Luister hier op Youtube 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻
Onlangs had ik het genoegen om aan te schuiven bij http://lindabruno.comin haar podcast, Voiceover Gurus. Het was een fantastische kans om te praten over mijn reis in de voice-over industrie, mijn ervaringen te delen en in te gaan op enkele technische aspecten die komen kijken bij het zijn van een professionele stemacteur. Het gesprek verliep soepel, van mijn begin in de Belgische radio tot het binnenhalen van grote voice-over opdrachten, zoals mijn Tubi-campagne in de VS.
Tijdens de podcast spraken we over het belang van doorzettingsvermogen, de uitdagingen van werken over landsgrenzen heen, en zelfs enkele leuke inzichten in de technische kant van het stemacteurschap—zoals hoe ik een lastig microfoonprobleem met de Sennheiser MKH416 oploste door simpelweg een schroefje vast te draaien! We bespraken ook hoe belangrijk het is om een gezellige studiouitstraling te behouden om geïnspireerd en gefocust te blijven, vooral in een veeleisende branche als deze.
Linda en ik deelden ook onze gedachten over de verschuiving naar remote voice-over werk, de impact van de pandemie, en de spannende projecten waaraan ik het geluk heb gehad om te werken, waaronder commercials, bedrijfsfilms en mijn eerste Amerikaanse reclamecampagne. Als je nieuwsgierig bent naar hoe ik de overgang maakte van werken in de Belgische radio naar een carrière als internationale voice-over artiest, of als je meer wilt weten over enkele behind-the-scenes aspecten van de industrie, dan biedt deze podcastaflevering het allemaal.
Luister naar de volledige aflevering van 47 minuten waarin we praten over het leven als stemacteur, internationale carrièreswitches en de unieke uitdagingen die we allemaal tegenkomen als voice-actors. Je kunt de aflevering bekijken op YouTube, of beluisteren via je favoriete podcast-app.
Voor het gemak heb ik de transcriptie hieronder toegevoegd.
Groetjes,
Serge.
Voice Over: [00:00:00] Education and real world knowledge about the voiceover industry. It's the voiceover gurus podcast.
Linda Bruno: Welcome back to the voiceover gurus podcast. I'm your host, Linda Bruno, dealing with some technical issues, but this is voiceover people, right? This is what we do, especially in live situations when it's truly embarrassing and you have somebody, a guest on zoom with you, but please welcome Serge De Marre .
Linda Bruno: Hello.
Serge De Marre: Hi, Linda. How are you today?
Linda Bruno: I am so good, except for the technical issues and I, I appreciate you, you know, bearing with me.
Serge De Marre: Of course. I mean, I totally understand. I have technical issues once in a while too, because that's what we, I [00:01:00] mean, that's what happens.
Linda Bruno: But you didn't, you just gave me a good idea that you took apart, you just unscrewed a piece of the Sennheiser.
Serge De Marre: Well, so I bought a Sennheiser. I have two actually. I, I, and a while ago I, I had some issues with it that every time, like every, I don't know, every 10 minutes it popped like a loud click. You definitely see it in a wave and I was trying to figure out what it was. I thought my mic is. Gone bad or whatever.
Serge De Marre: I found this video on YouTube and I'll send it to you if I, if I can still find somewhere where this guy explains that you have to take it apart. Like you have to take the back off or something. There's one screw in there and then inside you tighten a screw and then the popping stops. I think it's, it's, it's just the screw inside that comes loose or something.
Serge De Marre: And that makes that. Popping sound or clicking sound. So I don't know, maybe that's the issue. I'm
Linda Bruno: hoping that's the solution. I know this comes and goes, but we're, we're, we're good. Now we're going to just, you know,
Linda Bruno: So you're originally from [00:02:00] Belgium.
Serge De Marre: Yes.
Linda Bruno: What part of Belgium?
Serge De Marre: The, the Northern part, the Dutch part. So not a lot of people know that Belgium is a very small country.
Linda Bruno: Okay, yeah, I've only been to Brussels, so.
Serge De Marre: 11 or 12, 000, 12 million, sorry, 12 million inhabitants. And then it's divided in basically in three.
Serge De Marre: You have a Dutch part, Dutch speaking part, French speaking part, and then a German speaking part, part of Belgium as well. The German speaking part is very, very tiny,
but
Serge De Marre: the majority of people about Of those 12 million, I think about like 6 million or 7, 7 million people speak Dutch Flemish. It's actually Flemish is a Dutch dialect.
Serge De Marre: So we speak the same language as the Dutch, but, but it's a different accent. Basically like, like British and American English, the British have a different accent, but you still understand each other. Right. So
it's
Serge De Marre: the same thing. We have some [00:03:00] different words and yeah, some different expressions.
Linda Bruno: So, you started out your career in Belgium?
Serge De Marre: Yeah, I did. You did? Yeah.
Linda Bruno: And how long ago was that?
Serge De Marre: Well, so I started out in radio in the year 2000 at a very small level, at a local, a very small local station. And local means like really local, it's nothing compared to local in the United States. I think we had like 10, 000 listeners or something, and that was already a big local station, you know.
Serge De Marre: Wow. It was very tiny and I ended up there because I was back in the day when the Internet was very slow. We had IRC chat rooms. Those were just chat rooms and I was chatting on those and I can't remember in what chat room it was, but I met up with a someone accidentally. That I went to school with back in the day and we're like catching up.
