 Hey it's time for voiceover body shop and George and I are gonna be happy to welcome one of our favorite guys jazz Gilbert tonight. Say hi jazz Hi, hi jazz. Yeah, I knew you was gonna say that anyway if you've got questions for JS or for George and I or You know anything else you want to ask you can ask in the Facebook chat room you can ask in the chat room in YouTube and We're live on clubhouse also with Danny bear inside and if you've got a question there raise your hand. Just keep it brief Lots of fun stuff tonight on voiceover body shop coming up right now From the outer reaches they came bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe. They bring it to you now George Wittem the engineer to the VO stars a Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional video studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a professional voice down with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio And each week they allow you into their world Bringing you talks with the biggest names in the voice of a world today Letting you ask your questions and giving you the latest information to make the most of your voice over business Welcome to voiceover body shop Voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials.com home of Harlin Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites.com Where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO heroes.com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training JMC demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success and now Live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys Well, hello there everyone around the world watching our show. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voiceover body shop or VO Anyway Mr. Whidham. Hello. Hi. I think there's a little more latency tonight than normal So yeah a little extra entertaining. I think you need to give yourself a little bit more gain there Or I'm just listening to myself too loud But anyway, I can juice it up. How about that? Are we loud enough now everybody? Hey, I think that works. I think that works Anyway, we're here to talk about the voiceover business and home studios and all those sorts of things And we've got a great guest coming up in just a couple of minutes But first George and I have to promote the stuff that we do which is webinars I got a big webinar coming up Thursday night with voiceover extra on Processing and we're gonna have a special guest at that one. Oh, that's you right? Yeah, oh, yeah, that's me Yeah, that's gonna be fun. I'm looking forward to we haven't done a webinar in any capacity together and well years I don't know. I don't remember. I mean we do one every week, but it's it's true It's a free one. It's yeah, that's right. So we do a free webinar every week. That's right Then you guys have benefited from it And you know, we're not gonna be honest. This is actually going to be the last show we do Where we're all apart, you know last 15 months We have been like, you know remotely Jerry ring this thing has been put together with chewing gum and bailing wire Literally for the last 15 months and we're gonna come back and do the show back in my Sherman oak studio And it'll be good because we can all breathe on each other again, which sometimes is good sometimes Yeah, that's But no, we're gonna be off most of July Well, Marcy and I are going to be taking a Viking cruise around Iceland You know, so we have to it's a good involve a little bit of rowing, but you know Want to see the live volcano in Iceland? It's I've been watching the YouTube videos. It's spectacular You can see the the lava shooting out of this volcano from Reykjavik It's you know shooting a thousand feet into the air and there's people sitting there going wow You know little rocks are falling all over them and Maybe we should move away a little bit check it a little holes in there's flesh. Yeah, check out live volcano on YouTube It's it's actually pretty cool Anyway, we've got a great guest tonight. We want to talk about Social media and in various other things that our guest likes to talk about which is just about everything Joining us from South San Francisco is our great friend J. S. Gilbert who is voice actor writer You know advertising guy director And he's a sit-down comedian For VOBS it goes something like I'm gonna lay you down sweet woman I may love to your body I'm gonna feel you with desire and lay you down by the fire. Oh, I hope that clears everything up children. I Think that brings it all to a screeching halt anyway, welcome back to the I miss chef. We all miss chef totally. It was my homage to chef. I I don't professionally do the Chef voice that's politically incorrect. Yeah, that was that was what's his name? Who did that the soul singer? The black Moses of soul And we're all not remembering his name right now I know but his His son or his grandson. I'm trying to remember which one has been on clubhouse actually Really? Yeah, I think he's an investor. There's a lot of celebs that go on clubhouse. Oh Not that I endorse but you can find me there on occasion doing absolutely nothing of import What's your favorite thing about clubhouse? My favorite thing about clubhouse that I have a lot of friends all over the place and so we just Talk that's I don't really go in there to like Show people how brilliant I am or for them to show me how brilliant they are I just think is a conversation place to get together with people like for example If you've got a group of maybe, you know a clutch you're you've got a voice over a clutch Then make a private room and meet in there on a regular basis to go over stuff. It's Isaac K's. Thank you Okay, ladies and gentlemen, yes Isaac K's the third is you can you can look them up on clubhouse He's on there and you can follow them Even though he's been In the room that he was in just so I could do an impersonation of his dad for him. Yeah Anyway, welcome to the show Thank you. It has been a while. I Don't I don't think you've been on the show since we've been out in California actually