Voice Acting Mastery Field Report: Up to Date Information from the Ever Changing World of Voice Over

VAMFR 036 | The Final Episode of the VAM Field Report Welcome to episode 36 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast Greetings everyone! This is Crispin Freeman, voice actor and host of the Voice Acting Mastery Podcast. As you may know, we started this sister podcast, the Voice Acting Mastery Field Report, back in October of 2015. Since then, our Field Report correspondents have produced some amazing episodes including in-depth interviews and detailed special reports on a number of important topics! It has been so great to learn along with them as they’ve explored many relevant and helpful subjects that continue to be of value to our listeners. However, all good things must eventually come to an end. As we announced this week on the Voice Acting Mastery blog, this will in fact be the final episode of the Voice Acting Mastery Field Report. I’m very grateful to all of our correspondents who have contributed such great content, and I’m very proud of the work they put into their episodes. Each correspondent has shared their unique insights into the world of voice over as they’ve pursued their own voice acting careers. In fact, these careers and other aspects of their lives have gained so much momentum that our intrepid correspondents inform me that they have less and less time to commit to the Field Report! So even though it’s bittersweet to say goodbye, I’m so happy for their success and wish them much more in the future! For our final Field Report episode, I’ll be doing one last round table interview with our current correspondents, Tom Bauer, DanWill McCann, and Maureen Price. They’ll be sharing with us how their careers have grown over the past couple of years, what lessons they’ve learned from working on the Field Report, and what they’re all looking forward to in the future! I hope you’ll all join me in giving a heartfelt thank you and farewell to each of our correspondents! You can find their websites here: DanWill McCann Tom Bauer Maureen Price Thanks again for listening and for joining us for the Field Report. We truly appreciate it. (P.S. – For those of you who are about to ask: Yes, I’m still releasing monthly episodes of the main VAM podcast on the 3rd Wednesday of each month, so please continue to tune in for those. Thanks!) Download VAM Field Report Episode #36 Here (MP3)  

VAMFR 035 | Interview with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Part 3 Welcome to episode 35 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast Welcome back, everyone! I hope you enjoyed the first two parts of Maureen’s interview with the phenomenal Mary Elizabeth McGlynn! To recap, Mary Elizabeth is an industry veteran who has worked on both sides of the glass as both a voice actor and a voice director. Her acting credits include Major Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Governor Pryce in Star Wars Rebels, and Dr. Maheswaran in Steven Universe. She’s also an accomplished voice director having taken the helm on titles such as Tangled: The Series, Cowboy Bebop, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. In the previous episode, Maureen and Mary Elizabeth had a great conversation about dealing with self-doubt. They also spoke about the importance of using positive language with ourselves in order to combat our internal critic. Then they explored how Mary Elizabeth suffered a significant professional failure and was able to recover from it and get “back in the saddle” so to speak. This lead directly into a discussion of the value of failure and how Mary Elizabeth handled the challenges that came with being a first-time director on Cowboy Bebop. In this, the final part of their interview, Mary Elizabeth and Maureen talk about how voice directing as a career path currently seems to be more accessible to women than on camera directing and our theories as to why that might be. They also discuss what excites Mary Elizabeth most about the industry right now. Then, Mary Elizabeth is generous enough to share a recent experience that pushed her way out of her comfort zone. They draw their time together to a close by focusing on the importance of storytelling in dark times, and before they say goodbye, Mary Elizabeth leaves us with her number one piece of advice for aspiring voice actors. The VAM Field Report will be released on the 1st Wednesday of every month so stay on the look out for it! Download VAM Field Report Episode #35 Here (MP3)  

