Let’s Talk Voiceover - Episode 30 - Heather Dame
Heather Dame is currently the VP of Atlas LA and heads up Atlas' west coast branch. Heather built Atlas' Animation department from the ground up, as well as had a close hand and partnership with other agents in developing the Los Angeles commercial, video game and promo/narration/trailer departments. She is passionate about developing talent and creating new business equally and enjoys the creative parts of "agent-ing" just as much as the problem solving and negotiating side. She believes in conducting business openly and honestly, and is one of the best in the business. Want to know what a top agent thinks? It's all here in Episode 30 of Let's Talk, with Heather Dame.
Brian Talbot:
... We've always been different.
Randall Ryan:
I find that's a good thing as a general rule.
Brian Talbot:
I don't know. I mean, who wouldn't want to be you?
Randall Ryan:
There are issues with being...
Brian Talbot:
Wow.
Randall Ryan:
I'm not even going to try to answer that.
Brian Talbot:
Talk about testing the friendship. Ouch. Oh, wow.
THEME MUSIC
Brian Talbot:
Heather Dame knows a good voice when she hears one, Heather heads up Atlas Talent’s west coast branch. Moving from New York to Los Angeles over a decade ago, she built the western empire full of some of the best voice actors anywhere. Heather built Atlas's animation department from the ground up, as well as having a close hand and partnership with other agents in developing the Los Angeles commercial video game, promo, narration, and trailer departments. She is as passionate about developing talent as she is about creating new business, from agenting to problem-solving to negotiating, Heather is open and honest, and she brings that approach to her business, that makes her the person every voice actor would love to have on their side. With so much to say and so little time to say it, Let's Talk Voiceover Heather Dame.
Heather Dame:
Hi guys. I don't think that I have ever had my bio narrated before. It's a very weird experience. Happy to be here.
Brian Talbot:
You're not the first. In fact, I've got a new side niche and it's called Bio Narration, and I'm trying to get represented for it. So, uh…yeah.
Heather Dame:
Well, I would be better if you just gave me a pep talk every morning, I think.
Brian Talbot:
I can do that too. I can do that. I've been known to wash someone's dog for 20 bucks. It's a dog eat dog world.
Heather Dame:
Anyways, hi.
Randall Ryan:
So you've been in LA long enough now, because I still consider you a northeasterner.
Heather Dame:
Okay.
Randall Ryan:
‘Cause, you and I met, if I would say to use the word met, literally like maybe a year after you came out to LA, and you were still going back to the Northeast to go camping and hiking and maybe you're still doing that.
Heather Dame:
I am.
Randall Ryan:
How do you consider yourself at this point?
Heather Dame:
I'm a west coast person now. I mean, I go back and forth still, but I've been living out here for 10 years now. It's kind of crazy. I've had to actually shift my language more recently, because I'm like, "You know, we're new out here." And people look at me like they don't even know we were never in Los Angeles. That we only had started this agency out here 10 years ago. They think we've always been here. So to me, it's interesting. I am now fully west coast. I'm married. I have four step kids. My life is very full and it is absolutely west coast, but I go back to visit my family in New Hampshire and Boston all the time. And I go back at least once a year to go visit all my people in New York, since I agented there first and I lived there for seven years before I came out here. But I am firmly planted out here. They like it when I'm out here and helping the office operate. So yeah, I'd say I've fully acclimated to the west coast state of mind.
Randall Ryan:
No, I was just going to say, did you actually open the LA office? Because, I thought that there was like a small presence here and you kind of came out to really not only build it up, but do the VO aspect of it.
Heather Dame:
No. So Atlas has been open since 2000 in New York. The owners of the company, John and Lisa, when they opened Atlas, they did a lot of promos and commercials and radio imaging and all of that jazz out of New York and across the country. And actually one of the owners of the company, John Wasser, had been going back and forth for years before they moved me out here, just coming and staying in hotels, just like a Willy Loman of voiceover if you will, pitching a lot of trailer talent. So he really developed a lot of our trailer talent from the ground up, but we never had an actual presence out here in the other areas of voiceover or an office. And so, I was the first man on the ground out here in a Los Angeles office. John came back and forth and still does to this day, actually.
But they asked me to basically build up the animation game, as well as help develop the commercial department in Los Angeles and help build the whole office from the ground up. It was just me and a part-time assistant in a small office space when we started and we've had four office expansions since, and now we have seven full-time employees out here and most of our company’s bicoastal. So it's grown over the course of time, but we did have that presence in promos and trailers in that world, but we did not have that presence yet in animation and games and commercials in Los Angeles.
Randall Ryan:
Right.
Brian Talbot:
So how did you break the doors down to get into animation and games? I mean, those are some pretty sturdy doors.
