Voiceacting.co.uk

Professional actor Gregory Houser  kindly gave me permission to publish his excellent essay on voice acting.

I’m currently writing this out of friendship to several people who have asked me to put together an article relating to my trials and tribulations as a professional voice actor. If I have been asked this question once, then I’ve been asked it at least a hundred times. I’ve been asked this question at the Funimation industry booth, at panels; I’ve even been asked this question while going through security at a TSA security checkpoint… talk about unusual.

The question is always the same, “how do I become a voice actor?” If I knew an answer that fit everyone, I’d be a rich man (or at least, richer than I currently am). Since there is no formula that works for everyone, let me just tell you what things I’ve seen work for myself and those VAs I’ve had the privilege to learn from during my travels.

Getting Started
So… what does it take? I don’t know myself really. If I had to pick three traits that make up a successful voice actor, they would be: determination in the face of overwhelming odds, an acceptance that you are going to fail countless times before your first success, and a stubbornness to cast aside your most embarrassing thoughts and deeds and perform them publicly without a single self-conscious thought running through your mind. I get a lot of strange looks when I mention these three characteristics in relation to acting, but they’re dead on. There are hundreds, no; thousands of people who want to do the same thing as the person who asks how to get into this crazy business. It takes a rare breed of determination to go against all the odds, face the competition and not crack or give up because it’s too hard, or the rewards aren’t coming as quickly as you would prefer. Show business is a game of feast or famine, and believe me… you’ll be doing a lot more of the latter long before you ever get to experience the former. You need to accept that you are going to fail countless times before you ever get a taste for success, and few people are willing to accept the fact that just because you can imitate a few voices does not mean that you’re ready for a paid booking. If you can impersonate a voice with skill, that’s great, but there’s going to be other people auditioning against you who have the experience, background, AND vocal and impersonation skills. Who do you think is going to be the more attractive talent…? Finally, voice acting is a game of learning to let go of your thoughts, feelings and emotions. As humans, we have a bad habit of holding all of these things inside of ourselves. You have to learn to act as though no one is watching, especially when the whole world seems to be eying you up. If you’re afraid to do something (sing, dance, bark like a dog, etc.) then you’re going to find that there’s more than just the one something that holds you back. When you’re voice acting, regardless of whether it’s an animation or a radio commercial, your voice is the most important aspect of the performance… there are no other physical traits that you can rely on to tell your story to the audience. Anything that holds you back from that is a major obstacle that must be overcome before you can seriously begin to perform as an actor.

Identifying Initial Skills
Now that I’ve pontificated a bit, let’s talk about what specific skills you ought to be working on if you want to be a voice actor. To pick one over the others would be a bit superfluous, as all of them are critical in their own way. As one travels along this path, opportunities should arise to take these courses, so there is no true need in the beginning to take them in order. Obviously, one will need to have training as an actor, and should have some general acting training, and experience (the two should never be confused with one another). As time passes, you will want to branch out and learn specialized techniques and methods for honing your skill as an actor. Of these various additional techniques, I find that improvisation, character and dialect training are crucial towards a voice actor’s capability to create, refine, and maintain a believable character, all of which are requirements when performing a voiceover. Let me give you an example of what I mean. When you audition for a voiceover role, you do not often have the luxury of exploring your script (actually, it’s called “copy” in VO) and having the time to experiment with your character. No; often you are handed your copy and have just enough time to read it as it takes to get from the waiting room into a recording booth. If you don’t have that much time, you need to know how to use your “memory of emotion” (remember that phrase… you’ll hear it a lot as an actor) to quickly develop answers to questions important to the copy (“who are you?”, “what are you doing?”, “why is this important?” etc.). That’s the improv part. Now you need to use that along with your character and dialect training to create a believable character.

Trust me, it sounds a lot simpler than it really is. You’re going to fail at this… miserably. But remember what I said earlier? You have to be willing to fail if you ever hope to succeed.
Selling Yourself… Selling Your Voice

So now the next question that I know everyone wants to ask is “why does the character have to be believable? This is an animation/commercial/etc.!” Well, the answer to that one is simple. It’s easier for your audience to relate to you if you seem believable. While the character might not be believable to society at large, is it believable in regards to the extraordinary circumstances with which he/she/it is placed? If your character isn’t authentic, then the audience won’t be able to relate to you. If they can’t relate, then they can’t have a relationship with your character. At that point, all is lost, because if they don’t have a relationship with your character, then they don’t care about you and your story is meaningless. Despite everything you hear the primary job of a voice actor is to sell something, whether it is the sub-plot of an anime storyline, a marketing catchphrase, or an important Public Service Announcement (the dreaded “PSA”, which are some of the hardest auditions you’ll ever have). So how do we make the audience care? Simple, we make our character believable. See what a twisted circle this is?
Vocal Training, It’s Not Just for Opera Anymore…

