Getting to Know the Voice Acting Industry

Understanding the significance of voice acting and grasping the inner workings of the voice acting industry are essential for those aiming to thrive as voice actors. This encompasses familiarizing oneself with voice acting clients, comprehending the various job opportunities available, and understanding the dynamics of voice acting projects. However, the primary step lies in comprehending what voice acting entails and how it enhances diverse projects.

What Constitutes Voice Acting?

Voice acting denotes recorded spoken words delivered by a voice actor for a project or production, known as a voiceover, voice-over or voice over (see my article entitled "Is It Voiceover, Voice-over or Voice over?"). Voiceovers serve to facilitate content creators in conveying information, breathing life into stories and characters, and, most significantly, connecting with audiences.

The demand for voice actors and voiceovers stems from a multitude of industries, including advertising, gaming, broadcasting, healthcare, education, entertainment and much more. Virtually every sector requires a voice-over at some point.

Moreover, being bilingual or multilingual opens up additional opportunities, such as providing voice dubbing and other localization services.

In essence, voice acting prospects are abundant, and content creators are increasingly recognizing the pivotal role of voice in a world saturated with audio stimuli.

Understanding Clients

Individuals or entities seeking voice actors for their voiceover projects are referred to as 'clients.' These clients may comprise advertising or marketing professionals, audiobook publishers, filmmakers, creative producers at advertising agencies, video game developers, and others. You can explore the types of jobs they offer and the voice profiles they seek by contacting clients directly, through an agency, or by visiting online platforms that specialize in connecting clients and voice actors.

Recent reports on the voice acting industry indicate that the majority of clients deem voiceovers indispensable for their projects. Crucially, over 75% of clients concur that using voice actors helps to engage their target audience for longer periods compared to projects devoid of voice actors.

A recent survey identified a huge shift towards remote and freelance work for voice actors as the foremost trend impacting a client's business. This implies that clients will increasingly enlist the services of freelancers voice actors.

Establishing Your Business: Various Voice Over Roles

The landscape of voice acting is continually evolving, offering a plethora of intriguing opportunities. These include traditional voiceovers for radio and TV commercials, voice acting roles in animated films, audiobook narration, podcasts and dubbing assignments, as well as emerging categories of work spawned by technological advancements, such as eLearning, voice assistants, and voice tech projects. To carve a niche for yourself as a voice actor, it's imperative to grasp the acting styles demanded by these projects and hone a diverse set of voice acting skills to tackle them effectively. For more information regarding this, see my article entitled, Types of Voice Acting Work.

Union and Non-Union Voice Over Opportunities

Even newcomers to voice acting are likely familiar with performers unions and guilds. In North America, entities like SAG-AFTRA and ACTRA are prominent, while Equity holds sway in the UK. Union work is most prevalent in Hollywood productions and with similar entities in other countries. Such productions routinely use traditional actors that already belong to the unions as voices and not freelancers that would have to join in order to secure such work.

Conversely, non-union, or freelance, voiceover jobs are open to all voice actors and these jobs surprisingly constitute the vast majority of voice over work globally — accounting for over 90% of the voice acting job opportunities worldwide.

Advancing Your Voice Acting Career: Navigating Voice Over Job Acquisition

Many aspiring voice actors, particularly those lacking experience, secure their initial gigs through online marketplaces, although this can be a terribly difficult and frustrating method, as I discuss in detail in my Voice Q & A video entitled, What's Up With Sites Like Fiverr?.

Other voice acting opportunities can be found via agencies, open casting calls, job ads in with trade outlets, promoting one's self on social media, or by contacting clients directly to promote one's self. Regardless, all of these avenues are quite time intensive and can get quite discouraging when no opportunities come about.

There's nothing easy about getting into the career of voice acting. However, persistence and determination will definitely enhance your prospects of landing rewarding voice acting assignments and bolstering your experience in the field.

Familiarizing yourself with voice acting terminology is also important. As you peruse various job listings as a voice actor, you'll encounter industry jargon that may be unfamiliar. Acquainting yourself with such terminology is crucial as it aids in recognizing voice acting opportunities and discerning the nature of voiceover work associated with each project. For more on this, please see my article entitled, Glossary of Voice Acting Terminology.

Distinguishing Yourself Amidst a Sea of voice Talent

Your online presence serves as a key differentiator, showcasing your unique skills and background while ensuring visibility to potential clients. Hence, even as a novice voice actor, it's advisable to maintain a website and place yourself within online marketplaces that deal with voice talent in order to enable potential clients to discover your talent, listen to your demo samples, and hopefully enlist your services.

How Does the Voice Acting Process Work?

Here's a simplified outline of how a voice acting job unfolds:

1. A client posts a voice over job on an agency's website, talent platform, or directly contacts a voice actor.

2. The voice actor submits an audition featuring a portion of the client's script.

3. The client evaluates the audition and decides whether to hire the voice actor for the job. If the client is satisfied with the audition they will often providing a deposit to secure the voice actor's services.

4. Upon acceptance of the job, the voice actor records the full script and uploads the completed file to the client.

5. The client reviews the file. If no revisions are necessary, the final file is approved, downloaded, and final payment is remitted to the voice actor. Popular Voice Over Genres Animation - Many aspiring individuals are drawn to the allure of portraying eccentric and extravagant cartoon personas, making it a significant motivation for entering the industry. Who wouldn't relish the opportunity to witness their voice brought to life through an animated character? Fortunately, there's a wealth of opportunities within the animation realm.

