 Well, it's time for voiceover body shop because we do it every week and our guest this week is Townsend Coleman Say hi, there's his own sound effects All right, this is gonna be an entertaining hour of fascinating talk with Townsend We've got some tech talk later on and we're gonna talk about all the stuff that you're doing and all the stuff you've done But we won't dwell on the past in the future We're going to dwell on what's best for you guys out there coming up on voiceover body shop. Whoo-hoo 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 Leonard the voiceover home studio master a Professional voice down with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio and Each week they allow you into their world Bringing you talks with the biggest names in the voice of a world today Letting you ask your questions and giving you the latest information to make the most of your voice over business Welcome to voice over body shop Voice over body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials.com home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites.com where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO heroes.com become a hero to your clients with a word-winning voice over training JMC demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success and now Live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys Hey there, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Wittem and this is voice over body shop or VO BS Yeah, we're back in the secret clubhouse here in Sherman Oaks for another week of voice over body shop and You know Southern, California It's either spring or it's summer and suddenly it's summer again and occasionally vibrating violently Yeah, which is fun when things start to It's fun after you've lived here long enough to appreciate what it could be and that Have some perspective over what or thick earthquakes really mean Yeah, I at the longer I've been here the more those little shakes become less Intense and intimidating. Yeah, well, you know, I've also learned not to run out of the building screaming. Yeah Well, you know usually it's you know, Jacob will come running out of his bedroom or something So what was that? It was an earthquake. Is there gonna be more? I Want to tell my friends They want to know what they want to see me shake on camera really I'm waiting for one to happen while we're doing this show They happen so rarely. Yeah, I mean constantly moving you just check the pictures on your wall and you'll see, you know, California Seems to be constantly moving Anyway, speaking of California, we have a guest tonight who is a California resident for a long time and He is a voice actor on you've heard him on just about everything that I haven't Which is a whole lot Anyway, let's bring into our studio and welcome on voiceover body shop Townsend Coleman Stumbly and gracefully whack my head on the microphone There we go. Well, hey kids. All right. We're here. Welcome. Thanks. Welcome to our secret clubhouse Thanks for having me over to the clubhouse. It's some fun. Yeah, we have fun here Yeah, I especially love this guy right here. Oh, where is it the big that enormous Mike right there? Yeah, don't whack your head on that one. It's for really big boys not just scale. Yeah So, uh, well once again, welcome Now you've had an excellent career now you came out here in 1984 from where from Cleveland Cleveland Yeah, where I grew up you grew up in Cleveland. So I grew up just up the just up the lake in Buffalo Just up the right just up the coastline there, right? Yeah, buffalo. Oh, so then you know, well what uh lake effect snow is Oh, I do what we got to escape coming from the Midwest out here to boy sunny so Cal this time of year Do we miss it? Not all right. Yeah, but to my friends in buffalo. I miss you. All right two or three of them, right? You know that you still remember no exact, you know, great football team If you didn't have two or three before you do now Anyway, so What did you start in radio or what what what were the factors that brought you out here? Low back those many years when the air here was brown and things are very different right right Well, uh, yeah, I did start in radio and I kind of got my start in radio because my dad had been in radio Ah Back in the mid 50s when we lived in Denver and my folks actually met Working at NBC in new york cool. Um working at 30 rock and my dad was the manager of Guest relations of their tour division. Oh and so yeah, he was running the pages and right He was the boss of the pages in new york So but his real goal was he wanted to be a network announcer He had some acting aspirations and some radio aspirations and And uh, but his big goal was he wanted to be an announcer for the network at NBC And back in those days you had to go through a special program that they had And and basically be approved to then be considered For an announcing job at the network. Well, he he wasn't accepted into that program and Dejected he moved us from Manhattan when I was a year old to Denver And uh, he got on the radio out there And it had a very short broadcasting career But but long enough that in all his stories about it and talking about it and stuff growing up I I really had sort of this sense that this was I don't know a cool business somehow. So yeah, so when I was a kid and got my first little transistor radio in Cleveland Um, there was something magical about hearing the voices that I and and not being able to see these guys But having a really strong sense of um Being attached to them somehow and and curious what they looked like What did this room that they were sitting in look like because it sounded so huge In Cleveland, I could pick up w a b c in new york at night And I would listen to that and of course they had more reverb On on that, uh, station mostly am at that. It was all a Cklw out of exactly we got W out of buffalo, right? We got cklw. Yeah a motor city And you pick up more at night, right? Oh, yeah, it was all at night, right? Yeah spear Exactly, it would boost the power to 50 000 watts at night. Oh, they can boost right and that was just magical to me I mean I remember lying in bed looking out my window at night and often the distance There was a radio tower that I could see it had a red light, you know flashed of the beacon flashing on top and I knew it was a radio tower And and but I didn't know which one and I just imagined that I was listening to the radio That it was coming out of that red light at the top of that tower and that somehow there was there was magic in that Alchemy in that to me. So That's really what I can kind of along, you know with coming up with my dad's stories and stuff That's really sort of what lit the the fuse for me. And then when I was in I would say 10th or 11th grade maybe 11th grade in high school in cleveland, uh I The school that I went to got one of these portable Video recorders a black and white reel-to-reel video recorder made by sony. It was a box. It was about 40 pounds And yeah, you could yeah, you could sling it over your shoulder You know with a with a big, you know 20 pound camera