BOSSes, Anne Ganguzza is joined by the extraordinary Tina Marasco, Head of Casting at Sound and Fury, a respected coach, and the voice of HGTV's Love it or List it. With over three decades of experience spanning agency, acting, and casting, Tina offers indispensable casting director secrets for bridging the gap between a voice actor's truth and a client's real-world needs.
00:03 - Anne (Host) Hey VOBoss family Anne Ganguzza here as we wrap up the year. I just want to say thanks for being a part of this amazing community and because you bosses deserve a little holiday love, I'm giving you 10% off all demos and coaching through December 31st. Your demo discount is automatically applied and for coaching, just enter code COACHINGBFF at checkout. Treat yourself to some career growth this season at anneganguzzacom.
00:36 - Speaker 2 (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.
00:55 - Anne (Host) Hey, hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and today I am thrilled to welcome the amazing Tina Marasco, head of casting at Sound and Fury, respected voiceover coach and the voice of HGTV's Love it or List it. With over two decades of experience as an agent, actor, casting director oh my gosh, everything. Tina brings an incredible perspective on what connects talent to opportunity, and that's, I think, what we're all looking for. So I think we're going to have a great talk about authenticity, longevity and how to basically bridge the gap between the actor's truth and a client's real-world needs, which is something that I think is so important for us to get that perspective. So, tina, thank you, thank you, thank you. I know you're important for us to get that perspective. So, tina, thank you, thank you, thank you I know you're busy for joining me.
01:50 - Tina (Guest) Oh my gosh, Thank you so much for having me.
01:58 - Anne (Host) I'm very excited to be with you. I know I'm really excited, so let's talk about how it all started. I mean, you have worn so many different hats agent, actor, casting director, coach when did you start with? What did you start with? How much time do we have?
02:10 - Tina (Guest) It's like when blind doors roam the earth. I started in the William Morris mailroom in New York City in like the 90s. Okay, the heyday of you know the wild agent life Pushing the mail cart somehow. Wow, yeah, no, I was literally like doing the swimming with sharks situation and floated all over. I was in a bunch of different departments and then ultimately landed in the commercial department and my then, like, everything was lumped together. So VO on camera, soaps, they were all lumped together and my boss was the VO Maven.
02:49 Her name is Carol Baker and she's not in the business anymore, but I didn't even know what a voiceover was when I sat on that desk and it's funny because, like Terry Berlan was a casting director in New York at the time, so I was like an assistant and Terry would be calling in breakdowns and now we're both casting directors in LA. It just it feels like 72 lifetimes ago. So my, my boss, you know, basically taught me everything there was to know about voiceover and then I spent three years there, then flipped over to ICM in New York and that's really where I cut my teeth, because ICM does not have a scale voiceover department, meaning people like you and me auditioning. They only represented celebrities. So when I went over there they tasked me to start the department.
03:37 So I started from scratch. I had not a single client and went out every night to Broadway and off Broadway and performance art and you know comedy clubs and I say this all the time like my bartender at the Raccoon Lodge ended up being Sally Winters and like one of the biggest voices of the last couple of decades. So I would find talent from all different walks of performance life, bring them into our studio at ICM and kind of teach them how to do it. So that's kind of how I learned, and that's how I learned how to produce demos because nobody had any recorded material, so for us to sort of send it out and announce our department. I produced like 60 demos for our agency reel and it was literally like thrown into the fire and figured it out, ladies.
04:28 - Anne (Host) So but it worked out. That is so impressive because you pretty much built it from the ground up and you basically learned everything along the way, and I love that. I kind of think I always describe myself as I just learned by the seat of my pants, because it's like here, here's the job, do it, and then you've just okay, well, here we go. But I think that probably prepared you for a long career in doing this. I mean, I would imagine that you love what you do because you're still doing it.
05:00 - Tina (Guest) I do. And then I took a very circuitous route. I left being an agent and somehow got struck by lightning and decided I wanted to be an actor.
05:09 So I went back to graduate school for acting for three years kind of like hid away and got all of that training. And then I, the scenes voiceover Sure Paired with my newly you know tuned voice and speech training and my acting training, voiceover was sort of like the natural next progression for my performing career. Oh, absolutely yeah. So I, you know, got an agent right away and started working right away and then was really chasing on camera pretty hard. Like my goal was to be like a series regular on a sitcom, like that was the dream. And you know I did a zillion guest stars but I just never got that. You know, like that regular, regular role.
