The Kalmenson Method as continued

        Our classes pay very little attention to the mechanical, while at the same time zeroing in on feelings. I choose to consider the voice as a mechanical instrument. It has no brain. What a person feels is hopefully what they are able to truthfully convey by the use of their voice.
        A person might ask for your help. Your reply is simple and to the point. “I’ll be delighted to help you” is your response. But my question is: Does your voice convey a convincing degree of genuineness? Does the listener get the idea that you really want to help, or are you merely going through the motions? What if the direction calls for you to show a little annoyance towards the guy who’s asking for the help? The words haven’t changed—just the direction. Your answer is still the same: “I’ll be delighted to help you.” Your genuine feeling of annoyance allows your voice to convey your attitude.
        Take a moment or two to come up with a wide variety of attitude directions to apply towards the individual asking for your help. Here are a few general directions that can be cultivated while responding with the same words: “I’ll be delighted to help you.”

1. As a serious helper in a friend's time of need
2. Sarcastic
3. Hero to the rescue
4. Guy attempting to pick up a girl

    Now a series of questions enter your mind:

The Five W’s And An H
Who am I? (The helper or the recipient?)
What will I use to provide the help?
Why do I want to help?
When will it take place? (Time of day, month, season?)
Where will it take place?
How will I, or can I, be the helper or recipient?

        Certainly what I say next, will smack of know-it-all pomposity. But it will exemplify the signature that has been mine for most of the last thirty years. Not just living life to its fullest, but also taking the time to listen to all it offers me. Understanding a variety of meanings may appear to be a trick.

        Much of what we learn could be deemed to be a trick. If, however, we learn it and it works for us, then, trick or not, we’ve found a way. And our experiences, regardless of what they are called, do help to provide some degree of meaning. Simplicity and meaning are what each and every accomplished actor has in common.

“No teacher alive can muster your skills for survival,

that will ever match those gleaned by way of life’s experiences.”

(Adapting the social graces)

        Character is a commodity that belongs to each of you. At Kalmenson & Kalmenson, we might point it out and attempt to help your cultivation, but usually, it’s a case of how a person was formed dictating their personality. Environment is the usual prompt for good or bad habits. So, too, it is the origin of speech patterns. Without becoming too fancy, or philosophical, social grace has to do with how a person conducts themselves within society's accepted boundaries.

        Whether the individual is white-collar, blue-collar, or no-collar, they can be polite or impolite; aware or unaware of what to do or say, whether they find themselves one-on-one, or out in public amongst a group of people. Their habits become part and parcel of who they are and how they portray themselves.

        You are about to enter a restaurant at just about the same time that another person enters your picture. What is your natural bent? Do you size up the situation and determine that you have the speed and dexterity required to ace the poor soul who plans on entering at the same time? Do you ignore the fact that the other party with designs on eating happens to be a woman well past retirement age? Do you jump in front of her and show no concern over the fact that you just slammed the old lady to the ground? Do you then enter the restaurant, throw both fists in the air, a la “Rocky”, celebrating what you’ve been able to accomplish?
        If you’re the person who is capable of being as natural a boor as the one who defeated the old lady in combat over who could enter a restaurant first, then perhaps your natural and most effective signature would be that of a tactless, ineffective, dolt. Is there a market for a voice that conveys your sort of social invective? The answer is "yes". There are folks out there who are as creature-like as I had described earlier.

        Now, what about the opposite end of the spectrum? You’re the person who enjoys being socially acceptable. You’re the polite considerate human being that doesn’t mind being last when it comes to entering an elevator, holding the door for an older person, or for any person at all for that matter. So maybe your signature is genteel and caring. And, of course, there is a market for that approach.
        All of the above have nothing to do with what you might know as an expert or have acquired from your life’s experiences. It has to do with whether or not you're willing to share your information, and what your attitude might be when you're disseminating it. The need to have a grasp on social grace is your need to have a grasp and total knowledge of your signature as a person, as well as an actor.

 
        If all of us could get an honest appraisal of what our signature truly is, we would all be well on the way toward discovering and developing meanings far greater than what we ever perceived possible. While truth is a treasure, it oftentimes becomes difficult to uncover. It is this fête of discovery, and revelation that embodies the Kalmenson Method.

