Sirenetta Leoni Inside Voiceover—Information + Insights On Voice Acting

So we're guessing that by now, along with 2.6 million others who have watched it, many of you may have already seen this talented vocal performance major from Dallas, Brian Hull,  perform  "Let It Go" from "Frozen" as 21 different Disney characters. Our question is how many of you professional voice actors out there would have the guts to try something like this?

Do we think that this Is this going to be Brian's golden ticket straight to Disney/Pixar studios? Probably not, BUT is this going to get him noticed and give him an opportunity to submit to agents and audition for projects he had no prayer of getting, even just a few days ago? Absolutely!

By the way, we read in another article that Brian had second thoughts before posting this on YouTube, because he feared that it wasn't "good enough." 

It should go without saying, but we'll say it: you have to have talent, good training and a genuine passion for the work to pulll something like this off successfully. If you don't? Well then you've really got no right to  complain when someone who does like Brian, or others equally talented, committed and even more qualified, beat you out for voiceover gigs, right? 

[H/T to follower and friend of InsideVO, Tracie Warren Denga', for letting us know about this one.]

You need to understand, and ultimately embrace,  as acting coach Anthony Meindl correctly points out, that YOU are all you've got! Yours is the only set of life experiences and emotions that you have to draw upon, so your performances are always going to be limited by that, and your understanding of any role is always going to be filtered through how you reacted and felt in an emotionally analogous situation. To frame it it in a more positive way---there's only one person in the world that argues like you, persuades like you, taunts like you, loves like you, hates like you, feels humiliated like you, flirts like you, triumphs like you, loses like you, is afraid like you, and is courageous like you---and that's you!

Ultimately you'll come to realize that the idea of "playing" a character---of putting on a "mask"---is actually a fiction; "you" are the only characer that you are ever going to be able to genuinely inhabit and access. You should rejoice in that.

We've witnessed first-hand how aspiring actors who are willing to work at their craft consistently over time can become good actors.

But do we think that an "average" actor who practices a lot can achieve greatness? There are probably some acting prodigys,  like Marlon Brando, Meryl Streep and Mel Blanc, who are born with a gift, and are naturally "wired" to act. However, we believe that most of the rest of us have the potential to become strong, competent actors if we're willing to put in the necessary years of training and practice.

Our advice to actors and voice actors who want to improve their acting chops:

1) Keep at it; mastering this craft well takes years

2) Don't get discouraged when you hit a plateau, work through it

3) Avoid comparing yourself to others, because everyone progresses at his or her own pace.

It's not everyday that The Princess Bride's "Inigo Montoya" dispenses valuable advice to actors; especially not from the back seat of a taxicab! The versatile and talented Mr. Patinkin, whose career spans four decades, undoubtedly knows a thing or two about starting, maintaining and sustaining a successful long-term career...Prepare to listen!

The bad news...there are in fact, a few unscrupulous voice-seekers out there who seek to use your voice tracks without paying you for your work.

The good news is that there are some very simple things you can do to protect yourself from falling victim to them.

The good folks at Piehole UK have posted some excellent and simple tips on ways to safeguard your work from would-be pilferers. 

We recommend the selective copy reading method. As Piehole points out, it's less offensive and inobtrusive and less likely to interfere with your performance. Some very legitimate clients get turned off by the "beeps," and they can distract from your performance, no matter how subtle they are. 

Unfortunately, it's hard to use selective copy reading on short scripts, like tags, and sometimes you just have to take your chances. If you're ever in doubt, it never hurts to do a little due dilligence. If you're dealing directly with a major client or ad agency, you should be okay. If it's a small company, start-up or independent producer, Google can really be your friend. If the audition is comining from an online-casting site, you can see how many auditions they've submitted in the past and how many they've hired/completed. While they might end up being the best client ever, if there's no track record, no google history, no client reviews, and no news anywhere, caveat vocalis. (Let the  voice actor beware!)

Wise advice from acting coach, Anthony Meindl, on why, once you decide to become an actor, voice actor or artist of any kind, it's crucial to "go all in." 

He rightly observes, "Your career is never going to look like you thought it would. Ever..."Instead he advises you to be open to following the path to where your passions and talents genuinely lead you. It may be very different than what you initially envisioned your road to "success" would be, but as long as you are true to yourself, work hard and stay fully committed, we agree with Anthony that things have a way of working out... 

Acting coach, Craig Wallace, absolutely, 100% nails it. And while his focus and comments are directed towards on-camera actors, we'd say that his on-point analysis applies, not just equally, but even more so to voice talent.

Think we're being unduly harsh? On any given day. how many articles/posts/tweets/forum discussions about voice acting that you come across focus on some aspect of marketing or the "how to's" of self-recording versus the number of articles/posts/tweets/forum discussions on development of craft, such as acting, script analysis, visualization, scene setting, self-direction, choice-making, improvisation, etc? (If you call yourself a "voice actor" and you don't understand why you need the aforementioned skills, congratulations, you've just proven the point of Craig's post.)

