We Matter

So, it was the morning of my third day of studio recording for my brother Etan Thomas' book "We Matter; Athletes and Activism".  An audiobook is a large endeavor, and I'm just hitting some stretches and face warmups and chugging some water and mint tea, and I decided to write something for the blog.

First of all, big thanks to Akashic publishing, and John Marshall Media for allowing me this opportunity to bring such a prolific project to the airwaves.

Where to begin. Well, they say it takes about 2 hours for every 1 finished recorded hour of audiobook material. So I knew this 320 page book would be a large endeavor. What I didn't anticipate was how much of a full body work-out it would be. You have to use your whole body for voiceover, and you should be tired at the end of the day, like you just came from the gym or a really intense yoga class.
It's basically a one man show, and if we took video of me recording in the booth it would certainly be an entertaining segment. My arms are going everywhere, gesticulating each section of dialogue, and moving with the voices on the page.

This book is especially engaging. Most of the text is comprised of interviews that Etan had with all sorts of famous people from the sports and news media world. From Russell Westbrook, to Mark Cuban, Jamele Hill to Chris Hayes, Michael Bennet, Carmelo Anthony, even sports legend Bill Russell is interviewed in the book. Not to mention the family members of some of the victims of police brutality from the past few years, along with current activists picking up the torch. So I wanted this recording to be something special. I want to honor these incredible voices (and hopefully show them that I can do their audiobooks too). This experience has been amazing for me.

I was fortunate enough to get to workshop with the great voiceover coach Zach Campion, (www.voicecoachdc.com certainly look him up before your next audition of any kind, the session was amazing) and I learned some valuable warmups and vocal exercises for achieving maximum preparedness. The body is an instrument, and the voice is a tuning rod. And so you have to stretch, you have to work out, you have to warm up and be in tune. If I were a sax player i would do many things to keep my instrument properly shined and polished. That is what you must do for your body.

As far as booking the part, I want to say a word about preparedness and always being at the ready. I got a text from Etan around 8 in the morning, on a Thursday. Luckily I've taken to waking up early these days and stretching and hopefully getting some writing done during the early morning hours. He asked if I could send him some v/o samples to forward to his publisher, and right away I knew this was a big opportunity. I have been amassing a collection of submission material for some time now, from a handful of websites; acx.com, voicebunny, and voices.com. So I had to only pick and choose my favorite ones to pass along. If I didn't have those on hand and ready to go, I'm not sure if I would have secured this gig. My point is just to say that you never know when that opportunity may arise, and if you're moping around like "oh I can't get any auditions right now," then you're not going to be ready when one pops up. Always have a reel ready to go, always have some voice samples in different genres, commercial, movie trailer, audiobook. You never know when it might be your big shot.

And most of all, always know the you that you want to show your would-be employers. Your style is your calling card, and it is singular to you. We can't guess what a casting director wants to see. Show them the you that nobody knows. The you that makes you smile. It's not about being cocky or even over confident, it's about being genuine. It's about being authentic in a way that is new and exciting and engaging to the text. That's the true art behind the industry gig.