Heather Dame:
It was a lot and we took it one day at a time. So I don't know if you guys are aware of Michael Leon Wooley, I like to call him like LA animation Talent Zero, for us. When I was still in New York, he really wanted to get into animation. He booked the Princess And The Frog and he asked me to set him up with meetings. And so, John and I just started cold-calling people asking them to take meetings with him, and that's kind of how it started. And people met him and they loved him and they started hiring him. And so, he was actually on the west coast before we were, interestingly enough.
Heather Dame:
And so, we just started calling people. John really helped me. I was a brand new agent. I had been doing promos in New York and I’ve been doing it for, you know, maybe eight months to a year, and I'd started succeeding and he turned around and he was like, "Build animation." I was like, "Wha…what? You want me to do what?" Like, "Yeah, you should build an animation department." And so, he helped me and Lisa helped me and we just started calling people and setting up meetings and we introduced ourselves one person at a time. And there was a lot of talent who came with us from the beginning. Hynden Walch came with us right away as well. Jim Cummings, Roger Rose…you know, there's a lot of people who started the agency with us in Los Angeles and really helped us build it brick by brick. That's why I think it's funny, I can't help but call us like the little engine that could, even though I get that's no longer how people view us.
Randall Ryan: Right.
Heather Dame:
But I think that perspective helps on a daily basis, to keep doing your job and view it with fresh eyes and feel positive and continue to always be looking for “how do I continue to build” and not be jaded, which I think a lot of agents are. You know, it's a tough job.
Randall Ryan:
Yeah. It is.
Heather Dame:
It truly is like, it truly is. And I think a lot of people, until you walk in those shoes, you don't really understand how difficult of a job it is. You wear a lot of hats and a lot is expected of you, more than you could ever imagine is expected of you. I mean, honestly we just called people one at a time. Andrea Romano was one of the first meetings that I took, and very funnily she said to me something that shaped the way that I helped build Atlas and our roster out here was, she said to me, "I don't need you to have a hundred people on your roster. I need you to have one great person and they can book the job. I'd rather you send me one great person than 20 mediocre people who aren't ready and aren't right for the job."
Randall Ryan:
Oh my God, no kidding.
Heather Dame:
And it really…because, I was like, “I don't have people yet.” She said, "Who else do you represent?" She had met Michael Leon Wooley, was hiring him on Batman: The Brave And The Bold, loved him, and that was the moment she said, "Who else do you have?" And I sat in that meeting, and I wasn't sure what to say and I said, "No one yet."
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
And that was her response to me. And it changed the way that I viewed how we were going to operate and what worked and what didn't. And so I no longer felt like…I felt like it was okay, I'm going to sell the people that we have and develop the people that I find. And we're going to do it slowly and surely, and not too quickly, and make sure that we're doing it in a curated, thoughtful, organic way that it's not just about signing on everyone you can and throwing spaghetti against the wall. It's going to be more methodical and slow and building. And so, I think that is why we've sustained and built the way we have over the course of time. Because, a lot of people, I think they think, just get as many clients as possible and throw spaghetti against the wall and see what happens.
Randall Ryan:
Right.
Heather Dame:
And then that creates a very different way of operating that I don’t think helps everybody succeed in the long term.
Randall Ryan:
No.
Heather Dame: We have the philosophy at Atlas, we have the reputation that it's hard to get signed with us. And I think the reason for that is that when we bring someone on, everybody agrees.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
Both offices, New York and LA, all the agents, even if that agent isn't going to service that talent, that you still want to make sure that, when the right project comes up for them and for that talent, that they're on board, that they want to service and support that talent and be on board with booking them. And so, it makes it more difficult to get signed with us, but it also means we have a very curated list that is very well supported by multiple agents. And that's never really just one agent that the talent can rely on for their business. So they're more diversified across both coasts and across the full agency, if that makes sense.
Randall Ryan:
That makes a lot of sense. And the one thing that I've always really admired about you, and this is coming from a director's point of view: one of the things that has driven me nuts about a lot of agents and a lot of agencies, is you go to them and you say, and you have a very specific character description, "I need this." And the tendency of a lot of agencies is to say, "Oh, well, I need to send you.." I'm going to pick a number out of a hat.. "12 people, because you need to know that I have these people here."
Brian Talbot:
12? You're being really generous for most agents. I got to tell you.
Randall Ryan:
Well, my point being that they may have three or four people that legitimately fit that character description, and yet they'll send a larger number. I don't know whether it's to show the talent that they're working for them, but it's almost like, did you read the character description? And that is the one thing that I've always really admired about you, two things: one, that I can come to you and say, "Heather, this is what I'm looking for." And that's what you send me. You don't send me like, “ehhh, here's someone maybe you should know about.” And that you also have always been very generous with saying, "Keep me in the loop. But if you need to contact somebody to talk about a project or whatever, that's fine. Just keep me in the loop." Which I respect and do. Is that something that is more…is that your philosophy, is that an agency philosophy? Who drove that?
