As a voice over performer, is it possible to consider yourself an overpaid, glorified sound effect? Join voice over expert Pat Fraley and learn more about how your voice serves as the foundation and how sound effects bring your performance to another level in conjunction with music, giving your read even greater environmental and emotional context within a scene.

Download Podcast Episode 112 »

Links from today's show:

Pat Fraley
Pat Fraley Free Lessons

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley

Patrick Fraley has created voices for over 4,000 characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animation. He has produced dozens of award-winning audiobooks, such as, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Very Easy Death, and The Light in The Piazza. Pat produced and performed all 100 voices on the award winning audiobook, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which People Magazine hailed as, "The best yet of this evergreen." Patrick teaches events, workshops, and seminars on various aspects of voice over across the country, and has created a variety of instructional books and CDs, all available at PatFraley.com. He is a member of The Voice and Speech Trainers of America, and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Professional Acting from Cornell University.

Any comments for Pat? Add a comment below!

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Join Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley in his podcast, "Accuracy VS Authenticity." There is a marked and important difference between an accent that is accurate and one that is authentic. Being accurate means that something is free from error, especially due to care, and conforming exactly to truth or to a standard. Accuracy, with dialect, will never get to you where you need to go... you must achieve authenticity! Authenticity has to do with being worthy of acceptance or belief as it is based upon fact. A truly authentic dialect has more to it than learning and delivering the words. We must never forget that our objective is to present a dialect for an effect during a performance. Learn how you can quickly go from generic to standard to authentic.

Download Podcast Episode 103 »

Transcript of Accents and Dialects: Accuracy VS Authenticity

[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.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present Pat Fraley.

Pat Fraley: Hi. This is Pat Fraley with a brief lesson on dialects. Recently, I completed instructional materials on my system for creating dialects for the rapid pace world of voiceover called Accent On Dialects. In this lesson, I want to address the difference between an accurate dialect and one with smacks of authenticity. Here's a clip from my Accent On Dialects project that addresses the difference.

Know that there is a mark and important difference between an accent which is accurate and one that is authentic. Being accurate means something is free from error especially duty care and conforming exactly to truth or to a standard. Accuracy with dialect will never get you to where you need to go. Yes, there are rules to sound changes and lilts which must be addressed but beyond this, we must move towards authenticity. Authenticity has to do with being worthy of acceptance or belief as it is based on fact. Authenticity by definition is much more reality-bound.

Here's something I've heard on occasion with regard to dialect work. You're ready to do a dialect when you can fully local. Whenever I hear this comment and I've heard it throughout my career, I bristle. As I mentioned previously, I began my career in Australia. With rare exceptions, I had to put on a British accent or an Australian accent. I wasn't the king of accuracy nor authenticity. I did have the essentials down and tried it out the techniques, skills, and tricks we are covering to advance towards an authentic customized accent. What is an authentic dialect? Here's what it's not. Learning every sound change and lilts for the dialect and delivering it word sound perfect, perfectly accurate. A truly authentic dialect has more to it than learning and delivering the words. We must never forget that our objective is to present a dialect for an effect in performance. It's a parlor trick.

After you gather essential sound changes, a couple of lilts with observations, you need some simple fast research from authentic sources to customize your accent and go from generic or standard to authentic. For example with German, I have heard this kind of lilt dipping in Germans and Americans in sketches and in movies over the years. I'm overdoing it obviously. Is it authentic? Here's how I check and how I use this lilt to add authenticity to my German accent. Again, this is a cut from Accent on Dialects.

Here's an authentic way. I make my essential German more comedic or less rigid. I add a Southern German or Austrian lilt. It's not exactly a lilt and as much as it's not a phrase like our other lilts. It just kind of dips in pitch like this every so often. Is it authentic? Or listen to this brief snippet from a radio broadcast in Austria and listen for this kind of dip and pitch every so often.

Do you hear that dip in pitch? I'll play that phrase from the broadcast three times in a row for you.

That is the dip I use. To me it sounds kind of apologetic and sometimes a little bit condescending to just playing snotty. This is the way musician and voiceover talent, Gavin Hammond uses it on his character demo. I produced his demo and he had this one character he based on a real person he met while on tour with his band in Germany. Here's the brief cut from his demo.

Gavin Hammond: [Indiscernible] [0:04:42] your band and I found the whole experience to be completely tiresome. Your hooks as they do not hook anything.

Pat Fraley: Now that's snotty and funny. Another benefit to adding a wee bit of that Austrian or Munich lilting action is it makes the German accent less rigid. By less rigid, I mean less terse or less Nazi as producers and directors will say. When I hear this, I just add a little bit of the Southern German lilt and it takes the edge off. In geographical terms, you're taking the German accent from Berlin down to Munich.

Now that took me not hours but minutes. My authentic research by the way was found in minutes by Googling the word German followed by the word radio. I immediately found dozens of radio stations all over Germany and Austria which stream live. I find it of great value to listen and imitate the sound of a foreign language to get the music. It trains my mouth and tongue to do the dance I will be performing in English. Also I hear examples I can pick up and use for other handy authentic flourishes. With voiceover, we want a job not a hobby. We don't have months and days. We have hours and minutes. If you'd like to advance your dialect and accent abilities rapidly and have an interest in getting them really authentic, consider going to my website PatFraley.com. You'll find my instructional materials there. Look for my 2-CD set and workbook titled Accent On Dialects.

[Language][0:06:24]

Julie-Ann Dean: 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. If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Links from today's show:

Pat Fraley
Pat Fraley Free Lessons

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley

Patrick Fraley has created voices for over 4,000 characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animation. He has produced dozens of award-winning audiobooks, such as, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Very Easy Death, and The Light in The Piazza. Pat produced and performed all 100 voices on the award winning audiobook, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which People Magazine hailed as, "The best yet of this evergreen." Patrick teaches events, workshops, and seminars on various aspects of voice over across the country, and has created a variety of instructional books and CDs, all available at PatFraley.com. He is a member of The Voice and Speech Trainers of America, and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Professional Acting from Cornell University.

Did you enjoy Pat's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

---

Join Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley in his podcast lesson, "Anatomy of a Character Voice Demo." Hear the process of an actual character voice over demo being produced including the selection and creation of evocative characters, appropriate music, and doing what's needful in a timely way.

Download Podcast Episode 98 »

Transcript of Anatomy of a Character Voice Demo

[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 has 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.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present Pat Fraley.

Pat Fraley: Hi. This is Pat Fraley and this is kind of an anatomy of a character voice demo. The talent by the way is Pamela Chollet. Our goal was to produce a character voice or animation demo comprising of about a dozen evocative, unique and developed characters.

The first step was to have Pamela start recording her characters at home and one by one, send them to me via e-mail in MP3 files. She would slate in character in record. I told her not to worry about being clever. We'll deal with scene and dialog later. I would listen to her efforts and e-mail her notes on adjusting the characters. I would give her notes on the various characters hopefully to advance her efforts. Sometimes, the characters were not evocative enough. They were characters that I had kind of heard before and they needed to be her own swing on them making them more unique.

Sometimes, the characters lack development and as much as they weren't motivated and the acting was weak or they didn't have an agenda meaning a pervasive condition or agenda like fame, attention, being naïve. I guess it averaged out to be about two exchanges on each character.

Here's a recording of what she did at home on a character she named Fontaine Belford, an aging actress.

Pamela Chollet: Darling, it's Fontaine, Fontaine Belford. And I'm about to give you the greatest single audition ever given anywhere by anyone. Your emotions will go up, down, in, out and beyond with my stunning array of incredibly perfect choices. I will weep, dance, love and walk as every man and as no man. Acting, above acting. Fission, baby. Fission! I will flare. I will sear. I will be on fire. Line.

Pat Fraley: After she accumulated her 15 to 18 characters, it came time to write the scene or dialog piece. This is a critical stage. Eighty percent of all character work for animation is comedy-driven. So we had to be funny, very funny, not just cute or humorous. Like one of my mentors Bob Holt used to tell me, it's not good enough to make them laugh. You got to make them bleed from the ear.

Most often, the demos I hear are just not funny. They're on the way to funny but they're not and part of the importance of writing is selecting a location or the perfect location in situation for the character, the perfect scene and focus on whom the character is speaking to. They had to be brief so we could end up with about a dozen characters in a one-minute plus demo. When we were close to the dialog we wanted, we went to the studio and started recording. Really, we only recorded a few of the characters because the MP3 she sent me were so clean and she's very clever, which is unusual. And so, she was coming up with funny lines that we could use. That was out of the ordinary. By the time we had accumulated the characters, we were in a position also to see an emerging style to them.

With Pamela's unique low, dusty voice and her sort of bent sense of humor, it was a no-brainer to focus on those characters she did best and where she would be hired, femme fatales, old broads, quirky characters and a couple that were totally outside that range to show the potential of range. For the character Fontaine, we decided we would use that as the first character on her demo and be responding to the announcer who slates her name.

I like the sound of an upper class Brit introducing character voice demos. The contrast between stuffy and silly works well to my ear. I was tapped to do the announcer for her like this.

Pamela Chollet.

We recorded her line in the studio. Here's how I directed her.

What you want to do is back off the mic and, "No," like you - and I go, "Pamela Chollet!" Right? "Pamela Chollet" And you go, "No, just Pamela. Like Cher!" Like you have the idea about Cher before you say it and then I want you to do it once where you go, "No. Pamela! Like Cher." That's when it comes to - you know what I mean? Two different way - I think - just give me a one two three.

Pamela Chollet: No, just Pamela, like Cher. No! Just Pamela, like Cher! No, just Pamela! Like Cher.

Pat Fraley: Give me, "Like Cher," a couple of those.

Pamela Chollet: Like Cher! Like Cher. Like Cher.

Pat Fraley: Very good. I was on the button.

