with every word.

Other than asking friends who they were studying with I also took to the Internet to hunt down classes. Web searches for coaching etc was pretty overwhelming but I was also poking around at various voice actors’ Web sites and Wikipedia entries. One of my college professors pointed me toward Lynnanne Zager, who was teaching at Kalmenson & Kalmenson. I also found that Steve Staley taught there, which pretty much settled me up for taking a class there. The funny thing is, I didn’t ever get a class with Lynnanne, though I did get to meet her once and we had a nice little chat in the hallway at K&K. Instead I ended up taking their commercial voice acting classes I & II and animation with Melique Berger.

It’s two different things to talk about the K&K curriculum and Melique. The Kalmenson’s are very particular about how they think things ought to be and their instructors are there to make sure their method is implemented without fail. Their method does help to break down a piece of copy very quickly and leads folks new to commercial VO to make decisions quickly and commit to them fully. I think this is the only place I’ve taken classes where it wasn’t assumed that I walked in with at least a minimal appreciation of acting. That is, the K&K method really is a technique that they teach, much like Meisner or Adler technique, that is supposed to open up a performance to truthful expression. It …does and doesn’t help. Again, I can’t argue with numbers and plenty of their alumni have gotten paying work. And in fact, there’s an aspect the helps me the most when I’m tired and distracted that puts my head back where it’s supposed to be. And since it was developed specifically for dealing with commercial copy it helps a lot for those nuggets of advertising that are supposed to be subtle in drawing a listener’s attention but are as gentle as a chainsaw. Anyway, the VA I&II classes I definitely recommend. It’s a great way to learn how to handle material that is much trickier than it looks. Oh, I also took their Demo Prep class. That was where I got to study with Steve Staley. He cracks me up – he’s a total, total actor, and I wish I could take more classes or coaching or whatever with him. Or just get to sit in on a session while he’s in the booth. Jeez, his acting is so clear and amazing I learned more from watching him goof around with copy for a few minutes than I picked up in many hours of other classes.

Now, Melique cracks me up, but it’s intentional on her part. }:> When I first showed up to VO1 I was fighting off a zillion nerves – the same that go nuts anywhere I’m somewhere new. I’m pretty sure she keyed into this pretty fast, she reads most people in about three seconds flat. And I have to say, if there is one antidote to nerves it’s laughing my butt off. Melique made it easy to get along and get right down to brass tacks. It doesn’t take much for voice acting to become nerve racking, getting flustered and loss of confidence are continuous threats. They are most directly combated with experience, a distinct irony for a voice acting greenhorn. So I loved getting to work with Melique because I forgot to be nervous and remembered to kick my game into gear.

I think that’s it for teachers. But I want to make sure I give props to a book & Web site, Voice Over Voice Actor, by Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt. The background info, the tips and suggestions are all super useful and it’s written at a really fun and easy pace. (I’ve tried reading a few other VO texts and they’re typically dry as heck.) Just check the blurbs – some of the biggest names in VO are recommending this book, so don’t just take my word for it. There’s also a CD Yuri and Tara developed to lead vocal warm ups and exercises which has also been very helpful to me.

The last item on my list of resources for keeping my drive and chops up is the most enduring: keeping up with classmates and friends in theatre and voice acting spheres. It’s terrific getting to watch my friends’ careers take off. I’m not gonna lie, envy is a real thing, but it’s so easy to turn it into admiration when we have something in common and it feels like someone from my tribe is doing well. When I hear a friend in a voice over spot or see someone I know in a commercial I love getting to post on their facebook or send them a tweet congratulating them. When I can remember working with them it’s really inspiring to me and I mean every word of praise I get to pass on to them. When I get tired or get a bit turned around after spending a lot of time working on something that isn’t voice over, it’s usually catching up with these people that gets me back on the path I’ve set out for myself.

I don’t know how I’ll get there or where there is, but I know I have great company.