Episode Notes
In this second part of the interview with coach, audio engineer and demo producer Cliff Zellman, we discuss important information on how to stand out in automotive commercials as a voiceover talent, including voice overs in Spanish, with all the particular characteristics the genre itself needs and the specifications of both languages.
With over 40 years in the industry, Cliff is an established Producer, Director, Audio Engineer, Editor, and Director of Talent Development for ACM–in their Automotive Division.
Although Cliff is very much focused on automotive, which he states can be “the holy grail of voiceover”, this talented producer also enjoys producing commercial and video game demos, and he shares plenty of advice about the psychology in advertising, which we need to have in mind while performing, and how to take our first steps while reaching out to producers and advertising agencies for the first time.
For coaching and/or demo production you can contact Cliff at czellman10@gmail.com . To see some of Cliff’s work and the talented people he’s worked with, go to www.amazingdemos.com
This episode, as well as most season 9 was recorded on SquadCast, the best platform for podcasts or meetings with up to nine guests with professional sound and video quality. You can choose your membership level after trying it free for seven days at: https://squadcast.fm/?ref=lapizarra
Subscribe to La Pizarra so you never have to miss an episode. Feel free to download and share them on social media, your comments are well received!
** Visit https://www.nickymondellini.com to learn about the work of actress, host and voiceover artist Nicky Mondellini.
Nicky Mondellini is an internationally known artist with more than thirty years of artistic career. Her voice is heard in commercials on television, radio and digital platforms worldwide. She has been the host and producer of La Pizarra since 2020.
Her work as an actress includes more than a dozen telenovelas, and drama shows, classical and contemporary Spanish plays, shorts and feature films, and the hosting of morning shows in Mexico and the United States, as well as on camera commercials, and promotional and corporate videos.
Follow Nicky on:
Instagram @nickymondellini
X @nicky3ch_nicky
TikTok @nicky_mondellini
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/nickymondellinivoiceover
LinkedIn https://linkedin.com/nickymondellinivoiceover
Transcript
Cliff Zellman: My secret really is to read it in my headfirst, print it out, sit in a chair, nice and quiet, and read it in my head. Because when you’re lying in bed and you’re reading your James Michener novel or whatever you’re reading and you’re lying in bed, it’s always the perfect interpretation.
Announcer: La Pizarra, the slate, exploring creative minds in the entertainment industry. Here’s your host, Nicky Mondellini.
[music]
Nicky Mondellini: Welcome to La Pizarra. My name is Nicky Mondellini. Thanks for being here today. This is part two of last week’s episode with Cliff Zellman. Cliff is an expert audio producer who specializes in the automotive industry. He’s also a coach and a demo producer. In this part of the interview, he talks about how to promote a demo and grow your business as the voice of an automotive brand. You will also hear his expert guidance on the performance side of things, so pay close attention. Here he is, Cliff Zellman.
Cliff: I have a combined list of over 400 production companies that do daily automotive, but before anybody that I work with I give that list to they got to gimme 50. I got to make sure that this is going to work for you. That’s really the most important thing for me with the demo. If I work on a demo and write and do all this stuff and work for two weeks, 10 hours a day on it, I don’t want it sitting on your desktop, I want you working it. You send out introductory emails that are very, very short, charting, putting all of these leads that you’re getting on LinkedIn. Go to the magnifying glass, type in automotive, automotive advertising, automotive television, automotive media, television automotive, television auto. Any-
Nicky: Any combination of words.
Cliff: -combination of those two words, see who’s posting, but more important, see who’s answering, because with one post, you can have 10 or 15 different replies. LinkedIn points to your resume the last 20 years. How to get in touch with you, how to hire you. Otherwise, if it’s not there, why be on LinkedIn? Don’t talk to anybody. Don’t chime in, lurk and start collecting names, and have a row on the top row of your Excel sheet that’s got contact, phone number, email, secondary contact, secondary email, their website. Any videos that they have posted, as much as you can about this particular– I could show you an Excel sheet that’s got 450.
