Mic Drop Moments: Nathan Nokes on Voiceover Mystics and AI Ethics

Kristy: Welcome back to another episode of the Free Dive podcast. I’m your host Kristy and today we have a special guest Nathan Nokes he’s a voice actor thanks for being here Nathan.

Nathan: my pleasure thank you so much for having me it’s going to be very exciting I’m glad- glad to be on.

Kristy: Yeah I was so excited for this one I can’t lie. Um so Nathan and I met like I think I think we agreed it was five years ago uh when I was visiting Houston visiting a friend and I’ve been
following his social media journey ever since so um he is a voice actor. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about what that means and a little bit about what you do and how you got started?

Nathan: Yeah so the easiest way for me to explain it is when you hear somebody and you don’t see them whether it be audiobooks commercials on TV radio Spotify ads animation whatever it is video games um that is voice acting and I mean a lot of people as soon as they hear that I’m a voice actor they said okay do a voice and I’m like what does that mean what do you want me to do um but a lot of times when they say that they- they’re expecting something that they’ve heard before um yeah so voice acting 90% of the stuff that voice actors are going to do most people don’t see because it’s either internal or a phone system or an audiobook or something like that e-learning as well but um so yeah that’s- that’s kind of voice acting in a nutshell but for
me when I first saw Don LaFontaine he is like the Godfather of modern-day voiceover um and he was in a Geico commercial he was the guy who coined in a world where one man you know and uh he was in a Geico commercial narrating this lady’s life um in the commercial and I was like whoa that is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen I want to do that and so you know I started learning about what was all involved this wasn’t just something that you could sit in your bed and read make money um but this was a skill you know that you need training on and stuff like that so I found a school that taught voiceover I’m now teaching at that school which is kind of full circle um and then yeah and now I do it on a daily basis it took a while for me to get where I am today but uh I’m glad to uh be able to do it as my job.

Kristy: Awesome. So did you I- I missed it if you said it how long have you been doing it for?

Nathan: So I’ve been doing voice-overs full-time for about four years but on and off you know doing my day job for about nine years.

Kristy: Okay yeah and that’s such it’s such a unique thing to get into and- and you call it acting for a reason because you really do have to put on a bit of a Persona with whatever you’re acting in like you’re not just using your normal Nathan voice to do all of these different things so what is the what does that look like what was the process of learning how to get into acting did you like was that kind of a process for you to learn the acting side of it in addition to training your voice or did that come naturally to you?
Nathan: Yeah and I’m still learning that you know I mean you’re going to get some of the best voice actors in the world that are still training yeah um because the thing is as Industries change like if you go back and look at movies from 50, 60, 70 years ago you know they were oh oh no you know kind of acting and it’s all changed now so everything now you know back when I was a kid you know we had Animaniacs and the really crazy voices and now the acting is more neutral and natural so a lot of the stuff that you’re seeing even in commercials or in cartoons today video games animation is more this voice that you’re hearing um with exception I just did a um kid show where I was a bird and I had this real high-pitched voice you know and it was geared toward like six-year-olds but other than that you know you’re going to get more um neutral stuff so for me you know learning how to act naturally um, especially when you’re in a
closet you know doing by yourself with no extra people with you it- it- it’s it you have everything
has to be your imagination right like what is this character walking away from you as you’re talking to them and what would that sound like are you happy that they’re doing this are you upset did they just turn your back on you know do they turn their back on you or um you know what does it sound like when 500 oranges get dropped on your head.

Kristy: Yeah.

Nathan: You know what so you have to in your head you know figure out what this would sound like and then try your best to copy that.

Kristy: Now you really have to get into a character.

Nathan: Mhm exactly.

Kristy: Yeah, yep, and so I saw a um- I saw a meme or a reel or something recently I think it was a comedian and he was talking about how you don’t think about it until you really think about it but um how all uh video game voices were actually um just a guy or a woman in a voiceover Booth doing these crazy like animated that did you see that real did you hear that clip and- and I was cracking up at it cuz I’m like that’s true you don’t ever really think about that was just a normal human like you or I- doing those sounds and then I saw that you were working in that so like what did you think of that and like did that that must have been really funny to you.

Nathan: Yeah and it- it’s true um what’s really cool now is COVID was a blessing and a curse, especially for the voiceover industry because to get into these- what they call AAA video games and these are these major major video games that they spend millions and millions of dollars on to make um you had to live in LA or you had to live in New York and if you didn’t live in those places you were never getting a chance to be in those games but now that we had covid. Oh we still have to work we still have to make money let’s send this out to actors throughout the United States in their home Studios and they just opened up a thing to where now they’re getting some of the best actors in the world that don’t live in LA yeah um and what’s really interesting is they’ve taken the actors out of the booth and give they’ll send them headsets you know and they’ll you know have the kits for them and they’ll teach them how to put the dots on the lips and the dots on the eyes and everything so they can track their face but now they have mics out
here so you got these characters or these actors that are doing I don’t know Call of Duty and stuff like that and they’re rolling on the ground delivering their lines you know at home.

