Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop. It's this camera over here, right? Yeah, that one over there Okay, yeah, we got lots of cameras set up here tonight Because we have a great guest who's gonna tell us all about auditioning and that's ever Oliver ever. How you doing? I'm good. How are you? We're we're not too bad. He's a guest worthy of setting up extra cameras That's right getting our green screen working all that stuff because ever it's that's right So if you've got a question for Everett about auditioning throw it in the chat room because I know Jeff Hulman's hiding in there Somewhere writing down every question and making sure we get those questions So we can ask Everett a little bit later on but we got a lot of stuff to talk to him about in the next half hour This could quite possibly be one of the most important guests. We've had on this year because Because he is literally telling you how to get through an audition and sound like you know what the heck you're doing, right? So it's a big deal. I know voiceover body shop right now Voiceover body shop is brought to you by Voiceover essentials comm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements the folks who bring you source connect Jmc demos when quality matters The oh heroes comm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training Voice actor websites comm where your voice actor website shouldn't be a pain in the butt voiceover 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 Well, hello there. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voiceover body shop or VO B And we are back in our wonderful studio Surrounded by microphones and cameras and all studio version seven Yeah, I guess we've revamped a few times each time because we haven't had a pattern of doing the show here That's so we each time we try things that are a little bit different, right? But tonight we're like I want multiple cams. Yeah, so you know give me the same shot Screen right and a green screen. Okay. See now. There's this. There's the two single Single cam and you know, we finally figured out how to do all this stuff So just in time when why are we doing it because we can because it's fun That's right But been an interesting couple of weeks I of course had it and aside from my boo boo from last week when we were in Toronto Then I had a major boo boo because somebody rear-ended me and then I hit them in the car in front and they both left You were a pinball and a pinball game and a game just drove away, right? And I became an accordion and that's not even I didn't even know what to say other than we're glad you're okay I'm glad I have some boo boo's and you now have a new car because you really had no choice No, yeah, and if you couldn't even buy the same car you owned it was impossible If you try to buy a new car right now, you're going to be shocked at what the Dealerships are charging over the MSRP disgusting it is and they're they're making up for all the money They lost during the the pandemic and the gas companies are making up for all the money lost during Never, I don't think That's another story Anyway, anyway, we want to talk about helping you make some money And the way you do that as a voice actor is by auditioning So we decided why don't we have somebody on who really really really really really understands auditioning and so we figured out I want to talk to avrit So anyway avrit oliver is a 25 year veteran of the entertainment industry He specializes in professional directing for voiceover auditions He has experience as an animation demo co-producer a private coach for commercial and animation as well as a career Building consultant that is a career building consultant. No a career building consultant Just in case you were wondering What tips does he offer to help you book the work you desire? Let's welcome back to our show It's been a while though, and that's avrit oliver avrit. Are you in there somewhere? I am here. Hey buddy. Good. Good to see you. Good to see you You too. Yeah, eventually we're gonna get everybody back in the studio. Of course, I don't know where we're gonna put him Including an audience including an audience. You do remember we had about 18 people in here one night I was there So I so we have a witness that will prove that that actually happened It's pretty fun. I know All right, so you you coach people with their auditions I mean, but let's start now. You've been in the business for like 25 years What brought you to this sort of niche area of coaching? um basically I worked at a talent agency and They basically threw me in the booth and you know, they said listen You need to start, you know directing And helping actors since I came from the casting background I came from the cast inside of animation so When all of my shows ended in animation I talked to my mentor who was charlie adler and charlie adler told me Oh, you need to go ahead and work at a talent agency and be a booth director And I had no idea what a booth director was And then um, I used to work for avio talent. So, uh, sandy schnarr and peter arano They threw me in a booth and so that's how my life started. I just started directing and started understanding actors and Picking up little things here and there to help them book That's how it really started. So it just I just basically fell into it. Yeah So talent would come into into the agency, which doesn't go on a whole lot anymore Not anymore And uh, and so and there was a booth there and you would sit there and and they would audition for things and you're like Slowed out. I would speed up slow down speed up.  I would You know, that's that is that what you have? That's not gonna work I would give them I would give them my honest opinion. Yeah, and the basic honest opinion would be My facial expressions because everybody could read my facial expressions So if it was a smile and go like this, that's great. But if it was one of those Oh, that means I have to do it again. Oh, yeah I You don't have to name names were there people that were showing up in your booths a lot more than others Were there a few that you'd saw far more regular than others?  I mean, we had a full schedule So and I would audition from like 9 30 in the morning until probably 4 4 30 in the afternoon And it was in 15 minute increments so you was receiving about maybe five or six pieces of copy and you literally Had to study the night before So when you came into the booth You had two takes maybe three To get it right and then I would turn around and be like, oh That get out next next character next year because the agents would be out there saying you're taking way too long with them You know, this is not something where they came in and studied. They had to be prepared They were coming in cold on these totally and so now, you know, I try to have my actors, you know me doing it for myself Um, you know try to tell them listen You have to prepare and come at it the same exact way because what's going to happen when you book a job and you'll put on a spot You know and and in the casting people in the producers are going to be throwing things at you and you have to be ready So this is what I try to prepare the actors where I work with Now I'd like to think that people understand the importance of taking auditions seriously And to not keep doing the same thing How do you learn to differentiate yourself and and do something different every time? How do you what what what are your suggestions? Well, you know, you have to come from a from an angle of a point of view I think that a lot of people are basically just reading the copy They're not actually breaking down the scripts or not understanding what's happening in the scripts And or they're following the same type of the directions to say they're following the specs They're not thinking themselves outside of the box So, you know, my suggestion would be is to You've got to be creative There are now thousands of you who are auditioning for the same part across the whole world So do one take That comes from the actual specs that what's they want and then throw in a second take That's going to wow them Don't give them the same acting style, but give them something That's really going to make your personality bring your personality into it Because everybody has different personalities and that's what's going to help you book And you got to keep at it, you know, you can't you know Do voiceovers for two three months and then stop and then Pick back up You know, you got to keep doing it. You've got to keep researching. You have to keep playing You've got to keep coaching You've got to keep doing workout groups This is going to make you a better audition actor Yeah, I mean it I it's amazing how Everybody's seems like they get locked in this mode of imitation Yeah, but I guess that's is that I mean if you're starting from is literally zero Is that where you start? Is imitating Or is that just a natural proclivity of a person who Does voiceover because we love to imitate No, I mean the first thing I tell people is you have to take you have to take acting You have to do improv Those are the first two. I mean I made a lot of people who say I was actually working with somebody today And I could tell that they were imitating, you know, like a co-worker and I was like, no, no, let's go back to basics You have to know The acting it's all about your acting. It's nothing about your voice I'm I can't even tell you how many people are so concerned about that and I have to drill it into them with tough love Yeah, we know That's another gateway that's another gateway in the voiceover, right, which is the thing that everybody hears at least once You've got a great voice. Aren't you doing voiceover? I get that all the damn time right and hear that a lot I'm like, no, I'm not And I could talk yeah, I get it all the time and say, what do you do for a living? I'm a voice actor Oh, I can tell Like it's just the way I sound for crying out loud But you know, but perhaps I talk a little bit more properly than other people you annunciate and I you know Unlike a lot of kids today are just keep talking like this. I have no idea what they're saying Complete sentences. Yeah. Hey, give me the d10 that I'm like, what are you talking about? Tell them to slow down Yeah So I'm and I'm sure you're working with a lot of kids these days and when I say kids I mean anybody under 40 I'm glad you clarified that yeah Who it's just a different culture and and how do you have to work with with folks like that because I mean, all right, you're probably closer to that than we are but you know Let's be clear about that. All right. Um, I work. Yes. In fact, the good news is today. I've been working with Uh, she's gotta be about nine maybe 10 years old and she got she booked something today And I've been working with her for about a good year on learning very conversational Reads that she comes from the theater background So she's been shouting at me for a couple months You have to get to detune her right the little lady in the back row. Hey Pull back the throttle. Right. Yes, but I mean she's learned, you know, I'm One to give, you know, you have to do homework You have to do research You have to keep studying and I've drilled it into her So I was very proud to find out that we got our first She got a call back probably about three weeks ago. She just found out today. She booked So that was my, you know Pride is that a commercial thing commercial? It was an animation. It was actually an animation Um, I guess what so when you so yeah, so when you're talking about you need to do your homework You need to do your research Would you feel like that's more for animation stuff or that's for everything across the board everything You need to be watching what's the kind of research shows? Yeah television shows animation shows Uh, you need to find out what the trends are happening commercial wise You need to find out what kind of animation shows that are out there movies for animation um tv What do promos that are happening? What's going on in the narration world? I mean you need to be soaking up everything like a sponge You know and a lot of people are not doing that and what they're doing is is Hey, I get this audition and then the first thing they think of they think of me And then they contact me and then I'm asking them a whole series of questions and I could tell instantly that They're not going to book this Because the fact is that they have not done what they're supposed to do and they expect me to do it for them and that's, uh, no, no And the same is fine. Yeah, once again where if you're just joining us you've already missed a ton That's important. Everett Oliver is our guest. We're talking about auditioning Because that's what we do for as voice actors. We got to audition so people can hear us and Say, you know, that's the right voice for doing that If you've got a question for everett about auditioning or coaching or one of these things that that he deals with You can put it in the chat room and jeff holman is right there and he's going to write it down And we're going to ask ever in the next segment in just a little bit So don't be shy Ask your questions, you know, you're going to think of it like two minutes before we're done and all of a sudden There's like 10 questions, but now we want you to put your questions in so we can answer them next bit Anyway, okay. So what are some I mean, you've mentioned this a little bit You talked about people just doing it the way they you know, they think that they they should do it or just talk their voice What are some of the common mistakes that you see people make when they're they're sending in auditions? They take too long with the audition something that should take them probably 15 30 minutes it's taking them 45 minutes to an hour Oh, that's too long.  