VC Radio
Voice Coaches Radio Episode 704 “Listener Questions”
Tina: And I am Tina.
John: And we are here today like we are every week.
Tina: Yes. And.
John: I'm excited about this episode because today, listener questions we, we do get listener questions and I've been kind of stacking them up a little bit.
Tina: Okay.
John: And I picked the best ones.
There's some repeat, there's a lot of repeat questions, actually. Mm-hmm. But that's what we're gonna do today. And I, we should probably do this, I would say once every couple months maybe. All
Tina: right.
John: We'll do listener questions. So again, while we're on that subject, listener questions, you can email. Tina at voice coaches com or John [email protected], uh, with your questions and we will put them on the air also.
Um, hey, just quickly. I've mentioned this before, but uh, I do webinars on, on voiceover.
Tina: Yes, you do.
John: And [00:01:00] so check our website, voice coaches.com for dates. There are a few dates on there, on the website, and I do different time zones and, and all of that. Mm-hmm. But if you'd like to meet me, if you'd like to read for me, I give people a chance to read afterwards.
Don't be shy. Get into one of those webinars. We actually have a discount code on the website, so if you log in
Tina: Oh, nice.
John: If you, if you sign up through the website, you will get a, uh, I think 50% off, I think it is.
Tina: Wow.
John: That's pretty cool, right?
Tina: That is really good. Yeah.
John: I, I lobbied against that. Oh, I don't like the 50% off.
It should be 0% off. I'm just kidding. Yeah, so,
Tina: wow, you're brutal.
John: So, all right, so let's get into listener questions. Ladies first. So Tina, why don't you read off what we have and who it's from? Okay. But we are not gonna say last names by, no,
Tina: by
the
John: way. I never say last names 'cause you know people
Tina: one and plus.
I can't pronounce 'em. There you go. I always get them wrong. From Helen P. And that's an easy last name.
John: There you go.
Tina: Uh, hi Tina. M John. You mentioned doing [00:02:00] voiceovers while traveling. Did that affect the quality of the recording? And I love hearing funny stories from both of you on the podcast. Do either of you have any good stories about your travels?
John: Okay, so why don't you go first? What, what do you think about the,
Tina: the traveling? Well, and I, and I do that, I do a lot of that and I'll take my microphone with me and, um. I have my laptop, which I record onto, which use audacity and I have a, um, microphone, isolation shield. And so it's basically, um, a box that's fold.
It folds up, but opens up on the inside is all phone.
John: Yeah.
Tina: And so the microphone is on a stand and I've got that shield just like this. So that is what gives me that. Um, booth sound.
John: There you go.
Tina: Yeah, that's the booth sound. And that's the biggest thing is just finding, um, the right time to record. 'cause still, I'm not in [00:03:00] a, I'm not in a, a, you know, booth that's, you know, soundproof or anything.
I'm usually in a room, you know, and that's the hotel room or something. Yes. Yeah. So I just have to kind of, you know, just figure out, all right, when's the best time one I have to look at, okay, when's this due? When would be the best time for. To record without the outside noise Yes. Leaking in. Mm-hmm.
Because you don't know. It might come in and then, I mean, you're, you're listening back for it anyways. But most of the time and um, you know, I can figure out good times, you know, when, when to record and stuff like that. The reason why I did buy that shield was because it folds up.
John: Yeah.
Tina: And it's like a little briefcase.
John: I remember you telling me. That's cool. I gotta
Tina: listen. And I, and I love it. And it's just so easy to throw things in the car. I have not had to travel, like fly with the equipment yet. Okay. I haven't done that. Um, most of it is just traveling in the car where that folds up. My microphone has its own case too, and I got my laptop.
John: So do you find that it doesn't affect the quality as long as you're really careful?
Tina: Yes. It doesn't, I haven't had any issues. Mm-hmm. It's [00:04:00] just, yeah, it just really, I mean, you might get, you know, when I am recording and I can, I can hear stuff in, in my headphones that outside noise. Stop. Wait record. Yes.
John: Yep. That's what I was gonna say. Yeah,
Tina: that's, I think that would be the biggest frustration of all outside Yeah. The outside noise and just figuring when is a good time.
John: Yeah. That's the same thing I, when I was on, when now I'm, I have, we talked about this when we talked about, um, the prior episode we talked about.
Home recording. Right?
Tina: Yeah.
John: So I have one of those isolation shields as well. Mine doesn't fold up. I really wanna look for yours. Mm-hmm. I gotta get the brand from you, but, but, uh, for my travel mm-hmm. Because I don't travel with it because it's, it's doesn't fold up. Yeah. So it's kind of awkward to travel with.
So I have recorded. In my hotel. And there's, and it isn't easy.
Tina: No.
John: And it can affect, and like you said, it can affect the quality. What you have to do is, number one, be conscious. Number one, you have to turn off everything.
Tina: Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
John: So that's, I think people forget that. So you have to turn off the air conditioning if it's hot, have turn off the heater can not have it running.
Tina: No.
John: So whatever they [00:05:00] have as a unit in the room, you have to turn it off. Okay. Yes. For the duration of your recording also. Again, you do have to pay attention to the sounds around you, right? Mm-hmm. You're in a hotel. Mm-hmm. So like you said, someone could walk by if you next to the elevator is ding,
Tina: you hear everything.
Yep.
John: So you have to be really careful because it's not easy to hide imperfections in your recording. If. You are sending, like there are some, uh, clients who will just say, all I need is your voice.
Tina: Yeah.
John: Right. If you're, if you're gonna put like a music bed to it, you can cover up some of that
Tina: stuff. Yes.
That stuff can be covered
John: up. Yeah. But when you're now, when you're just recording your voice and that's many times that's all they want.
Tina: Yeah.
John: It's, you can't cover up any imperfection. So yes, it's all about timing, like you said. Mm-hmm. And being very careful. Uh, and if you have, and the isolation, isolation shield to me
Tina: mm-hmm.
John: It would be a must. You know, I, I do have to get that because the other thing you can get is room tone. Yes. But if you have a unidirectional mic
Tina: Yeah.
John: Typically you can kind of meet, you know?
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: [00:06:00] Put yourself in a position in the room where it won't be too bad. Yeah. But, but, uh, it can affect the quality.
It can, but you just have to be very, very careful and conscious of everything going on around you. Mm-hmm. And by the way, it's not just hotels. Listen, I, I, I've had people who think they can record from home. Mm-hmm. And they should be able to. Yeah. Um, but they record. In the kitchen. Yeah. And the refrigerator's on, and that sounds wild, right?
Like I have to turn my refrigerator off. Y if you're gonna record the kitchen, yeah. Yes. You can't have anything running, so you have to be very, very careful. So, uh, if you're, if you're smart about it and you're very conscious mm-hmm. Then you can absolutely record on the road and, and, uh. Yes, it can affect your quality, but you can make sure it doesn't.
Yes. Just be very, very careful.
Tina: Yeah, that's, that's the biggest thing. I know someone who, um, would travel a lot, um, and, and record in hotels and, uh, he told me that one time he forgot like that shield, he also had the shield. He also had to, um. The microphone isolation box.
John: Oh,
Tina: cool, cool, cool. Yeah. So either one, he said, but completely forgot.
He [00:07:00] goes, the blanket, the quilt on the bed was so thick. So he said, I was at the desk. He goes, and I put the quilt over my head and over my computer and over the microphone. He says, I could still see and read. You know what I mean? He says, but that blanket was so. Thick. It gave me that same, the sound I was looking for.
John: So in MacGyver it?
Tina: Yes.
John: For those of you who are older, yes. If you're, if you are under 40, you don't even know what that means. MacGyver,
Tina: I think there's a new MacGyver out there used to be within the last couple of years. So
John: those young was that, that was a female, right? Didn't they make it a female lead?
Tina: Oh, maybe.
John: I think the New Mac guy was a female lead, actually. That's cool. Yeah.
Tina: Oh, anyways.
John: Uh, now the other part of the question was right. Uh, something about,
Tina: I was like, um, do, did, uh, do either of you have any good stories about your travels?
John: Cool.
Tina: Not really. I mean, they've opened. Really? Yeah. I've never,
John: not voiceover related, but it could be anything.
Tina: Oh, about my travels.
John: Yeah. Just like, so a funny [00:08:00] story. I find that I've had many people comment on one, some of the things that I get in, in our emails, people comment about how much they love our stories, the funny ones, so it doesn't have to be voiceover related. Anything funny happen in a travel.
Tina: Oh my goodness.
Oh, oh my goodness. I have a couple, a couple things that I could tell you that were just, all right. So the one that just comes to mind, I went to, uh, Arizona. I was at, um, Sedia, and I was pregnant, first, first child, and I was with my sister, um, my ex-husband, husband at the time. Um, my sister and her, my brother-in-law.
So, um, we went to, um, just some hiking, you know, in, I don't know where we were, but you know, they had us, you know, get on a tra on the bus, you travel, you're hiking in the desert or whatever. I don't know.
John: Was it in the desert?
Tina: Yeah, well we were in Arizona. Yeah. So I have no, everything's got a desert, right?
Yeah, yeah. Everything's kind of desert in there, so I'm
John: terrified of that. By the way, snakes.
Tina: Well that's, this is [00:09:00] what, so we're coming, we're traveling, we're doing the trail and we're, it's like, oh, it's time to go get back onto the bus. And, and you know, so my sister and my sister, my brother-in-law are ahead of me.
My sister, they, one thing they said, do not pick up the rocks. Do not pick up the rocks because you don't know what kind of creature is gonna be underneath that, right? Yeah, yeah. So my sister's in front of me. I'm going a little slower 'cause I'm pregnant and so she's picking up the rocks. My sister's older than me.
Whatcha doing? You're picking up the rocks and walking. They're gonna come out and get me. Yeah. So they're ahead of me. And now there are people like, Hey, the bus is here. So they're, they walk faster so they can stop the bus to make sure they wait for me. Right. So apparently they get to the bus and said, um, my sister's coming.
She's pregnant. You know, so give her, give her a little bit, you know, I all, here I get, I turn the corner and pregnant lady's here. Thank you. There's one of my funny [00:10:00] stories,
John: pregnant ladies here. It's great. Yeah. Uh, you know, I, I, I do have, I just came back from Costa Rica by the way, so Oh,
Tina: nice.