Kristy: That’s wild.

Nathan: Yeah and so um you know there’s another voice actor Allison Picard who you know she was recently doing that and had something on her social media where she had the whole setup. And she’s literally rolling on the ground delivering her lines and I’m like see that’s that’s so awesome you couldn’t you know you could do that in a studio but you could never do that at home before yeah and so now you know they’re like here we’re getting great audio we’re getting great quality stuff and some of the best actors aren’t just living in LA so like let’s send it out and see how it goes and it’s working out really- really well.

Kristy: Yeah no that’s a great point so of all of the I’m tell give us a give us a an an overview of some of the different types of voiceover work that you’ve gotten into and maybe like what are some of your favorites that you’ve done or that you would like to do?

Nathan: Okay so yeah so I’ve done um audio books I’ve done animation video games for mobile um genin impact I’ve just started working on that um most of my day-to-day bread and butter is phone systems you know the people that you’re yelling at thank you for calling press one for and you’re like representative. You know. Um, I do that every day as soon as we get off here I’ll be doing those in a few minutes. Um commercials for TV everything um the only stuff- the only stuff that I cannot stand is audiobooks and simply for the fact that I don’t have the mental capacity for that because for audiobooks you know and I’ve seen it so many times on social media with like you want to make 400 bucks an hour reading in your bed and I’m like no that’s not how that works you know because you have to read the book. First you have to get an idea of what it’s talking about and decide am I going to do voices for these characters so now you have to keep track of the characters maybe whether you’re highlighting or whatever um then you record so if it’s like an eight-hour Audi book it’s probably going to take you a week and a half two weeks maybe even more to record because you’re going over mistakes and things like that um and then if you don’t have an editor now you have to edit the audiobook and that’s eight hours of audio could take two weeks to edit.

Kristy: Yeah.

Nathan: So now and they don’t and audiobooks doesn’t pay that great so the audiobook narrators that are here they love reading and I’m like you got an- you got an audiobook for me I’ll send it to you know my voice actor friends that love doing audiobooks can’t stand it um.

Kristy: Yeah, I wouldn’t have thought about all that.

Nathan: Oh yeah it’s insane. It is crazy and so you know the one audiobook I did I didn’t have an editor and it took forever and I’m like no never again um uh animation’s a lot of fun animation is a lot of fun when I got to do there’s a show called Lola on Board it’s a 26 episode first season’s 26 episodes um where this 5-year-old girl or six-year-old girl goes on a cruise with her grandma while her parents are on a business trip for a month um and she befriends this bird who you know gets in all kind of trouble and mischief and all kind of silly things with her um so I just finished season one on that it’ll be um, unfortunately, won’t be playing in the United States but I’m trying to get a copy of it so we’ll see.

Kristy: And who do you play in that?

Nathan: His name is Gozo so he’s this little white bird with a blue hat um and it was so funny so I had a blast playing him but he has a twin and it looks exactly like him just has a red hat and I’m like oh hey I was talking to the producer I’m like hey I can do a voice for him if you want and
they’re like oh no no we got a voice and I heard it and it’s like this super deep gravelly I’m like oh my gosh you know and my- my voice is you know hi Lola how’s it going I’m like man if you could not get any more night and day on this one.

Kristy: So- so do you watch do you watch it while you’re doing like the voiceover for it is that what your process?

Nathan: Yeah so, in this case, it was a dubbing um so it was an English dubbing so it w- it was a crazy process because this isn’t the norm what I do um in this particular project is so like when we first started doing the first couple of episodes they were pretty much-done animation wise they still had a few things but the lips were moving you know they were walking around it just probably they were needing some shadowing and lighting and that kind of stuff so that was easy so when I worked with the studio you know they would give me a countdown and then I would match the lip movement as best as possible while reading the lines normally they have
um which kind of it’s It’s a thing that looks like karaoke when you’re doing dubbing but it’s on a strip at the bottom of the page that’s what it’s normally doing but in this project, it was a lower budget project so they didn’t have all of that. Um towards the end though I literally had like a mikette basically this doll on the computer screen just moving like it was hovering over the ground and there was no lip movement or anything like that so basically just had to guess based off of the reference audio that they gave me and I’m like well you know this is the best we’re gonna do let’s give it a shot so that was we were all over the place on that one but it was fun.

Kristy: Yeah wow that sounds pretty cool.

Nathan: Yeah, really did enjoy it.

Kristy: So how are you coming you’ve been doing this for a while how are you coming across these jobs are- how are you marketing for yourself um how have you found the best way of marketing are you on social media all those things?

