Toby Ricketts: "It's NEVER Been Harder” To Be a Voice Actor!
Paul (00:00.525)
Well, my guest today, I'm pretty certain is a time traveler because it's already a day ahead of me where he is in New Zealand.
In all seriousness, my guest today is not just a highly experienced voice actor of over 20 years. He is also the head of Gravy for the Brain Oceania and runs his own voice acting academy in New Zealand. Please welcome to the podcast.
Toby Ricketts, Toby, it's a pleasure to have you on, man.
Toby Ricketts (00:31.384)
Absolutely a pleasure to be on here, Mr Schmidt. Thank you very much for having me.
Paul (00:35.341)
It's my pleasure. We, you and I met on a webinar that was the brainchild of our dear mutual friend, Dervla Trainor. And that was called, what was that called? Global, there we go, something like that. It was, I got in trouble for the word global. I do remember that. But that's how we met.
Toby Ricketts (00:49.08)
Global VoiceOver Summit I think. Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly.
Paul (00:59.405)
And then we got to chat a little bit on your podcast. And now we're over to expose you to the good folks of North America here. So I've been looking forward to this for a long time. First of all, I know some folks here in the States and in Canada, maybe even in the UK are familiar with you through your work with Gravy for the Brain. So let's start there. You are the head of Gravy for the Brain Oceania, and I'm not even sure everybody here.
Toby Ricketts (01:02.582)
Mm -mm.
Toby Ricketts (01:07.)
Yeah, exactly.
Toby Ricketts (01:26.166)
Hmm.
Paul (01:28.173)
knows what Oceania is. So let's start there.
Toby Ricketts (01:30.168)
Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Oceania, as far as I'm aware, thank you for having me, by the way. I've been looking forward to this too. It's going to be a fantastic chat. Oceania is Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific islands. So that's, which is basically most of the Pacific, like right across to American Samoa and Hawaii, the dateline basically. So that's sort of like, yeah, the ocean as it was, but not Asia. So it stops up at sort of, you know, Indonesia and those archipelagos up in the...
Paul (01:42.925)
which include...
Paul (01:49.389)
Okay. Interesting.
Toby Ricketts (01:59.)
very stiflingly hot and humid regions. But primarily, I mean, to be honest, we don't get that many people from the Pacific Islands because the population is so low. And it's mostly Australia, New Zealand that I deal with. So it's kind of we call it Oceania, but primarily it's Australia, New Zealand.
Paul (02:15.629)
Very good. How did you get hooked into Gravy For The Brain and then how did that come to Oceania?
Toby Ricketts (02:23.96)
Funny story actually, with Gravy for the Brain because when back in the misty days of, you know, that time when you're a voiceover, when you're kind of in your third year of going like full -time professional and it's gone pretty well and you're kind of like finding gigs here, there and everywhere and like little things and still sort of, you know, trying to prove to yourself that you can do this and it's all okay. And week to week is fine.
Um, and, uh, I came across still, I wish I could remember where I heard about it, but I heard about this competition called the one voice awards that gravy for the brain were running for the first time. And, uh, it was like a, you know, it was a, it was a competition to, to, to, to for voiceover. And I was like, well, of course I want to enter a competition. Um, the only criteria was that it was a British company. So you had to have a British passport and lo and behold, I am originally from England. Um, I moved over to New Zealand when I was 14 years old in 1994. So, um, so I do have a British passport.
So I entered this competition. I threw everything I had at it. I threw all these jobs that I'd done for it, like some stuff, I think back in the day, I did some stuff for Facebook and I did a few other sort of big brand stuff. And then just forgot it, as you do. Like to stay sane in this game, you do your best stuff, you throw it at the wall and you walk away, like, and see what sticks. Exactly, I sent it and forget it. So I sent it into this competition. And about, when was it? It was about, I don't know, a few months later.
Paul (03:31.085)
Send it and forget it. Yep.
Toby Ricketts (03:39.8)
I got a call from Hugh Edwards who said, hi, it's Hugh Edwards. I'm the head of grade for the brain and the one voice awards. We're just wondering if you, if you're going to come over to the UK for the, for the award ceremony for the voice awards. And I was like, Ooh, Ooh, Ooh, if I won something. And he was like, we, we think you should come. I was like, Oh really? That's exciting. And I was like, just, we think you should come. So I was like, okay. So I committed to go out to go over and it was like, it was like the next week or something. So I literally booked flights and like for that, like I left on like a Friday.
