S4 E5 | Zeke Alton
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Show Notes
Stephanie talks to video game and animation voice actor Zeke Alton. Zeke is a former Navy test pilot and his experience and analytical mind has helped shape his voice over journey. Zeke is a member of SAG-AFTRA and currently on the union negotiating committees for Television, Film, Commercials, Animation, and Video Games.
Links:
Zeke's Instagram: @zekealton
SAG-AFTRA Website: https://www.sagaftra.org/
NAVA Website: https://navavoices.org/
Making It To The Mic Website: www.makingittothemic.com
Instagram: @stephaniepamrobertsvo
Email: stephanie@stephaniepamroberts.com
Full Transcript:
Stephanie Roberts 0:00 Hey everyone. I just wanted to say a quick note before we start that this episode was recorded several months ago before the start of the current SAG AFTRA video game strike. Stephanie Roberts 0:19 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 Zeke Alton. Zeke came to the VO industry after a completely unrelated career, which I'll let him tell you about, and he's now an accomplished SAG AFTRA voice actor in video games, commercials and more. He also works behind the scenes in contract negotiation and with NAVA, so let's get to it. Here's my conversation with Zeke Alton. Stephanie Roberts 0:51 Hey, Zeke, how are you today? Zeke Alton 0:53 Doing really well. Stephanie Roberts 0:54 Awesome. Thank you so much for joining. You are one of the people who filled out my survey questionnaire, so I really appreciate you taking the time to chat today. Zeke Alton 1:03 Thanks for having me. Stephanie Roberts 1:04 So I'd love to start by asking you about your voiceover journey. What did you do before voice over, and how did you make it to the mic? Zeke Alton 1:11 Oh, boy. Okay, yeah, I know you asked this question, so let me see if I can keep it brief. Acting is my second career. Prior to being a professional actor, I was a naval officer for 20 years. Stephanie Roberts 1:22 Whoa! Zeke Alton 1:23 I was a test pilot and did a bunch of that stuff, and was a national security strategist and and sort of then began a transition into being an actor over about a five year period, starting in around 2015, and then, now I live in Los Angeles. I'm a full time actor. I act in voice mostly, but I also act on camera. Stephanie Roberts 1:48 I think that's the first version of that response I've ever gotten. It's usually musical theater people or, you know, accountants or whatever, you know, like just sort of a nine to five day job, but naval officer is a new one. That's pretty awesome. What made you get into voice acting from that? Zeke Alton 2:05 I acted as a very young child. I grew up in England. I'm half English, and so lots of Shakespeare in theater as a child. Did theater all the way through high school, not musical theater, though. I'm not a singer, not beyond, you know, a level of character karaoke, I would say, but yeah. And then I took a break. I went to college, I joined the military, and I would say, about 14 or 15 years into my military career, I just got the urge to start doing theater again. And so I got back into community theater and realized how much I missed it and how much I loved it. The sound guy on one of the shows that I was doing, I think it was Little Shop of Horrors asked me to do a fan dub. And I my response was, what is that? And that led to a lot of learning about that, which led to a lot of learning about, oh, wow, that's an entire career. And I have been a video gamer my entire life. So I had recently played through a couple of really plot, heavy, driven, cinematic video games, and it sort of dawned on me that I could put together acting and video games as sort of a thing, and maybe that could be a next career for me. So I started off on a five year plan towards that. Stephanie Roberts 3:23 I love when something personal from your life kind of transfers over to the career. Like I think a lot of us in musical theater just sort of had that acting background and, you know, kind of figured like, what else can we do with it? But I love that your love of video games was sort of like an impetus to explore what that might be like on the other side, not just as a person who plays them, but who acts in them, too. Stephanie Roberts 3:43 So this season, we're, you know, really focusing on kind of that six figure income. And, you know, how do you get there? What do you do to maintain it? So, when did you reach six figures for the first time? Zeke Alton 3:56 2020. Stephanie Roberts 3:57 Isn't that funny. I feel like that has been a common response that the pandemic really kind of put people over into a different pay level for whatever reason. So when was your first like full time year as a voice actor? Zeke Alton 4:11 For me, it's a bit of an interesting story. I am a niche. My perspective is small in that I'm an actor who lives in Los Angeles who does this full time. I am a union only actor, and I'm very directed in the stuff that I pursue, not necessarily the work that I do, but the work that I pursue. I moved to Los Angeles in 2019 in July, which is when I retired from the Navy and set to work, sort of polishing off the end of my five year plan of how to become a full time actor. As everybody knows, we had a little pandemic go on there, which shut down all of the on camera acting in Los Angeles. But I had put myself in a position where, right after I'd moved to Los Angeles, I had an agent, a very good agent, and was receiving a lot of copy. And that copy sort of increased over the pandemic, and I had very little to do but to sit here and audition my butt off. And it took a while. Zeke Alton 5:08 2019 was mostly what I consider auditioning, so that people in the town knew who I was. I booked a couple jobs here and there. But it was 2020, where it really kicked off, where I think my unique experience and background put me in a few places, particularly in video games, because I'm a military veteran and lots of video games or shooters and stuff like that, my military background and the unique characteristics about who I am put me in positions where I could book a number of jobs that then started to snowball. And over a three year period that has grown and grown and grown. So if we will put numbers to it, I think in 2019 I made something like $40,000 these are rough numbers as a full time voice actor. And then 2020, was around 120k. 2021 was about the same. 2022 was up to 150. 