Today on VO Life Toby Ricketts speaks with the legendary Jeff Danis – founding partner of Danis Panero Nist, DPN talent in Beverly Hills LA. Jeff has been in the industry for over 30 years, and has cast some of the biggest voice roles on earth including the Lead – Idina Menzel as Elsa – in Disney’s smash hit animated feature ‘Frozen’.
He represents many A list celebrities (Patrick Stewart, Malcolm McDowell, Mel Gibson) and casts everything from commercials, to promos, to characters.
Toby and Jeff Discuss:
– The history of voiceover in advertising in Hollywood
– How it has changed over the years
– How advertisers are changing the way they use VO
– The business of celebrity Voiceover in LA
– The difference between impersonation and similar performances
– The differences between the different artforms in VO
– How the union fits in to VO
– How talents who are starting out get into doing agency / union jobs
– What is going to happen with AI TTS voices
– How to make a reel for an agent
– What happens if you’re not booking
– Home studios and how they are changing the business
– Shrinking deadlines
– Is having multiple agents ok?
– Jeff’s advice to talent.
I hope you enjoy it – comments and feedback are always welcome!
Transcript below:
Toby Ricketts
It’s my great pleasure here on Gravy For The Brain Oceania and their voiceover interview to welcome Jeff Dennis, who is from a DPN talent in Hollywood, California from Dennis Pinera. And that’s his the full name. And he has been in the industry for over 30 years as an absolute industry legend, and resides at the very trendy address of Olympic Boulevard in Beverly Hills. So how is it there today, Jeff, it’s very stormy here and you’ve had a stormy last 24 hours as well, I bet.
Jeff Danis
It’s hot. It’s swimming, whether it’s like 85 degrees. We’re used to that, though. If it rains, it’s extraordinary. weird thing. So we’re used to it.
Toby Ricketts
Fair enough. And but you’ve had a very sort of stormy political time as well, in the last 24 hours.
Jeff Danis
Well, as we speak, right now, we’re deciding whether we’re going to stay with Trump or move on to Biden, and it’s, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Certainly, for many now, I’m a little older. And I’ve been through a lot of elections.
And typically they do have resolve in 24 hours, this is going to be a fight this is because it’s it’s just too drastic ideologies. So two difference, you know, in America has never dealt with someone who really does want to run a dictatorship. And so we’re dealing with, and we have a very, very, very divided country. So we’ll see. You know, we’ll see what happens. As he says all the time, we’ll see what happens. But the end of the day, there has to be a decision. And I’m hoping I’m hoping for all of our sakes that we can make him a one term president because if not, it will confirm everything he’s done as being correct. And that’s that’s a bigger problem.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, absolutely. The entertainment industry, like and Hollywood itself has tended to be quite sort of democrat hasn’t generally.
Jeff Danis
Yes, yeah. jardiance. I mean, there’s certainly you have your republican and this is not even a question of Republican versus Democrat. That’s not the issue. You know, people think, well, these were both Republican. This is about democracy versus dictatorship. Republican values are solid and good. And they help create democracies that work. And two party system works, and different ideologies work. But this is about a malignant, narcissistic dictatorship, where it’s his way or the highway, where there’s so much criminal activity behind the scenes. It’s all about brand and payola and money and power. So that’s what we’re dealing with right now. So we’d love just a just a republican president, that would be fine.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, exactly. It’s a very different world I immagine to when you started in voiceover, casting sort of 30 years ago. So tell us about that world when you first got into the world of voiceover and casting.
Jeff Danis
When I first got into voiceover casting voiceover, it was a very, very different world. And those days, you had to live in either LA or New York. You had to live right there by a studio, you had to audition in person every single day. Every single day. You had to run around town auditioning at both in each city. You had to be there. You had to be there in person, if you didn’t live in LA or New York, forget it. Also, in those days, they had five guys that did all the voices. You had those great, powerful voices, you had to have the deep, mellifluous tones you had to have Pike’s and the only difference was this time we wanted to be friendlier.
This time, we wanted to be more sinister. This time we wanted to be more gravitas, more wisdom. So the voices never changed. Maybe the style and attitudes changed a bit. But the voices were the same 7/ 10 guys, and whether it was for Taco Bell or Cheer detergent, or for a brand of insurance, they use the same voice that because they were the voices of authority, women had a very little place and had no place in voiceover. Maybe one out of 100 was maybe a woman. But it was a woman she had to sell household products, because that’s all that women would relate to. She could not sell cars, she could not sell financial institutions. She could not sell banks.
And she could sell personal hygiene products, you know, and certainly there were no ethnic sounds, African Americans, Hispanics Forget it. There was no marketplace. And that’s the way it was for my first 20 years. And if you didn’t have that voice, then you were not going to work in the industry. And well as changed a lot of the last 30 years and now it’s progressed not only do you not have to live in LA or New York, but you can live anywhere in the world. If you want to be in voiceover. All you need is your sound setup. That’s all you need. You can live even in crazy places like New Zealand, and still work.
I have not met many of my clients because they live in Detroit, or Salt Lake City or Seattle or Miami or even Europe. And you know what, there’s no need to meet them, they have their studios, we send them the scripts, they send it back. Also, all those people, all those wonderful character people that had quirky voices, who never would have worked 20/ 25 years ago, are working. All those African American men and women, they’re doing half the spots now. Everybody wants ethnic, everybody wants African American, everybody wants a Whitman, because of all the movements, you know, the me to movements and the and the cultural, you know, changes. The white guy is, is having a problem, the white guy is not being as much in demand because they want to go for cultural difference.
