 Hey there it's time for voiceover body shop once again George and I are here and our guest tonight is Elaine Clark say hello Elaine hello all right we're going to talk about all sorts of cool stuff with the voiceover business and coaching and teaching and what you guys need to know as voice actors that you thought you knew but there's more because you don't know what you don't know anyway and we got all sorts of other cool stuff to talk about right George we certainly do we hope that you know more than you know that you don't know after the show what else can we say I'm going to analyze what I just said because I have no idea but that's what the show is about anyway voiceover body shop come on up right now from the outer reaches they came bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and together from the center of the vio universe they bring it to you now George Wittem the engineer to the vio stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain the professional vio studios of the biggest names in vio today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a professional voice down with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home vio studio and each week they allow you into their world bringing you talks with the biggest names in the voice over world today letting you ask your questions and giving you the latest information to make the most of your voice over business welcome to voice over body shop voice over body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials dot com home of harlin hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites dot com where your vio website isn't a pain in the butt vio heroes dot com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training jmc demos when quality matters and voice over extra your daily resource for vio success and now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in sherman oaks california here are the guys i'm dan london and i'm george wittem and this is voice over body shop or vio bs and lots of it well it's good to have you with us uh right now because we've got a great guest tonight plus if you've got a question for george and i or for our guest throw it in the chat room i know jeff holman is sitting in there with his quill pen ready to write it down to make sure that we get the questions and you get them we get them to our guest and you got that new carrier pigeon landing bay right so he writes them down they just drop through the ceiling in here and we get those good yes well this covet 19 thing continues on and at least we have so back in the studio now you're still yeah you're still hiding there up in topanga and i miss having everybody around here and staring into an empty couch but it is what it is as somebody once said um but anyway uh what else we got going on today we got tech talk a little bit later on and your questions and it's time to introduce our guest and our guest is none other than elaine clark uh author of there's money where your mouth is uh it's in its fourth edition she's also has a new book coming out in october called voiceovers for podcasting she is an actor voice actor coach instructor but not a floor wax let's welcome an engineer and engineer let's welcome elaine clark hello hi i'm so happy to be here i'm so it's been a while since you've been on our show it has been i think it was back back when in you abs did we actually look back george and how long was that you know it i couldn't figure it out when you were on last i'm embarrassed i was looking but it's been that long and less wrinkles in other words it's been too long so welcome back to the show uh now tell us a little bit about yourself since the people who watched this thing you know nine years ago uh you can get a refresher about how you got into voiceover and what your background is well i have a long and sorted background that started as a theater major moved to san francisco i wasn't making much money in theater so i saw a little ad about how to do voiceovers i fell in love put together my real r e l and uh started marketing around two different production companies and advertising agencies started getting work then i was also a media buyer at an advertising agency so i started telling some of the uh the people at the different radio and tv stations that i would also could write copy so i would then get some of their clients i would write copy and produce it and sort of went from there and it was also kind of interesting because the bay area was a small market at the time and then a guy named how reine moved to town and he then hired a lot of really good people um and it built into a quite a good sized market and then we had silicon valley took off we had lots of uh corporate narration work and then the video game industry started in the bay area and that that had lots of work there so we sort of grew with it is also with the voicemail system started in the bay areas with a lot of this technology i was there at the beginning years of it sort of growing which is also kind of a thing that's that's interesting because of having the time in between from one project to the next as the years go on is nice rather than now you have to kind of know everything all at once but it was a time when things were evolving and growing so as i got one skill down i could add another skill and i could add another skill and then i was writing and producing and and directing projects lots of video games lots of corporate narration i've been doing e-learning for probably 20 years and it's uh and i'm working on um uh speech to text and ai projects it's just lots of different things so every time i think i've got a handle on it something new happens and i've worked on probably like 200 toys so i have a pretty broad range from both being on the inside of the booth where i'm that talent and on that beam the outside of the booth where i'm a director and also where i'm an engineer so i have a pretty full plate of information that i have to share with people that's it that's all that's it i i i think there's a great tale in there of the fact that you have to have a you have to wear a lot of hats in our business there's you know it's not just reading copy i mean there's lots of different things so you you gave a good long laundry list of things that you're able to do do you bring that into into your everyday voiceover practice and do other people need to do that and that's also what uh when i first started we were since we were real to real and it was very hard to roll the tape back and do it again we were really trained on how to do it effectively without uh mouth sounds and pops and and added breaths because cutting that out with a razor blade was really really difficult and if it was a union project they had you know like a team of people there and if you missed it they go actor mister roll back roll back roll back roll back and it was just painful to listen to so you learned how to be efficient so one of the things that i think helped me as a coach is is that during this process you know you would hit something they go wow that was really good and you're like how did i get there and so i had to keep figuring out what was it that happened so because i looked like patterns and figuring things out i started figuring out the different patterns and how to put it in the body and how to to be able to interpret the the um direction physically rather than just intellectually and that's huge and emotionally because there's a