SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome back to the Blurred Spectrum Podcast, everyone. We are here this week to continue our melanated solstice. This this roller coaster of beauty, this uh ebony, majesty, this uh gorgeous mahogany, this uh lovely coating of chocolate, uh caramel, complexions. We are here to continue what we do best, and that is giving praise, honor, glory, and all of the above to those who have inspired us to do the things that they do to make us enjoy the things that we do when we see them doing it, how they do it, when they do it, and where they do it. So today we have the uh voice actors guild. No, it's not the voice actors guild, but we have an episode about black voice actors. Uh, we enjoy them. Why? Because they not only are representation, but they are representing in a field that we don't even know that we could possibly be in. So we decided to put this episode together together to give you the opportunity to know that that is possible. Uh, so of course, I must introduce our panelists, starting with myself, Suchino Shogun, your moderator, must continue on and introduce Ms. Skittles.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Hello everyone.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

We have the uh fantastic medical stylings of the doctor. What's good? And we have the Wing Genjutsu of Kaze Shinry Yu. Yo. And of course, we have our guest black, blackity black black voice actor of today, Mr. Patrick Delva.

SPEAKER_05 1:27

How y'all doing?

SPEAKER_03 1:30

So, as we always do uh with our solstice, you know, we give the time to, you know, give props to our guests. So uh, Mr. Delva, why don't you uh give us a little bit of a rundown? Who are you? What you all about? How did you get here? Uh give us a little brief bio, not your 15-second elevator pitch, but just you know, talk about yourself a little bit, gloat a little bit. You know how we do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:51

Oh man. Man. I'm always, I'm always shining. Um, Patrick Delva, originally born in Jamaica, Queens, New York.

SPEAKER_08 2:01

Uh, after that, moved to Sarasota, Florida, wouldn't recommend. Uh, ended up settling in Orlando, Florida, where I actually work as um an engineer, as well as being a voice and film actor. The film acting actually started two years ago, um right after COVID. So we were still getting back into the full swing of things. Um, I'm also a moderator for the Urban Anime Lounge, which I'm sure Ms. Gilles is very well acquainted with.

SPEAKER_09 2:31

Yeah, she is.

SPEAKER_08 2:32

I'm a Twitch streamer. Uh I feel like a content creator. Well, not that type of content creator, but you you get what I'm saying. That's everything is content creator.

SPEAKER_03 2:41

Everything is content.

SPEAKER_08 2:41

Everything is content. All right. Um, also uh I'm a graduate of SAC Comedy Lab. Um, also am a martial artist, on and off, depending on when we ask, and just happy to be here. Um, big gamer as well. Um, I'm an apex sweat for those in the know. I am a believer in the PC masters. It has taken all time away from my PlayStation 5. Um, but really, uh what else is there? Aries, Haitian.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

Just throwing it out there.

SPEAKER_08 3:17

Just throwing out whatever I can put top of the dome. Uh but most of all, just happy to be here in the Melanin Solstice.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. That is that that I think is one of the longest or more rather detailed introductions we've gotten. You know, people tell their life stories, but you you kind of just marketed yourself to a plethora of different industries. So thank you, sir. That was that was a good one. We gotta give you as many sides as we can. Brilliant, brilliant. 12-sided die, I believe. Uh almost 20, but 12, definitely. Um, so of course, we must go into you know general questions. You know, um, uh, I think all of us can agree, and by all of us, I believe our panelists, uh, that, you know, voice acting is something that when we were kids, we didn't understand because, you know, everything is just what is showing up on the screen. You know, Steve is talking to Blue, and Blue is a dog, right? And, you know, Eureka's in her castle with a bunch of puppets. But we didn't think they were puppets, they were dragons and mythical beasts. But as you get older, you start to realize that there are people behind these individual characters. And um as you get more mature, depending on the type of maturity that you're talking about, you can start to develop an appreciation for the talent that is behind these voices, because you can just use your voice or you can produce a voice. And it's the production of voices that really causes us to fall in love with characters, um uh empathize with characters, to, you know, remember characters 20, 30 years later. So, you know, the and say all that to lead up to the question of what brought you to the game of voice acting? Like, was it a childhood dream? Like I heard, you know, the voice behind Barney and I was like, I gotta do it, or was it, you know, something uh that happened more recent? How'd you get there?

SPEAKER_08 5:07

Okay, so back when I was about uh let's say 14, 15, I was more involved uh religiously in the Catholic Church. And so that gave me the opportunity to do readings uh during the services. And everyone would say the same thing. You have a great voice, you should do something with it, you should uh, you know, basically be a voice actor. And I did when I was younger, I did a small spot back in Sarasota for this, uh for a uh radio station and then a uh medical place, uh Blake Medical Center, and then nothing else happened after that because I was in high school and I just was trying to just figure that out.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_08 5:56

Fast forward, I've graduated college, I've got this computer science degree, which was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Oh, and I'm working where uh I'm at, and six months pass, you know, I'm making good money, um, and I'm with a great team, everyone's real supportive. And I'm sitting in a meeting and I'm looking up at the ceiling and I'm saying, damn, there's got to be more to life than this. I am bored out of my mind.

SPEAKER_03 6:23

Just hang the lyric to a song, my friend.

SPEAKER_08 6:27

Because I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be in this office working on this stuff that just does not, it does not do it for me. This does not fulfill me. So I went back to my old roots and I said, Well, it seemed like people were telling me I had a great voice, so why don't I try to do something with it? And I went on to a website, um, behind the voiceactors.com.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

Behind the voiceactors.com, where there's a lot of that or you found it or you knew it existed?

SPEAKER_08 6:57

I I had to I had to Google just free projects that I could get into kind of things that would just, you know, get me in there. So I did a couple of abridge series, um, and then I got onto a project, uh, Project Stellar, which is actually an audio play that's uh still ongoing in the background where I voice a character there, this uh alien named Cobb. And it's some of the best work I feel like I've ever done.

SPEAKER_09 7:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_08 7:23

And then from there, um I tried to cut my own demo, which for anyone in the know, don't do it. Why? Don't do that. It was it was it was trash, literal trash, doo-doo water, would not recommend anyone ever try to do that. So um, unless you are a sound engineer, audio engineer, and you can put all that, make it sound real pretty on a professional level, don't do that. Because eventually what will happen is you go and try to seek agency representation, and they're gonna look at that, and they're gonna look at you, and they'll never email you back, and you'll wonder why your hopes and dreams never started.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

So professional demo, get it. Professional, professional demo is a key word.

SPEAKER_08 8:11

Professional demo, please. Yes, you did that, don't sell yourself short. Um, I think the original question was how I got started, and I am slowly moving towards You're almost there, almost there. Yeah, almost there. Okay. Um, but I got my training um from a music coach slash voice acting coach in the area. Her name was Linda Nunes. I owe the start of my career to her. Um, I owe the accomplishment in to uh of my career to what happened after that. I found an online resource called the Global Voice Acting Academy, and they had so many coaches. Um, David Rosenthal, Brad Venerable, who's no longer with us, unfortunately, and then Christina Malicia, who is on projects spanning from Nickelodeon. She voices Annie on League of Legends. Um, she is the voice of many dolls of the Barbie collection. So she has she has been around and she got me trained up. They got me trained up in terms of what it takes to crack it uh animation-wise and commercialized. And then from there was where I cut my first demo. I then signed with my first agency uh short list from who I've been able to get work with the likes of Carnival. Um I then signed with, well, I I'm signed to about five different agencies at the moment, but uh in both years, shortlist, go voices, bmg talents, and impressive talent all spanning different markets. And so the auditions are usually flooding in. I've got to work with some good people, um, well, some good uh companies. I've gotten to work with Red Bull, Sheg, Converse, um, First Twine Bank, uh, California Tobacco, uh, some lottery spots. So it's been it's been a good time. It's been a good time.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Awesome, awesome.

