Reflection conversation // Finding your voice(over)
A chat with the Symbolic starter team

So I am here with the team that created the episode symbolic starter and these three fabulous women and creators were all graduates of our second cohort of the Kasama collective. When I think back on shelter in place episodes that I've created, there have been few that I've had as much fun at every stage in the process as this.

So I've asked each of these women to just give a short introduction of who they are and a little bit about themselves.

Hi, my name is Samantha Skinner. I'm a multi-disciplinary producer from Austin based in New York. And I have a bunch of different kinds of projects. I like to work on mostly in Asian media, but do podcasts films, both narrative and fiction.

And

that makes sense. Hi, my name is Elan. I'm from Tucson, Arizona, but currently reside in Los Angeles. I am a production coordinator uh, and work out a meditation app. And my work is primarily in like user generated content and also meditation content.

I'm Michelle O'Brien. I am a podcast producer based in Brooklyn, New York, and I do all sorts of work.

stuff is getting me most excited lately is my work in feminist media, particularly. So the first question that I wanted to ask each of you was what was your recording set up when you recorded this episode? So we can just go in that same order. Samantha, you can go first, then Elan then Michelle.

Great. So, so my recording set up, I had a little lovelier microphone by countrymen and I plugged that into my. To channel zoom recorder, my handy dandy recorder I've had for years and

had

some headphones clicked in. And unfortunately, since I do live in Brooklyn, it's very, very noisy. Whether it's like the front of the building, the back of the building.

So I did have to use the bathroom. It has a lot of reflections. So I just got my biggest blanket and made sure that it was kind of enveloping me entirely, not just over the top, but also the bottom. So my voice wouldn't be bouncing on the tile and that was my recording setup.

I had no idea you recorded in a bathroom.

That's so funny, but you made it work. All right, Ellen, what about you?

My recording set up was very bare bones. I was on my bed. I had my comforter on top of me. And I also had this really, really thick, heavy blanket on top of the comforter. And I was just completely wrapped up in it and I don't have any type of recording equipment.

So I literally just use my phone, like the voice memos and I had my laptop set up so I could read the script And because I have like a lot of VO, it was just like an incredibly sweaty process for me. I would have to take it off every few minutes and just like do some deep breaths.

And I remember I was like, okay, let's not breed super heavy into the microphone, I had to take a couple of breaks cause similar to Sammy, I live in downtown LA and there's just like cars honking every minute. Firetrucks. And so it was just trying to make sure that I was getting somewhat clean

sound.

And what about Michelle? My apartment was living in at the time they had a big walk-in closet and I brought a chair in and put it on a blanket. Put my laptop on the chair, sat on the floor and put another blanket over the whole thing. And I used just my voice memo, just like you lended what I didn't realize until after I had recorded.

My first take was that my closet shares a wall with the dishwasher and my roommate had decided to run the dishwasher and there was some interference from there. So I had to do a whole second take afterwards. Yeah. I remember the setup that I had at the time is not my normal setup, the room where my computer was set up.

It was just kind of like the studio apartment, where everything was in the same room. And so I think I'd learned by the time we did this episode, but at some point early on, I realized that there was a refrigerator noise. It wasn't constant. So it would only come on now. And then, and often I didn't notice it in the beginning, but I only knew it because a friend of mine who's a producer, was listening to one of the episodes and she was like, it sounds like they're aliens coming into your episode.

And I listened back and I went. Oh, it's totally the refrigerator. So from that point on, I actually unplugged the refrigerator whenever I was going to record. And then eventually I did actually do what you're talking about. Michelle. There was this tiny walk-in closet and I brought a chair in there and I sat on the floor just like you're talking about and did the blanket for it.

And that was actually quite a bit better, but it was also a lot of work to set that up. So, I mean, it took me probably 20 minutes every time just to get my setup right. I would just love to hear from each of you, when you think back on this experience of recording this episode. Did you learn anything new about recording video?

And this could be either in terms of equipment or in terms of just your own instrument, your voice? I

think besides learning how truly noisy my apartment was, including like my roommates, you know, just, yes, I can hear like everything you're doing you know, it's kind of hard to ask your roommates, just like stop doing anything for this next.

Another thing I loved learning about Veo was Michelle gave us actually a lesson during our time with the cohort and talked about how to bring different kind of energy levels to your voice. How to think about what part of your body your voice is in when you're trying to communicate a certain emotion.

I'm not sure that I actually was able to do that with my police over it, but I loved thinking about it. Cause I had never thought about voiceover in that way before.

I think one of the big things that I learned was I didn't realize how long it took to do video. Like when you read it on the page, you're like, this couldn't possibly take longer than a few minutes.