big skip from that information to what we have to do absolutely you know it really the technologically what we do today is you know i mean compared to what you and i used to do it's like drawing with crayons uh if you learn how to do it on real to real and you know match you know get the sound right on the tape and take a grease pencil and then take the tape cut it out put it in the block and all that stuff if you learn how to do that it was you know you learned editing theory you knew that okay this i learned it how on doing uh 60 millimeter film so you know it's like take this piece make sure that it's the right way and and i started learn and i learned how to edit from there so when you learn how to edit tape i did the same thing but now it's like i'll take this put it here put that over here and there's nothing to it but and and well the other thing that i think has been really helpful to me i was trying to decide whether to be a musician or a theater major yeah and because i played trumpet my mother didn't want me to be the form because i had this round circle on my lips so she was really happy that i was going to be an actor instead which that doesn't always happen i have to tell you so uh but the music music background that i have from playing the piano or playing playing brass instruments was was really good at finding the downbeat and thinking in terms of measures so that's where like when i created my app uh adding melody to your voice it's really teaching people how they've worked out the measures of the tune based on the words that are there so even if uh if you have words like covid bump bump so or you have help that's a whole note so you have different different rhythms that need to match up so that a lot of people get their story their rhythm off which makes it really hard to add music to it they have to cut it and move it apart but once you know that they're balanced then you have something really special hmm it's an you wrote a book about is that in your in the book it's in the book and then i uh then i have a video of of adding melody to your voice it has a 16 minute video and then exercises that you can record and practice with and that's where you know like whether it's a dot it's like a flick of the finger or a wiggle wobble which is jazz hands to give it a shake or whether you're stretching something out how you can just do it physically so when they're giving you direction your body does the work rather than your brain because if the brain doesn't work it takes you 20 takes to get there if your body does the work it can take it you can get it done in one to two takes wow so this is part of just being efficient that we learned over a course of time yeah really i think one of the problems a lot of people have is they can't get out of their own head when they're reading copy it's like i gotta make it sound right i gotta do this really it should be a little bit more organic shouldn't it well this is where i was working with someone today i i am opposed to the opening sentence before script for this reason i think the concept is correct but too many people and i was one of those started being a copywriter and giving the perfect sentence and the purpose of that opening line is to get you emotionally involved so if i go you need to hear this i'm not emotionally involved i'm getting ready to read a script if i ever go off okay here's the beginning of the script then i've emotionally changed how i'm approaching it so this is where we have to all figure out what works for us what works for one person may not work for the next person so i just found that i went in my head when i did it but it's correct yeah so i mean so what's what's a good way to start i mean so i know a lot of people go you know and then so they get into a conversational tone the reason why you're talking to someone the reason why you're doing that lead in is to open yourself up emotionally if you're doing in it doing it intellectually because it's correct it doesn't work interesting so i just find if you if i just roll my eyes around and then talk it's giving me a start but i'm not rewriting the copy but if i go is that really what you're going to do and then i start reading it it sounds canned yeah yeah i can't do it that way i understand the concept but it doesn't work for me because my the left side of my brain takes hold of it and just makes it very logical and i'm trying to open up my emotions interesting to know if you're just joining us our guest is elaine clark she is a voice voice over coach voice actor and all sorts of other things along with being an author and we'll talk about her book uh there's money where your mouth is and a new book you've got coming out called about podcasting so talk about a little bit later um so people really need to realize that there are a lot of different things they need to do voice over now when you're teaching people and i know you like working with people who are a little bit more advanced uh what do you teach them about the business of voice over and really that it's not like get an agent i'll be doing commercials and i'll be making a million dollars which seems to be the the prevailing attitude with a lot of people now it's something that you have to do because your body tells you to do it you're so if you didn't do it you wouldn't feel feel fulfilled because this is not a logical business so any any form of performance is really not logical so uh that's why parents they say be a doctor be a lawyer do all those other things that make logical sense be an engineer so it's they be an actor there's you know we're employed and then we're unemployed you know within within an hour or a minute of one another so um what i what i do is to say how this is how long i think it'll take you to get there these are the things you need to do this is what you need to do in order to get to that final step and then i have to also figure out who can handle how much at one time a lot of people like to come compartmentalize i just want to work on my acting skills for right now then i'll work on my my technology and how to do the recording then i'll work on my marketing and there are other people want to do everything across the board someone someone to work on just commercials someone to work on on characters for video games but not animations i want to just work on animation you know it's it's how our brains can hold it and that's what a coach has to decide how much can you hold on to at this moment of time and how fast do you want to get there and is that speed going to be in your way or is it going to be a motivator for you moving forward because if you're doing it out of fear i have to do this because i've lost my job you're not going to succeed you have to do it because it to not do it it just doesn't feel right you know that something in your life is missing because it's once again not logical right and of course you don't want to be able to you know when you're throwing information out there sometimes some people describe it as well you're you're like firing a fire hose into my mouth with all this information and it's too much and you know i you really have to break it down because there are so many different parts to what we do as voice actors it's not just the voice acting that's the most important thing you know that you you know you learn to you know that you're you're not talking to a thousand people at once literally you're having more of a one-to-one conversation