Pamela Chollet: Like Cher.

Pat Fraley: After editing the lines, these are the raw takes married.

Pamela Chollet.

Pamela Chollet: No! Just Pamela! Like Cher.

Pat Fraley: Now, it was a matter of music and sound effects. I wanted old school, corny acting music. I found this.

[Music plays]

Pat Fraley: Then, just as a concept really, we liked the idea of placing her in a stuffy apartment with a nasty little rat dog in her lap. Here's the dog.

[Dog barks]

Pat Fraley: Here's the mixed snippet.

[Music plays]

Pat Fraley: Pamela Chollet.

Pamela Chollet: No! Just Pamela! Like Cher.

[Dog barks]

Pat Fraley: We repeated this process for the rest of the demo. I decided in post-production to put some characters on the phone, some with music behind them, some dry without sound effects, some with sound effects to place them in an actual scene. Here's the final result.

[Music plays]

Pat Fraley: Pamela Chollet.

Pamela Chollet: No! Just Pamela! Like Cher!

[Dog barks]

It's Mary. Just Mary.

I guess that's when he hit me. When I woke up, he was running my head through the check-out then trying to get a price on me.

The hounds are nipping at our heels. But tonight, we dance.

[Music plays]

And all I remember after that was seeing my ten pudgy fingers pulling and twisting and gouging out the candies and just shoving them in my mouth.

Did that hurt? Oh, blood. Eek! I may have to sit down and put my head between my knees.

And welcome back to our show. The show that is all about you.

Let me tell you. There's more laughs than computers and machines.

I am big. It's the microphones that got small. [laughs]

Pat Fraley: Know that all performers have a different journey on their demo. Some have more characters available to begin with. Some need more time accumulating their list. Some are more facile with coming up with comedic lines. Some need guidance in establishing their style. It's all a matter of doing what's needful in a timely way. I hope you found this helpful. And thanks for listening.

Julie-Ann Dean: 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.

If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: This has been a Voices.com production.

Links from today's show:

Pat Fraley
Pat Fraley Free Lessons

Voice Talent Pamela Chollet

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley

Patrick Fraley has created voices for over 4,000 characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animation. He has produced dozens of award-winning audiobooks, such as, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Very Easy Death, and The Light in The Piazza. Pat produced and performed all 100 voices on the award winning audiobook, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which People Magazine hailed as, "The best yet of this evergreen." Patrick teaches events, workshops, and seminars on various aspects of voice over across the country, and has created a variety of instructional books and CDs, all available at PatFraley.com. He is a member of The Voice and Speech Trainers of America, and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Professional Acting from Cornell University.

Did you enjoy Pat's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

---

Join Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley in his lesson on "Voice Over Improvisation Skills". Improv is spontaneous writing, and for voice talent, it's spontaneous rewriting! Of the nine critical skills of voice over, improvisation is the most misused and at the same time the most underused voice over skill. Learn more about a topic that is shrouded in mystery and controversy with master teacher, Patrick Fraley.

Download Podcast Episode 92 »

Tags:

Improv, improvisation, Pat Fraley, Patrick Fraley, voice acting, voice over, voice talent, voiceovers

Transcript of Voice Over Improvisation Skills

[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 has 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.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present Pat Fraley.

Male: Doctor, doctor, we need help.

Pat Fraley: Diagnosis?

Male: Lethargic copy, humor is low, 75-second line count and we just can't get it down to 60.

Pat Fraley: Analysis on text checked?

Male: Yes.

Pat Fraley: Acting injection?

Male: Yes.

Pat Fraley: Character, accents done?

Male: Yes.

Pat Fraley: Mic tech?

Male: Yes.

Pat Fraley: Reading and voice?

Male: Yes.

Pat Fraley: Energy level.

Male: No response. We're losing it. What do we do?

Pat Fraley: Stand back. Time for E.R. improv. Paddles, clear. We're back in business.

Male: Thank you. Thank you so much, doctor.

Pat Fraley: Hi, this is Pat Fraley with a lesson on voiceover improvisation skills. First, let me establish a working definition of improv or improvisation. It's spontaneous writing and for many of the genres of voiceover, it's spontaneous rewriting. Of the nine critical skills to voiceover, acting, reading and voice, relaxation, character and accents, energy, microphone technique, business, sense of scene and text analysis, improvisation is the most misused and at the same time, underused skill of them all. It's shrouded in controversy. Half of the voiceover instructors and casting people advise talent not to even bother even on auditions. And very few, if any instructors, teach how it specifically is applied to the various genres of voiceover.

So why the confusion? Let's first look at the misused problem. And I'm applying this to commercials right now. Many voiceover talents misuse and misapply improv to commercials for a couple of reasons. First, to make the spot funnier and somehow draw attention to their comedic abilities or to make themselves comfortable with their performance. Both of these applications are generally wrong and folly.

First, comedy is not king with regard to commercials. Humor is. There's a critical difference. The objective of comedy is to amuse. If you look back to the word roots of amuse, you'll get to not think. Advertisers want people to remember their product or service. How many times have you seen a commercial which is so funny you can't remember the product or service?

Now, the objective of humor is to emotionally connect the audience or listener with an experience. When a message is connected with emotion, the memory recall of the message goes way up. Humor is the glue between message and memory. Making a line or word in the commercial funnier can adversely affect the commercial. Of course, there are exceptions. Remember there are no rules, only notions.

The second way the performer misuses improvisation is to make them selves more comfortable with the language. They read a sentence. It's awkward so they rewrite it or they sense the copy needs to be more real so they put in a lot of 'ahems' and 'huhs' or some, 'you know'. This is simply using one's skill, improvisation, to cover the lack of another, acting. A performer's job is to take text, script or copy and breathe life into it. Some of the copy we get is horrid. It's a challenge. Hey, so is Shakespeare. Get over it. Get more training.

You know, copywriter have the right things that make their skin crawl because clients are involved and marketing. You know, the marketing people come with a list of words to some copywriters like zesty or scrumptious that must appear in the copy. That's their burden. The talent's burden is to say them in a way that makes them work. Now that's two of the most common misuses of improv.

Now, a couple of thoughts on how improv is underused. It's underused because agents and casting people have heard it misused so much. They get a middle management mentality. No improv, stick to the script. Same with dialects by the way. The talent gets a fear of improv mentality when in fact, rewriting or improv may be the only way to make the commercial work. You can only fix bad or unclear copy with acting to a certain point. Sometimes, rewriting a line, a phrase, untwisting a sentence especially when it sets up the whole premise of a spot is needful. Your improv should be solely guided by this. What needs clarification? Is the story unclear? Is my character unclear? Is the scene unclear? This questions kick in when you've exhausted your efforts with fixing it with your other skills particularly with acting.

Now, a couple of tips on improv for commercials. Look for the word "approved" on the copy. If you find it somewhere in the masthead, forget about improv. Also, if you find a note on the copy that gives you the impression it has gone through a lot of revisions, forget improv. Another tip, try to resist the arbitrary, funny adlib at the end of a spot. If the copywriter had 65 seconds, he or she would have written it. If you really must improv a line or phrase, say in an audition, do it at the top of the spot. At least there, it will make your audition sound a little different from others.

Now, thus far, I've been referencing the voiceover genre of commercials for improv application. A couple of other genres, animation tracks. In many shows, comedy is in fact king and if you can make it funnier, go ahead. Improv. On auditions and in shows, TV copy versus radio, less on TV. They have a bigger budget than radio and they get more attention from the copyrighter. Interactive gaming, very little, primarily because you have no time. I only request to change a line for clarity or wrong grammar depending on the appropriate education and knowledge of the character. Audiobooks? Zero. Finally, improv doesn't have to happen in the booth. If improv is spontaneous writing, that can happen as you prepare to audition or perform.

John Cleese, the television and film actor, veteran of the comedic group Monty Python and Fawlty Towers was once in the recording booth when an engineer asked him if he were ready to read. John Cleese replied, "Not just yet. I haven't finished writing down my adlibs." Believe me, it's a whole lot easier to be spontaneous in the lobby than to add it to all the other pressures in front of the microphone. If I've opened up a can of interest [Phonetic] [0:07:22] and you would like to get some personal attention on improv skills, just go to my website, find my teaching schedule and you'll have access to more information and the way to enroll. Thanks for listening.

Male: Doctor, we're losing it again.

Pat Fraley: Oh, dear. I must have missed a verb. Come on. Come on.
Julie-Ann Dean: 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.
If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: This has been a Voices.com production.

Links from today's show:

Pat Fraley
Pat Fraley Free Lessons

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley

Patrick Fraley has created voices for over 4,000 characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animation. He has produced dozens of award-winning audiobooks, such as, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Very Easy Death, and The Light in The Piazza. Pat produced and performed all 100 voices on the award winning audiobook, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which People Magazine hailed as, "The best yet of this evergreen." Patrick teaches events, workshops, and seminars on various aspects of voice over across the country, and has created a variety of instructional books and CDs, all available at PatFraley.com. He is a member of The Voice and Speech Trainers of America, and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Professional Acting from Cornell University.

Did you enjoy Pat's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

---

Join Voice Over Expert and award-winning teacher, Pat Fraley, in his lecture, "The Critical Compound".  Pat explains how the three performance elements, which are character voice, acting, and accents, work together to create a compound. When studying these elements, it is of critical importance that you break them down individually before you put them back together again in your performance.  Learn how to develop each element, give your read subtext, and emotion by applying these skills to any script.

Download Podcast Episode 88 »

Tags

Accents, Acting, Cartoon Voices, Character Voices, Hillary Huber, Pat Fraley, Voice Acting

Transcript of Coloring Our Words

[Opening Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: Welcome to Voice over Experts brought to you by Voices.com, the number one voice over marketplace. Voice over Experts brings you tips, pearls of wisdom and techniques from top instructors, authors and performers in the field of voice over. Join us each week to discover tricks of the trade that will help you to develop your craft and prosper as a career voice over talent. It has 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.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present Pat Fraley.

