Anna Brisbin - Brizzy Voices | AW 23

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Have you noticed the influence social media has in almost every aspect of our lives nowadays? Well, to some, social media has become an outlet for their creativity to shine. Just like our special guest this week. Anna Brisbin, more famously known as Brizzy Voices on YouTube, is a voice actor / YouTuber / Twitch streamer that is oozing with talent, personality, and creativity.

She is a master of impressions, just like one of our recent guests, Brian hull. Listen in to this week’s episode to hear all about Anna’s experiences in being a full-time YouTuber as well as being a voice actress. If you’re thinking of a career in voice acting and don’t know where to start, Anna may just have the answer you’re looking for!

Show Notes:

[3:36] How Anna’s childhood helped determine her career in voice acting.

[7:24] How Anna became the YouTube sensation, Brizzy Voices.

[14:07] A day in the life of Brizzy Voices.

[21:26] Some of Anna’s favorite projects.

[31:41] Anna talks all about her love for Dungeons and Dragons.

[36:49] Q&A with Anna during the IgTV live.

Instagram: @Alicyn
TikTok: @alicynpackard
YouTube: Alicyn Packard
Twitter: @Alicyn 

Intro Welcome to Alicyn's Wonderland. I'm your host, Alicyn Packard. Join us as we journey through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole into the wild and wonderful world of animation and video games. Hey, do a girl a favor, and please subscribe to this podcast and go on iTunes and leave us a good review. If you like the show, please help spread the word it really helps us to get heard by more people. Thanks so much. Alicyn Hello, Happy Wonderland Wednesday. Welcome to Alicyn's Wonderland, the show that takes you through the looking glass into the wild and wonderful world of animation and video games. I'm really excited and happy Wednesday, everybody. It's been a bit of a crazy day. And I'm so glad to see you here and be with you guys tonight. Thank you so much to everybody that's joining live. Chris Brown, I think this is the third week in a row you were the first to jump on. Hunter, Christian good to see your face. Jason, welcome. Hey, Jeffrey. Sebastian. Daynow. Hey, guys. Alan. You guys, we have a very special guest tonight. I'm sure she needs no introduction. But tonight, our guest is Anna Brisbin, aka Brizzy Voices. She's an amazing voice actor and content creator. And we're gonna chat all about Anna's career as a voice actor and content creator, and all of the amazing things she's done. So I'm going to go ahead and welcome Anna. If you guys have questions at the very bottom of the screen, you will notice a little question mark box go ahead and drop your questions in there so I don't miss them. And we'll try to save some time at the end for questions. Hey, Thomas. What's up Peter. WebbStriker. Good to see you guys. Put your hands together and welcome. The one and only, Anna. That song has just been stuck in my head for the past two weeks. Yes, you're connected. You're in focus. You're in the square. It's always like one of those weird moments where, you know crops it. Got to readjust every time. Hi, welcome to Alicyn's Wonderland. Anna I love Wonderland. Alicyn Yes. This is the Wonderland. There's toys over here. I guess I should crop them in. I see. You've got your lovely toys in the background. It's so cute. How's your day going so far? Anna Wonderful how's yours? Alicyn Welcome. Wait a minute. Who's this little guy on your lap? This fluffy four-legged creature? What's his or her name? Anna Remus. Alicyn Remus. Tell us all about Remus. Anna He's three years old. And the only dog tricks he knows are in Harry Potter spells. Alicyn Your dog knows tricks in Harry Potter spells? Anna Yeah. Alicyn Wow. That's amazing. Can you demonstrate? Anna It might be hard to make this work. I don't know if he'll do it in my lap. But Remus look at me. Wingardium Leviosa. Alicyn That's close. Wow, man, that's amazing. Thank you for that. Well, welcome. It's so good to see your face. Do you prefer Anna or Brizzy? Or either or both? Anna Depends on the environment, I guess. If it feels more creatory and like Internety, then it's Brizzy. And if it feels more voiceovery or just like personal lifey, then Anna. And this is a weird combination of the two, so. Alicyn I'll just call you Branna. So it's so funny because we just discovered we're practically neighbors. Anna Yeah, so close. Alicyn And if there wasn't a global pandemic, we could have easily done this in person. So next time, I think we'll have to make that our priority. This is adorable. Yes. This is adorable. Anna People on phones like five feet away so that we still have the nice two square situation. Alicyn We just be in the same room but like talking into our earbuds so that we believe the future of communication. So, Anna, I was curious what kind of kid were you growing up? Like were you a huge animation nerd like me? Or what about you? Anna Yeah, gosh, like for the first probably like, at least 10 years of my life. Anything live action was just boring. What was the point? If it was not animated, it was boring. So it was all cartoons. All, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Disney. Pretty much. Yeah. And I discovered Harry Potter and then maybe around the time that like, first Harry Potter movie came out, maybe that's what I was like, oh, live action can be exciting and magical and fun. So, yeah. So big Harry Potter nerd immediately, and just really wanted to like, make magic real, I guess. So I wanted to act and like be in a Harry Potter movie. And then that just kind of eventually, I figured out that, like, animation could kind of do that. And there's so much less to worry about behind the microphones. Yeah. Alicyn And you grew up in North Carolina. Is that right? Anna South Carolina. Everyone thinks it's North