S4 E10 | Zehra Fazal
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Stephanie talks to Zehra Fazal, an accomplished animation, video game, and commercial actor. Zehra gives great insight into the animation industry as she talks about residuals, auditions, and more. They also talk about the importance of thinking of yourself as a business and making sure to have a cushion of income to allow you to do more of the types of genres you love.
Links:
Instagram and Twitter: @ZehraFazal
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3469812/
Zehra's Website: https://www.zehrafazal.com/
Chuck Duran Demos: https://demosthatrock.com/
Jake Bazel: https://www.jakebazel.com/
Deb Sperling's MITTM Episode: https://www.stephaniepamroberts.com/podcast-episodes/debra-sperling
Making It To The Mic Website: www.makingittothemic.com
Instagram: @stephaniepamrobertsvo
Email: stephanie@stephaniepamroberts.com
Full Transcript: Stephanie Roberts 0:00 Hello and welcome to Making It To The Mic. A podcast about how different voice actors got to where they are today. I'm your host, Stephanie Pam Roberts, and my guest today is Zehra Fazal. Zehra is a voice actor who works in animation, video games and commercials. Her joy for her work really shines through as she talks about her technique and process in both commercials and animation work. So let's dive into the final episode of season four. Here's my conversation with Zehra Fazal. Stephanie Roberts 0:43 Hey, Zehra, how are you today? Zehra Fazal 0:44 Stephanie, hey, I'm doing well. How are you Stephanie Roberts 0:47 I'm good. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Zehra Fazal 0:50 Oh, thank you for having me! Stephanie Roberts 0:52 Off mic, or off podcast, we were just talking about how we have some mutual friends. So it's always nice to meet new people in the industry, but still kind of have something in common. Zehra Fazal 1:02 Totally, totally. It's such a small world, especially in acting, creative performing arts circles. I love it. Stephanie Roberts 1:08 So I love to start every episode with the same question, which is, tell us about your journey. How did you make it to the mic, and what did you do before voice over? Zehra Fazal 1:16 I love this question. Well, starting at the very beginning, I was born the youngest of four children, and I think as a result of that, I was always very verbal and communicative, because I had to be, if I wanted any chance of keeping up with my three older sisters and playing with them and my parents, they were immigrants from India and Pakistan, and so they spoke to each other in Hindi and Urdu, but they spoke to us in a mix of English and also other languages. Zehra Fazal 1:47 So I grew up with sort of an ear, like a mind for languages accents, and kind of, even though I don't really speak any Hindi or Urdu fluently, I feel like it prepped my brain for and prepped my ear for hearing things. And I also came from a very musical family, and all my sisters and I throughout school, we would be in the school play, the school musical, school choir instruments. And so again, all of these things really fed into voice over really beautifully, just developing that ear of mimicry and understanding rhythm and timing and just a love, a love of storytelling that was really the base of my childhood. Growing up, I would become obsessed with the Disney Afternoon and cartoons and animated films, and I kind of had this idea at a very young age, like, I wanted to be an animator. I wanted to make those cartoons. As I got into high school college, I started to discover that voice over, not just voiceover for animated series, but voice over for things like, you know, narration, or answering machines, commercials. Zehra Fazal 3:06 That was a possibility that I was getting some inclinations from, from people like, Hey, you should really explore this. Your voice sounds great. You're a good actor. Like, you should consider this. And so it was always sort of in the back of my mind, yeah, like, voiceover is something that would be really cool to pursue, but I went off to college and decided to become a happy stage actor. Zehra Fazal 3:28 So I did my training, and, you know, worked in all different kinds of genres of shows. I moved to Washington, DC right after school, and worked in the theater scene there for years that was kind of cutting my teeth in terms of acting training, but it was always in the back of my head. You know, I had a mentor that I met when I was a teenager, Greg Wiseman, who created the Disney show gargoyles. I'd met him at a fan convention as a kid, and he said, Hey, you should think about moving to LA and auditioning for cartoons and series, because I really think you could have a career doing this. So that was always in the back of my mind, like the dream of LA, not only for on camera opportunities, but oh, if I really want to work in the animation biz as an as a voice actor, LA was always kind of beckoning to me, and so I made the decision about 1213, years ago, to move to LA to pursue a career in animation, voice acting. And it's really worked out great. Stephanie Roberts 4:34 That's awesome. Yeah, I feel like there's, I guess we can kind of segue with a sidebar question, which is, do you feel like that's still the case, like, if people are really interested in animation and that kind of side of the business, do we need to be in LA? Zehra Fazal 4:48 Oh, gosh, that's such a good question. And as you know, the pandemic changed everything in 2020 in terms of remote recording. And, you know, yeah, you can really be based from anywhere for a lot of things. However, I caveat that with making the face to face relationships and kind of organic networking and friendships can only really happen when you come to the place where the majority of those people live, and that still is Los Angeles for American animation, right? It's so hard to say, like, yes, move to LA, because it's such a high cost of living city. I do think that there even, even, even now, four years post 2020 there still is that energy here, and that the assumption that if you're if, if they need you to come in Studio, you can come in tomorrow, yeah, but it has changed so much. I If you asked me this question 10 years or even five years ago, I would say, yes, you have to come to LA. But now I don't know. I think there's so many different paths in. Stephanie Roberts 5:53 Yeah. How much recording do you do in person for your animation jobs? Or is any of it still on Zoom? Zehra Fazal 6:00 I would say, this year, the majority of stuff has, I've been going into studio, and what's been so nice is like people are actually there. Like the voice director is present in the room, sometimes the show runner and the writers are there. And that is awesome, because that really, you know, it's so much better to do this job with people than by yourself. Stephanie Roberts 6:22 I know there's there's nothing like that human connection and the back and forth and just that vibe. Zehra Fazal 6:28 right? Having an audience to perform, to too helps you so much. But that's really only this past year. The last few years, it's been such a hybrid mix of doing it from home, everyone's on Zoom or going in person to the studio, and it's just you and the engineer, and everyone else is still on Zoom. So a lot of accommodations are made