That's part of it. Um, so the editing is slightly off Um timing pacing like I said, they don't study um They're not marking their scripts up That's a really a major factor. They're not sure what's happening with that. They don't improv um How many is that That's enough that's enough to make a difference. I think with some people You know, they don't have a point of view um I'm trying to think of all the people who have stood today.  I'm like no no, I would you use this microphone. I need to hear Yeah, your technique your how you place the mic how far away how much energy you project right, you know Comes across flat comes across flat reads too Yeah, whatever it is if you read flat that's the way I want to hear it because that's going to determine what we're going to be doing today right exactly so So people make a lot of mistakes And especially people who are new people who have been doing it for a while They still make those kinds of mistakes too I mean after a while I imagine some people feel like they just they can just phone it in because they always book Is you find that common thing or do the people that always book? They are pros and they are always on and they always get it done They get it. I mean the people are pros. Yes, you're exactly right. They know they get it done Um, I think now the thing is is it's about now stepping outside of your comfort zone That's what's going to really help you book and and now I'm working with actors to go Not on a surface level of what I call it But you got to go on a much more deeper level Because of the simple fact is that now that we're all doing stuff from home You don't really know what your competition is That's true. Well, we never know what our competition is we do these auditions. I did we throw Right you heard them all we we never heard what anybody else was doing It was like we're guessing and why did this guy book it? You know, why didn't I and they'll never tell you You probably will I I did. Oh good Once again, if you got a question for ever throw it in the chat room right now, whether you're in facebook live Whether you're on youtube live Where else are you doing this? I don't know Some place else it just goes out into the ether and everybody's watching But no matter where you're watching if there's a chat room there throw the question in there right now um What do you do to help people improve? I mean, I obviously if they're at an agency You know when you were working in an agency you were working with pros people who Agents have said okay. We want to work with these people now. You're working with people who are trying to break into the business How do you get them to improve and I'm sure it's pretty much the same answer that they had to do their homework They I just you know, I drill stuff into them. I mean it's constantly, you know attending classes what I I'll put I'll have on some online classes. I'll bring talent agents I've been casting people in front of them to Um see what they can do in front of a casting person or an agent And then I'll give them personal notes I'll do private, you know, coachings with them and tell them specifically as to what they're doing wrong. So I'm constantly Drilling into them.  They have to keep They've got to bring their a game For me to go ahead and pull out their performance But the other thing that just hit me too is they also got to be willing to go ahead and play I think that's one of the things that's missing also And actors performances is that they lack of them playing because they're so busy worried about booking the job So they need to be vulnerable For them to be comfortable as to who they are Right and real actors really know Yes, well, I mean they're all actors They all come from acting backgrounds whether or not they're non union or union agencies. I have an agent I don't have an agent But I think the the main consistent thing which is hitting me now is They don't understand who they are And I could pinpoint who they are within probably 30 seconds to a minute Because i'm tapping into them and fully understanding them and that's really one of my unique gifts that I have That I can go ahead and say that's not you that's somebody else So If you're gonna do whatever you're gonna do as a first take Let's do that as a first take. Let's lay that audition Down as a first take because that's what you came up with now.  I gotta pay my health insurance or I need to book this job because You know, they're gonna tow away my car and I think people get caught up in everyday life And this is why they don't book So people I mean I've had people book When people are just not feeling well I've had people that book because they're not thinking about it. They're vulnerable. Right, right Oh, oh my gosh. That's interesting.  Maybe uh, Some some tragedy something really tragic and you're kind of raw and you're a little on the edge Right, but I do is I feel out the care I feel out the actor In the in the atmosphere. So I have a sense and I have a wear of Once I kind of understand the dynamics of whatever situation is happening because Then I could tap it and then I could go in and say listen like I had for example, I can do it from example I had a little girl who was sick and um I could tell she wasn't feeling well and her mom was like, um If you're just gonna let her do it Her mom I was like, okay I'm not gonna worry about mom. I'm gonna worry about her She's just gonna come in the booth and I sit there. What's wrong with you? She says, oh, I'm not feeling well I said we're gonna do two takes. God bless you. We're gonna read two takes right exactly We're gonna do two takes and that's it. She did two takes and she wind up booking the job That's great. She knew about it. Yeah, and then of course she was feeling much better when she actually did the job And it's like no, that's not what we want.  Well, what's gotta be interesting is that she would have heard that performance later Like I would think and she would hear the I mean because how much time between the audition And the day you do the gig how much time elapses sometimes It depends animation animation it could wind up being like Like probably three months maybe six months. It depends on the production schedule if it's commercial, you know The turnaround is going to be a little quicker. You know promo is going to be a little quicker um Every other general narration medical all that stuff takes You know, maybe a couple of weeks So you definitely have to real replay or play back what it is. They did what they did job Exactly what you sounded like that day Yeah, so let me take this a little bit more in the macro How do you help someone find Their voice and I know you know what I mean because everybody has their voice But everybody seems to want to sound like somebody else We certainly see that in the tech world. It's like, hey, you got to make me sound great and stuff like that How do you find help people find their authentic voice? I listen to them as a person and I listen to I get this kind of a sixth sense or a feeling and I listen to Who they are And whether or not their wall is up. I get a lot of actors that are walls up And Once I'm able to go ahead and either send them to someone or pull their wall down That's how I can find who their actual voice is It's about them being confident And I'm looking for the confidence. That's how I help them find their voice I've got to get them to be confident. I got to get them to be able to play It's silly and as fun as I am I need them to be just somewhat like me and that is insane as I am per se Yeah, that's going that's going a bit a bit far But that's what I do because I bounce around if you've seen me in person. I'm bouncing around. I'm moving Yeah, you're like ticker You sound like my little brother seconded to me But it's once I once I get them in a comfortable Level and once they feel comfortable with themselves, then I pull out I can hear their voice then I say that's it. That's you Now read the copy I just automatically go ahead and get them in a state of read the copy and read the copy now before you lose it Right, right now. You've been working with a lot of kids lately. I mean like as you were just saying You know little girl little guy, you know people under 10 Is it how how do you direct them? Is it a little bit different than dealing with adults because you know, you can't really throw the emotion in there the same way It's about who it depends on Who the child who the little kid is so I have to understand them and then I have to understand the parent And so that's an important part is that the parent is a very important part And the part and the parent is there so I have to Allow the parent to be the parent for that the same token. I'm here for the child So I have to understand the kid's personality. I tell me about what what what you like You know as far as your subjects in school. What do you like to do for fun? What are you doing your off time? I need to know everything about the kid once I Get to understand their acting understand who they are and then I can go ahead and push the parent aside Then I'm able to go ahead and dig down In you know and pull performances out of kids because kids just want to go they just want to do it They're not thinking about it.  Yeah, we're talking with Everett Oliver once again If you've got a question throw it in the chat room I'm looking forward to lots of questions in the next segment. So So get those in there. We're looking at them in youtube and facebook by the way So whatever thing you're on you can type it just you know if you can type and jeff will grab it That's right. And so anyway, we're gonna take a quick break right now. We'll get back to some of those questions So stay tuned. We'll be right back with everett oliver here on voiceover body shop.  Were you This is virgin radio. Well, okay. We're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes for working Dickies because I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values A leader for california and a voice for america. It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smart phone, but it's so much more It's it the files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs. What time is happy practice? Check out the song David H. Lawrence 17 pound the same as you. I love this show and i'm glad you're watching uh Sweet i8 from bmw The opening to m12 saving credit couldn't be stylish Only we can open for the view of jay michael fowlans Bet you think i'm gonna try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for success But I will give you my email. It's jay michael at jmc voiceover dot com Now if they will stop waxing this mustache for a minute, one of the big questions we got was that's a pretty hefty price tag Do you have a payment plan? And i'm happy to tell you that phones for voiceover for those of you who looked at the price of the Made for voice over valuable value that you were getting with the prices of Harlan Hogan signature series voice optimized headphones 2.0 From voiceover essentials dot com Harlins cans are incredibly strong and lightweight. 