Creativity Jijiji
Creativity Jijiji: "Conversations about creativity"
This podcast amplifies the voices of our true leaders—the artists. Writers, composers, producers, singers, actors, and poets show us new ways to see ourselves and the world around us. They illuminate the invisible threads that connect us, revealing the deep ties of our shared humanity.
At a time when we must come together as citizens of a small and fragile planet, the voices of artists matter more than ever.
Creativity Jijiji goes beyond the spotlight to explore the mysteries of creativity—where it comes from, why it moves us, and how it shapes our world.
Join us as we listen, learn, and celebrate the creative minds guiding us into the future.
Creativity Jijiji
The Secrets of Voiceover with Casting Director Dane Gorman
Join us as we unlock the secrets of voice casting with Dane Gorman, a top-tier casting director and founder of Speaks Casting. Discover the often-overlooked magic that casting breathes into audio dramas, transforming mere scripts into award-winning productions. Together, Dane and I share our journeys and lessons from our collaboration on "Song in Space," a project highlighting the power of the perfect voice to turn complex narratives into engaging experiences.
Our conversation is nostalgic as we reminisce about the golden days of voice discovery when talents like Jim Gaffigan and Liev Schreiber first emerged. The landscape of the voiceover industry is undergoing a seismic shift, with talents now sprouting from every corner of the globe, thanks to the rise of home studios. We reflect on balancing the art of structured creative processes with the innovative possibilities offered by new technologies, ensuring that quality and authenticity remain at the heart of voice casting.
Explore the intricate world of professional voiceover studios as we discuss the technical and financial commitments needed to deliver top-notch productions. We unpack everything from the challenges of home studio setups to the undeniable benefits of professional environments. Learn about the importance of minimizing technical distractions so that talent can truly shine, and celebrate the dedication and resilience required in this competitive field. Wrap up this enriching journey with us as we thank Dane for her invaluable insights and invite you to continue exploring the ever-evolving landscape of voice casting and storytelling.
Thanks for listening.
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Hello and welcome to Creativity Jijijii. It's time to get your Jijiji on. On this podcast we talk about all things to do with creativity, the flex and the flow of business, the art and the practice of being an artist, being a working artist. So if you're a composer, a writer, an actor, a voiceover, a producer, if you do soundtracks for advertising or video games or whatever you get up to, if it has to do with sound and soundtracks and producing voiceover performances, directing, writing audio dramas, whatever you get up to, if you're interested to any of that stuff, you are going to want to listen to this podcast. We have a lot of really interesting things going on.
Chris Mchale:My name is Chris McHale. We've been here, I've been in this business a long time and I've pretty much covered every base there is to cover in this business and I want to share it all with you. I just want to share the stuff and share the people I know, and we're going to start today with a great guest and we're going to talk about something that doesn't get talked about a lot, but what is actually a critical piece of the process of putting together great, award-winning work, and that is casting, casting, finding the right voice. It's where you start, and we'll talk about all that. And to talk about all that, we're bringing in Dane Gorman, and Dane is a front-rank casting director. She's out there, she's working. She's working at it every day. She's out there, she's working, she's working at it every day. She's like me. She's worked through the transitions from what the business was before to what the business is now, and we're both still out here pounding away at it, and we want to share some insights into this beautiful, arcane and essential part of our work casting casting for voices. So let's get right to it.
Chris Mchale:Dane Gorman is the founder and CEO of Speaks Casting. Dane say hello, hello, hello. I'm so happy you joined me. Dane and I have been working on a project called Song in Space, which has been an epic project and it's just fabulous, and she worked very hard to get these voices together and the cast. I think it's like, in total, when you look at all eight episodes, it's going to be over 20 voices, but there's a core seven or eight voices that are just fantastic. I mean it's really, really incredible. When it comes to a storytelling as complicated or complex and nuanced as Song in Space, I mean just no way, no way, no way, just no way. You can use anybody but incredible voice actors to really communicate a story like this. Tell us a story like this.
Dane Gorman:Well, the longer we've gone working on Song in Space and actually doing some of the recording for episode one, now, when I hear the actors' voices when they're auditioning for me for something else, all I can hear is their character in Song in Space, because they have become the character and it's so good.
Chris Mchale:Oh, that's incredible. I know what you mean. We did Song in Space by just casting it first, and we cast the first episode and then I had to slog through for about nine months writing the other eight episodes. As I was writing, the character voices were there. It became easier and easier because I knew exactly what the characters sounded like. So you know, if you're going to do a big audio drama, I suggest you get your voices first. That's my recommendation, and I also suggest you call Dane because she's really a genius at this stuff. I'm so touched.
