What animation voice over involves

Animation inverts the usual order. In most video the voice is added to finished picture, but in animation the voice is usually recorded first and the animators build performance from it. That makes casting the single most consequential decision in the production, and it makes direction essential rather than optional.

Character voice acting is a distinct skill. It is not a narrator putting on a funny voice. It is acting, with the range to sustain a character across dozens of episodes and the vocal technique to do it without damage.

What animation voice acting demands from an actor

The constraints are unusual. The actor has no scene partner, no set and often no finished storyboard, and has to build a character from a script and a director's notes alone. Four things separate actors who can carry a series from actors who cannot:

Range without strain. A character voice has to be repeatable on demand, for hours, months apart, without damaging the voice that produces it.
Physical commitment. Animation performance is bigger than live-action performance, and actors who hold back read as flat once the character is drawn around them.
Consistency. Episode fourteen has to sound like episode one, recorded a year earlier.
Speed of adjustment. A director's note has to land in the next take, not the next session.

Finding animation voice over talent

Casting animation from a showreel rarely works, because a reel shows what an actor has already been cast as rather than what they can do with your character. We audition against your actual script and character breakdown, so you hear the part rather than a demonstration, and we shortlist deliberately narrow: three or four genuine candidates beat twenty near misses.

What we cover

Animated series, shorts and features
Game cinematics and in-engine character dialogue
Children's animation and educational characters
Brand mascots and recurring characters
Motion graphics with character narration

Directed sessions

We run animation sessions with a director on the line and you in the room if you want to be, remotely via Source Connect or a similar path. Character work needs live adjustment: a note about intention, a different reading of one line, an alternative on a joke. Recording a character without direction and hoping produces takes you have to re-book.

Character consistency

Series work runs over months. We hold each character's casting, session settings and vocal notes so episode fourteen matches episode one, and we log which actor plays which role when one actor is voicing several characters, which is common and easy to lose track of.

Dubbing and lip sync

Taking an animated property into other languages is a different job from original recording. The translated line has to carry the meaning, fit the time and match the mouth movement already animated. We adapt scripts for lip sync rather than translating them literally, and cast actors in each market who can perform to picture.

What you get

Character auditions from shortlisted actors, read to your script
Directed sessions you can attend remotely
Clean, separated character stems ready for the mix
Alternate takes on key emotional beats
A character record kept for future episodes and seasons

Send us the script or character breakdowns and we will cast and quote.

Animation Voiceovers