10 Common Voice Actor Mistakes

Many thanks to Dave “Courvo” Courvoisier for this guest blog!

From Dave’s upcoming book, “You Need More Than a Good Voice to Do Voice Overs,” available soon!

Just as important as knowing WHAT to do in the VO business, is knowing what NOT to do! Being aware of the biggest classic mistakes ahead of time can really help you avoid them.

Some of these admonitions may seem obvious and common-sensical, others are basic concepts you can adapt to your style and business plan.

Do yourself a favor, print this out and post it in a place where you’ll see it often.

By-no-means-complete, but essential list of VO mistakes:

1) Being undecided about your rate. Do your research; many of us charge too little for our services. Or we are apologetic, defensive, blustering… Read the chapters on rates, a little further on in this book. There I lay out my opinions and experience in this area, and give lots of links to other experts’ suggestions as well! Come prepared to a conversation about rates with the client!

2) Believing all you need is an agent and you are in the black! Of course, a good agent is invaluable in obtaining auditions for you that you’d not get yourself, but they will never be your only source of sessions. Look for contacts, keep networking, marketing online and in person, and DO that cold-calling you’ve been putting off. Don’t rely solely on your agent.

3) Making your voice over demo when you are not yet ready. You need practice, you need coaching, you need to know your voice and what it can do. In short, you need to be really prepared. If you pay for that demo too soon, it can be wasted money. And no demo is forever. Be ready to go through the process as often as the market demands.

4) Not getting help with that first demo when you ARE ready! This is really a place for leaving it to the pros. You may think “How hard can it be?” to plop down your voice with your own new equipment. This is a common mistake, but believe me, studios bring experience, skill, and know-how to the process. You can’t be objective enough about your own demo, and you only get one shot at a first listen. Make it the best it can be!

5) Failing to get that agreement in writing. It is always vital to get something in writing. Memories of discussions and “agreements” can so easily change over time, with the potential to lead to uncomfortable and unnecessary conflicts. Plenty of voice actors don’t do this, but most clients don’t blink when you request it.

6) Forgetting to practice – ALOUD – every day! It is absolutely vital to read aloud every day; you can get rusty in a just a few days without this exercise. Do your voice exercises, repeat your tongue twisters, exercise your face, and oh, yes, READ ALOUD EVERY DAY!!

7) Not using TV and radio as an instant, powerful mechanism for practice, and for knowing what is current and popular, and in demand. You must know what is playing on the air at any given time! So listen and learn from today’s commercials, listen to narration on documentaries and reality shows. Stay current.

8) Forgetting the customer’s directives! Within the expertise that you bring to any project, the client’s wishes still need to remain at the top of the to-do list. This is a service industry. Do it their way, and if you think you can do better… make that your 2^nd or 3^rd take.

9) Being difficult to work with. This is an extension of number 8, above. Be considerate and easy to work with. Listen to the requests of the customer and the engineer, don’t be pushy. Follow up in a timely manner. Be in time, and on time. Never be arrogant. Don’t share info about the job with anyone else unless the client says it’s OK. They may welcome the extra PR, but they may not want anyone to know.

10) Expecting instant success. Don’t lose patience with this process. Be persistent, and be prepared to reach out time and again. Stay on the radar of prospects. Take more classes, buy more coaching, network endlessly... This is a business for tortoises, not hares.

THIS GUEST BLOG IS BY: Dave “Courvo” Courvoisier

Dave is a multiple Emmy-Award-winning TV News Anchor with more than 30 years experience in the biz. He currently anchors 3 newscasts daily at the CBS affiliate in Las Vegas, NV, KLAS-TV (http://www.8newsnow.com)

But Dave always thought he had at least one more good thing in him, and that thing is Voice Acting.

Now with eight years of voicing experience under his belt, Dave has clients that range from Audiobook publishers to E-Learning to Documentaries and Commercial spots. He’s studied with some of the best coaches in the business, and enjoys promoting the community of Voice Actors as a member of the executive board of World-Voices Organization.

Along the way, Dave embraced Social Media as his marketing plan, and THAT lead to even more demand for his services to explain how to use social networks in raising one’s profile on the internet. He has spoken at many business conferences and conducted a number of webinars on the subject of social media marketing.

Dave’s Website: http://courvo.com/
Dave’s Blog: http://www.courvo.biz/
Dave’s Website focusing on one of his strong niches: Audio Book Narrator: http://www.courvo.net/

Thanks again, Dave!

Making Bold Choices in Voice Over

Bold choices is a catch-all phrase when it comes to acting. They make such bold choices. You need to make bolder choices. I loved his bold choice. So then the question is: How do I make those kinds of choices?

What constitutes a bold choice? Well, it all relates to how well you know your personal boundaries and how comfortable you are exploring them.

A common misconception among actors is that to make a bold choice is to do something crazy or intentionally weird. Freaking out in an audition situation or reciting all your lines in a high pitched whine would be a bold choice, to be sure. But would you rather be a story that casting directors tell at parties, or would you rather have them call you in again because you stood apart from the rest – as a pro? Making a bold choice relates more to being committed, specific, and imaginative in your approach to the character in the scene.

One way to make a bold choice could be to find the thing that makes the character personal to you and play that, regardless of what you feel would be the right way (the way that you assume that they want it). Remembering that there is never really a right way to do it can be so freeing. Sometimes the clients/director don’t even know exactly what they are looking for ‘til they hear it. And the only way you can really set yourself apart from the rest of the actors who are also vying for the part is to be true to who you are; because there’s only one of you. As soon as you start trying to imagine what they want, you’ll only trip yourself up.

Another way of making a bold choice might be to take a specific quality or idea and fully explore it in such a way that you make it real, no matter how outlandish and off-the-wall the idea is. Sure, you may decide that the character is suffering from an extreme bout of the hiccups, but you’d better know exactly what caused it, how long it’s been going on, how it’s affecting the other characters or environment and how the character feels about it; otherwise it’s just an affectation that will detract from the scene.

People love relating to things that are part of the human condition, things they can identify with; so sometimes making a bold choice simply means finding a creative and fun way to explore the humanity of your character.

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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!