VAM 236 | Your Smart Phone Is Making You Worse At Acting – How to Fight Back
Welcome to episode 236 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
Your smart phone is making you worse at acting. Truly. Now, before you click away thinking you already know that social media is rotting your brain, or because you think this episode is irrelevant to you, let me ask you this: Are you anxious about acting, or anxious in general? Do you feel more comfortable texting or commenting online but have trouble relating to people in person or in real time via video chat or a phone call? Do you struggle with unscripted circumstances in day-to-day life, or with analyzing acting scripts for emotional subtext? Does the idea of participating in in-person improv classes fill you with dread? Do you feel stuck as an actor because you’re not getting the response you want from your audience or from employers? Do you get frustrated with the process of actually improving your acting skills because it seems harder than it should be? Do you spend more time passively watching content online than you do actively analyzing scenes in media, participating in acting classes or workout groups, or submitting auditions for actual acting jobs?
If you answered yes to any of the above, your smart phone is making you worse at acting, and I realize that this opinion is going to sound controversial or just plain unhelpful to many. After all, a smart phone does seem to be almost a necessity in order to navigate today’s technologically focused world. A smart phone not only provides instant verbal and textual communication through a number of different avenues, it also provides physical guidance through GPS location data, the ability to capture pictures, video and audio, as well as running any number of useful apps that can help you check the weather, observe traffic, book plane flights, manage your finances, or even find romance!
Having all of this functionality crammed into a slim, battery powered device that you can easily put in your pocket, may seem like an indisputable convenience, and I agree. However, what is rarely considered is the psychological effect this technology can have on the user. The benefits are obvious on the surface, but the potential disadvantages are subtler and often take longer to make their presence felt. And unfortunately for us actors, these disadvantages are even worse for our profession specifically.
I’d like to take this episode to help explain the top three drawbacks of smart phone use and how they can hurt your ability to act. Then, I’ll tell you what we as actors can do about these drawbacks so we can take control of our own mental and emotional wellbeing and get on with the business of acting. I’ll be referencing the work of Marshall McLuhan, a philosopher and university professor, whose insights on media and technology were not only groundbreaking when he articulated them back in the 1960s and 70s, but are still applicable today. He coined the term, The Medium is the Message, which was his way of expressing that the true impact of any technology is not what content it may deliver, but rather, he believed that its very existence in our lives has an effect on our psyche because of how we are required to interact with it.
Hopefully by applying some of his concepts, and combining them with my own personal experiences, I can help you renegotiate your relationship to your smart phone so you can still take advantage of the benefits it has to offer, without it impinging on your ability to grow as an actor. Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to throw out your phone! But it’s high time we learn how to start controlling it, rather than allowing it to control us!
VAM 235 | Interview with Jim Meskimen, Part 2
Welcome to episode 235 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
Welcome to the second and final part of my interview with the master of impressions, the amazing, Jim Meskimen! Jim is well known for his ability to impersonate all sorts of celebrities as he demonstrated in the previous episode, including Robin Williams, Christoph Walz and Jeremy Irons! You may have seen his popular YouTube videos or his appearance as a contestant on America’s Got Talent! Jim can do more than just impersonate people, he’s also an accomplished actor! He’s been in films like Apollo 13 and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, as well as TV shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Landman. In animation you may have heard him in shows like Family Guy, Avengers Assemble, and Avatar the Last Airbender. Some of the games he’s worked on include Five Nights at Freddy’s, the first and second versions of Baldur’s Gate, and Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II. Disney also hires him to play both the Genie from Aladdin and Merlin from The Sword and the Stone!
In the previous episode, Jim shared with us how he got started as an actor. Initially, Jim thought he wanted to be a visual artist and studied painting in college as well as abroad in Madrid, Spain. While he was in Madrid, he happened to bump into the actor Harvey Keitel who was shooting a film there. Jim approached Harvey to ask him some question about acting, and Harvey was kind enough to spend some time talking to him. Jim was so elated after his conversation with Harvey that he knew then and there that he wanted to become an actor. Two months later, he was in New York pursuing his acting dream while supporting himself working as a character designer for secondary characters on the Rankin-Bass animated show, Thundercats. After 10 years of improv and performing in New York, Jim made the move to Los Angeles to expand into film and television roles and has been working in the industry ever since!
In this episode, I ask Jim what inspired him to become an actor at all! His experience with Harvey Keitel was the catalyst that made him change career paths, but what was it about acting that held fascination for Jim in the first place? He shares with me the exhilaration he felt when watching theater as a child. His young body would come alive with excitement when he would watch characters in a story and he wanted to be a part of that as well. Jim also has a fascination with people, a trait both he and his mother share. She can walk into their favorite restaurant and not only remember the names of everyone on staff, but she’s also curious about how their families are doing and what they’re up to!