Carolina. I think, I don't give off very southern vibes. Alicyn So were you like, were you shy kid? Or were you pretty outgoing? Anna So shy. Like my mom says that she's pretty sure I had selective mutism for a while like, I would not speak out in public to strangers at all, I'd completely hide, shut down and my parents have to talk for me. I wanted to do acting like from the moment I saw Harry Potter, but I was too shy to try it properly until like high school. But I just quietly wanted to do it so badly. Alicyn I mean, it's a lot. I mean, it's a lot to just take that leap of faith and, and nobody really, I mean, we all grew up playing pretend. But there's, you know, getting up on a stage kind of takes that element of pretend out of the realm of that world and puts it on a stage and then suddenly, it's like, a lot more about being perceived, then just having the emotions and the feelings. Anna Yeah. Yeah, very intimidating. Alicyn So what made you finally take the leap in high school? Anna They were doing Alice in Wonderland, like community theater. My school is so small, they don't even have a theater program. Or maybe I would have started earlier, but I had to get the guts to go to a community theater where I knew nobody and audition there. But and then my first year of high school, they were doing Alice in Wonderland. And I was like, Okay, I love Alice In Wonderland. I got to try. I got to try. Alicyn This is all coming full circle. And so, what did you, were you one of the characters in the? Anna Oh, yeah, I was like flower number two? Alicyn I thought I'd recognize you. It was anything. Anna One line. It was wondrous. Alicyn Yey, did you make a lot of friends, and meet a good group? Anna Yeah, that was like my, my favorite extracurricular through high school was to just go into community theater and doing all those things. I never did musicals, but I did all the plays. Alicyn Yeah. Oh, that's so fun. So you also sing though, when did you start singing? Anna I guess on YouTube. Just doing voiceover things. It has to be like, in character. I feel weird singing as myself, but like behind a character who could like potentially be bad at singing, then it's fine. Yeah. Not really, until you do, I think because I've been so, it's less intimidating when I can record it and then decide if I'm willing to put it up or not. Singing live? Alicyn Ain't gonna happen. And when, so you decided to put, what made you decide to post your first YouTube videos? Anna I was bored. I mean, really, I put up my first YouTube stuff in 2006. I just like editing videos and clipping stuff together and making cool things. And then eventually, I had like 200 subscribers like six years later, and I had nothing to do one summer I was at college as a theater major, wanting to do on camera stuff. And then I did a voiceover thing at school. And it was very fun. And now with nothing to do with that summer, I wanted to do more. And I knew on YouTube, there was like, abridged series and fan dubs and stuff. And they asked for auditions for like, for you to add an email or upload, like an example of you doing impressions with these characters as like the audition. So I was like, I'll just upload a bunch of these things. It's like a portfolio that I can send to these things and try to do more of that because that the voiceover thing that I did at school was super fun. So that's kind of how it started as Brizzy Voices started as like a voiceover portfolio sort of situation and then just kind of became its own thing. Alicyn Wow. And so what was your first, was the Pokemon video the first video that really hit it off? Anna For sure. I think the first video on the channel was Nickelodeon impressions? It was either Nickelodeon impressions or a smaller Pokemon video with fewer voices. But yeah, voicing the first 151 Pokemon was definitely the first one that blew up. Alicyn What was that like? Anna Bizarre, very bizarre. I just, I definitely remember just being glued to my phone or the computer and just like refreshing and refreshing. It's like still going up and more people are commenting like at this exact second. It was bizarre. Also the first place it went viral was no tengo tele punto com, which is like a Chilean 9gag. So the first like burst of comments from strangers was all in Spanish. Alicyn What is everybody saying? Anna Just a lot of Wow, she's crazy. Wow, her neighbors must think crazy things and Alicyn Wow, that's amazing. So after that, did it shift how you were approaching your acting career? Anna Yeah, I think I knew I wanted to do more voiceover stuff, but it kind of cemented that as like oh, like encouragement, oh, people think that I have something here and I'm gonna try to focus on that even more, I was sure to, like, seek out the one voiceover class that was available to me in college and really, like, dedicated myself to that was like, I'm the only person here who like actually wants to do this. Everyone else wants to do theater film and just happens to be forced to take this class. But I'm like, No, this is what I want. Yeah. It really like put my focus on that for sure. Alicyn And so did you work in New York for a while before moving to Los Angeles? Or is it, Anna I graduated and came back home for Christmas. And then two months later... Alicyn Wow. Wow. Yeah. And so how has that journey been since you've moved to Los Angeles and been doing this full time? Anna Roller coaster. It's been very exciting. I don't think I could ask for any better like, side job while pursuing voiceover is YouTube or any social media, especially when it's already attached to voiceover and feels like good practice along the way? Like, I feel very, very lucky. I've met awesome, incredible people through YouTube things and traveling and all sorts of opportunities through that. And then that also led me to my first agent and then my second agent, it's crazy. Alicyn