Have you ever wondered how to become a voiceover artist, what steps you need to give, where to begin? We have some tips for you, directions that can help you achieve your goal. It will take some effort, but we assure you the result will be worth it.
Currently, there are more opportunities than ever to work in the voiceover industry, but competition is also stronger. In the sector, you will certainly deal with some challenging obstacles, however if you work on your voiceover skills and find out creative and innovative ways to stand out, things will become easier for you.
“The most difficult part of a voice-over talent’s job is to bring life to a text just with your voice”.
There are so many emotions to transmit and yet only one single instrument to achieve your goal. That is why mastering the basics is a mandatory in this field. Here you have 10 Tips to become a Voiceover Artist / Voice Actor.
1. Your voice is everything.
You don’t get any help from props, your body or visual elements, as it happens with film or stage acting. And that makes voiceover so much more difficult. Learn as much as you can about your voice from experience: strengths, weaknesses, boundaries. In order to achieve this, our second point is essential.
2. Read out loud every single day.
That way, you’ll learn to control intonation, punctuation, breathing and rhythm. The only way to find your own style and learn to emphasize and interpret text is practice. That’s why you need to read out loud every day. A newspaper, a book, a magazine, whatever.
3. Learn every voice technique in the book.
Everything, from warming up to intonations and pitch, timing, breathing techniques as well the use of silences.
4. Explore, explore and explore.
Don’t hesitate to hear opinions that are different to those of your mentor. The same goes for demo production. Listen to other people’s work and read their opinions.
5. Script reading.
Study the script carefully before anything else. Once you’re done with that, record it and play it back, noticing every sentence, word, syllable, down to the smallest nuance. Does it sound as it should? Don’t be a conformist, never settle. If you are a beginner, feedback from one of your friends could be helpful. And never forget, timing is essential.
6. Recording process. Get your home studio ready.
Training your voice is not enough to work in the voiceover industry: you also need a good home studio. Clients demand good sound quality, and if you can’t provide it, you’ll won’t access paying jobs. You need to learn two essentials: how to record and how to edit your voice. If you are considering buying a microphone, our voice talent Johanny has a few recommendations for you.
“When you start, you won’t need a $1.000 microphone, but having a good quality mic is still important”.
7. Learn audio editing.
The clients who hire online voice talents prefer those that have their own home studio. In such a highly competitive sector, it’s already not enough to read a text properly; it’s also necessary to know how to edit sound. Before you begin your voice talent career, make sure you gain some audio editing experience.
A free, easy to use digital audio Workstation is Audacity. Learn its basics with DVO.
8. Create and produce a professional demo.
It must include your most recent work and be able to showcase your best features in order to convince the customer. We already shared a post with tips to record an effective demo.
9. Promote your voice.
Having your demo ready is just the first step. After that, you have to get people to listen to your demo. You need somewhere to be found, so create your own personal website, build your profile across the main social media sites and upload your demo to voiceover agencies websites. Do you want to be part of our voice over agency? Register now.
10. Never stop training.
Trends change in this sector, and you must always be up to date. Look for relevant information on the Internet, tips from you mates. Don’t hesitate to other people’s opinions about your work; both from your mentor and from other voice talents. Listen to their work, learn from them.
You will have to put a lot of effort to be part of the voiceover industry, but we can assure you, it will pay off. And remember, everybody starts from scratch. Listen to the story of our voice talent, Bernardo. It will motivate you to keep working on this goal!
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