Well Since you've been out in California, maybe not Maybe not seven years ago. You're on the show and it would have been when I was still in Buffalo You're on the show seven years ago Seven years seven years And I'm still telling people the same thing today that I told them seven years ago and that I told them 30 years ago Which is want to make money and voice over get a job as a welder. I Usually tell them to go to law school, but yeah You know anyway Over here Just so people know the building trades at least in my back They are paying for people to go to school and then guaranteeing them work afterwards Because the average age of like people in the trades here is like 51 or 52. Whoa, we need we need more trash people People on so yeah, really why do I say that? I don't say that to dissuade people from getting into voiceover. I just suggest that maybe it's a good idea for However long it could be quite a while to have a good way to pay your rent and your bills and stuff like that That's all it's not that I don't care about people or I you know Don't want the competition or whatever the hell else people are saying It's just I I think that there's a smart way of getting into business Which also involves getting professionals to help you You know people that are looking over contracts and signing them without having lawyers or other people to guide them People who still think that agents aren't really necessary. They certainly have their place and maybe there's spots, but you know higher professional people Which gets me to the first thing that I'm going to say and and dan and george don't know this but So I I still get hired occasionally, although not much during the pandemic obviously, but to direct sessions and do things with with with other actors And often these are untrained people. These are people who are The nephew of the owner of the company or somebody who works for the ad agency or whatever it is And they bring me on because if it goes awry they can throw me under the bus. It's no big deal The deal is is you can fix Just about any kind of a performance But if you have bad audio, you can't fix bad audio It it just it doesn't work. There are plugins or things like that What i'm getting to is there are a lot of people out there that are booking jobs Because they have a well treated room Acoustics and soundproofing they have an appropriate microphone. They have a good chain They know how to create Audio that sounds good that doesn't have all kinds of fuzziness and crappiness or whatever And if that's the case as a director, I often am dealt these people and I'm told If you can't get them to do what you want them to do for 30 seconds, you've got a problem js because that's your job so It's one of the reasons why I like dealing with professional studios because it's one more thing I don't have to deal with but that kind of Has gone heavily by the wayside We are really seeing more and more of this stuff being done online. The auditions are all asking for the paid version of source and things like that so And I know dan and george for a long time and I know that they are a very sincere people When it comes to trying to find Affordable ways that make sense for people's audio to sound good So I'm getting that out of the way now because That into like endorsements of commercials or anything like that They were kind enough to have me on here I don't do a lot of shows because I don't respect a lot of the people who do these things I respect these guys and that's what they do Now if you want to hire like a good voiceover, uh, you can hire me if you want to hire somebody that does voiceover You can hire dan We're so glad we had you on all right. Well, that was fun. Have a good night j.s Thank you. Anyway, that's uh, that's uh enough for the uh the infomercial Yeah, but if you act before midnight tonight, yeah, I mean the the point is is you know that what you're saying is We've been preaching all along that you know The idea of a home voiceover studio is not to make you sound great It's to make you sound like you as you exist and then they've added in this Broadcast quality thing that nobody knows what the hell they're talking about Which I I have addendum to my my thoughts as to it doesn't sound bad Right You know and there are problems there are problems that I've discovered which is Most people's voice booths We'll talk a little tech for a minute because we love that don't we is that okay? Sure Okay. Oh, I should go to comments. There's like 16 comments. Don't worry about that. We'll we'll cover the comments. Yeah Most people have a voice booths that are four by four by seven or four by four by eight and the walls are Perpendicular parallel No, what perpendicular right angles? Yeah So the only choice that one really has in these booths is to create what's called dead quiet We're pretty much everything just gets absorbed and there are no standing waves bouncing around when you are in professional studios They measure these things the walls are put at an angles to one another to control certain sounds And professional studios you go in them and it sounds more lively. There's a life in it So that's another thing that you you need to endeavor is um Trying to have a little spot of something soft in your booth or something hard I should say reflective as opposed to having all the base traps and everything like that Or coming out of the booth and realizing maybe you have to turn down The base a little bit a few db But those are all things george and dan can help you with and george creates stacks For people in their favorite software where it's not really cheating It's not doing the things that audio engineers don't want you to do Like applying heavy compression and things like that It's stuff to counteract the fact that most of us in a booth environment. It is not normal And so you're you're gonna sound boxy because you're recording in a box. Is that about right george? Yeah, that's about right the key to getting rid of the boxiness is to take away the box Shape I like to do it with