One Talent, Many Directors
Jason Klofstad with Mary Windishar
Ever feel like this in a recording session? It could be that you've been given too much direction, from too many people. But if you're a highly paid professional like Coach Jason, that's part of what they're compensating you to navigate. So, who's the boss? What if the direction conflicts? How do you make everyone happy...and not go nuts? Advice from an expert!
TRANSCRIPT IVC embraces the use of audio and video as teaching tools -- and you should too. Examples come to life when heard, and become 3-D when seen and heard. We provide a transcript to help you with note taking or searching our site…but recommend that you push "play!"
Mary Windishar The famous Denny Delk, you know the guy who does "Got milk?" told me once how he charges. He says, he charges scale if it's just a director and him. If the director and the client come, that's scale and a half. And if the director, the client and the client's spouse come, well then it's double. So there it is, the perfect example of how hard it is to work with multiple directors from a guy who is such a pro. Jason, you've worked with multiple directors, too. Tell us one of your war stories. Jason Klofstad First of all, that's a great story and good for Denny for adjusting accordingly. I have been in a situation a number of times where you don't just have the director, or the director and a producer, or perhaps just a sound engineer…
MW And this isn't just small potatoes, were talking about your work at Apple. JK Absolutely, and this is big-time stuff and the perfect scenario is you and one other person…the person who's listening to you… MW It's almost like a dance isn't it? JK Yeah, a tango versus a square dance for instance, lots of partners. So, particular situation where there were probably nine people outside of the booth, all of whom had a say in what was going on. There was a producer, assistant producer, a director, a sound engineer, a number of editors and then a few other individuals as well…I'm not sure exactly what their titles were. So one thing I found that really worked for me, and made sure that nobody's egos got hurt, nobody's toes got stepped on, was to take all of this direction that is often directed back towards me, so a producer maybe telling me something and an editor maybe telling me something - I'll take what seems to be the best of all of that I look back at the director and I say, "So we'll pick up the pace a little bit. Does that sound okay? And the director will say yes or no, let's try something different or, yes that works great. But basically I'm taking this information that's being directed towards me, I'm putting it back into the lap of the director and saying how does this sound. And that way, the director, who's technically the chief on the job, has the final say. That's one way I found that really works to help everything come together and make sure nobody gets bruised. MW Nice idea, just find yourself the boss. JK Absolutely, absolutely. Pick the top person in the room and make sure they have the final say. MW And any little kid can do that; they always know who's got the most power. JK Darn right. MW What do you do about the nerves though? It's a stressful situation. JK It can be a stressful situation depending on the environment. The cool thing about voice recording is that when you're in a booth, oftentimes it's no bigger than a phone booth and it completely deadens the sound, so you're isolated, if only by a few inches, from the outside world. But, you know, I hate to use the the term, but make it your "happy place." Just isolate yourself and know that it's you, it's the copy, all you need to do is take those words, speak them into the microphone and that's it. Don't worry about who's outside. If something needs to change they'll let you know, but otherwise forget about them; they don't even exist. It's you, it's the words. MW I think your advice is golden. I will tell you, I've been in a situation where it wasn't clear who the director was. Maybe if you had been on my shoulder whispering those words to me I might not have had to do what I did, but I actually was able to cope with the situation where all this direction was firing at me from five different people. It was 90 seconds worth of copy that needed to go into a 60 second spot, so as you know, you have to read fast and when you read fast you really can't emphasize words. But of course they wanted me to. JK Sure. MW It was the golden anniversary. So I had so much going on in my head that I had to ask, "Can I get you guys to just give me 3 min. and I'm going to think for a second?" And they said, "Sure." So I literally went back to the corner of the room and had a little temper tantrum. I really did. In my own head I'm thinking - these guys are stupid and don't they understand how hard this is for me to do, and I really can't do this, and I really did get kind of angry. But what was nice about the anger was that it focused me. So I walked back into the microphone and I did it in one take. They didn't know I was angry. They didn't know anything was wrong. I was hopefully, to them, that pleasant voice over talent that they liked, that finally found what you've described, Jason, as the perfect balance between the all their direction. Phew. JK A little self therapy session there; that's good, that's good. MW So, bottom line when it comes to dealing with multiple directors in a session? JK So, bottom line is:
- defer to the director or the person in charge.
- make sure that you keep your nerves in check. And of course…
- if you need to conduct a little self therapy session and get rid of that tension, that anger, that nervousness, whatever it is: vocalize it; find a place and go do it.
MW Thank you Jason. JK Thank you Mary.
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