Posts Tagged ‘audition’

The Callback

August 26, 2008

Like many voice actors, I do a lot of auditions. Sometimes, you do so many – whether through an online service like voices.com or through an agent – that you sort of have to purge them and you kind of lose track of all of them.

So on the rare occasion that you get a callback for an audition, it stands out. In my experience, callbacks are extremely rare. I think I’ve averaged on a year for the last three years. If you’re not familiar with a callback, it’s when, as the name implies, you’re called back to audition again. This is generally a good thing because it means they liked you enough to bring you back and have you read again.

But whereas the initial audition may have been a zillion people (that may be a slight underexaggeration), the callback might be a dozen people.

Now, I may have a goofy outlook on this, but when I audition for a voiceover job, I do the best audition I can, but I usually don’t get attached to it: I don’t sit around wondering if I’m gonna get the gig or anything like that. But callbacks are tricker. Something about knowing that the producer or casting director liked you enough to invite you back is enough pressure to make it infinitely more nerve-racking than the normal, everyday audition, because now there’s a sense of “Oh, I’m SO close!” In reality, that may or may not be true, but mentally it’s there and hard to ignore.

Which is why, in this case, it’s a bit disappointing that I didn’t get the gig, haha.

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad

February 16, 2008

I woke up yesterday morning and my throat was killing me. Terrible timing, considering I had two voicover things I had to do. First was a session I’d been hired for to be the voice of a Chicago engineer for a Lionel toy train. A pretty cool gig, and there was a fair amount of copy…not just me saying something like “All aboard!”. No, this was a well-thought-out script with a lot of authenticity to it, and I’d been hired based on an audition I provided in my best Chicago accent…or at least the best one I thought fit the character.

So at about noon, the session began, and despite the need to have every line read twice (just for safety’s sake), we were wrapped up in just about 30 minutes. Not bad for over a hundred lines. In fact, it was quite nice to be complimented on the session by the director, who said it was one of the “best and most painless ones of these I’ve worked on.” Always nice to get that kind of compliment, especially when you’re feeling lousy, physically.

But then came voiceover event #2, an audition for Nationwide Insurance. Now, I could just be imagining the worst, but after a few takes of the audition, which I read with two other people, a woman and a little girl who was, by the way, brilliant, the director (a great guy with whom I’ve worked before) said that I was done, but asked the other two people to stay because he’d “lost a couple of people and needed them to read again.”

Uh oh.

Again, maybe it’s just me being paranoid, but it sure felt an awful lot like a “That sucked, so you ladies please stay here while I bring in somebody who isn’t gonna sound terrible reading with you!”

I’m sure there are people who never have to deal with this…people who, even with pneumonia or strep, could whip out a perfect session or perfect audition. Some of these people may have more experience than me, and some may just be better than me (although none, I would argue, are any more dedicated than I am to delivering a great performance). This, though, is one of the interesting things about voice acting, and I’m sure, about acting in general. You’re gonna have your great moments, when you really shine, and really feel great about it. And then you’ll have your not-so-great moments, when the people you’re reading for, or performing for, are thinking maybe your game’s a little bit off.

It’s just a little odd when they happen one right after the other.


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