05:54 And all along the way voiceover was always like my steady boyfriend. It was always like it was always there, it was always giving me a hug and you know, finally I was like why am I treating you like you're you know this side piece over here Like I should really nurture this relationship a little bit more. And so I really started focusing hard on that and all along the way I've always coached. And then eight years ago, almost coming up on eight years, I partnered with Sound and Fury and went to the casting side of things. But I still act sometimes and I still do voiceover, but mostly right now I am coaching and casting that is kind of my day-to-day regimen.
06:37 - Anne (Host) So what brought you into the casting part of it? Was it just something that was an opportunity that presented itself, or it was something that you had always wanted to get into?
06:46 - Tina (Guest) Yeah, it was kind of serendipitous. So Carly Silver, who was my agent at Atlas, left Atlas to go to Sound and Fury, like maybe a year or so before this happened. And she was, she knew she was going to be going on maternity leave and really it was just her and the owner of the company, Jill Kershaw, and they really needed somebody to cover for her. And you know, so it was presented to me as can you just cover for like three months? You sort of have the skill set and yeah, and I was like sure I'll give it a shot. And I really was so naive I really thought I was gonna be sitting in my pajamas and be like, oh, this sounds good, this sounds good, this sounds good. And then the fury of Sound and Fury raged into my life and I came how?
07:34 - Anne (Host) appropriate for the name.
07:36 - Tina (Guest) It's not like a cute little, you know, kind of on the side, it is a full time commitment and so I remember like thinking, gosh, I don't know if I'm going to make it through three months of this Like how. Like, how does anybody like do this all day? And it's been eight years so. But we have the best team in the business, like our. It's all women, we are so well-oiled and I mean that sounded kind of funny, but I completely got where you're going but we have such a great powerhouse team and it just makes a pretty.
08:20 You know, I wouldn't say it's difficult, it's not brain surgery, but it is a pretty laborious process what we go through and it just makes it so joyful and fun and collaborative because everybody on our team is so fantastic.
08:34 - Anne (Host) Well, I think you know, for most talent in the industry, what they lack is that, that perception or that education about what really goes on in casting, that perception or that education about what really goes on in casting. So, from your perspective, tell me about like a typical day for you casting a project and what is all involved, because I think for us, we absolutely need to understand it in order for us to, I think, do better and be more successful.
08:59 - Tina (Guest) Yeah, and I would love to. I would love for actors to know all of you know what goes on behind the scenes. So every time we start a project, no matter how big or small, we do a creative call with the ad agency creative team and you know we spend a good amount of time on Zoom with them, sort of you know, trying to dissect every little detail and nuance we can get out of them as to how, what they want to hear in their perfect voiceover. And you know, on that call we hear consistently, no matter how high profile the project or how small and like it's a first time, you know, advertiser, they all want the same thing. They all want. They always say, and the answer is yes.
09:42 The reason we're paying you to cast this and we're not doing it ourselves is because we really want you to find people who sound like they've never done voiceover before.
09:49 Now that does not mean give it to your drunk uncle at Thanksgiving and expect him to be able to work his way through the copy, right? What they really mean is they want everything to sound exactly like you and I are conversing right now. What actors don't realize is that the conversational sound that everybody's kind of cultivated has just become another bad habit. Because if you really listen to how we talk in real life, it's much more intentional and therefore much staccato than most people think Like. If that sentence was written on a page and I was reading it, it might sound like yeah, the way I talk in real life is much more intentional and staccato, which was not intentional or staccato at all Right. So they want it to sound like genuine peer to peer sharing, even if you're talking about insurance, even if you're talking about management, right.
10:40 And the other thing that they're always stressing is that everything they're making now are short films. They don't think of them as commercials, and that is not just semantics, it's an actual paradigm shift. And how it applies to actors approach to the audition is now you are being asked to be a protagonist inside their short film. So your job is to simply act. Right, it's to, and it doesn't mean you'd have to have a protagonist inside their short film, so your job is to simply act, right, it's to.
11:06 And it doesn't mean you'd have to have an MFA in acting or you have to be Shakespearean, right, it just means you have to really figure out what the story is and then just behave and live truthfully, moment to moment, with the circumstance of the story. Right, and so it is as simple as that. But it also means that the voiceover has sort of been in the world of TV and film. The voiceover has kind of been relegated down to like co-star status, so meaning it is not the star of the show anymore, it's more of the bed of the film, right, so it's a lot more subtle and nuanced. And that doesn't mean do nothing, that doesn't mean you want flat or be flat?
