How to start a Career in Voice Acting (A step-by-step guide)

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what’s going on everybody my name is Javon Henry I’m a voice actor and today I’m going to take you through the step-by-step building blocks in how to become a voice actor who makes money okay let’s get started let’s get started with the nitty-gritty the very basic and that is what is voice acting what exactly is this career voice acting is bringing words to life with just your voice very easy let’s give you a beautiful example this is a can of LaCroix all right if I were to just to read this Lacroix sparkling water naturally essenced let’s just read it in my regular voice Lacroix sparkling water naturally essenced okay facilities for nobody right that’s just giving someone information that’s just telling them what this is now I want to say it in a way that’s going to sell it so let’s say I’m just this is a quick tag it’s supposed to be just sexy and intriguing LaCroix sparkling water naturally essenced excuse the voice crack but that is essentially what it is you’re saying it in a way that brings it to life you’re not just saying the words any AI program any chat bra can simply say the words that you feed into it so voice acting the process of bringing words to life with your voice that’s a quick bastardized version of it but that’s essentially what it is okay so you know what voice acting is that’s fantastic what’s the second step the second step is now that you know what voice acting is how do you actually start doing it how do you get into it how do you begin to voice Act you start by doing what I just did you take commercials that you’ve seen you take cans with product information you take um sample scripts online and you read and you record them this becomes your library of samples and these samples are Paramount they’re necessary to build your your life as a voice actor now why do I say this I come from a background of video production and from audio engineering my degree is in audio engineering and my first company was a video production company and samples are your lifeblood when you go to somebody and you’re like hey I want to make you a video it’s going to be so cool I can’t wait to do it they’re gonna say I want to see a sample of your previous work because how do they know that you actually know how to do anything you’re not just speaking out of your ass they don’t they want to see a sample of your previous work and that’s what you’re going to build with your sample Library you can build that through pro bono work which are which is which is um essentially it’s it’s free work but it’s free work with a mission it’s not just free for the sake of being free or you can create your own and I highly recommend creating your own because it is a method and a tool that will stay with you for the rest of your life when you learn how to create these scripts when you learn how to read from anything that you pick up I can pick up literally anything and read it in my standard commercial voice right and that’s a skill that you learn so build this library of samples okay so now you have Library samples you take a couple of weeks you have let’s say 25 30 samples what do you do with all these samples go online you go to online websites there are plenty of them here we go let’s see if I can rock it through this you got Fiverr you got voice bunny you got voices you got voices one two three you got voquent you got vo planning you got uh backstage you got casting call Club these are eight already so what do you do with all eight of these there’s so many of them well you gotta take this gonna take about a week I’m not gonna lie to you put your samples on every single elasta one and give them all of the information that they’re looking for what’s your name what’s your uh give them a high quality photo what equipment are you using what training do you feed them all of the information because a lot of these websites are algorithmically based so the more information you feed them the higher they’re gonna actually kick up your profile now some of these are free to play and some of them are free to play you can decide which ones you want to go on I’m of the mindset of the more websites that have you indexed the absolutely better even if you’re on a free tier on some of these paid websites it’s absolutely better for your career so upload your samples to all of them because people will start to find you and they’ll start to be able to listen to your samples and they’ll start to be able to see oh I like this voice uh I’ll send them an audition right you need to get in front of people that is how you actually start to meet people and get paid for your voice acting by getting in front of people excuse me if you don’t actually get in front of people they’ll never be able to see you if they never see you they’ll never be able to pay you so after you have all your samples upload them to every single last website that you can alright you know what voice acting is you got your samples you’ve got them uploaded where do you go from here well congratulations people are seeing you and you got your first paid gig oh my God I’m a proud mother right now you got your first paid gig that’s what you’re looking for you’re now a paid voice actor congratulations I I’m so proud of you so you have your first paid gig and you have what is more important than that a review the review is the Catalyst that’s the sparking point because people love samples yes but they also love to see proof that you’ve worked on the website