So all the people that never would have worked ever, ever, ever 10 years ago, are now on board full time making careers happen. So we have beefed up our wonderful departments of character people, ethnic people, Spanish is a massive market, we have Spanish announcers who who voice for the Spanish market, especially in the States, of which there’s many they’re making as much money as the traditional announcers are making. You know that they’re the voice of cars, that the voice of telecommunications is the voice of insurance companies that cater towards the Spanish market. African American women right now are the most in demand demographic. If you’re African American, and you’re female, even more than male, and you sounds like you’re the voice of wisdom, you’re in your in you’re in demand.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, exactly.
Jeff Danis
So it’s exciting time
Toby Ricketts
Yeah. So are you finding that entire campaigns are being voiced by these diverse groups? Or are you finding a stratification where they will have the same ad voice for different markets in different voices out of interest?
Jeff Danis
No, I think there’s still a very big demand for, it’s 5050. Half the time you have someone who’s the voice of T Mobile, or the voice of Lexus, or the voice of a brand, people still like brand voices. And then you have your one offs, you know, these two spots from Taco Bell.
I mean, you here in the States, I don’t know about where you are. But you hear Jennifer Hudson, the wonderful singer, actress doing the voice of at&t, you hear Sterling Brown, the wonderful actor and doing the voice of a new car, you know, you have you hear women, a lot of women, Minnie Driver being the voice of Lexus, you hear a lot of women and men, celebrities who are doing brand advertising. They’re the voice of and that’s still a very much a big deal. He’s our voice. And then you have people that are not stars, I have a guy that’s been the voice of a game show an interview show called, I don’t know if you have it in New Zealand called the Phil, Dr. Phil show. And he’s been the voice of Dr. Phil, you know, coming up next on Dr. Phil, for 25 years, it’s wonderful annuity,
I’ve got a jet, a young guy who’s the voice of Cadillac, not a celebrity. And he’s been the voice of Cadillac for over a decade, especially in cars, they maintain the same people, I have a lot of guys who are the voice of a lot of cars, the voice of Hyundai, the voice of Cadillac, the voice of Chevy, the voice of GMC. So there’s a lot of return business for a lot of people. And these people make a lot of money working on a daily basis, you know, they’re doing all the dealer incentives, you know, 499, you can buy this you can get that only drew Arizona Phoenix retail, your deal?
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, we found a change in New Zealand, sort of in the last five years where agencies were sort of, they moved away from having brand voices, and it would be a per campaign voice. So you sort of have three months of one voice and then especially with this voice, and it would it would change around which is quite disorienting from the for the usual agents, because I’d have to constantly do these big casting calls for big companies.
Jeff Danis
We still have a lot of campaign voices. And a lot of the reasons why is because if you’re doing a lot of volume, you don’t want to have to cast for every new voice you want to brand you want to also like you want to know who you’re using. So you just book it rather than now we’re going to cast for this spot. Now we’ve got a cast for that spot, you get crazy. So there’s a lot of reasons and we love it because it’s return business.
So you can have a guy that’s the voice. We have a guy that’s the voice of Hyundai does all the dealer doesn’t the brand doesn’t do the brand spots, but he does all the dealer spots, you know, now July 349, for Hyundai, you know, and he’ll make seven figures working on a weekly basis just doing all the dealer incentives for all the Hyundai spots.
Toby Ricketts
It’s a pretty good gig to get isnt it. Yeah, that’s a good that’s a great gig. To get especially when it’s so consistent, you know, there’s so much
Jeff Danis
That’s what your dream that’s what dreams are made of.
Toby Ricketts
So the flip side to that is the the brand, the brand verse voice versus the sort of campaign voices.
Like, do you have celebrities that come in and just do you know that one big Super Bowl spot and they get like a million dollars or something like that for it? And because you’re on the you deal with celebrities at DPN, right?
Jeff Danis
Yes, yes. Yes, the celebrity business is booming, still booming. So yeah, depending on who you are, you know, the bigger A list you are the more money to make, but um, you know, I have a lot of celebrities that, you know, for example, I’m Chris Pines, Jon Hamm’s the voice of Mercedes actor and Chris Pine does BMW Minnie Driver does Lexus. You know. So there’s a lot of actors that are the voice of cars. And they have a contract and they’re, you know, renewed every two years, and they get their six, seven figure money and they’re regulated or regulated as to Okay, I’ll do 10 sessions a year for the car for a million dollars.
You know, and they love it. They love it. When I first began to the business, which I really began about 35/ 40 years ago. And when it first began, you could not get us an actor to do voiceover because it was considered beneath them a commercial. I’m not doing a commercial. What are you crazy, now? Does everybody want in? Because what’s wrong with making a million dollars working two hours for the year? Exactly. No. Yeah. And also commercials of different directors are major you have every major director doing commercials, and the technical aspect of it has come up tremendously. You know, it’s not just a man standing there with a deodorant box. It’s incredible broad special effects. It’s, it’s phenomenal. Major directors are doing commercials directing commercials. So it’s a whole different world. Everybody wants in.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, exactly. And the money benefactors
Jeff Danis
And the wonderful actors are complaining that celebrities have taken away a lot of their business.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, yeah. How does that work as well to flip that around? Because I do a fairly good Matthew McConaughey impression who seems to be voicing everything from Lincoln to whiskey and stuff over in the States. And what’s the, have you encountered where someone has done a very good impersonation of a celebrity? The celebrities found out about it? And then what happens after that? Is there a legal right to sound like someone famous? And
Jeff Danis
If you’re trying to impersonate that person is not it’s against the law and cannot do it? You can be sued. .
