 All right, it's Monday night again. It doesn't look like Who is an agent a voiceover agent Ilco drzadowski and he's a seasoned agent seasoned with lots of pepper on them from what I Hollywood agent a Hollywood voiceover agent and we're gonna ask him all about what agents do and how to approach agents and stuff like that Plus we have a tech update Tech update. I've got a couple videos as I promised from NAB cool a little bit off the ranch of what we normally talk about But you know, I thought some of you might be interested in broadcast consoles. All right Also, I'm gonna tell you about a little tip about something called o-drive All right, and we'll talk a little bit about when you got to move Mm-hmm, so we can have some suggestions for you on that. Okay all coming up right now on voiceover body shop Man 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 Whidham the home studio engineer to the stars a Virginia tech grad with an unmatched knowledge of all the latest gear and technology in voiceover today Dan Leonard the home studio master 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 Voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials calm home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements remote connections made even easier Vio to go go calm everything you need to be a successful voiceover artist J. Michael Collins demos award-winning demo production voice actor websites calm where your voiceover website won't be a pain in the butt and voiceover extra your daily resource for Vio success and Now live from their super secret multimedia studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are George Whidham and Dan Leonard Good evening. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voiceover body shop or V.O. B.S. That is one strange echo I'm sorry I heard the coolest echo on a hike with that Ella a couple weeks ago going up this canyon canyon called Hondo Canyon Hondo Canyon Hondo Canyon. Yeah, it was so awesome because you got the initial echo Yeah, which was maybe two seconds and then if you waited and really listened you got another one Way off in the distance. It must have been three second four seconds. It was waiting. It was a lot of fun The littlest things are entertaining when you have a nine-year-old, so well, that sounds cool, too Oh, I'm glad to hear that. I spent the weekend above Malibu. Oh good looking down a nice another day above ground Yes, always a good one But way way above Malibu. Yeah, that was that was a lot of fun and it's got its gorgeous there The weather here is just Fabulous, but I hear the weather back east isn't so bad today either to finally catching up Yeah, the the missus is back in Buffalo and she's like it's 75 degrees. That's good to hear Yeah, because Maxine was scraping ice and snow off her car just three days ago on Buffalo That's no Buffalo bolder sort to the B. Yeah bolder. I'll bet your Maxine's never even been to Buffalo You know what? I wouldn't be surprised if she has okay She's she's worth find that out and worked all over the world. All right. Well tonight Yeah, our guest is Ilko Drozdowski and he is an a voiceover agent This is a mystery to people people don't understand exactly what agents do Except the people who have really good agents and they just do what they do and they show up and right they have jobs The rest of us are all like pound in the door with these guys and say will you represent me? Let's find out a little bit more about that and what it really means and and how to really get an agent and how to Work with an agent so Ilko will be joining us at about 6 30 Pacific time 9 30 Eastern time and 8 30 central 7 30 mountain time So that would be 10 o'clock Newfoundland. No, that would be yeah, it would be 10 o'clock And 10 o'clock in Newfoundland day Apparently I learned that Australia also has half a half-hour times. Yeah, it's it avoids confusion for people who can't tell time in the first Anyway, it's now time for Alright, it's the voiceover extra news for April 23rd 2018 Three networking strategies are you a wallflower at networking events like you know You should go meet people at local business events meet and learn from colleagues at voiceover gatherings, but face it You're shy lots of us are and maybe that's why it's so appealing to do our work behind a microphone And behind closed doors But it said that 80% of your job is really marketing which means meeting people now Paul Stefano Who's now in the doghouse has been at this for more than 20 years Yet he can still look back and realize that everything we need to know about networking at these events We've already learned in high school Hmm Well in other words you already knew it in a new article now on voiceover extra Paul reminds us how easy it can be With three strategies number one The wingman or the wing person find somebody to attend the event with you There's safety in numbers. It's the same way you traveled around your high school dance with either your best buddy or closest girlfriend Here's how it works You can be the initiator of the conversation you start a conversation then shortly into the conversation you say Hey, do you know my friend John? Now you've both been introduced or You can use your friend as the reason for the introduction Approach somebody you don't know and say hi, I want to introduce Jane I think you two can help each other the beauty of this approach is that the end result is that three people now know each other Number two the drive-by You know this one to find somebody you want to talk to near the exhibit table or the bar Casually walk up and say hi, I'm Steve. I was headed to the vendor area care to join me Sometimes the answer is yes. I was just about to go myself Or of course sometimes the answer is no But you have still planted the seed of the introduction which brings us to the third strategy the mole Now this sounds sinister, but it's really not you pick a colleague Probably someone you know who already has a connection at the event and send them on a reconnaissance mission When the colleague enters a conversation you show up Voila Paul guarantees these strategies will help you with confidence at networking events And they'll greatly increase the number of your business contacts Good luck and check out more details about the strategies in this article plus many hundreds more at voiceover extra comm Your daily resource for voice over success Lovely, I know I'm not a waffle hour at parties But sometimes you know you go to a party with there's no voice over people So what I'll usually tell them is is I'm an astrophysicist at JPL and then pray that somebody there is not enough for physicists at JPL And then I met some people who are from JPL and they said that's really funny. You should do that Let's see that works and it works. You can't really go wrong that way What's up in tech? Well, I promised a couple videos from NAB. I Didn't get a ton of them this year But I was a little more discerning and I wanted to catch stuff that I hadn't seen at NAM Never will see it NAM because NAM is all about gear that's sold to musicians and music people, right? NAB is gear sold to broadcasters. So I spent a little time in the broadcast area the radio broadcast area. Yes There is still radio and I checked out there. I checked out a couple consoles So we got a couple videos roll that beautiful bean footage Susan Hey, everybody, it's George the tech here at NAB 2018 in Las Vegas the first booth we saw as we walked in because they're in a key location is Wheatstone and Here to tell me about a console that might be helpful for voice actors who want a console They don't have to replace every couple years is Brad. How you doing Brad? Very well. How are you doing? Very good. Okay, so this is a cute little board. I mean in the world of radio It's pretty small. Well, this is the air one was designed for for voiceover rooms for small Internet radio stations LP small LP FM stations where they don't need a lot of channels But they need something with the channels they do have they want to be professional and They want it to be stable. They want something that's going to be reliable and work for them for a long time What what in essence separates this board being as small as it is from the typical suspects that maybe we'd see in Podcasting or in music, you know like the Mackies and things like that. Well, this was designed specifically as a broadcast style mixer It's not a general production mixer Well, the little Mackies where there's there's little EQ and aux ends and this that any other You don't need that for this type of work and actually those types of controls tend to confuse and get in the way of things Exactly here. This is a straight ahead what we call an on-air console You've got a couple of mic channels and then you've got six line channels that take balanced audio in and We also have a USB audio port on here that when you plug that in that feeds this eighth channel here So you can take playback from a PC or you know anything It's got a USB audio port on it and then pipe that directly into the system Does that also send audio back out because it does we can take there's a little dip switch underneath there This console has two program buses program one program two and the little dip switch will say Program one is going to be the return audio on the USB or program two is going to be the return audio on the USB So it makes for recording back to a computer very simple and easy So that lets you create the mixed minuses you're looking for mm-hmm Yes, and then you have you know your your monitor level control for your control room monitors We put on a linear fader and also for headphone outputs We have a headphone output on here and you can go And control