Voice Talent

There are many questions and misconceptions about how casting on pay-to-play (P2P) sites work. The client side of pay-to-play is a mystery to many voice actors. Before becoming a partner at the all new VOPlanet.com, I cast more than a thousand voice over jobs. Many were posted on pay-to-play sites. That makes me what the industry calls a “client” or “voice buyer.” I have bee­­­n casting on various platforms for fourteen years. I would like to share my knowledge of how things look on the voice buyer’s side of a pay-to-play site and answer some of the most common questions asked by voice actors. Let’s dive in.

These days, there’s a podcast for everything. Voice over is no exception. Who loves to talk about talking more than voice actors? Plus, we already have all the cool gear to make a podcast! With so many voice actors cranking out podcasts, it's tough to know which ones are worth your time. As always, VOPlanet is here to make things easy. Here are seven voice over podcasts that we highly recommend.

Can voice actors work from home? Absolutely! Voice acting is very much a home-based business these days. Today’s voice actors not only work from home, they build full-blown professional recording studios in their homes. These are beautiful studios that rival the best that LA or NYC has to offer. Like you, we at VOPlanet geek out over gear, especially when it is set up in such amazing spaces. So, we chatted with the expert: George “The Tech” Whittam, who gave us a peek behind the mic of two of his custom built voice over studios.

Becoming a voice actor can be lucrative. Plus, you can work from home and you become a member of the vibrant voice over community. While there are many benefits to voice acting, starting a career in voice overs requires careful consideration. Read on for straightforward, actionable steps for starting a career in voice acting.

“I would never join a pay-to-play.” We hear it every day. Some voice actors have a negative opinion about pay-to-play voice over casting sites. While there are a few sites that deserve to be looked down on, the negative view of P2P sites in general, is largely based on misconceptions. And there is a particular set of voice actors who like to position themselves as too cool to join a P2P VO site. Face it, bashing P2P is popular. Everyone loves to jump on Facebook and post the latest P2P outrage. While there are actual issues on some sites, that does not hold true for all pay-to-play sites. And the idea that the only way to properly market your voice over business is by contacting clients directly simply isn’t true.

The demand for a neutral international sound has popularized a voice over accent that is not quite American, British or European. Transatlantic voice overs, also known as Mid-Atlantic English, International English or Neutral English, are in demand and voice actors who have mastered the accent are being cast with increasing frequency. Voice buyers and voice actors are sometimes unsure of what exactly Neutral English is. To get a better idea we went to the experts. We talked to Juliette Gray and J. Michael Collins, two of the top professional voice actors who book Transatlantic voice over work, about what the accent is, how it’s being used and what exactly it sounds like.