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[Text to Speech Voice]
There are over four million working-aged blind and visually impaired people in the United States, and over two million of these people are unemployed. This is a staggering statistic, but many people defy these odds and are happily and gainfully employed, and we wish to share their stories with the world.
[Elana]
Hello, and welcome to Vision Towards Success, the podcast that highlights stories of career development and lived experience. This podcast is brought to you by The Polus Center for Social and Economic Development. In our program, we feature employment success stories from visually impaired individuals, for people with disabilities, and their allies, in hopes of showing just how smart, hardworking, and capable this diverse community is. (instrumental music)
[Cullen]
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Vision Toward Success. I'm Cullen Gallagher. No sound is more powerful than the human voice, and the work of a voiceover artist can move and inspire us in countless ways. Our guest today, Satauna Howery, is a blind voiceover artist with over 10 years of experience. You may have heard her at the Tampa Airport reminding travelers not to leave their luggage unattended, in e-learning videos, or even narrating audio description for your favorite shows. Join us as we explore the exciting world of voiceover work. Satauna will share how she got her start in voice and music recording, insights on networking and self-promotion, and how she navigates accessibility challenges, like accessing scripts. We'll also hear her advice for maximizing assistive technology and advice for blind professionals, or anyone aspiring to become a voiceover artist. And now, here's Cameron with our interview with Satauna Howery. (instrumental music)
[Cameron]
Can you tell us about how you actually grew up, and maybe a little bit of a backstory?
[Satauna]
I grew up in Southern California, and I was born blind, so I don't have any sight at all, no light perception, no shadows, no color, no anything. And I went to school at my neighborhood school, for most of the time. Kindergarten, I went to a school that was quite far away from where I lived. It was the kindergarten commute. And then in first grade, we moved, so I ended up at my local neighborhood school and had an itinerant TVI. They weren't called TVIs in that day, but yes, TVI, come to me. By first grade, I had already picked up braille. I loved braille. I was an avid reader. It worked for me.
[Cameron]
Since you're such an accomplished voice actor, how did you actually get into voice acting? Was it something that was, like, coming natural to you, or did someone introduce you to it? Maybe you could tell us more about that.
[Satauna]
I had been introduced to voice acting as a child. I grew up being a musician. I started playing piano when a piano came home, I was two years old. And the story goes that I came home from nursery school and started picking at it with my thumbs, and then a couple weeks later, I figured out I could use all my fingers, and I just started playing little songs, like London Bridge is Falling Down is purported to be my first song. I don't remember that, but that is the family story. So, I just started playing piano on my own, and then when I was around seven, I started taking formal lessons for a few years, classical lessons. I went to the local Bach festival and the regional Bach festival when I was nine, and things like that, and I performed throughout my childhood as a musician at- charity events, and a little bit of TV work, and things like that. So, I grew up performing, and I also grew up... Once my parents figured out that I could play and write music, then it was they started adding things. So, I had a drum machine, and I had a synthesizer, and I had a... I started out with a reel-to-reel tape recorder, just a two track reel-to-reel, and then ended up with a multi-track recorder. So, my dad built a studio, and in my teenage years other people came over, and other people, you know, booked studio time, and I did whatever they needed done. So, sometimes that was just being the recording engineer, and sometimes that was actually arranging pieces of music and doing all the recording and all that kind of thing, and letting them be the vocalist or whatever, whatever was needed. So, one of the things that happened during that time was that we had a friend who was doing work for a shooting gallery, and they needed voiceover for that, and came over, and I did some of the voiceover work for that. So, that was kind of my first exposure to it. And then it just kind of lagged for years and years. But the point of this is that I grew up with the skills that, when I decided to do voiceover, worked really well for me in moving into it. I understood pitch, and tempo, and time, and rhythm, and dynamics of, you know, being loud versus being soft, or being excited versus being calm, those kinds of things. Having the musical background really helped me. And I was an avid reader, like I said earlier, not just with braille, but you know, as a blind child, you just can't grow up without talking books, at least you couldn't in my day. So, lots of books from NLS, and, uh, of course, when I got into middle school and high school, there was a lot from Learning Ally, which back in my day was Recording for the Blind. So, I grew up hearing voices, and having opinions about what I liked and didn't like. I got into voiceover professionally and full-time because I had a friend who went and got her demos done locally, and took some classes and coaching, and she was so excited about it. And I thought, "Wow, she just did it. She just went and let somebody else come up with the scripts and put the backing music on." And I'd always thought about going into voiceover, and just hadn't... I- I had ideas about, "I'm gonna put the scripts together, and I'm gonna make the backing music," and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And once I got out of my way with that and let somebody else do it, then it was easy. Then I just had to market myself.
[Cameron]
In terms of marketing, you know, that's a perfect transition into our next question. How would you market yourself as a voice actress? Because it seems like you're very accomplished. I checked out your IMD page, saw Blackish, and a bunch of other things as well. So, how would you go about marketing yourself as a voice actress, especially in this modern digital age?
Satauna]
There's lots of different ways to do it, and it can be easy to try and focus on all of them and be successful with none of them. So, pick a path and know that you can always expand. Social media is a great way to market. Different social media websites certainly work in different ways. I'm a huge fan of LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn.I like reaching out to people directly, and finding something out that's interesting about them or about what they're doing, and, uh, developing rapport and developing relationships. It's a great way to connect with people. Your own network. Your, your friends, your family, the people you know who know you. That can be a really interesting way to market. I personally haven't found that particularly successful. I haven't pushed it too much either, but, you know, sometimes your own network can position you in a way that they just can't get past seeing you how they've seen you for as long as they've known you. And so, to think of you as a professional, I, I think can be difficult sometimes, particularly as people who are blind or low vision. That's not a route I've taken, but I, I do know it's a route that lots of people have taken. At least it's a beginning. There's a lot of just googling. I mean, google production houses, google companies that you want to work with. Find out who's in the position that you need to be reaching out to. Who's, who's in the marketing department at X company? And reach out to them. And again, that's a process, but it works. I also really had good success with online casting sites. I started my career on online casting sites in 2013, so sites like Voice123, Voices.com. And you build a profile on those sites. You put your demos up in different categories. You keyword tag those demos so that they're all SEO searchable and that kind of thing. You put in things like your gender, your age, the ages of... Not, not your age specifically, but the ages of voiceover that you perform. Do you do teen? Do you do young adult? Do you do middle-aged? Do you do senior? That kind of thing. And you make a profile, and then the system sends you audition opportunities. So for most of those opportunities, you actually have to click on the opportunity and read a partial script. And if your profile is well done, you can be getting 30 to 40 opportunities a day from a site like this. So the struggle with that is that you end up auditioning so much that are you doing anything else in your business? But those things work, and it's a numbers game. Somebody's gonna like what they hear when you audition on a site like that. They have certainly become busier and more competitive over the years. You know, in 2013, there were a lot less people on these sites, and then the pandemic hit and everybody decided they wanted to try voiceover. So it's a real busy place, and it is hard to stand out. I would not say that online casting sites are the only thing that one needs to be doing to market themselves. But it is a path.