2023, last year was around a little over 180. Stephanie Roberts 6:11 That is amazing. I've said this many times on the podcast I don't do video games. I don't play them. It's not my world. And I actually have reached out to my agents and said, You know what it's it's a waste of everyone's time. So don't send me video game auditions, because I was getting auditions where I was, like, the young new commander, and I was like, I don't know what this is at all. I have no experience. So that's so interesting that all of that real life experience is now being translated into these games. That's so cool. Zeke Alton 6:42 Well it's that interesting divide? Right? Acting is acting, anyone can play anything, but why would you hire someone to play something when you can also hire a professional actor who has the real experience? You know, we have this conversation with diversity a lot in in you can, you can play a certain thing. But do you have that lived experience that you can tell that story? We all have our own set of lived experiences. And to be honest, as an actor, I mean, everybody talks about branding and type casting, there is a place where you fit easiest. And that's not to say that that's the only place that you should work. It isn't as an actor. The whole part of enjoying this profession is being able to reach out and try new things and experiment. I'm not a doctor, but I've played a doctor, you know. But the easiest way to start, I would say, statistically and reasonably, is to find your own experience and push that into your performance and then branch out from there. And that's kind of what I did. Stephanie Roberts 7:41 And that's so interesting, because for me, I don't have that experience for the same video game, but I'm a mom, and I often really gravitate towards those projects that need a mom who, like, is giving their kid cough medicine or whatever. I just auditioned for something today where I emailed the person from the production company and said, hey, I just submitted and also, my daughter actually, you know, uses this in her classroom every day, so I'm familiar with this product. That's such a great way to put it, like you can absolutely branch out and do many things, but if there's one thing that really kind of speaks to you and your experience and who you are, then that's a great place to to be and to start. Zeke Alton 8:23 And that's, that's where I booked a lot of things, at least at the beginning of my career. I think it was my first promo campaign was a documentary TV show of the the college band where I went to college, which is Prairie View A and M University, which is a little unique, because it's a historically black college in south in Texas. And so to have that lived experience, to be able to speak about my band, not that I didn't play in the band, but that's my school's band. Made it a really easy audition, and I booked it. Stephanie Roberts 8:52 I feel like they can hear that, the casting people can hear, like the connection they may not know exactly, like, oh, this person must have gone there, but just still something in your read that's like, so connected and real and authentic, and that's such a buzzword these days anyways, is authenticity? Zeke Alton 9:07 Yeah, definitely. Stephanie Roberts 9:08 So when you started to really earn that six figure income, was it something that you felt like was based on a bunch of little jobs that kind of all of a sudden added up, or did you, you know, were you kind of lucky in that you booked like, a, you know, SAG national commercial, and that's what, or, you know, a large video game that really put you over the edge? Zeke Alton 9:27 Well, it's kind of interesting. As a union only guy, right? We don't work at that level of volume that a lot of people do in the non union space. I keep really good records as a test pilot. I'm an engineer. I love spreadsheets. There's a lot going on in my Excel. What really makes up the bulk of my work, I would say, is a cross between video games and dubbing, depending on the year, both of which don't make a great deal of money. The majority of my financial income, I would say, comes from commercial. And promos, less work, more money, yep. And that's, that's the whole, you know, thing everybody thinks about the union is, you know, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna lose a lot of my volume of work. That may be true. I don't know. I did not have a large non union career before I started this, because I said I was very directed in what I wanted to do. I wanted to get to the Union early because I wanted to work in triple A video games and big budget animation. That was where I want to be. And, you know, I'm lucky, that's where I find myself, but it means I sort of mix a few really big jobs, like national commercials, with a lot of day to day work that is dubbing and video game utility. I'm not a major lead in AAA video games, but I'm the guy they call in to do three voices here, three separate voices there, three more voices there. So I end up with a large number of sessions on large games just coming in to fill out the world. Stephanie Roberts 10:58 Got it. So are you getting for a union video game session fees and usage fees? Zeke Alton 11:05 Nope, there are no residuals or usage fees in video games. There's a bonus payment. So your standard session rate is $956.75 for a four hour session for a video game, and then if you do multiple sessions on the game, there's a bonus payment that goes with it, but it tops out at like, $2200 bucks. So if you do 40 sessions on a game, which I have done, you only get paid for the 10 session bonus. That's why there's no money in games. Stephanie Roberts 11:32 When