VAMFR 034 | Interview with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Part 2 Welcome to episode 34 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast Welcome back, everyone! I hope you enjoyed the first part of Maureen’s interview with the phenomenal Mary Elizabeth McGlynn! To recap, Mary Elizabeth is an industry veteran who has worked on both sides of the glass as both a voice actor and a voice director. Her acting credits include Major Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Governor Pryce in Star Wars Rebels, and Dr. Maheswaran in Steven Universe. She’s also an accomplished voice director having taken the helm on titles such as Tangled: The Series, Cowboy Bebop, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. In the previous episode, Maureen explored how Mary Elizabeth got started as an actor and how her career progressed from graduate school, to guest starring on Star Trek: Voyager, to a fateful horse riding accident while filming the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess that eventually led her to voice acting. Maureen and Mary Elizabeth also discussed how she made her debut as a voice director on the anime series Cowboy Bebop! Then they spoke about how Mary Elizabeth deals with imposter syndrome, which is a psychological pattern where one doubts their accomplishments. Lastly, Mary Elizabeth shared some tips for how to talk to a director on your first job, and they concluded the episode by revealing which of her many characters was the most emotionally difficult for her to portray. In this episode, Maureen and Mary Elizabeth dive into a discussion about how to deal with self doubt. They also talk about the importance of using positive language with ourselves. Then they explore how Mary Elizabeth suffered a significant professional failure and was able to recover from it and get “back in the saddle” so to speak. This leads directly into a discussion of the value of failure and how Mary Elizabeth handled the challenges that came with being a first-time director on Cowboy Bebop. Then, to wrap up this episode, Mary Elizabeth shares her philosophy on directing and how she develops trust with actors The VAM Field Report will be released on the 1st Wednesday of every month so stay on the look out for it! Download VAM Field Report Episode #34 Here (MP3)  

VAMFR 033 | Interview with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Part 1 Welcome to episode 33 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast Buckle up, folks because Maureen is thrilled to share the first part of her interview with the phenomenal Mary Elizabeth McGlynn! Mary Elizabeth is an industry veteran who has worked on both sides of the glass as both a voice actor and a voice director. Her acting credits include Major Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Governor Pryce in Star Wars Rebels, and Dr. Maheswaran in Steven Universe. She’s also an accomplished voice director having taken the helm on titles such as Tangled: The Series, Cowboy Bebop, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Maureen has been eager to sit down with Mary Elizabeth ever since she first became a correspondent on the field report. Not only does Mary Elizabeth’s fantastic work speak for itself but she’s also wonderfully down to earth, hilarious, and open to discussing everything from advice for newcomers to the lessons she’s learned from failing and getting back up again. In this first episode, Maureen explores how Mary Elizabeth got started as an actor and how her career progressed from graduate school, to guest starring on Star Trek: Voyager, to a fateful horse riding accident while filming the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess that eventually led her to voice acting. Then they discuss how Mary Elizabeth made her debut as a voice director on the anime series Cowboy Bebop! Maureen also talks about how Mary Elizabeth deals with imposter syndrome, which is a psychological pattern where one doubts their accomplishments. Then Mary Elizabeth shares some tips for how to talk to a director on your first job, and they conclude this episode by revealing which of her many characters was the most emotionally difficult for her to portray! The VAM Field Report will be released on the 1st Wednesday of every month so stay on the look out for it! Download VAM Field Report Episode #33 Here (MP3)  

VAMFR 032 | Interview with Taliesin Jaffe, Part 3 Welcome to episode 32 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast This is the third and final part of DanWill McCann’s chat with Taliesin Jaffe. If you missed the first two parts, you can find them on VoiceActingMastery.com. Just search for episodes 30 and 31 of the Field Report. Taliesin has been involved in the entertainment industry since he was a young boy, working with actors like Michael Keaton in the movie Mr. Mom and Suzanne Somers on the T.V. show She’s the Sheriff. As Taliesin grew older, he transitioned into a portion of the industry he felt more passionate about: providing voices in the English dubs of Japanese Animation titles like 3×3 Eyes and directing voice actors in dubs like Read or Die, The TV. He has also voiced characters in video games, such as Highlord Darion Mograine, Leader of the rebelling Death Knights in the World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack. In the previous episode, Taliesin shared with us which projects he most enjoyed working on, both as a voice actor and as a director. He talked about what made those projects stand out for him, as well as what artistic lessons he learned from working on them. I appreciate how Taliesin is able to successfully balance being a fan of the mediums he works in, while still maintaining a professional demeanor at the same time. We also discussed how to make professional connections with voice actors we admire at fan conventions and on social media. Taliesin stressed how important it is to find genuine connections with them on more than just voice acting while also making sure to respect their time and privacy. He also told stories of his own early attempts to make professional connections at conventions and how some of those interactions were more successful than others. He learned a lot from those experiences and I hope you found his adventures both entertaining and educational! I know I did. In this final segment of our interview, Taliesin begins by sharing his advice to folks that like to make fan dubs. For those who are not familiar with the term, fan dubbing is the practice of taking an established anime property and dubbing it into English for fun or for improving one’s voice acting skills. While fan dubbing is not officially sanctioned by the companies that hold the copyrights to anime shows, many aspiring voice actors try their hand at fan dubbing in order to get more experience with the process of dubbing animation. Taliesin also offers some suggestions about how to listen to professional performances so that we can learn from the pros and take what we admire about their artistry and incorporate it into our own acting. He then adds some of his own directorial advice, especially when it comes to recording challenging lines like fighting sounds or efforts. While the majority of actors rightly spend most of their time learning how to deliver dialogue in a believable way, the non-verbal efforts, exertions, death screams,

