Career Options in Voice Acting

Voice actors are just like actors. They have managers, they belong to an actor's guild and have to audition by sending in voice reels. And just like actors, many voice actors have gone to acting schools, and have done a string of low-paying crappy acting jobs to build up experience in order to build a better resume and voice reel.

First, you need to get a good voice. Secondly, you need to learn how to act. Then, you learn how to use your voice and act at the same time. Then, you get some experience using your voice and acting at the same time.

1) Study acting.

2) Put together a reel

3) Get an agent - Now to get started, you'd want to have an agent at a good voiceover agency. Make a demo tape and send it to agents asking to be represented as a voice actor.

4) Practice Practice Practice

IE Radio Stations, marketing firms, everyone and anyone that would be looking for VO talent.

Get in touch with a local radio station you like and get an intern position. Tell them that you want to be on the air eventually and volunteer to do everything. Once you have done a few things put together a demo tape and send it to agents in LA and New York.

Take a radio class at your local junior college if they have a radio station and try to get on the air there as well.

The San Francisco Library has a couple of books on the subject of voice over acting which discuss preparation and marketing tips.

Your basic reading skills are a must, but you need to be able to read several different types manuscript (or Copy, as it's known in the business). You need to be able to pick up a newspaper and read it aloud, you need to be able to pick up a medical journal and read it aloud. Let's face it, you need to be able to pick up anything and be able to read it aloud.

Here's the kicker, you need to be able to do more than just read it. You need to be able to speak the words on the paper as if they were your own. This is one part of the talent many VO's spend countless hours training to learn how to do. Some of them learn how, and some of them don't. Therein lies one of the needed talents. You need to develop the ability to grab a piece of paper (that is sometimes handed to you minutes before you go into the studio), dissect it to find it's true message, and read it aloud as if the words were flowing from you. If you practice and practice and practice, and still don't develop the ability, then you might not have the talent....

Some of the other talents that certainly help are the ability to act, and be funny. A lot of people might think they are funny, but you need to be funny. Many of the commercials that are recorded today, whether they are for television or radio, have some aspect of comedy or comedic acting in them. Tandem spots (Tandem is more than one VO in the spot, a spot is a commercial) generally demand that the actors, or Voice Actors, be funny. Your time is best spent getting professional training from a qualified acting coach for acting, and a voice over coach for learning voiceovers. A coach will generally know if you have what it takes to advance in either career.

The third and probably most important is a good voice. By good we mean clear, "listenable", articulate, and in some way unique. One of the biggest misconceptions is that you have to have some sort of dynamic, over-the-top high, or low voice to get into the business. Not true. What you need, are the abilities mentioned above and a sharp, concise, speaking ability. A very regional voice (as in having an accent) can hurt a lot more than it helps. A very heavy accent or inner city affect will most likely not get you very many calls. If that's one of your voice characteristics, it's time to start working on getting rid of that accent. Talent is being able to turn it on or off. Don't loose it; just find a way to turn it on and off.

It's totally possible to make a fairly decent living (even by LA standards) by doing nothing but voice over work. I have several friends that do almost nothing but voices for video games and they are getting booked all the time. Couple of things I noticed when they were starting out was that, the ones who could do multiple voices (Comic, scary, announcer, etc) booked work a lot faster than others. Having a demo reel and a site where people can sample your work on-line was also a huge plus. Also if you can get in with a manager or an agent that deals with voice over work, they can be a huge help as most VO jobs don't get posted to breakdowns the way acting jobs do.

There are a number of classes and books that can give you tons of information on training and things to take into consideration if this is the path you want to follow. Though be warned, the field of VO acting is almost MORE competitive than "standard" acting, and quite a bit tougher to break into. There are training programs that will range from a few hundred dollars for a basic introduction to a 1500 dollar 20 week program. A decent site to visit to see what you're up against is voices.com

The other thing to keep in mind is that once you have your training and you think you're "demo ready" you'll have to book studio time to record. There is no real way to put a price on this because there is no way to tell how long your sessions would take, or how much you want to record.

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