you're doing these utility characters, and you're playing, you know, several different characters, are you doing that per session, or are you doing like, one session as character A... character B is, you know, another session? Zeke Alton 11:46 Well, video games are a little bit like animation. For the session rate, they get three voices out of you, and then they can get a fourth voice for a bump and so, you know, it's cost effective for production if they have characters that don't have a whole lot of lines to bring a person in to do three or four per session, right? And then you combine that with a couple mid tier characters that require, I don't know, 10 or 12 sessions themselves, and you know, you've built up a robust amount of work. Stephanie Roberts 12:14 Interesting. And I guess, as a union actor, I think representation is probably super important for you to have reached this milestone of of your income. How did you get your your agent? Zeke Alton 12:29 First I'll say this because I think this is a bit unique. You know, I'm a board member of NAVA, so I know about all the statistics that folks gather. Almost all of my work comes through my agent, single agent, and the work that doesn't come through my agent, I bring to my agent. We have a very good working business relationship in that I want this person protecting my career and advocating for it, and therefore I put them out in front of me to be that person at all times. Zeke Alton 12:56 But I was also very directed about how I got to my agency. To put it in a nutshell, I would say that my strategy, which was long term, was to first get really, really good. Because everybody talent is assumed, and skill is assumed in a lot of places. And I think that should be said more than it is, because you know, when I got here to LA on day one, when I got with my agency, I am now sending my auditions in against the, you know, the Troy Bakers, the Nolan Norths, the Jen Hales, you know, the masters of video games. And so getting good was really, really important. Zeke Alton 13:34 And I spent years training with lots of different people when I got near to moving to Los Angeles, and I was like, I think I'm ready. I started shifting from training with actors and professional trainers to training with people who are buyers, right, producers, casting directors, things like that, because I think that the feedback that you get from those people is not I think that's good, it's, I would buy that,that has a great deal of value when you're talking to an agent who is looking for something to sell. And I was lucky enough to get a couple of recommendations from buyers to a couple of the top tier agencies here in Los Angeles, and set about meetings once I got here, and I had a very specific approach to those meetings, and that was to and this is where the grind gets in. I listened to every single demo on each agency's site, 1000s of demos, commercials, animation, promo, all of them. I did several rounds, and I was looking for something specific. I was looking for, who do they have that's like me? And so I went through several rounds, narrowing it down, I sort of made a chart of, okay, who do they have that's like me, but what do I have that's unique? And I found that there's a combination of things that I have that make me unique, that no agency has, and that's something I can sell. Stephanie Roberts 14:53 I love the different ways that people approach the analytics of voiceover, and I think that obviously you're background is so analytical and so kind of, is it right brained or left brained? Zeke Alton 15:06 One of those? Zeke Alton 15:06 Yeah, the engineer one, and then the other side is, like, the people who are artists, who come in and are like, I don't know how to make a spreadsheet. I don't like spreadsheets. I just want to be creative and fun. And it's interesting to see that they both converge at some point, the groundwork is there for success on both sides. You can come in with very little analytical brain and just a lot of creativity and acting, but you can also come in with a very analytical brain and apply that to your training, your strategy. And we can all arrive kind of at the same place, and all get to this, like, career in a different way. That's really interesting. Zeke Alton 15:46 Yeah, I think you have to know a lot about yourself. I mean, I work with people day to day out here who I am astonished at their level of raw talent. Like just, it's jaw dropping, it's eye watering, what some of these people can do. And when I look at myself in the mirror, I'm like, I don't have a lot of the tools that they have, so I'm going to outwork. Stephanie Roberts 16:06 I'm going to out spreadsheet them. Zeke Alton 16:08 I'm going to I'm going to stay here. I'm never going to stop. I'm going to be motivated. I'm going to work as hard as I can so that if I don't make it, it's not because I didn't try. It's not because I didn't control the things that I could control. And, I mean, we all look at, you know, at entertainment, and go, why is that person successful? They're not great. It's because, I think we don't see all it's the duck. We don't see the legs paddling underneath. And some people are just better at working hard, yeah. And so it's a good reminder every day when I get in a session and I'm just sort of like, slack jawed watching a performer work that is like, okay, yeah, I gotta make sure that I keep up my levels. I gotta keep going, Stephanie Roberts 16:46 Yeah. So do you take classes often as well, even though you're, you know, working at this consistent level? Zeke Alton 16:52 Always. There's a constant sort of environment of change. You know, the commercial read changes. It gets super conversational. It gets back to the announcer. It gets, you know, that moves around. The approaches toward video games change as the games become more cinematic and grounded and on camera, like I'm doing a lot of on camera auditions for video games now, and they want that very grounded self tape. So it's the same thing auditioning for a Naugty Dog game, as it