SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to the Vio boardroom. Our next board member spent 25 years on the other side of the glass as a television producer and promo producer, producing promo campaigns, discovering voice talent, directing everybody from the legend Don La Fataine to uh Don Pardo to Reno Romano to Mike McCall and Zach Fine. Today, Harry's kind of on the other side of the glass, the buyer's side of the glass, and uh a very respected coach as well. So he's going to talk to us about what producers hear in an audition that voice actors don't necessarily hear, what gets talent hired or passed over, and how voice actors can build lasting careers in the fiercely competitive promo business. Please welcome a good friend to the VOPro podcast and to VOPro in general, and one hell of a human being. Harry Dunn, how are you? Glad to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Dude, it's a pleasure to have you. Uh I'll start with this. One of the ways I got to know Harry was Harry and George Washington III and I. We took a little trip a couple Vio Atlantas ago, didn't we?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

We did. We went to the uh Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, which was uh a treat. And if uh you're back in Vio Atlanta next year, I strongly recommend you find a few hours and carve some time to see it. It's just a little $20 Uber ride there and back.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

It really, really was worth it. And that's one of the ways that uh Harry and George and I got to got to bond a little bit. And that was a good time. So let's cut to the chase here, Harry. What do producers hear? And I mentioned this in the open, what do producers, promo producers specifically hear that voice talent don't necessarily hear?

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Well, we have very specific things we're listening for. Um, you have to understand that there is a promo writer who has written a script and he hears it a certain way, and he is looking for uh the inflections to be similar, that you hit what we call retail, which is a global way of saying your tune-in information. It's just about and and creating an attitude. I think what really destroys the audition process for voiceover talent is what my end of the business called the bland generic read, where people default to what they think is a safe read and they're so worried that um that what they that their clever read is gonna be hated, that they default to the bland generic read. And and just in a baseball analogy, if you got the bases loaded, are you just gonna put the bat on your shoulder and pray for ball four, or are you gonna swing and try to put it into play? Okay, I just think a lot of voiceover talent tends to leave the bat on their shoulders and pray for ball four with their auditions.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

And so that leads me directly to my next question, which is you know, and and and the volume I would think in promo is much different than it is, you know, you you audition for a national commercial, you might be one of eight hundred or a thousand voice actors auditioning. What is a typical volume like for a for a typical TV promo?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

In terms of how number of people auditioning? Yeah. Okay. So what we will do is we will pick a handful of agencies. It'll be Atlas, it'll be DPN, it'll be uh Sutton, Barth, and Venari, ACM, probably those are the main four. Maybe we'll go into Stewart Town, New York if need be. Um and uh we will tell the agent, we only I don't want to hear more than 10. Just because you know, you start getting 50, 100 auditions, it becomes overwhelming. And if you get 10 from those four or five agencies, that's fifty to listen to.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

So fifty to listen to. So when you you know, we in your production days, or mm ostensibly any producer, you're trying to cut down fifty down to maybe what, five, and then maybe down to one.

unknown 4:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

So what makes those ten and that final casting, what makes that stand out?

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Well, let's just go through the whole process. So let's say you have 50 auditions, okay? Um a room producer, which is the person who directs the audio bay where promos get mixed, will listen to it first. And he'll say, I like these 25. Then those 25 will go to me, the promo producer, the uh, you know, this, and then I will pick the ones that I like. It could be five, it could be 10, it won't be more than 10. Now remember, this promo, this particular promo is already cut, and uh, and my voice is has been used as a scratch VO. By scratch VO, is this a placeholder? You know, you don't want to sit there and hire the voiceover before the script is locked because you're just gonna be keeping paying the man or the woman over and over again. So they just I'll just use my own voice until everything is locked. So what I will do is I'll pull my voice out and put your voice, those eight voices, into the promo, and we'll run the promo eight times for the senior vice president of the company. The senior vice president will then pick the winner, and that person has the campaign for the year.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Got it, got it. So uh one of the challenges that I've always seen first uh around promo is you know, you you pick up a promo script, it looks shit simple on the page. It really does. It looks deceptively simple. What do voice actors miss about promo?

