The Voiceover Career: "Fake It ‘til You Make It"

Here is an excerpt from our book, Voice Over Voice Actor: What it’s like behind the mic. Hope you find it helpful!

“But I haven’t done any work yet! What am I supposed to put on my reel?” you may ask, your brow furrowing in panic and dismay. Relax that brow. A demo reel doesn’t have to be from actual work you have already done; more often than not, everything on a demo is totally fabricated. As a matter of fact, even if you do have some real material to put on your reel, you may want to put made-up stuff on it anyway. This will allow you to focus the demo and highlight the qualities that you want to showcase. After all, demo can also mean demonstration of what you can do, not necessarily what you have done.

Now here’s a thing that’s going to highlight the weirdness of the entertainment biz: all agents know that actors make up most of what’s on their demos, especially when just starting out; but they still want to be fooled. So that’s what you’ve gotta do. Fool ‘em as best you can. Let’s see how you can do that.

What are you going to record? Well, first we're going to caution you against copying things directly from other commercial spots you hear or shows you see. The reason for that is this: as big as you think this world is, people are paying attention; and with people like casting directors and agents, it's their job to pay attention.

You don't want to record yourself doing a McDonald's spot you heard on the radio or shouting out the catchphrase of a popular animated character, and then send it to an agency whose client actually did record that spot or character. Your demo will immediately be outed and possibly thrown away. That’s not to say it's definitely going to happen, but we feel that in this situation, it's better to be safe than sorry, especially when there are easy ways to cover your tracks.

This seems like a good place to mention something else that we feel is important and will serve you throughout your long career in this business: don't lie about the work you've done. There might be a temptation to say that you worked on things you didn't work on so you seem more experienced to a possible employer, especially in the beginning when you don't have any credits to speak of. Don't. Don't do it.

We're not saying you should open every conversation with, “Okay, now, I just want you to know that I have never done this before.” If they don't ask, let 'em think what they want. But don't put titles that you didn't work on, on your résumé because you'll be working in a very tight circle of people. And if the person reading your résumé didn't cast it, odds are he or she knows the person who did, or the director; and being caught in a lie is a great way to get remembered for all the wrong reasons. Don't get caught up in trying to make people think you're much more experienced than you are. If they like you, they're going to want to be the one who discovered you. Let 'em discover you.

After reading the last few paragraphs, you may be saying to yourself, Hey, first they're telling me to fake it and now they're telling me not to lie. What gives? Sure, our advice on these two issues can be seen as inconsistent, but trust us on this one. Acting is a business of illusion, and the demo is an accepted bending of the rules in this world. Taking credit for things you did not do, not so much.

Now that we've hopefully made that clear, let's get back to making your demo sound as legit as you can. But if I can't copy real things, how am I supposed to know what to record? you may ask. Well, here's another place where we're going to ask you to employ that powerful imagination of yours. Look at some real stuff … and then mess with it.

To create commercial copy for your reel, go pick up a magazine and flip through the ads. Print ads are written differently than radio or TV ads, so you won't ever have to worry about someone already having recorded this spot. Now mess with it, rewrite it a bit, and make it your own.

Do the same for animation and video game bits. Watch, listen, play, take notes. Then mess with it, riff on it, make it your own. If you really hate writing, find a friend who's good at it and see if he or she will help you. Before you know it, you'll have scripts to record. And you don't need many.

Let's say you've recorded your demo as professionally as you can. Now, you'll want someone (an audio engineer) to spend time mixing it and sweetening it with effects and music, so that it sounds as if the spots were pulled from actual shows or commercials. The engineer will work with each clip you've recorded as if it were a real spot, and make it sound as good as possible; then you'll work together to pull your favorite section of each spot.

You'll want your demo to run about sixty seconds total, so you'll have to pick only the best part from each spot. Agents and casting directors are busy people. They're not going to have time to listen to a five-minute demo, so you gotta hook 'em quickly and leave 'em wanting more.