that directly so something else that I know from on-air boards So other people don't think of when you press on on mic one does that cut the monitor speakers? Yes, it does and there's again There's a little dip switches underneath here that you set to determine if that happens now because you know mic 2 May be in a separate room and it you won't need to mute the control room So you you have choices on how that stuff interacts typical List price on this is about twenty two hundred dollars. Okay, and you know may seem high compared to you know What people are used to with the with the other you know other type of mixers, but this is you know This is a solid piece of hardware that we build ourselves It's not something that's manufactured somewhere in China or something like that. We build this all in the US How about repairs and maintenance? What if something goes wrong? Do you have warranty that kind of thing? Well, it comes with a full one-year parts and labor warranty and it is serviceable So unlike a lot of mixers, you know, so like you have a fader problem, you know fader wears out over time You can replace that fader no problem. So and it's non-disposable mixing equipment. We're not used to that This is something that can be actually be serviced. Well, I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for giving us an info great Thank you. Thank you. All right This is John Bailey the epic voice and you're watching VOBS dot TV Monday nights at 6 p.m. Pacific 9 30 Newfoundland Minus far we had minus 4 DB word minus 4 DB on VOBS Yes Okay, what question do we get the most often far away? It's how do I even get started in voice over and guess what? We have a great answer to that question. Take VO to go goes free Getting started in VO class. You heard right. It's free and it's available online 24 7 at Getting started in VO comm that's getting started in VO Dot-com if you've been watching VOBS and thinking that you need to get in gear and start your own voice over career this is The class you should start with you'll learn about the vocal skills you need the storytelling skills You need the equipment you need and the business skills You need all in one single comprehensive online class taught by VO to go goes David H. Lawrence the 17th Winner of the backstage readers choice award four years in a row for best voice over class and again There's no charge. It's absolutely free. Want to take it? Sure, you do getting started in VO comm that's getting started in VO comm go there 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 voice actor websites comm like our name implies voice actor Websites comm just does websites for voice actors We believe in creating fast mobile friendly responsive highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use You have full control no need to hire someone every time you want to make a change And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time You can get your voice over website going for as little as 700 dollars So if you watch your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options Go to voicehactor websites.com where your vo website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what And we're back here on voiceover body shop Uncle Drozdowski gonna be with us just a couple minutes. Yeah, we got to talk a little bit more tech because that's what we're about That's why he is physically. He is physically here in the room He has made his way all the way from Santa Monica. I used to have to do that every week every week I remember moving to topanga would that match will be worse. It's far better Oh, yeah, you're you're coming you're going against the traffic. It's easy Everybody's heading out of the city. You're heading back here into the valley. It's great Alrighty, well first off something about o drive. What is this? So I know many of you have this problem and I don't know what you're doing to solve it right now I'm curious type comments in the youtube or whatever below because I'd like to know how you deal with this problem You've got a one terabyte drop box With I don't know 800 gigabytes of stuff in it. Where do they fit a terabyte? Just for you in a drop box. I do it Incredible So I have a terabyte drop box and the reason why I have it is because I run everything in drop box Just my whole business all my client documents. I just want everything to be available where I want it when I need it Period. I just don't like having to move stuff around manually. So drop box is what I use The thing is my laptop has a 256 gigabyte drive That can be filled up very quickly can't it pack 800 gigabytes Right No not happening So what o drive does is it allows you to sync only what you need to have Now some people with drop box or the geeks in the audience are going well, but I can go into drop box settings and do selective sync Yes, you can but it's a pain in the neck because that You have to go in there and mess with it all the time to unsync stuff that you don't need anymore With o drive, you can just right click on a folder. Maybe it's a project you finished. It's in the can the client's happy And you just right click and check and click unsync The files immediately are removed from the hard drive, but they're not deleted It leaves behind a placeholder for every single folder in every file So If you have a folder the files inside that folder, you don't see those those are hidden they disappear But there's a placeholder for the folder. If you want to see what's in there You can double click on it and it will start to sync it over But you can even sync only the folders and the placeholders Let's say the folder is like 27 gigabytes of stuff in it But you don't want to see all 27 gig you can say just show me the folder and its contents And then i'll choose what I individually need to sync over. It's really Cool. I've been using it since it was pretty new and pretty buggy And it's become quite stable and reliable. So it works with drop box Google drive and a lot of other stuff. I think one drive which is the microsoft thing It works with a lot of different cloud drive tools So any one of them can be synced in the o drive system So it's a little bit of a thing to set it up your files will actually be moving Like the drop box folder where it is now It's not where your files will be after you install this It actually things have to be sort of migrated into the o drive thing But they are still on drop box It's kind of confusing when I the more I talk the more it's that confusing. It probably sounds you lost me at sync But the thing is the unsink thing is really awesome and I never run out of hard drive space anymore That's good. It's been really really handy. You need to have that problem O drive is what you might want to check out. It's just the utility I've been using for a while excellent Alrighty. Well, uh, someone was asking can it be uh, can drop box be automatically, uh, synced It is drop box is automatically synced google drive whatever accounts you have it'll work with all of them If you get the more deluxe accounts, it's not free I think there's a really stripped down free version But the more deluxe version you can set it to auto unsink So when things are over a month old it just auto unsinks them and removes them from the computer So all right, it's cool stuff. All right. We have a tech question from somebody in our voluminous audience Um, my mic level is low only on skype. Is there a way to boost my sound on skype? Here's what her chain is a 416 a Universal audio arrow and iMac and she uses adobe audition. Okay, so Usual skype has this thing about it sometimes controls its own levels It does and matter of fact by default. I believe that is the setting in skype Which is automatically control levels, right? You probably want to turn that off But before you even do that you probably want to go back and install the last version of skype Why if you're using the current version of skype, which I think is eight something I just I just tried it and it's like you're hating it, right? Who is using the new version of skype and actually likes it? I want to know Comments below if you like the new version of skype I don't think anybody in there unless they're trolling is going to say yes The new version of skype is awful Go back to the prior version you can google around and look for Legacy or old versions of skype and there's an archive of every version they've ever made Um Things have become much happier since I've done that much much happier good to know But I don't use skype anyway. So it's like I still you even though I hate it. I still use it It's like facebook, you know I either you zoom or I just yell really loud There are sliders for microphone level and speaker level in the skype sound preferences So just make sure the microphone level slider is turned up more than what it is now like Maybe all the way or three quarters of the way something like that Because when when you're doing when you're like doing screen sharing or like when you and I are consulting with people And they're like oh and you're like helping them set their levels. Yeah skype is like Playing with it. Which like all right when we're done Go back and try this with skype off and depending on your setup That skype playing with the level can actually screw up the recording levels So your recording levels are going up and down. Don't don't use skype for for uh for directed sessions. Not a good idea Yeah, unless you have it properly tweaked and even then I don't know if I trust it as much I don't trust it the way I used to trust it. Let's put it that way use source connect It works a lot better source connect, of course or or zoom even or or zoom. I've used it. It works fabulous. Uh, let's see here Uh