Serge De Marre: And he was like, well, I have a radio show on this local station. Do you want to come over [00:04:00] and see what I do during the show? And I was like, sure. I have nothing else to do. This is the two thousands. We don't have iPhones yet and no social media. So I went over and listened to his show and I was there and we chatted.
Serge De Marre: And after his show was done. He took the studio off air and he was like, you know what, why don't you try out something behind the mic? And we played along, we played a little bit and he recorded this on a MIDI disc. I'm not sure if you remember those. Yes,
Linda Bruno: I do.
Serge De Marre: And that mini disc ended up on the station manager's desk somehow.
Wow.
Serge De Marre: Wow, he gave it to the station
manager.
Serge De Marre: A couple of weeks later, I got a call from the station manager and he was like, Hey, listen to your demo and we have a slot opening up on Sundays from, I think it was like from four till eight or something, four hours. Are you interested? And I was like, Oh, and he said, it doesn't pay anything.
Serge De Marre: We can pay you like, I think it was like 75 bucks a month. Yeah, for, I could just pay my gas with that, but I was so excited. I was, Oh [00:05:00] yeah, I want to do this. And I was super super glad, but anyway, that's how I started. And then I worked my way up to national radio, which has a little bit more listeners in Belgium, about a million a day.
Serge De Marre: I think that's a lot more
Linda Bruno: for sure.
Serge De Marre: Got my own show and everything. And then I worked there from 2004 to 2015. Okay. And everything. Sorry. A good stretch. Yeah. That was a good stretch. Yeah. Absolutely. And then we moved to the United, my husband and I moved to the United States in 2010.
Linda Bruno: Okay. You moved to where in the U.
Linda Bruno: S. where'd you, where'd you live?
Serge De Marre: Well, originally, this was for my husband's work and we and his works told him we need you in Washington D. C. for two years and then you'll return to Belgium. So in the beginning, we were sort of like trying to figure out how we would do this for two years, long distance or not.
Serge De Marre: And
And
Serge De Marre: I kept working for the Belgian [00:06:00] radio station until 2015. And after that, I was like, yeah, well, we're never going back. So I need to stop working for and do something different. But meanwhile, I've all, I also wanted to dig into voiceover and I slowly started with that, uh, home studios were not a huge thing back then, so it was pretty difficult to, to get started in voiceover.
Linda Bruno: You were mentioned, you mentioned to me earlier that the country of Belgium, you have the three different speaking areas. Well, I'm assuming that you are fluent in French and German and yes.
Serge De Marre: Oui, bien sûr. No, no, my French, my French, I used to be fluent when I graduated. And I had a job very briefly in customer service and I took calls in French and, and Dutch.
Serge De Marre: But then I started working for the radio station, which was in, in, in Dutch only. So I sort of like forgot French, I mean, dropped me in Paris for two weeks and I probably [00:07:00] can still come back. Yeah. It'll come back. I think.
Linda Bruno: Yeah. So the majority of the work that you did at the time was for, with the Flemish company.
Linda Bruno: Accent?
Serge De Marre: Yeah. Correct. Yeah. For the Belgian market. Yeah. Yeah.
Linda Bruno: And now you don't do anything. You don't venture into any of the other languages.
Serge De Marre: Do you? No. So right now I focus on Flemish and English, global English, because you can hear there's a little bit of an accent.
Linda Bruno: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. That's like the, the golden ticket there.
Linda Bruno: If you can do that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Linda Bruno: Not sound too American, sound worldly, sound like you can feel to a very large, very large market. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that always fascinates me. So you think that's the majority of where your work is with that type of accent?
Serge De Marre: Yeah, it's, uh, it's about 50, 50, 50 percent in, in Flemish and 50 percent in English right now.
Serge De Marre: Most of my clients are still in Europe, but I do have, I have, I think like 70 percent or 65 percent from my work comes [00:08:00] from Europe and then the rest from the United States have a couple of clients in the United States.
Linda Bruno: Did you guys stay in DC for the two years?
Serge De Marre: We stayed in D. C. for two years from 2010 until 2012 and then moved to Houston.
Linda Bruno: Okay. This is all because of his work.
Serge De Marre: All because of his work, yeah. Yeah,
Linda Bruno: because as voice actors we can be anywhere.
Serge De Marre: Right. Yeah, that was, that was awesome. That we could, I could just move with him and there was no, no, no issue at all. So we moved to Houston, stayed there until 2018, then moved, and stay with me because this is going to get complicated.
Serge De Marre: We moved for two years to Dallas. Until 2018 to 2020, 2020 to 2022, I lived in Hungary for two years, moved back mid pandemic to Europe, and I lived in Budapest for two years. And then 2022, so two years ago, I moved back to, uh, we moved back to Houston. Yeah.
Linda Bruno: Wow. I like how you said Budapest.
Serge De Marre: Budapest. Yeah, that's how you pronounce it.
Serge De Marre: Budapest. [00:09:00]
Linda Bruno: We say Budapest here.
Serge De Marre: Budapest, yeah. Which is
Linda Bruno: very fast. Right. I was going to ask you about that because all the moves and everything, and now you're back in Houston. Now, was it a tough transition to come from Europe to the States as far as with work and stuff goes? Did you, you know, and you had the time zone differences too.
