I love working in Voice Over and that is why I do it.

Unfortunately  why most people get into it is for the lifestyle and/or the money.

Silly, Silly, People.

"I'm just in it for the Money!"

Though they both may be great products of a successful VO career, they don’t provide the drive for attaining a successful career.

The Hope must be fueled by the right desire.  In my opinion, that desire is the WORK itself.

Money and Lifestyle make for false hope’s that are much easier to disappoint.

The Good

You show up to work in your T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.  You read a few words that you don’t have to memorize, drink coffee, eat free food, and then about an hour later go home to your fantastic VO pad, pour the Margarita’s and wait for the fat checks to come raining down like candy at a 4th of July Parade.

The Bad

You send out your demo, that cost you 1500 dollars, to potential agents for the 3rd time and for the 3rd time they tell you they have too many people with your voice on the roster.  You take class after class, go to audition after audition, and then finally you get a booking… and it’s to be voice #2 for Sun Drop Soda.  

It’s your big break!  Your part consists of saying “Awesome!” and the commercial is going to run in the SouthEast and Wisconsin.  You go home to your one room garden apartment, fire up the hot plate for afternoon Ramen and Beans and wait for your $250 check to arrive 2 months late.

The Ugly

Your Agent calls you in the morning (all good agent calls come in the morning), to tell you , that you just booked “The Voice Of…”  You have multiple recording sessions from your new home studio, and you know spend more time on the phone with your agent then your girlfriend/boyfriend.

You buy the car/shoes/house/boat/ski condo on the beach (just cause you can).  You pay for dinner… for the table next to you. The sessions just keep coming and the fat checks arrive in your mailbox like pre approved credit cards.

Then one day while watching your 70 inch Waterproof Hovercraft LCD that’s floating above the pool, you see your commercial… except the voice at the end isn’t you… somebody else is “The Voice of…”.

You call your agent, he says they went a different direction/lost the account/is as shocked as you.  

It was your only account, the fat checks go anorexic.  Your monthly bills rivals the  GDP of Guam, but you’re so used to spending like Bradgelina and investing like Madoff that you find yourself sleeping in your friends garage next to his Ferret Farm wishing you could  go home to your one room garden apartment, fire up the hot plate for afternoon Ramen and Beans and wait for your $250 check to arrive 2 months late.

At a friends college graduation party, her mother asked my what I was going to do with my life.  I told her , “Be an Actor.”  She smiled at me and said, “Yes, Yes, I know you’re going to be an Actor, but what about when you want to have a family?  What do you want to do then?”  “Be an Actor.”  “ Alright it’s great you want to be an actor, but when that doesn’t work, what then?”  My eyebrows furrowed in misunderstanding, had she not heard me the first and second time? So like Peter on the shores of Galilee, I answered a third time.  “Be an Actor.”  Exasperated at her perceived refusal of me to understand her question, she changed tactics.  “Well what is success?”  Having never given though to that question before, I answered immediately, as if I’d been waiting my whole life to answer it. “ Making a living doing what I love.”

That is now what I do.