Voice Over Insider « The Voice Over Coach

Voice Over Insider – Q&A with Beau Weaver

Welcome to the Voice Over Insider Interview Series.

In these interviews we’ll attempt to go beyond the typical questions and get to the real performer behind the microphone, and bring you their insights from an educational point of view.

This week:

Beau Weaver Interview
Media – Web/Internet
www.minewurx.com – A voice over training website.
Interviewer: Michael Minetree

Beau Weaver in the Voice Over Studio

So here we are, an interview that I have wanted to do since before I knew how to type, and the jury is still out on that ability. Seriously though, one of the first voice over related web pages I stumbled across back in the good old days before every TD&H had a web page about voice over training and techniques, this man was up on the net before the rest of us.

I recall coming across his site and when digging for more information, discovered, not only was he a good VO, he was a really good VO, and has since become one of the people I most highly recommend when it comes to how new voice talent might want to set the bar for themselves if they are looking to achieve what I feel to be the most well-rounded type of success in this business; The kind where one doesnt chase constant celebrity and simply exists amidst their success while remaining grounded enough to still offer guidance and a helping hand to those who wish to some day nip at his ankles in this occupation.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the most versatile voice over talent in the business, hands down, Beau Weaver.

You will not find another talent who spans as much media. You will not find another talent with more wide ranging credits to their name, and you simply wont find a talent with more creative delivery ability than this man here

1) Does that about sum it up Beau?

You make me sound like a FEDEX guy with a bad FICA Score.

Continue reading Voice Over Insider – Q&A with Beau Weaver

Voice Over Insider – Q&A with Joe Cipriano

Welcome to the Voice Over Insider Interview Series.

In these interviews we’ll attempt to go beyond the typical questions and get to the real performer behind the microphone, and bring you their insights from an educational point of view.

This week:

Joe Cipriano Interview
Media – Web/Internet
www.minewurx.com – A voice over training website.
Interviewer: Michael Minetree

Joe Cipriano

Joe – or Cip – if I may call you that – let me start this off the way I always do by saying thank you for taking the time out of your schedule – which we all know is one of the busiest in VO- to participate in this interview. Lord knows you didn’t have to do it, which makes it that much more special that you did.

There are some things about your career and your performance ability which fascinate me. We’ll start with the career side of things first. Your radio career is one of the better documented ones – many interviews can be found on your website – as well as on the net. So I’ll try my hardest not to make a repeat. But I can’t help hit it just a little with this:

Take us back in time – You started off as a jock – in the radio sense of the term – when you were just a kid really. A junior in high school? Did you ever, in your wildest of fantasies back then, dream that you would end up where you are today? Or did radio just seem like a cool thing to do at the time?

Growing up in a small town, I didn’t have many options to start a career in television or acting or whatever it was I was going to end up doing in the business. My dreams were to be in a sitcom or host a tv show and the only way I could start on that path locally was to get into radio. At the same time, I did community theater but I always thought radio was going to be the medium that would move me forward.

Continue reading Voice Over Insider – Q&A with Joe Cipriano

Voice Over Insider – Q&A with Don LaFontaine

Welcome to the Voice Over Insider Interview Series.
In these interviews we’ll attempt to go beyond the typical questions and get to the real performer behind the microphone, and bring you their insights from an educational point of view.
This week:
Don LaFontaine Interview
Media – Web/Internet
www.minewurx.com – A voice over training website.
Interviewer: Michael Minetree

Don LaFontaine

First off let me start by saying thank you for being gracious enough to pull away from your schedule and take the time to do this interview. I think it is safe to say that for every person who says “they admire your work”, there are probably just as many if not more, that quietly mutter about how much they envy your success. Particularly those of us in the voice over world.

So let me get it out of the way now and say “I admire your work.” and admit that yes, I am guilty of the second one every now and then. In many cases I think envy is a bad emotion to carry around, but I think a little of it can be understood and maybe even kind of acceptable from us “little people” in the world of VO.

I’ve been teaching the technical side of voice over for a little over 10 years and have been studying the craft for closer to 14. One thing I’ve realized in that period of time, which only amounts to one quarter of your tenure in the audio and commercial production business, is that many of the roads that lead us toward success in this business were paved one pebble at a time by the decisions we made along the way. None of us were born with anything but the ability. We had to learn all of the other necessary skills pretty much as we went. Sort of “on the job training” in such areas as production, how to voice copy correctly, listen to and take direction, understand the demands of production and all of the other “accouterments” we had to carry into battle daily.

For some of us, it was and still is a constant fight and struggle to get that type of training – whether it be through the school of hard knocks, or through the tenured guidance of a mentor. I would suspect that you sir, faced many of the same struggles along the way but I don’t want to assume – which leads me to my first question:

1) If we could go back in time, back a decade or so before Friday the 13th, to a 26 year old Don LaFontaine in a studio preparing conceptual work for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly- How did you end up in that studio? What was the course you took that initially got you into the field of sound recording and audio engineering?

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Voice Over Insider – Q&A with Beau Weaver

Voice Over Insider – Q&A with Joe Cipriano

Voice Over Insider – Q&A with Don LaFontaine

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