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I'm I'm assuming that we are Yes, anyway, everett oliver is our guest our good friend who is an audition director And we have a pile of questions, which is that we do fabulous You look if your voice actors, you can't be shy and ask your question What do we got? We'll start out with an easy one that came in email from sarah switek And her question is thank you so much for hosting the show with ever oliver tonight. She says to dan and I My question is again How long should a voiceover resume be? I'll ask first. Is there such thing as a voiceover resume? I have one You you demo You demos your resume you some people have a list of credits that they've worked on list of coaches Um, it should probably be a page If you're gonna go ahead and and break the Shows that you've booked um the coaches that you've worked on Um What context would you use a I just never hear that would resume thrown around talking? But what's a context where a voice a resume would be useful like for video games for video games if you you know for anime um, not so much um Uh animation they really don't care, but I would say for anime and for video games For sure, especially if they have new directors Especially young directors that people who have been you know, who are new to that field and people who've been doing it for a very long time um And your demos your calling card That's an important part now Here's the thing that I that I'd always wonder about Because we all have demos, you know, some of us have more demos than others But generally people get booked off of their auditions. Don't they I mean, does that how important how important is your demo really to the whole production process? Don't then things have changed now in 2022 Now everybody gets booked off of their auditions anymore. They get booked off of their demos So yes, so it's very it's very important that you you have your demos current Um, I would say probably within maybe two years. You probably want to go ahead and go ahead and get a new demo um I think it's kind of insane to have a demo for per category um, you know for each genre, but You definitely I mean animation and video games you should use those as to separate demos Maybe have a narration demo commercial and a promo um Maybe a medical narration demo for sure. You'll need one for that e-learning Um, I don't necessarily know you need to e-learn a corporate narration But people are gonna, you know, if you're doing two separate things, sure you need a demo for that Maybe if you had more of a body of work in those different units Different genres than you might want to do a real a cut reel of them, right? Because it's so you know that thing or no, I mean they used to do that years ago probably You know 2015 16 17 8 they would have that but now I mean, it's a short time span Yeah, you know, so when people are listening to stuff they want stuff really quick short to the point and and The thing that drives me insane is you need to have your telephone number On your website kind of not to have your email. Yes And not be looking for it Oh, you know, so that that's one of the fascinating things about people, you know having a voiceover website It's like it's got to be animated and it's got to do that. Nobody cares. Nobody cares.  Andrea. She says, uh, I have one thing for the guys So I've been Booth i've been in the booth been practicing got a bit of voice coaching still looking for a voiceover coach But i'm stuck in the types of samples to make as new And do I start on fiver? How long has she been coaching see when I do career consultations This is what it's stuff that I need to know. I need to know how long you've been coaching. I need to know if um How long what kind of acting classes if you're taking what kind of improv classes? Have you taken where you located? I need to know basic foundation work for me to go ahead and answer her question Right. Well, perhaps she should contact you And And how would she and how would she do that? We'll give you the chance again later, but how would they do that? Oh, my initial eo at voice acting director All right Let's again, we're talking with everett oliver. We're talking about auditioning for voiceover work and and you specialize In animation and in gaming right? More animation I would say um, I specialize in commercials So I've you know, audition wise I cover all genres because it's all acting to me You know So it's just a matter of me hearing How well you connect to that piece of copy that you're reading and bringing yourself to it But really my main focus is animation is top priority and video. Um commercial is my second All right, you know, and if we're talking about improv, we got scott park and coming on in two weeks You know, oh, yeah, his rib is healed.  He's ready right and if and if it's still sore, he's still going to bring alcohol Which is the most important thing Which apparently he thinks is great for improv Anyway, next question from terry brisco Terry asks ever when you give that second take Uh, give us some things to focus on to make it pop for instance pay for instance pacing Raising or lowering your voice different accents Etc. So you guy the first take down You're happy with where do you go from there? Uh, depends on what the copy is you want to go on a deeper level? Yes, it has to do with pacing Um, bringing it depends if you didn't have a point of view on your first take you need to bring that to your second take Um accents only do an accent that you feel comfortable with that an accents from a region of where you come from Or heritage if you're putting on a funny accent, I would not do it because they're gonna know right away um Second take um, you don't want to emulate the first take as far as your acting style So, you know, I say go for it, you know Stepping outside of your comfort zone If you think it's going to be over the top a lot of people who think they're Who think that going over the top is going to make them really over the top, but it's not You know, which means to me is is that they've never able to They don't know how to get out of the comfort zone. They don't know what being like over the top is so they're scared They're afraid to even go there.  That's what's going to make you stand out Yeah, and that's an animate. I've learned animation is always over the top. It's like, you know, it's not Normal reserved. It's always right But video game is the opposite, right video game is more about realism It's real. It's a moment of realism of cinematic, right? It's really pulling those layers and really connecting and bringing Bringing your like her depending on, you know, some cast and directors like to hear your heritage Bring some of your background foundation To the read from where you come from where your family comes from. So, yeah Here's one from From grace newton.  And it was the constant, you know being at the agency was great It gave me the foundation and even to the state of me moving people in a fast quick pace But that was the challenging part. It really is the deadlines We have to get the deadlines out and you have you guys have to be ready and be prepared And rather than just coming in like it's uh, you didn't study like you would do in high school in college I'm thinking of one of my students right now They're trying to do it off the cuff, right and they know it works for some people it works for some people You know some people good Yep, that's why they mentioned your name Now here's an interesting question and George and I are gonna look at this and go what uh from dan alpern He says Do you want to know if I audition from the road or a hotel room but have a better sounding home studio? Should you tell them? That's actually an interesting question. Yeah, yeah, I mean, but I always find that people are like I got to audition from the road So I'm unless of course they're in the road company of hair or so he's worried that his audition He does from the road isn't representative of his home studio. Right. So I guess I'm saying why bother Should should you bother? I wouldn't I wouldn't mention.  I don't think in this day and age unless your sound quality is that bad that you Shouldn't but I think you should you make those preparations when you're going on a trip You should bring all that stuff with you. I bring my stuff with me when I'm traveling So why not, you know, but I wouldn't let the client know that I'm auditioning You know from the road at home. I wouldn't say that You know, you make sure your sound quality is just as good at home as it is on the road So you need to pull it off what you're saying is you need to pull off a really good make it work Road make it work. Mm-hmm. Make it work All right. Do what you have to do. You're you're a professional So do what you have to do And that requires knowledge of how to record on the road and don't just like You know, you can't wing it. You got you have to know what sounds like it's advanced Absolutely. Well, it wouldn't be voiceover body shop unless j. Horace black had a question for us. So Jay j you go for it. Yeah, he said I just want to say thanks again for facilitating the connection with With elli representation apparently that happened. Um, can't tell you how pleased I am appreciate you bro He's been getting a lot of auditions lately that only asked for one take What's your suggested approach for these kinds of thing? And are they just doing that because they're just Yeah, they're probably on the time they're probably don't want to listen everything if you're going to do one take go for it Don't hold back Bring every nook and cranny and j stop worrying and stop thinking because you tend to worry and think A lot of questions Stop asking just do it just whatever it is because j there's too many people are auditioning for the same thing you have to My thing is is this you have to go to a conference Once you go to a conference and you see how many people is at a conference that's going to tell you what your competition is Okay, so I don't know what else to say. You just need to just do it And go for it You know, you guys have to also I had notes here too. You guys have to network You have to put yourself out there Some of you think guys think that you're gonna actually book from just doing an audition not in 2022 not in 2023 and not in 2024 People there's so many of you you have to put yourself out there through marketing through You know having a relationship with your coach Through going to conferences. This is how you get seen and this is how you get noticed Bullying at home sticking at home and being your booth is not going to get you noticed I've set my peace tough love's coming. All right If we can't if we don't hear it from you, what's it? Jay jay is a j. I mean jay's awesome and we all take oh, yes He asks really good questions, but it does show you that jay's he's a thinker. He's serious. He's serious about funny things Yes, and and he should not think he should just let it go and just Do whatever comes natural and trust yourself and trust your instincts You know, if you're playing it too safe and you know, you've been playing this safe and it's not working out Then the other way of doing it is okay. Let me just go for it You know meaning go big Easier said than done for a lot of people I mean, of course if if you really can't add lib or you really can't be relaxed Voice over perhaps is not the profession for you You've got to be able to you know look outside the box and those sorts of things How do you help someone relax and and Do that kind of thing it's it's not easy. I mean it's it's still hard for me, you know, except that I make them You know, I've been doing it for years and it's like No, I mean I may I Do off the wall stuff. I you know, I get in their heads. I make them laugh I I do stuff to just relax them once I get them relaxed and I go ahead and I Approach them approach to get into copy.    