i've got the cigar -- sort of...

i went into voiceovers unlimited/aaa voiceovers a few days ago and did the voiceover takes for each minute or so of commercial copy for my voiceover reel. i bounced in and out of the studio listening carefully as dan duckworth edited all six of them together with the music that we’d already chosen for each one, then cut all of it into snippets of mere seconds each and trimmed the excess fat (breathiness, etc) away. fascinating stuff. protools is a little miracle.

by the time he was done, the running time for the whole thing was something like a minute and 10 seconds—because no one has a real attention span and because of the nature of voiceovers, they don’t have to. they can get the gist of it in short order.

when i heard a rough cut of the end result, i was floored. it sounded so good, i could hardly believe it was me.

now i have to wait for the whole thing to be edited and synched and polished and all. that should take something like two weeks. here’s how it goes: they’re going to email it to me and then they’re going to make 12 copies and a master copy for me to pick up. i’ll also get a mailing list, so i can do a postcard mailing to let agents who represent voiceover artists know that i’m available – and that means registering at sendoutcards.com so that i can take care of all of that asap. my goal is to have all of this done – the demo, the mailing to agents, the master copy in my hand – by my birthday on june 30th. with that as a present to myself, anything else is extra.

yay! i’ll be working from home as a voiceover artist in no time!

See more progress on: Finish my voiceover demo

work from home

great news! dan duckworth (of voiceovers unlimited) and i have selected music for the voiceover demo and i've finally finished my vocal takes. in about two weeks, everything will be edited together and i'll get 12 copies on CD and a master copy, as well as a list of voiceover agents. i'm going to do a mailing as soon as its downloaded onto voice123.com. they can't hire me if they don't know that i exist.

my goal is to be able to do voiceover work comfortably from home -- although lately it's hard to audition because of all the construction in the building, but i think that's subsiding. or maybe they've moved to another floor.

this is my workspace:



i want a medical narration voiceover demo, too -- but i think i'll push for that by or before the end of the summer.

the problem with most actors -- most artists, actually -- is that they're so caught up in making art that they don't treat what they do like a business. it's not about waiting for the phone to ring. it's about getting out there and doing it whether the phone rings or not.

the thing that i love about voiceovers unlimited is that they didn't just make me a demo -- they showed me how to market myself, and gave me the contacts and the tools to pull it off. there were marketing workshops, one-on-one coaching, introductions to casting agents. you name it. they even suggest a system for losing weight, if that's what you need. working with them has really opened my eyes to a lot of what i should be doing for myself every day. it's been a great experience.

i actually love doing voiceovers and i'm so relieved that i've developed another stream of income. it's low stress, takes a minimal amount of time to pull off and it's fun. union jobs can pay as much as on camera work, easily.

all of this -- the commercial demo, the mailing and and everything inbetween -- should be up and off the ground by or before my birthday. i love giving myself birthday presents. this is a good one.

..."do some ho' sh*t"...

and now, a few wise words from erykah badu on how to make it in the music industry if you're a woman.

i'm versatile

every once in awhile, a voiceover gig would fall into may lap and i'd tell myself that i would make a demo and start my voiceover business for real. and then i'd forget about it until some other voiceover gig came out of nowhere and i'd go, wow, i really have to get it together and make a demo. and then i'd go back to whatever i was doing before. back and forth i went. you'd think i would have learned my lesson from the voiceover work i did in lackawanna blues, but no. it took a year of residual checks from that oh so happy afternoon in the recording studio with george and most of the cast of caroline or change that made me think, am i nuts or what? and then another gig fell in my lap: a musician who'd seen me with jc hopkins' biggish band found me via j walter hawkes for a PBS children's cartoon called Word World that had me playing "elephant" and singing a little song called "bit by bit" about putting words together. sooooooo cute. i was in and out in less than an hour and the check was lovely. and it was fun! hm, i thought. wouldn't it be great if i could do this all the time?

i'd been getting newsletters every month from dan and carol duckworth at AAA Voiceover Casting/Voiceovers Unlimited for God knows how long, so when their "january jumpstart" came around this year, i jumped on it. their total package is more like total immersion. they don't just help you put together a demo, they show you how to run your business, for real: classes to develop and maintain your skills, regular mailings to business contacts, seminars to teach you how to market yourself, workshops and one one one sessions to hone in on your weaknesses and strengthen them. everything is so goal-oriented. and i'm a compulsive list-maker, so that's going some, for me to say that. i loved the way dan kept referring to everyone as the president of our respective companies.

once i realized that recording at home to audition and take voiceover work via your laptop, garageband and a mic was the wave of the future, i thought, hm -- wouldn't it be great if i didn't have to leave the house to go to work? then again -- wouldn't it be even better if i could do this voiceover business anywhere?

