Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop.  How you doing? Good. How are you? I'm doing okay. How you doing George? I'm doing great All right, I get to have both of you like right here. You know, you're right. You're not far away That's I'm glad you're close. It's a very close. So nice to have guests in the office in the in the room Have you had other guests in the room at all that much a few times this year? That's it Much more fun this way. I like you like this.  Hey, Ethan Salazar is in LinkedIn. He's in that. He's he's in their comment All right, Ethan see that We welcome Ethan. That's right. We got a great hour coming up. So don't go away It's time for voiceover body shop right now Voice over body shop is brought to you by voice over essentials calm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements the folks who bring you source connect Bo heroes comm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor comm your voice over website ready in minutes Voice over extra your daily resource for voice over success and by world voices the industry Association of freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts Dan and George Hey, I'm Dan Leonard. I'm George Woodham, and this is voice over body shop or vio tuned right in our guest tonight is Dave Walsh and Dave's enjoyed a truly multifaceted career on both sides of the Hollywood Glasses is successful artist coach and director as well as an ex-studio executive boy. You've been busy. I'm busy Yeah, he's also spent the better part of the last decade coaching and cultivating the voiceover careers of some of Established artists in the United States Canada and Latin America. Yes Some reason the other parts of the world I have not been to so I've been to Chile. It's really cool I've not been to Chile. I've not been to South America. Yeah, really No, I've coached people in Latin America coach people in Europe. I mean that should be added to this too Right and people now in in South Korea to I've clients and in Seoul. Yeah, so am I not Just to swing us over just swing us over. Yeah, yeah, yeah No, so I think that the and again It's indicative of just kind of the world since the last time I was here Which I think was we were we were online Probably during the pandemic. Yeah, and then in studio was like 2018 or 2017 or something like that But unreal it's changed, you know again so much of the conversation we have now is about how International how global this is and the fact that I travel I sit and I coach clients I'll pass the time zones one after another after another after another every day and it's it's pretty incredible how we've got so many You know so many clients all over the world, you know and one voice UK is doing what it's doing The other conference is coming up in Africa. Oh, that was that was on Saturday. That was Saturday. I was I was That's what you were yeah, you and Tim were both on that Yeah, no, of course they were on Tim and Mark Cashman were on an hour late any cashman as well Yeah, so I immediately wrote to them said how can you poops get get an extra hour asleep? I had to be up at 515 to be on this so I could address these was it in Nairobi It was in Lagos, Nigeria in Lagos, Nigeria. Okay. It was a lot of fun It was is it is international because there's more international business because there's more out of us Projects needing American voice It's a combination. I think what's happened with particularly some of the managers and some of the agents Voices become so global that it's not just American voices I think one of the things that I've said this to both Joan Baker and Rudy Gaskins is that one of the things that the Sova Awards did when they when they a couple of years ago is they started to bring more global voices To the public and people start to know that there was so much for global voices. I remember what there was one year I think it was right before the pandemic that there was a there was a huge amount of Eastern Europe and South-American actors that won Sova Awards and it put those countries on the map when it came to voiceover People didn't even realize where the opportunities were so even managers silly seagull is one of those managers who? Reps a lot of international clients She's tuned in she really is tuned in she really really gets that she gets that part of it Yeah, so I mean think that it's not just American voices although I have a client in Seoul who When I started working with her her voice was what they wanted in Korea was very old-school American They wanted it hard. They wanted it Articulated everything had to be that and so when she started working with me. I needed to Un-Koreanize the voice. Okay, so now but now she's able to shoot her work is spread out around the around the world So it's pretty interesting. Yeah, well, we had Wobblecon last weekend. Yeah in in Orlando We had somebody we had a couple people from the UK. Yeah, Colin McLean was there wonderful guy and then I You know, I took a lift ride back to the airport on Monday morning with Bill Williamson who lives in Japan. Yeah, so are these American expats? Yes. Okay, got it Well, no Colin McLean is the world William Williamson is yeah He's in Japan. He's in Japan and I was surprised by that as I'm like you're going Yeah, I'm going back to LA but then I got to go to Tokyo. Yeah, well, that's another kind of international Totally. Yeah, we have American expats in China and Japan and Australia and yeah, Canary Islands Yeah, whatever and Barry Severus is my client the client in Seoul, South Korea She came to view Atlanta from Seoul. She flew from Seoul directly to Atlanta and Came to that it was the first time she'd been so too big. We had 87 at Wobblecon It was a nice Co-god, that's great. Good for you. How was it? Did you enjoy it was fabulous? We had a great time. It was well-planned Instead of giving out lots of swag. Yeah, we gave people embroidered sweatshirts. Oh, nice. Very nice and portfolios and And we had a silent disco and it I saw the pictures of that it was a lot of fun I saw Emma O'Neill at the silent disco. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and then we also announced that next year Amy Snively has agreed to let us be the torch bearers of Fafcon next year and She's actually going to train us on how to do it. Wow. Awesome. It's nice that that's official And yeah, it's official that that's coming back. I was a very well-loved conference for you And there wasn't a Fafcon. No one person doesn't just kind of lament over it that it was just so except maybe Amy Well, yeah, she's like I've had enough maybe Anyway, let's get into the meat of the matter here Yeah, you know now how did your career start and how did you make all these transitions from? Producer executive to voiceover to coach Honestly, if I had a kind of pain to trajectory it just I don't know how it all just kind of evolved one thing after another I started years ago as a talent agent assistant and it was the best opportunity I had to learn the business And it didn't matter what type of agenting it was. This was literary, right? So ironically I got this job in the writer strike of 1988 So they kept me on through the entire strike But what I learned so much of was about contract writing. I understood I learned the whole relationship between actors and agents and so I And I understood that when agents would have their weekly meetings They would you know talk about the clients this one's doing this this one's not doing that Why is he painting the side of his house? He's supposed to have the book written, right? But you started to realize where I that was an actual conversation So one of the things I realized was that you really your agents are talking about you What you're doing and what you're not doing and so I started to learn really quite frankly how Hollywood worked and we've learned how the town operated what a deal memo was how you structure how you pitch all that kind of stuff and then it went into publicity for quite a while and When it's indicated television and went to Paramount and when I was there I was director of research. So I started to be able to package TV shows and I understood how to create research Presentations and learned how to sell shows domestically internationally. So you learn that side of the business and at the same time I was taking voice over workshops I told the story before that I found a book called word of mouth by Molly and Mullen and Sue blue at the Samuel French bookstore and that became my Bible that became the thing that really gave me inspiration to work in voice over and So first agent was a 95 with Abrams artists and then kind of worked my way up there and Really really soaked in the whole business because I felt like you know people like Phil Tanzini Phil Tanzini's been Been working in voice over since he was a kid I mean he's worked as a camera actor at CESD for years And so when people like that who I've known for so many years. I see these child actors that have been doing this for years I said I got a friggin catch up to these people, you know, I came from a television production degree So I immersed myself in coaching. I truly did And had some of the greatest coaches in the world Tom Pinto and Nick Omano were my first I owe an enormous amount of my career to Maurice Tobias Incredible amounts of my career to Maurice And agents and managers that were just incredible for me in my career Took a little time to take off But when it finally did I just I just had immersed myself in so much of coaching and I still value that as you know Obviously for what I do now But again, as you guys know some of you know the story or not But I did have a vocal injury that caused me to really have to stop doing what I did in voice over and have to learn That I had a I had a disorder called spasmodic dysphonia Which was the which was the name for the strangled voice syndrome I did so much promo so much trailer so much narration. I was speaking from a voice that was down here So I was pushing my voice into my throat and it was causing my vocal cords to bend When you do that kind of a thing vocal cords are they they have so much space around them they're circular and when you compress the voice down it actually causes them to swell and Found a way to strangle them Hmm and so I ended up going to the speech pathology department of UCLA and they told me I had a disorder called spasmodic dysphonia There was no disc there was no cure and they said the only cure was putting Botox in a cure But treatment was to put Botox into the vocal cords because they said this was neurological So when they said it was neurological They said your brain is sending involuntary spasms to your vocal cords now. I'm the one that's in this body And I'm going wait a minute. What do you mean? It's involuntary spasms And I knew that there was something off with the diagnosis So I opted out of the Botox and I found a doctor in West LA who was the only doctor in the entire world that didn't treat This with Botox his belief and it's the belief I still hold is that we all have a vocal identity parents husbands partners, you know, you know business owners whatever you are and You walk through life with that particular identity You will chameleonize your voice to fit that particular moray or that particular part of your life He said your problem is that you spent so much time making a voice I was classically trained as an actor But then I put a voice on top of it to add more for Trailer for promo or whatever else and it worked until it didn't work anymore Right, so I had to go back to school to learn how to speak and as I did I started working with people all over the world He they all came to LA because he was the only doctor that didn't use Botox. So we had Pardon me. We had executives from Johannesburg we had singers from