Becoming Superman

Declaring that you will follow your dreams a daunting task.  It's like standing face-to-face with someone and telling them, with no trace of humor, that you will become Superman.  Even as you write it, you feel silly, as though just the act of putting it to paper also means you believe in Santa Claus.  Thing is, it only feels silly until you actually write it out.  After that, it feels tangible, believable...doable.  Declaring it, and taking the time to let everyone know what it is you dream, gives confirmation that you believe in what you are doing, and that you might actually get from will to real.  And so....

I want to be in the business of voice over.  I want to become a voice actor for cartoons and video games.  I adore those in that line of work--people like Tom Kenny, Rob Paulsen, Billy West, Jeff Bennett, Mark Hamill, Tara Strong, Pam Adlon--who made up my entire childhood.  As a fan of animation, as a fan of voice actors, as someone who has a history of theatre and acting, and as someone who is repeatedly told that I should use my voice in some way, shape or form, I think that it would be a dream job.

But it's not an easy road to go down.  It'll take years before I'm ready to do this.  In doing research in how to make a career out of voice-over, I've heard repeatedly to take improv classes.  Luckily, Austin has quite a few improv theatres that offer classes for around $200 each level (generally 3 levels, 6-8 classes per level); cutting a quality demo reel that will act as a small sample of my range will take even more money.  Not that any of that will land me a job.  As voice over has gained more notoriety, the competition for voice acting jobs is more fierce (luckily, I'm told that the voice acting community is really great about getting each other work).  

And beyond simply marketing my voice, I have to go to places where there are jobs.  I'm fortunate that Austin has a large presence of video game companies, but the mass bulk of VO work is in LA.  And even if I become an established voice over actor, work isn't guaranteed.  It's all freelance contract work; the hardest part about the job is actually getting jobs.  There are only a few people who are called upon to play the same voice for years and years; for most, it's one-off characters in a single episode, or a no-name villager in a stand-alone video game.

So why pursue it?  Because I'm tired of simply waiting for something to come my way.  I've discovered that I have a baseline voice that is, on its own, capable of creating a wide variety of characters.  I'm terrible at impressions, but I can give a voice and personality to a character pretty easily.  Of course, when it comes to voice acting, you're an actor before you're a voice--that's where the improv classes come in.  I'm hoping the improv classes will help me loosen up and find characters that I can sustain for long periods of time, as well as teach me techniques to stay fresh and keep different personas from bleeding into each other.

This is what I want to do, and it is the first career that I've ever tried to pursue outside of retail.  I don't know whether I will succeed.  I don't know if I'll even like it (though I have an idea that I will).  But I think I can do it, and I'm beginning to take the necessary steps to get there.  It'll take an incredibly long time, but I'm willing to be patient with it.  And perhaps, one day in the future, someone will come up to me and say, "Hey, I recognize your voice!  My son watches you every Saturday morning...you're Superman!"