Starting out
One of the most common questions I get asked by people is ‘Voice acting? How do you get into that?’
It’s not the easiest question to answer as it’s such a varied industry and most people have a different story about how they got started. There’s no real right or wrong way to break into voice acting, but here’s how it worked for me.
I’ve always had an interest in the world of voice over, probably without even knowing. I love cartoons, anime and audio books and I’m a strong believer in having the right voice for a character, I just never gave much thought to the people working behind the scenes to make it happen. It was just one of those things that felt like a crazy out of reach dream, the way some kids might want to be a famous singer, or a professional football player. I never had the faith in myself to even consider it.
The last full time job I had was in marketing for a software company and as it happened, they were in need of someone to voice over their training videos but didn’t want to outsource it. I resisted the urge to throw my hand up like a 10 year old who knows the answer to difficult maths question, but no one else wanted anything to do with it, so playing it cool, I said I’d have a go. I was so nervous but I’d played around with voices my whole life so I was confident I could sound clear and professional. After recording was done (on a USB mic in an bare open room *cringe) I got so much great feedback about how professional it sounded it really made me feel like this was something I wanted to look into. So I did!
I jumped online and researched my chubby butt off! I spent hours looking through forums and sub-reddits, looking for books that might help and trying to find any resources I could. It was completely overwhelming at times and the internet seemed like a black hole of information. Eventually, I came across a few websites for fan projects with little to no pay, but which had a great auditioning process. So I bought myself a £50 USB mic (Snowball Blue Ice USB) and decided to take a crack at it.
After that I just felt something clicked for me, I landed a few small roles and moved on to some low end P2P / freelance sites and started building up more experience with more professional clients on the corporate side of things. These sites all work a little differently but were easy enough to navigate and I soon had a good little set up, taking on odd jobs here and there. Over the next 18 months, I was taking on more and more work. Mostly still pretty low paid stuff, but my confidence and experience had come so far from where I’d started, I reached a point where I wanted to see if I had the chops to make a real go of it - and that’s exactly what I’m doing! Scared shitless and hoping for the best. I’ve been in the industry now for to and a half years and I already have so many stories to tell.
I want this blog to be thoughts and stories about this amazing industry from the perspective of someone who started with no money and made their way on hard work, dumb luck and a little help from amazing people along the way. If you have a dream, there is always a way.
Sing loud, chat lots and take care X