Nicky: Wow.
Cliff: What I do is if somebody is interested in entering this field, first thing I do is try to talk him out of it because it’s hard. All right, it ain’t easy. I’ll say it again, I’ll say it again, and again, and again, it’s not easy, but what is? What are the advantages? I touched on this a little earlier because a lot of people are afraid of automotive. A lot of people don’t know how to read an automotive script. What they do is they see an automotive script and they read it the way they think an automotive spot is supposed to sound.
Well, us as actors and directors know that nothing’s supposed to sound like anything until you read the script. The script is going to dictate the read. If there’s multiple exclamation points at the end of every sentence, well, we know it’s a high energy read. If you see a lot of ellipses and quotations, you know it’s a little mellower. Plus, if it starts off with, “Let me tell you something,” you know it’s not going to be, “Let me tell you something.”
Nicky: Of course.
Cliff: It’s going to be more the mentor kind of guy. Getting the meaning, the crux of the script, and reading it the way it should be read, what it’s called for. People don’t dive into that. They immediately jump into what they think a car spot supposed to sound like. I can send one script to 10 different voice talents, very high-quality voice talents. I can tell you instantly after the second or third line if they’ve ever done automotive before. Automotive has a lot of comparative reads, 28, 495, 33, 695. There’s a musicality to automotive that doesn’t really fly in other genres because it goes against the conversational mindset-
Nicky: Exactly.
Cliff: -that was so popular starting around 2017. Well, I got to be honest with you and anybody, and you can feel free to edit this if you want, but I think the conversational read is dead. The demos that I’ve heard, my colleagues produce as well as myself. The talents that are getting signed to big agencies that I hear, they’re not the millennial read. They’re energy, they’re positive, they’re personality, they’re fun to listen to. Yes, we’re going to get the internal Nike, “The only person I need to beat is myself.” We’re always going to have those. My secret really is to read it in my headfirst, print it out.
Sit in a chair, nice and quiet, and read it in my head. Because when you’re lying in bed and you’re reading your James Michener novel or whatever you’re reading and you’re lying in bed, it’s always the perfect interpretation. That director in your head can tell you exactly how to read it. The tone of voice, the speed, the tamber, the musicality, the tempo. Read it in your head three or four times, and it’s only short, 30 seconds. Then you already know the spot. Before you even read it out loud you know where the sentence starts, you know where it ends, you know where the pickup is coming.
Then when you’re ready to read it out loud, fire that guy. Get him out. “You’re done. Thank you very much. Go to the front desk, get your check. I’ll call you the next time I need you.” Then you go up and read. You’ve already had this internal dialogue and it makes it much easier, rather than searching for the word. A lot of people I hear doing automotive are searching for that important word in a sentence. Well, let’s look at it this way. If you’ve got 14 words in a sentence and you’re searching for one, you got a one in 13 chance of getting it right. One in 14 chance of getting it right.
You got a 13 out of 14 chance of getting it wrong, so don’t look for it. Don’t look for that. Look for the meaning of the whole sentence. I’m always saying, “How does what I say and how I say it affect those that are listening to me?” Advertising is a major chunk of the psychology. There’s a lot of psychology going on. Knowing how to hit those words, knowing how to really connect to who you’re talking to. A trick that I use, and I know we’ve all heard it before because at this point, I’m sure everybody listening has had a good amount of coaching.
We’ve all heard, who are you talking to? What’s your relationship? What’s your proximity? All that stuff. Well, I say, forget all that stuff. Simply ask yourself, “Why am I reading this? Why am I reading this script?” It’s that simple. The answer could be, “I’m a voice actor, and I was hired by the product to read the script.” End of story, read the script. Or, “I’m the daughter of the dealership and I want to tell everybody in my area, all my friends and family about these great deals coming in.”