if you do need to record from home. Like I remember earlier this year, I had a cold, and so I didn't want to go into the studio out of fear for covid. So they're like, no problem. We'll convert it to a home session. And so there's a lot more flexibility. Stephanie Roberts 7:04 Yeah, I was gonna say, I feel like that's something new that came out of the pandemic is, you know, used to be required, especially at the level of, like, a major national, commercial or a big animation project, that it was like home studio wasn't even an option. And now it's like, oh, well, you could do the home studio if you need to. And I've even said because I live right outside New York City in Westchester, and sometimes it's just a total pain to get in and park. And, you know, as I'm sure, you know, in LA, I'm sure it's no bargain either. And sometimes I've been like, Can I do it from home? And they're like, Oh, sure, we'll just do a test. I'm like, thank goodness. That saves me, like, hours of my day sitting in the car instead of just walking upstairs. Zehra Fazal 7:45 100%! And like, you know, when you when your schedule gets really busy, or, you know, if you have children and or you have family stuff, like, it's it is such a game changer, especially for working mothers, like to be able to say, hey, you know what? I really need to do this as a home session. Can we make that happen? And I will say, like for certain genres, like commercials, it's almost a requirement that you have a broadcast home studio available, because the client might prefer to do it over Source Connect. Stephanie Roberts 8:15 Did you have a home studio before the pandemic, or were you working solely in person? Zehra Fazal 8:20 I did have a USB mic, but for like, a Yeti Blue, the basic, basic one. And I had, like, a foam area, a foam corner of my apartment where, you know, that was totally fine. I booked so many national campaigns using either the Yeti Blue or my iPhone when I pulled over to the side of the road and quickly banged out and auditioned, and at that point, you know that technology was totally fine. They just wanted to hear your acting, right? But then once the pandemic hit, I'm very, very fortunate that my husband is a sound engineer. Stephanie Roberts 8:56 Mine too. Zehra Fazal 8:57 Oh my gosh, amazing. So did he set you up for success. Stephanie Roberts 9:01 I came into voice over in a totally different way than you did. I mean, also from theater, but a long time ago, like in 2010, 2011 and so it was like, right at the beginning of, kind of the home studio revolution, and I had taken a bunch of classes, and they were like, you know, if you want, you could set up a home studio. And I came home and I was like, hey, home studio. And Josh was, like, with this microphone? I was like, Sure. So he really helped, you know, teach me recording software and, yeah, set everything up. So I've had a home studio for quite some time. Zehra Fazal 9:32 That's amazing. Stephanie Roberts 9:33 But I will say that as the pandemic got rolling, two things kind of worked together. One is that he he's a Broadway sound engineer, so he was out of work. But the second part of that was that my daughter, who at the time, was only two and a half, was home, and the home studio that I had was great, but it wasn't like great, great, great, like broadcast quality for real, Source Connect, you know, that kind of studio. He built what is now like, essentially a room within a room, like it used to be a walk in closet, and he built, sort of like a booth within it. But, yeah, oh, I love it. What kind of sound engineering does your husband do? Zehra Fazal 10:10 So my husband is a musician. He does scoring for for film and TV, and also some post production sound. So it's kind of funny, if you come to our house, he has his studio room. And then I have my studio room, which is essentially it started out as, like he also built me a booth out of a closet, nice. And I loved that booth. And then when we moved to a different place, I caved, and I got an LA vocal booth because it was on this massive sale during Black Friday, yeah, and so it's so funny that, you know, you go into two different rooms in our house are dedicated to the craft of audio. Stephanie Roberts 10:45 I love it. That's amazing. Zehra Fazal 10:50 I'm so grateful that I really resisted it at first, at the very beginning of the pandemic, because there was also the thought of, who knows how long this is gonna last. We're gonna go into work soon. I don't wanna invest too much money in creating this. I don't wanna be taken advantage of by certain clients who you know there's, it's kind of a controversial thing whether to pay a studio fee or a kit fee to actors or not, or whether it's just gonna be industry standard that they expect that you have all this stuff all ready to do it. Zehra Fazal 11:20 So I kind of was resistant at first, but I realized, you know, very shortly into the pandemic, like, if I wanted to be competitive, if I wanted to keep working, I just needed to get all the stuff. And again, it's not we got everything used, gently used. So I wasn't spending an arm and a leg right away. It was like gradual increments to up everything. And I'm so glad I did, because now it's just the stress of figuring out, how am I going to do this is gone. Everything is ready to go at all times. And if I go in person, great. And if I can't go in person, or they want me to do it from home, great, like we are just covered, covered, covered, Stephanie Roberts 12:06 And I think there were a lot of people, especially those who really worked in more in person areas of voice over that were sort of like, oh, I don't have anything, yeah. So it's interesting to hear, like a personal story about that, because I feel like there's, there were people who were totally set up already, and people who had absolutely nothing and then everything in between. And, you know, people who had to upgrade as they went. And I didn't have Source Connect at the beginning of the pandemic, and I, I booked a session. It was supposed to be in person. It got changed to source Connect. I think we recorded, like, March 20 or something, I got Source Connect, and it did not work. I didn't know what I was doing. My ports were not mapped all the things. And the engineer on the session, who I didn't really know at all, from the studio in New York, was kind enough to put the clients on hold and say, we'll call you back when we're ready. And he spent like an hour working through it with me, got my ports mapped, oh my god, got everything set up, made sure I was hardwired correctly, and all the things. And then we started the session. And I think if that had happened at any other point in time that wouldn't have you know, that would have been a total mess. But Zehra Fazal 13:16 What an angel engineer! Stephanie Roberts 13:19 I know. And ofcourse, it was, like, those first few weeks where everybody was just so, like, what is happening, what's going on, and right? So I was very, very thankful for for his due diligence and patience to get me set up and and it's been like, that's how I got my source connect, set up. But I do tell people, Don't wait. Don't do that. Don't wait till the last minute. It's it can be a little more challenging than just, like, opening a software and going to the session. Zehra Fazal 