DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

A radio station sales manager asked if I had any ideas for a relatively new client: a small, independently owned hardware store. Just one location, in the center of a small town. The store didn’t seem to have any obvious Unique Selling Propositions (lowest prices, free delivery, etc.).

So I thought about my own rare ventures into hardware stores and quickly realized a key emotion that I suspect is felt by many customers:

Fear.

Not heart palpitating, sweat producing, shortness of breath inducing fear.

More like uneasiness, a pronounced uncomfortableness.

Will I be able to find the tool or accessory I need?

How will I know which item to buy?

How will I know how many or what size I’ll need?

If I can’t find what I need, will a store employee be able to help me? Will they laugh at my ignorance?

This immediately led me to suggest a very powerful strategy utilized by too few advertisers: Education.

I suggested a series of commercials in which the store owner answers the most common questions posed by do-it-yourselfers in a relaxed, conversational, non-threatening manner:

Hi, I’m Ed Proprietor of Ed’s Hardware Store. A wrench is a pretty simple tool.

But if you ask someone to hand you a wrench, they might say, “Which wrench do you want? Pipe wrench? Monkey wrench? Crescent? Open-ended? Box wrench?”

Here’s a quick & easy explanation of the differences. (EXPLANATION GOES HERE.)

The reason we carry so many different kinds of wrenches … and hammers, and saws, and screws & nails all kinds of thingamajigs and whatchamacallems … is because we want to make sure we have exactly what you need.

Having helped thousands of (LOCAL) handymen & women, carpenters, electricians, and part-time fixer-uppers over the past 15 years, you can pretty much count on our having what you’re looking for.

And if you’re not sure what it’s called, don’t worry; we’ll know.

I’m Ed Proprietor of Ed’s Hardware Store in Smalltown, on Main Street, right across from the Post Office. Stop by today; we’re here to help.”

Where would YOU rather shop:

At a hardware store where the clerks don’t know and don’t care?

Or at a hardware store where the clerks are eager to answer your questions without making your feel stupid?

Last week I got a call from a woman who is thinking of attending this year’s Summit.

I’ll change the name of her market to “San Diego.” (You wouldn’t be able to identify her even if I named the actual city, but I don’t want to embarrass her.)

She said, “There are no well-known female voices in San Diego, so I think there’s a big opportunity for me here.”

I told her I know a couple of very successful female VO artists in San Diego. In fact, one of them is a Repeat Offender and already has registered for this year’s Summit.

“Oh,” she said. “Then maybe I shouldn’t come.”

I told her the obvious:

• There’s enough work in San Diego for more than one (or two or three) good VO artists.

• With the Internet, her competition is not San Diego VO talent but VO talent from around the world.

Then I tried to explain something that might not be so obvious to someone who hasn’t yet “made it” in voiceovers:

She should attend not only to learn from the Big Shot guest speakers but, more importantly, to learn from her fellow attendees.

Including the female VO people.

Including the other San Diego female VO attendee.

Successful voiceover people tend to be exceptionally generous in sharing their knowledge with others — even when the “others” are their direct competitors.

SIDEBAR: I’m talking about the ones who have real talent and truly are successful. I’ve heard consistently dreadful stories about one L.A. VO performer who is slightly well-known because she got one high-profile gig — a straight announcing job that requires no real performance skills.

But despite the one high-profile gig, she’s not very good. She can’t win auditions. She doesn’t get a lot of work.

And….

When budding voice actors (mistakenly thinking this woman has “made it”) approach her for advice, she treats them with haughty disdain.

Okay, back to the truly successful VO people….

During one Summit panel session of superstar voice actors, one of them talked about the time he was auditioning for a part that required a particular accent — which he didn’t know how to do.

The guy sitting next to him, waiting to audition “against” him, said, “Oh, it’s easy. Let me show you a quick trick….” And he taught the panelist — his competitor for that job — how to do the accent!

For years I couldn’t understand this phenomenon. The voiceover biz is extremely competitive. Why are so many of its star performers so friendly with people who are trying to land “their” jobs?

I live in L.A., and I can tell you that actors certainly aren’t known for such generosity. (But I can tell you some great stories about actors deliberately screwing up their competitors’ auditions.)

Finally, a few years ago at another Summit session, Steve Morris explained it.

(Among numerous stellar credits, Steve voices many of April Winchell’s brilliant commercials, including the “Snow Summit” and “Ortho” commercials you might have heard me play at one of my seminars.)

I’m paraphrasing from memory, but Steve said something very much like this:

“It’s like if you go to the 7-11 to buy a lottery ticket, and you see some other guy buying a lottery ticket, too. You don’t turn to him and say, ‘You bastard!’ For any given audition, the odds are neither of you is going to get it.”

That’s what I tried to explain to the woman from San Diego.

Talent Is Not A Zero Sum Game.

When you’re good and you know it, you’re not paranoid about sharing your “secrets” (as if there are any) with others. You’re too busy trying to learn new things that other people already have discovered, so you can continue to improve your craft.

