Show notes
After holding the first ever #VOBOSS Bilingual Audition Challenge, Anne & Pilar welcome the winners onto the show. Joe Lewis, Milena Benefiel, and Ramesh Mahtani share the process behind their winning entry, what stood out to Anne & Pilar when judging the contest as well as what it means to be a bilingual voice talent in today's industry. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey, hey. Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and today we have a very, very special episode planned for you. Not only am I here with my awesome special guest co-host Pilar Uribe -- woohoo Pilar! Pilar: Hi, Anne. Anne: Thanks for being here. We are so honored to be here with our VO BOSS bilingual audition challenge winners. So a huge welcome to our English audition winner, Joe Lewis. Yay! Joe: Hello. Ramesh: Hello, Joe. Anne: And our Spanish audition winner -- Pilar: Milena Benefiel. Anne: Yay! Hey Milena. Milena: Hi. Anne: And then our best English and Spanish audition, Ramesh Mahtani. Yay! So first of all, congratulations, everybody, on your wins. Joe: Thank you. Milena: Thank you, gracias. Ramesh: Gracias. Anne: It's very exciting. For those BOSSes that are just joining us and have not joined us before now, Pilar and I ran a bilingual audition challenge contest, which featured a Toyota commercial in both English and Spanish. And this was about, I'm gonna say, three to four weeks ago, and we had a number of submissions. I think it was over what, Pilar, like 130 or something like that? Pilar: Yeah. Anne: Or close to 130. Pilar: Yeah. Anne: And so first of all, everybody did a wonderful job, but we are so, so incredibly excited to have the winners with us today to talk about being bilingual in the industry today and what it takes. So let's start with our English winner, Mr. Joe Lewis. Yay, Joe. Joe, tell us a little bit about yourself and then I wanna play your winning audition. Joe: Okay. Well thank you for having me here. First of all, it's great to be with you all. I am a bilingual voiceover and voice actor, born in the US, Spanish father, American mother. And basically I've been back and forth in the States to Spain and from Spain to the States at different points of my life. And it's been a trip or several trips. You learn to adapt where you are and you do as the Romans do. And you learn a lot of stuff because you have to leverage two cultures, two languages. It's a thing. Anne: Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, let's play your winning audition. And I wanna tell you a little bit about the specs. Our specs indicated that the voice should be confident, knowledgeable, optimistic, never take themselves too seriously, but at the same time, never come off as sarcastic either, warm human down to earth, playful spontaneous, conversational, relatable, and above all else, nothing that is typical commercial sounding, movie trailer, or announcery at all. So. Milena: All the things, all the things. Anne: All the things. Pilar: In other words, the kitchen sink. Anne: All the things. Totally. And I want to give a big shout out to the queen bee herself, Liz Atherton, and CastVoices for her sponsoring this contest and offering our winners a year pro membership to CastVoices. You guys, castvoices.com, go and get yourself an account. Liz is amazing and always has the voice talents' backs. I'll tell you what, she's amazing. So thank you Liz for that. So let's go ahead and play the warm, human, down to earth, playful, not typical commercial sounding, movie trailer or announcery English winning submission by Joe. Here we go. Joe: Beep. Beep. That is the sound of me signaling that this is a car commercial while being considerate of the fact that you may be on the road. It's exactly this kind of consideration that lets you know, you can trust Toyota and our all new 2022 Highlander SUV to get you where you need to be faster and more reliably. Beep beep beep beep beep. Oops. Sorry. I think my burrito's done. Anne: I love it. Joe: Thank you. Anne: I think that that really took every single spec into consideration. Joe, did you have any particular strategy when you were doing this audition or what is it that you do to prepare for an audition? Because we had so many submissions, but yours just kind of really stood out from the get-go. Joe: Well, thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it. As far as strategy, if it's automotive, I take it extra seriously because it's a big genre. So no matter what it is, even if it's a dealership, you know, it could turn into a long-term gig. So you take it seriously. It's always a challenge, uh, to see if it's a soft sell or if it's a harder sell, more promotional. At the same time, as you say, there's lot to consider in the styles or the trends that we work with today, uh, which are very different from 10, 15, 20 years ago. And that's as far as in general or as far as English. As far as Spanish, obviously my origin is of Castilian Spanish, uh, from Spain. So knowing that this would be for the American market, I tried to modulate that and go to a more neutral read