Pat Fraley: Hi. This is Pat Fraley with a brief lesson on the performance elements of character voice, acting, and accents and the importance of always performing them as a single compound. Yes, these three critical elements create a compound. To study them, we must break this compound back down to the separate elements. It's necessary. But further study must address how to put them back together again as we must not be tempted to perform them separately.

Let me demonstrate this. I can do a passable Scottish accent but when it's devoid of character and acting, it's a mere show. And I allow the listening audience to focus on the inevitable inaccuracies of sound changes and the lack of proper lutes. So, say I have a character who I have that's a sad sort of fellow and I marry these two elements, character and accent. Now I've got some substance underneath. Now I add the acting to this character I call Ian whose objective now is to gain sympathy by playing the actions to commiserate or to share. Now, I've got something that's integral.

So now, the three elements of accent, character and acting are compounded. By the way, one of the ways I use this character has nothing to do with making money. It has to do with annoying my friend and colleague Hillary Huber. I love to take her favorite songs, record them with my most annoying characters and thereby, ruin the songs for her forever. Here's a clip from what used to be one of her favorite songs until she heard Ian sing the lead.

Pat Fraley: [sings] Little darling, it has been a long, cold lonely weekend. Little darling, it feels like years since it has been here.

Ah, the joys of being really bad. One of the most important challenges of studying accent, character and acting as voice over performers is that we have little time to create at the work site. We work in minutes and hours, not days and months. For characters and accents, I found that creating accents and characters in advance of jobs and adjusting or adapting them to the specific needs of the script, an invaluable way working.

This way of working allows me to focus on the third element of the compound, that being acting. Here's an example from an animation track recording session for a series called Mr. Baby. I was a guest on the show. As with many animation track recording sessions, we had no rehearsal but worked on the fly. So, as it happens with guest performers, we got to the point in the script where I come in with my character. It was a scene on the Senate House floor and in my script, the character I was to perform was simply called senator. You'll hear the director Jack Fletcher give me a suggestion as to what character to do and me respond. By the way, that's Charlie Adler who is in the cast cackling at me in the background.

What should I do on this one?

Charlie Adler: [laughs]

Jack Fletcher: You know, Strom Thurmond.

Pat Fraley: Like old Strom Thurmond?

Jack Fletcher: Yes.

Pat Fraley: Okay.

Female: 43 and forward, take 13.

Pat Fraley: All those in favor of changing the age limit of the presidency from 35 years to 18 months, say aye.

Participants: Aye.

Pat Fraley: Now, how could I magically come up with the old Southern senator, an infamous racist Strom Thurmond from South Carolina on the spot? I didn't. I used my old geezer character I created and polished years ago and carry around in my back pocket. It's a character I know that is evocative, unique and I could perform in my sleep. Then, I slapped a slight Southern accent on him. This is an accent I've done for years.

So, two of my three elements are together, the accent and character, allowing me to focus on the acting and the scene. Now, in the continuation of the Mr. Baby clip, you'll hear the real advantage to this way of working. You'll hear Charlie Adler come in late on his line, which was the word "nay". Being the fearless pro and silly guy Charlie is, he just launches into a response that ends with a kind of weird cha, cha, cha, cha. Here's what happened.

Participants: Aye!

Pat Fraley: All those opposed.

Charlie Adler: Cha cha.

Pat Fraley: The ayes have it over the cha-chas.

[Laughter]

Jack Fletcher: We made noise after Charlie's 47 but Pat, please use your adlib there.

Pat Fraley: Okay.

Jack Fletcher: I'm going to force them to use it.

Charlie Adler: [laughs] Yes, we force them ...

Pat Fraley: Does he have to do his cha-chas again or is he okay?

Jack Fletcher: He's fine.

Pat Fraley: Now, if I had to concentrate on a new character and a new accent, I would not have had the presence of mind just to play the scene and respond to Charlie's delightful mistake with my ad lib. You can understand how pulling the compound apart, working on the elements of accent, character and acting is necessary but also, learning how to put them back together again as a compound is critical for performance. This is something I want to address this year and why I've created the Great Character and Accent Event. For information and to enroll, just go to my website, PatFraley.com and find my teaching schedule. Thanks for listening.

Jack Fletcher: Please get - you're channeling Katharine Hepburn a little bit.

Pat Fraley: Well, well, well, I ...

Charlie Adler: [laughs]

Julie Ann-Dean: To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com podcast, visit the Voice over Experts show notes at Podcasts.Voices.com/Voice overExperts. Remember to stay subscribed.

If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voice over career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: This has been a Voices.com production.

Links from today's show:

Pat Fraley
Pat Fraley Free Lessons

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley

Patrick Fraley has created voices for over 4,000 characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animation. He has produced dozens of award-winning audiobooks, such as, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Very Easy Death, and The Light in The Piazza. Pat produced and performed all 100 voices on the award winning audiobook, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which People Magazine hailed as, "The best yet of this evergreen." Patrick teaches events, workshops, and seminars on various aspects of voice over across the country, and has created a variety of instructional books and CDs, all available at PatFraley.com. He is a member of The Voice and Speech Trainers of America, and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Professional Acting from Cornell University.

Did you enjoy Pat's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

---

Join Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley in his podcast "Doing Voice Over for Free". Pat's 10 minute lesson highlights the personal and promotional value of creating voice over messages, sketches, songs, and parody spots for free.

Download Podcast Episode 79 »

Tags

Patrick Fraley, Pat Fraley, Voice Over, Jobs, Clients

Transcript of Doing Voice Over for Free

[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.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present Pat Fraley.

Pat Fraley: Hi. This is Pat Fraley with a brief lesson on the value of doing voiceover for free. That's right. Circling back and embracing your amateur status. Amateur? What I mean is doing voiceover projects that are not intended to be sold. It's a wonderful way of promoting your abilities. I'll get to that but for right now when you think about, there was no amateur tradition for voiceover. Acting, yes. Film, video, radio but not voiceover.

Voiceover was delivered into the world when film found sound. It hit the floor chasing a buck from the (Getgo). Personally, I had a rather unique journey toward voiceover which started when I was 12. I conned my dad into getting me real reel-to-reel tape recorder in 1961. I told him it would help my studies. I didn't tell him I would be studying how to do funny voices. I kept this delight in my heart for years. When I entered the voiceover arena a decade later, I went back to it. As a hobby, I continued to create sketches, monologues, and songs and share them with friends and producers.

To my delight, I found that it was a better way to share my vocal wares than any other means, certainly better than postcards. Showing off your vocal abilities by sending a producer printed messages like a carpet salesman selling his wares with a vacuum. They're related but sort of. I even found that sending out amusing audio pieces work better than a demo. In my green years in 1976, I started a tradition of doing something around the holidays to amuse friends, families, and producers like this:

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose ...

I remember once, I sent a fake commercial about my voices to producers, even got in trouble with the union.

Yes, it's Pat Fraley (dollar rama) days and for a limited time, if you hire Pat Fraley to do his Franklin Roosevelt and Tonto in the same spot, he will pay you $10.

Tonto: Hmm. Smells smoky wasabi.

Franklin Roosevelt: You're standing in the campfire!

Tonto: Hmm.

Pat Fraley: Years later, I recorded a series of character monologues and sent them to advertising producers. Here's a brief snippet from my monologue on a character called, Blind Lemon Williams.

So, when I (smell) the exhausted, that limo pulled and up to the curb and he pulled it up and he pulled enough but I said to myself, "Lemon, you're inhaling the fragrant fumes of a (platypus)." So I zigzagged out there and I hear the window rolled down so I say, "Blind Lemon Williams at your service. Would you be taking applications for a driver?" And I give them a couple more bland jokes to sweeten the pot and I know he's awaken because I hear there's laughing.

Pat Fraley: One got back to me and was inspired by my band of characters and created a whole Denny's Restaurant campaign around my characters calling into a late night FM talk show called, The Night Owl. That's where all the stupid names for breakfast on the Denny's menu came from. Like, moon over my hammy. Yes, famous.

Now, with YouTube, bloggers' bulletin boards, Facebook and other social networks, doing fun stuff that is created to amuse and enjoy is even more productive. It's such a great tool because it's one of the rare means by which I can address public relations, which is establishing and maintaining relationship and at the same time, address promotion making people aware of my skills.

Usually, confusing PR with promotion is folly. It's like taking someone out to lunch and handing them a demo over the sub terrain. Let me give you a reason example. Brad Garrett, my 6 foot 9 comedy genius pal that you are familiar with, I'm sure from Everyone Loves Raymond. And were getting in touch with each other and talking about what we might do as co-presenters of the Annie Awards. We we're playing around with fake cartoon shows with bad concepts like, The Titanic Kids and The Soprano Pets. I got off the phone and whipped up a brief audio sketch and e-mailed it to Brad. Here it is:

How are you doing? I'm Martin Scorsese. Oh, what's your name?

Brad Garrett: Brad Garrett.

Pat Fraley: You are Armenian?

Brad Garrett: Jewish.

Pat Fraley: Jewish. You're a big tall glass of Jew.

Bobby: Are you talking to me?

Pat Fraley: No, Bobby. I'm talking to Craig.

Brad Garrett: Brad.

Pat Fraley: Right. I'm casting a role for the new Nickelodeon cartoon series, Good Fellas Barnyard. It's Good Fellas but I ...

Brad Garrett: In a barnyard?

Pat Fraley: Right, with horses, chickens, and a farmer and a duck.

Joey: You think I'm funny?

Pat Fraley: Yes, Joey. You're funny. Craig.

Brad Garrett: I'm Brad.

Pat Fraley: Greg.

