Here’s a picture of me in my recording session yesterday! It was an ISDN session at Dave and Dave’s. It was one of the most fun spots I’ve ever done. I had to sing super fast in the tune of “99 Bottle of Beer on the Wall” but use different lyrics about Sonic’s yummy drinks, like Cherry Limeade.
Booked this one through Nancy Wolfson (who taught me how to read commercial copy in the first place) and the Stars Agency in San Francisco.
Posted in Voice Over
Tagged Dave & Dave, Nancy Wolfson, Stars Agency, Voice Over, voice over agents, voice over job, voice over work
Over the years of living in Los Angeles pursuing acting, I’ve had managers, agents, life coaches and teachers. Lots of them. For right now, where I’m at and what I’m working on, I’ve narrowed it down to Dallas Traverse to seek career/acting advice from.
Her latest blog entry in particular, about what it means to be a working actor, is so spot on.
What it Really Means to Be a Working Actor from Dallas Travers on Vimeo.
My day job is voice over work and I approach it as a business owner. It’s still acting though, and there is no reason why the same approach can’t work for me with on-camera acting.
Anyway, her entry was something I could personally relate to, for voice over work at least. On March 1st, this year, 3 out of my 4 on-going clients had contracts that were ending. It was nothing personal and my work was great, but the contracts (which all ranged in length) coincidentally ended or the work was completed at the same time. My big mistake was seeing it coming, and still not doing anything about it until March 1st.
When I had those on-going clients, I’d still have down-time. Sometimes I’d have a day or two where I had no work to do. I could have been planting seeds all over the place. Doing marketing and emails and phone calls to prepare myself for the dry spell. But I didn’t. I goofed off. Which was fun but paying for it sure wasn’t.
So then, when most of my clients dropped out and I had to dig deep back into the auditioning game, I was shocked at how long it took to get the momentum going again! The slowness in finding more contracts could have been from a lot of contributing factors; gas had just spiked, I’ve now noticed going back through my records that I’m slow every year at that time and….I didn’t keep working. The work that Dallas is talking about, that an actor, or any business owner must do to keep the work coming. The “beating the pavement” work. It’s totally part of our job description and it’s supposed to fill up the rest of the work week outside of when we’re not on set or in the studio. It took everything out of me to get that ‘momentum’ wheel back turning again because if you don’t crank it a little every day, it stops. And, just like with physics, stuff that’s in motion tends to stay in motion. Stuff that’s not, doesn’t.
It’s taken me so long and SO the hard way to finally understand this. Now, when I get a job (VO I mean), I try to make it a rule to audition for 1-3 more jobs BEFORE I sit down to do the gig that I currently have. Doesn’t have to be an audition either. It can be an email, a phone call, a mailing or whatever else I can come up with.
I suppose you don’t have to fill in the down time with that work but, if you don’t (or at least when I don’t), you don’t progress, you just survive. Incorporating all of this into on-camera acting is now the real challenge for me. Thankfully, Dallas is a huge help with this.
Posted in The Business of Voice Over, Video, Voice Over
Tagged actor, dallas, marketing, Mercer, Naomi, on-camera, traverse, Voice Over
If you heard the first part of Boojum and you are a human being with even the slightest bit of imagination, you must be dying to hear the second part of this! I know I am.
I’ve sent out loads of announcements about this but I think everyone’s busy or not interested (perhaps because it’s not video, but a podcast? I dunno). Dude, nobody knows what they’re missing! The world that Bear and Monette create, along with the audio bed the Drabblecast laid the story in, is so detailed and so cool that I’ve been having dreams about it.
Here’s the second and final part of the story. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Posted in Audio, I'm Into This!, Voice Over
Tagged Boojum, drabblecast, Elizabeth Bear, podcast, sarah monette, sci-fi, science fiction, Voice Over, voice over job
I want to be Black Alice Bradley! No really, this story is so cool. It’s written by two brilliant women, Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, and it takes place on a pirate ship in outer space that’s a species who travels through space the way a fish moves through water.
It’s an awesome Sci-Fi and the Drabblecast Podcast is great for raising the money to pay people to create this stuff. Norm Sherman produces these podcasts beautifully. If you can, put it on your iPod and play it while you exercise or in your car – like an audiobook. Each part is probably 10 minutes long or more but the story is so great it stayed in my mind for days after I recorded it.
Posted in Audio, I'm Into This!, Voice Over
Tagged audiobooks, Black Alice Bradley, Boojum, drabblecast, Elizabeth Bear, podcast, sarah monette
Last year I taught some voice over workshops in Guitar Centers up and down the West Coast. I had so many colleagues and friends pulling me aside asking me how I was surviving solely on voice over work but then I had other friends and colleagues pull me aside telling me not to give that information out for free.
So I wrote it all down, pitched the idea to the Guitar Center and taught a six hour workshop several times in 2010. It was fun and rewarding – and I learned that I’m a pretty good teacher. But I also noticed that I quickly wanted to get back to doing what I was teaching people about. At the end of the day I want to help people who ask me questions but I don’t really want to be a teacher of how to do the work. I want to do the work!
I decided to film my workshop and bundle it into 3-5 super informative videos. Someone will be able to download just one video (like say if they already have a home studio so they don’t want to buy that chapter) or they can buy all of them for a better price. Anything you download will come with a course material packet to follow along.
These videos will be perfect for anyone wanting to do voice over but not move to LA or NYC. They show that one can make a good living doing this stuff without having to uproot yourself or your family. They’re also good for someone who lives in one of these cities, is an aspiring voice over actor and can make some money doing these online voice over jobs to build your resume.
We’re almost done shooting all the content. I hired an editor this time so it will be sure to get done! And, since the videos are downloadable, I’ll be able to add content as I find out new information and keep them up-to-date. I can’t wait till it’s all done!
