to Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop. How is everybody doing this week? We have a great guest tonight He's like sitting right next to me Jeff Howell Lolo the dean of voiceover coaches here in Hollywood works with everybody some really amazing people and we're gonna talk about Mostly about dubbing and some of the other things so if you got questions for him throw it in the chat room Jeff Holman who is actually sitting here in the studio with us today. He's here Will be monitoring the chat room if you've got a question throw it in there And we will get those questions in just a little while. So are you ready, mr. Whitton ready to go It's time for voiceover body shop right now Voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials calm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements the folks who bring you source connect Voheroes comm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor comm your voice over website ready in minutes Voiceover extra your daily resource for voiceover success and by world voices the industry association of freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts Dan and George Hey, how you doing out there? I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whitton and this is voiceover body shop or vio Everybody going out there what's going on in the voiceover world? We're happy to have you with us again If you've got a question for our guest or for George and I when we talk tech talk a little bit later on Send it in the chat room and Jeff Holman will take care of that and make sure that we get that question right here somewhat within view of my Aging eyes here. Anyway, our guest tonight is the fabulous Jeff Howell one of the best-known coaches here in LA You teach everything. I do From what I'm seeing of course Yeah, exactly now the the I there was some confusion on your resume when I was like, okay Well, let's get everything right here on yes promos for the show, but where are you now and what are you doing? So I am working for myself. I have my own company howell productions ink and I went out on my own eight years ago and Since then I basically will pretty much produce direct anything that comes my way and through this journey Over these last eight years. I've ended up immersing myself in the dubbing world quite a bit But yet I still dabble and commercial and promo and narration a little bit of animation as well And I basically whenever anyone's asked me about what types of projects I enjoy doing I just say I enjoy doing all of it and and also as you just mentioned I coach as well and occasion will do a demo if I have time so anyway, but I just I love what I do I love every part of this business and especially as of late the dubbing business, which is has its challenges Which I can go into but it is it's an exciting New newer part of our business. Yeah now During the pandemic, of course dubbing became Real big time because nothing could be produced here in LA or in other places And but there was a lot of material in europe and turkey and some of these other places It had to be dubbed and I noticed that It's a lot tighter than it used to be. Yes, it's no longer someone talking And their mouth keeps moving, you know something along those lines What were some of the technological changes? Well, I think that you know what we noticed it during the pandemic was that you know the technology When it worked it was fantastic But as we found everyone has a different sounding booth and with dubbing Just like adr you have to sound like you're in the mixers have to mix it so that it sounds like everyone's in the same room And that's a real challenge And I really my I tip my hats off to the mixers because they really had a big job During that time to make all the rooms sound essentially the same And you know and that's where george, certainly you can step in on this too because the acoustics of everyone's you know You could say have a closet get a good microphone call it a day But you know we had I can't even tell you it was almost comedic when we'd see the camera Of the closets and what they were doing to make it sound soundproof or to keep the dynamics and the acoustics So that it sounded good and it was it was a crazy crazy time But we we got around that and we also found too that You know with with dubbing the sink is an issue and for us to be able to judge Whether or not your performance is syncing up properly We need to be able to look at it at that time And even though you would record and we would have the engineer line it up And then I would have to judge really quickly if I like the performance if we captured it and also if the sink worked But oftentimes sometimes the sink was about 10 seconds off in terms of when we were recording And that made it a little daunting to judge the performance as we were going along So what we found was it took more time and as we all as some I don't know If you know we're not but dubbing a lot of it is based on time in terms of how you're paid So it cost a lot more money talent wise during that time period to capture The voices and also as we all know Little clicks and things happen when you're when you're dubbing When you're using something off wi-fi or hopefully not wi-fi But when we were doing remotes and so we'd have to cover everything twice at least even if I like the take And it sounded great. We do a safety because sometimes we don't hear those little imperfections until after you've disconnected and so it just took a lot more time and That those were I think I answered your question the technological changes. I mean, we're still able to do it Of course, it's just it it costs more money because it costs more time It takes more time Right. Well, there was this the development of of karaoke style right with with dubbing I mean it used to be you know, I watched the film here Yeah, the three pop and you'd watch and yeah, and then they came up with karaoke where it just comes across right in sync with the actor Right, which probably takes a lot of effort on the other end preparing. Oh, yeah Uh, and that that that made it a lot easier and yeah, and I've done a couple of projects in various places all over the place You know, it's always fun getting up at 6 30 in the morning to do something at 8 30 at night in Mumbai, right exactly You know, so it's like okay. I'm awake. I can do this, you know, and then somebody okay. No, you're going to do it list one It was it was a lot of fun. It was it's always fun doing it and it's always great working with people in other places But it's not that easy. I mean People don't realize That it's acting you've got to watch what's going on and Imitate that particular action and emotion of the character actually makes you think something. Did you notice any kind of a shift in the performances? Overall just was there anything that changed in the way people performed because they were forced to work from home or It was it was it harder to get the performances to not always the technical time but the actual now Let's do that again. Let's get a little bit more Was that an issue the good question and I think for the most part if How what I found was if the actor had experienced dubbing already They were fine. Yeah. Yeah, but as we have found in the dubbing world We end up using new people all the time because we have specific needs for a specific show or film And so oftentimes we'll end up casting new people which I and I love that I love working with new people Maybe maybe we cast them because it was a great voice match Or they had a specific skill of being bilingual in a certain language that we were dubbing and we needed two languages as opposed to just English And so oftentimes we would find ourselves working with someone who may not have that much dubbing experience So the the process of acting In That dubbing realm was more of a challenge for them, especially being remote as opposed to being in the studio with us So to answer your question Yes, we did find that to be somewhat significant that that difference if they didn't have the experience But even if I don't mean to push the subject If if they were in the studio and still had that inexperience, do you think that was just sort of magnified? Yes, they weren't in the studio. Absolutely because for the most part when you get someone new, you know My job as a director Various jobs actually various hats But one of them is to be sort of the ambassador and the host of the session and to make them feel as comfortable as possible And and to walk them through the dubbing process and just like you said Dan the the scrolling across the screen I oftentimes try to say if you've ever done karaoke, then you definitely should be able to You know grab this okay, but it is odd if you've never had experience doing it You're in a dark room as a small studio booth and you're looking at a big screen And all of a sudden you see these things fly by and and symbols that mean certain breaths and and whether open Mouth closed mouth or there may be an asterisk, which means it's a mouth flap or a clapper Something like that So it's just trying to get them used to that particular language so that when they're When they are watching it They're in that process in that booth in giving us that performance that becomes more natural because they're thinking less About the technique of it and now they're really able to just embrace the acting So yeah, and and let's talk about the acting.  How what exactly do you have to teach people in order to To get this done right I think that the what I've noticed is that you know in terms of the acting first of all a lot of it is rhythm If you have an ear for them, I found that musicians are really good at dubbing because they have a sense of rhythm And because they're they're as they're viewing back and listening as we're all sitting there viewing the material Looking at the scroll going across studying the scene thinking about the tone the emotion They're also listening to the rhythm and that's so important because that's how we're lining up The word so that the cadence is accurate enough so that it isn't as jarring when you're watching the labials the lip flaps And so anyway, but in terms of answering your question about the acting It's all about the the thinking about the emotional sort of intent of the scene How we express or how that actor express the emotion and and vocally And trying to match that as closely as possible and also thinking about the other things the the physical movement going on Whether it's a breath when they're You know if they're getting excited and they're starting to increase their their breath because they're adrenaline The original actor their adrenaline was flowing and so they were getting excited So we want that to match that as closely as possible So when you're an actor in dubbing you're thinking about a lot of different things and not just how you sound but What's going on in the scene emotionally? Physically as well as vocally So there's a lot to it You know and and a lot to think about because you're having to wear a couple of hats You're trying to do the specific skill of watching the scroll and being precise with hitting the words where they're supposed to hit When it hits the cue line But in addition to that you've got to wear that creative hat where you're being emotional and you're in the scene and you're thinking about What's my arc? What what am I trying to achieve in the scene? How am I reacting and so it's wearing all these different hats and thinking about just Making sure that you're hitting the marks. And so it's definitely a a definite challenge. Yeah, which I love I found it very challenging in the times that I've done it and You know, it's like again capturing the emotion of somebody and then you know I mean you listen to the scene and they're talking whatever language they're talking in and sometimes they're emotional You know the way they express it might be different than how we do it And that's you know, how do you make it sound like? English or how do you make it sound like it's that and they may go on for a little bit and they're like Okay, you missed that mouth flap there and All right, let's go back. All right do that and then of course they go in and they're like, okay And you can see them doing it or at least tell that they're doing it and then they're like, okay, come back And that that of course is what takes up the time. Did they did you get like a rehearsal offline or like a Here's what's gonna happen. Here's the process before the actual stepping into the studio or no, you just Go it's it's cold. It's no prep Well, it's cold. But yeah, we let them for the technical side. Here's what it's gonna look like. This is what you're gonna Oh, yeah, no, no, they they they help you set it up. Here's uh, you know, because some Oh, yeah, it's different different platforms. Exactly.  