John: That was in Costa Rica around the holidays.
Mm-hmm. Um, so, um, that was fun. I do have funny stories from that, but I, I'll give you one from Texas, we have a couple affiliate studios, right? Mm-hmm. So, well, we have many affiliate studios, but we've a, we have three affiliate studios. Um, that I've been to in Texas, uh, one in Dallas, one in Houston, and one in Austin.
Those are the three I've been to and. I was going from Dallas to Houston, so I drove. Mm-hmm. And on the way, uh, you go through Waco,
Tina: right? Oh, yeah.
John: So I decided, I, I saw a sign for the Waco Zoo and I said, Ooh, this'll be, I wanna go to the zoo because I had plenty of time. I was like, you know, it's tons of time.
And so there zoo is in the park there. Like you go through like Waco Park.
Tina: Okay. Like,
John: I dunno what they call it, whether they're central, yeah. Waco, central Park or whatever. But inside the park is the zoo. So I pull up to [00:11:00] the zoo. Waco Zoo, and there's like three cars in the parking lot, so I'm thinking they're not, it's fall there and fall isn't like here where it's like 50.
Mm-hmm. Fall there is 70.
Tina: Yes.
John: 72.
Tina: It's still nice. Yeah.
John: So I park and I think it's probably not open. It doesn't always, it's open. There's no one, there's literally three cars in the parking lot. Mm-hmm.
Tina: I
John: walk over, it's open. Yeah. Someone at the ticket booth. So I, I go inside and there's no one in the zoo.
It's me in the zoo. And you think that would be, you know, you think that'd be cool? Like, oh, I get to walk around.
Tina: Yeah.
John: It was weird and eerie. I, so I was, I would
Tina: go,
John: yeah. Yeah. I was walking around the zoo looking at these animals, and I could hear the lion roaring from a distance. And every time I heard. A branch snap.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: I thought the lion was out. Like, I was like,
Tina: he's
John: coming for you. It was terrifying. Like I was walking through, like, this is terrifying because I just kept hearing K and I'm like, I, I'm like, I don't know what's going on. [00:12:00] What's happening? There's no, so then I get to the lion, if you wanna call it enclosure, so I get to the lion area.
Oh no. And the lion's up kind of on this hill. Hey. And the lion's roaring, so I don't know if it was hungry. And you could tell it was kind of going towards the, like, looks like there was a door, maybe they, they feed the light. Oh, yeah. And it was roaring. And I'm just watching the lion, you know, just thinking it, and then I noticed that the, the, the fence in front of me is waist high.
Tina: Oh my.
John: And, and the only thing between me and the lion is this waist high fence and a moat. But I'm thinking me as a human being, I feel like I could jump over that moat.
Tina: Probably
John: could have. Yeah. And climb up the bank. Yeah. So then I'm like. Uh uh, I don't think this is safe. There was, I'm like looking around thinking there's something I'm not seeing that's keeping the line where it is, but there wasn't a waste high fence and a moat.
Tina: I mean, running outta there
John: so quick. Yeah, maybe lions, because maybe lions hate water so much. I don't know. I know tigers don't. [00:13:00] If it was a tiger, I would've been outta there. Um. But, but, so I was, I was not, I was very scared. So then I finally, I, I, okay, I'm getting outta here.
Tina: Yeah.
John: And so I start to, to walk away and I finally see people by the tiger enclosure.
There's a tiger en. Mm-hmm. Now this tiger is enclosed, right? And, and, uh, like a fully. It's fully fenced in. Um, and there's a top on it. 'cause I know, I know the, there's a story about a tiger climbing over the, uh, cage, uh, at, in San Diego. Oh, my kids are throwing something. The tiger.
Tina: Oh, he was like,
John: tiger scaled the fence.
Killed him.
Tina: Oh my
John: goodness. That's an awful story for me.
Tina: That is
John: awful. Yeah. Story. That's the story. That's the new story though, right? It's a new story story. So tigers. Tigers are terrifying, right? And so anyway, uh. But this tiger was well Enclo, but there was a, a fellow there with his, it looked like maybe someone he just started dating.
'cause it looked like they were kind of getting to know each other, right? Mm-hmm. And he must go there a lot because all of it. And I'm lucky I do, I tend to pay attention [00:14:00] to things that are going on around me.
Tina: Yeah.
John: Uh, my wife does not, by the way, she, she's very funny like that. She doesn't see people now.
She, she could see someone that she knows. And she will not see them. Yeah. Like it could be right there. But I, I'm always looking around Uhhuh just to kind of like, you know, I just wanna know what's happening. And I noticed that he, all of a sudden outta the blue, he grabs her by the shoulder and says, get over here.
Yanks her away from the enclosure. And so since I was paying attention mm-hmm. I thought I should probably move too.
Tina: Yeah.
John: And so I followed them and moved. And thank goodness the lion sprayed where we were standing. Oh, with urine through the fence. Oh, we would've been soaked with tiger urine, which would've been a story to tell.
Tina: Yes,
John: it would've been interesting. But what I didn't wanna do, I was on my way to a recording studio in Houston. Oh yeah. What I didn't wanna do is be soaked in tiger urine. Uh, so. It was a, it was a, I couldn't believe it.
Tina: I'm sure if they would've called you back
John: and, and thank goodness. And, and again, I always feel like things happen for a [00:15:00] reason.
Yeah. Like in my mind I'm like, I hadn't seen anyone till then. Yeah. Imagine if I was standing there by myself.
Tina: I wouldn't have ever known. You
John: would never know.
Tina: How do you know he's about to pee?
John: He apparently he backed up. To the, to the ca, but I don't know enough about tigers. Yeah. So this guy knew 'cause he must go there all the time, but the tiger had turned his back to us and backed up to the cage.
Tina: Alright,
John: now I know. Knew he knew that. Yeah. And, uh, so I'm gonna think, and if this guy is listening to this podcast, thank you, sir. Uh, because you, you know, yeah. Again, great story. I could have told, hey, I was soaked in tiger urine. That how often does happen to anybody, but I'd rather not. I'd rather not. I'd rather tell this story where it missed me.
So,
Tina: yes.
John: Yeah. So there, there's my story. Yes. Uh, funny story about, uh, and I have Costa Rica ones too, because I don't speak Spanish very fluently, unfortunately. I've been trying to learn it. I did a little high school, but there's a lot of funny stories there. Just because I don't speak Spanish,
Tina: that that will get you in trouble
John: or good time, that I'll save them for another podcast.
All right. Uh, because, you know, I, I, I always feel [00:16:00] like. You know, we've been doing enough of these now where I feel like if I tell a story, I have to go, did I tell this already?
Tina: Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's what
John: I'm thinking too, are people, and I know, and Costa Rica's new, so I know I haven't.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: And I'm not gonna tell it now, but I will tell some Costa Rica stories, uh, interesting things has happened to me in Costa Rica. 'cause it was a fantastic trip. We will do a, we
Tina: should do like a whole podcast on that.
John: Yeah. My wife's family lives in Costa Rica, which is great because, um. I, I will say this, when I was in Costa Rica and, and they were just bringing me around, I thought to myself, who comes here?
Without knowing anyone, like I thought that I wouldn't even know how to explore Costa Rica.
Tina: I wouldn't. Yeah.
John: Like her father lives there and, okay. He's from Costa Rica and he lived in the US for a while, but he mm-hmm. Is back and living in Costa Rica and he took us all over the place and he obviously speaks, speaks Spanish slowly, and he's Costa Rica and.
And I thought, who is doing this without someone?
Tina: Yeah.
John: Because I wouldn't, I don't know what I would do.
Tina: I wouldn't know either.
John: Yeah. So, but anyway, we'll save all that for, uh, a different time. So, uh, let's turn I have another question and [00:17:00] I Okay. So, um, from Angie C Hi guys. I'm new to the industry and I've been sending demos to potential clients, but I haven't booked any voiceover work as of yet.
Is it normal to hear nothing back?
Tina: Hmm. That's a good question.
John: It is a good question.
Tina: And it, and unfortunately it's
John: yes. Yeah. You should know. It's very, and and, and this is actually a good question because mm-hmm. I'm sure other people are going through this.
Tina: Yeah.
John: And I've heard this from other people.
They, they get discouraged by this. Actually.
Tina: It is.
John: Don't,
Tina: yeah.
John: Listen. Um, I'll tell you from our perspective, right? We do a lot of voiceover work here. When we get demos, we are not. Obligated to reach out to you and tell you we like your demo or anything like that? Yeah, we're gonna reach out to you, um, if we're gonna hire you.
Yeah. And by the way, you sending a demo and just not hearing from us doesn't mean we don't like you or don't like your demo.
Tina: Yeah.
John: My advice. To
Tina: Angie.
John: Angie.
Tina: Oh, I'm so, I'm [00:18:00] glad I remembered.
John: Yeah. You have a good memory. Uh, your advice, it's
Tina: not good.
John: Your advice to Angie, well, your and my advice hopefully to, Angie, I'm telling you what your advice is.
Your advice to Angie. Uh, my advice to Angie is to follow up. Continue to follow up. That's the mistake many voice actors make. Yeah. Which is they don't hear anything back. And they kinda get discouraged and they think they didn't like me and they, they, they kind of, I don't know if they just say, forget that client or whatever.
My advice is this, send demos out and then follow up. Mm-hmm. Follow up. Follow up and, and I would say follow up every 30 days. Yeah. Uh, not initially. Initially. Once you send your demo follow up two weeks later.
Tina: Yes.
John: So I always close two weeks and then after that follow up every 30 days.
Mm-hmm.
John: Um, because.
We didn't hire you yet. That doesn't mean we're not gonna hire you. Yeah. And we're not gonna, we're not gonna, uh, call you up or email you mm-hmm. And say, Hey, got your demo. Love it. Or, Hey.
Tina: Yeah.
John: And, and don't do the thing that some people, people think they're tricking the system. And I wanna caution you against this.
Tina: Okay?
John: Here's what some. [00:19:00] Voice actors do and they think that it's like beating the system. They're, they're, they're making me respond to them. They go, Hey, I just wanted to get some feedback on my demo. Oh,
Tina: okay.
