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Marc Graue, Burbank, Voice Over Studios, Fixinthemix.com, Auditioning, Directors, Callbacks, Producers, Recording Engineers, Voice Actors, Voices.com

Transcript of How To Get a Callback from an Audition

[Opening Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: Welcome to Voiceover Experts brought to you by Voices.com, the number one voiceover marketplace. Voiceover Experts brings you tips, pearls of wisdom and techniques from top instructors, authors and performers in the field of voiceover. Join us each week to discover tricks of the trade that will help you to develop your craft and prosper as a career voiceover talent. It's never been easier to learn, perform, and succeed from the privacy of your own home and your own pace. This is truly an education you won't find anywhere else.

Marc Graue: Hello my lovelies. This is Marc Graue owner of Marc Graue Voice Over Studios in Burban, California. Today, we're going to talk a little bit about auditioning and how that all works.

Now, here at out Burbank's studios, we have held auditions for everything from HBO's "Happily Ever After" cartoon series to the series that's currently running, "The Life and Times of Tim". We've had auditions for "Tutenstein", for "Jay Jay the Jet Plane". There's also a new series coming up, "The Pink Panther" and "The Anteater". We've been holding auditions for those. In fact, we've been around so long, we go back to the auditions for the original "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles".

So we thought we'd give you a little information on how the auditioning process works and how to nail it down so you can receive the magical "call back". Now, once you receive a call back, here in Los Angeles, normally the way the process works is the agent will receive the copy or sides along with the badly photocopied picture of whatever the character is you're doing. And you'll go over that a couple of times obviously to hone it down.

Here's the key though within audition. You don't want to work the copy too much and the reason is this. If you have, say a fat sleazy street rat and all of a sudden everybody's going to be doing the, "Hey, you want to get some cheese? Everything is one of them. And I'll making (indiscernible) let's getting down, you know. Hey, do you want to get some cheese? Life is really good. I love my cheese. I'm a fat rat."

That's great. However, what happens is, is you walk into the booth and they go, "No, we don't want that accent." And all in your brain goes, "(indiscernible) oh, boy." What happens if you work the copy too much is that your brain becomes so accustomed to them. I want to pause in here or a little bit of smile here, a pause there. All of a sudden you're going to choke if that's not what they're looking for.

The key to nailing down and audition is to be thinking on your feet. Now we've had directors that the direction is gone everywhere from, "Perfect! I love the size of him. Now, make it sweatier." So you keep it cool, con face and look at him and go, "Yeah, yeah. Sweatier." Even though your brain is going, "What the hell does that mean?"

Our job as voice actors is to go, "Oh, sweatier! Sure!" And try, anyway to give them a sweaty read. But again, try and come as close as possible to a sweaty read. The one thing you do not want to do is look at the director and go, "I don't understand what you're saying. Sweatier? That makes no sense at all. The way this character is written, he wouldn't be sweatier."

You have to try and give them a read as close as possible to what it is they're looking for. I remember auditioning for the voice of a troll and the direction was that to perfect. Now make it more like a babbling brook. Well, our job is to interpret that and try and think it as close as possible to a babbling brook. Now, if you're auditioning at home, you don't have the luxury obviously of having a director or producer telling you what they want. The upside to having the studio at home is that you can do 5,472 tapes of something. The downside is you can do 5,472 tapes or something and still not be happy with what you're doing.

Don't scrutinize too much. You have to understand that people have a tendency to go over copy and to work and then make sure they get the subtleties and et cetera. The reality is, in a studio situation, you'll walk in the room, Mr. Clock is ticking, let's get on with it. You don't spend that much time on it. If you're on your own and you're using basically self-direction, what you're going to want to do is try and give them a take as close as possible to what the description is even though that many times as we know that's a cross purposes.

And then what you want to do is give them a second take that's way, way out here. It's two takes and don't give them anymore than that because you're not going to listen to it. Ideally, if you're covering both ends of the spectrum somewhere in between there. They're going to hear something that could possibly get you that call back. With animation auditions, you need to be able to think on your feet. Just because you do silly voices doesn't mean that you're doing a lot of animation voices.

Meaning this, a lot of the time you will walk in and they'll say, "I love what you're doing with that character and now I'm making about five years younger and not quite a sinister and be sure and drop the accent. And you need to be able to go, "OK. Great." Not the daring the headlights look with, "Can I come back to this date?"