13:45 100% and like, I feel so grateful to have live in help, live in troubleshooting if something goes wrong. But like, don't you think Stephanie, you've learned so much yourself in terms of your engineering and hat. Zehra Fazal 14:00 I'm shocked at the stuff I know now that I had no clue about five years ago. It's pretty great. The other thing I You just reminded me of some some of the video games are still very much we want you to come in, because they want all the sound to be at the same level. Or, if there's like a motion capture element, they want to be able to control all those variables. However, in the early start of the pandemic, a lot of video game companies would send out kits to actors homes that included everything, the microphone, the hard drive, that stuff could be recorded on. Wow. It was like learning all these different modalities. Like, Oh, okay, this is how this company likes to record and, you know, at this frequency and whatnot, and this is how this, this company, is way more chill and they can, you know, there's a lot of wiggle room. Stephanie Roberts 14:48 Such crazy times. I think that's been a theme this season on the podcast, is like, how did the pandemic affect your business, and one way or the other, good, bad, just like funny stories. So I, I've loved hearing everybody's perspective. Zehra Fazal 15:00 Oh, yeah. Stephanie Roberts 15:01 So I'm so curious. This season, you know, we're really focusing on people who earn six figures in voiceover. So when did that? When did you reach that milestone for the first time? Zehra Fazal 15:10 Let's see, I made a chart for myself to reference. I feel like people who make a healthy living in this business, whether it's six figures or whatever it is, that amount that you need to keep your family and your life going at the level you like. I think what we all have in common is we have a business brain for it. Like I am obsessed with the administration and the accounting side of my business almost as much as I'm obsessed with the acting side. There's just the nerd in me loves looking at the numbers and thinking, Okay, I'm at this right now, and it's August, what do I need to do to meet this by the time it's December? And there's just a love of a love of number crunching. So yeah, I have my little chart up in 2016. 2016 was the first year that I hit that six figure mark, and I'd moved to LA in 2012 very beginning of 2012 and had been working towards getting great quality demos, building up. I was non union when I moved to LA, so just exploring what the market was like here in LA. Previously, I had lived in Washington, DC, doing a lot of theater, and like industrials were big in DC, there weren't agents. In DC, there were casting agents or casting directors, but you weren't repped by an agency for work. Whereas in LA, I had to learn, you know, agents are kind of the gatekeepers to all the great auditions, the great sag auditions, the major campaigns, the major animated shows, aaa, video games. And so I was educating myself on all that and working, oh gosh, my first three years in LA, I worked so many different jobs, Stephanie. Prior to that, I was a graphic designer by by study and by trade. And that's kind of how I made a living for myself in DC, but when I moved to LA, I was like, Okay, I'm going to be going on auditions. I need a job or jobs with flexibility. So if something comes up, an audition, a booking, I can have shift work that I can ask someone to cover, or I can have relatively re like things that are easy to reschedule. So my favorite thing I did is I was a tutor in Manhattan Beach for middle school and high school kids. And I loved that, because I love teaching and I love children, and it was such a great very rarely were their schedules disrupted. And if I was like, Hey, I can't actually do Wednesday anymore. Could we meet on Thursday at four. Instead, it was usually no problem to get that scheduled. I worked as a greeter at a high end restaurant in Santa Monica, and that was a great job because they actually gave health insurance to part time workers. So held onto that baby. I worked at a friend's book warehouse in Van Nuys, in this very industrial area, it was like through all of those various little avenues, little gigs, one off gigs, here and there, I cobbled together enough money to pay my rent, to cover basic expenses and voiceover started to tick up. Around the end of 2012 I was getting some great non union jobs through a local recording studio in LA. Rick Dasher, I have to credit him, is an amazing producer here, here in LA, at Dave and Dave recording studios. He was the one who gave me my first voice over job in LA, which was a talk show for the airlines interviewing different businesses. It was basically a paid promotion for businesses to talk about what they do to people flying first class cabins, business class on airlines. And I was the host of that show. And just through working with him and his producers his studio, he introduced me to so many different people in the business, and it was through him I met Chuck Duran, who I did my first commercial demo with, and with that commercial demo, and I did an animation demo with another brilliant sound engineer, Mark de la Fuente, also at Dave and Dave, with those two things in hand, I began to Approach agencies in 2013 for representation, signed with my first agent, you know, a great boutique agency, and it was kind of off to the races there, but very slowly. So in 2014 I joined sag, and I remember in 2014 like my first really big breakthrough, right before I joined sag that summer, I was the voice of a grocery store chain that's no longer in business. Fresh and Easy that summer of 2014, was hired to be the voice of their TV ads, radio ads and in store announcements, and it was that campaign that I went into the ad agency to record, and the sound engineer was my husband, Barry Neely! Zehra Fazal 20:07 And we got to know each other over that summer, and by the end of the summer, we were dating. And it was my first like big account. It was non union. It was my last non union commercial job, and because of what I earned on that campaign, I was able to move to a better apartment. I was able to buy furniture from Ikea. It was, like, this life milestone. It's like, oh, I can buy it new. I don't have to, like, get it off of Craigslist. It was a really, there was that was my first really big shift in, okay, I'm starting to learn that commercial campaigns have a lot of earning power, and now that I'm going sag, sag, commercials are going to be central to the business of my work. All at the same time, I was auditioning, auditioning, auditioning for animation, because that's my true love, animation and video games. And I'd get a one off booking here, a guest star there. And it wasn't until 2016 2017 when the animation snowball started. 