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Voice acting for advertising

General

For most of 2007 I studied voice acting with Nancy Wolfson. While not everyone has the same experience, I loved everything about working with Nancy, even the times when she was hard on me; because I could tell I was getting better. How?

In that one year my voiceover income went up by over 40 percent. Let me put that into context for you. For almost 10 years in a row my voiceover income was enough to live on and support my family. Then in one year, I started booking bigger jobs and better paying jobs. More of both. Enough to raise my voiceover income by more than 40 percent.

As a former agent and casting director, Nancy’s sole goal as a voiceover coach is helping the performer book the audition.

One of the methods she teaches is identifying the VO character as either “referencer” or “expositor.” It’s a completely different way of looking at voiceover performance.

Her one-to-one coaching is very expensive. But now you can download a nearly 3-hour audio seminar of Nancy teaching and demonstrating her revolutionary approach.

I think you’ll also be intrigued by her explanation of the difference between acting for theatre and acting for advertising.

Getting out there and networking?

General, Getting started in Voiceover

I received an message today asking for some thoughts about networking and getting “out there” in voiceover work. Here are my thoughts, distilled into a couple of paragraphs.
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Honestly I really don’t network. I know it may look like I do, but all I’m doing is making friends. Sometimes that’s online, sometimes it’s in person. Just make friends and don’t worry about whether you’re doing the “networking” thing.

As for getting out there, all I’ve done is take the opportunities that I’ve found. Not even all of them. I’ve missed some important ones along the way, but those that I have taken have been done to the best of my ability.

The perspectives that have served me best are:

1. Voiceover work is a lot like farming. (I grew up on a farm in Minnesota.) You have to plant, tend and harvest. One (harvesting) follows the other (planting), but usually not immediately. It takes a lot of time, patience and effort to build a successful voiceover business.

2. I’m not really in the voiceover business. I’m in the problem-solving business. Most of the time the problems I solve have to do with my providing a voice for someone else, but not always. And it’s those “not always” situations that can make all the difference.
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I hope there’s something here you can find useful.

Quote of the day

General

From my friend and manager Stacey Stahl comes this fabulous quote today.

“The first thing is to love your sport. Never do it to please someone else. It has to be yours.”
— Peggy Fleming

I don’t think I need to spell out the connection to voice acting for you do I?

Today’s quote

General

From my manager and friend Stacey Stahl comes this gem today.

To avoid criticism say nothing, be nothing, do nothing.

       —  Elbert Hubbard

I can’t say I’ve never won an award anymore

General

For the last few months over at Voiceover Universe, Marla Kirban has been sponsoring the VoiceOver Shuffle competition. There were a total of four rounds of competition. Female commercial voice, Male commercial voice, Promo voice (male or female) and Narration voice (male or female). I just learned this week that I won the Narration round! I don’t know how long the audio is going to be live, but for the time being (if you wish) you can hear award announcement on the Voice Wars page at Voiceover Universe.