Or you could say, “I’m doing a spot for Home Depot and they’re having a sale on lawnmowers, and my next-door neighbor borrowed my lawnmower and I want it back. So I’m going to tell him about the sale at Home Depot.” Well, that’s everything right there. What’s your relationship? Next door neighbor. Proximity, probably over the bushes. You tell him about it. Why? Why are you reading this? I want my lawnmower back. Why are you reading this? I’m the daughter of the dealership. Boom, it’ll instantly put you where you need to be.
Nicky: Exactly. Sorry, could we talk about what you like to have in a demo, or what serves more for a voice actor to have in an automotive demo? Is it a mixture of that type of read for national, for local, for regional. Or do you work as to more the specific personality of that actor? What their voice or their style could be good for? What is the most important thing for you?
Cliff: For me, the most important is which tier are you going to be doing the demo for. If you’re doing a national automotive demo, we’re going to talk about that in a second. No local dealership spots, period. You’re doing brands. This is an example of a Dodge spot, Ford spot, Chevy spot, truck spot, luxury spot, because it’s a different world. Also, if you do local spots and you have a local spot on your national demo, the manufacturing are going to want to touch it.
If you’re doing a local Fodge spot, even though it’s a demo. If you’re doing Dallas Dodge and you’re auditioning for a national Chevy spot, doesn’t work. If you do a local demo, you can put national sounding spots for a luxury dealership. So no, you do not cross regions. You’ve got your national, regional, and local. Now, let’s talk about regional for a quick second.
Nicky: Yes, I was going to ask you about that one.
Cliff: All regional is a combination of dealerships created group, the North Texas Toyota Truck Dealers Association. They all work together, they talk about ads, they work on compliance, we’re all going to work together. Another good thing about a group is if one dealership is a little bit sleazy, the other dealerships say, “Hey, man, you’re making the North Texas group look bad, so clean up your act a little bit here,” or do this or do that, or let’s all work together. A regional spot, in general, is a 20 or 25 second national spot with a five or 10 second tag on the end.
“Where you’ll be talking about the truck, and this is truck month, and I’m your– now you’re a Ford dealer, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Cut, black background, music continues, you have that five or 10 second music bit underneath. “Test drive one today at your North Texas Toyota Truck Dealers, Toyota, let’s go places.” Turn the page. “Test drive one today at your San Diego Toyota Truck Dealers, Toyota, let’s go places.” Flip the page. You’re reading the tags and including the groups. Now what you’re actually visually seeing is you’ll see the Toyota logo, and then you’ll see the logos of the dealerships around that.
Now sometimes you have to do four or five of them because one dealership wants to be named first. “Well, why are they named first? I want to be named first, their dealership comes up, I want to be in the center.” Those offers to do those spots, in general, come from the production company that does the largest dealership within that group. Let’s say Randall Reed is the biggest Ford dealer in Dallas selling Ford trucks. The guys that do the Randall Reed local spots, they get the national spot in from the nationals they’ll get it on a MOV or whatever.
They’ll go to the website, they’ll download the movie, throw it into their editor, get somebody to voice the end, spit it out. Those don’t pay a lot, but you’re only reading a sentence and you get 50 of them at a time. You’re just flipping the page, flipping the page, flipping the page. Like I said, those, in general, are going to come from the production company that deals with the largest dealership in that group. Why? They probably have the better production company, they’ve got the better producers, the better engineers, the better video editors, and so on. Regional, you hook up with a local advertising agency that does big stuff.
That’s where your regionals are going to come from. All right, now let’s talk about a national automotive demo. People come to me, and they say, “I want to do a national automotive demo.” I say, “Why? Why do you want to put the money into it if you are at the level of doing national, and anybody could be at that level of doing national? Usually, your agents already know who you are. They know what you sound like. Call them.” You should be able to call your agent and talk to your agents and say, “Hey, listen, I want to do automotive. I want national spots, send me national auditions and I’ll compete with everybody else.”
They may say, “Great,” or they may say, “Gee, I had no idea you wanted to do this,” or, “Sure, let’s hear you give it a shot.” If you really want to do a national automotive demo, go to your agent and say, “Do you think I should do a national automotive agent? Would this help me?” You’ll get one of three answers. Absolutely, it’s the way we’re going to shop you. Probably not because commercial is a commercial, or absolutely not because we don’t do automotive. Find out. Before you start spending some money and sometime in this, only on a national level.
