Anyone know anything about voice actors?

[Klompy]

This has always interested me, it sounds like a pretty easy gig, and I think I could prob do it. Anybody know anything about how to get hooked up with jobs for this?

[Bob Sacamano]

I think the hard part is being a famous actor to begin with. Like, say, Ellen Degeneres.

[Wynton]

I once heard that voice-overs account for the vast majority of acting jobs. No idea whether it's true.

[Lazy Meatball]

My guess would be to get started in radio commercials/ announcing/ promos. get a communications degree or broadcasting certificate of some type and read the news at your local station.

[dhaimon]

http://www.jamesarnoldtaylor.com/mp3...%20in%2060.mp3

[Evan]

I know the guy that does the voice for most TNT commercials. He's the "Tonight on TNT watch the Suns play the Knicks..." guy.

[Los Feliz Slim]

Hey, a subject I know a lot about!

While actually performing many VO jobs might be "easy", getting the gigs is very much not. First of all, most VO actors are just that: actors (or at least they started as "regular" actors, but stopped once they started making a lot of money in VO). To really succeed at a high level at this, you really need to be in LA, NY, or Chicago, and be with one of three or four agents.

The good news is that advances in technology and ease of use have made it possible for successful VO actors to record many things from relatively simple and inexpensive home studios. So, once you became really popular in NY or LA, you could move back from whence you came and probably still work for some regular clients occasionally, although getting new work would be tougher.

If you really want to pursue this, you need to take a class and record a demo CD. In LA, The Voicecaster is a good place to start. Also, this website has a pretty good FAQ and some other interesting info.

[Klompy]

Thanks for all the good responses. Is there any way to get started and not live in one of the major cities? Just curious if it's possible to send auditions in online or something to the major agents.

[James Boston]

Klompy,

I've done a little, but on the smallest of small scales. VO seems to fall into a few different camps. Some people go the character voice route. Some are regular actors with regular voices do alot of the conversational sounding VO. Then, there's the big voice announcer guys who do radio imaging, TV promos, and movie trailers. If you're great at character voices, or just have a really strong "voice guy" voice, then you could probably just start sending demos to some of the big agents. I don't know if they would rep you, but they might. If you just want to go the route of basic voice acting, then I have no clue where to start.

[James Boston]

Evan-

What's his name?

Los Feliz-

Do you do VO? For who?