5 Questions for a Professional Voice-Over Talent – Anthony Richardson
Today’s 5 Questions for a Professional Voice Over Talent are answered by Anthony Richardson, a professional voice-over talent based in London, England.
1. The beginning: When did you know you wanted to be a voiceover talent; how did your career begin (please include what year it started) and then when did your passion for voiceover develop into something professional?
I started out as a trainee sound engineer at The Royal National Theatre (or just The National Theatre, as it was then) and at seventeen, was the youngest ever sound operator in the organization’s history. For one show, I had to shout into a microphone for a regular sound effect and had a really enjoyable studio session. Nearly 30 years later, I’m still doing the same thing!
2. What is the one thing you know now that you wish someone had told you when you first started out in voiceover?
I wish I knew how easy it would be to record, produce and deliver a voiceover from home. When I started out, we all used tape and one of my first jobs was to cut-out all the scratches, pops and clicks from a recording, using a razor blade and editing tape! I think it took me around a day to clean-up about 5 minutes of audio. These days it can all be done instantly with just the click of a button.
3. What do you see as the biggest professional or personal obstacle you face that impacts your voiceover business and how are you working to overcome it?
Time is always an issue. I regularly find that I am fully-booked and trying to please everyone often eats in to family time, with recording in the evenings and at weekends. I wish there was a way to leverage my business, but the problem is, when clients specifically request a voice that you do, there’s no option.
4. What personal trait or professional tool has helped you succeed the most in your career so far?
Loving the job. I’m a great believer in the exercise of imagining the job that is so great and enjoyable that you would actually pay to do it. Voiceovers is mine – I still can’t believe (after nearly 30 years) that I actually get paid to talk into a mic, it’s f a n t a s t i c !!!
5. In your development as a voice over performer, who has been the one particular individual or what has been the one piece of performance advice (maybe a key performance trick, etc.) that you felt has had the most impact on your actual voice over performance and why?
That’s easy! Keeping mega fit (I even wrote a blog post on it HERE). Being a great voiceover (as opposed to a good voiceover) is all about breath control and the fitter you are, the less breaths you need to take when recording a script – and don’t take my word for it, studio engineers will all tell you how they like working with non-smokers. Less editing!