Linda Bruno: How do you work with that?
Serge De Marre: So, to be honest, I. I didn't start right away as a full time voice actor. I had some voiceover voiceover gigs, but I worked as a reporter for a Belgian TV station as a correspondent to us correspondent for a Belgian TV station for the news, basically in Belgium for a while, freelanced a little bit.
Serge De Marre: I did all sorts of things until this one moment in 2018 that I decided, you know what, I want to do voiceover. I'm going to just focus 100 percent on voiceover, dropped everything else. And bought myself a studio bricks in 2018.
Yeah, that's nice.
Serge De Marre: Yeah. And I just went for it. So up until 2018, I [00:10:00] made some money or, you know, just a little, little bit, little bit of voiceover here and there, but it wasn't actually a full time job.
Serge De Marre: Also because I thought, well, I mean, I'm here in the United States. Every time I, someone contacted me for a job, they were like, well, can you come to our studio in Belgium? Because we want you in our studio. Our clients come here and well, it's not possible. I'm in the United States. Oh, okay. Yeah. We'll, we'll find someone else then.
Serge De Marre: So it was really, really difficult. Yeah. But I persisted anyway. And then we 2020. And I was ready for it, for COVID, for the lockdowns and everything.
Linda Bruno: So then your clients were more willing to do the remote option?
Serge De Marre: Oh yeah, I mean, they needed to, right? Especially in Europe, everything was on lockdown. It was worse than in the United States, so.
Serge De Marre: I understand now. Yeah, we couldn't, we couldn't just. We were not allowed to go into buildings or go to work or everything was work from home and I was ready for it because I had a [00:11:00] home studio and internet connection was good and everything was set up. So yeah, that was
Linda Bruno: the only thing that came out that was good of COVID was the fact that having to travel because I live on Long Island right outside of New York City, having to travel into New York City for auditions, I don't have to do that.
Linda Bruno: And that was like half my day, you know, you'd go in and be two hours on a train in go run to the studio, do the audition, get back on the train. And when you have a full time voiceover business, you have other clients that are like, why, why aren't you next to your microphone? And you, you know, so the, the casting directors, the agents, they were like, no, no, no, we want to see you.
Linda Bruno: We need to be in the same room with you. So when COVID hit, they had, they were forced to embrace technology and now they all use source connect and all that. And it's great.
Serge De Marre: Because it's so much more convenient for everyone, right? You can, they don't have to like sit in an office all day. They could just be in their own engineering studio and just hop on source connect.
Serge De Marre: And I mean, it's a lot easier [00:12:00] that way, I think.
Linda Bruno: So do you still do live sessions with Europe?
Serge De Marre: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Linda Bruno: And what's your timing on that? Like when, when, what, what part of your day in Houston is used towards, you know, working directly with your European clients?
Serge De Marre: So the busiest time of day is my, my mornings are basically because there's a seven hour time difference, right?
Serge De Marre: And so six o'clock in the morning, my time is 1 p. m. in Europe. I tell my clients, tell me whenever you need me and I'll be, I'll be awake and I'll be there. But if I can choose, don't 2 p. m. European time, which is seven o'clock my morning. So,
Linda Bruno: right. Okay. They've been pretty good about it.
Serge De Marre: Yeah. I mean, they're, they're pretty amazing about it.
Serge De Marre: They're all like, Oh yeah, sure. Let's, let's do like three o'clock, which is eight, 8am. I'm like, Oh, yeah,
Linda Bruno: I, years ago, I'm a big Paris fan and I decided, I was like, you know what, I want to rent an [00:13:00] apartment and I've been multiple times. I want to rent an apartment and I want to be able to work from there. So for two weeks.
Linda Bruno: I had this great apartment in the San Germain des Prés, you know, area, Arrondissement, and literally I, because I was working for Disney Junior at the time and HSN, and I set myself up and I just, you know, we, we structured the day where basically I started, I worked a little, worked late obviously because the East Coast and the States, but then because everybody ate dinner so late anyway in Paris, it was like beautiful, you know, it'd be done at like eight o'clock, nine o'clock at night, and then go out and,
and
Serge De Marre: then have dinner.
Linda Bruno: It was great. I mean, I, I loved, I was like, I could get used to this. Yeah.
Serge De Marre: That's awesome. And, and your clients didn't care either, or?
Linda Bruno: They were okay for the two weeks, but that was the same trip that the Icelandic volcano. So we were stuck there for another week and everybody's like, Oh, you're so lucky. I'm like, no, it was the stress, most stressful week of my life.
Linda Bruno: Cause we didn't know how we were going to get back.
Yeah. Yeah. [00:14:00]
Linda Bruno: All the planes were grounded, couldn't get on a train, we couldn't rent a car, and now, you know, the clock's ticking. Now I have to get into a hotel. Now I got to pay for extra food, you know, so
Serge De Marre: it adds up.
Linda Bruno: Yeah, we would wind up just spending days.
Linda Bruno: I would get one of those self guided tours and pick a wing in the Louvre and go and just spend a few hours, which was fantastic. But, you know, it was definitely an experience when we finally got back. I was really grateful. So, but I knew I had to get back because the clients were only patient for like the two weeks, and then we're like, okay.
Linda Bruno: It's time. Yeah. Stop the fun. Get back to work.
