 Uh-oh, that's not good. Why is it throwing me another thing that I have to deal with? I can't choose to start a time. What would you like me to say to you, Dan? Alright, good. People are already watching. You have picked the night of a perfect storm. No George, no original guest, but we have an even better one. And our director has COVID. So I'm doing this completely on my own. You can stay or not. Thank you for watching. Yeah, we appreciate that. Please stay. Don't listen to him. You can't leave. You're not allowed to leave. I drove all the way here from Burbank. Which, you know... 20 minutes? No, 24. Okay. There's a big difference when you have to like maneuver on the 101. Okay. So, thank you. Five minutes. Jeff Holman, you are in there. If you are, give me a sign. And remember that anybody can ask questions too of David H. Lawrence, the 17th, our guest tonight. So, if you have a question, you can throw it in the chat room in Facebook Live. You can throw it in the chat room in YouTube. Jeff Holman will relay those questions to us so I can actually ask David those questions in our second segment. So, how has sound so far? He's so techy. One, two, three, four. Okay, that works. The cool thing is that doesn't work and record it. It's also recorded on YouTube. Oh. And it's also on Facebook. So, no matter what I do, it's going to be somewhere. Why is the LinkedIn or the Twitter left out of this hootenanny? I don't know. Why? I could do it that way. Why not? I mean, if you're on a plan with StreamYard that lets you do multiple outlets. They do. Yeah. Because it's going from StreamYard to Facebook and YouTube. Yeah. So, it's getting recorded in all those places. Yeah. So, there you go. If it doesn't work there, I've got backups. You've got backups and backups. All right. Somebody says, yes. Sound is good. Everybody pray for me and make this work. Great. Again, if you've got a question, throw it in the chat room and Jeff Holman will get that to us. Maybe I'll actually read the questions or I'll make them up as I go along. Maybe. God only knows what's going to happen with this. Yeah. That's off camera, right? Oh, yeah. No. Not even near camera. All right. I've set it up so it all works. Great. Okay. We're getting thumbs up from people. It means it's working. Headphones so I can hear what's going on. Wow. Yeah. That's an IFB. Really? I did this backwards tonight. Yeah. This is called being just a little bit nervous. I feel like saying to Dan that he has no reason to be nervous. It's his podcast. This is true. But we do it live. Once he tells the story of why this is happening the way it's happening, you'll completely understand and you'll feel so kindly toward Dan. The fact that I'm even doing this tonight. Yeah. He's just doing it as a favor to me. That's really all that's going on here. Five o'clock somewhere. Can you hear? I can hear. Fantastic. I can hear it perfectly. All right. And we are ready to roll here. And three. Hey, it's time for VoiceOver Body Shop and bore you in for a treat tonight because George isn't here. Our original guest broke two ribs so he couldn't be here. But we have David H. Lawrence with us tonight who is going to act as co-host. What? Yeah. Wait. Really? Yes. I get to do that? Yeah, you do. Fantastic. All right. All right. If you've got a question for David about voice acting or just voiceover work or any of the things that we're going to talk about, throw them in the chat room. I know that our good friend Jeff Holman is sitting there, wherever it is that he watches the show from. Really those questions to us. He's running it down with a quill pen. Yeah. And somehow it ends up over here. And so stay tuned. We're going to talk about voice acting, which is what we're all supposed to be doing anyway. Right here on VoiceOver Body Shop right now. And now here's your hosts, Dan and George. So I have to play George. No, no. You can be yourself. Hi. I'm Dan Leonard. I'm David Lawrence. David H. Lawrence the 17th. The hell's my name? I don't know. I almost forgot too. This is VoiceOver Body Shop or VOBS. You've been watching a while. How did I do that? We've been doing this for 11 years. That's how you figured it out. Well. We didn't even rehearse that. We don't need no stinking rehearsals. No, we don't need that. All right. Cool. Yeah. But anyway, see, originally, George wrote me last week, said, I have to go to England. I have to go to England. He had to go to England. He had to go to England. All right. He had to go to England for whatever reason. And I guess he's spending some time with family in England or his girlfriend's family or something like that. He didn't go for the food? No one goes to England for the food. All right. If you say so. From my understanding. Yes. We had Scott Parkin originally scheduled for tonight. We're going to have a great time doing improv with him. But he unfortunately got hit by the rudder of his surfboard yesterday and apparently broke two ribs. Oh, likely excuse. So that's from what I understand. Wow. So he had a cancel out. And so our good friend David H. Lawrence the 17th was more than happy to come in and co-host with me tonight so we can talk about more voice acting stuff. Yeah. Dan thinks he jiu-jitsu'd me. He think he said, well, I would have asked you, but it's the last minute. I don't know if you're available. And I'm like, sure. I'd be happy to. I actually wasn't doing anything this afternoon. Well, Mike did. We all, we all benefit from that. That's great. I was going to go surfing, but. Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Scott owes me a surfing lesson. I won a surfing lesson from him a couple of years ago. So what are we going to do the surfing lesson? I'm like, there's sharks out there. I'm like, I'm not going out there. So then he goes and he breaks two ribs. And I'm like, maybe I shouldn't be taking surfing lessons. He just ruined the whole thing for him. I know. All right. Yeah. Anyway, but then, then it got better. Then our director Sue Merlino, who usually directs our show came down with COVID. She's like, I should be able to do it. But no, she's like really sick. I'm like, you know, drink plenty of fluids, Tylenol, stay horizontal. Right. Don't go near voiceover body shop tonight and we'll be fine. So we're doing the show live and I'm directing it. And. I gotta be, I gotta be honest. I'm really impressed with how you're able to actually run this. You know, it used to be called combo when we worked in radio, right? Right. You're running this combo. And that's pretty cool, especially since it's video. I know. Yeah. See, we originally, we're just going to do a podcast when George and I first decided to do this. Yeah. And he's like, well, we got webcam. So why don't we do it as a webcast? Oh, that was the bad suggestion on his part. It was originally. And then, you know, we're like, well, how do we do that? Well, there weren't a lot of streaming networks in 2011. We had to figure out how to do it ourselves and paid to the nose for it for a while. And then, you know, and then things got better. Yeah. And the technology got better. And we got better. If you ever go back and watch episode number one. I wouldn't go that far. But it's fun to watch. Anyway. Yeah. But our guest host tonight is the one and only David H. Lawrence, the seven. Am I a guest host or am I a co-host? You're a guest co-host. Guest co-host. All right. Best of both worlds. All right. Sort of like in the old Mike Douglas shoe. Exactly. Yeah. I'm going to be Arthur Treacher for Merve Griffin. But will you do the Virginia reel? No. Okay. No. And I won't play. What was the name of the woman that was always in the audience? Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Miller. Hello, Mrs. Miller. How are you? Oh, good. That's right. Yeah. We've just lost everyone under the age of 58. What? They're gone. What? What are they talking about? Oh, my God. Let's talk about voice acting. Because you're a voice actor. I'm a voice actor. Yeah. But you're also an accomplished screen actor. I mean, we've seen you in Heroes where you were the legendary puppet master. Mm-hmm. Where you got to work with Hayden. Hayden Panitir. Hayden Panitir. Zachary Quinto. Milo Ventimiglia. All these low-level stars. Yeah. The people that someday I think they're going to make it. Yeah. How did you get that particular role? That's a great question. I'm asking that question. That's a question that demands a complete and thorough answer, one that provides the person asking the question with a feeling of being taken care of and being serviced. So I'm hoping that that happens for you at some point. No. I have absolutely no idea other than it is incredibly indicative of exactly what our business is all about. We have no control over what happens once we do our audition. We have no control over what happens. And I remember the audition that I did for that was on the grounds of the Universal Studios. Have you heard of them? Oh yeah, I've been there. Yeah. I was in the casting office for Heroes, which is on Universal Lot. And I go in. I walk in and they have this big, huge waiting area with like 20, 25 chairs all in a big circle just outside the door of where we're auditioning. And I had never felt so small in my life because every other chair in this room was filled and it was filled with an actor that had scared the living crap out of me at some point. How so? Just I recognized them as being intimidated by the fact. Yeah. And I'm like, why am I here? Who made the mistake of inviting me to this party? And I actually did something that my friend Michael Kostrov taught me, which was to sit in such a way, if you can, where you can see into the casting room when they open the door, just to get an idea of what you're going to encounter when you walk in there. And I was seeing that there were lots of people inside the casting room. Usually there's one, two, maybe three. Maybe there's a writer in there. There were 11 people in the room. Like they had, you know, stadium seating going on. This isn't the casting room. In the casting. You're actually in there when they're filming you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I was like, I'd signed in and I was like 30th on the list or so. Who knows? But I'm watching people walk into that room where they're going to do the work and being struck by the number of people in the room. And, and like, you can see them visibly reacting to it. And I'm like, oh, okay. And so when I walked into the room, I said, well, look at this. Look at you guys all showing up for my audition. Thank you. And it just broke the tension in the room. I didn't have to worry about it. I did my first take. And apparently it was the director that stood up and did this. I remember because he told me about this, the rap party. He goes, yeah, you were doing great, but you were too far away. The microphone was on their camera. And we couldn't hear very well what you were doing. I could hear you in the room, but I wanted to make sure we could see it on tape. So he had me pull my chair right up to the camera and do it exactly the same. Don't change a thing one more time. And I remember at the point when I got my creepiest, I noticed just off camera. There was a woman who turned out to be the head of casting for NBC who shuttered. And I'm like, okay, either it's cold in here or maybe I did something good there. And this was late morning on a Thursday. I went home, took a nap because that's what I do. And I was awakened by my agent at about 2.30 who said, you should call your kids because you're going to be on heroes. And that's how that happened. And I'm like, you're out of your mind. You're out of your ever loving mind. So I don't know how it happened. I just had fun with it. You creeped him out successfully. I creeped him out. And that was a creepy character. He was creepy. And he got creepier as it went on. You know, it was pretty cool. I really enjoyed that. That's great. I enjoyed that show too. It was kind of a new type of thing. Oh, my God. I was a fan from the very first moment when Claire fell off the scaffolding and then put herself back together. And I was like, what is this? How did they do that? You know, I didn't know about Final Cut Pro. What did I know? Anyway, it was a great show. But let's talk a little bit about acting itself because, you know, people forget that voice acting is acting. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people just think, well, I could just read for a living. It's not that. You've got to become somebody else. Yeah. It's interesting how people will clearly understand that acting on stage and acting on camera are very, very similar. There's just some adjustments that you make based on what I call the collector device. Right. You know, is it a camera? Is it a live audience? And that gets extended into voiceover as well. And going back to the hero's audition, I asked them as I was about to do my audition, how tight of a shot do you have on me? And they said, hey, you know, head and shoulders. And I'm like, oh, this is great because I'm going to drop my voice down here. And it was, you know, we tend to, as voice talent, be much more aware of vocal distancing than people who are just getting started in on camera work and certainly stage work. But the people that do really well in on camera work, they get the whole notion of the bigger the shot, the louder you can be, the smaller