The first part of that question, “What is voice over training?” has come up for me from time to time in the past. I know I’ve tried to explain many of the aspects of training, or the methods used while coaching voice over, but I don’t know if I, or anyone else for that matter, have been able to sum up in an article on the internet what type of training “voice over training” really is.
There are so many links and options available on the internet that promise to lead to information about voice over that it can be rather confusing for anyone looking to get started in the business. Many of those links lead to financial or marketing dead ends, where the reader is told or begins to realize that if they want to know any more they are going to have to join a mailing list or pay someone money to find out. I have never believed in that model nor do I practice it.
There has been a great deal of attention given to the things I write about concerning voice over or vocal training when it comes to not leading people to one of the dead ends I just mentioned. It’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of good, valuable, honest information available out there about the business, but simply put, people are forced to mine for much of it and I have always tried to lay it out there for people to the greatest extent possible and give much it away for free. I have ruffled a few feathers along the way on both sides of the microphone because of this approach and I pay a price for my honesty and opinionated slant on things on a daily basis.
One of the things I have shouted from the mountaintops on my website and in my podcasts is to not subscribe to, or pay for anything that promises to lead you to more information for a price. There are no secrets about voice over and paying money for someone to reveal them to you is in itself a farce because those secrets simply don’t exist. There is nothing I can tell you in a day, a week or a month, let alone a newsletter, CD, manual, tele-class, boot-camp, seminar, workshop or phone call that is going to open up the world of voice over to you and make it possible for you to go out and get hired.
The reason for that is this – voice over is a craft, a skill, a learned method, a practiced art form, a perfected skill that cannot be packaged in any of the above. You cannot buy it in a box or have it trickled into your brain via osmosis, and nothing has infuriated me any more over the years than the litany of profiteers out lurking in the shadows of the internet who are ready at a moments notice, for a buck, to tell you that you can.
I have made it my mission as a voice over coach to see to it that as few people as possible go to any of the voice over marketing gurus seeking solutions to the absolution of there voice over curiosity. If only one person on earth reads this article, and holds onto their wallet and refrains from buying into some “neato-torpedo” voice-over-over-night success scheme then my job here is done. Anything I can do to whittle away at the empire some of these people have built on the backs of the hopeful will be fine for me. This is my stance. This is my platform. You see… No secret… It’s right out there for everyone to see.
In my years of experience coaching voice talent and writing informational articles for them, I have learned 3 things the hard way and with utter clarity:
- You will read the above, disagree with me and go away to take your chances at getting rich quick because you know there has got to be an easier way.
- You will read the above, compare it to other things you have read and because of the ambiguity surrounding it all, come to the conclusion that this “voice over stuff” is for the birds and go away never to be heard from and off pursuing some other career.
- You will read the above, maybe compare it to some of the other things you have read on this site and others and realize that though it is my truth, it very well might be the truth and you will give my method of doing things some consideration and maybe even a chance.
Those are the three most common responses to my approach that I see all the time.
There are those who do not believe and don’t want to believe what they are being told because they are confident they have the solution and know better. There are those that don’t have an opinion and won’t ever really form one because none of it makes any sense to them anyway. And there are those that have read every opinion, approach and idea about voice over and they do believe and want to believe the things they are being told.
My message is not that well received by everyone and I understand that. But it is my message. One that is quite contrary to the majority of what people are saying on the subject when it comes to voice over training and coaching, or classes and schools. Either I am some crackpot who doesn’t know what he is talking about and is screaming himself blue in the face in a nonsensical manner on the internet street corner, or I am a seasoned professional with tenure in this business who just happens to be one of the only ones willing to offer you this one simple truth…
The reason more people aren’t saying the same thing and spreading a similar message is not because what I am saying is wrong. The reason they aren’t saying it is that my message isn’t one that someone can easily profit from. The truth about the realities of this business and learning how to do it doesn’t sell as well as the hype and lure of big time success and wealth. Who would buy tabloids if they featured articles about unknown construction workers and gas station attendants? Don’t think for a moment that the profiteers in this business aren’t selling you on the Hollywood glamour concept in much the same way. Don’t believe it? You’re welcome to take your chances and prove me wrong.
