In this episode, we get to see behind the curtain of what happens during the typical day of being a voice actor. Buckle up.
A day in the life of a voice actor - behind the scenes! - 6:35
Hey everybody, thanks for joining me. Today's edition of The Gift of Gab is going to be a day in the life of a voice actor, so come along.
Okay so this video has been a long time coming and, uh, it's because really, truly I think people who want to do this for a living want to have a sense of what actually goes on in the typical day of a voice actor... so, sure, I'll tell you about my day. It's pretty straightforward. I get up, I immediately start consuming massive amounts of coffee... this is not an exaggeration... like, seriously, like there's a one pot minimum, okay? I pet the dogs, I feed the cat, and then I'm at the computer.
I will spend the majority of my morning, usually the first hour and a half to two hours, checking emails, answering correspondence from the night before, taking a look at whatever auditions have been waiting for me from the night before, and then when I feel awake enough and ready enough, I will get into the booth and almost immediately start cranking out auditions. Usually before ten o'clock. I've done anywhere from five to ten of them. Also during that morning time, I'm going to check my calendar to see what appointments and, of course, sessions I have lined up for the day and make sure I'm as prepared for those as I can be, for whatever information I might need to have.
After the morning round of auditions, I usually go into either marketing mode or administrative mode, and that's the biggest thing guys: I treat my home like a business. I don't - or I try not to, anyway - have non-work activities thread throughout my day. It's really straightforward. If I'm at that desk then I'm working: everything from billing and tracking down payments from previous jobs, to sending out marketing emails, to social media posts, to even just contacting new studios or new potential sources of work that I've located online. Usually that'll take me to about lunch. Sometimes I do the lunch thing, sometimes I don't. Just depends on how I feel. Typically, if nothing else, I play with the dogs for a half hour.
And the rest of my day is pretty much just weaving in and around sessions. Sometimes there's an occasional, "Oh my God!" last minute absolute rush we must have it right now audition. If I'm available and I can get to those then I certainly do. If I can't, then I can't because I'm probably making money with somebody else in that moment, in a session that was scheduled days or weeks ago. Biggest thing, again that I want to reiterate is, I create an environment where it's all work, all the time, right? So I've got the gear, I've got the studio, I've got the acoustic treatment, I've got the designated space in my house because that's what the IRS wants to see if they ever audit you... and it allows you to get the maximum tax deductions. It's creating an environment for work from home.
Did I do it all at once? No, this took 20 years. This is two decades of me doing this to get to this place of having all of these resources at my disposal. How late I work, honestly, that's up to me. Some days? Four o'clock, I'm out. Why? Because I can. Sometimes I'm working until seven, eight o'clock at night, it just depends on whether or not a West coast client needed a session time that was more accommodating for them than for me, in which case you work a little bit later. But the trade-off and one of the fun things about our industry is that very few things happen before 10 am, because most audio producers don't work before 10 am. That's a real thing, yeah. They don't mornings. If you're a morning person, it kind of works to your advantage because you can really use that time very wisely.
When I'm done, I'm done. When I'm off not working, I'm not working. There are a lot of people in voiceover who talk about how it's 24/7 and you've got to hustle non-stop seven days a week... yeah, guess what? No, my body is not gonna tolerate that. I cannot do that. I did it in my 20s, I did it when I was younger because it was the early part of my career and I felt that I had to. But now? No. If I'm on vacation, I'm on vacation. If it's after hours, it's after hours and I have no problem telling people I will get to that for you first thing in the morning. There's a lot of flexibility with this.
Remember: at the end of the day, you're your own boss. You get to make the rules. You get to decide how you run your business. That's one of the beautiful things about voiceover. Thanks for watching guys, I hope this answered some of your questions about what a typical day looks like for me, and I will see you soon. Bye!
704-674-8294 / GabrielleNistico.com / gabby@voiceovervixen.com
Gabrielle Nistico, Gabby Nistico, The Voiceover Vixen, The Business First VO Coach, #VoiceoverVixen #VoiceOnFire #BusinessFirstVOCoach Voiceover, Charlotte, North Carolina, Voiceover Demo, Voiceover Coaching Advice, Working Actors, Los Angeles, New York, How to Be a Better Voice Actor, voiceover coaching, YouTube Channel, Voice Acting Coach, a day in the life, entrepreneur, what do voice actors do, what happens at your job, copious amounts of coffee, taxes, IRS, audit, business, home based business