Honey No. 45

Feat. a voiceover job that made me cry, and a poetic exercise in brevity

I have been doing professional voiceover work for the past seven-ish years. Nine out of ten times when I book a job, the team is really nice- the engineer is helpful, the client is kind, the direction is clear, we get in and out. I love these sessions! We all leave feeling so great! But every once in a while, when the universe is feeling extra spicy, I will find myself in a session that brings me to tears.

One x factor in a session is that voiceover can be hard to direct, especially if you’ve, perhaps, never done it before. It’s hard to know what words to say to make someone’s voice sound like the one(s) in your head, especially if you’re, perhaps, a person who typically just writes copy but has been thrust on a zoom with an engineer and an actor and have to figure out how to be a director all of a sudden. Obviously this can be challenging! And challenges can drive us to cruelty!

Another x factor, especially since the pandemic, is that jobs are rarely if ever calling you into a professional studio to record, meaning that you are required to have a professional-grade studio in your home. A good recording setup is simple, though expensive, enough to buy, but a sound-proofed home that never has a helicopter flying overhead, not a subwoofer-that-has-parked-outside-to-play-the-hits in sight, can be a little more challenging. Most people who are booking you understand that this might be the case. But not all, my friends. Not all.

When I first moved to LA, I booked an internal spot for a huge company. Internal means that it is not a commercial that is going to air- no one will hear this material other than the people who work for that company. Sometimes these jobs are explaining information about the business to employees, sometimes it’s a pump-up check-in about the exciting new projects that the company has coming up. These are typically very chill sessions because again, they are not going to air.

We started off the call on a challenging foot, with the sound engineer loudly declaring he was not on my side. In an ideal world, and thankfully in much of my experience, the engineer is the talent’s closest ally. While some of the people on a call have never been in a recording session before, the engineer does this all day long and can be a helpful bridge, translating the client’s feedback into something the actor can implement. But this man was no friend. Is there a reason I’m hearing……an airplane?!??? he screamed at a normal volume. This killed me, as I had not yet figured out how to control the sky. I gently let him know that the reason he was hearing an airplane was because there was an airplane, which I thought might provide some cognitive relief, but instead seemed to stoke the fire of his rage. My first ally was down for the count, and it only got worse from there.

The woman who was directing me in the session had some harsh feedback about how I was reading the script, which was how I did it in the audition, which was how I booked the job. This is completely fine, as I genuinely do not care and want them to be happy. As a guiding light of sorts, she proceeded to read the long script about crypto and asked me to imitate her exactly, word for word, line by line. Our voice was slow, weighty, and awesome in the truest sense of the word. One snippet where our tone really shone was the line, Now, more than ever. I gave it a shot:

That’s not really it, my shepherd blurted. It should sound something more like this:

Got it, I said, and gave it another go:

You’re not quite getting it, but we have to move on.

After a two hour session of no exaggeration imitating her exact cadence, it seemed like we had gotten the spot and I logged off the call. A challenging session, but we got it done! You want me to jump, I’ll jump. You want me to spin, I’ll spin. You want to say every word of this incredibly long script and have me mimic you exactly even though it sounds like a very intense movie trailer and not at all like the description of the tone that was given in the audition? Whatever floats your boat baby, if you’re happy, I’m happy.

But happy they were not, so a few days later my agent emailed me that they would like to book me for another two hour session.

As soon as I got onto the call, I was introduced to the boss of the woman who I had imitated for the initial two hours. Her role was described as something along the lines of How to Make Dumb Actors Know to Speak Good, and it was an absolute pleasure to work with her. I just don’t understand why you’re saying the lines like that, she stammered, baffled. It’s so different than your audition. That’s why we booked you. That’s what we want.

I….ok.

I attempted to get back to my roots and say the script how I initially read it, but after spending the entire previous session mimicking the exact intonation of my guiding light, I found it surprisingly hard to break the pattern. It was like I had memorized the tune of a song and was now being asked to improvise the melody. But that’s not how it goes, I thought. It goes:

As the minutes ticked on I desperately tried to give them what they want, my confidence plummeting as their disappointment swelled. They didn’t want my mimicked take, they didn’t want my audition sound, they wanted a secret third thing which was, perhaps, not me. After a 90 minute struggle to deliver them their product without losing my mind, a surprising new character entered the chat, which was ear-splitting construction that started next door. My ally-turned-nemesis engineer immediately lost his gourd: WHAT IN THE HELL IS THAT?!??!?! If the sound of an airplane made him break out in hives, I knew that this would surely kill him. I politely excused myself from the call full of laced-up professionals who definitely wanted to off me and ran, in my pajamas, tears streaming down my face, to bargain with the construction workers next door.

Now fellas, I know that you have started construction on this blessed day because you could feel that it was a special occasion, aka the day of my public execution at the hands of Credit Card Company, but is there any way that you could delay your impressively loud, I wanna say, jackhammering for just 30 more minutes? It quickly became apparent that English wasn’t their first language, or maybe a stream of pleas from a small, braless, weeping thing calling up to them from the parking lot next door just wasn’t what they were expecting to encounter on a construction job at 9 am. Either way, our negotiations took several minutes, my colleagues’ rage simmering in my closet all the while. Finally, they agreed to pause the construction. I finished the job. The client reached out for even more takes a few days later. And just like that, a two hour job turned into a seven hour one, all for a spot that was never meant for air.