Another trick that engineers often use to help the demo reel sound more realistic is to change the recording levels and settings between the different spots. This way, even if you record them back-to-back in one session, the sound quality will be slightly different from spot to spot, just as if you had recorded each spot at a different time in a different studio with a different engineer. You can even help the engineer achieve this effect by changing your position slightly from script to script. It may seem funny, but sound is a finicky thing; and little things, even moving an inch back from the mic, or an inch left or right, can drastically affect how your voice is recorded. That's why, if you record at a certain studio regularly, you may notice the mic setup is always the same in order to maintain consistency in recording.

All of these things will add up to a professional sounding demo, which will be key in helping to open the doors that lead to work. Don't be afraid to spend both time and money on your demo, but also don't be afraid to shop around. If a deal seems too good to be true, make sure it isn’t by first doing a little research on your own. If the Internet's good for something, it's research. Well, research and downloading videos of cats doing cute things.

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Check out our VoiceOverVoiceActor website for more tips and exercises. We post daily VO tips on Facebook and Twitter, and our book, Voice Over Voice Actor: What it’s like behind the mic includes a wealth of exercises to build your voice and keep it ready for a successful voice over career!

Voiceover Tip: Copy the Vocal Patterns on TV Commercials

Here's a great tip and exercise for voiceover artists: use TV commercials as a source of practice. Really listen to the commercials on your TV or radio. When you find a good commercial you like, try to parrot the VO actor who is speaking the lines.  You'll be repeating the words, of course, but also try to copy, as exactly as you can, the nuances, the tone, the inflections he or she uses, and the musicality.

Then mute or turn off the TV or radio and grab any random bit of text, such as an ad in a piece of mail or magazine. Try to bring the new tone and vocal patterns you've been copying to these new words. You will be using the style you've been mimicking with this new material.

This will really start to train your ear and attune you to what is currently “hot” in the advertising world. And it gets you practicing, reading aloud, and using your voice in new ways.

And it's fun! Enjoy!

Voice Actors: Expand Your Comfort Zone!

We all have our happy places when it comes to acting. Some of us revel in playing the hero or heroine, while others feel perfectly at home twirling our mustaches as the villain. Either way, it’s good to know where your comfort zone is and where you enjoy playing. It pays to know your strengths so you can take advantage of them and carve out a niche for yourself in the area you may be best suited to. But it’s also good to be aware of your strengths so that you can take time to work on the areas you aren’t as skilled in. In this way, you expand your repertoire and make yourself a more versatile, interesting, and employable actor.

It’s certainly not our intent to detract from the idea of doing one specific thing very well. That’s extremely important. It’s just that, if that one thing goes out of style, you want to have something to fall back on. And just because you’re good at one thing doesn’t mean you can’t learn to do other things equally well. For example, our good friend, the otherworldly talented actor Dee Bradley Baker, is known far and wide for his creature voices, monster babble, and alien squawking, and that’s what people tend to hire him for. But when called upon to do so, he also turns in a very moving, believable, human performance.

The best actors push their personal boundaries and continue to grow throughout the life of their entire careers; filling them up with memorable, interesting, and bold characters. If you feel you’re having a hard time pushing your boundaries on your own, get into a class where it will be someone else’s job to give you a friendly shove in the right direction. Classes can hold you accountable for your work in a way you often can’t do on your own.

Use your auditions as a place where you always push your boundaries and expand your comfort zone a little. Open yourself up to all possibilities. Widen the circle you play in.

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Check out our VoiceOverVoiceActor website for more tips and exercises. We post daily VO tips on Facebook and Twitter, and our book, Voice Over Voice Actor: What it’s like behind the mic includes a wealth of exercises to build your voice and keep it ready for a successful voice over career!

Creating a Creating a Character – the Acting Part of Voice Acting

There are several things that we think you should know before you start auditioning. One of these things is the importance of creating a strong character. We’ve noticed that the people who really succeed in this business are generally good actors first, good voice-over actors second. Strangely enough, when juggling all the balls of voice-over, one of the easiest to drop is the acting. Acting is where the most fun is, so who wants to drop that ball?