Yeah, speaking of agents, MikeyCarlos asked if any cool LA agents reached out to you, which makes me think it was probably him. The way he worded that. Anna He was first. He was the first one to be like, Hey, you, agents, LA? I think I was still in New York at the time, though. And I was like, I'll get back to you on that. Alicyn Wow. Wow. So people are wondering what exactly is going on? This is a weekly IgTV show called Alicyn's Wonderland that's also a podcast, which is why we don't do as much interacting with the comments below. Because when it's just an audio form, it doesn't make as much sense, guys. So if you have questions, drop them in the box, and we'll do them at the end. But basically, we sit down every week and interview people that work in animation, video games, not just voice actors, but show creators, animators, storyboard artists and everything. So hopefully you guys will subscribe. So that's basically you moved to LA to pursue full time voice acting, do you do on camera acting as well? Anna Yeah, I don't pursue it anymore. It's kind of like, if it falls into my lap, if someone asks me to audition specifically for a thing, then I'll do it. But I'm not, it just, that takes a lot of effort. God just doing the whole auditioning grind for on camera is a whole lot. And I just, I like voiceover and spend my energy there. So yeah, I may not wait for it. But it's fun when it comes up. Alicyn Can you describe for our viewers kind of like what the differences between when you get a voiceover audition and submit that versus when you, if you get like an on camera, commercial audition? Anna Oh my God, it's night and day, not as night and day during the pandemic, I guess. But night and day, because you have to memorize the lines, or at least almost memorize, you're pretty much off book, which is the biggest difference in my brain, you gotta prep physically, whether it's makeup and whatever wardrobe should be appropriate for the thing, hair and everything, shower, head out and deal with LA traffic to get to this place for five minutes to do your audition and then drive like 30 minutes to an hour back. It's a whole lot more time and effort in my brain. Then voiceover where you go into the closet or your home vocal booth, you read the slides, you play around with some stuff, you edit them. Alicyn Yeah, I also really like that you don't have to be in the room when they're rejecting you. If you're at like a commercial and they realize you're not the one and they're like, Okay, bye. Yeah, goodbye. Anna Like first take, you better give it your all. Voiceover you just try again if you're not happy with it. Alicyn It's a lot of fun. I know we have a lot of voice actors on the stream right now. A lot of aspiring voice actors. I'm just curious. What is the average day in your life now, how much of your work is content creation? And how much is auditioning and sessions? How does, do you have an average day? What does that look like? Anna Um, it changes so much, depending on if I'm uploading them right now. I'm kind of uploading a video every other week and I'm also streaming video games on Twitch and stuff. So maybe a normal day would be like wake up, do normal life things with like, dog and breakfast and working out and shower, whatever. And then maybe auditioning in my closet for a couple hours depending on how many I have and how ahead of, like if I have auditions, do it in a couple days like, do I feel like I have the energy to get those done today ahead of time or not. And then once those are done, maybe like prepare a YouTube video by doing research and like, I basically make a Word doc list of like a character and then I find a link on YouTube and I copy and paste that onto the word doc and stuff. And with like a little time code of when the line is or something, if I'm doing something that's like literally reciting the lines of those characters. Sometimes I do suggestions of lines from like viewers and such. But if it's, if I'm doing exact lines, and I'll like copy and paste the references into a document, and then once that's all done on another day, maybe that evening, I'll stream or something, then I'll play some Dungeons and Dragons on stream or off stream. And then another day would be like the same beginning up through like auditioning, and then maybe I'd be filming the video, on that afternoon or that evening, and then sometimes in the evenings, it's just like, if it's not D&D, then maybe it's like watching a movie with friends or going out to a movie, the drive in, some sort of like, I love the revitalization of the drive in the past year. I really appreciate it. Alicyn So amazing, and so do you do all your production for your YouTube channel yourself? Or do you have a team of people that you work with? Anna Yeah, so then another day, it would be like the same beginning if I still have auditions, and then editing the video and trying to get that done before the next morning. Alicyn You do it all yourself. Wow. That's a lot of responsibility. Alicyn Yeah, I just, I'm so picky about it. Because I do so many takes usually and I don't trust like a YouTube editor to pick the best takes of impressions. I can't give up that trust yet. Alicyn Yes. And those professional feature film comedic editors are usually not, you know, available. The rate that one would would like yes. And so then with YouTube and stuff, I mean, I'm assuming you're monetizing YouTube, do you also monetize Twitch? Or is that just a way to drive people to YouTube? Anna Yeah, yeah, Twitch has been something I've been doing for like seven years now. But over the past year, I amped it up a lot. It's been very on and off for seven years. And then the past year, I actually have made it more consistent as an outlet for social interaction for me and reconnecting with video games. And really, I'm playing through a lot of amazing classic games with incredible