VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Diane Maggipinto]

"the rock you grew up with ............. "
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sitting at #8, though not as present as I'd like to be. Hello!

www.d3voiceworks.com

[Bob Bergen]

I find this to be an interesting question. An important one, but an interesting one.

This question is a recent phenomenon. There was a time, especially in the vo industry, where the side job, or as we used to call it, the survival job, wasn't something one needed to be advised about. You just had one. Or two. Or nine. You ate, paid your bills, and your acting investment by your survival job(s).

Most actors since day one waited tables at night to keep their days free for auditions. But in today's vo industry, the auditions aren't just during the day. You get em done when they come in. Most working and (or) competing voice actors need a portable studio on hand at their survival job to continue competing throughout the day. My point here is, there is no better time of the day anymore to have that survival job. But you do still need that survival job.

I worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios for 5 years. And, I made it work for me. I requested my days off be in the middle of the week. Most wanted weekends off. I wanted weekdays, so on my days off I could explore the studio. I would make my way onto sound stages and backlot shoots, so I could observe movies and TV shows being made. I needed to learn technically and physically the film set and all that goes into it. I also made the rounds to the casting offices and charmed my way into meeting casting directors. This got me a ton of auditions and a lot of bookings. My last 2 years as a guide I made more as an actor than I did as a guide. But I wanted to bank as much money as I could so, when the day came the the studio asked me to leave, I had that nest egg. And they did indeed ask me to leave. I had 32 sick days my last year. They couldn't afford to keep me.

I was also a mall Santa during the holidays in the evenings 7 nights a week from Thanksgiving through New Years for those 5 years. And, I'm still a licensed massage therapist. You just never know when you need that survival money. Even if you are successful, shows get canceled, unions strike, commercials stop airing. And if you are a smart business person, if you save and invest, if you live below your means, your odds are better to survive during those rough times.

Bottom line is, ya gotta survive. Ya gotta eat. It matters not what you do as a survival job. It matters that you have them. You cannot go into show business for the money. You work the survival job for the money. You act because you have to.

Here are some other bits of advice:
- Live below your means! Always!!!
- Save at least 10% of everything you make. No matter how small or large the check. Save more if you can. It will grow faster than you think.
- Never pursue acting on credit. If you cannot afford it now, wait until you can.
- Don't fall into the trap of "if I buy it the career will follow." You don't need to spend a fortune on home studios when starting out. Grow your studio as your career grows.
- Invest and reinvest in your career. Careers and professions don't come cheaply. But do it wisely. Diversity is key for longevity in vo today. The more genres you do the more opportunities. But each genre should be considered a separate commitment and investment.
- Don't go into acting for the money. It will never be enough. Again, you act because you have to. It's a passion and a calling. Get a high at the mic. Get a paycheck at the survival job. If you end up being one of the few who make their living acting, great! But don't count on that. Count on pursuing what you love.
- Don't "just want to work." Want a career. Know specifically what you want out of your career, and have a specific game plan to achieve it. Vague goes bring vague results. Specific goals will help you invest specifically.
- Be willing to do much more than everyone else. Never feel like you've "made it." That's when actors begin to coast, and the its usually downward.
- Give back!
- Gratitude is necessary! If you get to that point where the work or circumstances are such you might have to sell the house, be grateful you have a house to sell. (I've been there! Didn't have to sell, but was oh so grateful I had that opportunity!!)
- Never feel at any time in your career that there is any shame going back to that survival job. There's shame denying the need for one. There's shame going broke pursuing acting. There's shame being a stupid and unprepared business person. But there is no shame in working to pay you bills.

This need for the survival job is not new, and it will always be a necessity. It was for my generation of actors, and it will be for the next. But here's the big difference in my generation. And there were exceptions, but for the most part my generation would take 12 survival jobs before undercutting their fellow actor or the business as a whole. You didn't damage your fellow actor. You didn't take a career step backwards. You took another survival job. And you preserved the integrity and the status of your career.

But that's a whole different topic!

[Scott Pollak]

Bob... as always, thanks for a wonderful, wonderful contribution here. I am going to copy and paste your entire note and send it to my 20 year old son, the aspiring actor.

As a follow-up to your comments about how nowdays you have to be prepared to audition for v/o anytime, day or night, that is exactly what led me to finally have to ditch the part-time standardized patient job. I was working, on average, 3-4 days a week, from about 7:30 a.m. to about 4:00 pm, and was simply missing too many audition opportunities.
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Scott R. Pollak
Clients include Pandora, NPR Atlanta, Wells Fargo, Cisco, Humana, Publix, UPS, AT&T, HP, Xerox and more.

www.voicebyscott.com

[Bob Bergen]

I hear ya, Scott. Most folks I know have a travel mic at work and excuse themselves to a quite spot or their car to audiiton. Technology is a great thing. It opens many doors. But it also has made competing more of a challenge. If you don't get it in fast, your competition will.

Leaving the survival job is a scary thing. But so is buying a car. Or a home. With all the advice I gave above, there is no room for success without risk and gamble. You just have to be smart about it.

[Philip Banks]

Wonderful stuff Bob, thank you.

My favourite bit of witchcraft brought to this business from my previous life was "COVER".

I know how much I need every month (need not greed) and my accounting software, the part recording MONEY IN not MONEY OWED, shows me when I've hit the need and also calculates how many times in the rolling months I've "COVERED" what I need.

e.g I need $1,000 but have been paid between 21st April and 20th May $2,000 so I have a COVER of 2.

Actual cover for me at the moment is 8.137366 .. See, I am able to boast to 6 decimal places!!!! Think of it as another of my completely useless life skills

[Ben Amos]

That's good stuff, Bob. Can't wait to work with you in studio in a few weeks!
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"Man is so made that whenever anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish." - Jean de la Fontaine

[Velfin]

A little late to the party, but I had two jobs not listed yet:

- Writing standardized test questions (math, in my case) for grade school state standards tests

- Shelving at the local library
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Kendra Hoffman
kendrasvoice.com

[Yonie]

[Quicksilver]

Scott, shhhh! We don't want all these voice over people trying to get into radio now, it will ruin my sweet deal!

Sounds like you have been there before, glad to see you were able to make the jump. I'm getting very close but despite the measley pay, I'll really miss the people.

[ccpetersen]

Bob speaks rightly! It's an important message really no matter what line of work you end up going into. When I was in graduate school (and indeed, even as an undergrad), we all waited tables, cleaned hotels, worked at office jobs, etc. in order to live while working toward that larger payoff. In no particular order, I've worked as a file clerk, waitress, dorm cleaner, babysitter, accessions clerk at a library (we indexed new books and put those plastic covers on them), sold ladies' foundations at JC Penney; just before grad school I worked as a reporter and news desk editor at a major newspaper, then in grad school worked as a lecturer at a planetarium, a research assistant, then after grad school worked as research associate, then an editor. All through there I was honing my craft as a speaker, took acting classes, speaking workshops, etc.

Point is, as Bob says, you do what you need to do. If you enjoy it along the way, so much the better, but as a former waitress for the early shift at IHOP, I can tell you that the enjoyment part was sometimes hard to accomplish.

Oh, and Philip's COVER idea is something we've done for all the years we've been married. First figured out what we needed to live, and then figured out what we needed to do to make it happen.
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