2016 was the first year that, by focusing on commercial bookings primarily, I was able to hit that six figure mark, and in 2017 I booked three series regulars that summer, and that kind of got the snowball going of me consistently working in animation and consistently having a relationship of trust with the clients, the casting directors, like, I'm somebody you can hire to put in wherever, and so as a result, I'm knocking on every piece of wood that animation train has only continued to grow and grow and grow and gather steam. Zehra Fazal 21:54 I'm mixing metaphors, but that was really the start of my animation career, and then residuals that would come through animation. So when I think about like, how one might approach a voice over career to get a level of financial security make a healthy living, it's focusing on the high paying jobs that have residual potential. So for me, that's major commercial campaigns and animated shows specifically that are going to air on networks, because streaming residuals, while you know, the union has fought and made really significant, great gains, it's still the network stuff that airs on Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, Comedy Central, like, those are the shows that have more residuals potential. Yeah. And it was also the next big, big shift that happened for me was in like 2018, 2019 where I made the decision my contract was up at my at this at the boutique voice over agency I was at, and they were great. They did a lot of great work for me. I had the feeling that other agencies might have a bit more reach, and I wanted to use that unique kind of time where I was, you know, booking all these huge animated projects, right? She'll kind of see is there a way to level up in terms of working with agents that have a bit more reach, a bit more of the shiny, bigger campaigns. And so I made the decision. I took agent meetings across town with almost every agency in LA, and I switched to an agency, and immediately, that year, I doubled my income just because of the sheer reach of commercial campaigns that they were able to give me access to. Stephanie Roberts 23:50 Right. So you really feel like the representation, along with being in the union, has kind of secured and catapulted your career. Well, I should reverse that, catapulted it and then secured your your kind of level there... Zehra Fazal 24:06 I really do. Because in at least in the LA market, your agents are... I'm so reliant on my agents for getting opportunities in front of me, for helping me to meet new casting directors, people I wouldn't have necessarily met on my own. So the more reach your agency has, and the more people you're working with, whether you're working with a manager. I have a manager who I primarily work with for on camera opportunities, but he has voice over relationships as well. It's like, you know, the more people on your rep team, at least in a major market like Los Angeles, the better access and opportunity you're going to have to those really big jobs, those really big campaigns. Zehra Fazal 24:48 Like when I booked my first automotive campaign, it was like 2018, 2019, 2020, I was the voice of a major, major American car. And. And that account alone was six figures, right? So it's like, if you can secure a few big commercials a year, or get a campaign like that that are running nationally, you are going to be so much better positioned to have more financial security. So you can also go after all the creative stuff you love, like, I work a ton in animation in video games, but it is maybe a third of my income compared to what I make in commercials. Stephanie Roberts 25:26 That was actually gonna be my next question. Do you think that there's the income that's coming from commercials is still greater than your animation income? Zehra Fazal 25:35 I do, yeah, yeah, yeah, just because animation pays so low in comparison, Stephanie Roberts 25:40 For those of us who don't work in you know, quite at that level of animation. Yet, what is the typical fees? Like session fees and usage, or not usage, I guess. But... Zehra Fazal 25:51 Yes, so the SAG scale rate for an episode of an animated series is currently right around $1,200 plus 10%. Often certain, not all networks, but some networks also budget to bring you in later for ADR to fix lines or re record things, and then you would be paid an additional session fee of 1200 plus 10%. Stephanie Roberts 26:16 And in that session, how long is it? How long? How like, hours wise, how long is that session? Zehra Fazal 26:21 They usually kind of put you on avail for a four hour window of time. But very rarely do they book you for those entire four hours. I've had animation sessions that are, you know, three and a half hours long. I've also had sessions that are less than 15 minutes long, and you get paid the exact same amount no matter how many lines you're doing. Zehra Fazal 26:41 I've been a series lead in a couple shows now, and I get paid the exact same amount than if I'm brought in to do two lines like and interesting, right? I know that's the deal. I know that's what I've signed up for, and I don't think too much about the fairness of it yet, because you're just so grateful to be working. And hey, $1,200 a day for that. You know, session $1,200 a session is nothing to sneeze at. It's nothing to sneeze at. Zehra Fazal 27:07 So then the other thing that you factor in, so let's say, let's say you get brought in as a recurring guest on a on the series, right, and you're brought in for four episodes. So that's, let's say that's roughly What's four times 12, you get approximately $4,800 for those four episodes, minus if you're paying 10% out to a manager, minus taxes. So let's say for four episodes you're netting, let's be conservative and say $3,200 now the question is, are those episodes going to a streaming service, or are they going to Cartoon Network for shows that are airing on cable, the residuals often amount to at least another session fee in that year, if not more, depending on how much they're airing, okay? Whereas, if they're on a streaming service, the residuals, ooh, if you recoup your session fee after a couple of years. That's considered pretty healthy for it depends on the streaming service. It depends if they're also sold internationally. Like there's all these things that go into it, but by and large, it's a difference of 10s of 1000s of dollars in residuals over the course of, you know, four or five years that you'd be getting from a broadcast animated show versus a streaming show. And the difficult thing is, often, in this new world, we when we're making animated shows, we don't know where they're going to be going, Stephanie Roberts 28:34 So it's a little harder to predict, like, oh, I booked this, this animated show, and I'm the lead, hooray. But if it's gonna be on Netflix versus Disney, you've got two different pay scales coming your way. Zehra Fazal 28:47 Exactly! And there's been times like I worked on a show at Nickelodeon early in my career, where it was slated to go broad be broadcast on Nickelodeon, awesome. And then they made the decision. Halfway through, the studio executives made the decision of, we're gonna put it on Netflix all in one go. Animation really is you can't bank on it, and especially in the last few years, kind of with the expansion of streaming and now the contraction of that bubble, a lot of shows that were in development, huge shows with like celebrity led casts and cruise were just cut. I recorded a whole season of a show for Netflix that was then shelved, scrapped, and I got, you know, my initial session fees for that work, but you don't get, forget residuals. I just wanted people to watch it right. And nobody hears that work or sees all that hard work, and so, you know, it's kind of tempered