Claim OwnershipThe VOHeroes Podcast
Subscribed: 18Played: 279
Subscribe
© 2025 The VOHeroes Podcast
Description
Voice over is a heroes' journey. Make it your journey. Actor, voice talent and storytelling coach David H. Lawrence XVII takes you on a journey each episode into the art, commerce, science and mindset of voice over as a performing art, and as a profession and business. Presented by VOHeroes.com.
223 Episodes
Reverse
Hey there, hero! As if we don’t have enough things in the world today, helping us move toward the anxious end of the scale, and away from the calm end, right? Here’s a simple way to combat that. I was reminded of this approach by the teachers of The Anxiety Toolkit, a free course I’m currently taking that is offered by The Entertainment Community Fund. Hope this helps. If you’ve tried this, was it effective? Other ways you know of to ease the unease? Let me know in the comments below. REQUEST...
Hey there, hero! Every new advance (decline?) in the development of new AI tools can lead to more and more anxiety for performers. It can also lead to more options for our performance careers. This episode is designed to take a look at both the threat and the promise of AI and synthetic voices and faces in 2025. (If you’re watching this episode just a few months after it was published, this is all likely old news…but how to handle it as an actor, VO talent or writer is not.) Thoughts on AI? Q...
Hey there, hero! Characters. That word can strike fear in the hearts of narrators that feel that fiction is a whole ‘nother level of effort when it comes to audiobooks. Same thing when the content involves accents or dialects. It’s not necessarily true that non-fiction is easier (you might take on some scientific terms or geographic locations to see why). But characters don’t have to be intimidating, and accents and dialects don’t have to be debilitating. I have a go-to simple approach, one t...
Hey there, hero! If you’re a professional, acting can take all kinds of forms. TV. Film. Stage. Commercials. Digital. VO. Audiobooks. And so much more. But the rarity of on-camera work is even more pronounced now than it has been in the past. The numbers are very different in some categories than in others. Like, say, audiobooks. Lots more opportunity than in any mainstream on-camera work. But the numbers are, even in audiobooks, nuanced by your engagement and your acting ability and your mad...
Hey there, hero! So there I am, minding my own business, checking my email after submitting an on-camera audition (I didn’t even change out of my scrubs for this episode), and I see the latest edition of the author of Atomic Habits ( paperback | audiobook ), James Clear’s weekly 3-2-1 newsletter ( subscribe here ). #3 in the third of his gems stopped me in my tracks. He was singing my song. You know, my song of success (or at least the definition of success I’ve been singing for decades). I c...
Hey there, hero! So you have an audiobook to narrate. Compared to a lot of other acting jobs, it’s a much bigger job - sometimes exponentially larger. And it’s such a big event that it causes us to sometimes assign an outsized scope of the undertaking, and misplace what’s important for success. Yes, you have a lot of tech and process details to deal with. But you also have to do the acting part. Creating characters in audiobooks (and that includes the neutral narrator) means giving them the s...
Hey there, hero! How many times in our lives have we been presented with the reminder that we are human? That we are messy? That we’re struggling? That we are anything but perfect? And how most of our pursuits simply can’t ever be totally perfect, no matter how much improvement we achieve, and are not life and death situations anyway, so... Do you keep this in mind? Do you give yourself grace that you’re a work in progress and that you’re of a mind to be better, but can’t control perfection? ...
Hey there, hero! There is a difference between the capability of doing something…and the actual execution/achievement of that something. It's a subtle distinction. Sometimes we doubt that we are capable of something. Actually achieving whatever that something is may require some additional skills. But…the doubt that creeps into our minds about whether or not we’re capable of doing it - if we have the capacity and ability to pursue it. You do. Are there any guarantees that you will get it? No....
Hey there, hero! WARNING: This episode contains brief NSFW language. I don’t know what software you use to edit your video stuff, but if it happens to be Descript… …there was a post in a group I’m a member of that was…cringey: “I'm trying to make live presentations more engaging, and I’m curious if there is a feature that makes it look like the presenter is always staring directly into the camera? I've heard there is some AI that can do this?” There is. It’s part of the Descript AI-enhanced v...