Creating a character is so much more than saying the words in the right order, or in a unique and interesting way. Creating a character is really about using your imagination to create the universe the character lives in, and then saying “yes, and,” to that universe. This yes, and, theory pops up a lot in improvisational comedy (improv) and theatre classes, so you may have heard it bandied about before now.

Put simply, one of the fundamental keys to good improv (and good acting in general) is agreeing to the scenario (yes) and then adding something (and) to take it to the next level. The more you say “no, but,” the harder it is to get to where you’re going, and the less interesting it’ll be for everyone involved. You’ll find that by your being specific about the world your character lives in, the type of character that would reside in that world quickly becomes clear to you. The character’s personality you end up creating this way will be real and honest, no matter how outlandish and wild the character’s reality might be.

Who’s to say that a talking sponge can’t have friends under the sea and wear geometrically formed pants? We bet a lot of people said “no, but” to this idea once upon a time, but the success of that show goes on and on, because the right people said, “yes, and … ”

Bringing a character to life through your own creativity, truth, and ability is what being an actor is all about. You get to live different lives and have experiences totally foreign to your own. Showing how much you love this part (by doing it) will become invaluable not only once you’ve got the job, but it’s going to help you get cast. Being able to create an interesting character at an audition shows that you’ll be able to create an interesting character if hired.

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Check out our VoiceOverVoiceActor website for more tips and exercises. We post daily VO tips on Facebook and Twitter, and our book, Voice Over Voice Actor: What it’s like behind the mic includes a wealth of exercises to build your voice and keep it ready for a successful voice over career!

How to Create Voice Over Copy For Practicing Purposes

This exercise is to help you begin to compile your own practice copy for you to work on and then eventually use to create your commercial or animation demo reel.

For commercial copy, find magazines, see which ads visually pop out at you and write down the advertisement (or if the magazine is yours, pull the page out). Remember that print copy reads differently from commercial audio copy, so use the print as a starting point and then make slight adjustments to help the line flow.

To build animation copy, find an inanimate object in your house, then begin to write a monologue or conversation this object/character might have with you about its needs or hopes or dreams. Another wonderful way to create animation copy is to write down your favorite characters from animated shows, then rename them and make changes to what you know of their experiences, then try building a history or story for them that you find interesting.

Note which type of ad goes with the different types of commercial types (hard sell, soft sell, partner read, tag, etc.) also review your animation copy to see what types of characters you’re showing off and make sure you have some variety that works with your voice.

Put all your found (and massaged) copy into a binder, and practice randomly flipping to different pieces and reading and performing them as you would if you were in the booth.

Wonderful. You’ve had the chance to hone your unique vocal qualities and become more familiar with your natural voice. You’ve also probably gotten to see how your body reacts to a warm-up and how that can better prepare your voice for a session. You’ve read copy and made choices and have begun the process of building your own personal stack of practice copy that you can use as you move toward making your demo reel.

Voice-over isn't like it used to be where only 'certain' voices worked, now there are voices of all kinds and varieties to make up the spice of life. Basically, if you are a solid actor, are professional and considerate and you have good mic technique there is no reason you can't work in VO, of course, someone would have to hire you, so you'd need your demo reel ($$$$, time, energy) and most likely you will need to secure an agent to represent you and get you auditions (time/energy) as well as giving yourself as much as an edge as possible by taking classes, practicing your craft, knowing your voice and how to take care of it; so planning a career in voice-over is an investment.

The wonderful world of voice-over allows you to create amazing characters, to teach, to entertain, to offer new alternatives and to go on a whole new adventure. Remember, voice acting just “acting” without the bonus of using your facial expressions or body language to convey something visually, so your intention has to come across with just your voice helped by your imagination. And we all have one of those…

Voiceover Actors: Try the Chewing Hum Exercise!

