A Career in Voiceover: Successful Voice Artists Share Their Tips to Breaking In

10:00 am-11:30 am – Room C998
Do people tell you that you have a great voice? Have you thought about breaking into voiceover? Think voiceover work is easy? Find out what's really needed to succeed in this competitive niche market. Top voiceover actors tell all. Moderated by Stewart F. Wilson-Turner, Voice Bank.

Speakers:

-- Sylvia Villigran, Voiceover Actor
-- Beau Weaver, Voiceover Actor
-- David H. Lawrence XVII, Voiceover Actor and Teacher
-- Mari Weiss, Voiceover Actor

SPEAKER BIOS

Sylvia Villagran, Voiceover Actor
A native Angeleno, Sylvia Villagran grew up with the "only Spanish spoken in the home" rule, and after years of therapy, she can now thank her parents for her serious bilingual skills. Those skills, along with the ability to switch her voice from sophisticated to urban hip, have made Sylvia one of the most versatile voice actresses working today in both the English and Spanish markets.

She is currently the female voice for the Emmy Award–winning show "The Doctors," "Celebrity Jeopardy!," "Wheel of Fortune," and "Sex and the City" on TBS, as well as several shows on the Mun2 network. She's also the fill-in announcer for "Entertainment Tonight" and "Live! With Regis and Kelly."

She is the commercial voice of Safeway supermarkets and Disneyland and was just picked to be the voice of Toys "R" Us, English and Spanish. Sylvia has also become one of the few women to voice movie trailers, most recently for "Daybreakers," "Death Race," and "Strawberry Shortcake."

Besides voicing promos and commercials, she is a live announcer for notable awards shows, such as the ALMA Awards on ABC, the Writers Guild Awards, Los Premios MTV VMAs Latin America, and the X Games for ESPN Deportes.

Beau Weaver, Voiceover Actor
Beau Weaver is one of Hollywood's perennial A-list voiceover artists, narrating trailers for feature films, network television promos, documentaries, and national television campaigns, and has had starring roles in animated series such as "Superman" and "Fantastic Four."

Beau was one of the pioneers of home and remote recording for voiceover artists. Currently he is the voice of CBS Television's Emmy Award–winning daily medical talk show "The Doctors" and is the voice of "The Early Show" on CBS.

He narrates several popular documentary series, including National Geographic's "Known Universe," Discovery's "American Loggers" and "Heartland Thunder," and Animal Planet's "Weird, True & Freaky." He also voices promos for off-net syndicated series like "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" and "Seinfeld." His website is www.spokenword.com.

David H. Lawrence XVII, Voiceover Actor and Teacher
David H. Lawrence XVII is the voice of America Online's customer service lines, as well as the voice of over 1,500 other interactive voice-response telephone systems. He is one of the most often heard voices in the world, and David helps other actors create their own voiceover careers with his award-winning Demos2GoGo voice demo service. He also teaches voicework workshops at various studios around Los Angeles.

His past theater and voice work includes originating the role of Charles Bukowski in Sacred Fools' award-winning "Bukowsical!," Potter in "It's a Wonderful Life," El Gallo in "The Fantasticks," as well as parts in "The Children's Hour," "The Good Doctor," "Born Yesterday," and "The Fall of the House of Usher," and he starred as Barry Champlain in "Talk Radio." He has performed onstage at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and is a lifelong member of Mensa.

David makes regular appearances as an industry commentator on G4, CNN, Fox, CBS, MSNBC, and Tribune broadcasting outlets, as well as the CBC and the BBC, where he is a featured tech expert on Radio 5 Live's "Up All Night." He has delivered keynote addresses and in-service teaching and has served as both moderator and panel member at conferences ranging from Macworld, CES, FOSE, and COMDEX to the Micropayments Conference, Gnomedex, the Podcasting and Portable Media Expo, and the NAB.

His dozens of award-winning websites include work featured in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian, the homepage for America Online CEO Steve Case, Quincy Jones' Qradio.net (nominated for a Wired Reader Rant award), and the AMD Professional Gamers League site.

Mari Weiss, Voiceover Actor
Mari Weiss got started in voiceover the way a lot of folks do—when someone saw her onstage and said, "Hey, you should do voiceover!" She had, at the time, an MFA in theater and a busy stage career but not a clue as to how to do voiceover. So she asked around, got some good (and bad) advice, practiced a lot, made a lot of mistakes (and had a few lucky breaks), and started to book as she found her voice as a VO actor.

She got her SAG card and her first VO campaign (for Yoplait) in 1991 and has been fortunate enough to work in this business ever since. Now a client of William Morris Endeavor, she's done hundreds of commercials for radio and TV, including campaigns for Chrysler, Blue Cross, Hometown Buffet, Wells Fargo, and Clorox, to name a few.

Right now you can hear her as the voice of Intuit, as well as in national TV spots for McDonald's and Public Storage. She's done promo work for Fox, ABC, and Oxygen, and her animation credits include "Happy Feet," "Dragonlance," "Time Squad," "Duckman," and the delightful Dora Smarmy of Distraction News on HBO's "Crashbox." There's a ton of games (Mass Effect, Guild Wars, Command & Conquer), narration, and ADR work on her résumé as well—whatever needs a voice, she's done it.

In front of the camera, her TV credits include "CSI," "Boston Legal," "Desperate Housewives," "ER," "Without a Trace," "NYPD Blue," and "Judging Amy," as well as a lot of commercials. She also does private coaching, the occasional VO workshop, and a bit of writing, but she does not do windows.

Stewart Wilson-Turner, Vice President and CTO, Voicebank.net (Moderator)
Stewart Wilson-Turner is vice president, CTO, and one of the founding members of Voicebank.net, known as the service that put the voiceover industry online. His extensive knowledge touches every aspect of the industry, from corporate clients and ad agencies to casting directors, producers, talent agencies, and actors.

Voicebank's reach gives Stewart a unique perspective. He fell in love with the industry during his tenure as the booth director for one of L.A.'s top VO agencies in the mid-'90s. Working with and getting to know many of the top actors in the business gave him a true appreciation for the talent and expertise needed to be successful, as well as just plain good at it. One of the goals close to his heart is to help elevate the art and image of voiceover, both within and outside the industry.