He knows all this stuff about dubbing, which is big time business right now He's over there though. He's That was guaranteed to happen. I knew it was gonna happen. I did the same thing with It wasn't you. It was gonna be me Okay, and lastly see I just do that now that you did it. I don't have to do it. Exactly Our guest is Jeff Howell Jeff Holman's here, but Jeff Howell is here. I'm here. Good luck And and if you've got a question for him about dubbing and other things in the voiceover business of which he knows absolutely everything Uh, just put it in the chat room and we'll get to that question in just a little bit. Uh, well Now now that it can be done remotely And you know people can't come into the studio, but it can be done remotely and during the pandemic Certainly it was being done remotely Did you find a lot of people who were perhaps out of work actors? They were like Oh, I can do dubbing. Was there a lot of that and people you've a huge influx of people saying, okay, I can do this for now Well, yeah, certainly I think that as the word has gotten out about dubbing I think there's been certainly a sort of interest universally From various communities across the united states and internationally to get involved with dubbing, you know, right It's another revenue stream for the actors and and certainly it's interesting work It's not necessarily the highest paying part of our business certainly But I know that for the most part a 99 of the actors that I've had in or I've connected with Remotely have said they've really enjoyed the process and that it's helped them grow as a voice actor Certainly because they are more in touch with their emotions and and all that in terms of how they sound emotionally in a certain scene That sort of thing Um, and they just love the work I mean who doesn't like the work and especially if it's union you at least get some contributions to your pension and health And and that sort of thing and there's a I think there's more right now My sense of it is there's more union than non-union out there in terms of dying Now that wasn't the way it started, you know eight years ago when I first started doing this Netflix had not negotiated the contract with sag yet So it was more non-union than union But that has now Changed quite a bit and so I think a lot of actors love it. I mean they they enjoy doing it and there's is a lot of interest About it, especially because now you can't not watch Netflix and not see something that's dubbed Some are better than others And you know and I will say this and we can talk about this more if you want about the quality of dubbing out there that you know Listen, you can have a perfectly or relatively perfectly seamless dubbing experience On a project, but if it's a bad movie, it's a bad movie if it's a bad tv show It's a bad tv show You know whether the dubbing's good or not because I several people have said oh, I've tried to watch dubbing But I just and I asked them which one like well, of course it was a terrible Show Exactly So, uh, it's it's definitely Sometimes people do find it a challenge to watch to dub material whether it's good or not And and my suggestion always is that when you first start watching a program a show or a film Try not to focus on the lip flap right away Try to go a little off-center when you're first watching The program and then if you get interested in it and you start buying the voices for that character Then later on your brain sort of says, okay, I know it's dub, but I'm still really enjoying it So you'll allow yourself to get into it and then you'll forgive the lip flap But if you just go into it right away with a sort of judgment against it, you're not going to enjoy it You're just going to want to turn because you just don't want to your brain says Oh, it's not lining up. Well, of course, it's not going to line up. It's a different language Absolutely Yeah, and it would be great if we could demonstrate how all this works But if somebody gets hired for it, I mean you audition for it or you're on a roster when they track You see it you learn how to do it essentially, but it helps if you're a good actor. It does That's really important The technology is Not too complicated, but again, it's really hard to learn How to really sync up with it and because you like you said we're dealing with a couple of different things There's the platform they're recording on You're usually on zoom with them So it's all got to work just right. Um, but hopefully people can learn how to do that. How does one get into it? That's the million dollar question. Well, that's why I'm asking Let me uh Come up with a few bills here Yes, exactly. So so it helps if you live close to a dubbing facility because it is Sort of an easier process Being able to be have access to dubbing if you live in the city where dubbing is going on It's not impossible to book dubbing if you live in other parts of the country Um, but you know My feeling is that if you are truly interested in it I would go online and start getting the names of the major dubbing houses in new york and la And I think they're a few in Dallas and and they're in other markets as well, but mainly la in new york And contact them you can email that go on their portals and see if they have a submission portal if they do Submit, um, if not, then you could call them up And I'm sure the receptionist that picks up the phone will have the answer to that question because they probably get that call all the time Uh, then if you have an agent, uh, let your agent know you're interested in in dubbing as well Now I will say there are some agents that don't really care to chase that work because The contract that netflix negotiated with sag did not include the 10 commission And so if you, uh, do pay commission to the agent it comes out of the talent And because you're paid relatively low the agent sometimes feeling comfortable going after that low amount of money from the actor So it really is just such a delicate conversation to have with your agent But you could at least let your agent know that if auditions come their way that you're interested in being submitted Some actors are busier in other ways and they just don't want to uh to chase it But you can let your agent or manager know You can also let your friends know that are also doing dubbing and they can recommend you I get a lot of submissions through through that way. I've certainly seen that so there's a lot of referral business in this Oh, you could be should be doing this or talk to this person or something along those lines. Exactly. Is this one of the companies? I do That's definitely one of them.  First of all, um A lot of people say what do I submit and you know The commercial demo is probably the better demo because if you have a recently produced commercial demo You probably have a demo that has a lot of conversational reads That tells us exactly where your voice naturally sort of Lies at this point in time. Um, I would not submit an animation or game demo because it's just too too much To spread out because in dubbing in the dubbing world. I'm pretty much hiring you For your voice. I'm not getting sort of crazy voices However, I will say I did a couple of animated series this last year For dubbing and so I was hiring some wacky voices certainly, but for the most part for live action You're going to be judged and hired based on your natural voice So if you feel That your commercial demo is sort of let's say it's a little older and has a lot of character voice work on there Or if you just feel that you don't have enough Conversational then what you can do is just choose a couple of uh, a couple lines Of various attitudes from you know a script Uh, it could be from a play a movie whatever and just read them and record yourself doing them as long as you have a good enough Sounding mic and hopefully you do and just string those together and submit those because that gives us a nice baseline Sort of sound on you. It doesn't have to be fancy. No music. No sound effects. No nothing It just we want to hear your voice probably the more you you try to be slick with production Will work against you. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Absolutely. Don't try to be too clever. Yeah, just act exactly Just do it yourself. Just record yourself doing it and and but just again make sure it's a good sounding Uh, voice print and then number two the one thing that I will say that is a track From my standpoint is if you are bilingual or trilingual That does help in the dubbing world because there are times when we have to get various Languages from the same person and so that would help to show that sort of ability You know fancy accents. We don't really need those as much It's more about just if you speak fluent languages Other languages fluently so so those are the those are my two secrets do your own demo And also just let us know that you speak multiple languages fluently And then I would just say submit to the dubbing houses across the country And that's that that will get you a better chance I believe of getting in the door with dubbing Then trying to wait for some random audition to come through unless you have an agent That gets a lot of dubbing work And there are a couple of agencies out here that are very open to dubbing and so they do Send out auditions that they receive from the dubbing houses And that's how a lot of their talent get on these rosters And the good news too is that when you get on these rosters And if you're really good the directors all talk to each other We do our own casting and so and there have been a number of times where I've done casting in the lobby Where I'll be talking to another director and I'm like, oh my gosh, I need such and such They're like, oh, you've got to try so and so and so I'll go and listen to the demo and I'll hire them I don't even read them. I'll just hire them. So So yeah, so that's to answer your question from five minutes ago A good referral source is is a very important absolutely when the right person is also casting and directing all the It's like, no, I got the guy.  