question came in this week that was utterly unrelated to voice over But he was he was talking about moving And he was like, oh, how do I plug all my stuff in in the right order? And because he has a production studio right kind of makes you wonder Well, why are you using all of this outboard gear? He had a heck of a list of gear It sounded like it's sort of a traditional studio with lots of boxes and rack stuff But I've gotten a lot of email uh lately people asking questions about as a metaphor We were sitting here phone rang somebody was moving to a smaller apartment How do if you've got to move your studio? What are some of the things we need to consider? When you're moving your home voiceover studio. Well, well, here's a tip go for it I'll start with this one and you can keep going. All right, just because I I forget things very quickly So when a thought comes what do you get to my age? I need to need to jump on it right now. Um They're these wire wire label sheets You can buy if you search amazon for wire labels And they just have alphabets numbers a b c d e h e What I found works really really well. Take a sharpie It's much faster and easier than using a sharp. Oh, even better looks nicer They have these little white labels with letters on them put every single cable where it plugs in Put that letter on the plug or near the plug And on the jack So the the jack on the unit it's plugged into put a letter a Put a a on the on the side of the cord or on the plug And so forth go through how abc however many cables you have and label everything that way So when you move to the new place You just ain't a match the letters into b I mean, I it's it sounds simple, but it took me a while to think of that I used to write the names of what each plug was Mackie oxen one and then you'd go But which where does it go now? I I don't remember what oxen ones for who cares? It doesn't matter just match cable for jack letter for letter and that's the way you match everything up Yeah, that's what works for me. Do you have any other? Well, that's that's what I usually do too is I'll take you know masking tape or duct tape or something and mark all You gotta have some sort of key or code right right. Yeah Um, of course my big thing is acoustics and your big thing is acoustics and when you move There's another issue that comes up now say you've set some stacks for somebody in twisted wave or an adobe audition or something like that When you move you're moving to a totally different acoustical situation Yeah, I mean unless you're moving in like a whole whisper room or studio bricks with you Something's gonna change the room's gonna change. It's gonna be quite different right So it's important to double check with those who set your any of your parameters. Yeah, mr. Whittom here Or myself and say hey, I'm moving Let's listen to the sound and let's make any adjustments that need to be made Um, and that's that's important to think about definitely But acoustics are one of those things that are really important to your home voiceover studio So when you move you've got to be able to move into a situation where you've got a walk-in closet or something Or we have to totally rethink how you're going to do it, right? And so uh best to consult with someone who knows exactly what they're doing Which by the way is what george and I do And if you happen to need help And you want to work with george who's fabulous with acoustics and all this patch based stuff How do they get a hold of you more information than you then you require then you need to come to me That's uh george the tech dot com or george the tech dot com Or george the dot tech the domain that nobody likes, but I just can't let it go Um, that's where you find everything about me and to find dan and his brand of tech support help you go to Homevoiceoverstudio.com. Don't ask me how I got that website. Just Forward thinking. Oh, you know what when you're on the bleeding edge of of a business model Yeah, you get the good you get to do those sorts of things. Uh home voiceover studio dot com Uh, you can go to my website. It talks about all the stuff that I do and the services I offer and Also have the legendary specimen collection cup if you click on that you can drop a specimen to your audio Let's see how you're doing And most of the time it's fine. Just a little tweak here a little tweak there Anyway, so that's the tech segment for tonight. Our guest tonight is ilko drusdowski We're gonna talk about agents and his career and All that important stuff about agents that we're like, what do they do? This is your chance folks. You don't get this opportunity that often. Absolutely better be in the chat room and ask questions All right coming up right after these incredibly important messages. Don't go away As a voice talent, you have to have a website But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you and when they finally do They break or don't look right on mobile devices. They're not built for marketing and seo. They're expensive You have limited or no control and it takes forever to get one built and go live So what's the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voice actor websites dot com like our name implies voice actor websites dot com just does websites for voice actors We believe in creating fast mobile friendly responsive highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use You have full control no need to hire someone every time you want to make a change And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time You can get your voice over website going for as little as 700 dollars So if you watch your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options Go to voicehactor websites dot com where your vo website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what? Hey everybody. I'm here to tell you about our buddies over at source elements the creators of source connect And many other really cool things and I heard uh-oh Do we have an uh-oh? Okay, we got a weird warning. We'll wait for the weird warning Okay. All right. Well, then we'll just keep on going Source connect is a software you really want to have if you're connecting to studios If you're a voice actor who's climbing the ranks you're probably seeing uh, you know Requests to have source connect sessions. Well, this is the tool you got to have kids They have source connect now the free version which you should already have it's free So why don't you have it already? Just go over to source dash elements dot com and go get it But the regular standard version that's the that's the industry standard It's becoming rapidly the industry standard for Doing pro sessions and that's what you should probably get a free trial of over at source dash elements dot com You can get a 15 day free trial. You don't have to have a usb iLock dongley thing It just licenses license is to your computer and you're ready to go right away Give it a shot and if you have any problems with it, I do tech support with them and help them with it So I might be the one that you talk to anyway. We'll be right back with dan and ilco right after this Minus far we had minus four db. We're at minus four db on v obs Yeah, hi, this is carlo zellers rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voiceover body shop V obs is still on Seriously, yep, this is v obs proven anybody can have a show these days Wow, this is v obs Our guest Ilco drusdowski is responsible for booking recruiting and handholding Handholding and many of many many voice talent. He plays talent at every field of voiceover Uh, including network promotion film trailer animated series video games commercial campaigns audio book and voices for toys and both in english and in spanish markets His success in hollywood is a voice agent makes him a very popular speaker Which is why we're having him tonight on voiceover body shop. Let's welcome to our show ilco drusdowski. How you doing? What's happening? Good. I'm doing fine. I am pronouncing your name correctly. Am I not you are all right So good at those ethnic voices That's that's not a that's not a jane john doe or james smith. That's a And and people probably ask you about that all the time like where you're from are you are you an immigrant or that sort of thing and I did immigrate from new york city. Okay. Well, that makes a lot of sense First off happy birthday. You made it a point that it was your birthday for the last four or five days from what I saw on facebook And you have many many fans who were happy to do and and you are now 25 26 27 27 all right And you also announced that you're retiring. Tell us a little bit about why you're retiring and Uh, I have come into a perfect situation in my life. Uh, where I can Do what I actually came to hollywood to do which is to write and I somehow stumbled into the agenting business And uh for some weird reason people are telling me I was good at it So I stuck with it for 19 years So you came out you drove out here from new york, you you literally drove I literally drove in a car that could have broken down anywhere between here And between new york and here Happened to us in wyoming in the middle of nowhere happened to me in new mexico better than north carolina And better than wyoming too Uh, but anyway, so you came out here to be a writer How did you drift into becoming an agent and a legendary one at that? Uh, well, you're too kind in that compliment, but I will certainly accept it. Okay. Go for it. Um You know, I woke up one morning and I said if I don't take Looking for a voice over talent my life will be completely Hollow and incomplete That's that's a very interesting philosophy to have No, uh the truth is I needed a real full-time job and um I interviewed with