the shot, the softer you should be. And that spills over into voiceover as well. When you start to think about who are you talking to? What are you trying to help them do? You know, do you need to put on the superhero armor of being a professional voice talent? And, you know, I see my clients sometimes I see people that I coach making the mistake of thinking that unless they become a better version of themselves right away, nobody's going to pay them, right? Why would I use the voice that I wake up with in the morning in any way, shape or form? You know, if the line is, I don't know, they're going to elicate that. They're going to enunciate that. I don't know. Or I don't know. Yeah. Does that work for the script? Right. Maybe you should consider that just like you would with any other form of acting. So I think we forget that the acting part, oh, that's the acting part. I see. Not the recording at minus 12 to minus 60 be occasionally peeking in the red. Forget about that. Yeah. You think about those things much more often. It feels like anyway. Then you think about what your job is in the script, what the words are asking you to do. And once you do realize that and you kind of get your tech into auto mode, you know, you know how far away you need to lean from the mic. If you're going to raise your voice or whatever you're going to do, or if you're running a compressor, you know, you can rely on that. But I think that the notion of acting is lost because people think commercials. You act in commercials? Yeah, you do. You act in commercials and you certainly act with audio books. You even act with IVR. You act informative, but you still are acting. You're helping somebody get their, they want to know how close they are to the limit on their credit card as they're standing in line at Target with a cart full of stuff. And your job as an IVR person is to make sure they understand that they've got $58 in room on their card and that's it. So it's still acting. Right. Yeah. And you thought I was not going to have much to say. Oh, no, that's why you're here. I see. All right, fine. All right, great. Plenty to say. If you're just joining us, our guest tonight is David H. Lawrence, the 17th. He's talking about voice acting, which by the way, Voice Over Body Shop is about in case you've been wondering over the last few years about that. Yeah. If you've got a question for David, and I'm sure you have probably plenty, throw them in the chat room, whether you're watching on Facebook Live, whether you're watching on YouTube, whether you are watching off, you know, some satellite somewhere, you know, some, you know, some satellite from SpaceX and it's beaming it down to you. If you're in the chat room, wherever you are, and that question will get relayed to us and we will ask David that question in the next segment of our show. I hear that Starlink makes us both sound so cool, so awesome. Yeah, I want to try Starlink. If you try, if you look at. I may have. Okay. I may have. It's kind of half-baked at this point. It's going to get better. It's going to get better. You kind of have to have, you know, direct line of sight, you know, but, you know, it's kind of like the first parts of when 5G was kind of available, you know, because 5G isn't 5G. 5G is whatever people want to call 5G. It appears. I want to make sure that people really like smash the like button. I want the like button on your computer to be unrecognizable when you're finished liking what we're doing and sharing with the other social media members that you happen to know. If you would do that for me, I'd appreciate it. All righty. David H. Lawrence is our guest. So how did you get into acting? Because you and I started in radio, I think. Yeah. But which was acting. Yeah, it's acting. It's a good form of acting. It's after the hour. Yeah, it's a little pukey in terms of acting. But yeah, you know, in fact, it got me fired. That pukey. Really? Oh my God. They wanted you to be more natural. No. They wanted you to be more pukey. No. What did they want? All I could do when I first started doing radio was be my heroes. Imitate my heroes. Who were? The real Bob James, John Lannigan, Don Imus, and Don Imus didn't puke. He was just very forward. He was mumbling when he was at WGAR in Cleveland. He was like, how are you doing this morning? Because I was an overnight guy and I would like make sure that his stuff was prepped for the first half hour and sometimes run it for him because he would get in when he decided to get in. Anyway, I could not do anything but that really back of the throat kind of thing that I thought was going to get me hired in the big markets. He was in Columbus, Ohio, and it was 1978, August of 1978. For those of you that are Catholic, you might remember we lost a pope that month. Pope John Paul I. And he was the guy that was in the pope's office for about 30 days, 30, 31 days. And he really affected me, you know? A little Jew boy from Cleveland, Ohio. But here's this pope who on St. Peter's Square asks an altar boy to come over and sit next to him so that he can talk to him about honoring your mother and father. And I thought to myself as I'm watching in Columbus, Ohio when they're showing, you know, tape of this on the CBS Evening News, I'm thinking that kid is going to go to his village or neighborhood in Rome or whatever. And he is going to be pre-sainted. Like he touched the pope. The pope talked to him. He's special, right? And you know, popes were very like hands off before that. You know, they were very like detached. So he had affected me. He passed away on a Thursday. I had a Saturday midday show. Really embarrassing. I had a Saturday midday show. And at the time on our playlist was a song by Billy Joel that I dedicated to the memory of Pope John Paul I. And I dedicated it just like this. Going out to Pope John Paul I, he died too young for us. Billy Joel, only the good dyke, W-N-C-I. Okay. Fast forward about 48 hours. Those of you that know the lyrics to the song, you're already ahead of me. 48 hours. I get a phone call at 7.30 in the morning on Monday morning from my program director who says to me, Mike Metzger says to me, Yeah, hey, man, could you come down to the station? Because we're changing the locks and we got to like get everybody's keys and give out new ones. What he didn't say was you're not getting a new one. You're being fun. Because I had to walk past these protesters who I had no idea what they were protesting. They were protesting me. And the thing was that W-N-C-I knew that only the good dyke was on the Catholic Diocese Do Not Playlist. And they were like, don't listen to that station because they're playing the devil's music apparently. And