 Hey it's Monday night and hopefully you've digested your Thanksgiving meal by now. If you haven't eaten the leftovers by now, throw them out. Good idea. Well tonight on the show we've got Roy Samuelson in our studio. There he is. He's going to be right. Very punctual man. Right. Got to love it. Very nice. And uh and we're going to talk about how to maintain your career in voiceover. I mean it's hard enough just starting it but we'll talk about how to maintain it and all the different things that he's done. Yeah. To make him the amazingly successful A-lister that he is today. Sweet. Uh we've got some tech stuff. Yeah I'll come up with something. That's good to know and we've got a couple of questions from our audience to help you with your home voiceover studio so where you going? Stay right here. It's voiceover body shop coming up now. Two men, twin sons from different mothers with a passion for voiceover recording technology and the desire to make recording easy for voice actors everywhere. Together in one place George Whittem the home studio engineer to the stars a Virginia tech grad with an unmatched knowledge of all the latest gear and technology in voice over today. Dan Leonard the home studio master a voice actor with over 30 years experience in broadcasting and recording and a no holds barred myth busting attitude for teaching you how easy it is. Together to bring you all the latest technology today's voiceover superstars and leading the discussion on how to make the most of your voiceover business. This is voiceover body shop. Voice over body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials.com home of Harlan Hogan's signature products, source elements, remote connections made even easier. VO to gogo.com everything you need to be a successful voiceover artist. J. Michael Collins demos award-winning demo production. Voice actor websites.com where your voiceover website won't be a pain in the butt and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success. And now live from their super secret multimedia studio in Sherman Oaks, California here are George Whittem and Dan Leonard. Good evening. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whittem and this is voiceover body shop or VO BS. Alrighty well one down a pile of things to go. December's a busy month in the Leonard household. Yeah things get crazy from here on out. For example today is Marcy and mine's anniversary, 24th anniversary. Yay happy anniversary. Yes yeah interesting you know we almost bought the same card for each other. That means you're probably meant for each other. Or we're shopping at the same store and uh but interestingly in you know on our own personal notes we essentially wrote the same thing. So I guess we finally figured it out. Sounds like it. Yes and then her birthday is December 5th. Chronicles starts actually this Sunday. Holy smokes. And then my birthday is on the 28th. Okay talk about pressure through like you know fun things giving on. And it's just general Christmas stuff happening all the holiday parties. It's it's worth at least five pounds. Starting last week but thank you for coming over for Thanksgiving dinner. That was very pleasant. It was very nice. Friendsgiving is always pleasant. It was fun. I got to go see you guys and then go to a completely different place with a bunch of millennial type people. Yeah that was not us. Well I mean it was a it was a lovely day. Yeah it was great. I hope we you had a great Thanksgiving out there and a nice relaxed weekend but now it's time to get back to work. And that's what we do here at Voice Over Body Shop. We got Roy Samuelson tonight. I'm gonna talk to us about all sorts of cool stuff that he does and how you can do it too. And we'll uh we've got tech. We've got all sorts of stuff but we as we always start off it's time for Voice Over Body Shop presents the VOBS Voice Over Extra News all the information you need for a successful voice over career. And now the Voice Over Extra News for November 26th year end checklist. So how is your voice over business performance this year? Yeah we can see you all cringing out there but let's not wait till New Year's Eve to get record keeping in order and plan ahead by taking stock of what worked this year and what didn't. Oh by the way it's my turn. To the rescue as our perennial list maker Dave Cavassier in an article now on voiceoverextra.com. Dave eases this process for us with five crucial voice over business things to consider now. One, cash flow and bookkeeping. Do you dread this? Yes. Get on it. Get your invoicing up to date and enter all the debit and credit items that are piling up on your desk. I never have trouble with the invoicing. It's the expenses same here. Plus have you called your accountant lately to check on tax law changes to prepare for because there are a lot of them right now. It's amazing. Two, set a budget for next year. When your record keeping is up to date, study it. See where you overspent, made good investments and decide what financial efforts to continue or drop. Three, three, three. Take a breath. Take stock. Schedule a time to step back and reflect on your career. What's going right? What's deficient? Need to change something to get to the next level? Four, review the calendar. This past year has been packed with pretty good sized voiceover conferences. What did you attend? And what do you want to hit next year? Plan now on that allotment of time and of course money. And of course you can adjust as the dates draw near, but set your priorities now. Stuff's coming up fast. Five, revamp your business plan. What? You don't have a business plan? David admits that after 12 years of freelancing voiceover he still doesn't have a business plan, but it's on his to-do list now. If you do have a plan dusted off and update it, today are you where you want it to be when you wrote that plan? What needs to change? And Dave gives us an honorable mention. Goals. Most of us operate better when we have stated goals and steps to achieve them. You'll see more details in the article plus hundreds more for your voiceover success. Check this site daily. That's voiceoverextra.com. And when it comes to business plans, this is a great book. The One Page Business Plan by Jim Heran for creatives. Very cool. It's an entrepreneur's toolkit. I've been using this and actually I was talking to Corvo this morning. I said, do you have this? He goes, I do. And I have the video and I have all that. Have you done it yet? Well, no. Well, neither have I, but it's like a workbook. You get to color it in and everything. Yeah, it's not very intimidating. It's not a very good book. Yes, but this is for the creative entrepreneur. Check it out. Very cool. I just wish Mr. Heran knew I just did that for him. Free endorsement for you, Mr. Heran. One when it's good, we got to bring it up. Yes. So what's up in tech this week? Well, of course it's Cyber Monday here in the United States. And who cares? Well, I mean, unless you're out shopping for 4K TVs, one for the dogs room, I guess at this point. They're that affordable? How many freaking 4K TVs do you have at this point in your house? I actually don't have any. I have one 7-year-old Sony Bravia that's still amazingly good. When do you have time to watch TV anyway? I watch YouTube. Oh, okay. I come home, I put my feet up and I watch YouTube videos. I watch that more than anything. But honestly, I'm looking around at what's out there on sale right now. And yeah, of course there's some gear for sale. But you know, these deals, they kind of come up year-round. And when you're a savvy shopper, I'm not seeing anything. There's no real doorbusters in the world of pro-audio. Right. I mean, you know, there's what we might call a loss leader item that shows up in the Guitar Center catalog. Yeah. Yeah. Mic cables. Yeah. By five. Yeah. By five at $5 each. Whatever. It's almost like it's plug-in Monday, actually, because it seems like all the good deals are really plug-ins. Yeah. You know, 45% off this. Everybody get in line and get your, train your ears EQ training software. Actually, now to think about it, that's actually kind of interesting of all the things I'm seeing on here. This one looks like it could be useful because I do get a lot of folks who ask me, and by the way, I'm finding these on pro-tools-expert.com, which isn't just about pro-tools. It's a lot of stuff in audio, but this could be interesting. A lot of people that consult with me on how to set up their gear, they want to know how it is that we do what we do. They want to know how to train their ear, their hearing, to be better able to determine what sounds good, what doesn't sound good. What year is it? It's 2018. See, I started this in 1975. It takes a couple of weeks, guys. Yeah. You have to tune your ears, and then you have to adjust for all the rock and roll that you listen to during the 80s and 90s, you know, and adjust for that. But there's a way it's supposed to sound. Yeah. I mean, this one is about EQ. So if you're wondering how the heck it is that, you know, I can listen to something and go, hey, a little bit too much 500. Let's drop that. Let's roll it off at 80 and give it a little 8k, blah, blah, blah. If you want to know what the heck all that means, something like this could be useful to you. And it's called train your ears, one word, and they have a coupon code is cyber