Voice Actors Vs. On-Screen Talents

In my many years as a professional voice performer and producer, I often encounter comparisons to a trend in the industry about Screen Actors taking the job of those who have been doing it decades. This popularity of On-cam Personalities performing behind them mike is nothing new, however it has been a rising factor in movie theaters and animated features nowadays.

Animation is the reality of imagination. The justice to any script for which, depends entirely on the voice actor’s performance. That is why voice overs, require a unique set of skills and mastery of the art, in order to deliver what the animator intends to show. No matter how good an animation is, if you have a poor set of voices, you will end up with something that is worthless. However, if you have a simple animation on hand, but with an exceptional lineup of voice actors, you will be surprised with the results. Here are some pointers why hiring a voice actor against an on-cam actor is beneficial for your animation project.

	VOICE ACTOR	ON-CAM ACTOR/MODEL
BUDGET	Relatively Cheaper	20-30 times more expensive
AVAILABILITY	Always	Depending on project/product restrictions
KNOWLEDGE OF THE CRAFT	Perfect	May need to attend workshops and 1 on 1 coaching
MIC SKILLS	Honed thru years of experience	Many are working 1st time on dubbing or voice overs
PERFORMANCE	Flawless	May have difficulty coping up with the microphone
INDUSTRY POPULATION (NO. OF TALENTS)	5 times more the number of on-screen actors	Those who only made an on-screen debut are considered actors
VOICES	Exponential	Limited to Conversational
VOICE QUALITY	Perfect behind the mic	May require additional tuning
EXPOSURE	Popular with a niche market/captured following	Has on-cam/modeling advantages
CHARACTERIZATION	Can work with new set of voices, and experiment. Many voice actors can do atleast 5 voices	Maybe thrown off with the idea of changing his/her voice. Limited to 1
KNOWLEDGE OF RECORDING	Adept	Enough
KNOWLEDGE IN PROCESSES	Knows exactly what’s going on behind the booth	Some Familiar. Some Not.
OVER-ALL PERFORMANCE FOR ANIMATION	None better	Exceptionally few
ABILITY TO SYNCH AND IMPROVISE (faced with reactions)	Effortless. Cutting recording time by 75%	Will depend on what the director says and the material. May need to spend more time on recording
SCHEDULING	Always present, easily managed. No star complex	Will have to be adjusted for appearances and confirmation

Like they say, kids go to movies to watch and love the story. They do not care if an on-cam actor is doing the part or a voice over. What is important is that they believe and react to the characters, and be motivated by it.. by statistics anyone can easily spot who can deliver the story between the two. You can always get a screen actor to do the job, but you can never beat a voice over’s performance.

You be the judge of which.