John: Now let me tell you why that's not good. Mm-hmm. You have now taken yourself out of the hiring pool and put yourself into an amateur status where you want me to just critique your demo for you and I could critique anyone's
Tina: demo.
Alright. That's good.
John: Right? Yeah. I'm not thinking about hiring at that point. Yeah. You just emailed me and said, tell me what you think of my demo. Right. You're at that point, I don't even
Tina: Yeah.
John: Consider you for work. No. 'cause you want me to critique your demo. Don't do that. Send your demo with confidence.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: And then follow up. Yes. So that's my advice. What do you think?
Tina: Oh, I definitely agree on that, but I, and I, I think I've said this, you're, you're gonna send out. 10 and you're not gonna hear anything. And then on the 11th one you'll hear something, you know, but just keep, like you said, keep sending, keep sending, keep sending.
And I always say to people that don't take it to heart that they don't hire you. It's just they were looking for a [00:20:00] certain voice. Mm-hmm. Yes. They already have that in their mind when they're writing out those scripts. This is the voice we're looking for. We're looking for a male, um, sounding between. 4, 45, 55, friendly, funny cop, you know, that type of thing.
They're just, they have it in their mind, what they're looking for. But don't take it as, oh, I'm terrible, is it? No, no, no. They were just looking for something specific. They have a voice in mind.
John: Right. You got it. And it's funny, that brings me to something quick about a celebrity. I have people ask this question a lot and I didn't get it actually.
Mm-hmm. Um, people ask, are celebrities taking the jobs? I get that a lot. And I always say to people, you are not competing with them.
Tina: Yeah. Now, and,
John: and not only that, I'm not competing with them. I've done it for 30 years. Like if, yeah, if, if Coca-Cola has a job
Tina: mm-hmm.
John: Here's a conversation that never happened.
John Gallogly or Matt Damon. That question never arose. They knew they wanted Matt Damon when they wrote that commercial. Yeah, it that actually commercial was for Matt Damon.
Tina: Yes.
John: You're [00:21:00] not competing against celebrities. Mm-hmm. Don't worry about that.
Tina: Yeah.
John: There is tons of work. For regular folk like us.
Tina: There is. Yeah, there really is.
John: So I just don't wanted to make that clear. 'cause I do get that question a lot, but I didn't get in our email, so that's interesting
Tina: that, that that is funny. That's, I too, people do ask me about that, you know, hearing celebrities on commercials and stuff like that. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, they, they had that in their mind.
Yeah. That's it. I knew it. They just said, I want that celebrity. I, you know, especially the ones that are like trending. Yeah, they're gonna grab them. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
John: Alright, so what's the next question?
Tina: All right, so the next one from, oh, big Brian.
John: Big. Big Brian. Hey, I always, by the way, I always wonder before we get to this question, well, I always wonder that if your name is like Big Brian, or.
Or, or sometimes people call like tiny. Mm-hmm. Does, is it the opposite? Like, is big Brian Small? Or is Big Brian, big Brian. You know what I mean?
Tina: Yeah, yeah.
John: Like, you know, I always wonder like Biggie Smalls. Yeah. He was not small.
Tina: No, no.
John: But he did have Biggie. His name too, too.
Tina: Yeah. Biggie there.
John: Yeah. [00:22:00]
Tina: All right.
Well Brian, we'll have to find out. All right, how do I know what to charge clients without scaring them off? And should I ever do voiceovers for free?
John: I like it. Good question. So did you wanna take this or want me to take it first?
Tina: You can take it
John: first. Okay. So, alright, couple things. First off. Whenever someone, and when I was like, when I started off in this industry for the first, like I don't even know how many years, many, many years.
I never had anyone say, how much do you charge? Yeah, never. They would always call me or we'd chat and they would say, the job pays X amount of money.
Tina: Yeah,
John: right. I haven't been hearing this for the last few years where people are saying, yeah, I have this client who called and they said, so what do you charge?
Here's my advice on that. You do not answer that question because here's what will happen. You're, you're either going to price yourself out of the range of what, which is what big Brian's talking about. Um, [00:23:00] and you can't go back once you give a price. It's like, like if you say. Um, $500 and they say, Ooh, that's out of our budget.
You can't go, well, hold on. You can't do that. Yeah, it's over. Right? You've already said mm-hmm. However much, and I'm just throwing a number out there, by the way. Um, so here's how I rec, and if you, by the way, you could make them really happy and lowball yourself. Yeah. Which isn't great for you, right?
Tina: No.
John: Anyone who wants to hire a voice actor has an idea. Of what they have to spend. Yeah. It's not like they're completely clueless, like mm-hmm. You know, I'm gonna call a voice actor. I have no idea what we're willing to spend. No, they do.
Tina: Yeah.
John: So always pose the question back to them. That's so when someone says, Hey, what do you charge?
You say, well, it depends on the project. What do you propose?
Tina: Yes.
John: That's how you do it. Because they know. What they are willing to spend. And then mm-hmm. Then it leaves you with the decision, right? Yeah. So then they give you, oh, well, we're thinking about X amount of money, and then you decide whether you want the job or not.
Mm-hmm. Um, telling someone how much you charge is tough because you, you're never gonna hit the nail in the head. Yeah. Right? Yeah. You're gonna lowball yourself or out overprice yourself to them. [00:24:00] There is no in between. Yeah. Is it gonna be difficult for you? It's not like, how lucky would you have to be to hit the exact number?
Yeah, they already have in their head, and that's the point. They already have the number in their head.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: Okay. What do you think? Uh,
Tina: no, I actually, I agree with you there. Sometimes I do see, um, that they give you a range, right? They'll, they'll say our budget is between two 50 and $500. Um, I always, you know, because I've had students ask me, well, what do you do when it's, is that they show you that this is what our budget is?
And I, I always give them the example of myself. When I first started out, I always felt now I'm, my background is broadcasting. Mm-hmm. And then that's how I got into voice acting. And so in my mind I said, you know what, this is because it's very easy for me to record. I've got every, all set up, hit record.
I know how to do all this stuff. So it's not hard or difficult for me. So I always thought, ah, you know what, it's only, it's 10 minutes. No, I know. It took me three minutes to [00:25:00] record this. I'm gonna go on the lower end. I'm brand new. I need to go on the lower end of it. It. No. No. And I wish somebody said to me, no, just because you're brand new does not mean you need to be at that low end of the scale.
So I always say, if you're looking at that and you have that feeling like I did, I always felt that it was, I can't charge a lot of money. It took me three minutes to do this. I can't do that. You know? Um, I wish somebody said to me, no, if you feel that way. Look at the bottom number and then bump it up $50, bump it up, 75, bump it up a hundred dollars.
Right, because you don't, they're giving you a range. Yeah. They're giving you a range. So you, but you do not need to be at the bottom. You do not, because you're just starting out. Yeah. That's how, that's how I always felt. So that's the advice I do give to a clients or, or our students. And when they're saying, okay, what, what do I charge?
And I said, well, you're gonna see a lot of times where they have that range. Mm-hmm. You know? Um, but it was funny because the example that you. Used of saying, you know, so what, what's the, um, I, now I [00:26:00] forgot how,
John: depends on the project. What you propose.
Tina: Yeah. Yes, yes. What do you propose? I just got, I was talking to someone, I'm gonna be doing some, um, one-liners for a, uh, radio station that's on the West Coast, and that was exactly how they're like, so what, what would you, it's a, a month worth of, um.
You know, stuff, but we're gonna send it to you weekly. You know that you're gonna be doing what, what do you, what's the, what do you wanna charge for that? And that's what I said. Well, what do you propose?
John: Yeah,
Tina: because, because honestly, I didn't know what to charge. I didn't know because this is going to be an ongoing thing.
Yeah. You know? So it's not a one time, here's your voice. That's it. Yeah. This is a weekly thing that I'm gonna be doing on. I don't know what to charge these people. Yeah. You
John: know, I don't get a lot of the range stuff. If I did, I would charge top. I would always do it. Yeah. It was one 50 to 500, I'd say 500 I, that's me and only because I know I'm gonna get it done.
Right. Yeah. It's gonna be, it's gonna be mm-hmm. You know, national quality or broadcast quality. Yeah. And, uh, and so it's gonna be better than all the other people that, that have not [00:27:00] been doing this for very long. So, uh, yeah. But, uh. But again, if they had told me, here's the thing, yeah, you wanna gimme a range in my mind, I'm gonna give you, okay, cool.
Well here's what I charge. You know, tell me what you wanna pay me. Yeah. And then, you know, so I
Tina: see that's what I would prefer it saying, this is the cost. Yeah. This is, this is what we're gonna pay you. That's, that's it. Bottom line. Done. Yeah. I would prefer that. But there is, sometimes you do see that and that's like even, you know, this project coming up.
So I, now it's more of, I'm just waiting back to hear. What they, what they're gonna come up with, you know? And so it is kind of, it's, it's, it's crazy. But, but that's just the way I am. I brought up with, you know, oh, it, it's easy. I don't need to charge a lot of money. Yeah. And I wish I had the mentality 'cause I think I'd be rich right now.
There's no way. Now he also asked would you ever do voiceovers for free?
John: Okay. So I have kind of a, I'm gonna try to be careful when I answer this. Uh. So I have a philosophy about [00:28:00] this, and here it is. If you are a professional voice actor, you are an educated voice actor. Now that you've had voiceover training.
Mm-hmm. And by the way, I hope that is the case because otherwise it's hard really to work in the industry. Consistency it. Yeah. So consistently if you haven't, so if you are an educated voice actor, you've had voiceover coaching, um, you have, uh, a, a network quality demo. Your time is worth something.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: So now that I've said that, um, doing free voiceover work is a business decision.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: And you have to look at it that way. Okay? So don't just, here's what some people think they should do. I'm gonna just volunteer and I'm gonna do a bunch of free work and just to get my feet wet. I'm not someone who, who advocates that.
Mm-hmm. And the reason is people will take advantage of you. Yes. Like once you do something free for someone. Uh, it's not like they're thinking to themselves, someday I'm gonna pay that guy a lot of money.
Tina: Yeah, yeah.
