 Hey, how's it going out there? It's time for voiceover body shop and tonight. We have a very special episode Joining us are Andrew Peters and Darren Robbo Robertson from all the way down under Amazingly We're gonna talk about Demos and their their new demo production company and look talk a little bit about what really goes into a good demo So if you've got a question for them because after listening to this for a bit You're gonna have questions for them and you can throw them. Did they just say yeah, what are they talking about? Add more orange. Yeah, that's sort of a quacac. What's the wallaby? Oh Well, we'll get back to the Victorian English in just a minute in the meantime, it's time for voiceover body shop right now voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials comm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements the folks who bring you source connect the oh heroes comm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor comm your voice over website ready in minutes Voiceover extra your daily resource for voiceover success and by world voices the industry association of Freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts Dan and George Well, hello there, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George wooden and this is voiceover body shop or V.O Bs Well in a world-god mad we've decided well, let's just keep doing our show and Let's have peace amongst all the voiceover community Boy rough week rough week and you know lots of and you know friends relatives people over on the other side of the big ponds I know all our best wishes go out to them and hopefully we can have peace there Shortly, yeah, anyway tonight. We are talking with a couple of great guests all the way down from Oz because they have a new demo production company and We were working on a new conversational demo for me last week, so we're gonna talk about it Let me introduce our guest Andrew Peters is one of the top voice actors in Southeast Asia The United Arab Emirates Australia and New Zealand heard literally by millions of people every day And I think you've actually heard them on a Harlan Hogan commercial a couple months ago Darren Robbo Robertson is an audio production specialist with 35 years experience They are both co-hosts along with George and Robert Marshall the founder of service connect on the popular and geeky Podcast the pro audio suite and together they are co-founders of Robbo and AP's international voice demos Let's welcome Robbo and Andrew to voiceover body shop. Hey guys. Hello, my good guys Which I say good morning, but it's good afternoon Yeah, we know it's good a good day. Good. I get a man Yeah, I've got to take you to task first Dan because the geeky podcast Yeah, I feel like I'm a long way from geeky. I don't know but that was That's the way George describes it It is a bit geeky Don't let Robert on the show That's right. Yeah, keep Robert away. Yeah, anyway You guys have you know, you're both very accomplished at what you've been doing We we've all been as we were discussing last week We've all been in the business about the same length of time Amazing that even you know where you guys are my my career sort of paralleled all the stuff stuff You guys were doing only, you know, 10,000 miles away But you guys have partnered up with with this new venture of yours What influenced you guys to to start this venture of you know doing voiceover demos internationally? Who wants to go first? Well, we kind of fell into it funnily enough It was through our podcast the pro audio suite we We've teamed up with centrants to give you some background to come up with a the passport Vio interface and as part of that a part of the launch of that we were giving away some some stuff for people to pre-order and AP and I sort of went well, what are we gonna give away Andrew being a voice-over artist and me being an audio engineer For Robert and George. It was a little more obvious So I said to AP well, why don't we make a voiceover demo for someone and he went yeah, that's a good idea So um so me more so Mimo saw say to Want it and we did one for him. We had such a good time doing it and he was so chuffed with the results We sort of looked at each other and went hmm. We might be on to something Chuffed is a good thing Chuffed yes, well, it's funny because Robo Robo's been making in fact He's made a couple of demos for me in the past and I think when we did this the demo for memo memo's demo We kind of clicked went actually there's something unique about what we're doing here because we're coming at this from both sides of the glass and And it also became quite obvious because we Didn't share our edits with each other So we did them separately and then without listening to either Like me listening to Robo's or he listening to mine Robo then got them all did a mix and then we sent them off as an a and a b to memo and then got him to choose Which one he liked but it was obvious that we were coming at it from a different angle Because our edits were quite different Yeah, and I'd sort of at the time I'd just done Matt Calrits demo For him and I sort of enjoyed the experience. It was something that I hadn't really I Done a lot of it, but it's something I'd never really thought of is something that I enjoyed Because I enjoyed the creative process more, but it really became a creative process so It's also different because in Australia Demo's usually work you've done and you just do a comp out of the finished jobs Where it's quite obvious in America It's a different kettle of fish where you know you actually go in there and scripts are written for you and you you go from scratch Which we don't do here So that was something interesting for both Robo and I to do that for the you know for the first time really I mean that's always been my you know for my days in radio. That's what you did You know even back in the States. It was like if you've done a lot of commercials I was a production director and and on air and it's like oh, I love this spot and and and chunking them together and You know times have changed and I don't quite understand why they have to be produced this way, but But why do you guys think demos are important? It's your business card short and sweet. Yeah, it's it's it's what you lay on the table to say this is who I am This is what I do. I don't think there's anything more important for a voiceover artist than a good demo I can't think of anything. Yeah. Well, the demo is the is the calling card and But it also has to reflect things you can do not raise you would like to do because There is nothing worse for someone like Robbo or any Production guy or producer engineer Then booking a talent based on