Hey, guess what? It's Monday night. We got a full house here at voiceover body shop Just said that I know I just said that But anyway, George is not here tonight. He's not he's not so Jack Daniel is our co-host tonight. Wow, that's fantastic Oh, no, please don't make a plot. Please. Please don't stop Anyway, so tonight we've got two guests to that's two for the price of one you're saying to me Yes, it's a bargain and if you don't get your money's worth you get it back Anyway, we have Catherine Horan with us tonight. Wow, who is a casting director over at the voice casters Just up there on Burbank. That is so amazing. I mean, I know that we voice actors long to talk to casting directors Yes, that's pretty cool. That's right. And we have David H. Lawrence is a special special extra special guest tonight Surprise guest. We didn't know he just walked in the door and said hey, can I talk? No problem. Anyway, and we got a little news We got some tech and we're gonna talk about all sorts of stuff and we'll take your questions coming up right now on voiceover body shot two men Twin sons from different mothers with a passion for voiceover recording technology and the desire to make recording easy for voice actors everywhere together in one place George Whidham the home studio engineer to the stars a Virginia Tech grad with an unmatched knowledge of all the latest gear and technology in voiceover today Dan Leonard the home studio master a voice actor with over 30 years experience in broadcasting and recording and a no holds barred myth-busting attitude for teaching you how easy it is together to bring you all the latest technology today's voiceover superstars and Leading the discussion on how to make the most of your voiceover business This is voiceover body shot Voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials comm home of Harlan Hogan's signature products source elements Remote connections made even easier via to go-go comm Everything you need to be a successful voiceover 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 VO success and Now live from their super secret multimedia studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are George Whidham and Dan Leonard Good evening. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm Jack Daniel. Am I you are not right? And this is voiceover body shop or VO BS Nicely done nicely done. Oh my goodness. No echo though. It's not like we're in Radio City music calls It'll be a post exactly well an exciting show tonight because we got this there's a lot of people in here tonight There are quite a few it's like being in the Coliseum Except more so yeah, but you know but if you want to put on the the audience cam there for a second Susan So we can get a slight idea of how there's my mom. Yeah, my mom right there Appearing on the show for the fourth time Yes, but we've got some great guests tonight We've got David H. Lawrence gonna talk to us a little bit and then Catherine Hurran has been talked to us about The casting process. I'm excited about this. Yeah, because you get a lot of casting I get a lot of casting but I always want more casting. That's the idea Yeah, what's good to show up and have the you know the casting director say I want you We're gonna find out how it is you get the casting director to say that more often to you fantastic for you Right, so if you have questions about for Catherine later Make sure you start putting them in the chat room and I will get them to me Who will then get it to Dan or you can get to tell him yourself. I'm already confused. All right Well considering George isn't here. We're doing pretty good You know you're hearing us which is the most important thing Anyway, it's it's Monday night and it's now time for your BS Voice over extra news all the information you need for a successful voice over career Here's the voice over extra news for August 27th 2018 audiobook pronunciations You know you might publish a periodic newsletter like Natasha here or blog for your voice over clients and prospects If you're an audiobook narrator Another important audience for your thoughts is your listener fan club That's the case for long-time voice actor and narrator extraordinaire and Richardson Who's recent post to our fans caught our attention because it not only informs listeners about a crucial aspect of how narrators work But also because narrators can use lots of this info themselves And the topic is age-old how to pronounce those tricky lengthy unfamiliar and odd sounding names of people in places That article will appear tomorrow on voiceover extra calm and tonight. Here's a peek at the advice that narrators can pick up First she says know your limitations. I'm not good at that, Dan For instance the way you've always pronounced a particular word is not necessarily what the publisher or listening audiences will want to hear and Gives a few examples including how to pronounce the event that shows off the skills of cowboys and cowgirls Okay, well some might say it's a rodeo while others insist it's rodeo You can think of lots more. I'm sure so what to do One major help and says is to hire a book prepper a professional book prepper charges about $25 an hour Delivers so much valuable info to save a narrator time for instance the prepper will note Unusual words and proper nouns look up the pronunciation and create a spreadsheet for the narrator to use for reference In addition the prepper may give notes summarizing the arc of the story chapter by chapter All of this helps a narrator visualize the performance Of course, you can also find lots of help online and list sites including forvo How'd you say YouTube and many more as great resources for pronunciation? Another is a site called audio eloquence for language dialect and accent research and a brand-new service called Penunciology.com has been launched by narrator Adam Werner that searches multiple online sources for the word You want to pronounce or want to learn more about this service is by subscription and finally you can ask your Facebook friends for help Sometimes the answers get a bit facetious or comical considering this could be at any hour of the day or night But friends truly want to help in her original blog to listeners and concludes with this plea to listeners Please be kind it's hard work Pronouncing all that stuff You'll find much more helpful info in the article tomorrow at voiceover extra.com your daily resource for voice over success So do you write a blog? I do not neither do I yeah, you know, I mean I write I have nothing to say nothing to say You talk for a living. I've said it all and I get it all out. Oh, okay So tell us a little bit more. I mean you're always over here on the couch doing all our social media Tell us a little bit about Jack Daniel. Well, I you know a full-time voice artist. I I mostly do Promo and trailer work. I do a lot of commercial work as well Things have been going pretty well for me. I really enjoy the tech side, which is why I tune in here As I look at Natasha for no particular reason all the time But I have been have actually having some really good luck lately You might hear a couple of my trailers out right now We got one on for God bless the broken road and one coming out for Hellfest Wow, so check that out Yeah, great.  Well George isn't here tonight. He took a personal night. Oh, that's sad Yes, I know it's good for you. I miss look at the exposure you get it's good for me I don't miss George at all. No, I do. I mean, you know, and we're gonna be off for a couple of weeks So I'll really miss him. I know he's a good man. Yes. Anyway, so you brought in a little toy tonight I did so we can have a little bit of tech update. What have we here? This is the Sennheiser MKH 8040 now if you guys watch the show, you know that Anthony Mendez is a big proponent Thank you of this microphone In fact, he switched from using the 416 the industry workhorse to this microphone, which is in the box This is not the microphone. Let me pull the microphone out Which you'll be surprised to see is this little guy right there I don't know if you can even see it. It's so tiny But he uses this one because Dan he says that he cannot only use it for promo Which he does so much for and Jane the Virgin which of course he does all the time Yes, he does but for Narration and commercial work as well. He says it does all the work that usually two or three microphones have to do Wow, it's just a little tiny None it's not certainly not a shotgun. It's more like a pistol It's I think it's considered a mini shotgun is actually its designation because it does have the little LCD inside of it You know, but the pickup patterns much different. I'm still trying to figure it out And I know that you're gonna try it too. This is all thanks to our friends at Sennheiser who loaned me a couple of mics Apparently thinking I was somebody else And Christopher Courier is the guy Chris Lentis. He is the vice president there actually he's not just a guy at Sennheiser He's the vice guy at Sennheiser, and he's our friend. He's a good man Yeah, it also comes with the little the cutest little button of a mic screen Looks like something from a Mario game, but anyway Yeah, but this case is clearly compensating for something. Yes. Oh, yes So I get to borrow this for a week or so and I'll get to do a review of it. Yes, please do very cool I'm going to be doing a review myself. So let's have competing or or perhaps complimentary reviews That would be fun. We have to do it from the same booth though. There has to be an honest Comparison well, you're welcome to come to me or I can come to you All right. We'll talk about it. All right. You only live around the corner. So that helps a whole lot You know it's a city of 10 million people and he moves in around the corner. He just can't get away from me I know I know anyway. So anyway, we've got great guests tonight. We're gonna be talking about all sorts of stuff we're gonna get our shirt caught in the box and All sorts of other stuff so stay tuned. We'll be right back here on voiceover body shop As a voice talent you have to have a website But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you and when they finally do a break or don't look right On mobile devices. They're not built for marketing and SEO. They're expensive You have limited or no control and it takes forever to get one built and go live So what's the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voice actor websites.com Like our name implies voice actor websites.com just does websites for voice actors We believe in creating fast mobile friendly responsive highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use You have full control no need to hire someone every time you want to make a change and our upfront pricing means you know Exactly what your costs are ahead of time.  