Chris Mchale:We actually go back a long way. I mean, what would you say? How many years? Or you don't want to say how many years generally? Let's keep it young yeah all the way back to like 2016. I think we've been in this business a long time and we both have had a lot of success in this business and we have both worked with some of the outstanding-the-line audio content creatives. My company, mchale Barone, was a big audio content company in New York, and, dane, give us a little bit of your background real quick.
Dane Gorman:Well, the reason I became a casting director was because I was an in-house advertising agency music producer at Young Rubicam a long while ago and the music producers actually produced the audio for the radio spots. And a lot of people in my department didn't like the radio and I was like I love radio. I mean, we had so much fun in a session with some of the best engineers, like Arnie Rosen and some amazing people, and I said I'll do the radio, I'll do the music too, but I'll do the radio. Bring it on. And from there, bart Radio hired me to be an executive producer for his company out in Seattle, washington, and I did that for several years. But while I was there, we were getting casting in from other casting directors and I kept. I'm not really happy with this casting, I really think we could do it better and I ended up doing the casting at BART Radio and then, when I left BART, I decided to reinvent myself as a casting director in 2009. And I haven't regretted a minute of it.
Chris Mchale:So Well, I think you're incredible. You know, I owned a casting company of one kind and I wish you had worked with me because I really like it. We've had we've had some great casting directors, but I've always liked casting directors, um, who listen and sort of get the creative aspect of this and it's everything to me as a a writer you know, I also play guitar and a composer, and the voices are just like my instrument as a creative. They add to it. I get a real rush when I hear voices and I start working with them and it's really magic. We're not only talking about radio, I mean. We're talking about advertising, television, film animation yeah, video games. I mean it's a big, vibrant field that is under a lot of stress right now.
Dane Gorman:Can I tell one funny story really fast? And then we can go back. We can talk about the future and the state of things today, the future and the state of things today. But I was working back this is a long time ago at a session where the writer it was for soft drink I'm not going to name the product and the creative really wanted the person to sound like they were upside down drinking some soft drink and talking at the same time. Oh wow, down drinking some soft drink and talking at the same time, oh wow. And so we're like, okay, we will just record the voice and then we'll play around with it and we'll try to add things to it and maybe you know the, you know the slogging of the drink, and we'll we'll make it work in post. We don't have to get, you know, the actor too, involved with this, but the creative and her assistant were adamant that this be real.
Dane Gorman:And she wanted us to turn the talent upside down and have them record speaking upside down, so I digress, but anyway, that was a real fun one.
Chris Mchale:Yeah, you just had to go to Barnum and Bailey Circus. I'm sure there would have been actors there that would have loved to do it. You know there's, there's actually it's. That's a funny story, but you know, I I do understand where the writer was coming from a little bit. I remember we did a spot uh that was, I think it was like a Halloween spot or something, and the actor was supposed to be bobbing for apples. So so you know, we did it. We got a big bucket, we got some apples. Joe barone went into the studio oh, I'm not lying.
Dane Gorman:We did let the actor agreed to go upside down and oh, you're saying the actor did go upside, oh yeah no, I am saying we actually.
Dane Gorman:I mean, I tried to prevent it from happening, but the actor was like you know, that's the the thing about a voice actor, they'll give it their all. And they were like if that's what she wants, I can try it. And I remember arnie going no, no, no, I don't think we need to try it. And the actors she's like yes, we need to try it. Her name, I'm not gonna say her name anyway.
Chris Mchale:So wait a minute, were you like in super dupe with arnie's?
Dane Gorman:yeah, we were in super dupe and we we turned the actor. He said I can stand on my hands against the wall. We put the mic down there and we actually did it.
Chris Mchale:The guy was like a yoga master.
Dane Gorman:He was like it was incredible, and later, after everybody left, we AB'd what Arnie had done in post and then the upside down voice and there really wasn't any difference.
Chris Mchale:but yeah, I would imagine there's, especially with a trained actor. I would imagine yeah, yeah, that's. That's great, though I hope you took a picture of that really I didn't.
Dane Gorman:I would only only picture I have is sitting on george c scott's lap from super tube.
Chris Mchale:I don't know why I kept that one, you know the thing that's driving me crazy right now more than anything, is the pace of change. It's like I got into this business and it was very stable. You kind of learned, you know the techniques and the roots and you, you built your network.
Dane Gorman:Well, you know we did go through. I think one of the most the biggest changes in the industry for casting was I can't even tell you how many years ago when the first pay-to-play sites came. So all you know, actors were paying their fees and putting their voice and resume on these pay-to-play sites and a lot of producers and agencies and creatives stopped going to casting directors. It's not like all the business was gone, but they went to the pay-to-play sites to find their casting and what was cool and what I think might happen with AI as well didn't quite work to perfection. Maybe if you had a low budget and you couldn't afford a casting director, you'd go that route, but all the business ended up coming back to the casting directors because the producer and the creatives don't have time to listen to 200 voices.