Tokyo. We had entrepreneurs from Oslo They came from everywhere and I looked at this and they said wait a minute He's not an actor. She's not an actor and they all have the same thing I have so this isn't an acting problem. This is a global communications problem. It's a cultural It's a cultural thing and it actually crossed this is I'm glad you brought that up because it crossed cultures It wasn't an American thing because of a certain masculinity femininity thing It was part of that but that's how how men and women It was believed, you know want to sound more feminine act more masculine, whatever it is And so what I started to do was to be honest with you guys. I thought I thought I was over I really did because I Couldn't not trust my voice anymore. I couldn't come in and sit with you guys I couldn't go I couldn't tell my agents I had people saying to me don't tell your agent your career is over if you say anything So I didn't and I started to coach actors just to kind of make some extra money After having had this incredibly successful career, but what I started to do was to get actors to not Pardon me Speak inauthentically that they were understanding what the hell they were talking about and it started to shift the careers They started to book and book and book and people would say to me This is so easy. How have I been killing myself all this time? so I realized it was more of an effortless thing for them and So over time the program came it just came I didn't at the time I was coaching and I haven't really said this to you guys ever I Didn't tell anyone that I was coaching that I had a vocal problem. No one knew the reason I was coaching Oh, I didn't know if people thought well Dave's washed up Dave couldn't work in my bed These things go through your head. Oh that old inferiority. Exactly. People posture syndrome right imposter syndrome people that do do those That don't teach and I'm going right great. This is how people are gonna think and Eventually, I will say this publicly Celia Siegel speaking of we went to have lunch after that's voiceover in 2015 and we sat at lunch and she said to me I Told her the story. Nobody knew the story at that point and she said Dave. That's the thing that makes you you I Want that guy not because you're better than anybody else But because that's what you have to offer her thing is branding and really it is and she actually gave me permission To be able to step forward and say look I'm I'm damaged like everybody else But now we use it in a different way, right? So the true tell which is the name of the program that it became over the last Eight years since I actually named it something It's really it's really caught on and I've been so appreciative of the people that have used it people that continue to use it Because it really is about getting you to to speak from your often your authentic self your 100% authentic self You know and that to me Over time really became my purpose that became the thing that I really I Mean even since I had last time I talked to you guys I've even I'm even framing it differently the way I feel about it, you know, so it's It's I've been very lucky in that in that respect Well the pandemic allowed people to think about it fall. All right.  I was already doing it So I didn't really I didn't move from my house Literally was in the same place. I'd had sessions with you because I was setting things up in my house And we were doing things virtually he couldn't travel you couldn't travel. Nobody could go anywhere And so people learned how to put together their home studios you two know only too well But it really changed Not for me personally, but it changed the whole industry around us and how I mean eight the first agency to close There was an agency to close Paradigm closed its voice over department the day after the Utah Jazz tested positive That's when the whole nation went insane right that was on Thursday on Friday Paradigm closed its doors to voice over they closed the entire voice over department in one day and I remember all of us going who's next because that was because Paradigm had really a lot of their money was based in their live act their live Event department that was a huge part of param of paramount of paradigms bottom line and when that went away They showed up like in five seconds. It was crazy how that happened Really, so yeah, but I mean again like you said the whole pandemic Really brought home the whole idea of the home studio. It brought the whole idea as I said to actors You're gonna have to self-direct Enough with this be more self-sufficient totally more versatile. Yep freaked a lot of people out Yeah, and George and I experienced that Whole day after day the people that did like a certain thing. Yep, especially in here in Hollywood I do this one thing I could book three times a year for this voice What do I do? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I had some of this client. Yeah I mean, you know Bob Bergen has been very vocal about the fact that he needed to you know Up his upgraded studio to broadcast quality and now he doesn't want to go to you know We now he loves being at home. Yeah, and it was never part of His world, you know, so it was you know, it wasn't as much of a part of his world But yeah, it was crazy how it changed just dealing with people like I don't know how to do any of this And we had to calm them down and say, okay, look, we're gonna make it super duper simple for you And which is what George and I do I can't believe I can't imagine how you guys, you know The deluge of people That just must have been knocking on the door saying help me. I don't know what I'm doing Or is Mark Cashman described it. We were busier than the one-legged guy in an ass-kicking So twenty twenty-one for whatever reason that was the real peak. That was it. Yeah. Yeah, we were very I think it was there was a delay. You had the initial people going.  Is it? Yeah, this is we're still here. All right. I gotta do this now totally and things really like picked up But then there was no equipment available.  Yeah, we got creative.  I mean you guys all I mean Really saved us. So collectively as a group you really did honestly, honestly, honestly totally Yeah, so I'm so you're you're coaching all these different people and all these different lands across the across the globe Yep What are some of the kind of problems that many voice talent Need to overcome. What are some of the most common problems because I we have a lot of people who are just starting out out there and We can perhaps help them avoid these problems before they start. But what do you see? Well, here's the thing Now after we've just I've just praised these gentlemen. I am going to say one thing I think that people are putting studios together too fast If you're new Okay, if you're new to this I think the whole thing is I've got an entire studio put together.   I could not believe when I saw the polar opposite advice just on youtube the other day.  Secondly, I literally put like in the comments little, uh, you know motor cons. Yeah, I had a horse No, I had a cart and then I had a horse That was my comment. That's awesome. I love that you have this all wrong. Yeah I've used that that icon in a number of presentations like it. You're not ready yet. You're not ready. No But I think that it means but should they have a practice mic? Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. You should absolutely have a practice mic. You should definitely And definitely start practicing on editing using editing software learning how to do those things Your mic doesn't have to be broadcast quality when you're starting But also you don't want to spend a lot of money on a practice mic You want to like learning photography, you know, you don't need to go buy a $10,000 camera to learn how to take a photo No, not at all You know hold, you know frame an image. You have to learn how to just do the basics Totally, that's where you start one correction though. We no longer call it broadcast quality That's a term from the 60s. What it means is it doesn't sound bad That's about it. We don't have a slick Yeah, I mean no, that's true because actually we have one it's whistle whistle what it's supposed to sound like it's supposed to sound like whistle Yeah, we know what whistle is and whistle is why you hire us to make sure that what you give them is whistle So whistle takes a place of there we go a broadcast quality, right? I think though what's crazy is people have auditioned for things and booked jobs on on mics Literally taking their mics into cars. They're you know or their phone into their closet, right? David k had a picture one time I have it somewhere. He took a picture of him in the bathroom lax Doing a session I remember this and he actually put the picture somewhere David if you're if you ever hear watch this I'll nag him about I think there's a picture somewhere. I'll in fact, I should email I see him almost every month. So yeah, I'll ask him about it.  They're true tell understanding who they are as an actor You know, yeah, yeah, if you're just joining us our guest is dave walsh He's very eloquent at all this if you have a question about how we coach is or some suggestions about how to help your delivery Put him in the chat room in facebook uh facebook live or youtube live And we will get to those questions in just a little bit. So make sure you do that.  I mean people are some people are in in a the sky is falling panic And then you have people who are like adds a nothing burger And but it seems that the it's somewhere in the middle. Yes. It's yeah I mean, what are your what are your thoughts about this new technology that some are embracing another Screaming and running down the hall with well first of all, it's scary as hell I mean, it's it's brilliant in and of itself as a technology But for our business as we've all talked about it's it's it's scary as hell because Of what the possibilities are what they what it's already done to a certain part of the business um the thing that I will say is I think people Need to spend I'm going to go back to the the s word again the storytelling that I think personally This industry is about to experience a shift because There's going to be a tipping point because so many people Are either in it Or want to get in voice over that the business is not going to be able to sustain It just can't too many people the number of people It just it's eventually going to create some form of a tip Where the people that remain Are the ones that are the storytellers because yeah, I is going to start from the bottom And take businesses like telephony and start moving its way up Our ability is actors. I say to actors all the time Slow the tide and what what nava is doing right now with the You know with the mission statement the pledge that they put out last week and but that what that board is really doing You know caron gilfrey and tim and the whole board and what people are doing really to to to really Turn the tides on this are huge. However Technology is technology and it finds its way But the truth is the people That will survive and i'm going to call it a nuclear winter a vo nuclear winter You want to be a cockroach? You want to be the cockroach or voice over? You want to be able to still be the storyteller to survive it right that the business itself can't sustain You know the number of people people are saying to me. I want to be with an la or new york agent. I get it But how many slots do you think they have? You know, I mean, I don't I'm not saying that to dissuade anybody From from being a part of this business needs to be realistic about it. There's still humans casting people Yeah, it's not ai's casting humans. No, right. It's humans casting humans. No, yeah, they they want human Aspects right most totally. There's no computer that can make the thousands of decisions that I have to make Looking at a phrase or a line of copy where I'm going to go up where I'm going to go I'm going to cry. I'm going to do this. It can't do it Even if even yet even if it could do it Someone would have to sit there and program it and direct the computer to do all those things And can they do all of those things faster than the actual actor can perform With real human emotion. I don't think so. No, I think you know figure that out after over time They're going to figure out right that yeah, we can get a convincing human speech. We can make it sound like anybody we want But it's still the uncanny valley. It's still not going to sound human Right, it's going to sound Like a facsimile there's there but there is you know, even there's something now where they're talking about When you get spam calls if you pick up the phone That what they're doing is recording your voice On the other end and using that voice to then go to use it with AI and be able to You know the whole thing about hunting down. I'm I'm caught in Guatemala and I can't get out. I've been kidnapped You know all that kind of thing.  