I said this was going to be a three-parter, but in order to do justice to everything that I’ve done, every important step I’ve taken to make my voiceover career viable, I’m going to need one more week.
If you are at the beginning of your journey, I hope that by the end of reading about mine, you will have a better idea of what it will take to get there, and know that with the right amount of work, you CAN do this.
Now, I humbly present the third installment of Journey to Your Dream Career in Voiceover:
Year Two
I make room for my new career
You know, everyone says “Don’t quit your day job,” and there is validity to that statement.
I mean, definitely don’t quit if you NEED the money to live or to fund your new career.
Sometime in the first year or two of my voiceover journey, I get to a point where I’m being pulled in too many directions. As an actor who has weekday auditions, nighttime auditions, evening and weekend rehearsals and evening performances, finding work to fit around my performing arts career has always been a struggle.
When I make the decision to make room for VO, I have four main jobs:
Administrative and marketing assistant for a small theatre company
Standardized Patient and Patient Educator at the University of Minnesota
Server at a fine dining restaurant
Fit model
And occasionally: stage actor, party palm reader, singing telegramist, etc.
I decide that in order to have enough money and time to invest in my new career, it’s going to be more important than ever to start saying NO to things. Even things I enjoy. I keep my serving job, because out of everything, it makes me the most money in the least time, but I quit almost everything else.
Some obstacles to your progress are not as obvious as this
It’s amazing how obstacles can sometimes come disguised as opportunities…but they do.
If something is actively working against my goal of creating a career in voiceover, even slightly, it has to go.
I quit my jobs at the Med School and the theatre company
I quit fit modeling
I quit accepting singing telegram gigs
I quit theatre
In order to do this, I have to disappoint people.
I disappoint my bosses at the theatre company, who I have worked with very closely for seven years. I disappoint my boss at the medical school. I disappoint my agent, who likes that I am bringing in regular income for them through my fit modeling.
I also suffer loss in the sense that I lose out on the communities I’d been part of for years. All of my coworkers at the med school. My relationships with my bosses and their dog at the theatre company. And biggest of all, being a part of the theatre community.
Working five or six nights a week at the restaurant means not going to see nearly as many shows. It means not seeing my friends from the industry as often. When I run into people, and they ask the dreaded question “Sooooo, are you in a show right now?” I have to answer “No, I’m doing voiceover.” And the follow up question “Do you have anything coming up?” is even worse. I have no idea.
If I book a voiceover gig, I might know a day before…maybe a week. And then it’s gone. And you may or may not see it. And I may or may not be able to even talk about it. And if you do, or I can, it’s not going to be as exciting artistically as “I’m playing the lead in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” or “I get to film a feature this summer.”
So, yes, I do feel a profound sense of loss from giving up all of these things in such a short period of time, but to keep them would have meant pushing aside my dream, or at least taking a much slower road to get there, and I wasn’t willing to do that.
Full speed ahead.
Slow and steady might win the race, but
I join a P2P site
I decide to join Voice123, remembering that I had already set up a profile back in 2008 or so. I get it all set up with the help of my friend Katie, and I eagerly start auditioning.
Maybe a bit TOO eagerly.
Within a week, I get cut off for auditioning too much.
WHAT? I’m paying to play! How can I get cut off for auditioning too much? The first week, I auditioned for 27 jobs. I’m cut off entirely for almost two weeks before the jobs start trickling back in.
Once it starts again, I am more judicious, but a bit salty about the whole thing. Despite that, in the first month or two, I book about four jobs on V123, and feel pretty good about how it’s going.
Nothing more exciting than hearing your voice on TV for 4 whole seconds! (Okay, there probably is)
I book my first national TV spot!
One year in, after having booked very little work, I book my first national TV gig, for a General Mills cereal commercial. It’s just the tag, but I’m super excited.
I get to do a spot for kids’ cereal and mention a Hollywood movie!!!
If you want to see it, click here.
I do work for a friend
They say that business is all about your relationships. It’s true. People are often hesitant to ask those they know for help, even though that’s who you SHOULD be asking for help. Let them know who you are, what you do, etc.
I end up doing a few explainer videos for a guy I met through the film industry. It’s not a ton, but it’s nice to get more actual studio time under my belt.
Minneapolis is still one of those towns where clients like to go into the studio, so the more comfortable I get with that, the better. Also, if I’m in a studio, I don’t have to worry about whether or not it’s going to rain that day.
I get cast in a podcast
I go in person and audition for a sci-fi podcast (read: radio drama), and get cast! We start recording, and they pay me in cash every time. I get to work with other local actors, so it’s a bit different than recording commercials or corporate narration by myself. It’s more like doing plays again.
I have ANOTHER audition for a male 20s-40s with a UK accent??? GAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!
I get frustrated with the P2Ps
After a few months, and ZERO jobs, I get frustrated enough to stop auditioning on Voice123 altogether. Despite all of my settings and keywords, I am getting auditions for jobs that pay $0. Or jobs for people who speak English with a Haitian accent. Occasionally I get jobs for men. Also, only about half of my auditions are even being heard. Between the noise issues at home and the lack of suitable auditions, I give up on V123 for a while.
I join WoVO!
Urged by my friends in my voiceover meetup group (did I mention I joined one of those? I did. I highly recommend regularly getting together with others from the industry, because that’s how you’re going to hear about things…things to check out, things to avoid, etc) I join WoVO, World Voices Organization, as an associate member. (There are three levels: associate, professional, and industry partner)
WoVO is a nonprofit organization that offers a lot of great things to its members, including certification of your home studio, member meetups, conferences, mentoring by fellow members, and more.
I return to P2P
UGH. However, I book a nice job! And then the same client books me for another!
And then nothing again until I finally quit V123.
OH, HAI ATLANTA!
I go to my first voiceover conference
After booking a nice job (read: any job over $1K) through my agent, and two more nice jobs through V123, I decide on a whim that I will go to VO Atlanta the following month. Attending a conference was something I had considered as a future thing that I would get to when I was a “professional.” But it feels like the right time to go, so I buy myself a plane ticket, book a hotel room, and hop a plane to Atlanta.
Some people tell me that on my first time, I shouldn’t bother with the X-Sessions (read: smaller paid workshops), but I ignore them and sign up for three of them anyway.
Go big, or go home.
VO Atlanta can be overwhelming to some people, but personally? I LOVE IT.
Sure, I learn about a lot of things, like equipment, different genres, LinkedIn (thanks, Tracy Lindley!), demos, and tons more…but really, I could learn about those things from home. It’s really about the people.
As a lifelong extrovert, I find the huge numbers of people exciting, and over the four days of the conference, I meet a huge number of really awesome people, some of whom will become instrumental to many of my future successes: Uncle Roy Yokelson, Thom Pinto, Alex Rain, Andrew Bates, Ian Fishman, and so many more.
But for me, the biggest thing that comes out of going to the conference is the knowledge that there is a HUGE world out there just full of possibilities, and that I have been limiting myself to what is available back home, when there’s no reason to do so.
That’s huge.
(Read more about why I think all voice actors should attend a conference by clicking here)