Metaphor Between Afghan and VO
Last summer when I was on my voice over retreat with my accountability group, Kim Handysides taught us how to crochet granny squares. I learned to crochet as a little girl and have always loved all needle crafts, but there was something about sitting around
with a group of women I was already close with and stiching and talking. It reinvigorated my love of crochet and somehow now linked it to my passion for voice over, so thank you Kim.
Anyway, as a little girl, when I was in second grade, my beloved Mommom Harriet taught me to crochet and knit. We started with crocheting. Her approach to both was the same. She wanted me to get it right. She encouraged me just enough so that I would not give up, and showed me what I was going to make, telling me that I would finish, but as I went along, for any mistake I made, Mommom pulled it out and had me re-do it. When something was nicely done she would say “beautiful work, Laura.” But, if a stitch needed correcting, she would look at it and sho me exactly where the last good stitch was. Then Mommom would pull the stitches out to that last good one, set the needles or hook back, and again I would re-start. Perhaps this is what got me so used to doing multiple takes in VO without flinching?
Well, since last summer, Kim really got me hooked on the granny squares. I decided to do an afghan club where the subscription sends me a kit each month. It is extremely exciting and fulfilling. Every month in the mail I get a package with beautiful yarns and
directions for the squares. At some point it will turn into a blanket. I chose a project called the “Happy Days Afghan.”
The more I work on this project, the more I realize that my approach to it is a rather solid metaphor to my approach to my voice over business. Like crocheting an afghan, our voice over career is a journey giving us multiple opportunities to try, do, and re-do until things look right for us.
How Long We sit With Things
Last month one of my squares turned into a pentagon. I felt fairly confident I had followed the directions flawlessly. I read them over and over. I counted stitches. I looked at the photo. Yet in my hands I held a pentagon, and what I needed was a square. I was not sure what to do. I thought perhaps I would hem it? Clearly any stitcher would no that would really not be okay. After about six weeks, I was looking at it again in dismay and a little bit of disgust. As time went on, my inability to get it right bothered me.
If this were voice over, and I weren’t booking, I would hire a coach or take online classes. I would talk to the gals in my accountability group. I would post on Facebook chats. So why, with the pentagon, was I just sitting there, stumped, paralyzed? When I did seek online help, I knew my stitches were correct, so the flaw was in my perspective, my analysis of the pattern.
Time to Reshape Things
Wanting to fix the pentagon was not about being a perfectionist, I began to realize just like in voiceover, it was about making my blanket what I wanted it to be. I kept hearing my Mommom’s voice in my head, and I got to a point where I just couldn’t leave it as it was. I think what was bothering me was that I had a pattern- a path- a roadmap as it were, and it still went wrong. I did my best and it was not right. So now It was time to re-do it. In VoiceOver, there is no road map for our career- we can build it and change paths, and we can talk to coaches but no one has a crystal ball and much like with my afghan, things can and will go sideways.
So two nights ago feeling the very strong presence of my grandmother I began pulling out stitches. I pulled out until the last good
row, just as she showed me as a little girl. The tricky thing in the square is that the early part of the pattern is round and I had to build corners. Since what I did was very wrong, I had to try something else to make mine look like the photo in the pattern guide. I didn’t rush and I concentrated, and low and behold my pentagon took on a new life as an adorable square.
I had a lot of feelings about this. Much like in my voice over journey, I learned not to rush, its a marathon, not a sprint. I learned to enjoy the journey, because it’s in the doing that a sort of evolution occurs. I could also see that even when someone very specifically tells you how they got to a certain point, that does not mean that you will get to that point using those steps. I think that as both a professional voice actor and a voice over coach, this mattered a lot. Simply, there just is not one right way, or one size that fits all, and you can help people and guide them, but much like my afghan pattern, there are variables. Lastly, there is great joy in discovery. Much like finishing these beautiful squares, learning new genres, working on one’s VO craft, and booking work with new clients or repeat work with cherished ones is quite joyful, and all should be savored.
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!
