FREE Voice Over Tips & Insights – From a 25+ year Pro
Back To School, Back To Growth: What Pre-K4 Taught Me About Chasing Excellence in Voiceover
My son's first day of Pre-K4 reminded me why the best voice actors never stop growing. Here's what chasing excellence (not perfection) actually looks like.
Everyone Wants to Be a Voice in a Game. It's Not About the Voice Anymore.
I've been working in video games since 2006. Back then, my job was straightforward: come in, voice a stack of NPCs, go home. Then this thing called mocap came along — and it was my PUPPETRY background that got me in the door. Here's what's changed since, why it matters, and why "I want to be a voice in a game" isn't quite the right ambition anymore.
An Audience of One: The WHO Behind Every Story You Tell
Storytelling is essential to our human identity. The stories we tell are how we know who we are. And as voice actors, we do something both ancient and profound — we share a great story with an audience of one. Here's what that means for every performance you'll ever give.
Slate in Character. Every Single Time. (Yes, I Will Die on This Hill.)
Fair warning: some coaches teach this differently. I respect that. And I will respectfully, enthusiastically, and permanently disagree. I once booked a role FROM my slate. Before I read a single word of the script. Here's why slating in character isn't just good advice — it's the difference between booking and being skipped.
Cold Reading: The Practice Every Voice Actor Needs and Most Skip
Here's something I've been telling my actors a lot lately: if you call yourself a voice actor... cold reading is not optional. Not for audiobook narrators. Not for commercial actors. Not for animation voice actors. ALL of you. Here's why narration teaches every voice actor something they can't learn anywhere else.
You Are Part of Someone Else's Hero's Journey. Act Like It.
Joseph Campbell spent his career identifying the universal pattern underlying every great story ever told across every culture in human history. Pixar knows it. Disney knows it. Every great video game writer knows it. And voice actors who understand it — who know exactly where their character lives inside that journey — don't just perform a character. They tell a STORY. Let's dig in.
If You Can Tell Me a Story Without Sound... Guess What I Guarantee You Can Do?
I say this in almost every class and workshop I teach. It comes directly from my puppetry background — and it stops actors cold every time: "If you can tell me a story without sound... guess what I guarantee you can do?" The answer changes everything about how you approach the mic.
The Suspension of Disbelief: Your Most Powerful Ally — and Your Most Tenuous One
Last week I re-watched WALL-E with my four-year-old. I cried three separate times. Over robots. That don't really speak. In a movie I've seen before. And I knew — the whole time — that I was watching computer animated images on a screen. So why was I weeping? And what does that have to do with your next voice acting audition?