Toby Ricketts
Right
Jeff Danis
So if that was the intent, if the intent was to make it sound like it was Mathew, you doing that spot? No, that’s big, taboo
That’s always been big,
Toby Ricketts
But you can you can have like, I want a voice that that is in the same vibe as Matthew McConaughey.
Jeff Danis
You can say, that’s the vibe I want. Cool, hip blah, blah, blah. Yeah. But if it’s direct impersonation, and that the court will decide if it’s in the style of or if it is a replica of, that’s a big difference. That’s a matter of a couple of million dollar difference.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah. Wow, that’s interesting
Jeff Danis
But people shut.. American advertisers know better than that. They shy away from that.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, fair enough. And what are the some of the biggest wins and the biggest gigs that you’ve cast in the past?
Jeff Danis
Well, umm putting a Idina Menzel in “UP” as the princess singing the song ” Let it go” was nice.
Toby Ricketts
Frozen
Jeff Danis
I’m sorry. Frozen, Frozen, frozen. I’m putting her in that was, you know, no one expected to be such the world wide hit it was and, you know, animation speaking of animation, animation has become a massive, massive industry. You know, you have clients that are doing these animated features through Pixar and Disney and DreamWorks. And they make very, very, very good money, especially in the franchises especially the second and third installments. So I think negotiating a Idinas deal for Frozen 2 was probably the biggest, not only biggest animation deal ever, but it was probably one of, if not the biggest on camera deals for “non star” A list star. Yeah, so she’s quite happy about that. And deservedly so.
I’ve done a lot of you know, I put a lot of stars on campaigns over the many years from Patrick Stewart, certainly for a lot of his campaigns to Malcolm McDowell to, you know, so many people, and animation putting a lot of celebrities. I put Mel Gibson in Pocahontas, that was the start of it. 40 years ago, when Mel did be played Captain John, when he did Pocahontas, he’s one of the first celebrities to do “a cartoon”. And that broke open the whole world of animation and celebrities it really did.
And then you have these wonderful actors during the Simpsons, you know, and Futurama, you know, you had the not stars, but he had the greats like Billy West and Risa Marsh and Phil LaMarr who do Futurama and who do Enchantment and do Family Guy and you know, King of the Hill and their wonderful TV animated TV series making their 40/50/60 $75,000 an episode.So or you get someone like, you know, SpongeBob, you know, you put Tom Kenny and SpongeBob. He’s not a star, but he’s certainly become an icon. And he makes a lot of money as being the voice of SpongeBob.
Toby Ricketts
And it comes with the benefit, I suppose of, you know, when you’re behind the mic, you can choose when you want people to recognize you as famous, he can go to the supermarket, no problem, like, no one’s gonna recognize him as soon as he opens his mouth and does the voice. Boom!
Jeff Danis
But it’s amazing how many people do go, Wait,wait, I know, that was not that he speaks like that all the time, you know. But um, it’s amazing how many people do recognize you by your voice? You know, but there’s big franchises like that that are available. And they got, you know, the Rugrats and the Powerpuff Girls and all these wonderful children’s cartoons. These, these guys and girls have had these things for years, their money goes up and up and up.
Toby Ricketts
Exactly, yeah. And I mean, it used to be I guess back in the day, it used to be kind of like, you know, you had the head, maybe maybe promo and voiceover and then character work. Now character work has been stratified into all these different things from video game, to animation, as you say to other character work. Like are there specific agents that do these specific genres now, like just video games, or, you know,
Jeff Danis
Most, most tallll… most voiceover talent agencies, and in LA, there’s probably about 10, or 12, I say there’s only really one that’s worth anything. But in LA, every agency has to cater to all the fields. So we have at DPN, we have a very large animation department. And that includes animation, Saturday morning animation, Kids Animation, Primetime animation, animated features, and of course, video games, which is massive, massive business video games. Then we have a promo trailer department, which says all the promos for the all the networks and all the cable nets. The guys are here saying, you know, coming up next on NBC, you know, or tonight on blah, blah, blah.
And then you have the trailers, you know, who you know, Universal Pictures presents this, this this. And that’s, that’s the department and then you have the voiceover, commercial voiceover department. So all the people you hear do all the product advertising. So in voiceover, there’s a lot of different departments. And there are people, some lucky few who can traverse all departments, we’ve got clients who can do rah rah rah video game, and then can do a deep dark trailer voice in a world and then can do kind of next on ABC, and then can do Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo. And they can do it all. And there are some that can’t, but they make their living in one way or the other.
