← Everyday VOpreneur® with Marc Scott
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- [00:00]
A
So I was a very much, wow, a Mr. Mom kind of dad.
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B
How much is mindset and attitude a factor in all of this?
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A
It was the 50th anniversary of our first date.
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B
Doesn't really matter what level of the game you are at. If you want to get to the top of the mountain and stay at the top of the mountain, you hustle.
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A
It sounds great to do your sessions from home or to do them from wherever you are. Even on vacation.
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B
I somersaulted all the way down the mountain. I landed splat at the bottom of the mountain. They Dr. Outline around my career.
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A
You almost blew it with your wife.
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B
To be next to your demos, Your website is your most important marketing tool. Your website's where you're going to send everybody to actually hear your demos. You need a domain that's on brand. You need a site that loads fast. You need amazing support just in case. And you can get all three of those things with upper level hosting. It's who I Trust to host markscottvoiceover.com and have for years grab your personal domain, pick out your hosting package, and get started at upper level hosting dot com. It has only taken me 320 some odd episodes of the podcast to finally get this man on the show. Joseph Briano, I've known you for so long, but I have to tell you, the idea of having you on the podcast has been so intimidating to me for so many years.
- [01:20]
A
Oh, Mark. Oh, please.
- [01:22]
B
Come on. I'm serious. You know what part of it was, and this is actually something that you and I ended up talking about before we did this. But part of it was, I want to have a conversation with you that is unlike any other conversation that anybody else has had. Right? And you said it. You're like, you know, I've told all the same stories. Everybody's heard everything. We've literally read the book. I mean, right? So I so many times I've sat down and thought, I got to get this guy on. But. But how do I come at it from a different angle or how do we have a different conversation?
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A
Yeah.
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B
And I'll tell you, there's two things that kept coming up in my mind as I was trying to think about this. And those two things were longevity and legacy. Because, I mean, I refer to you as one of the living legends of our industry. And I don't know.
- [02:14]
A
You are. You are.
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B
I don't know what you think about that, but I just so you know, we all, like, literally all the rest of us in the industry that's exactly how we think about you. But I thought, you know what? This is a guy that's got something to add to that conversation. And I think not just from a voiceover standpoint, but from life in general. And so that's why I thought, you know what? I want to start this off by talking about Ann.
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A
I love it. One of my favorite topics.
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B
I want to talk about my wife. I want to talk about successful marriage, because I think you've probably got a few little nuggets to drop on us as somebody who's. Who's been married for a minute now, done it in the midst of a crazy career and everything that's happened. And, I mean, I knew if I brought up Ann right out of the gate, I knew I'd hook you, because I know that's one of your favorite subjects to talk about, too.
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A
And when you did, I got a chill down my back. It's so sweet because. Yes. My gosh, I've known Anne for most of my life. When I met her, I think I was. Let me think about that. I think I was 20 or 21. Actually. We last year celebrated. It was the 50th anniversary of our first date. Wow. Yeah.
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B
That's awesome.
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A
And I've talked about.
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B
I love that you know that, by the way.
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A
What's that?
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B
The 50th anniversary of your first date. Like, the fact that you. Actually, most of us are out here struggling to remember when our actual wedding anniversary is, but here's Joe just remembering the 50th anniversary of their first date.
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A
Yes. You know, I guess I'm a little bit of a romantic on that. And actually, you know, Mark, it's a date. It's April 24, and it's a time of the year that a lot of really wonderful things have happened for me. I've. I've gotten big jobs, and this goes back to when I was in radio as well. And it. Throughout voiceover. So it, it's. I always look forward to April. We get into the middle of. Of April, and I just sit there thinking, what could happen? What.
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B
What's gonna happen this year?
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A
Yeah, it's great. But. Yes. Boy, everything that you just said about long longevity and having a marriage and having a friendship, a love affair for that long is. I agree, it's pretty remarkable because a lot of my friends, unfortunately, were not able to do that for a number of different reasons. But it really comes down to. I always give the credit to Anna. It really comes down to her personality and her ability to handle me And I think I'm pretty much a nice guy. But you know what? I remember her early. Early on saying to me, you know, you can be yourself when we're together, because I would always want things to be great, and I always work to have great friendships and great professional relationships.
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B
And.
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A
And she goes, I know that there are times when you're not feeling like smiling, and it's okay to be like that with me. And that was a big deal, because I guess I always would put on a facade. So that was number one. Number two is we just happened to be two individuals, and maybe through the stroke of luck, if she's having a bad day, week, month, and I'm having a bad day, week, month, they don't coincide, you know, where the other one is doing okay, and we can compensate for it. So we're very forgiving and very supportive of. Supportive of one another, and we know that. And also, another big deal is we were both broadcast kids, so she went to college for journalism, was a news writer, producer, worked in radio. We met in radio on her first day at NBC in Washington, and 50 years ago last year on April 24th. And so having that understanding, Mark, um, you know what it's like in the voiceover world. Well, we just had it today. We. We were gonna start this an hour ago, and I said, oh, my gosh, I am so sorry, Mark. You know, I have a conflict. And what is your schedule like? Can we push? And all of that. And that happens all the time in our lives. You know, where we're ready to go out to dinner, but then I get a call from my agent that says, you. You have a booking in 15 minutes, and some spouses would. How many times can you take that? Yeah, understandably. But it's because she knows the business and she worked in the business, and she knows that it's not a big deal. It just means that instead of going out to dinner right now, we'll go out to dinner 20 minutes from now, and it's no big deal.
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B
You know, I have often said that having the right person in your corner, the right spouse or whatever is. It can. It can be one of the biggest contributing factors to whether or not you succeed in this industry, because it's such a crazy industry, and you need someone who understands it and someone who will work with you and someone who will have that patience and that acceptance and, you know, I don't remember the date. And now you got me feeling guilty because I'm gonna have to go back and look it up.
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A
Well, guess What? Here's the nice thing. You can always edit this.
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B
That's right. But my first date with Mary Ellen. This is a true story.
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A
And I've met Mary Ellen, by the way.
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B
She was going to meet me, so I invited her. I gave her my address and said, come to my apartment and then we'll leave from my apartment to go out. As she was knocking on the door to my apartment, I was running out the door for a fire call because I was a volunteer firefighter at the time. And so literally I open up the door and she's like standing there getting ready to knock on the door, and I am literally running out the door to a call. And I looked at her and keep in mind, this is our first date, so this is the first time we've met in person.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And I said, I gotta go. You can go. And, you know, I'll call you when I get back or whatever I said. Or, you know, just go wait at my place and I'll see you when I get back. Right. And literally as I'm running down the hallway and when I came back and she was sitting in my apartment waiting for me, I was like, okay, there's. There's something here. Like, that is not the decision that 99% of the people would. Right. Yeah. They're not going to go into the strange guy's apartment and sit and wait for him to come back from a fire call. But I was like, okay, you know what? If she can accept what I got going on in that life, you know, when I, when I was doing that at the time, then, yeah, she'll definitely understand and be, wow.