depending on the copy and that you know that's just one part of it because there's the engineering part which why they talk to george and i and there's the part where you've got to be a business person i think a lot of people tend to forget that well i think they also blend it all together during the performance right so when you're performing well first of all before you go you get your level set you get the studio set up you get everything going technically so you don't have to think about it anymore then you uh then you can you have to connect with your emotions and with your and the reason why you're talking i was asked why was it written what problem am i solving and what is my job what kind of how am i motivating them to take action or to feel a certain way that's my job and then once i figure that out i know whether i need to get energized or calm down or more you know be more intimate or be a little bit more flirtatious or whatever it is it's called for so um anyway there's just a lot of different ways that we have to to look at the business and when then when we finish recording it then we get to have a put our ears on and become the producer so we go okay now i need to see what i need to strip out or add or take out the breath so one of the things that i do and i'm really this is one of my coaching things is how to use the body so that you don't have as much editing to do so if you talk on the breath if you use gestures instead of mouth close and breaths that are unnecessary you have less to edit but you have to connect with that motion that emotion you have to ride that breath you also have to find out when those those transitions and and uh beats change so that uh when a new emotion comes in you have to breathe and a lot of people don't breathe in the right place and that changes the story because that's your emotional link is how you're breathing so if it's choppy because you're breathing all the time we're not going to get to the store you can edit all those out but we're going to tell that it's not really a true story and then going back to the marketing part then you say i have this you know okay i need to set up a website i need to connect with these talent agents i need to record these other things what can you do what do you want to do and everyone should have a different answer to that question so don't feel like you should do it all in the beginning pick and choose what you're good at but you got to understand what you are and that's part of the throwing spaghetti on the wall process yeah and then going ah i'm really good at the warm fuzzy things that are that so i'm going to really concentrate on hospitals yeah and getting that warm fuzzy hospital sound you know and then it might be one that's more crazy and wacky so then you you do that but that's why what i do is i create characters for each of my my actors so these are the hats that we wear throughout the day they're characters and we all know when it's wrong when you answer the phone thinking it's someone you know i love you know like it says your partner but it ends up being your mother hi oh hi yeah now everything's good you know it's a different sound that you're going to have so if you have the character of that that's more intimate and then you have the one that's a little more businessy and you know they're not like characters like you know like you're crazy right they're just the hats that we put on throughout our day so and that's where we when we talk on the phone we put those hats on all the time when we change dramatically when we're talking on the phone our emotional verisimilitude is amazing yeah it's amazing how some people seem to think that they need to be talking much louder on the phone when they're just in the same room with like you know who are you talking to for crying out loud sometimes it's great to have the studio far away from that once again we're talking with elaine clark who joins us from the bay area had any smoke up there are you surviving all the well we're surviving but there is a lot a lot of fires up here and that the air quality is terrible i have to say that well see and it makes sense to wear a mask anyway so anyway if you've got a question for elaine uh all you have to do is throw it in the chat room here in facebook or if you're watching on youtube apparently there's a chat room there now too and jeff holman is sitting there going which one do i watch there is i didn't even realize it was activated i took a look at the control panel and there are people there so now we got two places to post questions don't worry we won't miss the thing that's right so post your questions wherever you feel most comfortable anyway we're going to take a break right now and uh when we get back we'll start looking at some questions but we got more stuff to talk to elaine about so stay tuned we'll be right back here at voiceover body shop don't go away you're watching v obs dot tv i don't know why it's crazy what they do here i think i'm gonna go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich well hello there i bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat were you stick around you don't want to miss this power 1039 at target we want you to come as you are be comfortable okay maybe not bathrobe comfortable pants for the customer on aisle four please new mexico necesita un cambio la representante michelle lujan grisham ha luchado por nuestro estado en la cámara de representantes watch anywhere anytime on an unlimited number of devices sign in with your netflix account to watch instantly at netflix.com the ice cream maker is a big risk that can have huge reward until you forget to turn it on well that's it guys time is up hey it's jmc thanks for watching the voiceover body shop if you're demo ready or looking to get there check out jmc demos dot com and see a sample of our work now let's get back to dan and george and this week's tech wisdom you know to put it mildly this year has been challenging some voiceover talent have struggled others have thrived now if you're like me you've worked from home since long before this virus showed up but have you managed to truly master your home-based voiceover workflow are you easily slipping in front of the mic and efficiently turning out great work or are you struggling to get all your tools and systems running smoothly well help is on the way there's going to be a great new free vo hero's course starting saturday august 29th called mastering home-based voiceover and david h lorenz the 17th is going to teach it to you live online you can get access to it and a reminder when it kicks off by going to vo heroes dot com forward slash 2020 that's vo heroes dot com forward slash 2020 no matter where you are on your vo journey the free mastering home-based voiceover course will help you hone and refine your home-based workflow and help you move from struggling to thriving go to vo heroes dot com forward slash 2020 that's vo heroes dot com forward slash 2020 this is ariana rattner and you're listening to voiceover body shop vobs.tv you are watching vobs.tv i don't know why it's crazy what they do here i think i'm going to go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich well hello there i bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy you know right now it's time to talk about our good friend harlan hogan well maybe not so much harlan himself but voiceover essentials dot com his website that has everything you could