VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Darren Altman]

...to Kevin Delaney.

Kevin says "Recently I submitted a VO audition to Marc Cashman, a top commercial producer / casting director here in Los Angeles. I didn’t get the gig — but Marc was nice enough to send a message to all who submitted, and I think it’s so important I asked him if it would be OK to share it with the readers of my blog.

Marc graciously agreed, so here it is…"

http://voninja.com/?p=1231
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https://www.darrenaltman.com/
http://twitter.com/darrenaltman

[Don G.]

As someone who in a past life spent a fair amount of time casting (as have many others here), I can only add the proverbial "Yeah, what he said!" to Marc's words. I'm always amazed that so few seem to heed them.

[Scott Pollak]

I got that e-mail from Marc and was blown away that he'd take so much time and energy to send it out. I had to respond to him simply to say "thank you". What a class act.
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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

[Pam]

This is a great email. When a producer takes the time to respond, it always is valuable information, doesn't happen often enough and is most welcome. Thanks for sharing!
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Pam Tierney
www.pamtierneyvo.com
imdb profile http://imdb.com/name/nm1941932/

Now what did I come in here for?

[Lee Gordon]

Just getting a "sorry, you didn't get the job" note is fairly rare, so I, too, was blown away that Marc would take the trouble to go into such detail. And now I know I probably didn't get the gig because I'm not hip enough. Either that or because I accidentally used an underscore rather than a hyphen when labeling my submision.
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Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

[Mike Harrison]

We can all learn something from Marc's letter. Lee's later realization that he accidentally used an underscore instead of a hyphen falls under the category of proofreading. In my earlier days at a corporate communications production house, when I wasn't busy recording and producing an audio track, I frequently found myself setting type (the Quadritek 1200, if anyone's interested). In the typesetting room, a large banner on the wall read: 'Please Proofreed!'

Fast forward to 1997. A coworker at a small ad agency, proudly having completed and mailed his first 'word-processed' and spell-checked sales letter brought a copy in to show us. Everything was fine... until the closing line: "If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ball me."

'Ball' was spelled correctly. What does a spell checker know?

The tip here is this: In the real world of typesetting, typesetters never proofread their own work because they're 'too close' to it (just like when we try to evaluate the appropriateness of segments or their sequencing in our own demos ). But because we don't have the luxury of having a proofreader on standby, after you think you're done composing something important, set it aside for a little while, if possible. Then read it very carefully again - one word at a time - as if you were the recipient. Never assume the reader won't know or care about misteaks.
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.