in your hand And uh, but they let us kids check this thing out like a like a library book And we could use it for projects So I called a local radio station in cleveland wixie 1260 was the big Am top 40 station all the kids were listening to back then and and I just called them up And I said I would like to come down and just look at your radio station and maybe talk to some of the dj's there and stuff Not having any idea whether you could do that or not and they said sure come on down So I took this thing down and I remember getting off the elevator and seeing the jock on the air behind the glib You know walled a ceiling to floor glass And seeing him on the air and hearing the speakers out there in the lobby and just going Oh Okay, this is it And yeah, it was it was mind-bending to me And so the jock Let me come into the studio and I recorded him on the air and and uh that that really Was impactful for me and and then the next year when I was I guess maybe Again either a junior or early senior in high school. I I got I called yet another must must have been a junior it's like right after that that I called an fm station in cleveland And uh wanted wanted to do the same thing wanted to come down take a look and they were very gracious and let me come down and Kind of poke around and I ended they ended up not hiring me because they weren't paying me any money But but allowed me to come in late at night and answer the request lines For the dj who was on the air at night And just feeling like I was a part of that team Was it was like not the night ever felt before and I thought this is what I want to do I think so So I went off to college and uh ended up getting my first class radio not first class, sorry That was really ambitious third class FCC radio license and and uh while I was out there and um boulder I was going to school at uh CU boulder and so I went down to Denver got my got my lodge. Yes Great place to be and got my license and um in 1974 went I quit school went home got married and About a year later Uh in the beginning of 1975 actually Got my first job in radio Uh, it was a fluke as my brother-in-law at the time was working for a station Doing news and he said look. I know you want to get into radio and the station. I'm working at It's going to be changing formats and they're going to be people are going to quit Not quit. They're just they're all getting tossed. Yeah, they're all getting going in a different direction Exactly. Yeah, so they cleaned house and I went down talk to the new program director And even though I I had no experience It was the kind of radio station was perfect because it was a beautiful music station where you didn't have to be a personality Um, they just needed basically button pushers to to run the tapes, you know, it was all formatted FM 96 yeah, and come on every court the same story Quarter hour doing, you know doing the time attempt and read a PSA and that was it And so they hired me to do weekends Midnight to six And graveyard. Yeah, you you couldn't get more graveyard than that, but you were on but I was on the air and I was hired by a radio station It's like Well, listen on that this is Yeah, it was long because it was midnight to six um For whatever reason they had a a dark room timer Uh at this radio station. It was a big timer, you know, that had the knob that you could set it So what I would do is I would look at the next quarter hour Of music because it's all pre-recorded, you know, this is just the big, you know 10 inch 12 inch reels and And I would see how long the next break how long the next segment was And so I would set the timer right to a minute shy Of whatever that length is if it was 13 and a half minutes, I'd set this to 12 minutes And then I lay down on the floor And I would sleep And then the timer would go off I'm feeling that sometimes it didn't go off. Well, maybe there are a couple of times Or it went off and I didn't But uh, yeah, so I would you know, I get effectively if you know about four hours of sleep a night Well, I was at the radio station. Oh my gosh, if my if you're out there, buddy Mark growl And I mean not mark raw but uh mark rough. He was my pd at the time. I didn't really do that Yeah, that was that was nice telling a show. That was 1975. Yeah, it was a long time So anyway, that's how I got my start and then I sort of You know bounced around from one station to another Um, but all in the in the Cleveland market I I didn't want radio so badly that I was going to go to El Paso and and do an evening shift You know, uh, if I if I couldn't just stay in Cleveland that I would do something else was my attitude And uh, I was real interested in theater. I was doing a lot of theater at the time and and um And uh modeling I was a modeling and I was doing anything that I could think of in the Cleveland market That had anything to do with the entertainment industry. So So, yeah, that's how I got started and it was in that process at one of the radio stations that I was at Uh along around 1978 or so that I discovered voiceover and then that's where the voiceover thing Hit when I realized because I was production director at one of the stations I was working at and of course as production director you you You know, you have to voice all the spots or most of the spots and produce them for the station And cast them and go like get the traffic manager and the sales manager and the station manager and make no extra money for it Right. Yeah, so I was working at a radio station where they had hired me for mid days and and but they had a separate production guy and They fired the production guy after I would been there about a year. They fired the production guy And gave me the job as production director As well as my my midday shift, but didn't give me any more money. Oh, wow So they got ready they got rid of a salary and it gave it all to me And of course I sucked it up because I love production. Yeah, and I did then I I still do now and uh And so yeah, so I was doing a lot of production But when I realized that there were ad agencies in town Who wanted to use my voice on a spot and they'd hire me and I'd go to a and in you know, uh an independent recording studio In cleveland that wasn't my radio station. I could just walk in and walk out I could walk in and walk out and they actually pay me cash money And wow, wow, and I can still do my radio job But I can do this on the it was like, holy cow. This is a revelation. See it was a revelation. Yeah, totally was And uh, and so I started pursuing more of that and finally after about Maybe four years of doing that. I was making more money a year In cleveland doing my freelance voice for this stuff. Absolutely. Then it was the radio station I thought this just makes no sense. I'm working six days a week on the air and doing production And uh, just you know, so I went in I asked for a raise after the May sweeps after the May book came out in 1984 And I went in I I had all my numbers highlighted and yellow and everything and I thought they've got to give me a raise And they didn't the PD just sort of looked at me says we've got no