Heather Dame:
Well, I think how you lead is how people gives them the chance to be more creative and find their own way with things, and have the room to grow and find their own talents, if you will. So I think that is specifically a style I have. However, I have to give credit to the owners of the company for giving me such autonomy and space to really grow as an agent and play to my strengths, that they gave me the opportunity to develop that way of operating, if that makes sense, because no one had done animation before at our agency, or games. And so, it is such a different skillset that I had to learn that market and had to learn the talent and learn the skillsets behind it.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
And that was something; I would go to classes, I would go to sessions. I did all sorts of things to figure it out, because I had learned the trade of promos when I first started and that was their trade. So they could teach me how to do that in promos and how to look at that from that perspective. But the piece that is from the agency is that, because the agency started out with such a heavy promotional department and that world, something that most people I don't think recognize about that area of the world, unless you work in it, is that is a highly pitched business. It's all relationship based. And those aren't opportunities that just... It's not like a promo producer has a spot that they're working on for one of their shows. And just the way an animation casting director or video game cast director will reach out to lots of people, because they need lots of good options from around town, from multiple agencies. Promo producers tend to actually just want to reach out to one agent as long as they can fulfill their needs.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hm.
Heather Dame:
And so that, business is very much solely based on relationships and the ability to book those jobs. So it is fully pitched. So you can't expect, you can't become an agent in promos and expect your phone to ring, it won't and the money certainly won't come in either, you have to go get those relationships, you have to go build them. And then when the projects come in, you have to book them and you have to continuously do a great job for that person, so that over the course of time, your hope is that 20 years in you have an exclusive relationship. And there's quite a few exclusive relationships in that world. So that's, a bit of, if you're talking about what comes from the company or that's a bit of what I think you're talking about where that stems from for me, is that viewpoint on agenting.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
I don't view it as I've got a roster, you should call me.
Randall Ryan:
Right.
Heather Dame:
I view it as a very curated experience, that experience I bring to each buyer and each client over the course of time and the job I do for them. Not only do I have to call them first and build that relationship, that's on me, not on them, but once I do that as well, then I also have to do a great job and curate lists and curate. Because, in the long term, the way I'm going to be able to...When we started out, we had a couple big name people, but for the most part, we developed a lot of our roster from the ground up…
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
…and to where they are today. And we have some really successful people we built from the ground up, in partnership with them. And how you do that, like how do I send you someone completely unknown, and you trust me that they're going to be able to hold their own in a session. Well, I show you that I can be trusted
Randall Ryan:
Right.
Heather Dame:
And that I have that ear. And so that's, a bit of my strategy, if you will, as an agent, now I'm giving you my agent secrets.
Randall Ryan:
Again, from my perspective, I massively appreciate that, because you're right. If I send you something and you send me somebody in there like, "Hey, this is somebody I think you should listen to." I know you're not blowing smoke up my skirt. Like, "No, actually I've looked at what you're looking for, I know something about this person, or I maybe know a lot about this person. I think they could do this." And whether they get booked or not, I can't even think of any time that you've sent me something like that and it's like, "Yeah, no, not that person." They've always been in that wheelhouse. And that's kind of the point, isn't it?
Heather Dame:
Yeah. I mean, it is the point. It should be the point.
Randall Ryan:
Yeah. It should be the point.
Heather Dame:
It should be the point. I think that's also where I have fun. I enjoy that process of it. The casting and the developing and learning the nuances and building those relationships with people and that's the part that I really love. Do I have to also be good at the negotiating part and the navigating part and all of that? I know how to spin with the best of them, because I'm an agent, it's part of my job. I know how to do all of those sort of things, but I really like live in the casting space. That space of it is what makes this job come to life for me.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
And so, I enjoy it as well, so that's a piece of it that I feel like is something I can uniquely bring. And a lot of times when I'm selling the agency I'm also selling my ear and my development style, and not just "Here's some people pick one." And I think that is a distinction that some people are really great at, and some people are not. And it is a distinction between different types of agenting, as well. Like I think it's more important in the game and animation world than it is in the commercial world, for instance, where it's a little bit more like a roulette game trying to win one of those jobs. And it’s not always the way that they audition, is it's not always something they... Like what you read on your commercial audition, is essentially usually what they're going to expect in the booth. And when you read for an animation or game audition, they're going to expect five other things from you in the booth when you get there.
And so that's, the complicated way in which animation and games, since it casts remotely now, that's the difference it makes, is that the casting director has to figure out either they know you and they've worked with you in the booth before and that's what makes it easier to pass you forward, right?
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
I mean, in some senses, you get a new person, you listen to their demo or listen to their audition rather and you love it, but you don't know their name. My guess, is the first thing you do is ask, "Oh, which agency is that person with? Have they done anything? Who are they? Can I trust them in the booth?" Because, what you don't want to do as a casting director is put them through, have them hired and then have them walk in the door and not be able to perform what's expected of them, because what's on the MP3 is only the beginning of what's expected of them in the booth.