giant corner base traps personally, but Yeah, well, there's there's lots of ways that you can get approach it. You can deal with it Anyway, don't worry. I mean people get I mean I get the non-parallel walls I think people get caught up into that as being a really big thing for really small spaces and The problem in really small spaces is small spaces have just they resonate based on their volume So even if the walls are all splayed at weird weird angles and whatever It's still a volumetric space. It's a container and it's going to ring at specific frequencies No matter how many angles there are in that thing So, you know, I think don't if you're taking this as gospel don't overthink it start simple A rectangle is usually your best bet. It's more predictable in terms of how to treat it and how to fix it Um, and that's what I usually recommend I think the point here is as a guy who's been doing this for 30 plus years Who I was doing this long before there was any idea of doing a home studio In fact, when I got into this, uh, we were just transitioning from reel-to-reel demo tapes to cassette So my first demo was on a cassette tape And that which brings me to another thing which is you should only listen to what guys who have been doing this Or gals who've been doing this for 25 to 30 years Take what we have to say with a big grain of salt because Realistically I get people all the time. Hey jazz, how do I get work and voiceover? Well, you have to understand that When I was at that point where I was asking the how do I get work and voiceover question? There was no internet. There was in fact, we barely had automobiles back then It was was we used to have to crawl six miles through broken glass uphill just to do a vo session It was it was horrific But we were glad to do it It's uh, it's funny but and and and again when I talk about performance back when I started I was one of A few people who didn't have uh dreams of being in a tv show or or a movie or something like that I wasn't really an actor. I did have a background doing stand-up comedy and an improv But uh, almost everybody getting into voiceover It was part of what you did as acting voiceover really wasn't its own field It really now of course it is there are plenty of people that make a ton of money doing it but back then just Really only a handful of people that I knew that were getting into voiceover that didn't have acting training Yeah, if you're just joining us, where have you been? We've got j.s. Gilbert with us tonight and We're going to talk a little bit about social media and uh, how you get yourself going in the voiceover business Today as opposed to 2003 Uh, and if you've got a question you can throw it in the chat room in facebook You can throw it in the chat room in youtube or if you're on clubhouse You can ask your question live in just a little bit. So raise your hand let danie bernside know that uh, you have a question for j.s Anyway, uh, this is voiceover body shop and back to j.s. Here So let's talk a little bit about, you know, some of the people who are influencers today because there is a lot of You know, we'll call it information out there about voiceover and which I think all three of us are like There is an awful lot of misinformation out there and and then you've got people like you say Who have been in the business a long time? But perhaps are not as technologically social media Savvy as say people who have gotten into the business In the last five to eight years What are your thoughts on that? well My thoughts in the beginning when I used to go up to people and they would ask me about voiceover and I would say, you know what Find somebody and offer if you don't have the money Which a lot of people didn't have Be creative offer to wash the car clean their apartment Do something find somebody that you respect And make them they're your mentor whether they want it or not. I've had it done to me. Um You know, uh, I I haven't been able to drive an automobile for a while. It's hard to tell looking at me but I have a problem both my hips have been replaced and I I have a problem with my spine and uh, oh people used to offer to drive me back home from voiceover gigs and um, you know other actors or or even I talked for a little while although I hate to say that because I I prefer to tell people I play piano and a brothel than to say that I actually And and that's just me. It's just it's it's a thing with me. I have to deal with it, but um, So people would like, you know, they want to give you a ride so you could give them advice Yeah, give them advice or pick my brain or whatever Or creative ways that people would get my my My email address or my phone number, of course now All you have to do is just google me online my email address and phone number everywhere um And if you called me and said and I actually didn't screen your call But if you sent me an email and you said hi, I'm not one of those people that's out there to pick your brain for nothing but um, uh I know of something that might be of interest to you or I made this chocolate chip cookie for you or whatever the hell it might be And so I think the first thing that I would tell anybody That wants to make it in voiceover. It's like anything else in the world. Be of service Being of service is singularly the best thing that you can do for your heart Your brain for another person for yourself for everything else I made a point when I first got into this business of being of service to as many people as I could in The the advertising industry whatever I could do whatever I could help them whatever was going on um I used to bring things sometimes to sessions food things like that whatever um You know be of service because most people out there are looking to get and if you approach the situation With whatever it is that you have to give and do not downplay what it is you have to give There's something you have to give somebody wrote me a poem as payment. I didn't request payment But somebody wrote me a poem 20 years ago. I still have it hanging