Oh, and what happened to Jack? No, now it's David H. Lawrence the 17th. How are you sir? Not bad Actually, I have to lower my seat. So we're That's right. Everyone will think you're taller than I am and Lord knows you're not taller than anybody So what brings you here tonight? So we're talking to where I know we're talking about limiting beliefs Already we are we are I wanted to talk about the microphone how to pronounce the word often properly I mean I had so much all planned but we're right in it. No, it's not. I know it's never and It's hard sometimes because it feels like that's such a wonderful formal Pronunciation of it. You hear it. It's a mid-Atlantic pronunciation. Exactly. There we go. But yeah limiting beliefs. It's interesting something that I Started to Feel in the coaching that I have with my clients was not what microphone should I get what software? Should I use you know the the real core to being successful at anything? Whether you're an actor on camera or you're an actor on mic Is not those fact-based things like which microphone because you know you you could be swayed doesn't matter what microphone That's right. If it's a decent microphone There's a good chance that it's gonna be just fine But when you why does my chair keep rotating to the left just what seems to be this there's a magnet over there I mean like like by the time we're done with the interview my back is gonna be to you and I'm gonna be talking to the people and Sherman Oaks so what I found was most useful was Changing the beliefs that you have If they're not serving you and sometimes that's really hard to do sometimes It's hard to recognize that a belief that you think is very much true, you know Casting directors if they don't cast me they hate me or I didn't do well enough or a million other things that reflect your belief about the situation right right and You know Catherine's gonna show very shortly how many times that's absolutely true. You sucked so bad But most of the time that isn't even part of the equation, right? But when you believe that you look at a situation and you say well this has to be the truth This has to be the reason that this is going on and you make this ever since cavemen Tried to figure out the Sun, you know, it comes up in the morning goes down at night and they think okay I'm not a flat earther so the earth is round the Sun must be going around the earth Right took us a while to figure out that's not the case But for a while that felt true, right and the same thing with our Our careers our lives we have these beliefs that are formed when we're children They're handed to us by our parents and our peers maybe early in life when we start off at work We get these these things handed to us that just simply must be true and in our business Oh my god, are there myths about how it works?   Yeah, why didn't I do this? Why didn't I do that? Don't do don't do your best work to the rear-view mirror on the way home Don't do that plenty of that. Yeah, so so One of one of the things that I didn't know unfortunately when I moved out here about 15 years ago Was that there are no parts for anyone over the age of 40? I? Didn't know that and when I started getting booked on roles on television I had a lot of hell to pay from people who knew this rule and we're living their life by it, you know it's It's really powerful to watch someone work through the process of discovering how this limiting belief happened Why they think it's true and what to replace it with which is a useful Enabling belief that really serves you that really helps you in a in a way that that supports the success of your career And so to that end Just like I woke up one morning. I gotta do this. I'm going to be going on on the internet live With video for 21 days straight and ten like doing this show 21 straight days Well, you know, I don't have this much stuff to I have like my camera That's basically it but I'm going to be sharing information with you every single day On one limiting belief that most of us have and if you don't have the limiting belief you have some form of it, no doubt People think everything from I'm too old for this to I I'm not good enough for this They suffer from the imposter syndrome once they figure out that I'm not really the right guy for this job I'm in trouble because the hook is coming all of these beliefs that can hold us back and I went through Sort of an epiphany about 20 years ago about all the things that I was telling myself that I thought were true and They weren't and I want to share that with people. So we're calling it believe 2018 a 21 day journey and every morning at 10 o'clock Pacific time I'm gonna be online You can join me and we'll work through the process of one limiting belief every day and you'll get that muscle memory of how to replace a limiting belief with an enabling belief and We'll have some fun online only be 30 minutes or so and I know you're sitting there going how in the world Do you expect me? I have a life to be online every day with you live. Well, that's okay. We've got recordings We've got streams. We've got downloads.  I am about to really tick off my agents by booking out for 21 days But that's my that's my commitment to you and the cool thing is you think how much would you pay for all that? Right, how much would you pay for this? Well, you know, I don't care what you might pay for it I want to make this as affordable for everyone as is humanly possible And so it's 90 bucks for the whole shooting match 21 days for 21 days with me live and then all the recordings We'll do the chat logs. I'll be it'll be interactive and so we'll have people responding to what we're talking about Sharing their issues sharing their successes their failures and and how they fix things I'm really excited about it. I really am getting a little choked up because there's There's a thing that happens when you replace a limiting belief that is absolutely beautiful and when You watch this happen with yourself with others I mean, you know people that at one point you thought man, this this this is a problem They're not going to succeed and then they realize what works and what wasn't working and all of a sudden it clicks It's that little twist of the screw in the factory, right? So I'm really excited about it starts this Friday August 31st. If you want information on it, I've got a URL for you Why don't we give the URL you want to do that? Sure. Okay. I mean if you if you insist no Vio to go go comm so that's Vio the numeral to go go comm slash Believe believe believe have you guys been saying that for the last I mean we do slash slash believe believe And if you go there, you'll get an information on how it's going to happen what you'll get we'll have some gifts for you Right now. There's a free PDF on the process itself. So even if you don't join you can go and you can See what we're going to do and maybe try it yourself, but I want to hold your hand I want to walk you through the process I want to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you as you look towards your future and I want to help you achieve the success that you deserve right, so Again, let's give them the URL one more time if you insist because I like doing it. Awesome It's Vio the numeral to go go Vio to go go comm slash forward slash forward Slash ever forward forward slash Believe so it's very easy be L. I Evie I Should have done the misspelling of it and redirected it. That's what's holding me back. That's my limiting belief that everyone can spell Okay, thank you so much, and I hope you join me It'll be it'll be a lot of fun and it really can change your life looking forward to it. Yeah, thank you for my pleasure Thank you so much. What you're working on these days You can tell us a bit. I'm in the middle of an audiobook right now I'm really excited about it's friend of mine from Canada who's writing a book on the problems with our education system Having worked in the education system. Yeah, it's yeah, it's a and You know it used to be that I'd go to set and they would have three sheets of paper for me to sign right your search form your one-page contract and It's showing you where to go to the bathroom And now it's a stack like this of NDAs And so I'm under none disclosure on most of the things that I have in the in the work So yeah, great. Yeah. Thank you, sir. At least you're busy and I love this show. I have to tell you I love that I love being a part of the show. I love sponsoring you I love helping to support you because there is no other resource online like this and it's awesome And I really appreciate your time. Well, we appreciate you coming down. Thanks driving all the way across North Hollywood and just to get here just right up the road Dan We all live within a few blocks of you. I know you rode your bike over here. Anyway, David Thanks for being with us. Thank you. All right. Well, Catherine Horan's gonna join us in just a minute We're gonna talk about the voicecaster and voice casting and how you get work So stay tuned. We'll be right back here on voiceover body shop 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 comm All right, well George isn't here tonight so I get to tell you about source connect. He installs it I use it Big difference wouldn't you say I use it all the time so do I you know It's one of those things that you really need as a voice actor Sometimes you're gonna be in a situation where you've got to do a remote session And you know one of my favorite things to do is it can you do a phone patch and normally? It's like I'm all set on my end. How are you you know? But you know it's like phone patch something from Mad Men from the 60s anyway But today you have the ability to really get high quality audio recorded somewhere else from your studio To them and they can talk to you and you can talk to them And they can record you and it works really great And it's called source connect and they've got lots of different things that you can use on source connect They've got source connect pro source connect standard source connect now, which is free using the opus codec on Google Chrome You gotta at least try it and