is, auditioning for a Marvel movie. Stephanie Roberts 17:24 Yes, that's interesting. I've heard that as well, even with some of the animation that's happening, that it's just very realistic and very conversational and very much like an on camera situation, instead of just like a well, I can do a wacky voice, voiceover type of thing. Do you take any on camera, like, just straight acting classes, as opposed to just like a voiceover video game type of class? Zeke Alton 17:49 Oh, yeah. I got my acting training back when I was still active duty in the Navy at the Studio Theater Conservatory in Washington, DC, when I was stationed up there. Since then, it's been sort of, you know, I keep a list of voice over workshops and classes that I do. I do some regular training, and then I do on camera auditioning and technique and script breakdown classes. And there's an acting school near where I live, in Sherman Oaks, that I go to regularly, or at least I used to until I started negotiating contracts, schedule got a little nuts. Zeke Alton 18:23 But I think as an actor, if you're not growing you're sort of doing yourself a disservice, because there is no one of the one of the wonderful things about being a performer is you're actually never on the top of the heap. There's always something for you to learn. There's always something new that you haven't tried. And so training has to be a lifelong thing. I think maybe that's something I learned from the military, like as a test pilot, you don't all of a sudden go, Yeah, I'm good now and stop training. And so I take the same approach to my trade as an actor. Stephanie Roberts 18:55 It's important, I think, to also realize that each specific area of voiceover, I think, especially now, has become its own little thing. So I love the idea of, like, I want to be a video game actor. What are the steps to take? What are the classes to take? What am I looking at? And I feel like the same would apply to like each of the areas. Though there's crossover, obviously, but your technique for, how do you maintain a four hour video game session versus a 20 minute commercial session is different, and what the what the needs are. So do you take classes kind of in all different genres as well? Zeke Alton 19:31 Absolutely, well, I would say not all. So I you know, there's, there's an approach that a good friend of mine, a fellow named Kevin E. West, said to me one time that's always stuck with me, and it's, it's break down your career into three things. First, what are you actively pursuing? Two, what are you not actively pursuing, but you would accept, as far as work. And then three is, what will you not accept? And so, you know, at the beginning of my career, it was AAA video games and big budget animation. Zeke Alton 19:59 I have made forays into promo. I have trained specifically in commercial. These are all things that I want to do. And then there's work that, you know, if it comes your way, you certainly wouldn't say no to it. It's not my goal to work in soap operas, but every time I get a soap opera audition, you can bet your butt, I'm going to do it because it's acting, you know. And then there's things that you don't want to do. I don't want to be a game show host, and so, you know, even if that came along, I would probably say no to it, but that sort of directs my career and also allows me to focus where I'm putting money and time, because those resources of money and time are finite, and you can't train everything all at once. And as a person who works on camera and off camera, I'm well aware that a lot of on camera actors think that voice over is a great side gig to make money, which is not true. It's an entire career of its own that actually requires just as much, if not more, time, as an on camera career and vice versa. Because if you look at, you know, on camera acting, there's a marked difference between multi camera and single camera comedy. And you- your acting is acting, but acting through a specific medium changes it. It also changes if you're going to stage. It also changes for a one hour drama. That's the equivalent of promo versus commercial versus e learning versus animation. It's all acting for me, but there are different mediums that you're trying to push it through, and if you don't properly understand that medium through training, you're going to miss the mark. Stephanie Roberts 21:31 Yeah, and I think so many times when we get into voice over it, it is so vast. And I think a lot of people get a little like I want to do everything, and I think it is really helpful to allow yourself the no and say, no, I am not interested in these parts of voiceover. These parts of voiceover, sure, okay, and this is what I love. You know, it's just like some of that long form stuff sounds like it would be so awesome for my actor brain, but at the same time, it's just I don't have the time, the resources, the mental headspace for that type of work. Now, maybe in 20 years, when my daughter is in college and I am sitting around all day, every day, with nothing to do, then sure, maybe I'll venture into audio books. But for now, I think it's okay to allow ourselves. I don't know what the word is like the no, I guess. And just to say, not for me. Zeke Alton 22:25 Yeah, I mean, and I always advocate for everybody to try everything. Once I did an audio book once, that proved to me what I thought, which was, I don't have the stamina for that, and I don't enjoy it, and because I don't enjoy it, I wouldn't be good at it. Stephanie Roberts 22:38 But now I wonder, though, like, if you had to narrate an audio book about something that you knew very well about, you know, like a book about being a test pilot, I wonder if that would change that for you. Zeke Alton 22:49 It might! The one book I did... Gosh, what was it? It was... it was something that resonated. Like, there's I would have no chance on a book that I was uninterested in. Stephanie Roberts 22:57 Same Yeah. Zeke Alton 22:58 But again, you know, time is is finite. And so if I were to take on a, you know, 36 hours or so