Now that we’ve talked about the basic acting skills needed, let’s talk about the voice for a bit. If you don’t have vocal training prior to your life as a VA, you’ll need to get some. I don’t want to cast anyone who hasn’t taken the time to work with their own voice (especially if they’re trying to sell that to me). A good vocal regiment will do several things for you. First, it will help to extend you range, allowing you to have greater flexibility in the type of roles you can perform (remember the word “flexible”… we’ll be hitting that topic again). Next, it improves your control and strength when using the vocal instrument. Simply put, it allows you to hold and remember a pitch/note/dialect much easier. Finally, it gives you the opportunity to learn a bit more about rhythm, and unless you already have a musical background, you’re going to have issues with rhythm. There are several other reasons why having a strong vocal regiment is important, but these three reasons are my personal favorites.

Now I mentioned the word rhythm just a sentence or two ago. Some will recognize the need for it, and some won’t. That’s okay… we don’t often pay attention to things that are right in front of us, so let me explain. Just like with music, there is a rhythm to almost every facet to our lives, governing the way we walk, sleep, eat, and yes… talk. If you ever get the chance just sit down and watch people in a public area. I’m not talking about interacting with them; I just want you to watch them. This is a great acting exercise that I use for several purposes. Aside from learning how to develop a character based on the information given me (ask yourself those questions regarding the “who, what, why, to whom, etc.” and apply it to the people you the people you are watching; I guarantee you that you’ll be wrong, but you’ll have some great characters that you’ve developed), you are going to notice that people have a natural rhythm to themselves. Some people walk with their arms swinging wildly, whereas others lead with their chests, others do so with their heads, and so on. Now take that same approach and listen to them speak. You’ll eventually notice that they do so with a predictable rhythm. When developing a character you’re going to need to learn how to do that. Take it to the next level, and read something… anything. Notice how you find yourself reading the words in a rhythm? Well, that’s the rhythm found within the copy, and if you do a voiceover you need to quickly discover what that rhythm is. Musical training helps you a lot in that regard, and vocal training is my preferred approach in that regard since it provides you with so many other VO-applied skills. Additionally, there’s a simple exercise that you can use, in addition to all the vocal training I’ve mentioned above: read aloud, and especially in front of other people. That way you can learn to better identify a rhythm in written copy, and get over any self-consciousness you might be suffering when performing in front of an audience.
The Physical Side
Let’s step away from the acting skills for a bit and talk something that is incredibly obvious, but often ignored in place of other things. That would be your physical acumen. I see a lot of professional actors who do dumb things to their bodies (and I’m known to have done more than a few myself); smoking, excessive drinking, you name it; there’s an actor who’s done it. I’m telling you now that one of the biggest traits that you are going to have to rely upon is your body. Based on that, you need to make sure that you’re in more than reasonable shape. No, I don’t expect you to be running a triathlon or to see you on the cover of GQ. But I do expect that you can hold yourself together when doing a 250 word copy in 45 seconds. I shouldn’t be hearing you wheeze or gasp for breath. If I do, then you’re not in shape to use your voice and odds are you’re not going to get booked for anything of importance until you develop your physique a bit more. It’s a cruel world, but you have to deal with it. As a voice actor, one of the most important muscles you are going to use is the diaphragm. The diaphragm is a shelf of muscle extending across the bottom of the ribcage. As one text describes it, the diaphragm separates the thoracic cavity (with lung and heart) from the abdominal cavity (with liver, stomach, intestines, etc.). In its relaxed state, the diaphragm is shaped like a dome. It is controlled by the phrenic nerve.

It is critically important in respiration: in order to draw air into the lungs, the diaphragm contracts, thus enlarging the thoracic cavity and reducing intra-thoracic pressure (the external intercostals muscles also participate in this enlargement). When the diaphragm relaxes, air is exhaled by elastic recoil of the lung and the tissues lining the thoracic cavity.