see how easy it is to communicate with your clients Because I think one of the most important things Jack. It is is that how many times are we we given the opportunity to do a do a script and they give you some direction and You record it you send it out. No, no, no, we need to change it much better to do a live session Always insist to your clients. Look if you want me to pronounce things, right? If you want me to say it the way you want in real time Let's get on source connect and let's make it Write the first time so you're happy with it the first time and you're talking directly to me And you're directing the session and things might work much better Plus Dan you have many auditions that specify source connect only so if you don't have it It's a problem. That's right So and one more thing I'll say if you don't mind if I may is that their support is fantastic I'm a couple of weeks ago. I did something. I did some changes to my system and I was having some issues. I Was nervous. I was about a half hour away from a session I called them they walked me through it and I was back up and running and it was it was what lovely It's great stuff. It really is go over to source elements calm check out their pricing check out the programs they have and Buy it or use of use at least use source connect now and you'll learn it and you'll low go I've got to have the professional level of that because to be a pro you got to have pro stuff Anyway, thanks for being our sponsors source elements. We'll be right back with Catherine who ran so stay tuned This is the Latin lover narrator from Jane the Virgin Anthony Mendez and you're enjoying Dan and George on the voice of her body shop Hey guys, this is Tom also known as the voice of Spongebob square pants And you want to fill your ear holes and your eye holes with Dan and George and the audio body shop Snails like it too. You're watching V obs dot TV. I don't know why it's crazy what they do here I think I'm gonna go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich Yep, this is V obs proven anybody can have a show these days Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky the voice of Rocco, and you're watching voice of a body shop Alright it's time to introduce our actual guest No, David just sort of showed up here. Anyway, Catherine Heran has been a casting director a demo producer Audio engineer and voiceover coach with the voice caster since 2012 Catherine is cast for major brands like Honda a.m. P.m. Ashley furniture Verizon Nike and many more She has a BA in theater arts and acting from New Mexico State University. That's in Cruces, isn't it? All right, I remembered that and has been an end in the entertainment industry for in Los Angeles for over 10 years Welcome to voiceover body shot so much for having nice to have you here. Yes. Good to be here. Yeah I used to live in Albuquerque, so I remember guys would go to New Mexico's that yeah, they're down in Cruces Yeah, I tell people I from New Mexico. They always assume it's Albuquerque. Oh, okay. You're by you from Las Cruces originally Way out in the desert where they would bury all the bodies and you know breaking bad Anyway, welcome to the show. So you came from Las Cruces, New Mexico, and how did you get into doing this kind of work? How did you get interested in voiceover?  Yeah, I did that for about a year or two and was like It's not as much fun as I thought it might be I love the acting part, but the business side of it was kind of draining I knew Kelly. She's the current owner of the voice caster From some previous work. We had both done together. She wasn't the owner yet. Huck was still in charge But they needed a person and I was looking for a new job and it just kind of all fell together So what how did you just start there and go start casting for them or what was I mean? There's you know, there's some on-the-job training and stuff like that Sweeping up and things like that because I had an acting background That really helped to work with the different actors be able to direct them a little better than you know Just someone off the street But yeah, a lot of on-the-job training, you know learning to do the engineering stuff. Yeah, that was a little new for me I'd never done that before But yeah, you know you you through experience and trial and error you learn about You know everything it takes from the acting side to producing demos What was the most surprising thing you found making that transition from acting to the technical and casting side of it It was something I wish I'd known about voiceover before I never considered myself to be a person that would be able to do voiceover because I didn't have one of those voices I didn't have a big booming voice or a voice that I thought was very interesting But then when you're doing it, you're like, oh, they're just looking for everyday sounding people most of the time You know there's a lot of conversational Real type people and I was like, oh, this is a whole avenue of acting and performing that I had never really known about Until I started there.  Yeah, exactly. How long has it been there? It's been in that location for a little while voicecaster itself has been around since 1975 It was one of the first I think it was the first casting Facility dedicated purely to voiceover Bob Lloyd started that back in 1975. He's still around And we've been at our current location. I feel like for around 20 years or so But we do everything we do casting for union non-union TV radio web Industrial stuff whatever people need we can do it. Wow and and have been obviously for 20 years You must be good at what you do So you've got classes over there as well I mean you're casting people you want to get make sure people are good enough to cast so tell us about some of the classes Exactly. I mean we've got a beginning class intermediate advanced audition pro and animation classes Most of our classes are taught by Kelly. She's the owner and head of casting And that's something that really sets us apart from a lot of the other places is You get to work with the casting director and owner from the very beginning, you know, it's not just for the upper levels So it's a good way for us to get to know you so that we can bring students in on Projects that we're actively working on and you've actually got some classrooms there Yeah, we do all of our teaching in our booth. It's our upstairs booth that we use for actual sessions as well Yeah, what different types of classes are there? Like we've got the beginning class which will teach you about the fundamentals of voiceover everything from mic technique To the different categories of commercial voiceover The intermediate class delves a little more into other aspects of voiceover things like animation audio books legal disclaimer and that kind of stuff Then the advanced class really works on getting you ready to get your demo made if you need to do that And it really works on honing your signature sound And then our audition pro class is really for actors who are working and want to hone their audition skills Mm-hmm, so they can get better at auditioning and then our animation class works on animation Yeah, and I've taken the animation class and you're in there with like 30 other people and they give you a script and You're suddenly doing a cartoon exactly You have any guest speakers there or guest teachers or do you have a regular staff of people that are regular staff of people Most of them are associated with voice cast or either booth directors Or Kelly who's the owner Marcia Goodman teaches our animation class She is a freelance animation casting director and has been doing that for over 30 years And she also likes to bring when she can students into audition for her projects Good place to do that. Yeah, if you're just joining us our guest is Catherine Hurran who is a casting director over at the voice casters in Burbank lovely downtown Burbank, California So nobody remembers lovely downtown Burbank unless they watch Johnny Carson One of the other things that you guys do over there is demos So I would imagine that getting a demo from a place that does casting is gonna do a demo That's probably gonna be on you know on the right path to what you're looking for that is our goal Definitely our goal is to get you an agent and to make you marketable So we we cast are we make demos to make you as marketable as possible. We really try to get to know the people Find out what your strengths are and to give you a nice showcase. We want to have demos that show a range It's not just one note to make you as marketable as possible. What's the process like there? Well, we meet with you and we go over what your wish list is You know what you feel your strengths are and and what you're good at and then from there We ask you questions to get to know you a little better products that you use You know so that's something you've got a connection to you know and then we take some time We pull the copy we bring you in for the record. We try and knock it all out in one session and We make sure that we get a range of reads You know that nothing sounds exactly the same from one script to the next we want to make sure we showcase a nice range for you We always record more than we need so that way we can narrow it down have the best of the best on the demo and Then we take some time. We narrow it down to between 60 and 90 seconds we had music sound effects and then Send it off to the client. They let us know if they love it or if they want to make any changes and Then we go from there so we really try to make it a collaborative effort. Yeah, you just do commercial demos there We do commercial animation and narration demos. Wow Important stuff if you don't know how to record Have professionals do it. Exactly. You want it to sound like it was done professionally, right? Again, if you're just joining us Catherine Horan is joining us if you have a question for her It's really really easy to ask it to her right now if you're watching this live because Jack Daniel Who's over there in the the guest booth? Our our social media czar is taking care of all the questions in the chat room And we will get those two her in our next segment So start asking because I got some questions and it's gonna raise more questions for you Anyway, you also do Personalized coaching there not just classes. So you work with people one-on-one. Yeah I do private lessons in my spare time after work Where I'm happy to meet with people, you