SPEAKER_03 10:14

So, and I know all of our panelists have questions. Um, I did want to ask, you know, real quick, so all of the potential interviews that come in, is it like picking and choosing, or you just take what comes, or how do you what's your is it a dartboard? How do you do it?

SPEAKER_08 10:32

So when you sign with any agency, any worthwhile agency, in my opinion, what they do is they listen to what was in your demo, and then they will pick out the auditions that they feel right to submit you out for. And those will arrive in your inbox. Um, and you work them at your leisure. A lot of agencies kind of have the uh give us a heads up if you're not going to submit because if they take the time to actually pitch you to the creative team that's in charge of the project, then they at least want to know that you're not gonna be able to submit. But there are other agencies that are just like you get to it if you get to it. Because the industry at the moment, everything is remote, everything is very fast moving. So they don't have time to just answer every and all questions you may have. It's it's in your inbox, do it, and then expect to never hear back from it unless you book it. And then even if they might settle on a session time, that might get pushed out to God knows when. Because there's definitely been jobs that I've booked that I completely forgot about. Wow. And they were just like, You actually booked this. And I was just like, Ooh, do I even still have the email for that? What did I what did I sound like? What did I try to do? Like what that was. So another word to anyone trying to get into voice acting. You will have a lot of rejection, but it's not rejection in the way that you think. This industry is very fickle in the way that a casting director might literally think you sound like their cousin and might make a decision based off that versus how technically sound you were. That sounds like from experience. That is from experience. So, but when you do book, do your best to be professional, be likable, be yourself. Um, so for anyone that at their core might just be is this is this also geared? Can I can I speak freely here? Or is we believe?

SPEAKER_10 12:39

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_08 12:40

If you are actually an asshole, there you go. You are a piece of shit, there you go. And you just got the world in the palm of your hands. But I'm not so lucky. So yes, not so lucky yet. Not so lucky yet, but it's it's based off of it's based off of a chance each time. And when you get that chance, what you do with it is what matters. And I've had people come back to me and say, You were such a pleasure to work with. I'm planning on contacting you back about the next job. So please uh stay in contact.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

That's the best type of response you want to get, uh, definitely, because yeah, I'm sure, I mean, as we know, there's billions of voices in the world, and I'm sure there's hundreds of voice actors all trying to, you know, vie for their opportunity. And then you hear about, you know, celebrities becoming voice actors, and and so it's like, I'm sure it's an oversaturated market, but it's also depends on, like you said, it depends on the uh the director uh who has a specific voice or sound or whatever that they're looking for, or maybe they're just looking for, you know, uniqueness or not uniqueness, what have you. So yeah, that's wow, shit. That's interesting. Um, just missing shit in your email. See, oh, side note, technical from an IT standpoint, check your emails and clean them out. People keep missing stuff. That's not just voice acting, that's from every industry. Um, but yes, uh, I know the doctor, you have uh a few questions that you wanted to throw at Mr. Delva, so I'll go ahead and give you the floor.

SPEAKER_04 14:15

Yes, definitely. So, you know, first of all, this is really interesting. And I think one of the things that's always interesting me about um, you know, voice acting and voice actors is just how many different types of media it spans in so many different contexts, which you know you can't say about every you know industry necessarily. But I'm curious, what do you think? You know, considering that you, you know, have kind of crossed over all these different kinds of media and settings and so forth, what was your favorite character or job or you know, setting that you had voice acting for? Um what was your least favorite and why?

SPEAKER_03 14:50

Oh you gotta get him fired. Hold on.

SPEAKER_08 14:56

Uh I think I will uh okay. So I'm not going to go with least favorite, but I will go with what was probably the most vocally stressful.

SPEAKER_09 15:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 15:07

Um, most vocally stressful was the carnival job that I did, and that was 2018-2019. And so the contract itself was for about 60 spots. And that ranged from five seconds to 15 to 30 uh 30 seconds, but they wanted to cover that in pretty much a four-hour span.

unknown 15:38

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_08 15:40

And what you don't know is that the number of retakes that are involved in that, um, the number of different feels that they want. For an ex uh, for example, let's say that they have this spot where they're just asking you the tagline was choose fun. It was part of their choose fun promotion. And there's so many ways that you can say the word choose fun at the end of a tagline. But what they would do is they'd splice it into numerous sections. So it might be like she sells uh seashells at the sea for sure, or something like that. But they'd be like, we want you to sound more hopeful as you say it. Now give us an ABC of that. Give us three in a row, all sounding hopeful in different ways. And then one of your takes, they'll say, We really like this one, but your pitch at the end went down, and we want it to come up. So can you do that? Or just give us two of those real fast. Now, mind you, that's not the whole spot. That's the same line that you're repeating three times. And they might decide to splice that and they say, We really like this one, we really like this one, but give us some more for variety. That takes about 10 minutes by itself. Wow. Now you're sitting there and you have the rest of that spot to do times six.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

I'd have been like, bruh.

SPEAKER_08 17:25

And by the end of it, you've got the engineer. So generally, here's how it goes it'll go talent, uh, audio engineer, creative, and then the client. In your voiceover sessions, you're dealing with creative and the audio engineer. He's kind of the one taking down all the audio, making sure the levels are right, making sure that you don't peak your levels. Creative is sitting there trying to just get all of it, all of it out of it. Every exactly before they turn it over to the client. Because once it goes to the client, the client will just be like, You're on the right track. This is exactly what I felt, or this is complete buns, garbage, let's do it over, and we're just gonna take it again. And then you might have to have a pickup session. So at the end of that, the audio engineer is just like, you know, Patrick, it it sounds, it sounds great, but he knows what's happening because they either sometimes can't make a decision or they want so much variety that they are stretching the creative just brain of whoever's on the other side. So I'm sitting there and I'm sweating in the booth like a pig. Because I'm like, look, I can't, there's only so many ways that I can think to do this. Oh my god. And the way that I've been trained as an actor recently might have helped me through that. Now, uh, playing emotions versus playing actions is a completely different ball game. So that to make it short, that took about four hours. I was done, my voice was almost gone. Creative was thanking me up and down for the number of things that I did give them, and then the client was just like, okay, um, not exactly the field that we wanted. We can use this for some of the spots. We're gonna have another session to pick up the rest. That's the most vocally stressful thing I've done in my career to date. Sounds stressful.

SPEAKER_03 19:19

Just to say two words.

SPEAKER_08 19:24

It was more than just two words, and then the crazy thing is the usage of the actual project was only about two years, so I was like sending it to everybody. I was like, man, I'm a part of this carnival project. This is real great. I was I love it, and then they took it off YouTube like two years later, and then I can't even prove that I did it again. Like I tried to look it up once. I you know what the smart thing to do, I should have saved it all. I downloaded it. Yeah, I was young, I was young, and so I just wasn't thinking about these things, but usage is also a very important thing, so they took that down. The most fun spot I've did, uh done, excuse me, is actually not one that I got paid for. Uh it's actually the audio play that I was talking about, Project Stellar. Um, that job literally is one girl with a bunch of ideas, and she pulled people working for free just to have this giant mashup of just all this talent. And she did all of the editing herself, the storyboarding herself, ran the rehearsals for herself until she basically worked herself to the bone and says, We're gonna be on an indefinite hiatus. I want to be back when I'm no longer spent.

