5 Questions for a Professional Voice-Over Talent – Frank Frederick
Today’s 5 Questions for a Professional Voice Over Talent are answered by Frank Frederick, a professional voice-over talent based in Park City, Utah.
1. The beginning: When did you know you wanted to be a voiceover talent; how did your career begin (please include what year it started) and then when did your passion for voiceover develop into something professional?
Way back in 1972, I was training to become an Olympic swimmer. The Olympics were un-sponsored in those years and it was a matter of finding money to fly to events and meets to be a candidate for the United States team. My friends and I listened to the radio a lot and I surmised my becoming one of those “high paid” DJ’s to help pay my way to a dream.
I found a radio station, which hired me part, part, part, part time because of my winning braces filled smile. Within a short few months I had become the Program Director of the station and found I was still not able to meet the financial demands to continue my swimming goals. I didn’t make it to the Olympics but I did stay in radio.
Through the radio gigs, I became friends with some stars in the Country music industry and some talented groups in the Rock ‘N Roll genre. Several of the new friends commented I should be making money with my voice and not by selling out to a specific radio station. Many of the stars of music asked if I could sing, I would reply; “…You sing and I will talk that will make everyone in audience happy!”
I followed the suggestions, and in 1973, while still in high school, started a boutique advertising agency with a Program Director/mentor/friend. Together we created radio and TV audio for commercials for clients nationwide featuring me as the VO talent. I knew immediately I was on to something. I didn’t know what.
These events allowed me the freedom to meet with many recording studio engineers and top shelf talent in the music industry. Interacting with a plethora of people who made the stars and starlets who they were fueled my desire to do more with voiceover.
So I did, and here I am today.
2. What is the one thing you know now that you wish someone had told you when you first started out in voiceover?
Voiceover is a business. Work hard, but have fun!
3. What do you see as the biggest professional or personal obstacle you face that impacts your voiceover business and how are you working to overcome it?
Basically, I am an introvert with a Type A personality. I like working alone, but have a need to be with others – once in a while. Coming out of my shell is oftentimes difficult, but I am working on it.
4. What personal trait or professional tool has helped you succeed the most in your career so far?
Learning the technique of “paying homage to the words” is something every voice actor needs to understand – even vocalists (singers). As a voice talent, you are not just reading the words, which are on a page or script; you must be able to share the emotion and create a world, which draws the listener into “a theater of the mind”. Voiceover is not about your voice, but about the words and messages shared and; how they affect others.
5. In your development as a voice over performer, who has been the one particular individual or what has been the one piece of performance advice (maybe a key performance trick, etc.) that you felt has had the most impact on your actual voice over performance and why?
Early on, I had a mentor named Les Bagley, he was the P.D. at my first real radio gig; he offered me these words: “I don’t have a great voice like you, but I know how to use what I have.”