Serge De Marre: I think these days it's probably a lot easier and a lot of, a lot of clients probably won't care anymore or they'll adjust or no, I think so.
Linda Bruno: I think so too. Yeah. Cause back then this was, you know, no, no one had dealt with the being forced to do remote things.
Serge De Marre: Right. Because
Linda Bruno: that was, that was 2010 when it went. You know, but it was a lot tougher
Serge De Marre: back then. Yeah, absolutely.
Linda Bruno: I like your studio. It looks nice. [00:15:00] You put in those lights.
Serge De Marre: Yeah. To make it a little bit more cozy. I, I feel like I need to, my, my studio needs to be cozy and inspiring and I need to calm down here because outside of this booth, there's a lot of stress going on in the whole world.
Serge De Marre: A lot of things are happening, not in the house, obviously, but I mean, in general, whenever I close the door here, I would just want to like be able to breathe and yeah, it makes it a little bit more cozy.
Linda Bruno: Do you prefer to sit or stand when you voice?
Serge De Marre: It depends. Usually I stand, especially if I have energetic reads.
Serge De Marre: But for now, I'm like, I'm going to sit down because I'm not going to stand up for now. That's my bad. I mean, I'm old. No, not old. I'm not old. Once in a while. You look
Linda Bruno: very young. So what do you think you get? What do you think you get called for? What do you book the most? What genre do you feel you book the most?
Serge De Marre: For the Belgian market, I think commercials in general and corporate videos. And, uh, for, uh, for my English, yeah, a [00:16:00] lot of corporate work as well, but I, I recently booked my first. U. S. Commercial campaign. Oh,
Linda Bruno: oh my gosh. Sounds amazing. I know I've heard you.
Serge De Marre: Thank you.
Linda Bruno: I know. I love, love the to be campaign. I was going to say to you because they're fantastic.
Linda Bruno: The spots are funny too.
Serge De Marre: They're so funny. And I can't believe there, there are like, Four or five spots, TV films, and then three radio spots. And it was like a major achievement for me because I always like a couple of years back, I was like, I'm never going to book anything in the United States because trying to get rid of that accent and blah, blah, blah.
Serge De Marre: And it's so the U S market is so competitive with the auditioning and everything. And then suddenly, Oh, so it can happen.
Linda Bruno: But now, do you find the request for the style of read is different from an American client than a European client? Do they ask for anything specific that's, is there [00:17:00] a differentiation?
Serge De Marre: I think in the, the U. S. clients are looking more for conversational, and in my experience in Belgium, they're not there yet at the conversational level. It's still
Serge De Marre: There's always that same little intonation going on in the commercials in Belgium,
Linda Bruno: right, right, right, like the rhythms and stuff,
Serge De Marre: the rhythms and yeah, yeah, so
Linda Bruno: now when you audition for the American stuff, do you have to shift your, like, reduce the accent? How do you work that?
Serge De Marre: Well, so in the beginning, I was focused on getting rid of the accent because I thought, well, I'm never going to book anything with an accent.
Serge De Marre: So I need to get rid of that. And I had a couple of accent reducing reduction sessions with a
coach. Okay.
Serge De Marre: I tried that for a while and I was, I'm, I was struggling with it because it's really difficult to nail it. Right. [00:18:00] Also, because in school back in the day, we were thought I taught a UK British English and I moved to the United.
Serge De Marre: So I've always spoke British English. And then I moved to the United States where suddenly there's this American accent. And now I have a combination of both. You have to do. So tough for me to, to get rid of that it's so in the end I figured out, well, this is actually an asset for me, like the accent, I should try to get rid of it because clients were, especially in Europe, were looking for it.
Serge De Marre: They don't want American, 100 percent American voices or UK voices unless they're in the UK, obviously, but for, for example, in the Netherlands or Germany or Belgium, they want something different. Not UK, non US, but still fluent and still a little bit of an accent. It has to be very recognizable for them.
Serge De Marre: So I get a ton of work for, for those,
Linda Bruno: uh, those
Serge De Marre: countries. Yeah.
Linda Bruno: So when you auditioned for the to be [00:19:00] campaign, what, what, because I didn't hear a strong accent in this one spot that I watched on your website, did you, did they request something in the audition? They did.
Serge De Marre: Yeah, they did. They, they were specifically looking for a European accent.
Serge De Marre: Actually, the whole audition was specifically written for me. I was like, yeah, this is me. They were looking for me.
Oh, that's so cool.
Serge De Marre: Yeah, it was really cool. So when I did the audition, I was like, almost certain that I'm going to get this because They were looking for European accent, a certain timbre, and whatever.
Serge De Marre: So I auditioned for it, and yeah, I just, I booked it, yeah.
Linda Bruno: That's wonderful. Do you get stuff mostly, do you have agents?
Serge De Marre: I do, yes. Yeah. Okay.
Linda Bruno: So you have agents overseas and here in the States?
Serge De Marre: I do. Yeah. I, the, the interesting thing is that, that the voiceover market in Europe, and I'm talking about like Europe without UK, right?
Serge De Marre: UK is a little bit of an exception. I think it's completely different from the [00:20:00] United States. We all, you all have, you, you guys have agents here. I do have a couple of agents, uh, and you audition all the time and et cetera, et cetera. But in the European market, you have a demo or a real. And you get booked off of your reel, basically.