Nathan: Yeah so most of my marketing is going to be in LinkedIn uh and email and so I use them together um to find the emails for those folks you know uh because I’m only looking for voice-over buyers you know a lot of times sometimes I’ll connect with other voice actors that you know I look up to those kinds of things um but my I’m not trying to find other voice actors um you’ll get referrals from them but other than that looking for buyers um so usually I’ll send them a quick email hey this is my name is Nathan this is what I do if you need anything let me know I’m out and that’s it um and then maybe once a quarter uh maybe twice a year I’ll follow up with them and I’ve gotten jobs that way um there was one interesting thing with the lon board project they reached out to me and they’re like hey we saw your email and I’m like I never sent you anything you know and they’re like wait what I’m like yeah I never sent you an email so I still to this day don’t know how they contacted but they found my stuff um and then a lot of my other stuff um comes through talent agencies through agents, managers that kind of stuff um they can get into the markets that I can’t get into so a lot. I wouldn’t say a lot I would say maybe 40% of my work comes through the agents and then the rest of it is through referrals emails um and Linkedin.

Kristy: Okay what what have you found I- um social media has been a good um source for you when I say social media I guess I’m primarily referring to um if you’re on Facebook Instagram Twitter if you’re on I don’t know or if you’re on Tik Tok anything like that.

Nathan: Yeah um so social media like each one to me is going to be a little different for what I use it for for example my Instagram um is more of just you know hey we’re chilling you know not doing anything crazy I’ll do my roll announcements I’ll do things like that um but really a lot of my marketing is going to be on LinkedIn mostly but like Twitter or X you know I connect with other voice actors there see what’s going on in the industry Instagram is just fun stuff like hey you know this is what I did this week or you know um I’m starting more now to connect with producers and videographers and other businesses on Instagram. Um Facebook to me I- I have not unlocked pandora’s box on box on Facebook I don’t use it at all um I’ve never really found a use for it um but again it’s because I don’t really know how it works so I’m like I haven’t been on Facebook in forever so anything that comes from my Instagram will automatically get uploaded to Facebook so I’m like well it’s connected so I don’t.

Kristy: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Nathan: Um but yeah most the most of the socials and stuff like that it’s just kind of I’ll still do marketing there but it’s less towards you know the bigger studios.

Kristy: Okay, yeah and what have you found has been like important as far as like client relationship ship do you get a lot of return clients like have you fostered good um like like in client relationships have you had a lot of comeback because you’ve had good relationships with clients or is it kind of like a lot of one-time deals and then you move on?

Nathan: Yeah um I’ve got quite a few return clients uh one of my biggest clients is you know was a referral from uh a voice actor and they work with me every day you know day in and day out. it’s my biggest client but the biggest thing is with these return clients because COVID created so many what I call COVID voice actors and so people they’re like oh I got laid off or oh I have nothing else to do this is kind of cool let’s try it and so you know as veteran voice actors we have to you know develop that relationship by sending super crisp clean audio that a lot of new voice actors that don’t know what they’re doing um so they need to be they need to be taught that and then also because I’m doing this full-time I can send the audio immediately like if they needed hey I needed it yesterday don’t worry I got you I’ll send it in 10 minutes yeah um and so by doing those things and developing that relationship with them they’re going to keep coming back and keep coming back um because one of my clients who does tours audio tours for colleges um that’s what I do and they’re like they’re like we love your audio it sounds super good you know the people we’ve had before you know you can hear an echo or you know a tingy sound um and so they’ll keep coming back because I can deliver you know top audio quality super super quickly whereas some of these newer voice actors can’t do that simply just because they’ve got a day job.

Kristy: So that raises a question for me how much um training did it take for you to learn how to use your tools meaning um how to record audio properly what- what what kind of equipment to get for yourself because um you know I do a great portion of that myself here and figuring out how to edit audio properly is no joke so like what- what was what was that looking like for you in the beginning.

Nathan: Oh it was insane I had no idea what I didn’t know yeah um so I really couldn’t like if I went back today and listen to the audio I’d be like oh my gosh.

Kristy: I do that too.

Nathan: I’d be like throwing up all over it you know um but we- you know you didn’t know what you didn’t know correct and so what I did was you know even now I’m refining my audio and so I’ve got you know resources of people to assist me excuse me but um YouTube videos like crazy University of YouTube is what I went to um and then learning like for example the plosives how to get rid of those in you know um uh EQ uh band or an- a plug-in you know how to because a lot of these newer voice actors are going to like destroy their audio by adding all these plugins and doing this and doing that and compression everything and so learning what the Studios want is they’re like we just want raw audio we don’t want you to do anything. So I’m trying to figure out even today what is the best way to keep your audio clean but also raw at the
same time you know and so what I’ll do is I’ll just usually normalize it which means bring it the audio the full audio um to a certain decibel level so I usually keep it around minus 3 DB and that’s about it you know I used to even do what they call a d-click which kind of gets those mouth noises out I don’t even do that anymore um because they want to be able to touch the audio to the way they like to so less is more.

Kristy: It really is and it starts by I mean with anything like by recording your environment the- the best you can having the best environment I think makes the best recording.

