How to Become A Voice Over Artist?
So you think you can become a great voice-over artist? There is a lot more to becoming a voice over artist than having a good and pleasant voice. voice over artists are required to dubb for animated films, television shows. They also give voice-overs for different sorts of commercials. This requires them to build the skill with lots of discipline.One will require building these skills no matter to which length you want to explore this field to. You can work a part-time voice over artist or make a living solely out of that.
Anyhow, having a great voice is just the beginning. Here are a few other important steps that one must follow in order to make a career
Practice
- Read out loud
This is the very first step to building the right skill. Reading out loud will help you master your intonations. It will also develop a good diction. At the same time, it will help you become comfortable with reading on the spot which will help you when you will have to read from teleprompters.
Don’t read like a second grader struggling to find the right pronunciations and pauses. Read like you’re familiar with the piece and you are performing it in front of an audience.
- Record your voice
You are the best first judge for your voice. What you need to do for this is to manage to get a decent recording of yourself. For this preliminary stage, you can even use applications on your smartphone.
Readout any piece that you like and record it. Once the recording is ready, listen to it carefully. Keep a notepad handy to take notes.You might even be surprised to listen to your own voice. It’s definitely different from how it sounds to yourself. Get used to this. Find places in which you can better. Spot the ones you are going wrong in. Work on that and try again. Keep performing this exercise regularly for best results.
- Exercise your voice
Just how physical exercise makes your muscles flexible, voice exercises will make your voice more flexible and help you get out of your comfort zone. There are many voice exercises that one can perform and most of them are related to breathing.Humming a scale by blowing through a straw, practicing breathing techniques, trying to say tongue twisters out loud are a few techniques, to begin with.
For those of you who want more, you can watch the various videos available online and get a better grip on the skill.
Become a better actor
We have all seen how amazing actors often deliver very well as dubbing artists for big productions houses’ animated films. The sole credit of that goes to their prowess as an actor.
Being a voice over artist, you will have to bring out the voice for the character you are dubbing. That is going to be really challenging as you will have to do this without any set, supporting actors, and props. You won’t even have your facial expressions and your hand movements to reach out to the audience.
In such a scenario, your voice will be your only tool as an actor. Master that. Practice acting as different characters you are already familiar with. Make improvisations to them. The director will be expecting that of you. Learn to empathize with the character. That’s the first step towards being a good actor.
Market yourself
- Create a demo reel
Your demo reel is going to be your representative for all the employers out there. You can include various voices that you can work with and also impersonations.
There are a few things that one must keep in mind while creating a demo reel:
A demo reel shouldn’t be longer than 2-3 minutes.
Your strongest work should be a part of the first 30 seconds, that how long they will take to decide if they want to keep listening to it or not.
If the job profile is very specific, you might want to edit your demo reel and keep only the relevant parts.
- Build a resume
When you start off, it can be challenging to get work. To begin with, you can start with enrolling for workshops, do some free work for experience, assist artists, work with the community theatre. You can also start your ownYouTube channel that will help you showcase your previous work for free.
Most importantly, look at this as a professional. Make sure you are always punctual for auditions and are prepared thoroughly for them. Building your career as a voice artist can start slow but once you start working, it will definitely get easier.
Published Date: 2018-03-27 | Tags: Animation Studio in Mumbai, Animation video, corporate films in mumbai, How to Become A Voice Over Artist?, voice over