To become a voice-over artist you will need to build a strong portfolio. For this you will need to practice a lot till you have some good audio clips showing your talent.
The process of becoming an announcer, voice over artist or voice over talent is quite similar. One needs to practice hard and with right techniques till they can modulate and intonate their voice. Becoming a voice over artist is a good part-time or full-time career option. However, to become a voice over artist you will need to build a strong and creative portfolio. You can teach yourself and create your voice resume or go to a professional who can coach you and guide you in this industry.
Tips for Becoming a Voice Over Artist
Given below are tips that will help you create a voice resume and get you started in this industry. Once you get some good experience you can go for big projects which will pay you good voice over artist salary.
- Buy or download some children’s books. Or you can simply download scripts of animated movies. Also, download some audio and video clips of famous voice-over artists. This will be your library.
- Now, start reading out various children’s books. But, don’t hold the book in your hands. Keep it on a table and then read it. Read few pages everyday. When reading, get into the character and speak with character and emotion. For this you will need many weeks practice. Make gestures and expressions while speaking those dialogs. For example, if you are reading the word ‘catch’ aloud, then just don’t say it, when speaking the word make the motion of throwing something. Acting out when you are reading will help you get more emotion in the voice.
- Keep doing this exercise everyday. After few weeks, go gather few children and read out a small book to them. See if they are getting entertained with your voice modulation of different characters in the book. In the end ask their opinions if you were good at delivering dialogs, also ask them if they have any suggestions.
- You can also record your voice and listen to it again, to see what mistakes you are making. If you don’t like the way your recordings are then show it to friends and family and ask their opinions.
- Keep improving your voice-over by asking people’s suggestions.
- To polish your voice and talent even better, watch clips of pros. See how they get into the character, and express their emotions through the dialogs. Also, watch their dialog delivery time. Then try to imitate them and see if you are doing it as great as they are doing.
- If you want you can get coached for voice-over or join a college which offers a course in mass media communication.
- Once you feel you have practiced hard, then consider proper breathing. Breathing matters when it comes to recording your voice, as it will stop uneven breaths which hinder listening to the voice. Though, sometimes you can edit them out.
- Finally, record various audio clips of your voice with few famous script lines and some other scripts. Make sure each script has a different character and different emotion in it. This will make your work look versatile. Keep an angry character, a happy man’s and funny person’s voice recording. If you want you can also imitate famous people voices and keep those recordings.
- There are many small studios that will help you create these clips in high quality for an affordable fee. So, you can check if there are any such studios in your town.
- Once you are done making your portfolio, give it to talent agencies or look for advertisements which need voice-over artists, and send them your work.
These were some tips on becoming a voice-over artist. So, work hard and practice well. Then create a good portfolio and keep looking for projects which need voice over artist and you might get a good project. Good luck!