Laura Schreiber

Macaroons and Voiceovers: It’s What We Love

February 10, 2019 by Laura Schreiber

Laura Schreiber Why I Love VO (https://youtu.be/fWXhMnY9fEI)

Passions do Matter

It’s that time of year again when flash cards come out and multiple trips to the library and books stores all over town are a must: it’s term paper season. My twins are fortunate, the History teacher this year and the teacher the had in Middle school are both outstanding, so the kids have learned how to do research. Still, as the mom of two dyslexic kids, they need help. Time management, sorting through the material, and making sure they are on the right track are not skills that come easily to most teenagers, and especially to kids with learning differences.

As a full-time working mom, I spend a lot of time at nights and on the weekends doing work with the kids and I look forward to our time together. My daughter Emma is much more a math and science kid, so when a huge research project came her way in History this year she was less than thrilled. One Sunday in the den with my sister, Emma had a tearful outburst and said “I just want to write about macaroons!” We got it. She spends hours a day doing homework and she wants to work on something she loves, and you know what, Emma LOVES eating macaroons. Smart girl, right?

So, we began searching on line, and learned that Catherine de Medici, the Italian Queen of France, brought Macaroons to France! She also brought the fork, cigarettes, and the side saddle, along with numerous other significant cultural contributions, but this is not about the Medici Queen, it’s about my sweet and smart daughter Emma pursuing her passions. Once we focussed on a subject that Emma loved and cared about, the term paper became a joy and something she was happy and proud to work on.

So, what on earth does this have to do with my professional voiceover career? Everything! Just as pursuing her passions academically makes all the difference for Emma, pursuing my passion for voiceover all day every day is extremely meaningful and fulfilling for me. I had been home with my twins when they were young, and the only way I could go back to work full time was to go after something as wonderful as, well, macaroons!

Creative Outlet

I think one of the reasons I love working in voiceover so much is that it provides such a creative outlet. Between the auditions and my bookings, every day’s work is very different in that regard. I love having fun with the reads and trying to think of an approach that others won’t come up with. I am enthusiastic and passionate and voiceover work is upbeat and happy most of the time. I am really thankful that I spend so much of my time doing something so creative.

Sometimes clients are not sure what they are looking for. I love helping make suggestions and providing alternate reads so that they have options for their project. It is extremely rewarding to bring something to life.

Working From Home is a Gift

Before I had my kids I taught Middle and Upper School History at an all girls school in New York City. The thought of commuting now and being so far from my kids makes my stomach turn. I want to be the one who is here when they are home sick. I want to attend the school science fair and parent teacher conferences. I want to pick them up in the afternoon and hear all about their day. I can still work an 8 hour day and do all of these things. One of the benefits of being a solopreneur is that I create and manage my schedule. I lose no time commuting and my studio life is a delight. My studio dog Violet is by my side every minute and she is a love. Her presence is calming and fuels my joy.

Being a Working Mom Ain’t Easy

My voiceover tasks don’t vary much day to day. On a daily basis, I work on my bookings, try to always do at least 20 auditions, work in marketing outreach and client correspondance, and do bookkeeping. I also have to maintain my social media content. It fills the day and the work day goes by in the blink of an eye.

While I am preoccupied with my voiceover work, all of my tasks as a wife and mom sit. When my sister and I were little we loved the old fable The Elves and the Shoemaker. Oh how I wish there were elves that would sneak into my house to tidy up and do the laundry or the dishes! I find tasks like cooking dinner and preparing lunch for the kids to be the most challenging because I try so hard to make our food healthy and well-balanced and it is hard to do that quickly and last minute. If I were not spending my day doing what I love, it would be quite frustrating to feel so challenged all the time.