11:49 Yeah, not flat unaffected reads. It means you know. It's kind of like. I use this analogy all the time. You're like a first chair violinist in a beautiful symphony orchestra. You still have to play your notes with precision, you have to have an emotional connection to it, but then your job is to sort of synthesize and integrate with the rest of the orchestra, because if an audience member can pick out the first shared violinist, they're doing something wrong.
12:13 That's sort of the role of the voiceover. Now it's like, hey, we want to know that you understand our story inside and out, you have an emotional connection to it and you are living truthfully through it moment to moment. And then don't make it about you. Put all of your attention on the film. It's not about you. Don't focus away from the film, it is not about you.
12:34 - Anne (Host) Yeah, Now I think one of the biggest questions is well, how do I know what the story is Right and I'm not? They're typically not provided with a storyboard. I mean, if you are, that's like a luxury, I think and you know, when they're auditioning, a lot of times there is nothing really except for you know some specs and maybe an idea of what they're looking for. So how do they create that story?
12:58 - Tina (Guest) So the story for me, like my process when I coach, is because everything's about authenticity. You want to really read the specs and ask yourself which authentic version of you most closely aligns with the specs. So you're not doing anything to manipulate the sound of your voice anymore, so it's always going to be a version of you. Is it the mom version of you? Is it the best friend version of you? You know, so on, yeah. Then the second step is to really read the script, as if you're reading a screenplay or a novel for content, like figure out what the heck the story is, what is being told and from my perspective, the story is always in the copy.
13:38 - Speaker 2 (Announcement) Yes.
13:39 - Tina (Guest) Literally, even if it is a tagline, and the tagline is BJ's makes anything worth celebrating, the story is come to BJ's, which is like a pizza pub right, and you can make even the most mundane day a celebration because, like, every day is a party at BJ's right. So there's a story even in that tagline. So there's always a story to find within the copy itself. You just have to read it carefully. And I feel like the biggest mistake that I hear over and, over and over again every day in casting is most people grab a few adjectives from the specs, clap it on their voice and then write it over the words Absolutely.
14:19 - Anne (Host) It's so predictable.
14:21 - Tina (Guest) Yeah. So the whole thing is just like a blanket of warmth or a blank sarcasm. And when I ask people like okay, what does that line mean, they kind of look at me like blank. I'm like no, seriously, what does it mean? Put it in your own words. And they're like so really, spending time understanding the story. Paraphrase it line for line, because you'll find when you start putting it in your own words you realize how much meaning you were taking for granted. Even like Amica insurance is proudly owned by the people we protect, right, Everybody said that line very naturally.
14:55 Everybody was like yeah, amica insurance is proudly owned by the people we protect. But anytime I've asked anybody what that means, they go blank. And I'm like what do you mean, what does that mean? And I was like it's a weird sentence. Like the insurance company is owned by the people they insure. So does that mean like everybody who's insured by Amica owns a share of stock and is it like a co-op?
15:16 But really, if we drill a little deeper, what they're really saying is what do most people think about insurance companies? They're out to screw you, right, but we're going to screw you because if we screw you we'd be screwing ourselves. So therefore, you can trust us. So now, if you know that that line is really saying you can trust us, then the way you say you can trust us is the exact way I'd want you to say that line.
15:38 So it would be more like listen, ann, amica Insurance is proudly owned by the people we protect. It's the same way I'm saying, ann, you can trust us. Yeah, right. So it's the same way I'm saying, anne, you can trust us, right. So put it in your own words, is how you take ownership of the story, how the story becomes yours, and then you figure out who you'd be having that conversation with, the good old who you talk it to, and then creating the moment before. What did the person you're talking to say or do? That forces you to respond with the first line of the story Sure, sure Everything feels like a genuine, truthful conversation.
16:12 - Anne (Host) Yeah, and I always say for the first a lot of times casting directors will say make sure that you come in the first. You know, the first line has to be connected and engaged. And I always like to take it further than that, because if you're engaged on the first line and then you kind of lose that engagement then I think that you don't know what that story was.
16:29 That's exactly all you did was look at the first line and it could completely change by the end of the script and you don't know where that story is going or evolving.
16:38 - Tina (Guest) I understand right. That's why you have to be inside of it and living through it as it changes moment to moment, like you are. You and I are like mind melding because it's like, how many times do you hear these bad lead-ins where it's like, man, trust me, oh, so many, so many bad lead-ins, I guess, and there's so much there needs, I think, to be.
