Benefits and Challenges of Becoming a Voice Actor

When it comes to careers, the old adage still rings true: find a job you love and you won’t have to work a day in your life. In this day and age, complex lifestyles and technological advances offer more fields of work that simply didn’t exist a few generations over. One of those new opportunities is voice acting. A relatively simple field in its demands and scope or so it seems at first glance.

If you have a distinct voice that is easy on the ear and gets people’s attention from across the room, you might have considered taking up voice acting as a career. After all, all you need to do is read the script and say the lines in a certain way. How difficult can that be? Granted, being a voice actor might be the right career move for some people. But there are downsides to this field that you might need to know before investing your time and resources following that dream.

Voice Actor Advantages

One of the perks of being a voice actor is that you can work practically from anywhere. Unless you’re attached to a large project and you have to physically be at the studio, you could record your lines from home and send them over. And you won’t need special equipment or hi-tech recording devices either especially if you treat it as a side gig. Yet, a talented female voice actor who is serious about her job would often use hi-tech equipment to help with rehearsing and to produce top-quality material.

This freedom to work from anywhere and at your own schedule isn’t available to people who hold 9 to 5 jobs and have to be in the office every working day, whether they like it or not. At the same time, you can work as many hours as you prefer and potentially make more money than someone with a fixed salary. The more gigs you get done, the higher your revenue. If you decide to work through weekends and public holidays, that’s even more income pouring into your bank account.

One other often overlooked merit to working as a voice actor that it shares with other freelance gigs is that you become your own boss. There’s a certain liberating sense of autonomy when you realize that you have nobody to answer to but yourself. When you start work and when you call it a day, how many hours of work you put in a day, and which gigs to take up, and which ones to pass on. These are all decisions that only you can make. You don’t have to defer to a higher-up to tell you how to run your business or how to go about your day at work.

Drawbacks of Voice Acting

Voice acting has become an increasingly popular career choice, as it can even be done with a smartphone if you have some harmony in your voice. This translates into higher competition for the few gigs available.

As a dedicated voice actor with skills and experience, you might find there is not always a steady stream of work in this field. The principle of feast or famine applies here. On the other hand, there will be times when you have to turn away jobs because you have got your hands full with a large project or a few smaller ones. Other times, you might have to wait patiently for a good gig to come along.

Although simple jobs might not require more than your smooth vocal cords and a cell phone to get done, some projects demand a more expensive setup than just a smartphone. If you want to stay competitive and land high-paying gigs, then you have to invest in your own home studio. But it will be worth it, and will help you both when recording as well as rehearsing for big gigs that you have to perform on-site.

The home studio involves a soundproof booth and complex equipment with their accompanying software. The cost might be high and the learning curve steep, but these are the prerequisites of any serious voice actor worth their salt.

Many people are attracted to voice acting because it pays well, allows them the freedom to work from anywhere, and to set their own schedules. Being a voice actor means you’re your own boss. You take up the gigs you like and turn away those you don’t. But there’s another side to this coin where you might have to be patient for the next gig, and you might have to compete with other voice actors for the few jobs available.

To give yourself an edge over the competition, you need to invest in a hi-tech home studio, and spend more time learning how to use the recording equipment and software. Only then can you start to make a name for yourself and get high-paying voice acting gigs.