Michelle Falanga

January 1^st… a shiny New Year filled with promise, hope and excitement…endless posts from colleagues and friends about how excited they are to make 2022 the BEST year ever…YAY!!! RAH!!!!  WOOHOO!!! So why do I feel so tired and scared?

2021 was a groundbreaking year for me career wise.  I hit goals that I didn’t even know I had.  I built a “HOUSE” literally one brick at a time, client by client, job by job, with hard work and perseverance, late nights, early mornings, crazy sessions and so many interesting clients and jobs from all over the world.  When I reached December 31^st, I had built a shiny amazing house made up of sweat and tears …a house I was proud of…and then POOF, January 1^st comes and my house has been sold and I have a flat piece of land to build a new house on, a blank spreadsheet to fill.

Now, if you have read any of my blog posts, you know I ADORE analogies, and if you know me personally, you also know that in 1999 I lost everything to a fire in the middle of the night.  It was a total loss and we had to start all over with absolutely nothing except a toothbrush from the Red Cross – so this HOUSE analogy is not lost on me and I know personally that starting over can be hard.

What is wrong with me???  I should feel like everyone else, embracing the challenge, promising to slay 2022 and accomplish all my giant shiny goals…so why do I feel overwhelmed?  I LOVE what I do…I eat sleep and dream Voice Over.  The first week of January started off slow and I felt the weight of this daunting task of building my new house…this house must be bigger and better than last years’ house.  How can I build something even better? What does that even look like?   I could feel the anxiety rise in my chest.  What if I can’t build a bigger and better house, what if I fall short?  The self-doubt and fear set in and shut me down.

You see, I believe in FEELING my feelings and acknowledging them, even if they don’t make sense, or if they seem counter intuitive.  After calming myself down, praying and having an honest talk with my husband…I decided to stare down this new empty lot of land and try to make peace with it.  I decided NOT to get in my car and drive away and throw in the towel.  The truth is that while it IS a challenge, I am not REALLY building a house from scratch…. I have years of experience.  I have built a house before, many of them, each unique and special in their own way.  I already know what materials to use and the best way to lay tile and put-up sheetrock.  I know many of the contractors by name.  There will be new contractors who will bring new dimensions to my house…maybe a room in Audio Description or Animation…maybe a sunroom that will include a great Agent, maybe a quaint fireplace that could hold another Emmy (Hey, It COULD happen).  Maybe I will meet a new friend or two to have coffee and conversation in my cozy breakfast nook.  I have NO IDEA what the house I build in 2022 will look like, and while that is a little scary…it is also EXCITING.

As I stood there looking at this empty lot, the sun began to rise over the land and warm my face.  I felt so much gratitude that I GET to build another house, no matter what it will become….and after taking a few moments to soak in the view, I decided it was time to roll up my sleeves and GET TO WORK.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a…..lawn mower? leaf blower… snow plow… car radio (insert any noise here). Sound and the home studio – how noises I never noticed before – make me crazy.

I have a professional home studio…. “Professional” in the sense that my sound is great. I have recorded countless spots for radio, TV and the Web in my studio. These spots have been National, Regional, even recordings that have been played in a giant football stadium. I know many fellow Voice Artists have created home voice studios of their own. These studios range from full on sound-proof whisper rooms to holding a giant quilt over their head while recording, and everything in between. I am somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. I have a quality microphone, a good interface, and a dedicated closet that I have lined with bedding and popcorn mattresses. When there is no outside noise at all, my studio is perfection. The challenge is that I live on a busy street, directly behind a Landscape company, right next to neighbors on both sides who have dogs and cars and like to hang out gabbing with friends while their car radio blasts loud rock and roll music at the high end of the speakers range – the kind of loud that you can actually feel because it is THAT loud. The funny thing about this is, I have always been a “city girl” at heart. These types of background noises truly never bothered me before; I actually enjoyed them to some degree. The carefree city girl in me has been replaced. Now, as I make my way in this world of voice over and building a career, I rely on silence to pay the bills. These constant noises are my arch enemy, my kryptonite. Sometimes they feel like they are mocking me…like they are anxiously awaiting that moment when I need to record to suddenly decide to make an appearance. Murphy’s Law is very active in my world. I can’t tell you how many expletives I have had to remove from recordings from being frustrated (and I am NOT someone who swears). I will be in the moment of a beautiful read when a giant truck starts beeping loudly in my ear – ruining my momentum, stopping my recording and frustrating the hell out of my spirit. These constant interruptions delay my work, stress me out, and make recording an intermittent activity. So what is a Professional Female Voice Talent to do? How do you make a living when the loud world around you is trying to trip you up and test you? Well, until I have my “perfect” situation where I live on a dead end street in a quiet neighborhood and have invested in and installed a sound proof Whisper Room in my home – you just DO.
I must push through, I must work around these noises, stay up very VERY late, or get up before anyone else is sane enough to roll out of bed, and find those moments of peace. Those brief windows of time where the magic can happen without interruption. Those precious seconds where I can be “in the moment” and actually do what I am truly meant to do. Connect with someone else’s words, give them meaning and life, and speak them into a microphone, in my perfect, imperfect room.