Nathan: Yeah that’s you’re cuz some of these actors they’re going to you know go out they’re like oh I need I need this $5,000 mic you know but if you have a horrible recording environment that mic you know $5,000 mic is going to sound like some little USB-nothing mic that cost 50 bucks so that’s why I always tell my students it says no no no don’t worry you can get a $100 mic but make sure like especially if you’re in a closet like I am you know the more clothes you have around you the more sound absorption you have and it doesn’t sound boxy is going to be better um on a cheaper microphone than having a terrible space and having a super expensive microphone.

Kristy: Yep yep totally agree with that. Um oh I had a question and it and it left me I’ll have to come back to it if it comes back to my brain um going back to work and referrals and stuff how I as I’ve watched you on your- on your um social media just through time how have you found that like being in the voiceover Community has benefited you in your work sometimes I see you like hey I know this client’s looking for um actually someone not in your own demographic like someone that’s actually Spanish or whatever and you try to refer out another job like do you
find that that is return for you how does that helped you.

Nathan: Yeah absolutely um I like to say that the voice-acting Community is the best community there is um especially in entertainment because in Hollywood is a dog-eat-dog world but voice actors as a community you know we do everything we can to help each other simply for the fact that we’re by ourselves all the time we never get to see each other unless you know we’re doing like a Discord or we’re at a convention you know we’ll do those but the thing is all I wouldn’t say all a ton of us are like hey if you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours kind of thing and so I’ve had voice actors that they’re like hey we’ve been following you we really like your stuff I have a client that needs help with this and I booked a huge client simply from a referral why because we’re following each other we interact with each other um and I’ll post like you said I’ll post stuff because I don’t speak Spanish so I’m like hey I need a female 18 to 25 Spanish speaker and
they’re like fantastic so now you’re developing two relationships one with the client who’s like man this guy was quick thanks so much for sending him over or her over whoever and then now you’re developing a friendship with that voice actor so now when they’re like hey I need a young guy who speaks English then they’ll send it over to me um so you know it’s it’s definitely it’s a scratch my back I’ll scratch yours you know we always are helping each other out um because with authenticity now back in the day, anybody could voice anybody it didn’t matter you know if you had this Indian character it’d be voiced by a white guy yeah you know if you had you know whoever but now if it’s an Asian character we want an Asian voice actor if it’s a black character we want a black voice actor you know and so on and so forth so if I get like like I’ve got um a friend who is Korean and I’m like hey I’ve got this sponsor looking for a Korean guy and he’ll book it like this you know yeah and so the client is super happy he’s super happy so it’s you know it- it all works out in the end yeah and have you found that there’s plenty of work to go around kind of thing for your demographic your age all that kind of thing.

Nathan: Yeah yeah I mean being you know being a white male 25 to 30 sounding you know there’s more than enough work to go around for folks like guys like me um so there’s no need for me to you know take this work from other voice actors when you know some some demographics aren’t getting hardly anything you know um just simply for the way the character is written so even if I have something that’s a little bit outside my demographic I’m still going to send it out you know if it doesn’t fit me exactly then there’s no reason for me to do it I mean because there’s so many other voice actors that can bring authenticity to that character that I couldn’t or that role.

Kristy: Yeah so that that raises a really interesting question that I’ve been excited to ask you which is what is your opinion on AI and voiceover in using AI voice over.

Nathan: So my thing a lot of people were terrified I saw it as a business opportunity um so at the very beginning AI was taking voice-over jobs. Which it still is today um they were cloning actor’s voices and using them without permission.

Kristy: Oh wow.

Nathan: And there was um another voice actor the other day who he found you know that they redid 30 videos that he originally voiced. They changed the script cloned his voice and are now using it and now he’s like suing big time so for me I was like okay how do we change this cause I mean when computers first came out everybody freaked out like it’s going to take everybody’s jobs but now it’s it’s a tool so I said how do I make AI a tool so there’s a organization called Nava which is the National Association of voice actors and they have a AI writer basically which you pair with a contract saying okay you can use this clone of my voice but only for this this this this and this and you have to tell me when it’s being used and if not and I find did litigation is going to happen.

Kristy: Yeah.

Nathan: So um I’m working with and what’s really interesting is I’m working with two companies who’ve professionally cloned my voice they don’t send it out to any clients you know we we had extensive conversations about this so after I sent it we agreed we cloned my voice um because I’m like hey that’s passive income right you know some of these clients don’t have the big budgets that you know these other companies do for session recordings for usage charges all of that stuff and they’re like we just won this little thing for our 30 second animation so I’m like okay great use the AI voice it’s not going to sound amazing because it’s AI and you know you can pay half the price because you’re not using me and so I’m like I’m not working I’m getting paid and it’s great. So I asked him the other day I’m like hey how’s the AI coming they say nobody wants it.

Kristy: Huh.

Nathan: Because they still want the human touch um because at least at this time AI does not have that human touch you can’t direct AI so if you know they’re like oh we want that a little bit sadder you can’t do that right now.

Kristy: Right.