SPEAKER_07 20:44

But the vocal range that I was able to enter with just this character Cobb who's always sitting here and talking like this, and he's got a complex background with his family that's since passed away, and all he has is his work left on that he's going through. Just to hit that register, but also have to apply areas of sorrow and pain and any slick smile that he's got going on in the background, and have to connect with people that usually are just military brass, but now there's these kids that have stumbled on to this crazy plot of aliens in this random universe, and he's got to try to guide them through every single treachery or just obstacles. Obstacles.

SPEAKER_08 21:38

What's that move?

SPEAKER_10 21:42

Right, he's like, Oh my god.

SPEAKER_08 21:48

That was some of the best stuff that I was able to do because um there's something that if I've given information straight to the fans, this is all. So another one animation work, the best chance you have of doing that is going to be in studio in California. If you want to crack it animation-wise, you're probably going to start off doing dubbed work.

SPEAKER_09 22:19

Excuse me.

SPEAKER_08 22:22

Dubbed work in California and then moving your way on to some of the bigger animation projects. So um, it's not that the auditions don't come to you, but because everybody and their grandmother is submitting. Yeah. And these come I've done auditions for Riot Games, High Res Studios, I got the sides for Rogue Company before I became a thing. Um, I've gotten sides for the next iteration for like a Telltales game like title. Oh, nice. Those auditions are exceedingly hard to crack. Oh. And by the time you actually hear the voice that was in there, you're gonna be like, that's the direction they went. Oh, I had no chance in hell. And then you'll actually hear the spot, and you'll be like, This isn't even what they asked for in their specifications. Wow. But when you start to get in there and you start to make yourself a known entity, they like to hold on to people that they know that are good. But so much of it happens in studio with everyone kind of working around in like this this tight-knit area to where they can get these reactions and just be able to do it on the spot that you're shooting yourself in the foot. You won't make it animation-wise big, most likely, until you move out there and you start working with the actual like big animation studios in person. So keep that in mind. Um, sad to say, I have not cracked as many of the animation jobs as I would have liked. So that's still an ongoing process.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

Uh, the doctor, did you have any other questions you wanted to ask before we move forward?

SPEAKER_04 24:13

Um, you know, one other thing, and I mean I can ask it towards the end too if other people have questions, but okay. But you know, um, yeah. So yeah, I'll hold off for now, but okay, no problem. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

Um Ms. Skittles, we know you have uh one or two questions for your uh guest, so go ahead and uh shoot them out there. Go ahead, BC.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Um, so uh so I know you you kind of described like how you got into voice acting. Like I've had people tell me I should be a voice actor too, but if I if I wanted to, you know, dabble in that hop like knowing what you know now, how would you tell somebody who just wants to try it out or get into it or if they tip-t-toe in there? How would you have them go about like getting started? Like, what are some things that you know now that you wish you had known when you were getting started?

SPEAKER_08 25:19

Your voice is the most unique part of you. Your voice alone will not get you through the door. Um, because as unique as your voice may be, if there's no acting behind it, they won't consider you. They don't care, they just don't care. There's this there's many deep register voices, there's many quirky, childlike voices. It's how you bring any sort of spot to life that is what matters. And this is actually my most annoying question slash compliment to receive as a voice actor. You have a great voice, man. I love I love your voice, man. I I can see why you would be a voice actor, it completely diminishes the acting experience slash studying that I've needed to do to get to this point. It will be 80% acting, 20% voice. Oh wow. Going along that, um, general kind of roadmap I would give anybody. Um start off with some free projects. Casting club. Castingcall.club, behind the voiceactors, uh.com. Uh excuse me. There's an online group called Voice Acting Alliance. All of these are kind of free projects, uh, homemade that you can kind of just get into, dip your dip your toes in the water. When you get a little bit of that experience, just to kind of get what it's like to read through sides and kind of work with what I would consider varying levels of professionalism in terms of projects, and you see if you really have a taste for it. If there is a local voiceover coach in your area, start there. Let them take you through the ins and outs of the industry, show you the different things that you could potentially do with your voice, tell you what it takes to get demo ready, let them basically have their way with you, let them flesh you out. I realized after how that sounded, and I wish I'd chosen different after they are done having their way with you, and you are demo ready, cut a demo. I will tell you this if someone tries to cut you a demo for probably less than, and this is even lowballing at 400, don't do it. Now I'm not saying it has to be this expensive, but I trusted them when I did it. When I cut my demo with the Global Voice Acting Academy, they charge me $2,200. $2,200. If you're not prepared to make a financial investment to that degree, expose Google Bay.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

Right.

SPEAKER_08 28:20

It will all be an investment. Do not think that you will not pay the cost and get on to any respectable agencies because they don't have time. If it sounds bad from Rip, they're gonna toss it out and move on to the next one.

unknown 28:36

Right.

SPEAKER_08 28:37

The best voiceover actors probably update their demos. Well, sorry. Competitive voice actors, people who haven't made it to the top, because the top voice actors are already settled. They don't have to keep redoing their demos. Competitive voice actors redo their demos probably every two to three years. So I'll tell you this: you better, you better have something on the side because this is gonna be a long grind. It's gonna be a long ass grind. And that's not to even, I literally am staring at my voiceover booth that you can put together if you're so inclined. You get the materials, you handy and all that stuff. You go build you one, you soundproof it, put some ventilation in that bitch, and hang up, got a microphone arm, audio interface. I'm looking at my whisper room right now, that cost uh $5,300. The microphone in my booth, that's $1300. The license for your uh your DAW, which is your digital audio workstation. That's hundreds. That's hundreds, and then let's see, what else am I not? Well, I mean, if you got a computer, you got a computer.

SPEAKER_03 29:54

Exactly.

SPEAKER_08 29:56

Those are your bare bones. Okay, you got your demo, you got experience, you feel confident, agency representation. Everything is online submission. So you take your demo, you take uh generally they'll just ask for your demos. It's not like film acting, so they won't need a headshot stuff like that. They might, if there are a uh, what is it? What is this is a technical term? A multi-like a multi-agency. They don't just do voiceover, they might do film, they might do BT, they might do uh model. Um and then you'll wait about six months to hear back from them. And then if you don't hear back from them within six months, you can try to submit again. But if nothing's changed, then maybe you know they didn't like you the first time, so you got to change up something about your demo, or maybe they didn't have spot for you on the roster at the time, so you can always try to resubmit the same stuff. Um, depending on the agency, their roster is very large. And if they're not an overly diligent agency, then they might have five people on the roster that are just like, and then you might not see much work from them. So that's kind of a roadmap of what it looks like.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

It sounds sad.

SPEAKER_08 31:22

You just called him sad, ma'am. I'll say this being being on the other end of it now, it's it's obviously it's it's a painful process, but it makes you appreciate when you do get that agency representation, it makes it so sweet. It makes it so sweet. Um, and it is is it's definitely sad. I'll here's another tip straight to you home. You're dealing with rejection every day. You're dealing with rejection every day. The top voiceover actors probably I've heard this number from a couple of people in the field. You will book 10% of what you audition for when you are at the top, when you are not at the top, you're batting one to two percent. One to two percent. That's not bad.

SPEAKER_03 32:21

One to two percent if you think about like how much work you have to put in to anything else. Most people don't try to do stuff. So if you and talking about how much effort he put into just doing a recording when he got the job, is a lot of effort. So, like, the more people fall out, the more people understand they can't do it, you know, that that may increase, you know, sabotage. So two out of a hundred auditions, you will book.

SPEAKER_08 32:53

And that number becomes less when you are not at the top of your game, when you are not doing the necessary prep work, when you are not giving them enough varieties, enough takes so that they can choose from, so they can see your range. And then they may say, I found this other guy that sounded like my cousin, so I went with him.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Those are the worst.