Chris Mchale:Yeah, it's like I know, in the old days, when we were in the city, when you, when we were in the city, when I was a young guy in the city, you know, to make some money I joined central casting you know, and you would just, you literally would sit in a room down there all day reading newspapers and reading books and, um, you know, and, and somebody would look out the window and say, hey, you come up here and they would give you a little card and you go, you do the job. There were like be 100, 150 people in the room and you're just kind of waiting, you know, and I think that that's that's what you're talking about. Like you go to one of these paid places and you're, you know, there's three, 400, maybe 500 auditions. So it's, it's really crazy. As a producer, it's, I don't know. I have not had too much success. I hired one voiceover when I was in a jam, but yeah, no, you need. I'm really a big fan of casting directors.
Dane Gorman:It's not even the casting directors, it's just the whole process of collaboration I think is so important in creativity well and I think what you know a lot of times producers are overwhelmed and their turnaround times have changed drastically because technology has gotten so good, so used to you have a week to pull in some voices and really work at it, but now the turnaround times sometimes are the same day. I need, I need a guy that sounds like you know, uh, action figure, hero, dude, uh, deep voice, villainous, and I need it in five hours, and so you're like that's why they call you basically right, so that that I mean, that's the thing that's changed.
Dane Gorman:The most is the timeline. So I have to really hone in on my craft as, as and keep a database of who I really love vocally. Sometimes I like to open it up because there are tons of new people out there and I love giving new people a chance, and you never know, you're going to discover this next great voice that everybody wants to use if you don't open it up. But if you, you know, sometimes when you're in a hurry you have to go to the pool of people that you absolutely know can pull this off and hopefully they're at home waiting at their very high quality home studio so that they can turn this around for you really quickly.
Chris Mchale:Oh man, I'm going to get into a little bit of that later on, I think. But I think that you said something in passing that has really always been true, which is that new voices really are gold. There's just nothing more powerful. And we've seen it, you know. We've seen like somebody come onto the New York advertising scene and just take off like a rocket ship. I have witnessed the launch of some pretty famous people that way. Jim Gaffigan was a guy who I think he was working at a as an account exec, I think at an agency, you know. Next thing, you know he's like one of the top voiceover guys.
Dane Gorman:It's like Lee Ed Schreiber, I think. He was a bike messenger and he used to bike in and you know we would book him because we just heard something so great in his voice, you know, and he became the voice of a certain client and he would ride his bicycle from Brooklyn all the way into Manhattan to record, come in all sweaty, but he was amazing, he was amazing and he still is. Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, probably. Yes, he does less voiceover work. Yeah.
Chris Mchale:I don't think he's doing. Part of the business is doesn't function the same way. I don't think, you know, we were kind of all contained. It was like the entire voiceover industry was either in New York City or in LA, you know, and that was it. That was kind of it. You had to kind of make your choice as a creative, as an artist, as an actor, one of those two cities.
Dane Gorman:Well, there were differences in the cities. There were differences in the cities, like you went to New York for your you know, your actor, your narrator, maybe your documentary film voice and your commercial voices, and you went to LA for some commercial voices, but you also went there for animation and cartoons. I mean, that's kind of what the differences were, but now there are no differences.
Chris Mchale:Yeah, there are no differences, and I think there's a lot of disadvantages with that. There's no differences. Yeah, there are no differences, and I think there's a lot of disadvantages with that, there's no doubt, but I'm getting used to it.
Dane Gorman:Well, and now there's more cities to pull from.
Chris Mchale:Yeah, I mean, you're sitting in Nashville.
Dane Gorman:Yeah, I'm in Nashville. I get a lot of great voices from where you are in Chicago.
Chris Mchale:Yeah, I'm in Chicago.
Dane Gorman:I find great voices in Austin, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia. I have a great couple of actors that I work with out of New Mexico. So because we've gone remote and everybody's getting their home studios, we don't go into an actual casting session anymore, which does open it wide up to find a unique voice. I do miss those days where we had a casting session and you brought in your 20, 25 people that you thought were amazing or maybe the agent would throw a new person in, and then they came to you and you directed them through the audition and then you tightened it up and you sent it to you know the creatives, and it was Look, we won a lot of awards in that company in New York.
Chris Mchale:It all began with the casting because I would you know the casting directors. If we got busy, the casting directors would do their thing and we had some great casting directors over the years. But as a director I wanted to do the casting as much as possible, at least part of it. I mean, if it's going to be a 60 voice session, it was hard to get in there, but I would go in for direction. It would really help me, you know, refine the script, find out what, what we really are looking for. It was a process and we've taken a lot of that process out and it's been difficult to replace honestly.
Dane Gorman:And who knows better? Like you? Being the director at your company and the creative, you know exactly what it is you're looking for. Yeah, you know as a casting director, I've got to interpret what you're looking for and then I give it to an actor and then they're interpreting what I interpreted, what you said you wanted. So, the cutting to the chase sometimes is amazing, and I do know a few advertising agencies that would love to get back to that.