Yeah, like how you can immediately react to direction Make a change make an adjustment That's that's On top of the storytelling right top of the acting that just just the mechanics of that It's not something a computer is going to be able to do it's kind of fast But I think telephony I think telephony has already started being attacked not attacked by it's kind of a strong word But it is telephony is the first level where where it's going to where it's going to really get He's going to penetrate. Yeah, I mean it just it only makes sense You know, but again, I think that I want people to Absolutely fight for this. I think people absolutely should be active and proactive But at the same time, please focus on story Please focus on your on your craft because It's the only way you're going to slow the tide Right because it won't be able to figure it out as fast as you get to your point, George It won't be able to figure things out as fast as you will right. So yeah, okay Well, we're talking with Dave Walsh again if you have a question throw it in the chat room right now so we can get to it in the next segment and We also might have a little fun with what we always do fun with words fun with words and he'll direct me through Some copy and so you can see just wait. Okay. We'll be right back at voiceover body shop So don't go away. This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez And you're enjoying dan and george on the voiceover body shop As voice actors we need to hear the clear transparent and honest sound of our voices Harlan hogan signature series voice optimized headphones 2.0 provide both that accurate transparent sound with enhanced midrange audio Less bass and the creature comforts voice workers deserve Clearly different from traditional studio headphones the upper mids and highs are clear as a bell No muffling or cross bleeding between frequencies like a pair of studio monitors The low is there, but at the same level as the rest of the spectrum They're comfortable like no other phones. 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Especially those commercials. They're going to look to see if you have source connect It's a tool that is considered to be the industry standard for a lot of how the voiceover business operates in this modern age We recommend you guys get familiar with it. So head over to source dash elements dot com Get yourself a free 15 day trial over there and get yourself started If you need help they have a lot of training and we also at george the tech can help you out with the more advanced technical Setup in your home studio Anyway, let's go on to the next part of the show and listen to this next sponsor. So we can get back to dave right after this Hey, do you know this guy? 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Here's the link audition psych 101 dot com forward slash join This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv And we're back here at voiceover body shop. Thanks for being with us tonight Or if you're watching this later this week, george, sorry, uh, what's so sorry? It's like, you know, it's good to watch the show live Which is why i'm glad to see there's so many people watching the show live because they can ask questions of you Otherwise, they're like i'd like to ask him this but oh, it's not live and then that makes them sorry and sad So that's okay. We don't we don't want people sorry and sad That's right. So what do we got in questions george? All right. Does anybody care? Yeah, of course we do. Yeah, we definitely got some questions Good up here. Awesome. Let me jump into that. So first one. I see in the list from grace grace newton. Hi grace Hi grace is a wonderful regular on the show Um aside from good acting chops What is an important skill set to develop for video game voiceover? Um That looks like the question. Yeah besides acting uh I think definitely if you can couple things one is definitely improv If you've ever taken improv, uh, which I know is a form of acting itself But improv especially for every area of voiceover Particularly commercial.  Um that You need to have that flexibility in that that that physical aspect of being free of doing that Uh with regards to motion capture itself is learning motion capture I think that's another part of this that which has become a massive part of video games that You know when we started doing video games when I started doing video games You know motion capture is not part of it at all. We didn't do that But now it's become almost a given as part of um, you've seen so many talent That have posted on insta and on tiktok, etc From their motion capture sessions from their motion capture workshops So get into if you can grace get into Both of those areas and if you're not in la or new york, there are there are plenty of workshops. Obviously you can take Um, particularly for uh improv um To really kind of expand those chops Yeah, good question. It's very physical. It's very incredibly physical. Yeah, it is Definitely, but again because of the pandemic we go back to what we're talking about Places like second city places like the ground least places like up's upright citizens brigade You know, there are a lot of places that started to create their online presence in improv and a lot of their classes You never were able to do these kinds of things if you didn't live in la or new york So now you have that ability and it's uh, it's a real bonus. It's a real bonus. Yeah, yeah Max goldberg asks. Hey max. Yeah, given your busy coaching schedule. Do you ever do any voiceover work still? Uh, I do actually I actually um, I don't do a lot of it Um, I had an audition today as a matter of fact before I came here Uh, I don't I really find max that because I went back to acting after I Rehabbed my voice and even when I was coaching, you know so much But I then really realized that my purpose was really helping people to overcome Whatever their insecurities were whatever their authenticity issues were Uh, and so that became my focus. So I will audition Pardon me. Um, every once in a while But for me the core of the work is really helping people like you. Uh, that's really what I focus on Yeah, cool. Let's let's talk about true tell for just a couple of minutes here Before we do that, there's a quick plug about true tell there is yeah, this is from beachers ryan She says grateful to dave after the 2021 remote vo atlanta x session. He led on true tell He gave me additional tools to get out of my head and get real So, that's awesome beachers and I actually remember you in that in that workshop too I do remember that thank you for that and i'm really glad that You know that's to ant go back to max's question. That's the reason for things like that That's why I really do it every day. I love that. Thank you for sharing that appreciate it So now I've worked with you and I understand what it is.  There you go Yeah, which I referred to whenever I'm like, all right. I don't know what this stuff is about But I know somebody who does So really what what? That imitate them. But how would they say how would they say that? Yeah, right? Well, go ahead. No, no, go ahead You explain it a little bit more in our detail Those of you that don't know what the program is the name of the program is the true tell as I said and the definition of the true Tell is your 100 authentic opinion about every single thing you talk about in this world It is your authenticity of how you see it, right? So we know how it feels if you guys are going to have a conversation with somebody There's an effortlessness even if it's a conversation that's I don't know heated But you'd still feel authentic you feel that the conversation is focused You're not scattered unless you had a really tough day and we know how that happens when people are talking But normally we all know we understand why we're having a conversation with somebody first and foremost We understand what we're talking about Then we understand the person we're talking to and the big one is why why am I having this conversation? with this person In the first place other than the fact that I have a script in front of me And I have to book a job and I say to actors all the time. That's not a good reason So the actors that will go into a studio or they're going to their their home studio And you'll read a piece of copy if you don't understand What it is you're reading and understanding who you're talking to and why you know that feeling of like especially when you're really You're kind of Discombobling a conversation you meant I'd be prepared that pull In your stomach and gurgling. Yeah Yeah, you're about to open your mouth and you're not really sure you're not really sure That's called being out of true tell that called that's called not speaking authentically The problem that actors have is they go well, I got a book that I got to do it anyway So I push I push through the inauthenticity and it feels like pardon me shit It feels like it's not real. Right. That's what you're that's what we're going for here There isn't this program isn't about You know playing nice nice. It's not about, you know, your voice is beautiful Therefore you should be able to tell a good story. Absolutely not In fact, your voice is so sensitive that it's going to rat you out so fast when you're not connected I don't know you may have someone that actually would say to you. Are you listening to me? Are we Are you here? Yeah? Yeah You know that kind of thing when you're like that you're not in true tell Yeah, and that and so the whole principle of the program goes back to Every day communication how it feels when you're connected and how it feels when you're not right That's the foundation of it. Yeah, I mean there's many a time when you'll do an audition and it's like This was written for me. I can understand it And and I can feel very very confident and then there'll be something talking about something I know nothing about right, which is very few things by the way Cultural literacy is really important really important in the voiceover business But and when you can't you pull out your list, right and we're going to talk about what that is So what dan's referring to Is when we work together we talked about who are the people in your world that can tell the story You're about to tell if you can't tell it So that's when you bring out your characters and I say To actors all the time. This is how on camera and stage actors create subtext for the characters they create So the actor then lives inside of the character and it isn't about imitating a voice Right It's about living inside of the skin basically