my attitude about animation. I love animation. It's what sets me alive, and at the same time, it's not the center of my business. Stephanie Roberts 29:54 I feel like that is common. I've heard that in many capacities. And I think it's interesting when you talk to people who aren't in voiceover, who we maybe want to get into voiceover, they're like, I want to be an animation. I want to be in an animated series. I'm like me too. But at this point it's, yeah, it's just like a tough bubble to crack. And also, I think the the culture and the landscape has changed so much that it's just, it's hard, it's different. Zehra Fazal 30:24 And yet, I do believe there's always room for talent. And if animation is your passion, and you continue to show up with great auditions for the buyers, it's just a matter of time before people decide to use you. And I don't want to say, I hope none of this is discouraging to people who really want to do animation. Because, yes, animation, you know, if you have a passion for it, and you have a love and a deep knowledge of, you know, the different styles of the shows and like, what great go for it, but don't expect that to be the bread and butter of your financial security. Like, whatever your cash cow is. For me, it's commercials, promo. I don't do a ton of promo, but I understand there's so much earning opportunity in promo, or things like corporate narration, e learning, medical stuff, like whatever your cash cow is, try to make that as sexy for yourself as possible. Stephanie Roberts 31:27 That's a great way to put it. Yeah, make that as appealing as doing animation. Because if you're, if you only want to do animation or video games or this more kind of character work, yeah, and you get these, you know, commercial or these explainer video auditions that you're like, I don't even know what I'm talking about. I don't know what silos are. You know, you still have to make that feel good to you to audition for and put your best foot forward, or it's gonna come through Stephanie Roberts 31:55 So how do you approach auditioning for animation? You know, knowing that this is something that you're super passionate about, and you've got a lot of experience in when, when that audition comes across your your desk, what is your thought process? Zehra Fazal 32:10 Ooh, it's hard to break down, because at this point it's, I'm working from such kind of like an intuitive, impulsive place. I'll get something and I'll be like, I think this is going to be, this is the this is what I want to do with it. But maybe that is the core. You have to please yourself first. So while I'm doing something like, if I'm approaching an animation audition, I have to enjoy the work I'm doing and have fun doing it. And a lot of animation is comedy. So if I'm not tickled by what I'm doing, I know I'm not in the zone. I'm not like in the pocket, like you really have to please yourself, because people can absolutely hear that. Casting absolutely hears that if you're having fun or not. And that is the difference in creating a character that sounds alive, fully lived in, fully in the world. It's like something that you're jonesing on, too. So I try to always work from a very intuitive place before I kind of get mired in the specs of the character. I'll often glance at the specs just to see age, gender, general vibe, and then I'll just go to the script, because often the script contains little bits of information that spark an impulse in me. Like, this character is somebody who doesn't think before they speak. They tend to blurt things out really quickly, like I might see the way it's written, and choose to ignore the punctuation, because I've made this decision, like, oh, there's somebody who just blurts out. So they speed up all of a sudden, and then they realize and slow down, like, even if it's not explicitly written in the script, the scripts will give you clues about who they are. And then, after I've done, like, a couple, maybe one or two takes that, I'm like, I think this is I'm enjoying this. I'll then look at the specs again to see if there's any really big clues that could point me in a different direction, or, more often than not, it supports the thing that I already intuitively found by working with the script. Because these writers are smart, you know, and casting is smart. They have chosen this specific scene because it exemplifies all the kind of range of the character, and it's a story, beginning, middle and end. Every audition is a story. So if you make a little play with the however many lines you're given, you are serving the story and giving them something interesting to consider. Stephanie Roberts 34:36 And how do you feel about the auditions that are not scenes that are just like five lines. The first line is sarcastic, the second line is happy, the third line, you know, just very kind of general adjectives. You know, I find that those often do come with a fairly extensive sheet about the character, but you don't see anybody else's dialog. So how do you how do you approach? Reach those you just kind of wing it and go for it and go with your instincts. Zehra Fazal 35:03 Oh my gosh, that's such a good question. So if there's like, five different lines and there's no context, maybe just a couple words, I treat that as it's five different scenes, and so I might use my imagination to fill in the details about who are they talking to where are they talking to them? And then the big one is, what's the physicality of my character in this moment, especially with animation, you want to inspire the imagination of the storyboard artists who are going to be drawing to your performance. So the more visible, the more visual cues, the more physical cues you can give them, the better. And so it may not specify that my character is putting on a shirt, but if I have that in my mind, and I'm like adjusting the shirt as I'm talking to, decided who I'm talking to and where I'm talking to them, it changes something in my performance. It It inspires something in the ear of the listener. And I can't tell you the biggest compliment, the biggest compliment I've ever received as a voice actor, is when, you know, usually it's at the wrap party, when you get to meet the people who are actually drawing the show. And I've heard from on more than one occasion, like, wow, you gave me so much great stuff to draw. Oh, I love that. Biggest compliment as an as a voice actor for animation you can get is, like inspiring the visual imagination of the artists. Stephanie Roberts 36:26 So in 2021 I guess, like after things started to open back up, we took my daughter to see her first show, which was the Winnie the Pooh show here in New York. And the lead actor, his name is Jake. He is also a voice actor, and he recently, like over the past year or two, has started to put together some classes, and, you know, master classes, and one of the ones that he did was with a storyboard artist. And as someone who hasn't done a lot of major animation, most of the like, character work that I've done is more of like a dubbing or, you know, the animations already done. It was fascinating to hear the storyboard artist talk about his process and how he works and what his job is in the, you know, where he fits in, kind of the whole process. And it was so cool to see how he showed us, kind