steve tisherman on I believe a thursday He called me the next day and said when do you want to start and I said how about monday so In four days I went from interview to having my first full-time job In los angeles. Hmm. And what did he have you doing? Uh the first year I was an assistant. So I would schedule actors And then I would schedule actors and then I would schedule actors And by that I mean coming into our office to record auditions, right? Because this was before we would record Actors onto computers. It was recorded onto a digital audio tape adapt and then For an hour and a half or so at the end of the day transferred on to a cassette Remember those you could read about them in history books If people still read books or if you're a hipster There's one on my desk there actually jack next to the keyboard, but awesome You know, we can show people that one, but you know just as an archival piece And then put it in a FedEx machine or have it is It was one of these guys. Oh, and you can record on it. Yes These little tabs right here when you pop it off you could no longer record on this unless you put a piece of tape back Unless you put a piece of tape on it It was usually editing tape as I recall But anyway, so all right, so you're you're you're you're calling people and how is it that that Those particular people will get called in for one specific thing or another and was that part of your decision Or is that like go get to call these people this people in these people? It wasn't my job is to actually call the schedule actors in-house and out of house to out of house casting offices um The um the decisions to cast the actors was actually up to the agents So the agents would list all the actors That they wanted I would actually pick up phone calls Pick up the telephone and call them in to schedule or send out a page on a beeper. Hey jack. Do you have a telephone? Because we need to show one one of those And then a beeper that's even better. I like that that was better and um and uh not That much later a little company named voice bank came out and they Um could accept voice-over auditions in a digital format uploaded to their site So the moment it was uploaded to their server the producer could listen to it immediately And that was also right at the beginning of the mp3 age and the sending emails with attachments age and um In those days we would get a week or five days to cast a project and that whittled down to two days a day By the afternoon by later this morning Yeah, so it was a little bit more labor intensive back then it was out. Okay, so you were like You're making lots of calls and that sort of thing as opposed to email email That sort of thing and it done we actually didn't even have computers on our desktops Really we would actually write bookings in a book And during lunch once I was promoted to agent I would cover the lunch of all the other agents all the books would be stacked in front of me One book per our four big promo trailer Actors and then the fifth book we call the people's book. It was everybody else And it was like a bookies ledger Name of actor time studio ad agency producer xyz whatever information you can fit on one long line You could so lots of white out lots of pencil What year did you become the d in tgmd? I We had been talking with steve to purchase this company for about a year And we made the deal complete Gonna say 2007. Oh, okay far out. So in eight years I went from knowing Nothing about voiceover to being a partner at a major talent agency amazing Very interesting. It's cool. Yeah. So all right. So you graduated being an agent What does an agent do now all you guys out there? You know, you're always looking to get a voiceover agent But I don't think a lot of people truly understand the system and the system has changed a whole lot in the last 15 years or so What give us an idea of what an average day for an agent is and how many people he's surrounded by and and and what what the entire mechanism is like An agent is essentially a salesman and what I have to do is sell talent sell voices um That's the most labor-intensive part actually Going out and finding work for the actors The easy part is once you have the booking schedule them at the recording studio, right? Or or line up the time if the actor has a home ISDN studio, that's the easy part the hard part is getting A major ad agency or a major Studio or network interested in your actor Um and and how do you do that? I mean how do you I mean you've got a bunch of talent there Are you pushing one person or you're like giving them a choice of people or it depends we do get breakdowns We do get casting sheets with specifications of actors age ranges what they're looking for what they're not looking for So that is something I would have to do or I would have my assistant make the phone calls But I would cast the actors have them come in and have them If not come in then Deliver the voiceover audition to me well before the deadline so I could review it Listen to it make sure they Pronounce the product correctly Um and didn't leave a dog barking in the background or anything like that Um, that's relatively the easy part the harder part is making the cold calls Finding new production companies that would require voice over talent Yeah, that's definitely the more labor intensive and people skill intensive aspects of agent thing Right, so you you're making these calls. You've got assistants making these calls You have assistants saying mr. Drotowski is on the line for you. Would you that sort of thing which is kind of It's very hollywood So you're you're you're trying to sell different talent to particular clients The fact is from what I understand They're usually not the guys that make the decision on it. It's usually the client's client That's making that decision and sometimes I'm sure that can be kind of a frustrating part of it, too I'm Not entirely sure of how that process works Um, I like his voice But uh on numerous occasions, I've heard of The owner of the company wanting his son or daughter to be in the commercial and they're not a pro actor So that does happen I've had ad agency creatives or producers tell me Your actors are our number one choice And then when they played for the vendor The vendor being mr. And mrs. Coca-Cola and mr. Mrs. Ford They say now we want this one, which is could be the third option. They deliver it. That's the one that they Like and uh by that I mean the marketing marketing executives at The actual company that wants to advertise. They also fancy themselves producers and hollywood people so On occasion, they will overrule the creatives who they actually have hired to do the creatives produce the commercial or produce the trailer produce the promo and And then we use said actor that they want their scratch in the check so they can hire whomever they want Right now you also work with casting directors and how does that how does that all work? Uh the casting director does send me an email or phone call phone call me Yep And say who do you have that would do this great? Give me your top three choices or top one And if I have none, I'll pass it's a waste of time to Push something through a door that's just not going to work All right, um On occasion, I'll say this is the only actor i'm sending you that's how confident I feel this is the one who's going to get it and then they scream no I need more options. I said what do you want the winner or do you want somebody who's an also ran? So that has happened on occasion and um And a number of times I'll hear my actors auditions and I'll love actor or actress a and they go with the third one down the list that I my opinion Maybe didn't do such a great job, but I'm the agent not the one hiring. So Let them hire whomever they want And for the most amount of money that you can correct And and that's always that's always an issue with people too is you know when you when you've got an agent They're going to negotiate a better deal for you than you can yourself unless of course You're really good and aggressive and understand that whole that whole thing correct. How do how do you how do you get them to To price, you know a particular talent and it's it's is are they willing to pay more for somebody else or? uh the overwhelming Bulk of the actors get hired at union scale Uh radio rates are different in los angeles than in the rest of the country. So They'll hire for what is considered la scale Which is also a varying number It's approximately the same price as what a tv commercial would be So right now a tv commercial pays five hundred five dollars and four cents It's so glad they negotiated this extra four cents. Yeah, because that makes my input just excellent on the software It ends up after a while. That's for the staples. That's used to staple the coffee together. I don't know and uh, so la radio rate is approximately 500 If they offer four seventy five, that's still okay a regular scale for radio, I believe is About three hundred dollars and I think over that is over scale and it's golden and it's great All right Well, if you're just joining us boy, you've missed a lot already our guest is ilko drisdowski We're talking about agents and agencies and we're talking about ilko And uh, if you've got a question for him throw it in our chat room and jack daniel who is our Social media maven and czar will get that question to us and we will address it to him in a little while So if you got questions about agents because I know y'all do Get it in there right now Tell us a little bit about the agency system. Now. This is this has been going on in hollywood and new york for many many years What why why have an entire agency as opposed to one guy? You know with a