of that of that character and that character could be somebody you know It could be Somebody you know professionally or personally it could be an actor. It could be a character from a film Could be a you know a sports star It could be anybody that you think would be appropriate to tell the story and you speak through that person The big challenge is the vulnerability of an actor actually living like a voice actor living inside of the skin of an actor Right of a character video games and animation. That's where everybody loves it because it's play But people Time and time again will say to me my biggest problem is when I see a and n o u n c e r announcer for those of you that's The the word announcer that that's the word that literally sets people into orbit. They're like, I have no idea why I'm here If I were a character in a video game, I know why I'm there I've got characters, but if I'm the voice of chipotle I don't have a clue why I'm doing it So that's what the key to this is it's really about Zeroing in on that specificity. Oh big time. Yeah, and it works in and you and by doing that you feel a lot more comfortable As you're reading the copy. That's it. It is all about the effortlessness of of the story. It really is Yeah, we got a question from Ethan Salazar go for like two is very before him if you're anything like yeah, we'll get there. Okay Uh, when we read that one? Yeah Ethan says hey first. Thanks Dave for such highlights on voice Risks. You're welcome. Also I want to get into real vio business. I won't I want both knowledge and tools, but Haven't made it into the real biz Okay, how should I get or look up for an agent? So he's It's the question of the hard way Yeah, where's your visual george? The horse the cart you got to get them in the right order. So Dave Where does he need to go first before the agent part comes to play the so the fact that you were saying that You weren't even you weren't uh, you really weren't in the biz yet It really depends on what you determine that to be when you say in the biz Do you mean auditioning at all?  Uh, if you're doing any of those things you are in the biz that you are in the craft itself and so part of that to move your way up is to Continue to coach to and again it really is and believe me. I know that this is A business where all of us that are coaches. Yes. I know it. There's a monetary exchange For this type of work It isn't about trying to build up the business my business at any higher. It is a reality of The arts it doesn't matter whether it's music whether it's camera whether it's voiceover whether it's whatever It's like sports. It doesn't matter what industry Where a craft is involved? It is not the kind of business where you can come in and expect to Just fly through it and get in it get in it quickly because there are so many other people Ethan who have been in this for a long time What I will say to you which is a great educational tool is Go to the websites of agencies such as atlas cesd dpn spv Um k mr Um, there's I mean there's so many others obviously but these agencies Buckwalled in new york A3 these agencies are the tops in the business and I know there were plenty of my other friends We've left out so I apologize But there are these are the people who are at the top echelon of the business Those are the people who are your chief competitors So I think for a lot of people to get kind of the sobering reality of how it is Go to those websites. Listen to the demos that are there. Listen to the competition That will give you inspiration. I swear. It's not meant to Dissuade you or to deflate you. It's meant to inspire you That these people are doing what they do because they are the best Right, so yeah, but keep at it. Ethan. Don't ever don't feel like you're not in it Just don't don't rush yourself for the agent the agent will come right in time Yeah, if you're making money, they're gonna come find you. Yeah, exactly. Just make sure that they can find you That's the other thing if you if you're making money make sure you have a website Make sure you have a way for them to find you that's k. Yeah, absolutely Okay question from Mike Cunningham.  Oh god, I got it. Okay. So the big that's a really Mike That's a really good question I think when you're being another character and this is where actors play This goes back to vulnerability that I talked about a couple minutes ago that when you step into a character It's I use the word all the time immersive. Okay, which means that you are living in the values and the morals of the character The vulnerability I talked about a couple minutes ago is letting go of and this goes back to sound This is why I started doing what I do It is absolutely none of your business how you sound Because we hear our voices one one thousandth of a second faster than anybody else So I'm hearing my voice If I'm talking to george and dan, I can hear my voice one one thousandth of a second faster I think my voice sounds slightly different than they hear it Right because the bone is illogical physiological passing through the jaw the totally the bones in your face It vibrates differently. So when you're when you're performing It's when you're trying to kind of Lean It's not that you're doing this really but you're leaning out Something you're leaning out the window to listen to your voice like you're trying to lean even with you if you have cans on get rid of them um, thank you, you're leaning Leaning out the window to hear your voice.  They can Um, but when you're trying to tell the story and listen to yourself at the same time That's when you compromise Actually, Mike, you compromise the story by trying to be yourself and the character You have to let go of you and let the character take over and the big word is trust trusting that the voice Will turn itself exactly where it needs to go To tell the story because it does that all day every day.  Karliak has a group called queer vox Um, he and uh another great uh talent and one of my clients lindsay russo They're at the the head of this organization And when I asked people in that group what they thought of their voices The first person said revolutionary Hmm. So the difference between the woman that didn't love her voice and the person that said they they were their voice was revolutionary Hell yeah So that's the kind of thing that you want to get inspiration for your voice Is always going to be changing because your life is always going to be changing right that makes sense. It does Yeah, good question. We got a little bit of time. Let's run through a script here and And show and show everybody how this system works. Okay, so I've prepared a script for mr. Leonard If you so choose to accept this script is for you. It's a 15 second spot. Don't worry about the time um So this is for a product called crylon Which is a rust protector Here's a plug. Um, okay So we're gonna give dana a little bit of time to look at and this is what everybody else should do When you look at the script now this script Intentionally does not have specs on it. It doesn't have any direction So dan has absolutely no idea who he's supposed to be What he's supposed to say how he's supposed to sound Okay, so i'm just gonna give you that Okay, so you've got you do your thing. Yeah, it's someone who uses this product though. It makes it a lot easier Okay Okay, let me stop for a second.  Mm-hmm.  Yeah, right But it's also knowing who am I telling this to and convincing them of such thing So remember it's not a convincing right. It's having the conversation Right, but we also want to go back to we talked earlier about the why why are you telling the story at all? Right other than the fact that just handed you a script Okay, all right. Well, let me read through it once and let's see. Okay Why does crylon's new rust protector dry in only eight minutes and not two hours like the leading rust competitor? Because a lot can happen in two hours For performance you don't have to wait for choose crylon. Okay. First of all, how did it feel? fairly comfortable Okay, I mean there are For one just running through it and just saying it. It's you know, it's like, okay. This is how I would say it but Who else, you know might might do it differently or How would I do it differently and how would I try to connect with somebody who? Doesn't understand why crylon is such a great product. Well, let me ask you a question before even go there What what does the copy actually mean? um That it makes, uh There's a lot going on in your life. So I have to worry about paint drying And so this prevents you from doing that right Now the question is What's your true tell about now true tell again is your 100 authentic opinion about everything you're talking about? Do you agree with that? Yeah For the most part. Okay. So when you say something like yeah for the most part Do you think that the creative director of the agency or if the company's going to want to pay you a session fee plus 10? um If sometimes 20 and you say yeah, well, all right So your true tell about it is It's okay Like it's true But who cares right right? So that's your attitude going into it versus everything in advertising is a good thing Everything is that so the question is You have a couple of choices when you're telling the story I'm giving you kind of this some extra This is gift with purchase In addition to telling the story as you You also can tell the story to the camera Right Or somebody else but because you use crylon, we're not going to have you tell the story as another character Why why waste good, you know Leonard time? We've got some Leonard skin in the game. We don't want you to go to somebody else right so If you're going to tell the story to camera You've obviously got your own kind of Side part of the house set up for Tools and everything else right all right. So if you're going to tell that story We know there's a hell of a lot you got going on in two hours, right? Right all right So we're going to we're going to put the story in your backyard or we're going to put it wherever Where do you usually normally store the crylon? Right behind this curtain So right behind this curtain is where it is So it's a story you tell to camera and you're the on-camera spokesperson now. Oh, okay. All right now tell the story Why does crylon's new rust protector dry in only eight minutes? And not two hours like the leading rust competitor Because a lot can happen in two hours For performance, you don't have to wait for choose crylon. Yes. Yes. Yes. So The camera the camera becomes such a great part of this because you put anybody in front of the camera us anybody else and The red light goes on all of a sudden every single thing they say suddenly gets elevated in value Everything just sits up. So the shift in that read We heard it in sound right? I didn't say to you make sure you say the leading rust competitor This time it actually you found the nuggets of where to hit the words Versus well, I've been taught in voice over 101 that I'm supposed to hit the words and do what I do with the product You naturally find the intonations because the reality of the relationship you have for the product is real Right. Does that make sense? It makes total sense. Yeah, and it's a matter and true So that's it in two takes When you if you decide to do it to camera because you couldn't think of anybody to tell it to right camera always works beautifully because it just all of a sudden it's It just all of a sudden sits up right and is a head more impact. How did it feel? felt great Yeah, and that's and again That's the goal of every audition for it to feel great. That is all that matters. Thank god. We hit a camera Good job on that. Thank you. Really good. I really appreciate that. That's awesome being with us Thank you so much appreciate it always