their demo and realize they can't actually replicate it in the studio. Yeah, that's that's bad Yeah, I mean that's that's the thing that I've heard a lot, too is that you know people it's like they record it and they record it in a studio, you know, they they're not in their own home studio and You know, and it's like oh, we hired you but they do it from home and it's like oh crap You know and but you've got to be able to reproduce what you do on a demo You know in a gig and I'm sure there are many people that have who don't understand that didn't realize that and You know, it's important which is why George and I are so adamant about people having a really good home studio because everything Everything's being done from home studios now. Yeah, and so it's really important to Do a demo with who you are and what you sound like without too much You know finagling to it. I think there's two things for me that sort of come from that is the first thing that we talk about a lot and and the three Sort of cornerstones of what we do and and the and the sort of the markers when we're judging What we're writing or what we're working on whether we're on the right track is is we have Repeatable so obviously you must be able to repeat your demo demo believable I've got it as a listener I've got to believe that it's you and you're capable of doing that and the other one is creativity and creativity is Sort of not the creativity you're probably thinking about the creativity We're talking about is finding those reads that maybe you didn't know you had And also reflecting what's currently happening in the market Yeah, in terms of voiceover and what they're choosing and what they're looking for and and that's sort of a big thing and I and that's why I sort of I'm constantly stunned sometimes when you go on to a website For for someone who maybe you work with regularly But the client wants to hear their demo and you're sending them a demo. That's four or five years old Yes, and you know that you know that that person is capable like, you know, there's plenty of people in Australia I could think of who I wouldn't hesitate in booking But but you listen to their demo and if you didn't know them you would sort of go. Hmm Yeah, I think we've moved past those sort of reads and I'm not sure that you're the right person for this Yeah If you're just joining us our guests are Darren Robbo Robertson and Andrew Peters and we're talking about Getting your demos right and you know and seeing what what's the right process for doing that? If you have a question for them about demos I Have to do is go in the chat room whether you're in Facebook live or you're in YouTube or if you happen to be watching on LinkedIn or Watching the smoke signals coming over the top of the hill You can drop them in the chat room and and I know that Jeff Holman is back there And he will relay those questions to us in a little bit. So Listen carefully. It should raise some questions and you can ask So let's talk quick. Okay. Go for it George for you guys was the most difficult part of the process Was it was it the the content writing or creation because or the script writing? Is that with what was the most challenging funny we talked about that because We were talking about that it just in general chatter when we were working with Dan recording this I'm the script writer And I've never I've never worked as a copywriter But for 35 years I've had to edit copywriter's scripts because clients have demanded that, you know I want the phone number twice plus the email address plus the street address plus with the opening hours and everything else So you come up with this 45 second script that you then have to make a 30 And so I think I've learnt the craft of craft of writing scripts from having to do that In terms of organizing and script and and the tone of the script and all that sort of stuff and obviously Coming from a radio imaging background as well. I'm writing a lot of promos and sweepers and all that sort of stuff So yeah, but it's um It's part of the process that I sort of had the biggest imposter syndrome about I guess because I'm comfortable writing a radio promo I sort of going hmm should I be writing some commercials, but The feedback so far has been brilliant, you know people like Matt Cowrick and stuff like that have had some good results So you sort of go okay. Well, maybe I should stop listening to that in in a voice Well, you have the background like you said, yeah I mean that's that those years of writing those other types of work What means you have writing chops and you have editing chops So you just have to reshape that into the format that we're working with here Yeah, and also like you know, I'll get scripts sent to me obviously so I'll keep ones that I think are Value and then we'll just re-work that script, but the creative's done as well That's kind of handy So let's talk a little bit about your process and then we can show a little bit of video about what we did Last week when we were cutting a demo for me and we did it pretty quick I mean sometimes you'll work for a week on With somebody who is like, okay, we'll do another spot today. We'll do another one We went through that we were like less than an hour And but it still gave us plenty of time to do the interplay that needed to be done to direct it and get it done So I was pretty impressed with that but Individually, what is your what is your process? I mean Andrew when you're when you're starting to do this What is your thought process when you're working with somebody? Firstly, I will check out that person and just find whatever demos I can find of theirs and just have a listen then Try and find something that I believe is their strength Or something I can hear There's something in their voice that tells me they can go a certain direction and Then that sort of that's something I'll work on with that person when we're going through the process of recording Mm-hmm. That's that's how I Go and the final once we get online and start recording. It all becomes kind of obvious which way we're gonna go So Robo, do you you're the same though, aren't you? Yeah, I'm pretty much the same for me The magic comes with we do a pre demo Let's call it in the interview, but it's really just a chance for AP and I to catch up and goof around and Have a bit of fun. Yeah, but um, but but part of the process is is a bunch of legitimate questions that give us an idea of What's in your head and what you want from a demo and the question that that always Sort of interests me the most And and I think leads to some of the results in terms of happiness of people with their demos is Sort of what's a read that you that you think you're good