of you yeah Don't you work this is yes Mac. I am Okay, I'll probably run Twisted wave on there Can you see that open? Excellent. We are live You guys have any more objects I can put right here Um It feels like home I'm trying to interpret what that I'm trying to interpret what that means I can interpret Okay, well there's no audience dance questions, so we don't have to worry about that and That's good. Okay, okay No problem. We'll be with you momentarily Now we've frozen something. She's working on something. Yeah, Ndi. Ndi gets walkie when she's setting up a shot in Ndi Okay, Ndi is working Double-checking the live stream says live It's just a really big latency. Okay. It is. Yeah, it's like 10 seconds. Okay. It's not too bad Okay, just want to make sure it was really working right and as our chat room there Jack, are they alive and the Facebook chat is Facebook chat may be the more dominant one tonight. Probably. Okay ready when you are It's Monday night and What? And guess what it's time for voice over body shop again.  Mm-hmm. And we're gonna talk about their family business Yeah, that's right. All righty, and we've got we've got tech news and we're gonna discuss Setting proper levels because boy, we get a lot of questions. This should take a minute But it won't you know, we'll unpack a few things. That's right. And And tech news this week We'll find something. All righty all that and more and your questions coming up on voice over body shop two men Twin sons from different mothers with a passion for voice over 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 and voiceover today Dan Leonard the home studio master a voice actor with over 30 years experience in broadcasting and recording and a no-holds-barred myth-busting attitude for teaching you how easy it is together To bring you all the latest technology today's voice over superstars and Leading the discussion on how to make the most of your voice over business This is voice over body shop Voice over body shop is brought to you by voice over essentials comm home of Harlan Hogan's signature products source elements Remote connections made even easier Vio to go go comm Everything you need to be a successful voice over artist J. Michael Collins demos award-winning demo production voice actor websites comm where your voice over 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 Wittem and Dan Leonard Good evening I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Wittem and this is voice over body shop or Vio BS Alrighty well here. We are on another Monday night. Bill Ratner is our guest and his daughter Arianna We're gonna have a very interesting time talking to them. He's got a new book out, too. Mm-hmm parenting in the digital age So this is the Yeah question of the ages right now and all of us having children. We know what it's like to make sure that we don't have problems with our children Because we used Television as a babysitter. That's right. Mm-hmm. Unfortunately. I watched way too much teletubbies Do you remember how teletubbies were rerun at like one in the morning on PBS for a while? Don't don't ask me why I If you've seen it, you might maybe know why The late shift, you know Remember once hearing this one guy complain on PBS or an NPR. This is a terrible show. I don't understand sir It's for toddlers and Stoners and you must not be either so Anyway, we've got got a great great guest We've got questions and if you have a question for us a technical question about your home voiceover studio Send it into the chat room on Facebook or on our page and Jack Daniel will get that to us And we will answer that question whether correctly or not it doesn't matter as long as you're entertained Please ask questions or it's gonna be a really short show. No, well that's short. No, that's right bills bills I mean, that'll carry it on no matter what Anyway It's now time for Voice over money shop presents the beyond BS voice over extra news All the information you need for a successful voice over career And now here is the voice over extra news for October 1st 2018 how to stand out Okay, what makes a voice actor stand out from the competition be louder I guess if your first thought is a great voice Well, sort of but that's only a part of the answer. Let's talk about standing out in two areas in business and Performance because to be a success to make a living in this biz you need to stand out in both Last week voice over extra again shared wisdom from longtime voice actor Paul Strickwater on how to stand out in business Paul creatively presents this as a mock interview that puts you on TV's shark tank program Attempting to entice the rich panelists to invest in your VO business and one of the investor Paul's and one of investor Paul's questions is something you might not have expected. He asks Who does your business make money for? Well, if you answer me Well, you're wrong You're in business to make money for your voice over clients, right? If your voice works for them, they'll appreciate and return to you time and time again as an investor Paul says Number one, I'd look for your ability to make me money Even if you work with a not-for-profit Paul explains. It's always a matter of benefits and costs the benefits of hiring you should outweigh How much your clients pay if that's the case those clients will perceive you as an asset and not as an expense There's more in Paul's article But let's turn now to what will make you stand out in performance And that's addressed in a new article from top voice talent and coach Kate McClanagh hand of actors sound advice Now in this article Kate offers seven ways to stand out and number one. It's the ability to be you Kate says the irony is that many of us spend six to eight years or more training to become Someone else's actors, but the primary thing being asked of us once we're out in the field is just be ourselves being you she Says is the most desirable thing you can be Everyone on the page and everything on the page should sound like it's occurred to you rather than the client putting words in your mouth It adds and come to think of it doesn't that relate back to Paul's business question of how you can make money for your clients? There are many more pointers in these articles and you can check them out right now after this particular show at voiceover extra comm It's your daily resource for standing out in voice over Fantastic, and that's the news the way it is October 1st. It's October First yeah, I think we just went July August October. Yeah, it's gone September was September didn't exist for a lot of people Pretty slow. It's the end of the third quarter, and I think the beginning of the fiscal year for a lot of companies So if your business has been slow if you're you're not seeing as many auditions or as many as many jobs out there Don't freak out yet. No, it's October. Yeah. No because the holiday stuff is coming in now and Companies you're starting to go. Okay. We need to talk about the fall and we need to spend money Please spend as much as you can on voice talent. Yes. So what's up in tech this week? Well, I'm really start off with just sort of a basic tech tip overall And that is making sure that on your computer whether it this has been an issue with Mac because it's mainly what I deal with the most often but Probably affects Windows computer users as well and that is try to avoid letting sleep interrupt your computer That thing that happens when you shut the lid or when you walk away from the monitor for a while and the screen goes black And there's a couple kinds of sleep So let's talk about first screen sleep or this display sleep display sleep not a problem This place sleep will save some energy It will reduce the temperature in your booth so the screen isn't on the screen the screen won't burn out Right that happens a whole lot screen burning is kind of a thing of the past But it it will it that's not a bad thing So if you're in your energy server on the Mac There used to be two sliders one was for display sleep and one was for computer sleep Now in the newer Mac systems because Apple wants to make everything simpler. There is no longer a computer sleep There's only a display sleep thing you can control which is the delay until it goes to sleep But you can say don't put the computer to sleep When the screen goes to sleep Why is that important because a lot of audio interfaces, especially USB interfaces or maybe primarily USB interfaces don't like that very much because when the computer goes to sleep or Hibernation or whatever it is if your interface is powered by the computer Like a scarlet or anything that just plugs in with USB It doesn't it basically the computer outputs a lower power output or something funky like that and that can turn off the peripherals Yeah, or freak it out Like and we've seen a lot not entirely turn it off But like part like it just gets wonky is all get out So it's really good idea to not sleep your computer So if you if you just don't want to have to shut everything down every time you're done using the computer You know if you're if you're a power miser, I understand shut it down But don't sleep I tend to leave my computer up and what I do is before any mission critical thing I just restart it but you still leave all those windows open that you leave open Oh, of course, I have it sent to restore all windows I have chrome set to restore all the tabs all 74 whatever tabs I have open But you know the key thing is restarting the machine gives it a massive refresh and it Flushes the memory and it just everything works better after a restart So even if you're not gonna shut it off at then at the end of the day at the very least We start it in the morning and guess what I figured out just recently I don't know why just just figure this out do tell you can set your computer to do this for you No, yes in the in the energy settings There's a scheduler button at the bottom and you can go in there and say restart my computer every day at 6 a.m For example, so even if you're not one that's gonna think to do it The computer will force you to restart and that way every time you walk into your studio your computer be on with a fresh startup Theoretically, yeah, that's not always going to work Right, and I'll explain why if you leave if you want people that records things and then leaves temp files open like untitled Right twisted wave for example won't let the computer shut down Because it'll be sitting there going do you want me to save this man? It'll just sit there and the computer will never restart so you do have to close stuff for this to work Right, but if you close things when you're done the computer will restart either way It'll remind you next time you sit down it'll be sitting there going Hey, do you want me to save this and then it will restart but I'm telling you it clears up so many problems in your system If you can restart it and avoid sleeping. It's the biggest thing I can say, okay So at night turn my computer off not just close it up and charge it up That's you can do that you can turn it off But if you're gonna leave it on like I do you just just restart it Okay, you know you can leave it on but give it a re a fresh startup in the morning.  