downstairs by my computer there um And these are the things that uh life is all about it's touch points Otherwise just freaking work, right? Yeah, we get to be with people that we like Most of the time we get to do work that we like most of the time But why I say most of the time because it is work And don't forget somebody's paying us. So uh, you know, did I make my mistakes? I think the first time I was in the booth. I tried to show off You know, look at all the things I can do look at me. Look at me And then you quickly learn When you're out there whether somebody's calling into your booth or you're in a professional studio Guess what the guy that did his job so fast that they got to actually have a decent lunch That's the guy they like that's the one they remember so You know, it's uh, it's it's take the the impetus off yourself. There's no ego in this Uh saint whether you're doing commercial you're not the star of the commercial your voice is not the star of the commercial There's a product out there and it works like this Usually it's always the same thing Aida attention interest desire and action And the action is not for you to come up with something that's going to be so good You're going to want to put it on your audio reel. That's not the action No, the action is is that that commercial is going to Do a call to action it's going to make people do something whether that's buy a product Or go to a website or look for something or whatever, but it's not about you And there's a reason why they hired you and often most often I ask them I say why is it that you hired me? So I know how I can approach the job Yeah, you sound you sounded trustworthy one time I did a script where it says We're here at the north pole to prove a point And I asked them I said why did you hire me and they said because you were the only guy who both was able to Sound like you were at the north pole But also wasn't terribly hard to listen to because that's what they wanted Yeah, I wanted to sound like you're at the north pole and also be able to deliver the copy points Yeah, but one of the things that you know, I always tell people is guess what this is not show business per se This is this is an entrepreneurial business And you've got to be able to act and and those sorts of things and that's really important But you can't approach it like I'm going to be a star because as you said You know, you're not the star of the commercial You're part of the commercial or something along those lines You got to look for the brilliance in the copy And it and there are sometimes when I've struggled to find the brilliance in the copy struggled long and hard And if you're walking away from looking at a piece of copy that you have to audition for and you're saying to yourself Who writes this crap? You're very rarely going to book it, but you have to think about it. You say how did it get this far? There's got to be something I'm missing And that's what your job is And it's it's not always easy Anyway Yeah Is the irony the the better you get paid as a big of the job the better the writing the easier it is Most of the time Yeah, so but getting back to your question about this So, you know having done this for over 30 years and I can also tell you a lot of the people I know I'm personally friends with that have done this 25 30 35 years um We have good stories. We have lots of interesting stories. I have a story about how I um How I directed James Earl Jones doing a PSA I have lots of wonderful stories But again How pertinent how relevant is anything that I can tell you going to be When it comes to you looking for work um Because even now what's happening is this I've got a guy Uh, he was one of the first people to do a league of legends a big event And uh, he's kind of taken me under his wing and we are now working to turn all of my undiscovered fan base Into followers on the internet Uh, it's a process which is starting pretty soon and uh, Anyway, it's very interesting and It's not something that I can tell other people to do Because you haven't done voices for 300 video games. You don't have that kind of a base to work off of um When I started there were two publications, uh, that they had a west coast and east coast Version ad world and ad week and I used I put ads in there. I hadn't even I had just barely gotten an agent and I put ads in there that said thank you to the bay area to the california advertising community For making my job the greatest in the world and I took out third of the page ads The reason why I did that was I figured they read people who hire me read these things They would like an acknowledgement my thanking them and what schmuck takes out a third page ad If he isn't actually already working and doing lots of work and voiceover Right making money that it can afford a third of the page ad I got work off it that I got a Early national tv commercial for a car car company off of it and it paid for itself I used to go to mcsconey center in san francisco, which is a big facility with lots of trade shows And I would take material and put it into hanging file folders and glue it to the rest room stall doors I would bring muffins for the people who watched the door I would go before the show started and said hey, can I go downstairs and just leave some of these around and they let me do it Um, you know, that's old style gorilla marketing. I was gonna say that's kind of old school. Yeah Um, I used to pick up the phone. There was a Publication that came out when the gaming industry started using voices Called the northern california guide to interactive Interactive video or something like that And I would call people up and I'd say hey, are you interested in talking to somebody who understands non-linear Audio performances for video games and they're like how soon can you get here? So this is not pertinent to anybody's world today. It's not pertinent to my world anymore And people say well j.s. If you started doing voiceover now, what would you do? I had no idea I probably wouldn't do voiceover. Yeah, but