VO Tips

So you wanna be a voice actor? You’ve always been told you have a voice like Morgan Freeman after eating raw honey? Great! But you may not be ready to jump into being a voice actor just yet. Voiceover takes training in several different areas. Acting is the most important. If you come from a traditional acting background, you have a leg up on most other beginner voice actors. My person method of teaching voiceover is from an acting perspective. I believe that knowing who you’re talking to, where you are, and what you want and want to convey is the most important thing to know in most areas of voiceover.

If you’re interested in private coaching, I love to coach people in the beginning of their voiceover careers, or those who are looking to hone their acting skills and approach to copy. I also love guiding my students in their careers and helping them find the path to their success in the voiceover industry.

CLASSES

The Voiceover Resource Guide is a great resource to find classes and agencies to submit to.

Taking classes is the #1 thing you can do for your career. If you can afford it, finding a private coach in the areas of voiceover you enjoy is extremely helpful. Experience and training is everything in this industry. You will have to commit time and money to this industry in order to succeed. Take with the best.

Here are suggestions of great people to take classes with. There are also affordable ways to take many of their classes. A lot of them teach classes via zoom that are usually under $100. Finding a workout group is also a lower priced way to just practice practice practice. Voicecaster has a weekly one, as does Mick Wingert, The VO Dojo. 

  • Improv classes: Improv is a great tool for voiceover. You’re often asked to improvise in jobs, and adding improvisation to your auditions can help create that natural, real, conversational sound. I recommend UCB, Groundlings, or Second City

  • Animation: Bob Bergen, Richard Horvitz, Mick Wingert, Sara Jane Sherman, Charlie Adler, and Lori Alan.

  • Commercial: Kalmenson & Kalmenson, Nancy Wolfson, Bill Holmes, Carroll Kimball (casting director), Elaine Craig (casting director), Mary Lynn Wissner (casting director). 

  • Promo & Affiliate: Thom Pinto, Jeff Howell, Jodi Gottlieb.

  • Casting Director Workshops: Voice Actors Network (requires two years of professional acting training and representation), Mary Lynn Wissner’s Meet the Pros. 

  • SAG/AFTRA - If you’re a member of SAG-AFTRA, The SAG Don Lafontaine foundation has free voice over workshops for SAG members

  • Podcasts, Youtube, and Facebook - Live and breath Voice Over. Listen to podcasts, learn about engineering, watch youtube. Some great shows are VOBS, Voice Acting Mastery with Crispin Freeman, All Over Voice Over with Kiff VH, and VO Buzz Weekly with Chuck Duran. Join the Voiceover Community group on facebook. Search the group for any questions you have, or agent and coach recs. 

  • Listen To the Greats  - Go on the websites for the big agents in Los Angeles and listen to the demos of the voice over artists whose careers you admire. 

DEMOS

Once you’ve taken a good amount of classes and have been told by a coach that you’re ready for a demo, make your commercial demo. You’re going to be spending about $1500 or more on the demo, and a good demo producer is worth it. They know what sells and what agents and clients are looking for. Save the money, and spend it wisely. Don’t make a demo before you’re ready. This industry is the long game. Only then, once you’ve made your commercial demo, should you pursue making an animation/game demo. Commercial demos will get you in the door 100% of the time, more than an animation demo. Commercials pay the agent’s bills and animation is booked by mostly a small percentage of VO actors, its not as lucrative for the agents. Even though animation VO is the dream for a lot of voice over, there are many other areas of voice over that can be incredibly lucrative and can lead to a career with steady income. Here are some great areas to research or find clients to reach out to in order to book work with the client directly. For Animation demos, I direct them at Real Voice LA while Mike the owner and engineer produces them. Other demo producers I recommend are: Animation/VG: Richard Horvitz Commercial: Chuck Duran, Nancy Wolfson, and Eric Romanowski.

Agents

Once you have a professional commercial demo and have taken classes, you may be ready to start submitting yourself to agencies. The Voiceover Resource Guide is a good way to familiarize yourself with voiceover agencies, though referrals from fellow voice actors or coaches is a better way to get your foot in the door. Pay attention to how each agency likes their submissions, which will be specified on their website. With voiceover, you can have an agent in every city. Agent’s outside of the two main voiceover cities LA and New York, are often referred to as regional agents. You can have an agent in every city, even in other countries! The more opportunities to audition, often the better.

Home Setups 

The second most important thing to spend your money on, besides classes and workshops, is a home setup. If you have a broadcast quality setup, you can begin submitting to regional agents and working remotely from home. Go to guitar center and test microphones. You can spend less than $1000 on a microphone and pre-amp that, along with proper sound proofing (foam) in a closet, can create a broadcast quality sound setup.

TECH RECS

A lot of my students really like the Rhode NT1 or NT1A microphone with the Focusrite Scarlett Interface. I personally use a Gefell M930 Microphone with the Audient ID4 interface in my Studiobricks One Plus booth, and you can’t go wrong with a Senheiser or Neumann Microphone. For last minute auditions in my car I use the Shure MV88 Microphone which attaches to my iphone and I record via the Twisted Wave app. I suggest setting up an appointment with an audio engineer who can help guide you in the right direction with your microphone and setup. You need proper acoustical treatment that will absorb the sound (foam, acoustical panels, moving blankets) and to avoid setting up your microphone in an area with a lot of external noise.

For travel I have a Harlan Hogan Portabooth, and I use that with my Gefell mic. However, I still feel like I need to be in a closet with a lot of blankets and pillows to have broadcast quality sound even with the portabooth.

I’ll update this later with more links and information. Check out my classes on Real Voice LA , or if you’re ready to book private coaching with me.

Kids Voiceover

I started doing voiceover at about 5 years old, and I’ve been approached more and more recently as a kid’s voiceover coach. I wanted to talk a bit about my method of coaching so you can assess the skills required if your children are interested in voiceover and voice acting.

Voice acting is acting. It’s not about the quality or sound of your child’s voice, it’s about if they love to use their imagination and fully immerse themselves in imagined worlds. Does your child love to talk, make up fun stories and make their toys talk? That may be a good start on their voiceover journey.

Taking direction and listening is important. These are helpful and necessary skills (that can be learned), but some sort of natural inclination is helpful. Your child will have to be able to hear how they’re saying something, listen to the direction given, and be able to change their way of speaking to mimic or follow the story the director is giving them.

The easiest way to coach children is just to have them mimic the way I say a line. I prefer to do that trick as a last resort, as I often find that the kids are not as truthful or intentional in HOW they say the line if they’re just mimicking my intonation. Instead, I like to set the scene for them so they are set up to say the line in the way that they would naturally say it in that situation. If you think your child may be good at voiceover, start having them practice reading out loud so they can read their own copy (scripts). If they’re not great readers yet, that’s ok! Have them mimic you and try seeing how well they can take direction when you give them a different way of saying the line.

Ready to book private coaching?

I teach one or two child sessions via zoom, and we can can start with a 45 minute session depending on your child’s attention span.