So it’s a very, very big field. When people say voiceover well, it’s a big field. The last thing you want to say when you coming into voiceover is, well, I want to get into video games. You don’t say that? Nope. No agent wants to hear that. Let’s see what your voice lends itself to. And based upon your talent and your voice quality, then we will tell you what you might be right for. You don’t need to tell us you may start with us in commercial voiceover but then we find you have a knack for characters that we find you have a knack for promo that we find you maybe do trailers, you know. So as time goes on, if you have a good agent, you will develop your skills in other areas.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, right. That’s that’s very useful to know. Because I remember reading an interview with you once, that said, you know that you probably more back in the day that you had the promo guys would basically their experts in their field like they know that promo readers so sort of subtly, the way it is that that you know you have specific guys and it sounds easy, but I guess that’s the point is that
Jeff Danis
Each talent has a specific art form. When you do promos, it’s a different talent than doing commercials. It’s a different talent. When you do get animation, no, promos are presentational and quick and commercials are more intimate and warm and real. cartoons are broader. So a lot of people who we call the promo curse a lot of people who do a lot of promos have trouble coming down to a more intimate commercial level. So if you’re spending your whole day and voice ABC and all you’re doing next on ABC, you know, Joe Schmo meets Joe Schmo that doesn’t work for commercials, commercials are, you want to buy this? If you do buy it, if you don’t, that’s okay, too. So, fluctuating
Toby Ricketts
And that’s quite a recent phenomenon isn’t it? That the fact that the commercial read I know, you know, since I’ve been a part of the industry has definitely come down from that kind of radio. You know “Buy this now” too much more informing and just saying there’s this…
Jeff Danis
That’s much more old school, they don’t want they want it to be real. There are people who used to make a very big living in commercials who who spoke like that and “Buy tide detergent. It’ll be great for you”. No, no, no. You’re out. Yeah, they want To be buy it, don’t buy it, it works for you. It works for us, they want it to be very real, in fact, to a fault. Now, sometimes you want to say, Come on punch it up a little bit, because you get this campaigns, these spots where, you know, this is what we have the guy sounds mad. Ford, this is what we have, we’d like you to buy it. If you don’t, that’s okay. too. Gone, I think a little bit in the other direction.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, exactly. So, um, I want to cover the how the how agents deal with the union in the States, because it’s, it’s one of those things that’s kind of constantly changing. It’s a relationship that’s been developed over the years. And we don’t like in New Zealand and Australia, there’s there’s the equity union, but it’s not as strong as the kind of SAG-AFTRA that you’ve got over there in the States. And I’ve heard from sort of like agents that it’s kind of a drag sometimes, and like, you know, for the really big jobs that works, but for like, it’s not really maybe tooled up for all this new media stuff. And these campaigns with lots of little stuff everywhere, because it’s just sort of too complicated. What are your thoughts on on the union historically, and what it was set up for and its relevance today?
Jeff Danis
I’m so pro union. And I’ll tell you why. If it wasn’t for the union, you would not get paid on half the jobs. Working non union is exploitative. For the actor, it really is. Not only that, when you work union contributions are made to your health and retirement, they’re made to your pension, you get health insurance, there’s no question and you have rates that are regulated, and nothing’s in perpetuity. So you’re protected. When you work non union, you get that paycheck, that’s it that can run that spot forever, you can never get another dime. It’s, it’s, there’s no investment in your future. There’s no investment in their funds and your pensions at all. And it’s really, really exploitative.
What you’re saying is in new technology, you know, because it’s all relatively new, the union has to come on board and really figure out the best way to price these things and regulate these things. Which is part of our challenge right now. But the more non union you do, the worse it is for you, ultimately,
If they can get Toby Ricketts for a non union job. They’re not going to pay for him for union job. I got him for 10 cents before, why should I pay 20 cents now? So I tell everybody, while I understand his quick money, it’s just if everyone would not do non union, everything would be union, and you’d be protected. And it really is true. Yeah, sometimes, you know, and the union scales are minimal. They’re not a lot of money. They’re really not people get afraid, yes, you’ve got to pay additional fees to the health retirement funds.
But that’s part of it. You know, teachers have unions, auto fat auto workers have unions union is what makes America great. And without it, it’s a free for all. Next thing, you know, you’re doing 10 spots for 50 bucks, and there’s no protection, and that spot you give the next 10 years. So I’m fiercely pro union. I wish everyone would understand that I know people are desperate. I know that. Let me grab it for the fast $500.
But it’s like putting a bandaid on cancer. Yeah, may be a quick fix. But it’s a bigger problem. And that’s the bottom line. You know, that’s the bottom line. And I fight all the time with my actors and saying you’ve got to keep it in perspective. You can’t be short sighted on this. And the union is very important. I can’t tell you, all my clients that have now are retiring or have great health insurance because of working 20/ 30 years under the union guy, all the ones that are now getting a pension for life of $10,000 a month for life because they worked for 30 years. Yeah, it’s well worth it. You were 10 years non union, you got nothing to show for it except the money you’ve already spent.
Toby Ricketts
Hmm. I guess there’s that one of the reasons that like we set up Gravy For The Brain and other courses is because like when people want to start in voiceover, they’re kind of like, you know, where do I start? I can’t you can’t just suddenly go into voicing, you know, big, big agency, you know, Union commercials. So is there a place for union in terms of when you’re starting out? Or like, how does it usually work when you get into voiceover? Because you can’t go straight to Union surely?
Jeff Danis
Well, I’ll tell you, um, it boils down to how good you are, you know, like, you want to play in the minor leagues. Then you play in the minor leagues, if you’re good. You play the majors. That will happen. You’ve got to keep going. And it will happen. If you’re a talent and you want to work on Broadway. And not just regional theater. You got to compete the big boys. So yes, it’s hard in the beginning. And yes, in the beginning, if you do a couple of those sites, you know, you can do a couple to get a little bit of experience. But the bottom line is, in voiceover, if you’re going to compete, you have to compete with the big boys if you’re going to make any reasonable money.
And how do I do that? Send my demos. I listen to demos, and their demos so all over the place, and any good agent, you know, we weren’t born in the Union any good agent. I have to do it all the time we’ll hear the voice and go, this guy’s good, he can compete. And I call up and your union or non union, it’s okay. When the next time a union job wants you, you got to join the union how to get the union, you got to book a union job. And then the and these jobs will, will get you into the union vise as the as the agent, okay, this is his first union job, they’ll do what they call it Taft Hartley, they’ll do little paperwork, and they’ll do it. And that means that he can now get into the union.