at that you don't get booked for And for me, that's a big one because because there's these Sort of unearth talent That doesn't get to that chance to come to the forefront because people can't don't know they can someone can do that read And so when they have the chance to go well, you know, sure. I really like, you know, I really like I think we talked about school teacher with you You know, I really like that sort of thing or something like that Then you can sort of pluck that out and you can write a script around that and give them the opportunity to put it out there Yeah, in amongst work that still is, you know, booked regularly and and and the rest of the demo works around it in terms of being current and And bookable. Yeah. Well, let's let's take a quick look. It's about four and a half minutes of The interplay we had is just me and me and Andrew and we were talking about a gym beam spot That we were doing. Let me just play that and let's see where he's right here. Yeah Will you want your best behavior? Hey, we always believed the welcoming spirit was a small-town thing Turns out we were wrong From the places that don't have a name to the bright lights of a world moving at a frantic pace Wherever Jim beam is welcome You'll be welcome to to the bright lights of a world moving at a frantic pace Okay, I'm gonna take you somewhere else on this one. Yeah, I want you to get in right into the mic and Just get really sort of breathy and gravelly and like I wrote Sam Shepard It's not gonna take that long But um, so it's something like I was talking about the Sam Shepard kind of vibe, you know, the Sam Shepard is he's got so more of a baritone upper baritone type of voice Not really a deep voice, but yeah style But you know what I mean, there's that kind of delivery that that sort of Who's the other actor that always does all these ads the mumbling not Matthew Modine Anyway, we're the hood of the guys But it's kind of that in in close mic, you know, I'm at a bar smoky that kind of thing Yeah Here's some Tom waits in the background Okay, exactly Tom waits in the background indeed. Yeah Okay We still roll in here We're just wait for a run. I don't know. I think he wants to mute so we don't bleed everywhere. So I just wait for Robbo We always believed in the welcoming spirit was a small town thing Turns out we were wrong From the places that don't have a name to the bright lights of the world moving at a frantic pace Wherever Jim beam is welcome You'll be welcome too. I Reckon we can even go further and bring the projection back and just get really breathy and Into the bike. I just want to get an idea of how that's gonna sound. All right You're being take five We always believed in the welcoming spirit was The welcoming spirit was a small. I don't know why I keep throwing that away. Okay We always believed that the welcoming spirit was a small town thing Turns out we were wrong From the places that don't have a name to the bright lights of a world moving at a frantic pace Wherever Jim beam is welcome You'll be welcome too I reckon pull it back in just a bit more and then we'll play with the last line I'd like to come back slow it down and get it really We always believed the welcoming spirit was a small town thing Turns out we were wrong that kind of thing. Yep Jim beam you take By we always believe the welcoming spirit was a small town thing Turns out we were wrong From the places that don't have a name To the bright lights of a world moving at a frantic pace Wherever Jim beam is welcome You'll be welcome I reckon Just want to do the tag Wherever Jim beam is welcome You'll be welcome to Wherever Jim beam is welcome You'll be welcome to The concentration in your face is incredible It's acting But That was a fun. Yeah, it was a great process because The thing that's probably the hardest for most people Doing demos or even just doing a remote session is The that a lot of people aren't used to being directed whereas I love being directed its Self-direction is so hard Yeah, and to just give you know a little having what I refer to as a meta person to really listen to what you're saying and Say I bring it up take it down, you know that sort of thing you can't do that in your own head It's I mean some people can't I mean I've I've got a problem that I I Have to close my eyes when listening to other people because I get I don't I get too distracted So something like that where it's just it was totally auditory. I mean cuz I I mean we could We I can't remember were we looking at each other when we did this Yeah, we I think we were yeah, yeah, and George you were right McConae is yeah. Yeah, yeah I was trying to think of yeah reading the script Yeah, the thing I find really interesting and I've talked to Rob about this too. We're trying to find a language We still haven't worked out a language yet So when we're trying to direct people as you can tell about that bit of footage, you know It's like I'm trying to I know it's in my head, but I'm trying to Explain what it is that's in my head and Trying to come up with something that will click with you and resonate with you so you go Oh, I know what you mean you mean blah blah blah blah blah That's the trick. I think Direction is the key to the whole process though that Andrew and I have come up with and the whole reason That we're doing this and and I guess the whole point of difference to us and anyone else who could do you a demo is that you're getting You're getting two perspectives So you're getting a perspective from a guy who sat in the producers slash directors chair for 35 years Audio engineers desk, you know and all that sort of stuff. And so I have the knowledge that I've learned from working with directives and directors and and and you know Art directors and all that sort of stuff and directing sessions myself And so I sort of know what's in their head But then you get Andrew as well who is a voice-over artist and and sort of has the art and The understanding of different styles of reads and different ways of selling a script So you get him from that perspective and you put that together And you've got the in the entire sort of gamut of possibilities. Yeah, we're covering the whole room basically Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Once again, we're talking with with Robbo and Andrew here about Making demos and they're joining us all the way from the land of Oz Or I don't think they refer to it as the land. They just refer to it as Oz Oz Andrew's the wizard, right? If you've got a quest that used to be my nickname actually If if you've got a question for them throw it in the chat room right now because we'd love to hear from you guys and I think a little bit later. We're