- You want to kick-start the day with warm-ups.
- Be active in sessions.
- Allot time every week for job searches.
- Pay attention to your surroundings!
1. Daily Voice Over Warm-Ups
You’ll want to warm up your voice every day. Probably thirty minutes or so before you go into record. I actually do some vocal warm-ups that I first learned in choir and theatre classes. One of them is just singing the alphabet starting at a low pitch on A-B-C-D, then increasing the pitch every few letters until I hit the high notes on W-X-Y-Z. I also warm up my articulators with tongue twisters like “unique New York, unique New York” and “red leather, yellow leather.”
2. Going In For A Recording Session
Most sessions will be scheduled early during the day. You don’t want to over practice the script because you don’t want to get stuck. I don’t arrive terribly early, maybe around ten minutes. They might want to a sound check before the producer gets there. At the end of it, I make sure not to bolt out of there. I want to be sure they have all the takes so they’re not missing any single word. I try to be really friendly with everyone at the session.
The audio engineer is important because they have a lot of clients. Definitely give them a card. I usually talk to the producer, to help establish an ongoing relationship with the company. After that I send a 15 day or 30 day invoice (depends on client’s billing cycles.) Also, I make sure not to go to any concerts the night before, because they might hear it in my voice
3. Time Spent Searching For Jobs
I probably spend 2-4 hours per week looking for VO work. The most difficult thing about it is finding a great project that pays great too. While a lot of projects need voices, a lot of producers don’t want to pay much, so I ignore more job leads than I pursue. It is not stressful at all because I do VO part-time to supplement my income. It is more stressful and time-consuming for full time voice talent, but your agency will be working to get you work too!
4. Hearing Through the Ears Of A Voice-Over Artist
I pay more attention to certain aspects relating to my work. One of the things I do when I’m watching TV or listening to the radio and hear a great voice-over is practice repeating it with the same exact inflection. Mimicking other voices and styles is great practice!
I also notice that a lot of young women speak with an up-tone at every pause and at the end of every sentence. They have higher pitched voices to start with, so their upward inflection sounds like a string questions: “I told him?...I didn’t want to go?...and he just said?...that he didn’t care?” It’s a really horrible pattern to get into, but it seems very common (at least in California), so many of my female students need to change that pattern. People are accustomed to a definitive down-tone as a cue that someone is done speaking.
I just love listening to people’s voices. It’s definitely one of the first things I notice when I meet someone. There are soooo many fabulous and unique voices out there. In my head, I’m always silently casting people’s voices in projects. A lot of people have good voices for animation without altering their voice at all. I like to imagine the cartoon character that they could voice.
There’s a man in my neighborhood who I hear talking to friends sometimes, and his voice sounds just like Wolfman Jack, the famous DJ from the 70s. Another guy that I’ve talked to actually sounds a whole lot like Barry White! And many women with voices that convey genuine compassion and empathy.