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A
And I learned something there. I did not know you were a firefighter.
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B
Seventeen years. I was, I was on the, on the fire department. And yeah, that was my, my first date experience with her, was leaving her standing at the door of my apartment.
- [09:46]
A
Amazing. Amazing. And like I said, we've met. We were on a retreat together, a voiceover retreat together, one of the JMCs. And actually I saw more of her than, than you because you were not feeling well. That trip, you know, the combination of the travel to Europe and also being sick and all of that. So Anna and I spent a lot of time with her.
- [10:11]
B
She still talks about going out shopping with Ann and Anna because she went out with, with JMC's wife and they're out shopping in Dublin with their, you know, I tease her about her private security guard and limo driver and she's like living lifestyles of the rich and famous here.
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A
So. And let Me apologize for her going out to. She may have picked up some pointers from Ann and Anna because they are professional shop.
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B
There was definitely some things that went on that I was a little bit nervous about because I was like, look, look, I'm not Joe, I'm not jmc. Like, we gotta be a little bit more realistic about our shopping adventures and there won't be private security. And one of the things that I think that you're gonna get from this conversation with Joe Cipriano is that the voiceover industry has changed over the years. And even for a guy like Joe who is getting his work from his agent, the hustle never stops. He's always on the lookout for the next opportunity and always on the lookout for something that he can hand off to his agent to say, hey, we might want to look into this or we might want to check out this opportunity. Voice actors growing businesses today need to know how to hustle. They need to know how to market. And that is what the mission of Veopreneur is. I want you to think of yourself as a small business owner. I want you to see yourself as that solopreneur as and I want you to understand that today more than ever, being able to market, being able to do email, being able to do social media, create content, all of these things are essential ingredients to growing your voiceover business. And my goal is to help you with all of those things through the resources that are available@veopreneur.com so check it out. Free resources like this podcast and free advice Friday. Premium resources like workshops, masterclasses and coaching. It's all@veopreneur.com now back to our show. There's a couple of stories that I've heard you tell at conferences before and two in particular that stood out to me. So I want to share one of them. And correct me if I get this a little bit wrong along the way, but it was a story that you and A.J. mcKay told in a session, and it was about a time that you guys were out driving and you got a call from your agent, Urgent promo. You know, gotta do this thing right now. I remember you saying that it was raining and that you pulled over into, I think it was like a gas station or something because they have the big overhead canopies and you were hoping that that might make it a little quieter or whatever so that you could try to record your promo sitting there in the front seat of the car or whatever. But the part of the story that really stood out to me there was you were talking about the fact that you were contractually obligated at the time to be within so many hours of studio at any given time. And so you literally took your stuff with you every time you went somewhere. And I remember thinking at the time, like, maybe promo's not the life for me. But I also thought, for a guy who family is everything. I mean, everything. How did you balance that? How do you maintain the commitment that is required to play the game at that level where you're pulling over in gas stations, trying to record promos while you're driving, but yet somehow, in the midst of that, you've lived this amazing life and had all these amazing experiences. Family, friends, tennis, Italy, all the things I just. How do. How do you balance that? Because there's some of us that are out there that are trying to do, like, corporate videos and thinking, oh, my gosh, I got no time for anything. I just want to know how you do that and how you've done it for so many years.
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A
Well, and it's part of probably something that we'll talk about how the business has changed. Okay. So a lot of that, Mark, was when I really started working in Hollywood. In VO, it would be early 1980s, all right? And that's when I was starting to do movie trailers and things like that and some promos. But 1988 is when Fox decided, you know, you're going to be our voice. You're. You're going to be the voice of all of our comedies. And in fact, I just had dinner with the two heads of creative at Fox at that time, Lou Goldstein and Bob Bibb. And it was Bob Bibb who heard me on the radio in Los Angeles and called the radio station and said, who? You know, I need to get in touch with this guy Joe Cipriano, because they were looking for voice. So that was 1988. So my daughter was born in 1984. Right. So she's four years old. My son was born in 1987. Okay, so he's only a year old. But the. The way the business worked back then, there was no such thing as isdn, obviously. And you would go into work and, yes, I would work six days a week doing promos all day long into the night. But the amazing thing that happened, and I helped to mold that and push that, number one was promo doesn't start usually here in Hollywood until about 1pm okay. Everybody meets in the morning to review the spots that were finished last night. All of the writer, producers, the head of creative, everybody meets, watches the Spots and, and then they get their marching orders. Whether we're going to do a recut or you're going to, we got to do a reread or this one's good to go. By the time that happens, it's like noon and then everybody has a quick lunch and then the sessions start at 1pm so for me, I was able to bring my kids to school every single morning. Mark. I never missed it. We had breakfast together, drove them to school, would volunteer at lunch at school because their lunch was like 11:30 or 12 and I would help serve food and da la. So I was a very much, wow, a Mr. Mom kind of dad. But Anne was doing the same thing as well. So I wouldn't go to Hollywood, I wouldn't leave Pacific Palisades until 1230. And I'd go work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, you know, studio, studio, all over the place, all over Hollywood. And, and most of the time you would have a break around 3 o' clock and I would zoom home and pick up the kids from school and take them to where they were going after school, drive back down to Hollywood, Work, work, work, work, work, work, work. And I always had it in my calendar. Mary Ellen Lord Rita Venari knew that at 6:30 I need to break, be home to have dinner at 7 o' clock with the kids, with Ann, start homework. And then I would go back to fox, usually about 8:30, something like that, and then work till whenever, you know, sometimes till midnight, sometimes only till 10 o'.
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B
Clock.
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A
So that's how I was very lucky.
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B
Were you ever nervous about that? To be able to say, hey, look, I want to do the thing. I'm going to be your voice, I'm going to do your promos, but I gotta pick my kids up from school or I gotta be able to go home for dinner every night. Like did you ever get any pushback from that? Or when you're the voice, they're like they'll work around you.
- [17:31]
A
Well, you know what, it worked out. It just so happened that the timing of what I needed to do work out, worked out. The only thing that I pushed was the dinner thing and it's okay because it's about a shift change anyhow and they've already done the afternoon spots, the reading, so now they have to mix them. So there's going to be a two hour period. I'm not the only voice. Don LaFontaine is there doing the dramas. You know, we would have like Peter Cullen maybe would do a few things we'd have a couple of other voices and so they have to mix all of those things. So it was a perfect timing for me to be able to go home by the time they were done mixing and they have their own dinner. Let the, you know, the, the mixers and the audio folks and the room producers have their dinner. Then, boom, we're back working again. So it was unbelievable luck. And it didn't take a lot of pushing, I never have to admit. You were saying, were you ever worried about that? I never really told the people at Fox that I'm doing this. It was my agents that had to deal with it. And so I would say to Mary Ellen, you know, I have to be gone at 6:30. So they had to massage that. And that's why I was with Sutton Barth Venari for 25 years, because they were able to do it.
