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Hey, it's Andrew from the Robot Chicken VFX days. Glad to see you're kicking ass on all these games! I still have a copy of "The Bloodletting," looking forward to The Lackey. I'm doing voice acting these days, too!

According to your IMDB, you were in an episode of 24. How did Shannon and I never know about this? We used to watch it endlessly while bored at work.

Hey DoctorHypothesis and uglydork,

I'm a VO actor/director in LA. Good advice, I just want to update it since the climate has changed since you've been in the game.

1) Demos are now typically 1 minute long. You want to showcase your best acting in each piece that you do. Products are important, but showing that you can act AND deliver product copy is essential. Visit voicebank.net if you want to listen to your competition's demos. The vets have longer demos because they have no need to update them. The newer talent typically will have shorter demos since they're being sold on it more.

The reason they're shorter is because the market is saturated. Anyone who listens to these things doesn't have 3 minutes to hear 1 demo. They have 1 minute to hear 3 demos. And they'll get an idea pretty fast if they do this all day.

2) Your demo may or may not start with a slate. Usually good to. It's just your name. Back in the day when things were on tape, or before we had instant access to everything, your name could get forgotten or lost if it wasn't heard on the tape. Now, it's an either or. Auditions we always slate, though.

Animation demos have to show your range of characters and your awesome acting. Great voices are everywhere. You have to be able to act and live and breathe and feel natural in that character. And if you do, you'll shine. It doesn't matter if you can do everything. But if you can do four or five things really well, highlight those. Some markets want someone who does the kitchen sink, but it's rare that I've ever played things outside of my range for a smaller market.

3) Natural voice can also be covered in your slate. But your demo should sound natural anyway. Most jobs today want someone who is conversation and real telling them about the product. The climate changed a lot on that in the past 20 years. It's pretty quiet, real, honest, and conversational in most spots, even if there is a little cheesiness in them. People can tell when you're "reading" or "performing" and when you're being real. That's usually where they describe demos as being good and bad.

4) Listen to demos. Sometimes you just need a few lines to show someone something. Sometimes you need more time. We're living in the times of short attention spans, so you have to prove your worth in your copy and move onto the next thing before the listener is over it.

5) Yep. Push your acting ahead of the voices.

6) Climate is changing for this, too. There is a lot more casting of actual kids for kids voices. But if you can do them well, show them.

7) Don't waste time on your demo with giving out personal information. Google has you covered. Agents have you covered. And you may not want everyone who hears your demo to know your info immediately. Pay services protect that info. Agents protect that info.

A couple of things I want to add to help you out:

1) Take classes. Even if you're in them once a week, do them. Even if you think they're just better actors just taking your cash, if they're good teachers, they can make you better. There's that old saying: Get good, get an agent. Get better, get a better agent. Work to get your skills competitive before putting yourself out there balls to the wall. In the same way you typically won't hire a contractor to make major repairs to your house if he's got more enthusiasm than ability, you gotta be ready for the market before you dive too heavy into it. My suggestion is to get really good. Take classes. Get on stage. Take acting classes.

I'm not saying you can't go all out at the moment and work hard for the jobs you're getting. It's a continual process. I've seen it done. I have friends who have been able to make it happen. They've done so with heavy support from their spouses and constant education/involvement in the community.

Truth is, it's a continuous game of auditioning. You could have 20 auditions in a day, or 2 auditions in a month if it's really dry. Being "discovered" only happens with a massive amount of hard work. Putting yourself out there for jobs. Getting feedback. Getting insanely good. Getting one big job somehow. Then getting another. Then getting none for a year. Then getting four. There is no "making it big." There's just constantly working and somehow booking that role that resonates with people. And that job might pay shit while that 30 second Denny's commercial pays off your car.

But the reason I suggest you focus on getting really good and making that a priority is...

2) The climate is ever changing. The A-listers took animated movies, major commercial campaigns, and are now consuming TV shows as leads. That's pushing the working actors (us) to take incidentals. Even the veterans don't get priority. Show creators, too, are taking on voice work because of the pay/glory. That leaves us fighting tooth and nail for the animation jobs. And as we're being pushed from this spot by celebs and oversaturation, we're gunning for these low-end jobs, too. I would bet you'd see a lot of big names in VO on voice123 and voice.com. I know, they've auditioned for my projects. So, unbeknownst to you, sometimes you're up auditioning for those low end jobs against 20 year vets. I'm not saying that to scare you away from the work or in a "get out rookie" kind of way. I'm hoping to let you know that you'll still book work sheerly because of the number of times you audition, but your booking rates will improve (even for the low-end jobs) if your skills/demos are at the levels of the pros. The climate may change on this, but for now it's getting much tougher. But you'll book bigger and better jobs if you continue to improve.