You're not thinking about it and again It should only take you 30 minutes if it's taking you longer You're wasting your time as one of my agents would tell me Wasting your time. They're not going to book it. They're overthinking it when somebody gets a script And they're what what is the prep process that you would like them to do when they they first see it? You know, there's the specs. There's the copy You know, then you know and the spec sometimes can be much longer than copy We tend to see an awful lot What what process would you like to see them do? Read the script three times Read the script enough three times that they're understanding what is required from them Then after they read the script three times, they should go ahead and they should start marking the scripts They should put in there where their emotional turns are going to be they should With their where they're going to probably improv um Where you know, certain buttons that they're going to go ahead and get then Go ahead and read the copy at least once on mic Just to kind of see where their true point of view is going to come through You know, just read it, you know read and act for the first take Then read and act again for the second take where they're not thinking about it Walk away for another 15 20 minutes just to go ahead and clear their head and then go bad and read for the third take They have three days they should have three different takes. They should be done in a half hour And then when they're done Stop thinking about it. Check the labeling because that's important And leave it alone. Don't don't don't Think about it. Don't call me. Don't think after thoughts Don't email me and say, oh, I need you to re-listen to this before I send it out If you want me to listen to it, let's go as go calls Oh, no, because my actors are actually my actors are bold enough. They will send me text messages.    Maybe, you know You totally you're getting bad advice from people.  It's like I'm not a therapist per se. Even though my colleague Uncle Roy always says we're all a therapist if we're coaches Yeah Yeah, check out even tech people a therapist exactly But it's like I send people as people to somebody to really work with them to getting their wall down But it's a thing of you know, you've got to be comfortable in your own skin To do this work. You really need to know who you are And once you understand the dynamics of who you are And how you tick You're going to put that towards the copy whether it's a character or whether it's commercial company And once you understand that dynamics, that's what's going to help you book But if you're sitting here, if you it's like if you can't make a decision in the grocery store Whether or not you're going to have tuna for dinner or this for dinner Then and and that's that's a problem going on in your everyday life Then that's going to be a problem in your and your voice over your voice over career We got one last question here. Yeah, we got one last question here from max golberg from youtube This is when receiving an audition script with no specs whatsoever What ways or steps are there to determine how one should self direct and then proceed with recording I would just bring you I've never heard of anybody not having specs. I've that's never happened to me in my I've seen it. I've never seen that but I would say if that happened I would say just bring yourself to it. Whatever the copy is Look at the copy and bring your true authentic truth to it Yourself to it No, all right. Let's find out a time to throw something crazy against the wall and see what sticks Right, just be that should too what you're playing true and use that as a second take Oh, there you go. That's your second take. That's your second take. Good job, george. You've learned to listen I've only heard you say that about 400 times. Yeah, so it's patrick kushner This man This man says names on this. Oh, I'll call you out. I'll call you out I Already well effort as always Aside from just hanging out with you It's a pleasure having you on the show and offering your Your expertise on on how to audition better again if people want to work with you Where can they get a hold of you? Eo at voice acting director calm And voice acting director calm is my website Um, I won't give up my telephone number because some of some of them already have my cell phone number Yeah, oh, there's a lot of people I have it and when I see it come up That's that's why I'm the only one in america that has a landline queue Well, every thanks for being with us tonight. We really appreciate it and thanks so much guys Good luck in the future and all that I will see you soon. All right George and I'll be right back to wrap things up and re-rack it for tech talk right after this. So don't go away You're still watching vlbs 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 calm 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 Audiobrow's 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.com. That's voice over x t r a dot com It's that time on the show where we thank Source elements the creators of source connect the most predominantly Widely used remote recording tool in the voiceover business Completely has taken over for i s d n if you don't know what i s d n is don't worry about it But it's gone. It's gone But i s d n was how studios tended to connect to their Best and most well-loved and highest paid clients Um because it was easy for them to get great audio now with source connect It's even easier for producers to get great audio straight into pro tools Which is what they are going to be using most of the time probably at the studio The workflow is efficient and that is why they love it So you want to have this tool in your toolbox? You want to be proficient? You might even consider paying them. I think it's 75 dollars for the certification Which isn't just like paying for a little badge. They actually Teach us stuff. They will actually Go through your system. They'll make sure your system is set up properly They will if there's some issues with the sound they actually will give you some advice to make it better It's it's a very worthwhile expense to make sure that your quality is where it should be for source connect So just another way they provide great service. So you can go to over to source dash elements.com Get yourself a demo poke around watch the videos spend some time And then when you're ready subscribe or pay for your license Outright and own it for life. You can do that right over at source dash elements.com. We'll be right back In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites.com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept to live online In a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites.com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites.com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros voice actor websites.com where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voice over body shop. It's great All righty. Well Like I said Scott parkin's gonna be here in a couple of weeks You know, which we missed him last time he was here But yeah, I know which will be a lot of fun not next week the week after that Okay, and then we have a two week You know our cycle will have scott parkin and then we'll do tech talk again And then i'm gonna be gone for a couple of weeks, but we're all I think we're only gonna miss like one week Okay, maybe two we're doing our best to not miss it between all the travels the holidays everything Yeah, I mean it was you know, it's kind of kind of weird trying to fit it all together But anyway next week on this very show there will be tech talk number 88 88 It is it's gonna be 88 88, but we're gonna record that in just a minute So stay tuned if you got tech questions. We want to hear the your tech questions. Yeah Uh But we do have People would help us do this show and that is the donors of the week. Yes, sir And they are robert leadham steven chandler kasey clack jonathan grant tom pinto Greg thomas a doctor voice ant land productions martha con 949 designs. All right jonathan grant christopher epperson jonathan grants in there twice lucky son of a did he make a double donation? I may have done that.  That's why he's in there twice All right, uh chris epperson Sarah borges philips appear brian page patty gibbons rob rider shana pentington baird don griffith Trey mosley downer birdsall sandra manwheeler I love saying all those names. We say them all the time because they're subscribers They didn't just make a one-time payment. They're they're subscribing and you can do that for those a buck That's right a month.  But it's because they're supporting our show Yeah, because they they believe the great stuff that we do here at voiceover body shop I guess so or they just want to hear the name right at the end of the show That's right. Yeah. All right. We need to thank our sponsors harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra Soros elements vo heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com jmc demos and world voices dot org the industry association of freelance voice talent Just come sort of flows off my mind when I say that because it should at this point by now it should It's a job. Yes. It's my other job. Anyway, our thanks to jeff holman for getting all those questions to us in the chat Well tonight, we really appreciate it.  So glad to hear it. Yeah I mean he was in that that you know He's doing a ton of on camera stuff. I know it's great stuff. We got to get him in here so we can hear what he's doing Sumer lino In the studio tonight It's actually here tonight. It's about time we're all together I guess we're gonna have to do some drinking after this or something Anyway, thanks sue for a great job tonight and of course lee penny for just being lee penny Anyway, well, that's gonna do it for this tech talk is coming up next live So if you want to ask your questions That would be a good time to throw it in the chat room because we're gonna do all that stuff And we got some cool stuff to talk about tonight, but in the meantime This is not an easy business.  It is good. I'm dan lennard and i'm george woodham and this is voiceover body shop or vio B s see you next week


I started while underground probably the first of October of 2016. I know that if this place wasn't here I don't know what I'd be doing. I went through a lot of doubt. I was sick, sad, and sorry. Sick of myself. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. Sad because I was regretting on what I ate the next day and then I was always sorry for it.   I go, I can go home and I can look at food and go, you know what, I can make healthy choices. I'm Cindy Campbell. I'm the LiveWell director for Weare Finoe County and the project director for Washington Underground, a recreation center which is a joint project between LiveWell and District 1. The project was started because residents wanted a way to exercise more and they also wanted a place for youth to go. Carolyn brings an incredible amount of enthusiasm and a sense of community. She's always cheering folks on and she's enthusiastic, optimistic, and loves people. When I first looked at the elliptical I was seeing all these ladies doing it and I was thinking, you know, can I do that? And I got on it and I started off at four minutes. And the next time I got on it again, I did five. And I remember when I did seven, I was like, yes, yes, I can do seven. And I started doing 12 minutes. And then I started doing 17 minutes. Then it was 22 minutes. And then one day I got on the elliptical and I was like, you know, I'm gonna do 45 minutes. And I did it. And I think this whole building shook because I was screaming so loud. We used to eat to stuff our feelings when we were sick, sad, and sorry. And I taught my son that. When he sees me and I talk to him on the phone and, you know, tell him, son, I'm gonna go work out. And he asked me, mom, how much have you lost? How much have you lost this week? And I tell him, he goes, good job, mom. And that right there, I'm hoping to plant a seed in his head in his mind. That, you know, my mom can do it. I can do it too. When I walk in to the Walssenburg Underground Gym, I know everybody's probably watched Cheers. This Underground Gym is my Cheers. And I know that when I come in, everybody says, hey, Carolyn, this place is a family. And they care about you. You know, I just want to be here for them because they've been here for me.


Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of our VGC 2020 battle series. It's getting weird to say that. I was so used to saying 2019 battle series. It just has a better flow, doesn't it? 2020 battle series doesn't seem as well, but I'm sure in a year's time it'll feel all right. My name is Lee, also known as Osiris and we're going to be continuing on with this team that we kicked off when we started the series back up yesterday. So it is consisting of Kyogre, Tabukoko, Requaza, Incinero, Tornados and Kartana. The team as always is down in the description as a raw paste and a poker paste and you can check it out and try it out. And if you do try it out, do let me know what your thoughts are on the team. But without further a do, let's just hop straight back into it today. And as always, if you do enjoy this sort of content, please remember to drop a like on the video. Do subscribe to the channel for more Pokemon content and leave a comment down below. The top of it's the right screen because the ranking is all reset. Let's go with leader, Lesandra. We haven't had this one in a while. It was obviously, it is actually Sheffield Regional this weekend. I'm pre-recorded so it's actually happening right now. So hopefully everyone's had fun. We'll discuss the team, the winning team, probably on the stream this week. As I said in yesterday's episode, we're back streaming on Thursday this week over on Twitch. So if you'd like to come over there on Thursday evening, 8pm UK time, it'll be a lot of fun to hang out with you and we'll play some Pokemon, talk about Sheffield Regional, what to expect for the rest of the Ultra series and we'll delve into some different archetype that we're playing at the minute. But we've got a first opponent in the episode so we'll hop straight over into Team Preview. Okay so first opponent today is running a team. Spicy, spicy. We've got Cure and White, we've got Incineroar, Salamence, Sniyly, got Dawnwings and Tappu Lele. So we've got that combination straight away. We identify the Tappu Lele, Dawnwings and Tappu Lele. Slightly and I'll always say this to be Scarfed Lele when you see it with Dawnwings because of that fast offensive pressure that you've got there. A good way for us to detect that is always going to be playing Tappu Coco because we'll be able to override their terrain with ours. What are we going to do? We're going to need, probably Incineroar here, it's really quite good just to deal with the Ultranocrosmite although it does make it difficult. I mean a Tailwind is probably going to be better or more useful than anything else. I'm going to lead Tappu Coco, Tornados here. Kyogre is going to be relatively good. Cortana is actually really good in this match if you can get a Tailwind up. We'd have to watch out a little bit for Salamence. Are we going to miss Rekwaza if we don't bring it? That's the question and I really don't think we are. I'm going to bring Cortana. I think Cortana can be a bit of a star of the show here so let's click in. Let's get into this one. It's a good luck to my opponent. I really love Cortana and if I can speak in my post as well, I really love Cortana in the Ultra series. I don't think it's played enough. We did see a little bit of spiking usage around US Nationals or the International Championships North America. The official name of that tournament. I think it's a very good Pokemon still and I'd like to see more players trying it out. Hopefully after if you watch these you do try it out for yourselves. It might not be your cup of tea but then again it might be. We're going to see Salamence. We're going to see Cure and White come out for my opponent. We do have the Ferrium on Tappu Coco so we can straight away go for the Nuke on something if we want. I kind of attempted to go for the Restricted here over Salamence. Salamence isn't really putting too much pressure on. Let's Twinkle tackle the Curem and do we taunt the Salamence? We talked about it in yesterday's episode where maybe it's better to taunt it first and then go for it when second so I mean completely limiting their ability to utilize their speed control rather than matching it waiting for it to run out and in that time trying to get rid of that speed control so I'm going to taunt it here. It's likely to protect as well. Cure I'm going to actually switch out what comes in. What's going to take the Ferrium. Okay we're going to see Incineroar come in. I mean it's not ideal but it's it's not the worst is it? Salamence might protect here with this kind of play that you see my opponent coming in with the Incineroar here so they've got to fake out the next turn to stop our taunt from the 20th. Now we're not going to see that so we will get our taunt off into the Salamence. Unfortunately we're not going to pick up the knockout onto Incineroar and we could have potentially got the knockout onto Salamence but then it didn't really make much sense going for the double into Salamence. It would have left Cure and White open so you kind of got to cover bases the whole time when you're playing in VGC. I think that's a big thing where you don't leave yourself too often to maybe a protector here or there. We're just going to say Hypervoid. It's an interesting move selection for my opponent probably seeing the taunt come from a mile off and that's the reason why. So I think what we can do here is we can go for our tailwind. We could just double protect though. I mean we could dazzling gleam and we could just go tailwind as well. We're going to get faked out on something but as long as we get like if we don't get the tailwind we get the dazzling gleam and I'm pretty confident that both my Pokemon are going to be able to take a Hypervoid so maybe Tornadus won't take a double edge. We're not going to see any sort of fake out come out from my opponent so it's likely the Incineroar is attacking the dazzling gleam damage is always going to be really appreciated onto the Salamence there as we do see the double edge into the Tornadus and it's likely we're going to lose both our Pokemon here for Flair Blitz comes out from this Incineroar. Oh to Uten. Okay that's better for us. What comes in? It does give us a free switch into Kyogre or Cortana here though. So depending on what comes in that will make a mind of maybe oh maybe it's better just to bring in Kyogre here and Water Spout and Dazzle. Keep Cortana in the back because the thing with Cortana is it kind of forces in the Incineroar and if we had Kyogre out in the field in place to tap Coco I wouldn't mind that so much because we're kind of checking the Incineroar coming in. The thing is now we need to make as much use of our tailwind turns as possible. Water Spout and Dazzle.  Like Water Spout's going to do a nice chunk of damage. Dazzle and Gleam it's going to do decent damage to cure him but I don't know whether the combination will be strong enough. It might be. I don't know it depends on the build.   Now a single target water Spout I think probably gets this cure him now. I would feel confident from this range. Yeah okay so we're going to be able to probably close this one up pretty quickly now we've got our tailwind active. We've got to contend with Incineroar coming in obviously with fake outs so that's something to think about at least for this next turn but we're still going to have at least one turn tailwind after that and it is going to be the Necrosma. Which I don't mind really at all. I think the most important thing for us to do here is protect Coco. See what the stone wings goes for. The only issue is if this stone wings is it going to it will it have trick room? I don't think it will. I think it's ultra and a cross man. I really do. I'm going to protect Coco regardless here and I'm just going to go I'm going to go water Spout. I don't know whether it's the right decision maybe we'll probably better just go and double protect here and fake out into Kyogre yeah make sense and trick room. I don't know if that's into Coco anyway so here we go there's a last turn of trick room and what I'll do because I do suspect that it is ultra and a cross man especially with the Lele in the team. I'm going to just water Spout. I'll switch Coco out keep it for later on in case we do need it in case things get a little bit disastrous but obviously not going to happen so I've got another forfeit. Very good game to my opponent and we're off to a really nice start this week. I know we're low ladder at the minute but it makes a lot of difference from the roulette series that I keep referring to. I keep referring back to it because winning in the roulette series was the hardest thing literally the hardest thing if you want a Pokemon challenge come see me I'll spin the wheel for you and we can create a team that you can try and win with on the ladder and I've always said it it's it's a lot more difficult at the end of a season when we were doing it and it's not to big myself up at all but I will say when everyone's played a format for a long time at the end of a season they've always got very well built teams and that's what makes it a lot more difficult but we did all right the last couple of weeks in the series we did really well we did I think the second to last week was the best one and we had an incredible record I can't remember off the top my head was like nine nine two or something like that I think but yeah it ended up really good and it was a lot of fun along the way so we're just looking for our next opponent hopefully it doesn't take too long and I could cut this out but it gives me the opportunity to talk to you guys about a lot of stuff that's been happening we've had lots of sword and shield news recently that's come out and Pokemon Masters has come out it's a the mobile game I don't know how many of you are playing it at the minute but I'm seriously addicted to it I would do some content on it if I had the extra time it's such a cool game it really is and I've been really enjoying it and just grinding through it at the minute so not finished all of the the challenges yet but I'm pretty close to I think there's like 20 isn't there and I'm about 18 so getting through them but let me know if you've been playing it how you're getting on with it and what you like about it or what you don't like about it um but I'd imagine again back to sword and shield we're gonna have a nice flow of information news and stuff about the games in the run up to in November which is not very far away now so it's only a couple of months away really until we get those games which is very exciting very exciting indeed and it's going to be difficult I think keeping this battle series going even though it'll be relevant we'll probably cut this off around the time the sword and shield comes out and we'll start all sword and shield content to the run of the season so we might not have as much time I can't believe I've just been sitting on that screen for it as well for as long as I have been and yeah so we'll probably end up a daily battle series we might keep it going on for like a week or two afterwards just so we've got that content there whilst we're getting to grips with sword and shield building new teams but then most the transition will be pretty quick I think from going from ultrasound ultra moon putting the DS away and then moving straight onto the switch and planning on doing um streaming a playthrough of sword and shield so that'll be a lot of fun and uh and then doing a lot more content around sword