money for that I said, well, then you know what? And this is not characteristic for me, but I had gone in there thinking If they don't give me a raise Then I'm giving them my two week notice Well, you said you had an intention set, you knew I really did and and like I said, typically I don't do that But I did I thought, you know what dog gunner I deserve this and I I need this And they didn't give it to me. And so I said, well, then consider this my two week notice and then all of a sudden He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa I said, nah, you know what you showed your colors and it's time to go. So That was it. I worked for two more weeks and Then I was off but the move out here though probably never would have happened if um about This is right after so I had just turned 30 in the end of may of 1984 And and then I just quit my radio career about two weeks after that and about two weeks after that I got a call from my landlord saying we've been renting this house for about five years and he said, uh I'm gonna be selling the house. You guys are gonna have to move now. I had three little kids at the time And um, and two of them were already in school Yeah, and I thought and he said we've got to be out by the end of september of 84 night Right in the middle of school right in the middle of it. Yeah, it's like, you know heading into summer and I thought I got to be some settled someplace before that because I got to get my kids in school Right So I thought that gives me like two months to figure out what to do Well, I'd always wanted to move either to new york to pursue acting Or move to la to pursue acting Not giving much thought to doing voiceover as a career and certainly not radio I mean, I had had 10 years of radio and it was fine for me But it wasn't the love of my life and and and I thought acting was so So that summer, um I made the decision I talked to my wife about it and made the decision to move out here And I came out right after the olympics of 84 Which would have been toward the end of august almost about the 20th of august or so around in there Looked around for a place to live found a little place over in glendale to rent and literally two weeks later We're living here. I mean, I flew home. We had a house sale. We sold a car and You know called the moving company they packed us up and that's committed right there You just up and moved I knew one person out here and she's somebody that I had done some community theater with back in cleveland and some youth theater and And she but she was great. She got me an interview at her agency, which at the time was special artists And jeff danis was the brand new voiceover agent there at that point and And then her husband david jolyph had gotten me You know an interview over at spv Um, and then I also got an interview over with tisham So Well, you're getting shot. So I so I went and saw these people but the but uh Sbv rita was great and she said, you know, I've already got some guys who sound, you know, pretty much like you Well turned out was rob paulson and cam clark And whom I didn't know at the time of course, but um, but but uh but jeff danis over at Over at special artists said, yeah, I'd love to sign you and so I did and I thought well, this is great I maybe do a little voiceover work in the in the meantime while I'm trying to get my acting career off the ground Well, I just I'd never even ended up pursuing seriously the acting thing because the voiceover thing just ended up taking off Pretty much right away. So yeah, wow. So that's how all that started. That's what got me here All right. Yeah, that's a great story in itself. Uh, if you're just joining us, our guest is townsen colman You've heard him on everything An animation. Well, not exactly everything but a lot of things a lot a lot of things are you doing depends commercials yet? I'm not doing depends. Okay. You mean on camera We got three old guys in glasses here Exactly Yeah, if you've got a question for townsen, we'd love to have you ask it join us in our uh, our chat room on facebook or on our home page and type it in in the chat room and jeff holman is our Social media czar tonight and he will relay that question to us and we'll get to that in our next segment All right. So you you've been doing this a long time since 1984 here in la I I assume from all the people I've met and talked to that things have changed a great deal since then You were able to waltz in here You know and and get an agent, you know, I'm sure it happened over a week or so. No, it was A couple of weeks. I got I just got really lucky. Yeah, sort of right place right time Yeah, well, and that's the thing when you get that kind of an opportunity You got to deliver And yeah, clearly you were able to do that. So luck favors the prepared exactly and uh, so You you're doing so what were some of the things you were doing when you first started here? Well, when I first started, um I like to say I got really lucky about six months after I moved here I with within a 10 day span of in march of 85 I Ended up getting my first on-camera national network tv spot for craft barbecue sauce Uh, I got my first little part in a movie Ended up being my only part in a movie ever But with the it was a scene with tommy lee jones in a in a picture which was kind of a trip back then and uh And my first cartoon series Which was in specter gadget and that's the thing that really Turned things around for me back then because I I had given no thought at all to doing Even though at some of the stations that I worked at back in cleveland, I'd done some character work and stuff, but Um And had done a lot of theater, but just never I don't know cartoons weren't really on my radar I came out here really to be an on-camera actor, which was sort of my my goal and my dream um But I I went on this audition for inspector gadget. They were adding a little character to the last 10 episodes of the series and And and and I went into this audition um Really with abandon. I just I didn't know a thing about it. I thought how hard can it be But the real but the real gay and I Admittedly that was very naive, but but back then uh I had gone on two callbacks already for this craft barbecue sauce on camera commercial And after my second callback and I'm dressed in this this get-up with a sweater vest and a bow tie and these big glasses I was supposed to be a sort of a a jimmy olsen kind of character Playing a photographer in this spot and right so I went dressed up as this sort of character And the callback went really really well And as an actor when something hits you just know it you just feel it you sense it and It's like you just know and so at that moment I knew that I had nailed that That that spot and it was just a matter of waiting to hear from my agent You know that I'd gotten the booking but I was so sure of it And because of that when I left the audition I was just I was just higher than it cost I mean I was walking on air and and I had to go straight from that callback To this audition for inspector gadget and I'm meeting with mark marsha goodman over at deak and She