VAMFR 031 | Interview with Taliesin Jaffe, Part 2 Welcome to episode 31 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast Welcome back for this second part of DanWill McCann’s interview with Taliesin Jaffe. Taliesin has worked extensively as both a voice actor and voice director. He began his career in the entertainment industry as a child actor in T.V. shows like The Facts of Life and St. Elsewhere. Later, he transitioned into voice acting and has been working on anime and video games ever since. Recently, you may have heard him as the voice of Blanka, the wild man with shocking abilities in the English versions of the video games Street Fighter IV & V, as well as Street Fighter vs. Tekken. Not only did Taliesin play the voice of Blanka in those Street Fighter games, but he also voice directed all the characters in the English language versions of all three games. While he no longer acts in scripted shows on TV, you can still find Taliesin in front of the camera hosting The Wednesday Club, a weekly online comic book show on the Geek & Sundry Alpha channel. In the previous podcast episode, Taliesin told us about how he began his acting career and the series of events that led him to decide to transition from on-camera acting to voice acting and directing. He realized at a relatively young age that his heart was not fully committed to acting on-camera and that he had a greater passion for working on anime. DanWill admires that Taliesin had the honestly and courage to pursue what truly spoke to him artistically, even if others may not have understood his choices. DanWill also respects the fact that much of Taliesin’s motivation to enter the world of anime dubbing was to see what he could do to improve the quality of work being done in the genre. Once Taliesin realized how he could best contribute, he has continued his efforts since then to raise the standards of anime dubbing. His commitment to quality inspires DanWill to pursue the same excellence in his own work. This episode begins with a discussion of Taliesin’s favorite voice over projects, both as an actor and as a director. DanWill and Taliesin not only talk about what Taliesin enjoyed most while working on these projects, but also what important artistic lessons he learned from them. Because Taliesin works both as a voice actor and a voice director, he has a unique perspective on the voice over industry and how to succeed in it. Their discussion then moves on to address fan conventions and how best to interact with any industry colleagues you may meet at those events. DanWill is always looking for better ways to connect with fellow entertainment professionals and he’s learned a lot from Taliesin on this subject. So, once again, please welcome Taliesin Jaffe! The VAM Field Report will be released on the 1st Wednesday of every month so stay on the look out for it! Download VAM Field Report Episode #31 Here (MP3)  

VAMFR 030 | Interview with Taliesin Jaffe, Part 1 Welcome to episode 30 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast Recently, our correspondent DanWill McCann had the opportunity to sit down and chat with the very skilled and experienced Voice Actor and Voice Director, Taliesin Jaffe. Taliesin began his acting career on camera when he was very young, starring in commercials, movies, and TV Shows. You may be familiar with his performance as Kenny Butler in the film Mr. Mom. where his character was deeply attached to his security blanket or “wubby” as it was called. As a young adult, Taliesin’s love of Anime drew him to Voice Acting and since then, he has provided over 100 voices for Anime and Video games, as well as adapted scripts, cast voice actors, and directed a multitude of projects. You can hear him as the Flash in the Injustice 2 video game. He also directed the English dub of the anime series Hellsing and Hellsing Ultimate. Currently he is on the popular Geek & Sundry series Critical Role, a show where voice actors play Dungeons and Dragons together and act out the characters in real time. In campaign 1 he played as the character Percy, and now in campaign 2 he is playing as Mollymauk. In this first segment of our interview, DanWill spoke with Taliesin about his career path. He and DanWill have actually been friends for more than half of DanWill’s life and DW finds his journey both fascinating and inspiring. When DanWill decided to pursue Voice Acting as a career, Taliesin was the first person DW turned to for advice. DanWill has  always admired that Taliesin is a consummate professional in addition to being a huge fan of animation and games. Taliesin’s respect for characters and storytelling drives him to always do his best. He not only strives to create fantastic art, but he also tries to raise the bar of artistic achievement, both for himself and those he works with. We hope you will find Taliesin as inspiring as DanWill does! The VAM Field Report will be released on the 1st Wednesday of every month so stay on the look out for it! Download VAM Field Report Episode #30 Here (MP3)  