16:58 - Anne (Host) I'm always telling my students that there needs to be so much more, so much more to talk about the person they're talking to, like their issues and their problems, because that first line coming, you got to know what you're solving for them and it's got to be about them, not about how pretty you sound when you, when you deliver the information, but how you're going to actually help them to look better, feel better, be better, make more money, whatever it is, and that's the kind of point of view that's going to be authentic and genuine, because it's where I think we're all selfish. If you think about it, if I'm going to, if I'm going to lend my ears to listen to somebody, there's something for me in it. Like I'm not going to listen for the sake of you know, necessarily. I mean I've got to be entertained or educated or it's got to have something that I need.
17:44 - Tina (Guest) Absolutely, and there's so much competition for our attention, yes, our attention and our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter as we get addicted to short form content like on TikTok and Instagram Reels and stuff. So like for commercials to really hold, you know, somebody's attention, you're absolutely right, they have to be engaged. The listener needs to be engaged. They need to feel pulled into that conversation. Yeah, yeah.
18:13 - Anne (Host) And it's interesting because I do a lot of work I do. The majority of my coaching these days is corporate or long format narration, and so you've got to hold somebody's attention for longer than 60 seconds and you also have to know that story all the way through, when somebody maybe hasn't written it nicely, or like it's some marketing, it's some marketing rep that just wrote it for the website, and then you've got to figure out what is that story? What is that? And I'm always thinking and let me know if you feel the same way there's a purpose to every single word, like if somebody's written a script, like even the words that connect, connect words together, like there's a reason for them because they're leading into a story, a storyline yeah, I use.
18:53 - Tina (Guest) I tell people all the time like, don't take words like now for granted, like now. It's sort of the bridge, so it's like you were talking about what happened before now exactly right, exactly. It's not like now we're doing this. It's like no, no, everything we were talking about before happened, like now we're doing this. It's like no, no, no, everything we were talking about before happened, and now we're moving into this you know, what.
19:13 I mean Every word is. Every word is important. I always tell my clients numbers are especially important in commercials because there is a reason that number is there and it has to be delivered incredibly specifically based on what the meaning is. So is it like now it has to be delivered incredibly specifically based on what the meaning is.
19:31 - Anne (Host) So, is it like?
19:32 - Tina (Guest) now you're going to be able to get 32 grams of protein at Starbucks in your favorite drink right.
19:38 - Anne (Host) I love that you said it that way, because a lot of times people are like okay, you want me to emphasize that, 32 grams. And then they get all announcer and like no, no, no, no you just kind of lengthen it yeah you just sink into the depth of what it means.
19:50 - Tina (Guest) You're like holy crap. Like if I was paraphrasing that, I would be like holy crap. My gawky protein shake gives me like 12 grams, so this is 32 grams of protein. That's amazing.
20:04 - Speaker 2 (Announcement) So you just think of the meaning of that right. Yeah, and for God that's amazing.
20:08 - Anne (Host) As opposed to oh, my God that's amazing.
20:11 - Tina (Guest) I mean my new, like literally my tangent right now, because so many people are coming to me and I'll play their audition back for, like you know, a retail department store or whatever, and it's like but it said excited, so I'm up here. I was like excited doesn't mean up here. If I'm excited, I'd be like Ann oh my God, I have the breakthrough that is going to change your life.
20:35 - Anne (Host) Like that is grounded, excitement that's grounded enthusiasm, you know, and maybe there's only one word that you might kind of get a little louder on or like high pitched, and that's typically I'm like well, you know, if I'm excited, I'm not high pitched through every single word of my sentence to you. I'm not high-pitched through every single word of my sentence to you. I'm not like, oh my God, I'm so excited Because a lot of times people will just tend to like elevate, and then their pitch just goes higher and higher and then it starts to sound very much like a cell, a hard cell.
21:00 - Tina (Guest) Absolutely, and you know how many words and specs do you see that are taking you down like grounded? Down to earth, depth, gravitas, that's literally gravity. All of those words are asking you to sink into your core and not be up in the stratosphere. Yeah, yeah, absolutely Like. I love that.
21:20 - Anne (Host) I love that. So, in terms of casting, when you are casting, what are the things that you? I know we're talking a lot about being engaged, being authentic, and so you have lots of things that you're casting for on a day-to-day basis, I imagine, and you have a lot of people that are submitting auditions. So how far into that audition are you listening? And everybody wants to know that that's like the magic thing, or is it dependent on the job and is it dependent on your knowledge of the actor?
21:50 - Tina (Guest) as well. Well, this is great because it'll take us back to, because I sort of stopped in the middle of the casting process. So after that creative call, we get off, we write, I write the specs. Carly and Liz on our team do all of the BA stuff. They deal with the terms. We get the breakdown written. Then we send it out to the agents.