Chris Mchale:Well in this marketplace, if you want to be competitive, that should be part of your process.
Chris Mchale:That's the way I feel about it. I don't care what anybody says. You know, process is really important to creativity and creativity is a competitive edge. So it doesn't surprise me to hear that agencies and people like that are, you know, stepping back a little bit. There were some other aspects of that process that were sort of fascinating to me.
Chris Mchale:Stepping back a little bit, there was some other aspects of that process that was sort of fascinating to me, like, for instance, basically the rule of thumb was an actor would go into a booth and he'd read the script twice.
Chris Mchale:He'd read it once and then you'd give them some direction, then he'd read it a second time and then they were out. You know, it was like thanks. And then we had this magical thing we call a callback, which is like, you know, we would add the, let's say, 50 actors we auditioned, we bring back two or three and just kind of like, really, you know, drill down on it until we found exactly what we were looking for. And, you know, sometimes we throw in some wild cards. You know, if we hadn't heard, it was just by the time we got out of the casting session I was halfway there as to how I was going to direct these spots. You know, I kind of knew what we were looking for. I could start hearing it, start getting it in your ears, and all of that began with casting. There's no doubt about it.
Dane Gorman:Well, and you know, a lot of times because we've been doing this for so long, there are a lot of young creatives and young producers and they're they're learning, you know, and they're they're also miles ahead of me with some of the technology and stuff because it comes so easy for them, but they're learning. The process still works the way we were kind of doing it, and I think what if I could give an actor any advice, as they're growing and learning this industry not people who are already doing it is make yourself versatile. You know, really, really, take acting classes. Don't take a voiceover class.
Dane Gorman:If you want to take a voiceover class, take a voiceover class that teaches you about the industry, but not how to interpret or read a script, because a lot of times I'll get auditions back and they've all gone to the same voiceover acting class and so they emphasize every word the same, the cadences are all the same and nothing sets them apart. So I would just say hone your craft and become versatile. Take an improv class. Take acting class. You know, do some theater. Just, you know, give. Give yourself the opportunity to show the creatives and the casting directors that you can take direction and you can change your approach instantly if they're not happy with it.
Dane Gorman:And sometimes that's lost on people. That's sometimes that's lost on people. Sometimes, I think, when people see the casting specs, they get in a hurry just to throw the audition back and it's like they didn't even read the specs.
Chris Mchale:If I feel like I'm working with an actor who can take direction, then I feel like I'm going to be able to get a performance that is going to make my clients happy.
Dane Gorman:Basically, it just comes down to that.
Chris Mchale:I'm assuming that anybody who steps up to a microphone and auditions is, you know, ready to do some basic sort of stuff, which is not the case. But I assume I, you know you and I both work in pro with pros a lot, so we're kind of used to that. You know they come in with their voices warmed up and they come in with a bottle of water and they come up, you know, ready to rock and, more than anything, they take direction and I've never studied acting, so I don't.
Chris Mchale:I do have a son who's an actress, but uh, that is, that is a magical ability and you can spot it almost instantly. So I mean, I think that you and I work together and and I've probably asked you that very same question I'll hear voice, I like. And the next question out of my mouth is like, can they take direction? And I'm totally reliant on the casting director for that answer.
Dane Gorman:Well, and I feel bad for actors these days who want to make a living in voiceover, because unfortunately, the and I'm not sure where this all breaks down or how it can be corrected but they want to hear the audition be perfect, as if they could just take it and plop it right into the spot, mix it and finish it, even though they're going to have a recording session.
Dane Gorman:They don't want to send voices to their clients unless it's exactly what is going to be the finished product, and we didn't do it that way.
Dane Gorman:We loved someone because we loved their voice and we knew they had the and, you know, maybe give them some direction, maybe it lasted only a half an hour, you know, and everybody was happy, but now they expect the audition to sound like the final product, and that's just not fair. Yeah, no, I think a lot of that is the managing of the client, because that's what could happen when they're presenting the voice saying this is the voice we like the voice, because that's that's what could happen in when they're presenting the voice saying this is the voice we like the voice because of this. But when we go into the session, we're going to direct them and get the exact performance that we're looking for, and we can't do it that way anymore because nobody's you know managing their client the way that I would hope that they would, so we have to. We have to have a voice that's almost finished. That's why the actor needs to take more time when they're looking at the spec and try to deliver it the best they can.
Chris Mchale:Beautiful thing about McHale-Burone was we did hundreds of spots a year, so we were able to really hone our chops with how to get this done. You know, I mean, I, I mean we probably did. Somebody told me once we did 30,000 spots. I don't know if that's true or not, but you know, um, but I, I can believe it. We had two or three directors at any one time. We know we had six recording studios. So we were, we were rocking around the clock.