you can be a working professional for the last 25 years and then go on uh one of these websites and your brand spanking new nobody knows you right so these reviews are gold you got your first review congratulations now they’ll start flowing more readily because they see that not only do you have your samples but you have a review that says you did an amazing job congratulations all right now your pay what’s the next step in this journey the next step is wanting to get in front of bigger clients bigger fish now you can stay in this realm of online voice acting and you can be perfectly fine but a lot of the time people want to advance because they want to do bigger projects like they want to work for the Disney’s and the Nickelodeons the Cartoon Networks things of that nature in order to do that you need to do uh one of two things you need to be on well I guess one of three things be on the roster know the casting director have an agency how do you do those three things okay let’s start with the casting director there are amazing ways to get in front of casting directors amazingly easy ways to get in front of casting directors right getting in front of the casting director is The Fringe benefit I will say nobody wants you to get in front of them just because you want to get in front of them the best way and the easiest way in my opinion is to take online classes or take private lessons private lessons can be with a casting director online classes can be with casting directors in both of these things you get to learn which is the most important thing but also you get to be in front of the casting director who’s going to hear your skill they’re going to hear your range how great you are when it comes to approaching copy things of this nature and then your name is going to be in their head so when you follow them up on social media and say Hey thank you so much the class was amazing they know who you are you’re not just a random person and then you you might be able to join their roster the second thing that you can do is join rosters now lots of companies have their own rosters what is a roster and how does it differ from an agency a roster is for a single uh either person or a single company so for example Javon Henry LLC let’s say I work with a lot of clients who need voice over services and I’m sick of sending out just blasting into the ethos auditions I will set up my own roster so I will set up and say Hey you can audition to be on my roster and if you get in I will send specifically the people who are on my roster uh these auditions if it suits you as a member of the roster the benefit for me is that I have less people to dig through and I also know that the people on my roster are going to be of a certain quality of a certain standard that I’m looking for uh that’s a great way to actually start getting more professional high quality gigs because a lot of high up companies have rosters like a lot of the top big name companies have internal private rosters whether that be video game companies whether that be animation houses whether that be production companies they have their own internal roster because they I go through an agency they can have their own that they can just send out auditions to and pull from uh the one it’s not really a negative I mean it’s a positive because you can still get those big roles but I guess you can consider it a negative is you get less of a variety of auditions right I’m not sending you auditions like an agency would from Cartoon Network I’m sending you my auditions now they might be high quality auditions and hell I might be Purdue using a show for Cartoon Network so you never know but they’re going to be specifically from me right so that’s something that you have to think about when it comes to rosters but you can sign up for a lot of rosters you can find them on casting directors websites um a lot of them have their own roster so check out casting director see if they have their own rosters once again production houses uh video game companies a lot of them have their own internal roster so just Google it and you’ll see if they have their own rosters uh last but not least here’s the big Fabu it’s the one that everybody likes to talk about agencies how the hell do you get an it’s a great question an agent is concerned with one thing two things they want to know that you’re good but they want to know that you’re good so that you can book a job right at the end of the day an agent doesn’t make money unless you get a job and you make money which is great that’s how it should be never go to an agency that demands an upfront fee that’s not how that works so when it comes to getting an agent you need to have a couple of things in place you need to have working history right if you can’t get a job without them why would you be able to get a job with them right they they send out theoretically the highest quality jobs if you can’t get any jobs without them you can’t get a job with them have a resume that shows your working experience and that’s up to date number two have a high quality studio if you’re going to be recording in a home studio it needs to be damn good a professional home studio akin to what you’d get if you go into a studio environment they want to hear certain things like a certain type of microphone a certain type of audio interface I’m not going to bastardize you towards any specific one but have professional gear they want to see that you have professional gear because they are sending you to clients and the clients are going to be more than likely