that's me again. I don't know It's hard to say Was I didn't there wasn't really a choice of doing like cool coding and other stuff back then I mean if I were you know 18 now what I'd have a ponytail and Probably tats everywhere and you know the big the big piercings on the ear and all that kind of stuff Um, that would probably be me like, you know Once again, we're talking with j.s. Gilbert. We're gonna take a quick break here If you've got a question for j.s. About all this stuff because we want to get into a little bit more uh, throw it in the chat room in facebook throw it in the chat room in uh, YouTube and if you've got a question on clubhouse, I would like to ask your question personally live on our show With your actual voice Right there on clubhouse. You can do it. So we'll be right back with j.s Right after these words I think I heard the voice of a body shop. I did. I did hear the voice of a body shop little body shop Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice to announce our guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you? Stick around. You don't want to miss this Power 1039 at target. We want you to come as you are be comfortable. Okay, maybe not bathrobe comfortable Pants for the customer on aisle four, please Watch anywhere anytime on an unlimited number of devices Sign in with your netflix account to watch instantly at netflix.com The ice cream maker is a big risk that can have huge reward Until you forget to turn it on Well, that's it guys Time is up. Hey, it's jmc. Thanks for watching the voiceover body shop If you're demo ready or looking to get there check out jmc demos.com and see a sample of our work Now let's get back to dan and george and this week's tech wisdom Well, it looks like traveling is coming back into vogue and harlan hogan's portabouth pro and plus make recording on the road a breeze And in that spirit here are some of harlan's top tips for recording professional quality audio away from home in 2021 Number one the motel ironing board practically every hotel and motel provides an ironing board in your room But forget ironing. It's a perfect height adjustable stand for your portabouth pro or portabouth plus Two if you can turn off the heat in the air conditioning three Switch off the fridge or minibar four Request a room that's inherently quiet away from the vending machines harlan's been known to actually unplug them After about 9 a.m. Most hotel fitness centers are deserted. Here's a bonus tip Use voice optimized headphones and stay away from windows harlan has a whole bunch more tips for you vo road warriors So check out voiceover essentials com before you check in and get your travel friendly portabouth pro or plus Getting into vo is quite an accomplishment and accomplishing anything in the world of performance can be really tough Getting great information is tough getting the right advice and mentoring is tough Simply getting ahead is tough and the best way to get ahead is to simply Get started Let's make it simple to get started in voiceover. The best way is with vo heroes free online course Getting started in voiceover You'll learn everything you need to know to create a successful satisfying and profitable voiceover career The link is really simple. Here it is vo heroes dot com forward slash Start again, that's vo heroes dot com forward slash start Get ahead in voiceover simply by Getting started go to vo heroes dot com forward slash start Yeah, hi, this is carlo zellers rocky the voice of rocco and you're watching voiceover body shop And we are back with jay. I'll bell What more cowbell? I don't know byron latin says more cowbell so What I was just thinking that I was listening to fear the reaper the other day and i'm like it needs more cowbell No question about it. Uh, so, uh, again, if you've got a question to say, what's it? Harlan organ, uh, god bless him. He's been Faithfully consistently supporting you guys the voiceover industry. I met him Was in chicago a few years ago went to went to lunch at one of his favorite places that's uh A greek owned a restaurant and uh, we had a wonderful time And he gave me one of his hats uh bo hats And uh, I gave him I don't know I had oh, you know me and the swag. I don't have much swag anymore No, I have it all it's all the drawers here There it is can you can you Commercialized character. I still use my j.s. Gilbert bottle opener and Here's a you know when I when I first got those pins made Uh, there were purple pins this one. This is the that's not right But when I had uh when I had the maid I went around to all the recording studios There used to be like a hundred recording studios in the bay area And I would just drop them all over I would leave them in booths I would just walk in see an empty booth and put a few of my pens in it or whatever And I just remember there was like this one actor and he was pretty big name here and he's like Ah, j.s. You must be working all the time. I see your pens at like every studio It takes a little bit of chutzpah to keep doing that kind of stuff, but yeah, do you think that'll work today? I mean We've got it's it's all social media sort of run these And the the lucky thing is is that perception? trumps truth and If you but by the way any of you people who are watching this now and thank you all for joining us in clubhouse and uh and facebook and whatever and uh, please if there's anything I can do for you Follow me or you know buy me a cookie or whatever I'll do my best that's all I can do but again if you really look into succeed Find somebody who spent four five six seven years on a voiceover career who is doing well or somewhat well And there are tons of those people out there. It's a totally different approach for example There are people out there that say I get booked off my demos all the time Um, here's a thing that I will tell you they're a liar Keep it. They're lying They may get booked a few times Or if they are getting booked off their demos, then they're on fiverr.com and they're working for peanuts or they're in australia