invited me in we went into her office. She had a little radio shack cassette recorder on her desk and a little radio shack mic I mean It's what my grandma the record interviews with me with when I was three Right, that's what was on the desk and you got the part, right? Yeah My grandma kept me so so I so I did this audition for inspector gadget and And we just had fun marsha and I were you know 15 20 minutes just messing around with this character and And I felt really good about that But it was really the on-camera spot for craft that I was that I was excited about And about two weeks about two days later Uh on the same day I got the call that I booked the The craft barbecue sauce spot and inspector gadget And so I had my first booking for this cartoon and I'll tell you What a kind of a life changer that was because I found myself In a little studio over in burbank. It was a b&b sound and And there's just four of us in the studio. There's marie slomarsh and it was mo's first Uh series also And there's frank welker sitting right next to me on this side. Maybe you've heard of that guy Well, I hadn't heard of him. No, I didn't know who he was You know don and me and then don adams is sitting right here and i'm just like Six months ago. I was living in cleveland. How in the world did this happen? But it did and I made the most of it, but but uh, yeah, so that was the day that I not only got my You know, it's sort of a face full of what animation was all about but what talent like marie's and frank were all about I they just blew my minds in that session And I'll never forget because it was at that session that because my kids had watched the show back in cleveland I knew that there was this character dr. Claw on this show that had You know an enormous voice and I always thought whenever I'd hear that voice in the background when I was back home That the guy I always tried to picture what the guy must have looked like because I didn't know who it was and I thought this guy must be like nine feet tall 800 pounds, you know And so when I'm actually sitting there in the studio and I'm looking at marie's and I'm looking at frank and I'm looking at Don adams who these are thinking this voice. Well, none of these guys can be the guy who does that voice So they must be they must do him separately some other time Maybe because they can't fit us all in the studio it was because the guy's so big So we're marking our scripts. I'm watching how they're doing this because I'd never done it before And we get to some line and I see that there's some dr. Claw lines coming up So I figure well, we'll skip over those and they'll probably do that guy later So we go into our first record of the first pass of the script and we get to that page that's got the lines For dr. Claw and I figure we're just about to skip over it when all of a sudden frank sitting right next to me Opens his mouth and out of his face falls this Incredible voice And I was so stunned. I was so shocked at that moment that I kind of forgot where I was and I guess headphones on right? What's that? You probably had headphones on maybe i'm guessing. Uh, so like you're hearing his voice in your ears No, he was just sitting right next to me. I just hear him and I was so stunned. I gasped and I went. Oh my god That's you And then I realized wait a second. We're recording And and I felt like such an idiot, but I was so blown away that this guy here next to me was Ah, it was too much remember that voice. I hadn't heard it in 30 years, but I remember I'll get you next time catch it Next time. Yeah, it's just amazing and and so that was my intro into Animation and I said to my agent. I said please you guys It's stuck. Oh, so yeah, send me out on more of these kinds of auditions because right because this song is fun And I'd never considered it before but yeah, that's great. And you've had a great career What you're still doing? Uh, yeah, you were michael angelo on michael angelo newton newton ninja turtles Not just any mutant ninja turtles adolescent adolescent, right? Yeah, now senior senioritis mutant ninja turtles But yeah, ninja turtles. I did the tick. I was um I was scott on teen wolf Did I was goba on fraggle rock? Uh, I was the voice of waldo and wears wall um The sentinel prime on transformers animated. I was on the original animated. I mean the original transformers It was was fraggle rock at puppetry. I can't remember the original one was yeah on it was the muppets Oh, it was a muppet. I don't it's not dumb muppets, but it was by jim henson But then they didn't they were all like accident series. Um animated series But yeah, nbc did the animated version of it. So I was on that rob paulson was on that and What all these great names and great talents and stuff But I I guess the question that our audience would would ask and maybe some of them will but i'll ask it first People think that just doing it's all about doing funny voices and that's not it at all Tell us what it's really all about when you're when you're doing that type of work. Yeah, it's really all about acting You know, I mean you can you can have funny voices But if it's but if it's but if you can't if that funny voice can't translate Into a into a fully fleshed out character that that you can maintain through the course of a script Uh show, you know the the funny voice is kind of worthless, you know And conversely you can be a good actor too without the ability to be able to stretch and and Sort of see and think outside the box in terms of you know What this instrument that we we all have is capable of doing You know, it's one of the things that I I really enjoy when I when I I don't teach often But when I do teach, um, it's one of the things I really enjoy seeing Happen with actors when they kind of don't realize what they're capable of doing But you give them just a few little tricks Uh about you know, how to access you know more of the range in their voice or more of the depth or more Whatever it is They start putting some of those pieces together and And seeing their eyes light up and seeing them come alive with with realizing and holy cow. I can I Wait that came out of me. That's weird. I could I could do that So, yeah, I mean, it's really about acting. Um, but it's about it's it's about imagination. It's about being able to Um, I think it's about not holding yourself back But being able to open up and and just just try stuff, you know, and yeah, that's an experiment So great. Well, once again, our guest is Townsend Coleman We're talking about animation and his career and all the fun stuff that goes on in the studios here in Hollywood If you've got a question for him throw it in the chat room right now We'll try to get to it in our next segment here on voiceover body shop. So don't go away. We'll be right back This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voiceover body shop 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? This is virgin radio. Well, okay. We're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes for working Dickies because I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values A leader for california and a voice for america. It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smartphone But it's so much more. It's a the files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs. What time is hockey practice? Check out this song. It's the end of the road for rig This is your knee rig when hope is lost the i8 from bmw Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's j michael collins. I bet you think i'm gonna try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email. It's j michael at jmc voiceover dot com Now if dan will stop waxing this mustache for a minute, we'll get back to the show so Level later. 