 Hey, we're back. It's voiceover body shop And there's people all over the place watching our show and we got a great show tonight because we have a wonderful Lovely guest who's going to tell us all about what she does and how you can improve your voice over business Or if she'll go off in some other direction. Alison Packer say hi Yeah, if you got a question for it throw it in one of the various chat rooms We got sitting around here and you know because we're everywhere. We're on Facebook. We're in our own page We're on YouTube. We're on Clubhouse and Radio Free Europe. Well, maybe not yet, but anyway working on it. Yeah Get those questions in there. We're gonna have a great time. Join us now for voiceover body shop 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 a 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 our 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 voice over essentials comm 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 comm become a hero to your clients with award-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 Oh Well, hello there, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voiceover body shop or VO Well, we're back after I know voice in there. It's you know the big star in our in our crew here Anyway, we've got a great show tonight Allison Packardly with us in just a couple of minutes But you know while while we've been gone for an extra week here George I've been getting ready to do a bunch of webinars and seminars and because you guys are demanding that kind of stuff It's teaching season it is teaching season and a lot of people like we don't know how to do this Well, we're gonna give you the opportunity now. You've got one coming up on audition Yeah, I'm gonna do my brand of a promo or primer really not a promo But it's a voiceover for audition or audition voiceover Primer so if you're in or primer is as you're watching or primer Is that what actually was the right way to say that is it primer or research? Depending what part of the country you're from right, right? Anyway, if you want to learn audition and and get up to speed with the new features because we're gonna have during Gleaves on actually it works it with Adobe to be there to share the new 2021 features And you can sign up at george the dot tech Right on the front page Well, I might even show up to that one. You know, well, I'm teaching a three-part series over at voiceover extra It's a three-parter one constructing your home studio The second one on how to properly record and edit and the third one on audio processing Which you know, if you know me will be about five minutes long No, just some very simple stuff the things you need to know for processing You know, most of the time like we like to say The engineers don't want you futzing with it, you know, that's what George and I are for you have futzing That's what they say. They actually say that I've heard more say that Anyway, we're here to talk about your about your voiceover business And the way we do that the best is to talk to people who are really successful at it I'm you hear them all the time and our guest tonight Allison Packard is One of the most uniquely versatile female voices in our business as an actor writer producer and musician She seamlessly moves between genres lending her face and voice to a myriad of projects for television radio film web and stage Allison could be her daily bringing to life over a dozen popular animated characters and breathing fresh authenticity into commercials and on-air television promotions written by a really good publicist Anyway, let's welcome to the show Allison Packard Allison welcome It's good to see you. It's great to finally have you on here. I mean Now you've known George for a long time and what are we gonna get Alice and Packard on the show? Well, there she is You were on my show a couple weeks ago, you're like, I can't believe you've never come on voiceover body shop Here we are make it happen All right. Yeah. Well, let's let's talk about, you know, what you do in your career first off, you know Where are you from originally and nobody's from here? I mean you run into a few Angelenos ended every now and again My house is actually from here. He's from oh, I grew up in Massachusetts. I grew up in a town called Hanson Which is in Plymouth County? So, you know, very puritanical kind of part of the country and I live there until I was 18 and then I went to Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts Which is it? They wouldn't take me trying to get into Emerson Well, they're lost Yeah, I was I loved my time there It was just super fun and getting to collaborate and just focus on the things that were exciting to me And I finished and I did my last semester. They have an LA program So you come out to Los Angeles? you would stay here for three months and Work in internship in the industry and then it's kind of a soft landing I just graduated and I was here and totally lit up about Los Angeles and You know with a bunch of my friends using cardboard boxes as furniture and you know, just really in the hustle and and Yeah, that was About 15 years ago. Oh And you just never left. I never left. I mean it literally never left the state. No, I'm just kidding But yeah, I mean this place has become home to me I guess So here we are yeah, and you and you you do so many different things We'll talk about some of the different genres of stuff you do. How did the pandemic affect your work? That's a good question. Um, I mean fortunately thanks to George I did have a home studio which A lot of my stuff some of my ongoing commercial campaigns and ongoing promo campaigns were already recording from home. So That aspect of things I didn't have to like on board a whole new system I didn't have to buy new gear and get it set up So I was fortunate in that way But the types of jobs that started recording at home shifted So before it was, you know, if I booked a one-off commercial, they'd usually just book a studio and I would go into lime or you know Studio awesome or something and that shifted So that every single commercial was from home and and then they also started doing animated television So I'm currently working on and the Nickelodeon reboot of rug rats I play a recurring character josh and That was all done from my home studio So that was different. Um, you know to be on a zoom with like 12 different people the casting department the Charlie ad was was the voice director on that. Um, and you know being responsible for My sound which is, you know Amazing and we had a great sound check and then there was like a blue jeans kind of hiccup That definitely was the more stressful session And then even I I was working on a video game. It's the outer world's