We recently connected with Shane Salk and have shared our conversation below.

Shane, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Have you ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

It’s funny that you should ask this question because I have spent the last 5 minutes going back and forth, asking myself what is the best way to categorize myself. A “Creative”, a “Business Owner” or “Creative Services.” As people, we tend to need to know who someone is in a moment or word. If we muddy those waters, then the whole person gets dismissed, especially if that word is related to a creative field.

(The following is not a generalization about all people’s reactions, it is just some of what I and other creatives have experienced. There are many people who don’t behave in these ways, but if you want to talk about the miss understood elements, then we will just take it as a given that not everyone falls into the below thoughts)

For example, with the understanding that this interview is for publication which is as much about promotion as it is entertainment, if I say I am a Creative/Actor, then there are times that we get placed into a ‘dismissed’ box if we aren’t a star. People see those words and think, “Oh right, another ‘ARTIST’.” Which means any job that follows those words is just a “Day Job,” and should be ignored. If you can’t buy a house, you get accused of being a “failed artist.” Regardless of if I have been on shows like American Dad, voiced major characters in video games like Starfield, or toured internationally with Disney singing as a magic man in Blue…People think you have your head in the clouds and need to get a “real job,” with perhaps no regard or knowledge for others and what they do.

However, if I say I am a Business Owner then that is who I am. I am categorized as only running a recording studio. I have given up on acting and just cash a paycheck. I’m part of the system. People hear that you recorded things for TV shows like Baskets, movies like “Good Burger 2,” or video games like “Fallout 76,” and assume you are making lots of money. Other artists may put you into a category where they believe, before even entering the building, they must be assertive, assuming I dislike performers because I don’t understand them or am jealous because “I could not cut it.”

Or if I put Creative Services because we produce others’ works as well, I can get put into a box where I am always trying to get as much as I can from everyone, do the least amount of work, and just get everyone to do work for me, and don’t really have a creative brain. Regardless of the fact that I am an award-winning audio drama producer and designer, who has created works that were rejected for scholarships because they did not believe it was done on the limited budget we had. I have worked with the likes of Jane Lynch, Neil Flynn, Cameron Crowe, Michael Emerson and so many more, because they believe in the work not because they are getting lots of money. And still, there are people who dismiss by saying “Well how much did that make?” or “Right, but what are you doing this very moment?” or my personal favorite, “Why do you need a budget? Why do you need to pay people?” And regardless of the answers to those questions, the damage is done. The preconceived notions are clear, and the value of the work itself is irrelevant.

However, the kicker is that if you say you are all 3 of these things the thought can be, “Well you don’t really do anything. you do too much. You are too much of a multi-hyphenate, I don’t know what to do with that, and I don’t believe you.

It is an interesting place to be where, depending on who you are talking to, they might be rude about some other part of your life that they don’t even know you do. Producers talk disrespectfully about actors, engineers talk disrespectfully about clients, actors talk disrespectfully about engineers…I see a lot of different sides of people and being misunderstood is part of the game.

Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Every day I get up and am an artist, a business owner, and a creative. The most misunderstood thing about people in these fields is that someone else’s definition of that job or success is irrelevant. If I don’t fit their definition of either a specific job or success, that’s because they don’t want to do what I do. If someone else can’t understand what I do, it very well could be because they don’t want to have to reevaluate the value they give to things they have previously dismissed. Going back to that idea of being a “failed artist” if you don’t reach a certain level of success — Is someone only a runner if they win the race? Otherwise are they a failed runner?

But I will tell you what I am truly, and I believe that other people can relate. If I had to describe what I am in one word…that word would be “Tired.”

Shane, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am an actor, audio drama producer, and owner of a recording studio in North Hollywood, CA. We do voice-over for video games, TV shows, commercials…really anything. I also got into the studio biz, to facilitate creating and producing audio dramas. To know that stuff, you would have to go back to when I was a youngster and listen to old-time audio broadcasts to learn where the voyage began. Then fast-forward to 2009, when I co-created and produced the audio drama We’re Alive, which has been downloaded more than 250 million times and was dubbed “the gold standard of contemporary apocalypse shows” by The Guardian. Jump to 2011, when Bill Holmes and I collaborated to produce an award-winning audio adaptation of A Christmas Carol featuring the Emmy-winning voices of Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche. Then we can jump to my most current show, Carcerem, which is a completely original audio drama series featuring a full cast, original music, and immersive sound design. More like a movie than an audio play, this captivating fantasy series puts you in the middle of the action. Featuring sword fighting, monster attacks, giant battles, heart break and humor, Carcerem is the next step in the evolution of audio entertainment. We are currently remastering it into Dolby Atmos.

As an actor, I have done theater across the country and internationally. My personal high was being the first singing and dancing genie on the Disney Cruise Lines show of Aladdin. That was a dream come true. As a voice-over artist, I have appeared in iconic shows like American Dad, have portrayed dream voices such as the Joker from Batman for DC and Warner Brothers, and am Simeon Bankowski in the video game Starfield. I have been in films and some TV as well, but nothing as cool as the Joker. I mean how can I feel any cooler than that?

I also have created live-stream game shows for CrapTV.Online. Over the pandemic, we were trying to figure out how to keep from going crazy, and my business partner, Bill Holmes, had always wanted to host a gameshow. I figured out how to, once a week, get 6 panelists, 2 contestants and an announcer all on to a gameshow with full graphics, sound effects, etc., from the comfort of their own homes. We have taken this show live to SD Comic Con a few times and it’s just the most ridiculous thing you have ever seen with some of the biggest VO artists in the world participating.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

The only way I can understand NFTs is that they are just Baseball cards that you can’t hang on your wall. Now, I don’t understand baseball cards either. If it brings you joy, great. But I don’t think that the market will hold out, so I would not get into them if you are hoping to make it rich. But what do I know? Just never create an NFT and make money that is someone else’s voice, work, art, or anything. That’s ethically… well… bad….

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I think this question is important but usually worded wrong. When we talk about support, we usually talk about it in terms of things like a friend going through a hard time, a socioeconomic group of people who are fighting for equality, or a country that has just been hit with a natural disaster. Well, where do artists fit into that? Many think of artists as that socioeconomic group. But we aren’t. We are people who are trying to do a job. The question should be how do we stop devaluing art so much? The idea of supporting artists/art as a whole, is devaluing it. Try and stop any microaggressions or conditions where you devalue the end product. You saying to yourself, “these hand-made earrings aren’t worth the price, but I’m going to buy them to support this artist,” is an example of that. Why do you think they aren’t worth that? They might have taken many hours to make. In fact, they might be priced below minimum wage. Or if you see a painting that is out of your price range, that is okay. It does not mean it’s priced too high. Once we stop devaluing the art, then the artists will follow.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.CarceremTheSeries.com
• Instagram: ShaneSalk
• Linkedin: ShaneSalk
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShaneSalk
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@carceremtheseries558
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/shane-salk-productions-los-angeles