gonna take a poll on Which which version you guys like most because I get the final say, don't I they well not necessarily just because they like it But you know, it's good to have so you know some outside opinions of it putting your career on the line by yeah by Paul So let's talk a little bit about about what goes into a good demo What is it that what are the right elements to a demo that you know, you guys want to achieve when you know You're you're working with somebody. What is it you want to achieve with them? And and and how do you go about getting what you think they want? I can tell you the first thing that doesn't go into it that we always joke about is putting your ID at the front I'm James and I'm a voiceover artist and I love collecting goldfish Yeah It's I think the key with the demo is definitely the that first five ten seconds is the hook If you haven't got them, then you're not gonna keep them so yeah So that first spot has got to take that person who's listening on that journey You've got to grab their attention. Yeah, it's got to be that the first the first track has to be current The first track has to be strong The first track has to show your voice in its best possible light Yeah, and I think that's that to me. That's the key because I've sat in so many casting sessions where They haven't the voice hasn't even got a sentence out and they've already gone to the next track Yeah, they've made up their mind in that amount of time, you know people go are 60 seconds I've got 60. No, you don't you've got five if you're lucky. Yeah Yeah, I mean, yeah, if you don't grab them by the gurgle in the first three to five seconds It's like on yeah, which is why name and and hobbies and all that stuff at the front stumps me People actually do that Yeah a lot Sad seems to have there's been a discussion on forums down here in Australia for the last About a month. I think if someone dropped it in what you know, should I put a should I do an intro on my demo? It's like it's not 1990 anymore. We're not Delivering comp CDs anymore. Yeah, that's right. I think that was we've talked about this I think that in the days when you were casting off a CD You probably had its place, but but these days you're staring at a file with a name on it anyway You don't need to do it. No Yeah, it's even like even with auditions out You very rarely are asked to slate anymore It's straight into the read. Yeah, I've noticed that that and most agencies are all saying that no slates Yeah, God Yeah, no, you know, it's a slate is really awkward It doesn't show you in the best light because you I don't I don't know anyone that's comfortable Doing an intro or a slate Because you know, you've got to do this read a certain style Do you do your slate or your intro in a certain style? I don't know Yeah, there's there's no hard and fast rules on that and no, you know, it's I mean But as you were saying it's it's changed because we used to do it all the time and now it's like no no slates Yeah, why would you want to do a slate? You know and some coaches will say well Just try and do it in the character so it you know So it goes in a lot of that is kind of old school now. Yeah and I think the other thing though that goes into it making a great demo is Is knowing what you want to do with your demo? I Think understanding that before you even start the process is is getting you a long way to to getting a great demo I mean we talked with you about you know, you had a lot of retail Hard-cell stuff you you sort of we talked about how the sort of man next door Sort of thing was something that you could do and do well, but you didn't really get booked for a lot So we talked about that and that's how we came up with the the direction for your demo So, you know Spots Specific spots aside. I mean, I think that's an important place to start and getting a great demo as well Is understanding what you want to do with it? Do you want to get an agent? Do you want to get booked? You know, there's two different things you could do with a demo. They're straight away and two different directions to take it Yeah So yeah, I think that's a that's a big starting point as well. Yeah It's funny because demos these days are really used to find an agent because a lot of the work you see like we just mentioned before is Scripts arriving your inbox based on your age gender, whatever As an audition so they haven't heard you before they just wanted to get an audition Right, but if you're looking to get, you know, maybe a step up into a better agent Then make sure you deliver a really good demo because it just may do the trick for you Yeah, once again, if you've got a question for our guests throw it in the chat room and we'll get to that in just a little bit What one of the things that we talked about and once you had we had mixed them all down was The order of the spots in there because I've always been of the opinion Having done many demos You know for me It's important to have contrast of reads That it's you know, if you're gonna catch them real quick and you're you were able to hold their attention Through the first spot, which is never an easy thing to do because they're probably listen to a bunch of different demos It's got a contrast so a spot's gonna end and then a different type of read in there What we did with with this one as I specifically wanted a conversational read Like we were saying it's like I you know, I do a lot of retail stuff a lot more Announcery type stuff But I wanted to show that I can do the conversational thing that we can talk the way you and I are talking now And and make that happen and then the spots you picked really really worked for that But how do you pick the order? I mean aside from the discussion we had well, what about putting this one here and putting that one there and Well, it was funny because you when we talked once we finished the spots and we selected which ones we're gonna go with and Frankenstein a couple and then it was the discussion of what's the order gonna be and We got your order Dan, which we we kept and then after you'd left the call Robbo and I said No We're gonna change that and we both agreed that the the Jim Beam spot was the hero and that was gonna be at the top I think you had Jim Beam second or third from memory down. I can't remember. Yeah Just the way I think it's like, okay. What's worth the contrast here? What's you know, yeah, what's a little more upbeat that one was like Jim Beam Yeah, yeah Can I just tell you Dan please just so you know that your demo for Jim Beam has gone on our demo for voiceover demos That's a good sign Yeah, for some reason I always end up doing a liquor spot on my demos. I'm not exactly sure