[Cameron]
You know, it's funny that you actually mention the casting sites, 'cause I used to use these personally back in the day to find voice actors. I mean, be it my own YouTube videos or some of the automated channels that I was running for clients, and we'd actually find people on a site called Casting Call Club, and essentially, we'd go ahead and put in, like, "We want this gender, we want it for this price, and then we'll have an audition." And I'd seen a lot of my fellow content creators using these types of casting sites, so it's actually pretty nice that you mentioned those.
[Satauna]
Yeah. I've seen Casting Call Club. I've not really been on it much. What I like about specifically Voices.com and Voice123 is that they tend to be for, uh, the more professional voice actor, so you're less likely to get jobs where, "Oh, you know, we want you to come on here and do, you know, a thousand words for $10," is, is what I'm trying to avoid, right? I mean, voiceover is a business, and you have to think about the time and effort that those of us who are doing it full-time put in to continuing to grow our craft and, and grow our careers. So everything from paying my mortgage and my electric bill, that's all through my voice work. And if I were doing jobs that were $5, $10, $20 a piece, that's just... It's just running on a huge treadmill all day long. I guess it's working harder rather than smarter. Voiceover work is... It's a skill, and it does take continuous educational growth to keep it fresh, and there are so many changes in the industry. So I like Voices and, and Voice123 because the opportunities that you get there tend to be in the higher range. And of course, there are other things, like agents and things like that, and when you market directly to companies, you can also negotiate your own budgets. And there are great rate guides out there. The Global Voice Acting Academy, GVAA, has a great rate guide out there to really get a sense of what standard rates are, standard non-union rates are in the industry.
[Cameron]
You know, that's, that's wonderful, and it, it's kind of crazy because I was actually posting, uh, things like that, and I had a bunch of people, like, lining up for, like, $10 for, like, let's say, 1,200 words, like a script read and i- i- it's actually, like, these people have amazing voices, and I'm like... And I'll, I'll have them do... Like, I know someone that does 40 scripts a day for, like, $7 a piece, and I'm like, "I, I don't know how your voice is still, like, surviving after this, but it's honestly amazing somehow," so. Um, and, you know, it's, it's nothing, like, high dollar. It's not really high-dollar content when it comes down to, like, like, top five celebrities that do this, this, and this, and that's kind of, like, the scripts that they were reading, but it's, it's honestly really interesting that you mention about the very, uh, cheap voice acting work. So, like, what would be a standard rate to actually charge for voice acting work, and what would you feel comfortable, like, charging? Is it by hour? Is it a fixed price? What's your thoughts?
[Satauna]
It depends on where it's being used and for how long. And remember that what you're really giving people is a license to use your voice. There are lots of different rates depending on your categories. There are rates for video games, there are rates for radio and television. But even within radio and television, you're looking at is it a local market? Is it a regional ad that you're putting out there? Is it a national thing? Is it online? And if it's online, are you just doing something that's on your own YouTube channels or social media, or are you doing paid ads, like paid pre-roll ads? So if it's online and it's paid, those rates are much higher than if it's online and it's just on your own channels. If it's a radio ad that's local and it's running for 13 weeks, which is roughly three months, that's really different than a national radio ad that's gonna run all across the country that's running for three months. You know? So the rates are really different depending upon what the usage is, how long it's going on for, that kind of thing. There are other things to consider, too, like do you want to be present during the recording? And if you're present during the recording, do you need me to have playback capabilities so that you can hear some of the takes that we record back? In those cases, I'm asking an additional fee, because you're there, but I'm still doing the recording, right? So I'm also the engineer in that case, not just the voice actor, right? I, that said, I love recorded sessions and I love when clients want to be... Uh, but, but there's lots of things that go into coming up with rates, and that's why GVAA has a whole rate sheet that sort of explains them all, 'cause it's not...... it's not a straightforward thing. It's not just, "Oh, we'll just pick a number, you know, X cents per word and, and go from there." You know, if- if you did something like 10 cents a word, and you've got someone that's got a 30-second script, a 30-second script is roughly 90 words, assuming it's- it's for something like radio. That's like nine bucks for 30 seconds. It's not worth getting on a mic.
[Cameron]
Yeah, it's not worth it.
[Satauna]
Right? So, you know, I don't want to get on a mic for less than a couple hundred bucks. It's, it's just... Think about the fact that because voice actors are essentially their own business owners, because we are freelancers. We carry our own insurance, we buy our own equipment, we maintain our own equipment, we pay for any education that we have that continues to grow who we are and what we do. We go to conferences, professional conferences for professional development. We're in organizations like SAG-AFTRA or, uh, World Voices Organization, or different membership organizations so that we can keep abreast of industry, uh, changes and things like that. All of this... And then that's not even including the amount of time that it takes to find the jobs, talk to the people about the jobs, negotiate the rates, do the recording, upload the recording, have the person come back and say, "All right. We've made some changes. How about this?" You know, there's... You gotta invoice. You have to go after the people that you've invoiced if they haven't given you the money. There's- there's just... There's a lot of admin. And when people think of voiceover, they get excited about being the Disney princess or reading the voiceover copy and forget that there is all of this business-y, administrative stuff that has to happen as well.
[Cameron]
You talked about radio and local, but I actually took a look at some of your work, and I was kind of curious. Have you decided to go in and do anything worldwide? I mean, there's so many opportunities outside of the US. What's your thoughts on worldwide voice acting work?
[Satauna]
Oh, I have clients all over the world. Uh, I have clients in India and Lebanon and France, and I could keep going. There's like 25, 30 countries. So yeah. I mean, I think that online casting sites and just Google, LinkedIn, all... You know, the internet presents opportunities to market and talk to people everywhere. And I- I love working with people who aren't in the US. So yeah. I do a lot of international stuff.
[Cameron]
What does that really look like? Is it kind of like commercials? 'Cause I'm guessing obviously the German demographic may be a bit different than maybe like someone in China or something like that. So like what, what kind of voice acting work are you doing for these people over there?
