how i got into the business
tasha johnson
Voiceover Artist
SCOTT FELDMAN
Jason Clark
Animal Wrangler President, Southeastern Reptile Rescue www.SnakesAreUs.com roadkruzer@hotmail.com
HOW DID you GET INTO THe BUSINESS?
One day, out of the blue, I received a call from a producer who wanted to know if I’d be interested in my own television show. After discerning this was no joke, I naturally said yes. In just a few days, I began shooting a pilot episode with my family. Not long after that, a full crew arrived at our home and began 18 months of filming for our series, SnakesKIN, on Animal Planet. After filming for our show wrapped, I was asked to provide some farm animals for Rob Zombie’s Halloween II. This is when I really realized that filming a reality TV show was much different than working on a feature film. The second movie I was asked to work on was Hall Pass. This time, I was able to accompany my animal in the scene as it was a 100-pound python that no one else was able to handle. What is a lesson you’ve learned while filming with animals? Yes, you can blow a tarantula off the set. This happened while working on a film about phobias. The tarantulas were to walk to their mark and then stop. To move a tarantula and stay out of the scene, blowing air works well. As long as you don’t blow too hard! Another thing that was a very important lesson is that many times you have to be more patient with the people than the animals. For some reason, our animals seem to catch on and warm up to their co-stars much quicker than the humans do. What do you do when you’re not wrangling animals for film?
I run the day to day operations of Southeastern Reptile Rescue, which is where our animals come to us from. They are rescues. We house approximately 150 animals (mostly reptiles) that range from alligators to cobras. Between feeding, cleaning cages and traveling with our educational reptile exhibit and stage show, I stay busy all year.
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Prop Builder www.atlantaprops.com
How did you get into the business? I have always been creative and worked with my hands. When I was half way through my photography courses at The Art Institute, I met Arington Hendley and several other commercial photographers. They discovered right away that I was handy and I found myself building props, miniatures and sets. Before I knew it, I had a thriving business called Feldman’s Props. I met my wife, Susan, who worked at a local production house. We began building props and sets for photographers, production companies, advertising agencies and corporations. Many years later, our company, known now as Atlanta Props, is still creating one-of-a-kind items. WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST ABOUT BEING A PROP BUILDER? I like being able to have a client describe an object and see it in 3D. Rarely do you build the same thing twice. Sometimes it takes a lot of research and ingenuity to come up with the right solution and other times it is a simple fix. I love the challenge of figuring out the best process and materials to use. I like it when an ad agency gets an account using my prop ideas. I enjoy the strange calls asking questions like, “Have you ever made a giant blood bag?” Most of all, I like being an artist and craftsman. WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE PROJECTS? I did three commercials with Ridley Scott. One of them was for “Miller Genuine Draft” at Atlanta Motor Speedway. For several years I was an Art Director for Nascar. That was fun. Last year I created an Over-sized Big Green Egg Smoker that is on display in their Showroom. This prop was quite a challenge, but it is one of my best replicas. I have recently completed a series of unusual Props for RJ Reynolds including a six foot tall, 3D Camel covered in sheet metal, a six foot camel collage, and a large interactive “Science Table” for events.
OZ MAGAZINE www.ozmagazine.com
How did you get into the business? Like a lot of voiceover artists, I started in radio. I was between radio jobs and wanted to strengthen my skill set and make myself more marketable to a station, so I set out to learn as much as I could about audio production from my peers. I had a 6-month internship with an Atlanta advertising agency, where I got hands-on training in production basics, did some copywriting and voiced half of the commercials coming out of the office. That’s how I built my first demo reel. I produced it and shopped it to agents myself. After I started booking gigs, I found I enjoyed voiceover, so I kept doing it. What’s great about your job? I absolutely love my job! To be picked from dozens of voices nationwide to represent brands in television and radio commercials is wonderful, and each project I work on is my favorite. In the booth, it’s great to feed off another actor’s energy. Also, hearing someone who’s at best an acquaintance, but more often a stranger, tell you what to sound like, then processing that direction in your head and attempting to give voice to what they asked for is fun for me. It stretches me as an actor. Part of the fun for me in the audition process is the casting specs. I don’t have children, but my voice is often cast in a mom role. I guess I have a motherly vibe. What would you say is your specialty? My specialty is commercials, but I also do lots of long form narration. A recent 56-page project took almost 3 hours (and a half gallon of water) to complete. I’ve also been known to grace a TV promo or two, and a voice messaging system or three. three recent projects: Radio commercials for Home Depot and Georgia Power, tags for AT&T.