Study Via Phone/Skype

Interested in booking your 1st appointment to start learning top tier performance skills, have your current demo(s)/web site/branding reviewed by professional top market casting ears, get a fiercely competitive fresh new Voice Over demo, and build an income-generating VO career?

If you wish to pursue training via PHONERS there are two options:

PHONER STUDY VIA CALLING MY LAND LINE FROM YOUR LAND LINE
(which I’d prefer)

PHONER STUDY VIA CALLING MY LAND LINE FROM YOUR OUTBOUND SKYPE
via USB mic plugged into your desktop computer

Read on ↓

Private Appointments are per fifty minute session:

Base rate if paying via cash/check is $190 USD
• Paypal when sending USD from within the US is $190 USD
• Paypal when sending USD from outside the US is $190 USD → STUDY VIA PHONE NON US

Coaching days are M-Tu-Wed-Thu and sometimes Saturdays. The Saturday slots tend to book up far in advance. If you live in LA and work a job during business hours that prevents you from coming here for lessons during business hours, consider studying via PHONERS on your lunch hour or at either end of the day.

To request a time slot, click button below to email Nancy.

As we are in back-to-back appointments all day in the recording studio, all communications, scheduling, & cancellation/clerical requests must happen via Email.

With PHONERS, the student simply phones in at the time slot we have pre-scheduled, and the 50-minute consultation/lesson happens over the phone. There is a microphone in your telephone. It works well.

If/as you are calling via land line, you should not put me on a speaker phone during the call.

(I will provide you that telephone # in the Confirmation Sheet you will receive when we lock in your first appointment.)

Studying via phone is not a compromised means of learning – it is not less desirable than in-person training.
Some of my best students who have proven to have created the best financial results for themselves with the training and demo they got from me studied with me ONLY over the phone – most are folks I’ve never met in person!

The people/producers/agents/casting folks who will be judging your work in the future typically will not be SEEING you; they will only be judging what they hear, so sometimes I’ve found that phone training is the purest approximation of the manner and means by which your real audition situations will be judged.

Demos are not recorded in person. On “game day,” we keep the dynamic via which we have communicated the same as it will have been throughout your course of study (sight unseen, 100% verbal, not me waving hands like a maniac through the glass.) I direct demos for folks from the studio here linking to a studio in your town via Source Connect and it works out just great.
Save the money on airfare, hotel, rental cars, etc and put it towards a new web site, memberships to on line casting services, and a host of other products and services you will need in the next stage of taking your product to market.

Want a guaranteed date/time slot every week that is reserved just for you?

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Yeti

Perfect for vocals, musical instruments, podcasting, voiceovers, interviews, field recordings and etc.

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Snow Ball

Professional studio quality performance — record both vocals and instruments

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Rode Podcaster

Rode Podcaster USB Dynamic Microphone

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For Phoners

↓ Please read ↓

Notes from Nancy

What you are about to read will explain a ton, save us time, and will include some free advice. It’s a lotta info….

I don’t want to overwhelm you and we don’t book more than 1 consult at a time. This will provide a sense of what the process will look like should we elect to go the distance with me as your Personal Trainer, and probable Inside Access Point Person to a TON of new VO Casting that I’m doing on line and in person to help cast my students via agents all over the world.

I work with tons of working pros, beginners, and everyone in between with refining their VO skills and ascertaining personal branding. As the only former Agent out there teaching this material, the only one who has also written, produced, and cast thousands of projects, this course of study offers uniquely tailored advice on the particular likes and dislikes, needs and tools required by the professionals you’re soon to be pursuing for job access (Agents, Producers, Casting, casting thru me, yadda yadda.)

Because the days of needing to have some kind of special VOICE (deep/raspy/sexy/ bold/sunny) are gone, because ad agencies are really looking for any and every kind of sound out there that can connect with the consumer, I firmly believe that anyone who has enough acting skills under their belt to tout a marketing tool called a “head shot,” or any singer out there with the skills to be pursuing work in that area, ought to also have the VO skills and marketing tool called a Voice Over Demo. Voice Over is simply another arena in which you folks can get a job, so you ought to have the skills and the tool just in case the opportunity comes up for you by default or design. Who knows – VO could wind up becoming a big piece of your acting income’s pie chart – maybe it will only prove profitable in bits and pieces…but it is wise to have it in your acting bag of tricks.

And if you’re not coming from an acting background, DON’T FRET. This stuff is TOTALLY TEACHABLE.

I teach the acting that is necessary to service advertising, help you folks recognize the patterns in which ad copy is written (kinda like the Stanley Kaplan approach to VO), and — perhaps most importantly — help you better understand how casting directors and agents perceive your personal style.

By the way – this is not one of those VO classes that offers acting exercises to people who already know how to act.

Because I currently do a ton of casting with agents here and in other markets, because I used to be an agent and department head myself, I know and experience every day how much MORE there is to booking these auditions than just good solid acting.

I believe I am now one of the only coaches in town who can give my students access to current auditions even if they have not yet procured VO representation – this is pretty cool – very new – and loads of fun.

These days, a VO talent MUST learn how to work their own HOME EQUIPMENT, how to direct yourself on your own auditions that I will help you procure from your own home system, how to work mic technique, how to market yourself…all of that and so much more.

The acting is an important foundation, and if you need help in that arena, I can get you where you need to be quickly on that matter. But there is so so much more for us to work on beyond acting if you are to make the money at this that is totally out there for the taking in a way that has never been possible before.

