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Interview with Dr. Ann Utterback – Part 1

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Dr. Ann Utterbeck of OnlineVoiceCoaching.com
Dr. Ann Utterback

A few months ago, I began using Scoop.it in order to find news and information on voiceover. It has a very nice search plan. And one of the best things I found using Scoop.it is Dr. Ann Utterback. Her blog posts on managing the voice for broadcasters are incredibly helpful, and I began posting them for others shortly after finding them. Others clearly have found her just as helpful, and you may have seen her recent article on Voice Over Xtra on reducing tension with exercise.

Dr. Utterback is a Voice Specialist with more than 40 years experience. She has helped hundreds of people make the most of their voices.  She has worked with broadcasters, voice over artists, and podcasters around the world. Ann is the author of eight books and over 50 articles on voice. Her book, BROADCAST VOICE HANDBOOK, is used in newsrooms and classrooms throughout the United States. It is designed as a self-help book that teaches how to improve every aspect of your voice.  She has her BA and MA in Speech with  an emphasis on voice and diction from the University of Memphis, and her Ph. D. from Southern Illinois University. You can find her website, book and a free voice exercise MP3 at Online Voice Coaching, and she was kind enough to answer a few questions for me. I’ll be presenting the second half of the interview tomorrow.

What led you to be interested in working with broadcast professionals on their vocal techniques?

There were a couple of things that started me on my career path.  First, I grew up in Memphis and had quite a strong southern accent.  While in college I took a voice and diction class and used what I learned to correct my own accent.  After I did that, it occurred to me that if I could fix my own accent, I could help other people with voice challenges.  This started me on a 16-year teaching career.  I taught voice and diction at several universities around the country.  Then in 1985 I was contacted at the University of Maryland, where I was teaching, and asked to coach one of the bureau chiefs at CNN.  He is the person who advised me to leave teaching and become a broadcast voice specialist full time.  I owe him for that because it has been a wonderful career.  In 1989 I went on to write my main book, BROADCAST VOICE HANDBOOK, which is now used in newsrooms and classrooms across the country.  It came out in the fifth edition last year, and it’s rapidly becoming a popular resource for voiceover artists as well.

Do you find that, as groups, television anchors, radio hosts or voiceover professionals have different concerns or technique issues to work on?

Television is challenging because you have to factor in the visual presentation as well as the oral.  Other than that, I find that the basic areas of breathing, resonance, vocal health, articulation and vocal energy apply to all forms of oral expression.  I have had the privilege of working at the Voice of America as a consultant for the last 20 years, and people ask me all the time how I can work with people broadcasting in over 50 different languages.  I tell them that the equipment they are using is all the same whether they’re speaking Tibetan, Swahili, or Urdu, and it hasn’t changed in thousands of years.  We all breathe and articulate, for example, with the same equipment.  Vocal health challenges don’t vary from language to language and that’s true of the different modes of voicing whether it be voiceovers or broadcasts.

Your posts point out that there is so much more to what we do than simply breathing and speaking. Do you find it difficult to convince newcomers that it isn’t just about talking, and that the rest of the body plays a part in their “performance?”

I’ll tell you a funny story about that.  Around 1995 I was asked to speak at a large broadcasting convention.  I had been incorporating more and more stress control work into my coaching because I had discovered that with some broadcasters it didn’t matter how much I coached them, they didn’t improve.  I finally realized that they were so stressed it was preventing them from improving.  Well, when I let the word out that I was going to lead a convention session on stress, my friends in the business told me it was professional suicide.  They thought no one would take me seriously as a voice coach ever again because in the broadcasting world you didn’t talk about stress.  My session changed all that.  It ended up being standing room only, and now every year at this convention they have a session on stress control.  I’m hoping that voiceover talent will realize the importance of stress control and vocal health as well.

Read Part 2 of this interview. You can follow Ann on Twitter at @AnnUtterback

What the Pros Listen For in Animation Demos

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Listen to the musicphoto © 2008 vagawi  | more info (via: Wylio)Back Stage, the online version of the paper magazine and Call Sheet, usually caters to on stage/on camera acting, and very heavily in the New York and Los Angeles markets. But each year, there is an issue that concentrates on voiceover. Last week, the online mag had an article titles “What Do You Listen for in an Audio Reel?” that should be of interest to anyone looking for representation in the major markets and has an animation work jones.

Representatives from CESD Talent, Imperium-7, Sutton, Barth & Venari, and JE Talent talk specifically about what they listen for when they receive an animation demo reel. These companies have cast actors in shows and movies like “Archer.” “American Dad,” Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” “Up,” “Toy Story 3,” “Futurama,” and many more, so they know what they are talking about.

One interesting thing I caught out of the article is the contrasting methods between these agents. Cathey Lizzio at CESD says this about the demos they receive:

We listen to all actors’ demos sent to us, solicited and unsolicited, to decide if we want to represent a particular actor. When we listen to a demo, we usually want to hear some degree of versatility spread among a range of characters, accents, and even languages spoken.