22:13 - Anne (Host) The agents send it out to all the actors, you all record, you send it into the ether and I'm like hi, I'm the ether, yes, I'm the ether.
22:18 - Tina (Guest) And then I start listening. So a couple of questions that always come up Does it matter if you submit early? No, it doesn't matter to us, as long as your agent gets all of their auditions in by our due time. We don't know when you submitted or when you did, and I listen to everything bar none. I never, ever, ever, skip anybody's audition because I know how much care and time every actor puts into it. So I put that much care and time into listening and considering it. So I download all of the auditions.
22:50 It is a large number, like more than ever, for a number of reasons. We all know everybody and their mother got into voiceover during the pandemic and lately I have noticed, this year in particular, that there's a big, big trend from our clients of, instead of it being like okay, we know for sure, we want a woman 30 to 40. And this is the description. Now they're like we're open to all ages, all genders, all ethnicities, everything. So we're literally casting such a wide net. The numbers are sometimes, and what makes that hard, especially hard on actors, is because, even if your read and is the absolute, it's bulletproof, like. It is spot on, perfect, the most connected dropped in right. And this is the best female read in your category. And this is the best female read in your category. You could still lose the job if they want, you know, an older man of color or?
23:53 if they want a 22-year-old girl, or you know what I mean. And we are comparing apples to oranges, to bananas, to pears to plums these days, so it's really when it's that open, what I'm really listening to or I'm putting in are the most connected dropped in reads. So to answer like, how far I listen to it depends on the spot. So the first time I listened through, because the numbers are so big, the first pass of listening is really a weeding out. So I'm listening quickly. For do you match the specs? Is your sound quality good enough to do a job from home, if that's the requirement, and do I believe you?
24:36 Those are my three criteria and it's a super quick yes, no, yes no, yes no it gets very busy and I'm really at that first pass only listening to whatever the opening beat is, and sometimes I have to listen a little further because there's a joke and I need to make sure you got the turn in the script and sometimes it's like I can just tell right away. But here's the thing that I want actors to know Nobody starts off great and then tanks, and nobody starts off terrible and then gets great. At the end it's like yeah, really like sometimes you can be grounded and start and like you said, and kind of lose it, but you're not going to sort of like completely, you know, go off the fence.
25:18 - Anne (Host) That's only my experience with the long format narration.
25:21 - Tina (Guest) I mean, it's because it's a long time, yeah, yeah, but so usually you can, you really can tell, and anytime I've had like an actor anywhere near me when I've been listening to stuff even they're like, oh my gosh, it is so clear very quickly. So the first pass through is just a super quick yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. Then my yes folder is pretty fat, so it's probably still a couple of hundred. So at that point then I go okay, now I've got the best of now I really start casting and then I listen all the way through and if there's two takes I listen to and then I start getting creative. So if I like take two better than take one, I'll flip it. If I like a line from you know, like take two, that I think would fit better in take one, I'll start mixing and matching some stuff and I try to narrow it down. Then I try to pick out my favorite, like ultimately about 60 per gender gets sent to the client. So for casting all genders, the clients can get 120.
26:23 - Anne (Host) So one thing that you did say, which I really loved, is that you were actually creating the auditions and saying maybe I like this one better, putting that first, maybe taking a line from this, a line from that, and actually prepping the auditions to send to the client. So number one, that makes you an amazing, amazing casting director, an amazing person. I'm just saying Right. But also the fact is you have to know your client really well. So there's that whole other aspect that maybe actors aren't even thinking about, like you have to have such a good relationship with your client to kind of know what they're looking for and also present you know solutions for them.
26:59 - Tina (Guest) Absolutely, and that's why we spend so much time before we start the project, really, you know, diving deep and getting very granular with what their asks are, and we'll do. You know like we'll do all kinds of things to sort of put like present every actor in the best light, and then once I'm done and I have my selects ready, then we give it off to our team of editors. We have a whole team of editors that get rid of all the background noise. Okay, cue everyone to the same level. So when a client plays down our casting links, everything sounds uniform.
27:34 So as much as possible with people recording all over the place.
27:37 - Anne (Host) Do you rename files if they're incorrectly named?
27:41 - Tina (Guest) Well, yes, because people don't follow directions. I'm always relaming For those of you who follow directions you're already ahead of 99% of the pack, so thank you for that. So then we send it off to the client. You know, and a lot of people don't realize this, but casting directors do not decide who gets the job. We don't even get to decide who gets called back. We are there to to be. We're like a funnel, right we're like we take.