Jim put his fascination with other people into action by learning how to imitate them, an impulse that he thinks is common among creators when they’re trying to understand someone else. This is especially true of musicians who often try to mimic the sound and style of artists they admire as they attempt to improve their own skills. During our conversation, Jim and I also bemoan the fact that the younger generation doesn’t always get to have the experience of interacting with other people face to face as much as we did growing up, because so much of how people interact today happens via technology, especially through smart phones and social media.
After that, Jim also shares with me his advice for the aspiring actor. He believes there is a natural flow of creativity that is rooted in what someone is truly passionate about. He encourages aspiring artists of any type to nurture and indulge that creative flow as much as possible. This also aligns with the philosophy of the acting school his wife helped found, The Acting Center in Los Angeles. At that school, they encourage students to repeatedly practice their acting with no criticism from others. Actors are encouraged to learn through repetition while allowing their own unique artistic approach to develop and mature.
It may surprise you to hear that Jim was initially suspicious of acting as a career. He observed the fame and fortune that his mother experienced as a result of being on a hit television show, and he knew instinctively that on some level, he had to find a better reason for being an actor than simply wanting to be rich and well-known. Jim wanted to discover for himself what he found most worthy about acting, and it turns out, I resonate a lot with his conclusions! But I’ll let Jim express them for you in his own words!
VAM 234 | Interview with Jim Meskimen, Part 1
Welcome to episode 234 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
This is the first part of my interview with the master of impressions, the uncanny and super talented, Jim Meskimen! Jim is probably best known for his ability to impersonate all sorts of famous people, including Robin Williams, Patrick Stewart, Tommy Lee Jones, Robert DeNiro, and George W. Bush. He’s been featured in YouTube videos as well as having been a contestant on America’s Got Talent! While Jim’s impressions are legendary, that’s only one of the well-honed tools he has in his acting toolbox. He’s also an accomplished actor in his own right appearing in films like Apollo 13, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Frost/Nixon. He’s played characters in TV shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Hunters, and Landman. As a voice actor, you may have heard him as Ron Howard in Family Guy, Ultron in Avengers Assemble, as well as Bataar, Daw, and Avatar Kuruk in Avatar the Last Airbender. Some of his game credits include Mr. Helpful in Five Nights at Freddy’s, Edwin Odesseiron in the first and second versions of Baldur’s Gate, and Thranduil in Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II. He’s also been hired by Disney to voice match a number of their characters for different projects including the Genie from Aladdin and Merlin from The Sword and the Stone!
In this episode, I begin by asking Jim how he got started as a performer. Jim’s parents were both professional actors, working hard, doing their best to book roles and make ends meet. His father left the industry, and his parents separated, but his mother continued to pursue her acting career and eventually was cast in the hit show Happy Days as Mrs. Cunningham, the mother of the main character, Richie Cunningham. This was a transformative event for Jim’s family! Not only was his mother suddenly famous, but they were also much better off financially. Jim was able to observe the progression of his mother’s acting career, from early struggles to later success, and it helped him gain perspective on what it truly meant to be a working actor.
Ironically, Jim wasn’t that interested in acting when he was younger. He initially wanted to be a visual artist and studied drawing and painting all through school. He spent some of his college time in Madrid, Spain, studying painting with a famous artist there. It was during his time abroad that Jim had two revelations. The first was that the life of a painter was too solitary for his tastes. He wanted to pursue a career that allowed him to be more social. The second was that he ran into the famous actor Harvey Keitel on the streets of Madrid. Harvey was shooting a film there and Jim decided to go up to him and ask him some questions about acting. Harvey was kind enough to chat with Jim, and when they parted, Jim realized he was more excited discussing acting with Harvey than he had ever felt talking to visual artists about painting.
In that moment, Jim made the decision to pursue acting, and within 2 months, he arrived in New York to begin his acting journey. He got a job working as a character designer for secondary characters on the famous Rankin-Bass animated show, Thundercats, and used that income to help support himself financially as he did theater and improv. It didn’t take long before he was able to support himself with his acting work, especially when he started booking commercials. After 10 years as a professional performer in the Big Apple, he moved to LA to pursue on-camera work, as well as continue his work in voice over. Jim’s ability to do impressions was a special skill that helped him get the attention of casting directors all over town. However, he also made sure to develop his improv and acting abilities to a professionally competitive level so that he was marketable as an actor, regardless of whether or not he was impersonating someone else!
I’m eager to share Jim’s story with you, but before I do, I need to make one quick disclaimer. During this interview, Jim references a book that he found helpful early on in his career, Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard. While I know that Jim appreciates this book, I also need to mention that it’s a foundational text for a religious organization. It’s our policy here at Voice Acting Mastery that we do not officially endorse any religious organization and that any mention of the book in this podcast should not be interpreted as an endorsement. Thanks for your understanding.
