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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