Chris Mchale:I don't think we set out to make a process, but as a producer I knew that I was going to get what I needed in like eight, nine takes. And if the session went to like take 15, there was something really wrong, like the wrong guy. Yeah, the magic take would be three, four, five, you know, maybe six Somewhere in those four takes. It would be like magic. And then it was like just mop up, you know, maybe pick up a couple of wild lines or, you know, do some different stuff. But it was, you know, and we did spot after spot after spot, and it was always the same. So that led me to conclude that, you know, the best performances were going to be the early performances.
Chris Mchale:And that leads me to say to actors when you're doing home recordings, you know, study the script, mark it up, get it in your mouth, rehearse it, practice it. Then open your mic and read it two times and send it off. You know, I really think you're going to stand a better chance of booking a job if you do that. If you start editing it and going in and replacing this phrase and trying to get this, you're going to drive yourself crazy. I've done that. You know. You can spend all day recording a 30-second script. I mean, you're on the wrong path. I really believe that what you want is a performance, you know, and just like any performance, you need to rehearse that and then it's go time. The curtain goes up, read the script, you know, step back a little bit, take a breath, take some water, step up the script.
Dane Gorman:You know, step back a little bit, take a breath, take some water, sip up, do a second read. Well, a lot of actors are only giving, they're only sending in one.
Dane Gorman:Take you know they only send in one take, but they, they, they slave over it yeah, they do, but I mean, I wish, I wish, my, I would love to hear them. Do that first, take the way you know, know, like you said originally, like in an audition, live audition. Do that. Take the way they interpret the script. And do a second take the way that the specs are telling you to interpret the script and that way you are already showing in your audition that you have some range.
Chris Mchale:This is where the process is a little awkward. This is where the process is a little awkward and I think why agencies are backing up into live auditions, because really you need a director in between those two takes yes, marked up. But you know, the best actors come in with those scripts marked up there that you know they've really thought about it, they've analyzed it and, and then they go and they perform it. Then the director says, like you know, that's pretty cool, I like that. You know, why don't you try this? Or you know you kind of got that wrong.
Chris Mchale:Maybe we should do this a little bit. Or that's not what we're looking for. I'm looking for more like this. And then the actor does another take and you know, for me as a director, it's like the way they react to that is going to tell me the whole story. So, and the good actors will alter their read right on the spot. That gives me the confidence that when I'm in a room or online with, like you know, 25 clients breathing down my neck, the actor is going to be on my side and we're going to be able to find this, because my direction is one part of it, but the client direction is a whole other part of it, yes.
Chris Mchale:It's like you said. You know I don't think hanging the guy upside down is a good idea, but you know what. You guys did it because that's what the client wanted. You're like okay, you know what Can you do? A handstand, yes, I can. All right, I think I remember Arnie telling me that story. Actually.
Dane Gorman:Yeah, he's like. I have seen it all now for sure. It's definitely a challenge these days, because there's not just the casting director, there's the agent, the talent, the casting director, the person who wrote it, the business manager who's managing their client, the producer. It's just all these people that you have to satisfy.
Chris Mchale:Do you do callbacks? I do yeah. So how does that work? How's the callback process work?
Dane Gorman:Well, it depends on. Some agencies want to do a directed callback, where the creatives love the voice but the performance isn't quite right and they want to make sure that the talent can get where they need them to be. Sometimes it's they'll give me notes and then I'll do the call back. So it just depends and I would. I had this wild idea and I don't know, this might be something I'm going to experiment with in 2025, because we have to keep changing if we're going to stay relevant in this industry is I'm thinking that, you know, with everyone having home studios most people if I let the agents know that these are the people year five year five year four year, three year one that I think would be perfect for this commercial have them call me before they lay their audition down and then we'll talk through it. They can, they can record while we're on the phone and then they can do a couple of takes and then I can say I liked one in four, send that in as your audition, and then I can tighten up my auditions so that I'm really sending.
Dane Gorman:Like back in the day, we usually sent 20, 25. Now I get people ask me for 50, 60, 75, 100. And it's like you know, it's hard to pick someone if you're listening to 100 voices. But I want to make people happy. That's me. I always try to please, so I'll give you as many as you want, or you know, I'll just, but sometimes it just sounds like the same person doing it 50 times. But yeah, I mean, I think it would be better if I could perfect it as if I'm having an in-person casting session and tighten it up so that there are less options, but there are 25 great options.