And with that out of the way, we can now dive into Jim’s interview and appreciate his many insights.
VAM 233 | Interview with Ben Diskin, Part 2
Welcome to episode 233 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
I’m eager to share with you the second part of my interview with the multi-talented and Emmy award winning voice actor, Ben Diskin! You may know his work from animated shows like Hey Arnold!, Codename: Kids Next Door, Spectacular Spider-Man, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., and the Muppet Babies! You may also recognize his voice in games like Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, the Kingdom Hearts series of games, and Date Everything! You may even have heard him in anime shows like Blood+, Naruto Shippuden, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, and Aggretsuko.
In the previous episode, Ben and I explored in detail how he got started as a voice actor. Ben was effectively offered agent representation before he was even born and was acting in commercials at the ripe old age of 3! Since his parents were both actors, they were able to help guide him through the industry, both artistically and professionally. They knew what it took to be believable on-camera, and they had a realistic understanding of the demands of pursuing an acting career.
Ben was exposed to both the joys of acting, and the possible negative ramifications of being a performer at a very early age. He was often typecast, which he found artistically limiting, and he also had to deal with negative feedback from his classmates at school, who assumed he was far more rich and famous than he actually was. All of this contributed to Ben’s desire to pursue voice acting, instead of on-camera acting, as a way to not only escape the typecasting trap, but also to be able to keep his private life and his professional life more separate. As a voice actor, he could act, and still keep his anonymity in everyday life.
While all of that might help explain why Ben left the on-camera world to pursue voice acting instead, I was still curious as to why he wanted to be a performer in the first place? Did he just start at such an early age that it seemed natural? Did he feel like he didn’t have any other choice? Ben answers me quite bluntly: he thinks that he’s an incredibly boring person, and so any opportunity he had to role play as someone else was appealing to him!
As my regular listeners might realize, this surprising answer does seem to contradict many of the ideas I’ve shared on the podcast about an actor valuing themselves and their inner universe of possibilities. So Ben and I dive deep into this subject to see if we can discover if there’s any way to reconcile his approach to acting, and my ideas about the acting process. We get very specific about how he thinks about characters, and what exactly he does to embody them, especially when he’s given very little information on which to base his acting choices.
Since Ben started acting when he was so young, it can be challenging for him to articulate his process. Nevertheless, I encourage you to listen closely to our conversation as I help tease out exactly why Ben got so good at voice acting. You’ll notice in his answers some familiar themes from earlier episodes: he watches a ton of media to understand the different styles of shows, he closely analyzes performances he admires in order to be able to reproduce them himself, he studies his fellow professional colleagues to see what he can learn from them, and he makes sure to physicalize his characters as much as possible. Ben has internalized the fundamentals of voice acting through immersion, intense focus, and repeated practice. Hopefully his story will inspire my listeners to do the same!
VAM 232 | Interview with Ben Diskin, Part 1
Welcome to episode 232 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
Welcome to the first part of my interview with the multi-talented and Emmy award winning voice actor, Ben Diskin! You may be familiar with his voice acting work in animation including Eugene in Hey Arnold!, Numbuh 1 and Numbuh 2 in Codename: Kids Next Door, Eddie Brock and Venom in Spectacular Spider-Man, Keldor/Skeletor in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Skaar, Bulldozer, Fandral and Miek in Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., and both Gonzo and Rizzo the Rat in Muppet Babies for which he won a Daytime Emmy award! In games you may have heard him as Glenn Lodbrok in Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, Young Xehanort in the Kingdom Hearts series of games, and Franklin Lieste in Date Everything! Some of his anime roles include Kai in Blood+, Sai Yamanaka in Naruto Shippuden, Char Aznable in Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, and Haida in Aggretsuko.
In the first part of our discussion, Ben shares with me how he got started as an actor. As crazy at it might sound, for all intents and purposes, Ben was signed to his first acting agent in utero! His parents were both actors in Los Angeles, and when his mother was pregnant with him, her agent offered to represent Ben once he was born. As a baby, Ben started getting cast in commercials and other acting roles on-camera. It certainly helped that both his parents could not only coach him on his performances, but that they also had a realistic understanding of the challenges of pursuing an acting career. Unlike some stage parents, they didn’t need Ben to become a big star, they were just happy if he was enjoying himself. Any money he might make they planned to save for his college fund.