Brad Garrett: Brad.

Pat Fraley: Okay. Now, Bobby is the horse. Harvey is the chicken and Joey's the farmer. Okay? You got that?

Brad Garrett: Yes sir.

Pat Fraley: Then you take the gun. Here, take the gun. Take - here, take the prop.

Brad Garrett: Yes sir.

Pat Fraley: Okay, let's try that.

Brad Garrett: Like this?

Pat Fraley: No, no. You can't hold the gun that way. You're a duck. You have wingies.

Brad Garrett: Sorry.

Pat Fraley: Yes, you hold it - no. Wings.

Brad Garrett: I'm sorry.

Pat Fraley: You point it at the horse and you say your line, "You dirty broken down horse. I give you (what for)?" You shoot him 27 times. Okay, let's try that.

Brad Garrett: You dirty broken down ...

Pat Fraley: You dirty broken old horse. I give you (what for)? Try it.

Brad Garrett: You dirty broken down horse. I give you (what for)?

Pat Fraley: You in the corner. I'll get back to you. Harvey?

Harvey: You think I'm funny.

Pat Fraley: Yes, Joey. You are funny.

So Brad gets back to me and asked if I'd be interested in working up something fun for his TV show, Til Death which he produces in (Starzen). Also, I forwarded this clip to my agent for fun and she gets back me with this message.

"Hysterical. Keep it up and you may find an agent. I'm going to send this to (Sarah Newman) at Nickelodeon."

Now, don't get confused. Just because my agent in L.A. is sending this to (Sarah Newman), the head of casting at Nickelodeon doesn't mean it won't work for you. I remember when I lived in Australia and having Max Pepper who ran an audio studio send my reel-to-reel of something I did to a local advertiser. And in Seattle a few years later, (Jimmy Brado) at an audio studio sent one of my tapes to a producer at McKen Ericsson.

The only difference is that I'm committed and I should be committed for doing so, to live in L.A. This works everywhere in every market. And I'm not the only one who does this. Imagine my delight when I checked my e-mail on my birthday last year and heard this message from my pal, voiceover talent and teacher, Bob Bergen.

Bob Bergen: Happy (bobbi) Birthday to you. Happy (bobbi) Birthday to you. Happy (bobbi) Birthday dear (indiscernible 00:07:35) Patrick. Happy (bobbi) Birthday to you. (indiscernible 00:07:40) and many more.

Pat Fraley: Porky, that pig wishing me a birthday. How good is that? A favorite of many is a brief audio piece I did based on Frank Sinatra's last days recording music and how he was doing duets with everyone under the sun. I came with this. It's Frank Sinatra with veal.

Frank Sinatra: And more, much more than this, I did it my way. For what is a man what has he got, if not himself ...

Pat Fraley: Also for years, I called kids on Christmas Eve and did Santa. My Santa always sounded little like Nixon but it delighted children. And after almost all sessions at Disney, I take requests for nieces and nephew calls, and requests from students and producers to send the child a message from Buzz. Here's an example.

Hello, Benjamin. Come in. I'm in my spaceship and I wanted to communicate with you. I'm very pleased to make the coordinates to talk to you. I understand that you are excellent in school. Very good. You know, who told me that was your sister, Sarah. She said, "(indiscernible 00:09:05)". I don't know what language she uses but apparently, she's' very young.

Another ancillary benefit for doing things like these is that when my agent's not calling and I'm sitting around, it's something I can do. And I get such a joy out of applying my wares and doing something fun for somebody else. This whole endeavor reminds me of a slogan that my friend and voiceover talent, Pamela Chollet says, "Never chase the money. We'll have embellished that." Never chase the money, chase excellence and make the money chase you.

Finally, just know that some things just need to be free like this lesson and with your unique skills of doing voices; consider who might be amused and encouraged by your efforts. Sure, the genre I've chosen is mainly comedy and character voices but do a fake narration or trailer or commercial and consider doing it for someone specifically rather than a generic one. Post it on YouTube or Facebook, you may be delightfully surprised at the outcome when you embrace your amateur standing at voiceover.

Thanks for listening.

Julie-Ann Dean: 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.

If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Links from today's show:

Pat Fraley
Pat Fraley Free Lessons

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley

Patrick Fraley has created voices for over 4,000 characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animation. He has produced dozens of award-winning audiobooks, such as, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Very Easy Death, and The Light in The Piazza. Pat produced and performed all 100 voices on the award winning audiobook, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which People Magazine hailed as, "The best yet of this evergreen." Patrick teaches events, workshops, and seminars on various aspects of voice over across the country, and has created a variety of instructional books and CDs, all available at PatFraley.com. He is a member of The Voice and Speech Trainers of America, and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Professional Acting from Cornell University.

Did you enjoy Pat's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

---

Join Voice Over Expert and beloved coach Pat Fraley in his New Year's 2009 podcast "9 Tips For Yielding a Bumper Crop of Voice Overs in 2009". Enter the bunkhouse and sit in on this witty conversation that includes a variety of ideas that will both inspire and inform, and most importantly, help to prepare you for what 2009 has in store for voice over talent.

Download Podcast Episode 74 »

Tags

2009, Pat Fraley, Interactive, Audiobooks, Video Games

Links from today's show:

Pat Fraley
Pat Fraley Free Lessons

Transcript for 9 Tips For Yielding a Bumper Crop of Voice Overs in 2009

[Opening music]

Julie-Ann Dean: Welcome to Voiceover Experts, brought to you by Voices.com, the number one voice over 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 at your own pace. This is truly an education you won't find anywhere else.

This week Voices.com is pleased to present Pat Fraley.

Pat Fraley: Hi, this is Pat Fraley with some good news for the voiceover community for 2009 and for all of you who are advancing your efforts in getting work. I have nine brief points, but first let me give you some context.

We've just gone through a year of a daily pummeling of devastating news and it's all I can do to read and listen. Now, government resources are being committed to addressing our economic problems and America is going to work. We'll all do better...

[phone ringing]

Pat: Excuse me, I have to take this, it's my agent.

Hello Barry.

Barry: What are you doing in the bunk house?

Pat: I beg pardon? I'm...

Barry: Hey, I'm listening to this mish gosh. Excuse me? Good news? Forgive me if I don't run out and buy the new Mercedes. What? Where you born in a cookie?

Pat: Just hear me out Barry, OK?

Barry: All right. I have to finish clipping my toenails anyway. You better get finished before I get to Mr. Pinkie, and don't get into that whole "back in the day" routine.

Pat: I won't.

OK, nine points. The first two are general, and then I'll get specific on the good news for various genres of voiceover.

First, in times of difficulty and adversity, American's seek out amusement. They do this for a respect to reality. Remember that the root words to amuse, "a muse," are "not think." Much of what we supply in the voiceover industry are character voices, narration, and performance for projects such as animation, interactive, audio books, toys; narration to projects designed to allow the public to enter a different world for a time where they're carried off to something other than our immediate reality.

Did you hear that Barry?

Barry: You're not selling me and I'm on my left foot.

Pat: OK. Two, as much as I believe that this is the perfect time for talent, students, and comrades to continue to advance their skills and get real smart about getting jobs, there are those who will give up or put their voiceover plans and dreams on a hold. That's what fear does, it cripples.

That means there'll be less in the pool and more opportunities for those who are willing to forge ahead or who are already established in the voiceover arena.

There's a famous quote from Barren Rothschild, the 18th century British nobleman and member of the Rothschild Banking Family, "The time to buy is when there's blood in the streets even if the blood is your own."

Now, that borders on brutal, but overcoming fear is essential in advancing your efforts and most often productive, especially in the area of high competition.

Barry: You know what? That's true. When people are running out of the building, stroll in. I like that.

Pat: Good. Now, for number three. Let's get specific in the areas of voiceover and address commercials. When times get tough clients and advertisers cut back. What do they cut back on? Staff first. It's the most immediate way of addressing overhead.

The second thing they do is cut back on the media buy. Yes, this affects union residuals, but does not affect the voiceover opportunities. They still need the creative, and remember, advertising agencies only make money when they spend their clients. They still need to produce TV and radio commercials.

Speaking of which, radio production often times goes up in a recession as it's cheaper than TV - more voiceover work, not less.

Barry?

Barry: This true, especially the part about cutting back staff. Hmm, that reminds me. Isn't your contract up?

Pat: Point four, animation. Cable channels and networks must have product. They are obligated. What do they do? They buy cheaper production and get conservative on committing to a series. They do more pilots, then decide which projects have legs, and then commit to a smaller package.

In the last month, for example, in L.A., there's been a flurry of activity on pilots. I have one in two callbacks out. They're not committed shows, but there is a whole lot of activity.

Recently I directed and was in the cast on a pilot involving re-voicing existing animation. It looks good to sell a 55 episode package to cable and independents. Why? The producers have a way of supplying inexpensive programming. In short, there's a lot of activity.

As for feature animation projects, one only has to look at films in production, Disney, DreamWorks, and the majors, are the first to recognize the need of the American public to be amused, and animation is the clearest genre, which takes a family out of reality and into a kinder and gentler world.

Five, interactive, recession proof. Let me throw a few figures out to you. It's a $10 billion a year industry. November sales were $6.64 billion. The figure for Grand Theft Auto four on release was 500 million. Ironman opened at 200 million and it costs twice as much to produce. Sales on Rock Guitar are at 900 million. This genre is the poster child for escape. Sure, half of them don't use voices, gee, that cuts it down to five billion in potential.

Non-union and union projects abound and will continue to abound.

Barry: Yes, I have to agree. I can't get the little woman away from Resident Evil.

Pat: Point number six, audio books. With the success of the Internet and downloadable access, audio book publishers are increasing productivity, not doing less.