VAMFR 029 | Interview with Erica Mendez, Part 3 Welcome to episode 29 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast This episode is the third and final part of Tom Bauer’s interview with his friend and voice over actor, Erica Mendez. You might recognize Erica from her voice acting work in anime, where she’s played the voice of Gon Freecs in the 2011 anime series adaptation of Hunter X Hunter, Sailor Uranus in the Viz Media English dub of Sailor Moon and Ryuko Matoi in the popular Kill la Kill anime television series. In addition to her many voice acting accomplishments, Erica has also worked as an ADR script writer for the Netflix original anime series, Fate/Apocrypha. In the previous episode, Tom and Erica talked about some of the challenges Erica faced while pursuing her career as a voice actor, including her struggles with being overly self-critical and how she’s learned to overcome this common stumbling block. She also shared her insights into what it takes to stay competitive in voice over, as well as some of the acting techniques she’s acquired while taking classes and how she implements what she’s learned in the booth. In this episode, Tom and Erica wrap things up by discussing Pre-lay recording. Voice over for anime is most often recorded one actor at a time, alone in a booth long after the original animation has been completed. However, in American animation, the actors are recorded first and the animators animate the characters to fit those vocal performances. This is called pre-lay since the audio recording is made before the animation is produced. When recording for pre-lay animation, you are often reading with other actors together in the same room. This can be very different from recording all by yourself in an anime dubbing session, so Tom is eager to share Erica’s insights about the process. The VAM Field Report will be released on the 1st Wednesday of every month so stay on the look out for it! Download VAM Field Report Episode #29 Here (MP3)  

VAMFR 028 | Interview with Erica Mendez, Part 2 Welcome to episode 28 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast This episode is the second part of Tom Bauer’s interview with his good friend and rising talent in the voice over industry, Erica Mendez. Erica is probably most famous for her voice acting work in anime, taking on such roles as Gon Freecs in the 2011 anime series adaptation of Hunter X Hunter, Sailor Uranus in the Viz Media English dub of Sailor Moon and Ryuko Matoi in the popular Kill la Kill anime television series. If that wasn’t enough, Erica has also started work as an ADR script writer for the Netflix original anime series, Fate/Apocrypha. When we last left off, Erica was discussing how she made the decision to move from her hometown of Chicago to Los Angeles to pursue her creative endeavors. While she initially intended to move to LA to become a professional animator, her previous experiences performing in online audio dramas opened a new world of opportunity for her in the area of voice acting. When she arrived in LA, a series of fortunate circumstances lined up to give her the chance to audition for voice acting jobs. In this episode, Erica talks about some of the challenges she faced while pursuing her new voice acting career. She shares her insight into what it takes to stay competitive in voice over, as well as some of the acting techniques she’s adopted while taking classes and how she implements what she’s learned in the booth. We start this episode by delving into her process of developing characters for anime. The VAM Field Report will be released on the 1st Wednesday of every month so stay on the look out for it! Download VAM Field Report Episode #28 Here (MP3)  