Paul (03:56.429)
hahahaha
Paul (04:05.515)
Oh wow.
Toby Ricketts (04:08.856)
Of course, because of the time difference, actually time traveled backwards. Like, so it's like when you travel from here, one way you lose a complete day and the other way you gain a complete day. So it's like, it's very strange and time traveling. Um, but I arrived in the UK on like a Thursday night and I had flights booked for the Sunday night to go home. So it was just a 72 hour thing. And I arrived and went to this amazing one voice conference, which is just as fantastic. You know, know how voice conferences are. They're just wonderful to, especially if it's your first one, you find all these people that you've.
you know, that they're in the same game as you and everyone's got the same problems and challenges and everything. But anyway, I digress. So we go to the awards. I'm sitting down and like the first category comes up and I like win an award and it's amazing. And long story short, I won seven awards that evening. Basically everything I entered including voiceover of the year. So it was a mixed reaction because people were like, yay, he's won it again. But everyone was like, hang on, he just came in from New Zealand and he's leaving on the Sunday.
Paul (04:50.541)
Good lord.
Toby Ricketts (05:01.848)
I arrived and scooped up all these awards and then left. Um, everyone sort of dazed and confused. So, uh, that was my first introduction to like the proper world of voiceover. And I, and it kind of proved me. I was like, wow, I think, I think I can do this. I think I might be quite good at this because I had no reference point up till then, you know, like, and no, and it's nice to sort of have that, uh, that accolade just to prove to yourself that like, cause I mean, in New Zealand, we're very isolated from the rest of the world. So I've had no contact with any other.
Paul (05:02.669)
you
Toby Ricketts (05:29.752)
Um, any, any other voiceovers really, or any other, um, industry bodies. Um, and then, um, the next year rolls around. I'm like, well, I'm definitely entering this year because that was fun last year. I want to do it again. Um, and so I, uh, I entered again and I won, um, I think four awards or five awards, including voiceover of the event year as well. Um, and at the end of the conference, um, Hugh and, uh, and Peter were like, we'd like to talk to you about like opening an Oceania division.
Paul (05:39.501)
It seemed to have gone rather well.
Paul (05:51.757)
God.
Toby Ricketts (05:58.296)
And I still think it's mainly to stop me entering the awards and winning it because for now I'm an employee. I can't, I can't enter those awards. So, um, but yeah, so, um, I mean, yeah, the, the one voice awards is so fantastic. And I, and I have the pleasure of judging it every year as well. Now, um, well, sometimes actually I didn't do the last year and when technically not, not meant to mention until after the awards that we, uh, we, we judge it because it's, I don't know if you've, um, you know, heard about the terms of the, the one voice awards, but it's incredibly transparent.
Paul (06:01.195)
Bye, pay.
It's a vast conspiracy.
Toby Ricketts (06:55.688)
Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, Hugh and Peter, you know, came to me and said, we think you should head up the Oceania division. I'm pretty sure it was because they basically don't want me to enter and ruin the awards anymore. But it's always nice to be invited back some years to do some judging and listen to all the entries that have put in. If anyone's ever judged awards or done casting, it teaches you so much about your own craft when you hear other people doing things and find what works and see what everyone else is doing. So I...
Paul (07:06.551)
Ha ha ha!
Paul (07:23.597)
Absolutely.
Toby Ricketts (07:24.33)
encourage anyone to, if you ever get the chance, to do a casting or awards to enjoy it and to do it.
Paul (07:31.085)
And that's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you because being in tiny New Zealand, halfway around the world, you mentioned the word community, right? And as a community builder myself, to me, that's one of the most powerful aspects of being a freelancer, being a voice actor is this thing that we call the voice acting community. Talk about once you got hooked into and then really had to build in New Zealand and Oceania, the community for gravy for the brain.
Toby Ricketts (07:40.662)
Hmm.
Toby Ricketts (07:51.318)
Hmm.
Paul (07:59.437)
talk about that and what maybe some of the challenges are for at least for yourself when you didn't have a community and then maybe on the other side of the glass too as a community builder, what are you facing?
