Cathy and Harvey Kalmenson have a combined fifty years of experience in the world of voiceover. “We are totally over-qualified to do what we’re doing,” Mr. Kalmenson (also known as “da harv”) said brashly. “You’ll find I’m brutally candid.”
Mrs. Kalmenson is a perky complement to her husband. Their combined skills have clearly established a well-oiled machine of a production facility. In their Burbank studio, the Kalmensons teach classes, hold auditions (over 20,000 voiceover auditions in 2001), and produce spots for clients from all over the world. They welcomed me into their studio for our interview and some observation of the Kalmenson Method: truth-casting.
First Casting Job
Kalmenson & Kalmenson first entered the market with a Miller Beer spot.
Road to This Position
The Kalmensons met while working in a Los Angeles agency in 1981. Mr. Kalmenson came from a theatre background and, as an agent, headed up the voiceover department at Abrams-Rubaloff & Associates. Mrs. Kalmenson was also on staff at Abrams-Rubaloff after having started in advertising with Leo Burnett in Chicago. She also worked with the Tischerman Agency and Special Artists Agency before moving into casting in 1990. In 1992, the two married, and one year later, launched their own company.
Coolest Casting Gig
The Budweiser frogs. “We also really enjoyed casting the Harry Potter line for Warner Bros. Consumer Products,” Mrs. Kalmenson said. The partnership was named the exclusive casting and project management team for all talking products marketed in association with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Key Things They Look for in a Voiceover Actor
“Strong acting skills and genuineness,” Mrs. Kalmenson quipped. The duo mentioned the importance of an actor’s comfort with himself, awareness of his personal signature, and the ability to translate his truth to commercial copy. A vocal signature is a voiceover artist’s defining sound. It indicates the way in which that voice is “typed.” Mr. Kalmenson added, “You’d better have a sense of humor and flexibility.”
The Kalmensons stressed that actors must know what they best present, vocally, and hone that skill. “With so many choices in the voiceover talent pool, Los Angeles is a market of specialists, not generalists,” Mrs. Kalmenson explained.
Pet Peeves
“Actors calling to ‘check in,'” Mrs. Kalmenson mentioned. “There’s no time,” according to Mr. Kalmenson. The pair would prefer contact in the form of postcards, letters, and even e-mail.
Another pet peeve at Kalmenson & Kalmenson is the lack of labeling on demo CD spines. “We need to file your CD! Make sure we know it’s yours from all angles,” Mrs. Kalmenson advised.
Their Operating System
I observed, firsthand, what the Kalmensons refer to as a “tight ship” in their studios. Each voiceover actor was greeted at the door by a member of the Kalmensons’ efficient staff, who checked the actor in, reviewed audition sides, and answered any questions. With almost no downtime, each actor was escorted into the booth, greeted with warm familiarity by Mr. Kalmenson (who sat on the other side of a sound-proof window, controlling the recording equipment), and provided with a custom-adjusted microphone for the audition. “We get professional sound out of every audition,” Mr. Kalmenson revealed. Mrs. Kalmenson explained that, on occasion, clients will like what they hear on audition session CDs so much that they simply use a selection for the ad itself. “It’s great because the actor gets a call that they not only booked the job, but have already done the job, and they sign the contracts and get the check. It’s great! So, we strive to get performance-level auditions here,” she concluded.
Mr. Kalmenson’s direction between takes was specific and well-received. Each performer made the requested adjustments and delivered another take on the audition material, while Mr. Kalmenson made notations on the log sheet. “That’s the one,” he indicated to me, after a particularly fine read.
“I like to talk with the actors,” Mr. Kalmenson said. “Sometimes, they’re so stuck on the way they’ve rehearsed the spot that I’ll need to get them talking about their day in order to get them to try another direction. It’s different for each person.” Mr. Kalmenson asked one actor to deliver a line with more of a reward to it. Another was told to open up the pronunciation of a certain word. These cues were interpreted by the actors and, upon the next take, Mr. Kalmenson said, “Great. That’s it. Thank you.” In under three minutes, each actor had performed several takes, had a friendly exchange with Mr. Kalmenson, and left feeling encouraged by his comments.
“The actor’s job is to be the most authentic person he or she can be,” explained Mrs. Kalmenson. “There is no other you, so don’t try to come in with a lot of, ‘I can also do…’ type stuff. Just do you and do it with truth.”
