Part 2 - A career as a Professional Voice artist :

Till some years back there were few options for someone looking at being a professional voice. The only options being an announcer on All India radio or doing narrations for documentaries and radio plays. . . But things have changed today . . . and how!!!

Let's look at the various avenues available for a person aspiring to be a professional voice artist. Starting with television . . . One can offer his/her voice or commercials appearing on television channels.One can look at being the voice of the channel for their own programme advertisements. With more than 100 television channels operating from the country . . its an exciting and promising avenue for professional voices.

Moving on. . . thousands of feature films, documentaries, telefilms, television serials are made every year. All of them require professional voices at every step in their content. This is another exciting avenue.

Animation and cartoon channels are on the rise in the country today with at least 5 such channels on air currently and at least 5 more are expected by the end of 2004. All these international and national cartoon stations have an Indian feed in terms of local language like hindi etc. . . and all of their Programmes or serials have the element of human voices. This makes dubbing or voicing for these cartoon Programmes a very lucrative and promising avenue. The opportunities for voicing on television are growing by the day.

Lets look at the next interesting avenue for a professional voice. . . The Radio !!!!

Well, we have come a long way from the days of Radio Ceylon in the 1950's, when Ameen Sayani was the only recognized voice on radio. Today, the radio scene has changed totally and we are moving to a level where we can look at radio as a mature industry as much as in any other country internationally.

We now have more than 40 private radio stations in the country and the figure is going to only double in the coming year with the government also looking at easing the norms that govern this industry. Today, the growing radio market also spells good news for smart speakers who are looking at a career as a broadcast artist. We have many radio stars today in the big cities, who have their own fan following and who are not just raking in the moolah .. but enjoying the perks of name and fame too!!

Radio as an avenue has many other facets to the opportunities it offers. Besides being an anchor on radio, one can also lend his/her voice for radio commercials, jingles and radio plays and radio serials. In India, radio is still in its nascent stage ands is definitely expected to come out of its music obsession and we will soon have a lot of non music radio programming ,which will see a lot of opportunities for professionally trained voices.

The internet has also opened up opportunities for professional voices, with many voice based promotions happening on the internet. The world is the platform for a professional Voice and things are getting bigger by the day.

Besides the avenues listed above, there are so many opportunities for a professional voice in the corporate communication industry too!!! Right from corporate presentations to interactive voice response systems (IVRS)!!! From corporate films to interactive CD-ROMs to educational CD-ROMs!!!

Professional Voicing as a career option, never had it so good !!!!

In the next column, we will try to understand the qualities that form the basic pre-requisites for an aspiring voice artist.

Part 1 | Part 3... coming soon

Authored by our associate, Darrpan Mehta
Darrpan is a professional voice over artiste. Click here to know more...

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darrpan@sudeepaudio.com