Randall Ryan:
Again, I can only speak from my own perspective. If somebody nails an audition, you can kind of tell when somebody's cobbled something together most of the time, at least with auditions that I send out, and there's that fine line that you have to do of, you want to give enough copy to be able to let the person stretch and do what it is that they do without being “you're going to be in the booth for an hour just doing an audition,” which I think is unconscionable from my perspective. But I almost always try to give enough copy or enough leeway or, "Please do this two or three different ways, if you think you can bring two or three different things to the table." If somebody can do that, they're probably going to be just fine. The people who really are too green to be able to walk into a booth and do it, somewhere in that audition, I'm not going to say a hundred percent, because I've had those things happen, but high nineties, if you do the audition well, and if they turn something around, you can kind of tell, no, this person knows what they're doing. Whether they’ve got 50 credits under their belt or zero kind of doesn't matter at that point. They can do the gig.
Heather Dame:
Yes. If you're expecting them to only do that one voice and that one character.
Randall Ryan:
Fair point.
Heather Dame:
And for me at least, in animation I think it's probably a bigger deal than it is in games. And it comes up more in animation than it does in games, but in animation, they usually want you to cover three characters, at least two. And there's so much more nuance I think in long term, if you're playing a character over a full series and they're hiring you for five seasons of a character and you're meant to breathe life into it. So maybe the context difference is animation versus games, because I've definitely had people who audition really well who are not as good in the moment in the booth, and I've had people who don't audition as well who are amazing when they get in the room.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
So it's interesting, because from my perspective I see both of it. I think you kind of get the best of everybody, you know? Like you're not being sent the people who aren't ready for you yet…
Randall Ryan:
Right.
Heather Dame:
… I think in a lot of circumstances. But I have people that I have to work with that I really, like they have to. I would rather them audition less but come into our booth every week, because from home they're just not able to create what they can when they're in person with people. And it's interesting, so I know that they're more talented than their auditions. So that happens too on my end, is that there are people who are more talented than their auditions. And I have to try to eke that out of them, teach them the skill of auditioning and specifically from home, so that they can actually put forth what they can do on those MP3 files.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
It's an interesting world, because, I mean I'm glad that it's opened up, because that opened up an opportunity for us to develop people. And I don't think we would've been able to, if it were a closed group of people working in animation and games. But it is an interesting shift in the industry in general of how it has really turned to be more from home in general, and how much of the audition process and booking process happens all remotely without anyone meeting each other.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Brian Talbot:
So that's, a really interesting part of what we all go through, especially as an actor, not only is it the self-direction and figuring out how to self-direct from a home audition, but then most of the work, I mean, the story is always that all the animation and game work has to be done in LA. How accurate, how inaccurate, what kind of recommendations do you have for voice actors on that?
Heather Dame:
So, Randy actually does a lot of his stuff from home studios. He's fine with that. And there are a couple people who do do that. And so, there's no hard and fast rule. Which is why I'll never say never, but from my experience, talking to many casting directors, as well as bookings and submitting people from out of town and I mean, we represent people across the entire country, as well as we have a full department in New York that are local New York people, as well as our local LA; it's kind of like a Venn diagram of people that do different things. The thing that I tend to tell people as the reality, is that you can book a couple of jobs in animation and games not living in Los Angeles, but if you want to build a full long-sustaining career, you have to be there. It's where the opportunities are. It's where the relationships are. Those moments are built in the booth with people.
Brian Talbot:
Right.
Heather Dame:
The relationships and the connections happen in person. And the majority of the jobs prefer people to be in person. And even in the context where someone's auditioning from out of town but would fly in, where they would fly in for the booking, that I've even seen over the course of time. Because, you have to remember, we started with no one in Los Angeles. We started with the New York office, and I had a bunch of Broadway people there. So what do you think I did? I used them.
Brian Talbot:
Of course!
Heather Dame:
That's the first thing I'm going to do is like, I'm going to make animation people out of these Broadway people. That's where Michael-Leon Wooley started. They're amazing actors. We can teach them the skill set. Andrea Romano even came and taught a class for me in New York, which she hadn't done in years, when she heard I was looking to train them up. She's like, "I'll come, if you set it up and meet those people and help them." So that's how I started off doing it. So I've done that for many year.s and I've done it with some limited success here and there. But what I've discovered is that most jobs in animation, they're just unpredictable. It's very organic how things happen. It may be that at four o'clock Nickelodeon is writing to me saying, "We have this audition for tomorrow. What are your ideas?” Or “We want to see this person, anyone else?" And I just name the other person, and they get a time tomorrow and they gave us two times. And so now, if you're in New York, what if you were the perfect person for that? They're not going to see you, and you dismiss that opportunity. Ultimately, people also like you would basically have to fly blindly no matter what. Meaning like, they may say on Monday “we need them on Wednesday,” and now you're booking a thousand-dollar plane ticket. Your cost of your travel is more than the session itself. And there are just a lot of jobs that look that way. And so, the reality is that if you really want to be in it, if you really want to build a career in it, you have to be where it is, and it's here. If, you want to book some jobs…
Brian Talbot:
Yep.