VAMFR 027 | Interview with Erica Mendez, Part 1 Welcome to episode 27 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast This episode is the first part of Tom Bauer’s interview with his good friend and rising talent in the voice over industry, Erica Mendez. Erica has made amazing strides in the last few years of her career, namely in the realms of video game and anime voice over. She is probably most famous for her voice acting work as Gon Freecs in the 2011 anime series adaptation of Hunter X Hunter. She’s also voiced characters like Sailor Uranus in the Viz Media English dub of Sailor Moon and Ryuko Matoi in the popular Kill la Kill anime television series. Most recently, Erica has also started work as an ADR script writer for the Netflix original anime series, Fate/Apocrypha. Tom first met Erica in a voice over class studying under Richard Horvitz back in March of 2013. It’s been a great honor for him getting to know her as a friend and performing alongside her as an actor in a number of anime titles. In this first episode, we focus on how Erica made the courageous decision to move from her hometown of Chicago to Los Angeles to pursue her creative endeavors. We discuss how her love of cartoons and video games initially inspired her to become a professional animator. While she assumed she would be trying to find work as an animator once she moved to LA, her previous experience performing in online audio dramas meant that she was also open to pursuing voice acting. Once she arrived in Los Angeles, a number of fortunate circumstances lined up to give her the opportunity to audition for voice acting jobs! The VAM Field Report will be released on the 1st Wednesday of every month so stay on the look out for it! Download VAM Field Report Episode #27 Here (MP3)  

VAMFR 026 | Maintaining Good Psychological Health as a Voice Actor, Part 3 Welcome to episode 26 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast Welcome to the third and final part of a special report on maintaining good psychological health as a voice actor by our special correspondent, Maureen Price! For those of you who have already checked out parts one and two, you’ll remember that in part one, Maureen explored how to deal with rejection in healthy and productive ways. Her guests shared their approaches to grappling with one of the most inevitable and universal experiences of being a voice actor and she’s so grateful to each of them for their honesty and vulnerability in addressing that subject. In part two, Maureen discussed ways to overcome self-doubt while in the booth as well as how to build more confidence as an actor. Her guests shared their personal anecdotes from sessions and auditions and how they find solutions to common self-doubt pitfalls. It was one of her favorite episodes so we hope you’ll check it out. In this episode, Maureen will be discussing the best way to approach directing yourself when you’re alone in the booth and you don’t have a casting director, voice director or producer to give you feedback on your performance. Like dealing with rejection, learning how to direct yourself for auditions is one of the most common experiences we have as voice actors. It can cause a lot of emotional stress, especially when you’re all alone in the booth trying to figure out whether your performance is professionally competitive or not! In the face of this daunting and isolating experience, Maureen thought it would be helpful to get as much advice as possible from her guests and see how they approach the challenge of directing themselves. Ideally, we shouldn’t have to self-direct at all. For many acting teachers, self-direction is a bad word! They believe, quite understandably, that an actor’s job is to play pretend as fully as they can with as little self-consciousness as possible. Trying to direct one’s own acting means that your attention is divided and that there is a part of your brain that is critiquing your performance as you try to create it. Having such a split focus can lead to stiff and mannered acting. In a perfect world, every actor auditioning for a part would be able to audition in person for the production staff and get real time feedback from them about what they are looking for. That way the actor can focus single-mindedly on playing pretend and allow the directors in the room to do the critiquing. Unfortunately, when there are hundreds of actors auditioning for each role in a project, it’s not feasible for the production staff to be available for every person who wants to audition. Instead producers send audition materials to agents and casting directors who distribute them to voice actors. Each actor must then take the time to analyze those audition sides, record themselves, and submit their recordings to the production staff for review.

