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The-DomiNEWTrix

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My friend, this is much much much MUCH better!
You've got sound-effects that set the stage, a little music that sets the mood, you have a much wider array of voices, and I'd say about 75 percent of them really work for me.

I should tell you that some of the voices you do where you yell or scream are a bit too much. Like, they're hard to listen to, while others that are slightly different work a lot better. I'd have to see a breakdown and time code of every voice used here in order to give you more specifics. But in general, I'd say that the voices where you don't "screech" worked more for me, even when you yelled, VS the characters where you did "screech." If you know what I mean.

Overall, I think this Demo has implemented all of the suggestions I offered, and comes much closer to an ideal Demo for your vocal range and capabilities.

The most important but underrated lesson a voice actor should learn is what their limits are: what voices sound good, which ones don't, which voices are comfortable to perform, and which ones hurt or are physically difficult. Understanding these things about your voices will make it easier to audition for roles because you'll eventually develop a confidence in the performances you give, where even if you don't get a particular role, at least you know you gave it your best shot with a voice you're proud of, and very likely will land you roles in the future.

Have you started auditioning for roles yet, or are you still pretty fresh to the scene?

Sincerely,
FilmmakerJ

NickSenny responds:

Thank you, Jonathan! I appreciate all of your help to push me a bit further. On a side note, I only just recently realized you’ve done one of my favorite impressions, the Strong Bad one on your channel (I can’t do any H*R impressions unfortunately other than Homsar maybe).

In terms of the voices in here, I definitely get where you’re coming from with the screeches. It’s like singing v “shouting” singing. I’ve decided to remove the impressions I did in here (Kermit, Alex Jones, Rick & Meeseeks), and I’ll alter the lines for the last one because it’s inspired by the game Harvester. I’m also going to remove the scene at the pizza shop and maybe the King one, and maybe alter the mad scientist a bit. Those actually cover most of the screeching / yelling. I’m thinking of trying to establish the scenes better and delve once more into these lines but less on the voice now that I have some of them down, and more on the acting side. More of a conversation like the ones with the Orc/Gobblin. I’m curious to hear which ones you thought personally were best / could stay.

I have done a lot of things on Fiverr for like basic impressions over the past year but it wasn’t anything too serious. Only in the past two months or so have I went out to audition for roles on Newgrounds and Casting Call Club, and have gotten quite a few so far (A Catherine parody, Freddy Krueger for a short film, Chris Chan for a dub of Sonichu, and Giorno Giovanna but it’s just an angsty teen for a sketch, etc.). I really wanted this TF2 Scout role but didn’t get that one. I’ve auditioned for a few others too but am working to see where I went wrong.

Curious on your end, where do you suggest I look to start auditioning? I saw you’re on the V.A.C. Discord when I was perusing the self promo channel and you were showing off your recent cool Ducktales project!

It's almost there. Very very close.
I think certain parts needed more intensity and vocal force to make me feel it in my gut. But there was consistent sincerity throughout. Never felt like you were just reading a script.

Your volume level is a tad low, though. You'd want to normalize that to about -7db and replace the file if you can.

Hi there, Nick.

I took a careful listen to your demo here and wanted to take some time to offer my advice. I'll be going at this point by point and try to be as critical but fair as I can.

Firstly, while this is obviously not a professional situation that would require a particular length, a Demo reel should never go beyond 2:00 minutes, unless it is an extended collection of scenes taken from various completed productions. Even shorter than that is preferable. This is so we can get an auditory glimpse of each voice in quick succession, but with just enough time so each voice can resonate with the audience listening. At your current length, each scene lasts a tad too long, especially without other characters in each scene to bounce off of.