Or well, that's possible. Yeah, they could be in australia Exactly england australia a few other places still do things but The second third fourth fifth sixth seventh eighth ninth tenth year that I was in this business typically Because it was cassettes and you could not get agents to do free auditions for you let alone Contact somebody ask them to record it at home. You had to pay a casting person to do an audition And they it cost you by the person So typically and this is not bragging or anything. I might work 150 to 200 jobs a year now, that's big and small there are jobs that you do Even union jobs that pay like 400 bucks. It's it depends Uh, I was amazed I'm gonna jump but I when I go to speak and I tell people I did I did the five of the main characters from league of legends I'm chogoth udir Gragas mundo and scion the original scion and They all think I'm like A movie star or something making millions of dollars from this I did those five voices over a period of about six seven years And I think maybe I made about 12 grand 14 grand off of it. That was that was it So My two best commercials Actually earned me more than all of the video games. I've done voices for combined That's Some things pay you a lot more than you think they should and some things don't pay you as well as you think Pray that that business model exists in five to ten years. Yeah, really I don't think that business model is gonna exist for for the terribly long time Yeah, it it's always been kind of weird, but uh, what was I saying before I jumped off and I said that I do that. I'm like a bb and a tin can't it helps if you have adhd actually Or I believe or we can throw this stay off your meds Just, you know, oh sure We got we got a few questions here from our vast worldwide audience. Would you like to take a couple of those? Why the heck not let's see if I can George the first one is in our chat audience on facebook. This is from grace newton She says in the marketing portion of my training. I was taught to be consistent across all social media platforms But I keep seeing people Apologizing for cross posting What are your thoughts? um Well, this is an interesting one. I I think that having a consistent look and feel Uh across all of social media makes a lot of sense um There is a thing called the dunsbar number you can look it up d uns bar number dunsbar limitation he was a uh sociologist psychologist and he Made a determination that there is a finite number of Intimate relationships that we can have Maybe 175 to 250 now gen y and gen z are doing a little better at that but not amazingly so And so what happens is is every single day when you wake up and facebook tells you whose birthday it is you say Who the hell is that? Um, we literally cannot keep track of the thousands and thousands of people that we interact with Even if it's just for a short while on social media The algorithms keep changing so who we see information from How we relate to people that's changing all the time the apis which are the chunks of information that uh apps and sites like facebook and twitter and linkedin Allow programmers and individuals to grab onto to get data Those are changing they're getting tighter twitter is really good about it We can get lots of information from twitter and we can actually keep track We can have heat maps in twitter. We can see who we've had relationships with and stuff linkedin not so much facebook pretty bad so I suggest to people that they do two things one you want to have a consistent avatar a consistent logo consistent color scheme and The internet also hates people like me They hate people that do 20 different things Um, and it also has been a problem for me because what happens is is if you google my name The first 40 pages that show up Not not 40 items, but 40 pages That show up are pretty much all devoted to me doing voiceover and most of that's a voiceover in games Well, if I told you that I won awards doing advertising creative if I told you that I won Awards and help companies make millions of dollars IBM once had a picture of me on a dartboard at one of their divisions Because I was helping their competitor make a lot of money at their expense And now I go out and I try and get work doing that or doing writing or whatever Invariably somebody's gonna google me and they are going to find Pretty much all I do is voices for games and Well, who the hell is this guy? He's a voice guy. What what is he trying to do telling me how to sell crap and What is this guy trying to write for me and that that that that? so And I was trying to fight that for a while, but now I'm not now I'm gonna go with the flow and I'm gonna Build up my social media presence Marketing myself to the more easily identifiable fan base that's out there And seeing what that does as far as my voiceover career Yeah, but it's important that your message be very very concise. It'd be very very clear And aida attention interest desire and action You hear said all the time everybody love they want a story be a story to nobody gives a damn about your story What they want to be is entertained Amused do I am use you do I make you laugh charlie am I a clown ha ha charlie what? Or they want to be educated to a certain extent Maybe educated enough so that they can Impress their friends make more money whatever it might be But the stories that you tell in social media have to involve people They have to be This is and not everybody's a great storyteller So you know what then hire somebody who's a great storyteller and offer to do voiceover for free Or clean their house or cook or whatever whatever it is you can do that's going to offer a value proposition to them Yeah We got some Yeah, we've got some questions on clubhouse too. George. You want to take that was don't take those on Yeah, we got chris in the clubhouse far away chris Oh, thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate it. I'll make this brief First of all js. I live in san francisco. If you need a wheel man, I mean if you need a ride, let me know Also, uh