Remember that all the publishers need to do is create one master and make it available for download. It's virtual inventory. No overhead, no unsold and returned product from bookstore shelves. Inventory sells inventory and audio book publishers will continue to pay the talent less, but request more and more projects to be read.

Sales for audio books doubled in 2007, and even if there's a slowdown, it has now surpassed a billion dollar market and will continue to show growth.

Point seven, talking toys. Yes, less will be made and less will sell, but the initial work, the voicing, continues. The prototype must be completed and offered to the buyers. That means that voiceover work is done and paid for. The toy may never see the light of day if retailers don't buy enough, but the voiceover talent gets paid no matter what and there aren't any residuals on that kind of work anyway.

Point eight, narration. Here again A&E, Biography, the History Channel - or as my boys call it, "The Hitler Channel" - as well as instructional narration projects, are obligated to voice new material. What they cut back on is in production, not the voiceover talent, they must have the voice.

Barry: Yes, true, got to have the voice. Have to hear what Hitler was up to.

Pat: Point nine, promos. Here's the good news for those fortunate enough to get promo jobs. There will be more, not less. Why? When a channel sells less commercials they have blocks of time they must fill. They promote their own shows and produce more in-house promotions.

So, that's the good news. Take courage and get smart. Look for opportunities to advance your skills in a careful productive way.

Also, look for creating ways of getting the knowledge of your skills out to people who are in a position to hire you or recommend to those who hire, to get you in the studio.

In the meantime, take heart. Hopefully, we've done the diagnosis to our problems in 2008 and we're onto the treatment in 2009.

In the coming months, I'll be putting together an event which will specifically address the skills and how to get to the producers of all the voiceover genres I've mentioned. I'll keep you abreast.

Barry, what do you say?

Barry: I'm going out and buying a Mercedes, happy days are here again! Flannel cakes and musos, are you in?

Pat: I'm not saying to go out and spend...

Barry: Maybe crab cakes at the Arbey, are you buying?

Pat: I can't afford...

Barry: You were just bragging about the pilot Mr. Brad Pitt. You're flush, you're blonde.

Pat: No, I...

Barry: OK, you buy the Mercedes, I'll buy lunch.

[closing music]

Julie-Ann: To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com broadcast visit the voiceover expects show notes at Podcasts.Voices.com/VoiceoverExpects. Remember to stay subscribed.

If you're a first time listener you can subscribe for free to this broadcast in the upper iTunes Podcast directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

This has been a Voices.com production.

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley

Patrick Fraley has created voices for over 4,000 characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animation. He has produced dozens of award-winning audiobooks, such as, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Very Easy Death, and The Light in The Piazza. Pat produced and performed all 100 voices on the award winning audiobook, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which People Magazine hailed as, "The best yet of this evergreen." Patrick teaches events, workshops, and seminars on various aspects of voice over across the country, and has created a variety of instructional books and CDs, all available at PatFraley.com. He is a member of The Voice and Speech Trainers of America, and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Professional Acting from Cornell University.

Did you enjoy Pat's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

---

Join Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley as he discusses "Knowing VO Genre & Style". In this episode, Pat helps you to discover the importance of knowing voice over genres and styles, and being able to adjust your performance level to them.

Download Podcast Episode 59 »

Tags:

Pat Fraley, Pat Fraley Teaches, PatFraley.com, VO, Genre, Styles, Voice Overs, Voice Acting

Transcript of VO Genres and Styles

[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.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present Pat Fraley.

Pat Fraley: Hi. This is Pat Fraley. I wanted to give you a brief lesson on the importance of being able to adjust your performance to the various genres and styles of voiceover. First, a working definition of genre. Genre is another word for category. I used it instead because it's French and therefore, (indiscernible). Not that I don't go as far as to pronounce it. Genre! And spit on the mic.

For our purposes, the genres of voiceover are radio commercials, TV spots, animation tracks, ADR, interactive gaming projects, audio books, et cetera. Each of these genres generally call for a different level of performance particularly, when characters are called for. For example, animation often calls for more exaggerated or better extended characterization.

Sometimes at the level of a French farce. Big is not enough. Interactive calls for characterization on a more real plane. And audio books oftentimes requires just enough characterization to infer the character. Almost an attitude adjustment. If you don't deliver a large enough performance for animation, you aren't giving the animator the advocative tracks to do their job. If you don't adjust your performance in an interactive gaming project by serving up a strong sense of reality, you don't connect with the player.

And if you go too far with the character in an audio book, you sever or damage the listener's suspension of disbelief. Hey, they know you're not a pirate as you read to them. They make the unspoken contract to suspend their knowledge if you don't push it too far, but if you do go too far, you break it 'arr. Once broken, they turn off the iPod.

So, those are some generalizations on genre. What about the definition of style? Style is the distinct manner of expression within a genre. Just like a sitcom is a genre but Fawlty Towers was in that genre but so is Friends. They had two distinctly different styles. Like in a genre of audio books, you have The Great Gatsby and Huck Finn.

It doesn't matter how versatile or fast you are to characterization. If you can't recognize the genre and style of a project and can't accomplish the necessary adjustments of performance which is needful. Your efforts of successfully auditioning for a job are dramatically decreased if you don't know how to adjust and fit into the genre and style of any given script, text or copy.

Let me give you an example of a job I just booked. Now, believe me, I can give you 100 other lessons from unsuccessful auditions but I'm reasonably sure that I booked this because I understood the genre and style which was needful on this assignment. The audition was for an interactive game. The title, at least what they gave me was The Hardy Boys.

Now, before I read the audition script, I know that the genre of interactive gaming calls for a sense of reality so that the player can relay to the characters. Now, what about the style? The Hardy Boys is kind of old school and as much as characters are a bit more presented, it ain't Law and Order. I looked at the script and read the description of the three characters I'm auditioning for. Now knowing that they have me for three characters for the prize of one, I figured I better make all three characters separate, even though there's a strong possibility I won't be cast in all three of those.

I was right. I got cast in three but only one of the ones I auditioned for. So the first character I auditioned for was described as an eccentric, flamboyant, ex-stage actor in his 50s. So I lay him down following the description but with enough reality, so it sounds like he's thinking and feeling. Here's a bit of the audition.

Of course I'm not taking anything away from your detecting prowess. In fact, I should have said you've been misled here by the Bayport P.D. If left to your own devices, you would likely have stayed on the correct trail. I assume you have questions to ask? Hmm?

Next, I have a character described as merely having a strong voice, mid-50s. I knew he had to separate from the two other voices, so here's what I did.

Pat Fraley, it's Thomas. Budding detectives and of course, it will be my pleasure and they aren't letting me leave, you know. They think I'm a thief.

And my third character I auditioned for was described as the previous character's brother. Well off, strong voice, not nice in his late 50s. With the genre and style firmly implanted in my brain, he came off like this.

Pat Fraley, this is Samuel. Not anymore, he's not. I'm renouncing him as my brother. Do you hear me, Thomas? I renounce you.

Did you notice that all the characters sound like they came out of the same bag? Same level of performance? I hope I'm capable of playing all three at a higher level like for animation or more subtle for an audio book, but I was guided by my knowledge of genre and style for this project. So that's it. Now, this job wouldn't have come my way if I didn't have the ability at characterization. It was tempered, however and molded to fit into the genre and style of the project.

Last word of wisdom. It comes from Harrison Ford. He once said, "My job is an assistant story teller. It all begins and ends with a story." If you'd like some personal attention to gaining the skills of recognizing style and genre and playing them, you can find information on it on my website, patfraley.com. You'll find it on my teaching page. Thanks for listening.

Julie-Ann Dean: 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.

If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Links from today's show:

Pat Fraley
Pat Fraley Free Lessons

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley

Patrick Fraley has created voices for over 4,000 characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animation. He has produced dozens of award-winning audiobooks, such as, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Very Easy Death, and The Light in The Piazza. Pat produced and performed all 100 voices on the award winning audiobook, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which People Magazine hailed as, "The best yet of this evergreen." Patrick teaches events, workshops, and seminars on various aspects of voice over across the country, and has created a variety of instructional books and CDs, all available at PatFraley.com. He is a member of The Voice and Speech Trainers of America, and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Professional Acting from Cornell University.

Did you enjoy Pat's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

---

Join Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley in his lecture "The Almighty Playback". Pat gives you a lesson the on importance of playing back your recorded efforts and using processing and sound effects to advance your skills and address your booking-to-audition ratio.

Download Podcast Episode 53 »

Tags:

Pat Fraley, Pat Fraley Teaches, PatFraley.com, Playback, Auditioning Tips, Booking Radio, Auditions, Voice Overs, Voice Acting

Transcript of The Almighty Playback

[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.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present Pat Fraley.

Pat Fraley: Hi, this is Pat Fraley with a lesson on the importance of playing back your auditions and practice recordings and a way of making this procedure fun and at the same time, increase your booking to audition ratio.

We're now living in an era where recording at home for audition is a way of life for the voiceover community. Now what do agents and casting people say as the single biggest problem with this? Self-direction. Even if you have been at it for a long time, we can no longer rely on insights from booth directors and casting people. This means you have to recognize the story and or message and copy a script or text, recognize the appropriate style and make meaningful, interesting choices with acting and characterization which realize the project. Now, let's get practical on addressing and accelerating your voiceover efforts.

Always play back your recordings and don't just listen. Train yourself to hear. You see, there's a gap between perception and reality. Perception being what you intend to go down on the recording and reality, being what you get when you listen back. Now you must narrow this gap so your recording is close to what you intended to lay down. That's why when you listen back, focus on one single question, "Did you realize the story with your acting and character choices?" If you are tempted to stay in engineering mode, you know, listening for the levels at it et cetera, you need to listen twice.