Nathan: So um I saw it as a business opportunity I still am but very cautious about what jobs I’ll go to um because they’ve had you know some guys they’ll do they’ll hire the voice actor for the thing and they want to change one sentence so they’ll clone their voice and redo that one sentence and then that’s it and not say anything well they should be paying for that so you know there’s been so many voice actors that are um you know suing and you know we- Nava is going to the Senate right now to pass bills to make sure that people don’t steal our voices and use them unethically.

Kristy: So if a company wanted to use AI voices how would they know which sites are using voice actors voices ethically and which ones are just stolen like how would you tell.

Nathan: And that would be a question for Cairn Gilfry who is one of the presidents of the National Association of Voice Actors um they- her and Tim Freelander are working night and day to try to figure that exact question out they’re trying to to answer that um so what they’re working on right now is this um beta tested program where voice actors will upload their voices and then it’ll scour the internet to find your voice and so it’s like okay yes I did that or no this is AI I didn’t do that and um you know like… For example 11 Labs you know you have to look at the fine print because sometimes they’ll say oh we can use your clone for whatever we want to I don’t know if they would but it’s in their you know fine print saying yeah we can do that and so you would never want to upload your voice because if they did decide to do that they did a commercial and they’re like hey here’s what our voice sounds like and it’s mine I never got paid for that um so you got to you know you got to be really- really careful read everything um but for me, I don’t do AI cloning unless I have a conversation with the company, we sign the agreement and then just go from there.

Kristy: That would make me nervous as a as a voice actor for what they might use my voice for.

Nathan: Yeah absolutely.

Kristy: What they might use it for what kind of commercial what kind of anything.

Nathan: Yeah and that’s part that’s part of the the writer the AI writer is you know I say these are the things you cannot use my voice for you know whether it’s not safe for work or whatever it is racist, bigotry, narcissist whatever um because the thing is now the video AI is getting really good to where you know they can put somebody’s voice on moving lips and it looks like that person is saying it yeah um and they’ve been using it in Hollywood for a while so you got to be really, really, really careful you know with where your voice is going because somebody I mean now they only need like 30 seconds of your voice and they can pull that from anything they could pull that from a podcast from an interview I did they could pull it from my social media whatever yeah um so you there’s really no way right now of knowing exactly where my voice is
whether it’s AI or not you know it’s it is a scary thing but this is what we’re dealing with.

Kristy: Huh so separate from AI you know if a company every now and then we when we’re making videos for our clients or whatever we- we’re looking for voice actors and sometimes it’s hard to know where to find voice actors and what’s like a fair like pay like it’s it’s confusing the
Internet is too big sometimes and um things like Fiverr are just kind of like frustrating to use what what is your suggestion for companies or people who are looking to find help with finding a voice actor like how do you do that?

Nathan: I love love that you asked that question loved it. So I say it all depends on so I’ve talked to some companies they love using what they call the pay to play sites which is voices.com voice123.com because they say oh we’re- we’re shooting videos out you know three or four times a week I don’t have time to scour the internet to find these people I just need to put up an audition get you know get um auditions back and then go on with my day um whereas some other actor or some companies they say I don’t have time for any of that I’m going to send it to a talent agency and send me your best 10 you know and those are for the bigger budget projects and then some people just develop relationships with actors individually whether they got an email from them or cold email or cold call or whatever um so it it just depends on what’s easy for the client in regards to rates there’s the um GVAA rate guide and so you know a lot of these that’s industry standards and a lot of people they’re going to you know take voice actors from Fiverr and they’re like oh it’s five bucks it’s great but that’s not a fair rate you know um plus I mean you got to think about, you’re getting what you’re paying for so with Fiverr you know you’ll they’re like oh this is good enough right and if you’re good if the company’s good with that all
I’m all for it. You know but many companies good enough is not good enough you know they need we need professional voice actors that have professional Studios that you know we can edit the audio um so a lot of times you know nine times out of 10 like I said they’ll use the pay to plays Voice One 123 voices.com uh which are the big guys they’ve got VO Planet which is another one um or if they have the time you know they’ll develop relationships with voice actors or send it to talent agencies.

Kristy: Okay yeah one of the most complicated projects we did it was years ago we had we were making a commercial and it was six different characters in the ad so we had to find a voice actor for um like a Hispanic man a black woman, a Korean man, a white man, a white woman and then like a black man and so it was like I like I had to source all these different races and ages and it was like how am I going to do this and so when we run across things like that I’m just like I don’t even know how some sometimes like it was very complicated and again things have progressed so much since then but like I said the internet is so big it’s like what is what is fair pay and how do you even so it it can get scary out there looking for that.

Nathan: And what’s interesting is even some um agencies like video agencies they’ll even have a roster of talent so they’ll have like you know 20 male 20 female and now you know it’s really getting popular is a non-binary LBGTQ list so they’re like if the client specifically wants this okay I’ve got 30 people that I can use I’m going to send them this audition get back the best 10 send it to the client and be done with it. Um a lot of times they find that much much easier than spending the money on the pay to plays spending the money trying to find through talent agencies they’re just like I want to do this quick these 20 people I love let’s use them.
Kristy: Yep ready to go.