[Satauna]
A lot of the voice acting work that I do is... My favorite stuff to do is medical, scientific, technical. I love the big words. I love the long form. I love e-learning, internal training, that kind of stuff that generally nobody ever sees except a very specific target audience that it's meant for. So, a lot of my international clients are doing, uh, training. For example, maybe it's a company over, uh, in France, but they have an American arm or they have a bunch of English-speaking people and they wanna convert their training from French to English. And so, I'll do that. Sometimes it's commercials. Like recently I did... Uh, there's a friend of mine. She's a voice actor as well, and she lives in France, and she does these little 30-second, 20-second commercials. They're really short-run commercials, and they're pretty localized, and they're for the Monte Carlo Ballet. And so, she does the French version and then she sends me over the English copy and I do the English version. (laughs) So, that's kind of really fun.
[Cameron]
That's amazing. So, in terms of audio, because your mic sounds amazing, your voice sounds amazing. What type of audio equipment are you using? Like what kind of microphone? What, what type of software and what does this really look like? Especially in the eyes of like a blind voice actress?
[Satauna]
I love Reaper. Yay Reaper. I love Reaper because it's cross-platform, it's Windows, it's Mac. So...
[Cameron]
You know, I wasn't a fan at first.
[Satauna]
Yeah, really? What were you using before Reaper?
[Cameron]
Audacity.
[Satauna]
(laughs) Oh. I tried Audacity. I really did, and I really didn't like it. (laughs)
[Cameron]
Is it just not accessible? Or like why do people really hate on Audacity?
[Satauna]
I think, um... I- it's been a number of years since I've used it, so I can't speak to how it works today, but there were things back during the time that I was using it... Like you name it and then actually go to that marker and hear the name. So, a lot of times I'll be doing e-learning and each slide within the e-learning presentation is its own file. So, in Reaper, I'll drop a marker, and I'll name the file the slide number or whatever file name it needs to be, 'cause when I send it to the client all the, the slide files are gonna be separate. And then I'll, I'll move on. But I can always go back to that marker and I always know what marker I'm on because when you move to a marker, Reaper says the name of it and things like that. You couldn't do that in Audacity. And, you know, some of these e-learning projects I do have, you know, two, 300 files. So, to be able to drop that many markers and look for the thing I want to look for is really important. So, small things like that. You know, it's... I mean, it's free and yay for free, but I spent some time on the Audacity list, uh, that was set up for people who are blind, and I just didn't see anybody on there who was really doing professional work. They were all kind of hobbyists and, uh, in Reaper you've just gotta... It's not just a platform that... It does take a little bit more time maybe to get your head around it, but you've got great support because so many people are using it and doing so many different things with it, and there are just great instructional materials out there and folks that can give one-on-one coaching for it, that it's a really powerful tool. So, I didn't quite answer your question. I know (laughs) we started talking about Reaper, and that's as far as I got. Uh, I have also just done this long enough that I love SoundForge. I've just been a SoundForge user since like SoundForge 4 or something like that, way back. Even before I did voiceover, I was using SoundForge. And I just still love it for basic single mono-track audio. I- I'll... I still tend to audition in SoundForge. Every now and then I get busy auditioning in Reaper, but SoundForge is just so quick and easy. I like it. I know a lot of people like GoldWave, uh, and that would probably work really well, too. Lots of great keyboard shortcuts and flexibility there. Let's see. What else? I'm in a booth. It's a four-by-six whisper room booth. So, all the walls are carpeted and there's foam on the walls and there's a window in the door that's behind me. It's in a basement, so it's pretty soundproof. When I started out, my daughter was a teenager, so her friends would come over and there'd be lots of clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp up above my head. (laughs) And I don't have those things now. She's moved out. So, it's a pretty darn quiet environment. We have that and, uh, let's see. What else is in here? I have a table in front of me that my braille display is on and the computer keyboard is on. There's no monitor in here because I am a braille user, so I don't need a, a screen of any kind. The actual computer...... which in this case is a tower model, is on the outside of the booth, and there is a monitor connected on the outside. So, we do have other computers here. There are laptops, and I have a laptop I use when I'm traveling and things like that. My microphone is a Sennheiser MKH 416. There's a mixer in here, and I have multiple sound cards connected to the computer. There's the internal sound card, which I've actually disabled, and I have a Focusrite Scarlett 2x2, which is where your voice is coming through during this interview, and then I have a MOTU M4, and that is where my mic is going through. And I like the MOTU because it has a built-in loopback, so it's easy to play things back if customers are looking to hear what I've recorded.
[Cameron]
The Scarlett 2i2, definitely a good choice. I also have that. I think a lot of people that are doing audio have the basic Scarlett interface, and yeah, that's very interesting that you actually said that.
[Satauna]
Yeah, my Scarlett 2x2 is, uh, old. I- I'm trying to even remember the year I bought it. I started with an iTrack Solo. Now my daughter has that one, and I bought a Scarlett 2x2. I think it's maybe a second generation or s- it's an- it's an oldie. It's an oldie, which is why it's not my primary interface anymore, because I just feel like they haven't kept up on the drivers for the older units, and I don't need to buy a new unit, but, you know, having my speech go through the Scarlett or something like that, taking the Scarlett on the road when I wanna, uh, travel with my laptop, that tends to work, you know, things like that. But it is- it is my secondary interface at this point.
[Cameron]
You mentioned you have a daughter, and you gave her the interface. Does she do voice acting work as well?
[Satauna]
She has done some voice acting work, yeah. She's done a little bit of audio description. She primarily writes it these days rather than voicing it, which is great. But yeah, she's done some voiceover work for Habitat for Humanity and for Nintendo and things like that. So, yeah. Yeah, everybody around here has dabbled in it.
[Cameron]
Yeah, I guess it just runs in the family. (laughs)
[Satauna]
It does. (laughs) Yeah, we do have a second studio here that we call Studio B. When I initially started voiceover work, I hooked up with a mentor who said, "Listen, you know, you'd get more jobs if your audio was cleaner," 'cause this person could hear echo in the back of my audio, 'cause I was in a room with hard floors and I had a cardboard box in front of me that was lined with foam, and I put a microphone in the box, and that's how I did it. But it was a pretty loud space. The- the room was loud and not treated acoustically at all or anything. And so this- this mentor said to me, "listen, you- you just- if you could just change your audio. Your reads are okay, but you gotta change your audio." So, that's why I bought the booth. And then a few years later, when my husband and my daughter were interested in getting into voiceover, then we took the time to take one of the basement rooms and line it with blankets or- or carpet and things like that and make it all nice and soundproof. And so there's a mixer in there and a table, and there is a monitor in there, and so there is a second studio.
[Cameron]
Have you thought about doing any voice acting work for anime and cartoons?