acting like Last of Us, Uncharted, Detroit become human stuff that feels like good research. It is really helpful for me for like auditioning for video games. So I've been doing a lot of that the past year. Alicyn You play with yourself, or do you bring friends in and then play with those guys too? Anna I have loved the multiplayer games and stuff like Among Us and things with friends, maybe even Animal Crossing, but not as a productive with research for other games. Alicyn It's so funny. Yeah, more and more people are like, Hey, can you Twitch and play some of your games that you've done? And I'm like, I don't, I only really play Mario Brothers. That's like the only game I play. So maybe, I don't know. It's just amazing that that is a thing, that is definitely a thing. Anna Yeah, it's a few games that I've been on stream that's been fun. Alicyn So fun. I have to check it out. And so you have a podcast or you've had a couple incarnations of a podcast? Can you tell us a little bit, is it "Too Much To Watch?" Is that the new version, newest version? Anna It was "Too Much To Watch" for like a month and then we were like, no, we're not really movie critics. Let's go back to what we're doing. Now, it started out "Fantastic Geeks And Where To Find Them." It became "Too Much To Watch" for a little bit. And now it's "Fantastic Geeks" with no "and where to find them." So just "Fantastic Geeks." It's just me, my best friend Tessa who is also a voice actor, screen actor, YouTuber, and huge Harry Potterer talking about all the nerdy stuff that we adore. Alicyn How did you guys meet? Anna Through YouTube pretty much, met through having similar managers like for six, seven years ago, and just hitting off immediately because of Harry Potter. Alicyn That's awesome. And so how long has the full podcast and been evolving for? Anna 2017, maybe? 2017 or 2018? One of those. We took a year off. Alicyn And where can people hear it? Is it just anywhere? Anna Spotify, and Apple podcasts, probably some of the other ones but I don't know. But it's on Spotify and Apple podcast. Alicyn And then is there a visual component or any kind of like live stream version? Anna Not yet. Alicyn Cool. I'll have to check it out. So let's see here. You know, I mean, you're constantly putting out such great content and sharing your gifts for the world. What do you most hope that your viewers take away from your content? Anna I feel like I've gotten these comments before like, I wasn't really sure what I wanted people to get out of it before. But the other day since I've read some of these comments, I've been like, Oh, yes, this is ideal, perfect. And it's just been like, either like one or two things either inspiration to start voice acting and, and or impressions and really giving that a go, or just being unashamed to be your fully nerdy self and love the things that you love and be proud of that. It's, it's what either of those two things make my heart melt. Alicyn Oh, that's so sweet. Yeah, it's sometimes I mean, more, more now that we have so many different ways to connect with our people online. People are more empowered to be as unique as they are in real life. But there was a time when you know, you only had the two nerds at your school, and that was it. You know, you guys had to band together and hang out every day at the lunch table. And now it's like, there's a whole universe of nerds out there. And you get to be the beacon, the shining light. Promo Hey, guys, this is Alicyn Packard. Sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to let you know that if you like the show, please, please, please remember to subscribe to this podcast. And leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps us to get heard by more people. Thanks so much. Alicyn What have been some of your favorite projects to work on, both in the content creation side and voice? Anna Content creation was, hmm, I've been very proud of a couple of collabs that I did with Peter Hollins, who does some great music stuff. I feel so uncomfy with music things but he makes it very easy. He's so good at producing music and making very, very cool acapella videos usually and we've done a Harry Potter Medley where I played as a bunch of different Harry Potter characters singing this sort of Harry Potter song he made and also a Nickelodeon medley of a bunch of Nickelodeon theme songs. And it was just, it's very cool to see that all come together because he's very good at making those videos. Also, anything I've done with my friend Brian Hull always turns out so much better. Alicyn Well, we've had him on here. So glad that he connected me with you. Anna Yeah. And then as far as like, cool up creation opportunity experiences that have come up from like, YouTube. It's been like, traveling to like London and Tokyo and Brazil and going on movie sets and stuff and just going to cool events, usually for a movie promotion sort of situation and like, yes, just like give me all the nerdy movies to just obsess over and tell people about because that's what I want to talk about anyway, so. And then voiceover wise of the stuff that's already out. It would be like Monster Prom where I played, Dahlia. Alicyn Oh, wait, can you do the voice for us? Anna Yeah. "It's Dahlia Aquino, super buff blue demon babe. Honestly, I don't know why she has an alligator. Yeah." She's loud and violent. And then Final Fantasy VII remake. I played this little girl, not little girl, this little part of this girl named Katie who is in, who's just on the streets telling you that the "talley of monsters slayed has been updated. It's like you, you're the merc who's been killing all the monsters, right? Great job." Like she's just so, she shows you how many monsters you've killed and tells you that you're doing a great job. Very cheerleadery. Alicyn That's so sweet. And is it we're hearing your voice in a game when you go back and play