Lots of medical jargon there, right? Simply put, it’s a huge muscle that allows you to breathe properly. It’s part of the autonomous nervous system, which means that we use it without realizing that we’re using it. For some reason unbeknownst to me, we humans try to suppress the diaphragm as we get older (I guess it doesn’t look cool or something). Because of that, a lot of us have underdeveloped diaphragms, or don’t let our bodies use them properly. This keeps us from using all the oxygen that we could be using and prevents us from really getting a good breath when we read out loud. The stronger your diaphragm, the deeper the breath you can inhale. The deeper the breath, the more oxygen you take in. The more oxygen you take in, the better you’ll be able to read copy without constantly running out of air.

So how do we develop our diaphragms? Well first we have to admit that there’s a problem, and that’s not something which everyone is good at doing. However, I’ve found a really simple way to know if you’re not breathing properly. Take a look at two groups: animals, and especially young children. I’m serious here… while you’re doing that little observation exercise I mentioned a few paragraphs back, take a close look at animals and children, especially when they fall asleep. Do you see their lower chest & upper abdomen moving up and down in a dramatic fashion (at least it seems dramatic to us)? That’s the diaphragm doing what it’s supposed to be doing… giving us large, copious amounts of oxygen for us to use. You need to re-learn how to do that, and while you can practice, the best way you can learn to do that is through a good regiment of physical exercise. Try this; when you have the chance, I want you to really exert yourself physically. I want you to run, jump, do whatever it is you want to do, but I want you to really take the wind out of yourself. When you’ve finished, and feel like you want to collapse, take a look at yourself in the mirror and make a comparison as to how you are breathing now, compared with before. Notice how your midsection is heaving, trying to take in as much oxygen as it can? That’s the diaphragm kicking in and doing what comes naturally to your body. The more you exercise, the more your body remembers how it is supposed to use the diaphragm, and the easier it is for you to use it at will when speaking. Since I’m a big guy and my personal physical issues relate to a slow metabolism, I prefer to use a combination of cardio and light weight training (with a healthy amount of crunches and sit-ups); you’ll have to use trial and error to find what works best for you (although you’ll always want to start out with cardio, since what’s what controls your breathing).
So what do I need to get started?

Okay, so I’ve talked about things like rhythm, and improvisation, acting, and even physical fitness, right? You’re probably wondering which one of these things you should really concentrate on. The answer is simple: all of them. There should never be an acting or vocal class that you have the time and resources to take, yet choose not to in the hopes of finding something that interest you more. As I’ve stated before, there is no one road to becoming a voice actor, and there is no one right method. While I prefer to focus on certain methods over others, the truth of the matter is that anything you can use to further develop your acting skills will serve you well down the road. If presented with two options for training, always choose the one that is harder for you to perform. That is your weakest link, and should be the first priority in strengthening. There are several ways to describe acting, and in particular, the actor itself. Of them all, I like to use the adage of the actor being the physical representation of a chain of actions brought together to relate a moment to the audience. Like any other chain, the actor is only as strong as its weakest link. This is why we need to constantly strengthen every aspect of our acting, especially those facets which are the weakest. Using “Murphy’s Law of Acting”, you’re always going to get called to perform or rely upon your weakest skills as an actor, so you need to make sure that there are none.
I hope that this helps out anyone who has taken the time to read this document. Acting is a journey of one’s self, not a destination… and while I wish nothing but the best for anyone who decides to pursue this crazy, misguided profession, as long as you learn something about life, and yourself along the way, then despite any obstacle or hardship you encounter along the way, you will have made the trip worthwhile.

All My Best,

Gregory Houser

Recommended Reading

Voice Power: Using Your Voice to Captivate, Persuade, and Command Attention - Renee Grant-Williams
You Can Bank On Your Voice: Your Guide to a Successful Career in Voice-Overs (Paperback) - Rodney Saulsberry

The Use and Training of the Human Voice: A Bio-Dynamic Approach to Vocal Life - Arthur Lessac

An Actor Prepares (Paperback) - Co Stanislavski

Respect for Acting - Uta Hagen, Haskel Frankel

VO: Tales and Techniques of a Voice-Over Actor (Paperback) - Harlan Hogan
Audition - Michael Shurtleff
Acting: The First Six Lessons - Richard Boleslavsky

There’s Money Where Your Mouth Is: An Insider’s Guide to a Career in Voice-Overs - Elaine A. Clark

Word of Mouth: A Guide to Commercial Voice-Over Excellence - Susan Blu, Molly Ann Mullin
Improv for Actors - Dan Diggles

Impro - Keith Johnston