Learning from my kids

My kids are young enough still that they do not keep their feelings bottled up. Instead, we know just how they feel in the moment. The blessing of that, though, is that the kids don’t ignore their passions. They pursue them whole-heartedly. This is a wonderful example to live by. Our lives go by so quickly. As Plato said, “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

The Intersection Where Your Client’s Dreams and Your Voiceover Dreams Meet

February 5, 2019 by Laura Schreiber

https://youtu.be/YRzwmJJ3t9c

#VoiceoverDreams Cold Calling and Cold Emailing (https://youtu.be/YRzwmJJ3t9c)

Talking about it all at Sunday Brunch

My friends often remark about how much time my family spends together, but it is something I look forward to all week. Actually, when I travel for work, I have FOMO from being away from my family because we all have so much fun together and are so close. When I say my family is together, I am talking about me, my husband, our twins, my parents, my sister, my husband’s parents, my husband’s sister, and her family. That is a lot of people! Our time together often involves lengthy conversations about where we should eat, and you can imagine with so much input it is hard to make everyone happy.

Anyway, last Sunday we were at a new South Orange hotspot opened by a well-known Brooklyn restauranteur called the Fox and the Falcon for our brunch. I was in my glory because I got to sit next to my four year old niece Emilia and she is quite precious.

As a small-business owner and professional voiceover actor, people in my family and in truth random acquaintances alike are always making “helpful”suggestions about potential clients I should pursue. So at brunch my dad said, in his heavy Philly accent, “Hey Laur, I was thinking. It would be really great if you could do a car commercial for Mercedes.” Really dad? I am not a sarcastic person by nature, I am pretty much all rainbows and lollypops. But did he really think it never occurred to me that doing a television or radio commercial for a luxury brand like Mercedes would be a dream come true? Or that I did not already have such ambitions? There is only one way to make such voiceover dreams come true: to pursue them with all the ambition I have in me.

Delivering For Our Clients

The single most important thing to remember is that our clients have a dream. Perhaps vision or goal is more appropriate. They may have a personal career dream, but for the specific project we are supporting them with, they have a vision and it is up to us to bring that vision to life. Any voiceover actor who has had a live session recently can tell you that you will give multiple versions of the same line until your client hears what they need. They know what they are looking for and they want us to match what they have in their head. I have been told over and over that producers don’t know what they want but that is not my experience. We have to give them exactly what they want only better so that they are overjoyed when our session is over. We not only leave our clients feeling over joyed by providing amazing reads, but our studios must be broadcast ready and our sound has to be perfect. That is how we deliver their voiceover dreams. We make it feel effortless to them so that they are delighted and thrilled and then we thank them for casting us. It’s that simple. We have to be a pleasure to work with and they have to have exactly what they need at the end of the session. So making our client’s dreams come true is entirely about the service that we provide for them.

How Do We Make Our VoiceOver Dreams Come True?

Making our voiceover dreams come true is a lot more complex! First, you must know what your dreams and ambitions are. The idea of “success” is far to vague. For me, I have always been extremely passionate about commercial work, so I cast a broad net in other areas of voiceover that were tangentially related, including radio imaging, promos, and telephony. That strategy has worked well for me. My dream is not just as vague as having consistent, sustainable income in this genre. Like my dad suggested, I do dream of specific clients and have been fortunate enough to work with them.

Roll Up our sleeves and work hard: Cold Calling and Cold Emailing

The only way to add new clients to our roster continually is to make cold calls and cold emails regularly. Yes you will have a lot of rejection, speak to a lot of morons who have no idea what you do, and feel like you are waisting a ton of time. But for the past year I have done countless phone messages for Whole Foods Markets. And guess what? That was the result of cold calling. I have been on Pandora Radio’s roster for several years. That was the result of cold emailing. I have more than 15 agents. All of them were from cold emails. Every day I typically email between 30 and 100 radio stations in hope of getting them to sign a retainer for ratio imaging. All of the stations I presently work with I have found this way, and with over 12,000 stations in the United States alone there are a lot to go after. It is imperative that you actively pursue your dream and if you are not willing to do this then you must question how dedicated and determined you really are.

LOTS of auditioning

Auditioning will also help your dreams come true. Whether they are for pay to plays, direct from clients, or for agents, this is your chance to showcase your abilities. I have heard other industry people say that the audition is the job and I could not agree more! You cannot audition too much and if you have a poor audition ratio than you likely need more coaching. Your auditions are a microcosm of your actual work, so you cannot fear auditions.