Second, I think my overall feeling is that while you are clearly attempting various voices and a certain tone for each scene, your voices aren't nearly as refined as they could be. Think of it like this. I can imagine what your voices here could sound like if you refined them to between 90 and 99.99% (you never really get to 100, we always work to improve our voices), but right now each voice is sitting at 55-60%. You know what the character is, and you know what sort of accent or speech impediment you want to put on them, but your pitch and/or exaggeration is not going nearly far enough. The one voice I felt got to about 85-90% was your Kermit impression, because it sounded different enough from your own voice that it succeeded in standing apart, and suspending my disbelief. So really work at stretching out each of your voices. Practice going squeakier and higher with your head voice, and deeper with your chest voice.

Third, I think in the case of the alien character in the 2nd scene, he's may be too exaggerated, and perhaps too loud. The excessive hyperventilated breathing is a creative choice, but for me, I actually started to feel the rapid breathing myself, which made me uncomfortable. This is a useful tactic when you want a performance to affect the audience in a physical way, you breathe heavily or rapidly to cause a similar reaction. But since this appears to simply be a character quirk you are wanting to emphasize, I suggest stepping back from the mic a big, reducing the length of time you emphasize his breathing, and maybe even make him breathe faster.

Fourth, consider the relationship between your script and the voices you choose. I actually thought the first voice you used was one of the better ones featured here, but it doesn't succeed for me because the character you're trying to play doesn't make sense with that voice. Not that you can't defy expectations, but in a Demo Reel, it pays to work with stereotypes and established tropes rather than against for the sake of digestibility. You want to sell your talent as quickly and efficiently as possible. So every element of your demo has to be in service to that goal, along with being fun to perform.

Fifth, when producing a demo reel, there are common ways that the audio itself is typically EQ'd to smooth things out for the listener. I can't quite tell if any EQ or compression has been done to this track, but if not, that would be something to implement on the next demo. You want to be sure your highest peaks or loudness are brought down in line with your middle frequencies, that way it doesn't spike in the listener's headphones or speakers. Then you can be as loud and intense as you want without negatively affecting the listener's experience.

I hope these critiques do not discourage you in any way, as I always want the people I critique to succeed in what they do. You have a lot of potential here, but it perhaps requires a new approach, and definitely more experimentation.

Sincerely,
FilmmakerJ

NickSenny responds:

Hey man, I sincerely appreciate the time you took to write this. The concept of your third paragraph really resonates with me. I have ideas of what I’d like to perform, but I never really quite get there. Any suggestions on techniques I can use to achieve this variation from my own voice?

In terms of length, yeah it’s absolutely far too long. I figured I’d have fun with writing little scripts and wasn’t too sure what I should do nor what the common length was. I did not do any research, which was bad on my behalf, but this was done primarily for a quick fun standpoint to get things rolling.

The “foreign” voice is a deeply loved character of mine that’s supposed to be a conqueror / Genghis Khan type individual. Hence why I used some Genghis Khan quotes. But he’s supposed to also be funny, as he is a fish out of water in our current climate (if we were to consider a foreign conqueror from years past to be in our society today). I didn’t really portray that at all. You can listen to the pilot episode of the podcast in my bio to greater understand what I am referring to. What kind of character does that voice better fit in your opinion?

I think I really stubbed myself in the toe by sticking to little pre-defined characters I already had in my mind that only I would know the context of, when I really should have focused on doing more voices that had greater variations.

In terms of EQ and compression, I do try my best to edit that. Sometimes I end up editing it to the extent where it lessens the quality. I am not entirely educated in terms of the correct form for EQ, so I assume that will come in due time. Were there any individuals that helped you in this process?

I’ve only started doing this about a year ago, so I have plenty more to learn. So I will take this constructive criticism to heart and work on it to improve. Perhaps I can record a better Demo Reel in the coming months.

Thank you very much! Hope to hear a few words back in response. If not, I appreciate the time you took in the first place to listen to me!

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Not enough furry artists draw Fawn, but she is an underrated knockout.

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Time for another rebrand. All NSFW and kinky works will be posted under this username. On a rare occasion you'll see some SFW cross posts, but most things will be unique.
!~Please direct all DMs to my Twitter~!

Ms. Oshee @The-DomiNEWTrix

Age 31

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Atlanta, GA

Joined on 2/11/19

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