dlc called perlin gorgon And they sent someone here. I think they had booked me for five sessions and they sent someone here And that person came with a whole separate rig microphone computer Zoom zooming like and it was this like big laptop and wirelessly connected and they would have me upload the files That was a whole another world. Um being responsible for somebody else's gear When you said they sent you a kid to the date was they they weren't operating it They set it up for you and then they said bye They yes, they said they set it up and they said bye, but they were kind of operating it remotely So they were you know, but but I was also riding my game And um having to adjust my levels and everything so that was like a whole new world um And you know, I mean especially in the I mean The pandemic has been happening for so long That I think there was a certain point where everybody kind of started to figure out the new paradigm and and how that was How that was going to be So here we are now still most things uh recording from home. I have done a few things in um in the studio and um, I'm fully vaxed vaxed baby. So um, I actually uh The best thing for me about going into the studio is just being able to Work with other people in a more collaborative fashion So I'm looking forward to that I think that's one of the things I you know, I miss the most is being able to work with other people Everything's remote. I'm tired of zoom meetings. I'm tired of all of this stuff I need hugs. I go to work part somewhere. I want to hug Doesn't happen that much Yeah uh Remind everybody that we're talking with alice and packard if you've got a question for her You can ask it in our facebook chat room. You can ask it in the chat room on youtube You can ask it on clubhouse where denny bernside is sitting by Listening to us and uh, if you raise your hand over there, you'll get a chance to ask your question personally live With alice. So make sure you get a chance to do that You also do a little bit of on-camera and stage acting. I take it that's something that you did earlier in your career. Um Are you still doing any of that? Yeah, um, you know, I mean I came out here equally interested in on-camera acting and voiceover and like many voice actors Just found myself working more in that field. So you follow the heat and um, and I've been fortunate enough to You know within a couple years had booked some some really fun field game roles and Um, just have been able to work pretty regularly Um in voiceover now in terms of on-camera. I I write and produce a lot of my own content. Um I Also enjoy writing music. I actually just posted on tiktok tonight. Um a parody video that you guys should go check out Um, I'll post it to instagram. I think but um Yeah, it's it's really fun. So i'm i'm really enjoying I see myself as really I enjoy all aspects of things which for better for worse jack of all trades master of none I don't know but I enjoy um I enjoy putting out the stuff that I write Um, so I just see how can I have the freedom and flexibility around that and that's another great reason why voiceover does give you uh freedom and flexibility to a certain extent that some careers don't Yeah, I kind of choose when when you do your auditions to a certain extent and um You know and and manage your time wisely Yeah, well now i'm looking forward to seeing these. There's been some really great parody videos During the pandemic and there are a couple of guys that you know the If you are you familiar with the Holderness family at all Or uh, johnny rainbow or you know, some of those guys some really great stuff because people were getting very bored as i'm sure You probably were it's like hey, let's do let's do a video. I got an idea Let's put it on my show and people need a creative outlet. Yeah, there's so many actors They're like out of Broadway out out of theater just like yeah, I kind of jump out of their skin So there's been so much creativity. Yeah Uh, so you you write your own music which to me is always like Well, that's that's better than even reading it, you know, which I can't do but but being able to write it yourself Is uh, what kind of stuff do you do? You know again, I it's so funny You're gonna see a common theme of like not sticking to one thing I mean a lot of the stuff I write is in a singer-songwriter kind of um indie folk pop vibe um I put on an album in 2019 which you can hear on spotify and youtube and all the usual spots um, so it was kind of like an indie folk vibe and um, You know, it it just ranges the gamut. I would say some of it. Um, I write for the ukulele and that stuff is more Uh, do you play the ukulele down? I I try george has seen me try doing it Uh, the wife and I tried getting a ukulele band together the ukulele nerds. It just never took off Uh, you know with the four chords that I knew I tried a while ago too if we had a my my aunt when she turned a certain age We had a huge luau party and all the guys learned some songs on the ukulele. That was a lot of fun Yeah, but that's a great instrument though I mean it just has this wonderful tone to it and you can you know, the things you can do with it that I'm like Hey, I never thought about playing uke before but You know, it's it's fun stuff Now you do a lot of different different genres of material. Um For vl I mean your voice over practice as we like to call it. Um Different skills are needed for different genres. I'm for for instance. I mean for commercial I mean you've got to be able to do Also, whatever the specs ask for and and of course, you know, of course, whatever the specs ask for Generally, that's not what they're looking for What what what cut the type of commercials do you enjoy doing most? um, you know, I just um did a campaign for cliff bar that I really liked and um, I would say it's aspirational Inspiring that kind of uplifting type of read. I really Like doing those kind of powerful pieces like that. Um I've done, you know, I do a lot of retail on the voice of lazy boy furniture stores and um You know retail reads are a very different beast What's very popular as you guys know in the voice of a commercial world is non-announcer Um and retail, you know, you're an announcer They want you to hit 30% but I just I love working on that that campaign because It's a somewhat of a fresher take on the retail. It's not like a stale retail read So I enjoy do not and um Yeah, it then I also recently did some stuff for a mirror prize which um that read was uh I think the spec was um old enough Old enough to know but young enough to like not to go for it or something like that You're like, oh, you know, that's that's kind of throughout your life Your voice doesn't change too too much But I was listening to stuff