Feb 18, 2025
00:01 - Joe (Ad)
Hi, this is Joe and I just wanted to say that, in addition to being
a marketing guru in her own right, Anne Ganguzza goes deep and she
has a vast knowledge and a huge breadth of experience in all and
everything VO voice, acting, online communication and she offers a
plethora of valuable information and golden nuggets, a fountain of
first-hand knowledge, which is VOBoss. I myself had the privilege
of participating in a super fun bilingual contest and one of the
treats I won, alongside my colleagues, was to be interviewed by
Anne and Pilar Uribe A chance to share, learn and get inspired on
so many different fronts. I promise you Y, si quieres, te lo cuento
en español, pero mientras tanto, búscate un episodio en VO Boss.
You might easily find an amazing podcast to get instantly inspired
in your work. Whatever that is.
01:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
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01:36 - Intro (Announcement)
It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level.
These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being
utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business
like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne
Ganguzza.
01:55 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Hey, hey everyone. Welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host,
Anne Ganguzza, and today I am so very excited to have special guest
Jessica Blue with us this morning. Yay, hello.
02:06 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
Thank you for having me.
02:08 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Hi, jessica, hi For those bosses who don't know Jessica. Jessica
has been a voice actress for 20 years and is an English dubbing
voice and casting director on oh, some small projects like Netflix,
disney+, hbo, hulu, amazon and more and of course, that was
sarcastic. I want you to be able to read that acting Jessica. You
can give me some tips if I have to dub over it. Okay, but as a VO
talent, some of her clients include small names like Google,
microsoft, macy's, wells Fargo, and the list goes on and on and on.
She's also provided voices for several dubbed films and series, and
some of her dubbing projects that she's directed include no Gain,
no Love on Amazon, crooks from Netflix, moving, hulu and Burning
Betrayal Netflix. Jessica, it is a pleasure to have you here this
morning. Thanks for having me.
02:58 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
I'm super excited to talk with you.
03:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yay, yeah. So I want to say it's just been so wonderful like
knowing you for the past few years and I wish I had known you like
10, 20 years ago. Same yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've had you as a
guest director for our VO Peeps a couple of times and I'm going to
have you coming up this year as well for dubbing. And I guess I
want to start with the bosses that are not necessarily familiar
with who you are. Let's talk about your voice acting career first
and how it all got started. Cool.
03:28 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
Well, I'm originally from the San Francisco Bay Area and I grew up
watching cartoons like a lot of kids. Bugs Bunny was my favorite
and I just loved being in that world of imagination and where
anything could happen. And I thought wouldn't it be cool to be a
cartoon someday, Not knowing that that was voiceover. And it wasn't
until many, many years later. When my ex-husband, of all things,
heard this woman talking on the radio about voiceover, I'm like
what is that? And he thought I would like that.
03:56
And so I went, took a intro class and I completely fell in love,
dove headfirst and took all the classes, learned as much as I could
and then eventually got an agent up there and started working in
video games and commercials a little bit of animation for games and
stuff, a lot of narration as well and then slowly migrated down to
LA, because there was a collective of us in that group that really
wanted to do animation and so we created our own show and pitched
it around and down here in LA and I'd come back and everybody had
kind of already migrated and moved down here, and I was the last
one because I still had a whole life up there. I had a full time
job. Up there I was taking care of my parents and one day my dad
just said sounds like you need to be down there. Why don't you just
go? I'm like I have to take care of you. I have to do all this
stuff.
04:43
There's no way Best day of my life because he basically gave me the
permission. It's like you need to live your life. Stop doing this
for us. Do what you need to do, follow your passion. I'm like I
love you, dad. So it took me a couple more years to get my ducks in
a row and finally leave the corporate life which was the best
decision of my life ever and made the move down to Los Angeles in
2013 and didn't have a plan B, didn't have a job, didn't have an
agent down here, nothing, but I was all focused on voiceover and I
had already come down here, like the year prior, to sort of get the
lay of the land network, take classes with directors here, just to
sort of get the lay of the land network, take classes with
directors here, just to sort of immerse myself in the LA culture,
in the LA VO community.