it? Is it suprising? Anna I don't know about weird anymore. Just exciting, I think. Alicyn Yeah. Sorry. Do you have any upcoming projects that you are allowed to talk about? Anna Not that I'm allowed to talk about. Nothing. Alicyn NDA. Anna How do you feel hearing yourself and things? Alicyn You know, again, getting used to it now. I don't, you know, it's always weird because if I'm doing like a real character voice sometimes I'm surprised. I'm like, oh my god. Wait, is that me? Yeah. Wow. Okay. I didn't know like, you know, the stuff they pull out of you sometimes. Anna The first time that I heard myself, I worked on this student project in college that was like a Pokemon thing. And I didn't, I was their Ash and a couple of other things. And when I heard the final product, I was like, did you pitch this down? Is this me? And I, so that was the first time I experienced that. That's me? Alicyn Yeah, it's trippy. It's so trippy. And wait. So he's just gonna ask you to piggyback on that um, let me think. I think I lost it. That's kind of a cool sound, actually. Yeah, sorry. I'm blanking, biggest challenges. What do you think are your biggest challenges then? With just career stuff right now. Anna I think just finding the right balance and trying to figure out if I should, if I were to, like, step back more time away from social media job, things like would that actually improve my voiceover career? Or is it symbiotic enough that it's smart to keep it up and to keep my timeline and voice relevant anyway, that it's a good practice and everything and it's a great, a great job, it pays the bills really well. So like, should I be keeping up the time commitment necessary for social media and YouTube things? Or should I be like, kind of let that go? 100%, like, would that change anything? I don't know. Alicyn That's interesting because like, you're coming at it from the sort of the opposite side of a lot of the people that I talked to where you and Brian have come into it through social media, whereas other people are now needing to grow their social media. And so it's like two halves of the same coin. And I feel like every year it's just everything's getting more and more mashed together. So I think a lot of people ask that questions from the other, like, how do we manage our time now that we have new challenges of needing to manage our social media careers? Anna For sure. It's a weird balancing and strange position for us to be in. Like, usually it helps. Sometimes it does the opposite. Sometimes people are like a YouTuber, not an actor. Hate those YouTubers. They are crazy. Alicyn Now, do you think because now I feel like everybody, Anna It's getting closer. I feel like it's definitely shifting. On camera, 100%. They care so much about followers right now. And I feel like, voiceover wise, it's just barely, like some people are starting to care about follower things. But like, not much compared to on camera. And I feel like there's a lot of the stigma still in voiceover of, I think because voiceover is inherently so much less shallow than on camera that people have the idea that YouTubers and social media stars like are the shallow side of the industry and like would not fit in and don't put in the proper work. They're just trying to like rest on the laurels of a followership. Alicyn Yeah, which I don't believe is true. Anna Sometime it is true, is the thing. Alicyn Yeah. assumption, you can kind of get the vibe from somebody's content, right? And, the depth and breadth of what they're putting out in the world, hopefully. But yeah, it's very interesting, and especially now where it's like, you know, you've had so much success in YouTube, but if you were to start over right now, or give advice to somebody else, who was trying to start up on YouTube now, it seems like the game has just changed so much. Anna Yeah, I wouldn't even know how to, what to recommend because if I were to start right now, I wouldn't be making the right stuff to get eyeballs. I don't think. The kind of stuff I do right now is pulling in a lot of fresh eyeballs if that makes sense. It's kind of resting on the people that I already have if I'd like to be fully vulnerable about that. It's not like something that's growing and growing and really pulls in the YouTube audience of today. Alicyn When you see YouTube kind of making a push for the YouTube shorts and are you doing a lot of shorts or mainly sticking to like full. Anna Not at all. I'm too stuck in my ways to adapt. I don't know. Alicyn Almost did a spit take a drink of my water. Anna Yeah, though I've tried like a couple things on reels sort of situation but not much at all. I don't have a Tik Tok account. I've never made a YouTube short. Well, I don't know. I don't have a lot of ideas in that area. But I'm not super against it at least on like YouTube. I think I should make some YouTube shorts. See how that does. But I don't know. I just, my brain hasn't gotten there. I'm just trying to figure out just what to do for a video that I don't put too much energy into that. Alicyn Yeah, and that is your career so well placed attention put on there. Yeah, it does seem like it's a really different type of environment when I think back of some of my favorite YouTubers have been doing it so long and and you know, I haven't really you don't hear about as many up and coming youtubers these days. It's almost like The new media has become the old media being replaced with other types that or being substituted with other different types of media. It's it's an interesting time. Anna Yeah, right now, there's just so many YouTubers that there are 1000 or more upcoming rising stars, like people who just hit a million subscribers that we will never hear of, because that's just how many people have a million subscribers now is a lot of people. There's so many people that are so big or at least medium big that you don't