I use my laptop a lot But if I'm gonna do a webinar you better believe it fresh reboot make sure the machines, you know got a clean Clean slate inside mine's overdue for about a week or so You know what it's amazing how long it'll run they do sometimes Another cool thing and I like these little follow-up stories because I hear more about these products is that skyroom puck? Yes That's that thing that Joseph Rihanna discovered and then to ask me if it's any good I said, I don't know man get one find out. He took it to Europe. It was awesome Now I have a client David Kay who is in Russia and he's using his skyroom to be on the internet And it's working great. He's doing such a sure who's listening in on it But yeah, but um, I wanted to bring this story up especially because Bill is here years ago Bill was planning a trip to to Europe a couple different countries I think and we were like how are we solving the internet problem and we we were trying all kinds of out their ideas We were talking about satellite You know, you get these little satellite antennas about the size of a laptop But the line of sight would be a nightmare and like Venice with other buildings right up, you know Which this wouldn't work, but this thing it's not satellite But sell your cellular cellular coverage and a lot of Europe is very good Yeah Because their infrastructure is so crappy and old that they've been relying on cell networks We're a lot longer than we have like they they've really rely on it So the coverage there is really good and Joe said it worked everywhere He was doing source connect on this thing And I'm not sure if David's been doing source connect on it, but he's he's been using he's like he wrote me a message on faithful saying We're on a tour bus right now in Russia, and I'm I'm on Facebook on my skyroom, you know I'm not having to worry about being you know, is it totally secure? Nothing is completely secure, but it's way more secure than being on any kind of a public Wi-Fi access point Which is the last thing you want to do in any questionable countries, right including this one This is don't be on a public one. This is on that list now You know, it's not as bad as quite as bad as Russia, but it's still you know Yeah, it's not a good I think so good thing to be on public Wi-Fi using a hot spot on your own phone is a really good choice I'm still experimenting with project fi The good and the bad of it the good is once you hit your six gigabyte Data cap they basically instead of cutting you off. They say the rest on us Totally different business. They're like for the next for the rest of the month They don't bill you anymore. Wow pretty cool, and I've blown through it already. I'm at 12 gigs. I've used I used my project fi to stream music on Spotify for a DJ'd Karaoke bicycle chariot that we towed all around LA yesterday Streaming music in YouTube the whole day hot spot on this phone It was it was really amazing and it worked the downside of project fi has been the call quality is not up to Verizon Standards, I've gotten spoiled, but Verizon is really good driving through Topanga Canyon all the way And this one is very it you can use it, but it's crackly and it's it's not solid So yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna keep it for the long run, but it works Yeah, they need more cell towers in Topanga that are disguised as pine trees Well, I mean the canyon is so narrow and windy that that the cell towers are literally on the poles So they only work for about a hundred fifty two hundred feet and you go around a corner and then you're on the next cell tower That's that's how it is in those areas, but anyway a couple tech story follow-ups very good You came up with more than you thought you would you know We just have to get a little coffee and a little kickstart and off I go and here we go All righty. Well, Bill Ratner is gonna be with us in just a couple of minutes along with his daughter Arianna And we're gonna discuss Something very important right here on this very show right after these messages, so don't go away They are ribbed for her pleasure All right, it's VOBS dot TV Alrighty You're watching VOBS dot TV. I don't know why it's crazy what they do here I think I'm gonna go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich This is the Latin lover narrator from Jane the Virgin Anthony Mendez, and you're enjoying Dan and George on Voice over body shop. Hey, how do you think about your voice over career? Are you frustrated with your lack of success wishing you had more auditions and bookings and making more money? We all have thoughts like I'm not good enough to be doing this professionally. I'm just faking it I need to join the union as soon as I can and too old to get booked I can't get started until everything is perfect. You get that one I hate auditioning because I never book anything sound familiar if only you could change your mindset and get rid of these Ridiculous rules. Well VO to go goes David H. Lawrence the 17th has just what you need He's completed a 21-day journey with nearly 100 VO and on camera talent just like you and it's called believe 2018 and he recorded every single session meaning you can take this journey now at the pace you want and Change things for the better Get the success you deserve by destroying your limiting beliefs and replacing them with powerful productive enabling beliefs and Do so on your schedule. Here's the link go get the 25 hours of video and audio The daily chat logs and more and begin your own journey The link is VO to go go comm forward slash Believe that's VO the number two go go comm forward slash believe it's ridiculously cheap and it's ridiculously effective once again VO to go go comm forward slash believe 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 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.  And we're back here on voice over body shop talking about voice over home studio technology Which is? Face it guys 15 years ago. It didn't exist. I mean there were a few guys with you know Otari reel-to-reels and they're throwing their tapes into FedEx things up at you build did that people Built on how to record. That's right exactly But it's all changed. It's all digital now and anybody can do it It doesn't mean anybody can do it or should do it should is the word I guess should is probably the more operative word there But if you need help setting up your home studio if you have trouble with your home studio There's only two places you can go that are it's going to give you the most experience on the face of God's greener and that is me or George Because that's what we do. We've worked with so many people and you know it it's like yeah I know a lot about it when I started but after doing this for 15 years You think we've gained a little bit of experience and knowledge in how to do it So if you want to work with George and he will now explain to you all the things that he does go to I'll keep it short George the tech comm. It's a great website Hopefully well organized with lots of helpful information and a lot of different ways that I can help you It's all there things starting as low as 25 bucks on up to Building your dream studio and everything in between and then they can find you over at home voice over studio calm And and I you know I do the same kind of stuff I work a lot with beginners people who really don't know their microphone from their interface or various other things and We'll teach you how to get it done right and make sure it sounds the way it's supposed to sound like Whistle which drives you nuts every time I say And also if you want to check out your audio to see how it's working You can go to my specimen collection cup on my home page Click on that and you can for 25 bucks I will analyze your audio and see if perhaps you need a little tweaking or a little more help so Anyway, go to those websites. You can't go wrong. We're the guys that know how to do it, which is why we're here Giving you away lots of information like this little piece of this little tidbit of Information and knowledge that will change the way you record Because in the radio days and not all of you were in radio as a matter of fact the majority of you are like what? We we used to sit there and we would ride the levels you know have our headphones on kick on the mic and Kick off the monitor with monitors would turn off So you had to hear what you were saying and when the music ended instead And then you would start talking and then your hand would be on the dial and you'd like you'd ride the levels Mm-hmm, you know in the V you meter. Well, it's all different But because we understood what proper modulation was when you know when I started doing voiceover and recording It was like oh full modulation. You also had to be a lot more. It was a lot more critical Because you had to like get the level in this small dynamic range this small part of the meter right to get the best Signal-to-noise ratio, right? We want to get it nice and hot level and get it over the hiss Of the tape and everything else and all that gear that's in the studio and now because we're recording digitally We have this huge dynamic range, right? And it's very quiet and we can be more conservative on the levels a little bit and I have to be like riding the game Constantly and making sure always in that last you shouldn't be paying any attention to any of that stuff when you're recording The black and white on the page is what you're supposed to be Whatever it is in your brain that's saying, how do I make it sound like I'm not reading mm-hmm Who am I talking to oh my that's all those things that they teach you and all those voice acting classes You're all taking But the question that we get a lot of and when we when we get Samples from people is is their modulation is way too low and Let's go to our DAW view 2018 view here Susan so we can see what we're talking about here Stretching the