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Ryan Shade asks, "How many companies' commercials can your voice be heard as
the spokesman for?"
All of them. You mean, how many do I do? Or how many have I done?
I think he's asking..
These questions could do with just a touch more precision.
Well, they're probably trying to write them fast so you see them in time.
That's so like you to, you know,
defend the honor of question askers. Maybe they're typing with mittens.
That's possible.
Well, you very often hear your voice coming from the television .... Yeah, a lot over the years.
And the thing is, it's like you do it once and it doesn't necessarily
mean it goes away.
I heard a
pizza commerical
not too long ago
that I'd done years and years ago that they'd brought back. Which was kind of weird.
So I don't know. Probably 15 or 20 different companies and I don't know how many ...
There's still stuff I narrate.
There's a lot of stuff out there. If there's a wildebeest trying to get across the Serengeti
but being slowly eaten by
by hyenas and crocodiles, the odds are I'm the one telling you about it. So, that's out there.
Yeah, I think
It's a great way to make a living.
We've talked a lot about voice-overs.
Everybody thinks they can do them.
Mostly you need to be lucky.
You need to be able to read.
Thirdly, you need to have a somewhat
OK voice, but it's not as important as people think.
You know what my first voice-over was?
I was in New York a long time ago and I was working
in a recording studio but not
doing anything
that was recording oriented. I was writing.
And uh...
somebody asked me if I would do the scratch track
for a Domino's pizza commercial.
And that meant that the agency had
put the ad together
and
they hadn't sold it yet to the client.
It was for their new deep-dish pizza.
And the line was,
"When it's gotta be deep, and it's gotta be thick,
it's gotta be Domino's."
And that's how I did it.
And the guys said, "Do it a little deeper." And I said,
"When it's gotta be deep, and it's gotta be thick, it's gotta be Domino's."
They gave me $200 just to do the scratch track
and then I went to Australia
for four months.
But what happened was
they wound up using
the scratch track in the actual ad
that went on the air.
And when I came home
My mailbox was full of money.
Lots of checks.
Not huge checks
but many of them.
And that's when I thought, this whole
voice-over thing, you know ...
There's something there.
"When it's gotta be deep, and it's gotta be thick ..."
Anyhow. So yeah, I did that. That happened.
Anything else I can do for you today?
Because I'm freezing.
Would you like to go back inside?
Well, if we're done. How do we know when we're done?
We're never done. OK, ask me another one.