of recording of an audio book, that's time that I can't be doing other things that I might necessarily be needing to do to pursue the things that I've chosen to pursue. Stephanie Roberts 23:14 Right? And I'm curious, in the world of working union only, and through your agent, how do you maintain relationships with clients? Because I feel like, for those of us who are in the non union world or started out that way, that's a huge part of my business is regular relationships, repeat clients that I can email on my own and be like, hey, how's it going? I'm going on vacation. What do you need? Or whatever. And so I'm curious, from your perspective, what that looks like in in terms of having not as much direct control with each of your clients. Zeke Alton 23:50 I have a couple thoughts on that, I guess some that are probably unpopular. My agent's job is to get me in the room, or to get me the the at bats, the swings, right? Over the last four years, I've seen a steady progression from work I booked off of auditions to work that is brought to me, and that is because I'm in the room and working with the people and they're getting to know me. I firmly believe, I mean, it's the reason I moved to Los Angeles, that to do the things that I want to do requires living in LA. Zeke Alton 24:27 And I've heard, I think it was actually my agent say, before I was even with the agency, that you can have a job living somewhere else, but if you want to have a career in AAA video games and big budget animation. The odds are (nothing is absolute), but the odds are that you need to live in Los Angeles, and networking in Los Angeles is easy because everyone's here. And I am one of those people that for the past few years, even as the pandemic started to wind down, was always in studio for video games and animation. Commercials and promos are all done from home. A lot of narration is done from home. But for dubbing animation and video games, I always go to the studio, and so I'm in the studio. I'm meeting the studio heads, I'm talking with the engineers. I'm chatting with my directors on downtime. I'm talking to the writers of the games and of the shows, and so that human interaction is where I get that feedback. I usually end up with contact information with a lot of those people. Some of them have become good friends. Others are just part of my network. Yeah, and so there is a lot of opportunity to do that once you get in the room. Zeke Alton 25:41 But I do have to admit that before I got in the room, it was a lot of it was up to my agent to pitch me to get me those couple of jobs. But once I'm in there, my networking skills and just do a good job and don't be a jerk, right? And people will get to know you. It takes time. There's an interesting parallel. Because of the pandemic, there was like a two year gap where I didn't do any on camera work, and during that time, I auditioned my butt off in voiceover. And so my name and skill set, I believe, got around all of the people that cast and do a lot of the production work in voiceover, and so those people are starting to hire me more and more now, because they've seen I'm not a flash in the pan. I'm a body of work, and it's a good body of work. I'm starting to see the beginnings of that in on camera now, over the last couple of years of auditioning, so that the on camera, casting folks and production folks are starting to remember my name. You start to get called in and requested by the same office over and over again, and that means people like your work. You don't ever hear about it, but you know that they like your work and they want to hear more of it. And over time, that builds, and then you you build that reputation and network, and then you start getting called in a lot more often. Stephanie Roberts 26:57 Yeah, that's such a great perspective, because I feel like a lot of people don't want to go SAG right away, SAG AFTRA right away, because they're nervous about kind of losing that control, I guess, of the career. But it's, it's great to hear that you still feel like you have there are things that you can do that are in your control, which is show up on time, you know, prepared do a great job and that that is going to beget other work. Zeke Alton 27:25 And it's a it's a weird mindset to have to have. I think it 10 or 15 years ago, it was much more accepted that as an actor, your job is to have a day job. These days, I think a lot more people think that, no, I should just be able to be an actor. Even though I make a reasonably good living as a professional actor, I still have to maintain the mindset that any one year, it could take a complete dip, and I may end up having to go get a nine to five during the pandemic. I went to EMT school. I was gonna drive the ambulance. I was lucky. Didn't have to end up doing that, but that is the nature of this job is that as a freelancer, nothing is guaranteed, and so it's a hobby until it pays you money, is the way I look at it, and maintaining that view keeps me healthy. It helps my mental health, because then I'm not worried so much about having a bad year, and I think it's the right attitude to go in, and that level of positivity actually helps me book more. Stephanie Roberts 28:28 Yeah. So what do you do in the slow times to feel like you're still maintaining your you know, upward trajectory, Zeke Alton 28:39 Lots of training, networking, see who's doing what, celebrate my friends. Having lived in Los Angeles for a number of years now, that network has built out, and someone's always working. So there's always someone that you can celebrate, and in celebrating them, you get to learn more of where the industry is going and what the industry is doing. I believe it's part of that perspective that you know, having something to do outside of the work creates better work. I have this weird skill set of strategic planning and contract management and negotiation from my time in the military. Zeke Alton 29:13 And so about a year after I got here, I started volunteering at SAG AFTRA, at the Union, working on committees, and