Welcome to episode 154 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!

As always, 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.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast

Welcome to the first part of my interview with the stunningly multi-faceted Julie Nathanson! You may recognize Julie from her performances as Samantha Maxis in Call of Duty, Silver Banshee and Jewelee in Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay, Jess Black in Far Cry 5, Captain Scarlet Turner in Elena of Avalor, and Crimson Widow in Avengers Assemble. Not only is Julie an accomplished voice actress, but she’s also a professional screen writer as well! She was a staff writer and then Executive Story Editor on the NBC TV Series, Just Deal, where she was nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award for one of her episodes! She’s written and consulted on games such as Guildlings, an RPG currently available on Apple Arcade, and Vader Immortal: a Star Wars VR Series! If that weren’t enough, she also has a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology! Julie’s interests are wide and far ranging which is one of the reasons I was so eager to interview her on the podcast!

In the first part of our discussion, we go all the way back to the beginning, when Julie was only 6 years old, to find out where her fascination with acting comes from! She shares with me the story of her first time on stage, and how the absence of one of her fellow actors in their first grade pageant inspired her to step up and save the show! We also talk about her parents and how their work in psychology influenced her. She absorbed a lot from their study of the emotional life of the human mind. In fact, her father even asked her to edit some of his writings on the subject! Julie’s parents always respected her intelligence, never talked down to her, and made sure to include her in their adult conversations. Her parents were very multi-faceted as well which helped inspire Julie to think outside the box when it came to making her own career decisions!

Not only is Julie a font of energy and enthusiasm, but she’s also put a lot of thought into her journey and you can hear it when she speaks!

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #154 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 153 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!

As always, 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.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast

Welcome to the second part of my interview with the Emmy award winning voice actress, Maile Flanagan! Maile is probably most famous for voicing the character of Naruto in the long running anime franchise of the same name. She also won an Emmy for her performance in the animated show Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks. Maile is an accomplished on-camera actress and comedienne as well! She is one of the few actresses who works almost equally in voice acting and on-camera and I was excited to bring her on the podcast to share her experience with my listeners.

In the previous episode, Maile and I discussed what inspired her to become an actress in the first place. Her international upbringing, her family’s penchant for wry humor, and her training to become a spy for the CIA were all big influences on her! These varied experiences helped her hone her observational skills which served her incredibly well when she was studying other actor’s performances. Each of these environments also provided her with opportunities to test her social skills and to learn how to communicate effectively with a wide range of people.

In this episode, I ask Maile what advice she has for aspiring voice actors. Maile teaches voice over workshops so she has lots of hands on experience working with students and helping them understand what it takes to succeed as a professional voice actor. She shares with me some of the common mistakes she sees her students make and she emphasizes how important it is for an aspiring voice actor to “do their homework”, as she puts it. We go into great detail about how voice acting homework differs from more traditional homework you may have been assigned in school. Learning how to immerse yourself in a character requires a different mindset than figuring out algebra problems and Maile has some great insights on what you can do to improve the believability of your performances!

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #153 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 152 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!

As always, 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.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast

Welcome to the second part of my interview with the Emmy award winning voice actress, Maile Flanagan! Maile is probably most famous for voicing the character of Naruto in the long running anime franchise of the same name. She also won an Emmy for her performance in the animated show Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks. Maile is an accomplished on-camera actress and comedienne as well! She is one of the few actresses who works almost equally in voice acting and on-camera and I was excited to bring her on the podcast to share her experience with my listeners.

In the first part of our interview, Maile and I talked about how she broke into acting. Although she joined an improv comedy group when she was in college, her primary focus in school was training to become a spy for the CIA. After she graduated, and was waiting for the CIA to give her an assignment, she connected with some of her fellow improv classmates and decided to take a chance, form a group, and travel to Cape Cod to perform comedy for tourists over the summer. That decision changed the path of her life! After that summer, she realized that she wanted to pursue a career in acting instead of one in espionage!

In this episode, we discuss what inspired Maile to become an actress in the first place. While she did not receive any formal acting training while she was in school, her upbringing played a big role in helping her learn how to observe people and communicate with them effectively. Her father was a spy for the CIA and their family moved around a lot. This meant that Maile had a very international upbringing and had to learn how to relate to many different types of people. Her family was also very funny! They often used humor to interact with each other and the ability to joke around with her family members was an important skill that Maile developed at a young age. These experiences helped her hone her observational skills which served her incredibly well when she was studying other actor’s performances.

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #152 Here (MP3)

Welcome to a special announcement of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!

As always, 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.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast

Hi there. This is Crispin Freeman. Normally I’m your guide to the world of voice acting, but unfortunately, I am sick. When you listen to this episode, you will probably be able to hear it in my voice. I’ve been struggling with a really nasty cough for over a week which has made my voice sound tired and ragged. It also means that for the first time in 8 years I am unable to bring you your regularly scheduled episode. I’m deeply sorry about that.

A question aspiring voice actors often ask me is, “What do you do when you get sick?” My first response is, do your best not to get sick! Get plenty of rest, eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly. This ensures that your body and your immune system have what they need to keep you as vital as possible. However, sometimes catching a virus is unavoidable. When you do get sick, the best thing to do is rest as much as you can, drink plenty of fluids, and see a doctor if the symptoms persist.

That’s exactly what I’ve done and I seem to be on the road to recovery. Hopefully I’ll be back up to full strength sooner rather than later. As far as voice acting jobs go, I’ve had to reschedule the ones that I can and cancel the ones I’m not ready for. There’s not much else you can do about that. Even if I was feeling relatively okay, that doesn’t mean that my voice would sound the same.