3) Change up your website so "portfolio" says "demos." Artists who draw have portfolios, while actors have demos. Probably can put a tag line of "voice over actor" under your Ugly Dork logo. I'm sure people have suggested giving the site copy a once-through, too. Also, think about what your website says about you. I would put your casting specs as informative, comforting, thoughtful, friendly, confident, smart, 40's, authoritative, dad. How can you promote that with your site layout. Does that picture do your brand justice? Lots of VO actors won't post pictures of themselves so they don't break the illusion that gives casting people an image in their mind before hearing the voice. Something to consider.

4) Take a strategic look at how you're approaching this. Clearly you love VO. There's no doubt you're passionate about this. And you won't have to stay at the bottom forever.

We've noticed something about the people who succeed: It's the ones who stay in the game. It's the ones who take classes constantly. It's the ones who are great at keeping in touch socially. It's the ones who have some natural talent and are open to criticism/take direction well. And it's the ones who are pleasant to work with and be around.

Most importantly is that you have to know that this industry has no milestones or timelines for "making it." You can plan it. 3 years training, 3 agents by the end of year 4, that kind of stuff. But you're scratching lottery tickets all day for jobs. And on top of that, you have to buy equipment, pay for subscriptions, invest in classes, software, etc. It's a money pit.

But I want you to really take a look at your career path and come up with a solid strategy. You've got a wife and two kids you need to support. The money I made off of voice123 last year was nothing compared to my day jobs, animated series, and commercials. It's mostly low end and it's not like it's a matter of just doing four jobs a day at $50 a pop. Online, it's booking 1/50-100 auditions, 20 auditions a day, maybe $50-300 a pop, and occasionally getting regular clients to give you a freebie job. Voice123/voices are fantastic sites, but you have to really compete in a LOT of places outside of the web to get it going.

5) Find outside work as fast as possible. You'll need that money to keep improving (classes, demos, marketing). You have to support your family as much as possible. If you're pissed about "family time," which as an actor (the most looked-down-upon job in my town) in the loneliest city out there, it'll only get worse as time goes on. Learn to embrace the family you committed yourself to. It's not easy to find family in this world and you have it. They need your support just as much as you'll need theirs. And you need to support them financially, too, for both of your sakes. You'll need to not have to do 10 auditions at 6am in your closet while your wife wants to murder you because you couldn't afford to buy a booth for your basement. You'll need to have a mic that sounds like you're in a studio and not in your bathroom. You'll need to make time for your kids and family and not have them resent you because you put your "all in" dream ahead of them. You'll need to have their support, because they'll get in the way if you don't have it (and trust me, in the end their love is more important than the job). They'll need to understand that the life of a VO actor, schedule wise, is like that of an on-call doctor's. You're on call to every job, morning or night. Family always comes first, you just have to learn how to make it work when the wife is lonely, the kids are sick, and you have 3 jobs due in the next hour.

I think I typed way too much. PM me if you wanna chat more. I'll try to TL;DR: this.

TL;DR: 2nd job, classes, get better, keep your family together, LONG road ahead, work on website, persistence, economics of web VO actor don't work out well so get good and plan accordingly, good luck!

So it goes, but that's still awesome that you made it on set! Thanks, VO is good. I'm acting in a series called Outlands right now.

Anyway, good luck with the AMA, hopefully one of these days I'll voice you in a COD! Congrats on The Lackey and hope the family's well!

This is a mixed-bag conversation. There is a lot of non-union work available as well as union. Internet. Anime. My biggest commercial jobs have been non-union buyouts. So it may be more lucrative for one person at one point in their career to not rush into dropping the nearly $3000 fee to join a union. SAG-AFTRA benefits such as health insurance only apply to something like 1% of actors who earn over a certain income threshold. So it's worth looking up and considering.

And you have to make sure you get tafted into SAG-AFTRA to do so, as well as have the ability to compete for union-only jobs. To work non-union AND union, you either have to have FICOR status or go through a signatory.

If you're at a point where going union makes sense, do it. Those TV animation jobs are very competitive, and if you're in the place where you have an agent who's sending you out for big time animation roles that you have a serious chance of booking, then yes it's probably worth it to be union at that point.

And yes, good agents HUGE gatekeepers for breaking into animation.