Okay, now, here's a mindset that will hold you in goof stead. Think of how the project will sound when it's finished with music and sound effects and with the other performers, if you're doing sides for an audition piece in only laying down your part. Here's what I've done every so often which is fun and helps me narrow the perception reality gap and on occasion, it actually gets me hired. I read my script to copy, I define the story, the characters and the scene. I make acting and character choices that best realize those aspects. Lay it down. I listen back. If I'm happy with the track, I don't stop there. Sometimes I have some fun. I mix in the appropriate sound effect or music behind it and even process the sound of my voice that's called for in the spot or script. Let me give you an example.

I had an audition for a restaurant in Baltimore. The story involved a helicopter pilot reporting from the air so I laid down the audition piece. Here's part of it.

This is Pat Fraley as Brian. Cynthia, we're headed towards the (Charles Street Bridge) where a man has reportedly shed his clothes and he's trying to signal the motorist passing down on the JFX.

You noticed how I'm yelling? That's of course because the pilot is in a helicopter. Now, here's where it gets fun. I process the voice to sound like he's on one of those horrible mics in the chopper. Now it sounds like this.

This is Pat Fraley as Brian. Cynthia, we're headed towards the (Charles Street Bridge) where a man has reportedly shed his clothes and he's trying to signal the motorist passing down on the JFX.

I did this with a cool little audio processing software that I can access right - well, I'm inside my audio software called SFX Machine. That's two words. Google it. It's about 75 bucks and they make a Mac and a PC version. With it, I can make my voice sound like it's over a bullhorn, a bad PA system, a phone, hello, or even a bad industrial film.

Now, I didn't stop there. Over the years, I've collected some brief sound effects. I don't have a lot but I cover the basics like some traffic, a restaurant, and a few slaps. Aw! And a little helicopter so I took the helicopter and slapped it behind my audition. I sent it off that way and booked the job. Here's how it sounded.

This is Pat Fraley as Brian. Cynthia, we're heading towards the (Charles Street Bridge) where a man has reportedly shed his clothes and he's trying to signal the motorist passing down on the JFX. Oh my goodness, somebody feels pretty good about himself. Wait a sec. This fellow is unfurling some kind of sign, a message written on a sheet that reads, "Unchain Thyself." Cynthia, the naked man now appears to be dancing the chicken dance. Oh, yes.

Some of my colleagues and students have had good fortune doing this as well. I think it gives the casting person a better sense of how we will sound when the job is done. Sometimes it's needful. When you think about it, they might understand that I have to shout into the mic to eventually sound like I'm a copter pilot. One thing I do however whenever when I send out an audition which has been processed, I also give them a version that is dry or not processed.

As far as starting to accumulate your own sound effects, the good news is that there are plenty on the internet which are free. Just Google free sound effects, three words and you'll find them. Also, I pick my shots on this. I only use this when I believe it's genuinely needful for the casting people or producer to hear the real deal especially when my performance sounds weird without it.

If you would like to have a fuller experience on how to find a story, realize it and hear your efforts with all the trimmings, sound effects, processing and do it all day, I'll be in Phoenix, Saturday June 28 for a very special event called "Mix Down, Melt Down." You'll be doing this working on mic technique and more importantly, participants will be recording until their ears fall off. Just go to my teaching page on my website PatFraley.com. Click on the Phoenix Melt Down event for more information on how to register and thank you for flying Fraley Airlines.

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.

If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Links from today's show:

Pat Fraley
Pat Fraley Free Lessons

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley

Patrick Fraley has created voices for over 4,000 characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animation. He has produced dozens of award-winning audiobooks, such as, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Very Easy Death, and The Light in The Piazza. Pat produced and performed all 100 voices on the award winning audiobook, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which People Magazine hailed as, "The best yet of this evergreen." Patrick teaches events, workshops, and seminars on various aspects of voice over across the country, and has created a variety of instructional books and CDs, all available at PatFraley.com. He is a member of The Voice and Speech Trainers of America, and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Professional Acting from Cornell University.

Did you enjoy Pat's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

---

Join Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley as he divulges some "Shameless Tricks" smuggled straight out of Hollywood from some Tinseltown's greatest citizens. Learn how to make your auditions stand out, be more creative, and give the impression that you're working from a world-class facility with your own engineer.

Download Podcast Episode 48 »

Tags:

Pat Fraley, Pat Fraley Teaches, PatFraley.com, Hollywood, Auditioning Tips, Slating, Auditions, Voice Overs, Voice Acting

Transcript of Shameless Hollywood Auditioning Tricks!

[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.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present Pat Fraley.

Male: And rolling on, take one, Pat.

Pat Fraley: Hi. This is Pat Fraley with a five-minute lesson on shameless voiceover tricks. Over the years, I've collected from mentors and brilliant colleagues' mindsets, agenda, skills, techniques, methods and downright shameless dirty tricks. It's a way I can carry my mentors around in my hip pocket. Some of these advanced my abilities to deliver the goods, others give me a slight edge over the bone-crunching competition and address my audition to booking ratio. So what do you want to hear? Methods, mindsets - I'm thinking downright dirty tricks.

So here goes. How about the Oscar-winning pause? This is a shameless trick. If you bump into an unusual or powerful or even just plain weird key verb or noun, don't gloss over it. Take a pause before you say it. This gives the listening audience the impression that it was your choice and you thought of it in the moment. Now, this one is called the "busting thyself" trick and it comes in reaction to getting the note from a director to flatten it out. Chances are you're being busted for sounding phony and sounding over expressive. When the director wants you to flatten it out, what they really mean is, "I'll take flat of what he's giving me." What you must do is bust yourself. Let them you felt really phony with the take in question and ask if you can solve it in a different way. Lower your energy a bit, commit to the action and then you better hold for an Oscar-winning take or you're back to flattening. At least you have one more shot.

Now here's a trick on slating. Personally, I slate different ways for different auditions. There are no rules, just notions. If you slate in character, the producer is less aware that you're using a pretend voice or being a different person but here's the trick. Don't slate in character without playing an action or without intent. In other words, don't slate in a character that's an empty shell. Fill up the way you say your name and the name of your character with a good solid acting choice. If you are to audition for an old grumpy guy, be grumpy from the moment you open your mouth to slate. Let me demonstrate.

Say I've chosen a voice like this. Don't slate with just a voice like Pat Fraley is grumpy old man. Do it playing an action like to intimidate, like this.

Pat Fraley is a grumpy old man.

Here's another slating trick. This is called the opposite character slating trick. This comes from famed director Robert Altman via voiceover talent (Pamela Shelley). Altman's advice is to slate or come in to an audition with an emotional state the exact opposite of the characters. That way, when you begin your line, the producers and casting people are blown away by your ability to perform character. For example, if I'm auditioning for a character who is described as a large, gruff, bully with a little voice, in a higher, clear and almost hesitant or shy tone, I slate my name in character. I take a beat and blast them with the character - maximum impact.

All right, here's another slating trick. This one I call the "mother country speaks". Now don't ask me why but it sounds really cool to have a Brit or a performer doing a Brit accent slate your demo. With all kinds of demos flying around the internet, it's important to have your name at the top of the demo and perhaps, a tail slate as well.

Why not have a classy voice? Of the opposite gender, introduce your efforts. My agent Pat Brady loves this and mentioned that it gives the impression that the talent has an agent or did have an agent. In the past, this slating of the talent at the top of each demo was only done for agency house reels. I have a Brit slating me on my character in commercial demos. Now, here's Anthony Hansen's demo and he had DB Cooper do her stellar British accent to introduce him.

Female: Anthony Hansen.

Anthony Hansen: It's amazing, you know. This is the closest I've ever been to earth.

Pat Fraley: Also, make sure that the audio file of your demo is titled with your name. When casting people and producers download it from your website or receive it directly from you or your agent, they need this reference. Unless your name is short, I suggest you title it with the initial of your first name and last name with no spaces. Don't bother including the word "demo" in the title. You need to keep it short.

Now this next one is called the virtual studio slate trick. I use this trick early on when I was producing commercials out of my apartment bedroom. In order to give the impression that I was working out of a proper studio, I had a friend record the phrase, "Rolling on, take one, Pat." Listen to this.

Male: And rolling on, take one, Pat.

Pat Fraley: Sound familiar? Beginning of this lesson? Think about it. Think I was in a proper studio? No. I'm in my bunk house in my robe. This can be handy even when delivering auditions. It's just the trick to give you a bit more profile especially if you're recording out of your closet.

This is called the "first read audition trick". It's a sneaky little trick that gives the listener the impression you are working off the cuff and incredibly (fazzle) at picking up a piece of copy for the first time and pulling the words right off the page. Here's how you do it. When you record your slate for an audition, say your name, then say the word "for", take a pause, rattle the piece of paper, your copy or script is printed on and then say the character for which your are auditioning. Let me demonstrate.

Pat Fraley for Commando Vortec.

This comes from an old trick that actor Marlon Brando and later John Malkovich used to pull. They'd memorize their lines but read with the other actors as if they were totally unfamiliar with the part. When the time was right, they'd launch into the scene and blow their fellow actors away, very sneaky.

If I piqued your interest about tricks, I'll be in Chicago in May for a workshop called 56 Slick Tricks for Voiceover where we explore the many ways of advancing your abilities to get the edge. If you can't make it to Chicago, I have a CD and companion workbook interestingly entitled 56 Slick Tricks for Voiceover. The information on both is available at my website, PatFraley.com. Thanks for listening.

Can I take that once more? Can we call that take one?

Male: And rolling on, take one, Pat.

What?

Male: And rolling on, take one, Pat.

Can you say that again?

Male: And rolling on, take one, Pat.

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.

If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Links from today's show:

Pat Fraley

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley

Patrick Fraley has created voices for over 4,000 characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animation. He has produced dozens of award-winning audiobooks, such as, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Very Easy Death, and The Light in The Piazza. Pat produced and performed all 100 voices on the award winning audiobook, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which People Magazine hailed as, "The best yet of this evergreen." Patrick teaches events, workshops, and seminars on various aspects of voice over across the country, and has created a variety of instructional books and CDs, all available at PatFraley.com. He is a member of The Voice and Speech Trainers of America, and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Professional Acting from Cornell University.

