"Meanwhile, back at the ranch..."

What about you and the director?

Those were the days my friends,

you and me,

we thought they’d never end.

        Hello, here we go again– the voiceover industry has changed for the umpteenth time. Just a short couple of years ago, right before we all were hit with the atrocious happening called Covid-19, people like all of us, actors, actresses, agents, and the in-house folks known as directors, would report to work with actual human beings to share the space with.
        There was no such thing as wearing a mask to work unless it was a bank and you were planning a stick-up! (Even the terminology has changed, I doubt if anyone refers to it as a "stick-up" anymore.) When banks went back to allowing customers to come onto their premises to do business, everyone in the joint was required to be masked. Years before, I had personally on occasion worn a mask myself while serving in the army; it was called a gas mask, and really not very stylish.
        At Kalmenson & Kalmenson we’ve tried to catch our breath, figuring the mask-wearing would be over in a month or two at the most. Well, what do you know about that, we were wrong. During the course of what transpired during the ensuing painful two years, we found ourselves succumbing to the whim of this horrible business-halting disease. We were forced to close three locations and placed twenty classes per week on hold. From twenty-one Kalmenson & Kalmenson teammates, we went down to three.
        To say the least it has been a most sobering, as well as a most harrowing event. Good news is happening at this very minute. Along with the masks being off, Cathy and da harv have “removed the gloves” as well. In August of last year, our comeback took hold. Our maiden voyage for our “virtual method delivery” has become a living, breathing, ZOOMING step in the best direction possible. Our teaching with excellence continues, we ardently pray without further interruption!

"Meanwhile, back at the ranch…"

        First of all, let’s get to what used to be the norm for an actor who was about to be auditioned...

TODAY'S VO AUDITIONS:
        Voiceover auditions at your agent’s office, a casting service, or even at the advertising agency, are rarely conducted today. In general, the environment and procedures have drastically changed— the jury is still out.
        Your assignment remains the same: to make the very best from the direction you’ve been given, or not given for that matter. At this point, an actor needs all the help available.

Self-direction is here to stay.

Facts of life for the commercial VO actors to deal with:

1. Self-direction is an industry necessity. It has become an important emphasis in our Kalmenson & Kalmenson curriculum.
2. Each VO actor should plan on implementing a broadcast quality home studio.
3. The days of the agents conducting in-house voiceover auditions are almost entirely a thing of the past. When the restrictions were placed on us all caused by the covid-19 virus, most of the agents began working from home. Many of the talent agencies have remained home-based ever since, facilitating saving a great deal of money on office space rentals. Many of the advertising agencies have done the same.
4. Kalmenson & Kalmenson remains as one of the few casting companies providing directed auditions for the actors. (It is not unusual for da harv to conduct as many as forty-eight auditions in an eight-hour day).

Director's Personal Notes:
        Self-direction... Not to worry, there's always time to gain experience. The more experience you have, the smoother your trip will become. Just as there are no two actors that share complete similarities, I feel the separation in director-style is even greater.
        In my opinion, I think you’ll find that the fewer the number of words that a director uses, the better their direction becomes. The same credo definitely applies to the self-directing procedure. Keep your self demands as simple and uncomplicated as possible.

Please remember: voiceover is AN ACTING CRAFT!

Self-direction is an acting craft, as well!

Please allow us to help you…

Harvey Kalmenson

You and the director, perhaps it was me.

Then and now, what was, and what would it become!

Click, click; it’s 2022

Da harv is still here

Wait just a minute

What about you

Could it be

Whence you say

Forty-five years ago

Oh, I seem to recall

A very warm and sunny June day

A wife was about to have me leave

Not to worry, da harv wouldn’t grieve

Though it wasn’t at my behest

"Losing weight" can be a good thing

One hundred and eighteen pounds gone

Never to be regained

But it was then, you say

What about our life’s game today

Yours and mine

        The ongoing question actors are often heard to pose: “What kind of a director was he to work with?” The question I ask, not as a director, but more as the educator would be: “What would you do if there were no directors to work with?”
        Today, the ball is in your court. Aside from folks like Kalmenson & Kalmenson, actors must, by the nature of things, be a stand-alone entity. Without equivocation, I can say after all my years of experience, “most actors who have not studied the acting craft of voiceover will go up in a puff of smoke.” I’d like to take some time in order to explain what has become our actor's culprit.