Chris Mchale:Yeah, what you're saying makes sense, great options. Yeah, what you're saying makes sense, and it just really points out something that's kind of obvious, which is that we all just kind of drift. There's like a digital drift. It's like, oh, this is what's going on. Oh, I'm going to have a home studio. We can't do this. But actually what we're looking for is a virtual studio, because the process that we had was perfect. You know, I mean as perfect as it could get. It was an exact process and it produced incredible creativity. If that's your goal, you know, I I don't know if that's as much of a goal as it used to be, but you know it. It it's like the you're just talking. You know you're you're talking about like something. Like you know it's an, but it's not really, it's a renovation. It's like you're going back to the way we did it before. It's just a matter of using the technology differently. I've got huge problems with people in their home studios.
Dane Gorman:Okay, that is a huge problem for the studio on the other end, where the agency has gone with their creatives in their studio and then they're patching in with the Voice in Chicago. They're in LA and the guy says that he has a broadcast quality home studio and he doesn't. So that's the problem.
Chris Mchale:You know, people go to college and get degrees in audio engineering Like my son.
Dane Gorman:Hire him. He'll help you set up a home studio.
Chris Mchale:Yeah, like what's his name, Shane. Okay, I've probably had 30 mixers working for me and the good mixers were like gold. You know gold? I mean you mentioned Arnie Rosen. I had Tim Leitner at Irving Place. I mean Henry Parati.
Dane Gorman:Oh my God, henry is legendary.
Chris Mchale:Brian Tarner. Oh my goodness.
Dane Gorman:Oh my gosh, give me a session with Brian Tarner any day. Yeah, he's my gosh, give me a session with Brian Tarner any day.
Chris Mchale:Yeah, he's still. He's still out there, you know, still online doing stuff. But I mean, like if Brian Tarner tells you he's got a professional studio at home, you believe him, you know. But I think that there are a lot of there's just a tremendous amount of people that do not understand even the fundaments of what a professional studio actually is. Now, look, I have a studio, but you know, I have an IT guy as well that comes in here and keeps my studio organized, because I am not a technical guy and I'm actually pretty educated, but I am not a technical guy.
Chris Mchale:And I say that because when you're online doing some pro voiceover work and some of the work you and I work on, there's millions of dollars on the line here for some of these projects and you can't have a technical glitch in the middle of it.
Chris Mchale:And the amazing thing is that, with the thousands of sessions you've done, in the thousands I've done, we can guarantee people that you there will be a technical glitch. You know, even if you're working, even if you're working at a, you're actually all in a room and you're surrounded by the top equipment and the best engineers and everything you're going to have a technical glitch and the thing that separates the real studios from the less than real studios are how you handle that technical glitch. Because clients are going to give you five minutes. You know they're not going to have any, especially when they're paying for something. So you know, and that's a tremendous amount of pressure on talent, because you've got to go in front of a microphone, you've got to perform, you've got to do the right voice, you've got to do your thing. And then it's like oh, now you have to take off that hat and put on a technical hat and crawl underneath your desk and fix what's going on.
Dane Gorman:Well, and you got to pray that there's no construction going on in your neighborhood either.
Chris Mchale:Well, that's like I mean OK, so like that's there you go Like look, you got to have a microphone in excess of $1,000. You've got to have a voice boost. That's going to cost you $15,000. You've got to have some kind of digital interface that really works. That's going to cost you a couple of thousand dollars. And you know you need mic stands and pop filters and a $1,000 pair of headphones, maybe a $350. Maybe you can cheap out on the headphones, um, and that's all going to be working perfectly, that's. That's not even talking about things like source connect and that kind of stuff which gets sort of headachy at certain points well, you know what I started asking for.
Dane Gorman:And I think this is important because I don't want to just say to my client, yeah, they have a home studio with SourceConnect and I always say in a lot of my casting briefs that I send out home studio with broadcast quality, home studio with SourceConnect. But if they're say they've got five guys that they, like, they're not sure who they're going to book, at that point I'm going to start requesting things and one of the things I'm going to request, or send me the specs on your studio. Yeah, I want to see that you know what you have, and I want to. I don't want to just say, yeah, they have, you know, a cheap mic and they have a little portable pad or they're in there, I mean in a closet, you know. I mean I just I really want to see specs wise what they have, so that when I send that to my client and they're sending it to somebody at sound lounge or some studio, the engineer can see.
Dane Gorman:You know, and the engineers are all running tests before the set, the day before the session. A lot what we've started doing is the engineers are are calling in and checking in with them and testing it, and then the engineer is telling them well, this isn't good, you're going to have to add this or you need this or you need that. And they have a day before the session to go make the improvements on their home studio. But it would be nice not to have to go to that step. It would be nice to say, yes, they have a broadcast quality home studio.
Chris Mchale:I don't see how you get a broadcast quality home studio for under $35,000. And that, by the way is cheap.