Did you enjoy Pat's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

---

Join Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley as he teaches you about "Voice Matching", which is a fancy phrase for "Mimicking Money". Pat shares his knowledge on how to match voices with famous celebrities closest to your own voice type. Examples referenced are Tim Allen and Jon Voight.

Download Podcast Episode 35 »

Tags:

Pat Fraley, Pat Fraley Teaches, PatFraley.com, Voice Matching, Mimicry, Mimicking, Mimic, Jon Voight, Tim Allen, Voice Overs, Voice Acting

Transcript of Voice Matching and Imitating Voices

[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.

This week Voices.com is pleased to present Pat Fraley.

Pat Fraley: Hi, this is Pat Fraley and here's a word and a skill that has been bad wrapped over the years. Mimicking, perhaps because it comes from the same word root as "mime", all right, all right settle down. It seems the copy or imitate. It's something that I confess I discounted for years as it come naturally to me all my life. Imitating voices I heard in character I would see on TV and films and over the radio.

Of course I knew it was a great value, it generally making me more versatile and able to manipulate my voice but I haven't thought of the practical applications of mimicry. It's just sound so uncreative and unoriginal but lately, I've reevaluated this (mullein) skill. I started to think about the fact that for the past 12 years, I've mimic Tim Allen's voice as Buzz Lightyear for toys, commercials, games, rides and alike. Even to the point of doing Mr. Allen's excretion sound in Toy Story 2. I got up my calculator and did fast tally of what that single voice pulled into my coffers; $500,000.

So, how did I land this job and I how can I teach others to do the same? Well, there are two factors, one I know my voice range, so I can recognize voices I'm naturally close too. So, it's a matter of recognizing that I'm genetically in the ballpark, believe me I wouldn't be going after a sound like job for Ben Affleck or Matt Damon. So, knowing my genetic vocal print is 80% of the job, then two I have the skills to tweak the voice to bring it closer to the sound of the performer I'm trying to match or mimic. So, that's brings to the 90% and that's as close as it gets.

Mimicking skills or voice matching is part of an arena of the voiceover industry that falls into post-production work, specifically voice matching, voice replacement, ADR or looping, ADR stands for Automatic Dialog Replacement. The school term for this is looping. That aspect of the work has to do with the small group of actors adding background sounds to films, adding sounds of TV or radio and a movie and generally flashing out to film in a studio or ADR sound stage.

It is an in seller world of work, which most time is not audition for and this is not work only available in LA. In any major city in America this is ADR looping work. Assure the films in the TV jobs aren't always major film work, some of it is non-union and some of it is for industrial films, independent films and TV production for cable. Do this Google the name of the city you live in along with the words post-production, go to a few sites and look around for the word ADR and you maybe be delightfully surprise at the results. Of course you have to have the skills and training to delivery the goods, I'll get to that but for now let me circle back and talk to you about the aspect of this work which entails mimicry or voice match. I'll give you an example, I got the opportunity to try to match Jon Voight performance as John Keller interest eh movie Transformers. It was a one line jobs.

In this case in the completed movie when his head was turn away form the camera they wanted to change his line and slap it in. So, I didn't need to match his lips which made it somewhat easier. I got the voice sample here it is.

Jon Voight: At June 900 Sachs and Ford operations base in Qatar was attacked. The only lead we have is this sound.

Pat Fraley: So, I recognize that I'm genetically close enough to his performance, so I'm at 80%. If by the way I'm not in the range of that performance, I don't audition for it. Now, here's where my training come in, I know how to break down a voice to its six elements. This allows me to accurately address the elements of a voice one by one and avoid confusion, first pitch. It's a little higher than my own. Pitch characteristic, it's a little more breathy with the kind scrapping or gravelly finish in a few words. Here's the end of the clip, listen for that scrapping or graveling finish,

Jon Voight: The only lead we have it this sound.

Pat Fraley: The only, you hear that? Did you hear that scrapping? The third element I listen for is tempo. It's faster than my own. Rhythm, cleft informal kind of military. Placement of the voice, basically the same as mine and finally the six elements I listen for is mouth work. In this case Jon Voight was doing an accent which to my ear was like West Virginia with hard R's, so I was ready. That was my 10% work, hopefully adding up to 90%. I recoded my efforts and slap a bit of echo on it so as to better match the clip I was given which had an eco-way room tone. Now, that's trick I've learned which helps the casting person better evaluate the match. Also another trick, I slight in arrange in way that is sort like Jon Voight performance, no non-sense, a bit higher than my own normal specking range. So, here's my audition.

Pat Fraley to Jon Voight, first the match and then my sample.

At June 900 the Sachs in Ford base in Qatar was attacked. The only lead we have is this sound.

At June 900 the Sachs in Ford operations base in Qatar was attacked. The only lead we have is this sound.

Now, is that a marriage made in heaven? No. But is was close enough to get me the job and the director got me a bit closer to Jon Voight performance at the session. Now, where can you get the training to do voice match, replacement and skills at ADR and looping? The problem with getting training for this is that you need to actually be on an ADR stage or in a studio. The reason that there is very little training for this is that you have to be in a multi million dollar facility. For matching lip sink of a character in a movie. You have to have the pitches splashed up on the screen and have the technical facility and stuff to generate beep tones, so you can come in on time when you're replace a voice and have teachers who know about this and cast and direct for a living.

So, here's what I've done. I put together a two day ADR looping event in Los Angeles, March 8th to 9th with the very best instructors and facilities in the country. If you're interested in getting all the skills you need to be able to delivery the goods, details can be found my website, patfraley.com click on teaching at the menu and you'll find a link for details on this event.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening.

Who was that?

Who was that?

Who is mimicking me?

Who is mimicking me?

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

If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Links from today's show:

Pat Fraley

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley

Patrick Fraley has created voices for over 4,000 characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animation. He has produced dozens of award-winning audiobooks, such as, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Very Easy Death, and The Light in The Piazza. Pat produced and performed all 100 voices on the award winning audiobook, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which People Magazine hailed as, "The best yet of this evergreen." Patrick teaches events, workshops, and seminars on various aspects of voice over across the country, and has created a variety of instructional books and CDs, all available at PatFraley.com. He is a member of The Voice and Speech Trainers of America, and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Professional Acting from Cornell University.

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

---

Join Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley in his lecture "Audiobook Good News". Pat shares his vast knowledge about the audiobook industry and instructs you on how to take advantage of the booming market for audiobook narration. Don't miss this episode with tips and insight from an expert audiobook producer.

Download Podcast Episode 28 »

Tags:

Pat Fraley, Pat Fraley Teaches, PatFraley.com, Audiobooks, Audio Books, Narration, Narrators, Voice Overs, Voice Acting

Transcript of Audiobook Good News

[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.

This week Voices.com is pleased to present Pat Fraley.

Pat Fraley: Greetings to all you Voices.com people, where as I like to think of it, the international voiceover diner. Nothing warms the cockles of this old teacher's heart more than getting the news that my students get work. I get this weekly and it's trilling particularly with audiobook deals. I want more and more and more.

For the next five minutes, I'm going to talk to you about audiobooks and give you some very good news except for the shameless infomercial at the end of all this where I talk to you about my two hour audio CD set and companion 50-page workbook that covers all the performance and business skills you need to work the audiobook market. Wait, I've already started. Okay, I'm stopping, I'm stopping. I promise.

Okay, now for some good news, the audiobook market is the best opportunity for the voiceover talent to get work. I've taught workshops and events on this area for years now and the probability of work gets better by the moment. You see at present about 4,000 books are recorded a year, according to my friend and President of Blackstone Audio, Craig Black which is a real progressive audiobook company. This figure of 4,000 will balloon to 24,000 over the next four years, why? Because of the success of downloadable audiobooks on the internet. What this means for audiobook publishers is that they have virtual inventory, no duplication and packaging cost, no shipping and no returns. No returns is a big deal by the way.

In a publishing business if a book, magazine or audiobook doesn't sell, it can be returned to the publisher for full refund, ugly for the publisher. What this means for the voiceover talent is there will be a huge amount of work, the time to get ready and ramp up for this work is now. More good news, audiobook publishers need all kinds of talents and reads, those who sound old, very young or have a Midwest ascent. If you've struggled because you sound like your 16 or 60, guess what? There are books out there and projects that need your sound. It's just a matter of finding the door where the welcome mat is ready and waiting but just know this, your read will adjust to the book. You see the prime directive is the author's intent.

Let me give you a couple of examples. Listen to this brief snippet from a read by Frank Muller, arguably the best performer of audiobooks ever as he performs part of a short story by Jaclyn entitled, "Buck".

Frank Muller: "Now, you red-eyed devil," he said, when he had made an opening sufficient for the passage of Buck's body. At the same time he dropped the hatchet and shifted the club to his right hand.

And Buck was truly a red-eyed devil, as he drew himself together for the spring, hair bristling, mouth foaming, and a mad glitter in his blood-shot eyes. Straight at the man he launched his one hundred and forty pounds of fury, surcharged with the pent passion of two days and nights. In mid air, just as his jaws were about to close on the man, he received a shock that checked his body and brought his teeth together with an agonizing clip.

Pat Fraley: Don't you get the sense you're sitting around a camp fire? Great. But listen to this read by Richard McGonegal of a book I produced called, "The Death of Che Guevara"

Richard McGonegal: Meanwhile Guevara's body was placed on view for journalists to see on October 10 and they were allowed to take finger prints if they wished. Several did. Then on October 13, Barrientos made the gruesome announcement that Bolivian authorities would put a thumb amputated from Guevara's body at the disposition of investigators.