        A needed reflection– 1977: There I stood, on Beverly Blvd in front of the very famous “Chasen's” restaurant, across the street from Abrams-Rubaloff, who at the time, was arguably the most dominant commercial talent agency in Los Angeles. This was to be my first day as a commercial voiceover talent agent. My early morning contemplation on this less than auspicious occasion was whether or not to even enter the building in pursuit of a new profession. Neither of the top two movies of the year, “Star Wars”, or “Rocky”, added credence to my decision-making process, although “Rocky” did garner the most number of Oscar nominations for the year.

        And in this sacred moment in time, our year of the lord 2022, I find myself in reflection for the sole purpose of comparing notes about then and now; what was then, and what is today. I grew up in a household where mom and dad were in general agreement about the history and how we as Americans oftentimes forget how fortunate we are to be living in the greatest country in the world. As my mother called it “THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”. Take note of the capitalization. Mom would usually stand up when delivering that quote.
        With my own environment in mind, I thought I might pass along some facts of how life was, dollar-wise, and how it's a little like what we're incurring today.

What happened in 1977 in the United States &
How much things cost in 1977

• Yearly Inflation Rate 6.5%
• Year-End Close Dow Jones Industrial Average 831
• Interest Rates Year End Federal Reserve 7.75%
• Average Cost of new house $49,300.00
• Average Income per year $15,000.00
• Average Monthly Rent $240.00
• Cost of a gallon of gas 65 cents
• Bikini $9.00
• Renault Gordini $6998.00
• BMW 320i $7990.00
• Barbie Road Trip with Motor Home, Dune Buggy, and a Bicycle $72.95
• Wrist-Worn AM Radio $7.95
• 5 inch Portable TV $147.00
• New Stereo System $247.95
• Middletown, New York Ranch 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, living room family area, and double garage $33,000
• Star Wars opens in cinemas

• First Apple II computers go on sale
• TV Mini-Series “Roots” is aired
• First commercial flight Concord
• NASA space shuttle first test flight
• Alaskan Oil Pipeline completed
• New York City Blackout lasts for 25 hours
• Jimmy Carter is elected as the 39th President of the United States
• The precursor to the GPS system in use today is started by the US Department of defense.
• Singing sensation and pop culture phenom Elvis Presley appeared in Indianapolis and performed what would be his last concert.

A string of white vehicles follows the hearse carrying the body of rock and roll musician Elvis Presley along Elvis Presley Boulevard on the way to Forest Hills Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee, on August 19, 1977. Thousands of people lined the route for the city’s final tribute to Elvis. He died at home in Memphis on August 16, 1977, at the age of 42.

To be continued... (God willing)...

Harvey Kalmenson

VO Protocols

And now for the dreaded protocols...

        Hello, there are none—“protocols” that is. There are wonderful theories each and every week that actors in all career stages manage to pass around. (It’s kind of like being in the army, and being privy to the latest rumor.) But protocols, for what to do, when to do it, and whom to do it to or with, in order to make it big in our world of subjectivity are really non-existent.

    Back to James Cagney:

“I look the other actor right in the eye, and tell him the truth.”

        If there is a protocol for success, and that protocol happens to be telling the truth, it makes many out there begin to smile when the truth and Hollywood become synonymous. The facts, however, are really very simple. They never change. Those who make it as actors have talent. Those who make it are willing and have sacrificed in order to succeed. Those who make it do so because they have practiced their craft. Those who have made it manage some way, somehow, to convey the truth, either through their eyes or through the eyes of another.

        As a simple example: It happens to be a bright and sunshiney Monday morning. You are called in to read (very early in the morning) for pizza and Coke. You really can’t identify with either of those products, especially at such an early hour when you haven’t even had your first cup of coffee. You look at the script, and there it is… your direction. Right up at the top of the script, it calls for your read to convey a degree of wonderment. Yes…that’s correct. Wonderment over the enjoying of pizza and Coke the first thing on a Monday morning. How in the world are you going to convey that kind of truth?
        Years ago, it was one of my students that won the job. It was part of my continuing evolution. I remember it as if it were yesterday. She finished her read, and I immediately congratulated her. “Wow, what were you thinking about,” I asked. The answer, of course, became part of my Method's evolution. “I was remembering how my nephew looked and acted when I took him to Disneyland,” she replied. She proceeded to reenact the young boy's face and his exact words as what she used as her method for delivering the truthful degree of wonderment that was called for.

