Casting Updates!

Hey guys, I've got some fun news to share! First off, I am so psyched to be cast in the role of the incorrigible Grandpa Joe in a new weekly webseries coming out this summer called Existential Chris, animated by @Tthunderb0lt on Twitter. I'll be joined by a few other VA's I've gotten to know on Twitter and Discord who I'm thrilled to work with for the first time!

"Existential Chris" banner on the left, Grandpa Joe on the right! Art by @Thunderb0lt.

Next, I've been contacted by The Story Geeks/The Reclamation Society to come back and record for parts three and four of Death of a Bounty Hunter, a full cast audiobook coming out next year where I play Ellis Warburton II, a banker in way over his head. :) I recorded for part two last December and the Story Geeks crew were amazing as well as the other cast members I met. I can't wait to pop back down to LA in a couple months to help get it finished! The Story Geeks is also a podcast covering geeky topics and their first audiobook, Time Slingers, is due for a general release very soon. So give them a look!

Death of a Bounty Hunter banner belongs to The Reclamation Society/The Story Geeks.

Finally, I've just recently contributed to a standalone mod for Warlords Battlecry 3 (Infinite Interactive, 2004) called The Protectors, where I voice a brutish, growly monster character. I'm not privy to all the modding team's details about their new content, but my contribution should be showing up in the next update! They've been working on and adding to this project for nearly nine years! So if you're a fan of the original game, go ahead and check them out. (And don't forget to support the original game, available on Steam and GOG.)

Banner credit to The Protectors Modding Team.

I am thrilled to be able to contribute to all of these projects, and there is going to be so much more to come. So keep on the lookout for future blog posts from me, and if you haven't already feel free to follow me on Twitter (@StroudKyle) and Instagram (kylestroudva) for news on these and other animations, video games, audiobooks, podcasts, and other roles I get to put my little mark on.

For those of you who have been reading along with me since I've started, and to those of you who still have no idea who I am and may have just clicked on a random retweet, you're all AWESOME and thank you for taking a few minutes out of your day to check me out. This is still only the beginning, and I can't wait to see what the future has in store.

VO Workshop with Mary Mac and Nick Omana!

All day this past Saturday I attended a voiceover workshop taught by Nick Omana and Mary McDonald-Lewis.  You've probably heard Nick's voice on Last Comic Standing or one of a hundred other commercials, promos, or video games like World of Warcraft.  I knew Mary Mac from being the voice of Lady Jaye on the GI JOE cartoon show I used to obsess over when I was a kid, but she's also been Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, Veronica Dean on Archer, and more.  She's also appeared onscreen as Frau Pech in Grimm and is a very successful dialect coach.  So as soon as I saw an announcement for this workshop I jumped at the chance.

From Left: My hairy mug, Mary Mac, our sound engineer Cama, and Nick Omana.

The workshop itself was almost all practical experience, getting tons of time in a professional recording booth over at Rex Production and Post here in Portland.  Our lovely and talented sound engineer, Cama, ran everything from behind the glass allowing Mary and Nick to direct us in a variety of commercial reads; emphasizing relaxed control, strong choices, and what Mary called your "heart voice", or the voice most authentic and truthful to you.  She'd immediately point out when she didn't believe what you were saying, and the little fine tuning and adjustment to get something that sounded great was immensely helpful in learning how to take direction well.

If they read this post, I want to again thank Mary, Nick, Cama, and everyone at Rex Post so much for the opportunity to attend this workshop.  I learned so much and I can't wait to put it into practice.  I'll definitely be keeping all three in mind when I'm ready to do my professional demos!

I think it was Dee Bradley Baker who I heard say that there were three or four stages to being an actor, or becoming a master at anything.  I can't remember exactly what he said, so this is probably horribly misquoted.  However, he said something like the stages are: (1) There's when you're bad but don't know why, (2) there's when you find out how bad you really are, (3) then when you can be good by accident, and finally (4) when you can be consistently good at it.  I think I can reasonably say that I've fully reached stage two after almost two years at this, and I'm making my way toward three.  Today was a big jump toward that end goal of being consistently good.

Check out this little dude guarding the hallway at Rex Post.

In other news, the new home booth has been fantastic so far and I've been auditioning up a storm for pay and for practice on many casting call websites.  I'll be posting the ones I thought were the best along with any casting news I might receive once they've closed.  Most likely it'll be the ones I didn't get, so I don't break any confidentiality with any new project I might get to contribute to.

Stay tuned!

I built a recording booth!

Hey, guess what!  I've (almost) finished my home recording booth! 

It's basically held together with gum, scotch tape, and feelings, but short of me fixing the acoustic paneling on the one wall I didn't have a moving blanket for it's done.  After fifteen trips to Home Depot trying to get the right lengths of 3/4" PVC piping, all the little T connectors and corners, having my irritated wife hold up the ceiling while I fixed the blanket covering the top, and endless futzing around with the new microphone and audio interface I bought, and having to deal with a couple of very curious pets, it's good enough to at least start auditioning some more.