VAMFR 025 | Maintaining Good Psychological Health as a Voice Actor, Part 2 Welcome to episode 25 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast Welcome to the second part of a special report on maintaining good psychological health as a voice actor by our special correspondent, Maureen Price! For those of you who have already checked out part one, you’ll remember that Maureen explored how to deal with rejection in healthy and productive ways. Her guests shared their approaches for grappling with one of the most inevitable and universal experiences of being a voice actor and she’s so grateful to each of them for their honesty and vulnerability in addressing that subject. In this episode, Maureen will be discussing how to overcome self-doubt and build more confidence. One useful strategy for achieving this goal is to develop healthy tactics for dealing with one’s internal critic: that nagging voice in our head that wants to belittle our accomplishments and dismiss our feelings. Managing one’s internal critic is a challenge that we all face as actors. If you’ve ever experienced that little gremlin of self-doubt creeping onto you shoulder while you’re working and felt yourself spiraling out of control into anxiety and fear then this episode is for you. Or if you’ve simply felt like you weren’t “enough” or that you don’t deserve to be where you are, well, we’ll explore that too. While self-doubt and issues with confidence are universal experiences, Maureen feels that they can be especially pernicious for voice actors as we frequently find ourselves alone in a recording booth with plenty of time and space to get stuck in our heads. Being in a booth means that we’re separated from the director, producer, and/or clients by a huge pane of glass. Through that glass we can see them talking about us and our work, even if we can’t hear them. If they neglect to turn on their talkback microphone, we have to stand there in the booth waiting in silence, unsure of what they are saying. Such a situation can be nerve-wracking, especially if we’re feeling less than stellar about ourselves or our performance. Maureen is very fortunate to have her four wonderful guests from the previous episode back to dive into these tricky topics with her. They’ll be sharing personal anecdotes from the booth as well as their approaches to dealing with self-doubt and that nagging internal critic. First up, she sat down with Keith Silverstein, an industry veteran whose work includes Torbjörn in Overwatch, Hisoka in HunterxHunter, and Hawk Moth in Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir amongst many, many more. She then spoke with Laura Post, voice actor and now voice director for the anime series Little Witch Academia. Laura’s voice acting work includes Big Barda in Justice League Action, Ragyō in Kill la Kill, Ahri in League of Legends, and Nozomi Tojo in Love Live! School Idol Project. Maureen also spoke with Ray Chase. Ray voices Prince Noctis in Final Fantasy XV, Master of Masters in Kingdom Hearts 2.8 and Puri-puri Prisoner in One Punch Man. Finally, she sat down with

VAMFR 024 | Maintaining Good Psychological Health as a Voice Actor, Part 1 Welcome to episode 24 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast Welcome to the first part of a special report on maintaining good psychological health as a voice actor by our special correspondent, Maureen Price! Maureen has been eager to dive into this topic ever since she joined the Field Report and she’s very excited to share her findings with all of you! When it comes to building a successful voice acting career, developing confidence, which includes learning to deal with rejection, is just as important as sharpening our acting skills or learning solid business practices. When Maureen started interviewing industry professionals about this subject, she was very curious to hear how they dealt with the emotional challenges of being a voice actor and how their approaches to maintaining a healthy mindset evolved over the course of their careers. Maureen’s tactics and thought processes for handling emotional stress have certainly changed since her earliest experiences as a child stage actor! And she’s grateful for that! In part one of her report, Maureen will be exploring a subject that greatly affects us all as voice actors over the entire arc of our careers. It’s also a topic that she rarely hears addressed in interviews but is of great importance given how far reaching it is. She’s referring to the dreaded “R” word. Rejection. More specifically Maureen wants to explore how to handle rejection in psychologically healthy and productive ways. Since rejection is one of the most common and inevitable experiences we encounter in the voice over world, it’s crucial to develop a skill set to cope with it well. If we aren’t able to handle rejection effectively, we’re all going to have a rough go of things. To help her explore these sometimes difficult and loaded topics, Maureen spoke with four wonderfully talented voice actors. Firstly, she sat down with Keith Silverstein, an industry veteran whose work includes Torbjörn in Overwatch, Hisoka in HunterxHunter, and Hawk Moth in Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir amongst many, many more. She then spoke with Laura Post, voice actor and now voice director for the anime series Little Witch Academia. Laura’s voice acting work includes Big Barda in Justice League Action, Ragyō in Kill la Kill, Ahri in League of Legends, and Nozomi Tojo in Love Live! School Idol Project. Maureen also spoke with Ray Chase. Ray voices Prince Noctis in Final Fantasy XV, Master of Masters in Kingdom Hearts 2.8 and Puri-puri Prisoner in One Punch Man. Finally, she sat down with Valerie Arem. Valerie is a voice actor, voice director, and educator. Her directing work includes Persona 4 and Persona 5. She voices Francine in The Walking Dead video game, Naoto Shirogane in Persona 4, and Kyra Mosley in Call of Duty: Ghosts. Valerie and her husband Keith Arem run PCB Productions, a studio in Los Angeles specializing in video game recording.