Once we are confident your audition skills are competitive and I have a very specific take on your brand, I will produce/direct a demo that reflects these skills & unique style ($1,900.) I will also help you “brand” the graphic packaging/web design (prices vary depending on project size.)

Nobody (not even I) can tell whether or not you are a “natural” until we find out how well you interpret copy.

That takes more than a few privates, and certainly more than a brief conversation.

And if it turns out to be harder than you had guessed (maybe it will, maybe it won’t), I can teach you the skills that will help you get your performances where they need to be.

It would be irresponsible to guess in advance just how many privates it will take someone to learn the skills – my curriculum is 15 chapters long, so the average person needs about 15 privates before they are prepared to have me make them a demo.

(That said, on occasion, some rare talents fly through my 15 chapter curriculum in many fewer than 15+ lessons. As it is impossible to determine the rate at which a person will learn, I do not commit people to pre-determined packs of privates in advance. One lesson at a time.)

You have to trust that I will get you to your goal as expediently as possible – it serves us both to work hard and fast and yet we both must be patient with whatever pace your particular learning process requires.

After demo production, there is at least one necessary post-demo private wherein I advise you on how to proceed with submitting to agents, provide an inside list of agents to whom you ought to submit, tailor your letters to those agents, discuss artwork branding, etc.

Beyond that, most folks come in either once every other week at the most or once every six weeks at the least to keep their chops up until/during/after work opportunities start to come around. As I mentioned, I become a bit of a career coach in this endeavor, so it is wise to check in every now and then for an update as the business changes constantly and I get new casting opportunities in now REGULARLY.

This audio portrait we paint of you is an important one, and it must be done properly so to last you for as long as a couple of years. You must have a finished presentation on yourself (that means artwork, website) in order to pursue representation properly and competitively, and if you are already repped by an agent and somehow got that representation without having presented them with a demo CD/web site, you will have to have one produced for you eventually. Everyone must have one – even celebrities – as the CD is a critical tool used by the agents to procure work for you, introduce you to casting people, etc.

The goal is to help agents and buyers see what is unique about your personal style (beyond your pitch, beyond natural dialect) so they can know what you are likeliest to book, thus helping you help them help you, etc.

Making money in this area of performance is more determined by one’s ability to interpret copy than by the genetic sound of the voice.

And speaking of making money: I have some major casting avenues that allow me to put real auditions in front of many people who have gone thru the full course of study with me into demo, which is great (more on that when we chat.)

Every week, my students book commercial work from auditions I sent to them from various sources. I even cast 26 characters for an animated series, and most of the roles went to my students!

Turning that genetic gift into something that makes you money is all about learning how to think like the folks at the ad agency are thinking, break down ad strategy, and ultimately, with solid acting skills, provide an audition that shows you can be of service to their needs.

That is what we do in here – learn the patterns of how these ad agency writers think. Well, that plus everything I said about branding, plus learning the business of the business, protocol, etc.

I am typically booked up about 3 weeks in advance; emailing a request for a time slot well in advance is advised.

Also let me know if you were interested in being put on the Wait List – many cancellations crop up each week that afford eager and available people to get in much earlier than we might anticipate!

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Zeke Hardman

After you have launched your private study with Nancy, she might determine you would benefit from doing a batch of your Braintracks coursework lessons with our in-house acting specialist, ZEKE HARDMAN. Zeke is a full-time voice actor and only the second person ever chosen to be mentored by Nancy to teach here. Growing up the son of two professors, Zeke was raised to be a lifelong student. He double-majored in Political Science and Spanish, earning his BA from Ohio University. He went from coaching youth soccer to teaching English in China to acting to teaching VoiceOver for Nancy at Braintracksaudio.com.

 So – now that you know how it works,

contact us to get a time slot and we will get you started.

Testimonials

I won the job for the Catholic Relief Services VO — it was the script we were working on during my last phoner. I’ll have to ask them if it was the first or second “feeling the passion of the Lord” read. 🙂

Have a great day,

Carolyn Barnwell

I’ve been lucky enough to study with Nancy for the past year and in that time both my voiceover skills and my earnings have increased more than I could possibly have believed. I didn’t contact her as a green voice talent – I had almost 30 years of experience under my belt – but my god, she’s taught this old dog some lucrative new tricks!

The tuition she gives is precise, well thought out and fascinating and she won’t pull her punches in order to help you get to where you need to be. She’s also hilarious and bloody good fun to work with.

Basically, if you’re a voiceover then, no matter how much experience you have, you need to contact her. You might not THINK that you need to contact her… but you really, really do. Your clients and your bank balance will thank you for it.

Amelia Tyler

Regarding Nancy, when it comes to this business and craft of VO, she’s the truth. Period. Learn everything you can from her. My only

Billye Thompson

(Big Fish Voice Co.)

Just had a session with Nancy. She is an effffffffffffffffffffffn GENIUS. We worked on [my session] copy. She is opening me up. Tons. Made me realize that I have never had a voice over lesson until now.

NYC Working-Pro Student’s email to her agent

Just got off from my session with Nancy. I have been searching for someone like for her for years. What a difference from many of the schleps on the East Coast. She is FANTASTIC. Can’t thank you enough for putting me in contact with her. Just what I needed. I’m going to study with her for a bit with the hopes of banging out some of my kinks. Thanks again.
Best,

Christine

I’m thankful you can see through my nerves and target things that need attention with useful feedback and corrections that I can apply immediately. Appreciate your expertise and patience!

Elle Hoover