From my re-entry chronicles. Ahem…

After my career break, I made the transition from a corporate career to pursuing a creative entrepreneurial business. In developing and launching The Career Break Travel Show, I suddenly found myself sought after in Colombia for voice-over work. Native English speakers available for voice overs are hard to come by here. There’s not a ton of work. But over time I’ve developed my network and client base.

It’s fun work. I get a script. I often have to translate it or correct the English a bit. I record. I get paid. Frankly, I would love to do more. There’s a rush watching the final video and hearing my voice narrate the video. As I wait for my own show to go live, I juggle many projects to pay the bills. So one of the things I love most about this type of  work is that I go in, I record, I go home.

I’m in, I’m out. Bah-dah-boom, bah-dah-bing. Wham bam thank you ma’am. 

A couple of weeks while in the studio recording a voice over for a client taking direction on my lines from all who were there, my mind wandered and I thought, ¨This must be what it’s like to be a porn star.¨ Why or how that popped into my mind, I have no idea.

I quickly refocused on my script so we could finish the recording. Time is money in a studio. Later, in between the sound mixing and waiting for final approval from the client off-site, I continued thinking about this juxtaposition of two seemingly different professions.

I started taking notes. During the brainstorming, I convinced myself that yes, voice-over acting is a lot like porn acting. Here’s what I came up with.

1. Your job is to arrive, perform on command and deliver the money shot.
2. You have to exaggerate your performance for maximum effect.
3. You perform in a studio in front of a studio audience
4. You have to contort your body sometimes to deliver a great performance.
5. It can get messy if there are too many actors in the studio
6. Someone has to sit and edit it all paying attention to details most of the audience will never notice
7. Performance anxiety
8. Both require an orifice and a phallus
9. It can’t hurt to warm up your throat muscles
10. Mastery of oral skills is required
11. It’s always a good idea to leave your client satisfied!

If you think my assessment is too rosy, stay tuned for the continuation of the topic, 12 Reasons Why Voice Over Acting Isn’t Anything Like Porn Acting. But for now, add your reasons why voice over acting is like porn acting (keep your reasons for the differences for the follow up post please )

By the way, if you need a locutor en inglés en Bogotá, (English voice over in Bogotá) let me know!

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Tags: Re-entry

This entry was posted on Monday, November 12th, 2012 at 7:00 am and is filed under Jeff's blog, Re-entry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.