John: Or that person, a lot of [00:29:00] money. Mm-hmm. So, so for me, I have done free work.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: And I think I may have mentioned this before, uh, I, but it was, but for me, I always thought to myself.
Where does this go? Like, so, so, uh, where would this lead, will this lead to more work? And, and by the way, when I, when I do that, I, I make it clear a couple things. I, I have done free work and it did lead to other work. Mm-hmm. And so what I say to someone is, you know, this is what I do. This is, this is part of, now for someone who's doing this part-time, you can say, Hey, this is part of how I make my living for me.
This is how I make my living. Yeah. This is what I do. Um, but I love an opportunity to work with you. So I. Um, you know, I'd love the opportunity to work with you in the future, make that clear. And so, you know what I'll do this time, I I, I'll, I'll do it for you. 'cause if they say they don't have a budget Yeah.
Like, say the person or the company doesn't have a budget mm-hmm. For whatever reason, I'd love an opportunity to work with you in the future. So, you know what, this time. You know, let, let's do that. That way we can develop a relationship. I, I make it very clear what I'm going for. Yeah. Um, so I, so I do that, that, [00:30:00] and that's, that has worked for me.
Um, but I wouldn't just throw myself out there and go, uh, hey, I'm here to do work for free. I just think that's a bad precedent to sit. Mm-hmm. To, to set. And it also makes you look amateurish.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: Um, if, and again. Now another reason to do free work is a cause you care about. Yes. There's nothing wrong with that.
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Nothing wrong with that. Mm-hmm. I love dogs. If, and I have done PSAs for, uh, shelters, I actually got paid to do it though.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: And I, I, I would hesitate to say that I would've done it for free because. Now, hopefully they're not listening, uh, because I just love Do you paid
Tina: him?
John: Yeah. I love dogs.
So, so something like that. If they, like, you know, a shelter didn't have a budget. Yes. Mm-hmm. You know, I care about that. Um, so not, you know, um, but most of the time, public service announcements, even nonprofits, they have money for this stuff. So don't be fooled by that. Yeah. Um, so. Yeah. I just, yes, you could do free work, but really think it through and, and, and think, where [00:31:00] does this go?
Tina: Yeah.
John: Okay. Because if it's going nowhere mm-hmm. And it's not a friend, or it's not a cause you care about, then why would you do it?
Tina: Yeah.
John: For free.
Tina: Yeah.
John: Um, so I would just say be careful about Yeah. About it. I'm not saying not to, I'm just saying don't, don't think that you, listen, you have invested in yourself.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: If you are, again, an educated voice actor and you have a network quality demo, you've, you have invested in yourself.
Tina: Yeah.
John: So there's, you know. Just doing the free just to do it for free is not a reason to do it.
Tina: Oh, absolutely. Abs absolutely, and, and I've done, I've done some stuff for free, but it's not, it hasn't been an ongoing, where they've come back, they, they've realized, okay, this is the one time you're gonna get it.
Get the free, but. We need to come back if you're gonna keep up, especially if you do something and then, um, there's revisions and then you're just doing it over and over and over again. When do you stop yourself? You gotta stop it because they're gonna keep on coming.
John: And that is what's funny that you say that.
'cause that's one of the things I was gonna [00:32:00] say and I didn't say it. Mm-hmm. Which is. The most challenging jobs I've ever done
Tina: mm-hmm.
John: Are the ones I've done for free.
Tina: Yeah.
John: I, I tell you, the people that you do things for free for
Tina: Yeah.
John: Are the toughest mm-hmm. Clients for some reason.
Tina: Yeah.
John: It's like. You didn't even pay me.
I know, right. And I swear that is the case. I've had clients that I've done stuff for free and they are the toughest. And then people have paid me a ton of money and they're like, perfect.
Tina: Yeah. Yeah.
John: It's really weird.
Tina: I heard you breathe. Can you take that out?
John: Yeah.
Tina: Like what?
John: Yeah, yeah,
Tina: yeah. We have to breathe.
Yeah. Yeah. Now so it, I guess it just all depends, but don't get, uh, taken advantage of. Yeah, absolutely. That absolutely. That's the biggest thing.
John: Okay, so I have, what do I have here?
Tina: Do I have time for one more?
John: We have time for one more. Yeah. Yep. One more. Did, did, are you, are you done with yours? Uh,
Tina: no. Let me see here.
Will you go ahead with yours?
John: Okay.
Tina: Yeah.
John: You have one more?
Tina: Yes, I do have one more.
John: Okay. So we'll do, we'll do two more. We're trying to make 'em, I dunno how long we've been doing this. Yeah, I don't wanna do too long. We could have made this two episodes, [00:33:00] maybe part one and two, I don't know, but you know. All right.
So for Michael w uh, hello, John and Tina. I listened to the podcast religiously. Whoa. Interesting word. Why? Okay.
Tina: No,
John: I'm not a voice actor. And I'm over 40 years old. Did I miss my window? Great. This is a quick question. Mm-hmm. Absolutely not. You did not miss your window.
Tina: Oh,
John: do it now.
Tina: Yeah.
John: Hey, listen, there I, I, people, in fact, I would say that the people who are finding the most success currently are.
I always say, and, and I think this is true 'cause we see this, um, are people 40 and up and the reason is mm-hmm. They know what they want.
Tina: Yeah.
John: They've done things in life, they've had a job. They know, they like the job, they don't like the job, and now they know, hey, um, this is what I wanna do. Yeah. And, and, and again, um.
Do it the right way. Get, get, you know, work with a voice coach.
Tina: Yes.
John: Get a network quality demo. And by the way, it doesn't matter how old you are, keep in mind it's all about the, the age of your voice.
Tina: It
John: is [00:34:00] you Being 40 years old doesn't mean anything. No, you could sound. 40 to 60 you could sound. Mm-hmm. I don't know you, so I don't know yet, but come to my webinar.
Yep. And, and come to my webinar and, and I will know you, uh, you could sound 35
Tina: Yeah.
John: To 50. 35 to 55. You could have a 20 year age, age range in your voice.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: It doesn't matter how old you are, it matters how old you sound. So Absolutely not. And, and people I think, who are finding success right now, our people mm-hmm.
I really do think are, uh, 40 and up.
Tina: Oh, absolutely. I
John: mean, there's work for everybody. By the way, lemme be very clear about that there, that I'm just saying. I find it's not because there's more work for people 40 and up. Mm-hmm. I think it's because people 40 and up have a tendency to actually follow through with things.
Yes. And when we're younger, we all know this. Mm-hmm. When we're younger, we tend to not follow through with things.
Tina: Oh. I didn't start until I was in my mid forties with voiceover. Yeah. It's granted I was in, you know, radio, but that's just completely different. Yeah. Completely different. The commercials I did were radio.
Yep. For radio, you know, at, because I worked for that broadcasting company, I didn't get into, uh, voice acting until mid forties.
John: Yeah. Oh, good. You, oh, [00:35:00] perfect.
Tina: Yeah. So it's happen.
John: Nine. I did get in early out, but that was rare. Yeah. I mean, I just kind of, I knew what I wanted because I knew what I didn't want.
That was really me. Yeah.
Tina: Yeah.
John: Honestly, it wasn't like, I was like, voice acting is, which, by the way, turned out to be the best thing in the world. Mm-hmm. Um, but I knew what I didn't wanna do. Yeah. And so I, and I knew I wanted to be in this industry, so I dig it in really early, but that is rare. Yeah. I, I think and, and it's cool.
If, and if, if there's anyone out there in their, you know, late teens, early twenties and you know, this is it for you.
Tina: Yeah,
John: go for it.
Tina: Yeah, definitely.
John: Yeah. But yeah, but I think people in, as you get older, you start to really narrow down what, Hey, this is what I want to do.
Tina: I tell people, listen to commercials.
You will not every commercial back to back is the same voice. Variety of voices. Yeah. Variety of ages. Absolutely. So you can do this after four.
John: Awesome. Alright, last question, question. Here
Tina: we go. Last question. Question. All right. What's the one thing you wish every beginner understood?
John: Oh, I thought this would be like a quick one.
Okay. So I'll try to keep. Wait, why don't you go first? All
Tina: right. The first one, because I just had this last [00:36:00] night talking to, um, a student where she's about to do her, uh, demo, but we're going over demos and she goes, you know what's really funny? She goes, I thought it was just reading. That's what everybody, I think everybody that comes into it, it's just reading.
I'm just reading. That's it. I'm reading out loud. It's a little more than that. Yeah, it's definitely a little more than that.
John: Yep. Yep. And that's the, that was the same thing I was gonna say. Yeah. So actually this can be quick. Yeah. I, I think the one thing I would want everyone who's starting out brand. New is to understand this is like anything else in life.
And, and, and when I say that to me, this is better than everything, everything else in many ways, as far as such a cool industry, and everyone who wants to be here, wants to be here, you know? Mm-hmm. There's no, that's all awesome and it's better than all everything else I've ever done. Um, but as far as.
Being a professional environment, and again, it's more relaxed than many other places, but the skills necessary to do this. Mm-hmm. There are skills.
Tina: There are,
John: and so I, I would say what I, what I wish [00:37:00] everyone who came to my webinar, like those are brand new people as an intro, they voice acting. What I wish all those people knew and they do when they leave my webinar.
Mm-hmm. Which is why I talk about it, is this is. This is a real job. Yes. It's this, is it a real business? Mm-hmm. When you get paid as a voice actor, that money really comes outta those people's account. Mm-hmm. And so you have to know what you're doing. You have to know to conversationally read
Tina: Yes.
John: How to voice act.
And you need to know studio etiquette. And so that's why you need voice coaching. So I, I would say that I just need everyone to know you need. To actually get some kind of
Tina: Yes.
John: Voice coaching or voiceover training something.
Tina: Yes,
John: you do. Yes you do. So there you go. I think that's pretty, that's as quick as we've been.
Tina: Yeah, I
know.
John: Alright, well that is listener questions. And again, thank you so much again, please keep sending them and we will do yes listener questions like maybe once every couple months and when we get, I think
Tina: that's good.
John: We get enough?
Tina: Yeah.
John: Um. And so again, John [email protected]
Tina: and Tina at voice coaches
John: com.
Okay, thank you very much everyone. We [00:38:00] out.