Everybody throws those in there Anyway, we're gonna get into listening to what we finally came up with After a quick break and again if you've got a question Throw it in the chat room because we want to hear from you and your thoughts on I'm recording a demo and Any other thoughts you have on those and any questions you have for our guests, so Put them in there right now in the meantime, we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back here on voiceover body shops So do not go away. We'll be right back This is the Latin Lover narrator from Jane the Virgin Anthony Mendez and you're enjoying Dan and George on the voiceover body shop So this week we asked our great sponsor Harlan Hogan at voiceover essentials.com What do you want to tell your customers this week? Well Harlan said how about a free Vio baseball cap with their embroidered Vio voice bubble on the front and their Voiceover Essentials slogan as heard on TV on the back. It tells everybody what you do voiceover essentials.com Vio baseball caps are 100% cotton chino twill Garment washed unstructured caps manufactured by style master and feature sewn eyelets Pre-curved visor and metal adjustable tri-glide buckle with leather adjusting strap and guess what they'll send one to the first 25 viewers who email their voiceover essentials customer service head Terry Lee at Terry dot Lee at voiceoveressentials.com To get your voiceover essentials Vio baseball cap Offer is only good in the continental u.s. Oh Sad for the folks down under anyway It's time to talk about source elements the creators of source connect and a tool that we at the pro audio suite Use for every single episode it allows Robbo to produce our show Completely remotely with all of our voices coming directly into pro tools We can hear each other beautifully the quality is extremely high and we also have the Amazing ability to keep everything backed up no matter what happens on the internet via the cue manager So at the end of our session and we record sometimes for an hour or more That audio is being automatically backed up and transferred over to Robbo's machine from all of our computers in The background It's amazing technology. It sounds great the audio quality you get over source connect is essentially in Indistinguishable from being on the end of a mic cable. It really is that good and it's quite a remarkable tool And now with the new version of source nexus coming out soon it's going to be easier than ever for Robbo to bring other sources of audio and Other platforms in and out of a production for seamless production when you've got guests in other locations You've got directors. You've got the clients in many cases listening wanting to hear and even sometimes see what's going on And give approval that can all be done with source nexus and source connect tied together It's quite an amazing platform But if you want to get started head over to source dash out dash elements comm and you can get your 15-day free trial Get yourself started and running and learn what source connect can do for you and your career As you're growing your business into another higher tier. Thanks for your support source elements Let's get on to the Q&A right after this Well, hey there, it's David H. Lawrence with VO heroes and wouldn't it be cool If there was a very simple tool drag-and-drop tool that would guarantee That the audio you need to upload a CX or any other audiobook platform is perfectly set up in terms of the tech Standards the root mean square normalization the peak normalization the noise floor Guess what there is and I want you to have it absolutely free It's called audio cupcake and you can find it at audio cupcake comm I helped create this software It was built to my specs and my standards for when I do audiobooks and I know it's gonna work for you now It's only available for Macintosh Because you windows users you have the ability to use other tools that work for you But in this case you edit your final raw what way file for a chapter you drop it on audio cupcake and out comes the 192k mono MP3 file you can upload immediately. That's audio cupcake comm audio cupcake comm I hope you love it. This is Bill Radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with Dan Leonard and George Whidham VOBS dot TV And we're back with Robbo and Andrew. We're talking about demos Alright, here's what I'd like to do. Let's play the two mixes that we did my mix and your mix and then Jeff sitting there in the chat room Let's take a vote, you know after we play both of them. Tell us which one you you choose and we won't say which one is Which how's that? This gets more and more competitive The process between AP and I just because we haven't really talked about that just quickly is is We both do our own versions of your reads and and then without referring to each other We take the voiceover session and and and do our own edits of each spot and then send them back to you And as you know It then comes to you to go well, I prefer a over B because they come unlabeled You don't know who's done what and so AP and I are always like shit. He got more of me this time Was I a or B which one? So now we're gonna do that now. We're gonna go. Okay. Let's let's throw the mixes out there Putting us on the line. Yes. All right. Let's put George to work here Why don't you play the first one there? So this is this is the the final mix down their choice or somebody's choice I'm not sure who's choice letter a letter. Okay. Here we go. All right You've sacrificed plenty to build your business From the moment your feet hit the floor to the moment you turn out the lights It's all you think about from the places that don't have a name to the bright lights of a world moving at a frantic pace Wherever Jim beam is welcome You'll be welcome too. We don't have everything We have your thing Welcome to your Walmart When we thought of the future we imagined a car with instant power a car that drives itself a Car that just plugs in how far can your investments take you at standard personal banking? We go the extra mile to meet your financial goals from your children's education to your dream retirement John Perkins medical Not just for us For all of us No now now remember, you know, we had one piece of music for that and I said no No, we need something like light piano, but positive. Yeah a note with some notes on this right Yeah, not not chords, but just single notes and stuff and you know, these are the types of things I don't think other people would have thought about but having you know having produced things like this. It's like Was I right? Look, I think there's credit to This is the thing about audio. It's such a personal thing. Is there a right