        We don’t treat commercials as anything other than a slice of life. A story that must be told in as honest a fashion as possible. Honesty sells products. Your challenge will always be the same: Entering a person’s home as an uninvited guest, and then proceeding with your attempt at influencing that person’s life.
        How do you become enabled with the facility for recognizing and telling the truth while using another person’s words? At any given time, the content of the situation will be foreign to you. A place you have never been, a time of day that doesn’t suit you, talking to a person you have trouble identifying with—all while hailing the merits of a product that you may never have tried yourself.

        All these are our governing factors within the world of voiceover. These are the obstacles we have devoted our professional lives towards removing. The Method is an evolution that has no detractors. Thirty-plus years of applied resolution. 

        Ours cannot be called a secret when one considers the thousands that have studied with us through the years. Our evolution and that of our students have provided an unequaled joy for each of our teachers. As each of our students reports in, our evolution gains an even greater synergy to fuel our will to provide excellence within the confines of our continual discoveries.
        Does truth ever change? I don’t think so. Things change. People change. Places change. How the truth is told (may) change. But substance rules when subjectivity is our only guide. We are in the arts. We live with the subjective form. All we have is our truthful sight of what we deem to be the gospel.

“For within our light, and ours only, will there forever be the discerning factor of what position, stature, and cultivation any subjective form, would require for itself, in order for the truth to be conveyed, portrayed, or even uncovered.”

And the process continues...

Harvey Kalmenson

The Kalmenson Method continued

        The origin of the Kalmenson Method was much more than a single thought or a single time sit-down-and-write-it kind of a thing. My method was, and remains, an evolution. My words have evolved as have the time and presence we live with, by making use of our God-given skills and the ability to use every texture that our memory can and will provide when stimulated.
        While I can verbally convey many of the ingredients, the most important factor to be cognizant of is that ours is best served as an applied method. Each singular element must be used in order to ensure the final truthful performance by the purposeful application of each actor’s individual signature. In other, and simpler, terms… we stress the importance of each actor conveying the truth. I mean your truth conveyed within your personal signature.

        What do I mean by the word "signature"? Your signature?

        Begin by describing yourself, honestly, to yourself. What are you able to say? Are you sweet and soft-spoken? Are you a little edgy, and able to tell it like it is? Are you a touch on the sarcastic side? What about happy-go-lucky? Bizarre? Romantic? Playful? Droll? Dry? Drip? Pip? Flip? Clipped? Stipulate? Manipulate? Grandfatherly? Grandmotherly? All-American boy or girl next door?
        I can go on almost forever. The point is, that the above-mentioned types can also be referred to as your signature– providing that’s who you really are without "going for it". Who or what you honestly come across as is what we try to uncover, or discover, during the first few weeks of our applied method.
        Once we have your signature in place, and you are on the way to having the confidence of using it with the courage of your convictions, we encourage you to try its use during our duplication of the exact game conditions that an actor will be experiencing during auditions in the Los Angeles area market place.

        Our Kalmenson Method provides coaching to actors in the art of self-direction and copy interpretation. Self-direction is one of the most important tools an actor must have in their arsenal. Rarely, will an actor receive the kind of direction one might expect in a major league market like Los Angeles.
        Commercial voiceover auditions are amongst the more difficult assignments for even the more competent directors. The problem is that there is a shortage of professionally trained directors. I know I’ve never talked to any of my contemporaries and heard them expound on how they always dreamed of directing voiceover auditions.
        In Los Angeles, the vast majority of voiceover auditions, for decades, were being conducted at the agents' offices; rarely would that give an actor a chance to expand their horizons. The agent sees and hears you a certain way. When you’re in the agent’s booth, they, the agent, will ask you for what they feel you can do.
        Time is always a burden to an agent. In the agents' offices, it usually takes on a "get them in and get them out" mentality. A great many of the scripts that an actor will audition won’t call for that particular actor's signature. But, in what appears to be a pacification program conducted in order to satisfy the actor's desire to read on a wide variety of scripts, the actor finds themselves reading more and winning less.
        I’ve listened to some of the most insane directions being handed out by inexperienced agent directors. i.e.: The actor is handed a script and told they’re looking for a "big" voice. Does that mean they want a voice like James Earl Jones or what? It's a quandary.

