Voice acting

Voice acting is the special art of performing a character using only your voice. Performers use their vocal skills to provide information or tell stories to an audience. You can hear these actors in many places like animated films and video games. They also work in documentaries, commercials, and audiobooks. Sometimes, a voice actor might even sing if their character needs to perform a song. Some actors do motion-capture acting at the same time they use their voices.

There are many different ways these actors work. Narration is when a voice tells a story by giving facts about a plot. In some stories, like novels, a narrator is a required part of the tale. In commercials, actors are hired to deliver a specific message to listeners. In the United Kingdom, radio commercials often use a very wide and loud style of speaking. Some actors even use a trick called "de-breathing." This means they artificially remove breaths from a recording so the audience stays focused on the message.

History shows how important this job has become over time. In the United Kingdom, voice acting is a recognized professional job. This is partly because BBC Radio has a very long history of making radio dramas. In the past, the UK even banned certain voices from being broadcast. To get around this rule, producers had actors dub over the footage. Another method is called automated dialogue replacement, or ADR. This is when an actor re-records their lines to make the sound better or to fix the timing.

Voice acting is a huge part of life in many different countries. In Japan, there are about 130 schools and groups for voice actors. Many fans there love to watch shows just to hear their favorite performers. In Brazil, most people prefer to watch movies in their own native language. This means dubbing is a very important job for Brazilian actors. Even in daily life, you hear automated announcements. A famous example is the "mind the gap" voice on the London Underground. This specific announcement was first introduced in 1969.

Today, new technology is changing the way voices are made. Since the late 2010s, software can now create or change human voices using AI. In 2019, a company called Dessa used audio to create a computer voice for Joe Rogan. In 2020, the game developer Ubisoft used speech synthesis for many characters in a game called Watch Dogs: Legion. Many voice actors are worried about this because it might affect their jobs. In 2023, the SAG-AFTRA union held strikes to talk about rules for using AI. This shows that while technology grows, the human voice remains a very important part of our world.