Enjoy Your First Booking. Pay Close Attention To The Next Three.
Photo by Keith Luke on Unsplash
Hey there!
How awesome did that first booking (the first PAID booking especially) feel?
(For those of you who have yet to book your first gig, trust me. It’s even better than you can imagine.)
Celebrate! Enjoy! Have a party! And then, get back to work.
And pay very close attention to the next three bookings you get. They can be extraordinarily valuable. Here’s why.
Hope this helps!
David
Raw YouTube Captioning
hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
today I want to talk to you about the
joy of your very first booking and then
I want to talk to you about the value of
the feeling and the results of the next
two three four bookings that you get and
I I want to start with the idea that
when you get your first booking and I’m
talking about your first paid awesome
professional booking you can get booked
on stuff where you’re volunteering and
that feels good to don’t not not
minimizing that whatsoever but that very
first booking where you’ve trained for
it you’ve got the the tools for it you
did the audition for it you got pinned
for you can’t be call back the producers
loved you you did it I just had a client
who got his first booking on camera and
it was in a series that you know he’s
he’s working with a really big name
actor and it was just an ahi we actually
everybody in the vo to go go pro group
kind of experienced it with him because
I asked him to post about it and I know
how great that can feel and same thing
for voice-over same thing for
commercials same thing for anything
theatrical on stage and so on so that
feeling of Awesomeness on that first
booking is unparalleled you feel like
you won right yeah you did the things
that they told you to do you took the
advice that people like me gave you and
it worked even if it was just one line
even if it was just one second on the
air and it was like yeah you know that’s
it that’s all you need is like I want I
mean I remember when I first came to LA
I had loftier goals but my first step
goal was I just want to be booked on one
show I just want to do one thing and I
remember the feeling and I want you to
remember that feeling and I want you to
celebrate I want you to go and you know
get a get a great meal and share it with
friends and
have a have a viewing party even if it’s
just like one second on me there I was
there you go enjoy it the same thing
with voiceover you hear yourself on the
radio I remember when I first started
doing commercials on radio in Columbus
Ohio in 1977 maybe was 76 my first set
of spots was for Uncle Bill’s which
doesn’t even exist anymore it was a
Kmart Zaire’s doesn’t exist anymore tops
doesn’t exist anymore but that’s who
they competed with it competed with all
these these discount houses and they
used to do stuff where they would have
the local announcer add tags you know
this month’s bluelight special that’s
what they would do for Kmart they did
something similar for Uncle Bill’s
special this week blah blah blah and I
was driving around in my my first car my
grandfather’s Chevy Bel Air he had
willed to me and I heard it and I was
driving down High Street in Columbus and
I almost drove off the road I was so
excited to hear my work on the radio and
I want you to remember that feeling now
the reason I’m making this video is not
only do I want you to remember that
feeling but I want you to continue to
have that feeling for the successive
bookings that you have in addition to
using them as a source of very valuable
information okay here’s what I mean by
that you did your first booking what
genre was that in what kind of character
did you play what kind of story were
they telling what kind of attitude and
emotion and brand and type did you have
your second third fourth fifth bookings
and so on we’ll start to tell you
whether or not there’s a pattern right
are you getting the same kind of
bookings in those next bookings or are
you getting different bookings and maybe
they have a pattern all by themselves
here’s why I say that when I first came
to LA I thought I’m gonna do nothing but
comedy they’re never gonna hire me for
for drama stuff I mean look at me you
know I’m a Three Stooges kind of
character right on curly
so and then I was really surprised when
my first second third fourth fifth
bookings were all creepy evil villains
very dramatic some comedic relief but
you know and I think back to when I
started doing voiceover work and those
two had a particular pattern it wasn’t
the same pattern it wasn’t creepy evil
villain it was helpful sales guy kind of
thing but the point is you start to
either see a pattern or you don’t you
know you start to see a more varied
thing going on okay I can do more than
what I just thought I was possibly going
to do so you start to look at those
things and you start to analyze them
always keeping yourself open for future
opportunities no matter where they come
but now you have kind of a view into
what people think of you the people that
can give you work the casting people the
writers the directors etc and then
there’s the sort of sad thing where you
book once and then you don’t book again
for a long time and that can start to
get inside your brain and I’m gonna do a
whole video on that coming up but I want
you to pay attention not just to how you
feel on that first one but how you feel
and what’s happening with the next few
that go beyond that and if you’ve
already had those bookings I want you to
go back and check those out and see what
you think and what you feel and and what
they were like and what you can glean
from that that sort of track record that
makes sense tell me in the comments
below tell me what it was like for you
that that very first booking that you
had and tell me what it was like for you
as you learned more and more with the
successive bookings that you’ve had I’d
love to know comment below if you’re not
watching this on vo – go go comm go
there first before you make a comment
because vo to go go is where the
conversation is saying and moderated and
we have all kinds of really cool tools
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you can see the latest episode I’ve done
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frame YouTube we’ll play it for you I’m
David H Lawrence the 17th oh thank you
so much for watching and I will talk to
you tomorrow.
Interestingly, though I worked in radio broadcasting for about five years in the 1980s, and heard myself on the air lots of times back then doing news, commercials, promos, PSAs/SPAs, etc., the first *paid* VO booking after I decided to make a go of an actual VO business two years ago was one political commercial for a local county freeholder race. They loved it, and specifically sought me out the next year for three more, of which one was a voice track for a TV spot. But hearing that first radio spot playing on one of the state’s biggest talk FM stations (“New Jersey 101.5”) was an absolute blast. Most of my work since then has been corporate/explainer/Kickstarter campaign, and I’m happy to get that work, but I’d still love to do more broadcast commercials. It’s addictive!
That first “on air” experience is a rush. Ironically, I didn’t experience it until many years into doing VO. My first paid gig was an industrial for the American Red Cross, and I never saw the finished product. So it went for a couple of decades–I got into doing industrials, and unless I was also the producer, I never saw the end result, and none were for broadcast anyway. The first time I heard myself on the radio was for a “tonight on ABC” lineup spot for WJFK-FM, where a guy who went to my high school was a PD. He found out I did VO work, and invited me to the studio for a tour. While there, I did a couple of spots that are usually covered by the RPs, just for fun. And I too had the “almost drove off the road” experience when I heard myself on the air a few days later.
Sharing my first booking with you and the VO2GoGo family was invaluable. All the advice and support helped to calm my overabundance of nerves, and sharing my excitement with everyone in my life felt wonderful! Like you, I didn’t expect to get my first booking in my 40s, nor did I expect it would be playing a villain. For me, acting has mostly been a hobby, so I’m not sure what the future holds regarding more on camera work. I’d like to get future bookings, and if I do, I’ll be a little surprised if I keep playing a villain. Thanks for the video David.
For audiobooks specifically, I was SURE I would be a non-fiction narrator. And yet my first two jobs have been for YA fiction novels. Lesson learned: embrace what people want to hear you read !
I remember jumping up and down calling out to my husband and son “Guess who got a voice acting job!!!!!!! We were thrilled. The company continued to send me more e-learning modules to do! The same thing happened when I got my first commercial and then when it was released on YouTube. Love that feeling!