- [18:52]
B
But that's also. I mean, I love that you set that priority from the very beginning. Right. Because I think for some of us it's. It's backwards. It's the other. Right. I gotta get this job. I have this amazing opportunity. I have to be available. I can't risk it. It's too important to the family, to the career, to whatever. And it comes at the expense then of family or family time or whatever.
- [19:13]
A
You can't blame any voiceover talent for that. Because of the big switch in what we do and the fact that we can be instantly available and do our sessions. It sounds great to do your sessions from home or to do them from wherever you are, even on vacation. But it ain't that great if you're pulled away from the family and you have to do that. We didn't have it. It wasn't quite that urgent back then. They didn't have. I want mark in, in 15 minutes.
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B
Right.
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A
Because Mark's already booked and he needs travel time to get from Burbank back over the hill to Hollywood. So, you know, a lot of that was also the built in travel time, you know, that saved us as well.
- [20:03]
B
You know, Mike Pongratz. I think actually Mike came to your place and did your promo thing at your home a few years ago.
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A
Yeah. In Bel Air. Yeah.
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B
I remember going back to the World Series here a couple of months ago and Mike was doing promo for sportsnet and Jay's Toronto Blue Jays are in the World Series. And I remember seeing him post like the one game that went like 17 innings or something like that. Like, he literally had to go into the studio. Like, I think it ended at 2:30 in the morning or quarter to 3 in the morning or something like that. He had to go into the studio at whatever it was, 2:30, quarter to 3 in the morning to be able to record promos now that the game was done, to get set up for the next game in the World Series that was coming. And I remember thinking like, oh, man, could I do. I want to. You know what I mean? But talk about how that shifted then, because you're right now it is. It's instant availability. It's taking your gear with you in the car. It's having it with you every time you go on vacation or on a trip or anything. So how has it changed?
- [21:00]
A
Boy? And it's a gods godsend, you know, for us. And if you're lucky enough to work all the time, you know, and have great clients that you're working for, great buyers that you're working for. And by the way, with Mike, you know, I kind of took him to task way back then because he was suffering with that. I can't do anything with my family. I can't go anywhere. We haven't taken a vacation in I can't remember how many years. And I said, mike, that's got to stop right now.
- [21:30]
B
Well, he literally is the voice of every single television network in Canada. I think it's amazing. Like, I say that to my wife all the time. I'm like, every single commercial in this country is voiced by Matt Fogarty, I think. And every single promo in this country is voiced by Mike Pongratz. It's like those two guys are the voiceover in Canada.
- [21:48]
A
Wow, that is unbelievable. See what happens if you take the Joe Cipriano promo.
- [21:53]
B
Apparently, that's what it was. On second thought, Joe, maybe I need to come to your place. And we need to set this up because.
- [22:01]
A
Well, so that is part of the big change. And what is so wonderful about the 90s and the 2000s? Let's see, ISDN really came in, I think, around 92, 92, 93. Okay. But it wasn't really the go to. It took a long time for voiceover talent and especially the buyers to buy into this idea of. Of having their talent not there, you know, doing ISDN. So you had pretty much almost all of the 90s that you have to drive to these sessions, which is why Don LaFontaine had a limo. You know, I mean, he was the busiest guy in Hollywood. He holds the record for the most Screen Actors Guild. And after contracts signed, you know, and he would do scores of Them a day. And back then, sure, you could be the voice of a network, but for example, Fox back then, back then didn't have a studio at the time. So they would book out to recording studios all over Hollywood. And so we would be constantly driving to these different studios. Sometimes they would say, is there any chance you could take the video for the next spot that you're doing? Can we give you the reel and drop it off at the studio that you're going to next? And, you know, we would do that.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So there, that kind of community and that feel of you are a part of something that was pretty exciting. I had always wanted to get into network television. It's what I wanted to do. And when I was a disc jockey and you were in radio, when I became aware of these voices that represent these national networks, I said, wow, how, how do I do that? Which got me to move to, to la. So that whole just the way the business was done, I would see you, if you were here working and doing promos, I would see you at least once a day, even though you're working on different networks, different projects than I am, because we were all going to these studios. It was a wild cycle. And you would see, you know, I'd see Don three, four times a day, you know, at the Fox vendors, but also at some of the other work that we were doing as well. And he would just bounce around. So that's the, you know, the biggest change is that loss of personal involvement, one on one FaceTime with the people that you work for and for the people who do what you do. And let me tell you, that is a little bit like working with a therapist, because you get to hear what everybody is going through in this crazy washing machine cycle of being thrown all around Hollywood to different studios. And we would share those things. And you know, there's only. You go to one vendor and maybe they have three studios that you can work at and there are five voiceover talent waiting to work. There was a lot of sitaround time in the lobby, you know, telling stories and hanging out. And so that's the big, big change. And then of course, when we went to ISDN and IPDTL and Source Connect and all of the other ways to connect, now everything is instant. And we didn't have instant back there back then.
- [25:46]
B
One of the few regrets that I have, and I don't think I've made too many major blunders in my career, but one of the major blunders that I feel like I made and I Didn't realize it at the time, it wasn't until years later, but I had got signed with an agent in Toronto and I say if you look at Google Maps, I'm an hour and 20 minutes from downtown Toronto at 2:30 in the morning. Because at any other time in the day I am three hours from downtown Toronto. And the agent was trying to get me to come into the city for auditions. And I was like, are you kidding me? I gotta take an entire day to get like, right, six hours, three hours there, three hours back, plus whatever time in the studio for auditions. And I didn't understand it. And I got to a point where I said I wouldn't do it anymore. And the reason why I came to regret it was because the reason why she wanted me to do it, and I wish I had understood this better at the time, was it was to get me in front of all of those studio people so that they could see me, they could see what it was like to work with me, they could see how I could take direction or whatever. And I totally screwed the pooch on that one. And Toronto is, it's a very tight knit or it feels like it's very tight knit. It's very much about relationships, who, you know, that sort of thing. And not that that's a bad thing, but I feel like I really missed that opportunity by not recognizing that at the time. And I wonder how much of that we have lost just because of the fact that everything is home, studio, it's, it's source, connect or whatever. Right. And you miss out on some of those relationships because I'm guessing at least part of your longevity has probably come from those relationships.
- [27:25]
A
Yeah.
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B
You built going studio to studio or network to network or whatever.