even know who they are. Alicyn And you feel YouTube's getting more niche? Alicyn It is corporately, I guess I know like, I mean, I guess it depends on what you mean by niche. But on like the trending page, it's more specific, I guess, and kind of narrow options as far as what ends up on the trending page because it's all the corporate stuff, you know, music videos and sports or like, prank video videos made that really appeal to like kids and stuff, high drama, high octane content. Alicyn Do you have some favorite channels that you love and watch religiously? Anna Several, but it's always hard to think of them on the moment. ContraPoints, love and adore. I feel like it's my friends. It's like Brian Hull, Tessa Netting, Cherry Wallace. Hmm. Alicyn It's a good start. It's amazing then to be connected with the people whose work you admire. Anna Yeah. I've really just been listening a lot lately to like Dungeons and Dragons shows and stuff. So that's taking up a lot of my like YouTube time. Alicyn How did you get into Dungeon and Dragons? Anna I don't know. 2018. A friend was like, I've got the starter kit if you guys want to try playing like, okay, and it was very fun. Alicyn That's amazing. Yeah. So how do you stay inspired in your creative work? Do you have, do you look outside yourself at other people's art and find inspiration? Do you meditate? Journal? Anna It's I mean, it's hard, I guess. Like direct baaah like rainbow beams of light inspiration as YouTube been making. I'm less and less feel like I know what I'm doing there. But um, voiceover wise, it's like, and often YouTube, they overlap in so many ways. Playing video games a lot has helped me a lot, and Dungeons and Dragons has helped me a lot as far as just like inspiring character creation and improv and just being creative and having fun with things and with characters and then just video games with the I DS for I don't know, like video game voice impressions to do. I just I recently did like Resident Evil 8 character voice impressions and stuff. And just, yeah, no, no, it's absorbing a lot of art, I guess. Movies, video games. I watch, I should watch more animation. I watch a little bit of like modern animation, but not as much as I should. Alicyn You just need to have a kid because then you'll watch a lot of cartoons. Mainly with my son. Anna I watched a movie. I watch animated movies, but I'm not as good at watching the TV shows. Yeah. Because I'm not, it's my fault. I'm only playing video games. So that's why I'm fucking video games. Alicyn That's amazing, though. Anyway, great work. You mentioned improv. Have you ever studied in any of the improv schools or been on a improv troupe or anything like that? Anna Yeah, I did like a little bit growing up, at like my community theater, one like summer program in New York thing and then I've just done the first like opening course like, workshop, a improv workshop, a Groundlings and improv 101 at UCB. So I've got like, the framework of like the two big ones, you know, but it scares me. It's so scary. live performance, especially without a script is so scary for me. So I did it just to like, because I know it's so important for voiceover but it's terrifying. Alicyn Yeah, yeah. I mean, you really put it all out there and must expect failure because as you're learning and growing, probably you're gonna fall on your ass a lot, so uncomfortable. But there's something about getting comfortable with the discomfort that I think helps to grow. Anna Yeah, for sure. Alicyn For a little while. Mick Wingert had a voice actor improv troupe. It was spectacular. Trying to think who else was in it? I'll have to ask Mick? There was a bunch of people playing in and out but it was all audio, you would have loved it. Anna I know. I think Max Mittelman has an anime improv group that goes to cons and stuff and like that's me. Alicyn Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's amazing. So Alice, since you're writing and producing your own content, do you ever aspire to produce your own animated series? For the web or TV? Anna Yes and no. I don't really have ideas, is the thing. I don't know what I would want to do. And I hate writing. But I'd love to like work with a writer, someone who has very cool ideas, and I love adapting things and and adjusting things, tweaking things. So like, I'd love to, like direct some sort of animated short, or film or series or whatever. But I don't know what I would want to do. I would want it to be something magical, something, something wild and mystical. But I don't want to write. Alicyn That'd be amazing. Well, you do a lot of cosplay and dress up and stuff like that, you know, maybe you could just find a character that is within you and something around that. Have you ever been to Burning Man or anything like that? Anna No, a bunch of ren fairs but never like Burning Man. Alicyn It's like the world's biggest Ren faire with 90% less ren. So what is what is next for you? I mean, is there other aspects of your career you're looking to expand or, Anna I don't know, just trying to keep up with Twitch and the YouTubes. There's, this year I worked on definitely my biggest voiceover role ever. And something that's not going to come out for what they said probably at least a year and it's like, oh, driving me crazy, because I love it so much. And I've never worked on something for so many sessions before. So like, this is important. And it's like something that I know people are looking forward to already, so. Alicyn That's awesome. Well, keep us posted. Definitely want to help you spread the word when not that you need help at all. But that's very exciting. We'll stand by for when you can, let's, do you mind if we open it up for some audience questions? I see we have a handful in the box. Yay. All right, guys. Down below, there's a question box. If you guys have specific questions for Brizzy. Go