I just made it worse. And it was partly because of the way I presented myself. It was almost like a joke. And it wasn't. I really felt that. But you never know who's listening. Exactly. When you're on the radio. Exactly. Or when you're doing anything for them. So acting for me didn't really play into it until much later in my career when I started doing talk radio. Because within 15 minutes of starting a talk show, unless you're Rush Limbaugh, you drop the whole DJ thing. Right. You just talk with people, right? You're talking. And when I decided I wanted to be an on-camera actor, it was some really crazy like, you know, brain-eating worm that got up into my head and made me think that with this amazing face and this gorgeous physique that I could possibly add on-camera work to my quiver. You're not good to watch. Yeah. And part of it was the weather in Washington, DC. I wanted to get as far away from it as possible. And I thought, all right, fine. I'm going to try this. And I was 49 years old or 46 years old. And I got my first gig when I was 50. And that was heroes. So here we go back to heroes again. Would you like me to tell you more about all this? No, that's okay. No, that's fine. But you got into acting. Yeah. Yeah. But the only acting I had done before that was when some organization in Washington, DC or New York or wherever I was working in radio wanted me to promote their thing on my show. So they'd give me some walk-on role hoping that I would talk about, hey, I'm going to be at the Ford Theater this Thursday night. You know, or I was going, I played the Kennedy Center. I was the narrator for the John Phillips, Sousa extravaganza on the 4th of July. Those are always fun to do. Yeah, those are great. And, you know, but acting, I had to learn from scratch. And boy, I loved it. I just loved it. How did you get yourself immersed in it? Well, I, first of all, I asked. I asked some people who were already successful, some of whom I had on my show. And I said, where did you study? How did you figure out how the business works? And I gave myself plenty of time to figure out how the business works. I tend to talk about the Abraham Lincoln method. You know, he once famously said, if I had an hour to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first 45 minutes sharpening the axe. So that's what I did. I do that all the time in my life. I study what works, what doesn't work, who are the gatekeepers, who can say yes, who can say no, who has the power, you know, what do you need to do to be successful? And I really took the time to study. I interned at casting offices. I interned at agents offices, one man band agents, big agencies. I interned in writer's rooms. I interned at a network. You just walked in and said, I will do this for nothing. You need some help. Well, they all have intern programs that you can, you know, I went to all kinds of casting workshops to learn not to be cast. In fact, I didn't even try. Like there are times when I wouldn't give my headshot because I'm like, I'm not ready to audition. I'm not looking to get, you know, brought in for something. I just want to learn from you. How do you run your office? What is this all worth? So that's the kind of person that I am. And I took four good years and I did a play. And I think I'm the only actor in Los Angeles that's ever gotten his agent from doing what's called Black Box Theater. It's the little tiny 49 seat theaters. Nobody else has ever gotten an agent. I did. I don't know how. I was doing a play called Bukowsicle, which was about Charles Bukowski. And it was a comedy about Charles Bukowski. Sounds like somebody I was in a fraternity with. Yeah. Yeah. And then some agent, you know, was brought there by his clients. Celebrities started coming to this thing. And he waited for me out in front of the Sacred Fools Theater here in Los Angeles. And he said, do you have an agent? And I'm like, I'm not ready for, I'm still training. I'm not ready for an agent. And he goes, oh, yes you are. And then he, and I've been with him ever since. It's been like almost 17 years. And he's apparently done well by you. He's a great guy. He knows what he's doing. Yeah. Absolutely. To want to be an actor. As I like to say. Yeah. It's got to be in your gallbladder. Because you've got, it's got to be who you are. And when. That's why my gallbladder feels the way it does. Oh, okay. Yeah. Now I understand. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's got to be who you are. You have, it's got to be what you want to do. And nothing's going to stop you. Because I've been in the casting lounges here in LA. And I'm like, all these people I'm competing against. And that's the guy they're going to hire. Because he looks like the person that the role fits. You think. And then two months later, you sit in there watching TV. And a commercial comes up. Yeah. That was the guy they paid for. You'd think. You'd think. Sometimes that's the way it happens. I think that people want to be actors for appropriate reasons. And sometimes some very inappropriate reasons. Like they want to be famous. Or they want to be wealthy. Right. Yeah. Then why are they going into voiceover? I mean, you know, if there's one thing actors know, it's the taste of ramen. They understand. And yeah, what? And what? And mac and cheese. And mac and cheese. Exactly. And look at me. So, you know, I feel like, yeah, I actually remember all the way back to when I was six or seven years old. The very first time I thought maybe I would want to be an actor was when I watched this film called Gijo. G-I-G-O-T. Jackie Gleason. Jackie Gleason. Exactly. As a clown type figure in Paris. Not a clown. He was a mute. He was a deaf mute. Right. And he was an apartment manager who was very badly mistreated and was accused of molesting this little girl. I mean, and no lines. Right. Just that face. That face. And I think Jackie Gleason is one of the most underrated actors in the history of our business. Because he made me, as a six or seven year old, laugh and cry and wonder. And why can't he talk? Not that guy isn't talking on that movie, but that apartment manager, no, he didn't do that. Why are you accusing him of doing that? He didn't do that, you know. And I just remember being affected by it and that I wanted to do that. And it happened for me with audio. It's happened for me with video. And I think you're absolutely right. I'm going to go in for some tests on my gallbladder now that I know that this is what you think. What are they going to find in there? They're going to find a little theater. That's right. There's going to be a little lock box, I think, you know. Once again, we're talking with David H. Lawrence, the 