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Voice Over Objectivity and Finding Your Niche

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You’ve heard this before, right? “You can’t be objective about your own voice”.” You need experienced professionals to guide you to a good performance, to really get the best of what you have inside of you out and into the mic. Is this always the case?

Well, you know what they say about absolutes.

Voice Over Success Is a Lifelong Process

I’ve heard this advice several times in the last few years. Usually by somebody who’s either a vocal coach, a demo producer, an agent, or a combination of the three. I liken my voiceover skills to my guitar playing skills, and I improve on both of them in similar ways. I record myself constantly, I listen to it, I develop an understanding of its technical, emotional, and subjective flaws, and I work to fix them. This is how I’ve done things from reducing mouth noise to how I’ve discovered when I’m being truthful and when I’m not, and how to identify and toss out the latter.

And like guitarists, you can train with a coach, or you can teach yourself. There are so many resources out there for those who want to learn, and a great deal of the end result is out in the wild, prime for analysis. So why can’t you learn to be objective about your own voice?

Well, here’s the rub: for your very, very best work to emerge, I believe some sort of collaboration is needed. This is human communication, after all, and having a professional sign off on your work is affirming and confidence-building. Instead of thinking you’ve hit the target, you’ll know it. And you’ll know more quickly the next time you do something similar. It’s all about confidence, about knowing what you can and can’t do.

This knowledge will feed into your quest for a niche.

Your Niche Isn’t Your Only Genre

Voice over is a hugely varied industry with a bajillion different types of work. The common advice out there is to find your niche; the character type(s) that play to your strengths and the forms of work you naturally excel at. It helps you whittle down your demo into its strongest form and gives your marketing efforts direction. After all, drilling down to specifically what makes you unique is the essence of quality marketing.

However, seeking out and honing in on your niche – or what you think your niche should be – can be limiting, and prevent you from growing as an artist. I make a living as an actor not because I’m great at industrials or I excel at museum tours – I’d starve if I only pursued one niche. While it doesn’t fit nicely on a business card, I work on explainer videos, corporate event openings, video games, cartoons, indie films, documentaries, movie trailers, commercials, podcasts, and on and on, playing stoic narrators, senior Star Fleet commanders, dragons, baby turtles, VOGs, straight men, comic relief, detectives, nerds, drunken demons, French Canadian Hockey players, and so on. I also do on-camera commercial work and print modeling, which I obviously wouldn’t consider to be my VO niche at all, but it’s paid work in the realm of acting.

Am I equally great in all of these fields? Nope! But I don’t need an unrelated day job to make up for my lack of work while waiting patiently for the gigs best suited for me roll around. If you want to only do one type of voice work forever, have another career handy, because you’ll never have enough work to make ends meet.

Mindfulness is the Key to Growth

This gig is all about self-discovery and self-awareness. Being objective about your voice is about being completely honest with yourself, which is best done with professional help, at least in some form. And your niche is your most honest expression of your career’s ideation, not the end all be all of your career.

Tread carefully, and draw a good map.

Rex

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Great, You Got Work! …Doing What?

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I had dinner with my family last night in honor of my brother’s 40th birthday. I was seated across from my parents in a noisy chain restaurant, and like any good son, I want to make my parents proud. Now, I’ve been a voice actor for 16 months, and doing it exclusively for a month and a half. I know that’s not a lot of time, but I’m wondering how much longer it’ll have to be before I stop having to follow up “Things are going well, I’ve got work lined up!” with “..in voiceover. Because I’m a voice actor.”

What the Hell is a Voice Actor?

I think I’ve explained what I do enough times that my folks finally, maybe, kind of understand what I do. The daily marketing routine, the maintaining a web presence, the myriad of types of voiceover I perform…it’s kind of tough to sum up, or even to sell as a “real” job. One thing I have to combat is that the encouragement I get is usually “This’ll be your big break!” to pretty much anything I tell them about.