couple of people doing with what you do How is it that a large agency can can help the process and Why is it that actors want to be with that agency or that particular agency? No, well, let me take a round about answer. Okay. Um If you want to be business executive you go to business school If you want to be a surgeon you go to medical school you want to be a lawyer you go to law school Uh, there is no school for agenting. There's no real university it's do or do not and um Okay, so you understand you have to understand the general outlook of what an agent does And every day you learn something new um that said What does the agent? look for in talent what do we expect out of talent You have to treat this as a business I treat it as a business. You have to treat it as a business. That means on time Which I was not today, but that's okay. No, you were fine. Don't worry. Um Still I pride myself in being on time and if you're on time you're late. So you should be early um That's the number one thing I implore upon actors always be early Give you an extra chance to Look over the script to chitty chat with the producers because you're there As the face not only of your agency but of yourself so if you Say something off color or curse a lot or just do something to make yourself Not the best actor to work with They won't take it out on you. They will be calling the agent and letting me know that the actor either misbehaved or uh Or did something unprofessional as it were. Um, so what We straddle that line between creativity and business So I have to deal with contracts make sure they're paid right make sure the rate was right Make sure the time in and out for the actor is right. So I have to handle all of that stuff For the artist the artist goes in does the art and then you're done um But at the same time the actor has to comport themselves professionally And make the agency look good because the advertising agency that hires the actor will keep coming to me If I keep delivering them great talent. That's fun to work with easy to work with Um and talented first of all where the creative part of my aspect works is If I see a breakdown Explain what a breakdown is. Oh a breakdown is the specs for the that particular is essentially the the the The breakdown You can't use the word in the definition It's what the producer is looking for the age range of the actor If it's a male or female if they want an accent if they don't want an accent if uh, it it's whatever they're looking for Stylistically from the voiceover artist um So I look at that And I deliver the what I call the usual suspects the ones who are going to give solid deliveries and Sometimes I'll throw in something oddball because it feels Good and interesting British You never know one. I don't overdo it Perhaps I'll record somebody who sounds a little bit older But in my opinion feels right for the spot Or I will have A lady read on it instead of all men And uh, if I have a very very good rapport with the producer I'll say guess what I recorded this one gal and she's amazing. I think she'd be great Maybe not for this but for something else. I don't know. It depends on how long I've worked with that producer And uh, and I said do you want to hear and they'll say yes and then I send it off and hopefully They'll say wow Man that ilco is smart and really clever and stunningly handsome and um and modest So let's uh, let's hire this woman. We never thought of doing this and it worked That's called hitting the home run in game seven of the super bowl so Exactly Um, the point is is on occasion it works incredibly well and I feel awesome for that But typically if they're asking for a male 35, I just gave a bunch of Right, so but it's important to do a change up to use a the sports metaphor in that Precisely, but and that's what you're doing there is you're throwing them something they weren't expecting that can Make them think creatively and go. Yeah, that's a really good idea so or Not for this spot, but We just picked up a new campaign right and This is a good option So they would then uh, send me Hopefully new copy a new breakdown for this new campaign All right Again, we're talking with ilco drisdowski. We're talking about agencies again If you got a question throw it in the chat room. We'll be glad to ask ilco any and all questions No holds part um I think a question that a lot of people a lot of people in our audience who are all voice actors by the way An entire audience of voice actors What is it that an agency is looking for in a talent? I mean, I have lots of friends who are saying I just got signed by this agency I just got signed by that agency and they're they're all real excited about it What is it that you know you as an agent we're looking for for talent and then how do you translate? You know someone who wants to be a voice talent or has got their demo and done all their training and stuff How do they end up translating that into getting an agent What's what's what's the process for you and what are you the number one thing is talent? Um Because that is what's going to sell the korean will rise to the top always um the tricky part is that often Often sometimes sometimes often We will get a demo that is Incredible almost too incredible almost too good to be true Super slick works great every spots varied The mixing is great. The pacing is great. The tone is great. Everything is awesome um Then what I would do is I would contact the actor Get a little breakdown on them and I would send them some sample scripts from previous castings we had Unless they come on into our recording studio. We'll do a test run uh our booth director will direct them And uh sometimes these people can't read three words strung together right and but their demo sounds incredible um As I said that happens sometimes not all the time, but I've been burnt on occasion um other times I hear a demo that's just Not good, but I can hear something in the voice the delivery the tone The smokiness there's something like it's a je ne sais quoi right um And I've heard thousands of demos in my career and Some demos I'm dialing the actor before it's even done and I say I want to be your agent And others I have to parcel it out and Break it up and listen to it again and again and again and again and If I have to do it that often it's probably Not gonna work right uh on occasion. We've loved the demo. We've loved the booth read We have the actor come in and the chemistry is just not there it's not Working they're too much. They're too pushy. They're too stiff. They're too quiet. They're too I don't know or too little Likewise if the chemistry is not there and I don't have that personal excitement to represent and Basically stick my neck out because Everyone who's hiring the actor comes to me not to the actor So I'm the conduit. I'm the gatekeeper. I'm the keeper of the flame. I'm the one who has to Deliver good stuff to The producer or else they're just gonna go somewhere else. Yeah, I either deliver schlock or deliver an actor that Just completely misbehaved at the studio or whatever That could be enough for that producer. Just be like, you know, I'm just gonna go with somebody else Interesting you were talking about demos there that you know that somebody It's a huge business now Uh, I mean not just here in la but everywhere everybody seems to be producing demos Which of course means not everybody should be producing demos and people should probably not be producing their own Unless of course they have the skill to do so. Um, but what do you look for in a demo? What is it that that grabs you that says I gotta call this guy before I'm finished listening to the demo That's a great question. I don't know Everyone is different It's like every cheeseburger you eat is different And you're like, uh, there's socks or like this looks really lame, but you eat it and you're like, wow, wherever you've been my whole life It's there's no rhyme or reason to demos. Um I was listening to one the other day and I was like, wait, wait, wait, hold on You have a forward spot in the beginning And a Subaru spot in the second And a Toyota spot in the third And I was like, no, no, no, you you can't have competing cars on the same demo except during the news And uh It that was one thing that I said, I know it's not gonna work for me because I like hearing big ticket items car pharma drink beer Um And then the oddball one like vegas tourism or wyoming tourism, whatever. I I like the mix-up things I like hearing partner reads father daughter When you have like two brothers reading on a spot or two guys It's confusing because you're not sure which one's which right? That's why it's better to have Father daughter mom son, right that really will clearly differentiate Um Who i'm gonna be listening to right um a good demos a minute minute five Uh most producers won't listen past the first 10 12 seconds. Honestly talking about commercials at this point. Yeah Yeah, yeah, so you you gotta you gotta nail them One from the time that mic is keyed You gotta you gotta come out swinging and knock him out in the first first round really and with movie trailer demos All the films have to be within the last three four months Because if you have a demo with Lord of the Rings Really wow That movie was practically you sold us in black and white No, it needs to to sound competitive. It has to be relatively very very new stuff Right, so someone's a new talent and they've got their demo What is well in your opinion? What's the best way to approach an agency? To try and seek representation or Is it more important? I guess maybe just my thoughts on this is that If you're good enough if you're making money, they're gonna come find you sometimes But or is it more