and a wrong? I don't think there is I think there's just personal taste and that's all you can go with Yeah, I think both iterations work Absolutely, there's nothing wrong with either of them. Okay Let's play be We always believe the welcoming spirit was a small town thing Turns out we were wrong Wherever Jim beam is welcome You'll be welcome too When we thought of the future we imagined a car with instant power a car that drives itself a Car that just plugs in You've sacrificed plenty to build your business From the moment your feet hit the floor to the moment you turn out the lights It's all you think about how far can your investments take you at standard personal banking We go the extra mile to meet your financial goals from your children's education to your dream retirement We don't have everything We have your thing Welcome to your Walmart and that was B. Okay, so now everybody vote Did you like a or B and put it in the chat room and Jeff will compilate those got a B already? Don't stare at that stuff It was definitely fun doing that and yeah, you know, I was pretty pretty happy with the you know either one of those Because it was exactly what I was looking for what's let's have a good conversational read None of those sounded an ozary or anything like that and we did them so fast now now granted I've been doing this, you know since you know the Nixon administration, but I have a little bit of experience But other people who are perhaps newer need to understand that they've got to be conversational like that We got a bunch of questions though So George, why don't you take off with those and let's give those to our wonderful guests here? All right first one while the votes are still coming in over here Fiber jazz says don't know much about what commercial casting directors are looking for in other countries But it helped to work with a coach prior to creating a demo for that market or other sources of info And did you do any special studying or training to develop your demo coaching skill? Or did it just come naturally to you with after many years of your own via work? So two-parter Did I say for the latter part of the question? I think it kind of comes naturally through experience You know, I've been doing this for well about the same as you Dan I think we're probably late 70s bloomers. Yeah So that that's that part of the question and as far as some Different markets. I think it's your voice. It's it's what you you know what you do. It's got nothing to do with necessarily what people are looking for Well, it does to a point, but but you're not gonna build a demo that's not you to suit somebody else if that makes sense Maybe maybe would help influence the music you might choose. I don't know. Is that something goes into it? We'll see the music the music is really only there to support What the script is for to give it some sort of reference point I suppose I mean the whole the other trick to creating a good demo I guess coming back to an earlier question that Dan threw out there was making sure that the demo is about your voice and not about my production Which is why you know any demo that I ever make you will will rarely have a sound effect, you know, unless it's absolutely necessary I think Mimo's demo. I put a car in there because I wanted to have it make it sound like a TV Spot it was for I think it was for a car And and so I sort of I imagined this TV spot that had like this nice mellow music track underneath But it was giving the impression that dad was traveling home And so you could hear this car driving through out and then you can hear dad walk up the steps At the end of the spot and the door opens and you hear a little girl's voice saying daddy Just sort of quietly down in the background But that was just to give the illusion that this was again believable that this could have actually gone to it So yeah, so keeping it simple and the music is really only there to support a vibe for whatever it is You're trying to do with the spot. So just keeping it simple is really important I think also what Robo does if you probably noticed on on that demo or the two we just listened to But the voice is the hero. So in the mix the voice has got to be the standout part of the demo Yeah, yeah, how many times have I you know played one for my wife and she goes, where's your voice? Which one's you? Yeah, some of them are heavily overproduced and I was just thrilled with the way you guys did that because it was It was highlighting what I did and that would you know the music like you said just sort of supports it Yeah, the other the other thing I would just in saying in terms of answering that question to in terms of experience is 35 here 45 there. That's 80 years of experience. I don't know that you could get much more experience sitting in a classroom So I don't know that you know studying is the be all on an end all somehow And also we've seen you know see as you do just because of time you see things come see things go I mean you see the change in fashion We've certainly seen a major change in technology and the expectations that you know put on us now So that's the other thing. Yeah, I mean, you know AP's recording daily with agencies I'm still working with Cleming's sarches, you know all these Global agencies so we're sort of at the cold face every day Seeing what's coming next and and what's changing in terms of styles and what they're looking for right Question from someone whose name rhymes with orange Fred north go figure Do they specialize and do you guys specialize in a certain genre and coaching and coach through it? Are their accent and vernacular differences have our accents and vernacular differences ever an issue No, I mean we've worked with memo memos Mexican Matt Carrick. Well Matt Carrick is probably a classic. Yeah, I mean Matt. Matt's an Aussie doing American accent voiceovers and big time You know, so so no, I don't see any of that as a barrier No Alrighty George this one's from Craig Davis. He says good point on the date of material cuz voices also change and With age and the length of a demo 60s 90s, I'm an old radio guy and did exactly what Dan explained, but I do realize I have to be updated 60 60s is the targets 70 if you've got some really good stuff that you feel like you have to pack in there But as we said, I mean, even if they get through the first five seconds They've really made up their mind by 20 25 seconds and the rest is Is there if they want it? But I can't remember the last time I played a demo in a casting session all the way through for someone The only I can say I can tell you exactly the only demo I've actually listened right right the way through and funny enough it was Matt