Are you looking for a career or side gig in voice over animation or other types of voice acting jobs?
By reading this post, you discover that animation voice over jobs are not the only kind of jobs for voice over actors.
Be sure to stay until the end when you will get to hear the contributing author’s voice-over acting in various commercials.
The guide starts by offering information about voice over animation and then shares what you need to know about landing a career in other types of voice over jobs.
What is Voice Over Acting?
Voiceover or Voice Over?
Voice over acting, also spelled “voice-over” or “voiceover” entails adding an additional voice to a recording’s narrative.
Voice over actors may be needed to add their vocal talents to documentaries, commercials and audio books. Naturally, voice over animation is required for media types such as cartoons.
Voice actors are often required for video games and automated phone messages.
When voice over actress Juliette Gray heard Mostly Blogging was recommending jobs in voice over animation as a lucrative side gig, she responded with the information in this article to Mostly Blogging’s readers.
Juliette, take it away!
Voice Over Animation
Voice over animation is a type of voice over acting.
Animation is a very particular kind of voice over that is very difficult to get into and there is a group of 20 or 30 artists who have the shoe in on these but a crack in the door for those who aspire, plus all the celebrity voices they use for the theatrical movies.
Voice Over Acting Jobs
- video games
- voice over animation
- commercials
- explainer videos
- e-courses
- audio books
Disadvantages of Voice Over Animation and More Voice Acting Jobs
There are video games, but games do not pay residuals.
Other than video games and voice over animation, everything else comes under different genres.
Commercials are the biggest money makers and there again are controlled by the top agents in town. National commercials are usually SAG (Screen Actors Guild) Regional work and things like the ads on You Tube referred to as pre-roll are usually non-union, as is Explainer Videos, E-Learning and non-broadcast work.
Audio books can be union or non-union and a real slog (exhausting work). It takes between 3-4 hours to complete one finished hour of a book. By finished hour that means proofing and editing as well. It’s the editing that takes much longer than the recording.
If it’s a prestigious job, sometimes you will be provided with an editor, or if it is well paid enough, you can outsource the editing.
Your article about voice acting jobs tells some of the story – but not all:
As far as it being a part time job for students, I would say that is unlikely.
Voice Over is a huge investment of private coaching, building a web site, making demos, having a professional mic and pre-amp and a sound proof recording space that has the right acoustics. You may even decide to pay for voice lessons.
After all that, then there is the issue of actually getting work which is really a job in itself. If you are fortunate enough to have regular clients that is great – otherwise it’s a lot of auditioning amongst a huge pool of people. Of course, there are the stars of the industry who have created a niche for themselves.
Before Covid, things were much more social. With a lot of things, voice actors would do a lot at their agents’ offices, but during Covid, a lot of people had to up the quality of their home studios.
There is something called Source Connect which is a pristine way of being directed and the jobs are recorded on the other end with a flawless connection, a hard wired connection rather than Wifi.
Voice Over Pay: A Race to the Bottom
Then there is the added thing about rates. How much you are going to charge unless the client proposes a rate but it’s also prudent to consider conflicts – if you do a job for say Toyota and then a better job comes up for Honda you may be automatically disqualified as it’s a conflict.
So if a job comes along for a major brand at very low pay, you might feel you should turn it down because of a much better potential opportunity. You may also turn a voice over job down if the client asks for In Perpetuity for obvious reasons.
In many respects, as far as rates are concerned, it has become a race to the bottom.
I started at a time when I was going to quite a few conventions and met a lot of people.
The convention world as become massive in the last few years and is an industry in itself. There are also a lot of (too many) Facebook groups.
Voice Over Animation: FAQ
How much does an animation voice over actor get paid?
For voice over actors, it is a race to the bottom of the pay scale. Two competing brands may say you have a conflict of interest. If you work for one company, the other may not higher you. Also, voice over actors carve out a niche which is hard to break into in order to make anything. Finally, you have to put out your own money for equipment such as private coaching, building a web site, making demos, having a professional mic and pre-amp and a sound proof recording space that has the right acoustics. which cuts into your income.
Wrapping Up: Voice Over Animation
So that’s then skinny on the inside of what may seem like a fun part time job – YET there is something about it that is challenging and enjoyable. There are many people I know that are making a huge amount of money between working top jobs, coaching and running conventions.
With all of the skills required, there is a huge amount of rejection and you are only as good as your last job.
The VO (Voice Over) community is really fearful about how the AI voices are getting so good that AI will be able to eliminate many types of jobs. I got an audition recently where they had already done the spot with AI but wanted to hear the same script with a human voice. I have to tell you that the AI voice was pretty darn good and would have saved them a lot of money.
Related: Chat GPT Account
In closing, this article shared information valuable to people looking for jobs in voice over animation as well as more voice over jobs.
Juliette admits a voice over job is fun and has the potential to make a great deal amount of money. However, voice over actors seeking jobs in voice over animation and other jobs requiring vocal talents should know the downsides presented in this article before seeking work in the voice over industry.
Author Bio
Juliette Gray is a British female voice over actor. She works in both neutral British English and Transatlantic American English. Juliette is located in Los Angeles.
Juliette works from her own professional studio, with a TLM 103 mic, APOLLO Interface, Twisted Wave software and offers Source Connect Standard.Â
Juliette has studied and been mentored by some of the top voice over coaches, including J. Michael Collins, Tim Friedlander, Cathy Kalmenson, Marc Cashman and many others. She continues to hone her craft in workshops and conventions.
Please visit www.juliettegrayvo.com for a full bio, client list and audio and video demos. Â
Juliette is a voting member of BAFTA and a proud member of SAG-AFTRA.
If you would like a sampling of Juliette’s Voice Over work, click the Play button.
Readers, please share so voice actors discover this guide to the advantages and disadvantages of voice acting jobs.
I look forward to your views in the comments section. What was your reaction to Juliette’s inside knowledge of the voice over acting industry?
