How To Become A Voice Actor: Making it A Career Choice in 2021

Filed in Job by TMLT Editorials on June 24, 2021

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How To Become A Voice Actor: If you have decent acting skills and a great voice, you can begin carving a path to become a voice actor. Good voice acting takes a lot of hard work, patience, and tenacity, but can also be a fun and rewarding experience.

This guide is designed to give you an insight into this hidden world and provide you with enough information to help you make an informed choice on whether or not this is a potential career for you.

If you already are a voice actor, we will be giving you some tips and ideas to help you improve your voice acting skills to help you experience a dramatic difference in how you approach the written word.

Voice acting is an exciting and varied career. You can make money using your voice, travel and be part of a growing industry. Sounds great, but do you have what it takes?

The voice over industry is growing. From the voice of Google, to Advertisements, to explainer ads, to radio ads, to corporate training…voice acting is everywhere.

Do you listen to audiobooks? Millions of people do. All those books have to be recorded by voice actors.

As the world has become digital there has been an increasing demand for voice talent.

What Are The Duties of A Voice Actor? Work Description

Voice actors provide the voice for animated films and television shows, narrate documentaries, and do voice-overs for television and radio commercials. If you love acting and have a unique voice, then this might be the right career for you! It requires honing your craft, getting your voice heard, and going on lots of auditions.

Because it is a very competitive industry, being a voice actor is not for the faint of heart. But with perseverance, hard work, and knowhow, you will be well on your way to becoming a voice actor.

Most of the work is done in a recording studio, with the voice actor reading lines in a recording booth while a sound engineer examines from the control room.

Voice actors are self-employed and typically have a busy work schedule. They often experience times when there is a lot of work available, as well as times when they have few projects.

Good voice actors are able to speak in multiple tones of voice and with various accents. The ability to speak audibly and with a pleasing voice is a vital skill. Unlike stage, television, and film actors, voice actors typically do not receive scripts in advance to allow them to rehearse and memorize their lines. Given the lack of rehearsal time, you must be able to read from scripts in a normal, conversational way.

Voice actors also are responsible for managing their voices. Frequent practice and vocal exercises., particularly with new tones and accents, prevents voice actresses from straining their vocal cords.

How To Become A Voice Actor – Some Essential Tips

Technology has changed everything. Go back twenty years, and as a voice actor, you had to work in large recording studios. Most of these were only in the big cities like London, Manchester, Birmingham etc.

Today’s technology has transformed that. Now, most voice actors have their own mini-studio and record work from their homes.

Now, of course, that sounds easy and nothing is that easy, there is a lot more to voice acting.

The Step-By-Step Approach On How To Become A Voice Actor

Before you start let’s cover the main things you need to know about what it takes to be a voice actor.
So many people say to us that it is hard to find one place that gives you a guide to how to get into voice acting. Before you get worried, let’s make sure you understand that few, if any, have all of the skills when they start.

Practice reading things out loud. Being able to read aloud effectively is essential for voice acting, especially if your job requires you to read from a teleprompter or script. Read books, magazines, or news articles out loud on a regular basis to get more comfortable with it. Spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day reading out loud. Practice enunciating words and work on your intonation. Try changing the sound of your voice as you read for an added challenge.
Record your voice. Try reciting monologues or reading from a script and recording it. Play it back to yourself to hear what you sound like, and make personal notes for improvement. The sound of your own voice might surprise you! The way you sound in a recording isn’t necessarily the same way you sound to yourself each day.
Use your diaphragm. When listening to your voice, consider whether you are using a nasal, mouth, chest, or diaphragm voice. A nasal voice sounds unpleasant and whiny, a mouth voice sounds very quiet, a chest voice sounds pleasant, but a diaphragm voice is the most powerful and has the best sound. To develop the diaphragm voice, practice breathing deeply and watching your stomach rise and fall. Make sounds that come from the diaphragm, such as laughing or yawning.
Practice vocal exercises: Certain exercises can help you to control and improve your voice. Many of them are based on breathing. You could try humming a scale by blowing through a straw for breath control. You could lie on the floor and deeply inhale and exhale, making a “shh” sound while exhaling. You could also practice articulating with tongue twisters, such as “Red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather.
Take voice lessons: Having regular voice lessons (at least once a week) will help you improve your vocal range and teach you how to better control the volume and sound of your voice. You may need to scout for voice teachers to find the best fit for you. A good voice teacher will help you not only improve strong technique and control but also will help you to find your unique voice.
Market yourself: After a series of classes and training, I’m sure you’ll fancy the idea of making cool cash out of it. Therefore, you need to market yourself and build a network in any way you can. This can be done through drafting a resume, building an online portfolio, creating a demo, attending auditions, and finally putting your best in the slots you get.

Essential Voice Acting Skills

Let’s cover some essential skills you need and that we cover in this guide:

Voice acting
Voice recording
Audio editing
Business
Marketing
Self-motivation

Different Types of Voice Over
When you’re thinking about how to become a voice actor you might not recognise all the possibilities. Here are the many different genres that employ voice actors:

films
dubbed foreign language films
animation shorts or films
tv programs
commercials
radio or audio dramas
video games
audiobooks
documentaries
IVR phone systems
Voice of God at live events
TV and Radio promos
training / e-learning
podcasts

Disadvantages of Being a Voice Actor?

Unsteady work
Heavy competition
Setup can be expensive
It can be hard on the voice

What Are the Benefits of Becoming a Voice Actor?

The voice-over industry is incredibly competitive, but there are many benefits for those lucky enough to find consistent voice-acting work:

Work from home. You can record many voice-over jobs in a home studio, giving you the freedom to work from home and avoid commuting and parking fees.
Make your own hours. Some voice actors start off working part-time while financially supporting themselves with their day job. Working part-time provides flexibility with scheduling, putting you in a better position to choose what times you work and audition, creating a schedule that best suits your needs.
Be your own boss. Being your own boss is another perk of working as a voice actor. You can set your schedule and decide which jobs to accept or decline. Once you start working consistently, you can become even more selective about the types of projects you pursue.
Projects can be financially lucrative. Some commercial voice-acting work can be incredibly lucrative, paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for recording a brief spot for national radio and television commercials.

Important Reads

How Much Can You Make As A Voice Actor?

Though the amount of money voice actors earn differ according to the type of work, size of the project, experience, and other factors, your earnings as a voice actor range from $35 for a small market radio spot, $150 for a 15-second recording for say a small website, $250 – $350 for a 30-second major market radio commercial (Plus use fees) to about $2000 – $5000 per audiobook, as an established voice talent.
In addition to the bit by bit payments, the average voice actor has a salary of $31,400 a year. An entry-level voice actor can expect to earn $18,390 a year while an experienced voice actor has an average annual salary of $90,000 a year.

Conclusion

Truly, voice acting is one of the most thrilling and rewarding careers available today, especially so, when you consider the various range of clients, the flexible work hours and the ability to work from home. To get it right and be on top of your game, you need to consistently make efforts to improve yourself.

CSN Team.

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