Think about the diverse spectrum of entertainment mediums where animated figures play pivotal roles: television series, films tailored for both children and adults, foreign language adaptations, video games, computer applications, interactive toys. The possibilities are endless. Breaking into this field doesn't necessarily entail perfecting impressions of iconic characters like Dora the Explorer; rather, it involves cultivating your distinct voice by emulating and drawing inspiration from characters that resonate with you from various media platforms.

Working in animation provides a platform to showcase your acting skills in full force. To deliver a compelling performance, you'll need to utilize exaggerated facial expressions and gestures to infuse your character with a larger-than-life persona. Audiobooks - A surge in popularity has been witnessed in audiobooks, coinciding with the growing preference for audio-first content among the general populace. This trend has led to an expanded market for skilled narrators possessing soothing and engaging voices, capable of captivating listeners for extended periods.

For those with a passion for narration, consider recording excerpts from royalty-free novels available in the public domain. Explore diverse genres to demonstrate versatility, and attempt dialogue excerpts to showcase your adeptness at portraying different characters engaging in conversation.

Whether you enjoy dramatic monologues, fiction, or other literary styles, experiment with performing reads in those genres to assess your suitability. By recording material you typically enjoy reading, you can deliver optimal performances for your demo reels. Corporate - Voice over services are highly valued in the corporate sphere, presenting lucrative opportunities to establish oneself both locally and globally. Virtually every business demands voice over work, spanning from telephone recordings to eLearning modules, medical presentations, explainer videos, corporate narrations, and website welcome messages.

To generate ideas for crafting business demo reels, consider the following avenues:

1. Explore the content showcased on the websites of prominent brands you admire.

2. Recall the training materials you encountered in previous professional roles.

3. Pay attention to the on-hold messages while using telephone systems, extracting elements that resonate with you for incorporation into your own telephone demos.
   

It's advisable to create a diverse array of demo reels to demonstrate your versatility. I suggest developing demos for a lively explainer video, telephone prompts, and an employee training module. This combination showcases your ability to cater to various corporate requirements, affirming your capability to represent a company's voice effectively. Documentary / Narration - Even if you're just a casual viewer of channels like Discovery or the History Channel, or documentaries on Netflix, you're likely familiar with the authoritative, informative, worldly narration that accompanies the visuals.

If you're keen on venturing into documentary narration yourself, immerse yourself in as many documentaries as possible, paying close attention to the different styles of narration employed.

When creating your demo, aim to capture the essence of authentic documentary narration by recording excerpts that mirror real documentary content. Cover a range of subjects, from scientific phenomena to historical events and the biographies of notable figures. If you draw inspiration from existing documentaries, ensure that your script serves merely as a framework, modifying the critical content such as names, places, and other details to avoid any potential copyright issues. eLearning - Similar to various other fields heavily reliant on voiceover, the eLearning industry is experiencing significant growth. A record number of students are pursuing either partial or complete online education. Effective eLearning voiceovers must be lively and captivating, delivering information succinctly and instructively. eLearning encompasses a wide array of content, including video and audio lectures, interactive learning tools, educational games, modules, medical videos, explainer videos, and more.

As with documentary and narration preparation for creating demos, find eLearning videos online and practice them in order to capture the essence of voice work for this genre. Then create your own demos based on what you have studied. Podcasts - Podcasts have emerged as a significant cultural phenomenon, serving as the primary medium for many to stay informed about current events, enjoy storytelling and entertainment, and expand their perspectives. Additionally, with the surge in podcast advertising, this medium has also become a platform for exposing listeners to advertisements as well.

Undoubtedly, cultivating a voice that resonates with listeners, whether it exudes trustworthiness, relaxation, or captivation, is crucial in the podcasting realm.

Whether crafting your own podcast script or speaking passionately about a topic, the aim is to deliver content in a casual yet compelling manner. Authenticity and spontaneity are key elements of podcast voices.

In the expansive world of podcasts, there's a show for every imaginable topic, offering boundless opportunities for those interested in this industry. Radio and TV - On cable TV, approximately 10 full minutes of commercials air per half-hour program. Similarly, radio stations broadcast nearly the same amount of commercials per hour, typically totaling just under 12 minutes.

In addition to commercials, the the radio and TV fields utilize "sweepers." A sweeper is a short, pre-recorded sample used by radio and TV stations as segues between songs, commercial breaks, between shows, etc. They give listeners a brief station identifier or some type of promo and are generally 20 seconds or less. For example, "You're listening to the smooth sounds of K106FM, easy listening for Lakeside," or "Tonight on News 11, see why traffic nightmares aren't your only commute concerns." Sweepers are also known as liners, bumpers, station ID's, imaging, stingers, ID's, promos, idents, shotguns, intros and transitions. Next time you watch TV or listen to the radio, try imitating both the commercials and sweepers. For those pursuing a voice-over career in radio imaging or commercials, it's advisable to create separate voice-over demos for radio commercials and sweepers. "Radio imaging" is a broad term encompassing various types of sweepers. You can see a wide selection of both here at my website.

Your commercial demo should showcase a range of delivery styles, including conversational (like chatting with a friend), hard sell (typical of car commercials), and soft sell (common in e-commerce). Meanwhile, your sweepers should feature a series of upbeat station ID promos suitable for different formats such as easy listening, rock, and country stations. Other Types of Voice Over Genres - movie trailers, pre-recorded tour guide, voice assistant, live announcing, public address announcements, automated telephone answering menus, celebrity impressions, multilingual translations. As with the other genres, find examples of these. Study them and practice them. Then include them as part of your selection of voiceover demos.

And there you have it—a glimpse into what is involved in the realm of voice acting!

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