28:09 you know we're the wide mouth of the funnel. And then we come, you know we bring it into the narrow part to give to the client. So our job is just to present like a poo-poo platter of the best of everything their specs were asking for, and then sometimes throwing in some wildcard interpretations that you know we love or that you know kind of were outside the box but we thought could work. And then they go off to the client and then we don't really we're not really privy to their process. Like I would love to do an interview of one of our clients and kind of ask them, like you know, how many people on your team are listening and how many votes go into deciding who gets the job.
28:54 Once in a while, when we get selects back from them, we'll get the notes from the creative team and it'll be like okay, here are our top five and they're like hey, love, you know, love the energy, let's try to dial it back in the call back a tiny bit, like you know, and they'll they'll have all specific notes about each person. I love getting that bird's eye view, but most of the time we don't. We just get a short list to put on avail for the. You know the record dates. Then we reach out to your agent see if check your avail and then you know if you were the lucky one that books the job.
29:28 - Anne (Host) then you know if you were the lucky one that books the job then you get the booking and and in between all of that, again I think it the major decision really lands with the client, right, and then what they're looking for. And then a lot of times I'll hear actors complain about, oh, the script changed, or you know, they were looking for this, and then somehow the spot came out and it was nothing like. And I'm like, well, that's just, there's so many things that go on between the client and the casting director and the agent and you know, that's one of and yeah and it's.
30:01 You know, that's what it's unpredictable.
30:04 - Tina (Guest) I think sometimes, like a PSA, that I would love to share with actors is you can't go to the final spot on the air and go oh, I should have done that, yeah, yeah, you do not know. There's a project that is on the air right now that we cast several rounds of and ultimately they had people on avail from us. Ultimately they didn't book anybody and it's on the air. So I don't even know who that person is. I don't know if it's a celebrity whose voice I don't recognize, or if it was somebody that they had in-house, but it's nothing like what we were casting for. So somewhere along the line, that creative changed, right, and so we weren't even privy to that. So you can't assume that what ends up on the air is what you should have done. You always want to live and die by what is on that audition page, right, because that is the only way you're going to make it through to the client. Because our job as casting directors we're like matchmakers, right.
31:05 So, we've asked them what they're looking for. We are matchmakers, we try to find the best matches of that and we are only presenting what they asked for, right? So even if you think, oh, I know they're saying for McDonald's, they want it like dropped in and like understated and announcery, and then we're going to hear it on the air and it's going to be like McDonald's happy meal, right? So I'm going to like try to outsmart the specs. You can't because even if it does end up like that on the air, in the stage of the audition we have to deliver what the client is asking for. So even if you're right and it ends up like that on the air, you're not going to make it past the audition stage because you're not giving us what is on that page.
31:52 - Anne (Host) And in reality, because you cast all day long, like 8, 10, I don't know, 12 hours a day or whatever that is. I mean, you're really good at it and so I feel like when you're listening and a lot of times, voice actors don't even realize how good you are at it at picking out immediately oh, this person is engaged, this person is an actor, and I think that's your. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that you would probably prefer an actor versus maybe someone who's just. You know what. I mean, they sound good, but then they're reading it like you would imagine it to be in the spot, because the actor would be able to give the client whatever they wanted A hundred percent, and I and you know and I encourage like people, a lot of people got into this as non-actors and if they train enough, you know what I mean.
32:36 - Tina (Guest) And I mean like keep them on the hook, like training, but really all you have to learn is yourself. You just have to learn yourself. You have to know how you authentically relate to story, you have to know how you authentically feel about things and and you just have to know how to be truthful, because what I'm always listening for is truth. My ear is like a truth detector. My ear is like a truth detector. It really is like a lie detector, and that's the name of the game. There are a lot of voice actors who have made a terrific career for themselves, who are non-actors and they just ride on the sound of their voice. But more and more and more and more these days, clients are really it's got to be thought driven and not voice driven. We need to hear the voice following what you're thinking, instead of we hear the voice first. Maybe there's a thought behind it and maybe there's not. Maybe it's just voice. Right, and nobody wants that anymore.
33:36 - Anne (Host) Talk to me about second takes, and are they recommended and should they be completely different, which most people say, yes, oh, no, I say absolutely no.
33:45 - Tina (Guest) OK. So the reason I say no, it's different. It's very different than animation and video game, where I totally understand that it should be some kind of contrast. But we are we at Sound and Fury especially, are very specific about our specs and what we want, so it's not going to be that much different. There shouldn't be a drastic difference. So how I always ask actors to differentiate takes is through intention. Yes, I love that.