important and when you're starting off How it's you know to approach an agency and what's the best way to do it? Um Well when I was an agent My favorite new talent would be the ones who would say I just hooked up the tide account And I need an agent to handle it. So I'm gonna walk over a big bag of money with dollar signs to you That is the best kind of submission Yeah, um Anything short of that forget it. No, I'm kidding. Um Again, I how does a talent reach out? Um A good number of the talent I recruited over the years were producers who Say this friend of mine or this kid from my college Wants to be a uh a voice actor. Here's a demo. Do you mind listening? automatically that raises stakes because I have to sort of Be cool and groovy to my producer, but there's no I'm not bound to represent them just because a producer is telling me that um, I'll listen I'll get I'm always been honest if the Demo is soft if it's something I already have it's something that I can't sell I'm straight about it Great demo. I already got several people like you. Good luck um And that's that's you that's one way to approach uh our my old agency avio talent their submission policy was uh submit via facebook a link to your website Demo attached Multiple ways we review if we're interested we'll probably call you in for a booth read And if those two work, we'll call in for a meeting to see if the chemistry is there And then we get in bed Which sounds like a lot of fun. Uh, again, we're talking with uh Kodrowski, we're talking about agencies and again, if you got a question throw it in the chat room and the questions Are starting to pile in rule in it. I was wondering where the questions are. Oh What's going on? No, we'll get to them. We we have to do a break and then you'll let you just roll through them For the next two hours. You're gonna have to do them quickly Okay, well in that case, why don't we take a break right now and uh, we'll get answers to your questions here on voiceover body shop And uh, we'll get to those right after this Hey, for the first time ever save $50 on voiceover essentials dream bundle the vo1a microphone Specifically designed for voiceover a mic port pro usb analog digital preamp the audio pros first choice And the gorgeous all metal vo1a pop filter custom crafted for your vo1a microphone All this with free two business day shipping in the continental united states the vo1a voiceover microphone Virtually all microphones are designed for musicians and singers Not us word workers So with the help of mxl harlan hogan designed a microphone specifically for voiceover The vo1a gets rave reviews for its sound and affordable price and all items shown here are included There's the phone line travel case shock mount mxl quick mic clip fleece lined protective storage pouch And a 15 foot marshal xlr microphone cable The vo1a pf silver pop filter matches your harlan hogan Signature microphone perfectly it clamps directly onto your mic and the sleek wraparound retro design recalls the glory days of the beetles and abbey road studios While it reduces plosives and protects the microphone's gold spotted diaphragm The mic port pro usb interface for a clear clean pristine sound in an amazingly small package It's impossible to beat the mic port pro the preamp and the analog digital audio interface turns any microphone Into a usb mic But with studio quality audio not the consumer sound so often heard on all-in-one usb microphones Get free two-day shipping in the us get all three and save $50 Bought separately $548.94 bundle price 498.94 Go over to voiceover essentials.com right now and save a bundle on this bundle Just click on the voiceover essentials link at the bottom of the v obs page. Thanks harlan Style power you're watching the home of the nfm The all-new iphone reserve your disney world season pass now Through all the runny noses three in the morning coughs An all-new american crime story tonight on fx this week only it's pasta fest at olive garden heart rate prime blood pressure Perfect, I grew up with the classics and now with stup hub. I can get authentic tickets to the best shows The all-new chevy cruise from 16995 Be inspired then get the beauty that's uniquely yours at sephora this week at home depot It's our garden fest sale with up to 30 off all garden tools sod and seeds Hi, it's j michael collins and these are just a few examples of the first class demos my team and I are producing If you'd like to have something similar visit jmc voiceover.com and click on the demo production tab to find out more And we're back here on voiceover body shop We're talking with ilko drostowski You just retired though So you're not actually doing this anymore, but you know this business inside out backwards and upside down and I didn't forget it Since friday much as I try we need to put ret in parentheses after your name on the title emeritus But yeah, so you know you don't have to do this This is how you're spending your first day in retirement is in your car coming over here to talk to us We totally appreciate that. Well, I had question about the demos you you hinted earlier if a demo is a little too Slick a little too perfect That's a little bit of a red flag sometimes or does it translate to It's a lot of bells and whistles a lot of music in this It just it makes it really super shiny and it A bit of a red flag because I don't know if the talent is going to back up this this level of Of production to be totally honest Sometimes I'll hear a demo with a lot of sound bed And I'm like, okay. Where's the actor coming in? Oh, I see right at the end. No, no, no, no We just got to showcase you not the music and the sound beds and right and that stuff It's got to showcase the artist Does it have to sound like the word that we had we had this Special we did a few years ago. We called the demo demo derby And we listened to demos and we critiqued them anonymously And the thing that we said that made one sound better than many others was that it sounded familiar Like it just sounded like the spots were real Current and real. Is that something else that translates to you? We get a number of demos that are real spots that were lifted from air Oh, yeah, I'm not even talking about real material, but I mean just It just sounds like it's legit. It just sounds like it could be real material, but it probably isn't I I call that the easy read. Yeah It's easy to listen to it's easy to direct It's just easy. Yeah, and uh, it's it's the easy read and when I first started we were still in the Sort of the age of the over-the-top announcers the guys with the deep pipes and the conversational announcers It was sort of a new trend within just a couple of years of when I started and uh celebrities have been doing commercials and voice-overs since the beginning of time so To sort of say oh the business Turned upside down because the celebs not now Not not to not any more or less than it has been um At least in my in my opinion. Um But nevertheless, uh I do hear celebrities doing scale jobs and Quite often they'll say we want a celeb, but we'll only pay scale But it's going to make crazy money because it's home depot or it's a retail account Right and by retail account is one that works every week Right, so even at scale it just adds up with residuals and the session and the this Um all car accounts are retail unless you have You know a shorter run of them with a big celeb under a big contract Before we get to the questions was I mean there are a lot of them I have to mention the one name that hasn't been said tonight, which is don la fontaine He was a client worked in his worked on his home studio. We became friends and He was with your agency. How much did you interact with don yourself personally? Did you have to deal with don or did others really hand mostly? Steve Tiersman basically handled him exclusively. Yeah while he ran the place. Um other people would Pitch in here and there if Steve was either on vacation or out to lunch or something like that Um don was a dream talent not Just of the skill and quality of his talent. Yeah, but always on time always a pro never complained Everyone gushed about how amazing he was to work with He would rewrite copy if it wasn't working just to make it work for the Producer and it worked don started as a copywriter. So he understood it. Yeah. Yeah He had that clout and if it worked better, okay And uh, yeah, he was a dream Dream talent once we purchased the company. I had a far more active role in working his daily Book as it were and he and he worked Multiple times a day. Yes busy book and um, they're my first year as a partner Over the Christmas holiday. It just happened that I was The only one in the office for a week or two and I handled all of those Guys and I basically handled everyone in the agency for those two weeks And his was busy, but the easiest. Yeah They knew what they wanted. Yeah, and he knew how to deliver and be on time and be a pro about it Period. Totally. All right. Larry Hudson gets the first question. Yes. Larry's right at the top What are the top okay? We're gonna swing out with some good ones and juicy ones What are the top four or five agents or agencies? I should say not agents agencies in los angeles new york for commercial work in your opinion Well, certainly avio talent. That was the one you just retired from correct. Um dp in a solid spv solid morris a solid um ksa is solid Those are They're essentially the top when you say morris you're talking about wi me play morris. Yeah Cool. That was easy. All right. Uh john c relates to paul's question here. Uh Does this Number of agents change for union and non-union people I'm not exactly sure how how would he state that one? He didn't read paul's