It's been healthy for Philadelphia's voiceover scene, he argued, because now actors and engineers can live in the city and not have to factor in proximity with as much weight. "A person can live in Philadelphia, come to Shake, and be connected with a studio in London or any other place you can name." "The world is now the market," Mark Schultz, co-owner of Shake Audio Post at MilkBoy recording studio in Callowhill, told PhillyVoice. The internet has - as it has with so many other industries - torn down walls that existed a short two decades ago, ushering in a flood of newcomers to the industry.Īnd, it seems, that's the running narrative for voiceover work not just in Philly right now, but in general. Still, while these largely commercial jobs have been able to support actors like Stith, it's also true that they exist in an industry that is increasingly more global - and, if not now on the local level, stands to eventually be more competitive. "And it took me a long time to be OK with that." I can do the sexy girl! The shy girl.’ And immediately people started hiring me for really what I do best, which is genuinely me - this happy, cheery person. I used to put all this different stuff in my demo - ‘Look at my range! I can do this with my voice. "Even in a market like Philly, I get hired for the same thing over and over again. "You really have to know your niche," Stith explained. Moreover, in an effort to explain how so many voiceover artists manage to "make it," she said it's all about knowing what you're good at, rather than trying hard to imitate other voices. Every week they’d audition, and they'd get one gig a year. "There is enough work to sustain you, but there isn’t the type of competition - I know friends who auditioned for a year in New York. “Philly is a perfect-sized city for making a living in the voiceover world," Stith explained, pointing to the wide array of pharmaceutical and other corporate clients available locally. Through these jobs, she clocks in a less-than-40-hour workweek and spends most afternoons with her daughters. While it took her a year just to get a single voiceover gig, the jobs almost immediately snowballed, resulting in a fruitful career for her in the two decades to follow: as an announcer for Sprout, the narrator for Hershey Park's TV and radio ads and a regular voice actor for Comcast's Xfinity On Demand platform. "I can show up in my pajamas and as long as I sound good, nobody cares.”Īnd while the anonymity may be one reason Stith and countless other actors opt for voiceover, what may have proved the most delightful element of her epiphany was just how lucrative voiceover in Philadelphia - yes, Philly, not New York or Los Angeles - could be. "When I found voiceovers, I felt like I’d been set free - 'I can still act and nobody cares,'" she said. That realization, it turned out, was a liberating one. Recalling a lecture about voice acting from a college class, she started wondering if that would be a better fit - after all, she said, her goal since middle school had always been to "get in the head of a character," not necessarily be them in a physical sense. So, she filed those moments away as learning experiences and re-evaluated. "It got to be so much about my image that, while I love acting, it feels like everyone is constantly judging my looks. "I’d walk into a room for an audition and be like, ‘Oh, awesome - here are 15 other girls who sort of look like me, but they all seem to be thinner and prettier," Stith told PhillyVoice.
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