I don't know. Okay. Let's get to work. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah Once again, we're talking with Jeff Howell Howell Just making sure I know it's like it's like the thing with cliff zelman and my aunt zelda there was zelda feldman and cliff zelman Always confused. Right. It happens when you get over 65 suddenly things just don't work quite as well as they do It starts a lot earlier than that And guess what? I hear you. It doesn't get any better. We're with Jeff Howell. If you have a question for him it is your imperative to talk with Jeff Holman Who is in our chat room and get those questions in now because he knows a lot about a lot of different things That go on in professional you can put those in linkedin youtube or facebook or monitoring all those channels or everywhere Anyway, um I have noticed because I watch an awful lot of tv Because my life is pretty boring, uh Lot of great stuff. You were talking about some shows that really suck But i've seen a lot of good stuff coming out of europe some great stuff out of israel and turkey They've been studying here. Haven't they how to make good stuff because I can see the you know How it is that they're that's formatted the way it is in hollywood, but they're doing it in their own studios I know there's a big studio in morocco or a lot of stuff is getting done And uh and some really good actors Of course now i'm starting to notice the same voice for different characters Like wasn't that the guy that played this and that other show? Yeah So there's probably you start picking those. Yeah, exactly. Of course. I have a good ear. I listen to voices all day. Yeah, um Where do you think the best stuff is coming from? Well from my projects now, yeah, well, okay, well, you know, I That's such a boy. That's a question. I haven't faced but I would say that you know The secret is netflix has studios all across the world You know all right, you know, and so they and they have a standard So that's why you're noticing that the overall quality from all these Companies all these all these companies in all the other countries It's starting to look better and better and better because netflix has created the standard and technical standard as well You can look that right up on their website. Yeah, exactly. You can all about what they want to hear from you exactly so so I think that to be honest with you, I don't even know if if If there's a certain country or or area of the world where Better product is coming out of I think there's just such great material coming out of the united states to be honest with you But what happens is is that the process? my understanding Is that for example netflix will have They'll invest in shooting a film let's say in israel and then they'll already plan to We're gonna dub it in french. We're gonna dub in spanish So they already have those rough tracks all that being sent to all the different markets at the same time Like I may be dubbing something from israel at this time and paris is working on at the same time You know, you could have belgium working on it or germany munich or wherever you could have the different offices all around the world Working on the same project at the same time so And that that's probably the case because you know if you notice that when you go on And you look at all the different languages they all come up at the same time You want to watch it in spanish you want to watch it in german you want to watch it in you know, whatever So so they're all we're all working at it I would imagine on the same product at the same time right and it's about 10 minutes of credits afterwards They go yeah, the swedish guys and here's the japanese govers and you want to know What these studios are watch the credits exactly because they're all credited At the end at the post rolls so you know exactly who they are. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah once again We're talking with jeff howell you can ask questions. I'm running out of questions because I know all this stuff. No, I don't But you've also you've also taught uh promo. I've taken your promo classes and that's that's very similar type of work Uh Not a lot of people getting into promo as I like to say it's a small Conjure of folks who are consistently getting the big network stuff. What is it that they're doing that is Different than say everybody else who's trying. What's the secret? What's the secret promo? Well, that's that's definitely a secret Well, I think the number one Secret of getting into promo is being aligned with an agent or manager that is very active in that Not all talent agencies have active promo departments. They they all do promo but some of them have Uh promo departments that have a bit more Weight they are more people maintaining those departments They have their contacts at these networks and and I think that just like because I used to be an agent a long time ago And I know that we all these have these highly coveted relationships And you know, so come to me don't go to another agent come to me and I'll give you the talent and that sort of thing Which is understandable. Of course, it's a relationship business So more so than commercial I think commercial is more spread out But promo is still more relationship based and so I think that the the true secret is access and access through a known manager or agent that has Uh those sort of contacts and then when you go beyond that Certainly the sound of promo has changed and when I'm speaking about promo when I'm teaching promo Whether it's at the various conventions around the country or in classes here in LA You know I always say that, you know, we're all at the mercy of pop culture and what's going on In terms of the taste of the video business whether it is commercial or promo and and so What was considered more of a standard at one time Which was that more bombastic sort of coming up on cbs that sort of read Is not as standard any longer and so you find a less aggressive read, but it is still engaged For example, it may not be coming up, but it might be coming up on cbs It's not as loud and vocalized and stabbed and there's staccato or bombastic as we always say But it's but it's still invested And one of the networks said we just want our promo people to sound like they like the show And I know that sounds like a sort of a basic But a lot of these actors because some of the more active ones that are going from job to job to job They start dialing it in no disrespect to them because that is a sort of that's what happens when you do it all the time Then it becomes so automatic that sometimes you have to stop and remind yourself. Oh I have to like this show And so it's then it's sort of going back to the acting a little bit and thinking about researching the show You're reading for whether it's an audition or an actual session But so the reads right now are a little bit less aggressive Now there are exceptions to every rule, you know, I I will sometimes spend an afternoon Going through various networks or cable nets and listening to the programming and the promos and sometimes you will find Still that style that's a bit more aggressive But you know, it certainly has changed in diversity certainly has had an effect on promo And and then also with the just the variation the multitudes of different networks and even on a network They may have different sounds different day parts You know, you might have an actor doing this day part You might have an actor doing just this one show, you know Or you'll have an actor that has a whole evening or they may be just daytime Not evening or you know, so so there are sounds very such variations out there So the good news is It's not that limiting You know, you've got it's not just the deep voiced men that are booking now You've got a lot of women getting into it now more than ever before And again, like I mentioned diversity certainly is is there as well So it's it's uh, it's an interesting time But promo is definitely a bit harder to get access to and I think mainly it's just the access of How do I get those opportunities those scripts? You know, I this is again a part of networking I think a big part of of of uh, vo Should be networking. I think promo is one that could really be Attained through networking and that is by you know, going to the different conventions and trying to hunt down the People that are there speaking about promo and chatting with them and picking their brains You never know What might come from that conversation and also people are in somebody right now doing something like that Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. We're talking with jeff howell again. If you got a question throw it in the chat room We're gonna take a break right now and we'll be right back with your questions and more talk about all this stuff right after this So do not go away This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying denin george on the voice of her body shop Oh, hi, you know, if you live in a house and your voiceover studio is in that house You don't want to disturb everybody else who's living in there So what you need are good headphones that are made specifically for voiceover And that's why we have harlin hogan's signature series voice optimized headphones 2.0. What's so great about these? Well one, they have a very flat response So you only hear exactly what it is you sound like second Incredibly comfortable leather leather pads on the outside filled with memory foam of really comfortable headband that really It really works with your head the most important thing you can wear them for long periods of time That's really important. Where do you get them? Only at voiceover Essentials.com. That's voiceover essentials.com. Just go there look at the headphones And get them now. Tell them we sent you. Thanks harlin Well, it's time to thank our sponsors source elements the creators of source connect And nexus the new version of nexus has been released Which is a ever evolving platform that allows you to do a lot More things with the source elements family of products Mainly being able to have meetings bring clients in from lots of different locations And integrate them right into a production Much more easily than assembling inputs and outputs from different Conferencing apps and all the other mess that goes along with it. So that's what nexus is but honestly Voice actors those of you who are watching the show, which is probably most of you You're going to want to know what source connect is and the best way to do that is to head over to source dash elements.com And go check out the content they have they have a lot more Content on learning source connect and getting it set up. I also