when it comes to Being a lawyer somebody said if you represent yourself you have a fool for a client Is that the same case if you're going to try to write your own copy for your own demo? I you know what? I'm sorry. I uh unless I turn up the audio on clubhouse. I can't hear you Why you should be able to hear him through our feed because we can hear him so that you should really it's case coming through much Much lower volume than you guys. I don't know. Okay For the moment mute your clubhouse js and let's have him answer the ask the question again Okay, I mean I'm you to clubhouse or turn it down. Sorry. Go ahead chris Yes, yes Is it best to hire someone to write your own copy or your copy for your own demo or should you just wing it? Or is that dangerous to do? Yeah, no It's getting so much more competitive now That realistically you have to have a great demo It can't it can't just be okay or good or show a variation of what you can do It really needs to sound like real work that you would have been hired to do And not just real work, but good quality work That if an ad agency person is listening to it or a voice agent or somebody like that that they're going to respect that um And so that's that's really important And there's a problem. I was getting sent a lot of demos I don't end much anymore because I don't really do production that much, but Um, believe it or not. I got sent demos where people were doing spots Where I was actually the voice actor that did the original spot This happens a lot because people nowadays are getting They're joining the online services voice 123 and voices. We hate you but give us your money anyway You know those guys, right? Yeah And uh, so they go, oh look at all these, uh Things that I've got I can read them for demos or whatever and It's it's actually it's created a lot of issues a lot of problems even even represented talent Are getting nda's you have to sign before you get a script Saying that you're not going to screw around with the script or show it to people or whatever So yeah, I would say and you know, uh, there are still professional recordings studios out there with people who are recording people every day That's a good place to go or Certainly george and uh, and dan they know tons of people That do really good recordings for uh demos and things like that And I'm I'm guessing that there are there are numerous price points depending on where you are in your career, but uh Uh, everybody has to start off somewhere So if you you know before you can come up with is the money to pay for 30 seconds. It sounds really good Do that. Yeah. Yeah, I got yeah one of the things you wanted to mention is that Because we were talking about social media It sounds like you're getting into the podcasting webcasting thing Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, so downstairs. Um, I have a So there's a couple of things that are going on I mentioned that there is a group that is kind of taking me in And the idea here is we're taking an undiscovered fan base that I have This is a weird sort of a thing that I discovered seven years ago or eight years ago A friend said you have no idea how big League of legends or twisted metal or these other things. He said watch So we were walking down the street and there was a foot locker, you know, the cells of sneakers And he Grabbed my arm and we went inside and there was a bunch of uh young teenage 20-somethings And he said hey, does anybody here play league and they kind of turned around and went yeah, yeah He's the voice of moondo and grogis and son and show got the new deer and they're like And he goes here give him a little and I went moondo goes where moondo pleases or you know I have been here 5 000 years and they're like And all of a sudden they all wanted to take their pictures with me and oh man Could you sign autograph and and it was a phenomenon? it was really really a phenomenon and I'm stupid because I should have jumped on it then And really developed it Uh, but I didn't because I was fighting it and I was saying oh there's diminishing returns and voiceover and Half of the clients that used to hire me to do union stuff are now non union. They're paying a fraction you know, I started getting into not the pity party, but the You know when you've been making a buck without having to work really hard at it And now suddenly you've got to work harder at it You look at the other things that you do that maybe can command a greater price And that's what I was looking at and it's been probably a good seven years That I've been fighting that and I finally do and then said, you know what? Let's just go both feet back in again and And do it. Um, what was the thing you asked by the way? It was about your your podcasting Oh Uh, I have a set up downstairs. So what I've got where I am right now is this is a spare bedroom. I have a laptop here Um, a logitech camera a light and a 42 inch monitor and and so forth. So it's it's fine for me to come up here and Hang out and be able to do some editing and whatnot and uh, if uh, I'm doing stuff for, um, uh Night night show that's recorded in new york now So a lot of times I have to get up at seven o'clock in the morning and do things um So I uh, uh, there's a coat closet right there There it is And I open that up I go in there I use what's called a mixer face R4 which is made by centrants. Oh you finally got one There's a story. Yeah, we won't get into that So, um, anyway, yeah, it only took me six six years to get I ordered I ordered three of them from these guys on uh and kickstarter and it took six years But they michael You know the commitment you got it to me and they they've actually been pretty nice to me good Yeah, well j s it it has been a pleasure having you with us because thank you we don't talk nearly enough And the pandemic and now the thing is though you have an even better guest I understand coming up in in the second part, right? I don't know if he's better, but you know, we'll find no no no because me I'm all yesterday's news. Uh, but you got