That means you got to leave your non union ways behind and compete the big game. But if you don’t want to do that, then you stay, you know, in the minors and you make minor league salary. Right. But if you want to make major league salary, Broadway salary, you got to jump it up. And
Toby Ricketts
that’s a tough leap, isn’t it? That one, I mean, I’m struggling with that, because I’ve booked my first union job and Taft Hartley done in on it. But I do still have a sizable sort of non union component just because that’s the head. That’s how I got into voiceover. And that’s how it started. And it’s grown to this level now where it’s like, well, I could jump over, but it’s uncertain.
Jeff Danis
So here’s, here’s the problem. And here’s the economy for people like you. You know, if you live in the States, there’s a massive amount of union work. Hmm. That’s when residuals are you can make through the union on one spot 20/30 $40,000. But if you don’t live in the States, and you’re living in areas that are not union strong, then you copped a rock and a hard place because you’re not going to turn down all the non union work. But you don’t have access to the new work as you would like. For someone like you, I understand why you have to really work both sides that aisle, because otherwise you wouldn’t work that much.
Toby Ricketts
Mm hmm.
Jeff Danis
So all I say to you is that if you’re working in the contract, continental United States, you got to be union. But if you’re working in Europe, or anywhere else in the world, then you grab what you can, because you can make a reasonably good living that way. You know, certainly and you don’t have access, you don’t have the chance to compete in the Union markets.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah. So how do I mean that one of the big questions I get from from people who are sort of starting out or intermediate, or even sort of pros and have been found their own work is, you know, do I need an agent and how and the best way to get an agent, because sometimes it feels like agencies are kind of full up already. And you need to wait for someone to leave in order to sort of join, you know,
Jeff Danis
It’s hard. It’s hard, because, you know, there’s more and more and more actors each day, but there’s not more and more and more agents each day, I kind of say to everybody, it’s like going on an escalator. And people keep on coming on the escalator. And then the top is a brick wall, no one gets off, everybody gets on. Nobody leaves voiceover, they just stay. Hmm. So more and more and more and more and more, you know, when I first began 35 years ago, was the best kept secret in the world. Now, everybody in the world wants to do it. So the problem we face is agents, there’s so many people, and there’s so many good people. And I hear a lot of talent that I think are good to could work, I’ve I’ve got 20 of them, I just don’t need 21 you know, and I feel bad because this guys is good, this guy is good, it’s good. But you can only serve so many people.
And again, there’s only so many agents so we really have our hands full. I do think though, however, that there’s always room for that exceptional new voice, not not not average, you’ve got to be exceptional. You’ve got if you’re if you’re a New Zealander, you got to have the best New Zealand accent ever, you know, if you are a guy that can get gravitas, you got to give the best gravitas read ever. So you send your demo to agents and it can’t be mediocre, it has to be really, really good. It has to be what i think i think that I can sell and make money with. I don’t want another voice talent that can maybe book a French waiter. I have billions of that.
I want to voice talent that create brands with his voice that has a voice that will create a brand that will be the new voice of this brand new voice of Apple, the new voice of Plymouth, the new voice of Johnson’s baby shampoo. And that’s just your own voice. Yeah, as a style, you
Toby Ricketts
know, looking for different voices these days, because I hear quite a lot of really big campaigns. And I hear the voice ever. And I’m like, Well, that was unexpected. They don’t sound like a voiceover.
Jeff Danis
Yeah, yeah, it just has to hit you in a way something different something, the way you read it the way you say it. Something different. I’m gonna have a lot of clients that started a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, and hook into brand new accounts, you know, um, because if you’re competitive, and I mean, not just as good but better than most, you’re going to work. You’re going to work if you’re better than the average bear, so to speak. You’re going to work, you just have to hang in there. Keep auditioning, keep submitting. But good talent can not be denied. Average talent can if I hear your voice and it’s yeah, sure, you can do a spot here and there, you can certainly read it, you can certainly do it. But it’s not got that brand quality, brand quality. I mean, it doesn’t have an intimacy, a realness, authenticity that you feel, it just affects similarly of a guy who could read comfortably enough, an announced script, that’s not good enough. You know,
Toby Ricketts
Would you say on the character side? Because I often tell people like, you can hear the difference between someone, like playing a character and being the character, like there’s that extra 10% that very few people are willing to give and push themselves to the edge. Is that something you’re looking for as well?
Jeff Danis
That’s right, exactly, exactly. Someone who really becomes that character. That’s what we have the wonderful animated stars like Billy West, like Phil LaMarr, like Marsh, like Jess Harnell are now who, you know, become Pinky and the Brain become the Animaniacs, you know, because they put their heart and soul into it. It’s not just another French waiter, you know, they create a personality within that character and make it their own. So you know, I keep on saying you can’t be just good, you got to be great to really make any real impact in this in this business. You know, just because you want in just because you can do a funny British Butler, It’s good enough. Yeah, you got to develop that character, you got to make sure that you become him. And you can hear the difference.
Toby Ricketts
And tell people like
Jeff Danis
Charlie Adler or something like that?
Toby Ricketts
Yeah. If you if you’re doing a voice that someone else like, if you if someone does, it’s a bit surreal to me with like Homer Simpson or something, it’s like, that’s already been done. You need to do something new, and something different that will, you know, be being sent because otherwise, they’re just going to go for the original voice of..
Jeff Danis
Don’t be a mimic, yeah, be unique. And it’s true. You know, no one, we have Homer Simpson, we have Nancy Cartwright, and we have, you know, no, be something new. Look what SpongeBob created as a brand new voice.
