How can I get started in the world of voice acting?
Thanks so much for watching some of the many characters I’ve created.
It takes a village to raise a performer and I’ve been graced with a village of characters to build my career.
So many wonderful actors and performers ask me what do we have to do to make a portfolio to become a working voice over artist? I respond with you already are if you are asking this question. It starts with a natural pull or desire to play and celebrate all that can be created from the ground up with body mind and soul.
Voice performers play with a multi-faceted pallet of tools that starts with a simple desire or curiosity that is like a magic carpet ride through the world of ‘play’. Improvisation is an excellent place to broaden your horizon. Most high schools offer it, mine did. John Rennie High School. That class saved me in that it was a place of creativity amidst the book learning of the rest of my day. I couldn’t wait for improv class, it was almost as good as recess maybe better. Improv was fun, freeing and offered a doorway into expanding my awareness. The first rule of improv: receive the offer! It’s called “Yes Let’s”. Whenever your partner or teammates on stage offer you a suggestion, you take it. “No” blocks and ends the creative juices from flowing. So you always have to say ‘YES’! Say yes to play, fun and the imagination.
I highly recommend anyone to take an Improv class at your local improv school, many are online now and easily accessible. These classes help all ages to dive out of their comfort zone and explore characters and situations in the land of imagination. It frees us up to be bigger than life in a sense. Gets us past our inhibitions and thinking outside the box.
Voice performing is like taking all that you learned on a classroom stage and being able to stand still in front of a microphone and deliver the message with out budging. Only minimal movement is allowed in front of the mic. So you go to improv, or theatre school or any acting training to sponge up what you can to be as free as you can. That gold then gets melted down into your cellular memory so that when you approach microphone you can be so still as to not ruffle your jean shirt and make noise, but can manipulate your vocal instrument to carry characters on a magic carpet ride to the listener.
The best way to begin voice acting is to begin. Take classes, read children’s books aloud, to your pets or plants or children if they let you. Record yourself on your cellphone listen back what do you hear? Anything you would do differently the next time you read? Volunteer at a community theatre or a library to read to children. Reading to children on line is also growing in popularity.
Then keep going, there is lots to discover in the world of voice. Just put one foot in front of the other, the next step will appear. More tips to follow in more blogposts to come. For now try a couple of tongue twisters. Each one ten times in a row!
A noisy noise annoys an oyster. Moose knotting much mush, Unique New York
For your voice and joy,
DawnFordVO