that I recorded in my 20s and I was like, oh, yeah, I sound a little younger You know, um, so it's kind of nice actually to be um aging into that read Where you are the one making with the purchasing power, you know um And the one talking to the consumers as opposed to just like In the beginning of my promo career and the beginning of my voice of her career was more like Hey guys backyard again. You know that sort of thing and now my rate is much more Grounded. I mean at least if it calls for that um so So, yeah, I mean I think that's the fun thing about commercials is really dissecting what they want in the specs and seeing how your voice print Dice intersects with that. So, um You know, I sometimes I I mean I always read the specs and sometimes I Listen to what they say and sometimes I go out on a limb and I think I think what they're actually trying to say is this Um, you know, you just have to trust your gut when you've been doing it long enough, you know You can you can take the liberty to do that. I'm gonna have a little bit more freedom and a little bit more play, but Do you audition up regularly? I mean, I mean, I mean our jobs are to audition but I mean, how many auditions do you generally do in a day? Excuse my chair from Three to twelve I would say It depends. I think I probably did Ten auditions today and I think I have four right now for tomorrow, but um Certain auditions take a lot more time than others. Um, definitely an animated series or a series regular in a pilot or something is Gonna take a lot more time than Uh a more intuitive kind of read, uh commercially um So, you know sometimes one of my like cool new hacks that I like to do is And this isn't always the case because sometimes, you know, you don't have time to do multi-day prep on something but um to be able to let it rest To record the audition and then let it rest and then you go back to it the next morning or with You know a couple hours in between and you can really put your director hat on and here where uh Where you were led astray or maybe where you were faking it and you didn't even realize it Um, so I feel like that's something that um if I have the time I really I really like to do that Yeah, well time is one of those interesting things because I know a lot of people like I gotta get this audition out You know, it's like gotta be out. It's gotta be out in 10 minutes I'm like I've always believed that time's not that much of a factor if you want to get it right And if you're you know, there's a deadline. Yeah, you want to get it in But being the first one in isn't necessarily the best thing if you're if you're gonna do a half-assed job with it All right. Yeah, I mean the key is the work at the end of the day But then there's a lot of people that will argue that the role's already been cast by the deadline and um I'm also a mom. So, you know, I'm probably You know, not the person that's going to get it in consistently early every time I'm gonna I'm gonna manage my time so that um I get it in before it's due, but I'm not I'm probably not the early bird that catches the worm sometimes. Yeah, if it comes in Especially if something comes in the afternoon and I'm just sitting here at my desk I can record it and and get it out. But um, yeah Yeah, there's a certain kinds of voice over that really demand very rapid turnaround Yes trailer promo for sure. Um much more so than other things um Yeah, I see a question coming in. Do we answer them? Don't worry about We'll get to the questions. Okay. Okay. That's our department. Okay. So, um, so, yeah, uh, you know, um Just what was the question we were talking about? So like some of the auditions you really do have to be super on top of it Yeah, yeah, they want a promo and trailer But commercial usually have a little more lead time because there's a lot more production time that goes into producing a commercial, right? Yeah, absolutely. Um and like a voice match like, uh, adr for trailers in particular they they, uh Usually want that pretty quick and you know, a lot of times will lift your audition So, um, I always give them a lot of options for that sort of So when they lift your audition and what you're saying is you might just you might do the audition and then they go We got it. Yeah, you don't have there's no session. Yeah, the audition is the session Which means the audition quality is It's great. Yeah, actually my son my son. He's five. He just booked his first voiceover job and um, he recorded it here and You know, he's he's five is five is little he sounds like he's three too. He is a very cute kid boys and um, they lifted this audition For the commercial so he didn't actually have to do the session which was awesome And you're just sending an mp3, right? That Was I think I mean sometimes they will request a wave Um for the audition that was sometimes. Yeah for trailer adr stuff But most more often than not it's still just an mp3 Um, so yeah, I mean it's kind of crazy that the broadcast quality that that's sometimes suffice Yeah, we don't use the word broadcast quality around here. There's no such thing There's the quality of your studio, which is professional quality. There's no doubt that it's broadcast quality Whereas we like to say it doesn't sound bad It don't sound bad It don't sound bad. Yeah, I think that's I mean with kids I'm sure it's like if they if the audition has what they wanted And it's all there. They probably know Do we want to book time with the kid actor and try to work with them and coach them or if this works You got it. Let's let's move on it makes sense And it helps, you know, if if the parent is a voice actor, then they can direct the child Yeah in the way that you know, um If they'll listen to you And and again with with that age, it's always a gamble, right? I mean It's a gamble if you get them on a bad day or they're tired. Who knows, um I gave it one shot with Ella at that age Oh, yeah, one shot. Yeah. Yeah, and it was it was the same idea a very cute little voice It was repeating what I was saying. She might have been four actually And uh, you know, it was that close Missed it by that much as far as we know, but you know, it was uh, it was a try But do you feel like you have the I don't know the momentum or the energy to want to keep doing that with your son long term So he he is um, my manager, um, and with cope management And so they just had some opportunities come in for actual kids and they sent it out and and I just said bodi Do you want to Do you want to try do you want to record it and he was all for it? Um, does he really he must really understand what you're doing that you're in there doing work So when he came in and he was on mic, did he know that was work? Did he look at it that way? Um, you know, I