for 45% off. That looks actually useful of all the other stuff that's on the site. Most of the things I'm seeing are synthesizer plugins and just general mayhem for that will get you in a lot of trouble. If you're not a producer, you know, these things, I was just over at Jack Daniel's place. Jack, you're watching right now, I hope. The number of plugins he had on that system would blow your mind. But to be honest, that's something that he finds fun. You know, that's a hobby. That's a hobby for him. It's a hobby as well as it is part of his career. But the end of the day, to get the most out of those plugins, he had me and he had Carson, the couple people he know, dial in those plugins because you can have all the amazing tools in the world, but it ain't going to make you build a house. You can have a great, shiny, beautiful hammer. It ain't going to make you drive nails neatly and do good framing. Right. A lot of people talk about getting the the arrow or the the Apollo twin because it has all those plugins. Right. But you know, from my point of view, none of those plugins are going to get you work kids. It's simply a matter of recording it right in the first place and let the plugins be done by the people who professionally use plugins. You've heard the mantra. Yes. Unless, of course, you're you're you're a full production guy doing commercials and soundtracks for the next Russell Crow movie. You know, it's fun to learn what they do and how they affect your sound. Right. But is it effective, say, for your auditions and stuff like that? Yeah. So in terms of what's going on in the Cyber Monday deals and all that stuff, I do have one of my own. We'll mention that later in the show. But it's really at the time to take stock in what you already have budget for next year because I'm just speaking from experience. It's very easy to get lulled into this. Well, you know, October was a good month. November was a really good month. It's really easy to get some of that money to rattle loose. And that's why that last story we did was so important because it makes you realize wow, I could I could buy this thing now or I could prepare for next year or I could put a little bit money aside for taxes or I could buy that plane ticket for my daughter to come see me, which I did today. She's coming in January. That's a priority. That's a priority. And I and I also one day while I was riding my bike, the last week or two, I bought a couple things for myself. I bought a fitness watch. Never had one of these before. And then I was riding my bike to the day and I literally said as a mantra, do not buy anything more for yourself this year. Do not buy anything more for yourself this year because it's like I want to set everything else aside for loved ones for the holidays and planning ahead. So, you know, it's just basically if you're looking for tools and toys, check in with Dan or I first, you know, see what's actually missing in your studio. See what it is that technically can be improved or acoustically be improved before you get lulled into buying some kind of crazy super mega deal on some product that probably is going to be available at a very similar price other times of the year and sometimes available for for a discount when it's in refurbished or used state, which is a way I buy a lot of my things as well. Alrighty, will you've heard it there? And that's the way it is. That's the way it truly is. Alrighty, well, we've got Roy Samuelsen coming up and we've got questions from you, our amazing audience. Thank goodness with all those amazing questions you have about your home voiceover studio coming up right after this. Yep, this is VOBS, proven anybody can have a show these days. Wow. This is VOBS. In a world of audio, two men knew what they were doing or at least they have you convinced they put the BS and VOBS dot TV. The one voiceover question no one wants to talk about is, how much work do you get? And the reason is no one books as much as they want. You audition all the time and your booking rate is never high enough. And you don't have a clue what to do about it. Well, I've got some great news. Mark your calendar on December 3rd, just a little bit next Monday. VO2GoGo is going to help you change all of that. David H. Lawrence the 17th is going to offer an amazing free class starting that Monday for the next week called The VO Booking Blueprint. He'll share with you eight. Yes, eight. I got it right. Effective and proven ways to increase your booking rate and how to do so instantly. It's always the big elephant in the room. How much are you booking? How much money are you making? This is all it's all worth it. How would you like to raise the bar on all that? Stay tuned. VO2GoGo will have some great training for you on how to up your game with the VO Booking Blueprint. It's coming December 3rd, all from VO2GoGo.com. Everything you need to be a successful voiceover artist. As a voice talent, you have to have a website. But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you. And when they finally do a break or don't look right on mobile devices, they're not built for marketing and SEO. They're expensive. You have limited or no control. And it takes forever to get one built and go live. So what's the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voiceactorwebsites.com. Like our name implies, voiceactorwebsites.com just does websites for voice actors. We believe in creating fast, mobile-friendly, responsive, highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use. You have full control. No need to hire someone every time you want to make a change. And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time. You can get your voiceover website going for as little as $700. So if you watch your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options, go to voiceactorwebsites.com where your VO website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what. And we're back here on voiceover body shop and as we had headlong into December, into the pit of the holidays, or the hilltop of the holidays, or the meadow of the holidays, which is right back there somewhere. Is that the meadow? It looks like it. It's a very good Thanksgiving picture back there. Yeah, I thought so. That was from my ride yesterday up in Mt. Pinos. Nice. Beautiful, beautiful area. Yeah. Do you make it all the way? Well, we cheated. We took a car. We actually did one. We self-shuttled. So we had a car with three people. Yeah. We'd all ride up, drive up, and then two rides down, one drives down, picks us up, but we did that four times. I did it four times. Wow. Each one was about 2,400 feet of drop. It was fun. Yeah. Until I blew out my tire. That was interesting. Did you happen to hit the pavement while doing that? No, I was on dirt and I never hit the dirt. I was very lucky. Yes. Very lucky. For once. Yeah. All righty. Well, we've got a couple of questions from our amazing audience out there across the world. The first one is from Stephen Knight. He says, hello, Dan and George. He got it right. Wanted to wish you both the happiest of holidays and great good fortune for the new year 2019. A quick question for Dan. That would be me. On the show with Mark Cashman, you were berating the loss of your precious Fios. Well, that was like three years ago. It was. Well, I'm glad you're catching up there, Steve. This shows are evergreen. They're always there all over almost 400 episodes. Some of them are more brown than green. But you know, we do our best. Watch episode number one and you'll know what we're talking about. Let's see. Yeah, we lost Fios and I had to go to something different. He said, would you actually choose Fios over other IPs like cable? Well, Fios is cable. ISP is like internet service providers. Yeah. Yes. Have you tried any others? I'm going to be updating my provider and Fios and cable are available to me. And guys keep doing what you're doing. I haven't heard any complaints, you know. Best wishes and Stephen Knight. Thank you, Stephen. Well, yeah. It was kind of questionable because it started with Spectrum. That was Time Warner at the time. And then we decided to go to AT&T, which lasted about a week and a half. U-verse. Yes, it didn't work. It just they could not figure it out. And we actually dumped cable. And now we just have internet with Spectrum. And, you know, we've got, you know, 100 up and 50, you know, 50 down or something like that in here. No, you have 400 down. Okay. It's 400 down. Yeah. About 20 up, 400 down. Last time I measured it. Right. And, you know, and it works fine. Most of the time. That's what cable modems do. They give you massive download speeds. Right. Massive and upload speeds. Right. 