Serge De Marre: So clients are asking for your demos, and then they'll go through your demo and be like, Oh, I like this voice. I like this, what you did there. I like that. I want you to do this, but with my script for my commercial or my corporate video. So you, and once in a while they'll ask for a sample, but then you only compete with two other people because they only want to listen to three samples.
Serge De Marre: So your chances are pretty high that you're going to book it.
Linda Bruno: Do you think it's worth it for an American to market to the overseas clients?
Serge De Marre: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. For sure.
Linda Bruno: Because you probably know the website, Bodalgo. Yeah. Such a nice person. And, you know, a lot of students will tell me, they'll go, Oh, it's mostly European jobs.
Linda Bruno: And I never get, you know, any kind of bookings or anything. And [00:21:00] I. Personally, don't know. I did get a booking off something and I didn't audition again. They listened to my reel on Bidalgo and just said, yeah, we want you to do this, but I was just curious if it was worth the effort for us.
Serge De Marre: I definitely think so.
Serge De Marre: I think my vision is that you have to be everywhere. I mean, I have a profile on Bodelgo as well, and I don't book that often off of Bodelgo, but I do book there once in a while. That said, I think you have to market to you. Studios like recording studios that are post production studios, basically, because they usually decide in Europe, they usually decide who's going to be the, who they are going to present to their clients.
Serge De Marre: It's
less of
Serge De Marre: a casting director that is looking for voices. It's most, mostly those post production studios that are going to, if so, if you have a good relationship with that, with those people at the post production studios, then they'll think of you as soon as like they get a project that will match your [00:22:00] voice.
Serge De Marre: They'll be like, Oh, Linda is amazing for this. She has the perfect, perfect voice for this. So we'll propose her to our clients with maybe two other voices or maybe five in total or something. So yeah, I definitely think. It's worth
it.
Serge De Marre: It's definitely worth it, especially if you make it very easy for your client overseas to pay you and the transaction and everything, if that, if you make that really easy.
Serge De Marre: And I think, I also think, and that's my personal opinion, but don't go through your agent or manager because that'll scare a lot of Europeans off. They'll be like, Oh no, that's very expensive or very difficult to communicate. And yeah.
Linda Bruno: Right. That's interesting. I know that, well, for me, it's been a long time I've been doing this and I did that same, you know, philosophy that you have is trying to get my demo out to as many places as possible and as, you know, linked at the time to as many websites and I would reach out to like some overseas, you know, like probably [00:23:00] 15 years ago and they still contact me now for job and it's so nice because they're just like, you know, I do a lot of e learning, you know.
Linda Bruno: Yeah. Projects for your, there's one company out of Germany that uses me, but it's a lot of acting pieces, which is interesting and fun to do, but yeah, they do. They keep you on the roster if they like working with you and that's the best part.
Serge De Marre: Do you audition for them or they usually come, come to you and be like, Hey, we have a project for you.
Serge De Marre: Can you do this? And
Linda Bruno: yeah, he'll come to me and just say. Sometimes he'll say, can you just read this section? He goes, I'm sure they're going to pick you, but can you just read this section? And here's the rate and this is the amount and do, are you interested? And, but it's not like, it's not a regular thing.
Linda Bruno: It's just every so often, you know, I hear from the client and, and it's just, it's nice because you realize, well, no matter where you are in the world, if you just do that initial planting of the seed.
You
Linda Bruno: know, wherever, wherever you possibly can, um, and then just hope that it's going to grow [00:24:00] into something for you.
Serge De Marre: It will, if you persist, it will grow into something. Yeah. That's, that's how I did it as well, because I had a, I had a big network back in the day when I was working for the, for the radio station. And I traveled around to all around the country in Belgium and then to the Netherlands as well, to studios and everything.
Serge De Marre: And that's how you network with people. And they still remember me from. So many years ago, like going into their studio and I get still get emails or calls, but hey, back in the day, remember, and we, I have a project for you, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, it's just all those relationships are so, so important, I think.
Linda Bruno: So when you were working in Belgium, did you also have to do like live events?
Serge De Marre: I have not done many of them.
Linda Bruno: Like here in the States, we have to do them if we wind up working in radio or for, Uh, you know, a station,
Serge De Marre: Oh, you mean life of life events, like doing a show at,
Linda Bruno: or showing up at a grocery store and doing a giveaway or something.
Linda Bruno: Did you ever have to do anything like that or is that [00:25:00] American?
Serge De Marre: No, I, I've never done that. We said what we did have at the radio station every summer, you know, Europeans have a lot of vacation, right? So a lot of the hosts
went on
Serge De Marre: vacation during the summer months, July and August, and that's. Me as a freelancer, that's when I had the most work because I was like filling in for them.
Serge De Marre: And we had this, it was called the, the, the radio station was called Q music and we had the Q beach house. And this was a beach house specifically built for the radio station or we build it ourselves. At the beach, like on the beach itself in the middle of the sand and all the listeners could come over and just visit us and everything.
Serge De Marre: So we did our shows from, from
Linda Bruno: there.
Serge De Marre: Yeah. Yeah.
Linda Bruno: That sounds a lot better than what we have over here. I'm telling you ours is like showing up with a mascot. Mine was lucky the duck at a grocery store spinning a wheel of prizes. [00:26:00]
Serge De Marre: Life on the radio.
