Profile: Tom Test
(reprinted from the MCAI-Chicago Newsletter)
by Jill A. Chukerman

December 2001 — When MCAI President Tom Test attended his 20-year high school reunion recently, he found himself facing some raised eyebrows. "You're an actor?" some of his fellow alums exclaimed. "But you were such a Poindexter in high school — I thought you'd be in accounting or engineering!"

Much to the surprise of his former classmates, Tom has become a successful voiceover and on-camera actor. But it wasn't a childhood dream that got him there. "Nobody in my family had ever done anything creative like performing," he said. "I originally was a psychology major in college, but I got really frustrated with the fact that there's nothing black and white in psychology; there are 37 different theories for what personality is. So I ended up going to business school at the University of Michigan and getting into marketing, partly because it had elements of psychology and also because I wouldn't have to go to school for 12 years to get a job."

Though a few college friends complimented his voice on his answering machine, it took Tom awhile to take them seriously. He got a job in the corporate world after graduating but didn't enjoy it. "I had no freedom; I became a zombie. I looked at the path I was on and asked myself whether this was where I wanted to be in 10 or 20 years, and the answer was no."

He quit his job and moved to Chicago…—

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TALENT CORNER:
How to Get the Most Out of Voice-Talent

These are tips intended primarily for producers, directors, and writers who employ voice-over talent. Most of them have never had any formal training on how to direct talent — they learned on the job as they went along. These tips will help you get better results when you next find yourself in recording studio, looking through the glass at the talent inside — on whose voice and skill the success of your project may depend.

These tips may also be useful to talent who are still trying to master their trade…

[COMPLETE STORY]

About the MCAI

The MCAI is a global association of professionals devoted to the business and art of visual communication. We work in video, film, DVD, CD-ROM, web-based and all other forms of interactive visual communications, for corporations, small businesses, agencies, non-profit organizations, the government, education, the medical field, etc. The primary mission of the MCAI-Chicago is foster the business and craft of visual communication through networking and education.

Click on www.mcaichicago.com to find out more about the MCAI-Chicago, or go to the national MCAI website at www.mca-i.org/