VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

[Neil K. Hess]

Do you think that some people are just hard-wired to be incapable of delivering a believable VO performance, or do you think ANYONE can given enough practice and training? I tend to be a pretty black and white person so the "subjectivity" of what makes a voice over "good" can escape me at times and I start to wonder: "am I struggling because of genetics or just going through what everyone does?"

[Dan-O]

[Philip Banks]

There is a post millennium school of thought that goes "make a living in your PJs and never go out ever". NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! Whilst an individual may be reserved or shy the performer is alive and kicking. The introvert VO success is a myth as people hear the person hiding not the performance.

Any good VO coach can tell if someone is going stand a chance in our business. The trick is to find one of the three good VO coaches.

We need to buy only one mic but must own every room.

[iannyc]

My mom is a very talented actress though she became a teacher; I always tell people that Michelle Pheifer's character in Dangerous Minds was based on her!

She studied acting with the legendary George Morrison, who said he only had one student who he was certain would never be any good. One day he had a breakthrough. And so he decided to never try to proclaim an actor 'talented' ot 'untalented' again.

Oh that actor's name is Gene Hackman.

But I guess thats the attitude that makes one a good teacher.

Agreed on the PJ's thing!!

I was kind of an introvert once upon a time but I learned to hack my brain to become extroverted; it was one of the most rewarding things Ive ever done.

[Mike Harrison]

One example to echo Bob's belief that actors et al are born: the story goes that Alan Alda (best known as Hawkeye Pierce in TV's 'M*A*S*H') took only ONE acting class. Not an acting course; a single class... and decided he learned all he needed to learn.
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

[Bruce]

One definition of an actor is someone who still can get under a card table covered with a sheet and pretend it's a fort. Voiceover, even if it's relatively cut and dried, is a form of acting. Even in that case it should at least be an enhanced version of yourself.

Acting is letting loose and not caring if you make a fool of yourself. So many of us had parents who said "children should be seen and not heard".

(old joke: we spend the first few years of a child's life teaching it how to talk and then several more years telling it to shut up.)

To be a good actor you have to really, really want to go through the exercises of being somebody else, inhabiting their soul, inhabiting their emotions, and portraying them convincingly, and while VO doesn't necessarily require the physicality of stage acting, it isn't very far behind.

Some people just can't or won't let themselves open up. Take those people who move to America and never lose their home accent such as publisher Arianna Huffington. She lived in the UK for 14 years and been in the US for 36 more years and still has an incredibly thick Greek accent. She's very bright, but can't make the change. We've seen many who can lose their accent in a year or two.

My suggestion, of course, is try a couple of serious acting classes. See if you can lose your inhibitions and be someone else for brief periods of time. If so, VO could be for you. If not, there's absolutely no shame in saying you tried, and moving on to any of the million other fine professions out there.

B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[Rob Ellis]

I have observed that there are some successful performers who are introverts or have introvert tendencies. But they succeed because their desire to perform overcomes their introversion, and because they cease to be introverts once they start performing.

[Bob Bergen]

Agree, Rob! I am painfully shy. But I'm able to step out of my shy self when I'm acting. It's actually very freeing. I have a lot of very successful/well known actor friends the public would be shocked to learn are beyond shy.

[iannyc]

Alan Alda mightve had only one class, but his papa Robert likely had a few more

Is anyone teaching a class on how to have a famous actor dad??

[NorthEndVoice]

Love this quote.I have it framed in the studio.


The essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it.

- Orson Welles

[Philip Banks]

I love that quote, never seen it before. Read it again and then visit the Gear section here and look at the things people discuss on the Facetube Voice Over Groups THEN say out loud.

"Ah! I think I've identified a HUGE problem!"

[Bish]

To swing back to the original question... to put it bluntly, if everyone could do everything, then why would we be willing to single out people who are particularly good at things... after all, if that were the case, there but for a little more practice go we all!

There are things I have no inherent ability for... one of those is swinging a piece of wood through the air and making contact with a ball (moving or otherwise). No amount of practice and training will make me any more than a perfunctorily adequate sportsman. No flair, no style, no ability. I'll leave that to the sportsmen who think it's important. But it's not about desire either, while I may not have any craving to be a sportsman, I have tried (so very desperately) for fifty years to be something other than a bad musician with a chronic inability to play beyond the level of pathetic fumbling (I still keep trying and having fun though!)

So, vive la difference! Celebrate your inadequacies for they let others shine... but don't confuse these inherent inabilities with a perfectly natural crisis of confidence, for that's the stuff that keeps us on our toes and makes us work harder. Even Tiger Woods wakes up some mornings thinking he's crap*

* I know, not the most current sports reference and maybe not even accurate... but as you probably picked up from the post, I don't do sport!
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Bish a.k.a. Bish
Smoke me a kipper... I'll be back for breakfast.
I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls.

[juliaknippen]

Seth Godin's blog post today sums it up nicely:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2016/12/one-way-to-think-about-talent.html

[Rob Ellis]

Just get to work and don't worry about whether you are "good enough".

Do all that you can and let go of the results. Easier said than done, believe me, I know.

[Philip Banks]

People in Detroit know sh*t!