There are many different genres of VO so when you first enter the industry it can be a bit overwhelming trying to decide which is your niche and where your talent really lies. Examples of the different genres include: Commercial, Documentary, Audiobook, Animation, E-Learning, IVR, Apps, GPS Navigation, Narration, Video Games, Radio imaging
We could go on. The list above is not exhaustive and as technology develops the chances are that even more opportunities will open up for the budding voice over artist. This is great news and affords even more earning opportunities and more options for getting your voice heard in what is a pretty crowded marketplace.
Most VO artists will start off with a narration and commercial demo. These demos are good for getting a foot in the door and there is plenty of work to be had in these genres. It is pretty competitive though and it takes a lot of persistence and hard work to get noticed but once you are, you can pick up work and start creating a nice portfolio for yourself.
After you’ve got some good experience under your belt you will probably want to branch out into other voice over genres. This is especially the case if you are one of those VO artists who can do loads of different things with their voice and you want to carve out a career in animation voice over or video games.
This is when you will need to start creating different demos for each genre that you might be interested in. If you want to get into animation and video games you will need to create an animation and video game demo. Same for any genre. You may have a desire to do audio books, guess what? – you’re going to need an audiobook demo!
For every genre that you want to get into, you will need to have a different demo. Whatever you do, don’t mix up the different genres on the same demo. This is just confusing for the client and will not create the best impression for you.
The more versatile you can be with your voice, the better. It opens up more opportunities for work and you can really start to build your voice over career. However, you do need to be honest with yourself. If you’re not very good at creating wacky voices or being overly enthusiastic with your voice then you are probably not going to get the animation and video game jobs.
By contrast, if you are not able to spend hours on end in a studio working on one long project, then audio book is probably not your calling either.
Play around with your voice, work with a voice over coach and explore what you can do. This way you will find your niche and you will discover how you want to direct your VO career.
How many demos have you created? What is your experience of working with VO coaches? Do you think having a niche is important? Please share your thoughts here.
Tracy-Ann Leith liked this on Facebook.
Interesting read. It’s difficult to decide on what your niche is when really I’d like to have a go at everything and be as versatile as possible.