SaVoa.Org

• What training does SaVoa recommend for voice over artists?
• How do I get started in the voice over business?

We receive email questions like these often. It’s hard to adequately respond by email or even in a lengthy blog article.

First, SaVoa is a neutral advocate of voice over education in general.  As such, we don’t endorse any one training method. It is also important to consider that there are many different types of voice over work,  and not every voice actor gets the same results from the same type of training.

We can however offer some guidance. In general, most working voice actors have had training or have acquired some form of proficiency in many of the following areas:

• public speaking
• voice for the actor
• voice for the singer
• improvisation
• character development
• stage dialects
• acting
• marketing
• public relations
• business management
• accounting
• general computer skills
• communication skills
• research skills for some types of voice work, especially audio book and medical or technical narration
• grammar and basic writing skills
• scriptwriting or copy writing (although you may never write copy, having a sense of good copy helps with timing, punching key words and general delivery of the message; you would also want to be familiar with script formats for radio and TV)
• basic sound engineering (unless you intend to do all your recording at recording studios paid for by you or your client)
  • understanding acoustics
  • microphones and microphone techniques
  • recording skills
  • digital sound editing
  • equalization
  • compression
  • sound mixing and mastering

As for getting started in voice work, once you have trained, you will need to develop professional quality voice over demos (sample clips of your voice and delivery). Most savvy voice over students avoid signing up with voice coaches who also provide voice over demo production services. The common wisdom is that some (definitely not all) of these voice coaches tend to be more interested in churning out clients for their expensive voice demo production services rather than focusing on training and practice. Because voice demo production can be expensive (unless you develop sufficient audio production skills to produce your own), we urge all newcomers to the voice over industry to get professional training before they attempt to produce a voice over demo.

It will be extremely difficult if not impossible to get work without having professional voice over demos that prospective clients can hear. Voice over demos can then be burned onto CDs you send to production companies, casting directors, and other talent seekers.  More frequently, however, demos are simply uploaded to your professional voice over web site. You can also feature your demos on your profile pages with any number of services that promote voice over talent.

The Internet continues to be a good source of information for career development. Here are some keyword searches you might want to consider in no particular order:

• voice over training
• voice over books
• voice demo production
• voice over marketplace
• voice over casting
• voice over talent (listen to their voice over demos)
• sound engineering online course
• basic business management
• accounting and bookkeeping

Finally, there are many types of voice over work: voice mail, radio imaging, TV commercials, medical narration, audio book narration, and so forth. Not all require that you be signed with a talent agent or that you be a member of a trade union (SAG, AFTRA, etc.). However, if you will primarily seek commercial work, you will want to consider these types of professional affiliations. For all types of voice over work, we encourage that you consider accreditation with SaVoa after you have acquired sufficient training to produce broadcast-quality voice overs. There will be some clients who require accreditation or some union affiliation or both; however, the voice over industry itself is very broad and does not require that you be a member of any of these organizations.

Best of luck.