John: And we are here today like we are every week.
Tina: Yes. And.
John: I'm excited about this episode because today, listener questions we, we do get listener questions and I've been kind of stacking them up a little bit.
Tina: Okay.
John: And I picked the best ones.
There's some repeat, there's a lot of repeat questions, actually. Mm-hmm. But that's what we're gonna do today. And I, we should probably do this, I would say once every couple months maybe. All
Tina: right.
John: We'll do listener questions. So again, while we're on that subject, listener questions, you can email. Tina at voice coaches com or John [email protected], uh, with your questions and we will put them on the air also.
Um, hey, just quickly. I've mentioned this before, but uh, I do webinars on, on voiceover.
Tina: Yes, you do.
John: And [00:01:00] so check our website, voice coaches.com for dates. There are a few dates on there, on the website, and I do different time zones and, and all of that. Mm-hmm. But if you'd like to meet me, if you'd like to read for me, I give people a chance to read afterwards.
Don't be shy. Get into one of those webinars. We actually have a discount code on the website, so if you log in
Tina: Oh, nice.
John: If you, if you sign up through the website, you will get a, uh, I think 50% off, I think it is.
Tina: Wow.
John: That's pretty cool, right?
Tina: That is really good. Yeah.
John: I, I lobbied against that. Oh, I don't like the 50% off.
It should be 0% off. I'm just kidding. Yeah, so,
Tina: wow, you're brutal.
John: So, all right, so let's get into listener questions. Ladies first. So Tina, why don't you read off what we have and who it's from? Okay. But we are not gonna say last names by, no,
Tina: by
the
John: way. I never say last names 'cause you know people
Tina: one and plus.
I can't pronounce 'em. There you go. I always get them wrong. From Helen P. And that's an easy last name.
John: There you go.
Tina: Uh, hi Tina. M John. You mentioned doing [00:02:00] voiceovers while traveling. Did that affect the quality of the recording? And I love hearing funny stories from both of you on the podcast. Do either of you have any good stories about your travels?
John: Okay, so why don't you go first? What, what do you think about the,
Tina: the traveling? Well, and I, and I do that, I do a lot of that and I'll take my microphone with me and, um. I have my laptop, which I record onto, which use audacity and I have a, um, microphone, isolation shield. And so it's basically, um, a box that's fold.
It folds up, but opens up on the inside is all phone.
John: Yeah.
Tina: And so the microphone is on a stand and I've got that shield just like this. So that is what gives me that. Um, booth sound.
John: There you go.
Tina: Yeah, that's the booth sound. And that's the biggest thing is just finding, um, the right time to record. 'cause still, I'm not in [00:03:00] a, I'm not in a, a, you know, booth that's, you know, soundproof or anything.
I'm usually in a room, you know, and that's the hotel room or something. Yes. Yeah. So I just have to kind of, you know, just figure out, all right, when's the best time one I have to look at, okay, when's this due? When would be the best time for. To record without the outside noise Yes. Leaking in. Mm-hmm.
Because you don't know. It might come in and then, I mean, you're, you're listening back for it anyways. But most of the time and um, you know, I can figure out good times, you know, when, when to record and stuff like that. The reason why I did buy that shield was because it folds up.
John: Yeah.
Tina: And it's like a little briefcase.
John: I remember you telling me. That's cool. I gotta
Tina: listen. And I, and I love it. And it's just so easy to throw things in the car. I have not had to travel, like fly with the equipment yet. Okay. I haven't done that. Um, most of it is just traveling in the car where that folds up. My microphone has its own case too, and I got my laptop.
John: So do you find that it doesn't affect the quality as long as you're really careful?
Tina: Yes. It doesn't, I haven't had any issues. Mm-hmm. It's [00:04:00] just, yeah, it just really, I mean, you might get, you know, when I am recording and I can, I can hear stuff in, in my headphones that outside noise. Stop. Wait record. Yes.
John: Yep. That's what I was gonna say. Yeah,
Tina: that's, I think that would be the biggest frustration of all outside Yeah. The outside noise and just figuring when is a good time.
John: Yeah. That's the same thing I, when I was on, when now I'm, I have, we talked about this when we talked about, um, the prior episode we talked about.
Home recording. Right?
Tina: Yeah.
John: So I have one of those isolation shields as well. Mine doesn't fold up. I really wanna look for yours. Mm-hmm. I gotta get the brand from you, but, but, uh, for my travel mm-hmm. Because I don't travel with it because it's, it's doesn't fold up. Yeah. So it's kind of awkward to travel with.
So I have recorded. In my hotel. And there's, and it isn't easy.
Tina: No.
John: And it can affect, and like you said, it can affect the quality. What you have to do is, number one, be conscious. Number one, you have to turn off everything.
Tina: Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
John: So that's, I think people forget that. So you have to turn off the air conditioning if it's hot, have turn off the heater can not have it running.
Tina: No.
John: So whatever they [00:05:00] have as a unit in the room, you have to turn it off. Okay. Yes. For the duration of your recording also. Again, you do have to pay attention to the sounds around you, right? Mm-hmm. You're in a hotel. Mm-hmm. So like you said, someone could walk by if you next to the elevator is ding,
Tina: you hear everything.
Yep.
John: So you have to be really careful because it's not easy to hide imperfections in your recording. If. You are sending, like there are some, uh, clients who will just say, all I need is your voice.
Tina: Yeah.
John: Right. If you're, if you're gonna put like a music bed to it, you can cover up some of that
Tina: stuff. Yes.
That stuff can be covered
John: up. Yeah. But when you're now, when you're just recording your voice and that's many times that's all they want.
Tina: Yeah.
John: It's, you can't cover up any imperfection. So yes, it's all about timing, like you said. Mm-hmm. And being very careful. Uh, and if you have, and the isolation, isolation shield to me
Tina: mm-hmm.
John: It would be a must. You know, I, I do have to get that because the other thing you can get is room tone. Yes. But if you have a unidirectional mic
Tina: Yeah.
John: Typically you can kind of meet, you know?
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: [00:06:00] Put yourself in a position in the room where it won't be too bad. Yeah. But, but, uh, it can affect the quality.
It can, but you just have to be very, very careful and conscious of everything going on around you. Mm-hmm. And by the way, it's not just hotels. Listen, I, I, I've had people who think they can record from home. Mm-hmm. And they should be able to. Yeah. Um, but they record. In the kitchen. Yeah. And the refrigerator's on, and that sounds wild, right?
Like I have to turn my refrigerator off. Y if you're gonna record the kitchen, yeah. Yes. You can't have anything running, so you have to be very, very careful. So, uh, if you're, if you're smart about it and you're very conscious mm-hmm. Then you can absolutely record on the road and, and, uh. Yes, it can affect your quality, but you can make sure it doesn't.
Yes. Just be very, very careful.
Tina: Yeah, that's, that's the biggest thing. I know someone who, um, would travel a lot, um, and, and record in hotels and, uh, he told me that one time he forgot like that shield, he also had the shield. He also had to, um. The microphone isolation box.
John: Oh,
Tina: cool, cool, cool. Yeah. So either one, he said, but completely forgot.
He [00:07:00] goes, the blanket, the quilt on the bed was so thick. So he said, I was at the desk. He goes, and I put the quilt over my head and over my computer and over the microphone. He says, I could still see and read. You know what I mean? He says, but that blanket was so. Thick. It gave me that same, the sound I was looking for.
John: So in MacGyver it?
Tina: Yes.
John: For those of you who are older, yes. If you're, if you are under 40, you don't even know what that means. MacGyver,
Tina: I think there's a new MacGyver out there used to be within the last couple of years. So
John: those young was that, that was a female, right? Didn't they make it a female lead?
Tina: Oh, maybe.
John: I think the New Mac guy was a female lead, actually. That's cool. Yeah.
Tina: Oh, anyways.
John: Uh, now the other part of the question was right. Uh, something about,
Tina: I was like, um, do, did, uh, do either of you have any good stories about your travels?
John: Cool.
Tina: Not really. I mean, they've opened. Really? Yeah. I've never,
John: not voiceover related, but it could be anything.
Tina: Oh, about my travels.
John: Yeah. Just like, so a funny [00:08:00] story. I find that I've had many people comment on one, some of the things that I get in, in our emails, people comment about how much they love our stories, the funny ones, so it doesn't have to be voiceover related. Anything funny happen in a travel.
Tina: Oh my goodness.
Oh, oh my goodness. I have a couple, a couple things that I could tell you that were just, all right. So the one that just comes to mind, I went to, uh, Arizona. I was at, um, Sedia, and I was pregnant, first, first child, and I was with my sister, um, my ex-husband, husband at the time. Um, my sister and her, my brother-in-law.
So, um, we went to, um, just some hiking, you know, in, I don't know where we were, but you know, they had us, you know, get on a tra on the bus, you travel, you're hiking in the desert or whatever. I don't know.
John: Was it in the desert?
Tina: Yeah, well we were in Arizona. Yeah. So I have no, everything's got a desert, right?
Yeah, yeah. Everything's kind of desert in there, so I'm
John: terrified of that. By the way, snakes.
Tina: Well that's, this is [00:09:00] what, so we're coming, we're traveling, we're doing the trail and we're, it's like, oh, it's time to go get back onto the bus. And, and you know, so my sister and my sister, my brother-in-law are ahead of me.
My sister, they, one thing they said, do not pick up the rocks. Do not pick up the rocks because you don't know what kind of creature is gonna be underneath that, right? Yeah, yeah. So my sister's in front of me. I'm going a little slower 'cause I'm pregnant and so she's picking up the rocks. My sister's older than me.
Whatcha doing? You're picking up the rocks and walking. They're gonna come out and get me. Yeah. So they're ahead of me. And now there are people like, Hey, the bus is here. So they're, they walk faster so they can stop the bus to make sure they wait for me. Right. So apparently they get to the bus and said, um, my sister's coming.
She's pregnant. You know, so give her, give her a little bit, you know, I all, here I get, I turn the corner and pregnant lady's here. Thank you. There's one of my funny [00:10:00] stories,
John: pregnant ladies here. It's great. Yeah. Uh, you know, I, I, I do have, I just came back from Costa Rica by the way, so Oh,
Tina: nice.