Linda Bruno: Yeah. It was more like, it depends. I would do some events.
Linda Bruno: Yeah. And then a lot of them though were just like call ins, you know, what's going on over there? And then you would tell them about, I don't know, whatever specials are. But yeah, I was just curious how, how it worked for, for, you know, your work history of if you've had any of those embarrassing events either that you can share with us.
Serge De Marre: Right. No, I, I've never had to be like a mascot or something, a duck.
Linda Bruno: What kind of mascot could you be? Could you be, I know what waffles are very good over there.
Serge De Marre: Right. Yeah.
Linda Bruno: French fries.
Serge De Marre: That's very stereotypical though. Like waffles, French fries and beer. The Belgians just, I mean, it's part of Belgium, right? So we don't think about all those, the waffles and the fries.
Serge De Marre: We're very proud of our fries. And we have people say French fries instead of Belgian fries because they're Belgian, not [00:27:00] French.
Linda Bruno: Right, right, right, right, right. I went, I visited Amsterdam years and years ago, which I absolutely loved. And, you know, for us in the States, the whole thing is like, Oh, you got to see the red light district and, Oh, you got to smoke marijuana, you know, it's like And so, you know, it's not our thing.
Linda Bruno: And I, I like to go to local bars and meet people. And so we wound up just hanging out with some of the nicest people, the locals. And I would ask them about it and they would look at me like I was nuts. They were like, no, we all did that. We wouldn't have jobs. We wouldn't be, you know, productive citizens.
Linda Bruno: So it's just kind of funny, the, uh, perception people have.
Serge De Marre: Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's, it's really funny.
Linda Bruno: I know. And now everybody's getting a, a, a real close look at, at Paris during the Olympics.
Serge De Marre: Are you following the, uh, Olympics? Are you, uh.
Linda Bruno: Yeah. I haven't been following. I've only been following the aspects of seeing the, uh, seeing the city since I love it so much, but my husband will have it on and go, Hey, come here.
Linda Bruno: They're showing another part. You know, and I like to see the [00:28:00] beach volleyballs right in front of the Eiffel Tower, which I think is so cool.
Serge De Marre: When was the last time you were in Paris? Paris.
Linda Bruno: 2010 for that, when I was stuck for those three weeks, I know you can never say stuck in Paris. You can't. It doesn't make sense.
Linda Bruno: Right. Never stuck in Paris. I was stuck eating croissants and wonderful food and drinking wine and yeah, so I, it shouldn't go back. I got married. My husband's not a huge traveler, but now that he is seeing Paris through the Olympics, he's like, I want to go.
Yeah.
Linda Bruno: Yeah. Seriously, but then again, let's see if the urge continues after the Olympics are over.
Serge De Marre: Yeah, maybe you should do like, like a trip through Europe or something, because I mean, Paris is amazing, but there are so many amazing places.
Linda Bruno: Yeah, I got to start in baby steps.
Serge De Marre: Yeah, okay. Just maybe a city trip to Paris. Yes.
Linda Bruno: As I said, do you want to maybe throw in London? We'll do London for a few days, the common London Paris combination.
Linda Bruno: I want to go to Paris, like, okay. And then we'll go from there, because I don't know if I'm ever going to get him to Italy or [00:29:00] to, but anyway, it's kind of promising. I
Serge De Marre: highly recommend, I can highly recommend, Italy and Croatia and Slovenia, all beautiful countries, but France, obviously, of course, too. Yeah,
Linda Bruno: I gotta hit Greece at some point, too.
Linda Bruno: I have not.
Serge De Marre: I have never been to Greece. Yeah, right.
Linda Bruno: Okay, I would not imagine that'd be an easy trip. Well, at the time when you were living over there now. Yeah,
Serge De Marre: yeah, absolutely. But yeah, so it's interesting because Even when I was living in Belgium, so Paris by, by high speed train, I think is only like a two hour trip or something, right?
Serge De Marre: Which is nothing, the drive is four hours or even four and a half. So a two hour train trip is, you could do that in a day, right? But still back in the day, I was thinking, Oh, you got to be on a train for two hours, that's way too long. And now I live in Texas and the closest city is like three hours away.
Serge De Marre: So, um, yeah, there's nothing, there's nothing. So yeah, but my friends and family, they don't understand. They're like. What do you mean four hours away? [00:30:00]
Linda Bruno: My aunt lives in London. She's been there. She's in her eighties. So she's been there since she's like 20. So she's definitely she's, she's British all the way.
Linda Bruno: So she's like a good stop for us. If we want to go, we stay with her for a few days and then head out. But that woman travels to the most fabulous places because it's just so much, there's no difficulty because the, the transportation is, is. So fluid, the trains are on time, which is like unheard of here, you know, I just, I get so jealous because I'm off to Spain.
Linda Bruno: Okay, I'm off to, you know, she's got all these places that she's heading off to. So, but people don't realize the proximity of the countries, you know, and how big United States,
Serge De Marre: why anywhere within a couple of hours, like two or three hours and you're out of London. And you're any you're like anywhere you can be anywhere you can be in Greece and I think three hours or so that's so cool.
Linda Bruno: So how are you like in Houston
Serge De Marre: so i've lived here for a while right from 2012 to [00:31:00] 2016 and now so that's like six years no. 2018 so six year eight years now right has changed a lot it's it's not bad.
