When this book was printed, some URLS may be longer than the page will allow. Please note that we don’t add any extra characters, such as hyphens, to indicate the break. So when using one of these web addresses, just type in exactly what you see in this book, as though the line break doesn’t exist.
What You’re Not to Read
You’re a busy person, juggling the many balls of life. Your time is precious to you. So if you want to read just the essential, need-to-know information about voice acting, you can skip the sidebars, which are the gray-shaded boxes. The information in the sidebars is intriguing and fun, but not necessarily crucial for understanding voice acting. Feel free to read the sidebars when you have time.
Foolish Assumptions
When we wrote this book, we made a few assumptions about you, our dear reader. We assume the following:
You want to know about the ins and outs of voice acting.
You have an interest in voice acting and discovering how to use your voice to the best of your ability.
You want to start your own voice acting business and begin to audition for work in the real world.
You’ve already done some voice acting, and you’re looking for tips and advice to elevate your abilities.
No matter where you’re coming from, you don’t need any prior knowledge of voice acting. You can find information for beginners and more experienced voice actors alike.
How This Book Is Organized
This book is organized into six parts, with each part containing specific types of information about voice acting. You explore the mechanics of voice acting before you work on your technique.
Part I: Exploring Voice Acting Basics
In this part, we cover the basics of voice acting. You can use this information to get a strong start in voice acting. Chapter 2 helps you find your voice. Chapter 3 focuses on training your voice so you’re ready for what voice acting throws at you. This chapter also explains the benefits of working with a voice acting coach. Chapter 4 discusses the different roles of a voice actor. Chapter 5 walks you through interpreting a script and creating and interpreting your character.
After reading this part, you may want to jot down some of these core ideas in a journal. You can revisit these ideas in a few weeks or months and see how much you’ve grown as you practice by reading aloud and experimenting with your voice each and every day.
Part II: Creating Your Audio Résumé
This part focuses on recording your very first voice-over demo. Your voice-over demo is like an audio resume that shows people what you’re capable of doing. Demos help you promote yourself and help you get voice-over work. Chapter 6 explains what demos are and why they’re important. Chapter 7 walks you through how to construct your own demo from the ground up, including how to plan for your demo, how to write your own scripts, and what to consider in terms of copyrights. When you’re ready to actually record your demo, read Chapter 8, which also helps you figure out which recording approach to take and whether to include music in your demo. For voice actors who may already have demos, the chapters in this part include advice on how to take your demo to the next level and how to update your demos.
Part III: Auditioning and Finding Work
In this part, you move on to information that helps you apply your voice acting skills to auditioning in the voice-over marketplace. Chapter 9 focuses on where to find auditions, how to prepare for an audition, and how to best present oneself to the casting director or decision maker. Chapter 10 in particular is useful to market yourself and showcase your voice and upload demos for prospective clients to the Internet. This chapter covers a number of business topics, such as your brand and how to position yourself as a professional voice actor. We cover auditioning basics (a must for all beginners) in Chapter 11. Chapter 12 covers auditioning online, and Chapter 13 addresses auditioning in a traditional setting, such as a studio or an agent’s office. This chapter gives insight for what the expectations of voice actors are and how to navigate relationships with people you meet at the casting call.
Part IV: Setting Up Your Voice Acting Business
When you’ve discovered all the amazing things your voice can do and have a clear understanding of how to interpret the written word, you can think about setting up a business and earning some money. Some people fail to realize in creative endeavors that they’re also running a business. When you treat what you do as a real business, you can better develop your craft, build a proper studio, and invest in your career.
Chapter 14 discusses booking a voice-over job and all that this typically entails. We walk you through the hiring process and how to communicate with your client, making sure that you’ve reviewed the full and final script, and what to do if things don’t go according to plan. Everyone gets sick or goes on vacation, so we also show you how to plan for contingencies. Chapter 15 focuses on getting paid for your work. You can find out how to quote for voice-overs and all the factors you need to consider when putting a price tag on your services. If you’ve ever had a business before, you know that it can become like one of the family, usually like another child. Chapter 16 includes tips for how to continuously nurture your business by developing relationships with your customers, getting an agent (or acting as your own), and building a winning team of professionals around your business to support you such as accountants, lawyers, and the like.
Part V: Establishing Your Home Recording Studio
The home recording studio is critical to working today as a voice actor. Equipment has significantly come down in price over the years, which makes creating your own studio that much easier and more affordable. You may be surprised at what you can create in terms of a professional and cost-effective recording environment, and how easy it is to master the basics of audio recording.
