How to Become a Voice Over Artist?

A voice over artist is someone who lends their voice for narrations in various media like TV/radio commercials, audiobooks, documentaries, animation, and more. If you have a unique voice and acting/narration skills, you can earn a full-time income by being a voice talent. This blog covers everything you need to know on how to become a voice over artist and how to break into this competitive yet rewarding career.

What do I Need to Become a Voice Over Artist?

If you wish to build a career in voice overs, focus on these fundamental prerequisites:

• A lot of voice training: Like any skill, flexibility, and mastery over voice modulation come only through relentless practice. Take acting classes, observe great voice over artists, and experiment with tons of tongue twisters/mock recordings. Invest heavily in working with a voice couch. their experience and expertise are invaluable. Growing your talent should be an ongoing effort.

• A professional voice demo: Having samples that showcase your vocal range is absolutely vital to getting hired. Invest time and effort into making at least one polished voice over demo reel highlighting your acting abilities.

• A home studio set up: Your recordings need to sound professional – on par with industry standards. Set up a recording booth in your home with the necessary acoustic treatment, microphones, and editing tools. Maintaining quality home studios gives clients added confidence in your services.

Benefits of Becoming a Voice Over Artist

A career in voice acting comes with some incredible advantages:

• Financial upside: A professional voice over artist usually charges a minimum of £200 per hour. This is just a recording fee. Quite often a fee for usage licence is charged on top of an hourly rate. there fees can range from a hundred pounds to a few thousand. An established and versatile voice talent often earns six figure income by juggling multiple recordings and clients.

• Flexible work-life balance: Voice over work primarily happens on a project/gig basis through bookings as per your availability. You get to completely control your schedule and workload. No 9-5 desk jobs here!

• Less barrier to entry: Unlike on-camera acting roles, which emphasise looks, age or other specific traits, your vocal tone and the ability to control your voice is your ticket as a voice actor. There are diverse voice over opportunities for all.

• Ability to work remotely: Nowadays, having a pro home studio set up is a must if you want to be successful in this industry. It will open up opportunities of booking work from anywhere across the country or even the world. Location independence is a vital factor in the post pandemic era.

• Creative challenges: Voice acting responsibilities may include playing interesting characters, adopting multiple accents, singing songs, and more! Every new script provides unique creative challenges.

• Growth avenues: Beginning with explainer/commercial voice overs, one can progress to recording audiobooks, dubbing for animation films, gaming voiceovers, podcast narrations, and much more. The scope is limitless.

Becoming a freelance voice over artist provides a portfolio career with immense financial, creative, and location flexibility - all through simply leveraging your voice skills!

Challenges of Becoming a Voice Over Artist

Amidst all the advantages, aspiring voice actors should also be aware of a few downsides of this profession:

• Inconsistent workflow: While established voice over talents have a steady stream of projects, beginners often face long periods without work before gaining a strong foothold. Managing cash flows can get tricky.

• Stiff competition: The voice over space has no shortage of skilled professionals. Standing out from the crowd requires strong acting chops, niche skills, and excellent client service. Investing in professional coaching, nurturing client relationships, and continually marketing yourself become paramount for sustained success. Specialising in a niche vocal style or genre can help differentiate your talents from the vast pool of voice artists. Ultimately, those who combine impeccable performance skills with relentless self-promotion will rise above the fray.

• Upfront investments: From soundproofing your home studio to purchasing high-end gear, voice overs need substantial investments before earning their first dollar. Breaking even takes time.

• Self-marketing needs: Being freelancers, voice actors have to continuously market their services through online platforms, agents, production houses and more to obtain work. Less recording time means less income.

• Health care needs: Long voice over sessions can put a strain on vocal cords and cause problems if due care is not taken, like proper rest, proper diet, hydration, etc. Maintaining vocal health is imperative.

• Limited growth: While initial years may bring exciting challenges, creative growth and progression opportunities become limited over time for voice over freelancers. On-camera actors often get more variety.

People considering voice acting as a full-time career should strategically balance their expectations from both the rewarding and challenging aspects before taking the plunge.

Market Yourself and Find Work

Once you’ve refined your craft and built up a solid demo reel, proactive self-marketing becomes essential. In today’s voice over landscape, a robust online presence showcasing your abilities serves as your virtual calling card to land more auditions and bookings. Create profiles on industry casting sites, like OutSpoken, and your professional website to build visibility with potential clients.

Consistently network by engaging with online voice over communities, reaching out to producers directly, and attending relevant industry events or conferences. Word-of-mouth also remains powerful, so tap into your existing contacts who may need voice over talent.

Getting Your First Gigs and Growing

Break into the field by first accepting smaller, lower paid jobs like recordings for charities to build up professional experience. This allows refining your skills and expand your portfolio into different genres. Once you land your first paid gig, be prompt, prepared, and easy to work with to establish a solid reputation.

Always strive to deliver quality takes beyond client’s expectations so they’ll enthusiastically rehire you or provide referrals. As your resume grows, you’ll be able to increase your rates in line with your experience level and consistent demand.

Craft Your Brand and Demos

To market yourself effectively as a voice over artist, define and lean into your unique brand identity. Analyse your specific vocal strengths, speaking styles, and personality to determine what sets you apart from the saturated talent pool. Do you exude warmth perfect for audiobook narration or command authority ideal for corporate videos?

Embrace the marketable characteristics that make you distinctive. Then craft specialised demos highlighting your voice’s most bookable aspects for particular industries rather than generic, one-size-fits-all samples. Regularly update these demos with recent, high-quality work to showcase continual growth.

Conclusion

Building a career in the voice over industry requires strong perseverance and a willingness to evolve one’s talents over time. However, we can attest that our platform has witnessed exceptionally motivated individuals achieve fruitful careers through consistent vocal practice and networking to attain roles.

Voice acting necessitates grit, yet significantly rewards those who work on their skills and make the most of available opportunities. For those passionate about the craft, a vocally fulfilling professional journey may well await. We invite talented artists to bring their skills to OutSpoken and discover what possibilities our platform presents.

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April 11th at 12:00am