I’m Leaving On A Jet Plane
Ok, after a very enjoyable time sheltering in place with my family during the pandemic, if you asked this working mom where the first place I’d be flying to would be, I would not have guessed Dallas, TX. So, why, when we can finally go anywhere, am I using my coveted Amex points to travel in style to Dallas (not that there is anything wrong with Dallas, but we can all agree it ain’t Paris.)? Well, J. Michael Collins and his mazing team are hosting the One Voice Conference USA and I am thrilled to be on two panels. My VO besties and I had been talking about planning a trip for a while, and it looks like this will be our fist chance to get to be in person together.
Why One Voice?
As a working mom, I have blogged before about what it take for me to choose to pack my bags and leave my family. Whether it’s for a booking, to meet an agent, or for a conference, I always have to way the and cons. In this case, the choice was much more simple than other. J. Michael has an amazing line up of speakers coming from all over. Not only did I want to participate and contribute as a speaker, but I have always felt that conferences are essential to understanding what is current in the voice over industry. If you want to understand what trends are booking right now, what is new in technology, what shifts are new in the business, this is THE place to be. Packing my bags for such a conference will be a joy. In fact, I already have my outfits planned!
Accountability Panel
If I could shout it from the roof tops, I would. I would not be where I am today without my VO Powerhouse as we call ourselves. My beloved accountability group includes me, Diana Birdsall, Kim Handysides, Michelle Blenker, and Shelley Avellino. In our panel called “Build a Badass VO Career With a Powerhouse Accountability Group,” we will help you consider why you need one and how to create one that will help your career the way our accountability group has helped ours. I don’t know where I would be without these amazing women who life me up, inspire me, and have helped me be my best self every day. Sitting on a conference panel with them is an honor and a dream come true and you can find us on Saturday, August 28th at 3:50 PM in Room 2.
Radio Imaging Panel
I am really excited to be a part of this amazing panel! First of all, to share a stage with Randy Thomas, Joe Cipriano, AJ McKay (who by the way did my main Radio Imaging demo), Brent Williams, and Scott Cartwright is like a dream come true. My path as a female radio imaging voice was different than most. I did not come to radio imaging from a career in radio. Rather, I learned about it from one of J. Michael Collins’ webinars and fell in love! Because of the energy and the vibe, this genre is perfect for me. I look forward to talking about the ups and downs of my journey and how I’ve worked hard to grow the radio imaging side of my business over the years. When I look at the other panelists, I know that my path into imaging was different than theirs. While I may not be as well-known or famous in the industry as they are, I believe I offer the perspective on how a regular professional voice talent can build an imaging career. This panel is Saturday, August 28th, at 5:30 in Room 1.
Demo Giveaway
As part of the joy of coming to One Voice USA, my demo partner Dave Scott ( of All Systems Go AV) and I really want to give something back to the voice over community. Dave and I will both be attending the conference in person, and we will give out postcards with the demo giveaway rules at One Voice. If you are a working, professional voice actor, and you take a picture with either one of us or both of us and post it on instagram and tag the conference and both of us, you will be eligible for a free video demo! It can be EITHER a commercial demo OR a narration demo, and it includes both a video version, an MP3 version, the planning session, and the necessary prep sessions! After a year in, we are very excited to meet more of the community and we thought this video demo giveaway is an awesome way to celebrate our coming back together!
I realized this year when my son had to do a rather grueling elimination diet that he hates when I say journey. Whether it is related to food, weight loss, his college search… it doesn’t matter. He hates if I say journey. I think it doesn’t resonate with him. He still thinks that where he is going, the end result, is the most important thing. As a mom of twins, I can say that I have learned I seldom end up where I thought I would. As a professional voice actor, I can say that this career path is for sure a journey and the opportunities that have unfolded since I started my career never cease to amaze me. The combination of passion and hard work seem to result in a delightful array of unexpected options, many of which I never anticipated. 
When I was in my mid 30s I decided to start my voice over business. I had to work with coaches all over the world to build my credentials. I needed tech training to learn to edit my audio. I had to build my studio. When I say I started then, I came to the industry with no experience. I never did school plays. I never did on-camera work. I took a leap of faith and invested in myself. I plunged in whole heartedly and the only option was to succeed. For six months before my business launched, I spent all day, every day, practicing and preparing. That is how my journey began. You might think that this was an easy choice? While my husband was extremely supportive, many in my family seemed to question my choices. Whether they outwardly remarked about my shift from a career in education to voice over or my snide remarks about how I could so easily “not use my degrees,” I understood the message. They questioned my choice to segue
When I began my business, I understood that it was just that: a business. As a working creative, I wear many hats: mom, voice actor, voice over coach, demo producer, but always business owner. Over the years I’ve had to think a lot about my practices and policies. I’ve had to think about how the business choices I make inform the relationships I’m building. As I had a liberal arts education that focuses on Political Science and History, I really knew very little about business when I launched. Even though I am surrounded by a family of lawyers, I did not want to constantly rely on others for guidance. I have taken multiple classes to bolster my business and marketing knowledge. This has been very fulfilling. I enjoy all on-going professional development, but my learning in this area has been very valuable. Whether from a class, a conference, or a webinar, I am proud of the confidence I have in my choices. I also try to read continually about business released topics. This part of my journey has been a true joy.