ahead and enter them there. Also, if you're just tuning in for the first time the show's called Alicyn's Wonderland, it happens every Wednesday at 6pm here on Igtv. Next week, we have Tom Ruegger coming on the show. He is the creator of Animaniacs and a 14 time Emmy Award winning Writer Producer and I'm really curious to chat with Tom about the changes that he's seen in animation over the past 30 years to do a show like Animaniacs a hit show from the 90s and then to reboot it for Hulu today. I'm sure he's filled with amazing stories. So I hope you guys Tune in next week too. Let's see, oh, let's see. Calvin is asking is the highest rated question which is not a question. You're his inspiration, the reason he started voice acting we've been asking, Do you remember the video you reacted to from tik tok the Peppa Pig and Ruben is a tik toker someone that very talented. impressionist on Tik Tok does a lot of female characters too. And you would not believe the voice that comes out of this guy. Anna One was like sitting in a it looked like a storage closet. And just doing a bunch of questions, including, what was that? Alicyn Are you still on here, Ruben? I hope you are because you're begging for us to answer this question. Probably. I mean, his Pep is really spot on. And he's you know, bigger kind of muscular guy. And I'm always shocked to hear his female voices. They're really good. Let's see, this is kind of funny. Have you ever done any impersonations of any of the characters I've done? Have you ever done Jibanyan from Yokai Watch? Anna No. He sounds like this. Voice of fury or poison fury. Alicyn Paws. Alicyn There's a whole game where it's like you do an impression of me and then I do an impression of your impression. It's like the telephone game. Oh my god. Wait. Okay, here, here's a Little Miss Sunshine. Little Miss Sunshine. Wait, this is such a great character creation exercise. This is our warmup for our new improv troupe. So hot in here. Oh, that was amazing. And thank you for whoever asked that question. What do you think is your favorite role you've played? I know. It's a hard question to answer. Anna I guess Dahlia? I guess? Yeah, the buff demon Dahlia. Yeah, let's get down to business. Alicyn What do you like about her? Anna She's just fully unashamed, and proud, and no filter. Alicyn We all wish. Okay, so what is some advice for up and coming voice actors? Anna The class, take an acting class. Do all the performance acting things you can without worrying too much about voiceover specific stuff at first, you know? Theater on camera, something for some sort of basics, and then just watch a lot of things. Listen very carefully to what other people are doing. Even if you're not looking into becoming an impressionist or voice matching anyone. I think it's a good exercise. Besides just listen and repeat to performances that you think are really good and kind of finding control over your voice in that way. But it's way more important that you know, how to act and how to put yourself into the mindset of a character. That's really it. Don't worry too much about like, getting a demo real quick or moving to LA, just get as much performing experience as you can. Alicyn It's funny too, because of the pandemic, now, a lot of voice acting classes are done on zoom. So you don't even have to be in LA to sign up for some of the awesome classes and coaches that are working with actors. So there's a lot of opportunity. And Jennifer Hale is going to come on the show in September, and she has a new coaching program. And that is called skills hub, and one on one coaching with a bunch of casting directors and voice actors at a per minute basis. So kind of work within any budget. So you could get started, you know, practicing there, but record yourself as much as possible. Play it back saying, because what we think we sound like is not what we sound like because it's resonating through all these different spots in your head. So, you know, play around with the shape of your face. She's gonna bring the character, there's no that's just character voice acting, then there's commercial and promo and narration and, again, YouTube. Okay, so we answer this, somebody is asking, they have a demo and a website. But how do you get an agent successfully? That is, well, if you're at the point where you have a demo, and an agent, a demo and a website, you can start submitting for agents. And basically, you will go to each individual agency website and see how they prefer to get submissions. Usually, it's all electronic. But if you know someone that's at an agency or have a direct referral, that always makes a big difference. Anna Yeah, at least 10 times improvement, I think, is having someone to recommend your demo, personally. Yes. Alicyn Or just be like breezy and get really popular on YouTube. And then people will just reach out to you just do that, you know, do that? I mean, nothing to know. But But yeah, I mean, it's, it doesn't always happen immediately. And there's different agencies in different markets, too. So you might want to start in a smaller market. If you can't find an agent in Los Angeles, New York, or Chicago, you could try and get an agent in San Francisco or Denver or a smaller market. Anna You don't need to start off at the big guns, you can work your way up. Alicyn Exactly. Let's see. Have you ever had an acting job together? Anna Hmm. I don't think so. Not like a professional paid. Like we've acted in our own things together, or I think but I don't think we've ever been paid to act in something together. Not yet. No. Alicyn Well, how does it come about that you guys do a lot of like sponsorship, kind of unboxing and attending events and stuff like that? Is that something that you have? Somebody that helps you get those jobs or studios reach out to you directly? Anna Yeah, we have the same manager for like six years. So that