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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 voice actor websites dot com like our name implies voice actor websites dot 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 voice over website going for as little as 700 dollars So if you watch your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options Go to voice actor websites dot com where your vo website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what? This is bill radner, and you're enjoying voice over body shop with dan lennard and george widdum v obs dot tv And we're back Here we are right here with dad and george and tomson. It's tomson. I shot your name. It's the morning show All right We're just talking about Bad dj's in the days of pukers. Oh, we had to do it. It still goes on though Well, it does still go on. Yeah, you know, but it's not just not here. Maybe not Yeah, you just you just The prerequisite for getting hired like that is you can't You can't have the ability to say m's or n's You gotta have like bad ad noise like that And you just become a pukers like because that's what everybody wants to hear Now one of the other areas you drifted into or maybe you didn't drift. Maybe you like took a direct route right there Oh, I did it was intentional. I went right for it promo work Yeah, no that yeah, you talk about being a dog leg there. I mean that Um, if I had never given any thought to doing Animation I really had given no thought to doing promos Because not that I wouldn't have wanted to and And I had done just a a few here and there kind of specialty promos Before this but as far as being the voice of a network or something like that I never gave that any thought because those guys were there, you know, that was done and and It seemed like hallowed ground or something was that it seemed like hallowed ground Oh, not only hallowed ground, but I mean these these guys were like the big voice guys in in the business and That was not me, you know, I I didn't I didn't have a voice like that I still don't and um And so I I never gave really any thought to it, but Again, one of these like just stupid lucky Lucky breaks I haven't be standing in Jeff's office in my agent's office at one point when by this time now it's at icm and And when we're just chatting chatting it is in the afternoon he gets a phone call from a guy over at nbc looking for A certain kind of Voice and I hear Jeff's end of the conversation and he's saying no no no no no no no no No, they they they won't do that that that that that but I happen to have a guy standing here Who does very much what you're talking about? And I'm like Hands me hands me the phone here on and he says just do your I'm like, oh, okay, so I get on the phone with guy and he says yeah, so you Jeff tells me you didn't and I said Yeah, he says well, could you just try saying this? And so I did in that style which was a popular style at the time and he said He said wow, that's great. Could you come over here and try it on a promo here at nbc? And I said sure when and he said but like this afternoon I said, I'll be right. Yeah so I I mean I literally left icm and Uh a couple hours later went over to nbc. They had a drive-on for me. I went down And this was in august of 1993 and and uh I was a big fan of dany dark's huge fan. I mean dany was one of my all-time idols in fact, I remember meeting him shortly after I I came to town in 84 probably in in 85 or 86 Sometime I had gotten a gig doing some kebler elves And dany was the voice of kebler. He was the the announcer on kebler and And I remember when I got this I was more excited about the potential of meeting dany dark than I was about doing a kebler elf, right, you know And sure enough at the end of the session dany showed up to do his, you know Little one-liner tag at the very end And I introduced myself to him told him I was a big fan and he was very gracious and he's a really cool guy So now cut to august of 93 and I go down to the basement at nbc and burbank And it's in a studio. They had at the time called pps2 and I went into this studio And they led me over to where the mic was and I was a little taken aback because I was so used to working when I did vo First of all, I always stood up. I never sat down and I was always in a studio You know with a control room, you know Well here they They had the announcer sitting in the same room with the room producer The audio mixer the cmx operator And then another producer all in this room. So there was no booth and I had to sit down So I was a little kind of weirded out about that at first. What network was this? It was in nbc. Yeah, John down in the basement. Yeah, so So I sit down. I'm sitting there at the u87 And and I look at the mic and well, first of all, I look at a chair This is so goofy, but I I look at the chair and I think oh my god, that's dandy dark's chair And and then I look at the mic and I sit down like Dark's mic and then it's up with the head. Well, these are dandy dark's headphones And this is dandy dark's volume control He was dandy dark's everything dandy dark's monitor in front of me and yeah, and I couldn't get him out of my head But they were starting this campaign called mussy tv And so they were looking for something that was not very promo e if you will Um, and I mean here all these years 25 years later. We're still hearing this not an ozery Conversational, uh, which is what they were looking for back then and so So we played around with this spot, uh for about 20 minutes and They liked what they got from it and they ended up putting it on the air that night And I was yeah, I was shocked and so that almost like introduced this new voice to promo That campaign well, yeah, yeah, but I I wasn't thinking that I was just thinking holy cow. I just did an NBC promo This is crazy. Yeah, you know, and of course, I'm thinking of my parents. They met work at an NBC at 30 rock um And this is my dad's goal was to be a voice on this network So that was pretty cool for me and but but what made it even cooler was Now it's on a friday the next day I get a call from my agent NBC wants you back today I'm like wow on a saturday So I went in did some more spot same thing on sunday same thing on monday for like almost a week straight They were having me in almost every day because they were doing a big push on this mussy tv campaign. I see so So all of a sudden they're using me a ton and within like two months um All of it's now