I will say, that as a working mom, I am extremely thankful to be in voice over. Even as I write this blog, my dogs are sitting on either side of me. Often, I am able to take breaks from recording to have snacks with my kids or go for walks. Some days I schedule my coaching so that I can go to pick them up from school, other days my husband does it. As a working mom, voice over seems like the perfect fit.
As I said before, there were elements of my previous branding that I loved. I loved a lot of the pink. I did not love the contrast between the pink and the black. Instead of the bubbles I had before, we whose to do something that combined my favorite flowers and leopard print. Again, I wanted this to have some edge to it, while retaining some warmth.
I’ve blogged about migraines before. This was yesterday. A migraine day. On days like this I sleep a lot and do the work that I can horizontally. With my dogs on top of me. As a full-time, working voice actor, on my good days, when my head is perfectly clear, I often let the thought creep into my mind: maybe I’ll never get another migraine. On a clear day, meaning a headache free day, I feel amazing. I am happy. I have no pain. I can record and work with clients and I am myself. But for me, migraines have been chronic since I had my twins almost 18 years ago. So, what does this mean as a working mom and a small business owner who wants to serve my clients well on good days and on bad ones? It means that I have to make choices that will not cause more migraines, and when I have them I have to be realistic about what I can reasonably do on a given day to accommodate my voice over clients.
As a working pro voice actor, I love doing live sessions, but will not do them on migraine days. Why? Migraine medication is strong. On a clear day, I am responsive. I can listen to client feedback and deliver. I also mimic well. On a migraine day, I struggle. Every thing I do all day long is a struggle. I am proud of what I accomplish on those days, but I do not feel a need to put my struggle under a microscope. The few times I have made exceptions for clients I have regretted it every time. They have not been my best sessions. If you are a migraine sufferer too, I suggest only self- directing on those days.
I will confess that I do make choices knowing that the wrong one could lead to a Migraine. I leave fun events early, like industry wide BBQs. I often turn down dinner invitations that I really want to say yes to, even at conferences, because I know that late nights will certainly lead to a migraine. Essentially, my limitations have to stay in the forefront of my mind, otherwise I will have more migraines come my way than I can handle, and that, frankly, would no be good for my voice over business. I also have to limit my work day. For example, this week I got a new demo back. I was so excited to start marketing it that I worked for hours after dinner, well past my bed time. Guess what? I had a horrendous migraine and lost most of the next day. I pushed beyond my limitations and it was not smart.
For me, my journey started in the mid-1990s. I was a student at Columbia University in New York City. I was studying political science. My younger sister Julie also went to school at Columbia, and we went out to eat off campus often. If you know anything about New York, you know that lots of waiters and waitresses are also actors who have to pay the bills. Well my sister and I have always sounded young, but when we were young we really sounded young. We also had a habit of speaking in unison and saying the same thing at the same time. It became a pattern that we would got to places like Ocean Grill or Isabella’s and every single time our server would comment on our voices. It wouldn’t just happen there, it would happen at Bergdorf’s or wherever we shopped. It even happened in taxi cabs. Often the follow up to asking if we are twins, and we are not, is that we should be in voice over.
I remember the day clearly. It was winter during my sophomore year and I went to the famous Drama Book Shop in Times Square to research how to become a voice over actor. One of the perks of being a student in NYC is that all of this was right at my fingertips. I was able to learn so much just be talking to the people who worked at the book shop, and I left with some books and a copy of Variety in hand. What I quickly discovered was that while I was in the right city to pursue voice over, at that time everything happened in person. I would have to take my tape cassettes around, show up in person for auditions, and actually go to studios for gigs. Being a student at Columbia and doing VO seemed mutually exclusive at that moment. My studies were intense and they were my primary concern, so voice over was put on the back burner.
My chat with Marie gave me the impetus to get started in voice over. I began researching coaches, writing a business plan, and researching how to build a studio. In the coming months, I started to lay the foundations for my VO business. I began working with Anne Ganguzza, my first coach. I started planning for my VO website, and I started having my studio built. I also had tech training to learn how to record and edit. I also began taking advanced acting and improv classes at Papermill Playhouse, our local theater. Over the years I have worked with many coaches, many of the best in the industry. I continue to push and hone my skills, update my demos, attend conferences, and build. A voice over career does not happen over night. I am so thankful for the work that I have had, and I have big dreams for what is to come!
Late Friday afternoon I was in my booth recoding a bunch of agent auditions that had come in. Initially I felt fine. I had completed all of my booked work and I wanted to submit a few more reads before I called it a day. I typically don’t have a lot of mouth clicks when I record. I do run Izotope RX7 as part of my effects stack, which takes care of whatever clicks there are, but I tend to stay hydrated and am not so clicky, especially since I gave up caffeine. I noticed that even though my noise floor was the same as it always is, I had a crazy amount of spikes and clicks present that I do not typically see. This was 3 to 5 minutes before I became violently ill and had to run from the booth, I could see what I had no idea was about the be a horrible case of food poisoning, in my audio!
As a small business owner, I work all the time. Typically on the weekends I work less, but I still work at points every day. This food poisoning forced me to pause. I was not even sure on Saturday if I would be ok for my like sessions on Monday, but I know realize I will be. Talking is hard, sitting up is hard. Sometimes the forced rest is essential to get back to where we were. I guess it is an opportunity to reset- to restart. In truth I have no other option, when one is so dizzy that going up and down the stairs feels unsafe, the rest is the only option. In lieu of any work, I laid on the sofa in my den surrounded by my dogs and tried not o move at all.