don't know. Is it kind of like pretending it's just like we're gonna do this fun thing on mic And how does it you know, it's I just find that a fascinating with kids Yeah, yeah, I mean and just trying to get him to stay on mic too. He's like Like you still hold there, you know, I Tell him to go like this and then I like talking to his finger It's hysterical, but it's you know, again um That if you want kid actors that can be a full-time job So, uh, it's I think it's got to be a buy-in for him and something that he really wants to pursue I haven't really reached out to try and get him representation or anything. We'll see. He's only five. So um, but we know You know, we all know the pros and cons of This business and you know, I want him to have a real childhood too. So yeah Yeah, yeah exactly, you know, but good luck getting in the head of a five-year-old kid though And trying to get the motivated candy Oh, yeah Yeah, uh, you you also you've also been doing a lot of uh game work too lately. What kind of stuff is and what's that really like for you? um well, uh, you know It's funny. I I'm sort of booking a lot of similar archetypes for video games Which is like the mistress death Many in outer worlds um Yeah, I kind of um You have a type I don't know these characters. I haven't been a gamer in a while. Um, yeah, so so I've kind of been Then um, you know, which is something I I feel comfortable with and and I love those roles. Um Uh, so yeah, I mean Games they they really there's such a range you could be in there for five sessions or more or just bang everything out in four hours and um, one of the very the very first one of the very first games I ever did was the blood elf in a game called world of warcraft and um, you know, that was like when I found out that millions and millions of people were playing this game and this character was You know one of the avatars and you could play as her but then to think oh, we've recorded this in like a two-hour session That's that small period of time had such a huge impact on The game in the world. It's it's just kind of interesting to think about it like that Yeah, once again, we're talking. Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that rough. It's okay. Um, a lot of times you are I mean almost always in games. I've never um recorded with another voice actor so you're in the booth solo recording on your own and um, Sometimes the director will read you in with the line before which is very helpful And sometimes you don't even get the line before so you're just giving alts You know alternate takes of what that line could mean stop right there Stop right there Stop right there, you know, just like different choices and maybe they'll direct you accordingly All right Yeah, once again, we're talking with alice and packard who does everything Uh, in commercials games animation Uh, again, if you've got a question for toss it in facebook Jeff holman is sitting there patiently writing down every word that you say Uh, and uh also on uh on youtube as well And if you're on clubhouse with dandy bernside Raise your hand in there if you want to get a question in with with alice in in our next segment in a few minutes I could have that Yeah, we'll get the chance to do that um One of the things that I know our audience is always interested in is about representation and You know, you talk to people and they're like, well, you know, I'm starting off. I'm going to get myself an agent I'm going to be successful. It doesn't quite happen that way. Does it? I mean, how did how did you come about getting an agent early on and and how do you maintain those relationships and Have you changed agents a few times since that? I have changed agents. Uh, my very first job was when I was living in boston and going to college um I just was called in through a casting agency and I didn't have an agent and Didn't really need an agent in that market and then so when I moved to la I knew I wanted to pursue voiceover and um, Janet Shaw who was uh, a woman that I went to school with She was an assistant at a talent agency and um, uh, that was my first agent She brought me in and brought my materials in and they signed me and um from there That was um, I went to an agency called tgm d and then from there I moved to cesd And so I've been there for about Eight years or something How did you approach them or did they approach you or how did how did you come about, you know, getting, you know You know top-level uh representation like that Uh, well at that time I believe I had done branding work with cilia seagull And so she um had a relationship with them and and sent them my materials and they set up a meeting and um The rest is history A voiceover manager i'm with cope management debbie cope and um, I originally met debbie through a promo producer named john murphy who sent her my stuff many many years ago and um, she hip-pocketed me for a few years You know many years actually like seven years um And uh, she didn't really have a lot of female clients at the time and and then maybe about three or four years ago she signed um three or four women And so she brought me on board at that time my job sometimes is to ask you what jargon is And the jargon of the night is hip-pocketing hip-pocketing. What does that mean? Well, uh, when imagine manager or agent hip-pockets you they will send you opportunities For you to audition for them, but you are not signed across the board. So If you book that job for them, then you give them 10 or in some cases 20 percent Um, and if you book something on your own, you're not responsible to pay them once you sign a contract or Or in something more formal then you owe them a percentage of the other work that you book not through them. Thank you Does that make it? Yeah, yeah That's that's I mean, it's just one of those jargon things I've heard thrown around so many times and never really defined clearly So that makes yeah, and I know I know that's obviously this is um, a four voice actors by voice actors kind of thing But if there's if I'm ever Um, too jargon-y just let me know Well and people want to know the jargon if you know the jargon it's easier to fit in when someone says something you're not faking it Yeah, it's actually good that I love it when people do use the jargon because that gives us an opportunity to Define that and educate so Our guest tonight is Allison Packard if you got a question again facebook youtube Or clubhouse we're gonna take a break right now and maybe get to some of your questions And we'll be right back right after this I think I heard the voice of a body shop. I did. I did hear the voice of a body shop Be a little body shop. Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you? Stick her out. You don't want to miss this 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 reward Until you forget to turn it on All right, that's it guys time is up Hey, it's jmc. Thanks for watching the voiceover body shop if you're demo ready or looking to get there Check out jmc demos dot com and see a sample of our work Now let's get back to dan and george and this week's tech wisdom And now a word from amazon prime and voiceover essentials dot com amazon dot com is celebrating small businesses again this prime day like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials Congratulations voiceover essentials your successful small business will be included in our prime day promotion saving your amazon prime customer's money Here's how prime members in the us get a ten dollar credit to use on prime day when they spend ten dollars or more on select voiceover Essentials products from june 7th 2021 the june 20th 21 Prime store card holders in the us earned up to 10 percent back on select voiceover essentials purchases from june 7th to june 20th Of course, you must be a prime member to take advantage of this offer These select voiceover essentials products earn you a ten dollar credit on any eligible product on prime day Not just ours like the harlan hogan portabouth pro and portabouth plus the harlan hogan via 1a signature microphone The harlan hogan stopwatch and the multicolor led recording sign Don't miss these great prime day specials at voiceover essentials dot com Hey guys. Hey listen, would you please say hello to alice and packard for me? I love her Thank you so much. Hey, it's david h. Lawrence the 17th and along with dan oday. I teach the acx masterclass dot com We want to help you put together a terrific successful and profitable audio book narration Practice and we have a series of free videos this week That are just going to knock you out One of them will talk about the seven myths that you need to know about to be successful in audiobook narration We'll also talk about the concept of accrued assets where you put together a series Of finished work that continually kicks off cash for years And then we'll introduce you to an inspiration a 57 year old Air traffic controller who had to retire was forced to retire and decided you know what i'm going to put my voice to use Narrating audiobooks. He's working on his 160th after just a few years You'll find all that this week absolutely free at acx masterclass dot com. That's acx masterclass dot com This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voice of her body shop And we're back with allison packard here on voice of her body shop. Welcome back allison Hi, that was so cool to see david h. Lawrence's face Yeah, well, that's always a fascinating face, isn't it? Um Um Yeah, anyway, uh, we got a bunch of questions here from our vast worldwide audience that is watching this show tonight and uh Let's see. What's the first one we got here george? Uh, this one we want to bring in is um from brian dawson And it says do you edit your auditions that much or do you just give a couple of reads and just send it off? so do you do a lot of Massaging of the content before you send it? I don't um, you know, I find that if I massage too much then I'm kind of chasing the idea of perfection as opposed to that Off the cuff thing. I mean occasionally What I I mean, usually I'll do like a couple takes and you know, depending upon how it feels Then when it starts to feel good, then I'll listen back and be like, okay You know, did I get that and if I need to do a pickup? Sometimes I will do another full take and and take a little pickup or maybe that take even you know Fixed what I thought was not working about the previous take, but I try not to edit it too much I don't know if that's the right thing to do. Uh, I definitely know some amazing voice actors that I've had on my show that have said um that they edit a lot and um So and I know they book a lot, so I'm curious. I'm curious about Uh, but I think everybody has to find their own method and what works best for you Um, if I get too in my head and start editing too much, then it's like it takes the joy An authenticity away from it for me. Um, but I can tend to be a perfectionist And that's not a super happy place for my work anyway So I have to kind of fight against that a little bit There was another thing that came up. We wanted to make sure that folks knew where to find some of your content That you've been doing like on tiktok and instagram. What is your tiktok and or instagram handle or name? So we can tell everybody it's listening and can't see the lower thirds. So, um Well, uh on tiktok. It's at allison packard. A l i c y n p a c k a r d I just posted a new parody video So I'd love it if you went to check it out If you really really love it and you want to share it that would be so amazing And then on instagram, it's just at allison because I used to be an early adopter and could get my first name everywhere and now So it's at allison. It's a l i c y n a l i c y n That's funny. I was like one of my old demos like I Pretended I just did the voice of a bunch of kids like The teacher was like teaching them how to spell the name. So that's that's how you spell it guys So, um, there's somebody asked a question. I'm not quite clear about this, but he uh, the fellow's name is dimebag darron Maybe it says it all right and he says where was the penny character in big bang from that's the place i'm picturing I don't i'm not sure that might have been out of context Janssen was she from plummet? He I think he typed that in after I was saying that I was from messachusetts So maybe yeah character is from that area probably your land of the puritans land of pilgrims So we didn't get to see your studio yet or hear much about our studio. Let's geek out a little bit I I um, I don't know Show you because I haven't I think the iMac just unplugged your audio equipment when you did that I Think like it back in We're talking with ellison packard and once she gets this all said no We'll get the problem with iMacs and the camera is all attached It's very hard to you know off the back of the computer. You've got five cables hanging off there and uh You might have to reset your audio in Stream yard. Yeah, just click on the settings thing there and get that in there Oh, she's doing that. I can tell you what's in there because I'm quite familiar with it. She's got There we go dual mic. There we go. Yes. Yeah, did you get your new dual mics thing figured out? No Fits on there and She does have a rig. So this is just an improved way of mounting um two mics on one arm But um, she found out that when you unscrew your shock mount for your tlm103 There's a little nugget adapter that's jammed inside there and Do