definitely helps. And now it's just like, connections and like, Hey, you know, girl, somebody says, I love you. Alicyn This is an interesting question, because you know, we all have to start somewhere. Have you ever had to work on a basic stable income job, like at a grocery store? Or some other 9-5? Anna Not a 9-5 or anything like super bad, I guess? My first jobs were as a nanny, and as a blueberry picker? Anna No way. Where'd you pick blueberries? Anna In Pensacola, Florida. Alicyn So cool. Is that like a summertime thing? Anna Yeah, it was this summer situation because I was in Florida. Anyway, so it was a whole thing. Alicyn So many, so many oil out and very certain exam Did you say Verizon? Anna And then it was I mean, it was partway through college and I started YouTube. So that started pretty quickly. Alicyn And then it was all over. No more 9-5. Let's say we did talk about those people wanting to jump on a guest stream. Have you seen the Spider Man No Way Home trailer? What are your thoughts? Anna Yes, I have. I am excited, but I don't have the biggest thoughts because I've never seen the Tobey Maguire Spider Man movie, so I don't know most of this. Alicyn Wow. It's funny. I guess it was before your time a little bit, huh? Anna I guess. Before I got into superheroes, for sure. Alicyn Okay, let's see. If it as a would you go for the classic Chainsaw Massacre. There's some weird questions in here guys. If you had to choose between Mario and Sonic, which way do you go? Anna Mario. I'm such a Nintendo fan girl. When did you get your first video game system? Anna Probably with N64. Whenever that was oh, I actually I don't know. What was first, gameboy color and 64? Alicyn Probably around the same time. Yeah, maybe Gameboy Color actually. Anna Yeah, it was, it was one or the other. Somebody Google that, I played on the my cousin's Super Nintendo a lot before that. Alicyn And how old were you when you search Twitch? Alicyn My Twitter banner is a picture of me as like, a three year old holding a Super Nintendo controller, like upside down as my sister actually plays on it. But probably myself actually, into it, like, six or seven, maybe. Alicyn My cheeks are hurting from smiling so much. I need to look at that picture. That's amazing. Well, guys, we're gonna start to wrap it up. So if there's any more questions, get them in back there. Do you have a favorite movie? Anna Oh, Harry Potter. It's always like the last Harry Potter, probably. It was like the first and the last Harry Potter. And then outside of Harry Potter. Oh my gosh, I never know where to start outside of Harry Potter. But like the prestige. Spy kids, you know? such similar movies? Oh, no, there's so much to choose from once I take care Harry Potter out of them. Alicyn And so this is kind of a question. I like to ask everybody. If there was the song in your heart. What would the name of the song be? I Anna I don't know. Oh my gosh. I feel like it'd be like Magic, Magic, Magic. Alicyn Oh, that's great. What kind of style? Is it like an EDM? Anna I hope not. I feel like it'd be like electro swing. Alicyn Ah, oh, guys. There's somebody was saying they're a music producer. You get to get on that. If you can make that happen. Oh, well. It's been so great chatting with you. Let me just see. I mean, that's a weird. If you have a least favorite voice actor project? Anna Probably just something very early on for some random YouTube thing that I'm probably very embarrassed of. Alicyn Don't look it up. We're not gonna say the name. Okay. Anna I wouldn't even know what it's called. But just like random stuff like that. That's probably really bad. Alicyn Do you have any dream voice actor roles? Anna It'd be anything Harley Quinn, anything like? Sort of like Nickelodeon, Disney area. Anything related to magic. I'd love to do some very cool, freaking cool like mocap video game. That's definitely a dream. Alicyn Have you done any mo cap yet? Anna No. Just class. I've done space cap, but not buddy. Yeah, Alicyn yeah, I haven't done any more cap either. It looks fun. But then we're back at memorizing lines. Again. Not cool. I really want to do it. But I think if I can do it, it'll happen. It's coming. It's coming to you. Awesome. What do you I was also curious, are there any charities or organizations you'd like to volunteer for? Anna I love anything to do with dogs or dogs. And there's a doxon rescue LA I think that it's called that I love. There's this charity called lumos that I used to do a lot of work for that raises money to help orphans, get out of orphanages because orphanages suck and help them find permanent homes. So those are the first two that come to mind. Alicyn Yeah, that's amazing. Well, if you ever want to share any information for that, happy to forward that along if you guys want to get involved as well. It's been so lovely chatting with you today. Anna Thanks for having me. Alicyn You're so welcome. Do you mind saying real quick just this is Alicyn's Wonderland and introducing yourself. We're coming up on our one year anniversary of this being an IgTV show. And I have a fantasy that I'm going to go through all the videos and edit these into something. Okay. Anna This is Alicyn's Wonderland. And I'm Brizzy Voices. Alicyn Oh, well, it's been so lovely getting to know you and where can everybody find you online? Anna BrizzyVoices on YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, Twitter. Brizzy Voices. Alicyn Brizzy voices. It's that easy, guys. Well, thank you, Anna. It was lovely to get to know you and we'll see you next time. Anna See you next time. Alicyn Bye, everybody. Outro Thanks for tuning in to Alicyn's Wonderland, where we explore the wild and wonderful world of animation and video games. Please remember to subscribe and leave us a review. For more episodes of Alicyn's Wonderland. Please visit us at www.AlicynPackard.com See you next week.