1993..
While in the garage the other day when I found those photo's in my other post I also came a cross a thin notebook I had. At first I didn't know what it was and then upon opening it I smiled........
It really is good not to throw everything away, but when I moved from California I had to get rid of about everything, so imagine my surprise when I found this notebook filled with papers from when I did a silly thing, just because it sounded like fun, and signed up to take a Voiceover Class at a local college near where I lived in San Fernando Valley, CA.
Voiceover Class: Instructor: Nigel Neale
The more I looked through the papers, the more I grinned... Nigel Neale. He was the instructor for the class which consisted of two parts. One was voiceover for cartoons, the other for radio and television.
Just in case you don't know what Voiceover is... it's anytime you hear a voice but don't see the face of the person, such as listening to a radio announcer, or watching a cartoon.
Let me tell you a little of Nigel. (poor Nigel) Nigel was, oh about in his late 40's (?), he wasn't all that tall, and he had a round face topped by a full head of red hair. Now, if you know anything about red heads, you know that their faces can turn red extremely fast when they get embarrassed. .. and during my time in Nigel's class, I tried my best to keep those little round cheeks of his turning red!
The first time was an accident.. well.. sorta, I mean I was being me, I didn't set out to embarrass him. I guess this is where I tell you that whenI get nervous or sorta flustered, not knowing what to do... the strangest thing happens.. I open my mouth and say things I wouldn't normally say! Generally speaking, they aren't nasty or anything, just ..well, they come from somewhere but it beats me where they were hiding!
A good example would be when I had to get in front of the class with a small script for a commercial. Nigel's instructions were:, "just read it".. I did.
Then he said, "good, now give yourself a character and really stretch yourself.".. I did.. I used a similar voice and character like Mae West, and did her "well, hello big boy" (and sauntered over near him and threw my arm over his shoulder) to my teacher.. who immediately turned red. (grinning here)
Yep, I have to say.. it was a really fun class once you got past the VERY LARGE STAGE FRIGHT of standing in front of your class to do whatever it was Nigel wanted you to do. (it didn't help that it was always what they call "a cold reading", meaning: you had no practice before doing it)
After a time I think he caught on.. the more nervous I was, the more he was apt to be embarrassed one way or another! At one point when he had used everyone else in the class and he KNEW he had to call on ME, you could hear him utter "oh gawd" before he'd call my name..heh... talk about bravery!
One of the funnest (is that a word?) things we did was some Looping. That's where he would show us part of a cartoon without sound.. we had to add the voices and try to get our words to line up with the motion of their mouths in the cartoon. I got to be The Little Mermaid...and I nailed it! But I have to say it was the strangest feeling watching it then and knowing that was MY voice! (well,I imitated the voice used from the cartoon as closely as I could)
While in class we made some audio tapes of what we were doing, but alas, those I did not find. Maybe they are still in one of the boxes somewhere, but I won't hold my breath in hopes that they are. But I am glad I found this notebook.. it sure brought back some fun memories! I know if I had a way to get back and forth I'd still take some adult night classes... just for the fun of it!
Oh, here in Jersey I'm sure they wouldn't be Voiceover classes, but there are some I'd take anyway.. maybe some computer classes, and an art class and maybe a creative writing class sorta thing. When you can do that just for the joy of doing it, and not be weighted down with the all important grade at the end and feeling like if you don't do great something awful will happen, it's actually fun!
It really is good not to throw everything away, but when I moved from California I had to get rid of about everything, so imagine my surprise when I found this notebook filled with papers from when I did a silly thing, just because it sounded like fun, and signed up to take a Voiceover Class at a local college near where I lived in San Fernando Valley, CA.
Voiceover Class: Instructor: Nigel Neale
The more I looked through the papers, the more I grinned... Nigel Neale. He was the instructor for the class which consisted of two parts. One was voiceover for cartoons, the other for radio and television.
Just in case you don't know what Voiceover is... it's anytime you hear a voice but don't see the face of the person, such as listening to a radio announcer, or watching a cartoon.
Let me tell you a little of Nigel. (poor Nigel) Nigel was, oh about in his late 40's (?), he wasn't all that tall, and he had a round face topped by a full head of red hair. Now, if you know anything about red heads, you know that their faces can turn red extremely fast when they get embarrassed. .. and during my time in Nigel's class, I tried my best to keep those little round cheeks of his turning red!
