Do you want to be a voiceover professional for advertisements or be an announcer on the radio?
In the second instance, I would advise you to contact one of the local radio stations and take a course in broadcasting. After finishing the course, you will have knowledge and tools to work in the field. If you have the talent, you can begin to broadcast on a night program, and from there you can advance and develop your skills. However, if you prefer to work in the voiceover field, i.e. recordings for advertisements and films etc., I will be happy to share my personal experiences with you.
To begin to work with recording studios and productions companies, you need to send them voiceover samples in the form of MP3 or WAV files. This should be done when you are ready, but if you are not then you can choose to take a course dealing with voiceover training; or you can teach yourself by listening to some of the leading broadcasters in the country and copying their intonation and pronunciation. I personally didn’t go to any school. I sat and listened to recordings of Gil Komer and Noam Aviram. I studied their style and delivery and corrected myself.
For those who find it difficult to sit and listen, it would be advisable to hire an experienced voiceover coach for private lessons. The least recommended option in my opinion is to study at a voiceover school in a group setting. This is like learning to play the piano in a group. It’s not very effective because everybody is on a different level and the pace is different for everyone. After you have become skilled at training your voice, it’s worth recording at a professional recording studio and recording samples of advertising or animated voiceover characters in films.
When you have some good sample recordings, it’s possible to contact studios and production companies (search for them on Google) and contact them. Send your best samples by email to those who oversee hiring voiceover people. It’s also possible to sign up for studios that use pre-recorded voiceover samples.
When you start to become well known in the voiceover world, you should contact voiceover talent agencies that will represent you to bigger advertising agencies. A word to the wise is before you take the big leap, you should acquire as much exposure as possible by doing smaller jobs to get the bigger ones.
After you have decided that this is the profession that you want to pursue, buying recording equipment is the next logical step. You can turn your one of your spare rooms into a mini-recording studio. Then you can work directly with customers and you won’t be dependent on big studios to record your work.
Good luck!
Written by Tehilla Zohar
http://www.tehilazohar.com
Translated by Michael Doniger