[Satauna]
I love my animation demo, and I have thought about it. I- it's just not the kind of thing that I personally tend to pursue. I don't love it. I love medical, technical, scientific. I love it. I'm fascinated by it. I had one experience where there was a- a doctor who had invented this device to make spinal surgery better, and I'm literally on the phone with this doctor reading his script that he's pitching to different hospitals and different places to get them to purchase this device, and it was just really cool. It- there's a feeling of being on the cutting edge that I really love. Even with short things, like 90-second to- to 2- or 3-minute explainer videos, you're talking about products and services that aren't necessarily out in the wild yet. So, there's all of this new, exciting, cutting-edge, wow, look-at-this kind of feeling, and it's pretty incredible. And it- there's so many industries that I know nothing about, and all you gotta do is get into voiceover to realize that the world is this place that's full of different ideas and perspectives that you would never even consider. It's kind of like when you're looking for something on Google, you have a vague idea of, you know, what you're looking for, but if you don't even know that something exists, then you wouldn't even put the search term in for it. So, I- I don't know how to explain it any better than that, but I- I just love the cutting-edge feeling of doing sort of nonfiction explainers and audiobooks and medical, technical, scientific, that kind of stuff. I- I love it.
[Cameron]
So, it seems like you're looking for projects with more meaning. Is that correct?
[Satauna]
Huh. I hadn't thought of it that way.
[Cameron]
You know, that's- that's how I would actually think of it. If you're looking for medical, scientific stuff, that you're looking for something that is also trying to change the world in the future, so that's definitely really nice that you're participating in these projects, and, you know, you look at your IMDb page and you also see, like, it's audio descriptions, and that's also helping a lot of people. So, it seems like your voice acting may be helping many people to understand these ideas and also the content that they're also listening to.
[Satauna]
Yeah, that's true. That's true. A- and I think that, really, uh, I could see the meaning piece of it, but I think for me, I'm- I'm just also looking for fun. And I think that, for me, the learning just personally is fun. Uh, I love finance. I (laughs) love tech. I love medical. Those subjects are just interesting. So yeah, I guess th- that there is meaning. I- I- I have a love-hate relationship with audio description. I think more blind people should be doing it. I'm not sure that all the companies who are doing it at this point really buy into that idea. I like doing what I do because I just personally- I think the value of this job is that I get to be different people talking about different subjects all the time, and I never quite know what it's gonna be, and I love that flexibility about it. I mean, even something like political voiceover, right? Uh, political voiceover, does it help somebody? Well, it helps the candidate, presumably. From my perspective, it's just- it's just fun. It's- you know, when you do an attack ad, it's like g- getting your grumpy stress out just by speaking on the microphone. (laughs) It's just really fun. So yeah. I get to be these people and these characters. I- I think maybe what it is is that when people think about anime and cartoons, it's very character, and it is a ton of fun, and you don't have to do a cartoon to have a character. There's a lot of role playing in e-learning. Uh, for example, some e-learning scenarios will have role play scenarios, and so they'll have a uh, the supervisor talking to the employee, or the employee on a call with a customer. If you're the customer, you might get to be an angry customer, or you might get to be a very, very sad customer. Or, you know, maybe you're talking about, um, uh, the supervisor talking to the employee and they're doing a review, so they're doing, like, their annual job review. And so in that case, you, you're the employee and, and your supervisor is giving you information that you don't want to hear. Or maybe the supervisor's a real jerk and you get to be the calm, cool, collected employee. Like, there are different emotional ranges that you can play, even just in basic, uh, e-learning scenarios. So, there's a lot of character work that doesn't necessarily mean video games or animation or anything like that, but it's still there.
[Cameron]
You know, that's actually a really interesting way you put it, because a lot of anime and cartoons, I guess you could say, they're more, their meaning is mainly entertainment. But when you're talking about medical and things like that, they also have roles that you can go ahead and play, and I didn't really see it that way.
[Satauna]
And, and s- depending upon what you're doing in medical. I mean, I, I've done some work for a company that creates medical copy, uh, for students in, in med school, and they try to make their scripts as funny as possible. And when I did the audition for them, I actually made up a song in the audition, because they had some words that just went together well for rhyming purposes and it just was funny, and so I just tacked it on to the end of the audition script. So, I think sometimes too, I, I get a lot of that comedy and character stuff out in my auditions.
[Cameron]
It's the best of both worlds, I guess.
[Satauna]
Yeah. (laughs)
[Cameron]
Can you tell us, what does the typical day of a voice actor looks like? Especially from someone being blind.
[Satauna]
I try to audition every day. I don't always manage it, but I try. It just depends on the workload. From a blindness perspective, that, I feel, is changing somewhat. There is now a disabled voice actors database that you can go visit, and if you're a disabled voice actor, you can add yourself to that database and there is activity in progress connecting casting directors and organizations to that disabled database, which is pretty great. I don't generally tell my clients that I can't see. It's n- usually not relevant. I come across scripts that... M- more and more. Oh, I just had somebody, uh, in a job where they, they hired me and they said, "Well, we've got screenshots that detail the pronunciations for the big words." And I'm thinking, "Screenshots? (laughs) Why have you got screenshots?" People try and put together pronunciation guides, and sometimes it would just be easier if they sent links. And a lot of people do, and they will embed those links within the document so that you can just click on the link and it sends you to a YouTube or some kind of dictionary page that pronounces the big word that, that they've got there. But screenshots are a thing, putting scripts in a picture format, like a JPEG or a GIF or a PNG. It's, it's a thing. If I see those things in an audition rather than at the end when somebody's already hired me, then it's kind of a choice. Do I do that audition because the script is... Uh, I have to do more work to make the script accessible right off the bat, and if the job isn't paying enough, then I'll delete it and move on. I d- I don't have the time. There's too many opportunities out there and I'm... Eh, there's gotta be something that absolutely catches my attention for me to do that kind of work. If the script is sent to me like that and they've already hired me, then it might depend on how long the script is. If it's something that's, you know, 30 seconds, it's probably easy enough for me to manage. The built-in stuff on screen readers, for example, you know, the OCR that's built into JAWS and NVDA, even on an iPhone, you know, when you do explore image and you can look at the text and things like that. All that kind of stuff is helpful. Aira is helpful for things like that. I can call them up if I need to. Sometimes I get clients that send me revisions and they are in one color or they're bolded or whatever, and, and so I will call up Aira and go, "Take the yellow sentences and put them in a separate document." 'Cause if the script is, you know, 20, 25 pages, I don't want to scroll through and have to look at 'em. I just want somebody else to do it. It's just a better use of my time. So, I, I guess, I think any business needs help. The larger you get, the more you have to scale and think about what are the tasks that are best for you to be doing and what are the tasks that are best for somebody else to be doing. So, as a blind person, eh, there are tasks that I farm out to somebody else just because it's just not worth my time. The thing I need to be focusing on is actually being behind the mic, and, and reading, and developing relationships with my clients rather than, you know, looking at a document and pulling out the yellow parts, if that makes sense.
