As always a fabulous, informative, inspiring time was had by all at The Johnny Heller 4th Annual Splendiferous Narrator Workshop. A full day of panels, coaching, and networking opportunities elevated the audio-book community as it does every year. The workshop brought together audio book narration aspirants, veterans, and icons in a warm spirit of community and education.
Here’s Johnny about the origin of The Johnny Heller 4th Annual Splendiferous Narrator Workshop, or JWASH4, for short:
The Johnny Heller Splendiferous Narrator Workshop was started in 2015 when I was asked – generally – to put together a workshop for actors who were in town for APAC and had a free day before the convention. My idea was to have an event that would appeal to actors at every level of the Audiobook career. I put together a sterling roster of superb coaches – award winning talents– actors and coaches with a real passion to share their adventures and knowledge of storytelling. We have an agenda that I try to stick to, but we’re happy to linger on subjects that seem worth lingering on. We may not answer all the questions, but we want to start the process of investigating issues important to brilliant storytelling. We want to identify the questions we may not even know right now that we need to ask and, together, find the answers. We seek the path to better storytelling from both the artistic and the technical world.
(from left to right) Dion Graham, Laurel Schroeder, Sean Allen Pratt, Paul Alan Ruben, Joel Leslie Froomkin, Karen White, James Anderson Foster, Christine Van, James Patrick Cronin, Jo Anna Perrin, Scott Brick, John Pruden, Johnny Heller, (not pictured but still loved) Steven Jay Cohen
The incredibly informative, profound, and sometimes hilarious panels covered industry-critical topics: everything from finding character clues to non-fiction narration to more obscure but fascinating topics like how to manage dual-narration or military-themed books.
Not only did the audience get to absorb the wit and wisdom of the panelists, a fortunate few had the opportunity to go on stage and get some of live coaching.
Johnny Heller working with one of the lucky lottery winners
If you are an audio book narrator who has done one or one hundred books, you will get more out of this one day than you can possibly imagine. It will up your game!
TIP OF THE WEEK
While I won’t share the actual content of The Johnny Heller 4th Annual Splendiferous Narrator Workshop (because people paid good money to attend), I will say that as I was looking over my notes I noticed the same word over and over again: connect.
Every panelist stressed in different ways that to be an effective audio book narrator is to be connected. If you can’t connect to the story and the characters, the listeners won’t connect either.
How do you connect with what you are narrating? Among many, many, many other things:
Quality training
Quality research/preparation
Focusing on the what the characters are feeling in the moment and not on how you think you should sound
A HUGE thank you to Johnny Heller, Jo Anna Perrin, Steven Jay Cohen, and the wonderful panel of experts who dedicated their time and effort to this amazing experience! To learn more about this and other workshops & events that Johnny hosts as well as working with him as a coach, go to www.JohnnyHeller.com.
NEWS AND NOTES
Thursday, June 21st @8PM EST: my next Edge Studio “Business and Money 201” webinar topic will be ‘Managing Your Money’. We’ll talk about how to spend, earn, and save your money like a boss! Click here to sign up.
Thursday, June 28th @8PM EST: my next Edge Studio “Marketing 201” webinar topic will be ‘Brand Yourself’. We’re going to talk about how to make you distinct as a voiceover business without having to burn yourself with a hot poker so the agents can tell us apart. Click here to sign up.
TBA: At Abacus Entertainment, Melissa Exelberth and I will host a conversation about being a union vs. a non-union voice talent. This won’t be a “which is better” conversation! We will talk about the pros and cons of being union, non-union, and fi-core to help you determine which is right for you at this point in your voiceover career. Stay tuned…!
November 9-11: MAVO is coming!
I will be one of the guest speakers and it’s going to be a blast. Be sure to get your tickets now while you still can. Learn more at MidatlanticVO.com!
HAPPY HAPPYS
Happy Hug Your Cat Day and Chocolate Day!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
From my village to yours; this is Tom Dheere, The H is Silent, but I’m Not.
Tom Dheere is a 20+year veteran of the voice over industry who has narrated thousands of projects for hundreds clients in over a dozen countries. He is also a voiceover business and marketing consultant known as the Voice Over Strategist and is currently producing the comic book “Agent 1.22”.
Audies Article: https://www.voiceoverxtra.com/article.htm?id=8DE4YXS2
I had just as much fun writing this article recapping last night’s Audies Awards as I did attending the event! There was slightly less champagne involved, though…