Voice Acting in the USA

Hopefully I'm not dumping this in the wrong subforum here.

Since I'm pretty much obsessed with animation and everything surrounding it—and honestly, I might even want to make a career out of it one day—I've been thinking a lot about Voice Acting, specifically doing voices for animated movies and shows. Since I don't really have a clue how that whole industry operates here in the States, I was hoping someone who actually knows their stuff could shed some light on a few things.

It seems like almost everyone doing the voiceovers for our local dubs of cartoons and series are just standard theater or TV actors. Sometimes you get amateurs trying their hand at it too, but most of the time it ends up sounding super rough and poorly directed. I mean, it's clearly different elsewhere; in the USA, a huge chunk of the people voicing animated series (though feature films are a whole different beast) are actors who actually specialize specifically in Voice Acting. We don't really have that niche here, but I wonder if something like that could ever actually happen? Like, what does it actually take for someone to start their own studio and begin dubbing cartoons, series, or whatever else? How much do the rights for American animated series or even Japanese anime actually cost? Does a TV network buy them first and then hunt for a studio to handle the dubbing, or is it more the other way around?

So, first off, there are all these different acting studios out in major cities like New York or LA that handle everything related to performance, which includes a lot of voice work too. It really just comes down to how much effort an individual puts in, though the standard move here is usually to hire people straight out of top-tier acting academies... since they actually have the training to build a character from the ground up.

Lately, it feels like there’s been this huge trend of poorly dubbed cartoons, but honestly, part of the problem is that half those shows are just junk to begin with. Growing up, I remember seeing so many amazing examples of great dubbing, but then modernization hit and suddenly everything is just designed to be cheap, mass-produced content for easy consumption.

Every single radio broadcaster in the States has to go through phonetic training with a specialist, just like anyone else reading news or promos on the air. In my opinion, actors should basically have to do the same thing! The only way to do it is to hire your own phonetician, but hey, that costs money... I actually ended up going to a specialist in Chicago because I had issues with closed vowels and a nasal tone—I even had a real diagnosis based on certain parameters.

The only real place where actors can truly flex their muscles through Voice Acting is in radio dramas, and there are some seriously good ones out there. The catch is that they just don't have a massive mainstream audience anymore. As for specific local studios dealing with that kind of stuff and intellectual property rights, I wouldn't know... personally, I think live dubbing is pretty pointless unless it's being done specifically for a laugh.

rapidmason22 said:

Aside from the fact that a few of them sound exactly the same—like, the same vocal color and everything—they all kind of hum through their lines, and after about five seconds, it gets super annoying to listen to. I mean, fine, if they’re just practicing diction and how to enunciate, sure... but everything else about the quality? Total disaster.

They just don't sound the same, at least not to me. Just listen to some of these better-known guys—for example, Baby Dooks -> , Andrew -> , and Barbara Radulović -> have absolutely killer voices. 👍

Either way, you can definitely train your voice. I mean, look at Mel Blanc -> , he was an absolute legend 🙏

Or even the incomparable Don LaFontaine -> 🙏. There’s actually even a movie dedicated to him and this whole topic: In a World... (2013)