I have known for some time that there are people out there with names in the voice coaching industry for one reason or another, who carry a touch of angst in their belly and a few fewer pennies in their coffer because of my willingness to risk my own success by telling the truth and my attempts steer people from them. Am I trying to steer people away from them and toward me? No, not at all. I’m simply trying to steer people from the traps and pitfalls which will lead them nowhere in this business and with little money to do anything else once they figure it out.
My ongoing feud has forced a few people to alter their core message and at least begin to acknowledge that voice over can’t be packaged and distributed, though I still have a very long way to go in defeating this concept. Some of the “Gurus” out there have been forced to create ever more elaborate and louder websites to attract more attention. A few have even begun to copy the name of my most popular article concept.
Imitation might be the greatest form of flattery, but I’m not in this to be flattered. I’m in this to get my message in front of aspiring talent because I believe to the soles of my shoes that it is one they need to hear.
As you might have guessed this doesn’t reserve me many seats at the voice over coaching roundtable, as I am a fringe character with my own set of beliefs and a very forward distain for the way things are done. My primary issue is I think what most people are doing when they coax new talent under their wing with weekend getaways and a voice over demo, a set of telephone classes or a get it done quickly concept is patently wrong. Until I came along nobody was saying it. Well I am saying it, I have always said and I will continue to say it. Though I might go through some website upgrades with different layouts, the words have never changed. If anything they have only gotten stronger.
Without getting into a big debate about who is the best voice over coach in the world or for this business as it stands today, all one has to do is take a look around and it shouldn’t take too long to figure out who the biggest and best voice over marketers are. Are they marketing their own talents as a voice over artist? In most cases not. What they are saying is, “Look at me! Look at me! Don’t you see how big I am! If you buy into my crap you can be big like me to! Do you want to make more money? Well sit tight; because I’m gonna tell you how to get rich! By sending me your money!!!!”
Yes – that’s how to get rich everybody… by getting other people to send you their money. It is a model that is repeated again and again in every marketing medium known to man and it will continue to exist because their will never be a shortage of suckers that will believe it. How that will make you a better voice over talent I don’t know. But if I can get into this stuff by sending someone my money then sign me up. It sure sounds like it would be a lot easier than sitting down with a coach one-on-one and learning this business from the ground up.
Let’s take it one step further. Let’s say I charge you some money to attend a seminar where you believe you are going to meet people that can advance your career in this business. Once you get to the seminar, the people you thought you were going to meet are there and you get a chance to meet them and talk to them. Thus far, I guess I have lived up to my word by charging you a fee for a service, and providing that service by getting the people together for you. Once the event comes to an end, all of the important people give you their business cards hoping that at some point you’ll give some of your money to them. Maybe they’re demo producers, maybe they’re other coaches or studio people.
It doesn’t really matter. What you have done is paid money to go and meet people who want more of your money. By introducing you to those people I would have held up my end of the bargain and could walk through life covered in Marketing Guru Teflon, knowing that I performed a service and got paid for it. But given this example, did I really do you any kind of true service? In what way have I improved your life by taking your money and introducing you to other people who want your money? In what way have I moved you along in the voice over world? What have I taught you about voice over other than how easy it is to slip into your pockets by dangling a gold watch in front of your face and swinging it back and forth while repeating how rich you’re going to become by meeting these voice over people?
The simple fact in this example is that I wouldn’t have taught you anything, and you would have learned nothing about becoming a better voice talent. Even worse, most of the people you met at the seminar you could have met for free if you had just taken a little time to do some research. It’s a sham, has always been one, will always be one.
So, now I bring myself into the equation.
Have I ever failed or made mistakes as a voice over coach? Yes.
Have I ever found myself to be incapable of coaching a particular talent? Yes.
Have I ever spent weeks or even months coaching a student to see them go nowhere in the business after their lessons were over? Yes.