i'm the voice of their tuesday night block And i'm i'm doing this mussy tv stuff and they give me a few things that are for thursday's Block two and and i'm like wow this is guy got to do a sign filled spot You know, it was like such a rush for me after about three months. I get a call over halloween weekend From a guy there on a friday night. It's seven o'clock at night. I'm standing in my kitchen. Hello Hi, this is tog crook over at NBC. Um, just want to let you know that they'd really like to use you for the tonight show promos Oh cool So we're wondering if you can if you're interested could you be here by seven o'clock on monday? and i'm like Yeah, I guess So I show up at seven o'clock on monday And uh, and we do the first of what they call hot topicals for jay because what had been happening was They were just running like 10 second generic spots and jay was getting his butt kicked by letterman at the time And so they wanted to do these topicals where they actually recorded bits took bits from the show that they had just recorded Built a 20 second promo around that and then got it on the satellite back to the east coast by 10 30 So 7 30 our time so we got like a half an hour to get this thing cranked out on the satellite back To new york by 10 30 because they wanted it on the air in that last half hour prime time and so It was only a five week gig because they wanted it for the november sweeps of of 93 Well at the end of that five week, I had such a blast doing that and at the end of that five weeks They just never told us to stop So I said well, so what do we do monday do we Like show up again. I said well, yeah, why don't you show up and we'll take it from there? So I showed up the following monday after that five weeks and It kept going for 16 years 16 more months 16 more years more years. Yeah, so that'll pay the mortgage Yeah, so that's how the mbc thing came came about for me and it was just uh Gosh, I mean what a what a blast and what an honor to have been even just given that shot You know to really to have fun with it and it took me about probably three or four months. I I got to say To get danny's voice out of my head Because he was he had such a signature sound and the way he said nbc and the way he sold comedy and the way he Just did what he did Was that's all I could hear in my head. Yeah, and especially when I said nbc and it it took me a long time It felt like a long time too. We got some questions from our audience. Let's hear them. All right, uh from treasurer rose Oh, treasurer I'm so excited to see towns in colman as the featured guest on this episode I'm particularly interested in his audio drama theater work as jason wittaker and the adventures in odyssey or anything else How does he view audio drama as similar or different from other genres of voiceover work? Well, uh, you know, it all again gets back to acting. Uh, yeah, exactly. Um, so in that sense, it doesn't really Um differ that much, uh, trisha, um, You know, I love my my the work that I get to do on adventures in odyssey Uh long running radio drama. Um, they just celebrated so they've been going. What about the 33 years now? I've been on the show since 1994. So at this point, it's the longest running gig that I have and I'm still doing it So I'm very thankful for it. Um, but it's acting and uh What what what facilitates the acting in a show like this is great writing Great writing and great production is what makes a show like that work. I think and and and so they've just been a great bunch of Folks to work with uh out of colorado springs. They come into town We record the shows here and then they go back to focus his headquarters and Actually produce the show back there Jess, do you need a demo to do that kind of stuff to break into that or because it's probably an expanding genre with podcasting and stuff like that Yeah, uh radio drama audio drama. Um There's there's so many genres now within voiceover that you can really sort of kind of Sort of pick pick your weapon if you will and and hone in on that zero in on that as much as you can demos I think are are going to be critical in Pretty much any area of voiceover. I think still When I came out here from cleveland, uh, one of the things I came out with was a really strong demo because I had A I was a production director. So I knew, you know, sort of what to listen for and I had been doing at that point of vo for about five years and And I and also in that job I was responsible for taking all these quarter inch tapes that were sent to us from chicago And la in new york that had all the big national announcers on you know So when I would get a tape in that had danny dark on it, you know for chevy or for Um For anhyzer bush, uh, oh my gosh, I would listen to these voices and I want to find out who they were So I really did a lot of homework when I was Producing spots and when I was production director in cleveland and and so I knew I came out with a really strong demo Well that ended up being a um Probably the best tool I could have come out here with Uh, because it it really is in many ways kind of what what launched me into the career that I've had Demos are still important. Um You know, they need to be specific. You don't want a demo that's gonna You know show a little of this a little animation a little commercial little promo a little audio book a little You don't you don't want something like that. You want them to be specific. You want them to be short You want to get right To just like in radio, you know, when you send out an air check to to another radio station to try and get a A job at another station the pd. Oh listening couldn't they listen to these things all day You know, he'll listen to the first, you know 5 10 seconds and know instantly whether this is somebody they want to even continue Listening to or not. Yeah, and so So yeah demos um demos are are critical Not And I suppose it depends on the area of the business you're in But I want to say demos are almost more important for getting agents They're getting an agent than they are for getting the actual work Now I think they are important for getting the actual work to casting directors aren't generally listening to the demos They're like, what have you done lately? Well, they're they're listening to the audition that your agent has just sent you, you know And you've mp3 back and hopefully, you know, your your mp3 doesn't Disappear out into the ether like so often feels like the case right George. We got a question from portugal. What? Not it's not true. Yeah, Jose Lucio Duarte Uh, please ask towns and how he uh, how he records went away from his studio And if we if you use plugins for mouth noise things like that, he's more into the tech stuff of this Um, if I record I record documentaries without looking at the image. Oh if you record Documentaries without looking at the images Uh, thanks cheers from portugal So first, how do you what's a remote rig? What do you do when you leave your home? All right. Well, there are a couple of questions in there. Um, first of all, my remote rig is, um Uh, in increase it is becoming increasingly