Nathan: Yeah.

Kristy: Yeah so what about someone that want wants to get started in voice-over you said that you went to school for this and now you’re teaching at that school tell me a little bit about teaching at that school and- and what that means for you and how you how you started doing that.

Nathan: Yeah so voice actor or voice actor voice-over people think you’re like oh I’m just reading and I get paid for it which couldn’t be further from the truth um because to read for voiceover even with the different genres of voice-over is going to be different so getting that training is super super important and so the way I train or um I trained at a company called Such a voice and has you know I was eight- eight almost nine years ago um is changed night and day from when I was there originally um but we go through through acting how to act in front of the microphone you know how to say certain things how to sound conversational because a lot of voice actors when they first start are sounding like they’re reading you know words on a page and obviously nobody wants that and so now um with commercials the trend is just talking to a friend I- I see that every day on what we call specs and that’s how they want the script to sound and they’re like okay we want a conversational talking to a friend if I had a dollar for every time I’d see that I’d never have to do voiceover again in my life. Um but we we just have we have
conversations every day right but reading in a conversational tone is the hardest thing a voice actor can do I don’t know why it’s so difficult but it is because you’re you’re reading words I
guess that are not your own.

Kristy: Yeah.

Nathan: Which is probably what makes it more difficult.

Kristy: In lots of different tones so many different tones.

Nathan: Mhm exactly so mastering the conversational read um is that that’ll you know and authentic- being authentic to that read will- will um bring in the big money but you got to get there first so that’s what I try to do with my students is we’ll go through scripts and I like to use actual scripts not just some made up scripts um that are on some script websites to practice uh because you know scripts change on The Daily you know commercials from 5 years ago are not the same as they are now so I’ll take scripts that I’m getting for auditions um obviously if it’s under NDA- we not I don’t share that stuff but stuff that’s open and out in the world I’ll share that with my students and then we’ll go over it even commercials that I’ve booked um we’ll go over those scripts with them so and then even like I I’ve got to make sure that the scripts attach their voice so if it’s some Maybelline commercial I’m not going to give it to this buff Ruff guy you know because it just doesn’t work you know?

Kristy: Right right.

Nathan: Um but yeah learning how to read for voice-over is super important so training training training before they even get a studio I’m like you need to train first.

Kristy: So is part of the schooling also go into things like how to set up a studio how to get jobs
things like that as well?

Nathan: Yeah so what they when they come to me we work on the technique side of voice-over um and then there’s a whole other section on setting up a home studio um they even have a home studio set so if the student has no clue we’ll send them the mic the interface you know the headphones all of that stuff so they have a starter Studio to set up with wow um and then after that’s done then they have an entire marketing course on how to find jobs and how to Market yourself um um they even have a temporary website that you can use for your own page until you get a full-on website um so there’s so many resources there’s blogs you know I’ve written a
couple blogs there they’ve got weekend workshops they’ve got so many different things that they didn’t have when I was there um learning but yeah it’s it’s an invaluable tool and then once they leave or once they’re done um with the course they’re still part of the membership I guess you could say um where there are so many resources that they can still use um they’ve got a Q&A by a weekly session that they can talk to their voice actors professionals um and learn from there.

Kristy: Okay and what do you think is required for someone who wants to get in this to get started do you need a particularly extroverted personality and sexy voice in order to be a voice actor or like what do you have to come with?

Nathan: Yeah so that is and I’ve talked to so many people and I’m like hey you could do voice- over they’re like yeah but I don’t have the voice and I always ask them what is the voice right because they’re always like they’re thinking of the James Earl Jones and so then I say how many times have you heard James Earl Jones on an alive commercial never right right you hear normal people and that’s the beauty of VoiceOver is they want your sound they’re like yeah but but I got this weird voice they want that because that’s the authenticity and I’ve even talked to some women who have particularly deeper voices and they’re making big money because they don’t want to hear these little high pitched little girls they’re like we need something different you
know we want something that we never heard before and then they’ll start using these people with these voices that are not your standard voice if that’s even a thing um because they want
everyday people you know and with the- the Gen Z and you know the Millennials or after the Millennials you know they can smell BS from a mile away and they’re like no we want authentic people and now what I’ve been seeing is they’ll hire outside of voice actors to find these actual people so they’re like oh you’re an actual blogger or you’re an actual poet let’s use you you know and then we can we can direct you from there so you know if you have that authenticity it doesn’t matter what your voice sounds like um and I mean we can train you to read for voiceover we just we want everyday people yeah which is yeah it’s it’s- it’s cool it’s because I obviously don’t I’m not the James Earl Jones I’m not you know the Morgan Freemans of the world um but I’ve made a good living using this voice that I’m using right now.
Kristy: You have an easy voice to listen to though.