know, really if they've got something specific They want to work on we can definitely do that or if you're just kind of looking for You know a little more broad, you know want to see what you're good at what your strengths might be Just want me to throw you around beach up. We can do that, too Sounds like fun. Yeah Anyway, so let's get through it really to the meat of what goes on over at boys cast like I said the guy's outside going Reading their copy of stuff. How does the casting process work? Who contacts you? What do you do? Who do you call in and that sort of thing? How does that work? So it all starts when a client emails us or calls us and says hey We need casting for let's say target for example, and we're looking for females 25 to 35 and you know, they're friendly and you know, whatever they give us the specs They give us what they're looking for The next big thing to find out is if it's union or non union If it's union, then we know, you know, it's the standard rates, you know If it's TV it pays this much if it's radio pays this much if it's non union will negotiate the rates Make sure it's something that's reasonable because we really do try to get you know, the best talent for the best price You know, we try not to send people stuff that pays crap we want to make sure it's you know worth the actor's time and And then from there we start putting to get oh, we also find out how many people they want Right, do they want a full day of casting a half day of casting? You know how many options they're looking right and they're looking and they give you a set of specs of somebody like, you know someone in their in their early 60s Exactly Exactly so they send us what they're looking for and then if it's union We send it off to the agents that we work with we work with most of the agencies here in town And they give us their top three or their top five or however many we ask for their top talent that they feel fit the spec And then we take the time we listen through to everybody because you know Agents aren't always the best judge of who's appropriate for a we won't say who particular You know, they're doing what they can to get their their people a job But then yeah, we take them some time We listen through to everybody and then we bring in who we feel is the best of the best that represent the spec Of what the client is looking for If it's non-union We have actually a list of people that are interested in doing non-union projects gathered from people that took classes with us or that You know emailed us maybe they sent us their demo that kind of a thing or that have come in Maybe we've known them for a while and they're like, hey, I want to get on your list So we've got our own in-house list of people that we bring in for those And it's kind of a similar process We make a list of who in that book we feel fits the spec the best And then we go through when we narrow it down to who we really think is the best of the best We think these are definitely the prime candidates for this job And then we call people up we bring them in We have a booth director that'll direct you to get the best read out of you We can and then we send the link of all the auditions off to the client Hopefully the client loves it and they say hey, we want to hire so-and-so and then you know, we call them we check their avail You can get them the job. Yeah, it but it really comes down to I mean you guys are doing This sifting process and getting people, you know to the right people, right, you know to the client But ultimately it's the client that makes that decision. We have no say in who gets hired It's always kind of fun when we're directing in the you know out front The booth director will sometimes go this person's perfect for you know Or you know, they'll have a list of their top favorites who they think would be really great for this job And it's kind of interesting to see who the client comes back with because sometimes it will be who the booth director thought was best You know, but it's definitely a crapshoot. There's no rhyme or reason to who gets picked per se Someone who may have had what we think would be the best performance won't get the job They'll go with somebody else because they like the sound of their voice better Yeah, or that person sounded like their ex-wife exactly something along or then they'll just scrap the project all together and go with their cousin You know, there's really no But at least there's a process in there is a process Um, but uh, yeah, ultimately it's the client that gets the final say and they book who they want to book Okay, and you do and you're the one are you in charge of the casting there? Or you you're one of the people that is working on different projects at each different time Exactly. I mean kelly because she's the head of casting. She is the ultimate and last say But we definitely pitch ideas, you know, if especially when it's the non-union side You know, will people that have taken classes or have done privates with me or you know, we have a workout group Uh, that voice caster does every wednesday night. A lot of those people I'll think of those You know, or you know, just people I'll go through the book too with kelly and I'll go Oh, this person would be really good.  What are you looking for? We definitely like to have a range of options. Um I mean The client will come to you and they could want anything anything from little kids To like you said 60 year olds, you know, there's a whole or older Men and women um different languages So As long as I always tell people if voiceover is something you love to do It's worth pursuing because there really is something out there for everybody um because Every client has something different. They're looking for you know, and they're Union non-union. It doesn't matter. There's there's plenty of opportunities for Every range and race and age and everything. Yeah, just look at gilbert godfrey. It doesn't really matter Doesn't matter what you sound like as long as you can tell the story right exactly acting is the most important thing You know we get calls all the time. Oh so-and-so says I have a great voice. I want to do voiceover Oh, how many times do we hear that? It's like, well, that's great, but if you don't know how to use it, it doesn't matter Right, it's a voice acting acting is the uh most important part Right, uh, once again, we're talking with caster and haran from the voice caster and once again You got a question for I got lots of questions for but if you have a question throughout the chat room right now uh We were talking about demos when you listen to a demo and I've listened to a lot of demos You know people send me stuff you must get probably three or four a day And what are you looking for? And what usually is the first thing that gets a demo round filed like at the slate?  Yeah, it's different. It's caught your attention. It did but Maybe not in the best way I would say You know when we get demos in we want to make sure they sound professional You can definitely tell when somebody just made it at home themselves And it's kind of like Maybe not so much. So Definitely make it sound good. This is your calling card This is what people are going to listen to and remember you for so you want to make a good first impression You know, so make sure it sounds high quality Make it sound professional. I know how to help them with that One of my jobs. All right, number two. What else also make sure you show a range Um, because we don't want everything to sound exactly the same. We want to see what you can do You know, we want to see oh, they can be you know Conversational and friendly, but they can also be maybe a little quirky or they can do a retail spot You know and you know if you can do something like legal or if you can sing Definitely, that's something to include but maybe put that more towards the end Um, because sometimes these things will come up. We'll we'll need people that can sing Um, and it's you know, you just have to take the agent's word for it that they can sing because there's no sample Um, so things like that are always good to have But maybe don't lead with those. Yeah, okay something. It's going to get your attention Yeah, and make sure your first spot really is a good representation of you that your first spot This is naturally what you do what you sound like what you're best at Yeah, I I think that's a mistake a lot of people make even with a lot of other demo producers It's like, okay, we'll do a bunch of different spots for you And then they just put them in some sort of random order without really taking the time to go This is your signature sound. Yes and putting it up front. Yes highly recommend that. Okay Yeah, but who's to determine that you know sometimes sometimes people aren't the best judge of their own stuff so But hopefully that's what we get from a lot of people that do demos with us have taken classes with us And they're people that we know so we get a good feeling for them But when we do get people that we don't know that's why we like to meet with you We we usually do a demo meeting to start and we really get to know you ask questions and that kind of a thing And that helps us to kind of get a better feel for What you naturally do the same thing with when we're in the session Um, we'll beat you up. We'll throw you around try different options for different spots Which is why the walls are padded there by the way You were wondering right But that also helps us get a better feel for who this person is and what do they just naturally what naturally just kind of clicks with them So all right, so we talked about what you don't want to hear What do you want to hear? What is it that when you hit play on somebody's demo? that you go What is it that this person has you know, what makes jack better than me, you know, I it's Well, it all depends on what we're looking for at the time That's a big part of it because we get lots of demos and a lot of them are pretty good Um, and then we'll say we save everything that we get in Um, so it's rare that we delete anybody's demo. Um, so yeah, feel free to send them in. We'll listen to them We'll keep them on file. Um, like I said, just the things that stick out the most are just having it sound professional Making sure it's got good quality. It doesn't sound like you recorded it, you know In the basement or you know in the bathroom or you know, something like that, you know, I just want to have a good quality Um, but then you