VAMFR 023 | Interview with Kelly Moscinski, Part 2 Welcome to episode 23 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast This episode is part two of DanWill McCann’s interview with Kelly Moscinski, the owner and head of casting for The Voicecaster, a busy and well respected recording and rehearsal studio in Burbank, California. For over 40 years, The Voicecaster recording and rehearsal studio has been a one stop shop for voice acting needs including auditions, final recording sessions, voice over classes, demo production and more! Kelly has been working at the Voicecaster for almost a decade. In 2013 she had the opportunity to buy the company and since then the business has continued to thrive. The staff at the Voicecaster work on many types of projects including commercials, industrial narration, video games and animation! In the last episode, we learned about Kelly’s journey from her time in the theater to eventually working in the voice over industry. She’s always felt more drawn to directing rather than performing and her theater experience working with actors has helped her tremendously in voice over for the last 10 years. She brought her passion for directing with her to The Voicecaster and continues to foster a supportive environment there for performers. DanWill and her discussed the audition process where Kelly shared her insight from a casting director’s point of view. DanWill enjoyed her perspective, as well as her advice on how to prepare for an audition while avoiding over-rehearsing. It’s changed how he’ll be approaching future auditions, and he hopes you found it helpful as well. In this, the 2nd and final part of their interview, Kelly and DanWill talk about appropriate etiquette for voice actors when in a recording booth. She shares with DanWill her expectations for actors who come to audition for her as well as advice on how to put your best foot forward in front of casting directors. Hearing what she’s looking for from an actor has helped DanWill feel more confident about how to present himself when he comes in for an audition. After taking her advice to heart, he feels that he’s less likely to make a mistake that might seem thoughtless or unprofessional. Kelly gives some great suggestions about keeping in touch with casting directors, something we all need to do if we want to make a career of voice acting. She and DanWill also chat about demos, the voice actor’s main way of marketing themselves to prospective clients. Kelly has a vast amount of experience with demos. Not only does she listen to actor’s demos all day long in order to cast projects, but The Voicecaster also produces demos for voice actors. DanWill thinks you will find her advice and stories very useful for your own demos, whether you’re looking to make your first one, or update your existing one. He’ll certainly be applying her suggestions as he prepares to update his own demo! With that covered, Kelly and DanWill finish up their time together by discussing what kind of services The Voicecaster offers. Even if you don’t live in the Los Angeles area, it’s good to know what kind of classes they offer so you can research similar classes you might be able to take in your own neighborhood, or even online! The VAM Field Report will be released on the 1st We...

VAMFR 022 | Interview with Kelly Moscinski, Part 1 Welcome to episode 22 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes: http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast This episode is the first part of DanWill McCann’s interview with Kelly Moscinski, the owner and head of casting for The Voicecaster, a busy and well respected recording and rehearsal studio in Burbank, California. Nestled in between several major Hollywood studio film lots, The Voicecaster helps cast and record projects from all areas of Voice Over including, commercials, industrial narration, video games, animation, and more! The Voicecaster office was originally founded back in 1975 and has been in business ever since. Kelly had over a decade of experience in the production side of the voice over industry before she was hired at the Voicecaster, first as an assistant and later as a full time casting director. The previous owner of the Voicecaster admired her passion, commitment and ambition and it was clear to him that Kelly would be the ideal steward for the company moving forward. After three and a half years of working for them as an employee, Kelly was offered a chance to buy the business and she jumped at it. Kelly has owned the Voicecaster since 2013 and the company has flourished under her leadership. In this episode, we’ll get to know Kelly and her studio as well as learn more about how she got where she is today. DanWill is especially excited to share with you Kelly’s tips and tricks for voice actors to help us perform our best during auditions! From a performer’s perspective, the auditioning process can be very mysterious. So much of it happens before an actor even arrives at the studio to record. Every audition DanWill goes into, he often wishes he could be a fly on the wall to hear the conversation of the casting agents and marketing representatives on the other side of the glass from where he’s standing in the recording booth. DanWill would love to hear what informs their choices and how they finally decide on which voice actor will suit their project. DanWill’s really grateful that Kelly was generous enough to share with us her stories and advice on how to navigate this potentially intimidating process. Getting such insider information has helped him feel more confident when he approaches auditioning and we have a feeling you will enjoy and value her information as much as DanWill did. The VAM Field Report will be released on the 1st Wednesday of every month so stay on the look out for it! Download VAM Field Report Episode #22 Here (MP3)