JUST DO IT … (swoosh or no swoosh)
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing”
- Walt Disney
Thanks, Walt. Sound advice. Or in my case, the way to get started wasn’t to quit talking and begin doing, but begin doing and start talking - into a microphone. After hitting ‘record’. Simples. Right?
I’ve wanted to be a voice actor since I was a kid. I watched so many cartoons and spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to either imitate the character’s voices, or just inventing my own. At school, my friends would constantly ask me to “do that voice” or get me to perform the library of animal noises I could make (yes, my parents tried to have me soundproofed during the school holidays).
I knew I wanted to do voiceovers. I knew I’d be good at it. I just…….didn’t start!
Instead, I did a whole host of other random jobs to pass the time - some were great fun - some not so much. I spent decades working my butt off in random jobs when I should have been pursuing my voiceover dream.
I guess it’s not all bad - working in different industries means you get to experience dealing with and communicating with a really diverse range of people. I didn’t realise it at the time, but this comes in particularly handy when I’m gauging how to ‘pitch’ scripts, who the audience is and how to strike the right chord - the chord that really dunks their donut.
This ‘Refusal to Start doing Voiceovers’ was getting a bit ridiculous. It took me until I was 38 before I finally embarked on my voiceover journey! Now that is a seriously impressive level of procrastination. I put it down to being scared of failure and scared of success in equal measures. Plus, I had absolutely no idea where to start! No one in my family has done anything audio-related, so I had nobody to ask… I was in the dark and on my own with this one.
Luckily, it was 2022 by this point - and Mr Google and Mrs YouTube became my new favourite tutors.
Oh, there were questions. Lots of them.
What’s an XLR condenser microphone?
What’s a DAW?
What the heckity heck is a Spectral Frequency Display and why do our ears get a metaphorical hard on when we normalise audio to minus 1 decibels?
I knew less than nothing about the technical side of audio. And that was a big problem.
The first thing I did was book myself onto the VO Masterclass course with Gary Terzza. Gary used to work as a continuity announcer for Channel 4 and has a tonne of experience and knowledge on all things related to voiceover and broadcasting. The course was held over in St Albans and we did loads of script reading and recording and I came back with 3 ready-to-go voice recordings to get me started in applying for jobs. Gary then mentored me over the next year and we still keep in touch regularly today.
I set up a proper sound booth to record in, complete with jazzy multi-coloured LED strips for a bit of mood lighting - and of course the acoustic foam. Then all I needed to do was set up my microphone, interface and plug in my laptop. Voila! One soundproof, reflection proof, ambient audio chamber. Perfect for recording in (and even more perfect for hiding in when the kids start being annoying.)
The next round of mental gymnastics I needed to limber up for was learning how to use audio editing software. The first time I laid eyes on the screen, I felt pretty overwhelmed. The waveform just looked so…..'techy’ to me. At that time, just starting out, I was using Audacity - which is free and - as it turns out, pretty easy to use. I have YouTube to thank for the countless video tutorials I was able to learn from. I watched a lot of tutorials on post-production audio and still do. Every day is a school day. I now use Adobe Audition for my editing, which was a great next-step after using Audacity. The basic skills, tricks and tips I’d learnt initially from using Audacity were essential in my learning and stood me in good stead for the Adobe creative cloud.
You can’t beat ‘time spent’ on something. Where you put the most of your time will be the area you see the biggest improvements - you’ll never get worse at something. Only better! That’s why I have spent hundreds of hours recording, editing, listening, tweaking, re-tweaking and perfecting voice recordings. I can pick out tiny differences in my recordings from as little as just 4 months ago! Not just in the delivery of the performance, but the level of ‘polished-ness’ in the final audio quality. Every time I listen to some audio, my ears become a little sharper and more laser focused in on any sounds that shouldn’t be there. Voices.com refer to this sort of thing as ‘ear training’. 2 years ago I was terrible at it. Now? I reckon my ears would be able to detect an ant fart.
I’m fortunate enough to have landed a good amount of voiceover jobs now, which have included TV adverts, radio & online adverts, E-learning, internal corporate video narration and more! I also get such a buzz when I get repeat clients - it’s nice to know I’m producing quality audio and that my performance is hitting the right spot.
Obviously the big, fat, juicy dream is to voice a character in a Disney Pixar movie. (We won’t taint this beautiful dream with the harsh reality of AI voices, let’s momentarily bury our heads in the sand for now where it’s nice and blissful).
I absolutely love doing this job! I really couldn’t imagine doing anything else now. My only regret is that I didn’t start doing it sooner ❤️
