I took an online Webinar session with Steve Blum and here's what I learned from him

NOTE: This is a post I made over a year ago. It was posted on the older version of my website, which used a different website builder. This whole post is carried over to here with a few changes to make it flow better.

INTRODUCTION

    So for a while, I've been pondering about what I've been wanting to do for an acting career ever since I first started college. I came in knowing that I wanted to do theatre so much, but at the same time, I want to expand my horizons so I can at least build up an interest in what I want to do! Some people, including my family, have told me that I should do voice acting since I create all kinds of silly voices. That's why I somehow came across this: Steve Blum's webinar on how to do well as a Voice Actor. Those of you who don't know him, Steve has had this career for 30 years of voicing different characters in cartoons, video games, and anime. That includes Zeb from Star Wars: Rebels, Wolverine from the X-Men cartoons and video games, and Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop, just to name a few. Now then, let's dive into the meat and potatoes of what I learned about being a Voice Actor and those things are crucial to understand if you want to get anywhere in the business.

EVERYTHING YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT VOICE OVER

    Something I felt was outstanding to me was when doing voice acting, there may be an occurrence where one day, you're rehearsing something you've probably been on to for a long while. Then suddenly a day or two after, the director gives you an ENTIRELY new script for you to work with, giving you some anxiety on why you're doing it and how you're supposed to go about it. Well thankfully, there's a way to overcome that anxiety. First off, breathing would be the best course of action just to keep yourself relaxed and by doing so, you not only learn to master listening skills, you eventually overcome anything that's thrown at you. This is part of a system that Steve himself has created, those things being Listening, Taking A Risk, and Looking Stupid. As long as you can do something that makes it seem like you're having fun while concentrating on the material you were just given, then you'll be just fine and you might thrive in the business for it. So rather than being intimidated and shut down by something you weren't prepared for, you can use this occurrence as an opportunity to get creative and build an entirely new character.

    Now to talk about something that you may or may not think about too much: The differences between anime, video games, and original animation. "How are they all different?" is a question I bet you're asking right now. It mainly has to do with the style of these types of media, but there's more to it than just that alone when it comes to Voice Overs. With anime, you're forced to work in the constraints of the original work given that you're dubbing what is essentially a Japanese cartoon into English. Voice directors dubbing animes to English will try to get a performance that fits the tone, but half the time, it feels out of place whereas with Western Cartoons, it's the complete opposite where voice actors record their performances for the animators to work with. Video Games will doddle around in both of these areas, but that's become so easy to pull off thanks to motion capture activity, bringing any scene to life and grounding it in reality. The downsides to doing voice overs is there will come a point where you could stress out your voice if you're not careful; you REALLY want to keep yourself in control when yelling, shouting, and screaming. You might possibly end up harming not only yourself, but also the people who want you to do the voice. Most importantly, you need to know WHY you want to do voice overs and learn HOW to make a good performance.

    One last important thing that I should mention is you need to know WHY you want to do Voice Overs and learn HOW to do well at it. I mentioned before that looking stupid is part of the learning process of voice acting, but when looking stupid by doing "silly voices", you're realistically getting creative as you try to make a new character for a different show. However, if you want some recognition from a big name studio to invite you to an audition, it would be a good idea to have some Demo Reels to show off what you're capable of. The reason why you should do this is because it can help you grow and do better to see what you would be best suited for. Not everyone can nail it in one shot so if you want a demo reel that sounds and looks good, keep shooting new takes until you feel confident enough to get it out there. It will take some time for some one to find your demo reel and decide whether or not you're worth their time, but when you don't get called for an audition, don't give up right away. Take some time out of your life to keep trying, whether it be every day after work, in the morning at four or five, or after working out because one thing that everyone should consider important is FAILURE IS SUCCESS! Failing is also a good way to learn from your mistakes, and trust me, I've felt failure hit me in the face like a brick many times and not once have I given up (My WCSU Theatre experience in a nut shell). As Will Smith would say, "Fail Early, Fail Often, Fail Forward." How I would put it, now that he mentions it, "Failure is art!"

THE BOTTOM LINE

    To close off this long talk about Voice Acting, I would like to suggest taking some voice acting classes with Steve Blum (just beware that they're expensive, but they're more than worth it). Steve will teach you a whole lot more about Voice Overs with tons of great classes, such as Guided Meditation, Taking Direction, Cold Readings, Mic Techniques, and more. He runs at least 30 classes a year and it would be beneficial to take a full year of classes, even if you're just getting into Voice Overs. So thank you, Steve Blum, for teaching me some wonderful lessons in Voice Overs and here's to you and all your fellow students who wish to take on this career!

You can check out his website here: https://www.blumvoxstudios.com