My first tentative step back into acting awoke something in me. At first it stirred lazily, not truly wanting to surface. I mostly ignored it for a few years. But like so many other aspects of my deadlock, it has refused to go away.
I repeated the process of that first experience several times. Little projects mostly, and
all with my own writing. I slowly started to get better at it, developing a
variety of different voices and getting more comfortable with all the technical
aspects of recording. I even started featuring in other people’s just-for-fun
projects. I’ve gotten surprisingly little negative feedback about my acting,
which gave me the confidence to try for something bigger.
The first time I seriously thought of making a go of voice
acting beyond my own personal projects was in 2019. I don’t even remember where
I encountered the opportunity, but there was a company interested in getting
voice actors for one of their audio games for the blind. To be honest, the idea
of being in an audio game wasn’t exactly filling me with glee. Audio games have
never really been the epitome of good story telling. Or acting. On the other
hand, I thought, what better place to get my feet wet?
Put simply, the audition went really well. If there was an
audition. I don’t even know how many tried out for it. I sent them a few
samples of my work, and that was that. There may have been one other reason
they were interested in me, but I’ll get to that when I talk about composing.
Suffice it to say, I got the part. I was to play an evil wizard, which was perfect
for me, because villains are the most fun.
It was a short self-directed recording session which,
because of a certain mental limitation I’ll talk about soon, is my favorite way
to do this. Not that I’ve experienced anything different. I did it remotely before that got popular and
loved every minute of it. What feedback I did receive was minimal and
unmemorable. It was the first time someone ever paid me to act. The game was
well received, as far as audio games go, and easy to extract audio from to show
off to people who would never play it. For the first time, I seriously
considered if this was something I could do as more than just a side hobby.
I’ve auditioned for a number of roles since then. Sadly, I
have been selected for a scant few of them, even for indie projects done just
for fun and without pay. I might have given up after all these rejections, but
for several people and projects. The first was a YouTuber named Gorilla’s
Playthroughs, who does audio described playthroughs of video games. I actually
don’t recall where I first heard about him, but of all the audio describing
content creators out there, he was the best. I offered to do some bit parts in
some of his playthroughs for games where there wasn’t already voice acting. It
was a huge boost to my confidence. Not only did it give me a safe space to
practice different character voices, it also considerably strengthened my
acting abilities. I received a lot of very positive feedback from him about my
performances, both in the quality of the recordings and the content. While
completely voluntary, it was still extremely entertaining to do, and let me
know that, as long as I was recording alone, I could absolutely do this. Sadly,
due to some really unfortunate circumstances, that channel is gone now, and all
I have to prove I was involved with it is a compilation of character voices I
extracted.
I owe much of my success in true, paid voice acting to
Nicola, another friend who has put me in touch with two people seeking voice
actors. While one fizzled out in spectacular fashion, Richard of Nowhere
Society Media did not. His YouTube channel Nothing Ever Happens in Fox Hollow
gave me two other opportunities to create fully fledged audio projects. More
importantly, I was asked to narrate a trailer for his feature film Room 0, and
then to submit music, a tiny bit of sound and voice acting for several bit
parts. I now have an honest to goodness IMDB credit, which is no small thing,
and a tiny bit more paid work to offset how much I’ve invested into this
endeavor.
Richard also introduced me to Laszlo, for whom I have
recorded two different Kickstarter trailers. Since both of those projects were
successfully funded, I’d like to tell myself I had some small hand in that. So
if you’re reading this Nicola, Richard and Laszlo, thank you for your support, and for taking a chance on me.
I probably wouldn’t have continued doing this without you.
All in all, what I’ve learned from these experiences is:
while I might not be able to measure up with hundreds of other auditions in a
big project with professional actors, my semi-professional success is half-way
decent, as long as word of mouth is involved. They say networking pays off;
they were right.
I love voice acting. There’s nothing like being able to play
pretend, embody fun characters and have people pay you for the privilege. And
that’s not even counting the opportunities which exist for your boring old
voice too. All those “Bluetooth paired” and “Battery Low” messages? Voice
actors. All those corporate training modules, wonderfully fun customer service
help robots? Voice actors. I could
probably read dry, boring stuff and have fun with it too, though I might not
want to do that for free.
So why don’t I give up on writing and become a full time
voice actor? Great question. I can’t blame it on my blindness. One of the more
well-known trailer voice actors out there is blinder than I am!. Near as I can
tell, there are several things holding me back. Some are fixable, but there’s
one which might just be a deal breaker:
1.
I don’t have a professional voice booth. This
one is first because I can at least pretend. Between blankets, pillows, an
unfortunately spacious closet and some
quite decent software, I think I can hold my own. Certainly nobody has
complained to my face about it, but there might be a reason some of those other
auditions failed. It’s not like potential clients tell us why we don’t get the
part. There are two main reasons why this is hard to solve: First, real voice
booths cost money. To be fair, even if I wanted an amateur one, I could do it.
They really just need something that absorbs sound. The other problem is my
house. It doesn’t have a good space for voice work. I do most of my work either
in my bedroom if it requires real professionalism, and downstairs when it
doesn’t. Both are open spaces with reverb, a voice actor’s worst enemy. To
really get serious about this I’d need a dedicated space to at least rig up
something. Preferably a space where I wouldn’t have to take it down and put it
up all the time.
2.
I can’t justify the expense of acting classes.
This is also one of those things that is less of a big deal. I have taken a few
voice courses, and they have helped. Were I even semi-successful in this
pursuit, I could probably justify it more.
3.
I can’t read out loud. This is the number one
reason holding me back. If someone broke into my house, held a gun to my wife’s
or daughter’s head and told me to read this script or they’re dead, that’s all
folks. My brain just won’t do it. Whether using braille or speech output, it’s
like there’s a processing delay between what I hear or feel, and my brain’s
ability to read it with a good flow. I can sort of do it when speech is slowed
down to the level of human talking, but I either flub a whole lot before it
sounds good, or very much sound like I’m reading. If I got to record in my own
space, alone without anyone present, this wouldn’t be a problem. Give me a mic
and an audio editing station and I can sound very convincing. But if I’m being
paid to sit in a booth and record, I have this honest fear that no director
will want to sit through as many retakes as I’d need. I’m always excited when I
see behind the scenes recordings and actors flub their lines. It gives me hope
for myself if the professionals do it too. But I feel like the level I would
flub would make someone not want to work with me. I have yet to experience that
kind of recording session, and so am not completely sure, but the amount of
time it takes me to record even ten minutes of audio makes me fairly confident.
So okay, why not just memorize the script? After all, that’s what real
on-screen actors do. I have tried this, and sometimes I can even pull it off.
But the fact is, I have a terrible memory. I can’t retain that amount of
information
So where does that leave me? What makes me think I can ever
really break into the very competitive voice acting market? Put simply, hope.
That’s literally all I have. I’m easy to work with, professional and can take
direction well. I’m expressive and versatile. That’s it. I just don’t know if
that’s enough. And that’s why I’m very hesitant to invest in myself. No matter
how much I practice, I just can’t seem to get better at the reading out loud.
And until I do, I worry nobody will ever take me seriously, even if I can
somehow nail an audition. Which has only ever happened one time.