The bottom line within an audition is in essence the planets are aligning for that 10 or 15 second moment that you're going to do that audition. So you need to have your A-game right up there at the front. Don't get shook about it. Again, at home, it's one of those things that you can go over and over and over but what happens is sometimes you can scrutinize the copy too much and it comes off as very, very stilted. If you're doing a pirate voice, "Give them a pirate voice. What 's the matter with you, boy? And that's as far as you need to go." That's it.

So when they hear that, sitting in the stack of 50 other voices, they go, "Gee, that's really interesting. Let's flag that one." Any time you're doing a character, visualize what it is you're doing. If you're doing an old man, "Then all of a sudden, give him an old and that's ..." While I'm doing that, I'm actually hunched over my eyes, I'll scrunched up and I'll look kind of retarded like I'm having a seizure. That's fine because nobody during the session cares what you look like.

The bottom line is, what it sounds like? Whatever it takes for you to get into that character, that's what you want to do. Is it acting? Absolutely. It's not just doing voices, you need to become that character. And in order to do that, you may be more comfortable taking an acting class. I've had people come in for auditions and go, "Oh, boy. I can't really dive. I'm kind of embarrassed to do the (hut)."
Don't be. And if you have that kind of an attitude, I guarantee a boom! You're going to be out of there instantly.

It's not simply a matter of voice quality, it's a matter of the subtleties within that voice. Is he grittier? Is he more hard core? Is this guy very ornery? Is he very stern? Is he a little bit older? Is he an authority figure? Is he more low-key? Is he very dark? These are all things that come into play and when you do that voice, as these all come into play, this is what's going to make your auditions stand out from all the rest.

Now the A-list VO, guys here in Los Angeles and we're talking about Rob Paulsen, Tress MacNeille, Jim Cummings, Jeff Bennett, Dee Bradley Baker, Joe Alaskey, Bob Bergen. These guys have mastered the art of knowing exactly how to interpret what a director is asking them to do.

A great example is, doing the voice of a big fat pig, all right. Start out with the big fat pig. Now, we need to make him a little more effeminate. OK, good. No, he needs to be larger than that, make this a 700 pound pig but now I want him to sound stupid.

These are all of the kind of things that will come into play and you need to be able to do that on the spot. When you've mastered that, that's when you're going to start finding the phone is going to be ringing a lot because people like what you're doing. As a voice person, what you want to become is a journeyman voice actor. Meaning that whatever comes up, "Sure man. I'm there and I'll do it" Now, that's not to say that we all do everything. I love it when people come in and go, "What do you do?" "Everything."

Well, nobody with the exception of maybe Frank Welker does everything. You do what you do but take that portion of what you do and make sure you do it better than anyone else does. Grab that copy, bring to it your sensibility, your timing, your comedy abilities and I guarantee you, you're going to be getting more call backs and you're going to start booking some jobs.

As my dear friend, Rob Paulsen says, "How serious can we be? We're all getting paid a lot of money for stuff we got in trouble for in the 7th grade." It's true. What a great job. If you like more information, you can reach me at 818-953-8991. I'd be more than happy to talk to you or you can check out our website at (fixinthenix.com). Thanks a lot.

Julie-Ann Dean: Thank you for joining us. To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com podcast, visit the Voiceover Experts show notes at Podcasts.Voices.com/VoiceoverExperts. Remember to stay subscribed.

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Links from today's show:

Marc Graue Voice Over Recording Studios

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Marc Graue

Marc Graue is the owner of the legendary Marc Graue Voice Over Studios, a Burbank California landmark for more than 25 years. His client list reads like a who's who of the voice over business including the Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, HBO, Disney, Warner Bros., Dreamworks, Showtime, MTV, Discovery Channel, ABC, CBS, NBC, HGTV, Activision, Electronic Arts, THQ and many more can be found in the studios daily. As a producer, Marc's voice over demo clients include: EG Daily (Rugrats / Babe), Yeardley Smith (The Simpsons), John Dimaggio (Futurama / Kim Possible), Randy Thomas (Academy Awards / Entertainment Tonight), Brian Baumgartner (The Office) and 100s more!

As a voice over artist Marc has been represented by William-Morris in Beverly Hills for the last 12 years and can be heard on Avatar-The Last Air Bender, Veggie Tales, Code Name: Kids Next Door, Warcraft, Spiderman 3 the Video Game, Ratchett & Clank, GUN, Gothic 3 and on countless trailers and promos.

Enjoyed Marc's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!