possibly need to record voiceover at home along with lots of other cool stuff which we'll talk about in a second but he wanted to let you know that his harlan hogan voice optimize headphones signature series 2.0 are now available at the website voiceover essentials dot com they're great they're comfortable they've got they're incredibly flexible you can wear these for a long period of time i was wearing them to edit something the other day an hour and a half didn't even know i was wearing them plus if you walk away it you don't wreck this thing it just pops right out these are great headphones they have a very flat response so you can listen to bjork on these but it's not going to be quite the same as listening say on a pair of other headphones that are made for music these are optimized for voiceover and harlan wanted me to know wanted me to let you know that uh he's got copies of elaine clark's book there's money where your mouth is elaine are you in there somewhere there she is show us that book and he's got five autographed copies of this book and if you order a pair of headphones the first five people to order them will get a copy a signed copy of those you're good friends with harlan aren't you oh harlan and i go back way a long time ago so we used to travel around and do do workshops together and so he would do the marketing and i would do the the voiceover we met tons of people in new york and florida and washington dc it was it was great yeah well that's great so he's a great guy with a great company with great headphones and a lot of other stuff so go over to voiceover essentials dot com actually the best if you're on our home page you know i mean you might be watching in facebook but if you're on our home page go to the bottom of home page click on the picture of harlan talking into his portabooth pro and that will take you right to voiceover essentials where you can order your signature series voice optimized headphones and if you're one of the first five you get a copy of elaine's book there's money where your mouth is show in the book again there it is all right we'll be right back this is anthony mendez you're watching voiceover body shop and we're back with elaine clark uh uh live tv but anyway uh one of the things that you now you've written there's money where your mouth is and and now it's now in its fourth edition tell us a little bit about what's in there well there are three sections in the book the first part is about the about the basics one of the things that i'm really big on is how to use punctuation to create change so um so it's about how to break some of the patterns with your even tempo so you have different tempos how to find keywords and use different word emphasis and that tells a different story the middle part of it then has like over 200 scripts in it with uh and then that's how you can learn how to apply um like lists are faster how do you do those and have them stand out um and then the last uh section of the book is about marketing so it's really divided into three sections so let's uh so it's it's good yeah and available wherever fine voiceover books are sold like voiceover essentials.com uh now you've got another book that is coming out and i want to talk about this for a little bit before we get to questions from our audience by the way if you want to have a question for uh for elaine throw it in the chat room jeff holman's sitting and they're going let's get some questions for elaine it's great it's easy and we'll get to them get to them now don't write them an hour after we're done because then i won't be able to ask her so it's just easy just go in the chat room so you've written a book about podcasting now this is a whole different subject but what what's this book about as far as podcasting is concerned well it has an amazing title voiceovers for podcasting so uh part of it was my no it's very clever so uh my publisher for for the uh there's money where your mouth is just contact him and said hey we can't talk to everyone and he said did you were the one to write the book about podcasting so then the next day they sent me a contract and in advance and there we go so i wrote the book uh so i did a ton of research yeah um did a ton of research and i also wrote the book that i wish i had so that uh i guess my brain works in a certain way that i like things very logical and patterns there so i'm telling people if you do this thing here are the positive if you do this here are the the negatives here are the problems you're going to encounter along the way and so that's just one one chapter is it tells you where the money's coming from and how you need to plan for that and how you can set up your your system and the microphones are different uh the choices and maybe uh you guys can talk more about that than what you need for doing voiceovers for commercials and video games and narration because a lot of people are doing that doing their recordings on their kitchen table with bad armials so room treatment and it just so it's lots and lots of really good information from several people who have podcastings one that has over six million followers and how we created his business other ones who are just starting and some of the problems that they're running into so it's a combination of all sorts of things so that's what the voiceovers for podcasting takes you from soups to nuts yeah so pot so you're saying that podcasting may be a very good place for a lot of voice people to go to yeah but there's you know we're in the voiceover business and there's there there's that's a niche business but they're also niche businesses about about fishing and very specific fish and there are you know about quilting so there are all these different topics that if you are a if you're really fond of something it could become a podcast that you're not just talking about voiceovers you're talking about the thing and your passion your love your you know your hobby on the side so that's that's how you can use it yeah it's also the way I see see voiceovers it's really a communication skill that goes across the board with every form of communication personal and business yeah see to me podcasting as when I was a public service director on radio that's what podcasting was you there'd be an intro you'd have an interview with somebody and you'd put this has been you know whatever it is you know and it would go on at 5 30 on a saturday morning but that's what podcasting is it was a total democratization of people being able to express themselves and do their own public service programs and then promote them to their friends and if it was good it can spread out I think it's probably better than doing these you know public service programs but if you're going to do a podcast you better have something to say I like I like to say that you know if uh you know if there are a lot of anybody can do a podcast it doesn't mean everybody should do a podcast you know you've got to have something to say and like you said there's a lot of topics there and I think a lot of people uh one of the troubles with podcasting is a lot of people get into it and then they realize if there's a commitment you have to do some research you have to prep it maybe you have to add your music and effects and editing time and other stuff and then they go like whoa I don't have time for that so there are a lot of um podcasts that just only have like three to five episodes and then they're done podfade