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Uh I think there's two things uh a voiceover artist needs to do before they even say a word into the mic, especially if they don't know the show. And one is to go to its Wikipedia page to read what it's about, and two, go to YouTube and look for the launch trailer. Now, the launch trailer means when the show is about to premiere, they'll have a two-minute trailer out there. Okay. You want to make sure you fully understand what the show is about before you make any decisions on your script. If it's an intense drama, you read it differently than if it's a rye comedy. But if you just sit there and you don't pay attention to what the show's about, and you do a rye comedy read for an intense drama, you're you've really whiffed on the audition. So make sure you know what the show's about. It's not that hard. It just requires a little due diligence, okay? If you get something that's sort of dark and intense, you want to default to what is known as the trailer read, which is a low volume, close to the mic, uh, you know, trailer reads somewhere around this voice right here. Okay. If it's a write comedy, you want to make sure you don't get big and bombastic, but you want to be cute and quirky. Depends on what on what the show is. Just make sure you understand what the premise of the show is and what genre it fits. And be mindful that in this day and age, the quote-unquote announcer you read is dead in the water. Unless you have some game show, a primetime game show is dead in the water. So just really think about you we hear the expression conversational read a lot, and I know it's been used to death, but it's really true. You know, you want to you want to read a copy like you're reading it to your spouse over breakfast at the breakfast table. You know, you don't want to get loud and big and and it's jarring these days. So so my my my suggestions are uh make sure you understand what the premise is, and unless it's a game show, don't get big.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Unless it's a game show, don't get big. Makes perfect sense. You've talked before, uh, you've used this phrase, the rhythm of a promo. How do you find the rhythm of a promo, whether it's a comedy, whether it's a drama, whatever it might be, without getting sing-songgy and predictable and as you put it earlier, generic.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

So sing songgy means undulation, okay? Which means you're doing a read like this and going up and down and up and down. That's something you you never want to do. That is that is an audition killer, what we call the undulating read. You know, up down, up, down, up, down, okay. First thing you want to do is know the length of the promo. And if it doesn't say on there, you can just see by the by the number of words on the page. Is it a 30? Is it an over length spot? Let's just say it's a 30. Okay. First question you want to ask yourself is how much black is on the page? By black, I'm referring to the typewritten words. And white, obviously, if it's printed, the computer paper, or if it's not printed, just the white background on a PDF. Okay. If you see a lot of black on the page, you that means there's a lot of words, you got to be mindful that you have to go to a faster clip with your read. If there's not a lot of black on the page, it means there's not a lot of words on the page. You have time. Okay. So one of the cardinal sins I came across is what I call those who choose to gloss over sentences. Let's say you know you have this really great idea, what you want to do on line three. You have it all figured out. So you just kind of gloss over lines one and two to do that really cool thing you want to do on line three. Yeah. You're never going to get to line three because we're going to go, you're going to get eh next to by the end of line two. And what eh next it means is on our end of the business, we're listening to 50 auditions. We hate it so badly after two lines, we just go, eh, next, and go to the next audition. Okay. Glossing over sentences or words or moments is the most surefire way you can get eh next in the business.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

We talked about being big unless uh not being big unless it's a game show. But oftentimes, Harry, the print servicer is going to ask you for something that's high energy or intense or whatever. How do you how do you achieve that level of energy without just getting huge and loud?

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Okay. That's a good question. And it's really hard to answer that in a vacuum. I I would say that the only times you're really going to get loud is if you're doing maybe some sort of a CBS comedy, but those guys don't get loud. You know, they just get bright. You know, they have a bright voice, and it's not a loud voice, okay? Daytime game show is, you know, so come on down. The price is right. We all know that read, okay? That's a loud, uh big read. But when you're doing a comedy, you don't need to get that loud. Okay? It's just not a realistic way to talk anymore. And you know, you wouldn't if your wife said, What are you doing today? And you went, I'm going to the grocery store, she would think you're having a stroke and call 911. Okay. There's a sale on kumquats. Yes, exactly. So just be mindful. Think of it that way. How would you how would you make a person laugh who is two and a half feet away from you? There's no reason to get loud. Okay? It it's just, it's just, it's a it's a very old school way of doing promo. So whether you're doing a heavy drama and you're way down here, or you're doing a CBS comedy and you're here. Think about you're talking to a person who's two feet away from you. Okay. That's a good way to look at it.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yeah, it is a great way to look at it. Um let's talk about the old question that never seems to go away in our business and not just in promo, but uh you get two takes. Uh Harry, as a producer, what should that second take accomplish for a promo audition?

