Personal Development

Dad and the Voiceover Life

This has got to be my overall favourite piece of PR that I have ever done simply because my beautiful little girl gets to star in it, and she really does steal the show with her happy radiating face! This article was born in such an unusual manner and addresses balancing the voiceover life. In the spring of 2021, just before the FIFA European Tournament started my phone went off it was a production company that liked my look and asked if I was available to film in Manchester in a few weeks’ time for the upcoming football tournament. I took the job, and shortly after, my phone went off once more!

This time it was a company looking to see if I could do some toy voiceover and facial recognition in the studio, but the problem is it was on the same day as the football job. Weirdly it was in between the two big UK lockdowns, and that was the only time in 2021 I actually went into a studio, whereas I visited multiple filming sets. So, what did I do? Here is the problem – how was I going to do both jobs? I am a voice actor, NOT a magician, I can’t be in two places at once! Or can I? Stay with me! A few days later my phone goes off AGAIN… oh no! I know what you’re thinking! Fortunately, this job was not on the same day but a few days later, in London! This was for a Daddy-Daughter audition for Nintendo.

Dad, Husband, and Voiceover Life ALL AT THE SAME TIME

This particular week was a logistical nightmare with spinning all the plates. All my usual commitments came in to play along with a few extra ones, which all aligned at the same time. In entertainment, it is funny how you can go weeks without an acting job or a voice over job, and then all of a sudden, you have jobs crossing over each other! You can almost guarantee the latter will happen when you are super busy with life. Why can’t all the work come in when we are quiet, right? Learning to prioritise is so important! For me, my faith and my family take the top of my priorities, if those two things are not looked after, then I don’t even think about doing anything else. Good and strong foundations make for a better, more confident, disciplined, and strong actor and voiceover artist/voice actor. So, what did we do with the above situation? I am the dad of a very excitable nearly 1-year-old who was hugely dependent on Mummy (my beautiful wife Molly). The casting director wants me and my daughter Grace to travel to London. Meanwhile, I have other jobs to knock out! So, what did I do?

Making Voiceover Life Work

I sat with my wife and asked her what she thought about taking Grace 200 miles south for an audition. Like me, she was excited about the prospects of a big fun adventure, so I invited her to come with Grace and me to London. Why? Well, the number one reason was to do this together as a family, but number 2 was to ensure Grace was well supported. So going back to priorities, family time and well-being comes first!

We did the trip, had a wonderful time, and it was such a fun audition. Grace and I had a blast, and the casting director and team all adored her. For her, it was just an exciting adventure filled with play, and really, to be honest – she is right! Acting is just an exciting adventure filled with play! Whatever the genre is, we are playing around with our imagination, and we should be having great fun!

So, what about the other two jobs? Oh boy…

On-Screen, Behind the Mic, Balancing Act

I managed to wrangle the two jobs to shoot at various times of the day. I needed to be on set in the afternoon giving me all morning for the voiceover toy job. I had the joy of being a dinosaur, a pig, a dog, a sloth, and a lion all in this morning session. One problem! The tech broke, and the session ran an entire hour behind! They were desperate for me to finish the session, but with the pressure of the upcoming filming shoot, I negotiated with them that I would return after the shoot – like it couldn’t get any worse right?

So, I arrive at the film set for this football shoot, and they are running an hour late! I am face-palming myself at this point, thinking, ‘ARGH, I could have stayed and finished the toy job!’ But this stuff happens, right? So, I did the shoot, it only took a couple of hours once we got on set and got through all the covid testing and paperwork. Again, it was great fun, and I loved having that credit associated with my name.

In a true happily ever after format, I went back to the voiceover/facial recognition job and finished that last character, and that was it, DONE!

All-Around Performer Spinning All the Plates

Though I am a performer, I am not referring to the physical plates but the hypothetical ones describing how we often have a lot going on. The key is to prioritise and negotiate. I first prioritised my family and the audition with my daughter, THEN focused on the two jobs on the same day. Once I got those, I took the TV job first to honor that but managed to organise it around the second, which was a voiceover and facial recognition job. When that one went over, I agreed to go back after filming. So, I really did work and negotiate with both companies to give them what they needed across the available time frame. Of course, we also had to negotiate the cost of going back for that extra session, although they offered to compensate on this rare occasion! That doesn’t often happen, right?

So, to close, make it all about them and not about you!

• Family first
• Look after the client
• Go the extra mile
• Oh, and have fun!

A Voiceover Artist and Actor is Born!

The truth is I have not always been a voiceover artist. I come from a theatrical background and fell in love with the arts at age 10. I was always confident in drama class and had no problem delivering big characters on stage. Confidence was never something I lacked, and the laughter at something funny or the round of applause for something excellent gave me an unquenchable buzz. I never imagined the challenges I would encounter when breaking into voiceover and acting.