asking what type of equipment you’re using so they want to know that you have the goods to do the job number three um they want to know that you’re dedicated to this as a craft right so they want to see that you’re training that you’re taking classes that you’re working privately one-on-one this isn’t a hobby anymore right when you go to an agency it’s your job because their job is to make the money from it being your job so when they send you auditions right it’s your job it’s no longer oh I got a couple of auditions on Twitter I can do them or I can’t do them I mean you don’t have to do the auditions but understand it they want you to do them right because you have to sell something and win something for them to make money so they want to see that you are actively auditioning that this is your job right that’s number three and last but not least number four have a smoking demo room this is because the demo reel is the introduction to you the demo reel is your business card congratulations you don’t need a business card anymore you can flick that away your demo reel is your business card because in that short 90 second demo reel it should show a wide range of your characters a wide range of your approaches to copy a wide range of your scripts uh divulging of your information Gap it should show you in that 90 seconds because that will show them to so many different people right now this is the last part the difference between samples and a demo is this and this alone your demo should be a TV show I 100 wholeheartedly believe it your demo should sound like it was for TV like it was already on TV links already on the radio it is Paramount each part in your demo should sound like it was already a part of a TV show and you simply plucked it out and put it inside of the demo and this includes everything sound effects sfx your music bed um The Mixing and mastering and production uh the approach to the copy it should sound fully polished because that’s what they’re looking for they’re looking for it to be from a t they want to hear what it’s like in context of a TV show they don’t have to wonder if this can actually go in a TV show they just hear it and they’re like this is from a TV show that’s the difference between a demo reel and a sample samples should sound good they should sound polished but out of context it just sounds like you’re just listening to something right there’s a big difference between LaCroix pineapple strawberry naturally essenced sparkling water and LaCroix pineapple strawberry naturally essenced sparkling water now of course that’s not the whole music bed I mean this was just live effects but that’s what I’m talking about that is the difference between a sample and a demo reel one is like that’s the commercial holy I’m listening to it that’s impressive I know I could sell that voice to Lacroix right now because that’s a Lacroix commercial and the other is okay this sounds pretty good um I don’t know what it sounds like in context of everything else put in together but it sounds good so let’s go ahead and send him an audition and we can see if we like that’s the difference right there so that’s the difference between a sample and a demo but that is whoo that is the big long full roller coaster ride that I just took you on right and let me try and well yeah we have 15 minutes right now know what voiceover is study and learn it make samples upload those samples to your online websites eventually from that you’ll start getting work people will start to find you they’ll start to see your work right as you start to get work and you start to get reviews update those samples never let them stay stagnant always update them with new and refreshed material because you’re going to keep getting better and better and better and better from there you can start to meet casting directors get on rosters and the Big Kahuna the agency casting directors by taking classes rosters by Googling casting directors rosters or company rosters and agencies by having all of your ducks in a row before you send out your stuff to an agent oh the big question how do you actually meet these people um send them an email send them an email some people hate being cold contacted individuals like casting directors so always be wary but uh let me let me tell you most casting directors and agencies are expecting an email from you kind of their job to find new people to add to their roster so that they have a variety of people right a lot of agencies and casting directors open up their rosters so that they can always be finding new people they always want to find the diamond in the rough the next big thing because the next big thing is the person who makes them a lot of bling a lot of cha-ching you know what I’m saying so always make sure that you just learn how to send an email you’re not bothering them don’t send them a story don’t send them a story your life literally just hey my name is Javon I’m interested in getting onto your roster here are here is a sample of my demo reel and here are my studio specs thank you for consideration peace if they don’t answer don’t mean they hate you don’t mean that they’re ignoring they might just be busy you know two weeks later give a polite follow-up it’s not that it’s not that bad it’s not that big of a deal but we’re going on 17 minutes here and I don’t want to waste time so that’s the step by step if you learn something go ahead and leave a like leave a comment down below love you guys catch you guys in the next video

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