yeah podfade huge and so a lot of the the ones that that allow you to upload it then say you have to have 10 or 20 in the in the can before we'll even accept it so that we make sure that it's there and then there are ways of dealing with podfade so that you don't lose your audience but they you know the I'm sure that a lot of people out there also are starting to record for various podcasts too whether it's the intros and outro outros or whether it's at the sometimes it's a storyteller in the middle of how this either this mystery or this book or whatever that they're that they're reading as part of it so there's tons of tons of work beyond just your typical commercial and and narration and this is where you can decide whether you like something and you want to go down a certain avenue or it's like something that doesn't rock your boat really you know I think I actually had a a podcast intro demo that I did yeah it's like you know and and it was it turned out pretty good and and and whenever I produce a podcast of course I do all the intros so why are you gonna hire somebody else I'm producing the darn thing so because I'm working on like four or five different podcasts including this one so if you're listening to this as a podcast this is what a podcast is supposed to sound like hopefully is that right George does this sound like a podcast to you I hope so I mean god there's so many things about what a podcast can sound like some of it sounds like traditional radio some of it sounds like just a conversation in a living room and everything in between you know this show is a tv show first podcast second but we went at the sound as much like a podcast as we can it's yeah it's interesting this show is we try to really blend the two together so yeah it's if you can do both and pull it off I think it's pretty effective yeah and we've only been doing it for nine and a half years so maybe we're doing something right I guess it's working but yeah and the and the difference is you know when it's a vidcast versus an audio podcast is how to take someone on an auditory journey that's different when than when they can see us so I was uh I was in Morocco last year and there was a podcaster there who's on our on our trip and she was one of the guides and so she was interviewing people and and she would just walk up to someone and just say you know here I am with the sounds of the of the street going by and here's a person who's walking by wearing this kind of outfits and let me just stop them and then they would talk and it was just so amazing she would get these amazing you know um interviews with people just by walking up to them we were writing camels and she's then talking to the guys who were feeding the camels and it's like that doesn't happen every day and I and don't write a camel every day yeah I would ask you now something technical yeah because you do have engineering over all these years you've had to do a lot of engineering stuff you're setting up your studio at home what are you centering your production studio around what are the key elements in your studio that you're using um well I have non-technical answers to technical questions that's fine so first of all I have um a very large uh double pained whisper quiet booth that's what I'm standing in so that's why you see this is just one side of it so it's about the size of four people's individual booths so that's um that helps boy it's I like having the extra space but I got it because of my production when I was doing some ADR or some looping so I needed it for that kind of kind of work to have multiple people when you could have multiple people in a space so um I have I have a millennia which is uh that's my saving grace that's my my thing that I love the most because I can push a button it sounds like a tube mic I can just do little tweaks because I'm not a huge I mean I did never study engineering I do it by ear so I'm ear trained and then this is my microphone if I put it put my hand behind this is a Jay-Z black hole oh my microphone so and it has a little tiny pop filter that I really like the size of that and my hands can make it show up very well but I like the realness of it it has little crystals on it that make it just sound very real right now I'm talking through a live on Logitech video cam right now put your hand directly behind the mic all the way at the top so they can literally see yeah you see how you can see your hand right through the hole in the mic it does have a hole in it yeah this is the black hole yeah so I was I was directing someone and and a job and I said I just go on the Jay-Z and they were friends with with Jay-Z and they went oh my god took a picture of two of us send it to Jay-Z I said no it's really not his yes it's it's a company in Latvia so um so that's that's sort of my and then I have a lot of um monster cables because that's one of my clients and then every time I would record for them they would bring me boxes of monster cables you know they're really good uh one so I and it's amazing the difference with good cables amazing never have to replace one no it's good if you work in a place that maybe you know the ones that have kind of chains on it around it if people have working in a basement or somewhere they might have rodent issues you know it protects against that where some of the other ones can be eaten through I'm sure that was a lovely thing to talk about um and then I have a few other you know what software do you what software is to use on a regular basis I use logic when I have it tricked out so that I have so because I do a lot of uh demo production and recording projects I was just working on a video game a couple weeks ago and I do do tons of e-learning so and they want me to mix the whole thing together uh sometimes I just send them the files and they do and other times I do the whole you know soup to nuts um so so then I have the tracks for music and I have ones that if if I bring in a talent and they have a soft voice I already have a kind of preset to boost their voice and if this if someone is is very close if I have another preset line so I can just move their files to that without having to do a lot of tweaking a little bit but that way as you have tracks that you preset a lot of different chains yeah so that way I can just move it from one thing to the next cool yeah wow important to note though that you know how to do all this stuff having it is not the same as you know that doesn't mean anything but you've been doing this for years and you understand the process and you didn't learn how to do all this stuff overnight no I screwed up a lot yeah uh so that's why you send something you think is beautifully edited but you realize that you had still the outtakes still attached to it but it wasn't showing and then they go what is this I heard someone walking in and then coughed and then they went to the mic and there was a loud sound like they were adjusting or like oh no but on my computer that wasn't there anymore oh yeah so those are like the early early years of doing that um yeah anyway so thank you but one of the things to know about about engineering this is why you guys are so important is that you can be a good engineer for your own work or someone else's with the creative side but I I always hire someone to set it up for me and tweak it out because that's not where I'm good I I'm better once it's there saying here's the problem here's this and then if there's a