John: That was in Costa Rica around the holidays.
Mm-hmm. Um, so, um, that was fun. I do have funny stories from that, but I, I'll give you one from Texas, we have a couple affiliate studios, right? Mm-hmm. So, well, we have many affiliate studios, but we've a, we have three affiliate studios. Um, that I've been to in Texas, uh, one in Dallas, one in Houston, and one in Austin.
Those are the three I've been to and. I was going from Dallas to Houston, so I drove. Mm-hmm. And on the way, uh, you go through Waco,
Tina: right? Oh, yeah.
John: So I decided, I, I saw a sign for the Waco Zoo and I said, Ooh, this'll be, I wanna go to the zoo because I had plenty of time. I was like, you know, it's tons of time.
And so there zoo is in the park there. Like you go through like Waco Park.
Tina: Okay. Like,
John: I dunno what they call it, whether they're central, yeah. Waco, central Park or whatever. But inside the park is the zoo. So I pull up to [00:11:00] the zoo. Waco Zoo, and there's like three cars in the parking lot, so I'm thinking they're not, it's fall there and fall isn't like here where it's like 50.
Mm-hmm. Fall there is 70.
Tina: Yes.
John: 72.
Tina: It's still nice. Yeah.
John: So I park and I think it's probably not open. It doesn't always, it's open. There's no one, there's literally three cars in the parking lot. Mm-hmm.
Tina: I
John: walk over, it's open. Yeah. Someone at the ticket booth. So I, I go inside and there's no one in the zoo.
It's me in the zoo. And you think that would be, you know, you think that'd be cool? Like, oh, I get to walk around.
Tina: Yeah.
John: It was weird and eerie. I, so I was, I would
Tina: go,
John: yeah. Yeah. I was walking around the zoo looking at these animals, and I could hear the lion roaring from a distance. And every time I heard. A branch snap.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: I thought the lion was out. Like, I was like,
Tina: he's
John: coming for you. It was terrifying. Like I was walking through, like, this is terrifying because I just kept hearing K and I'm like, I, I'm like, I don't know what's going on. [00:12:00] What's happening? There's no, so then I get to the lion, if you wanna call it enclosure, so I get to the lion area.
Oh no. And the lion's up kind of on this hill. Hey. And the lion's roaring, so I don't know if it was hungry. And you could tell it was kind of going towards the, like, looks like there was a door, maybe they, they feed the light. Oh, yeah. And it was roaring. And I'm just watching the lion, you know, just thinking it, and then I noticed that the, the, the fence in front of me is waist high.
Tina: Oh my.
John: And, and the only thing between me and the lion is this waist high fence and a moat. But I'm thinking me as a human being, I feel like I could jump over that moat.
Tina: Probably
John: could have. Yeah. And climb up the bank. Yeah. So then I'm like. Uh uh, I don't think this is safe. There was, I'm like looking around thinking there's something I'm not seeing that's keeping the line where it is, but there wasn't a waste high fence and a moat.
Tina: I mean, running outta there
John: so quick. Yeah, maybe lions, because maybe lions hate water so much. I don't know. I know tigers don't. [00:13:00] If it was a tiger, I would've been outta there. Um. But, but, so I was, I was not, I was very scared. So then I finally, I, I, okay, I'm getting outta here.
Tina: Yeah.
John: And so I start to, to walk away and I finally see people by the tiger enclosure.
There's a tiger en. Mm-hmm. Now this tiger is enclosed, right? And, and, uh, like a fully. It's fully fenced in. Um, and there's a top on it. 'cause I know, I know the, there's a story about a tiger climbing over the, uh, cage, uh, at, in San Diego. Oh, my kids are throwing something. The tiger.
Tina: Oh, he was like,
John: tiger scaled the fence.
Killed him.
Tina: Oh my
John: goodness. That's an awful story for me.
Tina: That is
John: awful. Yeah. Story. That's the story. That's the new story though, right? It's a new story story. So tigers. Tigers are terrifying, right? And so anyway, uh. But this tiger was well Enclo, but there was a, a fellow there with his, it looked like maybe someone he just started dating.
'cause it looked like they were kind of getting to know each other, right? Mm-hmm. And he must go there a lot because all of it. And I'm lucky I do, I tend to pay attention [00:14:00] to things that are going on around me.
Tina: Yeah.
John: Uh, my wife does not, by the way, she, she's very funny like that. She doesn't see people now.
She, she could see someone that she knows. And she will not see them. Yeah. Like it could be right there. But I, I'm always looking around Uhhuh just to kind of like, you know, I just wanna know what's happening. And I noticed that he, all of a sudden outta the blue, he grabs her by the shoulder and says, get over here.
Yanks her away from the enclosure. And so since I was paying attention mm-hmm. I thought I should probably move too.
Tina: Yeah.
John: And so I followed them and moved. And thank goodness the lion sprayed where we were standing. Oh, with urine through the fence. Oh, we would've been soaked with tiger urine, which would've been a story to tell.
Tina: Yes,
John: it would've been interesting. But what I didn't wanna do, I was on my way to a recording studio in Houston. Oh yeah. What I didn't wanna do is be soaked in tiger urine. Uh, so. It was a, it was a, I couldn't believe it.
Tina: I'm sure if they would've called you back
John: and, and thank goodness. And, and again, I always feel like things happen for a [00:15:00] reason.
Yeah. Like in my mind I'm like, I hadn't seen anyone till then. Yeah. Imagine if I was standing there by myself.
Tina: I wouldn't have ever known. You
John: would never know.
Tina: How do you know he's about to pee?
John: He apparently he backed up. To the, to the ca, but I don't know enough about tigers. Yeah. So this guy knew 'cause he must go there all the time, but the tiger had turned his back to us and backed up to the cage.
Tina: Alright,
John: now I know. Knew he knew that. Yeah. And, uh, so I'm gonna think, and if this guy is listening to this podcast, thank you, sir. Uh, because you, you know, yeah. Again, great story. I could have told, hey, I was soaked in tiger urine. That how often does happen to anybody, but I'd rather not. I'd rather not. I'd rather tell this story where it missed me.
So,
Tina: yes.
John: Yeah. So there, there's my story. Yes. Uh, funny story about, uh, and I have Costa Rica ones too, because I don't speak Spanish very fluently, unfortunately. I've been trying to learn it. I did a little high school, but there's a lot of funny stories there. Just because I don't speak Spanish,
Tina: that that will get you in trouble
John: or good time, that I'll save them for another podcast.
All right. Uh, because, you know, I, I, I always feel [00:16:00] like. You know, we've been doing enough of these now where I feel like if I tell a story, I have to go, did I tell this already?
Tina: Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's what
John: I'm thinking too, are people, and I know, and Costa Rica's new, so I know I haven't.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: And I'm not gonna tell it now, but I will tell some Costa Rica stories, uh, interesting things has happened to me in Costa Rica. 'cause it was a fantastic trip. We will do a, we
Tina: should do like a whole podcast on that.
John: Yeah. My wife's family lives in Costa Rica, which is great because, um. I, I will say this, when I was in Costa Rica and, and they were just bringing me around, I thought to myself, who comes here?
Without knowing anyone, like I thought that I wouldn't even know how to explore Costa Rica.
Tina: I wouldn't. Yeah.
John: Like her father lives there and, okay. He's from Costa Rica and he lived in the US for a while, but he mm-hmm. Is back and living in Costa Rica and he took us all over the place and he obviously speaks, speaks Spanish slowly, and he's Costa Rica and.
And I thought, who is doing this without someone?
Tina: Yeah.
John: Because I wouldn't, I don't know what I would do.
Tina: I wouldn't know either.
John: Yeah. So, but anyway, we'll save all that for, uh, a different time. So, uh, let's turn I have another question and [00:17:00] I Okay. So, um, from Angie C Hi guys. I'm new to the industry and I've been sending demos to potential clients, but I haven't booked any voiceover work as of yet.
Is it normal to hear nothing back?
Tina: Hmm. That's a good question.
John: It is a good question.
Tina: And it, and unfortunately it's
John: yes. Yeah. You should know. It's very, and and, and this is actually a good question because mm-hmm. I'm sure other people are going through this.
Tina: Yeah.
John: And I've heard this from other people.
They, they get discouraged by this. Actually.
Tina: It is.
John: Don't,
Tina: yeah.
John: Listen. Um, I'll tell you from our perspective, right? We do a lot of voiceover work here. When we get demos, we are not. Obligated to reach out to you and tell you we like your demo or anything like that? Yeah, we're gonna reach out to you, um, if we're gonna hire you.
Yeah. And by the way, you sending a demo and just not hearing from us doesn't mean we don't like you or don't like your demo.
Tina: Yeah.
John: My advice. To
Tina: Angie.
John: Angie.
Tina: Oh, I'm so, I'm [00:18:00] glad I remembered.
John: Yeah. You have a good memory. Uh, your advice, it's
Tina: not good.
John: Your advice to Angie, well, your and my advice hopefully to, Angie, I'm telling you what your advice is.
Your advice to Angie. Uh, my advice to Angie is to follow up. Continue to follow up. That's the mistake many voice actors make. Yeah. Which is they don't hear anything back. And they kinda get discouraged and they think they didn't like me and they, they, they kind of, I don't know if they just say, forget that client or whatever.
My advice is this, send demos out and then follow up. Mm-hmm. Follow up. Follow up and, and I would say follow up every 30 days. Yeah. Uh, not initially. Initially. Once you send your demo follow up two weeks later.
Tina: Yes.
John: So I always close two weeks and then after that follow up every 30 days.
Mm-hmm.
John: Um, because.
We didn't hire you yet. That doesn't mean we're not gonna hire you. Yeah. And we're not gonna, we're not gonna, uh, call you up or email you mm-hmm. And say, Hey, got your demo. Love it. Or, Hey.
Tina: Yeah.
John: And, and don't do the thing that some people, people think they're tricking the system. And I wanna caution you against this.
Tina: Okay?
John: Here's what some. [00:19:00] Voice actors do and they think that it's like beating the system. They're, they're, they're making me respond to them. They go, Hey, I just wanted to get some feedback on my demo. Oh,
Tina: okay.