Okay
Serge De Marre: it was it was sort of like a like a shock. Moving from DC to Houston, because we were like, yeah, I mean, Texas is such a bad rep and DC is such an amazing city.
Serge De Marre: I'm not sure if you've ever been, but it's, it's for Europeans to transition into the United States. It's the, I think it's the most, the best city ever to move from Europe to DC because it's walkable. It's, it's big, but it's
Linda Bruno: sure. There's things, so many things to do.
Serge De Marre: I love that lots of restaurants, lots of culture, the White House obviously is so impressive to all those Europeans.
Serge De Marre: So we were living there and then, Oh, Houston. Oh my God. Texas. That is
Linda Bruno: a big change.
Serge De Marre: Yeah. But then we [00:32:00] arrived here and it actually wasn't that bad. Maybe our expectations were so low that we, when we got here, we were like, Oh, this is not too bad. So yeah, we, we kind of like it. We.
Linda Bruno: You said you were in Dallas as well.
Serge De Marre: Yeah. For two years.
Linda Bruno: How was that? What's the difference for you? Is your preference over one city or the other? We're not like throwing shade at any of the Texas cities. I love all the Texas cities. I'm from Texas.
Serge De Marre: You are from Houston or?
Linda Bruno: No, San Antonio.
Serge De Marre: San Antonio. Okay.
Linda Bruno: So spent my summers in Corpus Christi and as a child lived in Houston, you know, the Woodlands in Houston.
Linda Bruno: Yeah,
Serge De Marre: that's close. I
Linda Bruno: was there when it first was built.
Serge De Marre: Oh, okay.
Linda Bruno: That's when we, I mean, that's, that's how old I am, but it was just nothing but like a layout. And my father was always like, Oh, we got to go to this community because they have, you know, all these high tech things at the time.
Serge De Marre: Right.
Linda Bruno: My understanding is the Woodlands is massive.
Serge De Marre: Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's insane.
Linda Bruno: Community or something, right? It's like its own community, right? They have their [00:33:00] own stores and
Serge De Marre: yeah, it's, it's, it's big. Yeah. They have a market square and everything and tons of restaurants and malls and whatever. So that's yeah. I know. Tell us. But the thing is, if Houstonians are listening, if you, I will insult them if I, if I say this as a European, but I'm going to be honest, I don't think there's a huge difference between Houston and Dallas.
Serge De Marre: They're all, they're both very ugly cities. Lots of concrete. Super, super ugly. They're both very flat. There's nothing to see. No hills, whatever. It's super, super hot during the summer. It's insane. But that said, yeah, so. My preference over like Houston or Dallas, Dallas has nicer neighborhoods. I think some of the neighborhoods like Bishop Arts or deep alum are interesting and fun.
Serge De Marre: We don't have that here in Houston. They're all everything is so scattered and you have to drive everywhere, which I sort of like to because I like driving but still so when people ask me where which [00:34:00] city do you prefer? I mean, no, I don't really our friends are in Houston. So that's why I prefer Houston.
Serge De Marre: But other than that. Yeah.
Linda Bruno: So you'd move back to D. C. if you could?
Serge De Marre: Well, I guess D. C. has changed a lot too in those 12 years that I've, it's been 12 years ago since I, since I last lived there. So, and I haven't been back since then. So, but yeah, I think so. Yeah. D. C. is fun.
Linda Bruno: There is a big difference for sure.
Linda Bruno: I always say that you got to bring your passport when you go to Texas. It doesn't matter. In different parts of Texas, there's different cultures. And yeah, I miss the Mexican food, honestly, because we can't get that up here in New York.
Serge De Marre: That is very true. The Tex Mex is amazing. It's, yeah. And, and, and that's something that I also prefer about Houston over Dallas is that the diversity in, in, in people and food is, is huge here.
Serge De Marre: There's so many options for food and the food is amazing.
Linda Bruno: So I'm gonna tell you something funny. So I'm an only child [00:35:00] and My mom got a great job in San Antonio and she met my stepfather. Okay, so she divorced my Biological father when I was two so she married him when I was six and we moved around a ton So then we meant to Colorado we went to Nashville and so I'm like one of those kids, but he wasn't in the army He was just a really good corporate So a lot of movement and no connection really with family.
Linda Bruno: I thought I just had my grandparents and no connection with my biological father's side because things ended poorly. He was an alcoholic basically. So my mom didn't want me raised with that. So, He reaches out to me on Facebook, this was like maybe 15 years ago, and, and Linda Margo, Margo's my middle name, oh my goodness, so, they're, I, turns out I've got like 50 first cousins in Texas.
Voice Over: Oh wow.
Linda Bruno: So going from only child to like, apparently there's like probably a little [00:36:00] tiny town filled with all my relatives. The cool part is it shows you biology because I love to sing, actor, obviously do voiceovers, do radio. All of my relatives are all musicians. I know, I know, which is crazy, right? It's like, so you can take someone out of an environment, what is inherent and where your talents lie
are
Linda Bruno: still there, which is just fascinating.
Linda Bruno: They were like, we're not surprised at all that you do voiceover because Jode has his own music show and you know, I know it was crazy.
Serge De Marre: That is, that is, so yeah, and, and that's, I think that's a good example of why we're all so unique, even as voice actors, right? We have something, we bring something different to, to the table every, every time.