limits of webcasting technology voice over body shot presents 2018 Oh, how I've missed that me too. Yes All right. Well, here's a here's an example of a file on untwisted wave and you can see that I have set different different waveforms here and for example this one here That's a little hot If your levels are like that all the way across It's too hot. Yeah, you're in that last five ten percent. You might even be clipping Almost almost now digital digital recording gives you the ability to It gives you a little bit more head room than normally would I wonder who that could be Let's put them on the phone. Oh, it's Larry Hudson. Larry Hudson. Why are you calling me during my show? Yes Okay, all right. All right, Larry Hudson ladies Call now. Yeah, right Valerious. Yes. Anyway, so we were talking about modulation here. So as you can see here This is a this is how it's supposed to be properly modulated Not that's too much a little bit too close. Yeah, give yourself some headroom, right? How much headroom do you ask? Well, you should Aim to modulate we like to say between minus four and minus six Give yourself and that's gonna give enough strength to your signal enough to your voice signal To make sure that it's heard properly more importantly that the engineer that gets it on the other end goes You know, it's good. That's I can play with this I could manipulate this I'm not gonna not gonna add any extra noise. Yeah, when I bring the volume up It's not gonna really really raise the noise floor much, right? So but if you look at something like this You know if you see the scale on the side, this is it peaking probably at about oh Minus It looks like about minus minus 18 or so. Yeah, just barely above minus 12 right in there You don't want it there. It really has to be louder Now a lot of people say well, you just record low and normalize you don't want to normalize because when you normalize What happens is not only does the noise of your voice, which is not nice It is a sweet melody, but if the noise of the room Also gets raised when you normalize and so if you hit the normalize button in there and go to minus three Yeah, it'll look proper.   It's 11 DB. So whatever the noise floor was before it's gonna go up, too Yeah, I mean it's especially for anything that's like For broadcast or you know basically narration where you're not doing crazy character voices, right? You know you can record in a nice range that lands in that minus 60 be peak level and being pretty good shape Right and also when you're recording and I and I've learned this one If you have if it's really dynamic you may not be reading the copy quite right if you're doing a conversational read It should be fairly even across the board, but yeah, but If you're doing animation and video games, what do we do? There's a huge. Well, that's what you do if you ever to do Auditions for that kind of stuff all the time.  You know what gain is proper for when you're doing that you plan ahead That and I mean and that is a good technique to have especially if you have a larger space a larger studio Where that technique can sometimes fail you isn't really small spaces right when you're in a whisper room or a small booth Your closet when you back away from the mic too far It really starts to sound boxy It sounds like you're in a disc in your distance And the reason it happens is now the distance between you and the mic and the mic in the wall and you in the wall That all becomes about the same distance after a while Right, so the mic is hearing a mix of what bounces off that what bounces off that and you and that's why you get that hollow sound Right, so if you're stuck in that situation, that's when you're gonna have to probably be a little more conservative on the levels That's what I find seems to help right so now peaking at minus 10 minus 12 It's a trade-off right so you're gonna have you know less lower peaks But you're gonna have less of a of a worry that you're gonna clip right and Thing is when you're done all that your your levels are gonna mostly look kind of low With peaks that are gonna jump out at you, right? But at least you're not always at the corner of your eye going on that I clip that oh that I clip that you know that little extra Headroom another trick I learned recently in the last not to do a little distance pass was that 24 bit Recording can sometimes improve the noise floor as well Because if you record at a really really low level not saying you should but if you do if you're recording at minus 18 minus 12 With 24 bit if normalized it doesn't increase the hiss that can sometimes happen with 16 bit Right we geek out about this topic on our episode of pro audio suite Well, we're the job or job is to geek. Yes, we talk about an unbelievable detail If you want to know more you can check that out on there I'll find you a link to it, but the bottom line is if you do record at 24 bit You do have a little more leeway on the dynamic range. You can record a little bit lower and give yourself a little bit of wiggle room So that is you know a technique that seems to be working for people and pretty much everybody's gear now even the lowly Scarlet and the Steinberg they're all 24 bit capable now. So a little bit bigger file size not that big a deal Any questions come now. Nobody's given us any questions. There's two questions. Oh, okay. Where are the questions? Oh Oh, oh, here we are Fred north and never short of the question Asks, I'm about to install a system of vibrate vibration control pads hockey pucks. I Like hockey pucks an engineer friend engineer friend One of my favorite phrases and an audio expert both said 15 to 16 pads the engineer suggested placing them between the two by four studs. Do you concur?  I like hockey pucks. Yeah a while ago I don't remember where I read the reference to hockey pucks but that was deemed to be a good way to increase the isolation of a booth off the ground and You know everything that's rubbery as an what's called an elastomer of Spring whatever they call it spring coefficient, right? So like if it if it's designed for if it's too hard Then you if it's hard you need fewer of them if it's soft you need more of them, right? If there's not enough it compresses them and they don't have spring if there aren't enough and they're too hard You get the picture you have to have the right amount of weight per the number of pucks So that the thing actually has a spring to it You ever walk up to an old car and you push on it and he goes And you go up to like a big truck and you push on the bumper and it doesn't move at all I think it just doesn't because the springs are set up for that carrying a lot of weight So this is a technique to try now I don't know where to best put the pucks to be honest in his particular situation He's saying even way in the two by four studs I don't know because I haven't seen the way his booth designed it whatever is currently making contact with the floor That's what it should be resting on Yeah, so I guess you could make it fun and float the booth so that the pucks are inside the flame a frame And so they're actually standing. I'm not gonna. Yeah, I don't know I haven't flushed that idea out, but generally that it's gonna the frame of the booth is gonna sit on the pucks Okay, that's the way to go. All right, if you're on a cement floor in your garage, though Who cares probably not a big deal coming through the problem T-man asks is there a way to make audacity or anything else that will show the VU meters But of course, yeah, so if we can go back to dov you there for a second I can I can demonstrate exactly what he's asking for All right, throw that up there because yeah audacity has meters, but you may not see them by default Well, that's true. Well, they're they're up top here Let me see if I can get this into the shot here. Sometimes they're out of the shot sometime Well, hold on. I'll fix that because I know how The meters are up here and It says click to start monitoring if you've got the latest one and you'll notice There's the meter right there. Yep It's a pretty good view meter actually it is and it and you can see that the levels here are pretty much perfect But picking between minus four and minus six With an occasional loud one as I get a little bit closer if yours is missing Your your meter is hidden maybe in a way somewhere. Yeah, is it in the view menu? I'm not sure I can never remember where it is in this software where they where the view meter a bar is if yours is hidden But it put you know, I always show up. Yeah, every time I install it. It's right. It's right there So you should have your view meter. This is your view meter and it's very accurate and it has all those numbers on it All right, we have two very patient guests I know for it to get on our show right now and let's talk about all sorts of cool stuff So we'll be right back with Bill and Ariana Ratner right after these messages You're watching V obs dot TV.  Is still on Seriously world of audio to men knew what they were doing or at least they have you convinced they put the BS and V.O.B.S. Dot TV I'd like to tell everybody about our buddies over at source elements the creators of source connect like to be on mic, too and They make a product that you guys need to have if you're ready to connect with studios for live real-time recording sessions The kind of stuff that really starts paying some of the bigger Payouts in the voiceover business You're gonna be expected to be able to connect the studios from your studio real-time so that you can be recorded at their end And it's a beautiful thing you connect to the studio you read your copy you get your direction And when your session is done, it's done. You don't have to edit you don't have to send files Nothing you just you hang up and you move on to the next thing and that's the beauty of a source connect type session If you want to give it a try you can go over to source elements calm that source dash elements calm and get a 15-day free trial of source connect standard So it's gonna extend it's the tool you need. That's the one to try You can also dabble with source connect now They're free tool, but the one you need to connect the studios around the world is source connect standard you'll give it a try you don't have to have an eye locked on goal and You're gonna love it. It's an incredibly great tool used by so many great voice actors including Bill Radner He's had it for years Well, we'll be right back here with Dan Arianna and Bill right after this Are you confused about how to set up and maintain a professional