Heather Dame:
…absolutely you can do that from afar. You have to find an agent who's willing to do that with you and willing to put you out in the places that it will work, but I haven't seen, and I've seen a lot of this. Like I have to say, I have so much context for this conversation and I'm not going to talk about details of different talent, but I have so much context for this conversation. I've tried it every which way. And at the end of the day, I have just not seen someone build as full of a career as they could. I even have people who work quite a bit in animation out of Nickelodeon in New York, and still can't succeed. And there's a girl I know that if she came out to LA would be all over the place, everybody would be using her in town. She's so amazing.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
And remotely, she just doesn't build that career. But she has other careers, and so she's living her best life. She's perfectly happy.
Randall Ryan: Right, right.
Brian Talbot:
Right.
Heather Dame:
We've had this discussion and I'm not disappointed either. She's living the life that she wants to live and doing the work that she wants to do, and I'm able to help her get animation while living in New York as well. And that's awesome. And we love her, and she's one of my favorite talents, and she's just such a kind, awesome human being. And she's working a ton as well in New York, but it's still not the same as it would be if she lived in LA.
Randall Ryan:
Right.
Heather Dame:
And that's just a reality. And I don't think that's going to change, because animation, the magic happens in the room a lot. It's a lot of improvisation and chemistry and moments that people are creating together. I think, games often are a little bit more isolated in how they cast and how they book. I think that's the reason a lot of those have been more willing to do remote sessions and do things from New York or LA or book a studio or the like, but for animation, I don't think that's going to die anytime soon. I think that there's something that makes animation just shine when it's done that way.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
And there's a je ne sais quoi about breathing life into it, in person. The places where they're actually, interestingly enough, splitting people up is where they have a celebrity on the show and they're shooting something in…Toronto.
Brian Talbot:
Got it. Yep.
Heather Dame:
And so, when you're working with that kind of context, sometimes they still will bring in the rest of the cast and have someone come in and just read those lines or have people scratch, people who are other members of the cast scratch that person's lines.
Randall Ryan:
Right.
Heather Dame:
Because they still want the magic of that. But they're not going to replace their lead role because they booked a series regular, and now they're shooting in Toronto. And so they have to pick that person up later in the ADR phase. But there are some animated series that will do it, one person at a time. And usually it's for those sort of reasons. But I'd say a lot of animated series, they have a regular day and tim, they record with their cast, and they try to stick to that as much as they can. There's obviously lots of circumstances around which they will change that around. But typically, let's say you book a lead role in an animated series, typically you know that you're recording every Tuesday from two to six, you're on hold for it indefinitely.
Brian Talbot:
Sure.
Heather Dame:
And then they, depending on how prominent your character is, they book or release you for that hold. So that's generally how they operate, though they break that rule a lot, because of the amount of celebrities and name talent. And technology is such now that where they feel more comfortable with the sound quality of studios that aren't in Los Angeles, and they can control that better. They are more willing to do it, but it tends to be the exception to the rule, not the rule itself.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
And in games, it depends on the game, but games that are really looking for more interaction and acting and are a little bit more cinematic are starting to do the same thing. Like Blizzard will do that. Andrea likes to bring people in together…
Randall Ryan:
Right.
Heather Dame:
…and have them interact, and have their characters interact. And I saw you guys interviewed her. So that's, probably where this came up in your podcast, was with her. She does that quite a bit. And right when she thinks it's really going to make a difference to the product. And I think it's really smart, and I've heard my actress say, it's amazing, they love it. Like it is some of the best work they feel like they've done.
Brian Talbot:
It's so much more helpful as an actor to be able to interact, as opposed to just trying to create it all in your head and hope that you're getting to where you need to be. Absolutely.
Heather Dame:
Yeah.
Randall Ryan:
And they also do things like table reads ahead of time, which, that's one of the lovely things about working for a company of that size with those kind of pockets, is that they have the opportunity to do that. And I think that kind of bespeaks a little bit to some of the other things you're saying about how and why people outside of LA sometimes get the work is when budgets are not where you can actually say, "Hey, let's go to a studio for four hours and everybody's going to show up and let's do this, and we're going to do this every Tuesday." As you said. That's the other side of things, but gaming budgets are continuing to come up. I know that for the stuff that I do, and some of this is because I've pushed for it for a long period of time, but I'm now seeing a lot of budgets that are coming up above scale. And even non-union things that are coming up above scale. And so, when you start getting things to that point, now you start to have that ability to do more ensemble stuff or to take that kind of time. And I wonder if that's kind of part of it, is that it is just that animation, this has just been the world that they've lived in, and games started from literally people in cubicles saying, "Can you do a voiceover?" And…I mean they started from a very different place.
