This debate will essentially boil down to whether a voice actor opt to belong to a union or prefer to be an independent voice over worker. And the answer to which the better option is, is often opposing to the clients and vice versa.
Christina Ho extending her hands to help others advance their welfare makes her extra inspirational. 10% of her voice over earnings are being donated to literacy and youth-oriented charities to help them find their own voice.
Seeing how most voice actors shift from their career in the radio station to the lucrative job in a recording studio is incredibly amazing. Although they already have a foundation about the nature of work, radio announcers have a lot of habits that are hard to break.
It has always been her passion since she was a kid — the irony of how she’s in love with music but hated singing in front of many people that brought her into the rewarding industry of voice acting.
Because everyone else seems to breathe on social media, we all fall prey to the temptations of sharing our good news, and voice actors are one of the entrepreneurs who enjoy the free powerful tool for self-promotion. After all, what’s the point of social media if we can’t post about the great things going on in our voice acting career?
While it’s easy for us to assume that unlicensed professions under the creative industry are generally taken without a degree or a formal education, many of us still wonder how exactly to become a voice actor and hence, we still come to ask, “Do I need a degree in acting to be a voice actor?”
It is easy to say that voice actors get paid on a per job/project basis, but it is not easy to give a definite answer as to how much. Because as much as you want to get what you’re worth, you also want to be fair and realistic.
The earnings of a voice actor varies greatly from the type of voiceover job, size of the project, your niche, your experience as a voice actor, your location, to your marketing skills. Some voice actors are worth millions. Others can make as little as $30 for a simple radio commercial in a small market. Most professional voice actors fall in between.
Voice artists being creatives are rarely shrewd entrepreneurs who are driven to work by the big figures they see ahead of them. This is commonly why some novice voice actors come across the mistake of underquoting. Because of lack of confidence and industry knowledge and thirst for the return of investment, they fail to assess the considerations in establishing their minimum rate and just accept that below fair-paying job right away.
Deciding to invest in a voiceover coach is easy. What carries the real challenge is finding the right one for you. The industry is full of great and experienced voice over coaches who have significantly contributed to many voice actors’ continuing success now. However, what worked for them won’t necessarily work for you. An effective voice over coach is relative to its student.
Your microphone is the linchpin of all your equipment – your best friend in your lifelong career as a voice actor. Despite the magic an audio editing software can do, the quality of your microphone plays the biggest role in determining the overall quality of your voice over recordings. For this ultimate reason, it’s truly a daunting task for voice actors to choose a microphone.