SPEAKER_08 33:19

Those are the worst, those are the best. You'll just sit there and okay, to add on to that, it's a hard industry because you also don't get any feedback. Yes, there's they don't have time, right? If they had time to give you a well-crafted response, they would. These people are not, they're not evil, they're not out to get you. It just doesn't make sense to do. So they can't. So once you send it out into the ether, the best advice I give you, forget you ever did it. Yep, and go on to the next one, and go on to the next one. Hopefully, that answers the original question.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Okay, uh, quick follow-up. Uh, what would you say is the time investor for each audition on average? Hmm. That's a good question. Try to do some math.

SPEAKER_08 34:20

No, no, no, that's fine. Um, if you do every audition the same way at the best, so we're talking reading through the script, identifying different emotional pivots that you can have in the script, um, doing the prep work for where am I, what is my relation to the characters, better speaking, what am I trying to express, the actual recording of it, and then getting onto your own Daw and then editing clicks, breaths, um, looking out for uh too much dead space between certain lines. It could range from 15 to 45 minutes for each audition.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

And that's after you kind of have the hang of it. Yes. What about when you first started?

SPEAKER_08 35:26

You're gonna overthink yourself a lot.

SPEAKER_06 35:28

Ooh.

SPEAKER_08 35:30

And you're gonna drag yourself through the kind of trenches of what exactly could they be looking for? What has this oh actually bump that up 15 minutes? So let's say 30 to an hour, just because you might take it upon yourself to research previous spots that a company has done, look at their mission statement, kind of get a sense and feel for what the company is about. Okay. Um, and then you may also determine whether or not you want to um the number of takes, the number of takes. Uh, and then you might play around with your different choices that you make. So, because at the end of the day, they'll probably want two takes out of everything that you record. So if you go theater of the mind, now you gotta chop that down. Now you gotta figure out what exactly you want to throw in there. Um, so 30 to an hour, and then um I felt like I started saying this for some reason. Now I forgot where I was going.

unknown 36:38

Dang.

SPEAKER_08 36:40

30 minutes to an hour for each audition that you do. Gotcha, guys? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:47

Okay. And then I guess I don't know if my question will branch off that particular individual question. Um, well, I was gonna specifically ask, you know, you have you've done a lot of different spots, you've done a lot of different uh voices at this point. And I know the doctor asked, you know, what was your your funnest and you know your um most difficult? Um my question uh would be if you could choose a character that you auditioned for that you felt like you would have been the best for, who would it have been? That we might have we might be able to recognize. That throw that in there. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_08 37:38

It's a good one. I like that. It's actually a hard one. Ew.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Hard hitting ewes.

SPEAKER_08 37:47

So as a as a placeholder, there's the character Saint in Rogue Company. I felt really good about that one. Um I probably would have jumped at the chance to do that. Uh there was also the character Atlas in the game Smite. Um, if anyone plays that. Uh the world on his back, Guardian. Very, very interesting character. His moveset is eh, but if I could have had if I could have had the chance to voice him, I would have loved that too. So between those two characters, Saint and Roll Company or Atlas in uh Smite, one of the newest guys that I released that I can think of right now.

SPEAKER_03 38:32

Okay. Uh, the Doctor, I know you had a a couple, well, at least one more question that you want to go ahead and ask it.

SPEAKER_04 38:39

Yes, definitely. So essentially, you know, thinking of uh different characters and whatnot. Um, I am curious, you know, you mentioned a lot of your interests in the beginning, um, how voice acting ties into some of your other passions, you know, and how you might think about um kind of like bringing like some voice acting into some of your other passions as well. Right.

SPEAKER_08 39:03

Uh being a Twitch streamer, that definitely helps. I'll do some of my streams in an accent and just kind of stick with that throughout the stream just to see how long I can hold it up. Uh it ends up being harder when people start saying outlandish shit in my streams. So that's always pretty funny.

SPEAKER_03 39:21

Which is why I don't stream currently. Need to get back on there.

SPEAKER_08 39:25

Yeah. Um, so that's always cool. Um I don't, it's it's very interesting because sometimes you just find random opportunities to just like talk in an accent. Oh, it's definitely helped for when I used to. Um, I I mentioned this. I'm a SAC comedy grad. Um, so I was part of an improv troupe for a bit um before I started to focus more on the film acting aspect of things. So that always came in handy whenever you're doing short form or long form improv um and just trying to breathe new life into a character. Because if you don't want to, you know, make a whole backstory, you just throw an accent and then people already have a visual representation of like where this person came from. In terms of film acting, it's really helpful because you sit there and you'll you'll study certain accents and then they'll wonder whether or not you're can be believable as like an Irish character or a real Scottish character if you're sitting here talking all this intonation, all this time. But obviously, when you're on film, they're gonna be like, that's a black guy. Yep, yeah, yeah. But maybe you like to, maybe you like to just sit there, you might throw on an English accent, just something that's real easy to keep up with, something that's not overly believable, and maybe they want to cast you as something like Intercelba in uh episode of Luther or something like that. You you never know, you never know. So it's it's definitely good for those sorts of things. And then when you're just screwing around in the house, oh, oh, this is actually funny. Um, I've recently started to uh study what it takes to be a dungeon master. Oh my um, because I've been part of a couple of DD Hackmaster campaigns, Pathfinder, and so there's a lot of NPCs in those games. Yep. So how many dwarf accents are you gonna pull out before you recycle? Sounds like an interesting thing to start to look at when you're doing that.

SPEAKER_05 41:32

So it really just depends. It really just depends.

SPEAKER_03 41:36

Okay, awesome, awesome, awesome. So last, well, last of my questions before we move on. Um, well, I actually want to make sure, uh, Kaze or Miss Kittles, did you have a second or tertiary question that you wanted to?

SPEAKER_00 41:48

That wasn't my question. That was uh something he said.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

Yeah, my uh first question was, and and it might have been some overlap on this already. Sure. But um uh what was something that once you uh kind of got on your feet and got into the industry and kind of knew what you were doing, what was, say, and uh what's what's an obstacle that you never would have imagined that you had to do with? Or just you know, just something that you just you know, something that just really surprised you and just something that's really important to what you do that you just have to, you know, handle.

SPEAKER_08 42:30

When they ask for a black voice. Wait, what? Seriously? Literally, literally?

SPEAKER_10 42:40

Yeah, what does that mean? The number Right, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_08 42:44

Think about what it means for an instant. I mean, I thought about it, which is why I asked. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_10 42:53

I don't know what it like.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

I'm black. This is what I sound like.

SPEAKER_08 43:02

You hey, I agree. As a non-voice actor, I agree with you. The same way that I'm talking, the same way that you're talking, Kaze's talking, Dr. Succi. All of those things make sense. My black is blacky black, baby, don't matter where it comes from. But when that casting director says, we want you to sound urban. Urban.

SPEAKER_03 43:29

Ethnic.

SPEAKER_08 43:30

We want to get that hip hop, that kind of from the streets, spoken poet type type.

SPEAKER_09 43:39

What?

SPEAKER_08 43:42

Exactly. When they say African American right there on the label, what does that mean? What does that mean? The wire. It will give you the wire. Let's ridicule. Level black, Igris Elba. What? Like Kendrick? Like, you'll just sit there and you'll be like, what? What? What? It has literally given me an identity crisis since the beginning. Oh, and even now, whenever I get those sorts of copies, I just roll my eyes on it.