And then suddenly like 20 minutes turns into 40 minutes, turns into an hour. And my fiance is begging me to wrap it up so he can make his morning coffee and get to work. And I'm sure. Give me two more minutes. Like it won't take long, but it does take really long. And I was completely shocked and I really thought this would be a really quick process, but, you know, you're constantly just like reading the lines, seeing if you can do it better.

And then it just kind of this thing where you have to get to a place where like, I think I got it. You're self-directing, which can be a little tough, but I think that was just like one of the biggest lessons I learned from doing this episode.

Yeah. What do you own set about? Self-directing really resonates.

I remembered a new working on this episode because this was something that was so personal and something that I had so many strong feelings about. It was actually really easy for me to like overdo it on the warmth or overdo it on the happiness of the jokes. And so getting a sense of like, oh, how do I calibrate?

What level my emotion is and what level of humor do I want to slip in here? How long of a pause do I want to put in there? That was a really challenging and interesting thing.

Yeah, that's kind of a perfect segue to the next thing I was going to ask each of you, which is just what feelings and experiences you brought to recording this particular VO, which was, as you said, It was really personal for all of us.

And these were things that we loved talking about and really sweet memories that each of our VO is connected with. Maybe we can start with you, Michelle, and then we'll go, Michelle Elan, Sammy.

Yeah. I was really dropping myself into a moment in time that had happened. And trying to reflect, to the listener how I had felt at the moment of failure.

And so I think I was really trying to relive that. I also kept thinking about my mom and knowing that she was going to be listening to this sometime in the future. And that this was a story about both of us. And so really trying to like honor and embody her. I felt that very deeply while I was doing.

While I was reading a video, I would catch myself smiling, just like saying these words. It was just so lovely to read this about my mom and my own connection to cooking through her. And I feel like the words did kind of get inside me in a way, if that makes any sense at all. It was so lovely, like minus the sweating, it was like a really lovely recording process. And was pretty nervous going into it, but I was, really shocked. How happy it

made me to read it.

I think that's something you taught us to Michelle about just when you smile, your voice sounds different. I mean, you can probably hear it in my voice right now. Like I've got a big smile on my face. Cause I'm talking to three amazing women who I enjoy and love and it changes the way that your voice comes to.

What about you Sammy?

Yeah, I agree with all of y'all. Like this was a very personal and emotional episode with what I included in my part of the story. It encompassed a lot of different emotions. There is kind of this nostalgia of looking back at one of my favorite childhood meals and the kind of warmth, but also bitter sweet feeling that comes from that.

And. I included when, after I moved away from my family and was like alone in New York, I realized, oh, I don't know how to make this might have had Korean, you know? So there's also those feelings of identity coming into it. I really wanted to be able to tell the story in a way that.

The emotions were embodied and I'm not just feeding a story off of a piece of paper. So I was really feeling all of that and no, it was like a cathartic experience and I was excited to make the cook again. I still think about this episode every time I make it so the warm feelings continued.

The last question I have for all of you is when the episode was done and you've heard it all put together and heard your own VO and each other's VO what was that experience like for you?

I do remember just feeling so immensely proud of all of us because of how much work we put into this.

And how much we even contributed to each other's sections, with brainstorming together, running things back and forth. anytime that you're working on something for a while, really putting your best effort in, and then it's like tangibly finished, it's such an interesting feeling.

And then suddenly you can share it with your family. And I did. I shared it with my mom and my aunt. That I mentioned in the episode and they were just like thrilled and also corrected me on something. I said in the episode, Korean celebrate both solar and lunar new year. apparently it's very normal

what about you? Are you in? I was nervous to hear my own VO. even though I've already listened to it so much, but now it felt so real being out on like apple podcasts. See now, like being able to listen to it there.

And I was surprised I wasn't cringing at hearing my own voice because I think in the beginning of recording VO, I was not used to hearing my own. I had a lot more compassion for myself. Cause we did all this work. And like family was saying is it was just such a beautiful experience to be able to work with all of you and to know how much work we put into it and how we all contributed and vulnerable.

So I just felt extremely proud and had so many warm feelings and love for it. And not like my boys. It sounds weird. You know, it was great. I just, I learned so much and I look at the episode.

Yeah. Everything that Sam Eland said. I fully echo. I was really proud about it.

can be really rare in an artistic process to have an idea that feels big and ambitious and deep and connected, but then when it comes to fruition, actually, Reflects all the care that you put into it and comes out the way you want it to. And so I think this is one of those like magic in a bottle type of things for at least for me, I was just so proud of how came out and proud of this whole team.

It just felt like the perfect culmination of all the work we'd put in from our first brainstorm session. It was so lovely. I miss the days of like, it's cold, but we're on zoom together. And we're talking about our childhoods and food. Like that was such a wonderful few weeks.

I really was. Well, thank you all.

This was so fun to talk with you. Thank you, Laura.