05:30
And then it just kind of took off and got an agent, started
working, getting more jobs and met awesome people like you and Jeff
Howell and all these other amazing folks, and just been doing it
ever since. And then Jeff Howell is actually the one who got me
into dubbing because he had a project come up and he says I need
your help, I need you to help me organize all this stuff.
05:50
I'm like, okay, and we kind of started doing dubbing together and
did about six movies together. I want to say and he says, okay, you
should be directing, you need to be directing. And I had expressed
an interest in directing and so it just kind of shifted into I was
still doing acting. I love that, but I love directing so much and
it was so great. And so.
06:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I've sort of shifted.
06:15 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
Now I still do a little bit of acting here and there, Super picky
and choosy about what auditions I do, who I read for all that good
stuff, because I really have a focus more on directing and stuff.
So that's where my passion now lies and that's kind of
it.
06:30 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I love that. I love that because you kind of follow your passion
and it all just followed you Do, you know what. I mean, you've
manifested it for yourself, which is something that I absolutely
love, and I love directing myself, but not necessarily dubbing, but
in terms of demos and that whole creative process of being able to
take it from the ground up to something beautiful. And so let me
ask you. So 20 years has passed or so, and so how has the industry
evolved and changed since you first?
07:02 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
were in it. Oh my God, night and day Back in the day when I was
first started and first of all, I felt like I was coming into this
super late because I was already in my 30s, I want to say when I
started getting into this. And most people you know get in their
20s. They're doing this or even earlier, so I felt like a super
late bird, but that's been the story of my life. I'm a late bloomer
and everything.
07:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
That's funny. I was actually in my thirties too. Well, I was in
corporate. I was actually in education. I came from corporate to
education and before you go on, I did want to say what did you do
in corporate, Because that's always interesting to me You're going
to laugh.
07:37 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
I was a paralegal manager for the electric company in their law
department.
07:41 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Oh, my gosh Okay.
07:42 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
Yeah.
07:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Well, no, nothing surprises me actually.
07:46 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
So, like legal jargon, medical jargon, I've got that locked,
unlocked yeah.
07:53 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
It's crazy.
07:54 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
It's always interesting to find out what corporate places people
come from you know it's such a different world, but it's definitely
helped my business as far as you know. Knowing how to communicate,
being responsive and just general email etiquette, that kind of
thing. It goes a long way. But back when I first started you needed
to be where your agent was. You had to go in person to audition and
it started to slowly switch to where you could record at home and
then send it in an MP3.
08:26
But for the most part, like it was super hard to get an LA agent if
you were not in LA or even in New York or wherever you had to be
there, locally, physically, because they had so many other talent
that was right there, hop, skip and a jump that they could grab. So
that has completely changed, especially since COVID, because now
everything's remote or phoned in or whatever. That's probably the
biggest thing. Also, because of that, it's exploded the amount of
voiceovers, because there's been such a spotlight on it, especially
with all the new animated movies. I mean, back in the day, you
know, I had Cinderella and Bambi, you know those movies which were
classics, snow White. But now we have a new one coming out, several
coming out every year, and they've got these celebrities attached
to it.
09:13
So people, the general audience, are seeing these celebs do these
voices and they're like, oh, I want to do that voice or I could do
that voice, and they think it's like, oh, it's super easy, that'd
be fun.
09:22
And they think it's like, oh, it's super easy, that'd be fun, let
me go do some voiceover, not realizing it's a process you have to
learn, you have to know how to act first of all. It's not just
about your voice and take the training, learn the craft. So I think
that has sort of opened the door for way more people. So it's super
competitive now, and you're not just competing with people in your
local area or in your state or now even in your country, right In
other countries now, because everybody can now just kind of send
stuff in electronically. So technology has definitely improved, as
well as having a booth Again, it used to be like I just have a
crappy little setup in my closet and now people have these amazing
beautiful booths with lighting and all this stuff, and I mean,
technology has come so far, so that's a whole nother thing too. So
a lot has changed.
10:12 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
A lot has changed, but you have evolved along with that. And now
you mentioned something about acting.
10:17
I always like to talk about acting, when you kind of made the
shift, kind of also in parallel working with dubbing. You're
talking about acting on the fly, I mean. I think that that becomes
like front and center in terms of what are the qualifications that
you need as an actor or as a voice actor to really get into this
industry. And maybe I can just have you explain dubbing kind of
from the beginning for the bosses who are not necessarily as
familiar with the dubbing industry.
