Acting : What Do You Expect from a Pro Voice Talent? by Randye Kaye

I've hired voice talent but I also am voice talent as well so it's most of the time people I've worked with before. But I still cast projects and when I do, I look for people with drive, a good attitude and talent. As to what makes a pro, that's pretty subjective. Some people define professional as when you conduct yourself as such, another person I've talked to defined it as "Having made money acting at least once", and to others, it's those that make a living doing it. I tend to call someone professional if they've done voice acting for a long time and even if they don't make it as their sole source of income, have a good resume and have been in professional projects or if they make a living at it.

thanks, Rachel! Some other things I've heard that make the client's job easier: -VO Talent responds to direction, can change tone, tempo, emphasis. -Fun to work with -delivers on time or before -sound quality of studio is pro

I was just talking about this last night. I hired a guy to record a commercial. I had written two characters. I could read it myself with the two different voices of the two characters. But the guy I hired had one voice, and one speed. His voice was great, but it made no sense when he was playing two characters, there was no differentiation between the two. So YES! Take direction, change tempo, emphasis, pitch, accent...

Subjectively: I wish I could explain it better, but it's a certain energy and intensity that they turn on. Objectively: Someone who stays out of vocal fry, unless that's what the role calls for.

Thanks, Joe and Perry. And the "vocal fry" comment made me laugh! It does get old, doesn't it?

Ira Glass did a story about it a few months ago on NPR, and apparently it's so annoying to some people that they've made violent threats! Haha

Joe I found this convo via Rachael who, as I just told her in my invite seems to be everywhere I go, to market my burgeoning VO adventure. I began in 2009 but didn't do much and stopped altogether in late 2010 or 2011, until recently when I decided to give it another try, having learned a myriad of mistakes that I had made the first time. That said I have a VO audition that I did that fits this conversation that I'd like to share, it required 3, radically different, voices all done by me, I was one of the runners up and did not get the job but I keep it as a demo. It's a spoof on the Rush Hour movie trailer, for some reason the client wanted the Movie Trailer guy to be Australian, Wasn't too sure about how to pronounce Calamari with the Aussie accent but they never said anything about it. BTW after several attempts to edit the parts together I eventually settled on doing them in a single take and just switching characters. Here it is https://soundcloud.com/user-68549863/3-character-demo

Sean, good work, but I had to go looking for the audio. The Soundcloud link isn't working. Found it here http://vowizard.com You should also have something under your Video/Audio tab on your Stage 32 page.