Brian Talbot:
Yeah.
Heather Dame:
Yeah. So they're valuing what the actors bring to the table and to their scripts more than ever, I would say.
Randall Ryan:
Yes.
Heather Dame:
In gaming as well, because of the storylines they're creating. But at the same time, what they were creating when they were doing it from their desk was very different. They were just like, "Smash."
Randall Ryan:
laugh
Heather Dame:
Like it's a very different thing now, when you're really having the full actor. It really is, it was a different beast. Voiceover looked different.
Randall Ryan:
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Heather Dame:
If the game looks really rudimentary, like it used to, no one's going to balk when it doesn't sound like a real actor, because the game is rudimentary. The whole thing has that kind of context to it. But now everything looks so real to life, and it looks like a film, and the storylines are so intricate and games run the gamut. Not everything is a war game. There's so many differing types of storylines and investment that the people playing the game have to have in order to keep playing your game and keep giving you their money, that you really do have to have real actors in there, who are really bringing something to the game that gets the people playing it invested, that they are in it with those people. It's also why you have such huge fandom in that world.
Randall Ryan:
Oh yeah.
Brian Talbot:
Yeah. And I think you just hit a really important point. It is about bringing acting back into voice acting, right?
Heather Dame:
It never left!
Brian Talbot:
Well, fair enough. But I mean, especially when games started out, it really was, it was go get Suzy or Jimmy down the hall. We'll throw them in the booth and get a couple of sounds. But it really is now, I get asked from people, "I really want to do games and animation." I say, "Well, you need to go out to LA, and what acting classes do you take regularly?"
Randall Ryan: Right.
Brian Talbot:
And they're like, "Well, no, but I've done some games. I've done some parts in games." And so, I'm like, "Unh-uh, that's not the way it works.” It can't. It really is about being an actor first.
Heather Dame:
Yes. I like to tell people, because a lot of people do voices, a lot of the fans now... So what's an interesting trend that's occurring right now, is with technology, everybody thinks they can be a voiceover actor.
Brian Talbot:
Yep.
Randall Ryan:
Yep.
Heather Dame:
Because all you have to do is build your booth, build it up and cool, I can go online and do something for 50 bucks and that makes me a voice actor. And so that takes away the emphasis on the acting, when they look at it from that way. And the reality is sure, you can go do someone's corporate video for 50 bucks online, and you can make that kind of money here and there and a little bit, but it doesn't make you a voice of actor in reality.
Randall Ryan:
No. Not at all.
Heather Dame:
And you can also have a great voice, do many impressions, all sorts of things like that. And that again, doesn't make you successful as a voiceover actor. Some of the most successful people we have, have really nondescript voices.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
So when someone comes and says to us like, "I've got this great voice,” or “I can do all these impressions." And they start to do impressions, the reality is that's not what it's about.
Brian Talbot:
No.
Heather Dame:
Whether it's a commercial, promos…it doesn't matter what realm you're talking about. And in fact, I think it's interestingly enough, like promos and trailers, they require a really great deal of acting.
Randall Ryan:
Mmm hmm.
Heather Dame:
Because, it's really subtle and you have to connect to that copy. And it's pretty hard to connect to that copy. You listen to Scott Rummell read a trailer and he's connected to it. And if you were to look at that piece of trailer copy you could never produce what he produces and the emotion that he produces. You just couldn't, it's like brilliant. And so, it's not even just in animation and games, it's across the industry, in every single aspect of it. There has to be an acting background and a connection to that script that you are reading, whether it's a commercial that you're selling for McDonald's or whether you're playing a lead role in an animated series. And it's one of those things where like in animation, it's very, these fans say, "Great, I can do all these impressions." And the thing I say to them is, "Cool, those jobs are already taken."
Randall Ryan:
laughs
Brian Talbot:
Right? Yeah. So what would you do with the role?
Heather Dame:
Right, exactly. Like those jobs are already taken. Bart Simpson, it's already taken; someone already has that job. So they're not really casting for that. What we're really casting for is people who can look at a character and create, and bring that character to life off the script, have it live and breathe, create the scene around it, and interact moment to moment with that scene around it.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
And someone who can do that? And it's like a one man/one woman show in your head, you know? And you create the entire thing and interact with it around you, and you breathe life into it that no one else can quite do. And the voice characteristic is just like a little brushstroke in your whole painting of your character. It's not the painting.
Brian Talbot:
Oh, yeah.
Heather Dame:
And so, it's that whole idea of “voice first” happens in trailers too. Get these guys with these really deep voices say, "I want to do trailers." And the reality is, you need to learn to be an actor first.
Brian Talbot:
Yep.