I used to get dressed up – EVERY day.   I wore dresses and suits and interesting separates. I didn’t just get dressed, it was an art form: something I would plan the night before, lay out on the bed and thoroughly enjoy.  You see, I LOVE fashion. As a child, I drew stick figures wearing unique high-fashion frocks that I created in my mind and transferred to paper.  I was destined to be a famous fashion designer, with unique designs stomping down the runway in Paris and Milan.  My style: classic with a sense of humor – a little surprise you didn’t expect. A pop of color, a retro edging on a modern design…Coco Chanel meets Hello Kitty.   I even went to college for Fashion. It was my major, my life plan…or so I thought.

When I graduated college, I realized that a degree in Fashion did not really get me too many places. I worked in retail, did some window design, realized that I needed a REAL job and did what many 20 year olds do – I became an Executive Secretary.  I worked for many years in Insurance and Legal departments. It was a job. Then, one day my human resources director called me down. She had organized a retirement party for one of our big wigs and had hired a comedy troupe to come and do a skit. The problem is that they were down an actor due to illness and had asked her if she could recommend someone FUNNY in the office to help them out with the sketch. Apparently I stood out in the Insurance industry and apparently I was FUNNY (according to her).  She volunteered me (without my permission) and I reluctantly helped them out with their sketch in front of all of my co-workers and bosses.  To this day, I have no idea how I had the courage to do this, I just know I did it. I was immediately offered a role as an understudy in their public murder mystery show by the Director that day. I guess I AM funny…who knew? AND THE REST IS HISTORY.

Fashion played a part in this area of my life, as well: props, dresses, gloves, wigs, and whatever you need to make a character into…a character!  I thoroughly enjoyed this process and I was good at it.  I love taking on different looks: a maid, a gangster’s wife, an elderly crazy grandma, a Diva Movie Actress, a shy-nerdy-awkward girl. I realized that I am a blank slate and I can look like and be anything I want to.  You get to step into what it would feel like to be someone else and I LOVE that.

I worked every weekend at this job for 17 years (while still holding my boring day job). On nights and weekends, I could escape my Insurance Certificates and Excel spreadsheets and throw on a wig and some make up and give hundreds of people a laugh or two and an escape from their boring jobs.  We performed on boats and trains, in restaurants and halls and even in people’s homes. A few years into Acting, I took a stab at Voice Over – thinking I would do Animation with all my characters and creature voices.  What shocked me is that I get hired (almost exclusively) for my REAL voice, no character, no accent – just me…. Believable, Natural, Real, Relatable, Caring, UN-POLISHED, ME…..and in 2013, I got laid off from that full-time job and took the leap.

Now, I am a full-time Female Voice Talent and Actress.  When I am not in a studio or on a set, I can be found most days in my home studio, recording jobs and auditioning like crazy.  Fashion has become a funny thing around here. Most days, I am in yoga pants and a hoodie. Sometimes, I am in my favorite Cookie Monster Pajamas.  It’s hard to know by my appearance that I am a working Professional….even though I work harder and longer than I ever have in a suit.  There is no major thought put into my outfit for the day – it is usually what I slept in the night before.  My world is about comfort and my commute is from my bed to my studio, one room over.  There is no need for the perfect red lipstick, or a shiny pair of boots to go with my cute retro dress. My world is mostly about how I sound – NOT what I look like (at least in the VO world).  I think this is awesome on some levels, and kind of sad on others. I am most certain (even though he would never admit it) that my husband may miss the days when I would come home from work all dolled up.  So, I get excited when I do get to go into a studio for a job nowadays. I can meticulously lay out my favorite dress, my tights and boots and have a break from the norm; and the absolute JOY & BLISS of fashion and dressing up.