On a local level, you just got to make up your mind that you’re going to market three to four hours, three times a week. If you don’t do it– you’ve heard the old expression, if you build it, he will come. No, he won’t. Ain’t nobody coming. You could do the best demo you could possibly imagine. You could have the bitchinest website, but if you don’t put your name out there and you don’t get people to come to you, it’s going to sit there dormant.
Nicky: Of course.
Cliff: Guys, advertising agencies probably aren’t going to go on Google and say, “Automotive voiceover talent.” They’ve already got a roster. They know everybody. I know everybody that does automotive across the country, be it national or local. I’ll hire from my own roster, and I’m a big– I love getting unsolicited demos. Love it. Don’t call me up and say, “Hey, Cliff, can I send you my demo?” You’re giving me an assignment? I’m a busy guy. I’d love to hear your demo, but I don’t want to critique it, because there’s a real good chance it was done by one of my five best friends.
I’m not going to critique Anne Ganguzza, J. Michael, Chuck Duran, Uncle Roy, or any of these guys, Eric Romanowski. I’m not going to do it. “Well, I got a question about it.” Well, go back to them. Rarely. Most people just want me to tell them how awesome it is. If you send me your demo and say, “Greetings, Mr. Zellman,” and don’t write this down to anybody listening because I’ve said this a million times.
“Greetings, Mr. Zellman, I am a professional voice actor specializing in tier three automotive. I deliver broadcast quality audio in two to four hours. Please find my demo attached. Thank you for your consideration. All the best.” Attach that demo. I want to hear it. “Oh, no, it’s a virus.” No, it’s not. I know what a virus is, and I know what a virus isn’t. In your subject matter, if you say automotive voiceover demo, and it comes from cliffzellmanvo.com.
I open it up, and it says, “Greetings, Mr. Zellman,” I’m going to play that demo. If I see your MP3 in an email that you send me, and I have nothing to lose, or I’ve got no relationship, 100% chance I’m going to listen to it. I want to hear it. I love hearing demos. It’s my job. Before I press play, I’m saying, “Kill me. Make this the best demo I’ve ever heard in my life.” I’m ready to hear something great. It’s not like I’m saying, “Oh, let’s see what this idiot sent me.” It’s the exact opposite. I try to avoid telling people to say, “I’d love to work with your company.” Yes, of course you would. I have 50 people out the door that will do this for free.
Try not to teach a potential client anything. Are you finally ready to get serious about your, “Excuse me, where have you been for the last 15 years?” A voice needs to be, “Well, yes, I’m well aware of what a voice needs to be. Thank you very much.” Now I know I may sound nasty in saying that, but this is what the client thinks when they see it. Who are you? You don’t need to educate me. You need to blow me away with your demo. If I don’t like your demo, I delete it. Not a problem. I owe you nothing. If I love your demo, I click play. I listen to it again. I call you up.
Nicky: Hey, I wanted to ask you, when you coach with someone and someone comes to you for a demo, let’s say, okay, I want to do a tier three national demo.
Cliff: Tier three local.
Nicky: Yes, tier three is local or tier one national, sorry. What is your process for that? You like to do a session or several sessions to work with that actor to see where they are, what you can recommend before the demo? Do you say, okay, let’s do one coaching session before and then we’ll start producing?
Cliff: No. I have guys I’ve been working with for six months. What I do, like I said earlier, the first thing I do is I try to talk them out of it. Because I really want to know that they’re really into it and they’re really going to do this. What I will do is I have a little plan called a four by four, which is where I’ll charge for four spots. Really, really reasonable. I’ll send you one at a time. You read it on your own. You’ll do a full take. You’ll do another take where you read each line twice. It’s not one more for safety. It’s for variation. Something really simple would be, “There’s never been a better time to buy. There’s never been a better time to buy.” That’s all I want to hear.