        Ask an experienced voice actor about the quality of direction they receive– many will say it's lacking. Every commercial voiceover actor must have a solid track to run on. A track that the actor must practice on a daily basis, in order to establish a solid foundation; it is the solid foundation, which is the actor’s enabler.
        Great instincts become meager reactors without the benefit of a solid foundation. Daily reading (practicing the "scales") is an absolute necessity in order for success to be achieved. In short…it’s impossible for an actor to become a creative force if they're unable to read.
        There may be an actor out there, somewhere, who became successful in the field of voiceover without being a good reader. During the course of my career, and the thousands upon thousands of actors I have personally directed, I have never come in contact with an individual who made it without being a proficient reader.
        Our Kalmenson Method requires good reading skills. Any normal person has the capabilities of becoming a good reader; that is if that person is willing to practice on the Kalmenson track. We insist on our actors working hard on the basics in order for us to concentrate on helping each actor free up and enter the "skin peeling" process, wholeheartedly.

(to be continued)

Harvey Kalmenson

The Kalmenson Method

“From within our life’s reflections, the truth will emerge, and we will see it if we choose.”
Harvey Kalmenson

        I’ve often talked about my amusement over what I found when I first entered the world of commercial voiceover. Like so many before me, theater was my passion. The excitement of putting on a live display of talent often presents a lifetime of exhilaration. But along with the exhilaration of the audiences, the theater also brings feelings of desperation when the lights go dark.

        It was during one of these unfortunate dark moments that I found myself willing to take on whatever work might provide for my life’s salvation. I was willing to do almost anything—honestly—in order to support my family. The last thing on my mind was any thought of me becoming a commercial talent agent, especially an agent who would be specializing in voiceover.
        A very close actor friend of mine offered, one day, that his voiceover agent was looking for an assistant to direct voice auditions. Without the slightest idea of what I might be getting myself into, I agreed to have him set up an appointment to meet with the powers that be. That power was a man named Noel Rubaloff, the president of one of the foremost commercial talent agencies in the country at the time—Abrams Rubaloff & Associates.
        I found Noel to be a nice enough guy. Our meeting lasted a quick twenty-five minutes. I didn’t feel there was much chance of me being hired. For sure I had tons of industry work experience, but the facts were simple; he was looking for an entry-level person, and I certainly had the credentials of a man who far exceeded that rung on the ladder.

        Honestly, I thought my meeting with Noel Rubaloff would prove to be nothing more than a pleasant interview with an industry leader. To my surprise that evening, the phone rang and it was Noel on the line telling me that I was way overqualified for the job, and all he could offer me as a salary would be insultingly low for a man of my stature. He was correct. The money he offered was insulting.
        Well, guess what, I accepted the job figuring I’d just be passing through and before long I’d be back working again as a production stage manager. I reasoned it a safe assertion that I considered being out of work to be far more of an insult than the meager two hundred dollars a week that Noel was willing to pay.
        The next day was my very first day at Abrams Rubaloff & Associates. It was the beginning of a seven-year trip. Simultaneously, I was introduced to the head of the voiceover department and to my first commercial script. It was an almost instant depressive state of humiliation. What happened next is what I refer to as my “what is it,” syndrome. I had never seen a commercial script, let alone attempted to direct anyone on how to read it. Some of my colleagues, the actors, were constantly there helping me. Admittedly, I’m only referring to a small and confined group.

        The fact is the actors I chose as my role models also happened to be the top money earners in our industry. Each of them had scored in just about every area of the performing arts. Film, stage, radio, and in no uncertain terms, voiceover. Noel Rubaloff had promised that through his doors passed some of the great names in our industry. 

        He wasn’t exaggerating. His client list read like a Hollywood who’s who. In no time at all, I found myself totally enamored with his stable of players. As a matter of fact, every once in a while, I was even able to forget about how little money I was earning. Unfortunately, my then-wife managed to remind me on an almost daily basis. Within that first year, my divorce was pending.

        During the first few weeks in my new profession, I set a goal for myself. I wanted to understand how these experienced actors were able to make the transition from legitimacy into the world of commercial voiceover. At first, I found myself totally amused by the thought of a Burgess Meredith selling a breakfast food, or John Houseman advising people about what investment broker would be right for the head of a household to choose.
        But then, my amusement turned to revelation. An unforced light was beginning to shine. These celebrity stalwarts, without knowing it, were supplying me with answers to questions that I would never have posed, were it not for their stimulation. Who would have dreamed that telling people about an airline, or what food to feed their pets, at which hardware or furniture stores to shop, would be the forerunner for my life’s pursuits as an educator?

