Bettye Zoller : Finding Voice Over Inspiration in Supermarkets
Links from today's show:
VoicesVoices.com
Bettye Zoller Voices.com Website
COMMERCIAL$PEAK
Your Instructor this week:
Voice Over Expert Bettye Zoller
34 years as a respected university and private educator in voice, speech, theatre, radio-TV, and voiceover techniques along with her award-winning career in voiceovers and jingles has won Bettye Zoller an international reputation that brings clients and students to her workshops and to work in her Dallas recording studio (she's an accomplished audio engineer/producer) from all over the globe! She is educated through the doctorate (from Missouri University, University of Texas at Dallas, University of North Texas) with faculty positions in the past at Southern Methodist University, University of Texas at Arlington, Dallas County Colleges. She has also studied with famed NYC acting coach Uta Hagen, in Chicago at the "Second City School" and her career began long ago at Metro Goldwyn Mayer's Hollywood studio school (as a child performer signed to MGM).
Her voiceover credits number in the many hundreds (she's never counted!) and range from voiceovers and jingles for national TV commercials to audio books to cartoons, from toys to podcasts to anime. You've heard her for decades worldwide! Clients have included American Airlines,Pepsi, Visa, Lifetime TV Channel, The Weather Channel, Pace Picante Sauce, Lionel Trains, Texas Instruments Talking Toys, Seven Seas Dressings, Pedialyte Vitamins, promos for ABC, NBC, and BBC America. She is a Simon and Schuster audio book author, narrator, and producer. She has won ADDYS, CLIOS, GOLDEN RADIOS, and AUDIE awards over the years. She is the author of eleven audio titles sold worldwide and continues to produce new titles annually. She is known for teaching voiceover techniques including audio book narration and production, and her BUSINESS OF VOICEOVERS workshops are legendary with students who credit her with starting them in their lucrative voiceover careers!
Bettye, with four top male announcers, has written and produced a wonderful CD program entitled "COMMERCIAL$PEAK" featuring interviews and sections announced by guests and male announcers of reputation. The foreword is by Dick Orkin of Hollywood Radio Ranch, a man who is well known in the U.S. as a commercial creator producer as well as Voice Over performer and teacher.
Check out COMMERCIAL$PEAK at Bettye's website.
Enjoyed Bettye's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!
She began as a singer and actor, opening act for the legend, Tony Bennett, touring America with her show group and releasing hit records as an RCA artist and songwriter produced by the late Chet Atkins. Voiceovers entered her life by accident when another jingle singer mentioned her work in the voiceover area. The rest is history! She served as Creative Director of several major production houses in the past, which she credits with "making me the audio engineer and producer that I am today. I sat beside some of the greatest audio pros in our business and learned from them." Now, her Dallas recording studio is constantly busy cranking out voiceover demos, commercial projects, audio books, and more! "I'm like the shoemaker's daughter...some days I can't find a minute to voice the projects I'm supposed to do myself... I'm wall-to-wall with studio clients! But I love it."
She continues to teach "mass media singers" in her Dallas studio and periodically gives "studio singing workshops" too. "I can't let singing go away...it was my total life and I'm an excellent coach who knows the business!" But her voiceover career has really taken "over" full time in the past decade or so. "Voiceovers know no age and that's a big plus. Singing tends to favor the very young...been there, done that."
"The 'Internet revolution' like this excellent resource, Voices.com, is what's new, what's fresh, and what's happening! Voiceover work worldwide is better than ever before and growing exponentially!" We're fortunate to be able to make this kind of fabulous money without ever leaving home (except when I travel to teach elsewhere by invitation!).
"Always check out my homepage on my website VoicesVoices.com to see where and when I'm teaching. And if you want to come to Dallas to work with me, I always help with travel facts and sometimes even have my staff pick you up at your hotel or whatever we can do to ease your travel."
With her husband, a professional bassist with major music credits worldwide, and her Chow dog "Sammy," she loves travel and teaching in other cities. "I love the new sights, meeting new people, learning new things." Her two adult sons live in NYC and Switzerland with great careers in journalism and computers. She has three young grandchildren."They still are babies, but I'm going to try to get them into showbiz... it's my life."
She teaches several university guest professor appointments next Fall and will do workshops again in Dallas and elsewhere. She's always happy to speak with you via phone or email!