Don't get us wrong. We're all for voice actors being entrepreneurial and relentless marketers, but---and this is a big BUT---you need to achieve a basic level of proficency BEFORE you start looking for gigs. Just having a voice and the ability to speak doesn't make you a voice actor; no more that having hands and owning a wrench makes you a plumber.

Why some think that their ability to fog a mirror automatically makes him/her a voice actor is a puzzlement to us. There seems to be a general understanding that to do any job, including many minimum wage jobs, you need to go through training and possess or develop a specific set of skills. For example, if you want to become a hair stylist, carpenter or an electrician it takes a couple of years of training just to achieve the level of apprentice. To learn public accounting takes 5 years of higher education, lawyering 6 years and a minimum of 8 years to become a medical doctor, not counting internship and residency. So why do so many people believe that they can call themselves "voice artists" and command a few hundred dollars an hour for their time, if the totality of their training is a few weekend seminars or a couple of online courses?

It strikes us that this smart assessment process that veteran casting director, Marci Liroff, uses to determine if kids are really cut out to be actors, applies just as much to adults and as you read the article you should be asking yourself these same questions.

If your immediate answer to "Why do you want to act," or "voice act?" isn't something along the lines of, "I love acting because it allows me to express myself, brings me great joy and fulfilment, and I'd be doing it, in some form, even if no one paid me, saw me or heard me do it," then you had better rethink your career choice long and hard...

Marci hits the nail on the head when she says, "They just want the result (fame), not the career itself (acting);" which sums up why some are in it for the wrong reasons, perfectly. (You can also substitute the words, "money," "adulation," "allure," "glamour," or any of the other perceived perqs of acting as the desired "result," but the point she's making remains the same.)  

With misguided kids, Marci correctly lays much of the blame at the feet of their pushy stage parents, but we've encountered plenty of adults who've rationalized pursuing acting or voice acting for what they thought it would get them; not because they genuinely loved the process of telling stories and playing pretend.  Not surprisingly, these types of "actors" don't tend to last very long in this business. 

You've got to be genuinely passionate about this craft to do it.

It's hard to imagine now that the talented, charismatic Sir Patrick Stewart was ever a struggling actor, but according to Stewart, upon graduating drama school, "I was about the only graduate from my year who hadn’t got a job or an agent or a manager.”

He was convinced that he had "failed," was ready to give up acting professionally and go back to selling furniture, but thankfully, one of his instructors had a brilliant insight and gave him some very valuable advice that helped him get through the lean years. The teacher told him that as a character actor, he'd have to wait at least 20 years before he finally came into his own, and that is in fact, what happened. He was 47 when he was cast as Jean-Luc Piccard.

Yet another reason why we always urge you to stop comparing yourself to  others. You never know when you are going to "come into your own" and we suspect that some of Stewart's fellow 20-year-old drama school grads who got agents or managers straight out of drama school are probably the ones selling furniture now. 

Veteran LA voice actor, Jessica Gee George, has done a great job summarizing pro voice actors'  love-hate relationship with online voiceover casting and the major industry-wide changes to that have resulted since Voicebank first introduced the concept 16 years ago.

As Jessica fairly points out, these changes have been both good and bad for experienced voice talent; largely determined by how that talent has responded to them. Voice actors who got ahead of the curve, and immediately set up home studios, aggressively marketed themselves to agents in other markets, etc.  were able to capitalize on new opportunities that didn't exist before Voicebank came onto the scene, whereas many veteran voice actors who refused (and continue to refuse) to adapt, have seen their careers crater.

But Jessica rightly reserves her harshest criticism for the "bottom-feeders" and those who claim to be "professional voice actors" just because they have a mic and the ability to fog a mirror:

      "...you don’t have the right to call yourselves Professional Voice        Over Talent until you earn it. We have trained for years at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, we took voice over class after class, have gotten in front of casting directors, been turned down by agents, been let go from agencies, have been on countless in-person auditions, are dedicated to constantly perfecting our craft and updating our demos. We have spent exorbitant amounts of money on building beautiful studios with floating floors and we’ve taken more classes. We market ourselves and we work." 

BRAVO Jessica! We are in 110% complete agreement and couldn't have said it better ourselves. 

Backstage's "Secret Agent Man" gives honest, straightforward answers to three top questions that actors would like to hear an agent answer truthfully:  1) "What are some negative traits that make you decide not to sign an actor?”; 2) “What do you find to be most efficient form of communication and why?”; and the biggie that everyone wants to know the REAL answer to: 3) “What are the reasons you would drop a client after signing them?”