question. Oh, I thought it relates to paul's question. Oh, okay. Oh Took out the top of that. Uh, okay paul stafano asks, uh, who by the way is on double secret probation now Uh, how many secret probation double secret probation? Awesome. Yes. He he abused his privileges at the top of the show Uh, how many agents is too many? Uh, yeah, there's the trick. Uh, you can legally only have one agent per county in the united states And there are thousands of counties in the united states. I didn't know that was a federal statute, but I don't know about federal, but it's You essentially cannot sign either, uh, general services agreement or a union Agency contract with an agent You can only have one per county period. That's how it goes. I have talent who I rep here They have representatives in san diego. They're representatives in san francisco denver miami dallas new york montreal vancouver um Milwaukee for production work that's done in those particular locales correct. Yeah, uh now sometimes one of atlanta is another hub And Overseas as well london and midrid and paris and so on um On occasion some of these smaller agencies will get a big national account to cast So what we tell the actor is if you live in la We're the mother ship So if your denver agent gets a big fort account shot You reach out to us because we probably got it too So we would get dibs on that because we're the mother ship So Please defer to us on things like that Clearly if it's like a local Denver pizza shop, we're probably not going to get that one. So you could feel free and just go ahead and do that one Okay um, so this was some of these numbers of agents are in returns. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you but um, Your your spear was all union talent. Is that right? so There's this number of agents thing relate to the non-union side of things as far as you know I would imagine I would suspect I cannot confirm. Okay Um, and if nominated you won't serve correct. All right Uh, Elena, let's see. Elena montine asks when choosing talent do clients and studios prefer actors from higher profile agencies over Boutique agencies, which you were just talking about It completely depends on the relationship. Uh, this is a business of relationships um There are some vendors that will only go to XYZ agency or agent and there are others who will absolutely never go to XYZ talent or agency um And that's just personal preferences. They are not required To send the breakdown or anything to every single agency um So I Hope that answered the question. Yeah, that makes sense. All right jack daniel gets to actually ask His actual question next With an actual microphone. Yeah, it'll go that being you Especially with reference to today's market What do you wish talent would do more of vis-a-vis the agent talent relationship or if you prefer less self? um I overheard this once Your agent only collects 10 of the money That means the actor has to sort of do 90 of the work That means acting lessons. That means taking class That means going to events and hobnobbing with creatives and casting people and so on um The actor really should not stay at home waiting for the phone or the email to ring. They need to actively Be motivating their career and themselves And that doesn't mean stalking creative directors. That's a little weird um But I do mean uh Going to classes going to Taking lessons Singing lessons work to acting lessons not just voiceover lessons um Anything you can do to further your career without Me there really really works and then tell your agent i'm doing this I want to talk to you about expanding my parameters into animation or into video game or motion capture or promo or trailer right and um And some actors are clearly only commercial A very small handful can do everything If an actor comes from a very long promo session, they're going to be up and hyped and won't be able to bring it down for a commercial for a For mellow a conversational commercial bit. They're all Amped and high Sometimes if you do a animation thing, you're all also amped and can't really do a commercial Read or a promo read you have to Shift gears and only again only a small small handful of performers can actually do that Great thoughtful answer. Thank you very much All right, uh, thomas machin says does your agency that would be a vo the one you just retired from? Do they have vo talent outside of la? and if so, where We do rep actors who um Live in other states in other cities sure some Actors we rep while they lived here and they just moved out of state and we don't want to lose that relationship sure other actors Are based in new york and they just say hey, I need a an extra set of eyes and ears in la and You know with fully Fully understanding that new york would be the mothership um There are some actors that just are incredibly successful, but they live in the middle of nowhere And they're gonna need a representation wherever they can get We rep some actors that split their time between san francisco and la um So and we make it clear to them This is a job that you have to be in la for on this date for so Be here period no excuses, you know interfering in jail break out Does the hand holding include getting you out of jail? No, actually he's he mentioned something about hand holding I mean, uh, what does that? What are you talking about when you say that? Actors are very sensitive delicate flowers Yeah, some actors just like agents Be hard on the outside, but we're even harder on the inside. No the hand holding For many respects if uh actor has an account for a long time and they lose it They need consoling Other actors are Burnt out after a while and they need to be refocused Uh, some actors perhaps haven't booked in a long time They need to be reassured that they're viable And that someone will love them someday and by love. I mean put money in their pockets The best kind of love I correct many kids And other bit of hand holding is the tough love hand holding You've been delivering really schmucky auditions lately and you've got to step it up Or i'm not going to put you on my list of people I think about Or Your home studio really stinks and it sounds crummy and it's making me look bad So you have to come in or you have to dial it up there right or they can call us What are the better things that guy? Yeah Uh tracy linley asks the lovely and talented and a wonderful mother Uh, how can voice talent help bring agencies business or any other ways we can help other than be awesome in sessions And don't be stupid on social media Also, you tell us some horror stories from sessions or things that talent did that were exceptionally good There's a lot of questions. Yeah, well, she's smart lady Uh, I have some talent That uh, every job they book they just want their agent to handle it Um, whether it's a little rinky dink job or a big union job Uh, it requires invoicing and just keeping up to date Because when you have an agent in there producers tend to say, oh, you have somebody serious who actually will pick up the phone and grab me out for not paying on time um So for that reason alone just the 10% fee Is more than enough solace for them to have me just do the invoicing for them It makes a lot of sense and these are things that they generated on their own through their website Uh, a random producer will reach out to them directly Um, or have a previous existing relationship with them Uh, or could be somebody from a creative ad agency that used to hire them And now they do casting or they own a studio instead I love working with this actor actress. They make it easy So they contact them directly And then they either say talk to my agent or I'll just do the scheduling with you because we're friends But all contracts all invoices everything comes to this guy Um, well now you're retired Right. Yeah, so it's not happening anymore. It's somebody else's problem now have a horror stories. Um It's uh one actor was once an hour late Uh because he flew in from out of town and his clock watch was off by an hour And the producer was their first time So after three minutes or four minutes of the actor not being there she called she was yelling she was screaming and and i'm like Relax relax, you know, but I had to take it. I couldn't fight back with her my actor was an hour late So, uh, yeah, she definitely read me the riot act As she should have Not changing your clock for the time zone is like your dog eating your homework And I get it. Um, they burned a lot of time In the studio and studios are expensive So yeah, my actor and I did deserve to get yelled at Although it wasn't purposely done Uh Another time I distinctly remember this one. They hired one of my actors for a spot And I said are you sure you don't mean this one? No, no, no, we mean this one Are you totally sure you don't mean because this is the one who like I remember the copy this this is the one. No, no, no, this is the one we want. All right to send my actor there And five minutes after the booking time I have the actor and the producer both calling me at the same time. Oh boy And I was like, this is not good. This is not not good at all um Actors said they don't like what I'm doing and they're letting me go and I said good You're getting paid for five minutes of work of doing nothing. You're gonna get paid Then the producers like your actor sucked. This was totally a bomb and I was like, I'm sorry I gave you the chance And they were like, okay, send me the other one and I did But it was one of those times where wait a minute Why is my actor calling me five minutes after the session? You better not be late And then when my secretary said, oh Producers on the phone I at that moment. I just hope my actor didn't run over his