 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop. We're back after a week hiatus and our guest tonight is Kevin Gershine Kevin wave. Hello. Hello So We're we you're a CBS producer if you've got a question for him throw it in clubhouse right now or in the Facebook chat room Because you'll be able to ask him. I got lots of questions George has questions We got lots of stuff to talk about so join us right now for voiceover body shop Right now stay tuned From the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe. They bring it to you now George Wittem the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional VO studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Lerd the voiceover home studio master a Professional voice down with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio and Each week they allow you into their world Bring you talks with the biggest names in the voice of a world today Letting you ask your questions and giving you the latest information to make the most of your voiceover business Welcome to voiceover body shop Voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials comm home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites comm where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO heroes comm become a hero to your clients with a word winning voiceover training Jmc demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success and now Live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys And hello there. I'm Dan Leonard Hi, I'm George Wittem professional broadcaster There's one and this is voiceover body shop or VO Yes late tonight. We are Jeff. We still love you way out of sync tonight, but anyway, so we've been gone for a week and Lots of stuff has happened in the voiceover world and we're here to talk voiceover that's why we're here and We've got a great guest tonight George it's it sounds like you've you've been busy tumbling across the hills of Southern, California once again Yes, I like mountain biking, but sometimes it can be a little dangerous just a little I'm your arms. I scraped my knee scraped my arm and I pull the muscle on the right side of my lower back So I'm leaning on a heating pad I'll be off the bike for a couple of weeks, I think but thankfully the gym just opened up here in the complex So now I can do rowing and you know that kind of stuff Lou impact stuff outstanding Well, we'd like to make an impact on your voiceover business if we can all you people listening out there That's a good one. I thank you. You're you're watching on Facebook. You're watching on our vbs.tv web page you are Watching perhaps on YouTube and we have a big crowd Joining us on clubhouse Danny Burnside's in there and if you've got a question let Any one of the people that are running those particular things know that you have a question Jeff Holman is in the the Facebook chat room and Danny Burnside is running our our chat over in clubhouse Which allows us to basically do the Larry King may he rest in peace type of thing. That's right Anyway, it's time to introduce our guest joining us from some nursing home in Southern, California is Is joining the injured crew tonight. Yeah, really He's the longest running producer at CBS first-run syndication 42 years. He's been there and he does everything and he's gonna tell us all about it. Let's join him now Kevin Gersheng Gervin. Welcome to the show George. Hello, Dan George I see your injury and I raise you my knee injury Which is why I'm laying in the bed instead of my office or a much better virtual backdrop But it adds to the mystery it does but it's a classy-looking headboard. So we'll thank you We'll just leave it leave it at that. I got it at the late at the late, California furniture out in the West Valley It's really a great place. Cool. I'll remember that Anyway, we're here to talk about voiceover and but we're gonna break a little away from that a little bit You're a little bit different than our usual guests who are voice actors and Casting directors and all that kind of stuff, but tell us a little bit about yourself Well, I started in radio. I loved radio as early as elementary school and You used to hang out at the hits of the hat boss radio 93 k h j and worked at radio stations like k 100 and k mpc and k earth 101 and I produced Shows for a lot of the guys who did game shows as I work with Robert W. Morgan and the real Don steel and Gary Owens and wake Martindale and Jeff Edwards. Hello me and Along the way a lot of them also did voiceovers So I got to go with them to voiceover auditions I got to go with them as a teenager to a lot of these things and they then Introduced me a lot of their VO friends Gary, of course Doing a lot of VO's and then he was in the animation world So I got to meet a lot of the old-school animation people You know whether it was from Mel blank on up Neil Ross did a lot of GI Joe and Tans formers eventually worked at KMPC and I got to meet him there and then So as I got into television It was an easy transition to oversee and produce and direct and write for a lot of the Great voice over people the late Domino Fontaine. I worked with him I worked with him and Randy Thomas who I both did entertainment tonight which is one of our first-run syndication shows for many years and So I've had an opportunity to work with all the big names whether it was you know most of them are dead now the Ernie Anderson's and the Casey Kasem's and the Danny darks and the Chuck Riley's You know and the John Harlins and all five all five guys in the limo so It's been really great experience for me. So now Working at CBS media ventures formerly CBS television distribution formerly paramount domestic television. It is the first-run syndication division of Viacom CBS and I Oversee the voiceovers for all the shows entertainment tonight Inside edition Dr. Phil the doctors Rachel Ray Daily Mail TV the Drew Barrymore show judge Judy hot bench wheel of fortune in jeopardy just to name a few all at once I juggle Speaking of those five guys in the limo would this be an appropriate time to mention I think it would be great I think it would be great because one of the guys in the limo who started out in radio was a guy by the name of Mark Elliott He is the cherished voice of Disney for many years did the first Star Wars trailer Passed away over the weekend and if we can virtually raise the glass to him He was such a nice guy and so kind to everybody. He met Rolem George for those who don't know what five men in a limo is. Here's a little history lesson Well, sir