Sitting and waiting never helped anyone!

In any industry, have you ever heard of anyone who just sat home and waited for success to find them? That never works. In an industry filled with go getters and lots of legitimately talented folks, you must pursue your dreams with all of your ambition. Your dreams can come true, but they can only come true in voiceover with hard work, perseverance, and determination.

Super Bowl Video Narrations: Casting Outside The Box

January 27, 2019 by Laura Schreiber

Just a Philly Girl…

Everyone knows there is only one type of Eagles fan. Growing up in Philadelphia, I remember dreading the ride home from Sunday school every week. It did not matter whose dad was driving carpool, we would be listening to the Buddy Ryan Show the entire ride which was upwards of 30 minutes. My friend Candace can tell you those rides felt like an eternity. Football was a major part of my childhood, but I do not recall in those years ever hearing women voices as part of the dialogue. I also was not taken to games or included in the pre-or post-game banter. It all kind of happened around me. Still, I felt and continue to feel tremendous pride and spirit for our teams. How can you not when there are so many game day rituals?

Now, years later, I am married to a New Yorker (gasp) who is such a sports aficionado that he will have sports on the computer while he has sports on tv on mute while listening to sports on the radio. Harlan seems to love to watch videos on youtube and ESPN footage of old great plays talking about why they were amazing. Again, All. Male. Voices. So…. Let’s spice things up and try this…

https://youtu.be/S1QyjwHrBBI

Dramatic Female Announcer For Super Bowl II (https://youtu.be/S1QyjwHrBBI)

Connected Female Narrator

The music is the same. The footage is the same. The content remains EXACTLY the same. The vocal quality is attached, connected, emotive, strong, confident, proud. But there is one major contrast. The voice of the professional voiceover is now a conversational, millennial narrator. Tradition aside, with more women who audition, the more women are likely to get these roles. But it is not just about numbers. When voiceover jobs are posted, often male narrators are sought for specific roles. Or, when both male and female voices are considered, if there is one female voice and ten male voices, the odds still favor a male narrator. As Britni de la Critiz from the Ringer explains, “women need to have champions in order to succeed in these roles.” With women like Randy Thomas announcing ABC news Nightline for the first time, hope for professional voiceover actors is on the horizon. For the first time ever, Amazon rolled out some all-female football casters. This is certainly a step in the right direction.

The Winds of Change

Still, it is clear that multiple changes need to happen for women to be considered for these typically male dominated roles. First, those doing casting need to be willing to cast a broad net and listen to auditions from a wider range. Next, voiceover talents have to be bold and be willing to shake things up when submitting their reads. We cannot be afraid to standout, we must be eager to shine and be heard so that our addition stands apart from the others. Our vocal quality can be nothing short of outstanding so that those castings are just choosing the best read. Perhaps if the casting agent hears 100 reads one way and you zag you get cast.

The Main Event: Super Bowl Sunday

As a professional voiceover actor, some of us are lucky enough to have a super bowl spot air. There are also related spots on the radio, as YouTube bumpers, and in the days following the big game. But, we all know that across America, come came day, in homes across the country family not only watch the came with eager anticipation, they watch the much anticipated Super Bowl commercials! What is the viewing audience looking for? Often we want a pang of emotion. A shocking plot twist. A good laugh. A thrill. Is this beginning to make you think of what we go after in our voiceover demos? Hmmm… See, for a professional voiceover actor, every single day we try to bring out the best in the scripts that we are given, but on this day, the day of all days, these commercial spots are truly incredible. And for the voiceover talents who have been smiled upon by the casting gods and are lucky enough to have some part in the quintessential American holiday we all love, their creativity can flourish.

I don’t know where you will be this Super Bowl Sunday, but I will be in my house surrounded by my family and wonderful neighbors. Even though my beloved birds did not make it this year, every year we host a great party. We have lots of delicious food, a lot of our friends, and our family. And as a girl whose Sundays have revolved around football for more winter’s than I’d like to admit, I can say with certainty that as much attention will be paid to the commercial viewing as to the game next Sunday.