34:16 So there was a script for like a hospital, an example. So there was a script for like a hospital and the meaning of the script, if we like, boil down what the story was about, is that the patients are the reason why we do everything. It's the reason why we've built this state-of-the-art center and why we connect cancer specialists from across other networks and we do everything on behalf of the patients. That was the meaning of the script, right? The first line was the people we care for are the center of everything we do at Mass General Brigham, right so? And the specs said the voiceover should sound like it is the medical director of the hospital, speaking with equal parts authority and warmth and compassion, right, which you would be if you were the medical director of the hospital, right? So I always tell actors if the story is hey, the patients are the reason why we do everything and you're the medical director of the hospital. Take one might be. You're talking to the parent of a patient who comes in. Their child is being discharged that day and they're so grateful.
35:22 - Anne (Host) The mom is so grateful.
35:23 - Tina (Guest) Or the dad and they come into your office and they're like and like. I will never be able to thank you enough for the care you gave my child and you just simply respond like you don't have to thank me.
35:35 Yeah, right, this is what we do, right, and then for take two. If you go back to the story, right, I'm the medical director of this hospital and I'm Right, this is what we do. And my staff who had a negative interaction with a patient, right. So I call them in, you know, with warmth and compassion, but authority to sort, of course, correct and be like listen, anne, you are doing such an incredible job, you're so efficient. Blah, blah, blah. But we got to get on the same page about something, because the people we care for, they're the center of everything.
36:18 - Anne (Host) Yeah, absolutely.
36:20 - Tina (Guest) And then you got a take one and take two that are completely differentiated by intention. They're not going to sound drastically different, right, but they are going to tell a slightly different story.
36:34 - Anne (Host) So what you've done is you've changed your moment before and you absolutely might, you absolutely could change, maybe, who you were talking to. If you wanted to get more of that authoritative, maybe you'd be onboarding an employee or that kind of thing. So then, rather than just having what I, what most people I think do at least my students they when I say, give me an A, b read, they'll just change the melody. Yeah, they'll go higher or lower. And I'm like, no, no, I don't believe you. Change your emotion, change your scene, change who you're talking to.
37:05 That means development of the story, and they have to take like, like you can't just run into your studio because it's written in a nice conversational way and then say, oh, I'm going to, then it's predictable and everybody in the world reads it the same way, because they read it. And I'm always saying you've got to take at least a few minutes to figure out what is the story there, because you need to come in off the bat reacting, versus just saying it from ground zero Like hello, I'm Anne, like I have no reason to say this to you, but you'll all sound the same if you do that. Yeah, here I am and I'm going to talk to you about this, versus you're kind of like moment before and then you're coming in, connected already and reacting. So I love that. So that's a great way to do I think.
37:46 Two different reads and I mean honestly, we have the time. I mean, unless you're being live directed right, and then they're going to usually have somebody that's directing you and they're going to say to you all right, give me something that has more, I don't know, something brighter. And so you've got direction there. But if you're just doing an audition, you've got time in your studio right, you can take an extra five minutes to figure that out and how long does it take?
38:10 - Tina (Guest) Like you know, if it's a 30 second script and you're spending more than five minutes trying to find the story, like you're overthinking it probably. The story is always very obvious, like it really truly is. It's usually the first line of script, right? It's like it's usually like hey, thesis statement, now all the supporting arguments that prove it. Absolutely, yeah, then conclusion Introduction yeah, introduction.
38:34 - Anne (Host) Yeah, I always say I was related to. Well, in English, we would always be given an assignment to write an essay, but before we wrote that essay we'd have to write the outline, and so you'd have to know what those outline points are, and each time you hit one it's a shift in energy. Yeah, absolutely, you know, and so usually it starts with an introduction, always, and then it ends with a conclusion, and somewhere along the way, yep it's the same.
38:57 - Tina (Guest) I mean we're both preaching like the same. Yeah, I love it.
39:02 - Anne (Host) I love that you're telling me all this, because it validates me too, because it validates me for the long format narration side of things, which most people think is oh no, there's nothing really important to that. I'm just going to kind of read it in that style because that's what I hear and I'm like but I'm not here to to, I'm not, you don't need me for that. We all, we all can do that, you know right exactly.
39:26 It's information right, hopefully hopefully you're going to be able to tell a story and that's what you're going to get shortlisted or that's what you're going to get, you know, cast. You know at least you're going to get to the next step, yeah, and.