[Cameron]
Since you talk about business, do you have necessarily any employees or anybody to go ahead and help you? Because that's a big part of business, is delegating different tasks to other people.
[Satauna]
I have a service that deals with all the bookkeeping and the money and everything. And it's great. (laughs) It's really great. And I have a couple of virtual assistants that, that help me with things too, yes.
[Cameron]
You know, that's wonderful. I mean, I use a lot of VAs in my business being, like, posting articles, typing out descriptions, and a lot of the menial work, very shallow work. You can definitely go ahead and get a lot done with these virtual assistants that you can hire out in India, Philippines, um, and even Nigeria, I actually had some success over there as well. So, that's definitely wonderful that you actually mentioned that.
[Satauna]
And I think AI is certainly gonna be a game changer, too.
[Cameron]
Oh, most definitely. ChatGPT. I mean, have you ever seen, like, a script that was written with, like, AI and then they just send it over to you? Or have you worked with any projects that are kind of related to AI software or anything like that?
[Satauna]
I've done a lot of explainer videos that talk about AI, analytics, data, insights, all that kind of stuff. Sure. I don't know that anybody's ever sent me a script that's been written by AI. If they have, they haven't directly said so, but, you know, w- because I work with clients all over the world, a lot of times I get scripts that are poorly written, AI or otherwise. I mean, sometimes it's just kind of a matter of looking at it and going, "Okay, I didn't write this and I'm not a copy editor, I just gotta plow through it." (laughs) You know? So, sometimes you can see that in an audition and make a decision about, eh, whether you wanna m- move forward with it. Uh, but yeah, I mean, th- there's a lot of change going on out there right now, even with AI voices.
[Cameron]
What's your thoughts on the AI voices such as ElevenLabs? Do you feel like pretty soon you'll be without a job because we have the AI voices, or do you think these human voices will always be superior compared to the AIs?
[Satauna]
I think there will always be room for human voices. I do think what we were talking about earlier, where you were talking about the $10 for 1,200 words or something like that, a lot of those gigs, I think, will migrate to AI voices, and voice talent like myself, you know, we are working with the companies who give us the platforms to create our AI voices, but do it in a way where we own, we own the voice. And again, we're licensing it out to the client, so the client doesn't just get to jump on and use my AI voice to say anything. They get to use my AI voice because I've chosen to allow them to use it to say that message. It becomes an asset.
[Cameron]
Do you think there would be, like, royalties with that? Or, like, what's your thoughts on it?
[Satauna]
AI voices work the same way that a regular job does. You choose whether or not somebody can use it, and you give them a rate, and they pay the rate. It's, it's... Y- you're essentially talking about licensing and usage fees.
[Cameron]
That's very interesting, and especially with all the technology that's coming out with AI. A lot of people are scared for their jobs, but I feel like AI doesn't have the vocal inflections and so many other things that a human can actually do. So, that's definitely very interesting.
[Satauna]
Yeah, but the voices are getting better.
[Cameron]
Oh, most definitely. It's, it's... You know, I always say that AI is the worst that it'll be today, and as you actually, like... The days go on, you'll actually have better and better AI. It'll just keep improving until, like, you actually have something that's really human-like, and it's honestly scary. So like, 2030, I believe that we're gonna have very realistic voices that also have, like, uh, really good vocal inflections and a bunch of other things as well.
[Satauna]
I think the biggest concern is, uh, uh, for me, it's less about AI taking my job. It's more about people's voices being used in ways that they don't agree with. I mean, we've already seen lawsuits against TikTok and things like that for using a voice that they didn't have permission to use. So, that's where the issue is, i- and there are a lot of people who are doing AI voices for companies and AI modeling and just allowing the company to own that data, and that's a concern. People are giving it away.
[Cameron]
That's true. You know, I could actually make a clone of you right now and start going, (laughs) going about my day and, uh-
[Satauna]
Yep.
[Cameron]
... making some voice acting scripts, and it's honestly scary. Um...
[Satauna]
Yeah.
[Cameron]
I see it... A lot of YouTubers are just cloning themselves, and especially with the gaming content, if you have the means, you can make a fully automated channel by cloning yourself, and you can be really creative about it. In terms of everyday work, do you find yourself reading scripts every day? Because we talked about your daily life and, uh, some of the things, and I'm wondering, are you reading scripts every day, and how does that work?
[Satauna]
I'd say most days I'm reading... You mean, reading scripts in terms... You mean, reading scripts in terms-
[Cameron]
Of, like, working.
[Satauna]
... of actually working?
[Cameron]
Like, do you have enough work to-
[Satauna]
Oh, yeah.
[Cameron]
... like, actually read every day? Okay, that's awesome.
[Satauna]
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I've been doing this... I'm in my 11th year at this point. So, yes, I have... I g- I have clients that pop out, and I, I'm always surprised at people who pop out, and I haven't talked to them in years, (laughs) and here they are, so... Uh, or months or whatever. So yeah, there's a fair amount of repeat work that lands for me, because I've just been doing it long enough to have that arsenal of clients.
[Cameron]
I think that's a wonderful thing. When you're doing something so long, you'll have people and connections, and you were talking about, like, your network before and LinkedIn and especially keeping these connections. You can expand upon them and make sure that you're getting consistent work. So, that's awesome.
[Satauna]
And there's lots of work out there in lots of different niches too, so... Really, I think it's a numbers game, and it's just consistently showing up.
[Cameron]
I think it's like that for any type of business. You just need-
[Satauna]
Yep.
[Cameron]
... to show up, and the more that you're doing it, the more you could see, like, your income and business grow, so that's definitely very true. You talked about the disability voice acting database. Have you ever found an advantage, realistically, of people finding it better to hire disabled voice actors, or, um, is it just, like, a database to, like, show like, "Hey, these people are disabled, and you can also hire them"?
[Satauna]
I think there's been a lot of movement in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space, and what you tend to see are opportunities where people are specifically looking for African American voices or specifically looking for voices that are part of the LGBTQ community. What you see significantly less of is, "Hi, we're doing a, a training about disabilities, and isn't it great? And we just want somebody who sounds inspirational," and there's no statement in there about, "Yes, and we're looking for a person with a disability." And so, we're sort of the last vestige of that diversity, equity, and inclusion space that doesn't quite get noticed as often as we ought to, and I think that that is slowly changing. There is a voice actor database of people of gross majority, so people of color, um, and there is a database of, uh, LGBTQ voiceover folks, and so the disabled database is, uh, sort of, you know, a, a third leg of that triangle in attempting to promote diversity and just w- create more awareness about it, more flexibility around it, and more opportunity for people who are disabled to get hired by a broader community who are more aware that this change needs to happen, that more people with disabilities need to be hired to represent people with disabilities. I mean, h- how many TV shows have you seen or, uh, things like that, where, uh... Isn't there a show called In the Dark and the, the protagonist, the primary character is blind, but the actual actress is not? I mean... Uh, so I think that, that this is a, a way to help close that gap.