Have I ever coached a talent for over a year, taken their money for every kind of audio editing and commercial production class I offer, produced their voice over demo for them, even taken them to the store to help them buy their voice over studio equipment and had them fail and go nowhere in this business? Yes.
Have I ever charged a student for voice over lessons and at the end of those lessons, has the student found themselves still unable to audition at a high enough level compete with other seasoned talent or incapable of functioning in the world of voice over?
Get ready for it…. Yes.
Have I ever propped myself up in front of young perspective voice over talent or in the voice over coaching industry as someone who only breeds success and has never had any of those failures? No.
I can assure you the “Big Gurus” do have those failures and the image, one created with money extracted from other hopefuls, where everyone they touch comes off as looking successful is a fraud, because I talk to the people they’ve taken advantage of all the time. Except, by the time I get them they’re out of money and can’t afford any lessons.
The reason you don’t hear about them more often is that many of them are too embarrassed to come out and say they got suckered.
Most people don’t brag about losing at Three-Card Monte.
All of the things above that I said “Yes” to, I have done, or had happen to me. One way or another, no matter the outcome, my reputation as a coach was involved in those situations and some of them still bother me to this day. Some of the students I should have never taken, but for some reason their initial auditions made me believe they had a chance. Some of them showed a great deal of potential, only to fail because they never practiced. Some of them failed because voice over wasn’t their dream and they followed other pursuits. Some of them failed because they failed, period.
Does that make me a bad coach? Who knows…Maybe it’s an indicator of my judgment in certain situations. One thing I don’t recall ever hearing about is a coach with nothing but wins on his record. I just entered “coach who never lost” in Google and he or she wasn’t there. I guess that confirms that he or she doesn’t exist.
Along with what I, or anyone else could construe as failures, I have to go on knowing that the one thing I have never done to a prospective talent or student is lie to them, mislead them, deceive them with half-truths or even worse lie to them to get their money. I have never told someone something they wanted to hear in an attempt to extract a payment from them. I have never told someone that if they subscribed to my ideology, or my newsletter for that matter, that they would learn a damn thing or become successful in any way. I have never promised fortune or happiness when it comes to voice over.
If anything I have only promised struggle, rejection, pressure, failure, expenditure and time as they are the only things new talent are likely to see in the beginning or for any length as they get out in the marketplace and learn the ropes. Don’t think I haven’t paid a pretty steep price for making those types of promises to people, but that’s alright. Because I will never have to pay the price of someone who spends their life walking around trying to convince young voice actors that if touched by their golden finger they will be given a first class ticket to the voice over promised land.
So when I really think of the question, “What is Voice Over Training?” I am comfortable trying to answer that question and summarize what I think it is, only after providing such a lengthy preface.
Voice over training is:
- Actually learning something from someone, as they teach you, and only you, in the privacy of your own home or in a studio.
- Learning how to read and interpret the written word and turn it into a spoken one.
- Learning pace, inflection, timing while finding your voice and the right approach to the copy.
- Learning how to breathe, how to stand, how to feel, how to think, and how to focus while performing in front of a microphone.
- Learning how to visualize your audience, discover your role, what part you play and how to see the copy from their perspective.
- Learning what it feels like to perform in front of an audience.
- Learning how to edit your audio and create recordings and productions.
- Learning how to setup, run and install technical applications and equipment.
- Learning the potential markets for your product, AFTER you have a product to offer, not before.
- Learning how to speak and think like an industry professional so that you will hopefully be thought of as one someday.
- Learning, no matter who is teaching you, the actual craft and performance art from someone who knows it, does it, and actually performs it on a regular basis.
- Learning every possible aspect of the business you can possibly learn before venturing out into the world to look for work.
- Practicing what you have learned until you know you are good at it and at a level where you can compete in the marketplace before deciding to make a voice over demo.
Voice over training is actually being trained by someone who works in the business and knows how to do all of the above well enough to be able to instruct others how to do it for themselves.
It is not, nor will it ever be about paying someone to meet more people who want you to pay them.
To learn what?
More than likely the things I just told you for free.
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