at this point, I'm on the four major negotiating committees. So I negotiate the contracts for the Union, and I also do a lot of education around those contracts and around sort of the on rushing threat of AI, towards voice over and acting in general. And so I'm throwing myself into some work, granted it doesn't pay, that is very meaningful for me, and so I'm not sitting around wondering about the jobs I don't have. And the nice thing is, because that work is adjacent to acting, I'm still spending my time in the room with actors and producers. I'm just doing some different work with them so they get to know me as a more well rounded person. Stephanie Roberts 30:00 I think that's that's so admirable, to not only be donating your time to anything, but to be donating it to, you know, your own business and career and union, to kind of help and use those skills that you have that, again, like maybe a lot of other actors who came from just a strictly acting BFA background, don't have and we thank you. Zeke Alton 30:21 Well, I'll be honest, it is self serving, right? I want this to be a career, and if I have a certain skill set that can allow and help this to be a career in the future, I'd be wasting my time by sitting on the couch playing video games instead of actually stepping up and doing some of this stuff. Don't get me wrong, I still play a lot of video games, but that's research. Stephanie Roberts 30:43 I was gonna say, but there you go, that's research for your so you know what the what the trends are. Do you think that the the trend is gonna stay with video games to be sort of in that really realistic realm, or do you think we're gonna get back to something that's a little more heightened and or a cartoony if you will. Zeke Alton 31:01 I don't think it's either or. I think it's both. Video games continue to grow, and there is a segment that is growing more and more towards having agency within a film. Is the way I look at it. If you've ever played something like The Last of Us or the newer entries into the God of War series, Uncharted, they're really cinematic, they're grounded, they're great movies. You just happen to be in the movie, but at the same time, you know, there's plenty of Ratchet and Clanks out there. There's plenty of sort of cartoony, let's just bop around and play video games kind of things. And I think they're both going to continue to grow. Stephanie Roberts 31:40 Yeah, I took a class recently with someone from Buchwald, Pam Goldman, and she was saying, like, if you are not taking a real acting class, you know, like a straight on camera acting class, or like an acting class for the stage, like an improv class, like, these are the classes we need to be taking so that we can be prepared for the way that these genres are heading, or are, you know, currently, the way that they currently are. So I think that that's interesting, that there's been a little shift. I think I've seen some animation auditions recently that have been like, we want wacky, we want over the top. So I think it's like you have to build both of those skill sets and be able to use them. It's like they want the real the real deal, the real actors, to kind of come in and do what we do. Zeke Alton 32:28 I always bristle when I hear I don't want voice people. I want real actors, because we are real actors. Stephanie Roberts 32:35 Totally! Zeke Alton 32:36 100% like I said, acting is acting. It's just through a different medium. Understanding the medium is important because, you know, I may get two auditions in a day, and one's from Disney Junior, which is a certain sort of animation, and the other is, say, Netflix Love Death and Robots, which is an entirely 180 something different. Part of that is understanding the medium in which you're working, and a lot of it is being able to channel your performance into the tone and style of whatever it is that you're doing. They're both animation, but the tone and style are so diametrically opposed that you need to know that, and you need to have the skill set to push through that. I don't consider that to be something that on camera actors are better at. In fact, I think quite the opposite. I think voice actors are way more versatile, but it does require a level of recognition from the actor that, okay, I am doing this. Stephanie Roberts 33:32 Yeah, and the audience too. You know, like a preschool, three to five year old show is gonna be totally different than a show that's geared towards teenagers. Zeke Alton 33:40 Yeah. I mean, it's the same thing in video games. It's one thing if you're doing a game for kids, that's an entirely different audition and workspace than if you're doing a like, Call of Duty. Stephanie Roberts 33:48 Yeah, now that I've done, I've done a lot of like, kids apps, because, again, like as a mom, I feel like my daughter plays them. I know what she responds to, I know what she likes. I know the things that make her giggle, those little like, phonics, reading, apps, those kind of things feel like the space that I feel like I can really give my my best and thrive, whereas alien spaceship commander is not, it's not going to be me. Zeke Alton 34:12 But again, it's what you it's also what you want to do, like, if that's what you were actively pursuing, you would go and build that skill set. Right? Stephanie Roberts 34:19 Absolutely. That's true. That's very true. You know, I think a lot of people that work, not just with agents, but on their own, do a lot of direct marketing and stuff like that, and it feels like for you, you've taken that time that you might have spent doing that to really get very specific on what you want out of your career, and doing all of the research, like listening to 1000s of demos. That's an investment in time and energy to do that but because of that, you really set yourself up for success when you walked into those agents. You weren't like, I don't know. I think I might like to do video games, maybe I might be good at it. You were like, no, here's what I've got. Here's my statistics, here's my data. You. Feel like