Chapter 17 covers the basics of the home recording studio, such as how to record on your computer, what to look for in a microphone, recording and editing software, and accessories for your studio, and how to create an awesome home studio environment. Chapter 18 shares information for recording your voice, deciphering studio terminology, using a microphone, and recording your first take. Chapter 19 is more advanced and instructs you on editing and mixing a voice-over recording. Chapter 20 explains how to record your final product. We include material relevant to review your recording before you send it to your client in Chapter 21.
Part VI: The Part of Tens
Every For Dummies book has this fun part that includes short chapters, chock-full of quick-and-easy tidbits. Here we include a chapter on ten reasons why regularly auditioning in voice-over work is important and a chapter on ten tips you can do to be prepared for voice acting.
Icons Used in This Book
We use the following icons in the margins to point out important information:
The Remember icon is a memory jog for those really important things you shouldn’t forget.
This icon gives you a tip on the quickest, easiest way to perform a task or conquer a concept. This icon highlights stuff that’s good to know and stuff that’ll save you time and/or frustration.
We use this icon when we want you to avoid a potentially uncomfortable or dangerous situation.
Where to Go from Here
If you have no voice acting experience, start at Chapter 1 and work your way through the chapters in order. That being said, this book is modular, meaning that it’s designed for you to jump in anywhere you want. Peruse the table of contents or index for different topics. If something piques your interest, by all means, read it first.
If you have some voice acting experience, choose whatever chapter appeals most to you. You may have to refer to other chapters from time to time, but otherwise choose your own adventure at your own pace and in any order. If you choose to go full out and take voice acting from the realm of hobby to that of a business, you can find that
each part has useful information that you can apply almost immediately to help you turn your aspiration into a career.
Part I
Exploring Voice Acting Basics
In this part . . .
Welcome to Voice Acting For Dummies. Here you get an introduction to the basics of voice acting. You find out about your voice, how to use and care for your voice, and what it takes to be a voice actor. You also discover all kinds of interesting and wonderful ways you can fit your voice into voice acting, including training and education opportunities. This part also includes tips for meeting the voices in your head and taking on the different types of roles.
No matter whether you’re a new voice actor or quite experienced, this part can help solidify your foundation of voice acting.
Chapter 1
An Overview of Voice Acting: Just the Basics
In This Chapter
Understanding who a voice actor is
Creating a demo
Figuring your way through the maze of auditions
Making a go in your home studio
Voice acting is an amazing way to put to use something you already have — your voice. Voice acting well is about knowing how to best use your voice and interpretive skills to deliver a well-crafted message. More than just mere talk, voice acting is the art of taking the written word and skillfully translating it into a persuasive spoken word message that encourages a listening audience to not only hear what you’re saying, but also to act on it in some way. Voice acting is designed to educate, inform, or entertain.
This chapter serves as your catapult into this book and the world of voice acting. No matter if you’re brand new and don’t know anything about voice acting, you’ve dabbled a little bit in it and decided you want to pursue it more as a career, or you’ve worked in the voice acting field for several years and you want to take your abilities to the next level, this chapter can help you start your journey.
Being a Voice Actor: More Than You May Expect
Some people think that voice acting is simply getting paid to talk. In a way, that’s true, although there is so much more to it! When you start as a voice actor, you need to remember that your voice is the instrument that helps achieve the script writer’s goal, whether you’re voicing a character in an animated film, reading for a company telephony script, or narrating an audiobook. You also need to take good care of your voice, which is your instrument that you literally take with you wherever you go. In the following sections, we explain your role in the creative process of voice acting and how this knowledge can help you to do your best as a voice actor.
Knowing what it really means
Being a voice actor isn’t just about sounding pretty. Being a voice actor isn’t just about the sound of your voice. Your voice is merely an instrument used to communicate effectively and breathe life into a story. Chapter 2 explains more about what voice acting is, shows what it takes to be a voice actor, and gives you a good idea of where your voice fits in.
Getting your voice ready
Preparing and taking care of your voice are essential keys to voice acting because you rely heavily on your voice to work. Anyone who comes from a background that includes public speaking, whether in public settings or professional settings, has an appreciation for the voice and how greatly it contributes to their ability to communicate successfully.
Preparing your voice includes everything from warming up to ensuring you don’t abuse it by yelling, screaming, or smoking. Chapter 3 gives you the essentials for how you can take care of your voice, use your voice properly, and train it so you’re ready for voice acting.
Figuring out your role as voice actor
As a voice actor, you play a unique role in a production. Those roles include the following:
Real person
Narrator
Announcer
Spokesperson
Instructor
These different roles help get the message to the listener, and each has its own characteristics. In Chapter 4, we discuss these roles in greater depth and explain how you can engage your intended audience with each one.