sound so to get to get it notched out based on that space but I uh I could hit miss it but if you hire someone who knows what they're doing like you guys then you can actually set it up for that space and that's where it's going to be unique to each individual place yeah engineering and tech tech design or acoustic design they're all relative they're all related to each other and there's people that can do them all but mainly engineers are really good at they have really great ears and great at producing a great recording maybe not they don't necessarily have experience in training and teching like figuring out why it's not working or what why is there a glitch things like that right yeah totally agree I felt so much better when I found out that I didn't have to know all that I could hire someone and then I can do the part that I am good at because I just I'm more ear trained I just have been in the studios you know for 40 years so it's you just you know what works and what doesn't sure and uh and I think the main thing for people to take away is tempo tempo changes got to do those absolutely once again we're talking with Elaine Clark we got a bunch of questions from our vast worldwide audience are you ready to take some of those only if it's worldwide okay well I I know there's at least one here probably from Indiana uh anyway George take those uh the first one's from iNigma voices featuring April what's what's oh okay nice little spot there April okay I'm done I'm very impressed she says how long did it take you before you got comfortable with finding your true voice that's a really good question I say five years just off the bat so one of the things that happens is that we're so visual and I keep people kept saying oh you have great diction but then when I heard myself but at a job I had terrible diction I was leaving off the consonants and you know the ending sounds and so I I worked on that and then I lowered my pitch a little bit through some exercises vocal exercises because I just you know starting out in your early 20s it's just a little bit higher and a little bit brighter and that was actually what I call myself light and bright you know and there's just only so so long that you can do that before people just go please just chill chill a little bit so and then your ears start liking the parts you like or rather than just point that's me but we're used to hearing our voice rattling around in our head not on the outside when we hear it back plus your speakers make a big difference your headphones make a big difference so you know all those things when you start improving your booth you're going to and your equipment you're going to hear the things that make you sound better but don't go out and spend tons and tons and tons of money on stuff before you can justify it too so a lot of people just go out and buy very expensive stuff and then they don't have clients and they're like oh no now I don't have money to learn how to do this yeah over investing in the gear way too early in the game can can hurt you and the long one if you can't then use that the money you spent for proper training for sure oh let's see should I do the one from thomas sure why not our buddy thomas is there a correct or incorrect breathing method such as through the nose or never closing the mouth lips whatever what thoughts do you have on that well what you want to do is talk on the breath and that's why if you put a little bit of air out first and then talk on just like just barely any just and then you're talking on it rather than going and then talking you're going to run out of air immediately but this is where my my app activate your voice works on your breath support you have to sustain sounds for 10 to 12 seconds it works on how if you do that and how you get louder at the end of a phrase or a sentence or a word rather than getting softer because we like to just fade away and you know and learning how to play the notes that way your resonators articulators so that's where this big 99 cent app activate your voice will help you with that so everything I do is really to help people through problems that I had that I see are universal so that's why I like that adding adding melody is about how do you change your tempo how do you add focus to certain words and and that's only like 999 for that one so people can find those in the app store under my name or you can go to my website you link on view.com but that's it's about fixing it and doing something that will get you to the end result that and moving your hands just during the right way you know like following a phrase rather than imploding that's why every time you close your lips it's going to be a noise when you open up open up your mouth so if you talk here and then you then you use another gesture and then another gesture and another gesture then you're going to get to that natural place where you would breathe because you're not talking to people well how are you I think that's great what about this but when people see the punctuation that's what they do I keep saying you're kissing everyone doing that I'm always editing that out of my youtube videos I'm like no why did I do that we're all going to make those errors from time to time but if you can minimize it that's that's really good yeah and there's lots of ways to do that too I mean all sorts of different ways I also recommend that people be in good physical shape because you should be able to read an entire sentence without taking a breath unless it's an incredibly badly written run-on sentence which I've had some that would have been three pages long so I needed to breathe in that one next question uh let's see Benji Benji Benji speaks says what advice can you give for actors with little to no business marketing experience well I think that there are lots of things like this that you can watch um see who the people are that you like or just put in some some uh and I do some google searches and say oh I like how they're doing this I like how they're doing that and then it's just borrowing an idea it's like you don't have to reinvent it so you just have to say I don't like that way of marketing because it just makes me feel uncomfortable but I do like the way this other person seems to be marketing so whether it's through a website and the the verbiage that they use or whether it's you know if they're going to be on paid play sites if they're going through talent agents how do you want to market yourself and one of the things I did in the early days is that I sent a Clark bar along with my demo to the producers or I walked them around and so and and I did that for maybe the first five years and then people still remember me for the Clark bar so and I haven't handed one of those out because first of all people don't really like unsolicited food coming to their house anymore yeah probably not yeah yeah and I also realized that you shouldn't put a candy bar in the mail in the summer I learned that one the wrong way too it was a little melty I always want to send out Whitman samplers but then everybody be pronounced pronouncing my name so I said forget that I wouldn't I I remember a promotion when I was in radio somebody who was starting a cloth diaper service and they sent us a sample of the cloth diaper with Hershey's kisses in it clever but kind of disgusting while you're asking if we are worldwide audience so hopefully this counts this question's from Nikki flow in Chile well that's