there's a lot of pressure to do direct marketing, and if that's not your gig, then maybe getting really, really specific and kind of digging deep in what you're good at and where you fit into the industry might be a great way to spend that extra time. Zeke Alton 35:13 Yeah. I mean, I don't generally. I mean, my version of direct marketing is in person networking, but I approach all of this as a business. I approach the agent meeting as a business. I approach my relationship with my agent as a business. We are business partners and and so I'm still doing a ton of work to gather work and find work. I'm just funneling it through my agent, because we are a team, and I read my contracts probably more in depth than my agent does, but that's just because I'm a little psychotic about that. But I do want that extra layer of coverage with everything I do, for my agent to have their eyes on it, and for the Union to have their eyes on it. You know, particularly the way that technology is going in the advent of generative AI right now, I want to have as many protections as I can, so I am forcibly putting those gates in front of me and protecting my work. Stephanie Roberts 36:08 And were you part of the NAVA committee who wrote, the writer, the AI writer? Zeke Alton 36:14 Well, I won't say I wrote it personally. I sat down with the staff of SAG AFTRA, and we came up with the basic the six tenants of what's important around generative AI. And then Tim and I workshopped that, and then Tim took it to the lawyer, Rob, who created the writer out of it. And then since then, the rider has morphed through several iterations that Tim has shepherded all by himself. But those same original six tenants that I worked out with the union staff, are the things that have gone into the union negotiations. Stephanie Roberts 36:46 That's amazing, Zeke Alton 36:47 Because it's less for us. It's less about the technology, it's more about the rights. What rights should you have over your own performance, your likeness, be that, your face, body or your voice, and how do you protect that contractually and legally, was the approach that sort of started to build all of this stuff and continues to this day. Stephanie Roberts 37:05 Do you feel nervous about I mean, I guess we all, on some level, feel a little bit nervous about it, but as someone who's like, kind of on the inside track of these negotiations and the contracts and everything, like, do you feel like it's going to be a really big deal for voice over. Zeke Alton 37:22 I think it's going to be a really big deal. I think that the only constant is change, and this is going to cause a great deal of change. How? I'm not sure, and it is a tough battle to fight, but it is a worthy battle, even if it's a losing one, because I do not ascribe to the concept that what will happen, will happen, and I'll just ride the wave. I'm one of those people that wants to direct it, and so I work with AI tech companies. I understand what they're doing on the bleeding edge, so I am aware of how good it is. Zeke Alton 37:52 And I guess that's the scary part. Well, I mean, I could sit there and be nervous about it, or I could go, well, how do I make an effort to ensure that the talent that the performer is not lost in this system, and that's where I apply my efforts, and that feels like good work to do, and that's good work that keeps me busy, keeps me engaged, and I think takes my brain out of that artistic place where we're constantly worried about that last audition we sent in, or did I do a good job all of those imposter syndrome things that start to creep into the edges of your mind when you have downtime. I'm actively engaged at in my mind, this crusade to save the career, and that just keeps me busy. And I think there's synergy there. I think it makes my work better. Stephanie Roberts 38:35 Yeah, when you sit in front of your computer and you're just staring at all the auditions, and then you send them all, and then you're like, okay, now what that's when I kind of get into that headspace of like, well, what else could I be doing for my career? And I love that your perspective is, you know, working with SAG AFTRA is part of is furthering your career, and it's not tangible, like, I'm gonna make an Instagram post right now. Zeke Alton 39:00 You gotta know where you're good at. And social media is not my jam. You know, it's interesting, because there is no checklist for this career. It can happen any number of ways. And so, you know, back to what I said back at the beginning, in that you bring your own experience to every character that makes it better. You bring your own experience to your career that makes it better. You know, when I looked around and realized that the vast majority of video game work is non union. Direct Marketing is not my answer to that. Searching for jobs on Twitter that are non union is not my answer for that. Zeke Alton 39:33 My answer is to go and and get with some certain people and develop a contract to actually capture more work in the union. Among our Union Committee that negotiates the contract, we developed a tiered budget agreement that actually makes it easier for people who are Indies in video game to come to the union and get their game done cheaply. So that's my approach, because I'm terrible at direct marketing and I'm terrible at social media. Well, you know what? I'll just create a contract that allows me to get more work and then, you know, I. I've surrounded myself with a network of friends who are good at social media, who can then start to get that message out. And so we, you know, the rising tide does actually lift all ships. We all end up working together and doing the parts that we are good at. Stephanie Roberts 40:12 Yes, so important. That's a really great reframe and mindset to be in that it doesn't always have to be exactly like linear directly relating to your career. It can be sort of an all encompassing project that you're working on that still fuels everything that you're doing. Well, this was so insightful and such an interesting