and shield uh going into the new season well the new part of the season on the 4th of January when the rules do change and I can't wait I can't wait to get my hands on these new pokemon and stuff like that it is going to take a little bit longer than what I thought would to find our first opponent so I'll cut it here and we'll come back when we find our first or second opponent of the episode so we'll be right back my friends and we've got our second opponent of the episode we've got FB from Japan so we'll hop straight into team preview and they've got a nice looking team it's made up of Tabukoko, Duskman, Nekrozma, we've got Horto, Salamence, Gastronon and the ever so popular Umbrian that featured so prominently in the world championships this summer so um restricted combination we've got Horto and Duskman, Nekrozma probably likely gonna be uh Ultran, Nekrozma as well then the mega on the team gonna be Salamence speed control options you've got Horto, Salamence the Duskman, Nekrozma as well has access to Trick Room and it wouldn't be too far to say it's probably carrying that because it supports the Gastron and the Umbrian really well right what are we gonna have to do we're gonna have to take advantage of our tailwind for sure with Tornadis and try and shut down a pausing speed control because that's going to be a big key part of our strategy here so I do this is kind of difficult because Tabukoko is really really good against the Horto or the Salamence the Duskman especially if it does transform into Ultran or Krozma but Cortana is really useful against the Gastronon um Incinero how useful are you going to be the fake out is very useful um maybe it's better going Coco, Cortana and I think I have to bring Kyogre yeah let's go for it let's go for it I don't know how I don't know if it's too much of a mistake to not bring the Incinero but my opponent hasn't got fake out to kind of hinder the ability of Tornadis being able to taunt things um so in that respect I feel like we're probably not too reliant on it the only thing I would like it for would be the Intimidate for that Duskman across my uh which we are gonna see come out here turn one from us and obviously the Coco does put a lot of pressure on to our Tornadis um now what do we do do we do we go for the Tornadis into Duskman or do we go for Tailwind and risk my opponent getting a Trick Room up it's tricky it's tricky I'm gonna go Tailwind I think Tailwinding it could be so risky um but at the same time uh I'm gonna switch with Coco out onto the Duskman and hope it doesn't go for a Trick Room it's just I need a way to deal with Coco that's the problem like if we don't Tailwind here um should I bring in Kyogre Kyogre might be good because I don't see you going for an electric type attack into our Tapa Coco um I think yeah we'll go for this because we're likely gonna lose Tornadis here I think Coco goes for Vault Switch into Tornadis for sure um hmm and I really suspect Trick Room coming out now if it doesn't I mean that that makes it so much easier for us and we're in a really nice position going into the next turn but I just feel like Trick Room is is on its way oh light screen okay that's fine um okay I don't really mind that too much but that is the problem there's the problem right there um especially after tailwinding um hmm and we are pretty screwed here I think like one thing we could potentially do is just double protect um Coco puts on a lot of pressure onto our our Kyogre here we'll be in the exact same position next turn except we'll have one less turn of Tailwind to worry about because once the tailwind on our side does end we can start taking advantage of the Trick Room now the Gastrodon gonna come in uh Tapa Coco where you're gonna go you're gonna go for a Vault Switch possibly imagine her nature's madness okay that's fine the light screen is not ideal either really um do we try and get some damage onto Gastrodon like I really want to get Cortana onto the field we could potentially just double the Gastrodon here Hurricane and Ice Beam yeah just to get some damage onto it rather than switch around I feel like Cortana is gonna be very very useful for us late game so we're gonna see an Ice Beam predicting maybe we switch out here Vault Switch coming out from Coco as well into Kyogre we take that pretty comfortably for like an electric type attack in terrain you've got to imagine that Coco is probably a sold vest um and then no Crosma coming back onto the field so Ice Beam and Hurricane should do a nice chunk of damage to this Gastrodon Hurricane 100% accurate okay no no confusion though um now we can double protect or we could potentially bring in um Cortana we could bring in Cortana but then it's not really doing too much one of the things I'm kind of tempted to do is just Hurricane again into Gastrodon but hmm we could just double protect here I think double protecting is probably not a bad idea just to stall out this last turn of tailwind that's that's gonna be okay of course we're going back out Coco going back up like this isn't too bad either um Cortana switching there would have been yeah a lot better like yeah a tailwind does pitter out it means that Kyogre is going to be under speeding the Coco um now we could potentially get rid of this Gastrodon here I don't really want to stay in and take another vault switch though that's the problem and I think hmm I'm gonna bring in Coco I don't see the Gastrodon going for an earth power into the Kyogre I think it's probably gonna Ice Beam and they're probably gonna go Vault Switch Ice Beam into Tornadoes here which could have left us open to maybe utilize Kyogre a little bit here with an Ice Beam into the Gastrodon I think the problem with the Gastrodon here for me would be does it carry a berry because we'll definitely proc it now with the Hurricane so there's a Hurricane Vault Switch into yeah double in in okay this isn't the worst because we do get a free switch into Cortana now we'll see what my opponent brings in as well which can kind of dictate what we end up bringing in it's going to be in the plasma okay there's one turn at Trick Room no no Trick Room ends down yeah okay Cortana now I don't know what my opponent's got to bring in on the Gastrodon here could potentially double into the Necrosma generally honestly tempted to do I just don't think a Vault Switch and the Sacred Sword are gonna be enough to get the Necrosma though Sacred Sword is probably the strongest attack we've got for Necrosma it's whether or not a Thunder hits or whether or not the Necrosma goes Ultra Necrosma which it could definitely do um it's got leaf blade into Gastrodon should we take a punt and say it's gonna go Ultra Necrosma then go Twinkle Tackle into it I'm gonna do it come on Ultra Burst come on please Ultra Burst come on I thought was there as well this is all gone wrong it's gone so wrong and they're just gonna Trick Room again this is the thing as well it's a good example of really overthinking like what your opponent might be doing and it would make sense in a way for me to think okay well uh we Ultra Burst here they're probably not suspecting that we're at Ultra Necrosma but unfortunately that's all gone wrong uh there's a Trick Room again so we've got to get through another bunch of Trick Room turns um their priority's got to be the Cartana here though um it's whether or not they double into Cartana because they definitely could with an Earth Power it's just whether or not they've got the Earth Power into what's the Necrosma has it even got Earth Power that's the question because it could leaf blade into the Gastrodon no they're gonna definitely double into the Cartana let's go for a Volt Switch out into the Necrosma here I would say they definitely got Earth Power 100% you need it for Groudon there's Earth Power okay and double Earth Power yeah the other option there would have been thundering and switching in Kyoga because we can't leave Cartana out on the field now and the only thing we can do is possibly switch in Coco there but it's Coco more valuable maybe not maybe Cartana is more valuable to us than Coco um just we can't really utilize Kyoga here I mean we can I just don't want to boost the Gastrodon that's the problem um can that Ice Beam the Gastrodon hopefully two Ice Beams and be enough to take it down I don't know if it will though it just feels like this match is slowly slipping away from us a little bit too much maybe and it's all about that over predict there you know we're just thinking a bit too much about this uh we know the trick we already know the trick room's been shown so that's the thing um we didn't really need to to overcome it like we did there and this is where the mind games like I'm at such a sucker for like mind games like terrible uh we're gonna see the Necrosma okay so we're gonna get a free switch into Coco this helps us out because it helps us stall out um these trick room turns for sure we get nice Ice Beam onto the Gastrodon here now I'd imagine my opponent probably think I'm gonna protect Coco and I'm gonna go for another Ice Beam or do we go for Ice Beam well Ice Beam be enough to get the Necrosma from this range come on move I need to yeah um probably not but do they predict we protect with Coco that's the big thing I just need to get damage onto the Gastrodon I think we could just double protect as well but then again it puts us just in the same position going into the next turn I'll go for an Ice Beam into the Gastrodon it could be quite risky though I think because I feel like this is pretty obvious from us whereas we could have just dazzled there well okay I'm gonna see an Earth part into the Coco since your strike will be into Kyle though but we should be able to take this yeah just about it's just about getting through these turns at trick room and I think identifying this last turn of trick room when we can it's gonna be quite key first because I feel like my opponent is gonna want to try and get their Coco back into back in now um I really don't want to lose Coco though that's the thing I'm gonna switch Cortana in and I'm gonna do I just do I just go for an Ice Beam into Gastrodon yeah I think I'm just gonna do that because I think if anything Necrosma might switch out although we could just see it double up if that happens though we get Coco and Cortana onto the field because Cortana shouldn't go down here okay we're gonna see Gastrodon just go for that recover again do we see another Sunsteel strike yeah this should take her over down now but we might still be all right oh it's into Cortana so we're actually gonna get an Ice Beam into the Gastrodon which is pretty huge for us here because oh in the freeze oh okay the damage is the back to normal um got a leaf blade the Gastrodon here and I've got to try for that Ice Beam into the Necrosma now uh no although what's that other restricted let me remind myself it's whole so we need Kyogre I mean we've got got Coco as well uh I just don't do we go for the sacred sword do we now we go for the leaf blade into Gastrodon and Gastrodon's a pain pain and I think I I feel like Ice Beam can't take this Necrosma down it's got such a little health Gastrodon I'm gonna switch out Coco yeah so getting damage onto Coco is gonna be nice for us here uh there's a leaf blade would be better going into the Necrosma to be honest the Ice Beam it's all about this Ice Beam though can it take it yeah it can okay all right now the speed control's gone which does help us