Feature
Voice Acting: A New Career Opportunity
If you think narrating audiobooks is a leisurely occupation, think again.
By Esther Tolkoff
Avid audiobook fans often ask publishers and others in the industry how they themselves can become professional readers. These fans picture themselves behind the microphone enthralling the production crew and the thousands of people who will later listen attentively in their cars or at home.
As the saying goes, there’s good news and, well, not exactly “bad” news, but sobering news, for the hopeful beginner. The good news is that quite a few newcomers have “broken in” and recorded audiobooks for recognized publishers. The more sobering news is that the reader’s actual work is not at all as easy as it, quite literally, sounds. Producers have a keen ear for who can do it and who either can’t or, perhaps, just isn’t ready yet. And there’s a lot of competition out there.
Audiobook readers are often referred to as “voice actors.” The majority has either theater training and experience, commercial voice-over experience, or both. Voice actors, also called “narrators” or “readers,” follow casting techniques common to other areas of professional performing.
In the audiobook world, the casting director is usually a studio producer. The potential reader submits a “demo” tape and cover letter and, if there’s a track record of experience to show off, a resume. The larger publishing houses–Simon and Schuster, Bantam-Doubleday-Dell, Random House, etc.—and even some of the medium-sized houses—often hire independent producers for the various projects underway. These independent producers tend to seek demo tapes from agents who represent professional actors in the acting union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA). Once the independent producers narrow down their narrator choices, they seek final approval from the publishers’ in-house producers.
The bigger the publishing house, the more likely it is to want a celebrity reader. But newcomers to audiobook reading often do submit their own demo tapes. They stand their best chance with medium-sized publishers of unabridged books. It’s wise to call and ask to whom to send a demo–an in-house staffer or an outside person the company works with.
The demo tape should include two five-minute readings–one straightforward narrative and one fictional segment requiring characterization. Some producers only want to hear tapes recorded in a studio. Others prefer the most natural rendering of the narrator’s voice. Claudia Howard of Recorded Books says, “Send something that is simply the basic you. Read something you feel comfortable cast in. Don’t do fancy accents or overdone character types. We know there’s no way you can show us all your talents in five minutes.”
But as Dr. Frederic Flach, a psychiatrist who has read five audiobooks for Hatherleigh Audio, soon learned, “You can’t just sit down and start reading. You have to know what words to stress, where to pause, so you can communicate the sense of the text.” Dr. Flach has read four books on health for laymen, including his own The Secret Strength of Depression, plus his nonfiction book, Rickie. He points out that he had acting training as a teenager and has performed in plays.
Veteran narrator Barbara Caruso, who has won the American Foundation for the Blind’s prestigious Alexander Scourby Award for her recording work for that organization, stresses, “You must have a pleasant voice people will want to listen to for hours, and you must keep them interested in what you’re saying with that voice. It’s best to be free of regionalisms except when they’re called for in a character.” Caruso was already a professional theater actress when she began working as a reader. Her most recent audiobooks include Margaret Truman’s First Ladies and Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean, both for Recorded Books.
Standard American or British English is indeed the norm, but producer Susan Mackewich of BAM Media Services observes, “A book may come along that suits you perfectly if you have a different accent or sound. American literature is becoming more diversified, with more African-American books, Asian-American books, books from all parts of our society. We submit tapes of narrators with many types of voices and accents. Publishers do pick them if they sound right for a given book.”
Sounding “natural” doesn’t mean the work is easy. Especially reading fiction, which calls for superb dramatic skills. The reader must be able to shift quickly from one character to another.
Well-known narrator Barbara Rosenblat has recorded more than 90 audiobooks, including the popular Mrs. Pollifax mystery series by Dorothy Gillman and the Amelia Peabody mystery series by Elizabeth Peters, both for Recorded Books. She has theater experience in Great Britain and the United States and has done much commercial voice-over work. “In reading an audiobook, I may have to be a man, an elderly person, a child and then switch back to my own voice several times within seconds,” she stresses. “Not only that, I may have to convey that these characters are speaking to one another, each with a different emotion—one angry, one timid. It’s as if I’m inviting the listeners into a room with me and all the characters are in there with us. I have to see it and feel it and make the listeners see it and feel it, too, and it must sound real.
“I also have to do all of this quickly because studio time is money. While the director may stop you to ask for a different reading and studios may bring people back once to patch in corrections, you generally read straight through for hours, and you can’t stop being aware of every character and phrase for a second.”
