Welcome to episode 138 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 amazingly talented and astoundingly accomplished, Keythe Farley! He’s acted on stage, on screen and in front of the microphone. You may be familiar with his voice acting work as Thane Krios in the Mass Effect series of games, the villainous Kellog in Fallout 4 as well as Eruptor in the Skylanders series of games. He’s also voice directed the incredibly popular animated show the Rugrats for the animation studio Klasky/Csupo. He’s voice directed such high profile game franchises as God of War, Call of Duty: Black Ops III and Final Fantasy 15.

In the previous episode, Keythe and I focused on the early part of his career and how he broke in to both voice acting and voice directing. In this episode, we delve into what motivated Keythe to become a performer in the first place. We discuss Keythe’s obsession with storytelling and how serving the story is his first priority, regardless of his position on a project, whether he is acting as a character, directing other actors, or even writing the dialogue. We also talk about how he approached creating the character of Thane Krios for the Mass Effect series of video games. Then we dive even deeper and discuss how Keythe would approach the character of Thane differently if he was directing someone else in the role rather than attempting to embody the character himself! It’s a fascinating insight into the creative differences between acting and directing! I think you’ll find it very enlightening!

To learn more about Keythe and his VO Lounge, visit his website at:
www.KeytheFarley.com

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #138 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 137 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

In this episode, I’m happy to share with you part one of my interview with the amazingly talented and astoundingly accomplished, Keythe Farley! Keythe’s work is so varied that it’s difficult to reduce him to categories! He’s acted on stage, on screen and in front of the microphone. He’s voice directed animation and video games. He’s also one of the creators of the hit musical Bat Boy. He’s even produced an animated series version of the Spy vs. Spy comics from Mad Magazine! You may be familiar with his voice acting work as Thane Krios in the Mass Effect series of games, the villainous Kellog in Fallout 4 as well as Eruptor in the Skylanders series of games. He’s also voice directed the incredibly popular animated show the Rugrats for the animation studio Klasky/Csupo. When the Rugrats video game was in development, Keythe was asked to voice direct it and so began his work in Interactive media. He’s voice directed such high profile game franchises as God of War, Call of Duty: Black Ops III and Final Fantasy 15. And those are just the highlights of his work in games and animation! His theatrical and radio accomplishments are too numerous to mention here! Suffice it to say, I was very eager to sit down with Keythe and get his insight into the voice over world.

In the first part of our discussion, we talk about the early part of Keythe’s career and how his passion for Top 40 radio hits eventually led him towards storytelling and theater. His love of story in all its forms is what gave him the flexibility to be open to whatever entertainment opportunity came his way, whether it was an acting job or some other position in production. In fact, it was his willingness to take a relatively low level production assistant job at an animation studio that allowed him to learn the process of creating cartoons. The education he got from that experience not only lead to more and better opportunities at the studio, but it has helped him immensely in all aspects of his career. I really admire Keythe’s openness and his humility when it comes to working in an industry that can often be emotionally challenging, and I’m eager to share his wisdom with you!

To learn more about Keythe and his VO Lounge, visit his website at:
www.KeytheFarley.com

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #137 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)

Welcome to episode 131 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 first part of my interview with voice actor and dialect expert, Eliza Jane Schneider! You may remember in my previous interview with Zach Hanks how he mentioned how much he appreciated Eliza’s comprehensive dialect classes. Based on Zach’s comments, I thought it would be apropos to have Eliza on the podcast to speak with us! Eliza has an amazingly long and diverse acting career. She started very young as an actress in both school and community theaters. She parlayed her theatrical experience into on-camera acting jobs in college and eventually into voice acting. She’s probably most famous for portraying almost all of the female characters on the animated series South Park in the years between 1999 and 2003. More recently she’s the voice of Agent Rama in the Agents of Mayhem video game, she’s played numerous characters in the animated series Sanjay and Craig, and she’s also in the animated series Breadwinners playing the Tooth Fairy. In addition, Eliza and I have also been in a number of projects together including Diablo III where I played the Male Wizard and she played the Female Necromancer, and also the Pirates of the Caribbean video games where I voice match Orlando Bloom to play Will Turner while she voice matches Keira Knightly to play Elizabeth Swann.

In addition to her many acting accomplishments, Eliza is incredibly dedicated to the study and mastery of English language dialects. While she was still in college, she bought an ambulance and travelled around the country recording people speaking in their native accents. She’s turned many of these interviews into one-woman theater performances where she reenacts her interview subjects on stage. She also studied with Robert Easton, a master of dialects who was once dubbed the Henry Higgins of Hollywood for his ability to train actors. Eliza has taken everything she’s learned from Robert and created her own unique approach to dialects and accents. I’m very happy to have her on the podcast to share her insight and expertise with all my listeners!

In this first episode, we explore how Eliza broke into the entertainment industry. We discuss her desire to be an actress from a very young age and how her experiences in the theater helped shape her approach to acting. It’s amazing how resourceful and ambitious she was in her efforts to tell stories and perform. I think my listeners can learn a lot about tenacity from hearing Eliza’s story!

If you would like to learn more about Eliza’s dialect training, please visit her website at:

www.DialectMasterClass.com

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #131 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. Since the majority of auditions are recorded from our home studios, developing solid techniques and approaches to directing ourselves is a necessary evil. It’s a daily challenge and Maureen is always fascinated to hear how other voice actors tackle it without getting in their heads, overthinking everything, and ending up frustrated and drained.

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 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. They also teach workshops that focus on voice acting for a variety of video game genres. Maureen was especially interested to talk to Valerie given her wealth of experience as an actor, director, casting director, and educator.

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 #26 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 130 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 voice actor, director and teacher, Zach Hanks! You may be familiar with his performances as Garnac in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Morgan and Custis Pendleton in the video game Dishonored and Lars Halford in the game Brutal Legend.

Not only is Zach a voice actor, but he’s also worked as both a voice director and casting director on multiple video game projects. In addition, Zach has taught voice acting as a professor at the Stephen F. Austin State University in Eastern Texas. He currently resides in Atlanta where he is continuing to pursue his own voice over career in addition to founding the Voice Over Career Launch Pad, a service that helps voice over artists learn the skills they need to become business-savvy professionals in the industry.

In the previous episode, we explored major turning points in Zach’s varied career and the very practical lessons he learned from each of them. As we conclude our time together, Zach and I discuss his experience as a college professor and the most common mistakes that students tended to make in his acting classes. The time Zach spent working with those students helped him shape his current education program, the Voice Over Career Launch Pad. Zach observed that around the country there were many fine voice performance classes taught by very reputable teachers. Where he saw a lack of education was for voice actors who wanted to develop the technical and business skills that they needed to be competent and reliable in the voice over marketplace. Zach’s experiences as an actor, director, and professor give him a unique understanding of what it takes to help people get their voice over careers up and running as quickly as possible. But I’ll let Zach tell you more about all of those topics himself.

Zach’s Facebook Group: Voice Over Career Launch Pad
Zach’s Auto-Scheduler: Schedule an Online Meeting with Zach Hanks

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #130 Here (MP3)