Posted in The Business of Voice Over, Voice Over
Tagged guitar center, naomi mercer, Voice Over, voice over class, voice over workshop, Voiceover
In my last year of college at the University of Washington, I spent a semester abroad at Oxford University (St. Edmund –or “Teddy” Hall). 
Much to my surprise there were almost no classrooms in the entire town of Oxford. Just lecture halls and offices. When I arrived it was arranged to meet with an advisor that would help me put my curriculum together. We sat down in his office on a crisp, fall afternoon.
“So, what do you want to know about?” he said. I couldn’t believe how open ended it was. Weren’t they gonna tell me what they’d be teaching me? At the time I was very interested in studying history via theater. I found it a fascinating way to see what was going on in a culture or society.
“I was thinking about Modern British Theatre and…well of course…Shakespeare.” The advisor promptly hooked me up with two tutors – each specialists in the topics I chose. I was to meet with my primary tutor once a week for one hour and my secondary every other week for an hour.
Both my tutorials began with the same, now familiar sentence…
“So, what do you want to know?”
The format is so simple. Let’s learn and explore what YOU want to know about. It’s also very effective. I learned more in those few months than in the rest of my time in college. (In the thickest of RP British accents) "And for God’s sake, if you’re bored say 
something already so we can go in a different direction!”
For each tutorial, they suggested books that I read and gave me a list of essay topics to choose from. Then I returned, seven days later to stand in front of their desk and read a 3,000 word paper OUTLOUD that explored this topic. It was crazy hard. But it taught me a completely new way to learn.
Cut to many years later. I’d been teaching voice over workshops in classrooms and via Skype about building your own home studio and finding work online. I cover a lot of different types of work to get but I don’t cover too much about audiobooks. While it’s still voice over work, it’s practically a different industry, very much a different recording process and certainly a different submission system.
Then I had a student tell me that they took a look through all my course material and that they were hoping they could focus on none other than audiobooks.
I hesitated for a second but then I thought back to Oxford. I thought, why wouldn’t we want to explore what he wants to know about? He said he’s interested in submitting to some specific audiobook companies with very specific submission guidelines. So I said, ‘let’s do it!’
Since then he’s created a beautiful body of demo material for audiobook publishers. In retrospect, I’m so glad I didn’t force us to go through my course material. It just wasn’t relevant to him and didn’t give him any forward motion in his goals to record audiobooks. And now, I have a FULL chapter in course material people who want to go into audiobooks=)
I was just going through my New Year’s postcard to see what I’ve been up to that I can include in a submission. Then I realized that I never posted this!
While I’m proud that I’ve been busy and that I’ve been busy doing voice over work, I feel like it’s time to start honing in on the jobs I really want. It’s time to start talking the talk so I can hopefully walk the walk!
Mostly I want to work with the folks at Titmouse. They make tons of animation shows that air on Adult Swim as well as lots of other neat shit. I love their dry humor that comes through in so much of their work and I also like their animation style.
I’m also super into Star Wars: Clone Wars on the Cartoon Network. I got a call back for that show once. It was one of those auditions you so wish you could just have a do-over unfortunately. That callback was very early in my career and I was nervous and intimidated. If I had a callback like that now I’d be stoked to nail it but then I was just thinking about all the wrong stuff.
Then there’s The Family Guy and American Dad….sigh…would love to be a part of those shows too.
And if I declare it, then I can start going for it!
Posted in My Life, Voice Over
Tagged american dad, Naomi, naomi mercer, star wars: clone wars, the family guy, titmouse, Voice Over
The easiest weed out question I always hear when I’ve asked anyone for an opportunity in this town is,
“Are you SAG?”
Because if the answer’s “NO” then the conversation is over. They’re off the hook for doing you any favors. If the job is union they can’t hire non-union talent unless they can’t find a union worker to do the job. If I had one arm and they needed a one armed leading lady, maybe. If the job called for an Eskimo and I was a gal of Eskimo descent, I’d have a strong chance. But if the job calls for a blonde, white woman, 25-40, chances are there will be hundreds of great SAG talent to choose from.
So I always knew it would be harder for me. I also really did put in a LOT of non-union work that I will miss dearly but at the end of the day, I’m a union kind of gal. My dad lead his union through two strikes against his airline when I was a baby so I’m all about keeping my unions strong.
Posted in My Life, Voice Over
Tagged Naomi, naomi mercer, SAG, Screen Actors Guild, union
Should be similar to the last time where I come in and record the voice of a newscaster. Then my voice will announce the death of a character or something and everyone in the room will react=)
I like these jobs because those sets are such well oiled machines. The Young & The Restless has been on the air since before I was born. Every set and prop and piece of equipment has its place and I just enjoy watching it all operate.
Plus I like going to the CBS lot. The guards at the gate tell me that I have the same scooter that Drew Carey has been driving on the lot with lately. I dig him. Not too much from his career as a performer but he created the Seattle Sounders and, consequently, a GIANT soccer movement has taken place in the greater Seattle area. Smart-ass entrepreneur too – most of those games sell out. I don’t even care that much about soccer, I just love how passionate people are about it now that the Seattle Sounders are around. Why am I even talking about Drew Carey? Oh ya, we have the same scooter and I like him because he made the Seattle Sounders=)
Posted in Cool to Kick it With, My Life, Voice Over
Tagged drew carey, electric scooter, naomi mercer, seattle sounders, The Young & the Restless, Voice Over, Y&R
This job makes me feel like I’ve been around the world every couple of weeks!
Posted in Travel, Video, Voice Over
Tagged geobeats, hosting, naomi mercer, tokyo at night, Voiceover