10:45 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
So basically for if you don't know what dubbing is, it's
essentially taking a movie or a TV show from another language and
putting it into English so you don't have to watch with subtitles.
You can actually hear the English spoken while you're watching the
video, and our goal is to make sure that the lip flaps match as
close as possible so that it doesn't take you out of that and you
forget that you're watching a dub. It's a long process, a lot goes
into it, it's very detailed, which I'm not going to go into all the
gory details of it. But the main thing that I'm looking for when
I'm hiring and casting someone to do a dub is that they can act,
that I believe that their voice is coming out of the face that I'm
seeing on screen and that they're able to give all the nuances of
that performance. And it's actually really cool, in my opinion,
because it's so much closer to being on stage or being on set and
diving into a character and get all that juicy goodness, versus
reading a three second tag or a 30 second copy for medical
whatever. So there's a lot more that goes into it and it's
definitely a skill that has to be learned by doing it.
11:54
It rinse and repeat kind of thing. It does take practice because it
can be very challenging and overwhelming at first because there's a
lot going on. Because not only are you walking in blind, you have
no idea when are you walking in blind, you have no idea when you
book a job. You have no idea if you're the lead, if you're an
incidental, how many characters you're doing, what the show's
about, how long you know all this stuff. You have no clue. So it's
the director's job to fill that in for you explain the show who
your character is, what they're about, what's going on in the
scene, and then you watch the scene and you're seeing this rhythm
of band go by with the dialogues screaming by like karaoke and
you're trying to read, you're trying to watch the video, you're
kind of your eyes are sort of doing this back and forth to try and
understand everything and you're seeing it for the first
time.
12:38
I've seen it maybe two or three times at this point, right but
you're seeing it for the first time, so I'll give you a freebie of
but you're seeing it for the first time, so I'll give you a freebie
of like you're watching it for the first time just to know what the
heck is going on and who are these people and what's happening. And
then we'll watch it a second time. So now you understand the scene,
you understand what's going on, and now you can start maybe looking
closer at the faces on screen and see what their reaction is, the
projection of how loud they are soft and then we'll do a take, and
then we'll do another take and put it all together and review it.
And I'm looking at the dialogue to make sure that you're saying all
the right words and you're not mispronouncing anything.
13:15
And all of that good stuff and it's a lot and it takes about, I'd
say, for a newbie about 15 to 20 minutes to get into the groove of
it, if it's like their first time. But even experienced debbers you
know they'll come in and they'll watch it and takes them a little
bit of time to get warmed up too, and that's just the nature of it.
But it's like everything's firing all at once. It can be very
overwhelming, but it's so much fun once you get the hang of it and
you get in the groove and you're just. Then you're just like, oh,
all right, we're going, and it's so much fun.
13:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
So, in terms of directing, let's say, if you were directing just a
script that was not on the screen and you're just directing a
commercial for someone, versus directing a dub scene, it seems like
you have to know, I don't know, the directing is different. I mean,
I feel like you have to know so much more quicker when you're doing
the dubbing, because, because you have to also impart, like the
actual scene, what's happening to the actor, and if the actor's not
getting it or just not embodying the character in the right way,
then you've got to figure out, well, how am I going to get them so
that it makes a believable scene? And then, if not, what do you do?
I mean, have you had actors that just didn't work out and then you
had to essentially say I'm sorry and then recast I can't imagine so
explain some of the differences because, like my, directing for a
demo is completely different, because we're taking the words and
we're creating the scene.
14:34
We're making it up, this. You have the scene already and you've got
to try to communicate that to the actor.
14:39 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
More, I would imagine yeah, I mean, on the one side it's kind of
nice because you already have this template of what you need to do.
You basically have to try to match that, match their energy, match
their tone, match it. So it looks like what you're doing out of
here is coming out of what you see. So in that sense it's a little
bit simpler, because you can see what's happening with a commercial
or even when you're auditioning for a dub.
