In that last post, I referenced the fun I had in Waco. The next night, I went to a networking event with a film contest hosted by the director who worked with me twenty years ago to make my own short film. That night, after he and I had caught up a little bit, I was asking his boyfriend about his work in adapting foreign films for English-speaking audiences, and he mentioned the need for voices. I said that I do voices, and he asked me to demonstrate. So I did Mickey Mouse, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and some original voices as well. He immediately asked me to send him a one-minute demo of that plus some lower pitch voices, and said that he likely had work for me if I wanted. I naturally gave the affirmative, recorded the demo the next day, and sent it to him. Then a week later, I asked for feedback (especially critical feedback), but he assured me that the demo was solid and he would contact me when he needed to cast something. Given that it took so relatively little to impress him, I then sent that voice demo to a local talent agency. You see, I have delayed trying to really get into acting in part because they all want a reel of your work, and most of my work was either done a decade ago, online through twitch or the podcast, or is still in post-production, in the case of that lecture series I did. Since I am also approaching the point of roughly six months since I had heard from my old manager in Burbank, I also gave him an update that included the voice talent demo.
If I have some talent in voice work, as it appears, then that would be a dream gig. Just record wherever I go in the world. As tolerable as it is to donate plasma twice a week for my money, the pay for that has gone down, and though the scars from it are small, they are still scars both on the skin and within the blood vessels.
I have been staying true to my word to myself by reading books while donating plasma. It has been insightful, but my latest and current read of Poking a Dead Frog was at the top of many humorous book recommendation lists, in part because the contents range from general knowledge to very specific advice. So far, the comforting advice regarding how to become a better writer has consistently been to write more (or possibly to go live life in order to have experience from which to draw). And in the last passage I read, an interview with Mike Shur (showrunner of Parks & Rec), he went further to say that you can never really coast, that your best work from two years ago may seem terrible to you now. This makes sense to me. Another writer recommended finding a writing partner for writing scripts, in part because you need someone to be critical of your stuff, but also just because you can generally learn from each other. I am barely into the book, but they have also discussed the two-dimensional nature of characters in sketches vs the three-dimensional versions of characters in shows, and how certain funny jokes simply do not work for a character with depth and longevity.
Anyway I need to write more. I am falling into the same issue that I think (or at least hope) plagues many writers, that I enjoy coming up with new pitches far more than I prefer to work on existing ones. This is why my podcast is so nice, because it is a weekly exercise in coming up with and throwing away material. But a lot of writing involves adding and refining content in multiple drafts. And without a specific goal in mind, the accountability is lacking, which can lead me to become lazy in my approach. The nice thing about blogging like this is that it is finally becoming the easier writing compared to my "homework" of writing standup, humorous essays, a pilot pitch, or a spec script.
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