28 bad. I mean, we do our show with that 20 megabits and it's totally fine. Right. We have 20 is enough to do just about anything short of maybe high, high res 4K streaming, but everything we do fits over 20 megabytes of upload speed. It's just the difference between cable and fios and fiber in general is with fiber, you're getting whatever the speeds are that they're telling you're going to get, you get that within a very small percentage. It's very close to what they tell you and it very rarely varies. Right. Like if it's 50 up, 50 down, and that's the other thing. It's usually symmetrical. So it's 50 up and down. It pretty much stays that way. And that's why I like fiber over cable. That's the big reason for me to choose fios. And if you happen to be one of the rare areas of a country that has fios available, I would snag it because fiber is still not pervasive. It's not everywhere at all. It might be on the poll, but it doesn't come to your house. That's the problem. So if you can get it, I think it is worth it. Yeah. It definitely was fun having that back in western New York. But like I said, we pulled the plug on cable. We still have internet cable from our cable modem. Now I just have an antenna aimed towards Mount Wilson and it gets everything, including every Vietnamese channel there is. We've got four more questions. I could go on and on about this. I will say one last thing. If you have fios and cable in your area, the cable will be the best cable modem you've ever had. Get it if you can get it. And it's because they have competition. Okay. Jack Tagolia has a question of far advanced technology. Looking into the future, he says, is it possible to have two Mac minis connected to some kind of switching device and switch off which mini was displayed on the screen and controlled by the keyboard and trackpad? Wow, what a concept. Yes, you can, Jack. Look for something called a KVM keyboard video mouse switcher. They've been around for a long, long time. Just make sure it's got the right ins and outs. It's going to have USB on it. It's going to have HDMI, probably not much else. That's probably all it really needs to have on it. And by hitting a certain keystroke twice, I haven't used one in years, but I think on mine you hit alt two times, alt alt, and it would switch the switch the video. I wonder why Jack's using two Mac minis and why he would need to change. He's a mad scientist. Well, if you're doing video, you want to have one computer churning away on stuff and then your other one for for voiceover, I could understand that. Alrighty. The lovely and talented Carino Bryant asks, what's the best mic style for a travel rig, shotgun or large diaphragm condenser or USB? Well, do you walk to school or carry your lunch or chew your gum? You know, this is, this is, if I have to, if I have to go on the road and I know I'm going to be doing something important, which I'll tell my clients, I'm going on the road, leave me alone. And then you'll get something important. Of course, while you're sitting and waiting to get on the plane, how do you get voiceover work? Make plane reservations without, and then tell them you're not available. That's right. Yeah. 416, great road mic. It was built as a road warrior. It was. It's designed to be used in the field. It can handle temperature and humidity and all kinds of stuff. Right. That is really by far, to me, the best travel mic is a shotgun mic. If you want to spend a lot less money, check out the road NTG4. Yep. Similar, not the same, but pretty darn close. Don't recommend large diaphragm mics, really fragile. Right. You know, they don't travel that well. And USB, well, the, the epigee mic. There's a bunch of good USB mics now. Yeah, they're, yeah, but the blue raspberry, the blue, a lot of people like it. And then it has some problems and stuff like that. So, comment among a $200 USB mic. Okay. You get to ask the team, you know, tea man's question, because I know what I want to say. Cool. What are the essential plugins for audacity? DSers, compressors, et cetera. And he says what, and then DVox tags on, what are the best free VST plugins available? EQ, compression. Yeah. I don't know what the best free VST plugins available are. And I'll tell you why. I use what comes with the DAW. So I'm using audacity. I'm using what comes with audacity. If I'm using audition, I'm using what comes with audition with few exceptions. Some people really, of course, love the Isotope RX tools for specific noise issues they're dealing with. An audacity's world, it's a little bit more convoluted and confusing because they do provide a huge array of free plugins by this thing called Nyquist. And so if you, if A, you can find them, and B, figure out how to install them, you can get a few extra bells and whistles. They have one, I think they call it the gate or gate. And the gate Nyquist plugin is good because you can actually use it as an expander. Right. You need to know what the difference is to make even make use of this tool. But if you do know what the difference is, check that one out. That one I always add into the audacity system. And for a free VST plugin, I can't name a whole list, but I'll name one. And that is Loudmax. That's a limiter that runs on VST, AU. Right. You can plug it in just about any software. Check out Loudmax, all one word. That's a great limiter. It works really well for mastering audiobooks or just generally punching up your levels. That one. Just a little bit. Yeah, that one I like. Okay. Get Fred's voice. And our last question, George, you're talking about plugins. But I run my mic into my ID for into my computer. That's it. I can do post in, you know, in Audition. But that's all. Do I need to look at going all Jack Daniel in my studio? Yes. So you must. If you don't, you're going to be a loser and lose jobs. No, no, that's not true. No. Like I said, Jack loves the tool. He loves the tools. It's his hobby. He loves the gear. And he does actually... He does promo work. Pimp his studio out. He has people come in and you... So having more impressive tools for studios that work more as a project or commercial studio, it's worth it. If you're doing real-time recordings with IPTEL, Source Connect, ISD, and it at all, and the client on the other end expects you to be giving them audio that sounds pre-polished, that's a small niche of you out there that need to do that. It's really tiny. Yeah, the tip of the pin. But if you are in that category, then having a thing like the Apollo that can run real-time processing is pretty useful. Otherwise, it's not needed. The ID4, Audient ID4 interface is quality piece, very good sound quality, very low noise. And with Audition, you got tools galore. You know, you can really get an amazing sound out of Adobe Audition using its built-in plug-ins. And it's amazing. I mean, everything you could possibly need, especially in post, and it's better to do it in post than in pre, because once it's there, it's there forever. It's fully baked. It's fully baked. You can't undo. You can't undo it. You print the effects, they're there for good. Oops. You're doing oops like, oh, undo. Gotta love that. Oh, I lost part of my word because the gate threshold was wrong and my gain wasn't right and it didn't match the threshold and just the gain structure and blah, blah, blah. And re-record that. Okay, well, as you can hear, Mr. Whitman and I are the guys that know this stuff better than anybody else, because we've done it longer than anybody else. And if you want help with your home studio, if you have no idea what you're doing, you can talk to us because we can teach you from the beginning to the end. And it being Cyber Monday, I know that you have a special going on over at GeorgeTheTech.com. I was almost going to not do a special this year to be completely, I was going to just kind of blow it off and this morning I was sitting there looking at the site and I just kind of had FOMO. I actually had fear of missing out of offering a special deal like everybody else. So I decided to do it. So if you book a service on my website, this does not include all the self-service stuff like the stacks and racks. But if you book a consult with me that's on the phone or remote or in person, when you check out, you can use coupon code GTT2018EOY, which is end of year. That's my end of the year deal. Now that coupon expires on December 2, but you can book your services up to three months in advance. So you can book something in the middle of January, February, even if that date isn't really set in stone, no big deal. You can change it later, but that gets you in the books that gets the service booked. You know what? Book a first of the year tune up for your studio. So you start the year off already in the calendar of booking to get your studio cleaned up for the new year. Maybe that's not a bad idea. Okay. GeorgeTheTech.com. Right. And if you'd like to work with me, you know, as far as I'm concerned, you're getting a deal with me anyway. That's right. So, you know, go over to homevoiceoverstudio.com. We can book a consult and I can help you get up and running. Or if you'd like to have me listen to your audio, send me a sample in my specimen collection cup. Of audio. Of audio. And we'll give it a listen and we will see what needs to be done, if anything. Hey, there's not always something needs to be done. No, it's like people think a great job. If it's something wrong, if it's nothing wrong, we're going to tell you nothing's wrong. Absolutely. Alrighty, Roy Samuelson is wicking by very patiently and we're going to talk to him about all sorts of cool stuff. So don't go away. We'll be right back here on VoiceOver Body Shop. This is Bill Ratner and you're enjoying VoiceOver Body Shop with Dan Leonard and George Wittem, vobs.tv. Well, I'm here to tell you about Source Elements, the tool that you're going to use to get connected to studios around the world, the ones that want to book you and direct you real time and record you real time. That's the situation you're running into when you want to use something