Producers and voice actors alike agree that the ability to be a storyteller is at the root of good narration. Listeners want to feel as if they’re being read to personally. “A listener is alone in the car with a headset,” says Florence Barrau-Adams, a producer at Simon and Schuster Audio. “The narrator can’t sound like he or she is reading but must sound as if he or she is chatting directly with the listener. I’ve seen famous performers come out of the studio saying this was far more difficult than they’d expected and that the experience made them better actors.”
“This is a very intimate medium,” agrees Barbara Rosenblat, “and my voice is my only tool. I can’t use facial expressions or gestures.”
Barbara Caruso warns against overacting. “If your changes of character aren’t subtle, you’ll sound like a cartoon,” she says.
Readers usually receive their scripts only days before stepping into the studio to read for hours. The pros do their underscoring, marking for phrasing and pauses, working out characters’ voices and motivations extremely quickly. “The average person has no idea how difficult narrating is,” says Audiofile editor Robin Whitten. “At one point, I was dying to do this and sure I’d be good at it. But when I heard my recording played back, I knew right away it was just not good enough.
“Performing in this business,” Whitten stresses, “takes a lot of training, practice and natural ability. So I found a way to pursue my passion for audiobooks through AudioFile.”
With Preparation and Perseverance–There’s Hope
While the well-known in the industry are called repeatedly, new people do break into this “insider’s” world. Simon and Schuster’s Barrau-Adams feels that nonfiction narration is the best bet for newcomers.
Actress Beverly Butler of Connecticut found this to be the case. In addition to doing commercial voiceovers, she had narrated several “industrials” for corporations. This led to her landing an assignment for HighBridge Audiobooks as narrator of a book for high school students, How to Study, by Ron Fry.
Susan Mackewich points out that, as is the case in other areas of show business, a person may be rejected for a role, not because of lack of talent, but because he or she just isn’t right for that book. “On the other hand,” she says, “sometimes we have a sense that a person with little experience has what it takes. We’ll submit their tapes for things we think they’re right for, and more than once it’s paid off.”
High school teacher Renee Maxwell’s demo sat in BAM’s files for a few years. Her only professional experience was doing some public service announcements for the State of New Jersey and some local theater, but she had no audiobook experience. Yet Chivers Audio picked her to read Night Watch, by Karen Robards. Stephanie Swafford is physical fitness expert who had previously been a television producer but had never done an audiobook. She was selected by Thorndike Audio to read The Carriage Trade, by __?___.
Producer Karen Froman of Simon and Schuster notes that special skills, such as speaking a foreign language (into which books are likely to be translated) may give a person an edge. Businessman Gino DiGrandi was a child actor on New York City’s Italian language radio station and had youthful theatrical experience. But he hadn’t done audio or acting work for many years when he submitted a tape to BAM. “His voice has a special quality,” says Susan Mackewich. “We’ll submit it. I won’t be surprised if a publisher picks him up.”
What If You’re Starting From Scratch?
But what if you have no theater or audio experience at all? Does that mean you have no hope of becoming an audiobook narrator? Not necessarily, but it is important to be realistic and acquire the needed skills.
“What amazes me most when people ask me about doing audiobooks,” observes Robin Whitten, “is how few books many would-be narrators have actually listened to. You need a strong sense of the medium to even hope to break in. Listening closely to many audiobooks is step one.”
Acting lessons and community theater work provide training in developing characterization.
But the training one producer and reader after another stresses most is reading aloud, taping oneself, listening and having others listen. Actor Jason Culp, who recorded Malice, by Danielle Steele, and f2f, by Philip Finch, for Bantam-Doubleday-Dell, read aloud all his life, long before thinking of doing so professionally, simply because he enjoyed it. He gave friends his own recordings of their favorite books as gifts.
One of the best entrées for a true beginner is to volunteer to read for the blind. The organizations Recordings for the Blind and The Braille Institute have locations throughout the country, which use volunteers to read in a studio setting and acquire invaluable experience. (See “Places To Contact” for addresses and telephone numbers.)
The Library of Congress’s Talking Books Program has centers in New York City; Denver, Colorado; Louisville, Kentucky; and Burlington, Massachusetts, for recorded reading to the blind (for pay). (See “Places To Contact” for addresses and telephone numbers.) Each has different requirements. Your state’s department for the disabled can direct you to organizations that work with visually impaired people.
Many public libraries, as well as schools, and sometimes even commercial bookstores, welcome volunteers to read to children.
“Read, read, read, until the words come tripping off your tongue. That’s the only way it will begin to become natural to do this expressively for hours on end with few interruptions,” says Susan Mackewich. All of her colleagues agree.
Read, read, read and perhaps someday we’ll all be listening to you.
[To read more about audiobook narrators, see the December/January issue of AudioFile. Subscribe Now! ]
December 2005/January 2006
(c)2005 AudioFile Publications, Inc.