SPEAKER_03 44:22

Oh, God. It's funny. I saw a TikTok that's just like that, but it was uh for a Spanish speaker, and it was like, oh, we want you to do it in Spanish, and like they would say it in Spanish. Like, no, we want you, you know, I mean, we want you to say it like in Spanish. And she said, like Sofia Vargata, exactly, exactly like that.

SPEAKER_08 44:42

So here's actually a little story. I was in the middle of a session. I forget the company. I forget the company. Um, but shit. Um the creative person on the team, they've got like two people. Um, one of them's white, very nice, very well mannered. And she's just like, um, Patrick, I just I just wanted to have more of a disclaimer. I don't consider myself hood, street, none of that shit. All right. That's not me. Okay. So when I hop onto a call, I know what I am. All right. I've had people tell me I have an old white man voice when I answer the phone sometimes. Did all?

SPEAKER_09 45:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 45:27

Cool? All right, bet. So now we're sitting and we're going into this session, and I've given them some takes. It's just like, yeah, you know, Patrick, we we really like what you've given us so far. Um, and it's just um we we want it to sound more um we just want more of a of an urban type feel to it. And I'm sitting here like you so she actually passes, I guess, a mic, a microphone to somebody else. Sure. Now here come here come this the sister on the phone. Oh you know, black woman, beautiful black woman. She says, Hey Pat, um I'm not gonna lie. You know what they want. You just gotta, you know, give it give it some flavor, you know? Just you know, you know what she know what she's trying to say. Just you gotta give them some of that. And I was like, Okay, yeah, all right, just a little smaller.

SPEAKER_06 46:37

Yeah, so I can't say it. She's like, I just I can't say it, you know, just tell them to be more black. It was just that moment where it was just like, come on, don't don't bullshit with him, just give it to him, give it to him.

SPEAKER_08 46:50

And so she's clever in there, and she was just like, um, hopefully she got across what I was trying to say, and I was just like, I I got you. We good, we did it. So to paint it in a more like concrete picture, it's like the difference between them asking for black for like a Nike spot and them asking for black for like a public spot, right? You know the feel of like a Nike commercial, you heard it so many times already. All right, that's more of like, yeah, you know, I grew up around this, this is like my way out type shit. And then, you know, the friendly black guy at Publix was just like I don't know, there's fucking turkey in the house six. Like, yeah, there's turkey in the house, but you know that the two of them are not the same, you know what I'm saying? One is very more conversational, very friendly, kind of warm and inviting, and the other dude is just like, This is you know, this is my life, this is what I got. This is this is the streets right here. Yeah, okay. So when they ask for a black voice, but you only get that through experience and then research of the other spots that they've done and just an overall understanding of the industry at any given time.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

Man, uh and my second question if we have time, we got time, we have time, yeah. Okay, awesome. Um, so you already kind of broke down the uh the breakdown between like uh acting percentage and and the type and quality of voice, and which one is more important? So uh I guess branching off of that, how uh uh how much uh overlap, like say what is like the Vin diagram of uh a voice actor who might be interested in going into traditional acting and then like vice versa. I don't know if that's like too wide or no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_08 48:59

I actually have hmm, it's a loaded question because I have mixed feelings about certain parts of this. Oh, look at you, Talent. Whenever I see that and understand, I will never take talent away from people who have it. It's a different feel for me, and this might not answer your question, but it's something I'll throw out there. It's a certain feeling when I see a voice actor position put out for something like animation work, and I see someone like The Rock get the role versus someone who's a dedicated voice actor.

SPEAKER_09 49:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 49:37

Um, that bothers me greatly because I do think it takes away the opportunity from people that are just more talented. I understand the pull, I understand the star power, and I understand it will make things more successful, but I do think it takes away from other people that could be more deserving of the opportunity. Now, film acting-wise, I would say that's an easier crossover to voice acting, more so than the other way around. But deceptively enough, in a voiceover booth, no one can see. Which means, in order for you to get your actions, emotions, and feelings across, you have to overact. Yep. When I'm punching the air in the booth, my my words change because of it. As opposed to me throwing the same fist, and you can understand what's happening just based on my body movement. Now my voice doesn't have to carry all that alongside it. So I can be lackluster there. When you see people in the booth and they're just like running up and down, there's this real famous clip of um Hugh Jackman. Hugh Jackman is doing like the uh the voice over for Logan, where right before he like shoots up for like the last time and he's just running through the forest and he's just like cutting through people left and right. When I tell you that man is swinging, just going in the whole time, just working. You see the sweat coming off his body. If you got some dude with a sword that's just running through and they're just grabbing that with a boom or a um shotgun mic from far and they're tracking him the whole time, you ain't gotta work that hard. You do not, but in order for you to make it believable, you damn sure better believe he's got to be swinging for the fucking fences the whole time while he's doing it. And in that, that can cross over to the raw level of action and emotion that you can bring over into your film acting. Now you understand what it's like to keep it at 11, and they can turn you back to an eight if they need to. Passion of the emotion. They they always say this overdo it, and then let us bring you back. Let us bring you back so we can see how far you can go. Because that'll be the directors, the ad, all of those people, the producer's job. Give us intensity and let us dial it back versus just going where you think is right and not being as sure. 11, 8, 7, 9, that's perfect. You can't get away with that. You can't half-ass it in the voiceover boot. Now, from film acting to voice acting, depending, it's more of if the last one was energy, this one is more mental. There's different, there's a different style of acting. I'm sure you guys have heard stories of like method actors who live in their character, they'll be there on set, and they're fucking impossible to work with, and then they gotta go to therapy after and all that shit. Yep. That's not the acting I do. Therapy is expensive. I don't want to do that. My acting is bringing myself to imagined circumstances. For instance, um, I recently did a scene. This was an acting class where you do um you guys familiar with uh Seven Pounds, Will Smith? Yeah, the movie. Okay. So the premise of the movie for anyone at home who hasn't seen it is Will Smith was responsible. Will Smith's character was responsible for a car crash that claimed the family, uh, the lives of his family and five other people. I think he had a wife and daughter, and then anyway, so he has to give, he resolves himself to give seven pounds of himself to the world, to people that are deserving in order to make up for it. So, me being a non-method actor, I am what is known as uh a Meisner or kind of a um, let's just say I work in imaginary circumstances. I bring myself and I live in those imaginary circumstances. So in my head, I construct something that is similar enough to where I would then bring that emotion. Because if I work off of something that has actually happened to me, then I have to relive that trauma, and then I can't shake it. That's the therapy aspect of it. So instead, if I prepare for that scene, in my head, I'm constructing what's happened. I say to myself, I've crashed a car, I've killed my mom and my sister, and I've also killed five other people. And you repeat that to yourself, and you repeat that to yourself, and you repeat that to yourself to where it has that mental effect on you.

SPEAKER_07 55:00

And then you're sitting there, and you're just living with that continuously until it just deadens you.

SPEAKER_08 55:11

And I'm not gonna go all the way through my process because I already feel the tears coming on, and I don't want to do that shit. Um then you deliver your lines, and you're sitting there, and you're just in that dark space, you deliver, and they ask you for as many takes as it takes. And then what you do is you step back, you call your mother, you call your sister, and you basically say, Mom, you good? Yeah, what the hell are you calling me for? Oh, no, nothing. I just need to hear your voice. You call your sister. Why are you calling me? I'm at work.

SPEAKER_09 55:45

All right, shit.

SPEAKER_08 55:48

Pull yourself back out. Pull yourself back out. You can apply that to voice acting very easily, as well as playing actions instead of feelings, which I spoke about a little earlier. It's the same way, it's almost the same topic of putting on that black voice. Um, what the fuck does that mean? I can be angry. I want you to read this angry.