quality voiceover studio? No wonder the information out there is mostly Mythology this is the best microphone to use you'll have to have a preamp You need a soundproof booth. This software is the best your audio must be broadcast quality Consult with someone who knows the truth someone who's been there in the trenches doing voiceover for over 30 years Someone with unparalleled experience with voiceover studios Who's worked with hundreds of voice actors and designed hundreds of personal studios He knows how to teach and cares about your success In one of the harshest environments known to voiceover your home Dan Leonard the home studio master Separate myth from fact and get a handle on your personal voiceover studio Contact the home studio master at home voiceover studio dot com Bill Ratner is one of the premier voices in america today. You hear him on trailers commercials documentaries and animation Watch this demo and you'll instantly recognize him In the dark of night A beast from the sea attacks a german u-boat The fate of the vessel has remained a mystery But some believe an infamous monster may be connected This friday everybody Hang on Are you seeing this too? Ferdinand hoofed to theaters All right, I said right. I'm talking with my right. We have the rated pg Untamed land Full of un if you're flying jackpot airlines You're too banging in there. You must be high. There's a little captain so i can never get high when i'm flying LA to vegas service begins this january on fox You know and we're also privileged to have his daughter ariana and accomplish voice talent herself with this As well Welcome to voiceover body shop guys. Thank you Oh my pleasure my pleasure to have you here tonight Uh and it's not it's not often we have two people as guests here So it looks great. Doesn't it we made it work. That's that's the most important thing Now free shot. I learned that in film school. Yeah The camera we had to stick it outside, but it's working. Yeah, and then there was a two shot which meant something completely different Anyway, you've had a very successful career and uh, I hope you didn't use the paths. Yes. It was so nice Well, I can say had and it still makes sense in the timeline that you are still extremely busy Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, you know, how long have you been doing this? I've been doing this since I was 12 years old when I probably did wclo radio station in my In in my third floor bedroom in Minneapolis, Minnesota named after my sixth grade teacher bob close This is wclo. I sounded more like This is wclo or This is wclo Perfect. Perfect. That's exactly how I sounded and uh, yeah, no, I know the truth is I was a latecomer Pardon my french. That's okay, and uh, I Um started in radio and I when I was 30 years old Really and had done theater before that. Ah, okay, and then realized I needed to make a real living. So so you went into radio So, okay, so, uh What led you to voice over I am at at this station k kiss 99 Out in diablo country in northern california Um, one of the sales guys said if you're moving to la Go study with a great johnny rabbit the the the late don de pietro And he teaches voiceovers and I literally said What are voiceovers? And he said, you know that cvs commercial you just did 55 tags for at seven o'clock at night before you went You wanted to go home available and sent for you and available and sell them available and Well, you got paid nothing, but you're 165 a week and the guy who did the actual commercial Got 200 and some dollars. I went that's voiceover. Right. So when I got to la I started doing voiceover workshops and I didn't quit it was The time I spend I spent doing voiceover workshops was the time one would spend to become an attorney or a doctor Neither of which I wanted to be right. Well, as long as you're doing something fun.  They said, no, no, he's a friend. We have a good time He said your directors are your teachers and The stuff that I remember from voiceovers the greatest tips are from Copywriters and creative directors who directed me. Yeah, such as bill. You have a nice voice I can see why you do voiceovers, but you're talking to me like a suburban announcer and and and I would wrongly say well, that's what I am and my agent was he shouldn't have said that and uh I remember a woman saying from from an ad agency in San Francisco You know, you and I were just talking a moment ago out in the hall talk to me that way just be yourself Which I think is the hardest thing in the world for voiceover people to learn how to do Yeah You're doing everything. I mean as we just showed a small Smidgen of the type of things you do. I'm a bag boy at Ralph's. Okay, good cars. Yeah, all right You weren't working gelsons on the weekends. Yes, absolutely. Love the cheese. Okay. Good. Yeah, and the great prepared foods, but uh What do you attribute your success to I mean you're you're doing so many things across many different genres and You know, some people just specialize in one area You do a lot of promo you do the trailers, but you're doing everything else I attribute my success to the fact that I started before voices.com voice one two three and center It's harder now. Um, I mean if you unless you're looking right at your computer and your inbox and comes in You get in the booth and get it back in 15 seconds um You know lots of friends teach voiceover I don't teach commercially. I volunteer at the Don LaFontaine voiceover lab, which George Whidham created and designed at the screen actors guild and um One of the things that I find out from people who take workshops is a brand yourself Beets to you know, make sure that people know that you're the one who does blah blah blah You do funny voices or you just do promo or you do this We're actors. We're performers, right and uh We can do it all I mean when you really closely listen if you go on agent listen agency reels go on CESD or Atlas talent or or abrams or any of them and listen to talents reels and go from category go from promo To trailer to commercial to animation. Of course animation is different But you'll find that this is the same person many of the same people hundreds of us are doing it all It's just it's a different voice trailer is is telling a story promo is a little sort of overwrought Right The animation is is is done by the pros who have a million voices And commercials are done by people who can be a real person and sound Like a likable host Sell something secretly at the same time and tell a story, right? Let's let's talk about diarrhea Okay, we'll be right back with medical tips after this What's your favorite stuff to do of all the stuff that you you spend all day doing The the two things I love trailers because you have less than 30 seconds to tell a story that Filmmakers have spent a year and a half and tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars to tell And they don't want you to sound like the movie, but you need to tell the story And I love long-form narration And the tv wars are on so from from hbo to direct tv to Discovery id to smithsonian channel Hundreds of tv documentaries are being made every year right and I'll score at least two Those are really fun those you sit in your booth And you tell the story, right?  Excuse me. We've got to take the call No Narration is a lot of fun long-form narration is fun because you're really telling a story right and Not everyone not all americans are great readers for reasons We can pin on that seat of a well, we're we're looking at that that at your your demo reel there and You were just just that one little thing for the thing on the Loch Ness monster. Well, that was just a promo But you were telling the story all the way through it and it just draws you right in actually that was part of the show Yeah, the first the first part of almost every Narration that you hear on discovery id Is amped up a little bit right and I put that in there and then put part of the show in there Which is a little more key story telling but that's the fun stuff. Yeah, what's the weirdest thing you've ever done? I did two syllables for the great late Don LaFontaine keep it to voice act and He had come into kcbs channel 2 in la and did something like tonight Cops from the la pd. It's a tough job. You know 30 second promo a series of promos for a whole special mini doc And I was there doing something else and he had gone on to another gig and was not available that day But they needed a tonight tag they had forgotten to get so I got on the booth And put myself in about eight different audio positions Just to sound like Don LaFont the great late Don LaFontaine right tonight tonight tonight And when the spot actually aired it was the la pd cops Tonight That was the weirdest job, but I did get paid. God bless the area. Yes. That's good for them Yeah, don had a great voice though. I mean it's just like you it doesn't take a whole lot technically It's you well the difference between Don LaFontaine and and every other male voiceover in the world is that all the rest of us Wanted to do voiceovers as kids and he just sort of fell into it He was a producer a trailer producer and he produced for paramount and later kaleidoscope in hollywood And was in his mid to late 40s when he was chased around literally by steve tisham and the The agent and it took tisham in two years to seduce him into doing voiceovers I don't know man. Let those guys let actors do that stuff. I produce he's making a good living right and suddenly He started getting hired to do kung fu movies and all kinds of wild stuff and thought Yeah, I don't go to go. Yeah, sure. Let's do a few more And the pay was good. Yes Now we have your daughter ariana with us tonight Welcome to the show. Thank you and and you're doing voiceover now, too I am yeah, so I mean and is this like something that you Like you were destined to do or it's like I want to be like dad or What what drew you to it? I mean, I've been acting since I was probably three I think when I was little I would I had long red curly hair Which I have now but and people on the street would tell me I should be in commercials And so I begged my my parents were not stage parents at all, but I begged them to put me in commercials No Yeah, and so I Started acting when I was like three and I always just wanted to be an actor I think my whole life and so I went to an arts high school for acting. I went to NYU to tish for acting And voiceovers. I also always did I think I did like a Mattel commercial when I was seven or something But and then I had a series a straight to dvd animated series when I was 18 for like six seasons that I did But it was always an addition to on camera and then I moved back to la nine years ago um and started Auditioning on camera and voiceover and I kind of just came to a point where I was like I just don't like on camera and I and I kind of focused more on voiceover and so I've been Doing that ever since yeah She was always a great mimic. I mean she would stand outside by studio going Tonight at six o'clock and was funnier and better than I was and I thought I've got to keep her out of the business Because I'll lose work But I also every night like or in the morning when I was waking up in here Because his studio is right under my floor And it would be like on my elliptical machine that was in my room for some reason and he'd be like stop it.  