know, like I said, also that range making sure you know what you're doing and you Know what represents you well. Don't try to do things that aren't you Right. Um, make sure you know, you've got a good representation of yourself And uh, that you can show that you've got some range, right? All right. So the voice caster is Alton Burbank. Yes Driving towards the mountains and you there it is There's a lot of people who watch this show all over the globe. They're not here in LA, right? How can voice casters help them? Well, we do from time to time do casting that's not here in LA We do have some agents in new york that we work with, you know Sometimes we'll get we just had this happen a week or two ago where they wanted to cast out of new york So that you know, just because you're not here in los angeles doesn't mean you're you know, it's a total loss um If people aren't here in town, though It is a little bit limiting because a lot of our clients want to record here in LA Um, but that doesn't mean that it's not worth trying to do With things like voices.com and voices one two three There's a lot of opportunity out there for people that are in You know other states or aren't in a major metropolitan city Uh Do you ever do remote sessions from people from their studios? We do not The client might right um, but we just record here In los angeles like that the talent is always in our studio And then they may be connecting from st. Louis or new york or wherever right now You've got a bunch of booths over there. Uh, and You have is dn can people actually go over there if they need an is dn line or something You can go over there and rent rent the studio. People can rent out our studio for job recordings Now we offer is dn uh source connect. You were talking about that Phone patch and it's just a straight record. Sometimes nobody needs to dial in and direct or Be on the other line to record. It's just the actor coming in and just recording it and that's that So those are all options we can do Uh, we have a standard studio rate of 75 dollars per half hour And we also have an actor rate because you know, sometimes clients are cheap and they make the actor pay for it Out of pocket and don't reimburse them go figure and that's 25 dollars for every 15 minutes All right, so if someone's interested in You know taking advantage of all the services and classes and things they have over there How can they get a hold of voice casters? The easiest way is to go to our website, which is voicecaster.com Most of our information is up there. Um, if you have any specific questions You can always feel free to email us And my direct email is casting the number three at voicecaster.com So if you have questions about classes or demos or anything We've talked about here feel free to email me and i'll be able to answer your questions Do you have like a newsletter or announcements that go out? We do periodically send out uh e-blasts Um, and that's you can sign up for that on the voicecaster.com website Um, there's I think if you go to contact that page It'll drop down and there'll be a little link there for you to sign up for any of our newsletters or announcements It fills up my inbox all the time. I think she's gonna have a full inbox tomorrow now. Yeah, that's speaking of which Do we have a full inbox? We have a full it's a hot bed of activity some of it's even legal All right, that's good to know. All right We'll be right back with katharine haran talking about the voicecaster in burbank and how to get koice Casting this not so business right after these important messages 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.com like our name implies voice actor websites.com just does websites for voice actors We believe in creating fast mobile friendly responsive highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use You have full control no need to hire someone every time you want to make a change and our upfront pricing means You know exactly what your costs are ahead of time You can get your voice over website going for as little as 700 dollars So if you want your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options Go to voice actor websites.com where your vo website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what? Hey, you know we're talking here with katharine haran But we have to talk about one of the greatest sponsors on the face of the earth somebody who has trusted us here at voiceover body shop with his message Since the beginning of time and that's harlan hogan over at voiceover essentials.com Now harlan had prepared a video for us tonight But there was a thunderstorm or something in illinois And somehow the signal got all scrambled. So we can't present that video. Maybe we'll show it next week Uh, but uh, unfortunately, we can't do that. So you have to listen to me talk about voiceover essentials.com He was doing an unboxing of the mixer face, which we were talking about at infinitum last week Uh popular item. It's a a self-powered interface great for remote great for your own interface And it's really cool. He's got them over there. Go over to voiceover essentials.com Check out the mixer face He's got them It took a long time for for mike goodman over at uh sentrons to build this thing But now he's making him harlan has him go over there right now and take a look at that But while you're there Check out all the other stuff that he has over at voiceover essentials.com like the vo1a Voice optimized voiceover microphone. It's the only microphone One of the only microphones actually built for doing voiceover designed tuned for doing voiceover great for men and women You'll find it over at voiceover essentials.com along with the harlan hogan signature series headphones And a pile of other things along with a lot of books and material on how to do voiceover better So go over to voiceover essentials dot com The best way to get there is to just scroll to the bottom of the page Click on the icon down there of harlan talking into his port-a-booth pro And it will take you right there letting him know that dan and george and today jack sent you over there So, uh, thanks harlan for being our sponsor for the last seven and a half years We appreciate it and we appreciate you all Watching out there. We'll be right back You're watching v obs dot tv. I don't know why it's crazy what they do here I think i'm gonna go somewhere else and have a cheese And we're back with kathryn haran here on voiceover body shop and we have a pile Of questions for our guests tonight and so we'll start off And I guess we actually have to start off with the mail in questions that we've got that's right So jack take it away eric aragoni a long time and consistent sponsor of this show Which I have always appreciated as the one-time host Eric says what's the biggest pet peeve you have regarding a voice actor? Whether it's auditioning in person or via mp3 file sent That's a good question. I've got lots of actor pet peeves. Um, one of them being not being able to follow Just basic directions When I sent out an email to an actor Usually anything they would want to know is in that email and I can't tell you how many times I'll get a an email back with some question And it's like it's right there Also, I'm not sending things back in an mp3 format A lot of people recording on their phones. It'll save it as an mp4 It's not the end of the world But it's an extra step we have to take to convert it to an mp3 So that's a little annoying Yeah, I mean if if you're looking at the instructions and we get them all the time if it says mp3 And here's how you label your file Generally copy exactly what they want and type your name in after we don't want a way file We don't want an mp4. We want an mp3. You want them in one track mono too. Yeah It's amazing. How many people send stuff in stereo doesn't it sound better in stereo? Everybody's is only coming from one direction. Yeah, well, maybe it shows great confidence though, Catherine If somebody sends a way file, they just assume they have the job and they could just go ahead and forward it to the client Way files are dangerous because uh, if you send it that way, it's you know, the best quality So who knows if they're just going to steal it instead of making you come back and rerecord it And then you know, you got the job Alrighty our good friend Bev standing Bev, how are you a Canadian friend are most of the commercials you're working on national tv union spots The reason I ask and of course I mean Bev. It's not really me Is that I seldom see auditions for spots I see on tv I have several agents have been in the business for a number of years and Canadian and non-union Well, unfortunately the uh business is In a little bit of an upheaval lately when I first started at voice caster. We did mostly union stuff And then over the years it was a little more equally union non-union and I would say in the last year So we definitely do more non-union than we do union It's for a lot of big companies that you wouldn't think would be going non-union, but they are because it's cheaper for them All right. Well, it's now time for a jack attack attack attack attack attack That's me by the way. Yeah, so in case you were wondering this is me by the way So, um, what happens Catherine when you discover a mismatch between how someone auditioned and how they performed especially if you send them to like a You know a live You know a live recording and do you have a war story you might be able to share with us? I do luckily this doesn't happen very often. Good But there was a time a client just wanted demo submissions They didn't want to actually have actors come in and audition on their script They just wanted to listen to actor demos And so we sent a bunch out and they picked somebody and then when that person got to the session He did not sound the way he did on the demo and the client was not happy and uh it was a Quite painful to listen to the session because they were trying to get reads out of him that he naturally couldn't just do So you always want your demo to sound like you that's another important thing Yeah, I would hope Yeah, I mean I mean and that happens a lot where you know, if someone goes in gets a real professional demo done or thought it was a professional demo and The script isn't for them or you know, and they there's a director might take him through that If you do a demo if you're putting something on your demo, you darn well better be able to reproduce that when you get