Little did they know that Ben would not only enjoy acting, he would became passionate about it. Acting was so important to him that even as a young child, he was willing to put up with the tedium one regularly experiences on a live-action set. Shooting actors on film can be a slow and laborious process. Often you have to arrive very early to be put through hair and makeup even though you may just end up sitting around for hours after that, waiting to be called to perform your one scene. You can imagine how frustrating this might be to a young person, but Ben was so eager to act that he was willing to endure it as long as he got his chance to play pretend.
In fact, Ben was so committed to the process of acting, that he soon felt frustrated as producers began to typecast him. He was hungry to play all sorts of different characters, not just the slightly nerdy kids he was often hired to portray on screen. He discovered that voice acting could offer him the opportunity to play a wide range of roles, and he need only be limited by his ability to act, and the sound of his voice, rather than by his physical appearance. He quickly set about expanding his vocal range so he could play as many characters as possible.
One of the things I find most interesting about Ben’s journey is that he experienced both the highs and the lows of acting at such an early age. For example, his young psyche had to come to grips with how being famous might affect his relationships with his peers. Early in our time together, Ben shares with me his story about letting his friends on the playground know that he had been cast in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Kindergarten Cop, and how through a series of misunderstandings, this actually damaged some of his friendships. He also shares with me an experience he had with a casting director who told him to his face to stop trying to play characters outside of where he was normally typecast. This experience made him so frustrated, that he resolved to find a way to prove that close-minded casting director wrong, by booking as many different types of characters as his vocal instrument would allow.
The pivotal mindset that supported Ben in the midst of these challenges was that he was fascinated with being an actor who could express things that were original and meaningful, and he cared very little about getting attention or approval from others. He was truly living the advice that I often repeat on this podcast, “Love the art in yourself more than yourself in the art”. I hope Ben’s story and his deep commitment to acting inspire all of you in the audience to do the same!
VAM 231 | Different Types Of Directors, And How Best To Collaborate With Them
Welcome to episode 231 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
In the previous episode, I explained my method for taking direction as an actor without taking it personally. If you haven’t checked it out already, I strongly suggest you listen to that episode before continuing with this one. I will be referencing some of the ideas and strategies I shared in that episode and it will be important to be familiar with them as I talk about the different types of directors you may interact with in the industry.
As a quick recap for those who have listened to it, hopefully you remember that I began by explaining how important it is to be able to modify your performance based on feedback you get from your director. No matter how good an actor you are, if you cannot take direction quickly and effectively, you become a liability to the production rather than an asset. I also shared an intense experience I had working with a director who was so aggressive in his approach that he was willing to use insults to try to elicit a change in my performance. Hearing his words, it was difficult not to be upset by them, especially when it felt like his criticisms weren’t just of my acting, but of me personally. While we able to reconcile later, and I grew to understand that he really did want the best for me as an actor, that experience stuck with me for two important reasons.
The first reason was that such a dramatic event really forced me to evaluate my own process as an actor. I had to decide whether I cared enough about acting to deal with any similar difficulties that might come my way. Was I going to let one person’s words said in the heat of the moment derail my artistic goals, or was I going to develop resilience in the face of an intimidating obstacle? Eventually, the tactic I developed to handle this sort of caustic direction was to identify with the larger universe of possibilities in my psyche, rather than get attached to any individual persona I might adopt in the moment. That way if the character I was currently playing was criticized, I need not take it personally, even if that character was my everyday persona that I used to interact with people in the real world. Again, I strongly encourage you to internalize the stories and lessons I shared in the last episode so you too can handle any critiques you might receive as an actor.
The second reason that experience stuck with me, was how drastically different that director’s behavior was towards me depending on the situation. In class, he was critical and dismissive, yelling at me forcefully to try and shock me out of my habitual patterns of acting. Later, when it was just the two of us in his office, he was more inquisitive and relaxed. He sincerely wanted to find a way to help me grow and his manner was more quiet and gentle. Experiencing this helped me realize that the best directors know how to change their approach in order to assist the actor they’re collaborating with. I’ve watched masterful directors quickly evaluate an actor in front of them, decide what tactics might be most effective to get the performance they’re looking for from that actor, and then adopt a completely different persona so they can help that performer achieve those results.
What if we, as actors, could do the same? What if an actor could quickly identify the kind of director they were working with and then was able to modify their behavior to collaborate with that director more effectively? That’s what I want to help you accomplish in this episode. To achieve this, I’ll be sharing with you my taxonomy of some common types of directors I’ve come across in my career. This is not an exhaustive list by any means; it’s merely my shorthand for identifying the kinds of directors I tend to encounter in the industry. Hopefully it will be a useful starting point for developing your own director classifications and I encourage you to add to it based on your personal experiences. Just remember, the goal is not to reduce, over simplify, or dismiss the director in front of you, but rather to discover how you can adjust your approach so as to mesh more seamlessly with that director’s workflow.