Calry and This was years ago when I first came across Matt I don't know how we crossed paths, but I listened to one of his demos and it blew me away because he was Doing everything in American accent. I just could not believe it. It was Flawless, and I listened all the way through but that's an exception not the rule and we're talking about a freak really Tell it again very talented guy indeed I think those it's part two might have gotten it was on the next page or the next line Saying what sells better a video demo or audio demo is a video demo needed these days Distracting. Yeah, you just want him to focus on your voice. Yeah, you don't have to look at you and go. Oh my god He's too old. He's too young. He's not right. He might be gay. She might be this, you know And that's yeah, no offense to anybody out there, but you know, these are the assumptions that people make when they look at you Well, I think you're talking about actual production with video content that goes with the voiceover. Okay And the other trick that I would throw in there too is as much as possible Keep keep your product out of there Like people love to go. Hey look, you know Jim beam cries love blah blah blah, but The problem that you have there is all of a sudden It's conflict all of a sudden. Oh, hang on. We're casting first for you know Having having something. Yeah, he's done car company B. So move on having said that we did actually include Jim beam Yeah, I don't know that it's necessarily you have to do it on everything But but you know as I would I do a demo where every spot had a brand attached? Especially if it was a big brand. I don't know that I would For that reason. Yeah, that's a little bit careful a bit mindful. Yeah Jeff Holman asks and there's a great question. Do you always put a music bed under the entire demo now? We had there was different cuts of music in there You know, which you know to me is like the most important thing. I remember when I when I was learning to do commercials and I Was the operations manager said, okay, if you're gonna do commercials, here's our rules two pieces of music with every commercial You know, something had to be something, you know, there had to be a contrast in the middle. Were you doing that life to tape? Yeah, it's like hold the record down. Yeah We're talking about that the other day we're talking about doing drop edits on on a lot of tape You know, would we still have the muscle memory to get it right? Pro Tools makes life too easy. Yeah kids these days get it too easy too easy But it was funny you talk about that like, you know, you're queuing up a record and reading live and mixing as straight to tape You know, that was how I kicked off in there. Yeah, I think we all we've been there done that. Yeah. Yeah music all the way through Mostly mostly if a cold read is called for sure, but I wouldn't do a 60-second demo cold No, no, okay George. All right, Grace Newton says What is the most important element of a video game demo guys don't any video game demos? No, I haven't I haven't done any I've heard plenty I Think it's Selling your ability to come up with a character that's believable Selling your ability to come out the character full stop Versatility in general, I think would be the biggest thing for video games and and if you're recording it in your own studio Making sure that it's sound quality wise It's as good as it can be as well because you know the last thing a video game editor wants to get is a Bunch of distortion on the pieces where you you have to yell and scream and then you know Three noise reduction plug-ins on one track because the air conditioning noise and everything else going on in the background When you've got to be softly spoken, so yeah, they're the two big things. I hear on gaming demos is just not understanding What you're doing in terms of the recording and also the other thing is your room if you're screaming in a room and your Room is not particularly good. You're gonna hear it, right because the louder you talk the more the cat the The acoustics of the room come into play Terry brisco asks and this sort of plays into that are there instruments that tend to overpower the voice more than others saxophone saxophones killer Sometimes guitar But saxophone is the one that yeah in fact I found a really cool plug-in for those geeks out there Just because there's pro audio suite out here just for one second And the name of it's just gone completely out of my head track spacer and and it you you you you put the plug-in on your Music track and you show it your voice over in this what's called a side chain So the plug-ins working on my music track, but it's listening to the voice over and what it's doing is it's putting an EQ curve in around your voice over so effectively It's only ducking those frequencies So if you have it a saxophone for example, and it's smack in the middle of the voice over Well, what track space is doing is saying let's take it down a bit so we can make the voice over the hero Wow, that's me. It's clever. Yeah one last thing. Let me let me throw the script now Andrew I was looking at your website. There's like 50 demos on there Yeah, how many demos should somebody have Not as many as I've got Hardware stores like how much can I buy today AP in a mute in a in a studio gear shop? Probably got equal amounts of microphones as I've got demos unfortunately Which says more about my character than anything else, but look, I don't know it depends what? What genres you're looking at working in? Probably make a demo for each of your genres. Yeah, all right Where your strengths lie, I mean if you've got I Think for me for me anyway a strong overall one and then and then a couple of other ones that demonstrate your other strengths or other as we talked about before other sort of Strengths that you have that people may not know know about that you can use to highlight those as well I don't know that I think maybe 50s overkill maybe five or six, but the other thing that we do with our demos we because we Each spot is actually produced. So it's each spot is a you know 15 30 second spot So when we deliver the demo We deliver the comp and then we deliver each spot individually So if someone you know send you a message saying have you got a spot that where you do a blah blah blah you go Yeah, and you can send them one of the spots. Yeah Okay. Yeah, but we've got just a couple minutes here. We got to figure out who won It's easy pay Basically, it looks like there's a lot of bees. Yeah, it looks like it looks like the bees one Jeff Holman Who won? You got to get yourself Take turn the microphone on audio engineering one or one The answer is the bees one handily. It's the bees