I don’t want to hear, “There’s never been, there’s never been.” That’s not what it is. Lock into the character and give me some variation in pitch and delivery. Give something that the video editor can use at three o’clock in the morning, multiple choices. We go through four spots. You read it on your own. You send it back to me. We hook up for an hour. We talk about the whole thing. Every single take, every single line. You’ve got the script. I’ve got the script. You’re ready to read. I’m ready to direct. We talk about it. If what you give me is not even close, not in talent wise, but just this is not a screamer.
This is more of a mentor type read. Oh, now I understand. We read it. We get it. You get to read it again. No additional charge and it doesn’t count as one of the four. At the end of the four, we assess where we’re at. We’ll probably do one or two more. I don’t charge more. I charge by the project. I don’t nickel and dime. Well, you need four more. It’s another, this amount of money. I don’t do that. If you send me back the first script and you’re tone deaf, and I’m saying, ”There’s never been a better time to buy.” You say, “Better time to buy.” “No, Better time to buy.” “Better time to buy.” “No, go up, go up, listen, listen to what the director is saying,” and you don’t hear.
Nicky: How often do you think it’s a good thing to update a demo for automotive. I imagine also the trends change, like you said, that after COVID because, of course, having more women voices and women in creative positions and all that require different kind of reads. What is your take on that? How often should we update those demos?
Cliff: Well, that depends on how good your director is, honestly, because when I do an automotive demo, I never put a date. I never do a 2023. Right now, get a 23 Honda. Now, 10 years ago when I would listen to demos, and let’s say it’s 2015 and I’m listening to– and the guy’s talking about a 2010. Back then, I would say, “Well, okay, the guy has been doing it for a while. Pretty cool.” I listen to it now, it’s like, “Dude, what have you done lately?” Because trends are changing. It’s never 2023, 2021, it’s all new, fully redesigned, fully re-imagined, “Test drive the fully re-imagined.” Whatever. I’m very careful to only use cars that are going to be around for a while.
Nicky: I remember there was that microchip manufacturing problem for a while.
Cliff: That was COVID. That shut us down. There were cars in the lot waiting to have those parts put in. They couldn’t get them. They shut down their factories.
Nicky: Oh, my goodness.
Cliff: Imagine the lights go down with a big sign, “Do not enter.” Any product is going to have their blockade, sometimes something’s going to happen. Think about aspirin, my God, remember when Tylenol– they had that awful thing with the Tylenol scare which was– there’s always hurdles. Automotive is so big that there’s always going to be something.
Nicky: Speaking of hurdles, you personally in your career, what are some of the ones that you’ve overcome that have just been a game changer in your career?
Cliff: Staying away from imposter syndrome, I guess. That’s something we all hit every now and then. Sometimes you sit and you just go, “Dude, I don’t know what I’m talking about.” Getting over that. Here’s something that’s really helped me too, be happy with great, and don’t do everything in search of perfection. Great is great. If it sucks, it sucks. Okay, go back to work, go to plan B. If you do something that’s pretty darn good, stop, you’re good. If you like it, go with your first impression. Under promise and over-deliver, but that’s not a hurdle, that’s really a philosophy.
Nicky: Yes, that’s more or less like the way you want to work. We’ve all encountered things.
Cliff: Maybe fatigue because I love to work. My whole life begins at 11:00 in the morning and ends at 4:35 o’clock every morning. It’s like, “Oh my God, when do you sleep?” “Well, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00, 6 hours of sleep. I’m an old guy, I don’t need that much sleep. I sleep six hours, seven hours a night, I’m fine,” but my world is just turned upside down.
Nicky: Why do you work into the small hours of the night?
Cliff: Because I am alone. My phone doesn’t ring every five minutes. Since we’ve been online, I got 32 emails in the last hour. I know. That’s another hurdle is that you got-
Nicky: Get it done.
Cliff: -to react to everything immediately. Because we are now of the mind if you don’t answer somebody in a half hour, you’re rude.