fun to have we talked our way all the way out of this Yeah, pretty much pretty much. All right We'll be right back and wrap things up in a nice tight little ball and uh get ready for tech talk right after this You're still watching v obs Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead There's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer That place is voiceover extra dot com Whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voiceover extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions Bringing you the most current information on topics like audio blouse auditioning home studio setup and equipment Marketing performance techniques and much more. It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voiceover success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports. It's all here at voiceover extra dot com. That's voiceover x t r a dot com all right About 10 years ago Good friend of mine said i want to do something for the voiceover business. Maybe you know his name joe davis Everybody knows joe davis if more people know him than know me. It's amazing. The guy's amazing But as a webmaster, he wanted to find something that could help the voiceover world and I said Make a templated website so people can get their website up Quickly not in six months and pay a fortune to a webmaster to do it Well, he started voice actor websites dot com which now employs like 30 people So, you know, and I apologize to him every day about that uh, but Finally the technology came around where you could create a website yourself easily Using a lot of different templates and you can customize them you can Uh, change, you know change the wording in them. You can put whatever graphics you want in it But it gives you a real easy basic platform to create your voiceover website And you can start For free I mean how many places can you do that and there are some other plans 20 dollars a month to maintain your site But it's easy to change things update your demos update your bio Maybe you don't like a picture of yourself in there. You can take that off and you can do it really really fast And you know, george and I tried it out We got our kids online In no time go over to voice actor dot com. That's voice actor dot com And check it out and get your website up really quick right now We are the world voices organization Also known as wovo We're the not-for-profit industry association of freelance voice talent voiceover is a complex entrepreneurial business Wovo is there to promote the professional nature of voice work to the public to those already established in their voiceover practice And to those who want to pursue voiceover as a career membership benefits include a supportive and creative community A profile and demos on voiceover dot biz our searchable directory of vetted professional voice talent our exclusive demo player for your personal website Our mentoring program business resources and our video library our annual wovo con conference A fun and educational weekend with other members with the chance to learn and network Webinars and great speakers and weekly social chats with other members around the world If your world is voiceover make wovo part of it World voice is organization. We speak for those who speak for a living Yeah, hi, this is carlos ellis rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voiceover body shop All right, we're back Getting ready for tech talk, which is oh, yeah always a lot of fun Um But we have lots of people to thank Dave walsh for starters. What a great hour with him. Dave was amazing Yeah, um always a crowd pleaser. That's right Um Also, uh, remember that george and I do the voiceover home studio thing So we'll tell you more about that in a little bit But we do have to uh, we do have to thank our donors of the week All right, let's see. Let's see how good my vision is from here. I think I can blow it up real good Okay, there you go. That helps. Okay. So grace newton Robert leadham steven chandler casey clack jonathan grant Thomas pinto greg thomas a doctor voice ant land productions. I was wearing his t-shirt earlier today martha con 949 designs christopher opperson sarah borges philips appear A brian page great actor patty gibbons rob rider shona pennington bairdon griffith Trey moseley another great actor. Yeah, and diana bird salt and sandra manweller. Yes. All right Well, all right, we need to thank our fantastic sponsors who have been with us For millennia a long time. That's right. Uh, like, uh, harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements vo heroes dot com voice actor dot com and world voices dot org the industry association of freelance Voice talent. Yes. I am the president not only a client um We need to thank jeff holman in the chat room doing a fabulous job tonight And sumer lino At home Sitting there going They're in there that shot this shot. They're in their safety pods. That's right All right, where we have coming on next time next time take a couple. We're going to take off. Um memorial day memorial day We'll take next week. We have tech talk number 103 103 Which we're going to do right now. So don't go anywhere Don't go no way if you're watching us live so you can ask your questions and be totally fascinated by what we do Um, but in three weeks we have debber when coming on Hey, all right. All right, and uh, she's like, I haven't been on your show 12 years and we're close friends. It's like, okay All right, we'll put you in on them. You know after memorial day Anyway, this is a very difficult business as davis alluding to but From george's in my point of view if it sounds good, it is good I'm dan lennard and i'm george widham and this is voiceover body shop or vo bs See you in a bit. See you


And welcome to Cooper Union. What's happening with human rights around the world on Thing Tech Live Broadcasting from our downtown studio on Honolulu Hawaii in Moana, New York. I'm your host, Joshua Cooper. The title of today's episode is World Press Freedom Day in Warsaw, Ukraine Media Keeping Truth and Hope Alive. Today I'm so fortunate to be joined by Olga who's working with the NGO Media Initiative for Human Rights as the co-founder. She was making sure that the world would be aware of what's truly happening. Olga, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me today. It's very important to pay attention to the events in Ukraine and what's happening now. So it's my pleasure to be here, thank you. We know it is World Press Freedom Day. Can you share with us why it's even so much more important in Ukraine right now with what is happening? Okay. You know, according to the official information, more than 80 crimes were committed against journalists since the February in Ukraine. They were committed by Russian troops and unfortunately 23 journalists were killed to Americans are among them. And in the ongoing war, the danger for journalists and for press is increasing, you know, and but those people are still trying to tell truth to the world about what is going on in Ukraine. So in this day, I think we have to talk about the dangers of this work and to say that war is the best thing, but it is very, very dangerous for journalists and for those who are working on the war zone now. Very true. And it's very exciting that you created this NGO, Media Initiative for Human Rights. What was the impetus for that?  I'd like to emphasize that the war in Ukraine started in 2014. And I used to be a journalist on that time and I went to the war zone.  And so when you can't just tell a story and go ahead, you have to help those people, even especially if it is children or people who can't help themselves. And so I saw these stories and I tried to do more for them. I tried to help two relatives of kidnapped people to find them. I tried to tell more about these stories and so on. And then I came back to Kiev and talked to my friend and told her that it is like mind blowing when you are near the front line and then you come back to peaceful cities and see how people just walk in, just sitting in the coffees and so on. And it is too difficult to tell truth about the war in this situation. And she told me that humanity creating the way how to talk about the war. It's international humanitarian law. And when you try to talk with people about the war, according to these red lines, what is good and what is bad during the war. It is easier. And so we decided to create this media initiative for human rights. And we, first of all, we were trying to highlight to cover this situation with the human rights violations in occupied Crimea and Donbas. Then when we had already a massive of information, we had to do something with it. And we started to advocate the some solutions for Ukrainian government or international community. And also we've done in journalistic investigations which were helpful to our Prosecutor's Office and we, for example, we investigate the enforced disappearances in Crimea in 2014 and or the crimes committed. Actually, we investigated the crimes committed on both sides and unfortunately from Ukrainian side as well. Ukrainian troops in the 2014 also where sometimes they had committed some war crimes. Of course, it's not like the scale is different with Russia and Ukraine. It is not systematic, but there was some crimes. And it is very complicated to tell about crimes committed by our troops to our society. Our society sometimes are not prepared for it. And of course, they don't want to hear about these crimes. But we tried to do this. And after that, different laws were dropped laws were like in our parliament. And so this laws helped to make this impunity from the both sides such a big thing, yeah? So after that, so we've done a lot. We've done a lot and we were prepared for this large scale invasion. And we had an experience how to deal with all these war crimes and crimes against humanity. And now we are dealing with these crimes in the different regions of Ukraine. You know, this awful occupation of Kiev region, Chernihiv-Tsume, and our last investigation is about the enforced disappearances in Kiev region. When this region was occupied, we knew that some people were taking hostages there and they were taken and kept in some facilities. But after the liberation of these regions, those people just disappeared. We didn't know where they are. And we investigate that they were forced to go to Russian prisons through Belarus. And we identified more than 200 names of just civilians who are taking as the hostages now in Russian prisons. And nobody knows what to do, how to release them. There are no instruments or mechanism how to release them because there are no officials in Russia whom we can to talk to. So now we are talking to international community trying to find some mechanism to release those people. One more direction of our organization is the human rights of servicemen, military personnel. And you know, for now we have a number of more than 3,000 prisoners of war. Ukrainian soldiers and officers were kept in Russia. Many of them are wounded and you know, the terrible situation in Mariupol with Ukrainian Marines. And once again, we have no instruments to release them, but we hope at least that they won't be tortured by Russians because they have enough information about the tortures and the tortures of our soldiers and the treatment is not proper.  