I cannot stress enough what a rare occurrence this is for me. Other jobs have made me cry before, sure, but never with so much gusto. The client complained about me to my agent, which made my stomach sink, and I summoned every ounce of professionalism in me to simply state that it was certainly a challenging session, but that I took full responsibility for the surprising level of noise. My agent shrugged it off, saying they’d never gotten a complaint about me and that we’d figure it all out. An ally was back in the chat and I was so, so grateful. Now, more than ever.

Economy of Language

I first met Atra Asdou when we were on the same Harold team in Chicago, and fell in love with her on the spot. Atra is currently workshopping her full-length semi-autobiographical play Iraq, But Funny, a raucous satire featuring five generations of Assyrian women reclaiming their stories, as narrated by a British guy. It covers over a hundred years of history from the Ottoman Empire to modern day U.S.A. and is set to debut at Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago, Summer 2025.

I can’t be brief. Shit. I just was. Ok well lemme explain. Oooh ok good, yesyesyes there it is. Shakespeare penned the line “brevity is the soul of wit” within a long and rambling fool’s monologue (Polonius, Hamlet, Act 2 Sc 2).  Before you get ahead of yourself - Hark, babe. Don’t think me fancy. I had to google “who said ‘brevity is the soul of wit?’” and did a lil’ deep dive to make sure I was being accurate here. Now, back to it: Shakeybakey said b is the s o’ w, and has since been used by upperclass dads to avoid talking to their wife and kids.

If you ask little ole moi? I don’t think brevity is the soul of wit. I think maybe it’s a hand of wit, or a tit of wit, but to me, the soul of wit is quickness. Yeah! Quickness is the soul of wit, bitch. Cause lemme tell you, I’ve had some very curt, brief, very verbally economical interactions and a lot of em? Not witty. Not soulful. No haha’s. No hehe’s. Actually felt quite empty after. I feel like it's a rectangle/square situation: not all brief sayings are witty, but sometimes witty sayings are brief. Conversations and writing aren’t stocks, priuses, or little compost containers you keep on your countertop. Not everything has to be economicalughhhokayyyy?!

Now. Do I know me some verbal snipers? Yes. Do I love my incomparable pals who spend the entirety of a raucous house party silently observing, then at the 11th hour, finally speak their 3-7 word sentence and make everyone cry-laugh before they stealthily leave? Deeply. They are the wittiest. Oftentimes theeee funniest people ever. We need them.

BUT I ASK YOU: 

Is it the brevity? Or the quickness? A perfect combo of both? 

Now. To be fair. I am someone who struuuuggggglessss to economize. (Duh, hello hi! Could you tell?) I’m in the middle of a playwriting process where I now have to really refine the structure part. The “is this needed for the story?” part and “what is the story?” part. And a note I’m getting- from others and myself - is “economy of language.” Which. I get. I want. I strive. Because, Listen. I studied Anne Carson and Basho. I am a huge fan of Senaz Toosi’s work. I cannot. For. the. Life. of. Me. Write. Economically. Not on the first go, at least… or the second…or the fifth. I speculate that my final economized-language-draft is prob not even comparable to Carson’s messiest spaghetti-on-the-wall-drafts. It’s just not in my nature. And honestly, I mostly don’t mind that it’s not in my nature, BUT. Sometimes, when I get the “economize” or “what are you trying to say here?” notes…my stomach drops and I wish it was in my nature. I start to wonder if I’m good at any of this, and get frustrated with myself for not knowing or doing better, for being verbally wasteful. (How dare me.) I think at the root of that stomach drop though is what is in everyone’s nature: a desire to be understood. 

I do adore how streamlined expression can stir a soul. And I do adore more that each of us has different ways to express it all. It’s just practice and what feels good to you. A friend told me, “two stories can be true.” OH SHIT I'M RHYMING YOU GUYS. 

OK back to economizing: The pithiness of Anne Carson sings to me. Basho’s haikus destroy me. Senaz’s work cracks me tf up and makes me cry, too. So. In the spirit of challenging myself to say things in fewer words, I’ve been practicing taking my time and restraining my ramblings through haikus. Which, for a writer with undiagnosed ADHD is a sort of scribbler’s edging, a pen-pusher’s BDSM if you will. Ok let's get to this high-brow elegance:

On Trying Though Exhausted:

Marathon shit

Marathon took up sylla-

Fuck this is really hard

On Bravery Through Tummy Aches:

I eat there is pain

I do not eat there is pain

Where is the doctor

On Your Voice:

No sound ever dies

Your waves are perpetual 

Rarefying air

Omg that was - whew. Wow. Did you all feel that? There was so much quiet air between us like - whaaa?! Ok. WOW. Three technical haikus. I guess my overthinking, over-writing, over-explaining ways are OVER! Ya! Suck it extra, words! I can self-edit BEFORE I clickity-clack on a keyboard! My writing has so much economy, my nom de plume is Dow Jones, betch! Wait not like, - don’t include “, betch” in it - like my pen name isn’t “Dow Jones, Betch” it’s not like “ESQ” or “DDS”. Betch isn’t a title I earned in school… I mean betch is a title I earned in school, but not for like … my… pen… name. Oof. I’m rambling again. New draft!

See you next week, my pals! I’ve been thinking about the “now, more than ever” line because it feels like it applies to just about everything these days, including how important it is to check in on your people. We’re all pretty raw these days, huh? One little day at a time.

Sending you big love and wishing you eeeeeease,

xx Olivia