17th. And we're talking about acting and has it relates to voice acting, which is, you know, there's a lot of actors out there that, you know, they're screen actors. Some of them just have great voices and you hear them on commercials and you hear the narrating stuff. And then there are some guys that they try to make this transition and try to do voice acting, which, of course, a lot of happened during the pandemic. Sure. And they didn't get it. Yeah. Why do you think that was that some people weren't able to make that transition? Well, I think some people take care of all the different facets that go into your acting, your look, your movement, your understanding of drama, comedy, scripting, production, right? And then you go into voiceover and you think, how hard can this be? You're just talking. Yeah. You know? And they find out very quickly how hard it can be. And then the inverse of that is true as well. I think if you look at your absolute favorite actors, you're going to say to yourself, wow, they've got a distinctive voice. I get it. I understand. And it just adds to things, you know? If an actor can, if somebody can do an impression of an actor, then they've got it all going on, you know? Right. Right? And I think that we as voice actors, there are plenty of voice actors who kind of push back at the whole notion of doing anything on camera. I urge you to do something on camera so that you know that you are an actor because it's too late. You're already an actor. There's no escaping it. Even if all you do is work on Mike, you're still an actor. Sorry. I hate to break it to you. Yeah. I have found, when I start working with people, and I've worked with a lot of actors who are, you know, they're like, well, I got to do voiceover. Yeah. Acting sort of went by the wayside for them. But the one I try to teach them is that the microphone is, it's a camera. And the fact of the matter is, is when you're doing a scene with somebody, you're working with that other person. You are playing to them. You are not playing to the camera unless you're like doing a... Depends. ...tide commercial. We won't mention any names. And you have to look in the camera and talk to the camera. Forget that the microphone is there and just be present in what it is that you're doing. Yeah. I have a variant on that theme. It's like you have to be aware of where you are on Mike. You also have to be aware of where you are on camera. There are so many things that people don't know about working on camera. So I'm now on a one shot. I'm on a, what's called a cowboy shot, if I was standing up. And if I'm talking to somebody on camera, my head is actually tilted toward the camera, even though I'm talking to their camera side eye. And that opens my face up to the camera. If they're over there, I'm not looking that way because it changes what the camera sees. And when you're on Mike, the same thing can be happening depending upon what the axis of the pickup pattern is. And you tend, if you're not wearing your earphones, if you're not wearing earbuds or headphones, you can't hear this. But you can adjust yourself just like you can on camera. And just like you can on stage, you know, you open yourself out to the audience when you're hosting or when you're working in a play. There's all of these things that actors do that hopefully nobody ever notices. And it's not just on camera actors. It's not just on stage actors. It's voice talent as well. Right. So you're absolutely right, Dan. 100%. I totally agree. And I hope that that first question that really deserved an amazing answer, a satisfying one, is someday going to be answered for you. We'll get to it eventually. But we're going to get to your questions in just a minute. We're with David H. Lawrence, the 17th. Again, if you have a question, you can ask that question in the chat room in Facebook or in YouTube. And we will get to those questions right after these important messages. So don't go away here on Voice Over Body Shot. Now I have to figure out where to go in here and go to the break like that. You're still watching VLBS? Well, hello there. I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice announcer guy on your new orientation training for Snapchat, were you? This is Virgin Radio. Well, okay, we're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes for working. Dickies, because I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values, a leader for California, and a voice for America. It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smartphone. But it's so much more. The files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs. What time is hockey practice? Check out this song. It's the end of the road for Rick. Is this your name, Rick? When Hope is Lost. The I8 from BMW. Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's J. Michael Collins. Bet you think I'm going to try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for themselves. But I will give you my email. It's jmichaelatjmcvoiceover.com. Now, if Dan will stop waxing his mustache for a minute, we'll get back to the show. Hey there, hero. It's David H. Lawrence, the 17th, and I have spent the last few months updating, bringing right up to the minute all the information in my free course that's called Mastering Home-Based Voiceover. And it begins this week. So if you want to be notified when the first free lesson drops, which will be on Thursday, go to voheroes.com. This course is a very deep dive. It's about 10 hours long. A very deep dive into the business of voiceover, the equipment you need, the artwork that you need to understand, different categories of voiceover, and your mindset. And I want you to have all the preparatory information and strategies and tactics that you need, so join me for Mastering Home-Based Voiceover. Go to voheroes.com. That's voheroes.com. You know, I used to live in Buffalo, New York, but now I'm in sunny Southern California. But no matter where you are, when you need equipment strictly for voiceover, there's only one place to go. And that's voiceoveressentials.com. And right now is the time to get with Harlan Hogan's signature series V01 A voiceover microphone. They also have the fabulous Sentrance Mic Port Pro 2 with limiter in stock. In fact, it's the only version they sell. Now, a limiter is a must-have, especially when recording oneself with no engineer to ride game for you. By the way, it's the most amazing limiter they've encountered. It's impossible to detect, and it's incredibly quiet. And they've upgraded the Port-A-Booth Pro quick-script LED light. Now it has two Goosenecks. All the better to read your script. Go on over to voiceoveressentials right now to get these great