This was me a month ago, just a kid* with a long held dream and a LOT of fear. It’s funny that it took losing all my other creative opportunities, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, to make me focus in on the creative goal I’ve held the longest, becoming a voiceover actor.
As a kid I was mesmerised by the Looney Tunes cartoons and I remember vividly the excitement of the Simpsons, the anticipation as we waited for this hit show from across the pond to finally launch on Sky in the UK was off the charts! The very first film I ever saw at the cinema was Disney’s Pinocchio, just me and my dad and a bucket of popcorn, and it blew my mind. I could not believe it when I discovered that being the voice of those characters could be a job. Back then we didn’t have DVD’s with extra behind the scenes features or YouTube (really showing my age now!) so it wasn’t easy to get a glimpse into this world but rest assured, if it was out there I found it! As I mention in this video I will never forget the footage of Robin Williams in the booth bringing the Genie to life in Disney’s Aladdin. These films and tv shows are, and animation continues to be, hugely important to me. How could it not with the unbelievable work happening at Pixar and Studio Ghibli and … ok I could geek out about this all day!
So there I was in lockdown with nothing else to lose and I decided to go for it, but I knew I couldn’t do it alone so I did something I’m not used to doing and I put the video above out and I asked for help and boy did I get it. I was overwhelmed with support and advice and well wisher’s messages of encouragement. So much so, well I just had to make another video a few days later …
A month later and I’ve taken courses in editing, social media and marketing, website design, voiceover technique, home studio set ups … the list goes on and on. I’m excited, I’m overwhelmed but most importantly I’m doing it and I’m going to keep going and see where this takes me. If you fancy coming along along for the ride I’ll be posting regularly and sharing my successes and my failures and passing on whatever I learn. If you’re on the journey too, reach out, maybe we can help each other. If you have any questions ask me and I’ll tell you everything I can. If you wanna say “hi” or anything encouraging, well that would be just marvellous!
*figuratively speaking