tonight tonight, that's right With the success of an industry depends upon the creative ability of a few great races must be recognized the 26th annual Hollywood reporter key eye awards It's all head directly to the DGA. No, not yet yet. First. We have to assemble our team our team Imagine five of the top voiceover artists in our country all one car mine Meet meet John leader a simple man in a complicated world But tonight for one heart-stopping moment quite possibly a hero Yes Now that's a knife That guy's been in my house a voice 65 million years in the making I'm with us. Mr. Juris I'm like a horse Under 17 not admitted without parents Well, we prepared to move on to the ceremony prepared Nothing could ever prepare you for what awaits you at the ceremony Meet Mark Elliott the cherished voice of the most beloved animated classics of our time Featuring all your favorite Disney characters snow white sleeping beauty. Come on Oh, come on. It's the hunchback of Notre Dame Herculean beauty of the beast when he the food bumper Done sleepy With special songs by the Academy award-winning team that brought you beauty in the beast and oh, yeah Okay, anyone that's there's only one man Oh I forgot about that adventure romance I make it all look so easy Sir, are we going to the awards now not yet yet? Now now now no no no You may call them the awards But for the few with the real courage to call themselves vendors, it's gonna be the white knuckle flow ride of the year I Think we get the idea right? I think we get that much respect to All those guys mark and we lost out was it out chalk passed away last Yeah, yeah, I believe so. Yeah Wow my goodness So cool to see that. Thanks for thanks for reminding us about mark because he was he was a super much super duper under the radar guy Right super under the radar wasn't out there promoting himself doing stuff He'd just like to go and do the work and help people where he could he was a great guy Super cool and working with all this great talent, you know, what was that like? I mean, they were probably very easy to direct and We're super pros to work with, you know, some are easy to direct others or not I'll leave them out of that, you know a lot of people depending on they go don't like to be line read a lot of times I tend to write For the artist that's doing it. I don't write the copy and try to do I try to think who did I select? To be my voice and I write to their pace and I write to their strengths as opposed to trying to bend them to my will and Sometimes the line read is necessary And the good the good ones the late Don LaFontaine said you're gonna line read me I said yes, I am he says, okay, I'll take it from you. So it was It was a compliment And by line meeting meaning line reading you meant well So like if there's a line, you know, I hear he knows how to say in a world But maybe if he had gone in the world and I said no, I want it in a world, you know Yeah, so some sometimes to get the right inflection to get the right pacing what you want to hit sometimes The copy usually directs itself, but not always Okay, now you also have a background in music production and you do all them You you're in charge of all the music that goes with all these different shows all the shows that I mentioned I also oversee and produce all the themes and background music score For those which make up the CBS media ventures music library music is created for each show individually based on its needs and it now has over close to 30,000 cuts in that that are all owned by CBS and that is a an income source for the studio as well And so it's interesting because you're in the studio doing different things So when you are in the studio producing and mixing for music, it is completely a different skill set than producing and engineering For voiceover They are two different the only similarity is you might be using the same kind of microphones The same kind of boards the same kind of plug-ins the same part of outboard gear and you might be using Pro tools or cake walk or whatever you use So things seem similar, but it is a completely different skill set Good to know once again. We're talking with Kevin Gershaw and he is a producer of just about everything over at CBS I learned that it may seem similar rule when I moved to LA in 2004 Thinking I'm just gonna plunge headfirst into film production mixing and doing production mixing on set I was like, right. I've recorded everything. I know how to do this. No idea. How many unique tools there were terminologies Methodologies, etc. It was it was quite a trial by fire crash Okay, and and audio is different So whether you are working in your home studio doing radio live radio syndicated radio voiceover work out in the field doing recording audio for television in the field recording audio for film on a stage Mixing for radio commercials Television shows your film. It's different like you might not know that generally most film mixes take three people So it's a long SSL or board or whatever it is And there's one person doing dialogue one person doing music one person doing effects and not only is that there is a pre-lay Mixer ahead of all those three people walking in a room who laid out everything Position-wise where it was supposed to be and put it in a relative space as to where it is Theoretically if the pre-lay person did it right the mixer wouldn't have to do anything But they but they all do and they have to you know, it's a good reference standpoint. So all your Work is spent in the less expensive pre-lay portion of the mix as opposed to the super expensive three three-man mix stage fascinating You know, we all hear the word Producer all the time. I mean, you know, George and I say we're the producers of VOBS You know, and it seems like whoever is the star of a show these days is produced executive producer You know, whoever it is that's also starring in it, too But I guess it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people Including you I suppose What does it really mean in your world? Producer is different. It's some but you know, sometimes producer is just a money guy who brings money to a film or a television show another, you know The world is different now. So in the voiceover world as a voiceover artist You need to be your own producer your own director your own voice talent your own engineer and In and and your own marketer as well. So for me as a producer I I write or oversee writers for voiceovers But I tend to like to write it myself And then when the session happens I am there directing