dog in the parking lot or something, you know But that was one of those it was just like two hammers pow pow not fun Uh, Gary Lewis says how does the new this is a long or very short answer But how does a newbie break into the agency market? Is it just a matter of starting local and just Work in your way up the food to become an agent? I um, I guess that's a good question I would say I would assume it's from the voice actor's perspective here. Yeah. Um, yeah That's a tough one. I don't know because I've recruited actors who Never worked in voiceover and had a great demo and they've had great careers Um, and they were all newbies as well just starting out And they gained success over the years Um, I Just it has to be a business for you. You have to find the agency that's going to work best for you If you want to do animation has to be a great demo and you target an agency that's very strong in animation Uh, likewise if you want to do commercials Strong demo and target an agency that works really strong. Um You could start at a smaller one and then work your way up that has happened to me I've recruited actors and I get them to a certain level and then they say I'm done with my high school. Sweetie. I'm gonna go get uh, the supermodel and that has happened and it's a heartbreaker Um, so don't do it To me and you won't there are a lot more questions I don't think we can possibly get time for them all. Um, but I think this one is a short and sweet one and maybe Could be helpful to a lot of people this one's from Someone that calls himself sound insight and he or she says my cover letters to agents are getting stale What captures your attention? are captured attention Make it short and sweet like the sentence um And it doesn't have to be a zinger or anything Uh, just be truthful. Um, I'm just starting out Here's my demo. I would love to meet with you. I'd love to work with you I have a xyz studio at home. Um, I just booked a big gig I just booked a big gig and oh by the way, I'm a senior creative director at shyaday And I need an agent because I work my way into the yahoo account or you know, um Short sweet I don't yeah, yeah an apple. I don't need a super super long Uh, you're not applying for attorney general. You just want an agent to Hey, this is what I do. I'm good at it. I want you to see I'm good at it And I want you to be my agent like there has to be a desire And I've noticed this where it's like a copied and paste letter And then my name is in a different font and different size I'm like, oh, just just make that extra little effort to make it personal to me goes a long way that just See, uh, sorry. I just didn't do it for my copy paste Well, if it had I had I had you not retired, I would love to have you as my agent, but that's not gonna happen Thank you. All right. Well, I'll take that any way. I can't on the way out We just want to say because jaleen said this, um You know much success in your writing Career will be following your thank you your exploits. Thanks. Yeah, I can't wait to to read the first novel when it comes out Elko, thanks for being with us. Totally. It was great. Thank you for taking your first day of retirement and just delving back into what you do They keep pulling me back in. I was gonna say that All right, well, George and I'll be right back to wrap things up right after this 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 voice over x t r a dot com Oh, yeah I've been looking forward to meeting ilco for a long time because we have some mutual friends and oh, you should talk to ilco He knows what's going on and then he just proved it So, I mean the guy has retired ladies and gentlemen and still he came in to talk to us. I mean that was really cool We appreciate that Uh next week on this very show, uh, we have uh christin lennox and her daughter I think that's been confirmed that uh, I guess they both have voiceover careers and daughter We'll find out find out the daughter. Hopefully the name that would be cool. Yeah may 7th. Keith farley will be here Oh, fantastic. He's a great video Uh animation and video games or more on both well, we'll find out more. Well, we get to ask him I should know I worked with the guy. Sorry try to remember, you know, okay Uh may 14th dan naktrab will be with us. He does narration and promo work Naktrab knocktrob. It's it's with an a though Naktrab knocktrob Like Colorado, okay Uh may 21st harry don who does promos at the cw and probably a pile of other places It's like a little bit about promo agent promo. It's like this month is like it's that's the big time people All right, who are our donors of the week and we are graciously appreciative of them. Oh, man We are still getting donations and because people don't know how to unsubscribe so they keep sending us money No problem that joke never gets old Uh, we got patty gibbons And eric aragonie and andrew kaufman. I mean i'm reading these names all the time Smart you get your name out there in the ethers. We say it every week. It's you know, you send us a little bit of money We can say your name a mandafellows Uh George widdum So that reminds me that's my dad by the way happy birthday dad happy birthday there My dad's birthday is today. He's 27 too. I understand It flipped in a reverse Yeah, no, but that's um, thanks dad. Thank you brine page and Going back a week or so What do we got left here at the very bottom here at this list Shelly avaleno. There's a name from uh from our early roots. Yes and thomas pinto. Yeah, excellent Um, by the way, if you need help george the tech dot com Home voiceover studio dot com. All righty Uh, let's see here. We said happy birthday to your dad. Um, you have a geek podcast I guess i'm gonna have to start my own podcasts too You've got this and your own geek podcast Well, yeah, I got recruited into this podcast called the pro audio suite with uh voice actor andrew put peters a producer from down under Darren robertson and our very own source element sponsor robert marshal Four of us we wait we eat a lot of techy stuff and geeky stuff studio stuff gear But then we also get to interview some really amazing talent Cool a lot of time they're actors and sometimes they're producers and engineers. All right Uh show logs, uh jack de gold is still writing down everything we say great when you watch the youtube replay of the show Anything that ilco said tonight It's like, where did he talk about this when you talk? He'll have the timecode in there and that's great. So when you if you if you happen to watch the replay That's the place to find it. Uh, let's see here. Um, also we have a podcast of the show That's right. This one's gonna be a great one. Yeah, if you're a listener Yeah, if you're a listener I mean if you'd prefer to be listening because the show is long and maybe the timing isn't right for you Listen to it on the podcast. Uh, listen, you know, you can find out on itunes and stitcher eventually we might be able to find us on Spotify Because they're now doing I'm trying to get us on spotify. They have podcasts now And if you're a listener, but you want to watch it live We are doing the show live just about every single monday night at 6 p.m Pacific time 9 30 newfoundland right And uh, you know and if you want to be and if you're in the in the los angeles greater los angeles area And it is great by the way If uh, you're here and you're here on a monday night and like to be here live in our audience We invite you in here just write to us at the guys at v obs dot tv and say hey I'm going to be in the greater los angeles area And I would like to see the show live because we have actual chairs that you can sit in And uh, and you get to meet interesting people like george and I and our guests and jack and stuff like that Uh, and that's monday night 6 p.m. Pacific time Uh, we really appreciate it show us your booths This is uh, this is ray veldevino's booth And and it's actually pretty nice You know he's he's he's got the harbor freight blankets up you gotta love that they work great. They are recognizable aren't they Use them a lot, but they're fabulous for for dampen the audio Uh, let's see here. We need to thank of course our sponsors like harland hogan's voiceover essentials dot com Voiceover extra source elements vo to go go voice actor websites dot com and also j michael collin's demos Alrighty, uh, need to thank of course my wife marcie who's not even here this week So we could have done the show and she wouldn't have anything to say about it She's the one usually lets the dogs in and out of the studio Uh, our producer catherine curden for finding us amazing guests like elko drostowski uh Jack daniel for doing amazing work in the chat room tonight because there was a lot of questions and monitoring the Promptor and which is a little ornery at times sometimes sometimes Uh, and uh, and of course jack to go away for the show notes and lee pennie simply for being lee pennie come visit us lee Please you almost forgot a very very important person and sumer lino our amazing floor director who made it She's absolutely perfect tonight. She has put up With some Frustrating couple of weeks or months actually and things of uh things. I think went pretty darn well tonight. All right Very happy. Thanks. Nice nice work. All right. Well, that's gonna do it for us this particular monday night But we'll be back next monday night. We know this is not an easy business We try to give you the best information to help you with your voiceover career Keep practicing take those acting classes Keep asking those questions of us and we will be here to answer them for you Uh, i'm dan lennard and i'm george wittem and this is voiceover body shop or vio Ever great week everybody. We'll see you next monday