- [27:30]
A
Yeah.
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B
Meeting those people, having conversations with those people, sitting in with them in the lobby like you talked about or whatever.
- [27:36]
A
Yeah. Because work begets work and relationships continue the work. Because everybody moves, everybody wants to move their career along. Whether you're a director in the booth or you're a writer, producer, you're always looking for what's the next thing that I can do. And they want to work with people who make their job easy and more importantly, who make them look really good. And so when you find those people, and it could be a voiceover person, it could be an editor, it could be any number of positions, you want to work with these people as much as you can. And that's how everybody gets drawn in and pulled in. But thankfully, I have to say, Mark, because that era is gone and now we do work a lot with folks kind of faceless, you know, Although it's fun to go on Zoom every once in a while. But there was that time in between before Zoom. I remember being the voice of Food Network back in the early 2000s, and Food Network is based in New York and I'm in Los Angeles, and we did it on isdn. There were producers that I worked with for years that I had never seen in person. And I remember meeting them after working with them five years, having an amazing relationship over audio.
- [29:02]
B
Yep.
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A
Back and forth. Knowing their kids, knowing their husbands, their stories, what they do, and then seeing them at Promax. I was at Promax and they were there here in LA and going, oh, my gosh, that being able to meet somebody finally face to face after all those years was amazing. But what I was going to say is, you can still develop those relationships over isdn. Well, ISDN is gone. Ipdtl Source Connect. You could still do that just by being interested in people and encourage them to talk and communicate. And, sure, they want to get the job done and all of that, and they're on a limited time as well, but there are those little nooks and crannies where you can start a relationship and develop a relationship and have it, you know, enrich it. So I'm very happy about that, that we can still do that.
- [30:02]
B
One of the other stories that you told at a. At a conference, that stood out to me, and I wish I could remember, because I don't. It was. It might have been in Ohio. It might have been at the Midwest voiceover conference that we did in Ohio, which I think was the first time that I ever met you.
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A
Yeah, I think so.
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B
But. But we were sitting on a panel and we were talking about marketing, and here I am thinking, okay, this is Joe freaking Cipriano, who's never marketed himself a day in his life because he's, you know, Hollywood and agents and all that sort of stuff. And you started telling a story about how you would sit down and you would read through Variety and all the different trade magazines looking for what network's doing what, what new shows might be coming, what new opportunities might be other so that you could ultimately pass them on to your agent.
- [30:48]
A
Absolutely.
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B
And so you were hustling the whole entire time. And I was like, holy, man. It doesn't really matter what level of the game you are at. If you want to get to the top of the mountain and stay at the top of the mountain, you hustle. And maybe how you Hustle looks different from how I hustle looks different from how somebody else hustles. But that concept was universal, and that really blew my mind.
- [31:16]
A
Yeah, that's. Well, you know what? And again, that's a personality trait and a type of person, and I hope I can remember that. I go back and we talk about this, because also in that era of all of us being in Hollywood and working, everybody was in the union. There was no such thing as non union work. You were. You were in sag, aftra, and most of the people that worked, especially in promo, they were handled by their agents. They knew nothing about the business.
- [31:50]
B
Right.
- [31:51]
A
They knew nothing about microphones. The engineer, the mixer would come into the booth and set the mic, depending upon where you were, and then go back and sit down and look at you and go. Then come back in and move it a half an inch. I mean, it was. It was ridiculous. And most of the talent knew nothing about the business and relied on their agents to do that. But now I'm a different person. I. I didn't. I wasn't blessed with the Voice of Don LaFontaine. Dom is a pretty smart businessman, but still. And a lot of the other voices that were working, and I always felt I had to work twice as hard, three times as hard to keep this going. I fell into this. I was discovered in 1988 as a voice and a network that said, wow, we want to make this voice. When anybody hears if they're not looking at the screen, if they're off in the kitchen, at the refrigerator and our promo is on, they know that they're watching Fox, okay? And so that. That's really important. And so I knew that I have to stay on top of this and find new opportunities all the time. What's coming to my network, what's going to other networks or movies or. I was never a commercial voice. I never could really get arrested in commercials. So, you know, and it's because I sound like a promo voice and whatever else that I do. So I. I would. I would work. I got so many jobs, Mark, because of that, and calling Mary Ellen and. Or Rita and saying, hey, did you know about this? And they said, oh, my God, we did hear about that. I go, yeah, I was reading in the trades that this is the producer. Oh, okay, we're calling him right now. And boom. They. They would be like, how did you find out about this? Well, you know, one of our talent, you know, had told us about it, and that's how I would either get an audition or my My demo would be sent to them and I would get that gig. I got a gig once, sadly, because a voiceover talent put in that, hey, I'm auditioning. I was on Facebook, I'm auditioning for this job. The guy who used to do it was let go. And I went, oh, my God. I called me. Did you know that. That there's an opening there? No. Oh, my God. Could you get my tape over there? You know, and I got.
- [34:26]
B
Careful what you share on Facebook.
- [34:29]
A
Exactly. And you've said that before as well.
- [34:32]
B
You know, I did a panel recently that's voiceover. And when. When Rudy called and asked me to be on the panel, at first I was like, I don't know how I feel about being asked to be on this panel. Because the idea of the panel was for it's voice actors who have hit a peak and then found a valley kind of deal. Right. You've gone up and you've come, but then you come back up again, right? And what do you do to get yourself back up there again? And there's a part of me that's like, well, that's a. That's kind of an uncomfortable thing to talk about. But then there's a part of me that's like, but I'm one of the most honest guys in the industry, so I have no problem telling people. And I literally, I said in the session, I said, look, I've hit a level in my career where I felt very successful and, you know, slid a little bit down and work my way back up again. And I said, and I've hit a point where I thought, you know, okay, this is where I want to be. I'm feeling good. I'm at the top of the mountain. I got kicked in the arse by a mountain goat. I somersaulted all the way down the mountain. I landed splat at the bottom of the mountain. They drew a chocolate outline around my career, and I'm like, where do I go from here type deal. And so it's fitting that I have you on now to talk about longevity, because peaks and valleys, I think, are a part of any industry, and I think voiceover in particular, where trends change so often and, you know, you can be the money voice and you can ride that wave for a long time, but then something shifts. A different producer comes in, and now the money voice isn't what they hear in their head anymore or something like that. But I feel like you're a guy who has. You peaked and stayed there for decades. Well, Mark, I think Part of that I think you've already talked about a little bit, which is the relationships that you've built and how much you've invested into those relationships and getting to know people and just being someone who's reliable and trustworthy and whatever. But it's not, I mean, I don't think it's like this super common thing to have this decade, multi, decade spanning career and particularly in one format where it has changed many times. And I'm sure you've lived through those changes.
