Voice work and doing it for extra money...

Does anyone here do voice work? I was thinking it might be a fun to do on the side. I know it's the same as acting as in you have a 1 in 10000 chance of even being noticed.

I also hear that a lot of people in the industry are baffled when people do not consider it actual 'acting' when obviously it is. Good voice actors 'get' into character. Like Dan Castellaneta, whom most of us have probably seen on a late night show 'transform' into Homer and look almost glazed over when he does the voice.

Personally, I think I'm pretty good at it. I just was wondering if finding a teacher is the best choice, someone to give proper advice.

I did this one cartoon for school a couple years back. Every voice is done by myself. ----> http://www.robobo.com/rb/cartoon.html (ya ya i know i know, 'you are not funny', 'robobo sucks', ' you cant draw' and all that)
Also see this e-card I made, several years ago - http://www.robobo.com/rb/ecard.html

Is it easier to get into voice acting that 'real' in person acting? I think voice acting a cartoon would be tons of fun.

Voice acting is, in many respects, harder than regular acting to get into. The field is much smaller, and the competition is unreal. It would be extraordinarily hard for you to make a career out of it for many, many years, if ever. Unfortunately for you, your voice is neither very low, nor very high, and companies (clients) tend to look for one or the other.

I'm not just talking out of my ass either - I have a degree in broadcasting and have worked in the industry.

If you have any other questions about it, ask away.

Yeah I always wanted to be in the voice acting industry it seems like a fantastic and amazing job, but I don't have any of talent in voices.

I've been told I'd be good for voice-over work but never pursued it. Buffalo isn't exactly the mecca for work like that and I have no real desire to go after something that always seemed to me like a very difficult field to get into.

I have a kick ass movie announcer voice.

Email some companies that dub anime and ask about auditions. Lie and say you have extensive experience.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by K3V

I've been told I'd be good for voice-over work but never pursued it. Buffalo isn't exactly the mecca for work like that and I have no real desire to go after something that always seemed to me like a very difficult field to get into.

---

The vast majority of VO work is done over ISDN connections to the studio that is recording it. The talent has an audio rig setup at home, you connect, then connect the producer, and voila...remote recording and no one ever actually sees each other. I've met only a handful of the actual talents I've recorded IRL.

The VO business is rough, but once you break in, if you are highly sought after, you can make some serious money for the cakest job on the planet. Advice? Get some material together that you think will be marketable, and hit up a studio and make a demo. Actually, make a few different demos, targeting different formats (commercials of various types, political ads, documentary narration, etc.) and get them into the hands of as many producers and post-production studios as you can. Lots of studios keep piles of demos around so that clients can go through and pick who they want for a spot. If you can break into doing documentary narration, you will never stop working. They use the same 20 people for every single doc that gets broadcast in this country.

Lots of VO talents just do it on the side for some extra cash. Unless you have a very niche voice that is highly sought after, you'll probably never do it full time. But making an extra grand or two a month for doing a few sessions here and there can be really cool.

Interesting insight. I have a deep voice but I get all retarded when I read stuff out loud so I probably wouldn't cut it against the competition. Plus I've never really worked on my inflection and all that aside from a bit of radio announcing.

I know what you're saying about documentary announcers - I hear the same guy on 5 different channels all the time. It's crazy.

Mike Rowe must be a billionaire.

It's easy to spot the losers because they are always trying to get in to some bullshit career where they have no chance of success.