of some of his scenes from a show that he did and described, like, the reason that he animated this character this way instead of this way, and how this lighting changed the mood of the scene, and how, you know if the camera angle had been from above versus from in front. And it was just so cool to hear that part of it, which I'd never even thought about before. Zehra Fazal 37:40 Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. It's so valuable. Because as a voice actor, you know, you're so focused on the performance, your body, your emotions, and it's very that kind of next level awareness is recognizing spatially, where are you in the hole. And when that kind of level is applied, like you hear it in people's auditions. They just pop so much more, and it makes you lean in and listen. And that's such an amazing, invaluable experience to have in a class, to have a storyboard artist come in and break down their side of the process. Stephanie Roberts 38:16 Yeah, it was cool. I'll link in the show notes Jake's website so that you can see what his master classes are for those who are listening. But yeah, it was neat. It was neat to get that perspective. Because again, when you're you get these five lines and they're, you can tell they're from different scenes. And sometimes the casting director says, like, these are not connected. And then sometimes you're like, I have no I have no basis. I have no idea what's happening. I'll just, you know, take my best guess. But I think that's a really good tip, is to think about where you are spatially. You know, is it a big, giant shot with a bunch of people that you're talking to? Or, like, a tiny, little intimate shot, and, you know, those different elements. Zehra Fazal 38:53 And like the other big, big thing that's interesting when it comes to character, performance, how much do you use you, your natural essence and sound as a base, versus how much do you put on in terms of a character voice? Stephanie Roberts 39:11 Yeah, that's I was gonna ask about that too. Like, how much animation nowadays, and specifically, maybe stuff that you go in for, do you feel like is just a really kind of like morphed version of yourself, or are you doing any like, Oh, I'm a character now. Zehra Fazal 39:26 Yeah, yeah. It's such a mix. I'd say that in general, it depends on the network, right? But I would say overwhelmingly, what they're asking for, at least in your first take, is something more natural, grounded, cinematic. The cinematic read is something you hear a lot about video games, especially it's like you're in a Marvel movie and go, This is how you'd sound versus some of the stuff on I would say Nickelodeon tends to lean a little bit more into the more character voices. But even if you're putting on something, it still needs to sound as grounded and natural and realistic as possible to you. Zehra Fazal 40:09 And so I really recommend actors I for early in my career, I shied away from the sound of my own voice. I didn't think I was interesting enough. I thought I'd had to have some extra some extra thing on it to be of interest. And the more and more and deeper and deeper I get into this craft, the more I've learned to trust that me speaking from a place of connectedness to the story, the circumstances of the scenes, the emotion of what's happening with my character, the more I'm just connected to that. And then open my mouth and speak, and I don't censor how it comes out. I don't listen to it as it comes out. I have learned to trust that that is so compelling. And over the last few years, I've started, you know, teaching voiceover classes and coaching animation auditions. And I've seen this over and over and over again in my students, it's like, Oh, you are so compelling and interesting, just as you are. And the minute you put something on, it's very, very hard to not get rid of that kind of whiff of artifice. And so I always encourage people start from you as the base. Start from you as the base. Trust that you are interesting and trust that you don't need to you don't need to be a certain type of sound. You just need to be you and be connected to the story you're telling. And that is so powerful and interesting on its own. Stephanie Roberts 41:37 And I imagine that that is how you approach commercial auditions as well, and it's probably why you book so many commercials too, because that authenticity is so key these days. And I'll link another episode of the podcast in the show notes. Deb Sperling talks a ton about authenticity, and it's like her whole how she teaches voice over is just like you being you, and then, like sprinkling on top of that, whatever the specs might but might be, or the circumstances, but, but yeah, how do you approach commercial auditions in that same way? Zehra Fazal 42:12 Totally, very much. So even more, with commercials, I don't think about it too deeply. I an agent I once had who I really respected. He once told me, I'm really only interested in your first take, because your first take, it's the most impulsive, most natural kind of and that really stuck with me. So when I approach commercial auditions, I do one, two, maybe a third take. But I kind of trust that whatever is my gut reaction to the copy, and you know, this is over many, many years of practice, right? I wouldn't recommend a total newbie, you know, new to acting to do this, but like, yes, if you've been working for a while, you know, don't kill yourself with 5,6,7 takes. Stephanie Roberts 42:58 It does get mentally exhausting by that point, and then you get confused. You're like, I don't know what I'm doing, and I really don't know what they want. And now we're all confused! Zehra Fazal 43:06 Totally - so confusing. And so usually it's like, you go back to that first take, and you're like, it's all there. It's all there. So I work with speed, with commercials, and also, in the interest of turning things around really quickly to my agents, I I've kind of built my life and schedule such that if I get an audition for something commercial, specifically or a promo, I will stop what I'm doing, go to my booth, bang it out, send it with animation. I like take a little more time. But with commercials, speed really is your favor. And also with commercials, you either you're either what they're looking for or you're not. They get so many submissions, and they hear so many things, and you have no control of what they think of you. All you can control is your connectedness to the story you're telling. Like every commercial audition, it is a story. Stephanie Roberts 43:59 Yeah, I find that, and I think you're right. Like as I've gotten farther into the career, I do trust my instincts a bit more, but I find that a lot of times, when I listen back, the first take, for sure, is the most real, conversational, spontaneous, authentic, whatever you want to say. You know, in that realm of adjectives, because it, it truly is. I try not to read beforehand and like analyze too much, because it just I'm I'm a I'm a thinker, I'm an over thinker. It gets in my head, and so I feel like that, that first impulse is usually the most authentic, but I do try to give myself another couple of takes to maybe refine it a little bit. And sometimes it's so authentic that I've, like, messed up the copy. And I'm like, Stephanie, what are you