It is my hope that if I revisit this topic in a few years there are a lot more women involved in all levels of sports casting and narrating such videos on a regular basis! If the Eagles can make it to the Super Bowl, it doesn’t seem like such a long shot…

Even Voiceover Actors Catch Colds

January 20, 2019 by Laura Schreiber

https://youtu.be/aEUI4jDYOJQ

No one wants to get sick…

It’s winter time and colds are inevitable. I remember the first time I got sick after becoming a full-time voiceover actor. I was actually working on my first tv credit, a documentary that ultimately ran on Canadian television called “No Running.” I got sick, which is both unusual for me and unusual over the summer. But, working moms know it happens. When you have young kids, they bring us these treats. It wasn’t just a slight cold, I had a hacking cough and a brutal sore throat. I didn’t sound a little raspy, my voice became unrecognizable overnight. Besides that I felt terrible, I was panicked about the job that I was so proud to have booked. I immediately reached out to the producer. He was so kind and understanding. I was fortunate that their production schedule gave them the flexibility to wait until I was better, which incidentally was more than a week. Any working mom can tell you that just doing the minimum to feed your kids and have clean laundry is difficult when you have a fever, but keeping a new business going is even more stressful. I was very relieved and learned a lot from this lesson early on. If you are a voiceover actor and you get sick, it is very important to be honest with your clients while pursuing a path to wellness.

Be Up Front with Those Who Cast Us

Maintaining client relationships is essential to a sustainable voiceover business. So, if you intend to make your clients happy, and you happen to be a little sick, or worse, really sick, you must tell them before accepting a booking. Transparency is essential in all business dealings and video production companies, casting agents, etc. expect us to sound like our demos and auditions. If we sound like someone else, this is a bate and switch. If you test drive a car, you expect to purchase that car. If you pick out a slab of marble, you expect the quarry to give you the exact slab. We are booked based on our read, and if we don’t sound as expected, we should assume they will either recast the spot or wait for us to recover. I lost a radio spot once about two years ago. It was an adorable spot that I would have been perfect for. But such is life and it is far more important that my client had what he needed when he needed it. Don’t try to hide a cold, it never works out.

Healthy Cold Remedies Specifically Voiceover Actors

Assuming that we all maintain a healthy lifestyle regularly, it is still likely that we will get sick every now and then. I am gluten free and dairy free and try to avoid foods that cause inflammation. Still, I do not live in a bubble and especially since both my children and my husband commute by train, if they get sick I am like a sitting duck. So, as soon as I get congested here are my go to tricks:

I gargle with warm water and sea salt. My late grandmother told me to do this and I actually find it quite helpful. The salt cleans out bacteria in your mouth and throat.
I use Neil Med Sinus rinse. I prefer the squirt bottle to the nettie pot. It is always important to use this with either boiled or distilled water.
I drink Golden Voice Tea. I buy this in amazon. I am not typically a tea drinker but find this really opens me up and it is very soothing. I learned about it from Randy Thomas at her conference and have been drinking it ever since.
I am obsessed with my Vicks personal steamer. It is the only way to get into your bronchial vessels and really open them up. I suppose you could just boil water, but this directs it to your face and it feels amazing. Just a heads up, don’t walk around with it once it has started boiling, you can get burned. It does warn you of this but in case you are like me and you ignore such labels, now you have been warned twice!

Making Good Use of The Time…

I don’t know about you, but as a small business owner there is never enough time in the day to finish everything I want to pursue. When I do have a cold, I try to audition less and instead focus my energies on marketing and client out reach. This is helpful for two reasons. First, if bookings do come in, my voice is in it’s best possible shape (assuming I am well enough to work). Next, I can do meaningful outreach that often yields results as good as auditioning. The key is that if you do indeed get sick, do not wait, take action on your path to wellness and while you are pursuing intelligent solutions also have faith that your business will continue to flourish.

Explainer Videos and Grattitude: Working Moms Change the Narrative

January 13, 2019 by Laura Schreiber

https://youtu.be/f1V9fzAsB6A

What triggered these thoughts?