Toby Ricketts
Mm hmm. Exactly. So switching tack here, the, again, the changing nature of the world and and of how voiceover is going along with it. How do you see text to speech and AI voice because there’s been a lot of talk of that in the community, especially this year, because there’s been this explosion of companies which are developing it, it’s still, like, quite rubbish, you can still tell that it’s like, and I suppose this won’t necessarily affect you, it won’t affect their top tier where performance is all about nuance and and being perfect. But do you think in the next few years, it will start to affect your business model?
Jeff Danis
I don’t think so. I really don’t. You got to remember, the human touch isn’t there yet with AI? It just isn’t? Sure. Can we understand the message? Yes. But does it give an intimacy to the message? No. So I’m not concerned right now with AI voice I don’t see taking over anything you can always tell. It lacks. And that’s simply the opposite of what advertisers want. They don’t want someone that sounds like they’re not connected to the message. They want to sound like you’re telling the truth. And AI is a robot, AI is someone that is an oversell of something.
And advertisers don’t want that it’s not the message they want. They want real, they want real they want real. So I don’t see it being a problem right now, generally speaking, and also they lack the human touch, they like the celebrity touch behind it. You know, they rather have George Clooney giving their message and then a robot, you know, they rather have a comic and really AI doesn’t have that human quality yet.
Now, if they get to that point where they can you can’t tell the difference. Well, then this we’ll be talking about it. Right now. You can tell the difference, you know, yeah, it’ll
Toby Ricketts
be interesting as well, when there’ll be some interesting lawsuits once they start training on on George Clooney voice, for example, from all his movies and, and and getting, you know, how close can you get with an AI voice without being sued? There will be some interesting court battles potentially.
Jeff Danis
Well, like I said, if you if you if the intent was to impersonate so that the public would believe that was George Clooney, that’s a problem.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s that’s actually a pretty good way to sort of define it, doesn’t it? Yeah.
So you, when people send you things, they send you voice reels, what are you looking for in a voice reel? We’ve already talked about being sort of authentic and credible and relatable. But what are you looking for in terms of, do you want people to show what they’re really good at specifically? Or do you want to see variety? Because that’s one of the big questions.
Jeff Danis
No, that’s a good question.
I want them I don’t want you to be a French waiter, and then a deep trauma voice then a funny girl than this. No, no, no, no. Don’t be all over the place. Do what you do. Best, don’t try to be all things all people nobody is, I would rather get three or four spots of you being authentic. As a storyteller. Remember brand advertisers, what people want now is, that’s how you get in. Don’t send an animation tape really right now, because we got a million people who can do the funny French waiter, and we don’t need it. What we need are people that can book accounts, people that can be the voice of Apple, the voice of Ford, the voice of Hartford insurance. And that’s you, that’s your own voice, put on Ford spots of you selling brands. That’s what’s going to attract my attention.
And then from there, if we get you in, and you get some success doing that, then if you want to show me that you could also do funny pirates and funny this and fun and great because you’re already in I have an investment in you. But don’t be all over the place and expect you to be in every department instantly. I can do a promo, I can do a trailor, or I can do a commercial, I can do a cartoon. No. It makes you a jack of all trades, the jack of none, so to speak, you know? And it only it only takes away your credibility. So it’s really important, Toby to do what you do best and leave it alone, even though you think I can I can also do, it’ll come if you’re if you track the clock, an agent with your best, he’s gonna listen to you if you show success in that field. So many clients come to me, you know, after and say maybe a year at our relationship.
And Jeff, you know, I’m interested in animation, if I look back make have made some money in the voice of the world. I’ll listen to them. Mm
Toby Ricketts
hmm. Um, so I guess the the take take out from that is to find what sort of speaks to you personally, like you’d like you’d say find, what what you feel comfortable voicing and what your best work is, which is kind of hard for some beginner voiceovers to understand. But I guess that’s part of the journey. I know, I, you know, about three or four years ago, just hit this spot of like British and gravitas and suddenly just started booking like crazy on that. And that was my thing. And it still kind of is my thing. And then send a reel of that kind of thing. But like, just very slight variations on it like to show that you have some versatility like but within that genre.
Jeff Danis
Yeah. For you example, you know, you obviously you have an and there’s an accent. So yes, give me your Mid Atlantic, give me your British give me Australia and give me New Zealand. That’s all in the in the credible genre of what you could certainly do. We’d rely on you. But don’t don’t give me your funny French accent because we don’t need it. Or your broad Italian accent that we’ll learn about eventually, certainly, we’ll learn about, but we have guys who really are Italian who can do it, we have guys who really are you know, so give me what is in the realm of this possibility where you have honest roots in it. Simple as that. And with that success, we’ll be able to broaden you out as time goes on.
Toby Ricketts
Fair enough.
Jeff Danis
We might say if after two, three years of working with you, and you’ve had some success, you might say, Hey, guys, I just put this down what you hear my my mike funny voices here, and it’s appropriate. You know, when it’s appropriate. That’s just good information for us.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, exactly. I like how that you really, you know, talk about this as a journey together. Like, you know, you have a talent on you invest in them, they do like a great work for you. And it is a journey that you’re both walking on the same path. Do you ever have sort of the like, if someone’s not booking for a long time to sort of say, look, it’s just not working? And and do you have to keep the books clean? Or do you only add to the books?
Jeff Danis
Now? That’s a good question. Um, if I believe in you, everyone goes to down periods. We know that, you know, we know how competitive it is. In fact I’ve had many, many, many talks with clients over the years where they have just, you know, they’re no booking, and they feel like I’m going to drop them. I feel like they’re going to drop me, you know, but I say to them listen, it happens. There’s no reason for it, because that these are specific, I would tell you, but I see it happen. So if you’re agent, you know, I’ve been doing this for so many years, I have such a broad overview I’ve been I’ve seen it all.