So this is what, maybe it's not a topic for morning to talk, but sorry for this. I hope that your mood for the day will be okay after my story. Well, Olga, I thank you so much and we appreciate your courage and bravery. The initiative you're sharing really ensures that the world knows what's happening through documentation and constant coverage of the conflict. I also appreciate you giving that full perspective that it didn't all begin in February. Many people have forgotten that aspect. So your documentation of the dastardly actions that have happened the entire time, but also your commitment to honesty to make sure that you focus on the rule of law. And it sounds like what you're doing now really does uphold the Geneva conventions on both sides and make sure that everyday people who are caught up in this conflict are protected as much as possible. So that is so important. And as the world commemorates International Press Freedom Day to honor the rule of the fourth estate, in a way you're speaking truth to power, you're also upholding the freedom of expression. And so you are through your daily actions keeping truth alive in the Ukraine. So it's okay. It's a little after breakfast anyway. And I think more people appreciate being fed or by you the truth on those spoons of what needs to be done. So we thank you about sharing all that you can with us today. In a way, maybe you could share some of the most important issues regarding war crimes that you've documented so far that the world needs to know about. Yeah, you know, our Prosecutor General's Office opened more than 10,000 proceedings about war crimes in Ukraine. It is the large scale and very systematic like method, you know, work committing war crimes is a method of war for Russians. They use it like instrument to break the resistance of the Ukrainians. And our organization is dealing with, as I mentioned, with enforced disappearance, especially of active people of visible people in different regions who can be a leader of protest or something like that. For example, in Khriston region, more than 50 people were kidnapped and we have no information where they are and what happened to them. It is like civic activists. It is a major of towns and cities. It can be veterans or... Even teachers and heads of schools, they are also kidnapped and we don't know where they are, unfortunately. So, and as I told you about the situation in Kiev region, the same we are investigating for now the situation in Sumo region where also a lot of people were abducted and transferred to Russia. And as we see the same practice in different region, we can talk about the general policy of Russia. I think that those decisions were made in Kremlin. It was not the decision of one commander or so on. The practice is very similar in different regions of different units of Russian troops.  They tried to scare the whole society by the awful torturings, by the public killing and so on. And this is, you know, as I've said already, we were prepared for the Russian invasion because we have been dealing with the war since 2014, since Crimea and Donbass. But I think it's too much pain for our society, for Ukraine, at all. We even couldn't imagine that they have made such atrocities, you know. So that's why what we have to do now is to document as many cases as we can and then to decide what to do with it. Maybe we prepared with lawyers, we prepared some submissions to international criminal court, but they won't take the whole situation in Ukraine. They can take to the intention some episodes, but not the whole situation. And the lawyers are talking now about the creation of special mechanism to bring Putin and his regime to responsibility. It can be like a special tribunal for him and his like the authorities here for Russia. What the mechanism will be, nobody knows for now, but the discussions is going on. And I hope that in the nearest future, we will understand what facts do we need to provide for this mechanism because we are trying to document for now as much as we can. It is very difficult because in the occupied regions, there are no internet connection, no mobile connection. And we have very less information from those regions. I'm talking about the southern regions of Ukraine, the Crimea, Firstone region, Azerbaijan region and also Eastern regions like the next and Lugansk region. And those hostages were taken previously before the Russian full-scale invasion. They are also still in prisoners. And I want to remind you about political prisoners on the territory of Russian Federation about Crimean Tatars who were detained for the last time. And the activists of Kisbutar Hvir, Crimean Tatars organization, which is forbidden in Russia, but was allowed in Ukraine. And after the occupation of Crimea, a lot of activists from this organization were detained. And one more thing I want to pay attention to is the forced deportation of Ukrainians to Russia We can talk about the number, about more than 500,000, which were deported to Russia because they have no any chance to survive. Russian troops didn't allow people to go to the territory under Ukrainian control. And they had to go to Russia. And after that, they went through the so-called filtration camps. And after that, they forced them to go to very depressive regions of Russia on the Far East and so on. And people there have no documents, have no alternative information about what is going on. What is going on in the world, they can listen only to Russian propaganda and they have no access even to the cells to call to their relatives to tell them where they are. So the situation is awful, but it is not new in the history because previously during the Soviet Union Soviet authorities had been doing the same. You know that they deported the Crimean Tatars, Ukrainian, Polish people and even the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944 was recognized as a genocide by many countries in Ukraine as well. So the practices are the same as it was in the Soviet Union. Moscow nowadays is like a continuum of the Soviet Union and this state has to be collapsed. I understand and I'm here now at the UN permanent form on Indigenous issues and we've been working with the Crimean Tatars for over two decades and they did document how life got even worse since the invasion of Crimea and they also then gave insights to what you're now experiencing and the sad part and what you've been raising as well besides the Crimean Tatar Indigenous people's issue is that it seems there's a national plan and a program of action that's being sent from the Kremlin that uses Geneva Conventions to violate each and every one of the articles to inflict as much harm and try to break the resistance of the Ukrainian people and the point that you brought really highlights something that didn't get enough attention where many people were not able to flee and go to a safe space in Ukraine but it is so important to document what's going on so that the world's aware and how people's human rights are being violated. I've even heard that there is an attempt to crowdsource digital evidence of war crime where everyday people are being able to share this information and so we thank you for all the work that you've been doing in that capacity. Can you share in some ways how you've been able to use the information so far and to move things forward as well? Our enduro is the member of the 5 a.m. coalition. It is a coalition of Ukrainian human rights organizations. We have already 27 members and we just united to document the war crimes and crimes against humanity because the capacity of each separate organization is not enough for the such a scale of the crimes. So we joined together to do this and we have different directions. Some organizations are focusing on documentation, documenting of the crimes and some who have a lot of lawyers and professional who are specialized in the different judicial issues. They are focusing on the preparing of submissions to the ICC, to the European Court and they mostly are discussing this issue about the special tribunal for the Russians. And so as for us, for our media initiative for human rights, we have monitors in different regions. We are talking to people interviewing them. For example, yesterday and today, our monitor have been working in the Tizia where people from Azotil plant came and still we were interviewing them about the awful conditions which are there. And it is quite difficult because after this shocking situation not every person will talk to you. And you have to create some special approach to talk to those people after those situations.  Sometimes they are wounded. Sometimes this may be persons after sexual violence and all those awful things that are committed by Russians. But our NGO has a trust of people and of course all this information are confidential and we share this information only after the conforming of persons of victims and witnesses. But we try to cooperate with the law enforcement bodies in Ukraine and we try to strengthen their capacity because unfortunately Ukrainian law enforcement are not reformed yet. We had no time to do this unfortunately because every time we are doing everything at Hock because we are in the situation of war for the last eight years and the capacity of our security service police and general prosecutor's office are not enough to investigate all those crimes unfortunately but our civil society is trying to strengthen them to help them to investigate. And I have to say that there are a lot of prosecutors who are very, very, you know, like maybe they are not so professional as we want them but they have the initiative is very strong and they are working without weekends and sometimes it is 24 hours a day and they are doing a huge, huge work. For example, Prosecutor Kravchenko from Bucha we saw them from the morning till deep night and he was personally during the exhumation process when the bodies were like dig from the graves and he was present personally during this process and he has done a huge job in Bucha, you know, it is... and psychologically, yeah, mentally it is not easy to investigate all these crimes but they are trying to do their best and I have to say that really I was no expected a lot from them but they surprised me a lot. I mean our law enforcement bodies. Yes, well I think everyone viewing today will feel the same way about you. In a way there have been many heroes and I definitely consider you one of those. I know many people focus on feeding the soul and you have been feeding our mind as well as our minds of what is possible. I know chef Jose Andres was doing the World Central Kitchen and they are providing humanitarian meals in and around Ukraine and he said after his restaurant was hit with missiles he said many ways to fight, we do it with food and I definitely want to thank you because you do it with the pen and with the computer and with the truth and based on all that you have shared with us today also heart. It is journalism not beyond borders but beyond belief that you don't forget the people you interview and you understand that they are not just quotes but they are people that deserve dignity and so we thank you for setting up the media initiative and we look forward to communicating with you more in the future and you inspire me the same way that I heard Bono and the edges acoustic performance of walk on and one thing they said there is that Ukrainians are fighting for freedom too and that they're actually living and actually dying for the ideal that is freedom and we thank you for the work that you're doing with the pen and it's the best way to honor World Press Day is to be able to speak it with you who knows how important it is and we thank you for that and we look forward to the moment when we can celebrate the liberation and the continued nation of Ukraine. Thank you for joining us today. Mahalo. Thank you for your support and have a nice day and I hope you to meet you in Kiev and to talk you personally in Kiev in liberated Kiev in freedom in free Kiev and Kiev is the capital of free people so come here. That sounds good. I was there in 2016 so I'll come back again. Of course, we are waiting for you. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com Mahalo.