smaller as the years go by. Yeah, I just use macbook pro Um, I was using a short x2u to get my I've got a for well, you guys can't see this But there's a 416 plugged in here so that we can all hear the lovely dandruff under here. Um But so I use a 416 I was using a short x2u, but I'm now using the um The sentrance mic port pro 2 Yeah, um, which is a really cool little Little device for a number of reasons. Um, but I still love the short x2u Trust me. I do not go out of my way to have any expensive fancy box that I lug along with me because frankly I don't think it's worth it. I don't think people can hear the difference You know, or at least most people can't the people that that matter can't hear the difference So that's why I don't bother, you know with anything high end like that. Um And uh, and just a pair of earbuds that you plug right into the side of the short x2u or in this in my case into the My port pro 2. Um, so that's it. I don't use plug ins. I just record straight into twisted wave and uh do my editing in twisted wave and Send the mp3 to my my agent, but if I'm doing an actual session So those would be auditions and I typically don't do auditions from the road um I take my rig with me in case I have to work and I am very blessed and fortunate to still have a job that is A daily gig. I've voiced the the promos the daily promos for live with kelly and ryan And so if I go to visit my daughter in the bay area or my son in denver or my other daughter in phoenix I always take my rig with me. Um Because I do I I work every day from home and I do my promos From home, but it's it's live in the sense that they're feeding me the track from studio city here in town Um, and I'm hearing the track and announcing to it and they're recording my voice on their end So So it's super convenient super efficient. Um It's just super And uh, and so but I still have to do the same thing when I go on the road So so what I um, I use ipdtl to connect Used to have to bridge through source connect and uh, the a guy who had a remote Studio where he just bridged the isdn with them again. Yeah, I mean just like plug them together International symbol for yeah, the plugging cables Yeah, and I don't mean it like that. Um But yeah, so I use ipdtl to do my sessions when I'm on the road But it's it is as stripped down as they get and it's getting to the point now where Um, I probably it's getting very close now to the point where I won't even need to take my laptop with me. Um, I'll just do it from my phone Um, yeah, it's getting there. So yeah, and you do a pillow fort. What's that? I don't do the floor for it No, you know what? I see these I see these posts of guys, you know building their pillow forts and all this crazy stuff I never do that However, understand that the reason that I don't is there there's a couple of reasons Hey, I'm a really loud announcer So it says a lot of volume coming out of my mouth when I announce Because these are promos and they're they're up exciting promos and I'm having to fight with a lot of crowd noise music Sound effects. I mean all kinds of stuff going on So so I'm loud anyway. I'm on a 416 which is highly directional I work at like three inches from the end of the the mic at the gain pretty low It gains pretty low, you know, so I don't crush it and And so it almost doesn't matter what room I'm in if I'm in a hotel room, you know Unless there's like a lot of banging and stuff going on Um, I just I don't need the pillow forts and stuff Now if I were doing an audiobook and I had a large diaphragm condenser Well, sure then of course, but a I'm not ever carrying ever carrying a large diaphragm condenser on the road with me and And b I don't do audiobooks So, you know unless it's unless it's something that's real nice and quiet and easy going that I really need super quiet I don't worry about pillow forts. I don't worry about plugins I don't you probably don't have to worry about rx7 mouthy clicking either because you're doing you're projecting so much right Listen, I'll I'll I'll give you an example. Um, a couple of years ago I was at the nab show with kevin, uh, and the gang from ip dtl And I was working in their booth and but I still had it was during the week And I still had to do my session so I did my session from their booth on the floor In fact, I think you were there that from a booth. I mean we say booth. We don't mean a voice over booth No, we mean like a trade show an expo hall He's sitting at a like a desk a desk a table a huge hall with yeah in the middle in the middle of this expo room Yeah, and Was doing my sessions with all the ambience of the the convention You know show and and people talking in groups behind me and stuff I was still doing my sessions boom like that with studio city, you know live to them back here in la and Not a problem at all and and what little background noise there was the engineer on this end He just put it through rx and let him clean it up. Yeah, let him clean it Yeah, I got rid of the background noise and stuff and they still put it on the air and it's on five You know, so I I think we sometimes worry too much about all this You know high-end, you know gotta be the best Gotta be avalan gotta be whatever There are just a couple of things in your quiver that really that really are critical for me. It's the 416 Starts right there and then and then Beyond that, you know the interface is like Kind of whatever you're comfortable with You know and whatever travels well, we're gonna test a whole bunch of interfaces one of these days against each other And we're gonna we're gonna really try to listen. Cool. Do they make a difference hundred dollars five hundred dollars? Well, I'll tell you the the sure x2 u is a 99 dollar little cigar shape. You know thing that is just it's brilliant and it works so well and But what I like about the the sentrance mic port pro 2 now is It um, you can you can plug it in to a lightning connector, right? So I can plug it into my iphone Yeah, so all of a sudden now I've got a way to get my 416 into my iphone really conveniently And I don't have to worry about my iphone Powering the 48 volt fan of power on it because it's got a built-in rechargeable battery that lasts forever And it's got a great mic pre in it And it's got a little limiter. It's got a little limiter built into it too. So I mean this thing I just think it's brilliant so much for our harlin hogan commercial for tonight Harlin, I'm so sorry man. I see we got it's great. I see we got a harlin hogan mic here That's right. We did it. It has been great having you at this time. He's a great story. Are you playing me off? No, you can stay here for you can stay all night if you want But we got we got to go for for this segment anyway. Okay. Good. Now we got to do some tech talk Yeah, thanks for being here. These are great stories. It's my pleasure things that People like me can totally relate to because you and I have the exact same story only You came out to la in 84 and I went home So anyway, that's right. Yeah, anyway, thanks for being here. Thank you. All right, George And I'll be right back to wrap