So I keep on telling people that don’t book for a long time. Just relax, keep going keep your head clean. Can’t explain it is what it is. I still love you. We’re gonna we’re gonna break this spell eventually. And it does. It does happen. I’ve had clients go from, you know, 600,000 a year to 50 thousand a year to go 200 though. It’s a roller coaster as part of just on hold on. So they can hold on. I’ve seen it come back 10 years later. So you know, I mean, aside from that we want to make money I’m not threatened by that lack of booking. I don’t look at you as being lost your talent.
Now. If there’s something specifically wrong I’ll tell you if you’re, if you’re late a lot or if you are the mic doesn’t sound good. Or if you You’ve gotten lazy in your reads, I had a client who booked a lot. And then his reads became very rather routine. And he lost the connection of healing and he was dialed in and it was a booking he got frustrated, I said, because you’re just dialing in every audition. Even if it’s your 150 audition that day should it sound like your first. And it’s not easy because you’re home. What’s this job Johnson baby shampoo? Buy it now? Next, you know? No, you got to connect each one. That’s your job. And the minute I told him that, he took a deep breath, start connecting again and started booking again.
Toby Rickett
So it’s easy to get complacent in this business.
Jeff Danis
You can get very complacent. Yeah, boring place into your home now, especially at home, you’re by yourself, you know, you overthink it, you know, you then become crazy. Oh, I don’t know if I sent it right. Don’t become crazy. Don’t get in your head. If you don’t book and if you have booked, just do the same thing. Unless someone tells you to do something different. Mm hm. If your agent doesn’t say anything. Just keep on going. You know. And if someone hasn’t a book for a long time, I’ll listen to the reads. And they know what the sounding board is sounding too disconnected. They’re sounding too angry.
Toby Ricketts
Mm hmm. Um, you mentioned, you know, everyone being at home and that kind of, you know, getting inside their head has, how has COVID affected the voice business, especially the sort of unique work, which was traditionally studio based in LA in New York? And how have you guys dealt with it?
Jeff Danis
No, I’ll tell you, you know, Us announcers we’ve been socially separated for a long time. You know, most people have it in their homes. And so we don’t need to go out. But how it affected us is that if there’s no content to voice, it’s limited what we have the ability to voice. So for example, if commercials are down, if shows are down, then you don’t have as many promos, and commercials, you know, that’s where it’s affected us that they’re not making as many products to produce. So that’s where it’s limited. We’re down about 50%. Now, so it’s not that we can’t do our work. We don’t have any voice.
Toby Ricketts
I didn’t I didn’t realise that the dip was that quite that profound.
Jeff Danis
Oh, yeah. Usually advertisers are producing double what they’re producing. So now where a guy would have gotten gone, and he would have been voicing 10 new spots for Tide detergent. Well, they’re not making it right now because they can’t be on a set. So we as announcers you guys as announcers don’t have those new spots to voice? That’s the problem.
Yeah, that’s the problem. The shows are down so there’s no need to promote new shows because they don’t have new shows. And movies, movies are not being made the trailer guys are dead in the water right now. Because there’s no new movies. You can if you can say Universal Pictures presents if they’re not presenting anything. Hmm, exactly. Yeah, that’s where a problem lies.
Toby Ricketts
And have you seen a shift to home studios? I know you know, it was back in the day with the with when Don LaFontaine set himself up at home, it was like this revolution, it was like, wow, I mentioned we could all do that. And now everyone has done that pretty much. So you’ve sent people gear and or you’ve told them how
Jeff Danis
you cannot be in the voice field unless you have a home setup. The good news is you don’t need $100,000 booth anymore. All you need is your iPad, your iPhone and a like and sound screen and a little quality space. That’s all you need. You can do in your car. You don’t need them. It’s not a major investment. But you must have the ability to work at home. We went from seeing at the agency, we had five recording studios went from seeing I would say 500 people a week. auditioning down to three.
Toby Ricketts
Wow,
Jeff Danis
you know, that’s it. You have to have your own studio you’re on call 24 seven, we send the scripts out you send it back. That’s it. That’s it? And our people are putting them on and we send them out to the advertisers. But if you don’t have your home studio if you say well I want to come in and record we go forget it. Got to do from home and sound great. And it’s easy to do. You don’t need why can’t afford a big studio. You don’t need to find a place in your house where the sound is good. Get your little Apogee mic or whatever mic you want to use. Plug it into your iPad and you got it.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s definitely been, like one of the biggest trends I don’t, even slightly before COVID. Like I was telling people, you know, get get yourself a home studio because you you’ll you’ll audition so much more if you can do it at your desk,
Jeff Danis
or the auditioning. Yes, absolutely. And not only that, it saves you the slap, you know, you don’t get your car, you don’t drive, you know, two hours. No, it’s fantastic. You can do it from home. What we do is we send our our, you know, our clients know that betrayed I’m sure Toby, you’ve experienced this, you know, you’re 24 seven. So you see a script come in, it can be anywhere. All that means is recorded and get back to us right away. That’s all. That’s your job. That’s your job. And if you get it back to us within the time we need it then we send it out to the advertisers then you can get booked. Yeah, and if you don’t, then you’re not included in that audition process. You know, if you go Oh, I didn’t know and I can’t do it. No tomorrow. Well then forget it. That’s not the voice game. The Voice game is 24 seven now.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, it has that the deadline seem to be shrinking constantly. Like it used to be this one’s a rush. Now it’s this one’s a double rush and this one was yesterday.