dan said it in our first marketing seminar, but i've always known it to be true: most actors just call themselves actors. they don't know how to treat acting like a business. they don't know how to hustle, how to make it rain, how to generate work for themselves whether the phone rings or not. they don't know how to market themselves. here's a perfect example of what i mean: most actors don't do mailings regularly -- that means a postcard with updates every month, to keep everyone up on the latest things you've done, after you've sent a headshot and a letter of introduction. it goes without saying that you having all the talent in the world doesn't mean anything if the casting agent in question with the perfect gig for you has no idea that you even exist.

i have one friend in particular who is convinced that the postage to spend on such things is a waste of money. whatever.

all i know is, i'm versatile. and i'm pretty sure that's a part of what can keep the residual checks rolling in. whaddya know: i'm only a few weeks into this total package and i just found out today that an in-house corporate gig just landed on my head. nutty.

panning for gold

last night i went out to dinner at pastis with joan. we had a lot of catching up to do. ah, joan. when i say her name, a flood of memories from my earliest years in new york city come rushing back to me, all at once. she was one of the first people i met in the city. i liked her right away and i don't know why. she was pretty and smart and cool and funny. gobs of insight. west indian by way of the bronx. big family. her long-time boyfriend eric person (that she eventually married) was a musician. although she was in publishing, she wanted to be an actress. clearly, we had a lot in common.

the years floated by. with every bit of progress, joan was somehow a part of it. over steak frittes, she reminded me of when she came to boston when i did RENT and i popped the strap on these amazing shoes she let me wear. and then there was the work i threw at her, at random. one of them was a short off-off broadway stint that i couldn't finish. she stepped in and closed the run. she saw my one person show. i gave her sheet music. "you were good to me," she said. truth be told, actresses don't do things like help each other. especially black ones. but i never concerned myself with that kind of backstabbing piffle. i knew i'd never get anywhere by stepping on people and using them. i figured, what's mine is mine. so why not tell someone about some audition or whatever. why not? no one can take anything away from me that God wants me to have. God is sovereign -- not some casting person on the other side of the table. if God doesn't want me to have it, i don't want it.

after the divorce, as joan settled into her new place in east harlem with her son, she thought of me and decided to take me out to dinner, to catch up and reconnect.

i'm glad she did.

of course, everything was running fast in our conversation. fast and strong. that's the kind of thing that happens when you're with someone that you know, and the love and respect are ever-present. when someone doesn't have an agenda with you, when they aren't denigrating you or one-upping you or playing games with you. when you're just talking -- free and open and easy. it's actually a relief, to be that way. no wonder i've always liked joan.

i caught her up on my family, my career and my love life before the steak hit the table. there was her babysitter to relieve uptown, so unfortunately, there wasn't much time. nevertheless i gleaned so much from what she said. and of course, with those pearls of wisdom came a great deal of sweet relief. but i'm getting ahead of myself, i think.

it's so easy to get stuck here, doing the same things over and over in the name of your career or progress or whatever. making the rounds and going to auditions is something you have to do strategically. you can't just do it ad nauseum -- not without strong results. but then again, auditioning is one of those things that you can do and do and do and keep doing, whether anything ever happens or not. because something could happen. and so you keep doing it. and i suppose that makes it hard to walk away -- there is always the idea looming that the next audition is The One. it's like panning for gold. you're an eternal optimist. but after the divorce, joan makes the rounds again and discovers that those early 40-something trying-to-look-30-something black dolls were now in their early 50s. they never stopped to have a life -- to get married, have kids or whatever. they never stopped auditioning and hustling to the callbacks and scheming towards the next job. they never stopped panning for gold.

i stopped that hustle with Harlem Song. i hit a wall and i realized, i didn't want to do any more regional theater. i didn't want to do any more off-off broadway for the glory of a great new york times review and no money. and club dates made me sick. i wanted to get paid. and that meant transitioning into movies and television. what did i do in the meantime? i wrote songs. i played guitar for fun. i treated working out like it was my part time job. i spent optimum time in day spas. i got my teeth fixed. i worked a day job. and somewhere in there, i landed a ton of callbacks, three commercials and a movie.

all of a sudden, i was so grateful. for everything. i was so grateful to be in the place that i'm in right now. i'm not out there, grasping at sheet music, standing in line and waiting to sing 16 bars. i don't even think i want that anymore. that's when i realized: something happened. i don't know what it was, but something happened. i took a turn somewhere in there and the next thing i knew, everything headed in another direction. and as if all of that weren't enough, i have a friend that's the coolest guy in the world. go figure.

for joan, it was her little boy. she says having him changed everything. it forced her to live on a certain level, get organized and reconfigure her life. auditioning was no longer a priority.

i think we're thinking along the same lines: we want to create and produce something for film and/or tv. have a comfortable life filled with creativity and family and ideas while the checks come in.

we're still panning for gold. we're just not standing in the same stream, doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for different results.

hm. the next time her son is with his father for the weekend, i think i'll show joan my screenplay.