Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Suggestions

Okay, so I've mentioned the conversation I had with my cousin the other day a couple times. He's been working on his voice profile for around eight months and had a lot of good advice.

A couple of things every aspiring voice actor should have:

1. A Character Demo
Generally, people interested in voice acting are interested in either tv shows and movies or audio books. It's no wonder, that's the vast majority of the long-term work available. Obviously, actors need to be able to... well, act. If you don't have an enormous vocal range, you can either work on that or grab tons of characters which are similar to your style and range (in other words, typecast yourself). Even in audio books, a voice over specialist needs to give voices to every character. Reading flatly is only good in very specific circumstances (news reporting and imitating Orson Welles, for example).
2. A Commercial Demo
Okay, so as much as you might want to be an anime voice actor or the next Disney princess, you probably won't start off that way. In the research I've done, most voice actors got really, really lucky or began by doing tons of commercial voice over work and other things. My cousin suggested actually recording and posting a voice demo reading commercial lines. After all, you need to get paid somehow in the beginning. Although you could capture a video on YouTube or somewhere else and just dub over it, you can also just record pre-written lines, like you can find here, though I think you need to register to see the /scripts location on the site. Remember, in a commercial demo you're selling a product. Even if you don't want to buy it, you have to make other people want to.
3. A Resume
When you're looking at beginning voice work, you need to consider what employers want to see. Rather than lying (which you NEVER want to do), consider actually working towards the things employers are going to want to see. Of course, one of these things is a detailed, experienced resume. There are plenty of resume sites out there and tons of help to be had.
4. Volunteer Work
Honestly, it's hard to believe that you can find a paying position immediately, regardless of how talented you are. This might be different if you've got a ton of stage experience and have a masters in theater, but... Now, there are plenty of ways to get volunteer experience. Volunteer at a local or college radio station or work on video game mods [check out Mod DB or the forums of a popular, recently released game]. There are other ways, too.

Personally, I think I'd add a few more.

1. Accent Demo
If you're interested in more than just narration, it might be a good idea to consider working with accents. I know I've mentioned IDEA before, but British or Russian aren't the only 'accents' out there. The anime Baccano, for example, uses 1920s accents. Seriously, if you haven't seen this, check it out. Even a single episode is enough. It's some of the best voice work I've ever heard. Although I'm not positive since I've never seen it, I'm guessing there's a One Piece character or two who uses a pirate accent. Plus, there are accents within the United States (or your home country), too. The Southeast sounds much different than Maine which is also different than Wisconsin. Although this won't really display your UNHOLY ACTING TAAAALENT!, it can showcase your versatility. If you can't do this already, start working on it.
2. Reading Demo
Similar to the other demos mentioned, this will bring everything together. It allows you the opportunity to show your acting talent, voice over work, character creation, and script reading capabilities. Picking a text you personally enjoy (for me, this is going to be Call of Cthulhu and probably a chapter from American Gods) will invest your heart in the project. Passion is the gateway to acting and a reading demo will show everything you've got. That's also the reason I'm leaving that for after the character demo, accent demo, and monologue.
3. Display Area
For me, this is a combination of this blog and my YouTube account. You need somewhere to showcase your work. After all, unless you have your own website, you want somewhere people can go to see your work without contacting you. Furthermore, sites like YouTube are probably better than a personal site because people can stumble across your work. Blog sites like this allow you to give back to the community and show you aren't staying sedentary. This is especially important if you're not in an artistic career at the moment (or, like me, currently unemployed).

Although I don't think this is super necessary, anyone interested in normal acting will also want a head shot and body shot for their portfolio and some monologue work. Personally, I've always loved Hamlet's character so I'll probably be working on that soon. Still, there are literally thousands of play and tv/movie monologues out there. They always say "dress for the job you want," consider that when choosing a monologue. Since I tend to play a villain or psychotic character more often than a hero, I've chosen Hamlet and will likely record Lincoln's Suicide Soliloquy, as well. I may never play a hero, and villains are more complicated, interesting, and dramatic anyhow, so why showcase something I'm not quite as good at? I'm not advocating typecasting yourself, I'm just saying your profile should show you at your best.

***

So long as the storm brewing outside doesn't knock out my power, I'll be working on the dialogue later in the day. I'm hoping to have the whole thing done by this afternoon, but I'm guessing the video won't be up until tomorrow.

In writing this, I've realized I ought to write a post about recording equipment. Soon, I promise. I should also probably offer a post on choosing source material for demos. And now I'm thinking about cold reads and other, similar topics, as well.

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