Digging into the script
The script reveals the author’s intent and contains a wealth of details that can help you to create interesting and unique characters. By reading the script, you can discover a lot about the characters you’ll be voicing or portraying. When you read, you need to think like a detective and look for clues that will aid you in developing characters and creating unique voices for them.
Being able to differentiate characters as well as being able to create a solid character that you know like the back of your hand is essential. As a voice actor, your job is to bring characters and scripts to life. The more information you have, the more believable your reads and the greater your performance. In Chapter 5, you can figure out how to examine a script and find the clues to create characters based upon your findings.
Starting your own business
If you’re going to take voice acting seriously, you need to approach it as a business. We mean that you need to invest properly in your business to make quality recordings, which means that you get some training as a voice actor and you also can produce quality work with a home recording studio. When you’re working with clients, quoting the appropriate rates is also something you need to do to remain competitive. Even if you’re just looking to do voice acting as a hobby, remember that you’re entering into an arena of professional voice actors who have been working for years and make their living recording voice-overs.
We give you ideas for how to set up your business, manage your customers, and build a team of advisors, such as an agent if you want one, in Chapter 16. We discuss how you can market your business in Chapter 9. The other chapters in Part IV serve as a primer for running your own business — information you’ll be grateful for when the time comes.
Making a Demo
A demo is to a voice actor as a portfolio is to an artist. Your demo shows people what you can do with your voice and is a tool used for marketing yourself. Most people start with a commercial demo to showcase their ability to read for commercials you would hear on television or radio. You can use demos as promotion vehicles on your website or to accompany your profile on a voice acting marketplace website. You can also send them to talent agents or clients you want to introduce yourself to.
Tapping into some helpful (and free) resources
Voice Acting For Dummies provides you plenty of great information about voice acting. However if you’re itching for even more, you may want to check out one of the following resources. You may be amazed to find out that many more are available if you’re willing to explore. Many of these are online communities where you can connect with and share knowledge with other voice actors.
Voice Over Universe: This social network for voice actors is more affectionately referred to as VU. You can find it at www.voiceoveruniverse.com.
Voice Acting Hub: The Voice Acting Hub is probably the fastest way to connect with other voice actors on Facebook. Close to 2,000 other people are in the group. The group has no topics or categories, but it has a stream of information that relates to voice acting. You can see updates for upcoming workshops, links to blog posts, polls, and general discussion at www.facebook.com/groups/2364217548.
Voice Acting Alliance: The Voice Acting Alliance (http://voiceactingalliance.com) is an online forum with thousands of message boards on topics such as auditions and casting, completed works, and tutorials. Although the forum seemingly has a focus on animation and video games, it’s still a great place to strike up a conversation on any topic. Be sure to check out the frequently asked questions, which can give you a feel for the expected behaviors and other etiquette guidelines.
Yahoo! Voiceover Group: Probably one of the oldest groups of i
ts kind, the Yahoo! Voiceover Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/voiceovers) is where people with a shared interest meet, get to know each other, and stay informed. This group gives you instant access to shared message archives, photos and photo albums, group event calendars, member polls, and shared links.
VOX Daily: VOX Daily (http://blogs.voices.com/voxdaily) is the official Voices.com blog. VOX Daily keeps you in the loop with informative voice-over articles that encourage community involvement, conversation, and intelligent debate.
Voice Over Times: Voice Over Times (www.voiceovertimes.com) is an industry news site and blog, providing feature stories, product reviews, tutorials, and opinion articles. Covering voice acting in all aspects, this website can help you find the news and stories that you need to hear now and connect you with media contacts who make your story happen.
Voice-OverXtra: Voice-OverXtra (www.voiceoverxtra.com) is a news, education, and resource center. Both voice-over newcomers and seasoned pros can learn and share how to succeed in this vibrant industry, 24/7. The site gives you valuable tools, including an industry resource directory, and a comprehensive calendar of training opportunities.
Voice Over Experts: The Voice Over Experts podcast (www.podcastdirectory.com/podcasts) allows you to hear from some of the top voice-over instructors, authors, and voice acting celebrities from around the world as they share some of their knowledge, available to you free of charge. Each podcast is about 10 to 15 minutes and features a special guest. The special guests are industry experts, often acting instructors, casting directors, agents, or vocal coaches who share a nugget of wisdom from their experience. You can also directly listen to more than 130 podcast episodes from the website or download them from iTunes.
Voices.com webinars: Every week, Voices.com offers free webinars that walk you through how to use the website in detail. Sit back, watch, and learn as the presenter navigates through each section of the website. You can watch dozens of previously recorded webinars on www.youtube.com, where you can fast forward, rewind, or pause.
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