chat. And I love, I love listening to your analytical brain. Stephanie Roberts 40:39 I admire that because I feel like my brain is... I often tell my husband that after having a kid, my brain feels like a tangled ball of yarn, and every now and then I can pull out a strand and be like, that's it. That's what I wanted to say. And most of the time it's just like, I gotta make a lot of lists to get it all out. But I love that you know, even just in this conversation, like I can hear how, like planned and strategic and thoughtful you are about everything. And I think that's, that's such an admirable thing that a lot of voice actors could really, you know, benefit from in their in their businesses. Zeke Alton 41:13 It's, it's how I approach a career that has no consistency. Yes is to create structure for myself. It makes me feel better. Stephanie Roberts 41:21 Yes, well, how do you structure your day? Do you have, like, a every day I do this? Or do you do it by week? Or I'm so curious. Zeke Alton 41:30 You know, as a freelancer, it's so different. I have processes. I have a process for every audition that comes in. I have a process for if they're different. You know, like an on camera audition is a little bit different. My process is different, but it's the same. Within that sphere, I do the same sort of prep and get ready for every job that I do. I do the same prep and get ready for the workshops I do the same I search for workshops and search for training in the same way I just created a lot of what I consider to be habits, because once you build something into a habit, you're spending less brain power on getting it done. Zeke Alton 42:06 And if it's an efficient process, then you're you're not really bogging yourself down with a lot of minutia. And so that, what that does for me is it allows me to be flexible. Sometimes I'll audition in the morning, sometimes I'll audition late at night, but the process is always the same, so I know if I have x number of auditions, it's probably going to take me X amount of time. And so that creates comfort and structure and allows me to be a little bit more freewheeling and just take it as it comes. Because otherwise, you know, my my structured brain might be at sea if I didn't have processes to lay on top of of this stuff that's randomly coming out of the ether. Stephanie Roberts 42:41 Right - because each day is different. Some days, like today, I sat down, was like, I'm going to do auditions. I was like, there are no auditions now what? So I love that having kind of the list of things and, like, if A is not available, then you've got B and C, and everything is just sort of right there. So you can pull the process, as opposed to, like, reinventing the wheel every time, that's a smart way to do it. Zeke Alton 43:03 Well, A perfect example is, if I have, you know, if I book a costar on a TV show and I'm gone for a 12 to 14 hour day, I'm not going to get my auditions done in my studio at home on that day, but I know that I will have downtime in the trailer on set, and I'll do the administrative work there, and I know that I will only need a certain amount of time once I get home, even if I'm tired, to actually do the actual auditioning and send it out. So those processes are in place that make it comfortable, and I'm not feeling nervous on set about the work I'm not getting done for my auditions. Stephanie Roberts 43:38 Being a voice actor is weird, too, because when I have a session scheduled, sometimes my brain is like, oh gosh, I have a two hour session. I'm not gonna be able to do any auditions. But the goal is the session. The goal is the job. Zeke Alton 43:50 Yea! Stephanie Roberts 43:51 the goal is to do the audition so that you book the job. So the auditions are important, but the actual job is like, this is it. We've made it. This is what we wanted. Do you have any other like, last thoughts on staying positive in the business, or, you know, getting to that six figure income and and feeling good about it? Zeke Alton 44:10 Yeah, if I had a sound bite for for what got me there, I'd say it's, it's three things. It's organization, it's tenacity, and, most importantly, it's patience, because it doesn't happen overnight. It's a lot of times. A lot of people treat the career of a performer is that, you know, I should just make it at some point. And that's never the case. It's always a very slow build. Even the people who look like they just made it had been working anonymously for a very long time, and so put yourself in the mindset that you are ready to work at this for a very long time and and treat it like a hobby until all of a sudden it's not amazing. Stephanie Roberts 44:50 Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your conversation today. Zeke Alton 44:54 Thank you so much for having me. Stephanie Roberts 45:00 Hearing Zeke's perspective on voice over coming from being a Navy Test Pilot was fascinating. His analytical, efficient and goal oriented approach really helped him to excel in his career and get to that six figure mark. I know not all of us, myself included, possess that sort of brain, so it was really interesting to get an inside look at how he thinks about things, plus, I think we can all learn something from his incredible work ethic. Stephanie Roberts 45:25 If you'd like to learn more about Zeke, I'm linking his website and socials in the show notes, which you can find at my website, making it to the mic.com make sure you follow or subscribe to this podcast where you're listening so you don't miss an episode, and please leave a rating or review at Apple podcast so I can reach more people. Thanks so much for listening. And here's a little preview of the next episode. Daisy Hobbs 45:50 I feel like this is like voice over is like the synthesis of everything that I love. I love acting, I love comedy, and I was writing comedy stuff. I love comedy so much, and singing. And this is the synthesis of everything I love, and it allows me to be a mom and be home full time. Stephanie Roberts 46:06 That's next time on Making it to the Mic.