You might remember my janky desk setup from before:

Well, now may I present the somewhat less janky PVC booth!  

Now I can scream out my feelings in the privacy of my very own enclosed space, with jaunty XMas lights keeping me from tripping over wires.  The building material was almost exclusively all purchased online through Amazon.com, with the PVC piping coming from Home Depot.  I used leftover XMas lights we already had for the lighting, and my wife's standing desk on a plastic storage bin to get the laptop up high enough to sit at for when I'm not recording.  The chair can be thrown out the moving blanket door curtain at my whim, which is itself being held to the PVC pipe frame by zip ties so that I can slide the curtain open and closed.

Most of the research for building this thing came from a VERY helpful YouTube video by Ken Tsurata (a.k.a. kenisinoregon).

Next on the to-do list is to further isolate the space by throwing even more blankets and acoustic foam and other such things on the inside surface of the two book cases and the walls surrounding it in order to soundproof as much as humanly possible.  My new mic, an Audio Technica AT2035 XLR condenser microphone, is pretty damned sensitive and I'm still hearing that mic hiss in the background of a lot of my audio tests and the couple of auditions I wanted to get started on right away.

If there's two things I've learned through this whole process it's one, I am NOT a "handy man".  There was a lot of trial and error that went into this thing, even with what I thought was a huge focus on measuring twice and cutting once.  I'm surprised the people in the PVC section at Home Depot didn't know me by name by the time I actually got everything I needed to build that simple, little 6x4x4 box.  And two, I know even less than I thought I did about audio technology.  The only thing that's gotten me this far is episode 116 of Crispin Freeman's "Voice Acting Mastery" podcast where he discussed basic settings for recording equipment.  But at least I never make the same mistake twice, and I'm having a ton of fun with these new auditions and collaborations that I can FINALLY START WORKING ON AGAIN!

That's it for today, folks.  There will be updates real soon on a training opportunity I had to jump on here in Portland.  Stay tuned or...reading...at...don't touch that dial or what have you.  Yeah, don't touch that dial.  [Finger guns.  Winks with both eyes]

What's your vocal warmup routine?

A proper warmup is important in voice work the same way it's important in singing or exercising.  I don't want to shred my voice by going from zero to a hundred with screaming or other loud, guttural, and/or stressful sounds coming out of my mouth hole without being ready.  Gotta make sure I'm nice and limber first, and also to build up to the most intense stuff so I don't blow out my voice before all the calmer, more normal stuff has been recorded.  So, what are some example warm ups for voice acting?

Really, the answer is whatever works for you.  Sometimes if I know I'll be recording as soon as I'm out, I'll sing in the car.  Not death metal or anything, obviously, but something more relaxed just to get the air flowing is okay for me.

Since voice acting is something that I have learned works best when I stand up and employ my whole body, some basic stretching and moving of my arms, neck, and torso are a great way for me to get loose.  You can try neck rolls, spaghetti arms, and other things white people do when they dance. 

It's also important to get the lips and tongue warmed up and ready for action, as weirdly phrased as that may have been just now.  Buzzing or blowing through your lips like a horse, WIDELY EXAGGERATED vowel sounds - A, E, I, O, U - and tongue twisters to get ready for whatever the script has to throw at you.  Say them three times fast, then three times fast again and try to get it as close to perfectly coherent as you can. 

There are a ton of tongue twisters online, but here are just a few I use:

• Unique New York
• Red Leather Yellow Leather 
• Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars
• I Wish to Wash my Irish Wristwatch
• Susie Sells Seashells by the Seashore
• Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers

You can also take a deep breath and go from your lowest to highest register, then back to low so that you sound like a siren going off.  Whatever stretches your vocal chords, your mouth, your neck, your jaw, etc. without hurting you.  

I'll say this because it seems obvious, but common sense isn't always common.  If it hurts, don't do it.  That's the opposite of what you want out of a warmup, and pretty much a standard golden rule for taking care of your voice at all times.

In the comments, I'd love it if any other voiceover folks that happen to come by this blog sound off with what you all do to warm up.  Any tips?  Tricks?  Stuff to avoid?  It'd be great hear from you!

Back On My Bullshit

So, little hiatus over!

I've had some ups and downs for the last few months, and things got pretty crazy, and unfortunately the weekly blog posts slid a bit.  I apologize for that, but I'm learning from all of it and moving past it.

Back in December I recorded for an audio-drama that will hopefully be coming out soon.  Once they make an announcement, I'll make an announcement about my part in it.  Great experience, great director, great bunch of actors.  I can't wait to hear the final result.