John: Now let me tell you why that's not good. Mm-hmm. You have now taken yourself out of the hiring pool and put yourself into an amateur status where you want me to just critique your demo for you and I could critique anyone's
Tina: demo.
Alright. That's good.
John: Right? Yeah. I'm not thinking about hiring at that point. Yeah. You just emailed me and said, tell me what you think of my demo. Right. You're at that point, I don't even
Tina: Yeah.
John: Consider you for work. No. 'cause you want me to critique your demo. Don't do that. Send your demo with confidence.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: And then follow up. Yes. So that's my advice. What do you think?
Tina: Oh, I definitely agree on that, but I, and I, I think I've said this, you're, you're gonna send out. 10 and you're not gonna hear anything. And then on the 11th one you'll hear something, you know, but just keep, like you said, keep sending, keep sending, keep sending.
And I always say to people that don't take it to heart that they don't hire you. It's just they were looking for a [00:20:00] certain voice. Mm-hmm. Yes. They already have that in their mind when they're writing out those scripts. This is the voice we're looking for. We're looking for a male, um, sounding between. 4, 45, 55, friendly, funny cop, you know, that type of thing.
They're just, they have it in their mind, what they're looking for. But don't take it as, oh, I'm terrible, is it? No, no, no. They were just looking for something specific. They have a voice in mind.
John: Right. You got it. And it's funny, that brings me to something quick about a celebrity. I have people ask this question a lot and I didn't get it actually.
Mm-hmm. Um, people ask, are celebrities taking the jobs? I get that a lot. And I always say to people, you are not competing with them.
Tina: Yeah. Now, and,
John: and not only that, I'm not competing with them. I've done it for 30 years. Like if, yeah, if, if Coca-Cola has a job
Tina: mm-hmm.
John: Here's a conversation that never happened.
John Gallogly or Matt Damon. That question never arose. They knew they wanted Matt Damon when they wrote that commercial. Yeah, it that actually commercial was for Matt Damon.
Tina: Yes.
John: You're [00:21:00] not competing against celebrities. Mm-hmm. Don't worry about that.
Tina: Yeah.
John: There is tons of work. For regular folk like us.
Tina: There is. Yeah, there really is.
John: So I just don't wanted to make that clear. 'cause I do get that question a lot, but I didn't get in our email, so that's interesting
Tina: that, that that is funny. That's, I too, people do ask me about that, you know, hearing celebrities on commercials and stuff like that. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, they, they had that in their mind.
Yeah. That's it. I knew it. They just said, I want that celebrity. I, you know, especially the ones that are like trending. Yeah, they're gonna grab them. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
John: Alright, so what's the next question?
Tina: All right, so the next one from, oh, big Brian.
John: Big. Big Brian. Hey, I always, by the way, I always wonder before we get to this question, well, I always wonder that if your name is like Big Brian, or.
Or, or sometimes people call like tiny. Mm-hmm. Does, is it the opposite? Like, is big Brian Small? Or is Big Brian, big Brian. You know what I mean?
Tina: Yeah, yeah.
John: Like, you know, I always wonder like Biggie Smalls. Yeah. He was not small.
Tina: No, no.
John: But he did have Biggie. His name too, too.
Tina: Yeah. Biggie there.
John: Yeah. [00:22:00]
Tina: All right.
Well Brian, we'll have to find out. All right, how do I know what to charge clients without scaring them off? And should I ever do voiceovers for free?
John: I like it. Good question. So did you wanna take this or want me to take it first?
Tina: You can take it
John: first. Okay. So, alright, couple things. First off. Whenever someone, and when I was like, when I started off in this industry for the first, like I don't even know how many years, many, many years.
I never had anyone say, how much do you charge? Yeah, never. They would always call me or we'd chat and they would say, the job pays X amount of money.
Tina: Yeah,
John: right. I haven't been hearing this for the last few years where people are saying, yeah, I have this client who called and they said, so what do you charge?
Here's my advice on that. You do not answer that question because here's what will happen. You're, you're either going to price yourself out of the range of what, which is what big Brian's talking about. Um, [00:23:00] and you can't go back once you give a price. It's like, like if you say. Um, $500 and they say, Ooh, that's out of our budget.
You can't go, well, hold on. You can't do that. Yeah, it's over. Right? You've already said mm-hmm. However much, and I'm just throwing a number out there, by the way. Um, so here's how I rec, and if you, by the way, you could make them really happy and lowball yourself. Yeah. Which isn't great for you, right?
Tina: No.
John: Anyone who wants to hire a voice actor has an idea. Of what they have to spend. Yeah. It's not like they're completely clueless, like mm-hmm. You know, I'm gonna call a voice actor. I have no idea what we're willing to spend. No, they do.
Tina: Yeah.
John: So always pose the question back to them. That's so when someone says, Hey, what do you charge?
You say, well, it depends on the project. What do you propose?
Tina: Yes.
John: That's how you do it. Because they know. What they are willing to spend. And then mm-hmm. Then it leaves you with the decision, right? Yeah. So then they give you, oh, well, we're thinking about X amount of money, and then you decide whether you want the job or not.
Mm-hmm. Um, telling someone how much you charge is tough because you, you're never gonna hit the nail in the head. Yeah. Right? Yeah. You're gonna lowball yourself or out overprice yourself to them. [00:24:00] There is no in between. Yeah. Is it gonna be difficult for you? It's not like, how lucky would you have to be to hit the exact number?
Yeah, they already have in their head, and that's the point. They already have the number in their head.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: Okay. What do you think? Uh,
Tina: no, I actually, I agree with you there. Sometimes I do see, um, that they give you a range, right? They'll, they'll say our budget is between two 50 and $500. Um, I always, you know, because I've had students ask me, well, what do you do when it's, is that they show you that this is what our budget is?
And I, I always give them the example of myself. When I first started out, I always felt now I'm, my background is broadcasting. Mm-hmm. And then that's how I got into voice acting. And so in my mind I said, you know what, this is because it's very easy for me to record. I've got every, all set up, hit record.
I know how to do all this stuff. So it's not hard or difficult for me. So I always thought, ah, you know what, it's only, it's 10 minutes. No, I know. It took me three minutes to [00:25:00] record this. I'm gonna go on the lower end. I'm brand new. I need to go on the lower end of it. It. No. No. And I wish somebody said to me, no, just because you're brand new does not mean you need to be at that low end of the scale.
So I always say, if you're looking at that and you have that feeling like I did, I always felt that it was, I can't charge a lot of money. It took me three minutes to do this. I can't do that. You know? Um, I wish somebody said to me, no, if you feel that way. Look at the bottom number and then bump it up $50, bump it up, 75, bump it up a hundred dollars.
Right, because you don't, they're giving you a range. Yeah. They're giving you a range. So you, but you do not need to be at the bottom. You do not, because you're just starting out. Yeah. That's how, that's how I always felt. So that's the advice I do give to a clients or, or our students. And when they're saying, okay, what, what do I charge?
And I said, well, you're gonna see a lot of times where they have that range. Mm-hmm. You know? Um, but it was funny because the example that you. Used of saying, you know, so what, what's the, um, I, now I [00:26:00] forgot how,
John: depends on the project. What you propose.
Tina: Yeah. Yes, yes. What do you propose? I just got, I was talking to someone, I'm gonna be doing some, um, one-liners for a, uh, radio station that's on the West Coast, and that was exactly how they're like, so what, what would you, it's a, a month worth of, um.
You know, stuff, but we're gonna send it to you weekly. You know that you're gonna be doing what, what do you, what's the, what do you wanna charge for that? And that's what I said. Well, what do you propose?
John: Yeah,
Tina: because, because honestly, I didn't know what to charge. I didn't know because this is going to be an ongoing thing.
Yeah. You know? So it's not a one time, here's your voice. That's it. Yeah. This is a weekly thing that I'm gonna be doing on. I don't know what to charge these people. Yeah. You
John: know, I don't get a lot of the range stuff. If I did, I would charge top. I would always do it. Yeah. It was one 50 to 500, I'd say 500 I, that's me and only because I know I'm gonna get it done.
Right. Yeah. It's gonna be, it's gonna be mm-hmm. You know, national quality or broadcast quality. Yeah. And, uh, and so it's gonna be better than all the other people that, that have not [00:27:00] been doing this for very long. So, uh, yeah. But, uh. But again, if they had told me, here's the thing, yeah, you wanna gimme a range in my mind, I'm gonna give you, okay, cool.
Well here's what I charge. You know, tell me what you wanna pay me. Yeah. And then, you know, so I
Tina: see that's what I would prefer it saying, this is the cost. Yeah. This is, this is what we're gonna pay you. That's, that's it. Bottom line. Done. Yeah. I would prefer that. But there is, sometimes you do see that and that's like even, you know, this project coming up.
So I, now it's more of, I'm just waiting back to hear. What they, what they're gonna come up with, you know? And so it is kind of, it's, it's, it's crazy. But, but that's just the way I am. I brought up with, you know, oh, it, it's easy. I don't need to charge a lot of money. Yeah. And I wish I had the mentality 'cause I think I'd be rich right now.
There's no way. Now he also asked would you ever do voiceovers for free?
John: Okay. So I have kind of a, I'm gonna try to be careful when I answer this. Uh. So I have a philosophy about [00:28:00] this, and here it is. If you are a professional voice actor, you are an educated voice actor. Now that you've had voiceover training.
Mm-hmm. And by the way, I hope that is the case because otherwise it's hard really to work in the industry. Consistency it. Yeah. So consistently if you haven't, so if you are an educated voice actor, you've had voiceover coaching, um, you have, uh, a, a network quality demo. Your time is worth something.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: So now that I've said that, um, doing free voiceover work is a business decision.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: And you have to look at it that way. Okay? So don't just, here's what some people think they should do. I'm gonna just volunteer and I'm gonna do a bunch of free work and just to get my feet wet. I'm not someone who, who advocates that.
Mm-hmm. And the reason is people will take advantage of you. Yes. Like once you do something free for someone. Uh, it's not like they're thinking to themselves, someday I'm gonna pay that guy a lot of money.
Tina: Yeah, yeah.
John: Or that person, a lot of [00:29:00] money. Mm-hmm. So, so for me, I have done free work.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: And I think I may have mentioned this before, uh, I, but it was, but for me, I always thought to myself.