he's uh, What is that? He did refer madness to I really wanted to talk to him about that Well, you'll get the chance one of these days Anyway, j.s. Thanks for being with us if people want to get ahold of you Where where can they where can they find your your writings? You know, I'm at gilbertism in most things or just j.s. Gilbert Yeah I actually am paying attention to my instagram account these days. You can find me there. I'm on clubhouse I do I do go in a clubhouse Sometimes I can be provoked into talking about voiceover Um, I get the notifications all the time. How do you turn off the notifications on clubhouse? Yeah, of course all you people living on clubhouse don't want to hear that because you want to be in there Anyway, thanks for being with us. I'll be going down to laguna beach probably in a few weeks. So I'll uh, Drop by say hi. All righty. We'll be right back right after this. Thanks, j.s Thanks everybody for the love or narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voice of our body shop In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept to live online In a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voiceover career flourish Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros voice actor websites dot com where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Hey, it's time to talk about source connect the tool that you all need to have access to in your studios if you're playing With the big boys and girls because that is really what is still being used by many of the big studios In productions Why because it's the tool that integrates directly with the systems that they're using It works seamlessly with multi-track DAWs like adobe audition pro tools logic newendo the systems they're using this System on their side source connect plugs directly in the audio flows in Right into the track and they get to move on to the next thing because you know what in voiceover You're a cog in a machine meaning You're there to just facilitate something and make it as painless as possible for the production That's your job. So having a tool like this that allows you to do that Is what's going to really propel your your clientele Forward you're going to get a higher echelon of clients And yes, it comes with also having an agent in most cases But trust me You want to have this tool available to you and you can get it on the subscription You know, it's not a big commitment to get started using source connect Just get up and running if you need some help I'm available to go to george at the dot tech slash fc and you can see my training material There's a video on there gets you started and it can get you running anyway Let me know let us know if you found uh if you found yourself going to source elements and getting source connect Let them know that we sent you they'd we'd really appreciate it and we'll be right back to wrap it up. Thanks You're watching v obs dot tv I don't know why it's crazy what they do here. I think I'm going to go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich Well, thanks again to j.s. Gilbert for for joining us and you know, it's you know sort of Getting really into the meat of the matter of uh, you know some of the reality of voiceover Today, you know as opposed to yesterday and bringing his perspective Absolutely. I said he's like perspective. I I want to share with you what I know But I know that what I know is on oftentimes maybe not so relevant to what you need to know So sometimes knowing what you need to know and not need to know Wait, does that make any sense? It doesn't but we know The fact that you know, we've had guests on you know that have been in the business for 30 years And they're happy to to spout on about everything they know And half of that make is oftentimes not relevant because of when they started their career, you know, so It was cool having all of them We've known him. Have we known him more than 10 years has to be at least 10 years As long as we've been doing this show or they're abouts anyway By the way next week on this very show which we're about to go do live in case anybody is Still waiting around wanting to hear some tech talk tech talk number 59. We'll be on next week. And then we're going to be Dark for july but look there are thousands of episodes of voiceover body shot that you could go back and watch Thousands of hours. I would say a thousand. Yeah, I actually shows. I mean, we're up to about Probably close to 500 now. Mr. Woodham. It's uh, it's getting up there um, so lots of great stuff on uh, you know, lots of great guests and lots of Lots of tech but we're going to get into that. We got a re-rack for that But we do need to thank those who helped us get the show done And those would be our donors of the week. Who do we have this week? Oh, we got some names that we've read before and a couple. Maybe we haven't uh, christy burns Graham spicer Sondra man willer. That's a new one. That's a new one. Yeah. Thank you for your donation. We appreciate it Christopher Eberson Sarah Borges philips appear thomas pinto shelly avaleno And martin natasha Archevka very good nicely done nicely done Uh, we also need to thank our wonderful sponsors harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra Source elements bio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and jmc demos Uh, thanks to jeff holman in the chat room and danie burnside over at the clubhouse and our technical director sumer lino back after you know donating her son to us for a week Uh, and uh, of course lee pennie for being lee pennie. Well, that's going to do it for a voiceover body shop this week We're going to rack it up for tech talks. So don't go anywhere if you're watching live And uh, we'll be here to help you out with your home voiceover studio. We got some cool stuff We're going to talk about tonight as well. Uh, just remember tough business. We're here to help But really it comes down to the fact of if it sounds good It is good I'm dan lennard and i'm george wittem and this is voiceover body shop or vo bs