THE BIG PICTURE Chris Byrnes Recently I had the pleasure of meeting Doug Purdon, a true artist in every sense of the word. Doug has made a tidy living with just a brush, paint and canvas for the past 45 years.
What amazed me, as Doug came to create, was the way he brought a blank white canvas to life with just a few strokes, some paint and his talent.
The blank canvas quickly transformed into an early evening scene with the winter sun going down over a small lake. Tall trees swayed in the breeze and the evening sky was on fire. The way Doug created depth to this scene was truly inspiring.
I was not surprised to later learn that Doug is world famous, and travels the globe painting. He has another showing in the New York Art Gallery this summer. And, there is a waiting list for his work. It takes him anywhere from three to six weeks to create one painting and he works about 8-10 hours each day.
Listening to Doug speak about his passion, and the amount of time he invests in each painting made me wish that more people who work in radio could demonstrate just a fraction of Doug's passion when it comes to creating an audio painting in the production room.
I was struck by the similarity between the two crafts. To our canvas we add words, music and sound effects and the end product is either the equivalent of a Picasso or something my two-year old throws together with his brush and water paint.
I'm sure we'd all love to be turning out the audio version of a Mona Lisa every time we cut a spot, but all too often it's a voice-over-music piece of noise that does little for the client, and fails to communicate the message and motivate the listener to action.
So what can you do to increase the passion in your creative writers, production people and voice talent? Glad you asked. Here are a few thought starters:
Start An "Idea Bank": It's very easy to create a database of scripts, you can share with writers within your group, or other friendly stations. There are also a number of places on the net you can go to find ideas.
Buy A Book Or Two: Go to www.nab.org and you will find a book called "Proven Radio Copy Vol. 2". For $77.00 you'll get 100 Categories with more than 650 proven advertising scripts that will save you time and money, plus eliminate writer's block. You can also join the RAB and get access to thousands of scripts on-line.
Share Voices Between Stations: There are normally one or two good production voices on each station, and they voice most of the local spots. Chances are they will be on the air in a key day-part such as morning drive, and the station sounds small time when that talent plays a bank of ads voiced by them on the end of a live talk break. One solution is to trade voices with other stations. It's now so easy to FTP audio files over the net, or send them as email attachments, so you can voice a spot in one location and send it thousands of miles via the net in a matter of seconds. So email the scripts and send the completed voiced spot via the net. It costs zero money, and makes your radio station sound larger than life.
Send Your Production People To Audio Workshops: There are a number of great sessions developed especially for writers and producers. One of the best is Roy Williams and his Wizard of Ads. Check out www.wizardofads.com. Or call Connie Taylor at (512) 295-5700 for more information. Also check out Day O'Day at www.danoday.com
Run A Seminar For Your Talent: Do a deal with a local theatre or a speech therapist and develop an in-house course. Or call ByrnesMedia and we'll do it for you. Most people only ever use a small percentage of their voice range, because they have never been shown how to use their voice.
Make Sure Your Talent Warm Up Their Voice Before They Start: There are some basic speech exercises your talent should use to limber up their voice before going into a session. Yet I still see talent walk into a voice booth cold, pick up a script and blast out the spot. Their goal seems to be to get out of the booth as quickly as possible, as opposed to giving their best read to the script.
Expose Your People To An Agency Producer: In a previous life, I used to do a little agency voice work. I was the guy with the friendly bright voice, who could cram 150 words into a 30-second spot and still make it understood. So I got to work with some great agency producers, and found that they had a few things in common. They knew how to set the mood for each particular job, how to communicate to the talent exactly what they wanted, they knew how to direct talent and suggest ways to improve the delivery. No matter how good you thought the take was, often they would want just one more read. But in the end they got exactly the read they were paying for. So get your producer and talent into an agency session to learn some of the tricks the big guys use.
Conduct A Voice Audit: Often the producer will choose the talent that can blast out the work quickly, and then for some amazing reason they are always too busy to spend time with the less experienced voices on station. Have your creative director monitor who voices what for the month. You may find you have a problem, and the solution is easy to fix. You are looking for a variety of voices on the station, while at the same time giving the client value for money.
Recruit Other Voices: I was working with a station that had a lack of good voices on-air. They had a budget of $300 a month for outside voice talent, so I had them post ads in all the local theatre companies. We held auditions one Monday evening and each actor got 15-minutes in the production booth to read five different scripts. The best voice turned out to look like a street person, with long greasy hear and an un-kept beard. His name was David and he was in a play that required him to look like this. David would come in three days a month and read what ever scripts were in the production room, and receive $100 cash per session. Within a few weeks the creative juices were flowing and the writers were developing amazing scripts they would not have attempted in the past. David had an endless array of character voices, could sing, read verse and make every script sound special. A year later he moved to Australia with a production and decided to stay. He used the audition tape to land voice-over work for Toyota Australia. On my last trip back, I was pleased to see David all over my TV screen as the front person for Toyota. He is making a great living and credits it all to the little radio station that paid him just $300 a month.
Conclusion: Radio offers our clients something that both newspaper and TV charge for. But we all need to work harder to ensure our free service is not seen as a second rate service. So there are a few ideas I've seen work over the years. I hope they will help lift the creative sound of your station to the levels that Doug Purdon achieves with his talent each and every day. |