SPEAKER_01 56:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 56:20

Oh. Um. Uh I want you to read a sad. Sad is anything to a bunch of different people. Yeah. I want you to mock this person. Ooh, that's fine. I want you to belittle them. I want you to criticize them. I can play that in the booth.

SPEAKER_10 56:41

I think I can do that.

SPEAKER_08 56:44

I can criticize the shit out of you. And I can do that in film or I can do that in voice acting. That's easy. I learned playing actions more easily in actual film acting than I did with voiceover. Because you almost don't have the opportunity to really belittle people unless you do it actually to somebody. Now, in voice acting, it's like, okay, no shit, I can actually envision this person. Now you're just replacing it. But unless you actually have the physical person in front of you for like the first couple times when you start, you don't, you're not able to really step into that imaginary world and kind of do that stuff. So, and this might be biased when I say it. When I was just doing voice acting by itself, I did not find it as profound of a transition to my skill set when I started doing film acting. But if you ask me the other way, film acting definitely helped the shit out of my voice acting.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

Gotcha. Hopefully that answers your question. No, no, that answered it uh beautifully. And uh I guess uh small follow-up, uh sure. I think there's a in uh uh for for someone who was going one way or another person going the other. Do you think there's an uh kind of like if you was an actor and uh and you wanted to start doing some voice acting work on the side, do you think uh that like the average actor would assume that it'd be an easy transition? Or do or is there like an understanding that once you're in that general field that like, oh no, these these are the obstacles and things over here, and this, you know, and these are the obstacles and stuff over here, and everybody just knows.

SPEAKER_08 58:27

I'd probably say voice acting to film acting is the harder transition to make. Acting to film acting is definitely the easier one. Although you might find that it is unbearably hard to just create those same sort of circumstances, not having a full set and somebody to work off of and all of those things. But I think the skill set is uh as a film actor is more valuable going that way.

SPEAKER_03 58:57

You done you done made him get into character twice and then made him call his mama, like goddamn it, Kaze.

SPEAKER_08 59:04

I tell you, it was it was you uh so it's right at the start of the movie where um for seven pounds, I mean, the dispatcher, he's calling them and he's basically reporting his own suicide to these people. So you gotta play somebody that's broken down, he already resolved himself to die, he's living with this guilt that he can't escape, even though a bunch of people have tried to talk him out of it, and he's found someone that he might actually have affection for, and that even still, that's not enough to bring him out of killing himself. It's it's a tough place to go to. That movie is fucking and it's underrated as all hell, and it should.

SPEAKER_02 59:46

That in pursuit of happiness, they like those two, like for me, just like out of the water.

SPEAKER_08 59:52

Like one time, and if you have told me that man would have gone on to create the slappening years later, I'd say that it'd be the same person because he could evoke all emotion. And we'll been working with that pain for years. We just need to know about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:14

I felt it. Um you have a question?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:19

I have a question that I think will like segue into the next part.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:24

Excellent, excellent. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:26

So, um, we talked about you and your voice acting and and you know how you got started, and just just so much. You've given us so much information.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:37

Quite interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:38

Um it would not be like like we this interview wouldn't be complete if we didn't ask you who your favorite black voice actor is.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:52

Oh. I thought you were gonna say actors. Now you can choose the one.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:59

I was about to say we we melanated on here.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:03

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:04

You can.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:04

No, no, no, no. He made the face like, hmm, am I gonna black hard revolt?

SPEAKER_06 1:01:10

No, no, no, no, no. You can you can pull it if you want. I ain't gonna change my answer.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:17

Um my favorite black voice actor, which is strange because depending on how you ask me this question, I have two different answers. My favorite black voice actor is actually Dave Finoy. If you don't know who Dave Fenoy is, he is, I didn't really understand as much about voice acting until I got a little deeper in. But I played a game, the Walking Dead series. Telltale. He is the character Lee Everett in uh the Telltale uh Walking Dead series, who is kind of this father figure to this little girl called Clementine. Uh usually I'm big on spoilers, but I mean it's it's been like years. So this is a man who survived the initial outbreak, went through betrayal, had to decide to raise this little girl, watch out for her, subsequently, subsequently was bitten, held on long enough to get this little girl to safety, and then in the game, you have to give the girl the option to either kill him or let him turn and walk away. In that game alone was a wealth of emotion. Wealth of emotion, and it only made me want, it was what really drove me to really want to be in an animated series that was built around my character somehow one day. If I could be that man, if I could inhabit all of the skills that he has, I would. And he's done games like Gears 5, Crackdown, Fallout. He's Lucius Fox in the Batman animated series sometimes, um, which I thought that was pretty fucking dope. Um, Horizon Zero Dawn. The man's credits are otherworldly. He also came on just recently. Um, he was talking to somebody, I think this was a couple years back, and he was just like, Yeah, I think it's about time for me to update my character demos because I ain't changed that shit in like 10 years. But they just keep booking me for work. So it's actually Dave Finoy. Um, if you were to ask me, and I'll just give this away for free. Hey, who was a film actor? Hey, man, listen, my words is being scrutinized. Who is a film actor, wet voice actor that actually is my favorite? Then I'm pretty sure you all would probably know Phil Lamar very, very easily. Of course. I mean, I'm not gonna speak. I'm not samurai Jack alone. Yeah, yeah. That wasn't even that wasn't even a black voice actor thing. That was just a gift that was given to us throughout the years, you know. Uh Hermes, Futurama. I'm not, man, I'm not gonna say here. You're not the better. He ain't been shape shifting his voice for years to give us what we needed. So most of us didn't know with him. Exactly. So you'll just you'll like look at his credits sometimes, you'll be like, What? This man was in Vivus' butthead? What where?

unknown 1:04:51

How?

SPEAKER_08 1:04:52

But yeah, so Dave Fanoy for the first, Phil Lamar for the second. Excellent.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:58

I actually actually checked out uh uh Dave Fanoi. I'm on Dave Fanoy's IMDB right now, and I'm out of games. I'm like, oh, that was you?

SPEAKER_09 1:05:07

Yeah, you know, because that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:11

Once you once you just prove to people that you can do something, yeah, and if you don't like them, I'm a cold. Sometimes I I love Jake, sometimes you gotta prove to somebody that they can do it so they can actually see that you do it and know that you that nigga.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:23

Like, yeah, you just keep hitting just everything that you do, and now they're giving you spots and jobs that you didn't even think.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:30

They might call you up and be like, hey man, we got this open spot. You want to just exactly you wanna bless the track real quick? Please. Yeah, like cut cut cut the check.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:40

Yeah, I'll be there like tomorrow. I'll be there. Just just bless the track real fast.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:48

Awesome, awesome. And well, I mean, since I'm sorry, Kazi, did you have another question?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:52

Uh no, that was it.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:54

Okay. Well, since we, you know, already asked uh Pat Patrick uh what his Or who his favorite black voice actors are. I guess we can go ahead and spread that to the rest of the panel. I would allow you all to go first, but I'm afraid y'all will take mine. So I'm gonna go ahead and say her now. My love, all day in the paint. All day absolute day in the paint. She needs, honestly, I feel like that's a cheat. I feel like I that's not fair because she deserves her own episodes, honestly. Uh, all the shit she has done and continues to do. Um, I will say, uh, one of my favorite voice actors is Keith David. Um I actually met him on complete and utter accident in an elevator. And um honestly, at first I realized it was him, but I like turned around and mind my business because I'm like, I'm not no groupie. And then he was like, uh Man sounds like mahogany being dubbed into it. You know what he did? He said to me in his voice, which his voice is his voice, can you go ahead and press number two? I was like, oh my God.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:03