The first time was an accident.. well.. sorta, I mean I was being me, I didn't set out to embarrass him. I guess this is where I tell you that whenI get nervous or sorta flustered, not knowing what to do... the strangest thing happens.. I open my mouth and say things I wouldn't normally say! Generally speaking, they aren't nasty or anything, just ..well, they come from somewhere but it beats me where they were hiding!
A good example would be when I had to get in front of the class with a small script for a commercial. Nigel's instructions were:, "just read it".. I did.
Then he said, "good, now give yourself a character and really stretch yourself.".. I did.. I used a similar voice and character like Mae West, and did her "well, hello big boy" (and sauntered over near him and threw my arm over his shoulder) to my teacher.. who immediately turned red. (grinning here)
Yep, I have to say.. it was a really fun class once you got past the VERY LARGE STAGE FRIGHT of standing in front of your class to do whatever it was Nigel wanted you to do. (it didn't help that it was always what they call "a cold reading", meaning: you had no practice before doing it)
After a time I think he caught on.. the more nervous I was, the more he was apt to be embarrassed one way or another! At one point when he had used everyone else in the class and he KNEW he had to call on ME, you could hear him utter "oh gawd" before he'd call my name..heh... talk about bravery!
One of the funnest (is that a word?) things we did was some Looping. That's where he would show us part of a cartoon without sound.. we had to add the voices and try to get our words to line up with the motion of their mouths in the cartoon. I got to be The Little Mermaid...and I nailed it! But I have to say it was the strangest feeling watching it then and knowing that was MY voice! (well,I imitated the voice used from the cartoon as closely as I could)
While in class we made some audio tapes of what we were doing, but alas, those I did not find. Maybe they are still in one of the boxes somewhere, but I won't hold my breath in hopes that they are. But I am glad I found this notebook.. it sure brought back some fun memories! I know if I had a way to get back and forth I'd still take some adult night classes... just for the fun of it!
Oh, here in Jersey I'm sure they wouldn't be Voiceover classes, but there are some I'd take anyway.. maybe some computer classes, and an art class and maybe a creative writing class sorta thing. When you can do that just for the joy of doing it, and not be weighted down with the all important grade at the end and feeling like if you don't do great something awful will happen, it's actually fun!
posted by DesLily | 1:58 PM
8 Comments:
I think I need some practice on that last thing...
Oh My Lordy, that list is hard and hilarious, too! I did not do too well...LOL! Your Nigel would have been Red Fsced, indeed! (lol)
That class sounds like such fun, Pat....weather you ever actually did any VoiceOvers or not....I think I would enjoy that class, a lot! I'm glad you didn't throw those things out, too! And maybe you will find the Audio Tapes....That would be fun to hear.
Kailana: it really isn't easy ..at first, but practice makes perfect!
Naomi: it was fun! I forgot to mention that we all warmed up at each class by doing adlibs. The teacher would put 2-4 at a time up on 'stage", tell you the circumstances of what was going on and then flip the light and you had to adlib... that was fun too!
Yes, I did it! And am red cheeked and short of breath, and probably changed a few syllables, lol. I've written a lot of VO and once took a VO class to see things from the perpective of the speaker ... was fun ... but your class sounded MUCH more fun!
That is so fun, I'm glad you kept that! And yes, I did do it, and I am waaaayyyy out of breath!!!
Thanks for your visit and your comment Pat...It isn't so much the long lens as blowing the pictures up in Picassa...I get as close as I can with my 10x but then, I enlarge and crop...I do spend time out in the garden, but I've duscovered that when certain things are blooming I don't have to wait very long for the bees and such to come....There has been a Butterfly on these flowers every day since I first saw one...! Nature is so wonderful, isn't it?
Isn't it such fun to find things that you've long forgotten about?
That would have been an interesting course to do. "Voice-Over" people are not recognised properly for the good jobs that they do.
That's pretty cool. My brother did voice overs for some of the Care Bear characters at a theme park in Pennsylvania. He's a drama instructor and playwright but had never done voiceover work but Sallie Industries located in Jacksonville was doing the animitronic work and somehow his name came up. He enjoyed it.
Now quit hitting on your instructor, LOL.
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