13296: So…About Those Contradictory Rules.

Raw transcript:

So you’ve got he who hesitates is lost
versus look before you leap.
What do you do? Which one are you
supposed to which one are you supposed
to take as your lifelong rule? Well, you
know, like most things in our life, it
depends. And there’s a very specific
application of these contradictory
proverbs, these opposition rules that
comes up in the world of performance.
And we’ll talk about that in this
episode of the VO Heroes podcast.
There are rules in life, some of which
are sacrian, some of which are
conditional, some of which are very
important, some of which, yeah, really
don’t matter, but they’re at heads with
each other. They’re at loggerheads with
each other. Uh the the
example that I gave in the intro, he who
hesitates is lost. Oh, you know, if you
just if you hang back, that opportunity
might slide by you. You know, be bold,
go for it. Um versus look before you
leap, you know, be prepared, get some
information before you strike out into
the unknown. you know they can be looked
at as
confusing or you know in opposition to
each other. What do you do? So let me
give you an example. Um here uh when we
create a demo for somebody in particular
a commercial demo uh but it applies
pretty much to any demo that has
multiple clips in it uh animation video
games etc. It it matters what order
things go in because what you’re looking
at is the experience that the casting
director, the agent, the potential
client, whoever is listening to the
demo, what are their experiences as
they’re listening from beginning to end.
And so how we approach this is uh it
depends on the category of demo, but
let’s take commercials in particular. We
certainly want uh some high energy to
start things out. Uh if the the
performer’s core voice is more calm and
subdued, we may forgo that the rule of
start with your core voice, reinforce
your core voice, stretch a little, but
make sure they know who you are and what
you’re like.
We do want that initial moment to be a
little bit of excitement. We want it to
be a little bit more higher energy just
to sort of drag people into the process
of listening to a demo. It’s just one of
those rules. One of the rules is start
with high energy and then move on from
there. Another rule is start with core
voice and then you know make adjustments
as you go through the demo giving
contrast. Right? So which rule do you
follow? So it depends. There’s no
guarantee that following either one of
those rules is going to get you a better
result, get you better
attention levels, satisfy the
auditioner’s needs. Certainly, it
doesn’t guarantee that it’s going to get
you booked if you choose one or the
other.
So, you kind of have to go with what
your experience and your gut tells you
to go with and not really place an awful
lot of energy around one or the other,
especially when the work is really good.
You know, we sometimes set up rules for
ourselves that can be not only
contradictory but counterproductive.
Like, what does it matter in the end?
You can’t predict what kind of mood the
person listening to your demo is going
to be in, what the project is that they
are wanting to prot perhaps book you for
or at least consider you for, uh, what
their experience is, what their goals
are. You know, agents have a different
goal for listening to a demo than do a
casting person. And certain casting
persons, depending upon the project that
they’re casting, they have different
goals in listening to the demos. And how
are those goals going to be served by
what people first hear?
So recently I had a client who we did a
demo for and she played it for a number
of different constituencies in her
sphere of influence, potential agents,
casting people, peers, etc. And they
came up with some slightly different
reactions to them as you would think
they did. And she came back to us and
she said, “Can we move these around
because so and so said this and so and
so said that?” And my initial reaction
was, um, yes, we can. You came to us for
our expertise, and we put them in the
order that we think will serve the most
people most often. Who knows if that’s
true? We can’t know that what we have in
our experience under our belt is going
to be any more efficient than or
effective than what somebody else
suggests. We have a little bit more
experience.
we have a little bit more um
uh uh you know just massive of
information under our belt
but I completely understand the client’s
position. They want to minimize risk and
so oh my gosh well this person said that
this person said that I respect this
person more this person has uh more
experience I I don’t know what to can
you just do you know can you just help
me minimize risk? Okay. So, when you’re
faced with two opposing rules, the Oh,
by the way, the the reason that she
wanted things rearranged is there was
one clip that was higher energy, but
wasn’t necessarily her core voice,
the the core brand voice that she she
has. It was a bit of a stretch for her.
So, how do you know if that’s going to
be off-putting or if it’s going to be
attractive? It’s a very interesting
conundrum to face and luckily
the risk is not extraordinarily high.
She’s likely going to be win a win.
She’s likely going to experiencing a win
either way because she’s got a lot of
talent. She’s awesome and she knows who
she is if she’s watching this video. But
we face this all the time. people share
uh what we come up with in our demo
production uh with other people and
everybody has a different opinion and
they have different justifications for
that. So we had we get these opposing
rules. So how do you deal with that? You
do the best you can, you know, and
it’s one of those situations where
nobody’s keeping a permanent record. You
can always rearrange things if you want
to or if you think you have to, but it’s
likely not as
incredibly
uh, you know, important as we might
think. So, as I’m recording this, uh,
we’re we’re discussing it. We’re having
a discussion over this. And so, um, who
knows where we’ll end up, but just the
idea that that she and we are as
invested in this process as we are to
think about those things. What order do
the clips go in?
Uh, and why, you know, that’s the fun, I
think, of being in the world of
performing arts.
how we do our auditions, which takes of
the auditions we use, which pieces of
things do we put in place, how we do our
slates, they’re all subject to a series
of rules
that may or may not be hard and fast
rules. There may be other rules out
there that are in opposition to the rule
that you’re following. It depends.
I don’t know if I’ve clarified this. I’m
just trying to give you the idea of how
our thought process works when we do
these sorts of things and how you know
you do the best you can. It depends on
how important the decision is. In some
cases, it really doesn’t matter. In
other cases, it’s very important. I
wonder what you go through when you’re
facing two or more options that are in
opposition to each other. Let me know in
the comments below. And if you have any
real world examples of something that
you faced and you had to kind of make a
decision,
uh, tell me what you thought. Be be
specific. I’d love to hear it because we
can find patterns in that, right? Hit
the like button if you like what you’re
hearing. Uh, you can subscribe to the
channel. You can click the notification
bell. If you’re going to leave a
comment, please leave it on the VO
Heroes page where this episode lives. If
you’re listening on your podcast app or
if you’re watching on YouTube, go over
to Vio Heroes. The link is in the
description uh to leave your comments
because we can get a a really nice
conversation going there. I’d really
appreciate that. And share this with
somebody who’s struggling with a
decision that are based on two opposing
proverbs or rules. Yeah, that’d be
great. I’m David H. Lawrence 17th. I
thank you so much for watching and for
listening and I will see you in the next
episode of the VO Heroes podcast.

(from YouTube)