I learned this a long time ago:

If you have a dollar and I have a dollar, and we trade dollars…We each end up with one dollar.

But if you have an idea and I have an idea, and we trade ideas…We each end up with two ideas.

In the current issue of my Radio Programming Letter, I wrote at length about “MUSIC, CONVERSATION and THE ILLUSION OF FORWARD MOMENTUM.”

In a nutshell: In response to a subscriber’s query, I said it’s stupid for radio stations to have a music bed playing underneath every jock’s voice every time a jock speaks.

Not surprisingly, my remarks generated lots of feedback.

Mostly along the lines of, “THANK YOU! I’ve been trying to explain this to my PD/consultant.”

But Alex Duffy of Chiltern Radio (UK) attempted to put me in my place:

Dan,

I love reading your newsletter, it’s so often full of useful tips and advice, but I think I can pick apart your argument about using beds…

You said that AMERICAN IDOL doesn’t use beds when the judges are giving their comments. Maybe not, but what about at the end when there are two contestants left and it is being decided which one is going home? I bet there’s a tension bed running in the background! There is here in the UK on X FACTOR, BRITAIN’S GOT TALENT, DANCING ON ICE, and all our other reality TV shows. And the reason these beds are there? A bed can change the mood of what is happening.

Why do we get incidental music in films? When the happy couple finally get together at the end there’s always a happy tune that strikes up in the background — it’s emotive, it’s building on emotions, tugging on heartstrings, and enhancing the atmosphere.

If I’m wrong then I’m wrong, but if that’s the case, then why is there music in films???

First, Alex, thanks for your kind words about my Programming Letter.

But….

I’m afraid you didn’t succeed in picking apart my argument, because I was referring specifically to the practice of always putting a music bed underneath conversational elements — i.e., one or more people talking.

The examples you gave are using sound to enhance the emotional impact when conversation is absent.

If your caller has 10 seconds to come up with the answer to your tough trvia question, playing the “musical clock” adds to the fun and to the suspense.

The only two reality shows I’ve ever seen are THE CONTENDER (Season One) and PROJECT RUNWAY. (Don’t jump to conclusions; my 15-year old daughter loves the show and asked me to watch it with her.)

(It was to her tremendous chagrin that I picked the winner every week. Look for my new line of O’Day Apparel — perhaps O’pparel — to debut next month.)

The climax of each episode of THE CONTENDER was a tightly edited, condensed version of that week’s fight. There was “exciting” music during the fight’s highlights. But when the ring announcer pulled down the microphone to declare the winner, the music came to an abrupt halt.

Why?

Because everyone wanted to hear what he was going to say.

On PROJECT RUNWAY, tension-enhancing music plays at the end of each episode, while two contestants remain onstage…knowing that one of them is about to get kicked out.

No words are spoken. Not by the hosts. Not by the contestants, who stand uncomfortably for what seems like an eternity.

But the music stops immediately before Heidi Klum — the wooden, incredibly famous supermodel I never heard of — says, “Hector? You’re out.”

Because at that the moment, the drama is in the words.

Then why is there music in films???

First: Most music in films isn’t used very well. I’m guessing the percentage of “badly used film music” is approximately the same as “bad radio.”

Don’t take my word for it. Ask any good film composer.

Second: When used properly, the music enhances the emotional response the filmmaker wants to elicit

Third: Just as in radio, many directors use music in an attempt to force the illusion of an emotion the scene is not able to deliver on its own.

The action ISN’T exciting; but maybe if we add loud, pulsating music we can make the audience THINK it’s exciting.

Or….

The tender moment between these two characters plays out completely flat. The actors share absolutely no chemistry. Or they’re not very good actors. Or the dialogue is bad. Or the story is lame. Solution? Bring on the violins!

When it’s used well in movies, music enhances the emotional impact that already exists in a scene.

For a superb lesson in how to use music in movies, watch THE SIXTH SENSE again. There is almost NO music in that film. Very, very little. But when there IS music, it notches up the scene’s creepiness to an almost unbearable level.

Sustaining tension throughout a 90-minute film without resorting to cheap tricks requires a lot of artistry and skill. Even 40 years after it was made, FAIL-SAFE remains what critics would call a “gripping drama.” It’s relentlessly tense.

FAIL-SAFE benefited from an immensely talented director; a good story; a fine script; and a consistently strong cast.

Oh, and one more thing:

It didn’t use a drop of music. Not a single note.

Y’see, when in just a few minutes a nuclear war (started by accident) might destroy Life As We Know It, we really don’t need John Williams to musically yell, “HEY, THIS SURE IS TENSE!!!”

Although — especially in recent years — “incidental music” occasionally is used in stage productions, I’m not aware of any non-musicals that play music while an actor is delivering his lines.

Why should they? They’ve got the actors. They’ve got the audience. It’s an intimate experience.

That’s what makes good (even not-so-good) theatre so exciting: The performers and the audience are collaborating to produce a dialogue between them.

Intimacy.

Y’know, kind of like radio’s biggest strength: the ability to communicate one-to-one.