Here's a helpful voiceover exercise:

We call it the "chewing hum." It can warm up the different areas where your voice will resonate. Once again, when your voice resonates, it bounces around a certain area of your body, whether that’s up in your face, nose or head area, your throat, or your chest or belly.

Here's what you do:

1. Keep your mouth and lips closed and begin to hum.
2. Start chewing, as if you were eating something tasty, as you keep humming.
3. Now use your hands to feel the vibration in the front of your face, your nose, your cheeks, and gently allow your hands to move to your neck and throat, and perhaps even onto your belly so that you can feel how your voice resonates in different areas of your body.

Now to begin to identify where your voice is resonating, let’s concentrate on specific sounds that tend to resonate in different areas. Certain sounds we create generally vibrate more toward the head, while others, because we use different muscles to make them, may vibrate lower, toward the belly.

If you can learn to control where you choose to place your voice, you can begin to use it in more powerful and interesting ways.

Voice Over Actors: Network, Network, Network

Voice Over Networking

Many people snidely call this schmooooozing, but the truth is, meeting people and developing relationships is how things get done in the entertainment business. Practicing good solid networking skills can help you move forward quickly and consciously toward the next level of your career.

Networking facilitates your being in the right place at the right time. This is part of the preparation + opportunity (right place at the right time) = success equation. Prepare yourself, and then put yourself in situations where you can mingle and meet people. Sometimes you can target the people you want to work with. But honestly, you never know where a job or an important friendship is going to come from. So don’t limit your interactions.

How do you go about schmoozing? Well, first off, let’s stop calling it that. Let’s opt for networking. The word schmoozing has always carried a negative connotation to us because it implies that you’re forcing yourself onto other people for the sole purpose of getting something from them; and that’s just kind of slimy. That’s probably why a lot of actors have trouble networking – because when it’s called schmoozing, they feel like they’re doing something gross. The less pressure you put on meeting people, the easier it’s going to be, and the better it’ll probably work out.

Where do you go to network? There are a variety of places to go and ways to make connections happen. Search for networking events and social gatherings specifically geared toward voice-over and voice acting or to entertainment in general. These events are often listed in entertainment trade papers and on Web sites, and will certainly be more plentiful in big cities like New York and Los Angeles.

Don’t look just for parties (which are sometimes hard to get into). Find out where the people that you would like to work with hang out, and go there. Get yourself in the same circles they’re in and see what happens. You don’t have to be in a big city to make this work. You can go out with friends who are also working in the business, and meet the people they know. If you don’t know anyone else who’s interested in voice acting or in what you want to be doing, then find them.

Put an ad in a local paper or post it on an online site, somewhere like craigslist, MeeptUp, or Facebook. Set up a gathering for people interested in the same things you’re interested in. Build a support group, if you will. Things happen much faster (and it’s usually more fun) if you’ve got a whole group working at it. Who knows, the group you assemble might end up producing a cartoon together.

If you network well, and don’t put pressure on a specific outcome, it won’t be perceived as schmoozy. Still it’s not always the easiest thing for some people to do. Networking might not come naturally for you, so pay attention to people who are good at it and learn from them. In the end, being yourself is the best thing you can do when you meet and socialize with people professionally. You don’t need to try to act cool so they’ll like you. Remember you have as much to offer them as they have to offer you.

Networking should never be about what you can get from others. Treat them as you would your friends, and be friendly and personable. You just may be someone they will want to befriend and (who knows?) maybe work with one day.

And don’t forget your cards! A networking event is a perfect opportunity to get your business cards into people’s hands. Think of this as sowing seeds.

You may have to plant a few seeds before anything starts growing. You never know which seed will grow and bear fruit, so sprinkle those seeds liberally. The more seeds – um, business cards – you hand out, the better your chances are. And if other people give you their cards, be sure to follow up and let them know that you enjoyed meeting them. Then file the cards away somewhere that you’ll be able to find them again, just in case you want to get in touch. You can use your new postcards to follow up with those new contacts you made while networking.

