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b'KAY BESS is a veteran voice-over actor with hundreds of commercial, film/TV narration and video game credits to her name. Kay says technology has dramatically changed the way VO artists work. And while there are more voice-over jobs than ever before, they\\u2019re a whole lot harder to get than when she first began.\\xa0(45:27) \\xa0 \\xa0 EPISODE NOTES: I\\u2019d like you to meet my new Bess friend, KAY BESS, a veteran voice-over actor with hundreds of commercial, film and TV narration, live show announcing, network promo and video game credits to her name.\\xa0 Kay is the voice of HGTV\\u2019s \\u201cProperty Brothers\\u201d seasons 1-4 and plays Persephone Brimstone in the video game "Agents of Mayhem" and is Lara Croft\\u2019s nemesis, Ana, in the video game \\u201cRise of the Tomb Raider.\\u201d She\\u2019s also pitched everything from Apple, Motel 6 and Hidden Valley Ranch to Toyota, Jergen\\u2019s and Kaiser Permanente on the radio. As Kay tells me in VOCE FORTE, technology has dramatically changed the way VO artists not only audition for jobs \\u2013 which are harder and harder to come by these days \\u2013 but the way in which they work when they do get a job. First, most everyone involved in voice-over now has a home studio, so it\\u2019s no longer necessary to live anywhere near a professional recording studio in order to read copy. Second, there\\u2019s VoiceBank.net: KAY: \\u201cIt\\u2019s like a clearinghouse for copy. Advertising agencies used to either contact a casting director or contact talent agencies directly with copy and agents would call in their clients and read in the agency\\u2019s booth. Now with the advent of VoiceBank.net, all that copy is available to talent from coast to coast, and in Canada and European countries, too. So where I used to be reading against maybe 25 or 30 people locally, now it can be thousands. Back in the heyday, I\\u2019d book probably 1 out of 10 auditions. I\\u2019m nowhere near that now, because there\\u2019s just so many more people auditioning.\\u201d Having a home studio certainly makes recording copy convenient, but Kay says it\\u2019s also isolating. So, that\\u2019s why she now uses it to also record her own podcast, which she calls \\u201cThe B-Hive.\\u201d All of Kay\\u2019s guests are women who work in the voice-over field in one way or another. And while there\\u2019s definitely plenty of VO shoptalk, the conversations she has with her guests invariably get deeply personal: KAY: \\u201cReally the crux of the podcast for me is the question that I ask, What is your biggest obstacle? What has tripped you up to the point where you thought you weren\\u2019t going to be able to carry on? And all of a sudden, everything gets really real. And the podcast becomes not about voice-over, but about the human condition. That\\u2019s what I love about my podcast more than anything else.\\u201d Exploring the human condition happens to also be what I like most about having a podcast. Like Kay, I really enjoy talking with people about the challenges in their lives and how they have or are working to overcome them. So when she revealed something extremely personal about her life, something that she\\u2019s never talked about publicly, not even on \\u201cThe B-Hive,\\u201d I was definitely intrigued. And I think you will be, too. BP Many thanks to Lee Rosevere for the music featured in this episode royalty free through Creative Commons licensing: 1. "Try Anything Once" 2. "Vaping in LA" www.leerosevere.bandcamp.com'