[Cameron]
I think that's very true when you talk about inclusion, and I see a lot of government grants and, uh, tax breaks, especially when you wanna go ahead and hire disabled workers, and I think it's actually a benefit, especially for the employer as well, to go out and get these people involved. Did you do any type of jobs before this, actually? So, in terms of voice acting, 'cause I know this is your main thing, but what, what did you actually do before voice acting?
[Satauna]
I was a musician. I played, uh, with a couple of local bands. I played at restaurants. I had a Sunday morning church gig. I... Th- things like that. I spent a little bit of time, uh, being a vendor for New York State. What do they call it in New York? Gosh, I can't forget, but it's like the, it's like the VR arm of New York State kind of thing, teaching adaptive tech and things like that.
[Cameron]
So, in terms of accessibility, what type of assistive technology are you using, and what type of accessibility issues have you ran into, especially when it comes down to this job? We already talked about people screenshotting, big words, and it's not accessible, and you got to call up Aira to make sure that you know exactly what's on the sk- uh, on the page. But what exactly does that look like for you, assistive technology?
[Satauna]
I think that changes a- all the time. I mean, I remember in my early days of voiceover, Skype... was a problem. One day it would work, and the next day there would be an update and the whole thing would just blow up, and I'd have a session with a client and I couldn't figure out how to get on because the keyboard shortcuts that were there yesterday weren't there today. And Aira wasn't around back then. So, Aira has been a pretty great game changer for me personally when I'm in a bind. Uh, there's still a piece of software called SourceConnect. It's like a clean feed. It's like, uh, the studio can record on their end and all I have to do is connect to them, so it's like a beefed-up voiceover IP thing. And it still either requires, uh, scripts to use it. It's not accessible out of the box. And the company knows it, and they're just not doing anything to change it. So, there are things like that. And let's see, what technology am I using? I have a number of different braille displays. I have right now, right here in front of me is a BrailleSense U2. I love the BrailleSense U2. I know it's old, but it's just so easy, it's great. And then there's a QWERTY keyboard above that. I have a Focus 40. I have a BrailleNote Touch Plus. I have a little Polaris Mini. I, I guess I have a BrailleSense Mini. It used to be the Polaris Mini, but I upgraded it, so now it's the BrailleSense 6 Mini. Is that how that works? I think so. So lots of different braille displays. Um, I tend to be a JAWS user. I do have NVDA, but I just, I've used JAWS for, gosh, 20, almost 30 years at this point, and I just know it and it works for me. I like the way that braille is set up in JAWS. I think there's more flexibility with braille in JAWS than there is in NVDA. That's just my personal opinion. I do have Macs in my studio as well. I have an iPhone, love my iPhone. Um, yeah.
[Cameron]
I started doing a lot of traveling recently. Can you tell us more about your involvement with a lot of the airports and your voiceover there?
[Satauna]
I am the voice of the Tampa Airport telling you not to leave your luggage unattended and, you know, what the next train station will be and things like that. I've done internal kinds of training for Marriott and IHG and Wyndham. I used to do some of the overhead announcements that you might hear for Delta. It's been a while since I've done that, but that was really fun. So yeah, definitely some travel stuff out there that's got my voice on it.
[Cameron]
What is your favorite project that you have worked on, especially in the past 10 years that you've been doing this?
[Satauna]
Oh, gosh. My favorite projects tend to be the ones that I'm currently working on. I've done so many, it's hard to go backwards and remember. (laughs) I just did a video for the James Webb Telescope, uh, with folks from NASA, and that was really, really fun. So, that's a, that's a big cool one. The Tampa Airport's fun too. I mean, it's fun to know that I'm out there and, like, I can, I can look on YouTube and find me out there, (laughs) which is pretty cool.
[Cameron]
How do you necessarily prepare for voice acting work? Are you doing, like, vocal exercises, or what does that really look like?
[Satauna]
There are certainly vocal warmups. When you think about using your voice, you wanna take care of it in the same way that a singer would want to take care of their voice. Lots of water. Remember that when you hydrate today, you're really hydrating for tomorrow. So everything I'm drinking today is gonna help me tomorrow. So, always water, and, um, water and, and apples. (laughs) Apples help with the clicking stuff that goes on. I do think that there is absolutely preparation in taking care of one's voice and that kind of thing.
[Cameron]
I didn't even know about the apple thing, so that's, that's (laughs) actually a new thing that I learned today.
[Satauna]
Yep, take a bite of a green apple, nice good sour apple, and, uh, it help- helps to reduce the noise clickiness. Although Izotope RX certainly does a good job too. And some people are just more clicky than others.
[Cameron]
What is your blindness condition, and how does this affect you when doing voice acting?
[Satauna]
I have LCA, Leber's congenital amaurosis, and so, like I said, I was blind from birth, no sight at all. How it affects me doing voiceover is just that there is definitely preparation when I get a script. A lot of times when you get a script, you end up getting really a storyboard. So you've got a big table and there are three or four columns, and the left column is the scene number, and the next column is the visuals that are gonna happen on screen, and the third column is voiceover, and the fourth column is notes. And reading with a braille display, it's just easier for me to clear all of those other columns and just have that voiceover column in front of me. It's nice to have the other information, because that information informs how I might read the copy, right? If, if I'm doing a commercial, I kinda wanna know what's going on... so that I can read the copy in a way that supports the visuals if it's something that's, you know, on TV. But when I actually read the script, I just want a clean, nice copy. And so I think as a blind person, I always have to spend more time looking at scripts than a sighted person does, because unless they're printed out on, like, an actual braille sheet of paper, you know, a braille display is a, a relatively linear device. You, you generally don't read down a column. You read across all columns. And there are keyboard shortcuts to move you, you know, down through a column, but I don't wanna lift my hands off the display to have to do that. I wanna be able to read with ease and fluency. And so I tend to clean up my scripts to make sure that I can do that.
[Cameron]
So when you're reading the scripts, you're reading them in braille, right?
[Satauna]
Yes.
[Cameron]
Awesome. And how long have you known braille for? Is it, like, since birth, or...