Enjoy it!

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Check out our VoiceOverVoiceActor website for more tips and exercises. We post daily VO tips on Facebook and Twitter, and our book, Voice Over Voice Actor: What it’s like behind the mic includes a wealth of exercises to build your voice and keep it ready for a successful voice over career!

Voice Over Actors: How Much Does Luck Play in to Success?

They say that luck plays a huge part in getting anywhere in this business. Ya just gotta be at the right place at the right time! We agree, but we also have a slightly different definition of luck. Our friend Merriam – you may know her: Merriam-Webster – defines luck as:

1 a: a force that brings good fortune or adversity b: the events or circumstances that operate for or against an individual

To take this a step further, instead of luck, we prefer to substitute the word success in Seneca’s definition. We end up with the equation: success = preparation + opportunity. This is much better than relying on luck because you can take action to prepare yourself, and you can take action to create opportunities.

We do our best to be prepared and to create our own opportunities, and that’s when we’ve found success happens most often for us. So what they say is true: luck plays a bit part. But you can get yourself to the right place, and if it’s the right time and you’re prepared, then boom!

But imagine what happens if you manage to get to the right place at the right time and you’re not ready for it: the, uh… opposite of boom.

So remember:

Luck Success = Preparation + Opportunity!

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Check out our VoiceOverVoiceActor website for more tips and exercises. We post daily VO tips on Facebook and Twitter, and our book, Voice Over Voice Actor: What it’s like behind the mic includes a wealth of exercises to build your voice and keep it ready for a successful voice over career!

Voice Actors: Do You Need a Web Site?

Nowadays a Web presence is practically essential for anyone trying to market themselves in this business. It serves as your calling card and news feed, letting people know what you’re up to. As we’ve mentioned, the Web provides a way for new people to find you, and it’s a fantastic place to post your demo reel for quick and easy access by potential employers.

Once you have a Web site set up, you can make a business card that includes your Web address (preferably an address that’s your name, like ArchibaldTuttle.com or TaraPlatt.com, although sometimes, if that’s not an option, you’ll have to get creative: ArchibaldTuttleVO.com or YuriLowenthalIsAVoiceActor.com). Then, whenever you meet people in the VO business, you can give them your card: suddenly all your info is at their fingertips.

Even the most basic Web site should include your name, general contact info (phone number, e-mail, etc.) and/or your representation contact info. In addition it might also include a list of credits and/or upcoming work, and maybe a clip or a demo reel of your voice.

Many actors choose not to have images of themselves on their Web sites if the site is for voice-over only, as one of the great things about voice-over is that it isn’t looks-based (remember our note about packaging). Instead of displaying your photo, you can put up images that showcase either the work you’ve done or the qualities or essence your voice evokes.

Your Web site may feature several different things ranging from your professional acting experience to your personal life. If so, make sure that it’s as easy to navigate to your VO info as possible, so that potential employers don’t get caught up in photos of your latest class reunion when all they’re trying to do is listen to your VO demo. If possible, you might want to have a separate site for your personal stuff so that professionals visiting your VO site don’t see anything that might adversely affect their judgment of you: those photos may be funny to you and your friends, but a casting director might not get the joke.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money, nor do you need to know html programming to set up a decent, effective Web site that you’ll be able to update yourself. Shop around, ask around, and find a Web hosting company that works for you. Check out other actors’ sites, and if you like what you see, shoot some of them an e-mail and ask who’s hosting their Web sites and who did the design (sometimes you’ll find that information at the bottom of the Web page). There are even companies that let you design your own free Web page, and that can help when you’re trying to get started on the cheap. In any case, creating a page is something you can do on your own. And a Web site is a resource that could prove very important. So full steam ahead!

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Check out our VoiceOverVoiceActor website for more tips and exercises. We post daily VO tips on Facebook and Twitter, and our book, Voice Over Voice Actor: What it’s like behind the mic includes a wealth of exercises to build your voice and keep it ready for a successful voice over career!