You know the old saying “those who can, do and those who can’t, teach.” This doesn’t apply to voiceover. Or it shouldn’t. In voiceover, those who can, sometimes coach. Of those that do, the best voiceover coaches still polish their craft.
Don’t Trust Your Voice Over Career to Just Anyone – Make Sure You’re Choosing Coaches With Experience
A word of caution – the voice over world is large and just getting larger. As with any growing industry, there are many choices for coaches to work with. It’s important to make sure you don’t trust your voice over career to just anyone with a teaching shingle on their website. Make sure you’re looking to work with people in the industry who have the know-how to guide you. Choose coaches with experience.
Take the time to do a bit of research to find out how long the coach has been in the industry, what area of voice over they work in, if they’re experienced with casting or highly successful and know themselves what is booking. Make sure they’ve had some directing experience. They must be able to help you take it where it needs to go. Have their students gone on to further success of their own? Are they actively involved in the community and keeping up with the latest trends, technology and challenges?
No matter who you end up choosing to work with, make sure you are compatible – does their instruction make sense to you, are you “on the same” page when communicating? An amazing coach with a lot to offer isn’t going to be the right choice for you if the two of you can’t speak the same language (figuratively and literally, obvi.). Sometimes people really click and that connection improves the learning experience.
Sometimes they don’t – no fault of either of you – so finding the right match and getting the best ROI with a coach is just smart business.
A Successful 25+ Year Career in Voice Over
I have a looooong history of working in voiceover – a successful 25+ year career. I’ve worked in many different genres of voice over including radio, tv, commercials, elearning, narration of various flavors and degrees of technicality and audiobooks to name a few. I’ve spent a lot of time and money over the years polishing my craft. I am proud to note that thousands of creatives and producers have trusted me to tell their stories. I feel like I can safely say I’ve seen if not all, most of it anyway.
So when I made the choice to start teaching it was from a mindset of giving back to the community and industry that has given me so much. I bring to my coaching the benefit of having “been there and done that” and love being able to help guide new voice over entrepreneurs.
I coach voiceover for:
● Narration
● Elearning
● Commercials
● General VO Entrepreneurship – including marketing & business best practices
● Improving your read rate – specifically for long form narration
I’ve been excited to have also coached and been a guest speaker here:
● Worked with ACTRA on Commercial Performance Delivery at AGM
● Worked with ACTRA & L’INIS (L’Institut National de l’Image et du Son) on annual
workshop on voiceover
● Coach/Guest speaker at Dawson College Theatre Department on voiceover
● Coach/Guest speaker at National Theatre School on voiceover
● Demo Director at Les Syllabes in Montreal
● Coach/Guest speaker for Black Theatre Workshop Montreal on voiceover
● Speaker/coach at VO Atlanta 2018, 2019
● Speaker/coach at VO North
● Coach at Elley Ray Hennesey’s Open Mic workshops on Narration and Commercials
The Art of Voice Acting Is Always Changing And Growing – Never Stop Studying It
As a fellow voice actor, I firmly believe the essence of our work is a craft. Voice acting is always changing and growing – and one can always improve and learn from the successes of others. In fact, learning from each other is one of the best ways to gain insight to be better. If this is your calling, never stop studying it.
Here is a short list of some of the coaches
I’ve worked with in the last few years. Many are colleagues as well as teachers and have all brought meaningful new insights to our work together and have given me fresh perspectives to bring to my performance and business:
● Dave Walsh
● MaryLyn Wissner
● Cliff Zellman
● J Michael Collins
● David Tyler
● Pat Fraley
● Scott Brick
●Marc Graue
Every year, as part of my annual business plan, I carve out time and set aside money to reinvest in improving my skills as a voice over artist and to make my business more streamlined. If you’re not already doing so, I encourage you to do the same.
Then I got to browse color combos. I went a bit nuts with those. They were so beautiful. I pulled out color combos for home renovations and wardrobe choices as well as my new site 🙂 I narrowed it down to three and forwarded them to Brian, my new graphic design guy. Not content with just my questionnaire responses, Brian and I chatted on skype and he pulled more info from me. Not the best at waiting – it makes my eyeballs itch – I dove into other things and a short while later Brian sent me a mockup of my new site and logo and it was unlike anything I could have envisioned myself.
Then came Skype time with Karin. We talked content. She explained that some people would only stay on the home page and scroll up and down and that we should make certain they found everything they needed on that first landing. Then she pointed out that more pages were an asset for anyone who wanted to spend more time on my site. That we should have an About page, so they could get a bit more insight into me, my career & my life in general, a Demo page (in addition to the demos on my home page) where people could listen and download all kinds of stuff in both mp3 and video format, and a Contact page. Other things people like to see? Testimonials from those who you worked with/for, great or recent Clients, and since I blog, a page for that.
Content loaded and coded, we Skyped and went through it together. Again, the collaboration was incredible. On my original site (the one I created three years ago) it took forever to get my instructions understood and changes modified. With the Voice Actor Websites team, I always got quick responses and solutions that were better than what I’d originally asked for. Plus, they were super to work with. My new beautiful site went live in less half the time it took the original site to make it out the birth canal and at a cost commensurate with the price of the old one.
Voice over narration for kid’s eLearning is about finding the correct delivery to ensure the young learner is keeping up, but doesn’t feel talked down to. Kids are super sensitive not only to what we say, but how we say it. Speaking too slowly can sound condescending to little Izzy or potentially boring to young Jake. When it comes to educating the next generation our mission is to help keep them interested in and excited about the subjects they’re learning, by staying engaged with the material ourselves. Here’s where your imagination comes into play. Picture Izzy or Jake by your side. They will be super excited and feel great when they understand what you’re saying. Making it real for you, makes it real for them. Your client will read this as a student that is engaged with his or her eLearning is more likely to score better and retain the information.
You receive a voice over script for a new commercial for toothpaste, insurance, or maybe it’s shoes. You’re want to deliver the perfect sound to match the product, but there are no tags or directions to guide your delivery. How do you get started? Even the most seasoned voice actors need to do a little digging. As a voiceover coach, I tell my students, many of the clues and questions to ask are in the text itself. An experienced pro might take it further and do a bit of research, too. Whether you’re new to narration or a venerable veteran, here are three simple script analysis tricks to bring your 
Now switch hats and put yourself in the potential customer’s head. You’ve probably used this product or something similar to it. What do you want from the product? What would catch your attention? Use your real-world experience to help you find the right sound.