Nathan: Oh thank you, thank you.

Kristy: And I think some people hear back their own voice especially- like I hear all the time and I record a lot of people they hear their voice back especially being recorded and they cringe they’re just like I hate my recorded voice I’ve never felt that way about myself I don’t know why- like I- I kind of it’s funny to me when people say that I’m like why that’s what you sound like.

Nathan: Yeah exactly I don’t I don’t know you know I’ve heard that too um and there’s been situations where I’m like you know even for this genin game I was like there’s no way I’m getting this I’m just going to audition and move on and they’re like yeah we like it and I was like wait what and so I always tell especially new voice actors who say that they’re like oh I hate my voice but people tell me I should do it I said let them enjoy your voice yeah let them enjoy it because what you don’t like could be somebody’s that’s the one voice um and so I mean and those who have hated their voices they’ve eventually got over it and they’re like okay it’s fine whatever now um but I’m like yeah don’t- don’t discredit yourself just because you think you don’t have a good voice know everybody has a good voice yeah it just depends on what the project is.

Kristy: Yeah and this for you just kind of started you said out of like a out of a passion because you you saw you heard a commercial and just got excited about it is that true?

Nathan: Yeah um because I’ve always been a creative I’ve never been like my wife’s a nurse I could never do that. You know I’m like for those people who can do that I am you know all for it you go do it. You know I’m gonna be the creative type.

Kristy: Same, same.

Nathan: So for me I was like man I didn’t even know that was a thing I didn’t know that was a job and I was like man if I can do that oh man this would be so much fun yeah and it’s been fun for the last nine years now it’s a lot of work and you have to be motivated you have to be motivated.

Kristy: Yeah.

Nathan: Um but as the work you know once the work starts coming in you know it’s like oh this is a blast so much fun.

Kristy: It seems like there’s a lot of different elements of it like you it’s it’s- the it’s the Outreach in getting jobs and the marketing and then it’s also the the the recording and then it’s the editing it feels like there’s a lot of different things that you have to do it’s not just recording voice over is that true?

Nathan: Yeah um I would say marketing is probably 90% of what I do wow um and now I’ve got it
to where it’s automated um you know and- and some people like oh that’s the worst thing you could possibly do well I have different automations for different job titles okay so you know I’ve got automations for you know an audio engineer or a video editor a production company certain things like that so now I’ve got it to where it’s automated so I’m not spending as much time on it um but yes it’s marketing editing actually reading the script figuring out what they’re trying to do, do the actual recording send it off to the client make them happy um and then sometimes they’ll do um sessions to where they want to connect to your studio. So we use um a program called Source Connect and online they can record on their end from my studio so that’s another portion of you know the time and then the admin portion you know sending out the invoices um you know whatever other admin you’re doing making sure your accounting is good, your taxes are good all of that kind of stuff.

Kristy: The boring stuff.

Nathan: Yes the boring stuff and unfortunately that takes up majority of the time whereas doing the actual recording you know is maybe 10% of it.

Kristy: Yeah, yeah stilll makes it worth it though.

Nathan: Oh yeah oh absolutely I man if I could go back I would have done this sooner.

Kristy: Yeah, yeah.

Nathan: It’’s a lot of fun.

Kristy: So tell us is there a favorite project that comes to mind uh that you can share with us?

Nathan: Yeah so I think I don’t know I mean Lola on Board that was a more recent one but there’s another show or a movie called Happy Heroes the Stones and that was another feature-length film animation that I got to play a villain but it’s not your typical villain that everybody’s afraid of this is the villain that you know when the real villains come in they’re like okay that’s nice I need you to get out of the way now um nobody really took him seriously so he he was one of those where he there was one scene I liked where he came out of the ship the door closes and he’s standing there you know looking at this vast Wilderness and his assistant comes out and the door smashes him and he’s like get off of me get off me so he’s a goober um so that was a lot of fun I don’t know when that’s gonna come out we recorded that like two years ago.

Kristy: Oh wow.

Nathan: Um I’ve I’ve seen the trailer but I’ve never seen anything else so I don’t know if it’ll ever see the light of day who knows um and then the Lola on Board being that because that was my first dubbing project so that was crazy that was definitely a learning experience for sure but those two are a lot of fun and then you know now getting into Genshin Impact um video games. Video games is a different is a different beast yeah I would think it’s whole different beast because you know you- you have zero context of what’s happening in your lines so now you have to create this world based off of what the director tells you in that moment and you’re like
okay now I have this line what am I supposed to do with it who am I talking to you know what are they saying and so you have to get that information from the directors and the booth directors and just do your best you know.

Kristy: Do you get to see what they look like or anything your character?