On the flip side, here’s Cynthia McLean of Sutton, Barth & Venari:

 Normally, I only listen to a submission reel when someone in the industry who I trust refers a performer to me. If the first 10 seconds has captured my attention with an original, intriguing, fully realized character in the middle of an interesting action, I keep listening.

These quotes point out two things. One, various casting companies and agencies do things differently, and there is no cookie cutter process available for getting this kind of representation and work. Two, you had better get your act together before you submit. In March,  I talked about  five mistakes aspiring voice actors make, and I think this points directly to the issue of rushing your demo. Without knowing your “money voice,” the one that is right up front you want to sell on, you are not going to be considered, especially in the hyper character world of animation.

Go check out the whole article. If nothing else, you can get an idea of what the decision makers on your career are thinking, because what these top level agents do is not so different from the smaller organizations you may work with. Keep it in mind as you move forward in your career.

Genius from Kat Keesling on handling “demo reel” payment

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Kat Keesling Headshot
Kat Keesling, super genius

Back in 2009, I had the pleasure to work with Diane Havens and Kat Keesling on the Hear the Bill Project. Their brainchild was to help ordinary people who would have a very difficult time wading through the complexities of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, in both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate versions by bringing together voice actors to volunteer their time and read them in their entirety. It was a perfect example of an empowered citizenry and the greatness of our industry: well over a hundred voice artists contributed, and the project received glowing remarks in the press.

Kat has continued to be one of the people in our community of artists I listen to and read, and this weekend she posted an outstanding article on her Pure Opinion blog that may be flying under the radar. Entitled “A better response to the ‘demo reel’ payment,” she lays out what I consider a brilliant way to respond to these requests, which often come from students and non-profits with little to spend on professional talent. She points out the baseline conflict everyone faces about doing this kind of work:

Anyone who knows me knows my generosity with my voice. I lend it out for causes freely when I believe in what I am doing. However, I am not living in my parent’s basement or off of a Trust Fund and have struggled with limitations I must work within to keep my time profitable.

It not only includes a sample response, but links to the use of Creative Commons Licensing, which allows the use of your work, but protects you in the event of misuse.

Rather than quote her extensively, I urge you to go and read the article in its entirety. I told Kat that she is “about 18,000,000 times smarter than me,” and that may be an understatement. Thank you, Kat, for taking the time to put this into the public, and I hope it will become a resource for everyone struggling with these questions.

I Never Promised You a National Campaign

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Admit it, the Aflac Duck campaign was a fun little diversion. Gilbert Gottfried blew it (hey, he’s an insult comic, it was bound to happen), and in a brilliant bit of PR, the company decided to throw the doors open in a nationwide search for the next voice of the Duck. And here he is: Dan McKeague, radio sales manager from Minneapolis.

From the CNBC Story:

McKeague beat out well-known celebrities like Jeff Foxworthy and Richard Lewis for the job which Gilbert Gottfried lost after making jokes about Japan post-quake. Gottfried had been the only voice the duck has known since being introduced 11 years ago, but Aflac gets most of its revenue from Japan, so Gottfried’s remarks turned out to be no joke. (Gottfried never did the voiceover work for Aflac’s Japanese ads.)

A nice bit of PR for the company that helps it recover from the damage done by Gottfried’s less than thoughtful remarks, a pretty cool opportunity, and a re-establishment of goodwill. A win win for everyone.

Well almost everyone. Not unlike the Ted Williams situation, I have seen members of the voiceover community/industry grousing about how someone who didn’t pay their dues or spend a ton of money on training and equipment, or maybe just wasn’t them,  got a gig that perhaps they shouldn’t have. Specifically, one quote I heard was “Who invited this guy to the party?”

Who invited him to the party? The same people that invited you, me, and every other voice artist out there: THE CLIENT.

Now I am certain that this isn’t the majority of people out there. Most of us, I hope, have the perspective that this is a selection process that the only part of which you control is your performance. Most of us realize that your chances are slim in just about every audition process you have, unless it is targeted specifically for you. Most of us get the fact that there is another job around the corner that might be yours.

But for those who do not, here’s the rude awakening: you aren’t going to get everything you audition for. You aren’t going to get half of the things you audition for. You probably aren’t going to get one-quarter of the things you audition for. No one promised you a NatGeo documentary series, a national ad campaign, or a Pixar/Dreamworks film deal. Learn your craft, work your contacts, market yourself. Audition. And audition some more. And don’t obesess about the relative success of one-off situations like the Aflac campaign. You got into this because you wanted a career, not a job, right? Don’t lose that perspective: there is always another job.

Congratulations to Dan McKeague! That’s a sweet gig, and I hope it gives you much success. Everyone else? Let’s get back to work!

Contact

If you want a quote or a personalized demo, feel free to contact me today. I’ll be happy to review your project by phone or email.

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