15:07
You don't have the luxury of the video to see what's going on or
see what's happening in the scene. So you have to make that up in
your mind and you have to find those nuggets in the script, in the
dialogue, that might clue you into where are they, what's
happening, why did they say this line? What does that mean? What is
the intention behind that, what might be happening? And you have to
somehow create that in your head, make a choice and go with it.
Very much like when you're doing a commercial script. It's a lot of
script analysis when you're looking at that stuff and so it's kind
of cool.
15:37 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Actually, you don't ever get the scene, you don't ever get the
video, do you Very, very rarely?
15:42 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
You might if we are doing in-person auditions, do you when you're
auditioning? Very, very rarely you might. If we are doing in-person
auditions, we do VTKs, which is a video test kit and that will have
the actor come in. They'll do an audition in person, to the video,
to the scene, so they'll see what's happening, they'll see the
actors and everything and they'll get directed. So it's a directed
audition. That's about the only time Very rarely will we send out a
clip.
16:06
It'll just be the sides and they'll just have that to go on and
wing it a prayer and figure it out and make a strong choice. Read
through that analysis, look through everything, pick out whatever
you can. Make a strong choice, go with it, because again, I'm
listening for your acting chops as well as, if I believe, the voice
coming out of the face. But even if I'm hearing someone do a
commercial, I'm still in that visual sense of who are you talking
to? Are you connected? Are you just phoning this in? Are you just
reading this? It's very similar because there's a lot of times,
too, where I'll have clients like they sound like they're reading.
It's like, well, they kind of are because they're reading this girl
going by, but you have to make it sound like you're not reading,
just like you would a commercial or a video game or anything. You
have to make it conversational. That's the name of the game in
dubbing is conversational. We want real, grounded, authentic
voices, authentic acting. Not, hi, how are you? I am Jessica
Mm-hmm.
17:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Mm-hmm.
17:05 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
Yeah absolutely.
17:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
So what tips would you say then? Could you give a voice actor that
wants to get into dubbing, like, what can they do to prepare
themselves? Maybe, and maybe practice or coach with you? Yeah,
absolutely, I do do coaching, yeah, besides coaching with you, but
I'm just so, yeah, what can they do if they're interested in
dubbing? What's your best tips? Watch some dubs.
17:27 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
Go on Netflix, go on Hulu, Disney, Amazon, whatever. Watch some
dubs that are good and watch how their acting is, or listen to how
their acting is in relation to what's happening in the scene. A way
to practice is kind of cool, Not exact, but it will help you with
that sight reading of looking up to the video and looking down to
the dialogue is put on subtitles. Grab your favorite show or movie,
put on the subtitles, watch it with the sound on with the
subtitles.
17:57
read the subtitles and get used to switching back your eyesight
from the video to the subtitles, switching back your eyesight from
the video to the subtitles and then rewind it, mute it and then say
it with the subtitles and see how close you can match to their
mouths, or whatever. I mean. It's not going to be exact, but that
will help you with that skill of sight reading, of going back and
forth from the video to the dialogue.
18:18 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Well then, I should be amazing Jessica, because I'm old and I have
the subtitles on all the time because I can't hear, so I've got the
eyesight going and I don't necessarily practice along with that.
But yeah, no, that's a great tip. And to actually watch dubs, I
think is great, and I myself have watched dubs and I've watched
people do it because I've watched you direct people. Do you think
it's something that all voice actors would love to do? Or do you
feel like it's a niche where I feel, like people that do
audiobooks, they love their audiobooks, people that dub love
dubbing, like? Or do you think it's just something like oh, it's
another genre, it's just oh, I can. What's your experience with
talent? I think it's a little of both.
18:57 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
I think it is sort of a niche. I have my core group of actors that
you know. It's like the standard dubbers or whatever, but I'm
always finding new talent, always bringing new people into the
fold. And so and I've never really had someone go, oh, I don't like
this or this isn't for me Maybe they did and I didn't know about
it.
19:18
But usually, even though they might be scared and nervous getting
into it because they're not sure about anything new, any change,
once they do it they're like oh my God, this is kind of fun, I
really like this. So then they like tell me more, how do I get into
it? How do I do what? How do I need to get more of this type of
work? And so it kind of fuels their fire to do it or be more
interested in it. So I think it's definitely grown a lot in the
last couple of years, for sure, and I don't think it's going away
anytime soon because there's so much content. There's so much
content out there from other countries that are being brought into
the United States and getting dubbed into English. So I don't think
the work is going anywhere anytime soon. So I think we're
okay.
19:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
So here's the elephant in the room right Synthetic voices AI. How
does that work into dubbing, or does it not? Or what are your
thoughts? Is it a threat?
20:07 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
I don't think it's a threat now, and if it is, it's going to be
minor. I don't think it's going to take over lead voices because,
it cannot reproduce these performances, the nuances that humans
can, and I think we've got that covered and okay. And also I've
heard stories about companies trying to use AI to dub a lead
character and the audience isn't buying it.
20:31
They're like that looks weird, that sounds weird, it doesn't match
or whatever, and so I think for the main characters, lead
characters and everything, we're good, we're okay. It's not going
to go the AI route. It might change to where they might end up
using some type of AI situation that is ethically sourced.
Ai.
20:50
voices for Walla for the background noise, like you know, in
airports and restaurants and things like that, because that's just
this murmur, this hum bed of voices that you hear in the
background, and not necessarily actual dialogue that you can make
out and hear what they're saying, but they already have a lot of
those like sound beds. You know that we've recorded over many years
and they can just plop that in. So it's kind of already done, so I
don't know why they would actually need an AI for that.
21:16
So I don't necessarily see I mean, if anything, I think AI might
come in on more of the production side, the backside of it, not the
performance side, you know, more of the organization of files and
management and things like that, or QCing stuff like that I don't
know that it's going to really impact the performance side of
things for dubbing yet, and I mean who knows Anything's possible
but also to get all of these companies on the same page. You know,
if somehow this fantastic software came out that you know is able
to match the voice to the original actor or change whatever to get
everybody on board with that, I mean that's a huge feat in and of
itself and I don't see that happening anytime soon. So I think
we're okay.
21:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
So if you talk about when we dub, we're dubbing from one language
to another. Typically for us we would be the English, and so how
much of a disconnect is there because of the language differences,
you know, in terms of like lip flap and believability is there from
certain languages, and are some languages easier to dub than
others? Oh yeah, two things.
22:17 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
Some languages their lips barely move, so they're talking like this
and it's like what do you say? There's no labial movements, oh my
God. And then there's some like Spanish and French, where they are
motor mouths and they're like and what takes in Spanish? It takes
them 10 words to say what we can say in five in English. But
there's like all these, like you know, like happy birthday hon. You
know, it's like so different, but yet we would then have to add on
extra words stretch it out, add on words, because there's still all
that mouth flap that we have to cover, so we would have to add on
words.
22:57
Or, in the opposite of French, they can say something very short,
like two words, and it takes us seven words to say. So how do we?
Ah, like they say nothing?
23:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
So who does that editing? That's interesting. Who does that
editing? Is that you, or it sometimes is me. It's the
adapter.
23:13 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
So, which I also do Adaptation is probably the most important and
critical step in the whole dubbing process. That's basically where
the studio will send it to a translator. They'll translate the
Spanish into English. Then that goes to the adapter. The adapter
then takes that English translation, rewrites it to make it sound
conversational, make it match the lip flaps, adding words,
subtracting words, making jokes work that might not make sense to
us it does in their language but it doesn't jive with us and then
also syncing it all up.
23:46
So the lines are matched up to start, of the mouth opening to the
mouth closing, as well as adding in all of the vocal efforts. So
laughs, sneezes, coughing, crying, breathing, fight scenes, getting
punched, coughing, throat clearing, anything like that is always
going to be in brackets so that we have those vocal efforts,
because it's going to look funny if you're just talking and all of
a sudden you do this and like you don't hear anything. Yeah, yeah,
what was that? Right, right, it was a sigh. Ok, got it. So we had
to put sighs in brackets so that the actor knows that they have to
sigh when they see that chest movement.
24:22 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
So it's a lot OK. So business wise it seems like a lot of work
right. So I have a film right. And where does the money come from?
The distribution, the licensing of the film in different
languages?