and, and taking the specs into consideration as much as I could and have fun, have fun with it. Anne: Yeah. I think that's so important that you have fun with it. Pilar, comments about why we love Joe so much. Pilar: Listening to it again, I think what, what I really liked about it, this is probably not the right word. It wasn't folksy, but I really felt like I was listening to you, and I was listening to a real person rather than somebody reading it. Anne: Yeah, I agree. Pilar: Like, and just the small pauses, the little giggle -- there were some amazing entries, but what I found so interesting about yours was that you had this attitude from the beginning. You weren't serious, and then you went to the punchline. You had this sort of upbeat throughout the entire read. That's what really stood out for me. Anne: Yeah. Really, really warm smile, I think overall. Joe: Thank you so much. Anne: I just felt like. Pilar: Yeah, yeah. Anne: I felt like we were just longtime friends, which we are, but listening to, I felt like we were, and it really, really stood out from the beginning. So congratulations, Joe, again -- Joe: Thank you so much. Anne: -- on that. Joe: I appreciate it. Anne: So onto our winner in the Spanish division, Milena. Milena: Hi. Anne: Tell us a little bit about yourself and where you're located and your VO journey so far. Milena: All right. Well Saludos, hola, hi. Milena Benefiel. I am currently located in Orlando, well, near Orlando, Florida. I am the first generation born here in the US. Both of my parents came over from Cartagena, Colombia, woohoo and they insisted that I learned Spanish as a child, and I never understood why. Why would I ever need this other language? And look at me now, right? My background was actually in television. I worked part-time as a TV host for a Telemundo affiliate in Spanish and did a lot of commercial acting while also being an ER nurse and ICU nurse. I came from entrepreneurial parents who had multiple careers, multiple jobs, 'cause they had to, right, coming from another country. So I don't know how to not have too much on my plate. So this was kind of my side hustle. And after COVID I, I took it from part-time to full-time. I, I was kind of burnt out in the hospital, and yeah, I had the ability to go from sounding very middle America English, as you can hear in my, in my accent to speaking [Spanish] speaking in Spanish that's very neutral. It kind of like people are like, are you Colombian or Cuban or from where? So I've been very fortunate in that that I've been able to provide both sides for my clients. So it's been a really fun journey. Ramesh: Super. Anne: Yeah. Let's have a listen to the winning entry. Here we go. Milena: Bip bip. Ese es el sonido que uso para señalar que este es un comercial de autos mientras que usted podría estar conduciendo en la carretera. Este tipo de servicio es lo que le permite saber que puede confiar en Toyota y en nuestra nueva SUV Highlander 2022 para que se transporte de un lugar a otro de la manera más rápida y confiable. Bip bip bip bip bip. Vaya, lo siento, creo que mi burrito está listo. Yay! Ramesh: Super. Anne: Congratulations again, such a wonderful, warm sound. That's what I really got. And I love how, when we said have fun with this or somebody that doesn't take themselves too seriously, I really felt that in the places where you could -- it opened up to have fun, the more conversational like, "oops, I think my burrito's done." I love the way that you guys brought life to that and brought fun to that that wasn't even as expected. Pilar, your thoughts, Pilar: You had me from the beginning Milena. This was to me displayed so much warmth and reassurance. I felt like when I listen to it, you're taking me by the hand, and you're reassuring me as a consumer that it's gonna be okay. And it's like, oh yeah, I'll do whatever she says. Milena: Wow. PIlar: So that's what I got from this read. It was really, yeah, it was, it was really good read. You just, you got me. Milena: Oh my goodness. Thank you so much. I am so grateful for that feedback. That's kind of my MO when it comes to anything that I do in VO. I just, I, I wanna be warm and caring and reassuring. That's kind of my, my thing. So that you heard that feels so good because it makes me feel like, wow, okay. I'm, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. So thank you so much. Anne: I wanna kind of tag on to what Pilar said. Like for me, I do not speak Spanish, but I could hear the story. If I listen, I could hear your story in there. And when we talk about trusting Toyota, I felt that, and I really felt that you took the words beyond just what was on the page, and really you were in the scene. And like I said, for me to not even speak Spanish but to listen and to be able to hear your storytelling, I thought that that was, that was just really wonderful. So yeah. Milena: Wow. Thank you so much. Such a huge compliment from two women that I admire very much. So this is a very surreal moment for me. So thank you so much. Anne: well deserved. Well deserved. Milena: Thank you. Anne: Okay. So onto our English Spanish combination winner. Ramesh Mahtani yay. Congratulations. Ramesh, tell us a little bit -- Ramesh: Well, thank you very much. Anne: Yeah. