CVAP Blog Entry #1
“Pocholo “The Voicemaster” Gonzales, is by far the most acknowledged and recognized voice artist in the Philippines” is no doubt, the words that struck me the most on the first day of batch 9 in the most renowned voice artist training in the country, and these words were not chosen by my mind for no reason, not at all, you ask “why”, the answer lies below.
Day Zero Backstory
It’s about a year now since I became a full-pledged voiceover artist, though, I have been doing VO work occasionally ever since I was fifteen years old- the age my body decided to add more bass to my vocal delivery, it has only been a year since I finally realized I could sustain myself with this kind of job financially and emotionally. And although it has been a year of earning money through selling my voice, it still bugs me that one really important thing is still missing in me, an official, certifying, and formal training in the discipline of voice-acting.
One afternoon, I decided to stream live on Facebook as I was recording a narration project for a Youtube channel and suddenly there was a familiar face that popped on my screen, a message of compliment from Mr. Pocholo Gonzales. At first, my initial reaction was, “yeah thank you”, but then he asked me to join this 5000 peso program of his and I answered him, “sure, I am considering it”. Well, I knew him from a VO group on facebook and he calls himself the Voice Master. I didn’t really know any of his work or who he is. I simply thought he might be your average professional VO artist who wants to earn more by selling his tutorial sessions online. But when he said he’s willing to pay for me, that shifted my perception about him slightly. What else could I say but yes! So, there I was on day 1 of CVAP batch 9.
Actual Day One
I did not feel good the moment I entered the zoom call. I was a bit exhausted from the fact that I was up all night doing voice overs and I had not a single hour of sleep when finally the hosts, Rich, Jeff, and Winkie started talking. Though I was not physically in good condition, my mind seemed to be greatly interested in every word, moment, and speaker I saw and heard through my computer screen. This may be because it is an actual first day of a seminar, one of the few events I extremely enjoy attending even at a young age, and that this to me is not just a seminar, but one that revolves around my passion and line of work. And oddly enough, my tiresome feeling started to fade away slowly and slowly as multiple speakers primed us for the whole extent of this course, and it completely wore off, when the voice master himself, after a bunch of inspirational introductory documentary-like videos, popped again on my screen, this time, live and had nothing to voice out but life itself. Motivation was the key element taught throughout the introduction to CVAP. Day one was filled with quotes, thought and made by Sir. Choi himself, and surely from the looks of almost all faces, including me, I could say our souls were uplifted and inspired to think to ourselves to go and do our best for the sake of this artistic discipline.
I mean who wouldn’t be? I was just smiling the whole time, then when Sir Choi spoke, that same old grin was on my face, however the moment Google butted in, yes, Google- the all knowing search engine of the entire world, with the words, “Pocholo “The Voicemaster” Gonzales, is by far the most acknowledged and recognized voice artist in the Philippines”, turn my smile into a huge open mouth with jaws dropping all the way down, if not only because of the desk, could have gone just above the floor. Suddenly a star-striking feeling took over my mind as I realized how this guy, a celebrity with a world class talent, added me on Facebook, messaged me first, commented on my live streams, gave me hearts on my “my days”, complimented me, and gave me his attention. My mind just shot blank for a few seconds when I finally realized how much humility and heart this man has, and how he looks at ordinary individuals like me to be someone with much potential and amazing talent and believes in it.
I know, this feeling is probably normal for someone who hasn’t been with renowned icons that much right? The problem is, I have been with different celebrities already, rubbing shoulders with them, dining with them, conversing, performing and the way they act versus the way this man, Pocholo acts, is unrealistically far off different. Not too sadly, but ever since Google talked to us, the feeling has covered me the whole day long. He continued to talk about his life’s story, his vision for the world, and how much our voices matter. He kept reminding us that with unity we can do anything.
After his rather long speech and encouragement, we were then assigned to different break rooms. I was pretty excited as I knew I will be meeting a new set of friends, potential connections from all over the Philippines and surely I did. I got to be part of break room seven, and being one of the tenured talents in the batch, got to be the leader of the team which we named Lucky Daisy Syete Megahertz or LDSM for short following the suggestions of almost everyone in the group, which is a good thing since it only shows how participative all my members are.
Ending the Day with Assignments
After a short introduction and bonding with our new group mates, we had to rally all together again to be challenged with the real deal, our weekly output assignments and boy they were a lot. From basic brand naming and logo making to radio commercial ads and video logs, we were tasked to do these VO related things supposedly to help us make our own established business. I find the assignments a practical approach, and although some of us are complete beginners, I strongly believe everyone will be able to complete everything for the simple reason that we were motivated exponentially well and were placed with lovely people willing to help each other out, not to mention each BR team has an absolutely supportive secretariat and ours was Sir Don.
As the program on its final moments, my hype and star-struck feeling from meeting the voice master of the country and new people started to fade away slowly, and this is not because the day was a “meh” for me, but because my body knew it had to rest itself so I can regain enough energy to go on and make the assignments, help those who would ask for help, and meet my new family again on the next session.