- [36:49]
A
Yeah.
- [36:50]
B
And you're still here and you're still doing it and you're still.
- [36:53]
A
What's in my head is Chuck Duran, Stacy Aswad are very good friends of ours, Ann and I, and we get together with them often and we were doing an interview with them about our book and Ann said something, she goes, you know, it's interesting, people in voiceover industry think that Joe's career has been this, you know, and, and then leveled off and she said it was nothing like that. And it, and it's not, you know, it may look like that, but I suffered those same valleys. I call it the roller coaster. I had a lot of incredible highs and hearts breaking, crushing blows way into my career, way into doing Fox for 12 years and CBS for about six years. Five, six years. And then losing CBS and losing more than half of my income. And you know, sadly, we all tend to as human beings and maybe not a good business decision. And here I am saying that in front of you that you live within the means of your income and that's, that's not smart. But so when you, when you're, you're going at a, at a certain pace and you think, wow, this is, this is awesome. And then you lose more than half your income. That'll wake you up a little bit.
- [38:23]
B
Yes.
- [38:23]
A
And that also leads to what you talked about earlier, reading the trades every morning, preparing for any, any drop like that to. I'm, I'm big on having a lot of streams, a lot of genres, working in a lot of different genres, not only for the income streams that are. Will, will come to you, but creatively, you know, so that you're working for me in game shows, live announce promos, trailers, radio imaging, you know, and on and on and on.
- [38:59]
B
Yeah.
- [39:00]
A
But I learned after that first huge hit was that you've got to diversify so that when you do lose something, it doesn't hurt as much, you know, because you have so much going out there. But yeah, listen, that's just the way this business is. And sure I have been lucky, and I've gone down, and. And. But even when I was at my lowest, I would hit another lucky strike of suddenly NBC was looking for a drama voice. And I'd never done drama, but I said, I'm gonna give it a go. And then I got it, and it dragged me out, and it brought me back up. So now I'm doing NBC dramas and Fox comedies, you know, and then the dramas dropped off, and that was another hurt.
- [39:46]
B
But.
- [39:46]
A
But I. And then I called the folks at cbs. Now three years had gone by, and they said, you know, we do want to have you back. And I came back, and then all of a sudden, I'm doing Fox and CBS again. So you got to stay on your toes. You always have to be looking for opportunities. You know, it's not like the old days when I was talking about the folks that were in voiceover and knew nothing about the business and relied on their agents to call them with bookings. Five, six, seven bookings a day. You have to. You have to make your. Your own luck, you know, and be out there looking for it.
- [40:23]
B
I think part of what. Part of why I'm fascinated by you, though, is because I've had conversations with people who have been through, you know, glory days or whatever.
- [40:33]
A
Right?
- [40:33]
B
Oh, I was working on all these networks. I was making all this money, and when the shift came for them, whatever it was, whether their voice was no longer the voice or the trend changed, whatever the trend was, and down to the bottom of the mountain they go and sit there because they don't know what to do next. But you don't sit there. You don't sit there. How much is mindset and attitude a factor in all of this? Because I'll tell you, like, you seem like one of the happiest guys that I've ever met. Like, literally every single time I see you, you always have a smile on your face. You are always in a good mood. I've never got the sense that it's insincere. You know, I'm out here, I gotta put a show on because I'm Joe Cipriano and I'm in front of all these people or whatever. Like, it's always felt like, no, this guy's the real deal.
- [41:28]
A
Well, thank you.
- [41:30]
B
Wow.
- [41:30]
A
I mean, thank you so much for that. And it is real, because I do believe that positivity and a great attitude and an excitement for life and an excitement for your career and what you're doing means something, and it is what keeps you focused and Interesting. You know, if that's, if I could say that, that you know, being positive, being around somebody who's positive makes you feel good. And I think that that's part of it. Maybe it's the way I was raised. Maybe it's my mom and dad, it's my brother, it's my wife, it's my friends, it's everybody that I know has a positive attitude. And sure, listen, I have a lot of friends right now. And it was the one year anniversary on January 7th that 10 families, very close friend friends of ours, I mentioned Pacific Palisades. We raised our kids in the Palisades and lived there for 20 something years. They all lost their homes, lost everything they have ever owned. This little thing that Ann needle pointed for me, that's in my studio, all those little keepsakes that they have are gone and coming out of that and I'm watching my friends come out of that and I'm amazed at how they're handling it. Can you imagine? I don't know, you may have dealt with that at some point, but you would kind of think that that's the worst thing that could happen besides a death is. And I'm just looking around my room and just look around at what you have and then all of that is incinerated. It's gone. All of those memories, those pictures, that picture with Don with Ron Scalera who is the head of promos at cbs, who took me over from Fox, all of that is all those memories gone. It's just unbelievable. But I see that it took that hit and that emotional roller coaster that they were on and now we're a year past and they're almost to the point where they have their permits and they're going to start building again. And my friend Russ, who I play tennis with every Saturday, who lost his house, he said when we left as the flames were coming down, we ran out with two suitcases, but they just moved back to the Palisades in a rental while they're about to start building and we moved back in a U Haul. So you start accumulating stuff all over again and you start making new memories and positive memories. So yeah, but that was. Wow, I went on a tangent on that one. But positivity, never giving up and always staying focused actually helps with the success. And it also helps keep you as someone who comes into a room smiling, I mean, and it's genuine. You know, all of that comes together.
- [45:04]
B
And that's the stuff that people notice too, right? When, when you're somebody who's easy to work with, enjoyable to work with, fun to work with. It makes people want to work with you again. Right. Sometimes it's not just about great voice. Sometimes it's about great collaborator, the big picture. Right. And that makes a difference. Something else that I remember you saying at a conference once, because apparently everything I've ever learned about you, I've learned from the conference, although I have read the book. But I remember you talking about coaching, you coaching. And I think that's another lesson that sometimes we forget as we make our way up to the top of the mountain, or we hit the top of the mountain, or we start to slide down the backside of the mountain. Often it's because we stop doing all the things that got us to the top in the first place. And one of those things is coaching and making sure that we're still relevant, that we're still, you know, whatever. What's booking today? What is the voice, the style, the read, et cetera. Talk about that. Talk about how you've always continued on that journey for yourself to continue to develop, which is part of how you've stayed relevant for so long.
