voice acting

"Ahhhh, excellent question, Grasshopper. You are wise to take this approach to your career path."

Too often people forget that the primary component of voice acting is acting.

Before you embark on a career in voice acting it would probably be a good idea to see if you can, in fact, act. There are many resources for this in college. Take a basic acting class from the theatre department. See how you like it. Sure, a vast majority of that class will focus on stage-acting and the elements involved, but you will get some scene work to do as well. If you can convey emotion, conviction, and believability on stage, then you're off to a good start.

The disadvantage of voice acting -vs- stage acting is that you have to (in most cases) rely on your voice to sell a picture you haven't even seen yet, or if you're not voice acting for animation, rely on your voice to create a picture for the audience. This involves creating the sound of whatever your character is doing. If he's lifting weights you have to be able to convey that with your voice. If he's just come in from jogging three miles, you have to be able to portray that. Not to mention joy, sorrow, anger, hatred, contempt, and the endless gamut of emotions we each of us carry inside.

But I'll tell you this: it's a fun thing to do. And when you "see" your voice coming out of a cartoon, it's pretty cool.

Good luck! Keep us posted.

ab

dandrews--

In order to be able to do something, you have to put your Nikes on and "Just Do It." At this point, generally speaking, there are many opportunities out there for people who have decent recording studios at home. Opportunities that allow you to record from home, behind a locked door with nobody watching. But in order to do the "Spongbob's" or the "Lilo & Stitch's" you have to be able to stand behind a microphone in a booth while half a dozen or more people watch, listen, walk in and out of the booth, make suggestions, laugh, smile, roll their eyes, and any number of other potentially distracting things.

Realistically, of course, (and I was just thinking about this a night or two ago) to do the mainstream feature-length cartoon features, you have to be an established Hollywood B-List or better actor. It also helps to be geographically convenient to either LA or NYC. It's a rare thing that an entire theatrically released animated film will feature principal characters voiced by anyone but known actors. Voice actors are relegated to the lesser characters more and more. Jim Cummings, for example, is an outstanding voice actor: He does Pooh, Tigger, and any number of other characters you've heard. He was "Steele" in the movie "Balto" with Kevin Bacon, Bridgete Fonda, Phil Collins, and Bob Hoskins. Notice, though who he acted with. That's a rare example of a voice actor who got a primary part in a mainstream film.

My advice, for what it's worth, is to practice, practice, practice, and find the confidence within yourself. Competition is a very real part of this game. Don't shy away from it: rise to it. Embrace it. Meet it head on. If you believe that you can do it...REALLY believe...you CAN do it. If your greatest obstacle is self confidence, then once you overcome that, you'll be just fine.

Good luck.

ab