“What do voice actors actually do?”
It was a question that popped up some time ago, on the Voice Acting Alliance (Unofficial Group) on Zuckerbook. It is one of the groups I gladly dismembered myself from at the beginning of the year.
This group seemed to be populated by bored, ignorant teenagers who wanted the keys to voice over success on a silver platter without ever having to leave their smelly bedrooms.
Instead of making a meaningful contribution, they came up with dumb questions that had been answered a million times (“How do I find work as a VO?”), and they heckled the pros who were seriously trying to help them.
Whenever people with way more experience tried to remind them that it takes more than a cheap USB-microphone and a laptop to have a career in voice overs, they were ridiculed as old farts who supposedly felt threatened by the younger generation.
Being a member of this group was a perfect waste of time, but I do miss it sometimes. Why? Because every now and then, I found some golden nuggets of comedy. Here’s a classic example (and I’m not making this up):
Group question: “Please, what is voice acting all about?”
Someone named Tiffany responded by saying:
“It’s acting with your voice only for many forms of media.”
Well done, Tiffany! Surprisingly, voice acting is “acting with your voice.”
But then came Alexei, who wrote:
“It involves knitting alpaca wool sweaters and delivering fresh laid eggs to the neighborhood carpentry guild members. Hats are required and must hold a minimum of four colored feathers and a seasonal flower.”
Then Damian chimed in, asking:
“Can you recommend a good hat for a beginner on a budget?”
I almost peed in my pants, I was laughing so hard when I read these lines.
Looking back, I really miss these moments of spontaneous silliness. Everybody is so serious and easily offended these days. The groups I still belong to are made up of proper voice actors who get into these long debates about the differences between the Sennheiser MKH416 and the Rode NTG3.
Come on, people. Lighten up a little! Most of us are hired to sing the praises of potato chips and bathroom tissue. We’re not members of the Royal Shakespeare Company. If newbies are having fun with us, why can’t we have some fun with newbies?
Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going back to knitting a few alpaca wool sweaters, and I have a few eggs to deliver.
If only I could find my feathered hat…
So that’s what I’ve been doing wrong all this time. I’m just popping out to Michael’s to buy some knitting needles and a hat. I’ll get the eggs on the way home. Luckily. I have an Alpaca in the back garden. His name is Bruce.
Great blog Paul.
You are so funny! I loved reading your response. It made me happy I wrote the story!
Hahahaha!!! This post was right up my alley. I love the humor, Paul – and I totally agree! I think it’s OK to poke a little bit of fun every now and then. My favorite is when a newbie voiceover artist enters a voiceover artist group hawking their voiceover artist services to…voiceover artists. UGH! Yes, I’m sure I’ll hire you straightaway. Making fun: COMMENCE! *cracks knuckles*
If you ask a stupid question, why do people complain when they get a dumb response?
That Voice Acting Alliance was more of an alliance of clueless high school dropouts not willing to put any money or effort into a legit VO career.
That’s exactly my experience. Good riddance!
The nursing profession has an ugly history of eating its young. This is a new and novel concept to me, however; the young eating the seasoned… The lightly salted, deliciously seasoned. Mmm, voiceover.
So many young people are trying to be “influencers.” Sadly, influence starts at the bottom with a long climb to success. I have made my living since 2006 as an air show announcer. I started volunteering at an air show in Dayton, Ohio in 1979 and started the long trek. I joined the International Council of Air Shows (ICAS) in 1995 and didn’t have enough work to support myself until 2006 when I took the leap of faith. I’ve made a darned good living at it since then (2013 – Sequestration – and 2020 excluded). It took me 16 years to be an influencer. Now I’m transitioning to audiobook work. Why should I expect anything different than a long climb? Why should anyone expect anything different than a long climb to success. Was it worth it for me in the air show business? Yep. Do I hope to build a significant audiobook narration business? Yep. Will it come overnight? Only if a couple of decades is overnight!
What is so sad is that young folks have horrible work ethics. I speak with business owners who have a really tough time finding qualified, dedicated employees who are willing to “do the job” and not simply quit without notice when they don’t think it’s “for them.”
There’s a price to be paid for success. It’s sad that so many are unwilling to pay that price. In the meantime they can move back home with their parents.
Once, a lovely , young, but entitled woman said to me, “I could be a voice actor. It’s not that hard.” I asked, “Have you ever acted before?” She said, “No”. I then said, “Then you can’t be a voice actor.” She looked at me stubbornly. I said, “Sorry… you can be a shitty voice actor….”
Her mom thanked me later.
Gutsy but ultimately the right thing to do. There aren’t really any shortcuts to success. And I’ve seen enough people for whom it’s come quickly – or early in life – burn out just as quickly. I think of child stars and any number of rock musicians – Joplin, Keith Moon, Jimi Hendrix…
Really sad.
It is tempting to blast the newbies asking seasoned writers for ‘the answer to success’ – which is always ‘do the work and MAYBE you have a chance.’
I can’t imagine myself asking anyone that particular question, but did a few that should have gotten the same reaction, oh, twenty years ago. I don’t think I could have used their answers – and that’s what the newbies don’t even think of.
There is no magic – even for a fantastically talented child star, for example, there will be an incredible amount of backstage work (they know nothing when they start) for every moment of on-screen brilliance, carried by the pros.
Flannery O’Connor said the university writing programs didn’t DIScourage enough new writers. (They need to stay in business, of course).
Lately, unless I have something short and helpful, what I do is use the comment space for all the things I want to say – and then I don’t post it. Gets it out of me – without blasting the babies (not that they’d listen).
I don’t envy them their hard path if they try to go forward, or their complaining about how no one wants to help them (which begs the question of why anyone would or should), but I do envy them their youth. And I can’t have any of that, and wouldn’t trade it for experience anyway.
Yah know…. a hat with a brim of an appropriate length would be perfect to wear as a physical indicator of whether I’m the correct distance from the mic… oooh, and little tic marks along the underside to ensure my degrees of offset from center are correct …. it’s gotta be at least as useful as an Eyeball, just sayin. =)
… there could be a cowboy hat for truck commercials …