Hey there, hero! Life is filled with opportunities, but some of them are scary. And it’s natural to try and limit the risk, especially if you need to put a lot at risk to attempt something new. You might be tempted to take every opportunity to fail-safe the situation. To not go all in for fear of massive defeat. Welp, you’ll never know… …until you actually do the deed. But wait…you have to actually do it before you can make it safer to do it? That makes no sense. OK…let me try to clarify in t...
Hey there, hero! Some people worry and fret about what has happened in their past, especially when that past is less than bountiful. They look at failures and past mistakes as things that are regretful, hinder their progress and just can’t be forgotten. And it can really weigh on their mental health to continually live in what was before now. Maybe you're one of them? Occasionally? But what about what you’re doing now to learn more, do better and experience change? How about the future, and w...
Hey there, hero! I often encourage you to embrace failure: we learn from it, we get better because of it and we identify those things that help us do less of what doesn't work. And that means you can achieve success through failure. Pithy, David. But what does the actual science say? Just like many research projects end up determining...it depends. It depends where you are in your journey of learning and mastery. And it turns out that you learn a lot more from failure early in your journ...
Hey there, hero! Most of the decisions that are made in the professional world revolve around money, and they are never on schedule. (Thanks to EM Forster for this episode's thought starter.) Much of what happens is random, unpredictable and not based in the arts, but rather in the commerce. And you need to be OK with that. I hope that money isn't looked at as a bad thing, either from the funding of projects so you can get work, or from you getting paid to do those things. Are you OK wi...
Hey there, hero! This episode revolves around that Deadline article, tough love, math, logic and being careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. And you also might get some unexpected consequences you might be facing. And we need to understand that potential work is at the pleasure of the partners we seek: the people with whom we want to work. And their math is what needs to be understood. They have a task that's very different from yours: they are looking for the right pe...
Hey there, hero! It's a lovely day when you're recognized as a professional at what you do. You likely get paid. You get respect from your peers. You feel accomplished. But moving from amateur to pro can feel like you're leaving something behind. It just might be...love. I think I can help you bridge the gap between what you gain and what you lose when you make the leap to pro. If you've already "gone pro," what do you miss? If you are still an amateur, what do you value about the journ...
Hey there, hero! Ever since we've been humans, from the very beginning of time, we've tried to make sense of the world around us. And among the hardest things to make sense of is the creative arts...and the choice to become a creative artist. The randomness alone is mind-boggling. If you try to make sense of it, you'll fail. Especially if you try logic. That works for other lines of work, but not ours. And I'd like to remind you, in this episode, that you need to give yourself grace. A n...
Hey there, hero! A bit of a rant this episode...about the choices we make in life, and then being upset about those choices. And creative types have enough harsh judgement being leveled at them by critics without adding to what some perceive to be a sense of entitlement. We are privileged to work in this business. No doubt. We're not privileged to yell about how hard this business is. We knew that going in. We signed up for a future that required we be adaptive to the things that might h...
Hey there, hero! AI in general, and synthetic voice and image generators in particular have led to a lot of FUD in our industry. FUD? It's an acronym that means Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. We fear being replaced by AI-generated models that would lead not just to the loss of jobs, but the possible deletion of the human contribution to creative work. And yes, that's a possibility. So when you grabbed ChatGPT and had it re-write your bio for you, or you had Perplexity answer a question you...
Hey there, hero! Is it possible that in addition to all of the other things you're concerned with when it comes to your performance career, that actually having a bit of success might be more daunting? More daunting than the possibility of...failure? Because then, the rules have to change. You have to start living by the rules of success, not failure. And you have new responsibilities. How can this possibly make sense? Do you ever take a moment to consider if you're fearful of actually s...
Hey there, hero! Putting your creations out there for the world to see can feel like an act of bravery, and some people get ready for a bit of criticism. And they might be looking for a way to deal with that criticism. I say, be like Joe. Joseph Brodsky the writer/poet, that is. After a recent video I released was posted about creating my Narrate Your Own Book course, I got an odd response from a listener about how everything I teach...can be found, for free, on YouTube. How I reacted (...
Comments
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States