have a video that's getting real long on the tooth It's been out almost About three and a half years But if you go on source if you go on youtube and search for source connect for voiceover I also have a good long video on there that would give you an orientation About how to get started with source connect But get yourself set up with an account get it downloaded learn how the thing works and understand the workflow So when those agents come along and say this job requires source connect, you're going to be ready. Anyway, thanks for listening Thank you so much for sponsoring us source elements and let's get on to the questions right after this Well, hey there, it's david h. Lawrence with vo heroes and wouldn't it be cool If there was a very simple tool drag and drop tool that would guarantee That the audio you need to upload to acx or any other audiobook platform is perfectly set up in terms Of the tech standards the root mean square normalization the peak normalization the noise floor Guess what there is and I want you to have it absolutely free It's called audio cupcake and you can find it at audio cupcake.com I helped create this software It was built to my specs and my standards for when I do audiobooks And I know it's going to work for you now It's only available for macintosh Because you windows users you have the ability to use other tools that work for you But in this case you edit your final raw what way file for a chapter You drop it on audio cupcake and out comes the 192k mono mp3 file you can upload immediately That's audio cupcake.com audio cupcake.com. I hope you love it This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv Jeff howell we're talking about dubbing we're talking about promo And we're we can talk a little bit about commercials if you want Getting a lot of people were like I want to learn how to do commercials and Most people got to realize that most voiceover is not showbiz That it is there's a lot of mundane things that have to be recorded So matter of commercials, you know probably this amount of what's out there, of course, that's the stuff that pays the most Exactly So when you get a job like that, it's really more gravy, but you've got to really get all these other types of work You know the e-learning and the the the medical narration and you've been teaching anybody that type of work It's interesting you say that I someone did come to me recently About medical narration and I referred them to someone else because I really felt that You know, even though I've certainly been exposed to that I there are other experts out there that I prefer sending people to especially when I'm really really busy But I'd say, you know, for example, when people come to me for animation Even though I've directed animation, I've certainly cast it But you know, I love sending people to the pros that know all those tricks that take it to another level And I mean, I certainly will coach auditions and animation auditions because it's about the acting And that I can certainly do but you know, it's it's I think there are so many people out there that You know, they and I'm not criticizing other coaches at all because we all have our strengths and weaknesses I certainly have mine But you know, the thing is I think that there are so many people. There's such specialists in certain fields I'm very happy to send people to those specialists because you know when someone comes to me and they want to You know get into a certain part of the business I want to try to give them the best advice and send them to the best person for that You know that particular area of vo But yeah, I've been certainly exposed to political narration and that's big of course And medical and and legal narration and in show narration of course and You know All that, you know, right I've worked in the audiobook book area a bit as well But I always send people to scott because why would I want to do it when you have scott brick there? You can't you can't do any better than that. I know he is he is the absolute king of this sort of thing Absolutely once again, if you've got a question for jeff howell throw it in the chat room right now And we'll get to that question like the first question we have Mr. Whittom your turn Yes, we've got one from fiber jazz who watches us from youtube Uh, two of them actually first um, do you coach for descriptive narration for the visually impaired? Is that something that that goes into your Audio description audio description. Yeah. Yeah, uh, no, I do not but I do have I do know a couple of people That do that sort of thing and um, then that's definitely a a specific area of the business You know, I did hear that that might be one of the areas that AI may end up stepping into More sooner than later Because it doesn't require as much acting nuance as other parts of Vo but don't quote me on that because that is not confirmed That's just something a rumor that I heard out there But of course everyone's concerned about AI in every area of our business, of course But not to say that you shouldn't try to get into it because who knows, you know, it may be around for quite a while Yeah, he has a second question. I'm not maybe you'll interpret this better than me. I didn't quite fully understand but He says for dubbing Do you need to know the original language or are there other ways to synchronize with the speaker? Does that make sense to you? It does it doesn't you do not need to understand the original language? However, if you do boy does it help there have been a number of times where we've had Especially in the in the world of the Spanish and the latin projects the Spanish speaking projects and I've had uh, you know oftentimes I'll try to cast people with some sort of background in the Spanish language And so there have been a couple of times where we received sort of an odd translation and they'll actually chime in and say Oh, you know what they meant And so we'll sometimes readapt on the fly based on the feedback that the actor or actors gave us Because of their unique understanding. So you do not need To know the language the original source language, but it certainly helps And in terms of syncing it up, that's what the job of the adapter The actor doesn't have to worry about that as much of course It helps if you have a good sense of rhythm and you spot something and go. Oh, you know what? I see an O labial an O an O lip Formation there and I think I could put this word there and we're certainly open to your your input but You know the adapters and they're so highly valued. I mean, I just I think adapt a an adaptation a strong adaptation Is essential for a well produced sort of Easier sort of production process when you're doing dubbing and the adapter is the one that takes the translation And they put it through voice cue or whatever dub X or whatever system And they're the ones that spend hours and hours and days and days lining up everything So by the time it gets to the studio, it's already gone through that makes sense because we like to we will watch the We will watch a dub Netflix show and we'll watch the with the subtitles And we'll notice when they don't line up when like why are they that's exactly what it is They've adapted it to make it fit better with the what the actor's doing. Absolutely.  I get it. Okay. Yeah, that's that's the answer Alrighty next one is from grace newton. She asks What are some of the red flags the talent should look for when approached for dubbing work? Oh, that's I and I know exactly what she's talking about that sometimes There there are a lot of scams out there. It's like, oh, we need you to do this and you we're gonna rent you this You know, you have to rent the studio and things along those lines Well, I think that you know clearly if you're working with a reputable Dubbing house, then there really are no red flags You can choose to take the job or not and a good dubbing house will will tell you what you're getting into because you know oftentimes you you may have a Sensitivity for a certain type of material or against a certain type of material And so they especially if there's nudity involved or language, you know, raw language involved They will certainly Tell you that a reputable shop when they're casting they'll and they're calling the talent. They let them know that The pay is what it is In terms of union and non-union it can be a little iffy But most of the production houses here in la are union. And so that's not even an issue really Is gvaa or any of those organizations have a Rate card so yeah, so like if you get something that comes to you because here's the rate you can verify that they're Yeah, you know, that's a good question and I'm with gvaa and I have no idea I have a looked at the rate card to see if they have a dubbing. I'm sure they probably do by this point I imagine um And those are they're great folks by the way and and I'm sure they have it but if not, I mean I think that it's I think again, I'm really trying to come up with an answer to that question I can't think of any real red flags I mean just follow your gut instinct if you're if it's some sort of You know production facility in the middle of the country or even on in la or new york that you've never heard of And you can certainly use like google be your friend and yeah, if you can't find anything about right And nobody you know knows anything about exactly Yeah, ask around ask around and if it sounds too good to be true probably is And and and obviously it goes without saying if any facility asked you to pay them Then obviously that's that would be a huge red flag for me You know, they're supposed to be paying you But that being said, you know, you're trying to get paid from these facilities That might be the issue as well if you're using one that isn't reputable So definitely try to check them out and that's that's all I can really think of to answer that question Yeah, and now jeff holman gets to ask his own question Would you like me to do it to camera or the camera is looking right at you? Would you like me to do it to camera? Yes, you will do a little bit of acting here So jeff you mentioned a couple of times that the pay is not that great for dubbing. What kind of pay are we talking about? Well, the union has negotiated with netflix and they have now they raised it to a three hour minimum And and then after that you get paid per half. I think it's per half hour after that and I think I should have probably looked this up because I don't I don't write the contracts So I think it's around the 300 range for the three hour and then you get then you get A buyout a 50 percent buyout for the residuals and on top of that And then you get a percentage on top of that to cover any overages if you go over the three hour period So I think it averages I don't know you probably have an actor that would probably call in and say otherwise But I think you end up for one session maybe averaging around what 400 500 bucks. Maybe I don't know but that's for a three hour minimum Sounds like a fair pay It's all right. Thanks solid. It's all do maybe a little lower now But anyway, but it's around there around there. It's between three It's between three and five. You know, I really should have