Chris Mchale:I mean when we built the studios in New York. We were a broadcast quality studio. Broadcast quality studio. I spent like $350,000, $400,000 per studio. You know I mean loaded floors, five foot thick walls. It takes everything you got to really get to that broadcast level and I prefer just using those studios. Anyway, to be honest with you, we get back to working on song and space. It's like we have to be. You know, I've been in New York several times looking for studios. I just actually was talking to somebody today about a deal that might get us a studio to record the voices and then some of the work can be done, not in a studio in terms of the putting the sessions together and maybe even mixing, but recording. To get a good recording, it's the simplest thing in the world. You need a soundproof room with a really good microphone. That's it. Those are the only two things you get. You need To get that. You're going to have to spend like 20 grand. I mean it's never going to happen in a closet, you know.
Dane Gorman:No well, a lot of agencies saw during COVID that it was a cost saver because people were starting to buy the equipment so they could record from home because no one was going in person to sessions during COVID. And you know studio costs. Can you know for a radio project that maybe not so much. It's not an all day thing but depending on what the project is, the studio costs can add up. And I think a lot of people, a lot of their clients, saw the savings and using people with home studios. But I think now we've gone further past COVID. More and more agencies are we're sending people into a studio.
Chris Mchale:You know, when I'm doing voiceover, I just really want to stand up in front of a microphone and read the copy and have somebody say to me you know what, that needs to be quicker, it needs to be slower, it needs to be funnier, whatever they want.
Dane Gorman:Try it again upside down.
Chris Mchale:Yeah, can you do a handstand? When I get into a recording studio with a good Neumann in front of me, I'm just like so relaxed. I'm like, okay, I can just be myself. I can just find this performance. I don't have to worry about anything, I can just focus on that. I know the sound is going to be good.
Dane Gorman:I know they're going to get what I do and it's kind of like the feeling you get when you're dressed up and you're wearing some nice clothes and you like the way you look in them. Is a voiceover actor. You have to like the way you sound, you know you have to like the way you sound.
Chris Mchale:Yeah and uh. You're an actor, you're acting, so you're not always going to nail it. You know you're gonna it's not going to happen, but at least it will sound good.
Chris Mchale:And I don't think people I think people really underestimate underestimate how much of what sounds pro is is just the technology. You know it's like if you're in a real studio and you've got an engineer, you got an assistant engineer, you got a producer, you got a director, you got great microphones, you got good space and air, and it's it's. It just elevates everything about your game, whether Whether you're an excellent actor or not. You're going to be better in that situation.
Dane Gorman:There are a few of those, you know I'm not going to name names. There are some guys that have been around for a long time, those announcer voiceover guys that just get copy facts to them and they just shoot it back to the client. You know and it's done. You know that have these really amazing studios and they're, you know it is available online to find them and what they ask you, what's required of you to purchase, you know. But if you're going to start in the voiceover industry, you got, it's going to be an investment. You're going to start in the voiceover industry. It's going to be an investment. You're going to have to invest some money.
Chris Mchale:Yeah, I know some voice talent that have incredible studios and they've made the investment and, yeah, they can sit in their studio by the lake out in New York.
Dane Gorman:Yeah, in their pajamas with a cup of coffee.
Chris Mchale:Even back in the 90s I knew people that were doing that. They would spend like $100,000, which I think is really the number. You know I don't mean to shock people listening to this, but I actually think that's a reasonable number to me to put together a pro-level studio. And you know that money includes like hiring guys to set it up for you and to maintain it to a certain degree. I think once you get it set up and it's rocking, yeah, you could go in there and do your thing, you could also rent it out to other voiceover people in your area because you know, and make some money back on it.
Dane Gorman:I know a lot of actors who like say they're in Huntington West Virginia just to throw out a place. But you know, when you're looking for a studio in Huntington West Virginia just to throw out of place, but when you're looking for a studio in Huntington West Virginia to send an actor who doesn't have a home studio, the agent will go, oh, but so-and-so, has a really good professional home studio and he rents it out and it's not $200 an hour. I think he only charges $50 an hour. He gives the voiceover discount. So you could be that guy in your region that has the broadcast quality home studio that you spend a hundred thousand dollars on.
Chris Mchale:But you can make some of your money back because you can help your fellow voiceover people I went to a studio in new york city, just like in the last two or three months, uh on like in the 30s and like just off of Fifth Avenue, and it was just a 10,000 square foot floor with 10 vocal booths and 10 Pro Tools systems and 10 Neumann microphones.
Dane Gorman:And you could rent it. That's a very smart person who did that.
Chris Mchale:You could rent it for $50 an hour. That's amazing. It really is where I end up when we talk about this stuff. You've got to get a studio. That's really a conversation for the clients, not the talent. You've got to get a studio. There are studios all over this world that will rent you a studio and I've done a lot of shows in $100-an-hour studios and it's fine. It's just a matter of getting that initial recording in front of a good microphone in a good booth. That's it. Once I have that, we can run that football down the field. I did a voiceover class recently. I was invited to do a voiceover class with Everett Oliver.