Nicky: Because it’s translated into, it’s like you’re having a conversation-
Cliff: I don’t care.
Nicky: -because people just reply not like a greeting, a formal greeting, whatever. They will just reply to whatever you asked in the previous email without even saying, “Oh, yes. Hi, Nicky. Well, I’m supposed to–” No, you’ll just reply, “Oh, yes, five o’clock seems fine,” or whatever. It’s like a conversation. If you do not reply to that email right away, it’s like you’re not talking to that person.
Cliff: Why are you ghosting me?
Nicky: Yes, right. You have to reply right away.
Cliff: That’s a philosophy that’s new. Back in the old days the phone would ring, and ring and ring and ring and ring before we had phone answering machines. Okay, I got to call him back later. It’s not that I’m going to lose the business guy, I’m way more than I know what to do with– but I just don’t want anybody to think-
Nicky: Rude.
Cliff: -I don’t care about them.
Nicky: Exactly.
Cliff: Oh, you’re not as important to me as everybody else because everybody’s important.
Nicky: It’s a question of technology and the quickness with which things are done are a good thing and a bad thing because it’s so hard to disconnect.
Cliff: I think it’s more of a bad thing, actually. Yes, it is because now– and I know this has happened to you, Nicky, “Where did I get that message? Was it on LinkedIn? Was it on this? Was it on my email? Was it on my phone? Was it on my–” Then you have to start to search, where did this guy because it’s already three hours later. “My God, I better call him back.” That’s a hurdle is just take it when it comes, do one thing at a time. I know women have 50 different compartments in their brain that they can access at any time. I got one. What’s happening now and that’s it.
Nicky: That’s it. Have you ever thought of going off the grid for at least a week? Do you ever take a vacation?
Cliff: I always have my phone. Yes, but I’ll have my rig.
Nicky: [laughs] It’s not a full-blown vacation.
Cliff: My rig is a MacBook Pro with a 416 and an Apollo. That’s it. I got a little stand, and I got a pair of headphones. Back in the old days, you take your rig with you. You got cases.
Nicky: Right now, it’s very simple.
Cliff: Oh, it’s nothing, and it fits– and a hard drive. It’s very easy for me. Plus, I have two daughters and a wife, and sometimes they want to go do girly things on a vacation. I got two hours, knock out a spot, do a session, do something. Plus, I got to be honest with you, I would rather be doing this than anything else anyways.
Nicky: You do love it. Yes, of course.
Cliff: Oh my God, every Monday morning my heart’s beating. Every time I get a new script, every time I start a new session, I say to myself, “This is going to be as good or better than what I just did.” I’m happy with that’s good, but I always try to make it a little bit better. Even though it’s the same copy with the same music and the same client for the last 10 years, I want it to be just a little bit better.
Nicky: Of course.
Cliff: I absolutely love it. If I go a day or two without doing the session, see, I don’t like that. That’s really why I do my stuff at night because from 11:00 to 3:00, that’s when my creative juices are turned on.
Nicky: Wow. Also, like you said, you like video games as well.
Cliff: Love video games so much.
Nicky: How much of that do you leave room for between all of your other automotive work?
Cliff: Schedule. Schedule it. I use Calendly. Oh my God, I didn’t use it for years and I’m going out of my mind. The way I worked was I would set up something with you, and then I would rely on you to remind me. That does not work.
Nicky: [chuckles] No.
Cliff: No. I thought years ago, “Hey, I have a Google Calendar, I’m going to put that online.” I realized I put it online, I go, “Let me see what it looks like.” Taking this one to the doctor, picking up the dry cleaning.” I don’t want the whole world to know what I’m doing every day.
Nicky: Exactly.
Cliff: Calendly only shows you what you want to [unintelligible 00:28:21]. I’ve been using that for a year now and I am right on time.
Nicky: Perfect.
Cliff: I’d wake up in the morning, “What do I have today?” I don’t have to remember anything.
Nicky: Makes it a lot easier for you.