looked that up and I Quick google that. Thanks for asking me a question. I didn't have the answer to What's getting if you've got a question for Jeff you still have lots of time to throw that in there so we can ask him that You know, we were talking a few minutes ago about, uh, you know translation and stuff like that I've been doing a bunch of stuff for a turkish agency And it's like this doesn't make any sense in english Where are you getting clearly they're using bad google translate to get this stuff and again you were saying that Suggest this is what you have to do and you know add a contraction in there because people don't talk How are you handling that with them? Yeah, it's well when that happens. I I go i'm changing this Because they trust me they know that Yeah, absolutely Question from max goldberg says, uh, are some promo houses willing to take on talent for scratch reeds? Yes, uh, I know that when I worked at a promo company for about 17 years Uh, certainly I utilize scratch and I'll tell you it started a number of careers because They got really good at it and my deal with the talent that scratch for me is I would give them an mp3 Of the finished spot so they could use that for a reel I'm gonna make you define what that means Okay, scratching okay, because really we always we love throwing out jargon. Yeah, sorry about that scratch Is just basically a rough version of the spot because you know a lot of times when we write these these spots We don't know if they're gonna work or not So we'll have a scratch voice meaning a attempt voice go in there and actually read it and usually it's directed And and uh once we're happy with read we'll send that uh to the network for approval and you know, uh I'd say at least 25 of the time 30 of the time the network would say we like that voice And so we would just you know, if we didn't have to change it I would just call that actor and say who's your agent or I know their agent and I'd say we're sending you You know, we're filling out a contract for you and and call it a day They were thrilled it was and I loved it when that happened too because those were people that were usually students of mine Uh, or or they were people that were referred to me People whom I met networking out there and I try to keep a list of people who are interested in scratching So to answer your question. Yes, I think that uh most production facilities Are certainly would be up for it because you're basically volunteering to be a scratch voice Now getting access to that is a little harder because you don't have as many outsourced production companies anymore that are producing promos A lot of them are directly in-house because the technology is a lot cheaper now for for the networks to be able to do it in-house certainly is cheaper for them not to outsource it and So it's getting into those networks and that's a little bit of a harder sort of get But there are some uh production companies again, that's a good google search for you To see if you can find some of the production houses in la or new york That would be able to you know would be interested and same for trailer companies as well The trailer business it's not quite as Busy as it used to be Because we're not hearing a lot of voices on trailers, but there's still trailer houses that will need test voices because they'll they'll write Big packages and send them to the networks and then the networks can sit there and sit on those packages for months and months trying to decide Which way to go and ultimately they may hire their go-to Trailer person and we know that group of 10 or 12 that are out there doing it But you never know when you might hit hit hit it and they're going to say we want a new voice and that that person sounds great So you never know. Yeah, and and again getting access to the studio Is the in for a lot of people how many times have we heard the story? Well, I was doing a scratch tracker I was doing something for this and somebody walks in and says by the way, are you available to do this? Absolutely and a lot of careers. I think almost every career I've ever you know I've heard of the people we've had on the show. Oh, yeah It was by mistake, you know, or it was they were looking for somebody and somebody couldn't show up. No, you try it Like don la fontaine. That's how he started. It's Fascinating Uh, that's the last one in the queue It is so jeff tell us a little bit about, you know, how you're teaching where you're teaching and where can people access you? So I I don't usually have my own group class here in Los Angeles because you know, my main priority my main job Uh Is to produce and direct. So I'm usually busy with that. However, I'm very happy to be a guest speaker And appear in various classes in la and new york So I'm I'm approached about those classes periodically and I do those make those appearances Um, also I go to the several conventions. Sometimes I'll take a year off from this one or a year off from that one uh Just to re-energize and and charge up my batteries and and all that But I do do private coaching mostly by zoom as most everyone although I do have an office at la studios And so now that things are a lot more open and I do have a a booth there in my office So, uh, I'm certainly able to do in person If the person is in la and wants to come in and I certainly enjoy that process too for people who want to reach me I do have my own website is uh, jeff howell vo.com And or you can email me at jeff jeff howell vo.com And and I will say this and I say this continually that please don't get frustrated if I don't get back with you Right away Feel free to email me on a regular basis people have booked when they've done that to be honest with you Because I just when I'm in a studio a dark studio for hours and hours and hours I just don't even have A minute to even check my emails and so by the end of the day when I go to check my emails It's usually putting out fires production fires first So sometimes the emails start shifting down into the box And I actually had an actress who was a lovely person and and has become a dear friend At one point she said I think you need an assistant And and I said, you know what you're right, but um anyway, but I I love private coaching. I do it as much as often as I can I love that process. I love Coaching people in whatever, you know area of voiceover that I feel Strongest that I can share that information with you But also my goal is to teach you or to meet with you as little as possible because I give you a lot of homework And because I really feel like it's a joint process. I I don't try to Because my my work process is not to train actors every day. I'm coaching. I'm directing sessions every day So my goal is to again check in with you Of course, if an actor is really feeling like they need to see me more often I'm certainly there for them But my goal is to try to get you independent of me so that you can train yourself So it trains your own ear and and then for me to fine tune you so that because again the real world Unless you really can afford to have a director directing all your auditions for you You're having to direct yourself. And so my my feeling is that if I can give you skills To take and to work on with on your own to be able to direct yourself and hear yourself And I think that's the most important thing and that's my sort of contribution to your career And you know, I feel like when you can do that I've done a good job Well, you are a very busy guy and we really appreciate you coming on today. My pleasure. My pleasure Get all this wisdom in here. Yes, of course. It's always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. All right, Jeff Howell I remember at that time We'll be right back right after these messages. So don't go away You're still watching v obs Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead There's one place where you can explore everything the voice over industry has to offer That place is voiceover extra dot com Whether you're just exploring a voice over career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voice over extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books auditioning home studio setup and equipment marketing performance techniques and much more It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voice over success sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports It's all here at voiceover extra dot com. That's voice over x t r a dot com Hey, it's time to talk about one of our other great sponsors voice actor dot com voice actor dot com What is voice actor dot com? Look as a voice actor you have to have a website. It's important It is the most aside from just being talented and and you know and making sure that your demos are really good You got to have a website to show people That you are there that you have a footprint an internet footprint And it's not easy to do especially if you've ever tried to design a website very difficult You hire somebody to do it you're talking four to five maybe six months of going back and forth and trying to get it right Over at voice actor dot com voice actor dot com. They've got templated websites Super duper easy. You sign in you create an account for free. You can start And there are templates that you can look at. Oh, I like this one Oh, I could put my picture there and they are totally customizable with color With where you put your pictures all these sorts of things and you can get your website up and running In half an hour not five to six months if you're trying to get your your site up and running That's the way to do it and then they have a special offer for 20 a month. You will get your own URL And it is just fantastic. Then you've got your website and that's the most important thing Go over to voice actor dot com. That's voice actor dot com and get your voice actor website up and running right now We are the world voices organization Also known as wovo We're the not-for-profit industry association of freelance voice talent voiceover is a complex entrepreneurial business Wovo is there to promote the professional nature of voice work to the public to those already established in their voiceover practice And to those who want to pursue voiceover as a career Membership benefits include a supportive and creative community a profile and demos on voiceover.biz Our searchable directory of vetted professional voice talent our exclusive demo player for your personal website Our mentoring program business resources and our video library our annual wovo con conference Of fun and educational weekend with other members with the chance to learn and network webinars and great speakers And weekly social chats with other members around the world If your world is voiceover make wovo part of it world voices organization. We speak for those who speak for a living Yeah, hi, this is carlozella's rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voiceover body shop Hey, we're back.  