like Source Connect from Source Elements. This software you install in your computer, it can be run standalone as its own application, or it can act as a plugin if you're the studio and you need to record the other end. It's a really great tool because it integrates into your system workflow really, really well. You can get a demo of Source Connect standard, the standard version, which really is all voice actors need. You really don't need the pro version for voice acting specifically. It's got really all the most important tools built in that you would need. Go get it demo. You don't have to even have a USB iLok key to run the software now. You can get it going on your Mac or Windows machine. You head over to Source-Elements.com and get a 15-day free trial and just get used to using it. Get your account set up, your username and all that kind of stuff. Buy it if you're ready. Don't if you're not. Just make sure you're ready to use it. You can also subscribe. You can just pay in a monthly fee and that way it spreads out the cost of using Source Connect. It makes it a little bit less dear to get started, but that's what the beauty of it. You can rent it. You can buy it or you can pay a monthly fee. It's up to you. So go check it out at Source-Elements.com and tell them when we sent you. We'd really appreciate it and we'll be right back here in the studio with Dan and Sam right after this. Are you confused about how to set up and maintain a professional quality voiceover studio? No wonder. The information out there is mostly mythology. This is the best microphone to use. You have to have a preamp. You need a soundproof booth. This software is the best. Your audio must be broadcast quality. Consult with someone who knows the truth. Someone who's been there in the trenches doing voiceover for over 30 years. Someone with unparalleled experience with voiceover studios. Who's worked with hundreds of voice actors and designed hundreds of personal studios. He knows how to teach and cares about your success. In one of the harshest environments known to voiceover, your home. Dan Leonard, the home studio master. Separate myth from fact and get a handle on your personal voiceover studio. Contact the home studio master at homevoiceoverstudio.com. Guess what? You know Roy Samuelson. You just don't know him. Turn on the TV radio or listen to an audio book or play or play a video game and more than likely you'll hear his familiar velvety vocal skills. Samuelson's work includes promos for Target and McDonald's, a myriad of TV shows working with actors John Law Raquette and Jessica Lange and blockbusters like Skyscraper and Get Out. But Samuelson's true passion is helping people and he does that by recording DR, descriptive narration for the blind and visually impaired. And let's talk about all sorts of cool stuff that he does in his career. Let's welcome to Voiceover Body Shop, Roy Samuelson. Hey, how's it going? Nice to have you here today. Nice to be here. Yeah, you're like in the neighborhood, aren't you? I sure am. Okay, sure. People can like ride their bike over here. It's a great thing about it. It's another bike reference today. I love that. Yeah, so you do an awful lot of stuff. You had to get there somehow. Where were you from originally and how did you get into Voiceover? I came from Pennsylvania. Okay, that covers a lot of ground. Yeah, let's narrow it down a little bit. I came from a small town in central Pennsylvania. Isn't that a great place to be from anyway? It sure is, George. Absolutely. You know, I lived in Pittsburgh for a few years and I worked down in Disney, Florida for on and off a few semesters here and there. Doing tours or? Literally tours. It was within the great movie ride, God Rest In The Soul. So one of those, do you remember that? Yeah. Oh yeah, it's kind of like a little tour where I had a mic and I would point out all the different things that were happening and then audio animatronics would talk and people would get blown up. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. Being a tour guide is great because you can really just like do whatever you want, especially if your boss isn't watching. Yes. Of course, I'm sure at Disney there was a very strict script. They're probably watching it. They were watching at Disney. They were watching. Yeah. iPhones got nothing on Disney. Yeah. So what brought you out here? It was time to go. I lived in, I went to Florida and then came back to Pennsylvania and stayed in Pittsburgh for a few years on a tour and a theater tour and then too much slush. It was too much slush. It was time to get out. I have some family that was in Southern California in San Diego and that was my intention was to drive cross country and halfway across the country plans changed a little bit. So it's time to go to LA. All right. And when was that? As many years ago. Oh boy. When was that? It was 96. Wow. Okay. So you've been out here a long time. Yeah. It's flown by. You're now an honorary local. Am I though? Really? Can I go officially? Wait a minute. Do you complain about the weather on a regular basis? Oh. Yeah. Is that the test? Oh boy. Yeah. Isn't there that thing that like after every 10 years all your cells kind of regenerate? Something like that. Isn't that right? I'm not sure what the details are but I'm sure it's... You've been replaced with SoCal cell. SoCal cell. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. My blood hasn't quite thinned yet. It's like 55. It's a tropical day. It's got a few years left. Yeah. So you got it going. How did you get, you know, from being an actor and doing that kind of stuff really to getting directly into voiceover? Voiceover has always been a part. Even back in school and in college I was a part of the radio station there and at the Disney job too. It was a microphone so it was on stage performance but you still had to work with a mic. When I moved to LA there was definitely a lot of acting classes and improv classes and such and it was time to go to the... How do I say this? I had an opportunity to go to a voiceover workout group and it really caught my attention and so I went and then I went again and went again after a few years. It just seemed like that was something that I needed to continue. Do you have your own voiceover workout group? Did you start your own? When I started I was a part of someone else's and I did have a little get-together that I made up the acronym VoiceOver Workout Lounge, vowel. Very good. Yeah. It was a little hard to pronounce. You said somebody who named hair salon. Exactly. But that was a great way to get to know people that I wasn't able to meet before and just to be able to talk to them on behalf of this workout group instead of on behalf of oh I'm a voice actor. I'm not sure if you've experienced that but my experience was oh I was representing something else so I didn't have to have the spotlight on me. It was on something else and so not that it was more authentic but it was a different kind of conversation. Right. So you've been very successful. I mean you're doing promos, you're doing commercials, you're doing video games, you're doing animation, you're doing all sorts of stuff. How do you maintain that? I mean what has been what was I won't say your secret sauce for doing that but what do you attribute your ability to really spread out in so many different directions and maintain that. What a great question. There's a and thank you for saying so that's it's I'm almost in disbelief hearing it. That means you've arrived. It's a process. It's definitely a process. There's a few things. I think one of the most important things to me there's many more I'm going to say three or four things. The first thing that comes to mind is the team. There's obviously the agent and the manager but there's also other people. It's the networking that I do not just with people that can hire me but other people that are actually doing similar things than I do and by talking with them and how they've solved some problems that I'm having or vice versa we can really share and bring the entire community up if that makes sense. So the team is really important. Another thing that I think means a lot to me right now is mindset. There's a book by Carol Dweck. I love that last name and she talks about two different perspectives of mindset a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Quick example with the fixed mindset is someone who believes that they were born with talent and that talent is fixed and it's always going to be there and a growth mindset comes with a more curious place like what can I do a little differently? What's something that maybe I could improve a little bit maybe I could learn something and by focusing on that growth mindset that alone can help skyrocket pretty much anything. Was that your attitude when you first started doing it? Was that like were you thinking that or was it more of an evolutionary sort of thing? It's absolutely evolutionary. Ironically it's that's getting kind of meta that I have evolutionized my growth mindset but yeah I think there was a sense when I when I first started of oh I'm I'm good or I'm I've done this so that means that I've I've been this but that really didn't serve me at all that got that got me not even nowhere fast that was the reverse it took me away from where I wanted to go. Right. Does that make sense? It does