the session To make sure it is giving it the correct read and the tone that I want So many people hand it off nowadays in the voiceover world a lot of times Scripts are just sent out and then they're sent back And maybe they're not to time or to time or something's wrong and you got to have it redone Or there is no time and you have to tolerate a read that is different than you want So, uh, I pretty much insist That uh, unless it's absolutely impossible for me to be there. I write the copy I time out the copy. I paste the copy for the talent that I have reading it And then I'm there when they record it for both support and making sure that I get what I want. So My definition of producing is seeing it from concept to delivery That's and that's that's a lot of things um All of a sudden we're getting some slapback. Yeah, I wonder where that's coming from You have an open speak open speaker sue. There we go. There we go. Got it. Thank you sue. Um, Sorry, go ahead. Oh, sorry. Okay. Yeah, so, um Yeah, we're talking talking about, you know, being a producer. What's what's your What's it been like, you know during covet? I mean you because apparently you've been sitting there and had the whole time there I yeah, no, no, no, this is just recent but uh, most of us I'm based at cbs studio center in studio city And uh, I'm based on the entertainment tonight set And uh, other than recently The 200 people that work on that show haven't been at work since the 12th of march of last year We just recently have talent and the booth back shooting on our stage. Everybody was shooting from home But I pretty much do everything From home. I'm completely set up. I have Complete connectivity here. I got a you know high speed internet backup internets computers um And anything we need to do we either have zoom meetings Or we have our own proprietary VOIP boxes that all the talent have in their homes to do their voiceovers with and so when we do a voiceover we Connect with them on zoom to see them We email them or text them the copy and they they track and we recorded into our system And dump it into a network server for all the editors to be able to drop them in Can you tell us more about the proprietary VOIP boxes that you're using? Uh, we have an engineer that works with us that built some proprietary VOIP boxes Um, I don't know if I have a picture of one, but you know, it's kind of like uh, the comrex box a little bit But it's specific for us because cbs has such Specific firewall rules and stuff like that. We had to build something That could be used across the cbs network That would you know could work through the firewalls and stuff like that because they're very leery about opening up You know holes in the fire in the firewall to do that. I call them the cbs firewall police They they work very very well. So everybody has uh, uh, you know, what what is the comrex box called? It's a brick link Yeah, there's a there's a yeah, there's a brick link and then there's another one that they use Let me just see what it is No, no, no, no, no, let's see. Oh, it's got a there's a newer one that uses opus Yes, that's what it is comrex. I came out with the name of it Yeah, you and I talked many moons ago About what actors could have that they could take with them Correct that could do all of this magic stuff and one of the barriers to entry Other than finding the ultimate microphone that you could use anywhere without worrying about acoustics is um Is was the connectivity issue and we can't use things like source connect because we couldn't punch holes in the firewall so to speak Correct. So again for me and you know like, uh I for the type of work that we do for voiceovers for promos and stuff like that. I tend to like a sennheiser 416 It's not it's not particularly warm But if you if you work the mic right and you know And you know and you don't pop it it has a lot a lot of punch to it and stuff like that So that's my favorite general microphone for voiceover people in television But in narration and stuff like that, you know, I I I like a u87 not the ai and I like the tlm 103 And of course my favorite microphone if if I had money would be a telephone can u47 long body wouldn't we Yeah, but they're 10 grand and uh, if you have either a male or female voice in a Closer to a baritone lower kind of voice. It's really really great. Also an old akg c12 not not the new ones those are the akg c12 vrs are terrible in my opinion. Hope they're not a sponsor Nope not yet Well not now, okay No, so yeah, and and and and and quite frankly, there's a lot of um, I like to sure sm 5b depends on you know The moment that was completely ensconced in foam it looked like a foam Correct. Well, no, no, no, that's the that's the sm 7b. That's the sm I like the sm 7b the sm 5b is the football. Yeah, yeah the football And and that was you know, that was a good unforgiving radio mic like the electro voice re 20 and stuff like that hard What's it what's interesting for me all the vo mics I like for promo were formerly boom mics You know, whether it was an rcab k5b or whatever it is the a lot of the radio mics are good But all the radio mics that are good were former kick drum mics because it was hard to pop them So an re 20 was a kick drum mic A 414 was a kick drum mic Right big guy for him. Yep. Yeah as a producer. Can you actually hear the difference in these mics from one person to another? Could you listen to somebody and say yeah, that's a u 87 You know, I I generally guess pretty good. I like I like to play the game what microphone and what mic pre are they using? um And sometimes, you know, you can tell a 416 on a focus, right red 7 you can tell a u 87 You know on a manly, you know, you know, there's there's certain Signature algorithms that you if you have a trained ear You can hear now does it matt does it matter that much like I you know, like you said in your intro downlaw fontaine could talk on a Sure sm 58 uh in a on a realistic mic pre and he'd sound fantastic You know, it's funny is the reason I ever got to work with don was because of a technical issue Um, he was on a manly cardioid reference mic But there was a buzz And there was a buzz because he was running that straight into a mackey 32 by 8 Mixing console those huge ones you'd see in bars. Yeah all the time. That's what he had in his studio And uh long long story short. I never would have worked with don had the tube in his manly mic preamp blown out sometime before that And don didn't know what to do at the time. So he patched around it So he just removed