you want me to guess? Can you not get it out of there? Can I get it out? Yeah, um, I was afraid of that. Yeah, but luckily she lives very close to uh Uh, what's it called? Um location sound they will have those things So I probably need to buy another one if you can't get it out of your mic clamp. Yeah So anyway, the way she normally has it rigged up is uh a tlm103 and uh senizer 416 And we're gonna do we're gonna do this new tbar thing to To just have a better I can't remember why we did that because it was hard to get the mics in the right place or did that other amount thing fall apart Um, well right now we have this Yeah, we had the tlm here and then We we decided to go with this which right right the senizer, but this keeps falling off Oh, it falls off right it falls off and and maybe I need a whole new boom arm because This it just gets so much movement I'm always moving it here for auditioning and then getting it out of the way when I'm just on my computer. So it's It's a high traffic Yeah, it feels like it's getting rocky Yeah, it's kind of funny when you set these things up You don't really imagine you may move it that often and in her case So she's got her 416 and the tlm103 she can use either one Um, they're feeding through an apollo twin And so when she wants to switch mics allison, you just load a session recall right and the apollo and it switches the mics That's right. You you set that up for me Um, and that works, you know speaking of pandemic prior to the pandemic Um, I you had created some effect stacks in twisted way that did um some small Um tweaking and e queuing and and I would use this pretty often but now A lot of times they're wanting to hear really just the flat straight flat Sound so I'm using them less these days. Mm-hmm Yeah, the requirements for auditions are shifting You know and and some of this is my own just sort of Assumption as to what uh, you know casting people want to hear But now that you know if you have a really good studio and dan knows this If you've got a great mic and a great room great acoustics quiet room And a good performance There isn't much that is needed to be done to that to clean it up. I mean it's It's when it sounds good coming out of the mic You're 90 you're you're basically there and I've been getting notes from clients lately saying that exact same thing That I've been using your stacks for a while But now I'm getting feedback that maybe it's overly compressed or whatever So there's definitely a shift in the and what people want. They want that raw raw sound Yeah, they want to know your studio Your studio is up to speed and that you haven't just Eq'd it into a nice place. You're not faking it. You're not faking it Exactly. Yeah, you're definitely not faking it in that room And that that then then so that's that's the that's the whole gist of it It's just that dual mic setup and then you've got the like dan an electric lift desk Yes Yours is going up dan's going down Mine's electric too The uplift No, it's not Yeah, Mishka's making lots of noise here too. So it's nice of me But uh, so when you had your son in there, do you lower the desk height? For him if he's recording. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, although he kind of just likes to situate himself over on the couch and be like, I'll go record over here He has his own spot where he records Yeah, but I like to record standing and sometimes I like to record sitting Yeah, so it's nice to have the options. I feel like it really You know, I I just wouldn't want to record a video game or an animated thing sitting most of the time for me I want to yeah be able to physicalize a little bit more but If I'm standing for a commercial sometimes I feel like it gets too announcer-y. I just want to be laid back I just sit in my chair and kind of use my body posture to To affect the voice a little bit. Yeah, totally right. I mean you're acting It's like anything you can do to evoke the performance Is what you want to do Exactly So what's it like to have a really cramped booth where you can't really move around? I'm just being I'm just kidding. You guys that can't see the show She has a bit of space around her a little bit That's the entire studio there. I mean at the she works You can't see it without causing problems, but believe me there's about there's a vaulted ceiling above her And uh, there's a loft behind her So Don't unplug anything There's the loft there it is. Okay. This is really cool library ladder or bookstore ladder That took a while to get didn't it? Yeah, I vaguely remember there's so much I was watching our video. You made a youtube video that From the start from when it was just a pile of dirt and there was nothing here To um completion and so I was watching that video last week And um, I've had you know, the the brain is Is uh, not so reliable. That was pre that was pre child Wasn't it? No, he when we moved in he was 10 weeks old, but he was okay. He was one. Yeah Um when we were building building it out. So Um, yeah, I mean there was so much that I forgot, you know, it was good to go back and watch the video like You um meticulously making sure that no screws Connected the inner frame with the outer frame So that there was no Um, we called it shorting out shorting out. Yeah, totally decoupled construction Now now now this cracks me up because they The contractors went a little over and beyond how many layers of independent How many pieces of glass Are in the window not the doors seven. Is it six? I think it's I think it's eight eight. Oh my god I think it is eight So I specced out like an internal window and an external window, right And they were supposed to be each like double pane because that was what was commonly available instead of like A single heavy piece of glass that has to be very custom made and everything But they went double double So they they put in a double Doubleized insert window that had an in and an outside part of double So the inside of window assembly has one two three four layers of glass with an air gap And the outside it's amazing So if an f-16 goes by you're not gonna know about And and they recently within the past couple years switched the Burbank flight path. So it is pretty close Um, but I don't have to stop recording for that. I mean even if The gardener is like in the next Yard it's it sounds okay, you know So and and the best thing is just the natural light Is so inspiring and beautiful that I feel really grateful to be able to You know see outside and and we have a double slider as well back here Plus, you know, you have complete isolation from family Always important Yeah, although to be completely honest, um the lock broke on my Door so I need to get that replaced because my kid can just basically