Dane Gorman:Yeah, Everett yeah.
Chris Mchale:Yeah, you hooked me up with him and he's a great guy and it was really fascinating to me. But the most fascinating part to me were the questions I was asked after, and there's a lot of people out there that are getting a lot of the wrong ideas. I started doing pro work. I was like an assistant radio producer at an advertising agency. Assistant radio producer at an advertising agency. I wasn't allowed near any kind of responsibility till I had done like a lot of sessions and kind of proved myself. I spent a lot of time sitting in the studio with senior producers, incredible radio talent and voice talent and sitting in the back room and somebody like Arnie Rosen at the board and you learned. I mean you learned.
Dane Gorman:Arnie taught yeah you learned.
Dane Gorman:I learned. Barney taught me everything I know about radio production. That's where I learned, and I learned because I went there for every radio job I had and I got better and better and better the longer I was there working beside him and I, you know, I had the confidence to go out then on my own and like I can do this, you know. But I feel sad, I feel bad for the voiceover actor today because it is oversaturated. There's so many people trying to get into voiceovers because somebody's told them oh, it's so easy and you can work from your home. And some people are going to rise to the top because they have this unique voice or they're really a good actor and their natural abilities come out. But not everybody should be a voiceover actor.
Chris Mchale:Yeah, it's a talent. You know, a talent is a whole discussion in itself. You know this voiceover class I did with Everett. There were like a couple of people in there that really had chops and they really stood out. It's a hard thing to define what it is, and especially when you talk about things like commercial acting, because commercial acting is really the ability to sound like yourself and so that when people listen to you you're not just trying to sell a product.
Dane Gorman:Yeah, you're believable. You're trustworthy because you sound like their next-door neighbor.
Chris Mchale:Yeah, you sound like the guy next door.
Dane Gorman:You know what's impressive about that class that you taught? You were telling me there were a couple of guys there that have really good chops. Those guys are constant. I know those guys. They're constantly working at their craft.
Chris Mchale:Yeah, constantly there's no magic here. If you decide you want to be a voiceover, you know, first of all call me.
Dane Gorman:You know, and I'll try to talk you out of it I think that, um, it's, it's.
Chris Mchale:You need to work it. Look, I've been. I, I'm a guy who started working when I was 14 years old. I started doing films and stuff and then I started singing jingles in studios. By the time I was 16, 17, I was working full-time doing stuff. And it's a lot of years later now and it's a lot of years later now and I still spend hours every day working on my craft.
Chris Mchale:Whatever I'm looking at, I don't do as much voiceover as I used to. But if I'm going to do voiceover, I have a whole process. I go through with warming up and doing tongue twisters and all sorts of stuff to get my voice loose. And you know, when an actor walks into, gets on mic, I'm expecting that they've already done like two hours worth of work to get their voice ready. And I know that every actor I worked with in New York that's the way they started out their day. They would do 60 minutes of exercise with their voice Did a lot of work actually with James Earl Jones, that guy it's a cliche to say it, but that guy could read a phone book and he'd be like, wow, that's the best phone book I've ever heard.
Chris Mchale:Luke, I'm your father. See, that's me proving I am not James Earl Jones. That's me proving I am not James Earl Jones. Working with him was really one of the highlights of my career, no doubt about that Sweetheart of a guy. Okay, so we didn't actually get to say goodbye to Dane, because I am a technical, incompetent person, so I just thought I'd call her up and say, dane, thank you so much for coming on to this podcast. It was a really great discussion.
Dane Gorman:I really enjoyed it. Thank you, chris. I thought it was something that made me think a little bit more than I normally would have been thinking about the topic, and I look forward to having more discussions with you in the future.
Chris Mchale:Oh yeah, definitely, and hopefully, when you hear this one, you don't go like, hey, wait a minute, no, you sound great, you sound great and I'll get this to you as soon as I can. So thanks again, and we'll talk soon.
Dane Gorman:It's been my pleasure, thank you.
Chris Mchale:I wanted to thank Dane for coming on. Creativity Jijiji this is produced by Studio Jijiji and if you want to see what we're up to, we're innovating. We're coming up with innovations in developing IP. That's essentially what we're doing at Studio to Gigi. Developing IP. That's essentially what we're doing at Studio Jijiji, and we're really focused on audio dramas and podcasts and music and all the stuff that we love. We're focused on love people. Anyway, studiojijijiio, visit us there. Subscribe to our newsletter. Subscribe, join the site. Come on, join us, because the more we are together, the happier we will be Now, the more we can solve problems. Solving problems is my superpower and this is a big one. We're trying to solve how to develop IP in a market that is like running into walls every way it turns. So join us, studiojijijiio, and subscribe to this podcast wherever your podcasts live Apple, spotify, iheartradio and we'll talk to you next week. Thanks for listening. Bye.
