I read an excerpt today from my friend Randy Thomas' new book,
Voice for Hire, and it said "When someone asks you what you do for a living, proudly tell them you audition" The quote was from fellow voice over actor Mark Avery.
In my humble opinion, that quote is 300% absolutely right! Because the actual performance of the script is the fun and easy part! Now landing it that's the hardest part of all.
The passage got me thinking that on any given day, I can crank out 10 to 15 or more auditions. That's a lot of mental gear shifting. A lot of shifting of different personas.
It's morning here in W. Palm Beach and I've already cranked out four auditions and I'm only on my second cup of coffee.
I've auditioned for a documentary narration, a toy, a commercial for a DVD and a promo for a news talk radio station.
Four distinctly different reads.
I shifted gears from a serious, deep thinking and over emotive History Channel narrator, to processed and monotone robot character, to bright sounding higher register Gen-Y Guy, to hard hitting and straightforward newsman.
And now I'm idling in neutral waiting for the next one.
I guess that's one of the benefits of being a voice actor. It's never boring. To be sure, you may not get any of the gigs, but moulding and developing your craft and developing your own skill set is priceless.
On average you will score 1 out of every 50 auditions. And that's doing great. Well, only 46 left to go before my next job!
Oh and Randy Thomas' book which was written with voice coach Peter Rofe'? Go buy it now! A great read and cool insight. From beginner to working pro, there's always something to garner from people who are successful in this business. And Randy and Peter are no exception!
Available with a mouse click at Amazon.com
Peace out.
More on the book...
This voice is for hire. In fact, all actors’ voices are for hire—or should be. Voice-overs offer a great opportunity for actors to get extra work, even full-time work.
Author Randy Thomas is America’s most recognizable female voice announcer—she even announces the national television broadcast of the Academy Awards! Author Peter Rofé is New York City’s top voice-over coach—he teaches actors to sell their voices for every possible voice-over purpose.
Together they explore all the ins and outs of this exciting and lucrative field: auditioning, making demos, training, marketing, script interpretation, animation, radio promos, narration, live announcing, and more. Want to get your mouth in the door and keep it inside once it’s there? Sure you do.
Ed V
I read an excerpt today from my friend Randy Thomas' new book, Voice for Hire, and it said "When someone asks you what you do for a living, proudly tell them you audition" The quote was from fellow voice over actor Mark Avery. 
No comments:
Post a Comment