All right. We'll fix that We got to set it up for tech talk after this and we've got some great stuff to talk about there but our thanks again to jeff howell for coming in and Talking to us about all the stuff that he does which is an immense amount of stuff And he is certainly one of the most knowledgeable people here in the business here in la Until he's an authority on the subject. Yeah, uh next week on this very show. It will be tech talk number 114 Believe it or not And the last one of the year, right? It will be the last tech talk of the year because we're going to take a little time off Retool You know december's a weird month for me. Well right now because my anniversary is the day or after Thanksgiving My wife's birthday is december 5th You got hannakas sticking in there and christmas and all that stuff. I did fall this year Weird always does and the 25th of kiss left. It's oh, it's the same time every year Why ask the question? I know you ask that question every year and then my birthday at the end of the year It's like we got too much crap going on in december and december And we're trying to make some material changes to the way we produce the show.  Yeah, we need a break. I mean heck we We've been doing this show for 12 years. You think we'd be running out of things to talk about but not Uh, we need to thank the people of course, uh, who uh, who donate to the show like, uh, greg cooper Grace newton christopher epperson robert ledham steven chandler casey clack jonathan grant thomas pinto greg thomas Hey, dr. Voice ant land productions martha con 949 designs sarah borges philips appear brine page rob rider Shawna pennington baird don griffith Trey moseley diana birdsall aria makas and sandra manwheeler Thank you all for all your contributions and making the show Technically amazing, especially if you're watching live. You see how amazing it actually is Uh, you got any specials running? Well, we just have our usual george the dot-tex slash v obs landing page So we always have a discount code for you there Um, but in terms of other content, we do have some webinars in the hopper right now We're going to do a little beginner podcast webinar. It's just a good idea absolute crash course For like everybody stand in front of microphone talk Yeah, it's more about the gear of course But we have that coming up at the end of the month if you want to know what the webinars coming are Just go to george the dot-tex slash webinars Alrighty, we need to thank our sponsors, of course like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra Uh source elements there the of those guys v o heroes dot com voice actor dot com and world voices dot or world dash voices dot org the industry association the way of freelance voice talent and We're about to make some really cool changes there and uh people say what are you guys doing? We're doing what we always do only we're going to make it better. So join up over at world dash voices dot org Uh, let's we need to thank jeff holman who's actually in the studio tonight get the shot of jeff in the flare Yeah, there we go. Okay. So wave. Hello jeff. There you go and now back over here and uh We need to thank sumer lino who's in a lot of pain She's still directing from her place in burbank and getting it done remotely. It's amazing We make we made it happen during the pandemic and it still works Well, we're all here in the studio as well, but she had to stay home and thanks for doing that So feel better. Thanks. Alrighty. Well, that's gonna do it for us this week. Stay tuned for tech talk if you're watching live Stay where you are and ask your questions about your home voiceover studio because george and i just love talking about that stuff Even if we don't have something to talk about we find something to talk about And it has to do with home voiceover studios Which is a really important part of your uh, your business, but i gotta tell you it's not an easy business And getting your audio right is not easy But you talk to us we'll get it right because if it sounds good, it is good I'm dan lennard and i'm george woodham and this is voiceover body shop or vo be See you next week kids later


Welcome to Start Up the Storefront, presented by Aurobora. All right, welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking with a team from Giada. Thank you guys for coming. Thanks for having us. Any one of you can take this. We got Jersey in the house. What is Giada? Oh, yeah. Let's start with the name. Yeah, yeah. So I'm Noah. This is Max. This is Jack. Three of us grew up in Montclair, New Jersey. Childhood friends from the time we were seven or eight years old. So cool. And, you know, we grew up in a town of 40,000 people, but for those 40,000 people had nine or 10 really amazing Italian delis that serviced that town. So essentially a deli for every 4,000 people. And we moved in into Marvista, Los Angeles, 2018, and we spent a year going to all the spots that our East Coast friends out here said were like home, you know, all the Italian delis and found some amazing sandwiches along the way, but nothing that really resembled the kind of spots that we grew up loving in Jersey. So I'm working in tech at the time. Jack is in consulting, Max is in fashion. Not exactly the secret recipe you would think about when trying to open a hospitality group. But you know, we were young.  How old are you guys at the time? We were 23. OK. 23. Like fresh out. 23 was like, I love it. I love it. Yeah. We opened when we were 24. OK. In the middle of the pandemic. Yeah. Great timing. Yeah. Whatever, which in this case was a benefit for us. Yeah. And so, yeah, we work on the brand around Giada. We work on the concept and menu for about a year and then why the name? What does the name mean? So there's this phrase in Italian, passeggiata, which is like this evening stroll that families take in Italy, where the sole purpose is like literally just transported me right. Yeah.  Say that again.  And we love that idea. And that's amazing. We opened Giada in the start of the pandemic. Because the only thing you could do is take those, you know, I remember doing that with wine all across the neighborhood. Yeah. When we first came up with the idea, we wanted to try to build out a like speakeasy version. And like passeggiata was going to be like deli in the front and nightclub in the back. And we quickly realized we were trying, biting off more than we could chew with that. Yeah. We wanted a name with duality. Yeah. Giada part, passe in French means like out of style and given the turnover of clubs and nightlife. We thought it was really ironic to name the nightlife concept passe. And then Giada alone means nothing in Italian. And but it feels like it should like there's so many people that like, what does it mean? Nothing. But it's just such a beautiful word. And we love the double G. Like, you know, it's had as a great example of how we use that. But yeah, the name is a fun story to tell. And I think the phrase for me, it's always been interesting because like we're a neighborhood deli, like third thing. That's what we want to be. And like a term like that feels so fitting to be like what it's derived from. I really love that. And so what's the first step in the process? So one, your bread is amazing. Just it's incredible. So I don't know. But what's the first step in going through and making the best sandwich shop in LA? You know, I think we probably did it totally the opposite of the way that you would think a restaurant would come to fruition. Right.  And then the next day, a restaurant spits out. We were, I remember in Max's bedroom, printing out crazy old Campari posters and researching Italian futurism because the way that our brains worked were like the brand is centric, right? We're brand centric. That's the kind of pivotal piece here and we spent maybe like nine or 10 of the 12 months working on the logo and the brand and the way that it would look and feel. And then we realized that, like, we got to open this thing in a month and we're like, fuck, we don't have a menu. And so then we were like, oh, we've got to figure that out. We did it completely backwards. I kind of love that, though, because you saw something that that's what's missing in the space, to some extent. Which ended up kind of making sense for us, not to like jump ahead, but we pretty much launched out of a commissary kitchen. OK. So for us, it really worked out well that we had like a brand that really worked because that was the only thing that existed was our Instagram. You couldn't come and experience like the shop and get a vibe for what we were trying to create. So we pretty much had to be able to convince you to come eat our food and trust our like brand and story based off of what you're seeing online. What was the strategy there? What were you doing that was a little bit different than like, and again, I know the bar could be low where it's like they're just taking pictures of a sandwich with shitty lighting. But what are you guys doing that's different? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think it comes down to a little bit of the bones of like what we tried to build the brand on, which was like passage. You have to make us feel super nostalgic. And a lot of the images that came from that were like those old time feels. And we were like, we should build a brand that gives you the feeling of what it's like to go. You're from the East Coast. So you know what it is to like go to one of these old time nostalgic delis, but also sprinkling some like we're 24 years old and some modern version in California version. So we were like, let's try to steer away from all of the colors you would think of that are traditional Italian deli with the reds and the greens and the whites and go something completely different and like try to try to like build on that. So I think not only was it dark time with it being like COVID and the pandemic, but I think having it feel like a different iteration of things that people like knew and grew up on. Sure, like the evolution of it. Yeah, almost like your story, right? You grew up in Jersey. You get used to one thing, then you moved to LA and now you're just you're evolving it. And I also think like the to your question about what we were doing differently, I think it's kind of like changed as the as Giada has evolved. Like I think in the cloud kitchen to Max's point, a lot of it was like just how the brand existed digitally and like trying to channel like nostalgic visuals on our feed, because that was literally all we could do to market to people. Since we've entered our brick and mortar stores, I think we've like taken that and try to expand it out into like the store experience. Like when you think about a Giada store, like we want that to be like a very special moment for you to come into our store, to look around, see the shelf covered in little Easter eggs and make you think about your childhood and you want to take a picture of the wall of the, you know, custom art we do. And so like, I think whenever we think about like Giada, how it exists, it's always supposed to be like, what is that special experience? It feels memorable for you. And so and that's been, I think, kind of the tenant of how we think about the brand. I would say too, like we were very aware that we weren't skilled chefs and trained culinary professionals. So I think what we did to kind of compensate for that was over invest in the quality of ingredients that you would normally think a deli would would offer. So you mentioned the bread. We tried probably 60 different bakeries before we decided on bread lounge, which is where we currently get our bread from.  