the dead preamp and ran it right to the mackey And that was it turned up the gain on the mackey and he went back to work But he had all this buzz going on in the studio and that's that's the only reason I ever got to work with him Because steve nafton said can you go help out don? He's bugging me all the time now we're hearing a buzz. I need he needs a guy Can you go help him out? Yeah You're the guy for sure. I wasn't the guy at that point. That was a guy I was lucky. I was lucky But uh, that's I have to thank manly and their tubes For needing uh for don needing me to come over. Yeah, no the the look that manly mic and the manly box box are Are two great things you you don't need all that depending on you know On your voice. There are there are plenty of things that are reasonable whatever your budget level is To get you to sound good Absolutely. All right Once again, if you've got a question for kevin gershan about the production process Put it in the chat room in facebook or you can line up on clubhouse And we'll take your questions live from there in just a couple of minutes. So stay tuned for that What do you look for In outside in looking for new talent? I mean we just saw the greatest generation of You know voice over announcers and that style is pretty much gone anyway But and there's probably and there's a whole new generation of people doing that type of work Are you still you know always on the prowl for somebody or so you hear somebody somewhere? He'd be good on this or Absolutely, I'm always listening to everyone everywhere from every agency From every site that's posted and you know people reach out to me and stuff like that and and and I listen Generally speaking for me on all the cbs shows as you can imagine When we are casting for those I generally have an idea of who I want. It's rare that I send out something wide and get you know one of your 30 submissions from the big agencies and go through them I already know who I want. I I I have an idea in my head based on the show Who the top three people would be and maybe I addition the top three people and I know all these people So for the most part I I call them directly. You know, I got to deal with their agent eventually But yes, I listen to everything and to your point about That style is gone. Uh, some of that style is gone There is still room for all styles everywhere What's happened is what got away from the big announcer voice is now they just want the big announcer voice So you still might need to have some pipes But instead of talking like this you'll just talk like this and you still will use whatever you have in your toolbox But it's interesting Certain things need different things. They say They want a younger more conversational non-announcery read what I can Tell voiceover people is try to figure out what it is that they really want versus what it is that they're saying Because they tell you they want conversational and then you give them conversational and then there's not enough cell in it One of the things for years it was like, oh, we don't want any radio announcers because they all talk like this and uh, interestingly Sometimes I found Like with live shows. Let's take what I mentioned Randy Thomas before Randy came from radio so When it comes to a live announce On a live show, whether it's the Oscars, whether it's the Tony awards, whatever it is You want a radio person. She has all the voiceover sensibilities, but she has she has oh, I'm live I'm not going to screw this up And she can think on the fly live So a lot of times for live announce Radio people who've been able to transition out of the disc jockey into a personality Work great Also, we were casting something for entertainment tonight where we were on the queen mary 2 when it launched And we wanted a british announcer. So uh, we were tasked To go out and hire a british actor So we got three top british actors named british actors who we auditioned for the role Well, they couldn't do it. We ended up hiring neil ross Who was able to do a british voice but had enough promo radio in him that he knew what to punch so You need people with certain skill sets to do things. There are new shows that still have the big voice, you know, and that's important So just because the big baritone don la fontaine Uh john harland voices and whatever it is Seem to be out. They're not always out bill ratner is still working movie trailers are still using Big voices. They're not using all light voices But there is certainly a time and a place for the lighter punchier reads there There are plenty of before everybody had a big baritone voice and it was a guy now There's men. There's women of every shade of gray. So don't don't Put yourself out if you say you don't have the pipes. It used to be pipes trumped interpretation Now interpretation trumps pipes every time So if your spot on on your interpretation and your voice is a little less than baritone As a man you will get it as a woman Everything from sounding like a 15 year old boy to Sounding like brenda vicarro is gonna everything is there Yep No remembers brenda vicarro. I don't think the revolution happened before we go to break. When do you think the revolution happened when that that I'm sure it wasn't like an overnight thing, but uh, it it it wasn't the revolution happened probably in the mid 80s when younger producers Were starting to get in and maybe some Younger skewing shows were getting on tv and maybe around the time the fox Network launched. Mm-hmm. Okay, never that was maybe that further back than I would have thought. Okay. Yeah, and People were looking for something different. We can take When the when the simpsons came on you know They weren't looking for a big voice And so like riano, right? Right and I and you know joe is a radio another radio guy And really hadn't done anything and whereas someone You know, there was a big group of people who would never cast a joe sip riano But he was different and he punched through and then later after a couple years you wouldn't want anybody but him doing that right Once again, we're talking with uh kevin gershand. We're gonna take a quick break right now Uh, again, if you've got a question throw it in the chat room and facebook or Raise your hand over on clubhouse and we'll get to those questions Right after these important messages Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voice over body shop. It's great Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice to announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat Stick around you don't want to miss this Power one oh three nine at target. We want you to come as you are be comfortable Okay, maybe not bathrobe comfortable Pants for the customer on aisle four, please Watch anywhere anytime on an unlimited number of devices Sign in with your netflix account to watch instantly at netflix.com The ice cream maker is a big risk that can have huge rewards Until you forget to turn it on Well, that's it guys Time is up. Hey, it's jmc. Thanks for watching the voice over body shop If you're demo ready or looking to get there check out jmc demos.com and see a sample of our work Now let's get back to dan and george and this week's tech wisdom accents Scary words to a lot of vo talent who simply won't audition for something that requires an accent or a dialect Why they've already told themselves. They can't do them couldn't learn how and would just suck if they tried So they never tried they give up. They say nope. I can't But you can David h. Lawrence the 17th accent dialect coach jim johnson has it down to his science and he can't help His accents class is open for registration and get this You'll save $300 off the tuition if you register before tomorrow night April 6th at 9 p.m. Pacific time Work directly with jim during the class and get a library of accent building tools for you to use whenever one of those auditions comes up Act quickly this special $300 tuition rebate ends tomorrow night and class begins next monday Go to voheroes.com forward slash accents when you register in the comments field Please add david sent me once again. Go to voheroes.com forward slash accents Let's face it If you're a voice talent not everyone in your family or close friends really understands what you need for your home voiceover studio You want a what? Well voiceover essentials.com has the perfect answer when it comes to birthdays another gift giving for us voiceover folk New for the first time ever after countless requests Voiceover essentials.com is thrilled to offer the voiceover essentials gift card You pick the amount you want to give and they take care of the rest The recipient will receive an email with their digital gift card and gift code to use on anything They offer on voiceover essentials.com give them or give yourself the gift of getting exactly what you want Like the harlan hogan vo1a microphone the portabouth pro or plus harlan hogan signature series voiceover optimized headphones You want a what? Go to voiceover essentials.com and click on shop and gift cards and choose the amount gift cards now at voiceover essentials.com Thanks, allen I think I heard the voiceover body shop. I did. I did hear the voiceover body shop little body shop And we are back with kevin gershan and george woodham down there and we're we're ready to take a lot of questions from people uh So far you've given us some real golden nuggets about the the production process and what you're looking for for In voiceover talent, so we really appreciate that george. What do we got them question wise? Yeah, we actually have a couple lined up. Danny. Why don't you let us know who's up at bat? Sure. We got leslie leslie. You're on Hey, Danny as always really love your Your room always so informative. This is a great talk. I want to ask kevin kevin, I have a electrical voice re 27 Is that a bad mic to use for commercials and promos? You know, it's not a for me. It's not a uh bad mic to use. It's perfectly pedestrian Again, I think a promo mic and a commercial mic are different. I would use a ribbon mic Probably for commercials that you can have some proximity effect get in close and be warmer like a like a u 87 or a tlm 103 and tough to beat uh a 416 Sennheiser 416 for a promo mic So when you were saying i'm just afraid that it's so it's crisp and I don't know if that would work with my voice um, I haven't crisp for promos or crisp for commercials Usually that's a good thing, right? Yeah, for crisp for promos is good. I like warm for commercials A 44 bx. Is that a 44 bx dan? No, this is this is a v3 All right Nice mic, but you know So so kevin, so you're I think when you're mentioning uh ribbon mics Remaining condenser mics or did you actually say that we should use some tries start trying to use ribbon mics Uh condenser mics or ribbon mic as I said, I like I like I like the uh as I said the uh Sennheiser tlm 103. It's nice And I and I like a uh u 87 not the ai Yeah, the the original The og u 87 so those are those are warm and I think based on hearing your voice those will serve your voice Well, um, if you're concerned that the 416 is too punchy you might want to do an akg 414 vls 414 um How about an audio technica? Yeah, the the 40 i have a 40 33 as well quite a connection Yeah, the the uh the audio technicas are a good right in the middle of both those mics that I suggested Great Thanks so much kevin. I appreciate it. You got it. Thanks leslie. Yeah, that sort of brings Attack questions are better for george and for me, but I can tell you I'm just giving you my opinion as to what I like Well, see you're the guy at the other end and that's that's one of the things that a lot of our audience cares about is You know it is is this mic going to be the difference between me booking a job or not, you know I tend to tell people no Right, I would like I would like to reiterate that performance is everything that interpretation is going to beat voice So if you and if you if you read well and your interpretation is good And what I'm finding is I don't like your mic I can have a conversation say can you swap your mic out? Can you come in here and track it? Can you go to this studio? Versus you're the one I want. I just don't like your your home studio. Alrighty Uh, we got anybody who's next there? I got I got an audience question from uh from youtube because we got him coming in from a lot of directions You might recognize this name randy thomas It says oh She was curious after watching the five guys video of those five Who do you remember being the easiest to direct? Mark Elliott was certainly the easiest to direct of that group. Uh, I directed all of them, but I have to say for me unlike Don was a joy Don was Don was a joy for me since I've known him since prior to him being a vio guy when he was cutting trailers at 55 55 post on the paramount watt Uh And uh, he was always a joy. He wanted to get it right Usually his agents booked him in, you know, he had such a tight window. Okay. I got don from 215 to 217 You have to get it done in that amount of time And that a joke folks right and that