You may (or may not) be surprised to discover that show business works a lot like any other business...professionalism, courtesy, and competence can carry you a long way, and earn you a lot of goodwill/

Even if you don't succeed immediately, if your bosses/agents see that you are doing all the right things...working consistently to improve your skills...marketing yourself...maintaining a positive attitude...it's more likely that they'll be willing to give you a second, third or even a fourth chance. On the other hand, If all you do is moan and groan about not booking and how unfair life is, they won't be able to show you the door fast enough! 

Casting director, Ilene Starger, makes a compelling argument for why it 's crucial for stage and on-camera actors to be well read. We'd make the case that it is equally, if not more important, for voice actors to be avid readers. One extremely critical point that she didn't mention specifically in her article is that there is nothing else like reading to fuel your imagination, which in turn, gives you a better ability to analyze and creatively interpret text.

Breakdowns provided in voiceover audition scripts tend to be sparse, generic, and sometimes even confusing or  contradictory. You normally get very little to go by, and it's left entirely up  to you to invent a whole backstory in order to bring the character you're playing.to life. Moreover, you typically get just a very short amount of time to prepare your audition.

Being a professional voice actor requires the ability to imagine, and visualize characters and scenes on the fly. Voice actors who are well read have a wide array of scenarios and characters to draw from, along with a well-developed sense of story, that allows them to quickly fill in the blanks and make educated guesses about the character, place or situation.

We think it's no coincidence that almost all successful voice actors we know are very literate people. 

Astute, honest, on-point assessment of the qualities you need to possess to become a successful VO talent from an established LA-based voice actor, Rachel Fulginiti. (By the way, we concur with Rachel 100% that "voice actor" is the preferred way to refer to oneself.) 

As you scroll down Rachel's list, please resist the temptation to gloss over the parts that are "inconvenient" or that make you feel uncomfortable. Please listen to her, as she's giving you the straight scoop. If you're independently wealthy, you can skip #10, otherwise all of these are non-negotiable.

We particularly want to direct your attention to Numbers 4 (Do you have acting experience?), 6 (Do you love it enough that you'd do it for free?) and 8 (How's your self confidence?), because while there's an ample amount of discussion and information online about the need for voice  actors to be self-motivated, entrepreneurial, and manage time wisely, there's sadly very little digital ink dedicated to the considerable amount of acting training, passion for craft and self-confidence required.

These last three are interrelated. How you ask?...If you have genuine passion for what you do, it's more likely that you will follow through and get whatever training you need to get really, really good at your craft. While "self-confidence" can't be taught per se, the greater knowledge you have of your craft and the better your training and technique, the more confident you are likely  to be about your choices and your ability to execute your choices. (It's now accepted as conventional wisdow that, as Malcom Gladwell has argued, 10,000 hours is the amount of time you need to devote to any endeavor in order to master it. Voiceover is no different.) 

H/T to long-time friend of InsideVO, accomplished voice actor and audiobook narrator, Amy Rubinate,  for posting this article first.

What a great idea! 

Most of us have no probems ticking off  the worst things that have happened to us during the past year, but coming up with positive experiences is generally a far more challenging task.

Instead of spending next December 31st dwelling on your 2014 coulda's, shoulda's and woulda's, think about how great it would feel to be reviewing all the good things that you accomplished in your work and personal life instead...

We wholly endorse this idea and look forward to hearing about your favorite 2014 accomplishments a year from tomorrow....

Excellent tips on how to pull off acting drunk believably. 

It's an absolutely correct observation that most people who are drunk will expend a whole lot of energy trying NOT to appear drunk. You know how true this is  if you've ever tried to argue with a friend who is insistent on driving him- or herself home, when it's obvious to everyone else that he or she has obviously exceeded their limit,

For those of you who are dedicated Method actors and may choose to engage in your own research this holiday season, we urge you to please research responsibly. 

Gwen's examples are geared towards NY-based theater and film actors (where's she located), but her smart observations apply equally to voice actors. 

When it comes to voiceover, you not only need to be "trained for the market,"as Gwen advises, but for the genre of voiceover as well. Anyone who works in animation will tell you that it's a very different set of skills,  focus and energy than is required to record an audiobook.

A couple of additional notes...your voiceover website should absolutely contain information on where prospective clients can find you and get information on how to cast and hire you, but voice actors can often get away with having a very simple one-page website with their demos, instead of the 5-page site suggested. Resume, headshots, phto gallery, etc. aren't necessary unless you intend to use the same website to promote your on-camera acting, too..

Finally, to Gwen's suggestion to avoid, "Asking friends, relatives, strangers or non-professionals for advice about your career," we’d add, "Also avoid asking advice about your specific market to voiceover professionals who only operate in other markets." Why? Because the "advice" gleaned from professional who are not familiar with your market can be just as wrong and misleading as the ill-informed advice you get from your relatives. We can't tell you how many times we've heard actors repeat as gospel something they’ve been told by an industry expert from LA, which, while on point for the LA, does not apply at all to San Francisco or most other markets.