Since Thanksgiving, I have been working out regularly with my 15 year old son Jack. Jack and I have been work out buddies before, but never with such regularity. So what motivated me, a full-time working mom of 2, to stick to my routine this time? Well since 2016 Jack has been on growth shots. He was not producing enough growth hormone and was so small he was not even on the charts. Now, with the help of Nutropin, after just two years he has grown more than two feet and is bigger than I am! But, as with all strong medications, there are terrible side effects and one of them is that Jack’s blood sugar is quite high. The doctor suggested that losing weight would help.

Jack and I joined the Max fitness challenge and have loved it. As a professional voiceover actor, I spend my days in a padded foam booth. Getting out every night for out 7:15 class has not only helped me reach me health and fitness goals, but has been invigorating in so many way. Often others in the class will comment about how great it is that Jack is there and ask why he came. Not thinking any thing of it, I would answer honestly and explain about the growth shots and Jack’s sugar. Often as busy mom’s we won’t make a change for ourselves, but for our kids we will move mountains, right?

Well one night this week Jack told me that he would prefer that I “tell the truth” when asked why he was there. I was blown away, as I thought my reply could not be more honest. Jack said he was going to Max Fitness because he was looking for a harder, more challenging workout. That was it. He objected to my response because it made him sound like a “lazy schlub.” This really got me thinking. Two truths. Two sides of the same coin. But Jack’s perspective was surely the much more optimistic one. Jack’s outlook was full of hope and did not focus on any possible negative outcomes. This had me reexamining so many facets of my life. That very day I had been complaining that I had such a tough day, when actually four great things had happened. Instead of focussing on the great things as my kid would have, I was sweating the small stuff and letting everything that did not go my way define my perspective, and I realized that was ridiculous!

Just in Time for Grattitude Day

My conversation with Jack gave me a lot to reflect on. It turns out that Friday was National Grattitude Day. For someone who spends a lot of time working as a professional narrator, narrating other peoples explainer videos and projects, it was time to change my own narrative! Ironically, I am often chosen for projects because I sound hopeful, but I continue to be so hard on my self.

https://youtu.be/cn7lkUdKRfc

Laura Schreiber Narrates for Genesis Women's Shelter "Once Upon A Time… Cont'd" 2016 (https://youtu.be/cn7lkUdKRfc)

Well, this grattitude day marks the begging of a conscious choice to celebrate my successes instead of fixating on my own shortcomings. It is an irony of life that I am often specifically hired for the vocal qualities of being upbeat, energetic, and happy while internally I am measuring all of the things that I did not finish or the additional jobs I had wanted to book or the blogs that were never written or the friends that I never saw. After so many years of wanting to accomplish so much, it is easier to maintain this pattern of self scrutiny when we set the bar so impossibly high.

When the reality is that we are working more than 8 hour days, booking work in a super competitive industry, and somehow still managing to feed my family, help my kids with their homework, do the laundry, workout, and see friends from time to time. When I look it at that way it seems that working mom’s everywhere should not only be celebrated by our families, but we should be doing a heck of a lot more to remind each other how proud we are!

This is My Fight Song…

A lot of times when candidates run for office they have a song for their campaign. When Jack and I are in our gym class every night, and I am just breathing and trying to make it through, a lot of times it’s the music that helps me get through. I focus on the song. The beat, the rhythm, the lyrics all help me pass the time and survive what our trainer has us doing. On Thursday the old song “Get Ready, Cause Here I Come” was playing and if there ever were a song that captured the spirit of how I feel, it is that song! The lyrics do not fit exactly, but boy does it get to the heart of how I feel. I feel like I am still just at the beginning of life’s journey and the world better be ready for me, because here I am:)

The New Frontier In Voiceover: The 6 Second Youtube Bumper Ad

January 6, 2019 by Laura Schreiber

https://youtu.be/nV-cchP6QxY

6 Second YouTube Bumper Ads with Laura Schreiber (https://youtu.be/nV-cchP6QxY)

You Have 6 seconds… Go!