that is uh in the you know Is it the end days before he drove around in that limo and went places? His time got very very limited and what was great was I'd have a 30 second spot Which was really only 26 seconds and it would go glee glee and he'd go Boom throw a great done. And so I said two minutes. I only need 30 seconds And uh, he got he he got into a rhythm with all the stuff that we did on entertainment tonight that he we Interestingly with with randy's question I want to say that Don LaFontaine and randy thomas did something that none of the other entertainment news programs did We didn't have one voice We had two voices because it was great to have don's big voice and then have randy's Big female voice on on the stuff that needed to be softer and stuff like that It you know don could do an emotional read But sometimes you wanted something that was better and he don and randy were just a A great tag team that we had and I I missed the days of having that All right, what do we should we go back to clubhouse? Yeah, let's see who's there Chris from san francisco chris, you're out bud Oh, thank you so much everybody and thank you for the great opportunity learning a lot as always and taking notes Um, still marinating on what george said last week. I think it was if you're seeing the yellow Let it mellow if you're seeing the red you're close to dead. It was great advice We're talking about the vu meter kevin. Yeah, but I got it Not my first road So I grew up in the days of gumsmokes starting jaminers, you know and the streets of san francisco and all that stuff And I know you can't give away secrets, but is there any new programming on the horizon that you're excited about Thank you for your opportunity. Thank you for the time um, you know all the networks now who have uh, uh streaming channels as well Are in the process of producing new things Generally speaking the big networks and the big channels Uh all You know send their auditions out to The agencies a lot of time that they're familiar with so it's rare that you know, they're just going to be out there for you to fish for because It's not how the big places work um The best thing is if you can Secure yourself a a good agent and see if you can get that stuff, of course But then you know every now and then stuff shows up on voice 123. Are you hear something? So if you be friend Uh producers directors people who work inside television that you know that might just be writers or producers or cameraman or whatever Someone might tip you to hey, I'm going to work on this new show Then uh, you know half your job as a voiceover person now is uh Half private investigator half detective. So if you learn of a show read the trades Oh, you know cbs media ventures, uh, just greenlit this Okay, try to find out who the producers are the internet's a wonderful thing Search out their emails and stuff like that if you don't have an agent and say hey kevin gershwin I hear you're working on this new show. Uh, I think I would be perfect for it. Here's my demo Here's my agent whatever, uh for everybody listening Don't annoy me too much, please because as I said I tend to to pick who it is But you know reach out through the proper channels and and and do that as I said, I'm pretty much aware of Most of the working people who are out there and of course it's tough for the people who aren't working as much because they They all want to have a chance to be heard to So, uh, if your agent is good, they generally an agent I'll say I want person a b and c and they say That's fantastic, but have you heard person d and I say no, I haven't send them along or no I'm not interested in hearing them. It's usually the latter, but I do like to hear new people Got it. Got it We'll go right back to generally speaking me and everybody else who work on a list shows You know, it's part of it. Uh, you want name recognition marquis value of the voiceover talent you have So you want to be able to say, oh Like when we when we hired randy thomas on entertainment tonight It was great because oh randy is the voice of the academy award. So that works with our brand So in addition to her being able to do the job She had she was the voice of the oscar. She was the voice of the tony's So a lot of the shows that we covered it was great and we even did a segment on her on entertainment tonight about that So, uh, a lot of these shows are also looking for not just someone who could do the job But someone who has a good, uh resume as well That doesn't hurt as a brand identity with with the brand already. Yeah, yeah From facebook, this one's j. Horace black and he says are you getting talent from agents or managers? Or a combination of both? Oh, that's the first part Well, they said again normally for me since I know such a wide array of voiceover talent I usually call them direct and get their agents second, but most people go through the four or five major agencies first uh But we also get auditions from managers sometimes Uh producers have relationships with managers and they know that They have certain talent and sometimes just because the personal relationship with the manager Might be better than the relationship with the agency or the particular agent you go to the manager hoping That your relationship will lead to a better deal when you're dealing in the overscale world There's another part to jay's question There's several parts, but this one I think is the most important really which is In commercial work and one, uh, one can get auditions without us with us without a strong demo Are you saying I should be dead again? Sorry jay In commercials one can get auditions without a strong demo, but is that the same for promo? So is the promo really a key? well Uh, it is it is and it isn't if you're booking people who've already done it whether they have a good demo or not You know who that is but Your demo is paramount in uh getting you work because You want to listen to it and I let me just tell you top load your demo with whatever it is You're trying to do or have multiple demos that are top loaded Differently to get those out to the buyer because we are not a patient crowd So if you have a three-minute demo if we don't hear what we want in the first 20 seconds And and but maybe you had what exactly what we wanted at two at the two-minute 30 mark Chances are we aren't going to hear it. So I would recommend that people have multiple versions of their demos Where uh the different genres that you do are highlighted in the first 30 seconds All right, we got somebody on