Variety Newspaper

Friday, June 5, 1981

        Although at the time I was already functioning on faculty as a lecturer at the University Of Southern California’s college of continuing education, it was my study of our stable of players at the talent agency that bore the true responsibility for the emergence of the Kalmenson Method, as it is known and taught today.
        I don’t want to create the impression that from day one everything was peaches and cream. I did have some problems in areas that I never could have anticipated. One of which was my inability to focus on the commercial script at hand. The same actors I was so thrilled to be in the mere presence of were the culprits responsible for my inability to focus on whatever innocuous diatribe that might be our current commercial message of the hour.

        For a moment, imagine my situation. At any given time, I would find myself directing an actor who, if not for our situation, I would be requesting their autograph. I mean, some of these people were my idols as far back as radio. There before me were the likes of Batman and Robin, Superman, The Lone Ranger, Sam Spade, The Shadow—heroes all! They came at me in waves. I was a kid in a candy store.
        This isn’t the scenario of a guy who wanted or dreamed of the very best in the world coming before him; this was a day-by-day, week in and week out happening. The best Hollywood and the world had to offer were being brought in to be directed by the little kid from Brooklyn, New York. As my buddies in the army would say, “I'm in hog heaven!”

        To this day, while I have cultivated the most proficient methods for focus, I, nevertheless, remain completely and totally enamored by the talent that endlessly treks before me on a regular basis. Each and every actor became a contributor to my cause: the development of standardization and translation of my formal theatrical background and training into a method that would benefit the journeyman actor, in their career pursuits in the field of commercial voiceover.
        As an aside, I was introduced to the term “journeyman actor” during a class I was participating in as a student. It was John Houseman who offered:

“Don’t worry about becoming a star. Be a journeyman actor. There is a fine line that exists between those making the big money and those who labor on a day-to-day basis.”

Orson Welles and John Houseman confer during a rehearsal of Horse Eats Hat, 1936

Horse Eats Hat, 1936

        Mr. Houseman’s offerings have stayed with me during my entire career. I had never reminisced by passing his scholarly assertions on to my own students. And along with his advice about acting methods came his very strident demands for punctuality. A late actor could forget about the class that day. 

        If what was going to be covered, was considered vital by John Houseman (and that was just about everything) the door to the class was firmly locked to outsiders before he began his instruction. In other words, “If you’re going to be late, you’re going to get screwed. An actors' responsibility is to be in house and in makeup long before the curtain is to rise.”
        I discovered early on that most of the actors who came to me without the advantage of theater background, took longer to master the craft of voiceover, if at all. Those actors who were experienced only in the area of on-camera commercials proved out as having little or no chance of making it in the acting craft of voiceover.

(to be continued)

Harvey Kalmenson

Dealing with VO Auditions...

Dealing with the audition?
DON'T!

Actual sign from the early 1900s.

        I like to call this my "advice about love" to the lovelorn. In this case, da harv is cast as the advisor, while you as my vagrant reader will be playing a used-to-be successful voiceover thespian. (I’m assuming it’s politically okay to refer to you all as thespians.)

Disclaimer: Most of the time (every day while writing), I attempt to stay away from the philosophical, usually without success; though being blessed with a bountiful memory, recounting any of the books I’ve read having a philosophical void is without my recollection.

        Like it or not, actors must deal with a subjective art form known as voice acting. For those completely unaware, YES, it is an acting craft. Whoops, that wasn’t philosophy, was it? —da harv lied. Everything actors live with brings a degree of uncertainty. Especially the task of having to audition each and every time in order to find work. We live in a world of the unknown.
        We know we’ve guessed right when someone tells us; they tell us we were right by hiring us as their voiceover choice to do the job. So… in my humble opinion, the only two things we know for sure are: we got the job, and we didn’t get the job. If you thrive on uncertainty, well then, you’re in the right field of endeavor. On a daily basis, your life and time as a voiceover actor comes with a single certainty: AUDITIONING FOR WORK!
        Taking the audition is what it’s all about. Taking the audition is your job, and will remain your job for as long as you choose to pursue your career as a voiceover actor. Journeyman actors rarely book a job without having auditioned for it. Make sure the person who advises you about professional procedures that actors should follow has an in-depth knowledge of our industry.
        Advice from da harv—given to him by his mother back in 1948, after our early arrival in Los Angeles from Brooklyn, New York: "Stay away from 'Bullshit Blvd'."

Harvey Kalmenson