worldwide that's pretty far question is is is your book available on Kindle or any electronic thing it is you can download it both of the books well not yet for this the new one but yes you can you can put it on Kindle or you can get a hard copy and I love Chile and I've been to I've been rafting on the food river I love it yeah Chile is a beautiful country isn't it just weird when you're driving east and you suddenly realize the sun's on the wrong side oh that's right I'm on south of the equator makes me realize I've never been south of the equator well you have to do that well now it's not the time to travel but when you can yeah yeah and it's not even spring there yet um question here you go ahead yeah this one I didn't see which from it just says Elaine what would be the most common roadblock you have seen with talent who have gotten over the initial surge of passion and they're trying to keep the momentum up I think that that happens to everybody yeah um taking breaks you know is is also really good um you have to I think write down on a piece of paper what you really want out of this business and don't make it money I mean because that's why we're we are doing this for money but if you say I want to make a million dollars you know and that's all you have on that sheet of paper chances are you're not going to do it what do you say I want to make I want to really help people and and this particular area I want to to be creative I want to have fun um playing around with with toy voices I want these things and then it sort of jazzes you and reminds you of what you really wanted to do because we can easily lose well you know lose our fire and I think that that's also sometimes taking a day off and then saying it's okay to recharge your batteries it's fine because sometimes we just push ourselves too much yeah there are a lot of people out there like I gotta do it and they're like doing 50 auditions a day and then you know they burn out very quickly at that you know it's yeah because there's it's uh you it's about what is your quality of life that you want and your relationships in your own life and how do you put this in with it you have to think of it as as a job just like any other job it just has to be a fun and different job that might be in your closet so that uh that you can there you take off time from work I know that when I first started I was so afraid of taking a vacation because every time you take a vacation that's when the job comes in yeah but then after a while you go I bet I have to and at the end of the end of your life you're going to say what do I remember that job or is that that vacation I did with so-and-so it's usually that vacation so unless it's just an amazing job I mean probably your amazing jobs are going to be a handful of them maybe five of like oh my god I got to work with so-and-so this was such a great experience this was um so I remember the ones that went terribly wrong and the ones that I worked with amazing people but the ones that were just that went like clockwork that you you did it and it was good and everyone liked it it just becomes a pile of you know of jobs so one of the things with me cleaning out my office and just uh organizing stuff I have so many files of jobs that I've done what I'm going back and reliving them so I was like oh yeah so-and-so we did that job that was so great and here's another piece of paper because this is I started in the paper time and I don't have a problem with that because I grew up in a Polkwood town in Louisiana they were making paper so they were growing the pine trees so I'm helping my hometown so when I print something so here's uh David Lee Haas podcast question yeah yeah when being interviewed for a podcast how can I sound more exciting like I still want to be me but a tip just to sound more interesting yeah I think that most people want to be interest uh want to try to be interesting but rather than interested so if you really want to know what the other person is saying and you listen I think that we have a hard time listening it's because we want to be more active and when you hear what the other person is doing and it gets you jazzed that's how you can be more interesting you know there are other things that you can do just to get yourself ready it's like jumping up and down laughing you know doing some exercises so that your blood is circulating and your body feels alive or stand and not sit right that's that's very true too so you have to figure out what works for you and what what doesn't it depends on the the um on what the the content is and if you're not the well actually let me go back to the people I was interviewing for um that are podcasters that are highly successful that I said they only pick um subjects that interest them so first of all they they say this I'm so curious about how do you do this rather than here we are again with blah blah blah blah this is it but it says like well how does how do you deal with this this thing I don't know is it so it's all a discovery and a way that's helping you learn more you just need to listen to some old reruns of Hugh Houser that is Hugh Houser yeah that's amazing that's look this is beautiful listen to how that guy is interested in everything um is this our last question Dan last question from jahoris black he says hello Elaine I'm looking at your app in the app store will you explain how this works and how one can effectively use this loving your wisdom keep pouring it on okay well I guess he's talking about the well I'll go through each of them just real real easily so yes there are more than one yeah there two two that would be more than one so the first one is uh the activator voice one that looks like you know the light there we go see it you see you see that I have my little circle lights now so with that one it's about increasing your volume so if it's starting out I think I have my volume down on this but if it's starting out with a and it's going to get louder and then as soon as you get to like 10 or 12 seconds you have to get a breath and then it's going to go to the next one and you try to get louder and then you go on to the next l and that's just part of the there's the resonators and then going into the sound it's your um and then try to keep the energy of the volume intensity even throughout even if you think louder at the end it becomes even mm-hmm and so you're actually using more stomach muscles and then when you get to the articulators you're doing t salted at the touch t t top up up up up up up up up and then I just wrote a little thing for annunciation I always create things from scratch I don't take it for anything I just sort of why I'll just make it up myself so I just wrote this thing about how much hurry can a great chef add so you put your teeth together how much hurry so it teaches you all the syllables and I find that it's very hygienic if you just put your teeth together rather than putting a finger in your mouth, a cork in your mouth, a pencil or pen, and you always, well some people take their teeth out, that might be hard, but most people have them in, and so if you do, just use that, and then when you open your mouth, it just, you know, your mouth springs open, and you have more of an oval sound rather than a lateral sound, so that's really helpful. And then the other one that is adding melody to your voice that looks like this. That one, there's a video that, I would suggest watching that first, it has