Thursday, December 8, 2011

30 Day Voice Over Trial - Day 1


I read http://expertenough.com/778/practice-like-an-expert and http://expertenough.com/658/becoming-an-expert and it re-inspired me to try my hand/voice at doing voice over work.  These articles emphasized having an expert mentor.  I think that's what I've skipped in other pursuits.  

So I started by googling 'las vegas voice over'.  I found http://www.courvo.biz/ which made me excited about doing audio books.  They're mostly done from home, but the money doesn't get that good until you're pretty established.  I need to ignore the money for the 30 day trial though.  

His site also directed me to http://patfraley.com/ who is a top voice over coach in LA.  He has a ton of free videos and a bunch of training stuff you can buy.  In some of the videos I watched, I learned some good stuff:
  • Skills + Personal Style + Demo + Marketing = $$$
    • Demo is 3 x 1 min excerpts
  • Mimic/Matching might be a good fit, because I already do that and it can pay well.
  • Learn the rules, but use your limitations to make money.  For me, my scientific, slightly monotone voice could work better than a trained actor for non-fiction books (or stuff like that).
  • Its important to train the entire vocal range for injury prevention (like stretching).


I have a few ideas:
  • Start a blog (or just post links to some sound sharing site) of me reading some popular blogs (4hww, seth godin, steve pavlina, etc).  I need to look up the legal on that.
  • Find a local voice over mentor.
  • Definitely post recordings publicly (daily if possible) and get as much feedback as possible.
  • Find out what gear I can borrow.

I created a SoundCloud.com account http://soundcloud.com/jeremyjbarth and recorded a couple words.  It actually didn't sound that bad, so maybe I can skip the hardware stuff for this trial.

1 comment:

  1. Call me Jeremy...we'll talk. I have a lot of suggestions for you, and would be happy to mentor you.

    702-610-6288

    Thanks for mentioning my blog.

    Dave Courvoisier

    ReplyDelete