The Voice Over Artist(s)

I know it's been a while since I've contributed a post, largely because I'm terrible at anything resembling a journal, but I've got a cute story to tell about... you guessed it... Mr. Peanuts. So as many of you know my day job is being a voice over actor. So yesterday I had an audition and with no one to watch Jordan I brought him along. It's not the first time he's joined me in the booth, but he's bigger now then he was the last time and I was a little concerned about his ability to stay quiet. In the past it's been no problem. He's even gotten compliments from the various casting directors around town. But like I said, he's bigger now, and he's certainly finding his voice.

This audition was at my agency, which effectively means it is a very easy place to bring Jordan along to. Darryl who runs the booth and directs my auditions is young, friendly and just a had a little girl of his own four months ago. Jordan and I wait for a couple of minutes when we arrive while another actor finishes his audition and Jordan is quiet the whole time. With a mischievous twinkle in his eye he snooped around the basement of my agency, but he was nonetheless quiet. And I knew exactly how this was going to play out.

As the other actor left the booth he smiled at and said hello to Jordan, commenting on how he's sitting up on his own now, as the last time they saw each other Jordan needed to be held... and then it was our turn. So we get in the booth and Darryl does something he's never done before. He sets up an extra pair of headphones and offers them to Jordan. Jordan looked around a bit confused as I put them on his head. As the mic is always on in the booth, he could immediately hear our conversation amplified. He didn't like it and threw the headphones off immediately. So I put my headphones on and tried again with Jordan. As soon as they were on his head I went to the mic to show him that when you talk into the microphone, it comes through the headphones, pointing at my own. This seemed to be cool with him. He just smiled up at me and left them where they were.

I asked him to stay where was, not touch anything and of course to "Shhhhhh, be quiet." Then I turned to Darryl and predicted that, in spite of the fact that he hadn't said a word since we arrived, that he would start gabbing away the second I started the actual audition. And like clockwork, I slated my name "Chris McCawley" and got two words into the script when loudly Jordan yelled out something to the effect of "Oohh-hoo-hoo Da da!" Darryl and I shared a big laugh and then Jordan was good for the rest of the audition.

So you never know, we might have another voice over actor in the family now.