Friday, August 21, 2009

Art vs. Rent


Hello.

Some of you know that I'm currently voicing some eLearning software, and in the most recent case the subject has been Trig. Yes, I'm voicing Trig software. I'm teaching kids Trig. Welcome to the world of VoiceOver. Hey, the whole point is I make it SOUND like I know what I'm talking about, regardless of the fact that I never, myself, advanced past Algebra II.

My director/ engineer for these sessions, Kipp, is a relatively quiet guy, but when he does speak, it's usually entertaining, or at least sparks a flare of interest in my brain. The other day, during one of our rather arduous sessions, in which I believe I had to say "Trigonometric functions" at least twenty times, he came out with a line that was not only completely true, but I thought a good topic for this blog.

In the midst of a bit of tongue-tied lunacy, I stopped a particular take and just sort of huffed a gripe about how I had zero idea what I was talking about at this point. He told me "hey, it still sounds like you do, and that's all that matters", and that was when he gave me the quote that so-well described what we were doing. "Look", he said, "My friend Gene and I have talked about this many times. There's voice over work that is art, and then there's the kind that pays your rent. There's art, and there's rent. This is rent." Totally.

I think it's worth mentioning to anybody interested in Voice Acting, either as a career, or just wanting to know more about it from an outsider's standpoint, I will tell you that you will do MANY gigs to stay afloat that while they may be profitable, may not get your artistic rocks off... and that's okay! God knows we all need to make money. We need to eat, put roofs over our heads, provide for ourselves and our family/ies, and maybe even enjoy some creature comforts. ( and I'm not saying 'getting rich' is out of the question either, for an actor, it's just rare ). But, at the end of the day, we're Artists, Entertainers, and we love to elicit a laugh, a tear, a smile, maybe some shock... an emotion, basically. And it's a bit easy to sometimes get disheartened when sitting in a booth, reading 60-80 pages of Math text. Thing is, I'm grateful for ANY work I get, and I suppose you could say I'm helping kids learn math in at least a SEMI-fun way, but no, I'm not playing the lead in some groundbreaking rock opera, I'm not singing Queen's gretest hits, I'm not getting to play a David Mamet character.
Still, I am thankful. I get paid to use my voice, sometimes in animation, sometimes in Audio Books, sometimes in Commercials...and sometimes in eLearning. And while it's not all great, HIGH ART, it is all a creative use of my voice, and it pays.

And I love it.

2 comments:

  1. I am going to have to listening to your trig software.

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  2. Seconded. I would love for you to teach me 'bout math, Chris Patton.

    ReplyDelete