I was thinking when you guys were coming out of the bed sleeping on his couch. Yes Oh, okay. Well, that's good The fact the reason you're here is because Your dad has written a book About parenting in the digital age. I just happen to have a copy of parenting for the digital age And I interviewed ariana and her buddies. We had a babysitting co-op for years We babysat kids including our own from age two and a half to 15 right and uh, so I called all the parents and I called all the kids and I heard different stories from each As to what did you do? For your children to keep them off the tube and the internet 18 hours a day And um, we had a situation with uh, with ariana when she was three She was watching tv and she knew Better how to use the remote than I did. I was also only allowed to watch pewee herman Maybe gumby and pokey. I think that's it. I wasn't allowed to watch tv My sister was allowed to watch anything she wanted because she came later, but I was not allowed to So so we had to figure out a way how do we control without getting the blowback of my child's screaming hysterically It may I had your horrible parent. So I had a switch I had an electrician friend put a switch in the basement one single on off switch which De-electrified the entire home electronics center. Yeah the vcr the tv and uh, and so At age three she knew better how to she could go in by herself put in vhs's on and on and on And uh, so I thought this has got to end But i'm too scared to say no So I would just go down going downstairs for a second kids Turn the thing off and she would say Gosh this sounds so familiar. We did the same thing. Yeah. Yeah, we we had it on a computer The computer would shut off at seven thirty brilliant and he figured out how to How to act through it and he was only like six or seven No, I really had a good time. This was a fun. I I went to a storytelling conference Told a story taught a workshop called voiceovers for storytellers And a woman said have you ever thought about writing a book about your volunteer work with kids and media? And I said no, what are you with the fbi and she said no my husband I just started a publishing company called familiar's books And uh, so I sent him a chapter and an outline and they said great go ahead send me a contract I started writing. I had no idea how to write past 50 pages Books are generally longer than that right and so I went and enrolled at uc riverside in a low residency mfa program Just to figure out to learn how to finish the book And in the meantime, it's been an incredible adventure talking to psychologists and media experts and kids and I got confronted at cbs Doing a promo by a young guy handed me the copy. He said um Yeah, here's a copy for the show. Aren't you the guy who doesn't let your kids watch tv? And and I sort of gulped and he said this is interesting because we pay you to tell people to watch television And yet you don't and I came up with oh, wow. I have two jobs. I'm a father and a professional announcer so did that sort of the the the Core of this wonderful book parenting for the digital age the truth behind media's effect on children and what to do about it And if you don't go, uh, I don't blame you unless you're a parent or a teacher or an educator or an astronaut Yeah, do you think people went up to steve jobs and said hey steve, uh, why don't you let your kids use ipads? There is an interesting steve jobs story. Thank you very much george widham um Soon before his death and the york times writer was going to do a profile on him In his home. He said you have three kids They must be the most amazing environment in the world with all these electronics And he said, uh, they don't have any we don't allow I know what they'll do to my kids And it completely changed this guy's point of view. He went from home to home and office to office and cfo's and ceo's and silicon valley They all said the same thing Interesting and these are the ones who make it they just the stuff is designed, you know from the iphone to whatever To software is designed to be addictive especially for children. Oh, absolutely. I'm not addicted at all Hold on just you guys have been on your phones non-stop You're doing your job right now you guys are doing your job right that is promoting us and you and that's what you're supposed to do Exactly Dan littering george widham Susan jack daniel together again for the first time Can't wait to have you do some drops for us Alrighty if you're just joining us, we're talking with bill and ariana ratner We're talking about their careers and voiceover which are very successful and about bill's book Parenting in the digital age if you have a question For mr. Ratner or miss ratner All you have to do is put it in the chat room or on our facebook page and jack daniel We'll get it to us and we will ask it to him in the next segment Alrighty So what's been the response other than this one guy at cbs was like hey, you're the guy that wrote that Have you been as it been selling and people had been I I went around new york book expo with uh the publisher And I said be honest with me. How's this doing and he said I consider it a moderate success and uh You know he was a Mormon Mormons don't lie right and uh, I thought okay Have I made my money back? I hired publicists. I thought you know, this is I was kind of a personal mission And would I have made much money off this? No I mean, I got into time magazine and and I have a bunch of talk shows and so on but Books are a hard sell these days Yeah, I mean a friend of mine asked somebody at the li times He did a shakespearean quote and the guy said, what are you talking about? He goes, that's from shakespeare Don't you read he goes. Yeah, I read I read manuals And Exactly so, uh Have you done an audio book of it? I there is an audio book. I would I would imagine if you didn't do it It would be a total shot It was fun to tell the story. Yeah, I had to slow myself down. I had no director, but I did it and edited it It's on did you have ariana? Voice some of the things that are I should have it would have been much better Yeah, yeah, I thought of it a little late But you know because because you add a lot to it because you're the actual voice of what that was all about It's really cool. So Being At this woman a like I Is a child of of a media person. My dad was an advertising guy And um, so I was very very lucky. I had a bird's eye view You know, he would take me to to work on saturday and there'd be voiceover guys and tv personality and and fiddle players, you know doing jingles and all kinds of folks and uh So ariana, I'm I'm curious as to what So many people grow up, you know, the dad's a real estate salesman or you know, are their mom is, you know, whatever school teacher or philosopher or astronaut What was it like growing up inside a media family? Is that an advantage or a curse? I mean, it was definitely an advantage. It definitely has helped me I've had many people say wait, are you related to bill ratner? I mean a lot of when I was doing on camera. It was brett ratner, which is like No um, but yeah, no, I mean it's helped a lot and also I mean it was just interesting. It's a much more interesting Career that no one until recently knew about voiceovers. They didn't know what it was. My dad did Um, and I didn't really sometimes I don't know the scope. It's like he's famous in this like really niche world That most people don't know about but then you meet people in voiceover and they're like, oh, yeah I know your dad either they've heard of him or they've you know met him like Yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean I met someone who does voiceovers and We became friends on instagram and he messaged me. He was like, by the way, is your dad bill ratner? And I was like, yeah, I thought he was gonna say oh like he's amazing I you know and he was like I met him at a storytelling conference Like a storytelling convention two years ago in wisconsin And I used to I went there specifically because I worshiped him when I was little because I watched gi joe And it was this whole story and I was like, this is amazing. I sent it to him. I was like, this is amazing Like this random guy. I thought he was gonna be like, oh, yeah, your dad's like, but he you know He traveled to and it was the storytelling like aspect, which he likes this is the part of it I love it's makes me feel very good. There is a dark side in the dark side that you know She's been coming to me for a year saying I've got this audition. Would you help me with it? And because she's family I figure well, I can say anything right So my direction will sound like you're sounding to valley girl. Don't do it Or liner is yeah or line. Don't do it like that do it like it's a safe way and she'll say that don't line Please I'll say but that's what they do and well then she'll say no they don't and so And and because I feel I have the freedom to talk to my she's my daughter. She's not not a friend.  