but how did you move yourself into getting representation and moving yourself up into some of the the higher echelons of our business? I think there's a again back to the team and the networking I think there's something about putting putting it out there you know there could be some really great talented people in central Pennsylvania or somewhere in the anywhere outside of the the main areas where people think of voiceover happening by getting out and meeting people you know earlier you were mentioning all the different conferences that had happened this year that's a great way to network online there's hundreds of different groups on on different social media that you can network with and learn from. Right. I think that's really exciting. Yeah and you did it really before social networking or you know our social media. It's called a long way. Yeah but but you started you you joined a workout group. Yes. Clearly it's I mean there's the workout and then there's meeting the people that are there. Yes. You know there's meeting the coach who hopefully will have some connections somewhere and then other people who have connections and you know you learn from each other and but of course other voice actors don't hire voice actors. So how did you move beyond that was how did the networking work for you to actually start finding some work? Gotcha. It definitely was another evolution. There's there's a short-sighted and a long term perspective when it comes to the networking. I think we're talking about that. Some of the people that I thought would hire me are now some of my best friends who have never hired me. It's fascinating and other people that I've just happened to come across and said hey you know could we exchange numbers and maybe we'll have a coffee or two over the last five or six years and a phone call comes through someone that was referred by that person. There's no rhyme or reason. There's no specific way that things happen but one of the things that I've always remembered and I'm sure there's a voice actor that said this many many times many years ago that the agent gets paid 10% and you get paid 90 so you do 90% of the work and that's maybe that works maybe that doesn't but it is my responsibility to to carry my career forward not twiddle my thumbs and wait for the audition to come through. Right. So you go out and find your own work? I mean or is everything you rely completely on your agent? It's I don't think it's that clean. I think there's a lot of things that obviously I get auditions from my agent managers and there's things that I send them and there's an opportunity that I hear about and I say oh um great is it okay if I pass this on to my agent? I'd love for them to know and that helps them out the person that I'm talking to because my agent can negotiate on my behalf. It helps the agency out. It helps me out. It's a win win win for everybody and that that's the most that's the most exciting. I love when that collaboration happens and that's that's that's fascinating to hear because you know if you've got a good agent somebody who really believes in you that really helps a whole lot in getting your career going but getting that agent is not easy. I mean you've got to have a track record. You've got to be making money in order for them to because nobody's like you know I think you got talent. I think I'll take a chance on you. That doesn't really happen, does it? I think about the uh when I first moved to LA I wanted to join SAG now SAG after and there was something about that double chicken or the egg it's like you have to get work to get in SAG and you have to get SAG to get work right people do it and they they find a way and I think today of today's it's not easier but there's so many more opportunities especially in Los Angeles or you've got a pocket phone that has a uh a smartphone that you can record on it's you're ready right now not to submit but to work on getting to the point. Does that make sense? It does actually yeah look people got to learn to use just the phone and not go hog wild and all the equipment. If you're just joining us our guest is Roy Samuelson. You hear him everywhere on all sorts of stuff and if you've got a question for him and I'm sure you do uh put it in the chat room Jack Daniel while he is hiding over at his own studio tonight because he's now waiting for all his updates um throw it in there he'll pass it on to us in our next segment we will ask your questions of Mr. Samuelson. Let's talk about social media for a second uh you know I've always said and I'm sure you guys have heard me say this before I thought I knew everybody in voice over you know just and you know we've been Joe and George and I've been doing this show for almost eight years now and we thought we knew everybody we've been to every conference and we knew everybody and then I came to Los Angeles and I started looking at talent rosters you know for a different agent like who's this guy who's this guy who's this who's that woman I've never heard of her yet they're on the agency rosters so I always had this theory that perhaps those that are on social media that I all know aren't working as much as these guys in LA because they're not hanging out on social media they're working but I take it you've when social media came about you started to use it effectively or at least you're learning how and how do you do that I'm just learning I just am learning and uh it's exciting so I can't come from a place of experience but I do know that one of the more influential reasons why I'm on social media is I heard a producer talking specifically about actors where they do take into consideration the social media account like how many followers and such that was a that was a wake-up call all right do you think that have you attempted to do that do you see the results from that I maybe have a hundred followers okay all right so it's not helping me but by paying attention to the people who are doing it I do sense an authentic voice that voice is not literally their voice but they're the way that they approach social media there's a there's something that does work yeah but you got to find out what it is and maybe it's whatever it is that works for you oh yeah yeah yeah we're we're trying to figure it out ourselves I mean we've been we've been doing this show and and promoting it using social media for a long time you know since you know since social media was just smoke signals and uh you know and it there are different things you try and then of course they they throw another monkey wrench in the way right George it's like oh all right now they want it to want us to do it that way new algorithms new rules new restrictions new fees exactly constantly changing yeah so you still send faxes um no my wife does uh it's a very effective way no one uses them anyway I was really disappointed when they canceled descending you couldn't send any more western union uh full stop you know i'm talking about telegrams yeah telegram was that about 15 20 years ago you can still get money grams money grams oh yeah I used to get money grams from a client in Pakistan it was all written in arabic imagine me going into the supermarket I'm going to catch yeah that was yeah but social media is you know really where it's happening everybody's now moving to instagram facebook seems to be fading as part yeah I don't know of anybody that's really gotten voice over work from being on facebook it's great for finding old friends and stuff like that it's for networking with your peers maybe but keep booking I would love to hear from people who actually book directly as a result of being on facebook being clients finding them I love that cat video you posted will you do a voice over for me just just doesn't see that political rant really yeah oh yeah I totally agreed with that uh you were talking about your team and talking about teamwork um how did you assemble your team I mean did they assemble it for you or you're like I need you I need you or how did that work it's it's another evolution I think there's uh obviously the agent and the manager they do a specific role they give me auditions they send me out on jobs they they do that I'm also part of uh I've got a business manager to help with the numbers and that's something that I've had a lot of resistance to at first because I thought I should be able to to manage my numbers and and I I knew how to do it I just wasn't doing it so by having them on board that was a big step I think to be able to to know that they were taking care of it and I would watch what they did and make sure everything was was working the way it needed to but um yeah but so that was a that was a pretty big step and how does that work I mean you're saying you're you're getting auditions from your manager and your agent or is your manager working with your agent or got you is it a is it a trika sort of thing I mean how does that all work um I was uh um yeah so the the manager and the agent work kind of in tandem together I also have a business manager that handles the the numbers the so that's uh that's that but as for the the manager and the agent working together there's the occasional time when I get the same audition from both and um it's already pre-understood that my agent is the flagship so it defaults to the agent and that's something that is just respected once again we're