out but it's getting rid of this Coco that's gonna be the the next problem it's gonna be the Hoto okay oh no it's gonna have it's definitely gonna have um right the Coco's got light screen it's got nature's madness bold switch we've seen the last attack on it we've probably got Dazzle so you can probably get rid of the Coco here do we switch in our own Coco the only issue I would have here maybe would be um well I don't know actually because we probably lose Cartana whatever which makes doing with the Gastrodon a little bit more difficult but I think you brave bird with Hoto into the Kyogre slot or maybe Volt switch there and then Sacred Fire into the Cartana but it's risky doing that because if we protect with Kyogre then you kind of wasting all your moose slots well actually I have to speed the Coco that's interesting okay what's this Hoto gonna do our time is running out as well that's the other thing we need to keep in mind brave bird is it into the Coco please be into the Coco come on you know into Cartana which we don't take unfortunately okay um because we've got Gastrodon it's frozen which makes it a lot easier to deal with and Kyogre but we can't really utilize Kyogre and our electric terrain is gone until yeah all right this isn't going to be the easiest close out at all do we have a Farenium though or a Farenium and I always call it a Farenium so um have we got Azimov left no we haven't we've rinsed that already electric terrain not being here is not ideal um the Hoto probably like I've got to dazzle I think I've got to dazzle here I need to get rid of this Gastrodon before unthos I think if it hadn't been frozen there's no way we would have won this match with how we've played it I think it's a winnable match for sure but with how we've played it I don't think okay we're gonna see Azimov is this enough to take down Kyogre behind a protect though without the Intimidate it probably is let's see no we can't take it crit I don't know if we would have taken it even without the crit I think the next turn though the problem is now we don't have the rain so our thunder is not doing anything we've got to dazzle this next turn to get rid of the Gastrodon sacred fire is probably going to burn us and do a bunch of damage and I don't think we're going to be able to beat the Hoto with Tapa Coco it's not looking good I mean it's not over yet if thunder hits and sacred fire could miss for sure I think if you're Hoto you're better off going for a tailwind here if I'm like completely honest because then you're faster than Coco and you've got access to recover if our moves do hit sacred fire coming out does hit and the burn yeah so that kind of seals the deal and our timer's running out anyway um but this it's all down to whether or not a thunder hits and whether a thunder would be enough to take the the Hoto down I don't think it will be outside of electric terrain an electric terrain I think it'll be a bit different we do hit critical hit could be the one that takes this game for us now but Hoto too bulky sacred fire oh it missed and it probably hasn't got protect if it hasn't got protect oh this is the biggest the biggest boat we'll go for the vault switch because we don't want to risk the thunder obviously but it keeps out like going intact and we've been the luckiest luckiest player trainer ever and uh good game to my opponent I feel bad for them because the freeze and then that miss that's really unfortunate but we'll take it because we're just um we'll take I'm sorry I do apologize that axe is horrible well I'm gonna say that we didn't deserve to win that one like I said earlier in the match we overextended ourselves far too much on that dusk main kind of presuming that it would go for the ultra burst when it's already revealed what it was going to go for so we would have been better off gone for much safer route there and I think this matchup is definitely winnable for us I think we just made it very difficult and we got really pulled out the Maya by a lot of RNG luck so a bit unfortunate for my opponent but we'll wrap things up there and we'll be back with more battles tomorrow so thank you so much for tuning in do remember to leave a comment down below let me know what you thought on today's episode how bad the axe has been and if you've enjoyed it what you've enjoyed about what teams you would like to see going forward like I mentioned in yesterday's episode and also drop a like drop a like it does really help the video out and I'll see you all for another episode tomorrow so until then take care of yourselves and bye bye


From the CUBE Studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is a CUBE Conversation. Hi, I'm Stu Miniman and welcome to this special CUBE presentation. We're talking with Pensando and their event is Future Proof, Your Enterprise to help us really understand where the company is and the partnerships, what they're hearing from customers. Really happy to welcome back for our program, Randy Pond. He is the Chief Financial Officer of Pensando. Randy, thanks so much for joining us. My pleasure, thanks for having me. All right, well, Randy, obviously today, we're talking to people everywhere they're remote, so not quite as plush as the last time we talked to you at the Goldman Sachs office in New York City, beautiful view in the background, but that was a great backdrop. When you talk about bringing a company out of stealth, John Chambers there, your Chairman, Antonio Neary, talking about the investment and the partnership and Goldman Sachs, an excellent customer there. Here we are a little bit more than six months later, and that partnership with HPE is taking the next step. You've got the general availability this month of the HPE ProLiant with Pensando solutions. Bring us up to speed a little bit though. We'll talk about HPE maybe in a second, but your customers, your progress, I believe it was up to your C round of funding when you came out of stealth, so give us your viewpoint as to where the company is today. So today I think we're sort of divided conversation between financial and from a business perspective. So financially, we're in great shape. The C round came together very well. We were way oversubscribed. We raised our limits to secure additional funding, which has worked out really well given where we are currently with the pandemic. So financially, we're in great shape. Our case burn is held steady and we've done a good job of forecasting that, so I think the board's pleased. From a business perspective, we've done a really good job delivering on our road mass and product perspective. So the team has released the cloud production. I mean, released the cloud of customers about a month or two ago. We just did a release to the enterprise space, the HPE. We got another release coming up at the end of this month. There's releases scheduled for Q3 and Q4 this year. Our second ASIC will come out of, we'll come back, I think the 15th of June. So we're going to get access to our new design. I think that's great news. Some of our cloud customers are excited about that because it provides a little more capability than the current device does. So, and we had a great Q1 and we're off to a great start on Q2. We overachieved in Q1. We look like we're going to overachieve again in Q2, both in terms of units and dollars. So we're in a pretty good place. Yeah, I like, we can break down to kind of the financial and the business piece. On the financial side piece, you've worked with this team for quite a long time. There's got to be a different financial model that you put in place when you know that you've got really your exit built in as had from the three spin-ins before. It proved the product, get it out there. And then, well, I've got an in-house team with the full channel there as opposed today. Is the model we should be thinking, what percentage of that is OEM? You talk about, there's the cloud model and the enterprise model. And how do you structure things a little bit differently for that time of model versus maybe what the spin-ins were or a traditional startup that might have a few different models to choose from? So we're much closer aligned to a traditional startup environment. Now, the one unique point is the HPE relationship because they've been my primary, they are my primary go-to-market partner in the enterprise space today. They're also a strategic investor. So the reality is in the enterprise space we have to sell the product through the OEMs. Most of the average enterprise customer doesn't have the capacity to install themself. That's a very different model than it is in the cloud side. So it's an indirect sales model, most likely through HPE and other server providers like Dell, Cisco, possibly Super Micro. Every customer has their sort of requested server manufacturer. On the cloud side, those individuals build their own. So that's a, I shifted them and they install it themselves. It's a different software model. It's a different manufacturing model. And then we have a more traditional direct sales model on that side where we've got a partner enablement model on the enterprise side today. We've set them up as both. HPE sort of serves like a quasi-Cisco environment for us because we're depending on their engine to find our leads and it's worked out really, really well. Excellent. Maybe bring us inside a little bit where you are with what you're talking about customer acquisition leading up to now and what's the expectation now that HPE is fully ready to roll? So we, let me just put the conversation again. There's the cloud side. So on the cloud side, we have three committed customers today. One is in production. The other two are going into production later part of this year. They need the release. We're going to give them in September, October timeframe, but they've committed to us from a design perspective. And then there's a follow on generation of product in 21 when they really ramp hard. I've already have a signed contract with two while I'm working on the third. On the enterprise side, we're modeling ourselves after the top 200 HPE customers right now, so they normally align themselves around financial services, pharmaceuticals, transportation, sled. We're working through those customers. We have active POPs than many of them today. They're in our sales pipeline. We manage that relationship together. Generally HPE opens the door. We explain the technology to the technical team. They say they can see a place for us and they let us stand up a POP. And then we go from there. Excellent. So Randy, we reference the global pandemic going on right now. It's been a bit of a bifurcated model in the tech world. It's been definitely a tailwind somewhat from the cloud standpoint. There's many infrastructure pieces that have seen an immediate acceleration, things like work from home technology. So there's certain devices and certain deployments. And there's other things that of course, we put a pause button trying too much uncertainty out there. What are you seeing out in the market and how's that impacting? You as a relatively new start-up. So in general, your point is well taken. The cloud players are telling us their demand is up dramatically. And therefore the signal they're sending us is they want to accelerate deployment and it's likely it's going to be bigger than we had originally had estimated. So that's been great news for us. In the enterprise space, it's really very different. We're not suddenly a lot of product of Walmart or Gap or the retail space. They're struggling mightily. Any hotels, motels, carnival lines is not buying our product today. But if you look at the financials, if you look at the farmers, their demand's up quite a bit. They're both buying ahead a little bit to hedge their bets in the supply chain for a situation today.  