BOOK TOUR: Dates & Places added

The international book tour is going gang-busters with great signings in the US and abroad. Next up, stops in:

New York City, NY Join us at The Drama Book Shop for a FREE voice-over workshop and talk as well as a book-signing this Friday, October 8th at 5pm. The Drama Book Shop is located at 250 W. 40th St., NYC, NY 10018.

More stops to be announced soon for California, and possibly Florida .

We're also in various local stores throughout the United States, so stop by Barnes & Noble or Borders to pick-up/request your copy today, order online via Amazon or our website as well as the new eBook on lulu!

We will add details and more cities as soon as they are confirmed, so check back to get more details!

Coming soon:

Los Angeles, CA. Stay tuned for more info!

In the meantime, need reviews on Amazon.com which YOU can help us with! So if you've read the book, we'd love for you to review it for us, CLICK HERE and write your VOVA Amazon review. Thank you :)

Below is a list of places we've visted and done book signings or voice-over talks! Thanks to everyone who stopped by!

MONTREAL, CANADA at Fantastic Film Festival, doing a VO talk and book signing, July 17 & 18

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA at ComicCon July 22-25, please check Comicon schedule.

LONDON, ENGLAND, c/o London Expo Saturday/Sunday May 29/30, at Excel London, E16 1XL

DUBLIN, IRELAND Saturday June 5th from 12 noon - 2:30 pm at at Forbidden Planet Dublin, 5-6 Quay, Dublin 2, Ireland.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, Super Happy Tokyo Love, 8p-10p Sat March 8, Royal T, 8910 Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA90232

CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA - CANCELED DUE TO ILLNESS, our apologies!!

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA, c/o Supanova Con Saturday & Sunday April 10 & 11, RNA Showgrounds

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, c/o Supanova Con Saturday & Sunday April 17 & 18, Melbourne Showgrounds

SAN FRANCISCO, CA The Comic Outpost, 12:30-2:30, Sat. March 13th, 2381 Ocean Ave, SF, CA 94127

LAS VEGAS, NV Alternate Reality Comics, 3:00-5:00pm, Sat. February 20th, 4800 S. Maryland Pkwy, LV, NV 89119

Take Action #8 – What Do Famous Folks Sound Like?

Choose a well-known voice to help you figure out what a particular quality sounds like, and put your quality list into practice. Think about the ways you would describe that voice to someone who couldn’t hear that person? Who are some celebrities who have unique or interesting sounds? What are the qualities of their voices that make their words or thoughts stand out? Use the following list and begin to narrow down particular qualities that a few famous folks have, as well as those of some people you come in contact with daily.

Exercise - Other People’s Qualities

Drew Barrymore

Samuel L. Jackson

Michael Jordan

Christopher Walken

Angelina Jolie

Barack Obama

George Clooney

Lucy Liu

The radio dj

A friend

A family member

______________

Take Action #7 – How do these words make you feel?

Begin by reading the list below and noting what each particular word means to you: how each word affects you, or what kinds of thoughts or feelings come up when you read them. What are the attributes or qualities of each specific descriptive word? Of course, if there are any of these words that you are unfamiliar with, do not hesitate to look them up.

Adjective/Adverb List

Wry                                       Calm                                      Perky

Honest                                 Open                                     Cut-to-the-chase

Sarcastic                             Happy                                  Clipped

Giddy                                    Haughty                                Innocent

Secretive                            Emotional                              Bored

Inquisitive                           Playful                                   Cool

Sexy                                       Witty                                    Crazed

Earnest                                Angry                                    Grounded

Trustworthy                        Confident                             Relaxed

Start with the first word on our list: wry. Think about what it means to you. Who is someone you think is wry? What are the qualities you associate with wry? What pictures or images come to mind when you think of that word? As they come to you, jot them down.

For example, when I think of wry I imagine someone who cuts-to-the-chase, makes no-bones-about what they are saying but does it in a very tongue-and-cheek kind-of-way. Someone who is wry almost seems to be smirking as they tell you the facts; I can picture a weary mom telling me about a trying to keep her kids’ clothes clean with a wry, “What are you gonna do? I love them, but they just get so darn dirty."

Take Action #6 – What can you learn from the people around you (without them even knowing…)?

One great way of getting your ear (and then your voice) attuned to a variety of voices, inflections, accents and qualities is to go people watching, or people-listening, rather... Find a fairly busy spot, like a mall, a zoo, a crowded lobby, café, etc, sit yourself down, and observe. Listen to how different people talk, take note of their pauses, inflections, their unique affectations and things you find interesting about them. Without appearing creepy, you might even pay attention to their mouths to see if there’s something specific they’re doing to create sounds.

If you think it might help, bring a note pad along so you can take notes on things you want to remember. Consider also bringing your quality check list with you so you can quantify for yourself the characteristics of the voices you’re hearing. In case you haven’t built a quality list yet, here are some examples to start with. Use them as a jumping-off point and add your own!

Calm      Pointed      Sincere      Flustered      Agitated      Loving

Hypnotic      Polite     Warm       Shrill       Distant       Brash

See how many different qualities a particular person’s voice might have: perhaps they have a calm, sincere, loving, polite voice, or maybe their voice is pointed and agitated. Mix and match to best describe the voice you are listening to, or add any qualities you become aware of that aren’t yet on your list.

Happy people listening!

Take Action #5 - Read Aloud

We stress the importance of reading out loud. It may seem simple, and maybe you haven’t done it in years, but it can be hugely effective in improving everything from your acting to your ability to quickly assess a script, make choices, and pull the words off the page. Sir Ian McKellen claims that reading out loud was how he learned to act, and I think most of us will agree that he knows his stuff in that area. So, good enough for Sir Ian, good enough for us. Here’s a simple exercise you can almost anywhere and on your own time: Pick three things to read. Any bit of written media will work. Start small if you want. A pamphlet, a matchbook, a newspaper article, a newspaper ad, a comic book, a shopping list, someone’s blog, anything. Over the course of the day, collect those three things. Now-- and this is where it gets tricky –read them. Out loud.