talking with Roy Samuelson you got a question for him I'm sure there your questions are filling your head right now Jack Daniel is toting them all down and we'll get to them in just a couple of minutes um one of the thing we were just talking about teamwork I think a lot of people don't understand that you know as voice artists or voice actors people look at this as an art form but it's a business when did you realize that this is a business and I need to approach this in a in a business type of way uh pretty much every morning yeah it's still it's still a reminder that I need um I think the seeing the business side and again uh combining the seeing the the numbers from the business manager being able to see oh here's what I made this month or here's what I made last year how is that different than previous years or previous months and being able to sync up with uh there's something different happening now what's oh I'm going in this direction now maybe I need to focus more on that one of my um friends is a cameraman and also a director and he used the example of it's not a juggle where you're constantly juggling balls but it's more like uh pushing um a little toy in the in the sand and when this toy gets stuck oh this toy is stuck let me try pushing this oh this this toy is moving I'm going to keep pushing that so there's a there's a friction that kind of stops this and keeps this moving so if this is moving this one then let's focus on that let's see how that goes it's a little it's a little less uh focused or goal oriented but it definitely goes with the flow of what's actually happening what do you find is this stuff that you do primarily although like we said you're doing things all across the board it must just keep you very busy I love descriptive narration and that's something that I just learned about maybe five years ago tell us about uh it's a special audio track that goes on top of a tv show or a movie so it's specifically for the blind or visually impaired the low vision and uh people can turn this track on and hear uh a narrator explain what's happening on the screen so he puts down a coffee mug uh oh my gosh I heard this autumn I heard this the other day maybe a week or two ago I just was playing it's and I didn't know why I didn't notice turning it on it was just playing and I'm going is this like a special uh dbd bonus or what is going on I'm hearing every well I mean it was like uh it was um big bang theory or something and I'm and I'm like is this a special like I had no idea that this existed I just stumbled on it so it's fascinating to know that that's something that's a niche that you're doing yeah it's uh and that's a great example with the dvd extras you know when the director or writer kind of talk over it it's it's very similar to that and it's also similar to uh closed captioning except instead of for for uh people who are deaf it's for people who are blind so there is a and it's so annoying when it's turned on and you don't want it it's so because you're you're seeing what's happening and you're hearing what's happening and it it just kind of doubles up and spirals into this annoying thing but not only for blind and low vision people but it's also great for commuters with the popularity of podcasts and audiobooks you got a favorite show like big bang theory you're stuck on the 405 you can turn on audio description and experience the full audio of the original plus hear someone talking about what's happening I take it as like interspersed carefully between lines and stuff or it's really on top of the the dialogue it's a pre-written script that does go between the dialogue in most in most cases there's very few exceptions to that and that's the most exciting part it's almost as though you're reading a script and you're reading the what do you call it the treatment where you see the direction or the setting sort of like the screenplay he picks up a mug and offers her a drink or something like that and it's written in italic it's like you're reading the italicized part exactly you're not supposed to read that that's not the character exactly the job is right so i'm yeah it's kind of like the exact opposite of everything that voiceover people do far out cool you have your own home studio what do you got in your home studio i have um i've got a whisper room that's uh four feet by six feet and one side is stand up and one side sit down so you got a microphone in each end yeah cool the sit down is a is a road that's mainly for the audio books and the stand up is a bluebird ah yeah bluebird hey there very similar yeah yeah great fancy one yeah well you know only the best yes once again we're talking with Roy Samuelson who does everything you know also probably does his own plumbing uh and uh if you want if you want to ask him a question now would be a great time to throw it in the chat room and jack daniel's get it to us and we'll get to those questions right after this so don't go away well hello there i bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice to announce our guy on your new orientation training for snazzy yes that's okay well okay we're not that innocent there's jeans for wearing and there's jeans 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 smart phone 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 when hope is lost the i8 from bmw who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish hey it's j michael collins bet you think i'm going to try and sell you a demo now uh i think they speak for themselves but i will give you my email it's j michael at jmcvoiceover.com now if dan will stop waxing this mustache for a minute we'll get back to the show all righty harlan hogan's been our sponsor since march 22nd 2011 he must have seen that we are talking to the right people because he knows that his great products are going to be seen by you by watching this particular show and we appreciate that but what great products he has over there mostly it's the stuff that he really wants you to take a look at is his his signature series stuff the vo1a microphone a great microphone and a great price point one of the few microphones maybe two or three that were literally designed for recording voiceover work uh it's tuned just the way harlan wants it for for both male and female voices it sounds great when you use it right as it is with any particular microphone and uh it's at a great price point so make sure you go over to voice over essentials and check that out but he's got other stuff as well he also has the harlan hogan voice optimized headphones and he's got a new version of it a brand new version that's been improved better ear cups it's more flexible it's more comfortable and when you walk away from your from your board plugged into your headphones it the cord pops out it doesn't just get yanked out and then you're like trying to solder it and like i don't know how to do this but just plug it back in and it works great pair of headphones designed for voiceover very flat response so you hear exactly what it is you recorded and there's only one place you can get these things and that's to go over to voiceover essentials dot com so why don't you go do that right after this show stay on the page but go way down to the bottom there's a picture of harlan talking into his port-a-booth pro uh and click on that and go see all of the amazing deals he has right now i think he's got like cyber monday still going till midnight so if there's a great deal get in there right now and get all the stuff that you need especially the vo1a microphone and the harlan hogan voice optimized headphones they're great go over there buy them get them for you you know for your spouse and say can i borrow those be a great great christmas prize thanks harlan for being a great sponsor and we look forward to having him in 2019 you're watching vobs.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 and we're back with rory samuelson and uh we've got uh we'd like to hear what you when you were talking about descriptive narration can we see an example of that alan runs past the security stop the guards stop joe but she breaks free huge on and peter show the guards their identification in the research shot joe watches alan dump decrypted messages onto the desk the others arrived that is so cool who knew hopefully we don't get pulled down for sharing that on the internet it's a sample it's a sample i don't really work on that it's not a it's not a real thing all right let's see what kind of questions we got from our audience here jack daniel asks uh roi some of us in the chat room listen to your demos they sound great first who did you do them with and second do you make a point of showing off your range can you comfortably cover quite a lot of terrain in terms of age and style love your sound oh yeah yeah yeah uh so i went with uh for the commercial demo originally i went with compost productions and uh i think the commercial demo that's there is an assembly of some actual spots that i pieced together just to give to give a sample uh the promo was with jeff howell and um one of the best yeah yeah yeah and this descriptive narration i i put together all right george i got one here from paul stafano did roi focus on getting more descriptive narration work or did he just find it found him or did it find you yeah oh i see yeah um i think it was a combination