Which brings us to this episode. The way I sound now, there was simply no way I could provide you with an episode of the quality you’ve come to expect from Voice Acting Mastery this time around. As I mentioned, I’ve been releasing episodes on a regular schedule for the last 8 years and this is the first one I’ve missed in all that time. So I hope you’ll be patient with me while I recover, and I’ll see you in the next episode. Until then, take this as an opportunity to practice some self-care of your own this month. Could you use more rest? Or a change in diet or physical activity? The more you take care of yourself, the better equipped you and your body are to continue pursuing your voice acting dreams.

Thanks for your patience and understanding, and until next time, I wish you all the best in your voice acting endeavors.

Download Voice Acting Mastery Special Announcement Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 148 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!

As always, 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.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast

Welcome to the third and final part of my interview with the mind-bogglingly talented Dee Bradley Baker! Dee has worked on hundreds of animated movies and shows including Cow and Chicken, Dexter’s Lab, The Box Trolls, American Dad, Avatar the Last Airbender, and Star Wars: the Clone Wars just to name a few! Dee has a special affinity for creature voices. He’s often called in to voice characters that don’t speak a human language, but communicate through non-verbal sounds.

In the previous episode, Dee and I discussed what inspired him to become a performer in the first place. We talked about his passion for monster movies and how that helped him find his special niche doing creature voices in animation and games. Dee also explained how important it is to replenish your own well of creativity by pursuing artistic projects that you find satisfying. He compared it to cultivating a terrarium where new ideas can sprout and grow. For Dee, his terrarium includes his fascination with macro-photography which he shares at deebakerphotography.com. Being playful and creative with photography has helped Dee nurture his own psyche and avoid becoming overwhelmed by the professional demands of being a voice actor.

As we wrap up our interview, I ask Dee to be more specific about how he’s able to pull ideas from his artistic terrarium. How does that process actually work? In response, Dee shares with me his concept of a ladder of ability. It’s an incredibly useful metaphor to help you understand your own growth as an artist and to be able to chart your progress along the way to mastery in any artistic field. We then dive into Dee’s advice to aspiring actors. As I’ve mentioned in previous episodes, much of Dee’s advice can be found on his website, iwanttobeavoiceactor.com. I ask Dee about this amazing resource for actors and find out what information on his website is too often overlooked. Dee’s comments are both thoughtful and generous and I can’t wait to share them with you!

In the interview, we talk about Dee’s creative projects outside of voice acting. You should totally check them out!

Dee’s Macro Photography can be found at:
www.deebakerphotography.com

Pictures of Dee’s Halloween yard decorations can be found at:
creepyyard.com

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #148 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 147 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!

As always, 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.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast

Welcome to the second part of my interview with the mind-bogglingly talented Dee Bradley Baker! Dee has worked on hundreds of animated movies and shows including Cow and Chicken, Dexter’s Lab, The Box Trolls, American Dad, Avatar the Last Airbender, and Star Wars: the Clone Wars just to name a few! Dee has a special affinity for creature voices. He’s often called in to voice characters that don’t speak a human language, but communicate through non-verbal sounds.

In part one of our interview, we discussed how Dee got started as a performer. His route was a serendipitous one. He did not follow any established plan or recipe for becoming an actor. He didn’t even take many acting classes! Instead, Dee let his guiding principle be to follow what fascinated him. He was open to taking any job possibility that came his way as long as it seemed interesting. If it also had a performance aspect, so much the better! However, regardless of what he pursued, he always did it with gusto and discipline. He wasn’t just aimlessly wandering through life, he was actively testing things to see what truly appealed to him and what didn’t. He would always do his best to learn as much as he could from every opportunity, and then move on once he felt he had learned as much as possible. It took a while for him to realize that the majority of work he was getting was as a performer and that he could make acting his primary vocation. After he moved to Los Angeles and decided to focus primarily on voice acting, he discovered that he was also fascinated by creature sounds. He had always loved dinosaurs and movie monsters, so he had a natural affinity for voicing creatures of all shapes and sizes! If you haven’t listened to episode one of this interview where I played some audio of his creature acting, I highly suggest you check it out. Alternatively, you can head over to Dee’s website at deebaker.com and listen to samples of his genius there!

In the second part of our discussion, Dee and I talk about what inspired him to be a performer in the first place. Dee has always been a quiet intellectual which may not initially seem like a personality type that would be conducive to becoming an actor. However, performing allowed Dee to learn how to interact with people and adapt to society and the world at large. It was a way for him to develop as a human being. It helped him improve both his inner emotional life and his external relationships. I completely identify with Dee on this point! I too was a shy, quiet, introverted boy when I was young and I learned a lot about myself and others by studying acting.

Also in this segment, Dee and I delve deep into his love of movie monsters and how his passion for dinosaurs, Japanese Kaiju like Godzilla, and even dressing up like a Jawa from Star Wars, helped inspire him to work in some way with these creatures. Initially he thought he might become a special effects makeup artist, but it was only later that he realized that his best contribution would be to give voices to the characters he loved so much. It’s incredibly apropos that the first movie he saw as a child was Dr. Doolittle, a movie about a man who can talk to animals by mimicking their sounds! Dee has been making good on his own fascination with animals ever since!

Later in the interview, we talk about Dee’s creative projects outside of voice acting. You should totally check them out!

Dee’s Macro Photography can be found at:
www.deebakerphotography.com

Pictures of Dee’s Halloween yard decorations can be found at:
creepyyard.com

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #147 Here (MP3)