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey. Ramesh: Yeah, well, I suppose like most of us over here, very, very varied background. I mean, I was born in Karachi, Pakistan to Indian parents who perhaps were a bit disgruntled with the way things were going out over there, and they decided to move to the Canary Islands. Why, I have no idea, but that takes me back to when I was about four. So I came over here to the islands, speaking a combination of Sindi, of Hindi, of Urdu. Of course I had to learn Spanish rather quickly. And my parents always wanted me to speak English because they knew that English is the lingua franca, and you wouldn't get anywhere in the world without it. So I grew up in an American school over here in the canaries, and I was shipped off to a horrible concentration camp sort of boarding school in England, which was a nightmare. Um, I would spend four long miserable years there, which is I suppose, where I picked up the sort of vestige of an English accent. And then I went to America to do my university degree, which was a lot of fun. And I saw what the real world was like. And I didn't, I suppose, switch on to the American accent because wherever I spoke to were like, oh my God, your accent's so cool. Where are you from? Well, I'm originally from -- Oh my God. Keep on speaking. We just love your accent. So, um, no, I didn't pick up an American accent, I suppose. I just veered towards what, what I call international or neutral. So that's my story. And in voice, I I've always played around with my voice. I love switching accents between -- I speak to my parents with a bit of an -- well, my mom. My father passed away -- with an Indian accent. So it changes depending who I talk to, if it is very strong Indian community, well, it becomes Indian, otherwise it's what I speak now. And then of course, in Spanish and English and French and all these sort of, you know, weird voices going on in my head, it was but natural that I followed a voice over career. So that's what brings me here today, basically. Anne: Wow. Well now you did something interesting with your auditions. You did two takes for both English and Spanish. And so one of the things that stood out to Pilar and I were the fact that you did two different takes for each. And so let's go ahead and play now. Um, I'm gonna click on this one. I'm not sure if this is the English or the Spanish. So hang on one second because the name is, is long. So it's kind of running off my little table here. Ramesh: Sure. Anne: It could be either one. Let's put it that way. There we go. Ramesh: Beep. Beep. That is the sound of me signaling that this is a car commercial while being considerate of the fact that you may be on the road. It's exactly this kind of consideration that lets you know, you can trust Toyota and our all new 2022 Highlander SUV to get you where you need to be faster and more reliably. Beep beep beep beep beep. Oops. Sorry. I think my burrito's done. Beep. Beep. That is the sound of me signaling that this is a car commercial while being considerate of the fact that you may be on the road. It's exactly this kind of consideration that lets you know, you can trust Toyota and our all new 2022 Highlander SUV to get you where you need to be faster and more reliably. Beep beep beep beep beep. Oops. Sorry. I think my burrito's done. Anne: I love it. I wanna just make some comments before we played your Spanish entry. I thought, first of all, you had two completely different takes, and now I understand where the accent came from because you were living in the UK. So I get that now. I was not aware of that, but I really loved it because it really wasn't something that felt to me like it was obviously forced or something that wasn't natural to you. And the fact that you did completely different reads shows just some tremendous acting ability, which I think is any good casting director that can hear that knows immediately that they would be able to direct you to do anything really. And so that was, I thought was really strong about your English entry. And I also liked you had a different reaction and a different emotion about the burrito, which stood out to me, even though it was like a nuanced change. You're like, oh I think my burrito's done. Or Ooh, I think my burrito's done. It really lent a lot to the different reads and the different aspects and the showcasing of your acting abilities. Pilar. Pilar: Yeah. I felt like you were talking to two different people in the two different reads and that was really significant. And it's funny because I didn't realize it, but they were two different accents, and I was like, they sounds so different, and it's, it's like, oh yeah, duh, because he's so versatile. But that also colored the read because one was a little bit more business-like. The other one was a little bit sort…
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