Cliff: Make little notes. I’m going to do a follow-up with Nicky. We’re going to do Luxury. Send her the BMW Live Like a Champ spot.
Nicky: Nice. [chuckles]
Cliff: Challenges enough time, enough hours in the day. My wife’s home. She’s retired. I love my wife. In fact, three days ago was our 35th anniversary.
Nicky: I saw that. I was going to say congratulations.
Cliff: Thank you so much.
Nicky: Yes, it’s just beautiful.
Cliff: I’ll tell you, it’s the easiest choice I ever made. I want to spend as much time with her as I can during the day.
Nicky: Sure.
Cliff: We go out to lunch. We got out to dinner. We do whatever we can. Then at night, she goes to bed at nine o’clock, and I’m free from 9:01 till I wake up. I look at my Pro Tools, I’m an hour and a half into playback, and it was a 30-second spot. My counter’s in an hour. I was like, “Okay, I got an hour’s sleep.” Then my neck hurts and my dog’s looking at me like, “Hello, time to go to bed.”
Nicky: Your wife, so I guess by now she just knows you, knows your work schedule, knows when your creative juices flow. So she’s just the supportive wife.
Cliff: Yes. We met each other– I had a guitar in my hand, so she doesn’t know any different. She’s so wonderful. I buy guitars, and every time I buy a guitar and I post it, it’s like, “Oh, what’s Joanne going to say?” Well, I’ve always wanted a fretless bass. My whole life I’ve wanted it. They’re very expensive. They’re big. Finally, did it, I bought it. I bought it from Sweetwater, of course.
Nicky: Of course.
Cliff: It came down from wherever they are there in– where are they, Kansas or wherever they are.
Nicky: I forget.
Cliff: It was cold, and I had to let it acclimate to the room. I put it on my kitchen table. My wife came home from work. She sees this giant case, because she knows what a guitar case looks like. This was twice the size. She says, “What’s that?” Well, it was already in there for like six hours. I said, “You ready?” She goes, “Yes.” Click, click. I open it up. She looks at it. What comes out of her mouth? “It’s about time.”
Nicky: Wow. Well, there you go.
Cliff: Yes. There you go.
Nicky: That’s perfect.
Cliff: When I was building my room, which you can’t really see because I kind of keep it so you can’t see really what’s going on, because I don’t know who I’m talking to. I’ve got clouds all around me, wall clouds, all this stuff, mixing room. She was getting ready to go out to dinner, and I said, “Hey, honey, I just spent $1,800.” She goes, “On what?” I said, “Four ceiling clouds and six wall clouds for sound diffusion.” She says, “That sounds pretty reasonable.” “What?” Yes, because it’s always been a part of my life. Our first date, I took her to the recording studio that I was working at. I popped in a cassette, and we listened to Santana for two hours. I’m pretending like I’m mixing it. I was 21 years old. I met her when she was 19.
Nicky: Oh, wow. That’s amazing. Oh my God, that’s great.
Cliff: That’s that.
Nicky: Hey, Cliff, where can people find you for demo production, for coaching, and everything else?
Cliff: My 24/7 email address is czellman, letter C-Z-E-L-L-M-A-N 10, one, zero. I can’t believe there’s other czellmans, czellman10@gmail.com.
Nicky: Perfect.
Cliff: If you would like to see some of my work and other incredibly wonderful and talented people that I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to work with at A-Mazing Demos, A-M-A-Z-I-N-G-D-E-M-O-S dot com.
Nicky: I will put that in the show notes anyway, but yes, wonderful.
Cliff: Yes, a-amazingdemos.com. I’ve got 150 audio demos, have 20, 30 video demos that I do. When I do a video demo, it’s always a month or two after the demo because we are cutting the spot to the audio. It’s not like I’m going to YouTube and pulling down a spot and then pulling the audio track, having you read whatever they said, adding new music and charging you $500. I think that’s highly, highly unethical. Every video that we do is video cut specifically for that spot. You can tell because everything you see, all the graphics, all the text on screen matches what you’re saying.