Pat Fraley: Didn't he sound like he was reporting? Yes. That's because the book was so dry and had so little thinking and feeling of the author that it was appropriate. It killed Richard McGonegal who's a consummate actor but I kept telling of the rain back, no opinions just lay out the facts and finally listen to this brief excerpt from a book called "A Puzzling Mind" read by Hillary Huber.

Hilary Huber: It was a disturbing prospect. Rearrange the crime scene photos for the third time. Evelyn had cleared her desk and one by one laid the eight by ten color prints down. Tommy, shot a look at Evelyn. What are you doing? They remind me of something, she said. Laid out like that, they remind me of something.

Pat Fraley: Did you notice how she held back? There was time between the passages, so she brings you along on the journey, all about realizing the author's intent. Here's some more good news. Audiobook jobs are union or non-union and pay very low up to high depending on how deep the audio publisher's pockets are. This means you can start working for a small audiobook publisher who doesn't pay much but isn't expecting Meryl Streep and build up to bigger projects for more money, on the job training - what a concept.

And if you're union and offered a non-union gig, I'll tell you how to make it union and be able to take the job. Still more good news, 40 to 50 percent of the jobs are recorded by women which makes it the most equitable area of work in the voice arena. Also there's no need to go through an agent. Audio publishers deal directly with you. In fact agents scare them, they've seen the same movies we have and they're really frightened of the prospect to being called, cookie or baby.

More good news? You only need one relationship with an audio publisher at a time. Your name and voice come up, they call or e-mail you and you start working and when you work, you are on the studio for an extended period of time perhaps 15 hours for a project getting paid for all the sessions. I could go on but won't. Know that there are specific skills and a way of going about getting work which are unique to the industry.

This is why and here it comes, I've recorded over two hours of interviews, demonstrations, exercise, examples and specific information covering all the skills in business you need to work with the audiobook market with and packaged at with a 50-page companion workbook, cover letter, templates and a step by step walk through on how you prepare your audiobook demo. It's called the "The Billion Dollar Read, How To Make Money Reading and Recording Books." You can purchase this set at my website bookstore, you just go to patfraley.com and click on store. Okay, end of infomercial and if you have any questions e-mail me, patfraley@aol.com. That was fairly painless, right? Oh, I forgot. Void where prohibited by law and in the state of Wyoming.

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.

If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Links from today's show:

Pat Fraley
Billion $ Read : How to Make Money Reading & Recording Books

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley

Patrick Fraley has created voices for over 4,000 characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animation. He has produced dozens of award-winning audiobooks, such as, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Very Easy Death, and The Light in The Piazza. Pat produced and performed all 100 voices on the award winning audiobook, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which People Magazine hailed as, "The best yet of this evergreen." Patrick teaches events, workshops, and seminars on various aspects of voice over across the country, and has created a variety of instructional books and CDs, all available at PatFraley.com. He is a member of The Voice and Speech Trainers of America, and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Professional Acting from Cornell University.

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

---

Join Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley as he guides you through "Accents and Dialects". Discover what it means to truly adopt an accent that is consistent as well as researched and internalize key elements that create believable interpretations and characterizations.

Download Podcast Episode 15 »

Tags:

Pat Fraley, Pat Fraley Teaches, PatFraley.com, Audiobooks, Audio Books, Accents, Dialects, Voice Overs, Voice Acting

Transcript of Accents and Dialects

[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.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present Pat Fraley.

Leslie Howard: How do you do?

Bette Davis: You seem to be in a great hurry.

Leslie Howard: I say, will you dine with me sometime?

Bette Davis: I don't mind. I'm off Thursdays. I'll meet you at Victoria in the second-class waiting room.

Pat Fraley: That was Leslie Howard and Bette Davis doing a pretty passable cockney accent in Of Human Bondage. Movies are a great source for studying dialects. Hi, I'm Pat Fraley. First of all forgive the sound quality here. I'm out in the bunkhouse in Studio City. There are birds outside, dogs barking but I want to get this information to you now. Hey, if you want slick, get Michael Buble.

Anyway, this is about dialect. I'm on a mission, I always have a mission and that is to encourage you to study dialects. I was talking to my friend (Ginny McSwain), the goddess of Director for Interactive Gaming and Animation in North America and she wrote this, "As I work more and more on these games, Pat I can't tell you how important learning dialects properly has become. Studying should be a requirement for voiceover in this 21st century, (Ginny)."

Couple of reasons why dialects are so important, interactive games and audio books. First interactive games, the tracks are recorded in English for the world. The foreign market is huge. The trend is for creating international cast of characters, requiring dialects of all sorts and with few exceptions, these games are not recorded in other languages. European and Asian gamers hear the performances and relay on subtitles to navigate through the games. Producers don't want to hear American or Canada accents for their tracks as non-English speaking gamers do not want to hear the tail, tail lilts and sounds of North American accents during the umpteenth hour of play.

By the way the default accent on many of these games is Mid-Atlantic which sounds like generic UK to the American and Canadianers. Do you hear I'm softening my R's and I'm making a little bit more rounded tones? Another reason for the importance of accents and dialects is audio books. Right now, about 4,000 books a year are recorded for the audio book market. My friend Craig Black, the President of Blackstone Audio, told me recently that in the next four years this figure of recorded books will jump up to 24,000. Why? Because the success of downloadable audio books. This means virtual inventory for the publishers.

So, here's the problem. In the voiceover arena, we have to work rapidly. Most dialect and accent books are packed with all sorts of different sound changes for every dialect and include nuances and a lot of material that we just can't absorb quickly. So what's the solution? Here's what I suggest you do. You go through these chapters and you pull out the essential sounds required to create a real simple generic dialect. I've done this on all the major dialects and I put them on in essential accent worksheet. For example British, I probably have about a dozen changes that have to happen to take you from a standard American dialect to a British dialect.

So, how does it sound? If I were to talk to you like this, you can see that I'm only making a few changes. I'm not doing a lot. I soften my R's. I make sure that I say, "Oh" instead of "Ah". I say, "love" instead of "love". That's about it. Then of course you need a couple key lilts. This is the music underneath and absolutely essential to be able to even start with the dialect. I like to use this one, ta-ta-ta-ta and I also like to use ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta. It's really none of your affair. When you have a script, you immediately have to trap one of those lilts out underneath the words. You can always get nuance later but don't overwhelm yourself when you're approaching a new dialect.

I like to look at it as like remodeling your kitchen, Okay, you're going to have to have a sink, you're going to have to have cupboards and you're going to have counter space. That's like the essentials in dialect but you're going to have like tile floor? Are you going to have butcher block or are you're going to have a double sink? Those things you can add on after you get the essentials. Give an example. All right, now I'm doing my generic British. What I like to do is add a little London chop to it. That gives it the specificity. Also I like to put a little cockney underneath as if it's lurking, as if the character came from being a cockney but now they're trying to change classes a little bit and so then that actually smacks of authenticity.

Now, let's talk about authenticity. We see this a lot. We want an authentic dialect. So what is it an authentic dialect? It's not doing everything in the chapter of a book. What an authentic dialect really means is that people come from different places. Their parents might come from different places. They might - as my example was, be from one class moved into another. Larry Moss, my friend a dialect coach to the stars has his concept called an idiolect, where he points out that a dialect not only talks about originality or a country but it also reveals character and ideology or psychology. One of the examples he gives is this concept of the stereotypical Mexican, who is often portrayed as lazy and slow. Where do we get that notion? Think of it this way. Here is a foreigner in a foreign land who doesn't speak the language very well and he is perhaps here illegally and he's entering our society at the lowest class possible.

So, when you get this kind of thing of not being able to look someone in the eye and being hesitant to talk to someone. We'll, hey doesn't that make sense? Not about a stupid and lazy, it's about being illegal, low in class and not knowing the language. Just for a moment imagine the same Mexican is back in Mexico and he's speaking English to someone in his own country. Perhaps you'll hear some more confidence in what he says because he's not working with Gringo. He knows the language pretty well. You get more of a sound Ricardo Montalban than you do Pancho and these kind of stereotypical dialects, interesting concept from Larry Moss.

Another tip for authenticity is to think about who trained your character to speak English. If I'm doing Russian and he learned American English over here, you're going to hear hard R. You're going to get this sound like this. Now, if you are trained by British you'll have a softer R, you'll also have him saying, "master" and "command" and modeling more of the British way of speaking. Also for research I suggest two things. Yes go on the internet. You can find sites where you can hear authentic dialect. This is always good especially if you're picking up more lilts and some nuance.

But major resource brings me to movies. We have such total access. What do you listen too? Americans doing dialects. See they're up against the same thing we are and I'm not suggesting you just watch Meryl Streep movies. I mean she is so good that after 30 seconds, I forget that I'm trying to listen to her dialect or can I get sucked in. No, you want to see the good, the bad and the ugly. Watch Kevin Costner in Robin Hood. Find out where he's going wrong. You see you're called upon not to just model excellent but to be able to discern. So, if I can be a helpful in anyway, if you have any questions just e-mail me at patfraley [at] aol.com or go to my website Patfraley.com and you can get me through there. Thanks for your time.

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:

Pat Fraley
Billion $ Read : How to Make Money Reading & Recording Books

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley

Patrick Fraley has created voices for over 4,000 characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animation. He has produced dozens of award-winning audiobooks, such as, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Very Easy Death, and The Light in The Piazza. Pat produced and performed all 100 voices on the award winning audiobook, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which People Magazine hailed as, "The best yet of this evergreen." Patrick teaches events, workshops, and seminars on various aspects of voice over across the country, and has created a variety of instructional books and CDs, all available at PatFraley.com. He is a member of The Voice and Speech Trainers of America, and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Professional Acting from Cornell University.

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

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