clubhouse there danie We do pelar from los angeles pelar Thank you. Hi. Hi kevin. Hi Hi, I am a bilingual performer So I speak unaccented spanish as well as english And I have been doing voiceover for 11 years and before that I was an on-camera actress on soap operas in colombia And I have been in la for almost two years and have done a lot of commercial work Uh actually bilingually um same spot both languages Oh, what do you see in terms of the Uh landscape of a bilingual performer getting into and a woman getting into Promo and how does someone you kind of already answered this question But how does someone like myself get heard by someone like you? Well interestingly bilingual and spanglishy is bigger than ever now Uh, especially on the west coast and there's a lot of work for um Non-specific regional dialect stuff So if you if you can sound like you're not from a specific region, that's all the better because It works everywhere. Uh sylvia via gran Does both english language and spanish language. She's probably the leader in the bilingual spanglish Uh female voiceovers that does spanish. She's Well, I always like to refer to her as the she's the spanish language randy thomas And uh you could probably seek her out. She's she's uh very generous With her time and questions and loves to mentor people You know, so seek her out through her agent sylvia via gran and uh, you know, send her an email and uh, I bet you she would answer Some of the landscape that she has gotten but there's a lot of spanish language work out there And uh the fact that you could do both is great Is there any real live announced stuff still going on out there? I mean, we have obviously with the award shows and stuff like well, you know, there there's less of it now during COVID times, but uh april 15th That california said a lot of live events can come back. I know the oscars is planning on being live And so yes, there's a lot of live opportunities out there Although probably in this transitional period, uh, a lot of the stuff will be pre-recorded All righty, george, you want to get that question from ed kelly? Absolutely. This is ed on uh from our youtube chat Uh, why does kevin prefer the u 87 to the u 87 a i we knew we were going to get that question So kevin's looking in a nutshell Uh, the u 87 a i is too crunchy for me and I think the u 87 a i while still a good microphone Lacks the warmth that the tube 87 Has and depending on you know, if you're trying to do a narration or a commercial You know and you're not talking like this And you're more talking like this you want I think the uh Tube 87 gives you a lot more warmth and uh air A lot of it has to do with air Then the then the 87 a i the 87 a i is still a very good mic And if you have it already I wouldn't say to trash it and go get the other but Short of that I feel I mean george you can weigh weigh in on this as well. I think it's a warmer breathier mic Yeah, I don't know for whatever reason vintage microphones the the voicing was different They weren't so bright and crisp. They were they were warmer And um, so that can be more flattering a lot a lot of people like older versions of a lot of the mics including including the akg uh 414 the one of the earliest models was the e b And uh, a lot of people like that sound because it's not really crisp and crunchy and bright right and the and the and the 414 e b during the uh Casey case some dandy dark era at nbc was their mic of choice and it was really warm and it was really great And had a lot of air Do you know about the austrian audio mics kevin? Have you heard about them? Yes They are the engineers from those microphones and yeah Yeah, the new one uh that they released the um oc 818 Is really good. So really really nice really really good awesome. Um How about back to clubhouse? Yes What do we got danie? Nathan up. Nathan. What's your question bud? Hey kevin nice to thanks for being up here and taking the time. Um, so I mean it's similar to pilar's question and I kind of answered it, but You you said that you you have voice actors that you know Well, where does that relationship start does that start from? Hey, I think I'd be great for this project Or does it start from sending out an audition getting it from an agent and be like wow this guy's amazing Well, all right. So here for me after 42 years of doing this Uh and keeping up on it. I have worked with or heard all the You know, certainly the top 50 people Uh doing everything So I I know what people are capable of doing and usually if I'm thinking of something I usually have one of those voices in mind and reach out to them and if there's not a conflict And uh, we can negotiate a fair price Then I usually go and remember people don't know what they like people like what they know and I'm no different than anybody else Time is money. So Let's just say it was you for example and your voice range is right and I heard your and I heard your stuff Well, I haven't worked with you. So Uh, the question is am I going to take a chance on you being able to sit down in the chair and nail it on the first read um One of the things besides having the voice of the interpretation is being able to come in and get it done in one take Two takes at the max. We have very little patience for spending 40 minutes with you on a 26 second read Makes sense. Well, Kevin, thanks so much for joining us tonight Lots of real golden nuggets of info out there that people really needed to hear And we appreciate you taking the time. Yeah, we knew we'd get more we knew we'd get more questions than it was time But that's uh, that's quality. We're we're glad that people are so engaged Absolutely lots of tech stuff, but we can get to that in our next segment. But anyway, thanks for being with us and uh, You know get out of bed once in a while a little bit. It's kind of nice. I'll try to do it And thanks everybody for uh, tuning in. I hope uh, I the information was helpful Alrighty Kevin Gershwin. Okay, George and I'll be right back to wrap it up right after this This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying den and george on the voice of everybody's shop In these modern times Every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites.com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept To live online in a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites.com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites.com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish They'll try it yourself go with the pros voice actor websites.com