Voice Over Talent - Questions galore

I don't know the answer to your questions, but this probably isn't the best forum to post them in. I would suggest either a general publishing forum or maybe the self publishing forum. You might ping a mod for advice.

Did voice talent before surgery for sinus cancer wrecked my voice. Not hard to break into, podcasts are fine. DJ experience is wonderful as are any other broadcast jobs. The key is talent agents and doing the same thing actors do, readings and casting calls, etc. The advantage is you can now audition from home over the internet for a lot of work. I had to do demo tapes or appear live.

Google voice talent jobs and you'll find lots of information. Kind of surprised you didn't start there.

Jeff

When I lived in the DFW area, Funimation had its studios there. They do anime dubs. I remember going to an anime convention where a Funimation voice actor described how he'd gotten started--- he basically dropped into the studio and asked them how to get into voice work. And they said, "Hey, you're a guy!" Because there are lots of women who are happy to do anime voice work, but they're very limited in the number of males who want to do the same thing. That was back around 2005'ish... I don't know if it's still quite that easy, but that was his start.

For dub work, you're limited by the preexisting original animation. So the voice actor needs to have a certain degree of awareness regarding pacing his dialogue with the mouth flaps, and making a piece of dialogue sound quasi-natural, even when you'd normally respond to a line with a one-syllable response in English, and the script needs it to be a three-syllable response, or whatever.

So, since you're in Tennessee, rather than North Texas--- I'd look at what physical studios are in your area, and approach them in person. "Hi, this is something I want to work towards, what do you recommend?" etc. You have the minus of living in Nashville, where there's a lot of competition from singers and other voice talent who are interested in vocal gigs of one sort or another--- but you also have the positive of living in Nashville, where there's presumably plenty of studios/animation production companies you can approach.

There's also a bunch of voiceover talent websites, kind of like Fiverr for voice talent, but I'm sure you've found those already.

Okay, here goes:

Jason said:

1. I know there are ways to put yourself out there as a voice over artist (ACX, VoiceBunny, etc.) but am wondering if anyone else has explored this arena? If so, any sites in particular you'd recommend?

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Not really. You kind of have three tiers. There's the high-end studios, like Disney or Sony, for these you need to sign with an agent. The mid-level guys will work with agented and some non-agented people, and they like to have local or people that have their own studios for remote. They still need to deal with the art directors and so on. The lower end could take anyone with the right voice but the jobs are smaller. Though you do get a start in the business.

You have a much better time if you are local to the studios or you can travel in for a period of time. The big locations, Hollywood, San Franciso, Orlando, etc. are where the real work is, not Glasgow, Montana. The voice over business could be a superhero voice in a major motion picture or it could be the guy who tells local shoppers that Crispinelli's Deli has five new options for pre-made ham sandwiches on sale through the end of the month. You'll find a lot of the local ones being done by local radio personalities and even the intern reading the news at 4:00 am could be called to do the ads. Also a great way to start.

Jason said:

2. The age old dilemma of how to gain experience when you have none is also a factor (though I do have some though on the audio front as I used to run a fairly popular podcast (~20K listeners a month) for a year or so, just never did voice over for anything already written. Could I put down work done on the Librivox (https://forum.librivox.org/) projects? Are there other outlets for getting experience?

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Podcast is fine, but limits you as to type of work since you're not constrained by time. Take the first 80 words of the Gettysburg Address and read them in exactly 60 seconds, with all inflections. Take a Shakespeare script or something by Oscar Wilde and do the same. Read the script in all the voices needed.

Jason said:

3. What samples to upload? Most sites want samples of audio recordings where you read something. I can take samples of 2-5 minutes of recording from anything, but am wondering about the legalities. Could I read a few pages from a book or a poem? What about the first few paragraphs of a magazine article? Can I reference previously published audio recordings for projects like Librivox? What would you look for in audio samples if you were looking to find someone to narrate your work?

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Read something old. Try a Dickens. Or maybe a Bronte (any of them). Sherlock Holmes, Beowulf, one of the Canterbury Tales. No legal issues and classic, so most agents will know the work and can judge. By the way, I wouldn't look for someone to do my work, that's the job of my agent, editor or publisher. It is definitely better to get your work in front of an agent, just as it is better to get your book represented by one.

Jason said:

4. How are voice over or narrators chosen? Assuming the book is published and looking for an audio version, would this be the author or the publisher? I can see how going through a publisher versus self-publishing might be a mitigating factor for both scenarios. What about articles for magazines? Is there a market there?

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Whoever has the rights for the audio looks for the artist to read it. Self publishing you get to do everything, that's kind of what self publishing means. And when most self publishers see the price of the audio version, they pass anyway. Though I did hear one for a minute or two (gave up on it) where the Italian mob boss from New Jersey had a Pakistani accent. Maybe he was really a taxi driver from Manhattan. With a bad Marlon Brando impression.

The book shouldn't have even been published, assuming the words were read verbatim.

Put together some samples of what you want, or are willing, to do and shop them to the various talent agencies. The process is no different from being an author. If you want a tougher path that you fully control, post your talents on the various job sites and pursue what comes that way. The business changes with technology but the need for good, clear, evocative voices will never end.

Jeff

Oh, that reminds me.

When I was a waitress in the Houston area, one of the waiters had a side gig doing radio commercials. Obviously, it wasn't full-time work, or he wouldn't have been waiting tables, but definitely think about training up your radio voice and approaching some of the smaller local stations to see what it takes to get in the door, and then see where it leads you over the next 3-5 years.

My old university had its own radio station. It was run by the communications/film & media/journalism majors. You might check and see if there's a local community college that will let you sign up for 3 or 6 hours' worth of coursework (whether in-person or online), and get your foot in the door via the campus radio station, in addition to absorbing whatever the coursework has to offer. Back when I was at my university, costs were like $3xx/credit hour... but when I took classes during the summer to transfer them, I could pick up four hours for under $100. Prices have changed since then, but community colleges still have very reasonable rates, if they teach what you want to learn.