The Unfathomable
On Friday morning I sat next to my son, in the midst of our grief stricken community, at a friend’s funeral. Tragically our friend had what is believed to be a sudden heart attack while traveling for work in Asia. Everyone was devastated, most of all his wife, his two beautiful daughters, his two brothers, his parents, and his grandmother who is a Holocaust survivor. Taken from his family at just 43, and listening to their tearful tributes, one after the next, the theme that came through is that there is no promise of tomorrow. If today is all that we have, are we making the most of today?
In voiceover, the rhythm of our days varies. Voiceover talents typically talk about our field being feast or famine. But sitting at this funeral, and thinking about the totality of how we live our life, forced me to take a step back and look at my career as a whole and not in microbursts. If today is all I have, then these are some of the reflections I am grappling with.
The Relationships We Build Mean Everything
While voiceover can certainly start to feel like a numbers game in terms of how many auditions an actor submits or how many marketing emails we send out, the building of real, inter personal relationships is far more important. Getting to know our clients and the producers who work with us means so much more than whether we submitted 10 or twenty auditions on Thursday. Remembering to ask how someone’s son’s asthma is or checking in on how the toy fair went out of genuine concern, and letting these folks get to know you, is far more meaningful then submitting into the abyss.
Relationships with our fellow voiceover talents is also so important. I will never forget the first time I heard another talent say “the rising tide in the harbor lifts us all.” The sense of camaraderie in voiceover is incredible. I have blogged before about my womens’ accountability group. In addition to daily contact with these women, I look forward to our weekly meeting and that our is one of the most important hours of my week. It gives me a support, stability, and confidence. I am so thankful for the close relationships that I have built with other professional voiceover actors. I particularly love the women that I have met and am so thankful for this bond in my post sorority years.
Stand Tall and Be Proud
If today were all that I had, I would want my children to know that every single day, all the work that I do is for them. That every single booking, each commercial and phone message, each narration, they all add up and they were all for them. As a momtrepreneur, I have done my best to show them that as a family we stick together and we take care of each other. That I am proud of all of my projects. I am proud of both the actual work that I have done and I am proud of what it represents. I am proud that I figured out how to work full time and get the laundry done and cook dinner, because believe me when I say that was not easy to learn and I still wish that fairies would come into my house and do it all. But nothing means more to me than having dinner with my husband and kids and talking about our day, and I guard that time like a hawk. So I am trying my best and somedays I juggle better than others, but when I look back I am so proud that I have at least figured this out for them. And as far as jobs go, working as a professional voiceover actor is a pretty cool one!
Leaving the Bubble
One of the biggest challenges for me when I went back to work was leaving the bubble which I pleasantly inhabited for the prior part of my married life. In that bubble, even though we live in a fairly diverse area relative to where I grew up in Pennsylvania, most people are from the same socio economic background, lived in NYC at one point, and are quite well-educated. Having attended an Ivy League University in the North East, when I first left the bubble, it was a bit shocking for me, meeting people from different parts of the country with very different lives. I very quickly learned that you could not make any assumptions about peoples’ backgrounds based on their last names, and that despite where we were from and where people went to college, I loved being around other creatives and meeting people who were so different than those around me every day was a joy and an inspiration. It opened my eyes to a new world and I have met so many amazing folks. Leaving my comfort zone was far from easy, but in my travels and at all sorts of industry events I am so thankful to have pushed myself to engage. This is an aspect of voiceover that a lot of folks don’t talk about but has been a big deal for me.
A Last Glimpse of Studio Life
Lastly, but certainly not least, I am so thankful that I spend my days in my professional studio with my dog Violet. Violet, a lovely and sweet Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, is the light of my life. She is the best companion a girl could ask for. If I had all the money in the world I would clone her like Barbra Streisand did with her dog. If tragedy struck today, I would be so thankful that Violet was on my lap or by my feet and brought me the greatest joy.
As a voiceover talent, it is my job to make every word come alive and bring the script to life the way its creator intended. So I have been exposed to some pretty sensational writing, and I can tell you that as of recent sometimes the only word to describe a client who is all kinds of wrong is not even found in the English language. The word we need, instead, is the Hebrew word hutzpah.
There are a few problems with this situation. In order to send Sam walking, I had to have the confidence in myself and my work that I am worth what I know my work to be worth. I am not afraid to maintain my rates. Sadly, in recent weeks, I have gotten responses from these undesirable clients that they have multiple voiceover actors willing to submit at their rates. As long as folks new to the industry are willing to accept these low rates, they undermine the pay for the rest of us. If you are in this category, you might want to check out 
Laying in bed at night, I watch HGTV mesmerized by their programing. Even with the magnetic personalities of their hosts, who also happen to be good looking, guess what? There are always professional voiceover actors, typically women, narrating the show. Why don’t they have the hosts or realtors doing the voiceover too? Well, they have a product to sell and it takes a pro to do it!
10. A talent who is well connected in the voiceover community will be an asset to you, particularly if you need to cast other voices for your project in a pinch.