SPEAKER_00 11:33

All right. Well, the here's what it shouldn't accomplish. If you do an identical take, it is uh insulting and it will get you next to I I I teach in my lessons I go over this a lot, okay? It could be as simple as a timber shift where read one is up here, but read two is down here. Okay, it could be as simple as that. Or it could be you want to do a drama read right here, but maybe you want to go a little lower than this in the second read. There's gotta be delineation. Okay? Um sometimes the comedy read is comes out, it starts off here. But maybe it's funnier if you do it a little more quirky like this on your second read. Okay? But that's it. Just make sure they're not identical. And you've got to be judicious about that. Some t I once did an odd had had a campaign where someone sent me five auditions and and they were absolutely identical. It's as if he had copied and pasted it four times and and and you know, and I immediately end next to him. It was so disrespectful. I just immediately end next to him.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

We gotta we gotta get you a t-shirt that says eh next. I'll wear it. I'll wear it later next year, for sure. So I uh I submit, uh, I get shortlisted, I end up booking the promo gig. Congratulations. Now I'm in the booth with Harry Dunn. What makes me directable in the booth?

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Um Well, with me, it's because I'm friendly and I'm positive and I don't kill you with negativity. That'll never happen.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

So I understand that my I guess my question is more, you know, what do you need from the voice actor in order to be directable?

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Uh we'll ask you to do a first read and I'll say it's a little slow. Um you're kind of glossing over the retail here. Could you make sure that you accentuate that? Or I'll sometimes I use the expression air quote it just means I'll new this Tuesday, you know. That's like an air quote moment. And people, I've I don't think I've ever had an artist not respond to that. It's just take the notes, have a smile on your face, and uh you want to make sure that this session doesn't run more than 15 or 20 minutes, because then it becomes a problem. They don't have a lot of time in this in the audio bay. They're they're mixing eight promos a day. They don't have a lot of time. So just be fast and be good and and do what they ask. It's it's it's never gonna be something abstract like imagine you're an amoeba and you're in the Antarctic. Go. I mean, it's never gonna be something as ridiculous as that. It's always gonna be could I have a little more volume, could you have a little more pace? Uh could you uh have a little more fun with this run of words here, you know? You know, I had a writer did a did my charmed campaign with me for years, and we had a word whimsy, which came up in copy, and I said, all right, this is what I want it to be. Whimsy. And and he so sometimes you'll get a line read. Don't be insulted by that. You know, just it just it just moves things along and it makes your life easier. So don't get pissed on a line read. This isn't this isn't Broadway, okay? It's promo. So and I just gave it to him and he did it, and he was fantastic, and to this day we joke about whimsy, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

So I can't tell you how disappointed I am because I had that Arctic amoeba read all ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Well, it may it may it'll come in handy one day. You wait and see.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

We uh we mentioned in the uh in the intro in the open that you know, i I can't speak for our entire audience, but it's not every day I get to talk to a guy that's worked with, you know, Don Lafontaine, Don Pardo, all the other names I mentioned. What did those guys know? What did they know, Harry, about promo that just became second nature to them, that maybe uh a newer promo voice actor or maybe even a newer talent can start to aspire toward?

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Well, I think 90% of it is just what the good Lord gave you. I mean, Don's voice, like, it just fit everything, you know, and he was the king of one take. You know, but that was a long time ago where where that read was he his read, he was just everywhere. You know, he got paid triple scale what everybody else got paid. Everybody else got paid scale, and he got triple. And he had a pink limousine that his driver would drive him around. He do have 20 jobs a day at triple scale. He made millions because he had the, you know, he had the golden voice. Yeah. So but the business has changed now. It's not just the same 10 guys who book every promo. It it women are working more, there's more diversity racially, you know, with gender. It's it's a whole different world out there now. And it's a world for the better. You know, it's it's nice to hear different voices for different campaigns.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

