Yesterday I ran an improv session for 'Gravy for the Brain' and it was fantastic! I still can't quite believe it happened to be honest. For those that don't know 'Gravy for the Brain' is the best service out there to help aspiring voice actors hone their skills and to help alreay successful voice actors continue to develop and to network etc. It truly is a wonderful service and is something that I have benefiitted from greatly since I signed up in February of this year. They have an amazing no nonsense approach to helping you to get better and the people who run it are so hands on that I am constantly flabberghasted at the idea of having daily conversations with some of the best people in the business!
Peter Dickson is basically Mr. Voiceover here in the UK and is a voice that everybody knows and everybody can do an impression of (be they good or bad). I first properly bacame aware of him years ago when he was the voice of the TV channel E4. They started a whole new campaign that changed their image and Peter was a big part of it. I was hooked and looked forward to every bit of TV that he was a part of. Seriously, the adverts became one of the reasons I was watching! Thursday night on E4 for many years was a great night of comedy and Peter Dickson was part of the scheduled entertainment as far as I was concerned. Never in a million years did I think I would be regularly conversing with him and having him give me feedback on my demo reels! It isn't just Peter, there is also a fantastic casting director called Hugh and a team of others at times that are incredibly hands on in helping you succeed in all areas of life as a voice actor. What is truly great is their honesty. They don't pull any punches and they tell it exactly like it is and you have to learn quickly that you should not take it personally as they are trying to help you to improve. The great thing is, when they tell you something is good, you really know it is good and I enjoy getting their final approval on things I have been working on.
One thing I worked really hard to get right from the start was my website. I took the business course available on the Gravy for the Brain website and watched a lot of the available webinars. I had never built a website before and I wanted to get it right from the start. I worked on the website for a couple of months whilst still working on getting my demo reels sorted and finally I had my 4th demo reel ready to go and that was the final piece of my puzzle. I pulled the trigger and launced my website and then shared it on the GFTB business mentoring forum. Both Hugh and Peter checked it out and barring a slight issue that prevented it being viewed properly on certain devices they were both suitably impressed and said it was a great looking website. I sorted the issue with it not working correctly on all devices (which was more of a Wix issue than something I had done wrong) and then re published it in it's full working glory. Not long after I had a direct message from Peter via the GFTB message feature. A direct message! How exciting. What was more exciting was what the message was about.
Peter was asking me if I would be interested in running an improv session as a webinar for GFTB! I can only assume he had read about my improv when reviewing my website and then he decided that it would make for a good webinar. How amazing that he just placed his trust in me like that! (I am aware I am using a lot of exclamation marks here, but everything is still massivly shocking to me). I got straight back to him with what I thought I could focus on and about some of the technical requirments etc and before I knew it my session was being advertised for people to sign up to! The voice actor that is the person who has inspired me for years had just out of nowhere decided to take a chance on me and it felt incredible. I must also say that I was slightly terrified, but I mostly focused on the positives and tried not to let the imposter syndrome kick in. Here's the thing. I love improv and it is a massive part of my life. I regularly run improv sessions in person and on line and I am a trained teacher, so I know what I am doing and am very confident in what I do, it's just that all of a sudden I have this massive platfrom to do it on and it will showcase me in front of people that could have a massive impact on my career as a voice actor. What if I ran the session and it was complete garbage? Who could trust me to do any voice acting if I couldn't prove I was worth my salt in something I claim to be competant in already? I knew that this was a big opportunity to announce myself on the Voice acting scene by merging my other great passion and creating a fun session where people not only had fun but learned a thing or two to help them as a voice actor. The imposter syndrom was constantly there telling me that as I am only new to the voice acting world myself, what right do I have to coach others in any capacity. Fortunately Peter didn't see it that way. He saw that there is value in the skills I have outside of Voice Acting and that others could benefit from them.
The session itself went really well. 49 people had signed up, but they didn't all turn up (which is normal when these webinars are part of your subscription). Still, there were around 20 people who did turn up and that is a pretty big number for an online improv session, but it turned out some were there just to watch and then it became a lot more like a normal sort of number I would work with with when it came to the ones that wanted to take part. I only had an hour and I was trying to showcase improv in a good light and how it can genuinly be a great tool for a voice actor to use and it all turned out really well. Those that took part were fantastic and everybody that was there said they enjoyed the session and learned something new that will help them in future, so I could not have asked for more really.
Unfortunately, Peter was not able to attend the session as he had originally planned, but he will watch the session back and I hope he sees how worthwile a session it was. I would love to offer more improv for voice actors in future. It was genuinly so incredibly rewarding and it all happened because Peter Dickson decided to take a chance on me when he didn't have to. Right now I am feeling a passion burning inside me which I have not felt in years and it has really solidified the fact that I am exactly where I am meant to be. I am massively excited for what lies ahead and I know I have a lot of hard work to do, but I accept this challenge and I will face it with a smile on my face and a spring in my step thanks to this incredible gesture of faith that was shown to me.
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