Randall Ryan:
Well, I think that's a holdover from radio though, because that's when the voice was the thing, and now it's acting first. Voices can be, as you said, they're all over the map. I want someone with a high squeaky voice. I want someone with a reedy kind of... And actually you don't even necessarily think about that. I almost never give voice characteristic descriptions. Almost never. It's all: what is the character, what does the character bring to the table there? The certain type of emotion, the mental aspect that they're coming from.
Heather Dame:
It's scene study, especially for the people who have gone to grad school for theater. Sometimes it takes them a minute to figure out how to harness their grad school abilities into voiceover. And I just look at them and I'm like, "It's scene study. It's the same thing. It's not different."
Brian Talbot:
Yep. That's exactly it.
Heather Dame:
It's not different at all. And they're like, "Oh, I get it now." You just spent a bunch of money learning this in grad school. And it's often the case with really well-trained actors too, that they need to learn the technical skill sets of how to take what they know as an actor and translate it into our medium as well. So I find I really enjoy finding really great actors and then helping them learn how to translate their skill in, or comedians and helping them learn to translate their skill in. That's typically how I find and develop talent, actually.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
Like that's kind of the modus operandi of how I've done it, is find a really great actor and then they can learn the skillset.
Randall Ryan:
How do you typically find talent? I mean, I know there's the whole ‘people send you reels’ and I don't want to get into that kind of stuff.
Heather Dame:
There's a thousand ways. There's no right way. I mean, we have a guy right now who we found, who's just a cold email he sent. We took a listen to his demo and we're like, "Well, let's meet with him."
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
And he is doing really well. So there's no right way. There's definitely winning the lottery can exist, you catch someone, an agent, in the exact right moment in the exact right day where they're like, "I have a minute to click on this demo." They click on it. And if it presents as an opportunity to their roster in that moment of something that we don't book, because that's what you're looking for, right? So when you submit to an agent, and I try to say this to people, like an agent doesn't respond to you or I don't respond to you, don't view it as a negative feedback on your talent. What it means is that you, right now and what you bring to the table, doesn't present as an opportunity to me and our roster right now. So it may be that your category and what you bring to the table is already something I have a couple of people in that category. But if you're coming at me with something unique and something different that we don't book, and I've been getting that spec all the time and we're just not booking it, that's going to be really interesting to me. Even if you're a little bit more raw and you need more training, but you're a great actor and you fit this spec that I don't book, I'm like, "Okay, cool. I will spend more time with you and help you develop these skill sets and send you to the right coach and do all these things to help you."
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
Because a year from now you'll be booking those jobs for me.
Randall Ryan:
Right.
Brian Talbot:
Yep
Heather Dame:
And it's a category, it's found money for both of us, because if we're not currently booking it, we don't currently have it on the roster, that presents as an opportunity to me. So it's the same thing as when I'm pitching business. At the end of the day, when you go and try to sell something to someone, you do it as genuinely as you can, in whatever way makes the most sense to you and what you're able to bring to the table, and it will either present as an opportunity or not.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
And that's really the key, right? You're looking to present as an opportunity to someone, and you can't control what's on the other end.
Randall Ryan:
No.
Heather Dame:
So for me, it can be a cold email. It is much easier, honestly, to get me to listen to the demo, if you spell our names right.
Randall Ryan:
As someone who gets called Ryan all the time, I concur! Yeah. That's actually just a really good point, because I talk to people about networking all the time, and I've never really put it that way and I've not heard it that way, but that makes an enormous amount of sense. The fallacy of selling, of networking, is that you want to present your best foot. You do, but you don't want present an incorrect picture, because you're going to get found out. So just go ahead and say, "Look, this is what I've done." I think that's just a great point. "This is what I've done. I would like to be doing more than this. I've done these small projects and I believe that I have the chops to do larger ones. It's just a matter of different scripts." That says a lot to somebody.
Heather Dame:
Well, it says to me, you know where you're at and you're going to work hard to get there, and that you're tenacious.
Randall Ryan:
Right.
Heather Dame:
There's a way of operating and personal responsibility you're taking in that moment, that shows me that you line up with the way that we operate. One of the things we have a reputation for is being extremely honest. And I wish I could say that was purposeful. It's like my default in life. It's my best and worst asset, is how honest I am. It's served me well so far in agenting. so we'll hope that will continue. I believe strongly in honesty, truth and reality, is if you can handle all of that and face it and look at it, then it gives you the power to choose what to do next and make a difference.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
But if an actor comes to us and asks us how they're doing, and the reality is that their reads aren't up to par and they're just not quite hitting, and they do need to do some work on their reads, we're going to tell them that. And if they don't want to hear it, what I've seen over and over again is they don't do the work and they don't succeed.
Randall Ryan: Right.
Heather Dame:
But when you have an actor who takes a look at that and says…no one wants to hear it, right? First and foremost, no one wants to hear that. Like, that's just the reality.
Brian Talbot:
Sure.
