Life & Work with Tony Jackson of Phoenix

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tony Jackson.

Hi Tony, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Voiceover started at my college radio station (The Blaze at Arizona State University) where I was the production director. I realized that recording commercials for the radio was something that people got paid to do. I wanted to do more production work, so I started scouring the Internet for other opportunities. This was around 2004, so Internet radio wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is now. I found a heavy metal station based in Alaska. I made some elements for his station and got paid for it! I never pursued it past that. However the seed had been planted.

Over the years, I would dip my toes back into voiceover. I would do a little research here, enter a contest there, however, it never went past that. In 2019, someone had asked me if I was, “Going to that voiceover class“ at the community college down the street. I wasn’t because I didn’t know it was going on. I looked into it some more, and signed up. They were recruiting new students for their voiceover training program. I wanted to sign up and finally jump in, however it was too expensive. Several days later, I shared my excitement for this program with a friend and told this person that I would have to wait. They very graciously offered me help to get started. After some deep, internal deliberations, I accepted the help and was on my way.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
This journey has been as smooth as tumbling down the side of Camelback Mountain. Working as a voice actor requires us to develop the resilience to keep going despite not being chosen for the job… This happens every day. We audition for work and most of these jobs will be given to one person. Some of these jobs get hundreds of auditions. Every day someone is being chosen over you. This can become internalized as, “I’m not good enough.” This journey has required a lot of self improvement in order to reframe the situation and look at it more objectively. Not getting a job doesn’t mean I’m not good enough. It means that the people selecting the voice found one that fits their vision of the finished project more closely than my voice.

On top of that, there are the typical challenges of being a business owner. Every voice actor is a freelancer and every freelancer is a business owner. We are the CEO, CFO, CMO, CTO, and every other acronym required to run a business. In addition, we also have to learn how to be audio engineers because we have to record and edit our auditions and jobs. Coming into voiceover, I already had the audio engineering skills from my time at the radio station. All the other internal and external challenges are a work in progress…

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
With this journey into voiceover, I am most proud of getting started. It was something I discovered in 2004 and finally began pursuing in earnest in 2019. The world creates all of these “rules” that most of us follow. In the process, many of us cast aside and neglect the pursuits that call to us. We find comfort and stability in jobs and careers that we may or may not enjoy. However, they are very low risk and sustain us. I started voiceover at my college radio station and paused for 15 years and bounced from job to job every few years. However, it would call to me on occasion and remind me that it was still there, waiting to be freed.

Although I am nowhere near where I want to be with voiceover, I do have regular work. You can hear me five days a week on recorded podcasts for IGN, which is a well known video game, movie, and entertainment website. You can also hear me if you ever visit the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, as my voice is part of a permanent exhibit. As this journey moves forward and training continues, you will eventually hear me in more places.

In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
The biggest shift that all of us are navigating currently is the proliferation of generative AI and the creation of synthetic voices. Some of our work has been replaced with robots. Some of us have had our voices stolen and used without our knowledge or consent. The National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA) has been working diligently to protect all voice actors. As the technology improves, we may lose more opportunities. The challenge lies within us to improve our acting skills and tell the stories in a way that no computer can because they lack the one thing that makes us unique…our humanity. Our emotions. Computers may be able to mimic that, however until they become sentient beings, they will never truly replicate it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tonyjacksonvo.com
• Instagram: @tonyjacksonvo
• Facebook: @tonyjacksonvo
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyjacksonvo/
• Twitter: @tonyjacksonvo
• Youtube: @tonyjacksonvo

Image Credits
Headshots: Christian Gueritheault