24:33 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
I think so, yeah, because it'll be like a Netflix will go out and
they'll buy the property, the distribution rights for a show from
the original person, which is probably yeah, where the money comes
from and then that pays for it, because it seems like an awful lot
of work, sometimes right, it is a huge
24:49 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
amount of work If you want a huge amount of work to get to a
product that you don't know if it's going to. I mean it's like any
movie that comes out right. I mean you put a lot of investment into
it, so I imagine that, yeah, it's just got to be the purchase of
the rights to the movie. That is where the money is, because is is
because is the money. Does the voice actor get money? I mean, I'm
sure they get paid. Do you know what I mean? But I mean, let's talk
about how well does the voice actor get paid or the dubber get paid
for this. Is this an industry that is lucrative? It can
be.
25:19 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
If you book a lead role, it can be very lucrative because that
means multiple sessions, especially if it's a TV show, because
that's multiple episodes. So you could be a six episode show, a 12
episode show, a 20 episode show. So if you're a lead character,
you're in all those episodes. You're getting paid for every single
time. You go into the booth for a session and we cover as much as
we possibly can in a session until we exhaust all of the lines for
that character.
25:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
But you get paid per session right.
25:48 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
Per session.
25:48 - Intro (Announcement)
You don't get paid per airing of you know like a nice national
commercial.
25:52 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
There's no royalties, there's no kickbacks.
25:55 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
There's no nothing it would be so nice.
25:57
Especially if it like took off or whatever, oh my God. But no, it's
per session. If it's a union project, it's under the union
contract, the dubbing union contract, which I think now it's like
$190 something per hour with a two-hour minimum, and so if you're
hired for a four-hour session, that's $195 times four, and if we
finish with you in three hours, you still get paid for the four
hours. If we have a pickup, you still get paid for that two-hour
minimum. Even if you're in there for 15 minutes, you still get
paid. So pickups are kind of nice too.
26:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Now, do you now negotiate in contracts like the AI writer, because,
let's say, you need a pickup and the actor isn't available? Right,
can they utilize the voice to create an AI voice to then maybe do a
pickup?
26:45 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
I've not had that come up yet, and I think myself I don't deal with
the contracts with the actors. That's the studio that handles all
of that. So I think some of them might have an AI writer, some of
them might not. So if you're an actor into dubbing and you want to
check that out, make sure you read your contracts and see if it's
in there and if it's not ask them and see if they'll do it, because
a lot of them will, but at this point I don't think we've had that
issue.
27:09
We always find workarounds honestly like even if we missed a line,
maybe we have a backup or we can frankenstein something together,
or if we missed a breath or a laugh here, I'll just steal it from
somewhere else and plug it in there so I don't have to have
anything to save that money for the client, so that we don't have
to worry about that pickup. And even for incidental. Sometimes I'll
jump in the booth and if I just need a line or something to cover
whatever, I'll just jump in there. I'm like, let me just do it,
it'll be really fast, it's fine, I'll just do it.
27:37
So, but yeah, it can be lucrative if you're a lead, because that
means multiple sessions. If you're an incidental, it's just fun
practice and maybe it's one session, one and done and you're in and
out and that's still fun. But also, I think, when actors do get on
the radar of these studios and directors then and they do it one
time, two times, and they do well, we like working with cool
people, good people, good actors, so we're gonna have you back and
you'll get in that roster, in that pool of people, and you just
kind of start working, working, work and it's kind of cool that
way.
28:09 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's nice. So then, the first thing, if voice
actors want to get into dubbing is, I would say bump up your acting
skills, yeah absolutely. Do you have good recommendations for
acting classes, like in-person acting classes, online acting
classes or working with a coach? Perhaps All of it?
28:30 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
Honestly, I feel like if you can do in-person, that's great because
obviously you're feeding off the energy of everybody. I prefer
being in person with people versus Zoom, but Zoom is obviously much
more efficient and effective, especially if you aren't able to
travel to do in-person. One-on-ones are also great if you're
working with a coach or a teacher, because all the focus is on you
and you can really hone in on what needs you need to work on and
improve on.
28:59
But also the group session is great because you can learn from
others and what I like to say, steal with love and take a little
bit of that and that and put it in my pocket I'm going to use that,
yeah, I mean it's life, isn't it?
29:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I think that's how we do it. I think all of us, when we teach voice
acting, we want to get to the same end result. We want authentic,
believable performances, and so, however we say it to get the actor
to get there, we're all trying to get to the same end result. So,
yeah, absolutely, and that, I believe, also is going to translate
well to they can do dubbing and they can do voice acting, because
acting is just going to help you all the way around, and acting
will even help you in medical and corporate. And I say that just
because you know that's me, and that's my geeky that's my geeky
place.
29:41
I think it can help you even more because that stuff is typically
very dry and boring and you've got to make that. You've got to make
that come alive in some way to make it interesting to people so
that they want to listen to it. I mean, right now I'm going through
some online courses and I'm telling you like it is tough. I know I
need to know this information and I am just like, oh God, I got to
do four more hours of this, and so it really helps when you've got
the skills to be engaging and to like connect with the listener on
the other end. Yeah, absolutely so, if I am hearing you correctly.
Of course, acting would be number one. Acting would be number one
to help get you into dubbing, and then, of course, watching dubbed
TV shows and really getting in on that. And then what about
networking? How can they network with the places that might hire
them?
30:23 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
Absolutely Research. Google is your best friend. Look up and search
dubbing houses, dubbing recording studios in your neck of the
woods, See who's out there. And also I will say another trick is
when you're watching these shows and movies online that are dubs,
at the very end sometimes they'll have the credits for the dubs of
who the actors are, who the studio is, who the director and the
casting, the producer are, so you can actually see what studios are
doing the dubs that way.
30:54
And then you can look those up and see. If you can't find an,
email. And a lot of those studios have their own rosters that
they're actively looking for talent. So you could reach out to one
of them and like, hey, are you open for taking on new talent? I'm
interested in dubbing, or I have. I've done a dub here and there.
I'd love to be considered for a future dub and just throw whatever
you can at the wall and see what sticks.
31:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Would you say that the majority of it is done in LA and in the big
cities where, yeah, a chunk of it is.
31:20 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
But I know Dallas I want to say Dallas, but one of the big cities
in Texas they do a lot of anime with Crunchyroll I think. But
there's other dub houses. There's one in Florida called the Kitchen
in Miami. There's obviously several overseas, in Europe and
elsewhere. So again, it's just you know Google, google is your best
friend. Find where they are and search them out and do some
research on that to figure out who's doing what and where, and
you'll find it. And yeah, I would say networking is to find those
people and seek them out and hit them up. But be human and personal
about it. Don't just be like needy, like hi, I'm so, and so here's
my demo. Listen to me.
31:59
No, make it make a connection yeah, make a connection to be
memorable. So that because I, I get. Sometimes I'll get those
emails that just say here, here's my demo. I'd love to work with
you sometime Like great. I don't know you. From who are you next?
You?
32:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
know, yeah, so I've been dying to ask you this because, of course,
this goes along with. I feel like we're networking and there's a
lot of talk about when you're running your business, because you
can be the best actor in the world, but if nobody knows about it,
it's hard for you, kind of. Over the years, have established a
brand for myself, and a lot of people that know me for the VO Boss
brand know that I have the red headphones, or I have the red
lipstick because I talk about it all the time, and my Anne Ganguzza
brand is blue and guess what? Jessica Blue. If anybody doesn't know
Jessica or has never met Jessica, you can find her easily because
she's got very signature branding.
32:50 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
So let's talk about that for a little bit, if you don't mind, of
course you can't really see it well in this lighting, but I do have
blue hair and I have really blue eyes. You do, yes, you do Pops
when the blue starts to fade and get lighter, and my logo is blue.
I always have blue nails.
33:09 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I'm wearing blue nails. My car is my favorite color.
33:12 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
I've loved it since I was a kid when I actually, when I was a kid
and I was sharing a room with my sister, we had bunk beds and
everything, and then my mom cleaned out this other room and we got
to switch and I got my own room, finally, and I got to decorate it
however I wanted I had it was blue carpet. Blue paint on one wall,
blue wallpaper everywhere.
33:30 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I had blue stripes. I mean, blue is one of my absolute favorites. I
had blue stripes, I painted on one. I had an accent wall in my
bedroom. I'm an 80s girl, right 70s, 80s. It was literally like two
different shades of blue and it was like a big, like V. It was
hysterical. That's awesome and I loved it, but I will say that your
branding works so well for you. Did you do that because not only
your favorite color is blue, but because you wanted to become
memorable in your business? Is that another angle?
