The other day I attended another online social where voice actors from all over the world had the opportunity to network. I enjoy these events as it brings together a real cross section of people from all walks of life and of vastly different levels of experience. During one of the breakout room chats there was a question asked by a really nice guy who was interested to know about how to go about creating good quality demo reels at home. What equipment is best? what scripts to use? can you really create a demo of good enough quality at home? etc, and then he was basically lectured at for around five minutes by someone in the room that was adamant that you can not create your own demo reels and the only way to do it is to go to the studio and get a professional to do it. Now I was watching this all play out and couldn't get a word in to offer a different opinion and I could see that it was all becoming a bit much for the person who had asked the initial question. When the breakout room entered it's final minute everyone started to leave and go back to the main room, but I stuck around to the bitter end in hopes of speaking quickly to the person who had asked the question about reels. Fortunately he also stuck around and I used that final minute to try and offer a different opinion on the reel question. I said what I could in that time and then we spoke briefly about it again in another breakout room later on and we have since connected on social media and have discussed it further there. My issue with what was said by the person who so aggessively argued that reels must only be done in a studio is that we as voice actors are mostly marketing ourselves as professionals who have a home studio that we can work out of. We are saying that we have everything it takes to do voice acting jobs from home and therefore should we not also have what it takes to create our reels from home?
I admit that I am still new to all of this, but I am approaching this from a position of someone who has been self producing my own reels and I have been getting a lot of positive feedback, with a lot of people asking me where I got my demos done. I have included one of my demo reels below so you can judge for yourself, but for me this seems like a no brainer. We are putting ourselves out there as voice actors and saying that we have a home studio and can do any jobs from home, so surely this includes putting a reel together to showcase our talents?
Now I get that there is more than just you vocal talent to take into consideration when putting a reel together. There is all of the editing and production side of things, even creating the script needs a lot of consideration and I know that if you go to a studio they will sort out scripts for you and sort out music and SFX and do all the editing for you, but for me this is part of the job anyway isn't it? I am offering my services as not just a voice talent, but as a producer to the whole world. I offer my voice to projects and sure I can send over raw files if required, but I can do a lot more than that if requested too.
I guess what I am saying here is that people should not be afraid of creating their own demo reels. Don't get me wrong, it is not an easy task and I relied heavilly on input from the fantastic guys at Gravy for the Brain to give me expert advice along the way, and it is that time spent learning how to craft my reels from scratch that taught me so many valuable lessons. You have to see it as a journey and be prepared to unlearn everything you think you know and start from scratch, but in my opinion the experience of creating my own reels has been an incredibly positive one and has helped to accelerate my skills and knowledge base at an increased rate and I have grown in confidence immensely along the way too.
Voice acting is a constant journey and I am loving every step along the way. I believe to be successful it is important to have a deep understanding of everything around the voice and not just rely on having a great voice. So in conclusion I say to all aspiring voice actors out there that you should not be afraid of creating your own demo reels because the process of it will make you a far more well rounded proposition when it comes to what you can offer as a professional.
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