Where does this go? Like, so, so, uh, where would this lead, will this lead to more work? And, and by the way, when I, when I do that, I, I make it clear a couple things. I, I have done free work and it did lead to other work. Mm-hmm. And so what I say to someone is, you know, this is what I do. This is, this is part of, now for someone who's doing this part-time, you can say, Hey, this is part of how I make my living for me.
This is how I make my living. Yeah. This is what I do. Um, but I love an opportunity to work with you. So I. Um, you know, I'd love the opportunity to work with you in the future, make that clear. And so, you know what I'll do this time, I I, I'll, I'll do it for you. 'cause if they say they don't have a budget Yeah.
Like, say the person or the company doesn't have a budget mm-hmm. For whatever reason, I'd love an opportunity to work with you in the future. So, you know what, this time. You know, let, let's do that. That way we can develop a relationship. I, I make it very clear what I'm going for. Yeah. Um, so I, so I do that, that, [00:30:00] and that's, that has worked for me.
Um, but I wouldn't just throw myself out there and go, uh, hey, I'm here to do work for free. I just think that's a bad precedent to sit. Mm-hmm. To, to set. And it also makes you look amateurish.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: Um, if, and again. Now another reason to do free work is a cause you care about. Yes. There's nothing wrong with that.
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Nothing wrong with that. Mm-hmm. I love dogs. If, and I have done PSAs for, uh, shelters, I actually got paid to do it though.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: And I, I, I would hesitate to say that I would've done it for free because. Now, hopefully they're not listening, uh, because I just love Do you paid
Tina: him?
John: Yeah. I love dogs.
So, so something like that. If they, like, you know, a shelter didn't have a budget. Yes. Mm-hmm. You know, I care about that. Um, so not, you know, um, but most of the time, public service announcements, even nonprofits, they have money for this stuff. So don't be fooled by that. Yeah. Um, so. Yeah. I just, yes, you could do free work, but really think it through and, and, and think, where [00:31:00] does this go?
Tina: Yeah.
John: Okay. Because if it's going nowhere mm-hmm. And it's not a friend, or it's not a cause you care about, then why would you do it?
Tina: Yeah.
John: For free.
Tina: Yeah.
John: Um, so I would just say be careful about Yeah. About it. I'm not saying not to, I'm just saying don't, don't think that you, listen, you have invested in yourself.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: If you are, again, an educated voice actor and you have a network quality demo, you've, you have invested in yourself.
Tina: Yeah.
John: So there's, you know. Just doing the free just to do it for free is not a reason to do it.
Tina: Oh, absolutely. Abs absolutely, and, and I've done, I've done some stuff for free, but it's not, it hasn't been an ongoing, where they've come back, they, they've realized, okay, this is the one time you're gonna get it.
Get the free, but. We need to come back if you're gonna keep up, especially if you do something and then, um, there's revisions and then you're just doing it over and over and over again. When do you stop yourself? You gotta stop it because they're gonna keep on coming.
John: And that is what's funny that you say that.
'cause that's one of the things I was gonna [00:32:00] say and I didn't say it. Mm-hmm. Which is. The most challenging jobs I've ever done
Tina: mm-hmm.
John: Are the ones I've done for free.
Tina: Yeah.
John: I, I tell you, the people that you do things for free for
Tina: Yeah.
John: Are the toughest mm-hmm. Clients for some reason.
Tina: Yeah.
John: It's like. You didn't even pay me.
I know, right. And I swear that is the case. I've had clients that I've done stuff for free and they are the toughest. And then people have paid me a ton of money and they're like, perfect.
Tina: Yeah. Yeah.
John: It's really weird.
Tina: I heard you breathe. Can you take that out?
John: Yeah.
Tina: Like what?
John: Yeah, yeah,
Tina: yeah. We have to breathe.
Yeah. Yeah. Now so it, I guess it just all depends, but don't get, uh, taken advantage of. Yeah, absolutely. That absolutely. That's the biggest thing.
John: Okay, so I have, what do I have here?
Tina: Do I have time for one more?
John: We have time for one more. Yeah. Yep. One more. Did, did, are you, are you done with yours? Uh,
Tina: no. Let me see here.
Will you go ahead with yours?
John: Okay.
Tina: Yeah.
John: You have one more?
Tina: Yes, I do have one more.
John: Okay. So we'll do, we'll do two more. We're trying to make 'em, I dunno how long we've been doing this. Yeah, I don't wanna do too long. We could have made this two episodes, [00:33:00] maybe part one and two, I don't know, but you know. All right.
So for Michael w uh, hello, John and Tina. I listened to the podcast religiously. Whoa. Interesting word. Why? Okay.
Tina: No,
John: I'm not a voice actor. And I'm over 40 years old. Did I miss my window? Great. This is a quick question. Mm-hmm. Absolutely not. You did not miss your window.
Tina: Oh,
John: do it now.
Tina: Yeah.
John: Hey, listen, there I, I, people, in fact, I would say that the people who are finding the most success currently are.
I always say, and, and I think this is true 'cause we see this, um, are people 40 and up and the reason is mm-hmm. They know what they want.
Tina: Yeah.
John: They've done things in life, they've had a job. They know, they like the job, they don't like the job, and now they know, hey, um, this is what I wanna do. Yeah. And, and, and again, um.
Do it the right way. Get, get, you know, work with a voice coach.
Tina: Yes.
John: Get a network quality demo. And by the way, it doesn't matter how old you are, keep in mind it's all about the, the age of your voice.
Tina: It
John: is [00:34:00] you Being 40 years old doesn't mean anything. No, you could sound. 40 to 60 you could sound. Mm-hmm. I don't know you, so I don't know yet, but come to my webinar.
Yep. And, and come to my webinar and, and I will know you, uh, you could sound 35
Tina: Yeah.
John: To 50. 35 to 55. You could have a 20 year age, age range in your voice.
Tina: Mm-hmm.
John: It doesn't matter how old you are, it matters how old you sound. So Absolutely not. And, and people I think, who are finding success right now, our people mm-hmm.
I really do think are, uh, 40 and up.
Tina: Oh, absolutely. I
John: mean, there's work for everybody. By the way, lemme be very clear about that there, that I'm just saying. I find it's not because there's more work for people 40 and up. Mm-hmm. I think it's because people 40 and up have a tendency to actually follow through with things.
Yes. And when we're younger, we all know this. Mm-hmm. When we're younger, we tend to not follow through with things.
Tina: Oh. I didn't start until I was in my mid forties with voiceover. Yeah. It's granted I was in, you know, radio, but that's just completely different. Yeah. Completely different. The commercials I did were radio.
Yep. For radio, you know, at, because I worked for that broadcasting company, I didn't get into, uh, voice acting until mid forties.
John: Yeah. Oh, good. You, oh, [00:35:00] perfect.
Tina: Yeah. So it's happen.
John: Nine. I did get in early out, but that was rare. Yeah. I mean, I just kind of, I knew what I wanted because I knew what I didn't want.
That was really me. Yeah.
Tina: Yeah.
John: Honestly, it wasn't like, I was like, voice acting is, which, by the way, turned out to be the best thing in the world. Mm-hmm. Um, but I knew what I didn't wanna do. Yeah. And so I, and I knew I wanted to be in this industry, so I dig it in really early, but that is rare. Yeah. I, I think and, and it's cool.
If, and if, if there's anyone out there in their, you know, late teens, early twenties and you know, this is it for you.
Tina: Yeah,
John: go for it.
Tina: Yeah, definitely.
John: Yeah. But yeah, but I think people in, as you get older, you start to really narrow down what, Hey, this is what I want to do.
Tina: I tell people, listen to commercials.
You will not every commercial back to back is the same voice. Variety of voices. Yeah. Variety of ages. Absolutely. So you can do this after four.
John: Awesome. Alright, last question, question. Here
Tina: we go. Last question. Question. All right. What's the one thing you wish every beginner understood?
John: Oh, I thought this would be like a quick one.
Okay. So I'll try to keep. Wait, why don't you go first? All
Tina: right. The first one, because I just had this last [00:36:00] night talking to, um, a student where she's about to do her, uh, demo, but we're going over demos and she goes, you know what's really funny? She goes, I thought it was just reading. That's what everybody, I think everybody that comes into it, it's just reading.
I'm just reading. That's it. I'm reading out loud. It's a little more than that. Yeah, it's definitely a little more than that.
John: Yep. Yep. And that's the, that was the same thing I was gonna say. Yeah. So actually this can be quick. Yeah. I, I think the one thing I would want everyone who's starting out brand. New is to understand this is like anything else in life.
And, and, and when I say that to me, this is better than everything, everything else in many ways, as far as such a cool industry, and everyone who wants to be here, wants to be here, you know? Mm-hmm. There's no, that's all awesome and it's better than all everything else I've ever done. Um, but as far as.
Being a professional environment, and again, it's more relaxed than many other places, but the skills necessary to do this. Mm-hmm. There are skills.
Tina: There are,
John: and so I, I would say what I, what I wish [00:37:00] everyone who came to my webinar, like those are brand new people as an intro, they voice acting. What I wish all those people knew and they do when they leave my webinar.
Mm-hmm. Which is why I talk about it, is this is. This is a real job. Yes. It's this, is it a real business? Mm-hmm. When you get paid as a voice actor, that money really comes outta those people's account. Mm-hmm. And so you have to know what you're doing. You have to know to conversationally read
Tina: Yes.
John: How to voice act.
And you need to know studio etiquette. And so that's why you need voice coaching. So I, I would say that I just need everyone to know you need. To actually get some kind of
Tina: Yes.
John: Voice coaching or voiceover training something.
Tina: Yes,
John: you do. Yes you do. So there you go. I think that's pretty, that's as quick as we've been.
Tina: Yeah, I
know.
John: Alright, well that is listener questions. And again, thank you so much again, please keep sending them and we will do yes listener questions like maybe once every couple months and when we get, I think
Tina: that's good.
John: We get enough?
Tina: Yeah.
John: Um. And so again, John [email protected]
Tina: and Tina at voice coaches
John: com.
Okay, thank you very much everyone. We [00:38:00] out.
Tina and John answer questions listeners from emails.