For each job, a team captain at Kalmenson & Kalmenson’s business office in Encino is assigned to get as much information as possible from the client. “We’ll do a conference call to make sure we get, right from the horse’s mouth, what it is that they want,” Mr. Kalmenson revealed.
“Voiceover is a postproduction job,” Mrs. Kalmenson explained. “Money is tight by the time the client gets to this part of the process. If the client says, ‘Send the 20 best voices,’ that’s exactly what we want to send.” Mrs. Kalmenson went on to explain the range of material sent to the client. “We do ‘bracketing.’ We’ll send something that is dead center of what the client asked for, and then a little flavor on each side of it.”
A Kalmenson & Kalmenson staffer entered the studio with a status update on an actor who was 17 minutes late and not yet in the production facility. “What’s the cut-off? We’ve made our numbers,” he reported, indicating that the 20 best voices the client had asked for had been attained. “With a late actor, we’ll be on the phone with the agent,” Mrs. Kalmenson said. “We can’t keep bringing a late actor back.”
Once the session was complete, we took a break from the ongoing interview while Mr. Kalmenson burned copies of the master CD made during the auditions. Next, the staff affixed custom labels to the CDs and packed them up in a FedEx pouch, along with a copy of the session log and the studio’s recommendations, based on the auditions. Both Kalmensons signed off on the package, and Mr. Kalmenson resumed the interview by commenting on the silence. “We don’t multi-task around here. When we are putting these packages together, we are not doing anything else. It’s too important.”
Trends They Have Observed in the Casting Process
Compassion, resiliency, and patriotism. “Actors are a part of our nation’s recovery,” Mrs. Kalmenson said, indicating the American flags displayed throughout their studios. “Our spirit as a nation is strengthening, and our clients want voices that speak that truth.”
Clients of Kalmenson & Kalmenson request attitudes, rather than specific vocal qualities. “The attitudes include irreverence, sarcasm, honesty, invitation to indulge, playfulness, vulnerability, dry, offbeat, edgy, and genuinely spontaneous,” Mrs. Kalmenson listed. “But truth is the bottom line, with any of those,” Mr. Kalmenson added.
“Voiceover is an acting craft. It’s less about vocal quality than people think,” Mrs. Kalmenson clarified. “When I’m on the phone with a client, I hear them describe an attitude, a type, a nature, an essence.”
Advice for Actors
“I try to constantly encourage actors,” Mr. Kalmenson said. “The economy is down, and advertising has been the first business to fall off and it’s the last business to recover. I want actors to relax and know that we still love them.”
“Do not make a voiceover demo tape prematurely. Make your tape at the end of focused study, when your coach, your agent, and your heart tell you it’s time,” Mrs. Kalmenson advised. Mr. Kalmenson added, “A bad tape could cost you your shot at our company.”
There is a difference between animation and commercial voiceover demos, according to the Kalmensons. “Unless you are an animation specialist, your tape should represent who you are by nature. We will always bring in the actors who are, by nature, the role we are casting, rather than the ones who can do the role,” Mrs. Kalmenson elaborated.
Further advice from the Kalmensons included: choose an attitude, be prepared to ad-lib and improvise when asked to do so, show commitment to your work, and understand that luck and timing have a great deal to do with it. “Impose your personality on the world,” Mrs. Kalmenson instructed.
Best Way to Get Seen by Them
“Showcases, demo tapes with an agent pitch, and education are the three ways we see people,” Mrs. Kalmenson listed. The Kalmensons teach eight classes per week at their Burbank studios. “Our students are confident, when they come in here to audition. They’re using the same professional equipment and are already comfortable in this environment.”
The Kalmensons have over 16,000 voices in their voiceover database, all indexed by searchable keywords. “Because we already have access to so many great voices, we do not take meetings, interviews, or hold generals. A demo tape serves as our screening method,” Mrs. Kalmenson explained. “A demo tape should be under two minutes, and should showcase an actor’s strengths and defining signature,” Mr. Kalmenson insisted. “Remember, we call it ‘truth-casting,'” Mrs. Kalmenson stated.
Most Gratifying Part of Their Job
Mrs. Kalmenson summarized, “Seeing our training contribute to an actor’s career success is really wonderful. When we hear a student on a spot, we know we’ve affected someone’s life.”
This interview was conducted on May 30, 2002, and it originally appeared in Casting Qs: A Collection of Casting Director Interviews by Bonnie Gillespie, available at Amazon.