Here's how I averaged $28,981 a month with digital products. Complete process explained. Okay, you've heard of these guys who make like thousands or even hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars a year on digital products. It's true. I don't say all of them. Not all of them are making that kind of money, but some of them do. And that's got to interest you, right? That you can make all this money on a digital product. But the question is how? So this video is going to explain to you how because I've done it. And this is not all I've earned, but this is an average for a few months. And I thought I would show you and break it all down so you can actually see what I'm selling, how I'm selling and how much I'm selling it for. And we're starting right now. Hey, I'm JR Fisher. Welcome to my channel. I appreciate you being here. And hey, while you're here, take part and subscribe. Go down there to the subscribe button. Again, you got to ring the bell. There's a bell right next to that subscribe button. And you want to click turn on all notifications if no, if when you do that. I know you'll do that. You will do that, right? Right. Okay. When you do that, you will become part of the Fisher family. The VIP group who gets notified every single time I do a video. That's pretty cool stuff. Right. I come out, tap you on the shoulder. I just did a video. I actually let you know. Okay. Try it. You'll see. It works out. It's really cool. And I also have a $97 e-commerce course. If you'd like to grab that for free, it's down in the description. All you have to do is click the link and learn. No credit card required whatsoever. That's a great course. You want to grab that. Okay. I mean, the price is right. It's free. No credit card required. Now, if you've got questions about digital products, and I am coming out with a course very soon on how to create and market digital products. But if you've got a question about digital products, put it in the comments below because some of those things I may actually put in the course, and I'll be happy to answer your comments below too. Give me a thumbs up while you're at it. I'd appreciate it. All right. Let's jump right in here. I've been selling online since 2009, guys. I've sold millions of dollars of digital and physical products. I've sold both. And on this channel, all I do is really teach you how to do the same thing. There wasn't a whole lot of good training when I got started in 2009. There were a lot of rip-off artists, to be honest with you. So I wanted to provide this to you guys so that you could build your business, start running, grow your business online. I appreciate you listening so much. It means a lot to me. Let's jump right into this. I want to show you exactly what we do, what we sell, how much we charge, all those good things so you can see how I come up with this number right here. Okay. Let's start off with square one where I started. And you don't necessarily start where I was. Okay. I'm just giving you my path. I originally started with a survival food company. That particular survival food company is called Survival Cave Food. And we started selling survival food. We started off with dehydrated and freeze-dried foods. And then we went into canned meats. We've been selling those since 2009. And it's done very well. Going through a pandemic, we've sold a ton of food in a pandemic, which is very, very nice. But that's not what my digital products are. That's a physical product. So that's a product that you pick up, you put it into a box, you put a label on it, you ship it out, somebody receives it. A digital product is something that they give you money for. And digitally, that's a tough word to say, digitally they get the product sent to them via email or they have a login to a site or something along those lines. So I want to walk you through that process. I sold the survival food for years. And I guess I got known as somebody who could sell something online. So I had people that would question me and say, well, how do you make money online? How do you sell products online? I started telling a lot of these people how to make money online. And I was approached by some people at Clickbank many years ago and that's an affiliate site. And they said, hey, you sell products online. Could you possibly do a course that tells people how to sell products online? And I thought, well, how hard could that be? That's not going to be that hard. Sure, I could do a course like that. And I didn't realize, but it took me over a year to actually do that course. It was very, very hard. It took a lot of work, a lot of people involved. But I did come out with a course. It's called Digital Cash Academy. And I'm going to talk more about that in just a second because that's really operative to the amount of money I make. And I'm going to give you an example of all that stuff too. I didn't understand though how to market the course. I didn't understand how to really make the course. I didn't understand what a digital course was. I really quite get it. And as it turned out, it was a bunch of screen captures. I used PowerPoint to do a bunch of screen captures and I voiced over all those PowerPoint slides to show them how they could sell products online. Pretty cool idea. And we marketed that product and it ended up selling hundreds of thousands of dollars within days. So I was really shocked because that was my first stab at selling a course. And then I came up with other courses. I'm going to get into all those in just one second. The problem was where do you host a course like that? And there's a lot of ways of going about this. I mean, you could take the videos and you could put them on YouTube and you could give people links to that particular video where nobody else could find it. But that would be really cumbersome because you'd have a whole bunch of different links where you could put it all into one video which that course is actually a hundred to six videos. So that would be a really long video. So that wasn't a very good idea. So I did find a platform to put it on and it was pretty good for a while and then Cartra came along. And I got to tell you if you're watching this and you want to know how to sell digital products and you want to do it the easiest, simplest, cheapest way and the best way, get Cartra. I'm telling you hands down get Cartra. In the description below there's going to be a link to Cartra.  As a matter of fact, I've done a video on Cartra. Search my channel and look for that video. I'll tell you all the things that Cartra does. But you can also go down to that link I've put in the description. And when you go there, what it's going to do is it's going to play a video that shows you all the things it does because it does sales pages. You can host your course in there. You can do email sequences in there. You can do funnels in there. You can do some products in there. You can upload images and digital products and videos. And I'm like, I just do so many things guys. Seriously, you've got to check it out. If you sell anything online, if you do e-commerce if you're doing anything online, you need Cartra. I'm not kidding you. And if I sound like a cheerleader for them, I guess I am because I've tried so many other ones and they just, you know, they had parts that work but then I would have to get another software and another software and I end up with like eight different pieces of software and Cartra does what eight pieces of software did. So it saved me a ton of money too. Check out Cartra. Hands down to get to go there and check that out. So that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about how I generate that amount of money. So let's get into that. Okay, so after I did DCA, which is Digital Cash Academy, I had the idea to help people set up a Shopify store. So I did a course called Ecom Road. Basically as Ecomers and you're heading down the road. Okay, that was how I came up with that name. Nothing fancy there. But what I did is I did a series of videos and I think there's probably 40 videos, 35 videos that shows you how to set up an e-commerce store through Shopify. So that was Ecom Road. And I want you to set that aside for a second. So you got Digital Cash Academy, you got Ecom Road. And then I did one called Web Cash Academy. Now Web Cash Academy actually was, I guess, multi-purposing assets that I had. And what I mean by that is I was doing a meetup group in town to get some videos of me training people. And these were businesses. These were plumbers. These were, you know, dentists. These were chiropractors. People from all walks of life. And I would video myself actually training these particular people on their businesses and the things they could do online to make money. And I took all those videos, put it together, and then I added some more training to it. And I put it into a course that let people actually watch me in the classroom teaching other people. That was called Web Cash Academy. So set that aside, that's another course. Then I realized that people need to send out emails. And emails was a whole subject in itself. So I did a much smaller course called Email Earning System. And Email Earning System is basically a group of videos, not a lot of them, a short amount of videos. I think it's under 10 that teaches you how to email people how to make money off emails, which is something that's really necessary if you're selling online. So let's set that course aside for a second. Then I realized that people needed traffic. They got to add traffic, right? If they've got these products they're selling and sending out emails, how do they get customers? And I did a course called Facebook Ads University. Not affiliated with Facebook, one bit. I was just showing people how to run ads on Facebook. So in Facebook Ads University, it has, gosh, I think 66 videos, something along those lines has four pieces of software that go with it that integrate with Facebook. It did really well too. So we're going to set that aside for a second. Now that we've got all these courses set aside, okay? And as you can see, it was a lot of work. So if somebody's telling you they're going to make a lot of money and you don't have to do a lot of work, it's not true. You're going to have to do some work. But the point is, if you do the work, you can definitely make the money, okay? It's there. You just got to go get yours.  Let's look at all these courses now and how all this can work out. A course like Facebook Ads University, a course like Digital Cash Academy, retails now at a discounted price for $997, okay? So it's $997 every time somebody buys it. Now that's a one-time buy, okay? Understand? There's a one-time buy. There's continuity. There's annual membership. So there's all these different plans you can do. I pretty much either do a continuity where they pay monthly forever, okay? Or they're going to pay a flat amount and get the entire course and never have to pay again. So those are the two business models I have. I don't know if they're great.  But you may want to do an annual thing where people have to repay every single year for that course because it has updates, that type of thing. I know I have a lot of software that are like that. I also have some courses that are $27.  I have courses that are like that. I also have courses that, let's say it's $27. It may take them to another page. And that page may say, hey, you just bought it 27. You're going to pay $27 a month for an entire year. That's a lot of money. Why don't you pay $197 right now and we'll just give you lifetime membership to it. So that's another way we sell our courses. So you can have different levels within the price range that you're also in. So let's do the math. I'm going to put it up on the screen right now. Let's say I sold 10 DCAs in a month. That would be $997 or $9970. If I sold another Facebook ads university, sold eight of those that we had $997. That would be $79.76 a month. And understand, guys, when you're selling online, you don't necessarily sell eight a month, okay? You may sell 80 of them, you know, because you did a promotion. They're not selling me for three months. So I'm just giving you some averages here so you can see how it works out. If I sold eight Facebook ads university at $997, that is $79.76, okay, a month. Then we get to Webcash Academy. Now, Webcash Academy. And keep in mind, you can sell thousands of these, okay? But I'm using some smaller numbers now. If I had 200 paying members at $27 a month, that's $5,400. And then Ecom Road is another course that sells for around $27 a month. 200 Ecom Road members at $27 a month, that's $5,400. And then we're going to move on to the cheaper courses. I have, you know, email earning systems. That's a short course, $19. If I sold 13 of those in a month at $19, that's $247. So that's a total of $28,993. Now, I said in the beginning, $28,981, I got as close as I possibly could to this, but it varies, okay? And that was a long time ago, and we've sold a lot more since then. So, you know, we're definitely not limited to that. But that is a little snapshot into how you can do that. Now, imagine if in these webinars, your membership is, you know, 500 members or there are 1,000 members.  That's $27,000 a month. Now, keep in mind that $27,000 you get every month as long as they stay a member and you don't have to do any more work, okay? That's pretty passive. They're just paying for that membership. So these numbers can get really, really big, but the first thing you got to do is you got something to sell. So you got to have a digital course to sell. So make sure you put a comment below. Everybody that puts a comment below on this particular video, I'm going to get you a discount to my new course, which teaches you how to do these digital courses, which teaches you how to make money online digitally. Now think about this. You're on the beach in Aruba and people are buying your digital course in Australia or the UK or Tanzania, wherever it is, and you did the work a year ago and you're still getting money on it. That's what a digital course is. That's why they're so cool. When I first looked at this, I thought, man, how much could I really make? It's really not going to be much money anyhow. And then I saw people selling courses for $19 or $27. I'm like, oh, that's nothing. You know, people will buy $1,000 worth of canned meats. I didn't do the math. You got to do the math. You got to look at this and go, wow, if I sold 500 of these memberships or 1,000 of these memberships in this continuity and they paid every single month, that's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. So if you put any comment below, if you're interested in that digital course where I'm going to teach you how to do digital courses and marketing, you definitely want to put a comment below because I'm going to make sure you get a discount on that. And, you know, you can send me an email too through my website. If you send me an email down there and say, hey, I heard this on your video that I'm going to get a discount on this digital products course. I want to do that. Send me an email too, but make sure you comment below. It's super important that you do that. Comment below. Really important. You can ask me about this. You can just say hello to me. You can do whatever you want, but make sure you comment below. I really appreciate you watching this video. I also have that $97 e-commerce course I told you about. It's absolutely free. It's in the description below. Click and learn. No credit card required. Simple and easy stuff. Don't forget to subscribe if you haven't done so. If you have, thank you so much. Don't forget ring the bell. Turn on all notifications. Set all notifications so you know when I do a video. You become part of the VIP family, the fish or family, the VIP crew that knows about videos before anybody else. That's pretty cool stuff, right? All right. I appreciate you watching this video. Give me a thumbs up and I'll see you in the next one. Thank you.