But if you're going to open it at a sandwich shop, most important aspect of what you do is your bread. So we said, let's over invest. And like, you know, maybe the unit economics aren't perfectly efficient on that item.  Like this is the most important thing. We're going to go and get the best bread. And that I think mindset carried down throughout the entire menu. Like let's go and source the best heirloom tomatoes from the, you know, from local farmers and X and Y and Z. So we knew, like we had to compensate for the fact that we're not wizards in there in the kitchen.   You know, it's funny, we were talking on off air about this, but it's like, that's kind of one of the beauties of LA is that you have the port right here. And so your access to these ingredients, the farms are, it's incredible. It's a lot easier, which is amazing. How were you guys financing this?  I mean, the really fortunate thing about the time we opened was that that cloud kitchen was sitting half vacant and they were just desperate to find people willing to take that risk and open something. And so we were, you know, in June, we got in there for maybe $20,000. Like, you know, we had enough communally in our savings to kind of just put that up and hope that, you know, it led to more success. And so we were in there for barely any down payment. The equipment was already in the door, and the staff initially was this table. Yeah, so. Plus a few friends are in Jersey, you were out here. We literally, yeah, we had some friends fly out to help you guys out. Yeah, so that was the initial kind of financing, you could call it. And then by the time we opened our first brick and mortar, we were really fortunate to meet a family that the Lazary family that are from the East Coast and knew our story and had a very big real estate development in Melrose Hill. And we were, you know, we got a really great TI package from them that lowered the cost to open that store. But, you know, we've raised some investor capital since then, but the initial launch was real bare bones. When you guys first started getting the orders and what's the promotion like? What's happening? Is Uber helping you out? What is, what's going on? Who did Uber? Yeah, we were sworn enemies. The funny thing is the first day, and I remember it literally like it was yesterday, it's, you know, also it's June of 2020. So nobody's, you know, there's no in-person experience anywhere. It's all virtual. It's all, and so like in that, at that moment, everything in food was about this legendary restaurant that closed. They couldn't make it, they couldn't weather the storm of the pandemic. So everything was so negative. We were one of the very few bright spots, right? Who opens a restaurant in the middle of a global pandemic. There weren't many people. So I think we had some eyes on us from the start just cause we were doing something probably that didn't make any sense. But I remember the first day we opened and we turned on the Uber Eats and the Postmates and the DoorDash and like the first 20 orders were all names that we recognized. So people that we went to school with, it was our friends. People from New Jersey were literally just changing the zip code, like hope you guys have. It's like somebody's long lost aunt that had heard about it, like do the grapevine. So the first, you know, 20, 25 orders that we serviced were all friends. And I remember like once we got to the 20th order, we opened at 11 a.m. We got like 20 orders in the first two hours.    It was like the bear. Like if Karmie didn't actually know what he was doing. That's hilarious.  And meanwhile, you know, now in a day we're doing like 250 orders on a Tuesday or Wednesday at our shops and it's fine. But that first day, trying to get those 20 orders out the door was like crazy. You know, we talk about the store in Melrose Hill now, but the truth is what we had to go through to get to that point.  That's really the truth of it. We had no idea and we were lucky enough to bring a few people who did know what they were doing and to try to help us bring it together. But like we blew through that money getting that cloud kitchen open, like in two seconds. And if we didn't get the opportunity to do that space, there would be no Giada. Like we talk about the year of 2020 is the year of a brand investment is what we call the financial outcome because there was no money made in that cloud kitchen. We also think the economics of cloud kitchens are just not good. But the brand was built that year and that was what afforded us the opportunity to even get to Melrose Hill. But yeah, that cloud kitchen, we saw some stuff. We saw a samurai sword fight break out in front of that store. Wow. And they were real samurai swords. That was an interesting summer. The thing that's funny, when I think about like real estate development. So we were talking about like when I first got into it, there's something beautiful about not knowing the hill or the mountain you're climbing. There's something really nice, you know?  But if someone told you what you were in for, you would probably not do it. Correct. You know? Or if you believe them anyway. Yeah. We all had normal jobs. Like, you know, I don't think we would have had like the most exciting lives had we kept on our track, but we would have been okay.  Cause I'm good. You know, we don't need this. The only thing that made it work without like being corny is the fact that like we did it together.  We're in it together. Let's do it. You got three brains.  And when did you guys open the one over here in West Hollywood on Santa Monica? November 2022. Okay. So we signed for it in October of 2021. That was our first experience of like hitting all the bad permitting blocks. So it took us 13 months to get that store open from signing, but that was November. And was there a kitchen in there before? Yeah. It was a second generation space. That was the original Urrs Burgers. Okay. But it had been sitting vacant as a restaurant for like a ridiculously long time. So we basically had to like gut it and start completely new. So also the first time us learning how to do construction in a real way. So like West Hollywood was another big learning curve for us, which is interesting, but it ended up being great. It's funny. When I was doing development, I got a call from like a reporter and they were like, hey, so like what's it like doing construction in West Hollywood? We hear it's like really beautiful and very developer friendly. And I'm like, I'm doing two projects right now. One in LA city, one in West Hollywood. West Hollywood is four square miles. LA city is much larger. My project in LA will be open six months before the project in West Hollywood. And they're like, no. And like they wouldn't write about it. Yeah. But they should. And I was like, that's, I could share that. And I was like, and I know the mayor and I know all the people here in West Hollywood. I know everyone. The stigma is that that West Hollywood is the most business friendly locale within LA. And there are, to their credit, they have done some things to make it a little bit easier to operate a restaurant. We got our beer and wine license in six months over the counter. And that was, I think, talking to some other restaurants where it was relatively low, left pretty condensed timeline. But in terms of construction and permitting everything else, it was a total disaster here. And even like after the fact, we had to get, we had to double up on building fire and health inspections for our business. Like they already came, the same guys had to come back but do it for West Hollywood, which I thought was, was harmless but funny. It was like, why are they coming back? And how's business now? So you guys have been open for almost a year. Yeah, it's been, it's been excellent. Yeah. It's been excellent here. We, you know, they say, especially in restaurants, like some egregious percentage fail within the first year. But after you make it past that first year, your odds of success in having some staying power of, you know, five, six, seven years a decade goes way, way up. We're about to hit our one year mark in West Hollywood next month. And the business is the healthiest that it's ever been. When you hear that, when people say like restaurants fail and obviously you see it all the time, what have you learned about why they fail? I think there's a myriad different reasons and a lot of it is situational. But I think like we are very lucky to have, most restaurants don't have like a management consultant, you know, Finance Wizard who can figure out how many loaves of bread you're gonna sell in 2080 and how many, and quickly pull up like how many chicken cutlets you sold three years ago. So I think having Jack on the team is definitely a secret weapon that a lot of restaurants don't have. And I think having like a genius creative mind and marketing mind in Max and our other partner, Maddie, like, you know, we've just built a pretty incredible team to make this thing go that like, you know, most mom and pop operators while they may have that experience in the kitchen and they may have like some amazing culinary chops, they don't have like that kind of like consumer, customer facing mindset and skill set. And I think that has separated us. At a high level, when I talk to people in sort of the restaurant game, the thing I've noticed and I think this happened during COVID when a lot of people decided to quit, it's like the game had changed in a real way. And so before people just thought, oh, I opened my door, I have a good food product, people will come and that's all they need. And this happened in the movie industry. So with movies, it's like, no one, why does no one go to the movies anymore? It's like this thing everyone's trying to figure out. And the answer is there's something beautiful about people will say like, on Instagram, it's a 10 and in real life, it's a six, right? So this is like online dating.  