Nathan: Sometimes, sometimes and original… so like to talk about Genshin for a minute um when I first auditioned I had no idea what it was for I- I just knew the project was code-named the character was code-named so I didn’t know if it was a video game it was animation no idea and so then they’re like hey can we do a redirect with Nathan and this is coming through my agent is a third party and I’m like yeah sure I’ll do a second audition that’s fine so I sent it off and then like a couple days later they’re like hey can we now we want to redirect him this way can he do a third audition and I’m like what in the world I’m like yeah sure that- that’s fine I guess and they did a fourth one and they’re like hey we want to try to do it this way a little more matter of fact so I had no idea I was doing call getting called back I just thought it was just they were redirecting doing an audition and I’m like hey they can you know if they want to do a directed audition we can do that instead of just doing it over email and so then they’re finally like you know after I don’t know a week and a half they’re like hey we want to use Nathan here’s the information and here’s what his character looks like and so I play Oraon um in Genshin Impact who’ll be coming out pretty soon but I had no idea who he was you know what he looked like or anything which I think kind of helped too because it brought my- my style, my voice to the character um so we’ve recorded a little bit so far but what I’ve seen I’m like I don’t I don’t
know what’s happening with this guy you know I’ve got a little bit of a backstory for him but what’s going to happen in the future we’ll have to see what happens.

Kristy: Do you picture yourself playing this game once it comes out?

Nathan: Oh I’ve already been playing it okay I’ve already been playing it um so yeah Genshin impact I think came out in 2020 and they do updates to it um so what I- you know they’ll like the the five point or 4.8 just came out um 5.0 is going to have a whole new setup a new land new characters all of that kind of stuff so I’m playing for research purposes.

Kristy: I see.

Nathan: Yeah but um a lot of people that I know you know my family and- and Friends they’ve played Genshin so I’m like okay so what is this what is that you know why are people wanting this why is this important so now with this knowledge now I can come back to the character.

Kristy: Having context.

Nathan: Yes, having some context and playing and then I love seeing the theories because when the trailer came out where- with my character in it, it literally flew past me and that’s it so we don’t know anything about this character, all we have is we’ve seen what he looks like and he’s standing next to a huge character and they’re like oh my gosh and the theories are going wild so it’s it’s cool.

Kristy: That’s exciting, that’s really exciting.

Nathan: It’s a lot of fun so who knows.

Kristy: So what’s next for you do you have any like new goals for yourself or or big projects coming up or anything like that that you want to do?

Nathan: Yeah so um you know there’s uh Atlas Talent Agency is a huge talent agency it’s National um and I’ve been knocking on their door for the last three almost four years now so been working on them trying to get trying to get on their roster um and then now radio Imaging is what I’m doing now and that’s a lot of people are like what’s that it’s you know when you turn on the radio and it’s like 104 104 4K RB you know that so the voice actors that do that- that’s a whole genre in itself and it’s a very small world.

Kristy: Okay.

Nathan: So for me I’m going up against radio veterans who’ve been doing this for years so you know that’s that’s going to be an interesting genre to break into but you know I’ve gotten a lot of help I’ve gotten a demo uh an audio demo done so it’ll be interesting to see but yeah that’s that’s a big project for me right now.

Kristy: And the talent agency would be able to what help you find like bigger cool jobs is that the goal?

Nathan: Yeah so the talent agencies have the relationships that I could never have for example Cartoon Network, Netflix, you know um Nickelodeon all of those Pixar all of those kinds of things
because they’ve got their foot in the door because they are a talent agency whereas normal voice actors you would never be able to even look in that direction um but yeah they’ve got they’ve got really- really big stuff going on so we’ll see we’ll see what happens.

Kristy: Yeah that would be awesome we’d love to see you out there yeah me too me
too so um all right tell us uh how how do we find your school where should we find you on social tell us your website give us all your plugs.

Nathan: Yeah so uh you can see my Instagram here NathanNokesVo that’ll pretty much be everything so if you just Google Google Nathan Nokes you’ll see my website NathanNokeVo-
or Nathan novo.com um all my information is there I’m on X NathanNokesVO um Instagram those are the two big things I check and if you want to follow me on LinkedIn uh it’s Nathan Nokes Voice overs. Um there so uh don’t be a stranger I don’t bite too hard at least so come on over and um the school that you teach at did you so that’s Such a Voice um so Such a Voice is an eight-week course uh that works with just me and then there’s additional courses that are going that are part of that that go into marketing like we talked about on all of those kinds of things um Such a Voice is you know it’s an investment like most schools are um but um if it’s if you’re not looking to invest heavily right now I also do coach one on-one um which some people they like to just try it out for one session to see how it is because it’s way cheaper than jumping head-first into something that you may or may not want to do.

Kristy: Yep perfect okay well thank you so much for being here I feel like we learned a lot in just a little bit of time.

Nathan: Thank you. I’m glad I’m glad to help.

Kristy: Yeah, yeah we appreciate it so um maybe we’ll have you back in the future I’m sure with AI changing we could have a whole new conversation.

Nathan: Exactly, who knows.

Kristy: In the future so… All right everyone make sure you follow Nathan and um thank you again for being here and we’ll catch everybody next time.

Nathan: Thank you.