knees. There we go. And who's was that? Oh Sorry, Dan, we Well, at least you know for sure. That's right. I'm feeling justified now Yeah, all right So guys guys if they want to get ahold of you and talk to you about getting a really great demo done. Where do they go? demo is the work Alrighty Yeah, yeah Guys it's been a pleasure having you on the show and it was just a riot last week putting this all together and uh Yeah, that one's going on my website Beautiful On my WoWo demo player. Which version though What's that the which version? I might put both on who knows You never know Is there a blind ab mode where it'll play one or two? I'll try that like what are the web developers do they um, you know, they test ab test You know a month of one and a month of the other and see what I see what I book anyway guys Thanks so much for being with us tonight. It was just a pleasure. Thank you for having us All right, we'll be right back and to say goodbye but re-rack it for tech talk Which you can listen to live and ask your questions too. So don't go away. We'll be right back Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead There's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer That place is voiceover extra.com Whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voiceover extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions Bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books auditioning home studio setup and equipment Marketing performance techniques and much more. It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voiceover success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports. It's all here at voiceover extra.com That's voiceover x t r a dot com Well, it's my turn to talk about voice actor dot com. That's right voice actor dot com. What do they do there? They make it easy for you to have your voice actor website Like that you can do it In in 20 minutes You just go in there. You don't have to have a lot of technical knowledge It's not like using html or this coding or that coding It's templates and you go in and you pick a template you like you can Change the colors you can change the template You can put things where you want to put them and it's all up to you It's not up to some webmaster who's going to charge you 25 bucks for every comma you change or anything like that It's Free to start actually You can go in there create an account Find a template that you like set it up put the colors you want the pictures you want and of course most importantly your demos and You'll be online And if you want to have a really your own url because it goes through voice actor dot com You have your own url url. It's $20 a month and You have all sorts of opportunities to make what you want and change what you want in your demo So go over to Put it put it up there again. So voice actor dot com. That's voice actor dot com To get your website up Right now We are the world voices organization also known as wovo We're the not-for-profit industry association of freelance voice talent voiceover is a complex entrepreneurial business Wovo is there to promote the professional nature of voice work to the public to those already established in their voiceover practice And to those who want to pursue voiceover as a career membership benefits include a supportive and creative community A profile and demos on voiceover.biz our searchable directory of vetted professional voice talent our exclusive demo player For your personal website our mentoring program business resources and our video library our annual Wovo con conference a fun and educational weekend with other members with a chance to learn and network webinars and great speakers and weekly social chats with other members around the world if your world is voiceover Make wovo part of it world voices organization. We speak for those who speak for a living Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky the voice of Rocco and you're watching voiceover body shop God it was great talking to working with those guys. They it was so much fun You know now you see why I've been enjoying doing a show with them now five years running. Absolutely Alrighty well next week on this very show. It'll be tech talk number 112 all right it just goes on and on we keep coming up with stuff uh, if uh You want to work with one of us to help you with your home voiceover studio? You can go to george the dot tech Slash v obs for discounts and services. Yeah, that's right So that's a what kind of a discount do you get for that? Uh, currently it's a 10 off that could change as the holidays comes so stay tuned But for now 10 off when you use v obs fan 10 Alrighty and uh, we have to mention imdb Dot me for jeff holman too, but also, but you can go to my website Which is home voiceover studio dot com if you want to work with me on this kind of stuff We need to thank our donors of the week Which are greg cooper grace newton christopher apperson robert ledum steven chandler kasey clack jonathan grant thomas pinto greg thomas a doctor voice ant land productions Martha kahn 949 designs sarah borges phillips appear ryan page rob rider shauna pennington baird don griffith Trey moseley diana birdsall maria meccas and santa man willard Hey, join our mailing list. All you have to do is go to our website and it says You'll sign up for our mailing list and you'll be on there Uh, we need to thank our sponsors. Of course harlin hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements bio heroes dot com voice actor dot com and World voices dot org the industry association of freelance voice talent. Please join today Uh, we have of course, thank jeff holman for doing a great job in the chat room and being the official vote counter Even though, you know, I didn't win that one. Uh, but You didn't pay him enough jeff. I apparently not. Yeah Sumer lino for getting it all done on the switchboard tonight and making sure that this has been technically magnificent And of course lee penny for just being lee penny Hey, we're gonna re-rock it and set it for tech talk If you're still out there and listening or watching live Perfect opportunity for you to ask a question In our chat room so george and I can attack it and give you the right answer to it Anyway, that's gonna do it for us this week. Thanks for watching Uh, this is not an easy business It's you got to get everything right. You got to be a good actor. You got to have the right business plan But your audio is important, but we've come to the conclusion that if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan lennard and i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or vo Be ass. Have a great week everybody. Stay tuned for tech talk