33:54 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
that that part never even hit. I'll tell you how so. Loose flash
blue is not my real name, it's my stage name. What? Um? Yeah, I
know secrets galore. No, it actually came up. So I've been rocking
the blue hair since 2001. Okay, and I think it was around
2000.
34:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Before it was a thing, right, I mean really. I mean I would say,
when I grew up it was only if you were a punk. And then you had you
know, what I mean. I feel like I started, like yeah, I feel like I
sort of started this trend like it was acceptable, because also
working in a law firm corporate with blue hair.
34:32 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
Yes, exactly, and acceptable because also working in a law firm
corporate with blue hair yes, exactly, and I'm like, if they don't
like it, they can go pound sand because I know how to do my
job.
34:37
I'm doing my job and this has nothing to do with what I can do. So
but I was in a workout group with some fellow actors and one of my
friends, I think I had come in with a blue stripe in my hair. I was
testing the waters out to see if I liked it or not and I had just
one little blue strand. And she says, oh, you should change your
name to Jessica Blue. And I'm like, oh, I like that. I think I'm
going to do that. From that point on, I became Jessica Blue in all
things voiceover and acting and I've never looked back.
35:06 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
It is so attached to you and I think it's brilliant.
35:12
I mean, whether you intended that to be or not, like I will always
know how to spot you in a crowd number one, but I also remember
your name and so I'm always telling my students that until people
know who you are, I mean you have to establish a brand. I mean, and
so I'm like, well, make yourself a great actor and associate
yourself with maybe another brand in your demo that people can say
oh, I love that Ford spot that you did, or I love that movie you
did, or whatever. If you can make yourself memorable in that kind
of a way where you're attaching yourself to a brand or a show,
right, then I think that that starts to get the ball rolling,
because I think success begets success. Ball rolling because I
think success begets success. And, like you said, once you start
and you get into kind of the circles where you're dubbing and
people like you, then it's nice because you get that kind of repeat
work and I think that's important in terms of if you want to build
your business.
36:04
So thank you for the explanation of your brand. I love it
Absolutely.
36:08 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
But it also it's not. It's not who you know, it's who knows you,
because that's how you're going to become memorable and hired over
and over again. So it is very important. I agree with you, but
thank you.
36:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Thank you, I appreciate that. So if you make it easy, if you make
it easy to stand out and be unique and you've done it brilliantly.
So, Jessica, this is so much fun yes, it has. Thank you so much for
joining me today. Yeah, my pleasure, and so I do know that you did
say that a random listener is going to receive something special
with you. Did you say a one-hour coaching?
36:42 - Jessica Blue (Guest)
session One-hour free coaching session for dubbing, yes.
36:47 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to randomly choose one
listener, and so, in order for me to randomly choose a listener,
you guys have to submit a testimonial, maybe on this episode,
saying that you like this episode, and so I absolutely. On the VO
Boss website, at vobosscom, you can submit your testimonial. If you
do that for this episode with Jessica and you mention Jessica, we
will then randomly select a winner within a week of the episode
release to get a free one-hour dubbing coaching session. Yay,
that's awesome. Thank you, jessica.
37:17 - Intro (Announcement)
Of course that's so generous.
37:19 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
My pleasure, all right. Well, again, thanks so much. This has been
wonderful and bosses, keep a lookout for the VO Peeps workout.
Which gosh, is it May, june? I'm trying to think.
37:28 - Intro (Announcement)
I think it's February. When do we have? When do we have? Oh my gosh
February.
37:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Oh my gosh, next month. Oh, that's right, it is next month. Next
month we have you for VOP. So guys go get that ticket, because
Jessica sells out very, very quickly. Thanks again, thank you, I
really, really appreciate it. I'm going to give a great big shout
out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too, find out more at IPDTLcom
Bosses, have an amazing week and we'll see you next week.
37:56 - Intro (Announcement)
Bye. Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your
host, Anne Ganguzza, and take your business to the next level. Sign
up for our mailing list at VOBosscom and receive exclusive content,
industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock
your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to
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