into somebody else's Definitely All right, and Catherine regarding that war story in my defense and I was drinking heavily that day It wasn't my fault That usually helps a lot From get friend's voice Catherine. Do you send demos to you? Do people send demos to you or do you get them only through agent auditions? Both Um, definitely people can send their demos to us. Like I said, we save just about every demo we receive We keep it on file and keep you in mind for auditions that we Are for castings that we do get in so you can send those to me the email I said was casting the number three at voicecaster.com send those over we'll take a listen and And uh, we'll keep them on file for things that we get and then yes Also, especially when we're doing union uh using union casting we'll listen to the demos that the agent sent to us All right one from jv martin. Wow mr. Shark himself. Yeah He's been a guest on the show at least once right once at least once He says or asks occasionally if scheduled conflict the voice caster has let me send in a self-directed audition from my home studio Does the voice caster ever let somebody submit from home? But direct the actor via phone patch or other ways we don't do that. Um, just because we don't have the time Um, but I will say jv is great. He always does great stuff He doesn't need to worry about that. But yeah, I mean we we will on occasion depending on circumstances and confidentiality If people can't make it in for the actual audition We can send it to them They can record it from home and then get it back to us But yeah, we don't Direct them just we don't have the time or the manpower for if we had to do that for everybody that could be a little intensive right all right Tom ancient's question.  I probably got it wrong It's all good. He likes to ask questions and they're good ones. Um, how does well meaning you? How do you figure out their experience level with something when somebody does submit or is interested in learning with you? In other words intermediate versus advanced or pro are there hard cutoffs? Is it just sort of something you come up with on your own by listening? I mean, how does that work? That's a good question Um, usually because for for our more advanced classes the advanced in the audition pro We do ask for either a demo or some kind of voice sample Um, the demo is nice because it does show us that you've gone through the step of having a demo made Which means you're probably at a certain level above people that are just starting out Um, and then we can also kind of hear what you do hear the range You know get a feel for what you sound like and you sometimes will also ask people to give us Some of their experience if they've got an agent, that's another good plus That means you're probably out there working regularly Um, or we'll ask them for some of their acting background. What classes have you taken? Where else have you studied how you know what other voiceover classes have you had? And that'll kind of give us a gauge for where you're probably going to land For our classes or for auditions that we're holding He has a second part of the question and this is actually an interesting question How much time is spent looking for new talent as opposed to reusing the talent you already have? I mean, are you always looking for new talent? Always looking for new talent You have a roster of people that you usually go to or always adding people to our our non-union list for sure And like I said, that's where a lot of the classes come in handy Because it really gets the chance for us to know you and know what you do And so then when casting comes through You know every time we've got new classes We're always getting new people and we can always submit new people to the clients So we do try to keep it fresh We especially if the client has cast with us before Or maybe they're casting for the same product again You know, even if it's a couple years apart We try to make sure we're not sending them the same people every time We used to actually work with a client And they said we couldn't submit the same people for I think it was like three years So if they read on it once they had to wait three years before we could bring them in again So even clients don't want to hear the same people over and over again It's always nice to hear new fresh voices It seems to be a caravan of fresh voices Constantly pouring into this city. It's true day after day Question from Jenna Jenna This is a this is all about you Catherine She wants to know how difficult is it to be a casting director?  A little of both, um, it just depends on the project Sometimes we'll get something and it's like, oh, you know, right away You'll just think of all the people that you want to bring in for it Sometimes it's a little tougher, especially if it's something you don't see very often Or if it's you know foreign languages or things like that that takes a little more sifting Um, also, uh, she asks this is Jenna second part How big is that list that you keep of non-union talent? Is it tens? Is it hundreds? Is it thousands? Definitely not thousands probably hundreds. Okay All right, so it's important to keep a big list Come on in. Come on in. Don't worry about it Oh, no, you can come in here. It's fine. You want to have a list that's big enough that you can get the client what they need Uh, but you don't want it to be so large that it's just overwhelming All right, but it's a it's like the shifting sands of texas.  Oh, I know on the walls there You know some, you know, I remember patty duke's father from the patty duke show. What was his name? Mr. Duke. Mr. Mr. Mr. Duke. Yeah Now well, john astin's on there too.  It's a time capsule. You're seeing all these great voices there Well, catherine, thank you so much for being with us for being here and telling us a little bit more about the voice Caster once again, how can they get ahold of you? Go to voice caster.com Or you can feel free to email me at casting the number three at voice caster.com All right. All right. Well, we got to wrap things up here in just a little bit But we still got a tech question. So don't go away. We'll be right back here on voiceover body shot style power You're watching the home of the nfl The all new iphone reserve your disney world season pass now Through all the runny noses three in the morning coughs An all new american crime story tonight on fx this week only it's pasta fest at olive garden heart rate crime blood pressure Perfect. I grew up with the classics and now with stup hub. I can get authentic tickets to the best shows The all new chevy crews from 16 9 95 Be inspired think at the beauty that's uniquely yours at sephora this week at home depot It's our garden fest sale with up to 30 off all garden tools sod and seeds Hi, it's j michael collins and these are just a few examples of the first class demos my team and i are producing If you'd like to have something similar visit jmc voiceover.com and click on the demo production tab to find out more All right.  They're the people that Make it all happen. You know, we make it happen in our studios though Without them though, you know, we can't connect to the work and you know that about the service They do is invaluable and hearing it right from the horse's mouth is just a terrific thing Yeah, that's and that's why we're here for voiceover body shop. Uh, we did get a tech question We did yeah from jdk jdk man of many many children uh, yes As as we like to describe him out there in the desert He's other things too. Yeah. Oh great guy great guy, but he has a question He says when i'm in a zoom session And those of you zoom is like skype only a lot better um I'm always told my volume is overpowering Uh, none of the adjustments I make seem to work. I'm running my yamaha agio 3 into a macbook pro. Thanks You need to understand input levels And there's a number of things that can go on in zoom one is you might have the automatic level control On probably and if that's on it may keep your volume too low If you're if it's overpowering at the other end It may be a matter of not looking at your input volume Beforehand sometimes it can be a little different in Zoom than it is for what you're seeing on your on your recording software I wouldn't necessarily use zoom for Actually recording remotely source connect is much better for that Uh, but zoom is great for conferencing and all those other things. Um, and if you're overpowering just talking to the other people You know, you can usually change that within the the the parameters and maybe actually activate The uh, the automatic gain control in there So that might that might help out a lot because I think there's a built-in limiter there And do you think this could be a gain staging problem as well? Or do you think it might be well with with an agio 3 which is a pretty simple interface Which I happen to use here in this very studio to feed that microphone way over there all the way across the studio Over to my You know or my computer all the way over there. Good lord. It's a hike every day I get about an extra 500 steps going between here and my booth um You should be able to see if you're over modulating from there true and it may be that he's not He his booth may not be right where the interface is true And he's not seeing the red light flashing or whatever or jd. You just have too powerful of a voice So he does he does he has to overpower all those kids Anyway, uh, but if you're continuing to have a problem with that, you know where to find me Are you sure you had a couple more just while we were talking? Yeah, I don't see where they are though. Anyway, uh It's been great to have you here. It's been so much fun. I mean you're here every week any right But you know, it's great having you on george will be back In two weeks my agent led me to believe this was a permanent job All right, well, whatever.  