Or like, oh, I'm hungry. Maybe I should go check this place out. So Instagram at 10 and in real life, it might be different, doesn't matter, right? The movies don't have that. The movies, no one's going to the movies posting it on Instagram. And so there's this like fourth element that is brand new that a lot of restaurant tours, when I speak to them about when they quit or in COVID or a little bit after, they're like, the game has changed and I'm tired and I don't want to learn. And that's okay, business changed. But it's like the people who get that, the people who get this like fourth new dimension of business are in such position to win. And obviously you guys are in terms of brand, you have that. But it's like, it's an interesting new strategy that is not an accident. And I think if people double down on that, you'll be here longterm for sure. To, I mean, look to some of those kind of shifting business trends or business principles, especially in the restaurant industry, while it is obviously devastating when a family run restaurant, it's been around for 40, 50 years, goes out of business, the truth is so many of those spaces then provide opportunity for three young guys or three young gals or three young, you know, restaurant tours to come in and try something new and try something different. And I think you need a little bit of that churn in any industry or else you get the same legacy players and there's just no room for any new entrepreneur to enter. And I think like we were probably the best example of that had the pandemic not kind of ripped some things out of place, wouldn't have been able to find a lease that gave us some favorable terms, wouldn't have been able to do a month to month lease on a cloud kitchen with essentially no money down. And I think the barriers to entry just came way, way down at the start of the pandemic. And that's really what allowed us to at least get our product tomorrow. Before we get into what's next for the brand, how does fashion play into what you guys are doing? I think for us, we always try to like have those little Easter eggs and have different ways for you to engage in a brand and be able to have like different groups from different areas. So like for us, we've had a lot of fun from the beginning like collaborating with different brands and finding ways to like bring communities together. So like the first one we did was bricks and woods, which is like a South Central based street wear brand. And Casey has become like family to us now. We love him dearly, but like that was our first intro into like, let's put a shirt and a hat together and put a sandwich on the menu together and bring people who love food and clothing and all of that together. And that kind of like really had a light bulb go off for us and be like, wow, if we can get people to not only come in here and buy a shirt that they're going to be excited to wear around, but also like want to eat our sandwiches and continue buying our hats and come to our events that like it would be just like a huge thing. And for us, I mean, now we've done collabs with bricks and woods, Leropa, we did New York sunshine. We just did Dickies with Interscope this last week. Like we've gotten lucky, no maintenance to do a lot of really fun collaborations in fashion to kind of like also put us in that world when you think of like sandwiches and clothes. And it's just like, it's a cool way to kind of play in between both. Yeah, I love that. We've used fashion really to put our logo next to a bunch of amazing other logos, you know, in the form of collaborations. And I think like when, you know, this whole sort of like taste maker culture that really has been fueled by social media, we now look to the entrepreneurs or creatives that we know and love and follow. And if they validate another brand or another business or another category by putting their logo next to theirs, I'm automatically more enticed to go and try that product, even if it's somebody who's a fashion designer, you know, co-signing or validating a restaurant, that person, that person might have no, you know, culinary background or no real reason for like being a taste maker in the food space, but I'm intrinsically more interested in what that restaurant is doing now. And that's really what we've used the kind of merch component to do. And it's fun to do. It's so fun. Yeah, I love it. We just enjoy getting to be creative and being like, for us now we're getting into this world where like, when you think of deli wear, you think of a shirt or you think of a hat, and that's kind of as far as it goes.  And that for us is like kind of the fun part of all the merch. I think like the big kind of trend we've been, you know, very aware of is like fashion and food have become like very symbiotic. It feels like in the last five or 10 years, like you think about like, A, just the way even like restaurants are treating the items on the menu with like these drops that feel very analogous to what sneaker brands were doing when we all grew up and kind of grew up loving. Like that's been something that like we wanted to do but now it feels like everyone's doing, everybody's starting to drop a new collaborative menu item with either another brand or a personality, whatever it may be. And I also just think like the interest in food particularly from fashion feels very, very heightened. Like you think about like we always, we love Paperboy Paris, like getting a Reebok shoe. Like we saw them early on in our journey. We're like, oh my God, we want a Reebok shoe. And so like it's just become like, I feel like this kind of conjoining of communities that 10, 15 years ago maybe didn't exist but now feels very front and center and it feels like what you should be doing as a good restaurant brand. Yeah. So I mentioned that the sports were the pawn shop and so I made hats. So usually I'll make hats during a project to give to like our investors or people who support it, give us letters of support, whatever. And people were like, where can I buy one?  Why would I want to sell them? But people were like, no, this hat's dope. Like how can I support? How can I buy one? And so we're gonna order like a thousand more but it was shocking to me that people would do that. It was just really interesting. It was cool. There's another deli in Los Angeles called Uncle Pauly's and like their hats, it's unbelievable. Everyone from like Travis Scott to Olivia Rodrigo and all of that. And for a lot of people I would say probably the hat, you would think of the hat before you think of necessarily the sandwiches. So true. Which goes to show you like how huge that crossover can be.  It's unbelievable. It shows you like that crossover is crazy. Also like they were definitely the OGs of that like restaurant street wear crossover. And it's become like, you know, that's one of the most iconic pieces of merch at least in like the restaurant world is that hat that they did. Also, I mean, I think a lot of this is like the internet and social media but like even just like the brand following on restaurants now is so, like it feels like the most exciting brands that we talk about like just as consumers are usually like restaurants now. Like I feel like that's what's getting a lot of people going.  Like they have one store and so we're like, they have like almost a hundred thousand dollars with this one store. And it's like so incredible to see what type of interest a brand now from a restaurant can do. What's next for you guys? More locations or what are you guys at right now? Yeah, I mean, you know, I think Noah kind of gave the initial like story why we started Giada, which is really a problem. We felt like existed in LA lack of the Italian deli. And as we've gone through this journey, we're definitely now looking out at the nation and seeing Subway. The nation getting bought for $10 billion. And like maybe there's a bigger opportunity but you know, I think for us, we feel really good about the fact we were able to get three stores open in a pretty large city. And we think there's definitely some room to get a few more. And so we're looking at it. We're looking at a fourth store, hopefully for next year. And you know, I think we're excited about, you know, the possibility of scaling this out. But I think right now we feel very focused on like making sure all the screws are tightened. Like we want our team to be, you know, in a good, you know, at the end of the day, Giada is as good as the team that we have. And we're so excited by all the people that have been with us for two or three years stepping up into leadership roles and kind of like, you know, taking over a restaurant. And like this is now the one they oversee. So I think that's what we're thinking through a lot right now. But for sure, more stores are on the way. And I think we're, you know, just kind of taking it one by one right now. And I need to know, what are your favorite sandwiches?  Max is the only vegetarian Italian deli owner probably in the world, I would imagine. I think that's probably Max's vegetarian. 95% of the menu, he hasn't made it through. I'm a trust exercise. Is that the eggplant one that you, what's, yeah. So like the lory is named after my mom. It's a eggplant sandwich. So I eat all the veggie sandwiches. But for the most part, like now that we have breakfast, I eat a ton of breakfast sandwiches. Like a naked cheese on a bagel. When did you guys start breakfast? We did that in April. About six months ago. Okay, so you're open. What time do you open over here? So 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. now. Okay. And the breakfast is such an unlock for us.  Because I promise you the breakfast, in my opinion, is like some of the best stuff on the menu. Okay. The lory is your favorite. Yeah. I gotta go breakfast and lunch. My favorite breakfast sandwich is the Breakfast Club. It's like turkey, fried egg, avocado, flavoring chili, all that everything bagel. Unbelievable. Wow. Sandwich I'm eating. Probably all-time favorite is the draper. The draper. The chicken cutlet, prosciutto, stracciatella. Okay. Mulsomically, shredded lettuce. Yeah. Really good stuff. Yeah, I've been, I'm a classic Italian guy. For the most part, like. Yes, you are. But it goes in ways, you know what I mean? It goes in waves, like there's been stretches where I've eaten 30 drapers and then I put on 10 pounds and my girl's like, yo, it's time to go migrate to the Caesar salad, so I'll go do a salad for a little while. That's real though. That is real. That's where you find him the most. You'll see him in the kitchen just dogging something. Yes, exactly. If the salads though are covered in chicken cutlet, so it just is sandwiched out the bread. That's really, that's your MO, that's your MO. But nah, these days, classic time. We also, we just did a new sandwich at the Venice location, which is a chicken cutlet, melted Swiss, avocado, Russian dressing, and hot cherry pepper. That one, when I'm feeling indulgent, that's the one. That Russian dressing was like a nod to our favorite deli that we grew up going through the way and out of business during COVID. We have a little painting of them in the store. It's called the Wachung deli. It was like this legendary spot and their best sandwiches all had Russian dressing. What's that called? What's it called? Oh, it's the Giselle. The Giselle? Yeah. The Giselle. I like it. Well listen, thanks for coming on the pod, guys. Where can people follow you? Where can they go visit? Venice, West Hollywood, what's the Instagram? Yeah, we're at Giada, 2G's, G-G-I-A-T-A, Giada.com as well. You can find our first location on the corner of Melrose and Western and Melrose Hill, our second location in West Hollywood, right on Santa Monica and Laurel, and then our most recent opening, which was in August, is on the corner of Windward and Pacific in Venice, right under the Venice sign. Love it. Thanks, guys. Yeah, thank you, man. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for the support and making it to the end of the episode. If you haven't already, please leave a review and share the episode with your friends. If you never want to miss a beat on all things entrepreneurship, make sure to follow us on socials or daily content. See you next Tuesday for another great episode.