Voice Acting: Watching The ‘Golden Globes’ Show: ‘What’s THAT?’ Keeping Up With Pop Culture – For Voice Over, by Dave Courvoisier – And iSpot.tv, by Hugh Klitzke

VOICE ACTING
Watching Golden Globes Show: ‘What’s THAT?’
Keeping Up With Pop Culture – For Voice Over
January 12, 2016

By Dave Courvoisier
Voice Actor & TV News Anchor

Don’t
ask me where you’re going to find the time, but to be a successful
voice actor, you’re going to have to pay close attention to popular
culture.

Watching Sunday night’s Golden Globes awards show made me realize how far I’d fallen behind – and I read local and national news to a TV audience every day, three times a day, yet still feel like I’m trailing.

I’d never heard of more than half of the shows up for awards. Mr. Robot? Room? Infinitely Polar Bear?

Sheesh!
That’s
why I’m falling behind: those programs on streaming video channels are replacing
broadcast networks, and even cable. Hulu, Amazon Prime, Vudu, Netflix,
etc. They’re all doing the kind of exploratory script and series
development that the fading big TV networks are afraid to do anymore.

And how does this affect our voice over careers?

The
death of broadcast TV is NOT the death of voice over
opportunities. Rather, it’s the birth of all that many more! 

But to understand
the needs of this culture, and its advertising survivors – the nuances,
the trends – we’re going to have to find the time to watch some of
this stuff. 

WHAT TO WATCH …

As far as I know, there’s no known video version of Cliff
Notes for TV.
So, where
to begin? 

Well, you’ve already got Internet, right? OK, now go get
yourself a subscription to at least two of these new services. I’d
recommend NetFlix and Amazon Prime, but they are by no means the only
ones.

Trouble
is, watching this stuff takes time.

Can you digest it all? No. 

Are
there summaries in popular news media and trade mags? Sure, but there’s
no substitute for experiencing the cast, plot lines, and tenor of each series AND (here’s the most important part) sharing it with everyone else. Facebook is good for that, too, but only if you’re on the INside, and you know what’s going on. 

I
still haven’t watched the TV series LOST, but I was envious that half
of America was talking about it, and I was in the dark (turns out they
all were too -.but at least they were doing it together).

POP IN YOUR DELIVERY

Why
is this so important? Your delivery must reflect the tone of the
newest trends (at least for commercial, promo, and imaging work), and
you can’t fake that. You just gotta know it. 

Remember
how SNL coined the phrasing around “NOT!”? 

Mike Meyers: “I had sex
with Madonna … NOT!” 
Jimmy Fallon: “I wanna be just like Osama bin
Laden … said no one EVAR.”

These
sayings became part of our culture and our world. 

THE FORCE BE WITH YOU

You’ve gotta
understand the force behind that when you diagnose copy for the right
intent of the author and the spot. 

Don’t know who Heisenberg
is? Sorry! Then you’re not going to correctly interpret or deliver
the spot about the dangers of blue meth for the drug coalition spot.

Like
it or not – and believe me, there are plenty of times I don’t like it
– voice actors have to be uber-observant cultural customers. It’s not
enough to live in this milieu; we have to seek it, taste it, understand
it, and analyze it.

S’cuse me. I’d like to write more, but I gotta finish Season 7 of Dexter.

ALSO NOTE …

Check iSpot.tv To Research
Correct Voice Over Reads

By Hugh Klitzke
Casting Director and Coach

In the past couple of years,
iSpot.tv has emerged as a tremendous resource for research into
television commercial metrics; number of views, and where and when
commercials were last broadcast.  
 

But iSpot.tv also an EXTREMELY efficient way to investigate voiceover reads. 
 

For a long time, YouTube was
the standard place to search for a commercial to check out the read.
(And it still can be.)  

But when you search for a brand on iSpot.tv you
see multiple versions, and the most recent spots without having to
troll through, say, fan videos and consumer reviews of products rather
than the commercials themselves. 

———————

Email: CourVO@CourVO.com
Web: http://www.courvo.com
Blog: http://www.courvo.biz
More Than Just A Voice: http://courvo.com/more-than-just-a-voice

———————-
ABOUT HUGH
Hugh P. Klitzke is studio manager and voice casting director
for a leading bi-coastal talent agency, who has directed more than 85,000
auditions for all voice over genres. Based in New York City, he is also a coach specializing in teaching
voice over for actors, and writes VO4TA, a twice-weekly blog with helpful voice acting tips.

Email:  VO4TA@voiceoverfortheactor.com
Web: www.VoiceOverForTheActor.com
Blog: http://voiceoverfortheactor.com/hpks_blog
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