It'll be fine. Um All righty. Well Next week we won't be here And that's because it's labor day. It's labor day. Yeah. Now. We've had the show on labor day before but we decided this year Let's let's have like a labor day brunch or something and let's just have a party and Not have to worry about doing the show. It's a lot of work. Wow. So we're not doing that. Am I invited? Maybe oh That sounds like a soft. No, if I've ever heard one. No, you're always welcome because you can walk over here Or ride your bike, uh, and uh, and then uh, the following week it is jewish new years It's russia shaw. We can't do the show here that night. I won't let it marcie certainly won't allow it happening So we're not going to do the show for like two weeks But when you figure that we've gone like 10 weeks in a row here, uh, we're tired We need some time off. We want to retool Get the show going the way we want if there's something you want to see on the show Right to us also take our survey right on our our website. Just click on survey And tell us what you want to see on the show the types of guests you'd like to hear from Questions you have and again if you have a question you can write to us here at the guys at v obs dot tv Makes it easy, you know tech question the people you want to see on here You know if you're jdk why are you over modulating? You know stuff like that and lay off the kids It's it's too much. It is it really is Um, and if you want to get in touch with me you can't because I don't have a v obs So I think it's just the one time deal if you're like attention jack I might forward it. Oh really? Yeah, absolutely. I feel better. All right Uh, and then on september 17th when we return to this amazing studio here cat cressida will be with us She's a great audiobook narrator and a voice actor and we'll have a great time talking with her Our donors of the week since george isn't here. I have compiled this week's list of donors Stephanie sutherland diana birdsall. Thanks diana diana andrew kaufman Eric erigoni who's here every week? patty gibbons brian page great actor amanda fellows george wittem senior And tracy h reynolds. Nice. Thank you for your your support, you know your donations allow us to keep this show We like to say on the air But in really it's down the optical cable You know and coming into your home or wherever does you're watching this show or on your iphone or android thing It helps we really appreciate if you'd like to don't make a donation You can make it automatic, you know a buck a month the buck a week. We don't care It's just great that you support our show. There is a button. I think it's above me that says donate Try that it looks backwards. Oh because i'm behind the camera. Oh, that's what that's what it is. Okay, all right. All right um Also, if you have to have help with your home studio You could talk to jack. It probably won't do you any good. He's not gonna help you at all Although he has a great studio and a beautiful one at that because he asks for help from the right people Uh, usually george is sitting here, but he's not here. You can call him, uh, or contact him at george the tech dot com I think that's right. It is. Oh good or george the dot tech For you geeky guys for geeky guys, right, uh, and you can reach me easily, uh, most of the time At homevoiceoverstudio.com if you're want to learn more about how to set up your home studio How to get it right how to make sure it's sounding the way it's supposed to sound because I know these things. I've been doing this since the fort administration So you just did uh debbie dairy berries pretty recently, too I did we built a beautiful studio over over at her place took a closet turned it into a beautiful booth And she's now producing stuff over there. Bravo That's that's really that was really a cool job to do so we can help you do all those sorts of things Uh, let's see here. Uh the show logs Jack de Gaulia and dan Sutton are sitting out there somewhere writing every word that was said in this show Putting it in the show notes saints. They are we really appreciate your your time with that guys When the youtube video comes on and you want to watch the show again, which you will Uh, I will certainly well. Yeah, because we didn't see it. We're actually on it But we'll be able to see the uh, you'll be able to see the time code of when a question was asked and what the answer was Or at least where it is so you can go back in the the actual youtube, uh video Or you can see the places where jack dan you'll talks and just speed pass those you don't have to bother You know or slogging through it or swore and don't More interesting, uh, let's see here We're here live almost every monday except the following two mondays Uh, and if you'd like to be in our audience, you can write to us at the guys at v obs dot tv and say audience In the the uh the line there or just show up You know, which some people tend to do which is actually kind of show up for brunch dance having one apparently next week Yeah, all right. Uh, let's see here. Oh, what else we got? Uh show us your booths Oh booths booths show us your booths. Who's who's booth with this this week? This was um Susan I forgot who that was Julie marcus. This must be one of george's fantastic one voice over palace creations. Lovely. Yeah, the baffling to my whatever this is And the uh, it looks like a tuned bass panel in the very back I think that's really cool stuff and this was just a badminton court in somebody's backyard And look at how what a great job you did there. Uh, and you believed me too. Uh, let's see here, uh, and We need to thank our sponsors. You should because without them You know, this would just be nothing. Uh, so we'd like to thank harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements vo to go go voice actor websites dot com and our good friend j michael collins demos Alrighty, well, thanks, of course, uh to the dan and marcy lennard foundation for better webcasting Uh, our producer catherine curden for getting us great guests jack daniel on chat room and we hear from jack daniel on chat duty guest host duty That's like ambidextrous or something it is That's really multitasking and that's not something i'm very good at is my girlfriend will tell you Okay, and uh, and of course our amazing multicasting technical director sumer lino for doing a great job Excellent job. Uh, jack to golea dan Sutton on the show notes and lee penny simply for being lee penny Alrighty, well, that's gonna do it for us this week jack. Thanks so much for thank you helping me out here tonight and uh doing What we do here every week, which is try to help you with your home voiceover studio and your voiceover business It's not an easy business But we're here to make it sound right because if it sounds right It is right I did it just like george does it Except not as cool. I'm just not as cool close enough already Well, i'm dan lennard and i'm jack daniel and this is voiceover balisha or vio bs Thanks for coming with us tonight everybody. We'll see you in Three weeks essentially, so we'll be back the 21st of september It's a long long way From may to september. Alrighty. Have a great week everybody


Hi, how's it going? Hi, I'm fine. How are you? I love how we're introducing each other, even though we've just been chatting anyway. So yeah, do you want to just introduce yourself, explain sort of what your channel is about, your experiences, how you got involved with lucid dreaming? Sure. So I've been kind of what they call a native lucid dreamer, although it always sounds, I don't know, like something better than you guys because you're using techniques and I'm like a natural talent.  You're one of the lucky ones. Yeah, the lucky ones.  And yeah, the funny thing is like when I had my lucid dreams as a child, I was so uncreative. The only thing I can think of was always kind of killing myself in creative ways because I knew like nothing can happen and I always climbed on rooftops and jumped like down to see what happened. So that was really the only thing I could think of for some reason. And well, then I saw this beautiful video of Robert Wagner where he explained about his book, what is it called again? Lucid Dreaming, Gateway Turner Self, which I think is a great book and then when I read it, it really triggered so many lucid dreams that I started to do my dream diary of dreams and stuff. And yeah, how about you? Well, how did I get started? Well, I think I was about 12 maybe and I was having this nightmare and I remember sort of almost waking up in the nightmare, you know like the cliche description of Lucid Dreaming where you wake up and you're like, I looked at my hands and I just realised that it wasn't real. So obviously at that point I didn't know about the sort of deeper psychological aspects I didn't ask the nightmare what it represented. I didn't try and control anything really. I just sort of explored the world because as a 12-year-old you're pretty young. You don't really know what to do in a lucid dream. I didn't even know it was a lucid dream at this point. I just thought it was a really weird experience. I thought I was awake. So I just remember exploring this city and walking around and just talking to people. And then, yeah, and I woke up and it was a pretty profound experience. I woke up and I was happy the whole day. Cool. So, okay, so explain. If you had to explain to a beginner how to lucid dream in a week, for example, what would you say to them? I think the most important thing is really to have a diary of dreams because it really puts your mind on the whole topic. Like for me, it's really like if you're meditating, for example, it also helps a lot for lucid dreaming because you consciously like being in the moment. Like I'm living in Berlin right now and when I go to work and go to the train station, you see a lot of people in the morning just, you know, using their smartphones and reading stuff or just, yeah, phoning instead of just sitting down and, you know, be in the moment right now, look out of the window and perceive your environment. And I really saw that so many people, they're just, you know, they're sleep-waking. Sleep-waking. Yeah, sleep-waking. Most people tend to be on autopilot really, especially on the way to work and things like that. Yeah. They're just, you know, just drifting really. Yeah, you know this awesome video where they depicted kind of people in the bus station all looking down, look up. Yeah, I think that might have been one of the spoken word videos or something like that where... Yeah. Yeah, I know the one you're talking about. Yeah, and I think that's like a great depiction of what's happening right now. Like a lot of people, they think they're awake, but they're really sleeping and all day long. They're just, when they're at work, they're always having like busy work. They're not even thinking like, wow, this is just work. Let's, you know, take a step ahead. Like this is my life and it's just a part of it. But they immerse so deeply in it that they can have not the view, the kind of eagle view from above. Yeah, exactly. It tells them like, right now at work, but you know, this is just one part of my life. And then there's another part of my life where I'm the private person and just consciously drifting from present to past and to future in their minds. And then not in a moment. And I think that's like the biggest problem, why people are really also when they're dreaming, they're just like sleepwalking in their dream and then waking and forgetting everything. Exactly. So yeah, if you had to tell me one technique that's worked the best for you, what would that be? There would be a dream diary. Yeah. It's not really a technique. It's just a basic thing for me. And let me close the window. It's really loud. Yeah, sure. Have you had any success with particular induction techniques like wake back to bed or something like that?  