voiceoveressential products. Hi, this is Bill Farmer, and you are watching Voiceover Body Shop. It's great. And we're back with David H. Lawrence, the 17th. For a moment, it's like, what was his name again? No, I remembered your name. You look like a deer in the headlights there for a second. What do you need? What can I do for you, Dan? I'm just amazed I got the right shot. Did you move out here for the same reason I moved out here because of the weather on the east coast? Yeah, January and February. Okay, great. You're from Cleveland. I'm from Buffalo. But I wasn't in Cleveland. You were in... I was in Washington, D.C. It's not as hell there. What, but not then? Oh. March? They have absolutely no idea that they're sitting on the Chesapeake Bay and they have exactly the same issue that Buffalo and Cleveland have lake effect weather. Yeah. Yeah. So I got out of there. I got the hell out. Well, we have a ton of questions. Let's do it. Let's see if we can get to some of these. Vern Pringle. Hi, Vern. And YouTube question. I'm 65. Welcome to the club. That's not how Vern Pringle sounds. I know. And starting out in VO, should I gravitate towards audition scripts geared more for older voices? I don't know if I should do a script geared for a younger voice. Yes. Opinions? Yes. That's all for tonight. The number here... Listen, you know, I don't know what age... I mean, I know you just mentioned how old you are physically, but I have no idea how old your voice is. I will tell you that I am going to be 64 in about three weeks. 64. My voice doesn't appear to be 64 years old just yet. So I tend to get auditions for 30 to late 40s, 30 years old to late 40s. And I tend to be cast in just straight-ahead adult things, not older adult and so on. So without knowing what your voice qualities are, I couldn't tell you, but I would definitely say to start with whatever category you end up discerning what your voice age is and then going one up and one down. I'm sure you can make yourself sound a little bit younger, maybe sound a little bit older, but that's kind of the range that I would work on in terms of scripts. Interesting. We don't realize how old we are, or how young we are. For example, when I was a kid, my parents would have friends over, and I'm like, who are all these old people here that are hanging out here? And then I was invited to some friend's house in Oxnard a few years or a few weeks ago. And suddenly he's mixing cocktails and it's like, why am I hanging out with my parents' friends? And then suddenly I look at them and I'm like... That's why. Yeah, and that, and when you start looking in your newsfeed and it's a lot more like, so said Sally passed away and Sally was who you took to the junior prom. Yeah. And you're like, ah, but that's not what we're talking about here, Dan. It's not. No. That was just relating the fact that we don't know how old we actually are. Yeah. And there's a dark side to that and that's also that... It wasn't dark enough? Well, there are people, especially older people who are pushing back as though it's an insult when somebody says, no, man, you don't look that age anymore. You look this age, you know? And they tend to be upset by that. What do you mean I'm 65? What are you talking about? What do you mean my voice sounds like I'm 70? What are you talking about, you know? Yeah. Or not. So, you know, we want to be sometimes what we're not. Remember when we were young, when we wanted to be was older? Right. We would read up. When we were tweens, we'd be like, oh, boys life instead of Cub Scout magazine? Okay, cool. Yeah, I'm going to read that. And girls, same thing, you know? They're not teens yet, but they're reading Teen Beat. Whatever. Tiger beat. Tiger beat, thank you. Lloyd Dachstan's Tiger beat. Nice. Nice. Got a steel trap memory for really stupid stuff. All right, okay. All right. Let's get on to the next question. Jim Frank asks. Okay. This is actually a tech question, which I can probably answer. All right. It says, what's a good interface? I have $500 to spend. Wow. Well, you have about $300 to spare there to spend on something else. No, you don't. Believe me, you absolutely have a budget that I don't know who set your budget, but become friendly with that person for the rest of your life because you can skim off the top. Yeah, go for it. Exactly. I just happen to have one of these guys sitting around. Here's a Focusrite 2i2, $150, and it will do everything you need it to do. Yeah. And it doesn't sound any better or any worse than something that is $500 more. Yeah. So I think people get caught up on the idea of features and stuff that will make you sound that can try and enhance your sound. Or they figure spending more money. Again, this is a very interesting position, price versus value. Right? Right. This is a great example of, if you have $500 to spend on an interface, well, sure, if I spend $499 on a really expensive interface, it's going to sound better than the $150 interface. Isn't it? No. Price and value aren't necessarily locked, but our impressions of them are. Yeah. That's a really important part. Yeah. Yeah. I have found there's no interface and no microphone out there that will change the way you read copy or perform copy. Right. Yet people, I've got to have a U87. No, you don't. Yeah. You don't need one of those. It's not going to make you a better voice actor. What's going to make you a better voice actor is taking that extra $300 and taking a couple of voice acting lessons. That would be great. That's even with voheroes.com. Or just the free course starting this Thursday as we're recording this, which is Monday. Right. Thursday, the 25th of August, I'm doing a course called Mastering Home-Based Voiceover. It's absolutely free. It will take you through what I consider to be the four keys of voiceover, including the performance of the different categories of voice work. And so, if you go to voheroes.com slash go, I'll let you know on Thursday when the first lesson drops. But again, it's absolutely free. It'll be across nine days. I've been working on it for a couple months now. And, yeah, Mr. Frank, you don't have to spend that extra $300. We could go to, like, Morton's or something. Yeah. Or Cantor's. Oh, yeah. I just went to the Deli exhibit at the Skirble. Actually, it was the Deli exhibit. They're now making exhibits about Delis. It was interesting. Okay. All right. Okay. They show you how they corn the beef? No. It was more of the history of difficult tests. I got you. All right. Terry Brisco asks, how do you harness that same energy when there is no one to interact with when you're acting? Because it's just you and your mic. Yep. It's just you and your mic. And it's just