By: Nate Myers
Voice Actors: The genius behind an incredible array of advertisements and entertainment. Video games, audiobooks, cartoons, children’s TV shows, Siri, and Alexa. All feature Voice Actors who have perfected their craft. If you are curious about how to get your feet wet in the amazing world of voice over. Welcome! We’ll walk you through your first baby steps.
Voice Acting (or voiceover) is the art of delivering messages, dialogue, and script using your voice. Recordings of this art are used in entertainment and advertisements across the internet, television, and radio spaces. Voice Actors work for a huge span of projects and often have their favorite niche where they have created a name for themselves and delivered takes across all mediums.
While not always the key to success, voiceover training is the most effective path to success if you’re just starting. Take the music industry, for example. Most producers, studio musicians, and songwriters took formal or online education to perfect their craft. Taking that metaphor further, musicians must know which chords to play, which chords can follow, which notes fall within the key, the time signature, etc., to play with other musicians or an established group.
In voice acting, you need to know which tone of voice to speak, how to continue the message and speak longer (or cut it down depending on time constraints), you need to know the tone of voice that is expected and be able to execute that on demand: excited, cautious, encouraging, daring, the list goes on! This knowledge must be built-up beforehand to take instructions from a producer or director over the project.
There’s a lot to know, and it can seem intimidating. We recommend taking a few classes if you are interested in general voice acting techniques, specific industry niches, or identifying your voice’s unique strengths. The Voice Shop offers an incredible variety of courses each month to get you trained: https://www.voiceshopcoaching.com/class-schedule
Voice-over classes range from beginner to advanced levels at The Voice Shop.
You will need equipment for voice acting. It will represent an investment in yourself and your voice. But it will be well worth it! You will need:
1. A laptop or tablet to record and edit your takes
2. A professional microphone
3. Editing software
4. An acoustic environment (small recording studio or booth) https://www.voiceshopcoaching.com/voiceover-booths
Next, you’ll want to look at putting together a demo reel. A voice-over demo reel is best compared to a resume. But for the voice-over world! Even having a different VO demo reel for different types of work can be beneficial. You can make your own if you have the editing/mastering experience, or you can have someone with expertise craft yours for you: https://www.voiceshopcoaching.com/create-your-demo
The Voice Shop provides demo creation packages that include a voice coach, engineer, music & SFX, and language supervisor if needed.
After receiving training, purchasing equipment, and creating a demo reel, you’re ready to put yourself out there! There are many avenues to explore, applying directly for jobs on indeed or other platforms, using online casting platforms, or making connections with an agency or person of influence within the industry itself! There are often conferences held around the United States, which can also be an excellent opportunity to get exposure to these resources!
Let us know if you have any questions. It can be intimidating at first, but The Voice Shop’s mission is to help you succeed!
https://www.voiceshopcoaching.com/resources