a word emphasis chart, and that's also in the book, and then you have a place, a part that he probably is curious about how do you use it. After you've watched, after you watch the video, then it's about how do you use those gestures. So then what I did is I'm just going to click on one of these if I can do it backwards. So if I click on it, it opens up to a bigger place, and then I can record myself, and so it's about hitting, doing a dot on the word insurance, who does insurance best? Then I can go back and listen to myself, who does insurance best? And then I'll listen to my examples, who does insurance best? Or who does insurance best? Then if I don't want it, I can delete it. I just turn it and I can delete that and record again. And so I have 21 exercises, and then it has a little check mark when I worked on those. So that's it. And those are available in the app store. In the app store. So it's because what I work on is like, when you're given direction, how do you take that intellectual direction and put it in your body? Because there's a huge disconnect in what we do. So and we have, and when we talk in real life, we're always gesturing and moving, but people think when I say gestures, I'm just flailing away. That's not the case at all. It's about how do you put a little emphasis? And I had someone who emailed me this week, and he was so sweet. He said, one section in the book, he said, start trying it as you change your focus word and the different emphasis on how you're doing it. In a sentence, you're telling a whole other story. And we know that with the I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. Those are three different stories. Right. Yeah. And we're gonna do the same thing. Yeah. And we love you, Elaine. Thanks so much. I love you. It's so great to see you again. And we really appreciate you coming on. Once again, the books are there's money where your mouth is. And your new book, when's the new one coming out? In October, voiceovers for podcasting. All right. Very good. Elaine Clark, everybody. Thank you, Elaine. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Thank you, George. Alrighty, we'll be real. Yeah, we'll be right back and wrap things up right after these important messages. Hi, this is Bill Farmer, and you are watching VoiceOver Body Shop. It's great. As a voice talent, you have to have a website. But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you. And when they finally do, they break or don't look right on mobile devices. They're not built for marketing and SEO. They're expensive. You have limited or no control. And it takes forever to get one built and go live. So what's the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voiceactorwebsites.com. Like our name implies voiceactorwebsites.com just does websites for voice actors. We believe in creating fast, mobile friendly, responsive, highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use. You have full control. No need to hire someone every time you want to make a change. And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time. You can get your voiceover website going for as little as $700. So if you want your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options, go to voiceactorwebsites.com where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what. This is Anthony Mendez. You're watching voiceover buddy show. Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead. Now 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, casting, 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 and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voiceover audition. It's all here at voiceover extra.com. That's voiceover x t r a dot com. Well, it's that time of the show where we thank our longtime sponsors, source elements and they create all kinds of stuff. But the thing you're probably most concerned with as a voiceover actor or producer, it would definitely be source connect and their software technology has been in regular use in the voiceover business, way more than 12 years. I mean, I've been dealing with them at least personally for over 12 years. I've set up studios that use it countless times systems that integrate integrated into production. And it's just because this thing has been around for a very long time. It is now has a very strong foothold in the voiceover production world. What does it do? It lets you work from home or really anywhere where you've got a quiet good sounding studio controlled environment and good acoustics and allows you to connect to a studio as though you're on the other end of a thousand mile long microphone cable. It sounds that good. It's almost indistinguishable from being in the same place. And that's what allows studio producers to record you capture that audio immediately, have it in the production flow and have the clients who are probably listening in on something else like zoom or who the heck knows listening in on the session and making sure that they're getting what they want out of the session. So it's a very efficient tool and it's one you need to have in your quiver of weapons. So make sure you have source connect get yourself dialed in with at least a trial so you understand how it works and you know you can use it at source dash elements.com and get up and running. If you need help, go to George the tech comm slash sc for some tech support and startup videos to get you rolling. Thanks again, Source Elements. We'll be right back to wrap this up right after this. This is Anthony Mendez. You're watching voice over body shop. And we're back to say goodbye for the time being. Next week on this very show tech talk number 40 40 the big four Oh, we are finally over the hill. We are well when we hit 52, then we know we've been doing it for over a year from those two years. Anyway, that's coming up next live. But who are our donors of the week? Yes, we have donors. George Wittem starting off the top of the list this week. My dad. Thanks, dad. Natasha Marshauka, or more Shevka, Marchevka, with it with a soft. It's a W with a soft. Okay, Marchevka, right? Yeah, not Shevka. Yeah. Sorry, I don't need to be sorry. I'm just an idiot. Thomas Pinto, Trey Mosley, Philip Sapir, Paul Pape, Christopher Epperson, Michelle Blanker, Antland Productions at Uncle Roy, and Graham Spicer. Thank you everybody for your donations. Most of these names. I think almost all of those you've heard before because many of them many of them subscribe. So it's something you can do if you like to contribute to the show on going leap you like having your name read each week, then subscribe. Alrighty, we also need to thank our amazing sponsors who are with us week after week, like Harlan Hogan's voiceover essentials, voice over extra source elements, bioheroes.com voice actor websites.com and JMC demos. Alrighty, Jeff Holman. Great job in the chat room tonight, throwing us all those great questions on Facebook and and YouTube and YouTube. Our technical director, Sumer Lino, who's actually back in the studio, masked and gloved and in scrubs and you know, just trying to keep everybody scuba doing a fabulous job and Lee Penny for being Lee Penny. Well, this isn't the easiest business around. But we're here to help you out. Because George and I know if it sounds good, it is good. All right, that's going to do it for us. tech doc coming up next. I'm Dan Leonard. I'm George Widom and this is voice over body shop or VO BS. Have a great week, everybody.