come in whenever he wants We're lucky. He's not, um You know interrupting us right now actually You're lucky. I mean my daughter used to come when I was in my old place in ocean In the ocean park area in Santa Monica I had just a door to my off-back office and uh, if Ella wanted my intention Oh, yeah, she would come to that door and be on it so hard It sounded like, you know animal from the muppets kicking my kick drum I was like don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't it was so loud Yes, I know texting her mom. You're like Get Ella out of here. I'm in the middle of a job Oh my god Once again, we're talking with Alice and Packard if you've got a question Uh, it might have a little bit of room on clubhouse if you're listening in there And uh, you can write it in on facebook or in youtube and we'd love to hear from you One of the things I want to ask you is you know What's your perspective on the industry today? I mean, we just went through a huge change. I mean with the pandemic and everything Uh, and you know, but it's certainly, you know, it put a lot of people out of work That immediately thought well, I can go into voiceover. Yeah What would you say to somebody who would you know, that's trying to get in What do you think the business is really like today? And you know, and I mean from your perspective, which is I mean, you're working network stuff. You're doing a lot of high-end things and people are trying to break in And I think that's just going to happen overnight. But uh, How do you see the industry these days? It's interesting because um, You know, I I think not just the pandemic, but voiceover has become more and more visible and More and more of a hot career um, then when I started um It wasn't something people it was sort of like the thing that actors did if they couldn't act or something You know, I mean, there was certainly, you know, I mean, I get booked if they're not getting booked for Yeah, I mean Exactly, but I it just wasn't you didn't necessarily like You know, but now it's like especially with um, gen z and everything I just I feel like there's a fascination with actors and voice actors can appearing more and more at conventions and um the visibility on different social media channels, um That I think that there are I mean, I feel like it's just exponential And I always like to evaluate. I think George is frozen and that's a very funny screenshot Lovely I'm so glad that happened But um So so I mean certainly I think that the nature of all that means that there is probably a lot more competition Um for people that are just trying to break in. I mean that doesn't mean that talent and hard work are not going to elevate your career Um Uh, but it's just a little bit different that being said. I mean, we're seeing more streaming services than ever before um Rates are changing, you know, um, there's union non union and then there's also like sag low budget digital waivers and stuff and um internet rates You know new media slash internet, which is sort of You know the most uh the biggest category now because That is that is our new networks. Um, so It's it's interesting to see, um Uh, how things have shifted and um, there's also a big call for more, um I mean both diversity ethnically, but also diversity of types of characters. Um, so wanting to cast characters that more um Are that person? Um, so You know, you're seeing I think a a broader net of people working in voiceover um a lot of on-camera talent and Younger people doing younger kids voices or teens doing teen voices So I think there's still a lot of work. I do feel like the work is sort of spread out over a greater number of people than ever before so, um, that the core core of voice actors, um You know, maybe uh, maybe that's shifted so that there's sort of more opportunities for everybody but more people in the mix um, I also see that um voice actors are How people make their income is shifting and a lot of people that do anime and Do signings are getting a bigger and bigger portion of their income through signings and through conventions Both online and in the real world um People are um connecting with fans in other ways So I this year have been shifting my business to create more time for content creation and um, You know, uh, that wasn't something I thought about was how how do I create content for my fans? What did they want to see and now that's something I very much am asking myself often because The people that are playing your games or watching your shows your true fans are the ones that are going to, um Know what you're working on and follow you from project to project So I think that's more important than it ever has been if I were to do it over I would have started with world of warcraft like Meeting more people and like building my list and so I would recommend after any um voice actor now is um To try and stay connected to the people that are fans of your work Yeah, like voice actors in those games are just as important to those fans as on-camera actors would be in a film or a tv show Yeah, and there's certain genres that are wildly popular like anime and um You know, so it's it's just interesting to see how that has shifted. Um where it used to just be localization and um foreign dubs and and um Anime, you know, and now it's you know anime is a is a big big game um So that that's shifted. Um So it's interesting. It's it's uh, I don't know what the future. I mean we we also talked when you were on my show about um If there would be any ai replacement of voice actors and You know, I mean the new series. She sounds pretty good I don't think that's anything that's going to happen right away at all. Um, but Some longer form narration and some of the the smaller jobs, you know, that that's possibility Um, not in a frightening. Oh, no, we all have to run out and get new jobs kind of way, but um All these factors are are going to continue to affect our business and our business is such that Uh, we don't have any guarantees, you know, there's no guarantees that your voice is going to be hot Today and be hot tomorrow and you know, maybe Maybe your sound is in vogue and then maybe I know maybe it's not so Yeah, and you never know but you've got to stay on top of it and really know where you where you stand I guess that's one of the things about when you're at the top of your game is you're always looking behind you is to You know, who else is coming up? Well, alson it has been a pleasure having you on and it's way overdue Uh, and uh, it is a beautiful studio by the way Uh, I remember the video of you building that george. It's like look, there's a pad with a bunch of spikes sticking out of it Uh, but if you want to see the video, it's on my youtube channel. It's on