- [46:11]
A
Yeah, I guess so. And also that need to give back. But, you know, you may know this mark, too. I think you and I talked about it at one point. I really struggled with coaching because I wasn't sure I was a very good director. I knew what I needed to do. I could pick up a, you know, a piece of copy, and I could tell by. By the. The lines that I'm going to be reading and the sound on tape, the sots that are in the spot. You could see what the story is. And I knew it. I. I knew in just instinctively what needed to be done now. So I was more of an instinctive sort of, you know, performer, I guess, in what. What my intent was that I was going to bring to the copy and what I can do with it. But telling somebody else what they should do, I really struggled with it, but I pushed through it. And I learned from watching others. I learned from the people who directed me, you know, at the networks and in sessions and try to understand what it is that someone who is either coaching or directing can. Can add to a talent's thought process that might just spark something that then they can take it. I think maybe the. The coach doesn't give you everything that you need. The coach is going to give you ideas and thoughts and ideas, and then hopefully that's going to spark your creativity, and you may do something that you never thought of doing. Before I've had that happen with me in working with coaches, Dave Walsh comes to mind. You know, if I'm working on something new, I'll do a session with Dave to help me with some. How do I go about this? This is so different. I've never done anything like that. And to get some ideas from him back in the day, Maurice Tobias, you.
- [48:21]
B
Know.
- [48:23]
A
David Alden, who's a great director. Brett Wynn, great director at Fox, who now makes movie trailers, you know, his own company. But yeah, I think, you know, it's important to do that. It keeps you relevant, it also allows you to share. And I think also as a coach, that you would know more than I, how it also inspires you and what it does for yourself and your. Your career, not just your coaching career, but your voiceover career.
- [48:54]
B
I had an experience in a directed session just the other day, and I don't do a ton of directed sessions just by the nature of the type of work that I do. And I'll be the first to admit, sometimes I'm like, do I really want to do this as a directed session? Because I'm sure you've been there before where it's like, I can record this and have it done, delivered and edited in two and a half minutes, or I could sit through a 90 minute directed session to get the same amount of work done. And so it's like, I just want to do it on my own. But I'm in this session and we're going through the read and one of the people that was on the line said, I really like that, but can you try it like this? And it was something that probably in 15 takes I would've never thought of. And I tried it the way they said it and I was like, dang, that's really good.
- [49:37]
A
Yeah.
- [49:38]
B
And so then I'm like, you know, afterwards I'm like making a note, hey, next time try. And like. So there's that too, right? If you're paying attention, I think maybe that's something that you've had the good fortune of because so much of what the work that you've done is, you know, we'll call it in studio, even though it may be source Connect or whatever now, but having the opportunity to have a director or whatever on the other end all the time.
- [50:03]
A
Some of my.
- [50:03]
B
You're in a constant feedback loop, right?
- [50:05]
A
Yeah, exactly. Some of my favorite work and bits and pieces of promos that ended up on my demo were ideas that I would have never thought of. And what it brought out in Me. And in the performance, you know, within a promo, it's like, wow, that. That's. That was awesome. I love that. And. And it shows another shade of you. And it's. It's worthy of being in the demo, you know, and. And, you know, for. For folks. And we still. We still have demos, and, you know, demos are very. Auditions and demos, I think, are still very important.
- [50:45]
B
Yep.
- [50:46]
A
Incredibly so.
- [50:47]
B
You've mentioned Don LaFontaine a couple of times, and I think that you can't get your membership card into the voiceover community unless you know of Don LaFontaine at the very least. Right. Everybody knows in a world or we've heard the stories of him riding around in his limos, or I've heard you drop the spot in a tagline and things like that all the time. And there is a legacy there. Right. Forever associated with trailers, forever associated with. In a world and things of that nature. I said in the beginning that I've always considered. I consider you one of the living legends of voiceover. And I'm just curious. You've got your lifetime achievement award. You got that from Silvis. Was that two years ago? 2024.
- [51:32]
A
A year ago December.
- [51:34]
B
Yeah, 2024. How do you think about your legacy? Do you think about your legacy in this industry?
- [51:42]
A
That's a good question. I don't think about it. I'm happy to be able to share what my experiences were. I love, you know, doing that. You know, what you said at the beginning, it's like, gosh, Mark, you know, I've taught. I've told these stories of my career over and over again. And it's not that I'm getting bored with it. It's that it's. I'm concerned that everybody else is going to get bored with it. So, yeah, I've heard that. I heard that story, you know, five times. So, yeah, I don't really think about that at all. Having received that lifetime achievement award was really wonderful. And the people who presented it to me are friends that go back to those days when we used to go out and we'd sit in the lobbies of recording studios. And Don LaFontaine's wife was the one who came out to present the ward, you know, Nita, who's incredibly talented in her own right, so. But the most important part for me was that my family was there. And you've said that at the beginning how important family is, and to have my kids there who are adults and. And now have their own children, to have my grandkids there. Oh, my God. That. That was just so. While I don't think about maybe where I am in the scope of things in a voiceover world and talking about legacy, I do think about how nice it is that, you know, my kids know and my grandkids know that there's something special about papa. And, you know, my granddaughter will be in the car. I'll pick her up. Ann and I will pick her up from school and we're taking her to dance. This is when we're in West Palm Beach, Florida, and the radio is on and my voice comes on. You know, we're listening to a radio station maybe that I image and, you know, Theo will. She will mimic it right away. And I hear that she tells her friends, yeah, my papa is famous. And I go, well, not really, but you do hear my voice from time to time.
- [54:02]
B
Time. It's funny that you say that because I, I got asked a question on a podcast that I was on end of the year last year, and, and I said when the older two girls, Maddie and Lily, were, were younger, I was on the fire department. And so when that question comes up.
- [54:17]
A
I love your family when you do the Christmas Eve.
- [54:21]
B
Yes, yes.
- [54:22]
A
Oh, my God. And love. I've watched your family grow.
- [54:25]
B
That's. Everybody has had that opportunity. That's something I've thought of too. But when, when Maddie and Lily were, were younger, it was, you know, my dad's on the fire department because my dad's a firefighter. And I mean, that's cool, right? Everybody thinks it's cool to be able to say, your, your dad's a firefighter. But Kaylee started school in September and dad's not a firefighter anymore. Dad's a voice actor. But it's like voice actor for some, you know, obscure E learning course or some random corporate video that nobody's ever heard of or whatever. And I'm like, man, that is just not cool. And so I said, like, part of what is driving me now is I want Kaylee to be able to say when somebody asks, you know, what did your dad do? That I can say the voice of whatever show because I, you know, discovery or whatever, right? Like, I want to do a series. That's my ultimate end goal. And it's amazing how motivating that has become for me that, like, the number one driver in my career perhaps at this point now is my 4 year old daughter in kindergarten being able to say, my dad's the voice of whatever. And now I'm gonna do whatever I have to do to be able to get to that point. And it's amazing how our kids can have that kind of impact that we would never otherwise think of, but.
- [55:37]
A
Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, I think you probably would find that from most parents in whatever their, their career is, it comes down to showing your kids what it means to make a commitment and to work hard and have success and how that can impact them, you know. Yeah. By the way, you know that Scott Rummel, who. Another contemporary of mine here in LA who does a lot of movie trailers. His dad was the fire chief of Los Angeles for years and years and he would see his dad on TV all the time at every major fire. You know, he would be interviewed.