After the holidays, things went a little south.  I got in a bit of a car accident on the way to my day job one morning and there were a harrowing few weeks involved where we didn't know if the insurance would cover it and anxiety basically overwhelmed my brain.  Add in that my dog, who I love despite this, knocked over my good microphone and broke it.  Finally salt all that with some good old back pain and some day job/coworker shenanigans and hoboy...it was real fun stuff.  BUT, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.

I've come here to say that I'm officially back on my bullshit.  I've signed up for a free improv class on 3/25 just to get myself started back up again, I've been back on schedule with voice practice, and it looks like I might be able to get myself a new audio rig pretty soon.  In the meantime, I've been playing around with short, little ads or movie quotes in the voices of characters from my Dungeons & Dragons game and sharing them with my players for fun.

Here's Sir Theophilus Nightingale, an over-the-hill, quixotic knight with his horse, Reginald, doing a parody of an Old Spice commercial.

In other news, have you seen the Critical Role Kickstarter???  Originally fully funded in just under an hour, they're almost up to $7.5 MILLION DOLLARS at the time of this post.  It's important not just for Critical Role or D&D fans, but for fans of adult-targeted animation and voice acting.  It shows that there is a real interest in animated productions that aren't primarily kids' shows or comedies, and that the animation medium can be so much more than just those two (admittedly great) genres.  Consider throwing them a few dollars if you have them to spare and help them meet those stretch goals!

Hope you're all having a wonderful new year, not letting the crazy world get you down, and creating new things.  See you next time.

Holiday Shenanigans

Aaaand it's already almost X-Mas.  If there's one thing that I'm increasingly learning new ways to deal with it's how to balance things going on from day to day.  It's not work/life that's the problem right now it's work-life/voiceover-creativity.  The holidays are nuts for pretty much everyone, but it is a new experience trying to keep up with my practice, sending out auditions, and doing my "homework" on acting, marketing, industry news.  But I'm not at the point yet where I can simply put my day job aside, so a little bit of feeling like I'm standing on a huge Jenga tower comes with the territory I guess.

I am immensely looking forward to the time I get to take off from my survival job around X-Mas and New Year's.  I'll still be working a bit, but it's voiceover work that I'm excited to be a part of.  I'll be heading to San Diego to visit my parents as well as to see friends both new and old in Los Angeles while I'm down there.  But in the couple of weeks I still have until we leave, I am determined not to fall into a rut.  Classes are kind of on hold around the holidays as most acting teachers don't want to start one when everyone is out of town.  So I'm left to be a diligent self-learner for the time being.

I'm also continuing my construction of a decent home recording space.  For the moment it looks a little bit like an empty box, but it's coming together.  I'm finding that the problem with home audio booths isn't the echo off of the drywall or the ventilation but actually preventing sound from getting in -- and when you have a new neighbor that likes blasting music with heavy bass it's a BIG problem.  Unfortunately I don't have $5000 to drop on a prefabricated isolation booth, so heavy blankets on every surface seems to be the way this is going to go.  Especially the floor.  Because killing my downstairs neighbor is generally frowned upon, unfortunately.

One thing I'm thankful for is my continued subscription to Steve Blum's webinar classes.  I can't usually participate live, but they're all recorded so I can generally start one whenever works best for me.  They're a great way to remotivate myself if I'm feeling like I'm dropping into that sort of educational or creative rut, and he always provides interesting homework assignments to give each class a practical side.  Anything that gets me back in front of a microphone when I start to want to procrastinate is fantastic.

Above all, I want to feel like I'm making progress and moving forward.  Plateaus are an awful feeling when you see the next level above you and just can't quite make it.  So every new thing I can learn, every little trick I figure out for my own voice or realization about a certain theoretical lesson put into practice puts me one more step up on this staircase to where I want to be. 

For those of you following along, I realize that sometimes it seems like I'm stating the obvious or restating something I've said before, but remember that this is as much if not more for me than it is for you.  Writing this out helps me put my thoughts into practice, and my brain is a pudding thrown against a wall sometimes.  So the rambling will happen.  I thank you for bearing with me, and checking in with me from time to time on this journey of mine.  Every one of you that cares enough to see what I'm up to is incredibly appreciated. 

Cheers, and Happy Holidays!

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy nonspecific harvest festival celebration day, everybody!  I'm pretty much taking today off from the blogging in order to pack for a brief trip out of state to visit my in-laws for the holiday.  So this isn't going to be a full training/info topic. 

I just want to share that I have a couple new projects that I've been cast to take part in.  Unfortunately, I can't give any more details than that, but I'm excited to contribute and I will of course tell you all about them when they are finished and announced by the project creators.

In the meantime, enjoy your holidays if you celebrate, however you celebrate, and I'll be back to posting my particular brand of verbal detritus and scree next week!