I mean, I he was in europe this past summer and I had an audition for an hgtv Narrator narration and I was like, this is huge and what I really want and I called him I think it was like 11 it was 11 p.m. My time and I guess you'd just woken up And You were like helping me over the phone and I was that was a That was a mess But like, you know, he helped me edited it and took the parts of it that sounded good and helped me Which doesn't happen that often like but it really, you know, it really helps it. Good. Yeah The interesting part because you know, it's an intimate relationship by their daughter and and you know, we know each other very well And it brings to mind so many things stuff that you guys were talking about earlier On a on a deep sort of intuitive level If I am trying to get a read out of her and and either can't or I have to say it right or I have to be nicer or chill out um What is it I'm trying to get what is it that I that I either love about the read or don't and uh It addresses questions that you guys were talking about, you know repeatedly at the beginning of the show Well, it's also so interesting because like I went to acting school I went to eight years of acting school and I You know, I know to know who I am who I'm talking to where I am moment before that stuff But you forget like You're like, oh, and then I have these I'm in um, bob bergans class right now and I he's really Pushes that and he also pushes mic technique too. So that also resonated with me But also it's like I've had this light bulb moment recently where I was like, right Everything is acting. It's all acting. It's all who you are and who you're talking to and where you are Like it's situational and every single piece of copy now I approach that way and it's I mean, I should Always be doing that but like, you know, you have to remind yourself it's acting And it's very hard because in the context of being in an acting class and a little black box theater And there's a director and your friends You're sort of used to it. You've been to plays, you know the gig and the gig is You have a scene where you're trying to convince your father to love you or whatever it is But voiceovers Is I think in its own strange way harder and much more removed from any context You're in something that resembles a phone booth with a lot of glass And yet there's no outside And you have a piece of copy written that looks like english, but it's really nothing that any Normal human being would ever say And yet you have to sound as real as likeable As possible and you have to tell the story and like I said earlier You're secretly selling a product or a service or a broadcast entity or a movie or something or overtly doing. Yeah. Yeah interesting once again, we're talking with bill and ariana ratner about voiceover and Parenting and voiceover and parenting and all sorts of stuff like that And we've got lots of questions from you and again if you have a question Throw it in the chat room and we'll get right to it and I want to talk a little bit about storytelling too Which we'll talk about in the next segment. So stay tuned.  He just is 400 million dollars That's what the mayor wants you to pay for a new basketball stadium Chickens were made to be fried.  Hey, I'm the cat meme guy. Come on.  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 dot com and click on the demo production tab to find out more All right, one of our sponsors is not just one of our sponsors He's the guy that's been our sponsor since day one here on voiceover body shop Uh, and that's harlan hogan and his great website voice over Essentials dot com voice over essentials dot com Why should you go there? Because he has anything you could possibly need For a home voiceover studio or if you're on the road or any of these things he's got lots of Tools and tips and all sorts of really cool things that you could just go on the website Look at the stuff that's there. Look at the great prices that he has and the great Guarantees that he has you don't like it.  Wittem right now I can pan the shot there. There we go. Just don't lose the focus There it is the vo1a right there that we use here on voiceover body shop And also the harlan hogan signature series Headphones, which mr. Wittem will now model for you. Just give it the uh, there they are. They're wonderful. They are Comfortable they're made of memory foam leather metal They're made of metal actually ariana. Will you come over for a second? Okay. I just just come right over here. All right I need her hand. Oh, okay. She's got that. She's got she's got great hands, right? So just do that hand There we go. There we go. Oh, oh that works much better I think we just sold 10 pairs just doing that But they're they're comfortable But most importantly they are designed Specifically for voiceover all the stuff that we use is primarily designed for making music We've just adopted it while harlan has taken this idea of a flat response headphone That only reveals what your voice actually sounds like without any coloring that you usually get putting on headphones and lowering your Your voice haven't active But they are designed for voiceover. They are voiceover optimized and you can get them over at voiceover essentials Dot com and it's real easy to get there to check them out All you have to do is go to the bottom of our home page and click on the little icon of harlan hogan Talking into his port-a-booth pro and it will take you right there And you can clear out his shelves for him It would he would be just thrilled by every pair of headphones microphones and all the other great stuff He has their books and access to just about every piece of equipment you want through through amazon So go over to voiceover essentials dot com.  So thanks for being our sponsor for almost eight years harlan. We really appreciate it We'll be right back Minus far we had minus four db. We're at minus four db on vlbs Yes All right, we're back with bill and ariana retina great modeling there by the way that was that was outstanding. Thanks for playing a lot Yes, uh One of the things that you do Is you're a storyteller you've won this the moth Slam a number of times. That's one of my favorite programs on npr is listening to the moth I want to be on that so bad because I got some great stories, but it's not about the stories. It's How you tell them What is the essence of being a great storyteller the moth is really interesting? I mean it started out in george dawg's green kind of a mid-list thriller writer and his Studio in new york in the 90s Where he got tired of these literary parties and uh said, you know what i'm gonna invite my friends But on the invitation he said you have to tell a five-minute personal story without notes On this particular theme. I don't know what it was family or cars or hair or whatever it was And if you really don't want to you can come but I urge you to do and so, you know 40 50 people showed up most of them with stories They spent the evening after a little cheese and wine listening to stories and uh as people left they said This is the greatest party we've ever been doing our lives You've got to do this and he took it seriously and probably went to the new york recon poets cafe or Some place in new york that said yeah, you can do this on tuesday nights once a month And now the moth as in the moth.org the moth story hour is the radio show the moth live competitions Are all over the country. They're three in la five in new york. They're in an arbor minneapolis portland San francisco et cetera and you can you can go on the moth.org Look up schedule find your town Go to the venue which is probably a rock and roll club or a bar that that gives itself over to storytelling once a month Right and put your name in the hat I would prepare the story in advance, but you'll you'll learn the themes I think three four weeks in advance and it's a really fun exercise to just get up on stage with your own thoughts and tell a story and Some are sad some are happy some are wacky and um I got hooked on it You know, I did a little crazy, you know improv and stand up when I was a small child And thank goodness. I left that behind in the world. I think is a happier place for it But Storytelling and you know, there there are a number of scenes of traditional storytelling a lot of southern storytellers who Tell old jack tales and the appellations and personal storytelling is a huge thing came out of acting classes in the 80s Where piggy fury famous hollywood celebrity acting coach said You know class i'm sick and tired of your scene work Next month you're gonna come and you're gonna tell personal stories. I don't care what it is And half the class said I don't want to do this the other half said let's go for it. Yeah, and uh, So, you know, she began to create a generation of people who could sort of tell from the heart And uh, I I still do it. I mean they're they're you can google personal storytelling in whatever city you're in san francisco la austin And find a venue and hang out and go I could do that But also he's been I mean when I was little he would read me and my friends to sleep Like of course he would tell this story like he was an amazing story. Obviously he has that voice But and then he would tell stories around the campfire at our summer camp that he also like would go to Work at yeah, that's it's gotta be it's a primal skill I think that many humans have because before we had tv and radio and smoke signals we had Storytelling There's also voiceover guys really would love to hear their own voices Hey, we've got lots of questions from our amazing audience that is vast and all across this planet And uh, let's go to the first question we have it's from jack daniel Yeah, it's actually you you get the first question because you control the chat room But he doesn't have a mic. He doesn't he does not have a mic. So Yeah, all right. So jack asks bill you have such a terrific signature sound.  Gee whiz I I I was it was I was late in the game Um, I didn't really think about it in the theater. I did theater for years in minneapolis and berkeley and san francisco and uh It wasn't until I started taking a voiceover class in LA at age 31 when uh, the teacher johnny rabbit said, how do you I see you're doing this thing your turn. You're you're yeah, this is weird. I'm gonna learn. I'm gonna do that, too and When I started listening to other voiceover people listening to their demo tapes And then paying more attention paying attention to tv commercial breaks In that weird way that we do where we put our hand to our ear and we go Why did I sound like scott rumble?  