I agree. I think a lot of things have changed. I think uh I I well, let me ask you this. Some maybe some things haven't changed. Things like, you know, you've got if you're gonna do network promo, you've got to be available. That was true 20 years ago. Is it still as true today?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Sure it is, but that's what we call a quality problem to have in life. Yeah. You're making so much money in promo that you can't go off to uh, you know, St. Kitts for the week for the week, you know. But just bring your rig. That's what everybody else does. You know, you know, if you decide you want to go to the Caribbean for a week, I would avoid a cruise ship because the Wi-Fi is spotty at best on a cruise ship. Unless you know for a fact the cruise ship has Starlink, I would be mindful of getting on a cruise ship. But otherwise, you know, you got good Wi-Fi and you can build a nice little pillow fort, you know, or whatever in your hotel room, just bring your rig and have fun. I remember a guy was at Disney uh Disney World with his kids and he got called in for an audition. He had to like leave Disney World, go back to his hotel, do the audition, and then rejoin his family in Disney World. That's just part of the business, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Yeah, and the nature is, you know, if if if the today show, you know, has has a breaking story they need to run tomorrow morning and it's 11 o'clock at night, the promo still has to get cut. Yeah. That's correct. Yeah. All right. Again, uh, something to have in life. There's I I tend to break a lot of our genres down into sort of undergraduate work and graduate work, and I certainly think that promo is part of that graduate work. If for no other reason, Harry, it's super competitive. How does somebody who's interested in promo, but that's all they've got? They don't have any interest. I mean, they don't have any background, they don't have any experience. How do how does one start to break into the promo genre?

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Um, so the way I look at promo, uh so let's let's just use another baseball metaphor, right? So the the inexperienced person is a high school baseball player. Okay. Going straight from high school to promo, uh beginner into promo, it's like going from high school baseball to major league baseball. So what you want to do is you want to cut your teeth in commercial, because commercial has the equivalent of single A, double A, AAA, and Major League Baseball, with single A, let's say, voicing your local appliance store commercial all the way up to Major League Baseball, which is like a national Verizon campaign. I just strongly encourage people to cut their teeth in commercial. There's a lot more work in it. It'll it'll just it'll just teach you how to do the job. And then once you've you've found your your brand, you know, your voice print, that's a good time to transition over to promo.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

It is. Um so in your experience, what separates folks that have talent, even have talent specific to promo, from those that are just out there killing it, knocking it down every day, the Joe Ciprianos and the Donovan Kornitzes of the world. What's the difference in those folks as opposed to everybody else that works in promo?

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Well, you're talking about two people with some of the most resonant voices out there. Again, 90% what the good Lord gave you. The other 10% is you just got to understand acting. I really prefer like the people I work with in my lessons, the ones that really shine are the ones with an acting pedigree. You know, even if it's as simple as you you minored in and in college, if you just understand acting and you've done your fair share of Shakespeare and this, that, and the other, it just you just have a you just understand how to say words better than someone with no acting pedigree.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

It's really what we do, isn't it? Just say the words better.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

It's just it's just like have you ever seen ever been a part of a stage audition? Sure, I have, and there's those who've never acted before that and you just go, oh, for God's sakes. And then those with experience, it's like, yeah, that sounds about right. You know. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

And you immediately get it. So speaking of that, uh, if there were two or three points that you would offer every voice actor before their next promo audition, what would they be?

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Um don't gloss over the words. Uh realize that the tune-in information is what you really have to uh accentuate. So make sure that doesn't get buried. Don't go all new this Tuesday at 9-8 Central on the CW. I want to hear all new this Tuesday at 9-8 Central on the CW. That retail is what we call it, which is tune, it's gotta be really articulated. And most importantly, create an attitude. If you don't create an attitude, it you naturally default to what we talked about earlier, the bland generic read. And that's just an audition killer. What is the attitude of the promo? Is it is it a dark, heavy drama? Is it a light, funny comedy? Is it a trashy reality show where you can be delicious in your read? You know, there's just a lot of just understand the attitude that the writer was looking for and perform it accordingly.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Maybe that'll be my t-shirt. Uh, I'm delicious. You can wear that all by yourself. All right. Harry Dunn, where can people find you when they want to get in touch?

SPEAKER_00 21:23

You can email me at Harry, my first name, at Dunn Promo. That's spelled D-U-N-N-P-R-O-M-O.com, or visit my website, www.dunpromo.com.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

And you hit the retail perfectly.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Nice job. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

I I practice what I preach. Harry Dunn, promo coach, retired promo producer, and all around good egg. Thanks so much for spending your time in the VO boardroom and your expertise and just being so generous, Harry. We really appreciate it. Well, I appreciate the invitation, the chance to uh be a part of this. So thank you.