Sunday, January 18, 2015

The Work Worlds Of Male Voice Over Talents

By Kristen Baird


There are dozens of situations in which a business or other institution might require Male Voice Over Talents. It's not easy to pay the rent doing this work exclusively, at least there isn't any one, narrow way into the field. There is no telling whether one might find oneself playing a character in a novel for an audiobook, recording pages of nonfiction prose for a documentary, or playing some other role.

Recognizable Hollywood celebrities often find audio a relatively easy way to earn a bit extra. A sound studio is a much easier a workplace than TV or film jobs. The stars come to work unshaven and in their pajamas.Many times major actors and actresses will take parts in a popular cartoon for the fun of doing work for a kids' audience, but even the big stars sometimes just need a paycheck now and then.

Luckily there aren't enough celebrities in Hollywood to meet the growing demand. This circumstance means there is work for anyone with the right talent. Usually, those with some experience on the stage or even just a good high-school acting class will have an advantage finding opportunities.

Acting comes in many forms, of course. One kind of actor is the everyday telemarketer, working off scripts over the phone, hundreds of times per week in repetition. The sale made over the phone can be thought of as an effective dramatic performance before a live, though remote, audience. The talents of a telephone salesperson translate quite neatly to those needed to do voice work, and there are a great many in that line of work that might need a new income source.

Not just telemarketers, but anyone making their living through any customer work, from technical support to fund raising, might find themselves with an aptitude for voice-work. Those doing this work teach themselves to note when they are truly getting their point across, always with the help of professional coaching in the office. Over time what they shape is a personality not quite the same as their own everyday self.

A deep, pleasant voice without any obvious indication of ethnicity or region probably brings the most opportunities, given the large portion of audio work that is simply the narration of written words. Far from acting out a character, those reading to record this sort of narration are almost trying to be completely anonymous. The text being read is the only "character" to be present, as though it were reading itself.

People with appealing personalities can succeed regardless of their accent. No one should be dissuaded because they sound like they came from somewhere rather than nowhere. There is need for those who can speak or at least recite languages other than English, bringing opportunities for Spanish speakers as well as speakers of Tagalog, Chinese, Polish, and several other languages.

Some can do get by doing nothing but sound recording work. These are the rare specialists, who know the ins and outs of self-promotion and network building. To earn one's livelihood from this business, one had better treat it like a business rather than just a recreation. At the end of the day, with a bit of hustle, sound recording can offer a nice boost to the household income.




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