- [56:21]
B
Yep.
- [56:22]
A
Chief, what do we got here? Chief.
- [56:23]
B
You know, I do miss that. I do, I do miss that, that time in my life. But at the same time now I don't. Only because I missed so much. Right, sure. When you, when you're, you're volunteering with.
- [56:39]
A
Your wife to be.
- [56:40]
B
I mean, I did. We all, we almost set. Altered the whole space time continuum there with that, with that one call, but so now it's landing that one job somehow, someday, some way. How much do you love being a grandpa?
- [56:56]
A
Oh God. Good grief. Wait until. Anne and I were just talking about it the other day because we're very fortunate. Our son and his wife live here in la. They live in Thousand Oaks. They have a little daughter, rowan, who is 6 months. And our daughter has three kids. Surprised the heck out of it out of us. Last year she had an 8 year old and a 5 year old. And right in April of last year, announces they have a bunch of friends over. It was actually my granddaughter's 8th birthday that they were pregnant. And we're like, you're pregnant, you're having a baby. You have an 8 and a 5 year old and. Yes, and they have. So my grandkids and Ann and I were talking about this. It's such a different thing. Having children is wonderful, but it's a lot of work.
- [58:01]
B
Yes.
- [58:01]
A
And it's a lot of angst and worry and all of that. And when you have grandchildren, it's a, it's a whole different thing. You're just there, you, you, you, you can be there for them in every way. You don't have to be the person who's the dad or the mom, you know, you know, you're there to play.
- [58:28]
B
Yep.
- [58:29]
A
That's all we do is play.
- [58:31]
B
Play, buy ice cream, you know, the.
- [58:33]
A
Important things in life, toys, you know, and so my son and daughter in law were here yesterday and we were playing with our little six month old, you know, and going through all of those things and it is, it's so important to me. It's so fun. It's. And this happens to be here.
- [58:52]
B
There you go.
- [58:53]
A
Or not.
- [58:53]
B
Yeah, I love it.
- [58:54]
A
That's, that's the family right there.
- [58:56]
B
Nice.
- [58:56]
A
Both coasts. And yeah, it's, it's the best. Mark, wait until you get there. It's going to be great.
- [59:06]
B
I, I joke now because having so 17, 13 and now four and you know, 18 months exactly. And all girls, which has been an interesting experience. And my wife's family all lives about eight hours away from where we are. And so when we did the basement renovation, when we found out that the one baby was coming, part of it was putting in a room for grandma. And so my mother in law is here a lot and I'm like, okay, so now I'm in the house very often with my wife, my teenage daughter, my early teen daughter, my toddler daughter, my baby daughter, my mother in law.
- [59:48]
A
Your mother in law. O. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
- [59:53]
B
But I wouldn't change any of it.
- [59:55]
A
No. And you have a good relationship with your mother in law?
- [59:59]
B
Oh, yes. Good.
- [60:00]
A
That's nice.
- [60:01]
B
I remind her every once in a while, you know, you tick me off. I'm not going to let you come here anymore.
- [60:05]
A
So it's very reminiscent of the Obama family. I mean they had her mother living with them in the White House during his years as president.
- [60:16]
B
These are the things that matter at the end of the day though. Right? And I love that, I love that you prioritize that right from the very beginning because if you're doing what you're doing at the level that you were doing it, network promo and all that sort of stuff. And if you can figure out a way to prioritize wife and kids and dinner and pickups from school, then I don't think there's any excuse for the rest of us to not be able to, to find a way to, to prioritize those things. And I mean that's, that has been a thing for me. Right. Like yeah, taking, taking Kailee to school or picking her up from school.
- [60:51]
A
Let me ask you if you feel, is it, is it a little bit easier because you work from home or is it more difficult because then you're called upon to work so quickly and easily?
- [61:04]
B
I think that the greatest gift that voiceover has given me is the freedom and flexibility to build the life that I've wanted. Like the lifestyle that I've wanted to build. And that has meant saying no to certain types of work or saying no to certain opportunities and then trying to figure out ways to balance that out with something different that, that offers a little bit more of that freedom and flexibility. But I worked in radio for a lot of years and I worked a lot of nights and a lot of weekends and every holiday and all of that sort of stuff. And you know, when my, when one of the girls is like down, I'm playing in a basketball tournament next Wednesday. Are you going to be able to come? I can say, yes, I will, I will be there. And you know, maybe I can't go for the whole thing, but at least I can go and catch a couple games or something. Like, I couldn't do that when I was working in radio. Right. That wasn't an option when you're working for somebody else. And, and I am grateful every day for that gift, to be able to have that freedom and flexibility to do the things. Because I mean, it's so cliche but like nobody ever comes to the end saying, I wished I had worked more. But everybody wishes they'd been to that game, gone to that dance recital, whatever it was, Right. All those moments with your kids. And I think what's been really interesting for me now having a 17 year old, she's turning 18 in a couple of weeks. She's getting ready to go off to college in September.
- [62:28]
A
She wasn't able to be on the.
- [62:31]
B
Couldn'T be on live stream because she's working now, she's got a job and but seeing her and facing that reality of one, getting ready to leave and realizing that this time comes to an end. Right. Like, not that she's out of our life or anything like that, but you only get so many years where they're here full time in yours.
- [62:54]
A
Absolutely.
- [62:55]
B
And it's made me look at Kayleigh and Kinsley, the two youngest ones, in a different, like recognizing, like, wow, don't miss this.
- [63:06]
A
Absolutely.
- [63:07]
B
Because one day they're gonna go to school and it happens faster than you realize it.
- [63:14]
A
Does it really? And it accelerates as you get older as well. Which, why, why did they make it that way?
- [63:22]
B
I would love to know the answer to that question because I feel that too, Joe. I, I, and I have not come up with a good answer for that yet. Yet. Well, I, I want to be respectful of your time. I could keep you here and talk about this stuff for hours, but I, I think part of your legacy has been what you have done for the community in training up the next, we'll call them generation or whatever of voice actors who are preparing for careers. I'm sure that you could probably look to former students and I'm, I'm. If you're, I feel like you're probably like me in the, in that regard that I, A student's success is like almost as exciting, if not more exciting than some of my own successes when I can look at somebody that I've coached and seen what they've done and said, wow, I helped them get there or whatever. And I'm sure you've probably had some of those moments. Absolutely. So just talk a little bit about the promo masterclass and what you have to offer because I do think that that is part of your legacy is making sure that there are a whole new batch of voices that will be there and ready to come up behind you. And I appreciate that you do that.