By no surprise, as I grew in years, I followed the usual pattern of studying acting, performing arts, and drama at GCSE, then the same in College, and then finally, university. I thoroughly enjoyed my education, and in particular, my three years in college offered me so much happiness. I obtained a Distinction* (one above a distinction, typically the highest grade) in my first year, which my lecturers were not even aware was an obtainable grade; I was the first to produce something higher than a Distinction. My end-of-year show was a promenade 10-day performance of Alice in Wonderland! I played the best role of all, the one and only Cheshire Cat!

So, where did it all go wrong? There must be a heartbreak moment, right? Well, that is kind of the case! Like most, once I reached the end of my studies and got my BA Hons in Acting, I quickly realised I was on my own and was not educated on how to work in the industry. I got an agent and the odd job here and there, but it was not going how I had hoped. As life set in, the companies dishing out the bills did not care when my next acting or voiceover job was due, so I got a job in a coffee chain!

Breaking Into Voiceover and Acting

I worked in this environment for ten years and worked up the ranks, it was full-time, paid well, came with a decent pension package and a bonus scheme, and one of my roles came with a lovely car. I really could not complain except IT SUCKED! It was mind-boggling, stressful, and almost soul-sucking! Oh, how I disliked it! So, on evenings and weekends, I worked hard to build a business for myself in performance. I prayed regularly, ‘please get me out of here!’ Eventually, my prayer came true!

I went to a London conference called ‘Surviving Actors’, which amused me because, in my mind, I was like, ‘Ha, only just surviving!’ There I discovered a seminar on voiceover for artists and actors. The word seminar amused me too because, for the last two years, all I knew was the word webinar! I went inside, and the presenter said things like:

• You can be your own boss
• All your skills as an actor are transferable into voiceover
• You can be a business, an entrepreneur
• You can work and be successful from your own home

That company was The VoiceOver Network, and that day in early 2017, I joined as a member. I dedicated a year to learning about voiceover, voice acting, and home studios. I watched every webinar, booked workshops all over the place, and started sharing what I was learning with others. Once my booth was set up to go, I began hustling work, and to my surprise, it caught on nicely!

The Article About Voiceover

Bit by bit, more work was coming in, and in 2019 I dropped the full-time brain-crunching soul-sucking job for something a bit more casual, though still not in performance, allowing me the time to progress in voiceover. We also recently discovered that my wife and I were expecting our first child, so it was a now-or-never opportunity. Sure enough, six months later, I left that job behind, became a full-time voiceover, and was doing well!

So that brought me to the article! I found myself speaking to many new voiceover artists about balancing the job of their dreams and their day gig that paid the bills. I connected with some other commercial voiceover artists and voice actors, some who were in a job, some who had broken free, some who had gone back, and others who had lost their jobs. What I wanted to do then was to help people break out and live a more fulfilled life working as a voiceover artist/voice actor in the entertainment industry.

Top Tips for Breaking Into Voiceover and Going Full-Time!

So, you will need to make a commitment to break out of a full-time day job and work in entertainment daily. It is going to be a challenge; it is going to be tiring, and it’s going to be tough, but YOU CAN DO IT… If I can, anyone can!

1. Dedicate some time every day after or before work to learn more about voiceover, your studio, how the industry works, or something else!
2. Start investing in yourself! It is all tax deductible, so go to workshops, invest in proper equipment, etc.
3. Do not break the routine! Keep going every day, and if you miss a day, do not beat yourself up; just keep going; tomorrow is a new day.
4. Do not be scared to try new things! This is a business, so you need to look at it like a business and invest in learning about marketing, social media, and all those fun things which come with owning a business.
5. And finally! Practise, Practise, Practise. I started off on some pay-to-play sites, which were crazily oversaturated, sometimes, I booked work, but most of the time, I did not. That is normal when two hundred people chase one job! But every audition was also giving me the fundamental practise I needed to move forward to better my craft and editing.

The Voiceover Artist and Actor of Today

Now, that prayer I prayed for is a reality. I work full-time in entertainment. I am my own boss and an entrepreneur. I have even won an award and traveled to different countries. Those late nights and early mornings building my business and educating myself around the day job was worth it. All the money I invested into my business has paid for itself tenfold. I have had the opportunity to meet people from Disney and Pixar, and I have worked with clients such as Ford, Starbucks, and Sony’s Funimation, to name a few!

The exciting element is that all of this is in the past. I love helping people get into voiceover or acting but the truth is, I know this is only the beginning of the journey, the best is yet to come.