39:37 - Tina (Guest) I find you from doing Love it or List it for as long as I did, like in-show narration is really responding to the story right, so it's like you're not really telling the story, you're sort of like you know, while David goes back to the drawing board, absolutely, you know approaching.
39:54 You know the asbestos problem in the basement, right, it's like you're sort of like reacting to what you're seeing. Asbestos problem in the basement right, it's like you're sort of like reacting to what you're seeing. So you know there's lots of different storytelling devices that are required in narration and you are the expert, more than I am. I've never really, you know, coached narration.
40:14 - Anne (Host) But it's the same. I mean, that's what I'm finding out the more that I talk to you, it's, we have the same objective really, and it just happens to be longer if it's corporate. You, it's, we have the same objective really and it just it just happens to be longer if it's, if it's corporate or if it's in show is even different than that. Right, as you were just saying, you know corporate sometimes it it's, like I said, most people will write the corporate as if it should be on a website or it should be in a marketing brochure, and that's where it becomes difficult, because a lot of that is written third person and you've got to take third person and put it into first person and that requires a little bit of effort. Yeah, absolutely yeah.
40:47 - Tina (Guest) And that's what paraphrasing can really help.
40:49 - Anne (Host) Yes.
40:50 - Tina (Guest) It makes it your own. You take ownership of that story then, when you have to put it in your own, words.
40:56 - Anne (Host) Well, my gosh, I'm so. I'm so happy we had this discussion. So, and I'm very excited that you are going to be guest directing one of the VO Boss workshops coming up in December I believe it's December 12th. So, and, bosses, you better get on that quick because it's filling up, but tell us a little bit about what you're going to be doing in that class.
41:17 - Tina (Guest) Well, I'll walk you through, you know, sort of the commercial casting process.
41:23 I mean, if everybody has listened to the podcast, then we'll be able to dive in and get right to work.
41:28 I'll give everybody, you know, very recent and relevant commercial copy to read, and you know kind of see where you are instinctively, and then I'll redirect you until we get to the point where I'm like that read could book the job, you know, and we'll use those four steps that I outlined, because if everybody takes those four steps and just puts it on a post-it note, they'll have a blueprint from which to work and you will never be lost and those four steps will keep you grounded, keep you connected to the story and keep you engaged in a genuine conversation.
42:03 So I'll kind of coach everybody into that process and you know they can take it or leave it afterward, but we'll get to the point where I will be able to say that would book the job, that would book the job, that would book the job and everybody's capable of it. You just have to know what the playing field is right and a lot of times people don't know, like when I, you know, when you say like you know, the read has to be subtle and nuanced. They don't know like what level that is, and so I'll be able to kind of provide that playing field so everybody has more perspective.
42:37 - Anne (Host) Well, I am so excited to have you, as a guest director, coming up and I have to thank you so much for taking the time and talking with me today. And yeah, how can people? I feel like we could have done this all night, oh, I know right. So how can people get in touch with you if they would like to find out more?
42:55 - Tina (Guest) Well, probably my website is the most efficient way, so it's Well, probably my website is the most efficient way, so it's tinamaroscocoachingcom, got it?
43:03 My acting website is just my namecom, but tinamaroscocoachingcom, and there you will find, you know, all of the different offerings. I did create something called the library, which is it's a video, you know, you purchase it and it's basically four hours of my coaching technique broken into like bite-sized videos, and they're all labeled by topic and time coded. So let's say, somebody gets an audition where you have to break the fourth wall. You just type in fourth wall, it'll be like video six time 208. You just watch that 30 seconds or two minutes or whatever it is, and then you know exactly what to do. So that all that information is on there. And the reason I created it is because I really wanted to get all of the right information to as many actors as I could with my very limited time. I only have time to coach two actors a day, like cast the rest of the day. So you know, and when I, when somebody already has the library and they come to coach, it's so much easier.
44:08 Turbo blasts our session. I don't have to spend the first 40 minutes trying to like go over the same thing over and over again.
44:16 - Speaker 2 (Announcement) Well, that sounds amazing.
44:19 - Anne (Host) And again, thank you so, so much for spending the time. I'm going to give a great big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can connect and network like bosses like Tina and myself. Find out more at IPDTLcom. Bosses, have an amazing week and make sure you go to VO Boss and sign up for this class with Tina. You are going to love it, tina again. Thanks again, bosses, see you next week. Bye, see you soon, bosses.
44:45 - Speaker 2 (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, Anne Ganguzza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via IPDTL.