What it takes to be an voice over actress/actor.

Stephanie McCoy · **Voice Talent** Joined: 10 Oct 2006 Posts: 1

I want to know what you have to do et into voice acting because i love it so much.

Chip Hinshaw · **Voice Talent** Joined: 23 Feb 2006 Posts: 65

You should look into getting a professionally produced demo. Before that, though, you might want to see if there are any well-established voiceover professionals in your area who offer coaching. And, an acting class here or there isn't the worst thing a VO could do.

Definitely work with a coach, though. You will be happy that you took the time to do it.

Paxton Greene · **Voice Talent** Joined: 31 Oct 2005 Posts: 91

Hey Steph,

I listened to your demo. You have a good voice. I'd recommend not going the teacher route right now. Especially if you're in college, and are watching your pennies. Try watching some TV. Pay close attention to the commercials. If you can transcribe some of them down, and practice the reads. Do one like the VO talent did on the commercial, do one with your take, and maybe even do a totally different direction. This will help build your range. Also, try reading Harlan Hogan's book VO Tales & Techniques. Best of luck to you.

Paxton Greene

Louis Tristan · **Voice Talent** Joined: 07 Jul 2005 Posts: 266

Stacey Byrne · **Voice Talent** Joined: 30 May 2006 Posts: 13

Hi Stephanie.

I agree with the posts thus far -
1) Take a class (education is important)
2) Get a quality demo produced (shop around - they vary from 600-1100 from what I could tell here in Los Angeles). Save up if you have to - it's worth it.

Lastly, the best piece of advice I've been given while I perfect my animation voices was,
1) Create about 12 or so - they can have slightly different reads - so say one might have an accent - one may not - you specialize in younger so you could have a few young voices and a few teen voices etc...
2) You know the voices are perfected when you can pick up any piece of copy and read it in that voice without having to warm up into it. One of the voices I'm using for my future animation demo is actually reading a paragraph out of a Vince Flynn novel - that's when I knew that voice was ready - I didn't need to warm it up.

Finally - one of the things I've been doing lately and I would recommend it for you too (plus it's alot of fun!) is to go onto some of the super agents website like William Morris, CED and others and listen really carefully to the animation demos of working voiceover artists that they have posted there. Then, copy each read that they are doing - yours will and should differ from their reads but it should give you some ideas of what others have on their demos and you may find you have other voices inside you that haven't burst out yet.

Best of luck pursuing your dream,

Stacey

Louis Tristan · **Voice Talent** Joined: 07 Jul 2005 Posts: 266

Sweet!

Flynn, the Tom Clancy Doubble?

I hear voices mega eek