Voice Over Life vs a World Full of Germs!

When the pandemic hit, I noticed many voiceover actors starting to panic. This panic was born out of several roots. The first is the fear of not being able to work! Voiceover artists were used to going to the studio to record a session. The pandemic closed the studios leaving the voiceover actor there twiddling their thumbs. Let us circle back to this a little bit later in this blog. The second panic was birthed out of the fear of getting scared. Getting sick is an interesting concept, right? We are all used to getting sick from time to time but all of a sudden, it was a big deal for the entire world. But why was this? Well, there is an extensive list of reasons why and we all have our own opinion on the pandemic, but we can imagine that voiceover artists were concerned because the damage to their health could be crippling for their business. Post covid-19 voice over would be a new frontier.

The Number One Tool for Post Covid-19 Voice Over

Truth be told voice actors should have been concerned about their vocal health long before the pandemic ever hit the planet. I remember working in retail, whilst in retail, if you got sick the management really did not care all that much. Similarly, I have observed this behaviour in several other areas such as supermarkets, offices, and yes even certain parts of the health sector (crazy right?). These days we behave the opposite, we stay home and lock down until we are better – in fact, this is better when measured against its former counterpart. But here is the thing, the above jobs ‘can’ be done should the individual be well enough to conduct them. I barely ever took a day off when sick in retail, in fact – I think in ten years maybe 2/3 days tops were processed as sick until the point of me leaving and becoming a full-time voice actor. So though one can scan tins whilst unwell, they probably should not! A voiceover artist, on the other hand, REALLY should not work! Why? Because their number one tool, THEIR VOICE is already in a highly compromised position, and the more they push it the more significant the damage.

The Future of Voiceover When Battling Sickness

It is not about the next job! It is about the next several years of your career. Unlike a cut on the arm or a burn on the hand, your voice does not heal like minor flesh damage. Even broken bones can heal better! Sometimes the damage to our voice is irreversible; thus, the pandemic simply brought truth to life for voice actors. You must be careful, stay safe and look after your voice!

The Artist Had to Change!

No one likes to change, right? WRONG – I love a bit of change! Tons of voice actors were ready for the pandemic because when the studios closed, they had their home booth prepped and ready to go! Since then, voiceover booth installation is booming! Everyone wants their own. Studios still take a lot of the work for bigger jobs and for those folks without a booth, but overall voice actors were either ready for the pandemic or quickly changed to meet the challenge.

The Claim to Royalty a Voice Actor MUST Proclaim

When the pandemic started, I authored this article to deliver a powerful truth to the industry. The word Corona comes from the word crown, and the virus took precedence worldwide. The play on words here is that it was time to take the crown back. A nasty virus did not deserve to be the royalty of the world. It absorbed our times, lives, emotions, happiness, and, yes… sadly, even loved ones. I watched this, and I thought, enough is enough, and I decided it was time to fight back. Every artist needed to stand up and say, ‘this pandemic is not taking my joy; I will fight back!’ ‘This pandemic will not steal my career, I will fight back!’ And finally, ‘this pandemic is not going to ruin my life, I will fight back!’

Post covid-19 Voice Over Artists Fight Against Sickness

Whether it is a tickle or a nasty bout of flu, the top tip for a voiceover artist and voice actor is to rest! Do not overdo it; listen to your body and recover! You are no good to anyone if you are exhausted, and the thing is, the client will hear the difference in your voice too!

The next tip is to invest in a nice jar of honey. Manuka honey, in particular, has had hundreds of thousands of dollars invested into research. Manuka honey has bacteria and enzymes inside it that will combat germs of all branches. Furthermore, honey offers a two-fold strike for a voice actor because it will soothe the vocal cords and some of the properties are proportionately relevant for the healing of the vocal area.

Next, if you have access to a local steam room, inhale as much steam as possible! Baths and showers will do if not. DO NOT stockpile on lozenges; they simply cover the pain and do not deal with the problem! Numbing the pain will damage your vocal cords further if you continue pushing it under the effects of these products. By all means, take one before bed if it helps you sleep; just do not use it as a tool to get you through a session.

This brings me to my next point! A voiceover actor MUST say no if a client asks them to do something that will damage them further. They must say no if the session has hit its limits vocally. If there are some physically challenging elements to your session, leave them to the end, do not let it wreck the rest of the session. In short, be bold and know when enough is enough. If you get hurt in the session, the client has a poor product, and you are out of work the next day.

Finally! Might seem simple but stay hydrated! Always have plenty of water and avoid caffeine, chocolate, and dairy leading up to the session. It can bung you up, and it is not worth the risk if you can avoid it.