george's youtube channel Yeah, uh, and uh, and so quickly what are some of the things that we're going to be hearing you on and uh, And and where can they find you on tiktok again in those places? So tiktok is allison packard. Um, instagram is at allison I host a weekly Uh podcast animation video game podcast called alison's wonderland where we go through the looking glass Into the wild world animation and games and so that's been really fun We have a voice actor robbie damond coming on Uh this wednesday and then next wednesday we have content creator and voice actor brian hull. Um He's a youtube sensation um So uh every week I try and get you know people that either that I've worked with or that I really admire their work and um, it's been super fun to dive into that. Um So that's a way we can stay connected and um, yeah, I'd love to hear from you if any other voice actors are out there Um, send me a message and say hi and let me know how I can help support you Excellent awesome. Thanks for being with us. You're welcome. Thank you already Bye guys. We'll talk to you soon. All right, we'll be back to wrap things up and get ready for tiktok right after these messages Yeah, hi, this is carlo zellers rocking the voice of roco and you're watching voiceover body 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 voiceover career flourish Don't 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? Well, I want to tell everybody about source elements and the creators they are the creators of source connect Caught me off guard, man The source connect software is Pretty remarkable. It's been in use in commercial studios and now home studios for pushing 15 years and essentially it's continuing to have momentum because There's very few other things out there that can touch it in terms of its support network And its consistent sound quality Um and as well it has utility that nothing else out there really has and that is the ability to Back up the session automatically During a session. So it's pretty remarkable. You can be in a session with a studio Engineers somewhere else. They're in pro tools They're recording you and source connect And if there's any one of two situations if there's any drop in the audio Let's say there's an internet bar bobble happens on our show live all the time And there's a drop in the audio The engineer doesn't have to re worry or have to make you rerecord because it's automatically recording you Using something called q manager q manager is always recording you in the background totally behind the scenes and then it Simply fills in where there's a dropout in the audio. So that's one thing it does But beyond that it also will allow the engineer to choose to replace The audio that they would like with the original wave audio So um, if you're working with a production, especially video games, they tend to be extremely picky about sound quality They can then choose to get the raw audio and again, you don't have to be recording in other software You don't have to be recording in a backup program. The q manager does it for you. It's just completely seamless I do a podcast called the pro audio suite We now use this method to record every episode and as all the others in the show don't have to worry about Keeping a backup recording. It's doing it for you. So It's really amazing what it can do its capabilities. And again, I can't stress enough how important the support is you get Awesome support from source elements live support people you can talk to They will help you with network issues, whatever it is. They it's really second to none So if you want to get set up with them get a 15 day free trial Make sure you know how it operates understand, you know Some of the gotchas in getting it set up the first time And if you need a little extra helping hand head over to george the.tech slash sc Where i've got a lot more information and a way to get additional Handholding to get you up and running. Anyway, thanks so much source elements. I'll be right back to wrap it up You're watching v obs dot tv. I don't know why it's crazy what they do here I think i'm gonna go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich All right, and we are back. You notice i'm standing up now get a leg cramp. You got to stand up Hey, you know, it's the way it is raises the energy level, right? Right Thanks to allison packer for joining us tonight and gracing our screen with her loveliness and wisdom And uh and helping us out and helping everybody else out there with their their voice over business, um You know next week on this show we do tech talk 58 we're actually going to record it next So if you're watching live right now hang out you can ask your question So that's uh, that's one of the advantages of watching it live you get to interact with this personally But that'll be tech talk 58. Who are our donors of the week? Let's see if I can get these names right first try Um, most of these are familiar names to those that listen because there's a few new ones, but there's a few new ones in there Yes, like grace newton phillips appear tray mosley shelly avilino tom pinto martin martin I'm like anticipating her last name. So it's making me screw up her first name natasha morchevka Uh, mr. George widdum that would be my dad. Nobody calls me mr. George widdum Uh, that's why I put it there exactly brian page patty gibbons rob rider Uh, greg thomas stanner birdsall antland productions shana pennington baird martha con martha Uh, don griffith stephen chandler and robert ledum and again these names often are repeated because they Subscribe from the donations button below or if you just got some really great piece of advice Just drop us a little thank you gift. We really really appreciate it. We really do it helps us keeping things Perfect, uh, we need to thank our sponsors like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra Soros elements vo heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and j m c demos Our thanks to jeff holman in the chat room tonight and facebook and denny bird side In clubhouse. Yeah after his big movie role Our technical director was the offspring of our regular Technical director sue merlino hat merlino Running things very wise to train train your train your kids to be your backup plan, you know no question And of course lee pinney for being lee pinney. All right. We're gonna set it up for tech talk don't go away if you're watching us live and You know Not an easy business That's why we're here to help you out with all the information we can on running a voiceover business But it really comes down to the bottom line of look if it sounds good It is good I'm dan lennard and i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or vio b See you in a bit