Times sure are a changin’. When we were kids, we didn’t have a tv in our bedrooms. My parents loved watching tv with us and felt strongly that it was a family activity so the tv was in the family room. We also had a “little tv” as we called it in the kitchen. As it ran on an antennae and only had the main networks, if we were sick or they were out on a Saturday night, we had the special treat of having the little tv moved to our room! But, my sister and I were expected to enjoy it together. I remember watching Saturday morning cartoons in bed with Julie on occasion, and loving the lineup including “the Smurfs,” “The Snorks,” and “The Gummy Bears.” Those were special times.

Now it doesn’t matter so much that my husband (who grew up without a tv, gasp!) and I don’t have tv’s in our twins’ rooms, because they are amongst the 1.3 BILLION people who, according to Merchdope, are partaking in the watching of 5 BILLION videos every day! Typical of their generation, my twins have laptops, iphones, and ipads and can use any and all of these devices to watch YouTube.

And what is popping up on every, single video they watch? I am sure that you have seen those 6 second ads, that used to be 3 seconds, that you can’t skip. Those are called YouTube Bumper Ads and they are changing the landscape of voiceover. As a professional voiceover actor, I know have the exciting task of telling a story, showing emotional range, communication the essence of a brand, drawing in a customer, and connecting with the audience all in six seconds! I think folks who pursue a career in voiceover enjoy a challenge, and this new genre is just the next arena for us to dazzle our clients with our voiceover skill set. The YouTube Bumper presents all sorts of opportunities in marketing.

How big is this trend?

The trend of the YouTube Bumper Ad in voiceover is here to stay. Like in other commercial realms, marketing and ad executives strive to create a custom audience and based on the YouTube search can target a specific subset of viewers. Unlike commercials in other genres like television and radio, YouTube bumper are not skippable. With over 1 billion users daily, the permutations of groups and subsets of viewers to build brand awareness offers such vast potential with numbers never seen before all in one place! For example of what major brands are doing, Jon Lafayett of Broadcasting Cable explains “Busch used bumpers after a campaign that included the Super Bowl and saw double-digit lifts in both purchase consideration and brand awareness among viewers. The bumpers were made from extra footage shot while making the Super Bowl spot.” This echoes my experience as the professional voiceover talent. After being cast for the tv commercial, the new media usage was added on to my voiceover casting so that the producer could record all of the voiceover in one session. This allows for continuity in the marketing campaign and further brand awareness when the clients relate the voice across genres. The fact that the numbers were so impressive for Busch indicates the success of such strategies and the YouTube bumper is integral to a solid marketing strategy today in an economy that is shifting rapidly.

https://youtu.be/9zqLLXIOg1M

Laura Schreiber Wellness Wellpet Bumper (https://youtu.be/9zqLLXIOg1M)

Roots in Commercial World…

In terms of voiceover technique for the YouTube bumper, adjusting to this shorter segment, while surprising at first, comes naturally for those of us who book a lot of commercial work. As my bread and butter has been voiceovers for tv and radio commercials since I started my career, when these scripts are written well it is easy to pour your heart into them. Most voiceover actors have done short spots on demos or tags. A YouTube bumper, however, is very different than a tag. Aside from the length ( and a tag on a commercial can be even shorter than a bumper), a tag is offering either an ending plug for the brand or a last bit of information. In a YouTube bumper ad, a voiceover actor has to be compelling and have charisma in a flash. Supposedly peoples’ attention spans are becoming shorter and shorter because of the time we spend on electronics, so they are looking for these short engagements and it is our job as the voiceover talent to make that connection.

Predictions About Impact on Industry

I believe that the YouTube bumper ads are here to stay and as the viewership on YouTube increases exponentially so will the need for professional voiceover actors to voice these spots. I also believe that the industry will continue to produce the 15, 30, and 60 second traditional advertising commercials as well. As long as radio and television continue to exist and have relevance in society, brands will want a presence there and will need for a connection in their YouTube and traditional marketing campaign. And at the end of the day, any working mom can tell you, a lot can happen in 6 seconds!!