Um, so I think it was late I think it was not until I got into the industry. I was not one of those kids Whose voice changed early and uh, I'm sorry, mr. Way. I can't sing that song. My voice is changing I may be 12, but I sound 18. I wasn't that kid So to answer your question It wasn't until I started, you know, taking workshops and trying to compete in the world of voiceovers that I began to assess the way I sounded And I try still to this day try to see it as as it's an objective product that I happen to have to sell and I better damn well, uh Dress it up and make it work properly. Otherwise it ain't worth much Yeah, well jack gets to ask another one because he's here and we're not gonna not read it Okay, no, this one's for arianna actually. So this is very important Now that you're making headway into both promo and animation Do you find that each genre influences your work in the other and if so how? So what I mostly find that I do is our video games And I think that's probably because I have a lot of theatrical training and I think video games is very much stage acting It's film acting actually and it's so filmic and small and but real and emotional and guttural like I do a lot of like Like killing and dying and you know Orcs and demon hunters and you know those kind of things and so I also so I love doing that because it I get to do my my shakespearian training kind of and then I also I love promo because it's just kind of It's just fun and it's Almost like light-hearted in a way like it's like Not easy. It's very hard, but it's like I think maybe because I've been hearing it my whole life It is a little it comes a little bit easier for me. Um, but And affiliate work also I do a tv station ksbw abc in the central coast every week And um, that's what I grew up hearing him do like he does a bunch of tv stations And that also is like this that's like a different genre. It's it's A bigger i'm allowed to be like More bombastic in a way like it's you know for the For the um community calendar kind of things that I do they want it over the top like they want it like the 26th annual big sir international marathon blah blah blah You know like they want it like that so that I get to play that out so I don't know I think it's like these different parts of My acting training and my personality That I get to like play out in these things and I love animation and I want to do more of it and In my auditions that I do for it right now. I've done two animated series, but I'd like to do more. Um Then I get to be like big and fun and really act and play and like You know just like be a kid again because it really is just play and it's just yeah, it's just fun So yeah, I think she's really good at promo and I had a conversation with a great bow weaver who Got the job at the time on channel four in la as the voice And I was on channel seven and he called me up to share the news and he said, you know I listened to you on channel seven and you sound really great bill and I said, you know, I do bow. You're actually right And uh, I I said it's because within 15 seconds and this is for all the promo announcers out there Uh within 15 seconds.  And that's what promo is promo particularly causes you asks you demands that you be all those things within a very short period of time and uh When when I first heard ariana do her stuff for the abc Of north I thought she's got it. She's she's got it. She can turn on a dime and it's it's very unnatural We don't I mean unless people are imitating announcers when they're talking right to be able for people who are interested in promo You need to be able to turn on a dime from i'm angry about this and the river was dark Why did this corporation and then? Ball gowns from the academy plus murder on sunday But also it is like affiliate work is that old promo style that you've been hearing for years that I grew up hearing I mean I grew up in the 90s So it's like That was what I heard and it's very different from the style Currently in terms of commercial and other voiceover work But affiliate work is still that same Announcers sound that I grew up hearing you do and cable work cable work. Yeah. Yeah So I mean it you still have to have the meaning and the acting behind it. That's like no question But yeah, it is that sound that I I've been you you know, you do so well And I I think that we've we've we've heard it all before I mean from the time of in utero at age five months or capable of hearing between, you know Mommy's tummy sort of amplifies. So we've been hearing television and radio and media Ever since we were infants right and uh To be able to I think our job is to answer the question How should this character sound? How does this guy sound? How does this woman supposed to sound when she's talking about mtv and gossiping about elizabeth taylor or whoever? Um, how are you supposed to sound and all those sounds we've heard You know in the nearly, you know over a hundred years of american broadcast Um, the question is just pull it up.  Mm-hmm. Alrighty Uh professor larry hudson has a question He asks Are you going to do your one-man show in la sometime in the future? Bill, I believe goodness gracious Um larry, thank you. Hello. I larry and I appeared at the transformers and gi joemovies at the egyptian um The answer is i'm not sure I did a show about my uncle bobby who was bobby the bell boy and I love lucy the robert jellison Um who was a fascinating kind of tragic character And had a great time in the hollywood fringe and did it a bunch of places um If I do another one-man show it's gonna be about my mother-in-law called killer art And she was she taught art in women's prisons Ariana's grandmother in the state of new york literally and I would say in the house Sophie what the thing over your mirror? What is that? Oh, she was a wonderful artist. She shot her husband And uh, but she's so talented. She took my class for weeks So that larry that may be my next show. I hope you're interested. It's amazing. I can't wait to see that one That's out there your next question. Um, yeah, I just want to know what uh, Ariana, what do you have in your studio because I know it's in bills What's in your studio? So my studio is in my walk-in ish closet. Um, my boyfriend has Kind of we cut out like a shelf area and I have soundproofing like eggshell Um, and then I like just set my I have a little gefel microphone, which is an amazing It's like the tiniest microphone that we got for my 30th birthday. Whoo. Um, I'm 9 30 or Yeah, I'm h 9 30. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm 9 30. Um, so and it's awesome It's the smallest mic and we were when we were buying it He was like, this is one of the most powerful mics, but no men will buy it because it's this small but He literally that's so great. Um, and I was like, I'll take it You don't want that honey. You don't want the great Yeah, no, I love it. I travel with it. I did a I was in michigan a few months ago and I did a annie promo from my my boyfriend's family's closet Um with that mic and my laptop and against their clothing and so Yeah, I have that I use twisted wave. Um, I have an apogee one that I connect everything into and it works well I mean, I do broadcast quality sound from my closet. I mean, also Uh, I use the sure, uh, iphone mic sure mv one eight or something like that. I mvi Yeah, um, so I use that in my car. I keep that in my car. It's about this big um, and that Is incredible. It literally connects into your iphone and you I've recorded things that have one job that was bought directly from audition and they put it in as a video game, um trailer That I when I listen to it. I can hear the quality but like apparently it was fine.  So yeah, I that's that's the future of voiceover too. Yeah Cool. Thanks. Yeah, it's good to know that because you know, I I do them in the car too It's a great play actually a great place to read it is. Yes, you know and and with equipment like that that allows you to do it Brent ellen hagel there's a name. I'm not familiar with which is weird Okay, well as long as you've heard it Uh, can you both give some advice on how to get actors to stop reading copy and start acting copy? I know that so it's about an hour long uh subject but 30 seconds My theory is that every one of us has a default read That we do on the first read through a cold read of a piece of copy My default read is a mid 70s suburban vanilla announcer Where everything sounds really nice It's community calendar and uh, that doesn't work for much these days and um So you you it's really up to you. I mean you really have to hear yourself I still to this day when I do two three takes on an audition in my studio by myself The first take is just dead meat It really is and I don't think that as I'm doing it. I think it sounds wonderful And then I'll listen back to it and I'll and I'll hear just a complete lack of of acting of energy of thought And and I'll sort of know that intuitively on the second read and try to put more in the third read Maybe even better And then I may go back to the first read and cover a couple pieces when I'm editing but Um, it's it's hard and the hardest thing about voiceovers is that we don't get the time that theatrical actors do Actors take acting class. They just do scene work Whether they're rehearsing lines or the friend or by themselves, you know Sitting in their bathroom. They're working Voiceover people unless they're in a workout group and they're not paying for it and they're with friends They do it hours a week. They're only doing it during class or during auditions And it makes it hard. It makes it hard to get voiceovers into your head and to begin to hear yourself So The other thing I would say to answer the question is Listen to working voiceovers demos online And everybody's seen keith richards, you know, uh, the stones All used to you know, I used to listen to the chuckberry and then I used to do every single riff Over and over into the record broke I do the same thing, you know, when scott rumble or ashton smith get a trailer that I auditioned for and I didn't get the gig I will go on their websites or go on their agents Site and listen to their and you know when one of them is going In a world when time stopped and little green men I'll do in a world when time stopped and little green men because I want to get that theatrical read into the quiver of my arrows I I don't want to do them. I don't want to you know imitate them But I want to get vocal tricks in my head to this day. I still do that And and what do whatever you can do. It's an intuitive act It's not a voiceovers are not Doing a voiceover is not a conscious act It's giving it up to the voiceover gods and goddesses and just going for it and reading And then reading again and reading again and listening to yourself and realizing This is smoke and mirrors All I'm listening for is something that makes sense, right? But I think I think one of the most important things is practicing cold reading because cold reading is so prevalent in voiceovers Like I get to a video game session and I have 40 pages that I got that second With name like I do the elder scrolls video game and I've been doing it for like four years And every session I don't get the script before you get it there and there's names like Tagarin la la bottom and I