doing? Like, I've, you know, I said something wrong, and so I have to use the second take, because that's the one that the script is correct. Zehra Fazal 44:52 Yeah, absolutely. And also, like, that reminds me, when you're in a session, you only get one first take, and they usually have you do it 30 times. So how do you keep that authenticity, spontaneous, conversational, real feeling 30 times in a row when you're often getting very specific, sometimes line readings from the advertising clients, that is a whole nother, like topic of conversation, but it's like, you know, just refreshing your connection to the material and with a healthy dose of just doing what they tell you, just going with what they tell you, and doing it right, taking direction, taking adjustments. Well, that's another big part about career longevity. I think for voice actors. Stephanie Roberts 45:34 Yeah, for sure, that's come up a lot too. Is, you know, taking direction? Well, just doing what you're asked of in a session, being being on time and professional and being fun to work with, you know, because people, this is definitely a relationship business, and I imagine in animation as well, like, really in video games, you know, like you were saying, if once you've gotten in there and you've started to really meet the people, then it's all like, Let's get her back. She know she did great work, and she was fun. And so, yeah, I imagine that that's really important. Zehra Fazal 46:06 Exactly, exactly. And again, it comes from a place of you don't have to be the life of the party. You don't have to put anything on. You just have to be yourself. Because when you're yourself, other people feel comfortable around you. So it's like, how do I make people feel comfortable around me, being comfortable with myself, and not having to prove anything or push anything, but just, you know, being game for whatever happens. Stephanie Roberts 46:28 Yeah, now you seem like a very, generally very positive person. And I'm curious, you know, when it's, do you have slow times, or have you reached a point in your career where you can, you can kind of guarantee that something's going to come along. And if you do have slow times, how do you handle those? Zehra Fazal 46:47 I absolutely do have slow times. However, I've kind of accumulated enough stuff so that my machine is pretty reliable. And what do I mean by that? I always know I'm going to have a certain base amount coming in monthly from residuals. Just over the years of work I've accrued that will, you know, in a case of an emergency, let's say I have a I don't make I don't book anything this month. Let's say I don't book a thing. I can trust that enough will come in in residuals, that my basic expenses will be covered and I will not be destitute. My philosophy is, when times are fat, save and save and save, because times will be lean again, right? The opposite too, when times are lean, don't hang my head and lose hope, because fatness will be coming back at some point. Zehra Fazal 47:43 This year has been particularly challenging for me because the agency I was with for almost six years suddenly shuttered overnight, and it sent me into a scramble for about a month where I was deciding, you know what to do, where to go, what the next steps were, and at the end of the day, I ended up going to an agency that I knew had a really robust commercial reach, because, again, prioritizing commercials as my financial security business strategy, that's been fantastic, but it was a slow period in transition, and also three, I Think, three major national ads that had been running for me the last two years stopped. So it's like, okay, okay, okay. There's a little bit of a dent in what income I was accustomed to, right? But it's okay. I don't really feel it. I invest a certain percentage of my income a year into retirement and like a general investment account, I became a total personal finance nerd a few years ago. I think when I booked my first major car campaign, I was like, Okay, I do not want to burn through this or be irresponsible in any way. So I had, like, met with a financial advisor and started listening to a bunch of podcasts. Zehra Fazal 48:56 And so my whole philosophy is, let me save enough money so that if, God forbid, a year goes by and nobody calls me, or, let's say, I want to take some time off. You know, I want to become a mother soon, so, like, I want to give myself some time off where I'm not worried about money. It is of great comfort to me to know that I have a lot saved so and you know, all these times where I'm like, if I go through a slow week and like, nothing has been booked, audition, audition, audition, no booking. You know, I'm very fortunate that it's usually not more than a week or two before I get an avail or put on hold for something. So it's like, okay, the machine is not broken. The machine is up and running. And the thing I've observed for almost 10 years of doing this with at least on sag after jobs, it's like when one area is slow, like animation is really slow right now, because the industry is hurting, and not a lot of shows are being greenlit. When animation is slow, commercials are picked. Up, or when commercial is slow, video games are or, you know, maybe promo starts popping off. Like, I just trust that, because my burner I have, like, pots on different burners in the stove, different ones are gonna be bubbling at different times. This has been what I've observed over 10 years, so I have no reason to think that's gonna change at the same time I save my money like it is going to change. Zehra Fazal 50:23 I think that's smart. I mean, you know, it is unpredictable, as predictable as it can be, sometimes it is unpredictable. And I think, you know, you book these big union campaigns and you're like, I'm set. But then I was talking to somebody else about this that you just, you have no idea the end date, right? And that's weird. I mean, you would think that, oh well, you know, in this union job, I'm gonna know that these are the exact dates it's gonna run and but they could keep running it for years. Or they could say, like, Hey, we're changing the messaging. And so this product is or this commercial is not relevant anymore. So it's tough, because you're like, Okay, I've got this money coming in, and then all of a sudden, you're like, oh, wait, I didn't get a check yet. Uh oh, is it done? Right? That unpredictability is hard. As someone who likes a plan, and I like to keep I also like a spreadsheet. I like to keep good notes, and so when, when it's just like, ah, when the next check is coming. That's tough! Zehra Fazal 51:17 It's so stressful. It's almost like you're playing the lottery with every job, every audition you do, is kind of like playing the lottery. Stephanie Roberts 51:23 Right- is this one going to be a million dollars? Am I going to get $5 right? Zehra Fazal 51:27 Right? And like I find, though, because I'm very much like you, that drives me crazy, that part of this job does drive me crazy. However, if enough things are going, if you have enough lotto tickets to keep up that analogy, you can always trust that you're going to have at least enough to cover your bases until the next windfall. If that windfall never comes. My husband and I have backup careers that are also our retirement plan, and we're going