[Satauna]
I was learning braille when other kids were learning print, so I must have been five years old or so when I started learning braille. You know, a sighted child has that opportunity of print being everywhere. Th- there is a learning that just, I think, naturally happens with children, because everywhere around them, from the cans on the shelves of their house that have food items to billboards when you're driving down the street, you know, print is just ubiquitous, it's everywhere, whereas braille, you have to put it into somebody's hands and that kind of stuff. So, you know, I didn't have the exposure that a sighted child would have, but I learned braille at an, at an early age, and I really, really loved it.
[Cameron]
That's really cool. I mean, I also learned braille, especially at a young age, but I'm not necessarily fully blind, so I didn't really go through all of the years of, like, learning braille. I think I learned it up until, like, sixth grade, and I was still reading at, like, a, a third, third grade level, so I kind of just ended up dropping it due to the fact that I was so far behind.
[Satauna]
Mm-hmm.
[Cameron]
And especially, you're right, you know, text and print is so ubiquitous, it's everywhere.
[Satauna]
Yeah.
[Cameron]
So you can't really escape it. And especially just, like, looking at my screen to read these questions, you know, it's something that a lot of people take for granted every day.
[Satauna]
It is indeed. I totally agree with you there.
[Cameron]
If you could give advice to other blind people trying to get into voice acting, what would you recommend for them?
[Satauna]
Remember that the voice acting is one piece of it. The second piece is the technology. You need to be comfortable and know your technology, and be comfortable when it blows up, 'cause inevitably, it will. There are so many different things out there, and they keep changing.
[Satauna]
Wipster is a, a web audio player. Frame.io. Th- there are ones that we all know like Vimeo and YouTube, but there are these other ones like Frame.io or Wipster or so many that I can't even think of off the top of my head right now that they're just there, and you're always gonna land. I mean, daily. I'm on webpages I've never been on before and will likely never land on again 'cause, you know, I'm just working for this one client doing this one thing, and some of those pages are really accessible and some of those pages aren't. And to know your technology and know how to use it and be willing to ask for help from some company like Aira or Virtual Assistant or something when you need it, those are important skills. So, it's voice acting, it's technology and being comfortable, really comfortable with it, and you're really, really willing to learn it and get into the meat of it in a way that a sighted person doesn't have to, because there are so many YouTube videos and tutorials for sighted people that are out there. If you don't like one person's approach, you can reach for another one. Whereas, I think as people who are blind, yeah, we have options, but they're not as many as, as, as what a sighted person has. So, so find support, find people, know the technology, and, and really, really commit to learning it. And then the third thing is just having a place to do it that's consistent, hopefully. That just, that just makes it easier if you can, having a nice, consistent environment to work in. I love my little booth, but even if I don't have a booth, you know, if I'm in a hotel room, just setting it up when I get there and not having to take the laptop up and, you know, reset it up every day. But just having that consistent environment makes a difference. Uh, and then I guess a fourth thing would be, don't give up so easily and know your worth. It is easy, really easy to get into this industry and do these $10 gigs, and don't let your desperation be your motivation, because when we do the cheap stuff, then everybody just thinks that you can get it at these bottom basement prices, and, and that, that affects the whole industry. So remember that you are worth something. (instrumental music)
[Cullen]
You have been listening to Vision Toward Success and our interview with Satauna Howery. Following the interview, we continued our conversation with Satauna, learning more about her and the voiceover field. This was a lively discussion, and here are just some of the highlights. To Satana, success is a moving target that evolves as situations change. It's also not a quantitative measure, but something that is felt when things are going well.
[Satauna]
I think success is a moving target. When I started out, it was so exciting to be able to do a job from home. When I started out, I was still doing the church gig and I was still playing out at restaurants and things like that, and, and then I got my first couple gigs of voiceover and people were paying me and I'm just sitting at home behind a mic talking, and it was this immediate freedom of, "Wow, I don't have to think about transportation and all of this other stuff. Nobody has to know that I can't see. There's none of this shock and awe stuff that I have to manage. This is the coolest thing. I love this." That was just immediate success, and now, wow, how do I define success now? Um, I think that s- that for me the success is just the longevity of it. Like, I'm able to keep it up. I'm able to keep the balls in the air, and, uh, I think that success is, is sometimes a, a, a feeling rather than a specific quantitative metric. I can hit a quantitative metric, "I did this many auditions today, blah, blah, blah," and I still don't feel great about it or whatever, you know? Is it successful? Yeah, but I, I think success in a lot of ways is, is a feeling.
[Cullen]
During the interview, Satana told us about some databases of voiceover artists with disabilities. We were interested to know what impact this had on getting more diverse speakers, particularly those with different speech patterns.
[Satauna]
I'm personally not seeing that, uh, it's one of the things that I hope will happen with the Disabled Voice Actors Database. With these databases, with all three of the databases I mentioned, one has to request access. They are not publicly available databases. So, we, we want to make sure that everybody stays safe in, in the spaces they're in. So I think the people that are requesting access have a desire to, to make changes, and I have certainly gotten a couple of assignments recently from people who have found me on that Disabled Voice Actors Database. So I do think it's making a difference, but I, I can't speak specifically to folks who have different speech patterns.
[Cullen]
Speaking of diverse sounds, AI voices are constantly evolving and they are sounding more convincing. We were interested in hearing Satauna’s thoughts on this and if she was concerned about her voice disappearing as more people turn to AI.
[Satauna]
I'm not worried about it disappearing. I'm worried about it being used in a way that I don't agree with. That's the concern. No, I'm not worried about it disappearing. And, and like I said, I don't think that, that voiceover's going away anytime soon. I do think a lot of the lower-paying gigs will be swallowed up by AI, and in fact, I am involved with Voices.com's launch of their AI studio and am making AI voices on their platform that clients will be able to, uh, purchase and use for their scripts. So, I, I think it's an asset. I, I think sometimes the early adoption of new things is a good way to ensure the safety and wellbeing of everybody in the process.
[Cullen]
We asked Satauna how she sustains herself, especially when there is less work available. This can sometimes happen when doing freelance work. Here, she emphasizes that these periods do not last forever, and we just need to get through them.