So despite having a pretty good first year in VO, my dinner table accolades include background work in two TV shows and a small-run political ad. Which is cool; at least I don’t have to talk about DJ’ing weddings anymore!

Oh, and audiobooks. They understand audiobooks too. I know that because for some reason, instead of asking how work’s going, my folks ask, “What book are you reading?” So now I’m just going to pretend that all VO is “reading books” and let them in on what’s happening.

Also, my mom asked if I do all the cooking now that my wife‘s business has taken off.

The moral is don’t seek fame at any level, even at the dinner table. A lot of my career is just going to be between my clients and me, and that’s fine. I can measure my worth by own concept of success, and that is enough.

What Are You Worth?

Needless to say, a lot has changed in the voice over industry in the last ten or so years. The same tools and technologies that make work easier to find than ever are the same tools that make that work cheaper to produce. Recording equipment gets smaller, more affordable, and easier to use every day.  Pay to play sites open the doors to pretty much anyone with cash to burn, both on the “client” and “talent” side. However, I don’t want this to be another blog about how Voice123 and the Blue Yeti are signals of the end of the good old days; there’s enough of that out there, and I don’t necessarily agree with it anyway. Good work is still out there, still pays well, and still requires savvy and talent to seek out and perform.

It’s important to figure out what you’re worth, how low you’re willing to go, and how much of your time can be spent on a sliding scale. Therapists have sliding scales, even the really, really amazing ones like my wife, so why shouldn’t VO actors? For the right client, I’m willing to bend my price. Up until recently, that list included pretty much anyone who haggled with me. I’m done with that. I have too many clients that don’t pay enough to be worth my time anymore, and now I either have to renegotiate my rate with them or drop them. And believe me, it’s very hard for me to turn down work.

Set Your VO Rates and Stick to Them

Your rate card is going to be difficult to determine at first, but once you have it, stick to it. This means your rate on Voices is the same rate as on your site, too. Most agents’ work comes with a budget attached, so this doesn’t really apply so much to that, as long as your agent isn’t bringing you work for peanuts, which in my experience almost never happens.

Obviously when you first start out, you want to get as much work as you can to beef up your resume and get your name out there, but you have to be aware that once a client gets used to paying you a certain amount, asking for more later down the road can be hazardous.  Setting your rates early on and sticking to them will ensure that you don’t fall into the trap of taking any job at any price. That’s not what professionals do. Take a good long look at what you’re able to do, look up the union rate sheets, and alter them accordingly. It shows that you know what you’re worth. The clients that balk at a reasonable rate and try to shake you down usually aren’t worth keeping anyway.

<3

Rex

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Your Community is Your Most Important Resource

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So you’ve read the books and gotten tons of tips and tricks on how to drum up business. Scour Craig’s List for those diamonds in the rough, hit up production houses on mandy.com, present your demo to every casting and talent agency on the web, etc etc. But for some reason, you’re not catching on. What are you doing wrong? You have to start local. If the people in your neighborhood don’t know what you do, chances are people in other states and countries aren’t going to be an easier sell.

Get To Know Your Neighbors

Sure, I got my start doing video games and explainer videos for clients across the Atlantic, but that didn’t make a career. I really started to gain steam when I simply walked outside and started interacting with my surroundings. I put business cards and postcards out at local businesses. I contacted everyone I knew in marketing or production to gain leads on who to talk to for work.

Luckily, my network already included the MAGFest crew, so that allowed me to connect with veteran voice actors and network with local gaming companies at conventions and events in our area. Being active in the theatre scene really helped associate me with my newly chosen vocation as well. Eventually, I came to be synonymous with voice over work, and I haven’t looked back since.

Meet Your Clients In-Person

If you’re getting frustrated with bad ROI going the online route, turn your computer off and take a walk. Press some flesh, let the folks around know who you are, what you do, and how well you do it. And don’t be afraid to ask for help! The community in your immediate vicinity should be the first and most important resource you have.

<3

Rex

 

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