Jeff Danis
Yeah, yeah. But he wants to wait, you know, to speak and he had four or five days. No, now you get four or five minutes. That’s the way it is. But the good news is you can record from your car, you should never be beyond a half an hour of being able to record whether it’s running home or in your car or you have your everyone has their kits they bring with them. You know, I remember the days when you go on vacation, you were out of the picture. You were working you were out of the picture. Not anymore. Now everyone has their kit. And they go hold it. I’m gonna run. I’m gonna run over and record the spot for 15 minutes. I’ll come right back.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Danis
So there’s no excuse.
Toby Ricketts
I’ve recorded spots for worldwide distribution under a bed and like a little, you know, holiday house somewhere. And they’ve, you know, if you can do the post production just get a good clean, as long as that space isn’t echoey.
Jeff Danis
Your never out of commission. Yeah. It’s just a reality, if you want to compete on the big level. Yeah, I had peak, I’ve had somebody some wonderful situations where, you know, on the fly, they’ll record a thing really quickly as a traveling across the Sahara desert and book a spot a minimum, you know, $50,000?
Toby Ricketts
You know, it’s amazing, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah. And the last thing I was gonna ask was about, again, it’s going back to the sort of agents and how it works in the states is it’s quite unusual, the states in that, in most of the territories, New Zealand, Australia, UK, agents want exclusivity across the entire country. But that’s not necessarily the case in America, you can have different coasts on different agents on different coasts, and even if different states, how has that kind of come to be? And does that cause problems or frictions ever?
Jeff Danis
Good question? Um, generally speaking, we, as top agents in LA will allow you to have a New York agent, but we don’t like you to have other agents. It just gets complicated. And we don’t like it, you know. So generally speaking, we want you exclusively but we will share you with New York. And the two agents have to work together, you know, there’s a way to do it if you’re the primary agent, and you get first dibs. So if your gives you the same script, LA gives you we, as the primary agent will get that right to submit you on that script.
So it’s a little touchy sometimes, but we work it out. But I don’t represent people that have 10 agents all over the country. It’s too much, you know, I’ll say you can have a New York agent and maybe, maybe, maybe maybe have a Chicago agent. But that’s it. Because I don’t want you doing a retail car spot out of Denver, you’ll make 300 bucks when I can put you on a on a campaign for Ford. Hmm. You know, so we don’t we don’t like it. We don’t like we put up with it sometimes. We don’t like it and we prefer you only with us. Mm hmm, we do allow for New York representation.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah. Instead, there’s a different vibe from different from each coast, you get different work from saying your agent versus
Jeff Danis
some not as much anymore there some I worked in New York for many years. And there’s some producers will only go to New York for their talent, they won’t come to LA. That is why we allow our clients to have some NY representation because there is it’s not supposed to compete with us supposed to enhance the work. There are some producers who only come to LA for their talent. And there are many that go to both coasts.
So there is some competition there. There really is. But LA is really the major New York used to be but LA is the major market in the States because they want the actors. New York tends to be a little more news, not as show busy, a little straighter, you know, and who knows if it’s true, but typically today, because of technology, they’ll go to both coasts looking if you’re looking for a big voice voice for a brand, we’ll go to New York, we’ll go to LA, we’ll see what we get. And our job is if you have two ages to say, Okay, we got them, whether they were his primary agent, depends where you live.
If you live in LA, we’re your primary agents, then that Ford script that your New York agent sent you, we got it, we got priority, we got to cover it for you, because we’re your main agent, and you’re the actor have to respect that. Mm hmm. And there are times that my actor will say, hey, Jeff, did you get the spot for you mana health care? And if we didn’t get it, which happens, we’ll say no, do it through them.
Toby Ricketts
Mm hmm. Yeah, exactly. That makes sense. Yeah. Very nice. Well, I’ve taken up nearly an hour of your time. And I want to thank you so much for for taking time out of your busy day of casting and talking to your famous celebrity voiceovers. And I guess the big takeaways that I’ve heard from this is that, you know, like, be authentic, credible and relatable, you know, and and hit it with 100%. The second thing is to having a home studio is almost essential and you’ve got to be on 24 Seven. And the third one is don’t be a French waiter. You must…
Jeff Danis
hold that bag of tricks tricks for later on. Don’t show them what you got completely. Yeah, right. So to sum it up is that and just you know, you can’t be good, you got to be great. And you got to be persistent. You got to be persistent. It’s amazing how many times you’ll go through these very dry periods, and all of a sudden, boom, you pulled out one thing that makes a big difference. So as long as you’re playing the game, as long as swinging the bat, you got a chance of a homerun. Simple as that. So, and now with the world being technically as advanced as it is, you really can live anywhere, and you can have a voice career, even in the Outer Banks of New Zealand.
Toby Ricketts
Exactly, Yeah, I’m living proof. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time. And Can people send you demos and look you up to
Jeff Danis
jeff@dpntallent.com I listen to everything I get. They may take a while, but don’t send hard copies, send it to the email. It’s great. Yeah. And that way I listen as I’m driving in the car. Right. It’s good. And you know what, I’ve found my best clients that way.
I found a guy through submission, didn’t know who happened to live in Detroit, liked his demo, started sending him scripts. He’s booked three major accounts had I not listened, had he not sent, it would never have happened. So yeah, it does. It does happen. It does happen. So keep it keep those demos coming.
Toby Ricketts
Fantastic. Thanks again for your time.
Jeff Danis
My pleasure.
Toby Ricketts
Excellent.
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