Wait, I was so shook from behind, I was like, ah, oh my god. So I turned around, I was like, Yes, Mr.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:10

David, no problem. You didn't know you had that hidden submissive in you, and just Keith David brought it out. I didn't know I was not I was not prepared. I didn't think he was gonna talk to me. Yes, I think he's gonna say something to me. I was like, Jesus. Lord Jesus. All right. Yes. Uh, but yes, definitely Keith David, uh and uh well, Chris Summers, of course. Um I'm trying to think. Well, I'll stop it too, since you did two, uh, and I will let uh the doctor go.

unknown 1:07:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:41

Oh, and I I definitely have like one that just immediately comes in mind, I'm sure is very well known. Uh Terrence Carson, you know, of course, from you know, many of us are also known from Living Single Fame. Uh yeah, it it's really amazed me how much voice acting he's gotten. Yeah, of course, you know, I heard about like Craigerson was the one that really got a lot of popularity, and that surprised me when I was a kid. Like finding out like, oh shoot, like this this is him, like that's pretty you know, incredible. But yeah, he's done a lot of voice acting for video games. Uh a lot of the Star Wars series, you know, he's been various characters in, including Mace Windu, and um his voice Vader as well, and some which is pretty interesting. Uh he's done some in Soul Caliber, um, you know, and several others. So yeah, like he's absolutely definitely my number one that I think of when I think of, you know, my favorite black voice actor.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:38

Uh Kaze Shinryu, who do you have as your top voice actors?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:42

Oh man, yeah, I love uh uh I love how you like scared of having something taken and you start throwing out all really. I don't know what you're talking about. But um, but uh yeah, but yeah, I'm I'm gonna throw it out there anyway. When uh when I when I when I first uh heard spawn the animated series and that that just uh echoed and emanated from that screen, like I literally just yeah, fell fell in love. Like yeah, that um yeah, so yeah, you you know you already you already brought him up. So I'm uh but uh uh but a good uh second place is uh Kevin Michael Richardson. Yes, uh yeah, fantastic. Uh yeah, he uh was it Marshall, yeah, but mostly the uh like the DC, the DC stuff. Uh he you know he's been uh you know the Green Lantern, uh Killer Wall, uh freaking uh I didn't know he was Goro in the Mortal Kombat movie, like the like the first one.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:47

Wait, yeah really hold up, let me bring up this man's IMDB.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:55

Yeah, Trigon, freaking uh the uh security guard from Lilo and Stitch.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:00

Yeah, Lilo and Stitch. Yes, if you just think about it, like listen to it, but you're like, oh my god. How didn't I know?

SPEAKER_10 1:10:11

Oh my god Mr. Bubble. What?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:17

Yeah, yeah. And it's funny because I'm looking at like I'm looking at like uh you know, like one of those image collages that they put next, and you and you can all you can almost see like the character design that his voice obviously like goes with like this like those like really large, you know, voice, gravelly, uh like that. I didn't know that dude who looked like a fake saber tooth from Team Titans. I didn't know I didn't know that was him.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:38

Oh my god. Don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:42

Uh no, juggernaut, but yeah. Uh yeah, yeah. So no, I get keep my gorgeousness. Definitely, definitely up there.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:51

All right. And I'm sorry, I'm still sitting here looking at this man's face. My mouth is just oh, I'm scared. Go ahead, I'm good.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:04

Uh the Skittles, who are your black voice actors?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:10

So I mean, you already took creed. I mean, it's not it's I don't I don't have any honestly, I mean, yes, all of all of them are amazing, but a lot of times I don't know that they're black voice actors until like I'm like looking up the character and I'm like, oh shit, that's so-and-so. Like it's and I it just amazes me how many of us are actually voice acting. Um, especially, and I think I think it's more amazing to me, like when you when you see like cartoon series that have like black characters in it, like you automatically, okay, it's probably a black voice actor, somebody famous, most likely. Um, but what amazes me is when I hear about black voice actors um doing anime. Um, that's like so, so when you go, like when I hear about like OG Banks and like Zeno Robinson and people like that, like doing like anime, and there and there's like a lot of anime, there's a lot of black anime voice actors, and they're voicing white characters, but you're you're like, oh my god, like um, you know, you you just like, I don't know, to me that's that's like the most amazing. I don't have a favorite. Um, I mean, if I had to choose a second favorite, it would definitely be Regina, uh Regina King, yeah. Because when I found out that she was the voice of Huey and Riley, I just was I was clabbering at this bitch. I was like, what? Like, like that's crazy to me. Uh and and after a while, I started to hear her, but maybe hell no, I would I would have never got it.

SPEAKER_10 1:13:03

Like, I'm like, who whose little son this is cussing like this? Who loud they kiss me? Like, like I was just I was just like, some parent out there got their child in here. Cursing at the storm.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:19

A hole showing that whole ass.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:23

So yeah, I think um for me, it's um for me it's the anime. It's it's the the blue voices behind anime here.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:35

And real quick, I mean, I know I already said my two, but I just wanted to say this one because we talked about, you know, uh um the black voice. And one person who like, especially in like older cartoons that always like came on as a black, one of the black, like the black jazzy hood voice was Tone Loke. And I always appreciate Tone Loke coming in just with his deep raspy voice. Just like you know, there's a hood dude around when Tone Lope's voice comes on the screen. I'm like, yeah, my man.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:07

Yeah, I don't I don't think I'm pulling any of those roles anytime.

SPEAKER_09 1:14:10

So that's they're not they're not gonna really pull me for that.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:14

I'm okay with that. That's that register. No, no, no, no. That's that's not me.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:20

Um uh so you know, just to wrap up, because we want to make sure we end this episode at one point, uh, but just to wrap up, I did want to ask one final question. You know, you excuse me, you have been doing this for some time, and it is, well, actually a very long time, and you are very passionate about your craft. What is one thing that a single person uh has done to insult you regarding your craft? You said a couple, but what's like the the most insulting thing, other than you know, the whole um you you sound like a voice actor? What is the most insulting thing uh that somebody can say about your craft?

SPEAKER_08 1:15:01

Probably that they think they can just do it with no training, no investment, nothing at all. That's probably the one that literally spits on the coaches that have taught me the financial investments that I made, the people that I know that are grinding to try to make it to either stardom or to actually make it to where they can make it their full-time career. Um because it's it's a very ignorant thing to say. And even still it's a dull list, or you take it one of two ways. Either you just brush them off because you know that they don't know what they're talking about completely, or you take it to heart because I guess the way I see anything is that if you have something that you're passionate about, there is a world of achievement in any hobby that somebody has. At some point, it stops being casual. Yes, and it has to come with investment time, struggle, sacrifice. Yep, you have to give of yourself. So for anybody to say that anything worthwhile doing is just easy, I resist the urge to slap people like that across the head. I don't know why you resist.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:26

Uh I well, I I also hold um I hold some privileges with the government, so I can't just go around slapping.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:36

Well, let me know. I got some people who who can get around, you know, certain privileges. I will never contact you through official means. Um just just say it. I I mean I okay, and just to say this real quick, like I 100% understand the amount of time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears, passion, effort that goes into performing a not just a hobby, not just a passion, not just a skill, not just a trade, not just a job. It's something that you can want and potentially were meant to do. That's why I give so so much reverence to like the cosplayers on our podcast. That's why I give so much reverence to, you know, the that's why we do the melanated solstice. Let me just go skip it to the front. That's why we do this, is because we recognize how we we recognize and we always want to show appreciation to not only those who showcase their abilities on a continual basis, but those who are not seen, who have these skills, capabilities, and talents. Um, because like just talk like, for example, just talking about all of the different black voice actors that we did or did not know about. Like if if we voice them, like there's people who don't know that uh James Avery was a uh voice actor. His booming voice, like, come on. Like, people like for years, I I always knew it because like I always thinking back to Lion King and Mufasa, like I remember when I first watched The Lion King, I went Bell Atlantic, like literally, that was what my response was.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:12