The banks especially have seen it go up because their work from home has gone through the roof. So it's been a good opportunity for us to sort of seize the moment and demonstrate how we can be part of their new implementations and bring new services to them. Yeah, Randy, wondering if you can actually give us a little bit of that voice of the customer and what is the problem you're solving? Because we talked about there are certain immediate initiatives that companies need to take care of. Absolutely like today, security is more important than ever. When people are working from home, the bad actors actually are trying even harder to get involved there. We talked a little bit about clouds. So what is that itch that Pensando scratches and therefore how do you fit into the current land? Sure. You know with our customers today, there's similar problems and dissimilar problems between the cloud and the enterprise. The similar problems is that Pensando quickly solves things like East-West security inside of their environments or compute environments, which is difficult to do today. It's expensive and difficult to do today and we provide it pervasively at wire rate. So that's sort of an easy sell initially. Another one has been pretty easy for everyone to look at is observability and telemetry. Because where we're positioned in the compute space, we see every packet which provides us with a lot of knowledge about what's going on in their environment. So that's been a pretty easy initial sell. In the case of the enterprise customers, we can solve other pieces of their solution that are either expensive or introduced latency or management problems, whether it's firewall technology or load balancing technology or micro segmentation technology, all of which we can do inside of our blade. And today has done either through appliances or through virtual machines consuming CPUs. In the cloud space, we do all of that. Plus we allow them to download their own image into our devices today, which is pretty powerful. We have a lot of memory and we have a lot of capacity from an ARM corp perspective. And we allow them to pick and choose the features and functionalities they want and then run everything at wire speeds at much faster speeds. The enterprise is running 10, 25. The cloud partners are running 25, 50 going to 100 where we're even more compelling, we think. Randy, I want to get back to talk a little bit more about HPE. You spent a long time working at Cisco. For a good part of that, HPE was one of your bigger partners on that. So tell us what it's like working with HPE. Any compare contrast would be welcome. You know, it's interesting. So the cultural environment of HPE under Antonio Neri is very similar to what we saw at Cisco. And he and John have a phenomenal relationship. It's a very collegial environment. It's a very bright environment. They move quickly for a big business where it's vastly different. Is there a much tougher on the numbers side because they under much more margin pressure and competitive pressures that we ever had at Cisco? Just an all fairness to them. But if we look into the organization, like the executive that was assigned to our account from a sales perspective, used to work at Cisco. I think one or two of his guys used to work at Cisco. There's program management people that used to work at Cisco. There are people in engineering that came from Cisco. So it's an environment that's similar enough that it's easy enough for us to navigate. And we're connected sort of at all levels, which has really been useful. And we have a weekly standing dialogue across all the different functions. So we're pretty deeply embedded with HPE right now and it's gone very, very well. Yeah. You said that, even with the global pandemic right now, that Pensando is a bit ahead of where you expected shipments to be. I'm curious always when I talk to the CFO, how do you see macroeconomic impact of what is going on there? Any concerns on your end about supply chain, either for yourselves or for partners like HPE? How do you see what we're currently going through and the recovery future? So it's an interesting question.  There's just no way to get around it. I mean, we had the first breakdown where they closed the country of Malaysia and I just couldn't build final product. They literally just shut the place down. So it took us about 10 days to get ourselves up and running from a skeleton perspective. The government worked with us to let a small crew come into our manufacturing partner to get some finished goods out for one of our OEM customers. As we've come back up, we've seen lead times extend on some of the custom parts.  I think there's a little bit of an artificial demand that's driving the supply chain a little bit crazy right now because now people are panicked that what happens if it comes back? Will I get caught again? Can I get enough inventory to buffer myself for two weeks to three or four months being on how aggressive you want to be or a conservative you want to be in that space? And then I think as the supply chain trickles back online, you end up discovering that, yes, I can build final product and I can get the A6 in the memory, but now I want to buy some RS-232 devices. And it turns out that, sure, he's got them, but the magnetic that goes inside of it that comes from east, western China, they aren't quite up and running just yet. So we're seeing legacy problems, nothing catastrophic, nothing that's been painful. We've had to move some work around to get an incremental volume for ourselves. We've added fab vendors and a few other things. So it's really made us focus on second sourcing everywhere we can because we were, we thought we were small enough from a volume perspective, it wasn't that big a deal. We'll just get the second sourcing once we get the product market. That's heated back up when we're doing all that work now. So I think knock on wood. This is, our recovery has gone very well. We don't see any big problems in the supply chain.  So I think the big players, Cisco, HPE, and others, that it's gonna take them a longer time. I think they really see how this trickles all the way through, because you can't really get good visibility. How much safety stock or buffer stock does everybody have at every level of the chain? So if everybody pulls at once, do you run dry in a week a month? Is it fast enough to recover from production perspective? All those things I think are still not quite resolved yet. Yeah, just one other related aspect of the pandemic that I would love you to point on, work from home obviously is what everyone is doing right now. I'm curious if you think that, what the recovery looked like from that standpoint, is there anything from Pensando that makes you shift where you think about hiring it? I've been to the Cisco headquarters and it's a long street with a lot of buildings and a lot of people. And everybody's wondering, will that headquarters and centralized structure that we had before, is that forever changed? That's a great question. So it's for certain changed, I think until there's a therapeutic or a vaccine for the current COVID virus. So that's just a fact of life. And we've been comparing notes with a lot of other companies about what they're doing to bring the workers back who are comfortable and want to come back to work. Because even inside of Pensando, I've got some folks like this and I'm not comfortable coming back. I've got kids at home, I don't want to take the chance. That's fine, we don't have a problem with that. And quite frankly, we can make a case that in some of our functional areas, we're more productive than we were before the pandemic. In India specifically, this has been a boon for us because they're not getting on enough buses, they're not spending three or four hours trying to get back and forth to work. They're happy working from home. We're happy having them at home. The guy who runs India for us says, productivity's up and employee satisfaction couldn't be higher. Our plans now is we have to bring a small team back into our headquarters in Moffitas to bring up our new ASIC. So that's going to be 15 to 20 people and not all at one time. We're going to spread them out. We're already articulating what parts of the building can and can't be used, one-way hallways, masking, temperature taking, everything you would expect. The next phase for us is some sort of rotational work where we'll say we're going to bring 25% of the people in, 30% of the people in, you work a week, you're off for two, you work a week, you're off for two. Until we can get through the back of this thing, it's unlikely, it's almost impossible in my mind, we would bring back 100% of our employees into the building. Now, does that change the view long term? It's a great question because I think what it's forced us to do is to get more comfortable with remote work so that we can truly make it an option of any one employee in specific areas.  And I think it's pushed us to really learn to manage them more effectively with remoteness. And I think it provides us, at least with options going forward, when I hire the next 100, do I have to put them in a building someplace or do I just deal with them where they are and bring them into the fold? We've brought on dozens of people since the pandemic started and quite honestly, we onboard them, we train them and we mainstream them remotely and it's worked out great. Excellent, all right. Randy, let's bring it back to the HPE partnership for the final question. Sure. Tell us what we should be looking at through the rest of this year, what the general availability of this means to your business and the impact you expect to have on your customer. So from an HPE perspective, I think this is going to be great innovation that will bring it to the marketplace to their customer set. It allows them to, I think, separate themselves in the market, at least for some period of time. Until the other players get pulled along by the end users. The product has a pretty steep ramp, the front half and the back half of the year for us are dramatically different in terms of size and ramp and it really sets us up for a very large, we hope, fiscal 22, which for us will end in January 31st of 22. We're going to know, I mean, if we go GA in just a few weeks, we're going to get a sense so we can turn these pox into end customers. We're also going to see the ramp of the cloud customers in Q4. So I really feel like both for us and for HPE, the next three, four months, as we start getting back to some regularity of interacting with customers physically, not just remotely. And we see the early benefits and some of the early cost of ownership analysis on deployment of our technology, this could be dramatic for us and for them, quite honestly. All right, well, Randy Pahn, CFO of Pensando. Thanks so much. Really pleasure catching up with you and getting to discuss about how Pensando is helping to future-proof your enterprise. Thank you very much, it's my pleasure. Have a great day. All right, I'm Stu Miniman. Check out theCUBE.net for all our coverage. Thank you for watching theCUBE.