things up right after this This is Anthony Mendez. You're watching voice over body shop Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead Now there's one place where you can explore everything the voice over industry has to offer that place is voice over extra dot com Whether you're just exploring a voice over 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 Voice over 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 voice over success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voice over audition It's all here at voice over extra dot com. That's voice over x t r a dot com Well, it's that time of the show where we get to talk about one of our long time sponsors here at the show that source elements and they're the creators of source connect source connect now And quite a lot of different tools on that website. In fact, if you want to see I can't even possibly cover everything they make here in this one spot But if you go over to source dash elements dot com Take a look over there and see what kinds of services they provide because they're adding new features all the time But for you guys in voice over the one tool that most of you probably want to explore getting Because you want to start doing bigger gigs you have an agent now And you're starting to do larger budget projects where they're recording you from another studio You probably want to explore getting source connect There's a two versions source connect standard and source connect pro The one you want to check out is source connect standard and you can get a free 15-day trial right over at the website He uses this thing called an iLock for licensing don't have to buy the little usb dongle It works right on your windows or mac computer And get yourself acquainted with source connect and learn how to use it because chances are at some point One of your clients or one of your agents is going to say you got to have it to get this gig Or i'm not going to hire you or you're not going to be on my agent's roster Unless you have it so get it up and going get used to how it works And tell them we say we really appreciate it. I'll be right back here to wrap up the show right after this Voice over essentials only has five of the mixer face without the sd card version The sd version kind of baffles me for vo anyway being a worth an additional hundred bucks Back up I guess but I always want to record to some device where I can edit Anyway, the no recording version is on sale now at voice over essentials And they only have five left the regular price 349 94 sale price 329 94 free shipping in the continental us mixer face r4 integrates your iphone ipad or android device into the audio production workflow Making mobile recording easy for broadcaster musicians and vo artists on the go combined with a long lasting rechargeable battery To new trick combo jacks headphone monitor and 24 bit 192 kilohertz converters You get an unbeatable mobile production tool right in your pocket. Get it now Over at voiceover essentials dot com and tell them we sent you. Thanks, arlan I think I heard the voice of a body shop. I did. I did hear the voice of a body shop Little body shop Great stuff from tounson cold it was those are stories that I love because that was my story You feel it feels familiar. Well the production director stuff all the things that he was talking about I I did all those things and it was just great fun Uh, let's see next week on this show. We're going and we'll get to it a little bit is tech talk number 28 As we go into 2020 and I mean this is rolling along people just love that sort of stuff We got lots of cool stuff to talk about Uh, and then on march 16th We're actually have to skip a week because i'm gonna play and I gotta Can't do it on a monday night. So yeah, we'll miss one week. Uh, simon van It's for the right reasons though, right? acting Simon vanse will be joining us from his new studio. Oh fantastic and uh, we haven't talked to simon in a long time So that's gonna be a lot of fun. Uh, who are our donors of the week? Oh, they're right here in green I can't I'll see uh matashka morshuka who she's been on the show. Oh, yes christie burns Rob rider raider and that should be raider, which is written by the way. This is his studio And we're in rob raider's studio right now. Very nice. Thank you, rob Uh, graham spicer uncle roye oakleson at antlamp productions michelle blanker sarah boyges philips appear shelly avalino george widdum senior thanks dad And patty gibbons and lastly mike gordon. What a nice list of names there. That's great a lot of familiar ones too I have to is on our website go to the donate now button and help us out to keep this Error free well, maybe not error free, but at least technologically magnificent looking great and colorful and all the cool things that go on Things are moving. That's right. Not like a slide show. It's pretty cool We like that uh join our mailing list So you can find out what's going on in the show easy to do. How do they do that? Well, they can sign up by uh going right over to v obs dot tv and there's a subscription button on the page We're not going to spam you but we'll let you know what's going on on the show who's coming up and And that kind of stuff right and if you'd like to be in our studio join us Right to us at the guys at v obs dot tv Tell us when you're in town or you're in the neighborhood or something like that It's way fun when you guys are here live with us. It just changes the whole changes the energy It's a lot. It's a lot more fun. Absolutely. And there's the studio right there. The studio camera is working You could be sitting right there between towns and then job right yo and send us your booths. We want to see your booths uh This is rob raider studio here and send it to us in Landscape not portrait landscape. I know that's the thing to do in instagram. It's not tick-tock everybody This is this is television. This is 16 by nine widescreen Okay, uh, we need to thank our sponsors because without them we wouldn't have sponsors Uh, harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements voheroes.com voice actor websites And j m c demos. That's james muggle collins right, but it's jmc jmc demos He's changing the brand name is that is the brand he's gone kfc on us. He is okay That's right jmc demos. We also need to thank the dan and marcy lennard's foundation for the betterment of live and recorded Webcasting and podcasting Uh, our amazing technical director Sumer lino who just gets it done every week. Say hi suit because I hooked up your mic Hi guys We have not taught her anything about mic technique. Oh, what is it? You'll talk below back. No. No. Hey, there you go. That works just great And jeff holman who was our social medias are tonight and helping us get the questions out there All right. Well, we got tech talk to do in just a couple of minutes. So stay tuned for that And if you got a question send it in our chat room. Anyway, that's going to do it for us tonight with this section I'm dan lettered and i'm george lennard and this is voiceover body show or vo b s Have a great week everybody