you and your camera when you're auditioning for television. And it's just you and the casting director if you go some place to do that. You don't have an audience. You don't have a crew. You don't have a director or an engineer like you might be if you were going to a studio. And it's all about paying attention to two things. Who are you talking to? And what are you trying to help them get done? They have a job. The job may be getting their clothes clean. The job may be getting a new car. The job may be there's talking commercials here. The job may be serving their family, but there are higher goals with all of this. You don't want to just serve your family a nice hot meal. You want your family to love you. You want your family to rely on you to have confidence in you that you know you're taking care of them. So who are you talking to? Are you talking to that mom or that kid or that co-worker or whatever. And once you do that, once you determine who it is that you're talking to, then you simply go about the notion of helping them get their job done. Whatever that job is. And the script will tell you. Now, if you need outside influence, I think usually what I ask my clients to do is to reconsider that. Just reconsider that for just a moment. And think, how do I think to myself without outside influence? How do I determine what I'm going to do with the day or the week or your life without somebody you know leading me down some path, right? So there's all kinds of really easy ways to generate internal energy when you're doing this sort of thing. And that's what I do. All right. Yeah. Next question. We have, let's see, Terry had a second part. He says, had to become and come to the realization that voiceover is acting. Duh. Hey, be nice. It's my audience. All right. I don't want to be labeled as an actor when I first started because I don't want to be misleading. After doing both, I now realize that both are acting and they just, I have different methods. Yeah. I think that's, I think that's an inculcation of the imposter syndrome. You think to yourself, well, I'm just starting off. I'm not an actor yet. No. Sorry. The moment you begin in any, any part of this business too late, you're an actor. Now, are you an accomplished actor? Are you a veteran actor? Are you a union actor? Are you an actor with credits? Man, maybe not. But you're an actor. And if you would celebrate that, enjoy that, internalize that, feed on that. Excellent. Max Goldberg asks on YouTube, by the way. Thanks for watching on YouTube. Smash that like button, Max. Absolutely. What steps does David take when evaluating a script before recording an audition? That's a great question. It's, it's kind of a variation on the theme. Who am I talking to? What kind of job am I trying to help them get done? And it, and it covers all categories of voice work, all categories of voice work. Cold reading, self-direction. These are things that require that you trust the writer. And the problem is, some of us come from radio. And there, often the writer is a sales person who's working from a formula, part of which includes repeating the phone number 15 times at the end of the spot. Right. And which nobody ever pays attention to. Yeah. It depends. It depends if they need what you're offering them. Right. That's true. And that's a self-selecting group of people. If you're not in the market for detergent, the best detergent spot in the world is not going to sell you detergent. It may make you laugh. It may make you go, oh, that's interesting. But if you need detergent, oh, that becomes the most important thing in your life at that very moment. Right. Think about when you need a product and you go searching for it on Amazon. All of a sudden, you know, that's what I need. So the words to me always should be given the heft of doing the heavy lifting. So as I look at a script, it is have faith in the writer. Admire what they've done. Look for what their goal was. What are they trying to get accomplished? What do they want you? How do you fit into the story? Because sometimes you're a number of different actors doing the same thing. You know, how do you fit in in the story? And then do your best to carefully identify who you're talking to. And it's never all of you people in the broadcast studio audience. It's never that. It's one person. Arthur Godfrey changed everything. Long before Phil or Paul Harvey changed things, Arthur Godfrey was complained about to Congress because instead of the typical broadcast annoucery. And now let's talk about Tetley T. For those of you sitting in your kitchens, all across America, here's how to... No. Arthur Godfrey was, he was Hawaii, Hawaii. He was... Listen, I know exactly how you feel. You got your husband off to work. You got your kids off to school. It's not even 9.30 in the morning and you're exhausted. Am I right? You're... I'm not asking you if I'm right about Arthur Godfrey. That's what he would say. Am I right? And you could just feel housewives across America going, oh my God, yes. And then the next thing you would say, up on your shelf, it's the third shelf up on the right. That's where the Tetley T is. Go check it out. Or Lipton T. He was the Lipton T guy because the Tetley T company complained to Congress that Arthur Godfrey was hypnotizing America's housewives. No, he was just talking to them the way they wanted to be talked to. He was talking to them the way... Yeah, you know, we think there's this massive audience, millions of people, but they're listening one at a time. They're not sitting in a stadium somewhere engaging in this in a group thing kind of thing, right? So anyway, that's how I approach it. I hope that's helpful. It's a one-on-one conversation. Absolutely. We're not talking to one person sitting in a car somewhere going, okay. Yeah. And that's not even the person you're talking to. Right. You have an archetype. That's who you're talking to. And that person identifies with that archetype. Alrighty. All right. Next question is... I love these questions. These questions are great. Can we stay on until nine o'clock tonight? We can. I gotta eat dinner eventually. All right. Let's see. Okay. First of all, I have a very linear mind. I am a right-brained person trapped in a left-brained body. I love step-by-step. There are two types of people in the world. Here we go. Two types of people in the world. Okay. Two types of people in the world. Okay. Two types of people in the world. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Two types of people in the world. There are options people and there are process people and you're probably a process person because you framed this question in a way that you think I'm going to answer but I'm about to do something called reframing. Watch this. Oh, an LP. Mm-hmm. So, options people, most artists have some and we're all on the spectrum between options and processes but I am way toward processes. You good? Process people, options people want to know what palette can they draw from? What kind of colors do we have? All the different things that they might be able to use to solve the problem. I want to know what all my options are. Maybe I'll decide at that point what I want to use but I want to know even more. Process people, you give me step one through step 10 to go from I know nothing, I know bupkus to I'm a world class expert. Here's what you do step two, step three, step four and if you're a programmer you're very aware of this. Now, if you're an object-oriented programmer you may have expanded beyond that where things are kind of waiting to be used, not necessarily being done in a step-by-step order and the funny thing is, is that storytelling is still a step-by-step process. There's a reason why pick-your-own endings audiences don't want to be given that burden of trying to decide what the story should they want to be washed with the colors and the decisions that the writers have made. Same thing with a voice talent. You want to go from the person that you're trying to help with the whatever job remember we talked about that or the person that you've identified as the person you're talking to you want to get them from not being able to do their job to having done their job which is purchasing that product or service or crying because the hero died or whatever it is that you're trying to do to help them do their job don't lose that linear thought process from the introduction to the hero's journey to the side trips to the sequel to all this is still a linear process don't tell yourself that you're doing something wrong because you're not okay so there's your hall pass I hope that helps that worked for me alright well thanks everyone for your questions an hour just goes by that's it we're done alright not quite alright we still have to take a break okay and then we'll come back and then we'll say goodbye and then you get to read some of the stuff that I read every week if you can see it from here I can't see anything I'll bring it closer alright David H. Lawrence we'll be right back and finish things up right after these very important messages so don't go away just figure out where to go from here the market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept to live online in a much shorter time when you contact voiceactorwebsites.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 voiceactorwebsites.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 voiceactorwebsites.com where your VO website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what we gotta go to a two shot because when I had to talk about Source Connect because Source Connect is that software that allows you to talk to another studio a big professional studio without actually having to go to that studio this is technology that's been around for 15 years I mean it's been around for a long time but over the internet Source Connect by Source Elements is what you need in order to get yourself into those studios and a lot of agencies have been saying you gotta have the paid Source Connect if you want to get voice work and I have I have it I know I don't know if you have it do you have it I use Source Connect now okay Source Connect now it's a free version of Source Connect so you can learn how to use it and when an agent calls you and says you got booked this spot but you gotta have Source Connect the paid version you can have the paid version and now they have all sorts of different ways you can get it you can buy it monthly you can buy it by the time you want to use it all these cool things so they understand as a voice actor you have to be flexible and that's one of the great things about Source Connect is it allows you to use it when you need it and you can get a free trial of it learn how to use it get it all set up properly and they have really great customer support to make sure that it all works really really well where do you go for that Dan? you go over to SourceElements.com or SourceConnect.com Wow try it there look at the different packages they have it's important stuff to have and it certainly is important stuff to know about so go over there and check it out SourceConnect anyway that's going to do it for this week believe it or don't but we do have to thank a bunch of people alright for example we have to like to thank the academy well eventually when we get nominated for something which never seems to happen for some reason but we have to thank our donors of the week okay we can read these in one of the times like 949 Designs wait wait right here green okay Jonathan Grant Casey Clack Christopher Epperson Sarah Borges Phillip Sapir Tom Pinto Tom Pinto Tom Pinto really Shelly Avellino Brighton Page that's Shelly Avellino Patty Gibbons Rob Ryder Rob Ryder wait there's more wait Greg Thomas a doctor voice ant land production isn't that Uncle Roy? that is Uncle Roy okay Shannon Pennington Baird Martha Kahn Don Griffith Trey Mosley Diana Birdsall and Sandra Manweller oh Sandra thank you we have supporters all over the world that's lovely even in Canada how'd I do with that you did okay yeah I was trying to help somebody get their job done exactly you know we also need to thank our sponsors like Harlan Hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extras SourceElementsVOHeroes.com oh I'm familiar yes voicehackerwebsites.com JMC demos and World Voices Organization the industry association of freelance voice down whoa that's right thanks to Jeff Holman for getting all the questions in there maybe I'll go by just like that Sumerlino feel better please don't die on me and of course Lee Penny for simply being Lee Penny well this is not an easy business voiceover is a very complex you know there's a lot of things you got to learn it's about acting it's about performance it's about technology it's about business and marketing and all those things and we're here to tell you all about these things hopefully George will be back from England one of these days and we'll we'll get back to it but I want to thank you David for joining me tonight wow and co-hosting you're working on making sure that he comes back that's good well you know can't do tech talk this week without him I see so we'll try and get it done next week or the week after or we will make sure that you will get tech talk next week in the meantime I'm Dan Leonard I'm David H. Lawrence the 17th and this is voiceover Body Shop or VO BS have a great week everybody