Serge De Marre: I mean, and that's why I also think that, I mean, obviously AI is a huge thing right now.
Right.
Serge De Marre: And, but we're, I don't think we're going to get replaced because we all have our unique stories that AI doesn't [00:37:00] have. AI doesn't, an AI voice doesn't have any unique story.
Linda Bruno: No.
Serge De Marre: So yeah.
Linda Bruno: We create human connection.
Serge De Marre: That's, yeah, that's amazing. And I love that you, that your, your family is like, you're
Linda Bruno: like, you've got to come down to Texas and meet everybody. I'm like, I think I'm going to be completely overwhelmed. I wouldn't even know what to do with it. I'm just a lot of people. Yeah. So I'll say 50 Cousins. I won't say 51st Cousins, but apparently there's a lot of people there.
Linda Bruno: Yeah, just, it's just fascinating to me because you can live your whole life one way and then all of a sudden, you know, have this opened up to you that it's just incredible that the love and the passion for performance and using your voice. It's, it's, it's got to be there, stick it out all the years that we have, love it.
Linda Bruno: You know, if you can't fake it, you can't pretend. And then back to the AI thing, people want human connection. And so some things, yeah, will be replaced, but otherwise [00:38:00] people are going to want to hear a human, an actual human being with feeling,
how,
Linda Bruno: how do you make that happen?
Serge De Marre: You
Linda Bruno: know, so that's where I stand with it.
Serge De Marre: Yeah, I know. I totally agree. And I might be wrong, but I think that's, that's going to be the way it goes. It goes. Yeah.
Linda Bruno: I guess we'll find out. So I've talked about your website because I really, really like it.
Serge De Marre: Oh, thank you.
Linda Bruno: Yeah. I love the, the, the layout and how you have everything. It's really well done.
Linda Bruno: What platform are you using?
Serge De Marre: I'm using Wix.
Linda Bruno: Wow. Yeah. That's great.
Serge De Marre: But I, I didn't design it myself. I, I mean, at first my, my previous website, I did like fumble around with it myself because it was just like, you know, not, not a professional, not a full time, I was a professional, but not a full time voice actor.
Serge De Marre: So I just. And then at one point I was like, I need to like step it up. And I hired a designer, a web designer out of, uh, who was specialized in Wix. And I like it because you can still like [00:39:00] adjust things. I can scripts on there or the, the text on there or a video or whatever. It's pretty easy to, uh, just switch it out.
Linda Bruno: You can update demos and things like that by, yeah. Or maybe
Serge De Marre: quickly add a page or something and then structure it yourself, copy like an existing design of my page and then.
Linda Bruno: If you don't mind, I'll probably use your website as an example for a few of my students who are trying to figure out.
Serge De Marre: Yeah. I'll go ahead and monitor too. Thank you.
Linda Bruno: Yeah. I really, really liked the layout, so I was going to send them over and, and check it out. And that's why I wanted to find out what platform you were using.
Linda Bruno: Show them. And yes, hire a designer, you know, a web guy or gal to, you Do it so that way it's not so overwhelming because people get so like, Oh my God, what am I going to make it up? I was like, no, no, no, take it first. Let's take a deep breath. Okay. And then, you know, realize that it's not the end of the world.
Serge De Marre: Well, we already, we already have to know so many things, right? You know, we know, we need to know how to act, how to [00:40:00] do social media, how to do the technical things here. And don't, don't bother with the website unless you're like a web designer yourself, because
Linda Bruno: there's too many other things to think about.
Linda Bruno: Right.
Serge De Marre: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So
Linda Bruno: what's your, your web address share for everyone?
Serge De Marre: So it's SergeDemar. com and my last name Demar is D E M A R R E. com.
Linda Bruno: Yeah. And then you can see the Tubi ads on your website. Of
Serge De Marre: course, they're like featured on there. Like, right. I'm so proud of it. So,
Linda Bruno: I know it's so fun with that.
Linda Bruno: Congratulations on that.
Serge De Marre: Thank you so much. Yeah.
Linda Bruno: Thanks for hanging out with me today. It
Serge De Marre: was lovely.
Linda Bruno: I'm glad my microphone didn't crap out again. We got lucky with that, but just thanks for sharing your perspective and experiences with everyone too. I think a lot of folks, listeners are either thinking about getting in this business or maybe they're in it or, you know, and I, I feel like sharing the reality of what someone goes through to get to the point that they're at [00:41:00] is, is key.
Serge De Marre: It's so important. Yeah. All of our stories are so unique and you got to just keep going. And I, I feel like I'm the example of that, like this little guy from, from the little country in Belgium, scoring this
Linda Bruno: campaign in
Serge De Marre: the U S I'm waiting for my next one, but I'm not sure where it's going to come. so much for having me.
Serge De Marre: It was a, it was a huge pleasure.
Linda Bruno: So that wraps up this episode of the voiceover gurus podcast. We have some interesting workouts for fall. We're trying to mix it up a little bit with some more customized things But check out our website, of course voiceover guru any questions. You can email me at info at voiceover guru Everyone have a great rest of your day.
Voice Over: Thanks for listening to the voiceover gurus podcast real talk about the voiceover industry Learn more about [00:42:00] us And get coaching at voiceover. guru.
Comments