Everybody want to be a Voice Over actor. I mean, it’s easy right?
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! 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.