Nicky: You do also video demos for tier three or just for–
Cliff: Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Big time. There’s boom, boom, boom, and they’re gangs of fun. They look like spots you see on TV because I don’t do them any different than the way I’ve been doing spots on TV for the last 25 years.
Nicky: Exactly. Who’s got the best experience or the most experience other than you, I do not know.
Cliff: Oh, they’re out there. Believe me. There’s plenty out there. They’re quiet. I’m not. I like a little showbiz growing up in Hollywood. I was born in the Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital.
Nicky: Wow, look at that.
Cliff: There you go. It’s kind of built in.
Nicky: Oh my gosh. Well, that’s amazing. Oh, Cliff, this has been wonderful. Such a masterclass, definitely.
Cliff: Oh, thank you. Thank you.
Nicky: Everybody, I hope was taking notes for this. If not, they can just rewatch the episode and take the notes again.
Cliff: Can I be so bold as to say, anybody want to reach out to me, I’ll give you an hour.
Nicky: Oh, wow.
Cliff: czellman10, say, hey, Cliff, I saw you on Nicky’s show. I’m interested. Let’s talk. Please be aware that I will try to talk you out of it for the first couple of minutes.
Nicky: Oh, thank you so much. This is such a gift. Thank you so much for that.
Cliff: Oh, thank you, Nicky. Thank you for giving me a little spotlight. You are a pleasure. If y’all have ever heard Nicky read, do yourself a favor. In fact– oh, can we very, very quickly talk about Spanish? Very quickly.
Nicky: Actually, yes, please. Because half of my audience is bilingual or just Spanish. Yes, for sure.
Cliff: Choques a parachoques, bumper to bumper. Tienes un trabajo. For every three English spots I do, I do a Spanish spot.
Nicky: Perfect.
Cliff: If you all are thinking of those of you that speak Spanish, it’s huge, huge, huge, huge. Southern states, now I’ve got to warn you, LA Spanish is different from Texas, Spanish is different from– they have different dialects as you move across the globe. It’s fun. It’s fast paced. The competition is not that stringent the way it is with English. You can blow them out. Spanish have a tendency to be a bit more animated than the English spots.
A lot of them are really goofy where they’ve got the girl in the bikini, which I’m not so crazy about. You know what? If it’s fun for everybody, it’s fun for me. She’s saying, “Es tan facil.” You can do it too. I’m like, “Credito medico,” we’ll get you. Don’t discount yourself and think that it’s only done by the radio station guys because it’s not. I know Spanish videos all over the country. They’re doing great, but they got to understand the automotive business.
Nicky: Would you also do a demo all in Spanish?
Cliff: Yes.
Nicky: Perfect.
Cliff: Because I’ve done thousands of Spanish spots.
Nicky: Oh, wonderful.
Cliff: My Spanish is decent because I grew up in LA, a lot of Spanish friends, a lot of Mexican friends, and I’ve done so many. What I do is I’ll write the script and then the talent will translate it. Then they read it and I know a good read. I don’t care what language it’s in. I know when there’s a click and there’s a pop, and when it’s supposed to be and not supposed to be. Absolutely.
Nicky: Mm-hmm. Wonderful.
Cliff: On my site, I’ve got a couple of Spanish video demos.
Nicky: Cool.
Cliff: Here’s the best thing about tier three. It doesn’t matter where you live. When you do tier three, you can live in Boise, Idaho, which is a lovely place. Spanish automotive is the holy grail of Spanish VO because you’re cranking them out and they’re so much fun. You can knock one out in five minutes. If you don’t, if you can’t knock it out in five minutes, doesn’t mean you’re a bad VO. It just means you need a little coaching.
Nicky: Absolutely. Okay, Cliff. Well, thank you.
Cliff: Nicky, thank you so much.
Nicky: Thank you. Anybody who has any questions about the tiers and everything and what they can work on, I will encourage them to just write to you and get some coaching and get all of those questions answered.
Cliff: I would love to talk to them Any time.
Nicky: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
Cliff: Thank you, Nicky.
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