        The beat is continuous. Neverending. Those of us who devote our lives to not just talking, but more importantly listening, are light-years ahead of those who are in a state of constant vocalization and always at a greater than normal sound level. Listen to what you’re looking at. Look at what you’re listening to. Both activities bring a revelation of what life sounds like when a situation is foreign or one you may have never noticed before.
        If a brassy waitress has ever served you, you might want to take a few moments to figure out what was the cause of her delivery. It’s just a trick, but it could be helpful if you are ever called on to be brassy. But caution… your agent isn’t going to call you in to portray a brassy waitress when your natural signature is one of a demure or reserved librarian.
        Then there's the role of the anal-retentive headmaster at an Ivy League middle school. If you were born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and you have a distinct accent, don’t expect a miracle to occur, no matter whose eyes you're attempting to see things through.

    Here is the main gist for all that must be sacred when conveying an emotion:

“And for all those that have cried before or after the suffering of fact.

And for any who have felt pain without knowing its cause.

I say no matter.

For their tears were honest. And therefore, I, too, have suffered and wept along…

And equally as well I have laughed

Whether derived from a pratfall

Or gleaned from the gem of a man's word

What is truth, will be God”

        Now stack up the emotions. Create your own personal and confidential file to call on in time of need. You may begin with the simple. Happy, sad, beaming, glad, abrupt, rude, crude, alarmed, disarmed, betrayed, lost, found, discovered, uncovered, revered, relished, embellished, wasted, tasted, smiled, frowned, important, renowned. Your place, his, hers, theirs, inside or out, raining, thundering, lightning, wind, hot, cold, humid or dry, on a mountain, in the sand, shivering in the cold, lying in the sand seeking to be tanned.
        Take a breath. What’s in the air? What presents itself? What do you feel? In that one moment in time, you are the one in total control of whatever natural response nature dictates. And within your response, therein lies your signature. Without betraying any worldly confidence, your answers will be revealed.

        Recall a moment of your life when without warning a situation or happening caused your conditioned response. The joy of reward for a job well done. The tender sigh of a loved and cherished one. The anguish over the departing of someone who was near and dear to you. The smile revealed by a child receiving their first puppy. All that is public and, even more importantly, all that is in the realm of your privacy, are there to be recalled; to be remembered with any or all of the emotion that you choose to conjure. For within your recollections, you will find the truth.
        How vivid a recollection is, will usually be dependent on the broadness of the colors nature has provided for your individual palette. In short, some human beings are more flamboyant than others. Their revelations will be painted with broader strokes than the average person might use. If that is their natural way, then that is what will be the basis for their signature determination.
        Then there are those people who appear tight-lipped. They play it close to the vest when describing any of life’s dramatic moments. That’s not to say that their way is the wrong way to express an emotion. If it happens to be their honest signature, then that is what will rule their moment of reflection.

        Reflection is the key. Think back to any moment in time. Capture its essence in your mind’s eye. Then use that attitude, just recaptured by your reflection, as the driving force for your presentment. When our Method is applied, the desired results may be achieved by anyone, regardless of their reading skills. We maintain it is impossible for any individual to recapture or reflect upon a situation without portraying honesty, the true emotion of that particular passage in time.

        A couple of examples of the method in use: An actor is handed a script that calls for them to portray an individual who will express a degree of wonderment–or perhaps discovery–while exalting the benefits of eating particular breakfast food. Our actor only needs a moment or two to reflect upon their recent experience of visiting a friend in a foreign land by way of the Internet. Upon reflection, they recapture the wonderment at the ability to instantly say hello to a friend that happened to be thousands of miles away. That wonderment, by way of reflection, was responsible for the actor giving a winning performance during the audition.
        Then, we have one of my favorites: A talent is asked to display a degree of frustration and anxiety over being unable to figure out their checkbook balance. (We don't even have those anymore!) It happens that this particular actor has a business manager, and this talent hasn’t had to handle a checkbook for a prolonged period of time. Like the example given previously, they, too, were able to nail it. When I asked them what this actor had been reflecting on, they replied with, “That was an easy one for me. I was thinking about my terrible ride in this morning. The freeway was jammed, and I was both frustrated and concerned over whether or not I would make your audition on time!”
        Above, I have given you two examples of the Kalmenson Method at work. Both of the actors in question were graduates of our school. Both have reached the upper levels of success within our voiceover world. Both exemplify the extraordinary ability to bring their delivery into the present; both have got the meat, or the chops if you prefer.

Harvey Kalmenson