For me, it's like really setting the intention. And sometimes I wake up naturally at night and then I try to actively go back into the dream. Oh, okay. So I don't like to set an alarm clock or something like that because this really freaks me out.  But I try to incorporate all those techniques in a natural way. So if I know I'm awake, I try to go back in a lucid dream and really concentrate on it. Yeah, of course. I think also with the wake back to bed technique, it kind of messes with your sleep cycles. Yeah. And I think if people do that every day, they're going to just be tired all the time. Yeah. So that's why I think in my blog, I don't really recommend it. It's something to do as a daily technique because it's not really sustainable long term.  I think if you have a really good base like keeping a diary or some kind of reliving your dreams or writing it down or recording it, it doesn't matter how you record it. That's like the basic step. And then maybe doing some reality checks would also be very important. Yeah.  You know, if you're just living in the moment and always trying to be conscious, then you don't even have to check your hands or to blow your nose. You don't even have to do that. Yeah. I mean, I think sometimes people can sort of forget to be conscious and like the moments I think throughout everyone's day when they're not actually completely aware of what they're doing because they're too involved in what they're doing. Yeah. If you're playing a video game or something, you don't really think about the noises going on outside the house because you're too focused on that one thing. But as long as you do reality checks every now and then, I think it's easy to get results. What would be your favorite technique? My favorite reality check or my favorite induction technique? Induction technique or technique for lucid dreaming. I would have to say it's the mild, so the mnemonically induced lucid dream. And that's, for those of you watching who don't know, that's where you sort of use mantras in order to sort of, it's to do with your prospective memory. So the idea of being able to remember something in the future instead of remember something that's already happened. The idea is you want to remember to do a reality check when you're already in the dream. So you would sort of train yourself to do reality checks when certain things happen. I think this was explained in more detail in Exploring the World of Lucid Dreams by Stephen Aburge. I'll put a link to the book in the description for you guys. But yeah, it's the idea of teaching yourself to remember to do something in the future when something triggers it, if that makes sense. One of the triggers could be when you hear someone laughing. So whenever you hear someone laughing in the future, you do a reality check when that happens. Yeah, that's awesome. And that will show up in your dream and I found that to be really easy to get results with. And are you using random signs or are you using your dream signs? Yeah, that's the other thing. You sort of combine it with your dream signs. So the things that usually show up in your dreams, it makes sense to sort of use those as the anchor. If I'm always on the train, for example, then every time I see a train or on a train in real life, then I'll do a reality check and it will show up a lot faster that way. Okay, but you're really tying it to the dreams or to things that you would see in your waking life and not to the dream signs that occur on a regular basis in your dreams? It's sort of a bit of both. So obviously if one of my dream signs is being on a plane, there's not a whole lot of chances I have in a normal day to do a reality check when I'm on a plane because I don't travel that much. But the things that show up in my dreams like just being around people or hearing someone laugh, that shows up quite a lot in my dreams. So I can use that in real life as an anchor, if that makes sense. Is it an evil laugh or is it just like... Because when you can't move, I think your mind naturally assumes that you need to be able to move in order to protect yourself. It's like one of the basic responses from the limbic system. You need to be able to move in order to defend yourself against threats.  So it can be quite scary, but it's important to realise that it's not actually a real threat. Yeah, I know what he told me. He doesn't even believe in such things. He told it to me like this was totally real and happened to him three times and one time this demon thing was coming and then he had an out-of-body experience where he saw himself from above. And this was just like when he told me, I knew how it felt. It was really intense for him and he was scared to death. Yeah, it can be quite intense. Have you had those experiences too? I've had only three scary sleep paralysis experiences. But then after the first one or two, I literally went on Google and just searched for hours because I was obviously terrified in search for hours about what it was and how to stop it being so scary and intense. And once you understand what it is and how to actually deal with it and how to turn it into a lucid dream, it's not as bad. You realise it's part of the process. Pardon? What happened to you in those sleep paralysis? In the first one, there was a giant spider. Yeah, I just saw the giant spider legs going across the room like this and it was really scary. But no demons involved? Not really, no. The second time I think there was a dark figure, almost like Slenderman standing in the corner of the room. But it didn't really move, so that wasn't too bad. Yeah, those kind of dark figures or whatever, that's the same thing that he experienced. And for myself, I'm kind of, you know, the thing is like the same as... Hello? Hello? That's my phone right now because my laptop, as you can see it. To design it to turn off. Brilliant. What would you say is your dreams for the future of your lucid dreaming channel? I mean, what do you want to do in the future? Do you want to teach workshops or write a new book or something? I would definitely like to get more involved with the community and also with the international community. Right now I participated in a lot of German lucid dreaming hangouts that were managed by Christian Reinhardt. I mean, the German community is really small. There are about seven YouTubers, but everyone knows each other and that's really cool. You get a kind of community feeling. And I would love to do that like on a broader scale also with international lucid dreamers. Is there a demand for your e-book or are you struggling right now? I think there is a demand because beginners always want to learn. But at the same time, they don't want to invest money, even five dollars or so. They don't want to spend that money when they could find the information elsewhere. But I think it's important to realize that it's not just a compilation of information. Actually, my experience is in me teaching exactly how to get results instead of just teaching about lucid dreaming. It's teaching how to actually do it. So, yeah, the people that have brought it have been really happy with it. Yeah, maybe you should post some reviews of the virus of the e-book. Yeah, testimonials. Yeah, I really should. And how many lucid dreams per week do you get? It's usually about five to six, but it kind of depends. It depends on what happens. Say if I go out drinking and I have REM rebound, then I can have sort of four or five lucid dreams that night. Or if I take choline, if I listen to binaural beats at about three in the morning, then I can increase that. It really depends on what I'm doing, like if I'm working or if I'm busy. But usually I naturally have about five to six. What about you? It really depends. Right now, there's a lot of change going on in my life. I move around a lot.  But on average, I'd say three to four a week. Yeah, that's a healthy number, actually. Yeah. Yeah, what would you suggest to prolong a lucid dream? To make it last longer and be more vivid? Yeah, so the thing that I could recommend the most would be to rub your hands. That always works really, really well for me. Kind of really feel your hands and you know, activate it, it's just the best for me. And then a second, not as good, but also really good would be to look at your hands and really focus on it. Yeah. Third would be to really calm down, to relax and to just don't get too excited because then you've got to be thrown out of the dream. Yeah, especially if you get emotionally involved, it just collapses. Yeah, it's like, yay, I'm lucid dream, I'm lucid dream. Yeah, and then wake up. And well, fourth thing, I cannot recommend this because it didn't work for me, but a lot of lucid dreamers, they report that it also helps if you spin around in a dream. Yeah, I found that. Yeah. Yeah, when I do that, I spin around and then I'm in a black room and I have like problems emerging new dream images. Yeah. The thing I found that works the best, I don't know if you've tried this, but it's dream commands. So once you're actually lucid and you can decide what you do and what you say, if you just sort of shout out to the dream, I want this dream to be more clear. It actually responds and it does it. So yeah, I found that really, really works quite well. That works for me as well. Like something like clarity now. Yeah. Okay, thanks for having me in this really nice interview. Guys, if you liked this, check out my video. I'm lucid lela and I bring it to YouTube, but if you want to do what you do in a lucid dream, for example, there's a video coming up and already one posted. Check my videos out and I hope you like it.