originally it found me and when i found it i started pursuing it uh uh bludgeoning my way into the the work tenderly of course but uh it was definitely something that felt like a right fit so over the course of uh a very long time i made myself available and and stayed in touch with uh with the company and a follow up to that from paul is what genre have you not cracked yet that you'd like to try ah great uh specifically with descriptive narration i'm definitely doing the action horror scary stuff and uh i've done a few i max kind of wondrous exciting kind of distant things i'd like to do comedy i think specifically with descriptive narration there's a the spotlight is definitely on the show and i'd like to see how how that would work with uh with what i do all right sonny james has an interesting question this is one i struggle with all the time because it's like i'll find you know i get up in the morning it's like oh i gotta do this one um you know do i use my rough morning voice my just after coffee voice or maybe i should like actually warm up uh which i somehow seldom do for some reason you know although unless i'm singing as i'm walking out of the house and uh but what's your your vocal warm-up routine my vocal warm-up it's uh it's something that i actually do throughout the day i've practiced a lot of breathing exercises um uh there's one particularly called four seven eight which was supposed to help you sleep at night but uh just by practicing it throughout the day i'm able to kind of hold my breath and maintain the airflow and such there's also uh i'm cutting back onto coffee that's not really related to a warm-up but all those clickety clacks that happen in the morning after a nice cup of coffee that doesn't work well so uh i've i've started to cut coffee out how do you survive i've started to cut coffee but it's it's you know i drink some tea and i'm i'm associating you know this kind of goes back to what we were saying earlier there's something about habits and good habits and bad habits not that coffee is a bad habit but specifically for the work i do it's not helpful so i look at that and say oh here's something that's not helping what i do so let's find something else that might not be as bad and tea works so how can i appreciate tea every morning instead of appreciating coffee so i'm kind of like training my brain to appreciate something a little different that's actually going to help my career wow that's like testing taking wine tasting it's a peppermint okay a chamomile there we go it's actually probably more varieties of tea than there yeah there's a book i'm reading called atomic habits by james clear and it talks about how to create habits and how to break bad habits and it's just a crystal clear straightforward approach and i'm really enjoying that all righty george yeah this one comes in from divox one of our regulars you mentioned being from central pennsylvania where exactly he says what advice do you have for people living in such areas i think when he means that by by that he means flyover states um as far as networking finding work locally and establishing and running workout groups and that kind of thing al tuna pennsylvania uh which is close to state college if that yeah it's between state college and pittsburgh kind of yeah kind of it's like maybe a hundred miles from pittsburgh so yeah it's pretty it's pretty close um and now with the internet it's uh the opportunities i think are they're a little different but i still think the the opportunities to network you're watching this show i think that's a great thing i mean the the work that you guys do the people that you interview if i had that access my goodness i love it i'm watching it the the learning never stops i think that the question was focusing on ways to to create that community in your you know your small town but i think you were already you'd kind of already got said goodbye by the time this career is is that true you were already yeah moved out of al tuna before you really pursued this yes yeah so you never had that chance to try to start a network yeah and i misunderstood the question you're right but that's that's okay but it could be even in a small school that i went to we put together an improv class and we would just play around and i think you know the gyms in los angeles where you go to work out uh i'm talking literal gyms yeah our of which there are many of many yeah it's like gold's gym at venice that's the epitome but in al tuna there was a there was a gym to go to so if the opportunities in the small town aren't there why not create it even if it's just one or two of you you've got a you've got a a way to work together and i think there's something really valuable in in being in person all right it's a great question thanks for clarifying that sure uh team and asks and we sort of talked about this a little bit he says can you describe your process with descriptive narration are you pausing the recording or just straight through watching timecode uh you know obviously is the script on the screen or is it on paper and you're like yeah it's definitely it's definitely that so i look at a screen and below that is a music stand with a script that i just carefully turn the pages uh we will get to uh tablet readers at some point but in the meantime you know the sound of the page turn has to be timed just right but it is pretty much live so uh i can do a tv show that's an hour long and pretty much an hour it's 45 minutes long and give and take some some pickups that have to happen uh plus anything else that the director and the engineer need to adjust um and it requires a very simple voice it doesn't require any it's like you hey this is happening this is happening that sort of thing it's totally relaxed and conversational that's my favorite part it's uh the spotlight is definitely on the story and it's not on me so if i'm projecting and doing my voice yeah it's distracting from it takes away yeah so and if i'm doing a really sad scene and i'm describing it like a vicious you know it takes people out so there are very very subtle nuances just tiny little adjustments that that have to be made uh and yes there are it's uh it's timecode based so my script has cues whether it's timecode or the last few words of a character's line or there could be an audio sound a gunshot a car screeching it could just be picture up all right well thank you all for your questions we really appreciate it tell me what you're working on right now that you know you haven't signed an nda on tell us about oh that's a tricky one uh i gotta say what type of stuff again the descriptive narration is the big focus right now so there's uh there's a few feature films that are out right now and another one's coming out in a few weeks which i'm really excited about and uh and i'm on a few tv shows uh a handful of tv shows with descriptive variation so that's uh that's where things are happening right now all right well thank you so much for being with us tonight thanks for having me it's been a pleasure to see you again oh good to see you we'll see you here in the neighborhood we'll probably run into each other in the park or something yeah hey i know you uh Roy samuelson where can i get a hold of you if they want to talk to you oh yes uh i've got a website but i guess the best way is social media on most everything it's Roy samuelson all one word facebook is Roy samuelson biz oh separates you from the rest of the Roy samuelson's there was a guy back on uh what is it uh the last social media myspace it was like he was only friending Roy's and i can't find him because he searched for Roy then it's one of my biggest challenges that's my maybe that's my goal for 2019 trying to myspace that was friending all the Roy's is myspace still even uh i don't know i don't know maybe it is absorbed by something anyway right thanks for being with us yeah all right uh george and i'll be right back and uh got any other things you need to find out about we'll tell you about it right after these your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead now there's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer that place is voiceover extra dot com whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls voiceover extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like audiobooks auditioning casting home studio setup and equipment marketing performance techniques and much more it's time to hit your one stop daily resource for voiceover success sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voiceover audition it's all here at voiceover extra dot com that's voiceover x t r a dot com and we're back here on voiceover body shop thanks again to Roy Samuelson it was great that was lots of good information there and you know we want to continue to bring you all this great information and bring it to you in a succinct manner and of course we have a survey and we do really would like you to take the survey what do you want to see on our show what do you want to hear about those sorts of things what can we do to make the show better what can we do is the time slot good for you know things like that things that you think that could help us do a better product we're going to be definitely making some changes that we have some changes come January one yeah so you'll be seeing that yeah actually January 7th January 7th to