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To secure a job in any industry you need skill voice acting isn’t any different. Plenty of people are drawn to voice acting and voice-over work because of the freedom and work-from-anywhere aspect. Although voice acting offers some level of freedom, it’s a labor-intensive job that requires hard work, dedication, and plenty of skill if you want to get paid fairly.
Premium Voice Acting Classes
Like most acting classes, high-grade voice acting classes will come at a price. You may even consider getting a voice acting coach to develop your skill one-on-one. But, this depends on how far you want to go as a voice actor and how much you’re willing to invest at the start of your career. To help you get started, here’s a list of what I’d call high-grade online voice acting classes for beginners.
The Fundamentals of Voice Over – The Voice Shop
The Voice Shop is based in NYC, however, due to COVID-19 they’re hosting classes online via Zoom. They’ll send you a link to the Zoom class on the day of the class you booked. The fee for the class is $150 and is hosted by Michael George. This two and a half hour class includes an industry overview, developing an authentic voice, voice over techniques, and a one-on-one evaluation. This is the ideal course for anyone beginning in voice acting and voice over.
Animation Voice Over Workshop – The Voice Shop
This two and a half hour class is hosted by Steve Tardio and includes the fundamentals you’d want to learn if you want a career in animation, e-learning, feature films, or web series.
Maximize Your Audition – The Voice Shop
Most of the time you spend as a voice actor, you’ll spend auditioning. Even if you already have some acting experience, voice acting auditions are wildly different. By attending this course, you can expect to learn all there is to know about submitting an audition and getting a callback. Andy Roth, who happens to be “one of New York’s busiest casting directors,” hosts the class.
Recording Vocals Like a Pro: Nail Recording Techniques and Acoustics – Skillshare
To gain access to this course, you need a Skillshare subscription. However, of the voice acting and voiceover classes on Skillshare, this has to be one of the best. The instructor walks you through the basics of setting up an at-home recording studio as a voice actor and details what you need to know about mic placement, recording techniques, room acoustics, and so on.
Advanced Articulation Course – Darren McStay $99
Articulation is one of the most fundamental skills you need to have as a voice actor. You can’t mumble or swallow your words, but you need to speak clearly and naturally. This is the ideal voice acting class if you’re not a naturally clear speaker or want to improve your articulation, so you sound better in recordings.
Online Acting Classes
You may wonder why online acting classes are also on this list about voice acting classes. But a core element of voice acting is acting. You need to be able to carry a character or narration convincingly. But plenty of actors also speak and enunciate clearly, which is why many actors also have some work in the voice-over industry.
The clearer and more convincing your voice sounds, the more jobs you’re likely to get, and the easier it will be for you to advance.
Natalie Portman – Masterclass
Natalie Portman’s 2-hour long class takes you on a journey on how to craft your character through research, dialect coaching, and working with directors and improv. As a voice actor, these are skills you can use to develop your career.
Samuel L Jackson – Masterclass
Samuel L Jackson takes you through character development, auditioning, character voices, and building business relationships. Having this information can help you better explore a variety of characters and voices as a voice actor and help you improve your auditions.
Voice Training Lessons on YouTube
If you want to dabble in voice acting but don’t want to commit to shelling out cash for acting classes, you can still learn basic principles of voice acting in these YouTube videos and playlists.
How To Be A Voice Actor – Joe Zieja
This is a playlist by Joe Zieja, a voice actor with tons of experience. In this playlist, he teaches his audience voice recording basics, including setting up a microphone, corporate voice overs, anime voice overs, and rates.
How To Create 100 Distinctly Different Voices – Improve Your Voice
Besides having premium classes, Darren McStay also gives free tutorials and lessons on his YouTube channel. One of them is this video, where he details how you can create 100 distinctly different voices. Spoiler Alert: you can create 699.840 using the techniques he outlines – but you’ll probably be able to perfect 100 or so.
Voice Acting 101
Although Voice Acting 101 is a dormant account, you can still learn the basics of voice acting, including reviews on products, getting into voice acting, and how to complete online auditions.
2 Minute Tips – Improve Your Voice
Darren McStay has even more tips and tricks that you’ll need to know if you want to be a full-time voice actor. In this playlist, he keeps his tips concise, so they’re easy to remember and enact. But, if you have the time to watch longer videos, he also has a how-to playlist with 27 videos.
How To Start Voice Acting
In this 17-minute video, Anna Brisbin of Brizzy voices details how you can start a career in voice acting. She includes cities and states to move to if you want to pursue a specific genre of voice acting.
There are a variety of ways you can enter the world of voice acting, and many genres you can explore. With all these resources, there’s no excuse not to start.