- [64:30]
A
Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Mark. And I'm really enjoying it. I said earlier how it was a little scary to get into coaching and learning how to communicate what it is that's in my head and put it into words and help a talent. But yeah, doing. And I know the other thing that I think I'm pretty good at is I know what I can do. I know where my strengths are. And you know, and promo is like, you know, at the top, you know, the pinnacle of that. So, you know, I'm not gonna be able to help people in the commercial world with, with those reads, you know, and maybe even even though I've done narration and things like that, I don't know what I can, I can lend there, but at least I know that I know promo and, and I, and I'm a student of it and I always have been. So I'm always watching promos and used to joke that back in the days when we were in radio. And maybe this is true for you. I don't know. We'd be driving from Washington D.C. where we met and my parents lived in Connecticut. So that's five hour drive up there, listening to the radio and turning up the radio when the disc jockey would talk. And then as the cool song begins, turn it down. And she's like, what? I don't understand. This is backwards land. What are you doing? You turn down the music and you turn. Well, yeah, and it's the same thing with, with promos. You know, I don't skip through promos on the dvr. You know, I want to watch them and, and see, I was just watching one during The Golden Globes. And I was like, whoa, I didn't know that voice. And I said, wow, that's a throwback. It almost sounds a little. I hear a little bit of Don's texture in there. And I was like, that doesn't make sense. That's. That's not the current read. But now it's got me thinking, all right, I gotta, I gotta look into this a little bit. Why and who? And you know, is that the beginning of a trend? I doubt it. I hope you know that the creatives, that the networks are always thinking, what can we do that's a little bit different and try to pique people's interest. Listen, it's all about getting people into the tent to watch the show. You know, we're all there going like this, come watch our show. It's just how you do it. Are you doing it like this? Are you doing it like this? You know, there's all of these different ways of doing it. So, you know, learning about that, being able to teach that and, and working with a lot of different people because I'm doing it online, I've learned that with this platform that I use, which is asynchronous. It's pretty much like our conversation we're having right now, except there's a span of time in between where you ask your question and I respond, you know, but it's a one on one relationship. Nobody else is involved. There might be five other voiceover talent that's in that booklet on that platform. I have a lot of different booklets going on at once, but we're doing a 101 and it is a singular conversation where I'm just focused on what you're doing and hopefully you're listening to what I'm saying. So when it was my daughter in law who found that platform and when I started to investigate and learn about it, I said, wow, this is so much better than when we're at conferences and we have 12 people in a room and we have three hours. I can't get them up to read every spot. I'm lucky if I get them up on three spots. You know, that's in three hours. That's going through 12 people.
- [68:32]
B
Yep.
- [68:33]
A
You know, this one, the masterclass is 20 spots. They're reading on all 20 spots multiple times with direction in between each read. That's exciting to me.
- [68:47]
B
Yeah.
- [68:48]
A
And I'm glad that Sarah found that for me and that it's my way of being able to kind of give back and share some knowledge. The other thing Mark. And I'm sure you have this as well. When you get somebody new that has come in and they do their first read, I love that. I love when they do their first read and being surprised at, like, whoa, this person has it has just got it never done. You know, I've worked with people that. I've never done a promo before, but I'd like to do it. And then they do their first read, and it's like, it blows the back of your head off, you know, it's like, oh, my gosh, this is now. This is going to be exciting. And then also taking people who are slow to start and watch them grow throughout the course and, you know, and future coaching, it's exciting. And I know you feel that as well.
- [69:45]
B
Absolutely.
- [69:46]
A
Yeah.
- [69:47]
B
Joe, this has been awesome.
- [69:49]
A
This is great.
- [69:50]
B
I hope. I hope it's felt like it was a little bit different from all the other interviews you've done before. Maybe we got to hear some new stories.
- [69:57]
A
Yes.
- [69:59]
B
One of the things that I. Maybe I'm a little bit selfish. I try not to be, but sometimes, every once in a while, I have somebody on the podcast where I feel like I'm being a little bit selfish, because it's like, I want to find out for my own right. I want to talk to this guy who's had this incredibly successful marriage in the midst of also an incredibly successful career, and I want to learn something from that guy so that, you know, can I be a better voice actor? Sure. But would I be just as happy if I walked away with a tip that made me a better husband?
- [70:24]
A
Yeah.
- [70:24]
B
Heck, yeah, I want it. Right? And so I just really thank you for. For your transparency, for your honesty, and for. Man, you are one of those guys that every time I see you, I'm just like, that guy. Look at that guy. I just. I don't know. The positivity, the smile, the energy that you put off it, man, it warms up room, and I'm grateful to you for that.
- [70:45]
A
Thank you so much. Thank you. And, you know, I throw it right back at you. I mean, you know, talking about how I know I've never met your kids, but I. I've seen your kids grow. And what you do every year in giving back, you know, with the 12 days of Christmas, and it gets bigger and bigger every year. It's amazing. But then also in your coaching, you do something that is so different, as well as regular coaching and voiceover coaching, but about the business side of it, and people just have to learn that more and more. Because of the way the business is. You're a solopreneur, right. And you have to do everything and you're running your company and you're helping talent understand, you know, how to handle the business side of it while pursuing their creative pursuits, you know? Yeah. So. Right back at you.
- [71:47]
B
Thank you, Joe. This has been great. We'll do it again sometime. We'll try not to wait another 300 episodes to do it again.
- [71:54]
A
Good deal.
- [71:57]
B
All right, Joe, if somebody wants to find out about the master class, or if somebody wants to get connected with you, send you a kind word or something like that, where. Where do we find you? How do we get.
- [72:06]
A
Well, you can always. The website is jo cipriano.com and you can click there to send me an email. And it, it comes right here. It's. It's. Hello, Joe. Joe sopriano.com. so that's that. The promo masterclass is promomasterclass.com and you can go there and learn. Learn more about that. Follow me on Instagram. I follow you on Instagram. It's Joe Cipriano Vo. And that's always fun. Always putting up not only stuff about work and the business, but a lot of stuff about the grandkids.
- [72:43]
B
That's where I was doing some of my research. I was like, I could just look at your Instagram and be like, I'm going to ask this guy, talk about your grandkids. And I could picture what your face was going to do because I just. It's so obvious from the way that you. From the way that you shared. So. All right, Joe, well, thank you so much. I truly do appreciate it.
- [73:00]
A
I love it. Thanks, Mark.
- [73:01]
B
Just before you go, before you put down your phone or your tablet or whatever you're listening to this episode on, could you do me two quick favors? Number one, could you make sure that you subscribe. Wherever you are enjoying this podcast, you'll always get notified about new episodes. And number two, would you please take a minute to leave a review? It would mean so much to me. Thanks so much for enjoying the everyday Veopreneur podcast. I'll catch you on the next one.