have to and they're like, okay, we want british. She's kind of upper class blah blah blah, you know like or she's whatever They give me different accents and stuff, but it's like It's completely cold red and you need to practice that like practice pick up a magazine and read the magazine out loud Like read an article out loud to yourself You need to be able to just pick up a piece of coffee and have it come out of your mouth with no garbled words and that's like I think that's a really really important part of it and just yeah focusing on being able to Being able to do that and just have the words make sense So you're thinking about what you're saying as you say it and being able to cold read I think that's most important part in voiceover people As I said, I have a much harder time than then folks who are in the theater or film or television Because theater film or television you got to learn your lines, but you just show up You show up and you're told what to do where to go and how to interpret and you know Of course, you can be as creative as you can be but voiceovers We don't have that much time We don't have that that the we don't have That many opportunities, but that's the other sorry the other thing I think is doing your work before you even get to the booth or if you do your work in the booth That's one thing but with animation or video games or even promo or other kind of copy I sit down before I break it down, you know, I if it's a scene who am I where am I who am I talking to I still do like acting things like my actions if I need if I'm like I can't Differentiate these like I can't figure out why how this line can sound different than this line I'll find a different action for each one or you know An objective for the whole scene or the whole story And I think that work that you do before which is an actor's work Which if you go to any acting class you should be learning Is very important and we'll make it so when you come to the microphone and you can You can just say it and you know what you're saying and you mean what you're saying You have some meaning behind all of it and geek out Geek geek out like a 12 year old go on every voice oversight you can listen to every demo you can And it's like the old foley machines at george. Tell me if this is true the old Foley machines where the laffer would come in to do post work on a television show a sitcom And and play it looked like a keyboard But there were various kinds of laughs and intensities of laughs I never got to see one But I heard that these things had like tape a tape loops or something in there literally to trigger them And right and they look like it's sort of a miniature, you know, what world it's an organ but portable a portable and There are millions of tape loops in our heads But we have to you have to create the geeky opportunity usually by yourself Um with your computer at night when someone either someone's listening to you or not Or with your friends in a work voice of a workshop Or a workout group go on facebook and look for a workout group We don't have to pay and just get together and geek out. Yeah No, no It really wasn't well just like it's october 1st time has flown And uh, we're out of time but boy, that's That's an awful lot of knowledge thrown out at a very short period of time. We really appreciate it. Once again fun guys I know george wittem is my hero They'll build my studio make me the man I am today And now I see the man behind the man. This is just thrilling for me. It's amazing once again Well, your the book is parenting for the digital age the truth about media's effect on children And what to do about it and it's available where? Barnes and noble amazon wherever books are sold and it'll be available on audible probably or yeah. Yes, it is Okay, excellent. You could listen to bill do that one and ariana. Thank you so much for being with us Delightful having you on the show tonight. All right. Well, george and I will be right back to say goodbye Right after this. Thanks Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead Now there's one place where you can explore everything the voice over industry has to offer That place is voiceover extra.com whether you're just exploring a voice over career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voice over extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books auditioning casting home studio setup and equipment marketing performance techniques and much more It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voice over success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voice over audition It's all here at voice over extra.com. That's voice over x t r a dot com And we are back Boy, that was an amazing hour. It was a blast. That's great to hear all that great stuff about What he's done and what arian is doing the book all that gotta thank him again Thanks for being with us guys. It was great fabulous Next week on this very show Melissa moats will be joining us from from vegas, baby. All right Yeah, and uh, she'll talk about their studio. She has with her husband and all the classes they teach there voice actors studio Yes on 10 15, which is a monday October 15. George and I will be in new york at uncle roy's barbeque And sue's gonna be off on on something else to like, okay We're going dark that night. That's just simply not gonna three of us doing the show remotely. That's where we draw the line It's like boy, that would just blow the internet right out. Yeah, uh on 10 22 on october 22nd Very special. We're gonna have a real tech night. It's going to be During gleaves From adobe. That's great. We've been one of the developers of adobe audition. I've seen him at trade shows Obviously, he knows his stuff. We've been trying to get him for quite a long time. We're really that's really cool Very cool. Yes, and on october 29th. Uh, we're gonna have a recorded interview with jonathan tilly Who's um expert at marketing and uh, you know in english and in german right? He's based in germany and then on november 5th We have rosie and brian amador and their daughter release Sully conto. We're going to have a live backyard concert here at the next to our clubhouse here Which will be so that means we have to have more than two mics more than two More than two mics and a sound system and all the other things that go along with that. It's gonna be fun I love doing stuff. That'll be great. Okay great people. Who are our donors of the week who we greatly appreciate? Yeah, I will tell you because I Too very important to who do we appreciate our donors our donors Uh, we got donors donations from tracy h reynolds. Like you hear his name every week as well as andrew kaufman and eric garagoni Every week. Um, thank you all of you gentlemen and we have don griffith subscriber martha con martha He's nate. I mean some of these folks we know i rl in real life others We don't but we just seem to feel like we know them because they donate every and we meet them at conferences It's like they know us. It's really weird shana pennington baird Or is that shana she's gonna tell me someday when I actually meet her in person ant land productions as uncle roi As you as you guys know Joseph valentine itty. Hope you said I hope I said that right. Hey, I know that name He just hired me for something. Thanks double dipping. Uh, diana bird soul And stephanie southerland So that's a couple new names in there. All right. If you want to work with george. Where do you go? You go to george the tech dot com and if you like short geeky URLs, just go to george the Dot tech. All right, and if you want to work with me you go to home voice over studio dot com Sometimes we actually talk about these things together and then sometimes we hide things from each other Hey, what? Well, maybe Uh, anyway, uh, let's see here.  So get here on time and we won't keep you too late That's right. If you start show up really late.  Uh, let's see here. Uh, the show logs are now automatic That's right.  How do they do it? Jack is no longer going to be typing and learning everything that goes on in the show I know but he'll still be watching. Uh, let's see show us your booths Because tonight This is jack daniel's booth. Oh See, I mean the guy just totally geeks out. I mean look, you know, move a wide shot Yeah, get a little more wide shot. You can see how he really geeks out here. This is a beautiful studio beautiful Jack jack has you you bring more than one person in there sometimes or for like teaching, right? Yeah, he has more Even though most people don't need to see how this is. Yes your personal Private person. What do we what do we call them nowadays? We come up with a personal Uh, professional voiceover. Yeah, they don't they don't have to look that nice but jack put the extra effort in Because he's a classy guy. Yeah, that's right. All right Uh, I have an instagram account george the tech on instagram. I'm starting to post on there here and there just fun little things Uh, we got that geeky podcast they do called the pro audio suite with uh, andrew peters and Darren robertson from australia and robert marshal from source elements That's uh, every every couple of weeks put that out Okay, and i've got my new website voiceovergear.com If you're interested in reviews of voiceover gear if i don't like it, it doesn't get on there You know, and i'm you i'm very honest and very critical. So if you gotta be if it's on there You don't you didn't read the ones. I didn't like very much. Uh, okay. Well acknowledgments first off We need to thank our sponsors harlan hogan's voiceover essentials Pregnant pause voiceover extra All righty source elements via to go go voice actor websites.com and j. Michael collins demos All righty. Well, we also need to thank of course the dan and marsy lennard foundation for the betterment of live webgasting We're making sure this all happens. That's right. Our producer kathryn curidan for getting us great guests Tonight like building our inner rat. Yeah, and she just had a birthday. Yes. So happy birthday to you Happy bra. We said we said happy birthday to her on facebook. Yeah jack daniel doing amazing job in the chat room tonight and of course our crack technical director Sumer leno for getting it together and making it seem effortless Thank you, sir.  Uh, you know is a tough business We're here to help you out But mostly we want to make let you know that if it sounds good It is good. Alrighty. Well, that's gonna do it for us tonight I'm dan lennard and i'm george winnow and this is voiceover body shot or v.  We'll see you next time