to be high school teachers. He's going to teach shop. I'm going to teach math algebra and also direct the school play. It's going to be a nice life! Stephanie Roberts 52:00 Amazing. Yes, I also direct theater, actually, for kids, and it's great. I used to do it more, and then after I gave birth, I end the pandemic and all that. But this year, I went back and I did my daughter's elementary school play. She's too young to be in it. But it was great. It was two weeks, and it, you know, it filled that bucket of missing, like live theater, and that, that path that I was on, but, but, yeah, I think that's awesome. Zehra Fazal 52:25 Oh that's so incredible. They're lucky to have you how cool. Stephanie Roberts 52:28 I had one more technical question about residuals, as you were saying it, I realized that I don't know that I know exactly what that means. So okay, you book a show, you record it all, it airs, and then are those first airings of it considered the residual checks, or only after, like, the initial release date, if they replay it, like next week? Zehra Fazal 52:52 I'm not, I don't know all the specifics, but yes, I do believe that that first session payment covers the first run of it. And again, it depends if it's on streaming or if it's on cable or network, but subsequent airings, like I'm on the Cartoon Network show Craig of the creek, and they've been marathoning that show on Cartoon Network for like, less, since 2017 which is awesome, like all these replay residuals that are paid to sag and then sag distributes it to you. That's how animation residuals work. Stephanie Roberts 53:27 Someday I'll learn the ins and outs of the SAG payments, or maybe not, because it is all very complicated, and it's all different depending on which area of voiceover you're in. Zehra Fazal 53:37 And it's like the things you think are gonna be huge, residual earners are often will surprise you, the ones that actually end up paying more, like I do a fair bit of like looping and ADR on feature films, and one of the big blockbuster ones I just did, I was kind of shocked that the residuals I've gotten so far from that movie have been nothing compared to an episode of something that's on Fox, like it's it's just there's no way to predict it. I'm sure there are ways that you can get really granular about it and track it right, but I think that would send me into a certain type of mania that I have no desire to be in. Stephanie Roberts 54:17 Yes, that's true. That's true. I think there's definitely a balance to wanting to know, like, am I gonna get more checks from this or not? And then kind of maybe not. Am I getting a one cent check? Zehra Fazal 54:31 And at the same time, like, it is really important to keep track generally of what's happening because and be in communication with your castmates about like, Hey, have you received anything for this yet? Because there's certain huge companies, I won't name names, but huge, top notch animation companies that, for several months, did not pay residuals to any of their talent, and that actually did, like recouping of residuals that were paid out. And this was brought to SAG AFTRA's attention, and so the union and our agents were able to put pressure. And because all these mergers and things are happening their accounting departments, you know, we think of them as these massive, powerful corporations, but when you whittle it down, it's like new Becky in accounting, who's just been hired and half of her department was fired, so she has to put together the pieces of and figure out so things get delayed. It's good to know, and generally have a have your finger on the pulse of like so quarterly, quarterly, I kind of do quarterly residuals assessments, where SAG AFTRA has a great tool on their website where you can export all of your residuals to a spreadsheet and then kind of keep track of them that way. And you'll notice, like, you know what? I have not been paid for this show in a while, and I know it's airing. Let me talk to my cast mates to see if they have any info. Let me, let me loop in my agent to see if they can contact the studio to see what's going on. So it's like, I don't know, the balance of keeping a casual eye on it without driving yourself crazy with the details. If that makes sense... Stephanie Roberts 56:06 Absolutely. Well, my goodness, this was such a fun and informative conversation, and I'm so glad we got such insight into the animation world. So thank you so so much. Is there any last thought, anything we didn't cover that you wanted to to get in before we wrap up. Zehra Fazal 56:24 I guess the last piece of like, just general advice, if I'm dishing out advice, is there's every you talk to anybody who, as I'm sure Stephanie, is, you've heard so many different stories from folks coming on your podcast. You talk to anybody who makes a healthy living at this and everyone's, everyone's background and approach is pretty different, like, you have some people who came in through theater, you have some people who came in through on camera. You have some people who came in, you know, directly with voiceover or from radio or whatever it is. You have some people who didn't even ever have this business on their radar, and then they, you know, were able to become successful at it. Zehra Fazal 57:00 So no matter who you are, hey, if you're listening to this podcast, you found yourself investing yourself in investing in yourself in this career in some way or another. So no one specific path is going to be your path, but if you can learn from like the commonalities that we all share and the differences like you will find your own unique way into it. And part of having a career with longevity is going through all of that process to figure out, how are you going to make it work for yourself? I speak from a place of somebody who's very impatient early in my career to get to point, you know, A to Z, and I've realized the true value in this career is learning. Okay, I'm at B and now C, D, E, like, all the way through that. If you focus on the process and not the output, you're gonna set yourself up so well for a really fulfilling, long career. Stephanie Roberts 58:01 Amazing! Thank you so much. This was awesome. Zehra Fazal 58:04 Oh, my pleasure. Stephanie, it was so fun chatting and nerding out with you over spreadsheets. Stephanie Roberts 58:14 Well, that's it. What an incredible end to the season, hearing about Zehra's mindset and how she approaches auditioning and her insights into the animation industry were really incredible. I loved hearing about the practical ways she approaches her business, focusing on commercials to provide the income and stability to allow her to do the work she really loves in animation and video games. Stephanie Roberts 58:36 If you'd like to learn more about Zehra, I'm linking her website and socials in the show notes, which you can find at my website, making it to the mic.com. Thank you so much for joining me on this season of making it to the mic. I hope these episodes inspired you as much as they've inspired me, and if you haven't already, you can always go back and listen to previous seasons. Seasons one and three are interviews with fellow voice actors, and season two features people behind the mic, like casting directors, agents and more. Thanks again for listening. You.