[Satauna]
I try to remember the things that I've done in my life that have worked, o- of all things. Like, I, I mean, nothing is... Whenever you're in that valley, it's a valley. It's, but, but a valley has a, a, a, it has sides, right? Mountain tops are out there. You just have to get to the other side of the valley. It's, you're, it's transitory. Life is like that, you know? When we're in the valley, we forget that there is an end. It's really easy to forget that there is an end, and ultimately 99% of the time, it's okay. If you haven't stopped breathing, it's okay. So just remember that you have to get to the other end, and really, that's it. It's, it's just that reminder that I, I, that imposter syndrome comes up for me. You know, in this industry, a lot of times people don't hire you the same day. You audition and you wait a week, a month. I've waited six months or, you know, you just have to keep showing up and putting in the effort, and eventually something appears. And so that constant persistence and commitment is, is a lot, and I think blind people particularly, we get, we get a no or two or three, and we've gotten so many nos in our lives that we, we can give up. And just because one company says no doesn't mean that the next one will.... it doesn't change the overall face of things necessarily. It doesn't mean that, you know, "Oh, lots of people get it and I should be so grateful and the world is a positive, wonderful place." You know, the world is a wonderful place and I want to live in it and be in it. But I- I'm just saying that I- I think it's easy to give up. And it is much harder to stick to it and recognize that we will find a space if we just keep taking a step every day.
[Cullen]
Satauna states how critical it is for anyone wanting to go into the voiceover field to determine how they will read the copy, whether it be large print, reading with a Braille display or listening to a screen reader. It is important to perfect your method when going into this work.
[Satauna]
I think the important thing I didn't say when, uh, Cameron asked me about my advice that I would give to other people trying to get into this who are blind or low vision is you do need to find the method that you're going to use, and you do need to get good at it. Sighted people assume I- I remember, I just memorize things. You gotta be kidding me. I can't do 30, 40 auditions in a day because I m- memorized all the script. No, you- you need to figure out how you're gonna read the copy. I don't care how you do it. All the methods work, but you need to get good at it. I- I had some guy who was using large print complain that, "But the print is big and it's- they- I- I can't scroll fast enough to read the 30 second..." Okay, if you're having that much problem with 30 seconds, what are you gonna do when it's an hour? You- I mean, you gotta figure this out.
You really do. And so many people think they're gonna be great at voiceover 'cause they can do all these crazy character voices. Okay, but that's not... what you're doing most the time. It- scripts change. There's a lot of cases where I'm in a session with a client, they are listening to me record on the fly. I am reading their script multiple times. Sometimes we'll do it paragraph by paragraph. Sometimes, depending upon how short it is, if it's, you know, one or two minutes, we might do a read through of the entire thing. Many times, in the middle, they'll go, "Oh, can we just put an and right here?" Uh, and they'll restructurea sentence. If you memorize that script and now somebody's restructuring a sentence, you better have a steel trap memory. You are oftentimes in this day and age, you are not only the voice actor, you are the engineer. So, if- you've gotta, for your assistive technology, you've gotta make sure that you are recording, that you are dropping markers, because sometimes what people want at the end is the entire session. And sometimes they just want their favorite takes. So, you gotta have a system for naming your markers so that when they go, "Oh, yeah, I liked take 1B of that," you know, you can pull that out of the file when you send it to them at the end. You're taking notes, you're recording, you're voicing, you're editing the script on the fly. It's- it's a lot. Uh, one of my biggest ones was, uh, on- on the fly, I'm figuring out Google Docs. I mean, these- the- they were changing the script... so often that they... I mean, they caught me when I downloaded it. They're like, "You're not looking at the latest script." They were changing further paragraphs down while I was reading further up. So, I literally had to use Google Docs online rather than grabbing the file and using it offline. So, I mean, y- (laughs) this is what I mean about knowing your technology and having the flexibility. Y- you've gotta be ready for a lot. Either that, or you've gotta be willing to disclose upfront and have some clear limitations. I mean, some people are just probably never going to, um, be able to have sessions where the client is there, because they just can't do it quick enough. And that's not wrong or right, but know your limitations, acknowledge them and be clear about them. 'Cause if you're not clear, it doesn't bode well for you and the client.
[Cullen]
When starting any kind of work, it is critical that you are comfortable with the tools that you are going to use. Screen readers can be quite complicated, with a lot of keystrokes to learn and remember. But before you can start learning to use a word processor or a digital audio workstation, it is important to build these foundational skills. Here's Satauna with more on knowing your technology.
[Satauna]
I guess the first thing with the- the tech piece is just being honest with yourself. I had someone who had some voiceover studio. This person paid them a whole lot of money, and they were gonna teach the person Pro Tools. And this was a few years ago, and I said, "Are you a Mac user or a Windows user?" And they said, "A Windows user." And I'm like, "Well, Pro Tools isn't really accessible on Windows (laughs) . You're gonna- you're gonna get a Mac. You're gonna learn an entirely new operating system, an entirely different screen reader. You're gonna add onto that, uh, a- a- a- a digital audio workstation, Pro Tools, j- just because this is what they've chosen to teach you, and they don't know enough to know that it doesn't work in Windows? You're learning from the wrong people. You're... You know, and sh- this person went and paid them anyway, and then came back to me a couple (laughs) years later and went, "Wow, I shouldn't have done that." Know where you are. Do you know your screen reader? I mean, just- just start there. If you're using JAWS and the virtual cursor makes you wanna crawl in a hole, w- you need to learn JAWS effectively first, right? 'Cause you just can't navigate a lot of the stuff without knowing something more than using your tab key to get around. Know your screen reader. If your speech is talking to you at this rate, you might wanna consider just upping it a little bit each week, just small, incremental changes that will get you to more efficiency, because you are competing against people who can see the whole script at a glance, who don't have to... Uh, in- in a lot of these auditions that I do, the script is not on the website. The script is a file that you download. So you might be downloading a DOCX. You might be downloading a PDF. So then you're gonna open this file and then you're gonna have to look at it. So, just auditioning is a process. If- if you don't know the basics of your screen reader, you gotta start there. And then get with somebody. Get with... I- if you think you've got that under control and you think you know how you're gonna read copy, get with another blind person who can listen to you reading copy and talk to you about, you know, are you choppy? Are you w- you know, what do you need to do? How's it working for you? What's your workflow like? Just start there. Start with your screen reader and reading copy. And if you've got those two things down, okay, then get out of your way, 'cause then what happens is we get people who are so excited about reading copy that that's all they wanna do and they wanna read and read and read and read. And they take classes reading and reading and reading and reading, and they don't get to the part of learning to record themselves. So, that's a- that's a piece. And, you know, spend the time learning your digital audio workstation. Know the people who you're gonna call on when you struggle. And be prepared to shell out money to call on them, because their time's valuable. It is absolutely a process. (instrumental music)
[Cullen]
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Vision Towards Success and our interview with Satauna Howery. This program is produced by the TradesWin Team at The Polus Center for Social & Economic Development. We'd like to thank our listeners for joining us as we explore a variety of careers from the perspective of those who are visually impaired. Additional episodes of this podcast can be found at www.poluscenter.org/tradeswin, or wherever you get your podcasts.