Read each one at least once through, and if you’ve got time and you’re enjoying yourself, read them through again. See if each time through differs for you. See how the writings may be different from each other. Is one a story? Is one just trying to sell a product? Is one using a story to try and sell a product? Is one just a list of numbers on a receipt? If you’re having fun, give a different “character” to each one, or even switch it up within the writings.

You may not feel a change after doing this exercise, but trust us, it gets your brain and mouth working in all the right ways. Most importantly, as long as you’re reading out loud there is no wrong way to do this exercise. Unless of course you’re a monk who had, until this exercise, taken a vow of silence. Or if you’re in a library where they frown on doing anything out loud.

Have fun!

Take Action #4: The Business Side of Acting

As actors we can sometimes become too focused on the craft of acting and neglect something that's equally important: the business side of acting. This may not be as "fun", but just as important as tuning your vocal instrument is finding out who might hire you to use your voice and where they are. It's a pro-active way of forwarding your career in voice-over. So for a moment look at VO as a military objective. This week's exercise focuses on selecting a few targets and doing a little recon, or research. And you won't even need to get your hands dirty. Start with what you like. For example, if you really like the show Naruto, you might search and find out that in the United States, Naruto is licensed by a company called Viz. A little more looking (with your friend Google) might turn up that the English dub for Naruto is recorded at Studiopolis. Voila! You now have a production company to add to your hit list when you have a demo to mail out! With commercials, you might have to be a little more investigative, but there are resources (such as adforum.com) out there that can help you find the ad agency who produced the commercial and who's associated with the promotion of that product.

So, for this exercise, pick an area to start with: animation, video games, or commercials. Now choose three of your favorite shows/movies, video games or commercials. Begin to do a little Internet legwork. Find out who the production company is, and in the case of commercials, the ad agency who commissioned the spot. Try and discover if the company/agency casts their projects in-house, or if they have a relationship with a separate casting company. In some cases, you may even find that the same studio/ad agency produced more than one of your selections, then you know they're definitely somebody you want to target.

There is plenty of information available on the Web, and a little digging could turn up e-mail addresses or maybe phone numbers that you could use to contact the company and find out who might be best to send your reel to. Start a file and keep the info you find for future reference. Good hunting!

Take Action #3: Breathing is Crucial in Voice-Over

Sure, breathing is important to staying alive, but because we do it all the time, we kind of take it for granted and we sometimes get lazy with it. Breathing is crucial in voice-over. You can't speak without breathing, and you can create powerful (and safer) vocal effects with proper breath control. To increase your breath control try this simple exercise. Start standing. Simply notice your breath. Now, exhale all the air in your lungs and hop/jump up into the air as you inhale as much air as you can. Then as you land begin counting aloud, "one-two-three-four..." up as high as you can on that breath. When you've emptied your lungs of air once more, jump up as you inhale as much as you can, and then land and begin counting out loud again. See if you can't get a few numbers higher than the first time, speaking as you exhale, or "on your breath."

Do this several times. Try to see if you can best your initial count by 10. Do this every day and you should begin to notice that you have better breath control and increased lung capacity. This will help sustain and protect your voice as you speak "on your breath."

** If at any point during this exercise you begin to feel dizzy, or otherwise uncomfortable, stop immediately. As with any other exercise, consult a physician before engaging in a new or unfamiliar activity.

Take Action #2: Parrot the Actors in Commercials!

(Exercises re-published with permission from VoiceOverVoiceActor.com) Flip channels on your television or radio for 5 minutes to listen to commercials. Each time you find a commercial, try parroting the voice actor who is speaking. Try to repeat not only the words, but the musicality, the nuances, the tone, and the inflections.

Then turn off the radio or TV and pick up a random piece of text (it can be an advertisement in a magazine, a book, a piece of mail, etc). Try to use the same vocal patterns, tonality and style you were just mimicking as you read this new material.

Practicing this will begin to train your ear, attune you to what is currently "hot" in the advertising world, and get you reading and speaking aloud, which is important in and of itself.

Vegas, baby, Vegas

I  can't believe it's been a week already since Yuri and I were in Las Vegas at Anime Vegas...we had a great time, and got to meet a bunch of fans as well as seeing some familiar faces in the crowd. We even had some help with the documentary that our friend/documentarian Boris Kievksy is filming of us going to conventions this whole year. At our panel on VO, the audience helped out by playing along and chiming in on some of Yuri's VO tales, and (hopefully) much fun was had by all. Vegas is also a special city for Yuri and I, since it's where we got married almost eight years ago. Being crazy as we are, we were driving cross country from NYC to LA and hit Vegas and eloped! For the Vegasites (Vegasans? Vegasians?) who may know, we were married (long before even becoming voice-actors) at the Wee Kirk of the Heather Chapel near Fremont Street and Old Vegas! For those of you not as familiar with LV, the Wee Kirk is known by the many famous marriages it's held (Madonna/Sean Penn; etc.)

But, mostly, we had fun, went to a great con, met a bunch of cool folks, signed a bunch of autographs, went to the pool (Wave Pool! Lazy River!),  did some panels, ate tons of tasty food, celebrated Boris' birthday with his folks, saw the Lion King (!) and thoroughly enjoyed Sin City (which for us is more of Win City!) :)

Thanks to Rich Stott for another great Con, the guests and fans for making us feel so welcome, and to the city for treating us nicely while there!

t:)