My sister was like, What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:16

Like, I'm sorry. Um, and so it's like being able to, it's not recognizing them because you always hear them, it's recognizing them because you're showing appreciation and you want other people to know that these people are talented and these people have skills and these people are because I always despise when people are like, oh, you know, this person, what have they been doing lately? I'm sorry, just because you've only been watching stuff on Netflix doesn't mean this person isn't doing all this shit over here. Like, just turn the fuck around, get out your house, watch something else. So, you know, it's uh we just wanted to give you the ability to be on a platform, to be on a stage, to be able to be seen and heard, of course, uh, so people know who you are and what you can do and your capabilities. So, what we do at the end of every one of our melanated solstice episodes is give our guest speaker the opportunity to say anything. What what are you planning on doing next? What is the next project for you that you want us to check out? If there's something you can't say, then don't say it. But if there are things that are already out that you want people to go and watch, what are those things? Uh, feel free. This is your platform. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_08 1:19:20

So I would say to anyone that is actually trying to get into the industry, there is a path that is paved, believe me. Um, and if you ever, I'll say this if there are any uh ever any surface level questions that I can ask from somebody or answer from somebody that's in the field, um, reach out to me. I'll make sure that the team has my email. You can email me about any questions that you may have. In terms of the things that I'm working on, I've taken uh I had to take a bit of a break due to some health concerns and some other things that I was figuring out. The next step is for me to get into a video game. I've been trying to crack that. So when I do, a part of Facebook will be on fire, I'm sure. I was able to finally crack that.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:10

Um, but in the meantime, I've also not to cut you off, but we did just so happen to have a comic book creator here in our last episode who's planning on putting together a video game in the early part of next year. And I did tell him that if we find anybody who could potentially be a part of that project, we would let him know. So I'm just throwing it out there. We might swing your information over there. But go ahead, finish it, finish your bio. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_08 1:20:37

Throw the lob and I'll slam dunk it. Don't worry. Uh so in addition to that, you can also catch me. Uh, this film is in pre-production. Actually, it might be in post-production right now. Uh, a film called Playing Through. You can catch me as an extra in multiple parts of that movie. We shot that in Sarasota. Uh, very great film. Um, voice acting-wise, you'll catch me on Spotify sometimes. I've done, like I said, I've done work for a lot of places, uh, did some work for the U.S. Coast Guard spots that are on there, as well as a new movie subscription service called Movie Flex. So you might hear me um in your in a local movie theater somewhere on the radio. And that's also the cool thing about being a voice actor. People won't exactly know it's you, but they'll be like, is that some someone literally just told me they heard me on the radio when they were just traveling, and they were just like, yo, that's Pat. What the fuck? Which is crazy because I think about how much of a, especially our generation, how much we really turn on the radio like all the time. It's everything, everything, depending on who you are. Might be streaming service plays, you might be listening to stuff on Spotify, YouTube music, just whatever the hell. And so a lot of my jobs ended up coming through there on radio. Uh, so you don't actually get like that video component of it unless they're running an online campaign. So it just happens. Um, to the team specifically, I'll actually send them like a short video that I did for a commercial a while back, just as like a little Easter egg, something that's cool. Um, but yeah, do not get discouraged before you begin. Starting is the hard part, but it's easier than you think. Just remember that you have not gone through this alone, but be ready to pay the cost, save your coins, you're not gonna quit your day job quickly.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:43

Lord knows I haven't.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:45

So you're gonna work, and this industry will work you and it's gonna test you. But if you want to be just like James Avery the shredder, or just like Dave Fanoy, or just like well, I don't think anyone's gonna be like Keith. Oh, that's actually the last thing. Be prepared to put your unique standard. You are going to be the best you in this industry because no one can ever take that from you. No one will ever have your experiences, no one will have your exact voice, your exact way of seeing things. So every time you step into the booth, I want you to bring you to every imagined circumstance. Live it as you would live it. And another way for you to have a richer just experience acting-wise, make sure you go out and you experience the world. Make sure you travel, make sure you talk to people you haven't talked to before, make sure you have a wealth of life in you, and that too gives you perspective. That will also deepen your craft. So get out from behind the computer, go live life, go outside, go touch some grass, okay?

SPEAKER_09 1:24:02

Some grass.

SPEAKER_08 1:24:03

I promise you're gonna love it, and you're gonna be all the better for it. And that's all I got.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:08

It's funny. I like he said the first two lines, I was like, oh, perfect, a quotable thing that we can put on social media. And then he just like kept going. I was like, okay, look, oh, oh, oh, oh, okay. We can't.

SPEAKER_08 1:24:18

You're the director. Like I told you, you gotta give a lot of takes. Now you get to choose.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:26

Okay, we got a couple posts, y'all. We got a couple posts. All right. Uh, so Patrick, how can you be reached? How can you be followed? Uh, well, I mean, I know I know you don't want people to follow you, but how can you be seen social media-wise? Um, that uh that our listeners can uh check you out.

SPEAKER_08 1:24:42

Uh BlackDues0123 will take you to most of the gaming, the Twitch stuff. Uh Patrick uh J Delva, uh, that'll be Instagram for my uh professional stuff. Uh I won't give out my personal because there's a lot of foolishness on there. There you go. Um but if you ever need to email me and I'll also leave this with the team. Uh Pdelva at premiervoiceworks.com.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:06

Awesome sauce. And of course, our uh distinguished panelists, how can you be reached? Uh Miss Skittles.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:13

Uh Ms. Skittles. I'm fucking my own Miss Skittles T-R underscore cosplay at Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and on Twitter is M-I-Z2K.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:37

Aze Shinryu, how can you be reached? You can find me at uh Bear3B on the ground. The Doctor, how can you be reached? Rod RT on Facebook. The podcast can be reached at the blurred spectrum on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. Uh uh, wait, I know. Oh, YouTube, there's the other one. YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. Um, also, I can be reached, Suchi No Shogun on Instagram, Suchi underscore no underscore shogun. Suchi is spelled T-S-U-C-H-I. I can always also be reached at Blurred Creations on Instagram or Blurred Creation Shop on Facebook. Um, and then if you want to contact our mailbag, that is the blurred spectrum at umbralstarcade.com. Whew. All right. Wrapping up this episode, thank you all for listening to the melanated solstice. Uh, we're still continuing our um Zodiac Girls line. Please make sure you're going out and buying your boxes. Miss Skittles has put her stank on a a litany of Zodiac Girl characters. Uh right now, uh, it is where where are we? We're in no, we're in Virgo? Virgo? It's Virgo right now. So it's Virgo season right now. Uh Libra comes next. Uh so who I've seen Libra. Libra's. She put some little, she's a little island on Libra. I was like, wait a minute now. Okay, girl, I see you. Uh, but yeah, no, so get ready for Libra. She's coming soon. Um, of course, we have our uh uh Blur Creations having their one-year anniversary in October. We also have the end of the melanated solstice. We're doing something big, y'all. Y'all better be ready for that. Uh, and then we're gonna do a couple of new things coming towards December. So get ready. Uh, the Blurred Spectrum is moving into a new phase. I hope you're excited. Other than that, as I always say, Sayonara, you're not gonna be a little bit more.