We have a... Now I'm trying my best not to actually look at the sun. I know. So I've been doing research and prepping for this for a better part of two months now. We have purchased a Tiffin solar filter for this camera here. Do you want me to hand it so we can kind of get a view of it? Fix the focus. This is a neutral density filter that reduces sunlight and glare. It's like that, but really absent or something. We have it plugged into one of our nice 4K Panasonic camcorders. I'm just trying to be mindful because the sun's moving. One of our nice Panasonic camcorders, I believe this is an HCX2. Something like that. They have a really powerful built-in zoom lens. So we can get quite close to the sun and get a good view of it. Now I have that plugged into an external monitor I have that's... So we can get a better view, but mainly I've been framing through the viewfinder here. When it comes time for totality, we will be using this Teradeck backpack that we have. This is what we use to live stream certain events. We'll use these little boxes called the Teradeck Go. That's just a little box that plugs into Wi-Fi or Ethernet. We prefer Ethernet. But for situations where we don't have access to those things, we have this backpack that is essentially a really high-end cellular data receiver. This is the equivalent of six cell phones, basically. So this uses cellular data that we'll use to live stream. I have a battery that I'll plug into it. And as soon as we turn it on, we get charged money. Not too too much, but still enough that we only break it out for special events like this. Once we get closer to totality, I'll be live-streaming it. I also have it plugged into a microphone that's just leading to headphones on my laptop playing classical music just for... Is your laptop plugged into power? Yeah. Anything else you want to talk about? I'm pretty nervous about this day. Because I wanted to go out, because I think it'll be cool. But so far, things are going good. I have a lot of great people helping me out. Hi, Ian. It's my roommate Ian. He's also photographing it for his own use. And, of course, Jordan. This will play when we trap it. Okay, we're strapping it for a while. We're having a great time. It's the eclipse! Why would you schedule a flight now? Also, 400 million equivalent distance away. Yeah. So the fact that we get eclipses to the intensity that we do is kind of a miracle. It's also like it won't happen forever. No. Eventually the last eclipse. Why will that happen? The sun's getting bigger. Well, the faster thing is the moon every year is moving like a millimeter away from the earth. Oh. And so what's happening is that's going slightly faster than the sun's expanding. Interesting. And so what's happening is that eventually there'll be one last eclipse and then all the annular eclipses. So it's just hard work. Yeah, so Bailey's Beads. You'll see them during the eclipse right as totality starts and ends. And basically what those are is you're actually seeing the sun passing between valleys on the moon. And because the moon is so much smaller on the earth, there's not a lot of surface area. And so you get like little divots of light. You can see those really, really brightly with binoculars or a telescope. And the corona is what you're going to see around is essentially the sun's atmosphere, which is actually a lot hotter than the sun. I don't know. That's about it. More sun facts. What are you doing here? I'll talk about that. What have you got? So I just have a 50 millimeter M4 lens. And I've got a solar filter. I'm not looking through the viewfinder, though it's a digital viewfinder, so it shouldn't matter. And I've hit it to the max ISO. And I can't really... I set the exposure to... I mean the aperture fairly low or fairly high, large aperture. And I'm just hoping to get some good photos. And hopefully, because I don't have binoculars, it'll look a little bit better than just through glasses. Yeah. You can do quite a lot with little. Have you looked through the glasses yet? I have.  But it is quite beautiful to see with your own eyes. And this is just the partial. And I've seen the partial eclipse before because in the 2017 eclipse on the East Coast, I was in New Jersey at the time, we had the partial. And it was really impressive then. And it's... There's nothing quite like it. Five seconds, let me go over to YouTube. I'm also going over to YouTube here. Let me restart my YouTube app and see if that does anything. We usually take about 30 seconds to get from... Oh, I mean, TV is live. Hell yeah. You're good to go, Steve. Thank you, Drew. You're very welcome. Enjoy the eclipse. Enjoy the rapture. See you on the other side. Yeah. Now what are we doing, Steve? We're live streaming. Now the nerve-wracking stuff begins because people are watching us. Four people are watching us so far. You got our stream going? You can see. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. And there's music too. That's us. That's us. And the music sounds all right. It's... I think it's cutting right now, but yeah. It's 85%. This is 85% right now. That's crazy. Oh man, I should have set up with you. It's not... It's not really coming off on this camera, but it is... It feels visibly darker while there still being sunlight. Set up like a stop motion. Time lapse. You could totally notice that. Yeah. Yeah. But to the human eye, it does look darker while there still being sunlight. It's colder. It's colder. It's getting cold. Yeah, it's nighttime, guys. Go to sleep. Birds are going crazy. And it looks like day for night in an old movie. Two nights. What are you doing? Five minutes. I'm switching over. I want Strauss's Blue Danube to play in the midst of totality. Sort of a cheeky reference to 2001, a space Odyssey. But I didn't want to play also Strauss's Veracuca or whatever the iconic 2001 song is. I don't know how to pronounce German. And the nice thing is that Strauss's Blue Danube is like 10 minutes long. So it'll be playing whilst totality is grusting. And it'll last throughout totality and then also ease us out of it. It's crazy. How is the darkness coming on that camera? It's definitely a little darker. It's definitely a little darker. Oh, you can change it. Oh, there you go. We're three minutes away. Let's get our glasses on. Oh, I'm blind. Here. Now you got to get me. It's not bad. Oh, yeah. You look fashionable. I'm not giving you the camera. I got it. I got it. I took my glasses off. Put the camera down. Watch the eclipse. Let's go. How much of a ring of light we'll get because the after is pretty down close to closed. I've lost it. Where'd it go? Where's the sun? Oh, my God. It's tiny. You can barely see it. It's so dim. One minute. Look at the clouds over there. Oh, my God. It's so weird. I'm trying to clear out space on my phone. Just delete full apps. 30 seconds. 30 seconds. You can see a star.  You can't.  Oh, the lights went on.  We're losing light. We're losing light. Ten. Seven. Six. Five.   Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You can see the spots. You can see the dots. It does not. Oh, my God. You can't even see it. Okay. We got one minute. So Bailey, those are mountains. You're seeing in between the mountains.  Yeah, they were all waiting for this moment. Beautiful. No wonder people went absolutely nuts and had to predict these. Like... I'm afraid of the moment where we... I'll give you a heads up. It's coming. How do you feel? I don't know. It was like... I've seen so many images of it. But like... Seeing that up in the sky at the thing you can't look at. Like, yeah. Dude, I don't know. It was pretty sweet. So glad I got to see it. How are you, Jim? It's crazy. Scraps falling in the background. Are you kidding me? Completely lost the shot. What do you mean? During the actual clips, it was just black. You can see it. Did you get it? What? No, no. No, no. It was too dark. Yeah, I put the filter back on and I couldn't see it. There goes the spotlight. Oh, here we go. Here we go. Check this. Check it. You did it. You guys did it. It is on otherworldly. It gave me more of a forlorn melancholy than I was expecting. And I had a little bit of a not to make everything a movie reference, but at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark when they opened the Ark of the Covenant and oh my god, look at those birds. Yeah, no. It had a real look away, Marion. Whatever you do, don't open your eyes. Sensation to it. I felt like I shouldn't be looking at it. Speaking of things you should be looking at, it's time to move your frame. There it goes. Eyes. No pressure. I'm turning. No, it's a shaman. I don't think it's even streaming, but... There's this thing about primates and anthropologists and biologists were like, well apes and humans that slept under trees did a lot better. And it was only 5% of heat energy radiating off them at night that would hit the leaves and come back down. And that was enough to give them an edge against being out in the cold. But it was like, you really just realized that is a hot day. That is so hot. Yeah. Any change to that, all the heat would irradiate away instantly. Yeah, we'd freeze. There's nothing keeping us warm except for that. I will say now that I think about it, the road there right behind us, people did stop driving right before it. There's so much cold... Yeah, I'm struggling to put into words just the amount of energy that's coming off the sun and how it fuels everything. And that even a slight decrease or increase in cloud cover could drastically change the planet. Like there was one volcano that spewed out magma for a million years straight.  Just a slight... cause almost an extinction level event in ancient Earth. I'm afraid to look up. Like off this side. How do you feel? I don't know it was like I've seen so many images a little bit but like seeing that up in the sky at the thing you can't look at like wow. I don't know. It was pretty sweet. So glad I got to see you. Hell yeah. Happy to share it with you too. Strauss playing in the background very faintly.