be exact yeah January 1st is New Year's Day yeah we won't be doing we did that last year we did we had a great New Year's party here last January 1st is New Year's no January 1st is the second there's no wait a minute January 1st is New Year's Day yes the Tuesday yeah so it's New Year's Eve it's the show on the 31st so we won't be doing the show as a matter of fact we will be off the last two weeks of the year because Christmas Eve Christmas Eve is the 24th which is a Monday and then New Year's Eve is a Monday so we won't be there but we are going it's going to give us some time to really retool things just a little bit and make it a little nip and a little tuck yeah that's what's gonna have to sewing and stuff like that but we do have people coming up for the next couple of weeks that we know about we know that Jonathan Tilley we have an interview with Jonathan Tilley that we recorded a couple of weeks ago talk he was in town right yeah he was in town but he couldn't come in so we've recorded a great interview with him and he talks about Instagram and using social media and what you really need to do for marketing and he'll get you all hooked on this Instagram challenge that even my wife is doing for her new product and stuff so that's one you really don't want to miss and yeah especially because even a year ago I think we were all probably looking at each other and going what does Instagram have to do with voiceover what is a visual medium where we post pictures and memes and videos have to do voiceover while you're gonna find out and Jonathan yeah he's he's really using that uh so that's next that is December 3rd December 3rd yes first anachronica is December 2nd so you know it'll won't be in a festive mood next week because it's a festival um and then we've got a couple more great guests coming up in the middle of December and then we'll be gone till the end of the year because you and I need to sleep every now and again it's going to be over before we know it I know it'll be 2019 well where did 2018 go it was just it was it was 120 degrees in my backyard and then suddenly it's November I'm ready to close the door on 2018 and have a nice fresh start for 2019 I think that's a great idea and as we see the sun setting on 2018 right behind us uh I bet we've had a few donors this week and who might they be we have a lot of familiar names because we got folks that donate every episode which you know thank you not necessarily thank you we've got Tracey H Reynolds Andrew Kaufman Eric Aragone you know those names because we have said them week after week Patty Gibbons uh she donates sustaining Lee on our website through PayPal um my dad thanks dad thanks George appreciate it um also we've got Brian Page another regular donor and Amanda Fellows and we've also got going down the list because we've got a lot Thomas Pinto Tom Pinto there's that name got mentioned a lot last week and Shelley Avelino voiceovers so thank you very very very much we really really appreciate it thanks for the donations already one of the other things we have is a mailing list you know which is going to become increasingly important come the first of the year um because we you know we there are certain things we want to try like we'd like to do paid webinars any specific subject that you'd like to learn about we're going to use the green screen here and we're going to teach you some of the finer points of what goes on in you know voiceover technology and specific subjects and if there's a subject you'd like us to do a webinar on let us know might be a good thing to put down on the survey it would be actually we're we're going to retool that survey thanks for reminding me would you retool the survey yeah you got it no problem but the mailing list how did they get on the mailing list right on the website you can sign up for the mailing list right on v obs.tv there's a little box you can fill out at the bottom somewhere on the screen there and you can get signed up and not miss what we're going what's going on what's new what's happening uh around here it's the very bottom of the page subscribe what a concept we got over 530 people on that list oh it's great yeah and it grows every week very good and you guys actually open the emails we send you it's so cool and we promise not to spam spam you uh hey show us your booths uh this is not a voiceover booth this is a beautiful forest primeval scene it was a vacation week not in flames maybe maybe you got to actually leave your booth and this is what you were looking at over the weekend instead of the four walls of your booths so yes but we'd love to have your it's really fun having the backdrops of your studios in our studio right it's it's a lot of fun for us and maybe it is for you if you send it in landscape please landscape landscape portrait that's right all right important to know uh yeah show us your so it's show us your voice over shrine i think it's the best way to describe it um you need help with your home studio where do you go we got two places georgethetech.com where we got cyber oh yeah there it is gtt 2018 eoy we got that coupon code for 25 off till december 2nd and we've also got dan over at homevoiceoverstudio.com just check it out see what we can do for you which is teach you how to do this right because we know what it's supposed to sound like yeah and where to spend your money too absolutely you know and the best place is probably with us because we'll save you thousands of dollars in mistakes and hours yeah a couple hundred bucks spent here we'll save you thousands elsewhere and hours of mind numbing confusion and wasted hours on forums yeah get away from there uh let's see here uh you've got instagram i am i'm on there as georgethetech and uh haven't been that active on the last week or two but um there's a there's a few things gone there gotta be on instagram gotta go gotta do it gotta do it right george the tech we do have a at voiceover body shop on instagram as well again i'm not in a habit of posting on there regularly you have to teach me so i'm gonna put some behind the scenes i got a big video clip of dan i'm gonna put on there tonight actually all righty i wonder what that one's about uh let's see here oh you've got your geek podcast yes if you really podcast you really like going down the rabbit hole for an hour and a half or more sometimes of tech and studios and engineers and all that kind of stuff then subscribe to the pro audio suite uh podcast and take it to give it a listen i think we have a lot of fun on there right uh also if you want to be in our our studio audience because we have room for you in here we do we do uh and uh one of the things we can do is allow you to be here and in order to do that you have to be in the greater los angeles area to be here on a particular monday night write to us tell us when you're gonna be here and there's our empty couch it looks so lonely guys come on down there's room out there uh if uh you want to be here write to us at the guys at v obs dot tv and say audience and give us a date and if we happen to be doing a show that night we will invite you in i love it handshake the code to get in and i love the irony that our audience camera is working yeah but that there it's just a couple of pillows and my microphones instead uh let's see here um what else is there well we need to think our sponsors yeah because without them you know this would just be a white page static exactly it's really static anymore on the you know what i do see static sometimes i'm browsing facebook right and depending on what i'm on maybe it's my old ipad or something right some of you have a video right and it's just literally static it's just a box with static it's the weirdest thing all right well we do need to thank our sponsors like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements do to go go voice actor websites dot com and j michael collins demo thanks guys we can't do it without you but we also can't do it without the dan and marcy lennard's foundation for the betterment of live webcasting our producer kathryn curidan for getting his great guest like roya samuelson and she does we have some great people lined up for 2019 so you want to make you don't go anywhere you know you could just want to stay on our page 24 hours a day and wait for the show to come up uh of course jack daniel for chat room duty although be it remotely we love having him here but he does a great job remotely as well uh he also helps us with our youtube and of course our technical director who has it together she knows what she's doing sumer leno thanks a lot for all your help tonight and getting this on here and of course lee penny simply for being lee penny already well that's going to do it for us tonight uh happy holidays guys as we get into the real meat of the holiday season and we know this isn't an easy business there's a lot you got to learn especially from the technical lens so you don't you want to learn the technical end so you don't have to worry about it but once you get it right and get it sounding right that's the most important thing and if it sounds right it is right very good and good and good and that's what we want to hear anyway that's going to do it for us tonight i'm dan lennard and i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or vio bs have a great week everybody we'll see you next monday night