Heather Dame:
That's not a circumstance an actor wants to hear/
Brian Talbot:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Heather Dame:
Bbut if they can take it and internalize it and look at it and say, "Okay, well now that I know that these are the things that are preventing me from booking, what am I going to do about it?” And that gives them some power and control, which actors rarely have. It gives them something; it give them a way to move forward and deal in that reality. I also believe strongly that actors have a lot of responsibility to do a lot of the networking. And I say this a lot. I feel like an agent and talent, the relationship should be a partnership. It shouldn't just be that I'm doing the pitching and then I deem whether or not you get those auditions, and I send them in and you either book it or you don't. And I don't tell you the information. Randy, that would be back to your point earlier. That would be the reason why I'm comfortable with you building relationships with our talent, as long as you keep me in the loop, so I can make sure they get paid properly and all that jazz.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm. Right.
Heather Dame:
For me, I want to make sure the business part is there, but I don't begrudge you wanting to build a relationship with the talent you book with us. And I tell them up front, the new talent you book with us, I tell them, "Randy likes to have a conversation directly with you. If he forgets to CC me, loop me back in."
Randall Ryan:
Yes. And I tell them that too. Like if I don't send it to Heather or Maria or whoever, you don't even have to ask me, just put them on there.
Heather Dame:
Yep.
Randall Ryan:
It might have been an oversight, but it doesn't matter. Just always bring them in. I'm not trying to go behind anybody's back, so please bring them in so we're all on the same page and then everybody's cool.
Heather Dame:
But that's a part of me saying I'm comfortable with the talent building relationship. In fact, I feel it's their responsibility.
Randall Ryan:
Right.
Heather Dame:
So you happen to be the person who casts them and directs them, but in a lot of the places in voiceover, oftentimes the person casting the talent and talking to us is not the person the talent's working with in the booth.
Randall Ryan:
Correct.
Heather Dame:
Right. And that's, I'd say more often than not, which means that I have no relationship with the person who's directing them in the booth.
Randall Ryan:
Right.
Heather Dame:
If it's the director of the show, and in fact I've met those people at networking events and like, they think I'm so uninteresting. They like the actors.
Randall Ryan:
laughs
Brian Talbot:
aughs
Heather Dame:
You're laughing, but literally, I thought that was a way to go for myself, because I was like, "Yeah, I'll build relationships with these people." That was something I tried at one point, and it turned out…because I'll go down any avenue and see how it goes as an agent. And I was like, people aren't doing this, I should do that. And I did. And they were just like, "Cool. So you like negotiate contracts?"
Randall Ryan:
laughs
Heather Dame:
And then they would turn around to me, and almost inevitably they would have a friend who wanted to do voiceover, because they wouldn't know what to do with me and they would send me their demo.
Brian Talbot:
laughs
Heather Dame:
And that was it. Those people, but you put them in front of an actor and they're like, "Well I write for actors. I love actors. I'm writing this thing now, what are you doing? We're both creatives. And you make my scripts come to life. And isn't that so interesting." And that's where they thrive, and that's the relationship the actor can build. And I can't build that for them.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
And those are their relationships, if they can hang on to them and build them. So those people will go from show to a different show, to a game company to, you know, they'll have a career. Annd those actors may get to follow them if they build a relationship with them. I do view it as a full partnership. It's not only my job to build that relationship and get those auditions. But it's also your job to build a relationship on your end. I basically view my job as getting the opportunities and then decreasing the competition.
Randall Ryan:
Mm hmm.
Heather Dame:
If you were just put it as simply as possible.
Randall Ryan:
laughs
Heather Dame:
Those two things are a key aspect of booking jobs in voiceover for your actors as an agent. But then, the actor can really make a difference, because if the person on the other end there, the director, knows them and worked with them on another project, they're going to want to hear their read. And then if you get in front of people, you can book the job.
Brian Talbot:
That's incredibly sound advice from someone who really knows what she's talking about. I kind of wish there were more people out there like you, Heather. We really appreciate it. And we appreciate the time you've given us today. And we also appreciate that you're incredibly busy. So, Randall?
Randall Ryan:
Brian Talbot, BT.
Brian Talbot:
Heather.
Heather Dame:
Bye guys. Thank you so much.
Randall Ryan:
Thank you Heather. As always!
Brian Talbot:
Thanks so much. Bye.
Heather Dame:
Bye.
Brian Talbot:
Heather Dame, Atlas Talent. Enough said. Let's Talk Voiceover is hosted by Randy Ryan, owner of Hamster Ball Studios, delivering the world's best talent, virtually anywhere. And me, Brian Talbot, actor and all around creative guy. If you have comments, questions, ideas for other show topics you'd be interested in hearing, or you just want to let us know what you think, you can reach us by sending an email to [email protected], or go to the website at www.letstalkvoiceover.com. That's www.letstalkvoiceover.com. Hit us up on the social sites, the streaming sites. Thanks for listening to Let's Talk Voiceover. We'll talk again, real soon.
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