where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what It's that time of the show where we get to plug away about our wonderful sponsors source elements the creators of source connect An incredibly long living and well loved tool in the voiceover production world because it allows actors To connect to the major studios directly into their pro tools timeline As painlessly as possible Producers love it for that reason by the way. I mean, there's a lot of technologies Kevin mentioned they Have cbs they use their own proprietary systems There are a lot of different ways to connect but the beauty of source connect by far is The ease of the way it works in the workflow For producers the fact that they can connect to you as talent Have your voice be right there in their pro tools timeline. Whatever they're using it doesn't have to be pro tools but certainly that's what a lot of the producers are using And when they have you during that session and they give you the direction or or a director is being piped in from somewhere else This session when you are let go is in the can. It's done The audio is there. It's captured at high quality and they can immediately Get signed off by the client or get right to production or post And that's one of the major reasons why it's still loved all these years later with so many other systems out there So if you want to get a demo head over to source dash elements calm and get it 15 day trial So you can get up and running and familiar with this Production tool it is really what it's just one of those things you have to have In your toolbox toolbox if you're a working pro voice actor Let's come back and wrap it up right after this Yep, this is v. OBS proven anybody Is Yeah, but we've been doing it for 10 years So anybody just anybody that's our circle We love our sarcastic Howard kogan the voice of jack fm The most sarcastic radio prudence personality voice in In history and the guy could not be better typecast because I know I know how Howard is in real life. Absolutely All right. Well next week on this show we will have tech talk number 54 If you want to stay tuned after this you can be there for the live taping of that Uh, and if you've got a tech question, apparently we got a few tech questions while kevin gershaw was here So, uh, we can we can cover those in tech talk. So stick around especially if you're on clubhouse We want to hear from you. Uh, who are our donors of the week? Our donors include the illustrious Harlan hogan's voiceover essentials. Oh, that's our sponsors. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, our donors are something in in the green. That's happens. We take three weeks off. My brain goes into sleep mode Phillips appear thomas finto shelly avilino randana Natasha, Natasha Marchefka. I got nervous. I knew I had to read her last name So I botched her first name. You know, that's how it works. Natasha Marchefka Brian page george a woodham my dad patty gibbons rob raider our rider He'll tell us which one is the right one. Uh, greg thomas antlion productions shanna pennington baird martha con and don griffith all made donations to our show which we highly highly appreciate Absolutely Um, you know, you can join our mailing list too. It's almost 800 george So Get on there and then you'll know who's gonna be honest in the next day or so Uh, we also need to thank our sponsors like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra Source elements makers of source connect Vo heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and jmc demos And can I say one more thing before we slip into the final closeout and thank yous on the show You bet. I want to say something about kevin now that he's not here um Because he might have been embarrassed. I don't know. He's a good guy. I want to say how much of a mensch kevin is Years and years and years ago when I was still really getting my company started I was starting a family. All these things were happening very quickly Business for me was taking a major slump. This was probably around 2008 Uh, child was coming etc. Etc overspending whatever it was kevin, uh Basically in a nutshell funded my survival in a way that he probably didn't expect to He he needed uh, he wanted we were working and collaborating on making the ultimate Super portable voiceover kit And so I quoted him on this prod this whole package Everything I thought it should have the whole thing And he paid me the full amount upfront. No questions asked to put this package together Long story short a lot of that money did not go where it was supposed to it went to paying other things And embarrassingly I told kevin what was going on and he told me Don't you worry about it? That's a mensch That's that's a definition of and the reason he's here today partly is because I had a very good couple of months and I paid off the entire debt to him and one Almost one fell swoop. I had to pay in a few pieces without his technical reasons, but I was able to pay him off. Um Pay him off. That's not the right way of saying it. I was able to repay him Finally after more than 10 years 12 years I think it was which was huge for me to let that off my chest To clear the karma and that's why I was so glad that he was able to join us today I couldn't I couldn't tell him face to face today because I don't think it could have held it together But I didn't even tell it together now But then there you go. I just wanted to be able to say that before we wrapped up. He is truly A mensch. Alrighty Well thinking of other mensches we have Uh, Jeff Holman is uh, we need to thank him for monitoring our chat room and facebook and danie bernside over on clubhouse If you're on clubhouse stick around because we're going to continue with tech talk in just a minute or two Our wonderful technical director is sue merlino doing a bang-up job And of course lee pennie for being lee pennie Uh, well, that was that was great get great stuff from kevin Of course he starts talking about microphones And you know, it's like it's not the microphone that's going to get you the work It's the guys that have already got the work That are getting those microphones. So we don't don't confuse it too. We can talk about that in tech talk So stay tuned for that Uh, you know, this is not an easy business, you know, and everybody Sends us in stuff and they're like does it sound good? Well, look if it sounds good It is good taking us up there In the meantime, i'm dan lennard and i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or vo b s Stay tuned for tech talk