Toby Ricketts (08:11.446)
Hmm, interesting. I mean, I'm an interesting mix of people in that I do like being around groups of people, but I'm also a little bit of a hermit. Like I live four hours north of Auckland, the main big city here in New Zealand, and two hours away from the next big city. So I'm really kind of in the middle of nowhere. There's a small town nearby, which where we get our groceries, et cetera. But I'm right in the bush, in the jungles of New Zealand.
which is incredible that, you know, that technology has allowed us to be able to do this now, you know, remotely from wherever. But I always found that it was really nice and helpful to have this community sort of spirit, like to feel like you had co -creators and co -voiceover artists that were doing the same thing as you, albeit in separate studios.
And so, I mean, Grave of the Brain was a good chance to do that. I always try and keep in touch with all my voice academy graduates as well, and to hear their successes, et cetera. It's still kind of tough. If I lived in the big city, I would try and do some kind of meetup group where we do meet in person, because it's never quite the same hanging out online. But Grave of the Brain has really allowed me to form friendships with upcoming voice actors.
from around the world who are sort of giving it a go and you see them getting better and better each time, which is the really nice thing is that you, you know, that's the real heartwarming thing. And really why I sort of stay in this, in the, in in voice training game. Cause voice training, I mean, generally there's been some stories, you know, that have come out of the past few months and years of people being really exploitative or, you know, people, you know, getting a bad rep sometimes where people are just trying to sell voice reels to people who really aren't ready to record voice reels for example. So.
Um, you know, at that point I sort of considered taking a step back and just being a voice artist as well. But I do really gain energy from introducing people to this world of voiceover. Um, if, if they, if, you know, if they want to experience it and if they've got promise, um, and then, uh, and seeing them improve, um, you know, every time we do coaching or, um, every time we do a session, um, because, you know, they're just listening to the stuff and getting better and better every time. And I'm a firm believer that, um, in teaching something, even now after I've been doing it for five or six years.
Toby Ricketts (10:24.312)
you learn something about your own craft. Like every time you teach something, it really cements those things and you relearn those lessons. So it's been really useful for a bunch of reasons there.
Paul (10:33.005)
I couldn't agree with you more. You obviously do the work for Gravy for the Brain Oceania. I have VO Pro. You're teaching people the craft and the art of voice acting. I'm on the business side, but I have to agree with you. When you see people grow in whatever you're teaching them, that like, and I get paid for it? I mean, are you kidding me? It's like, it's almost like stealing because it's so gratifying to watch people grow and to do things that they...
previously didn't believe that they could do. That is the most amazing thing to me. So good on you for that and good on, you know, I've got so much respect for Hugh and Peter and for the work that Gravy for the Brain does. A fantastic organization. And if you're not already a member of Gravy for the Brain or, you know, you're considering like, yeah, there's VO Pro, but there's also Gravy for the Brain and it's like coaching. It's like you find one that works for you and use it, right?
Toby Ricketts (11:03.702)
Hmm. Hmm.
Toby Ricketts (11:25.944)
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
Paul (11:28.141)
Um, I want to go back to you 14 years old you, because you said you were a British citizen until 14. Let's hear about your story a little bit. You were born somewhere in the UK.
Toby Ricketts (11:35.064)
Hmm.
Sure. That's right. Yeah. I'm from Brighton originally, the party town on the south, south coast, 50 miles south of London. And, born, I don't know, into a relatively normal sort of British, British family. And, but one thing I was obsessed by from very early on, from about six or seven years ago was audio. I was always like fascinated by audio.
Um, one story my parents like to tell is that I took my baby monitor one day, like after I was a baby, but I was probably, I don't know, seven years old. And I put the side that transmitted with the speaker out on the street. And I went into my bedroom and played music and talked into it. Like it was a radio station. So the people on the street were like, what's this music and this child's voice coming to me from this, uh, from this balcony. And it was me having my very first go at a radio station, um, which was.
Paul (12:28.141)
That's fantastic.
Toby Ricketts (12:29.112)
which is pretty funny. So I was obsessed for a long time. And then we moved house into a bigger house. And at that point I became really kind of obsessed with audio and audio gear. So I used to take things apart, used to go to sort of garage sales, pick up, you know, old tape players and amplifiers and turntables and take them apart, sometimes put them back together to see if they worked. But also I built up all the studio gear. So I bought a microphone and I had a mixing desk that I got from some garage sale and...
cobbled it all together and I started doing radio shows on the cassette, like as if it was a real broadcast. I've still got the whole bag, which is hilarious to listen to. And my friends would come over and we'd do, you know, that kind of radio show things. So it was planted. This was about eight years old. So this is sort of very early on. Like I really discovered this passion. And that passion has never, never left me. Like I'm still so fizzed about audio gear, working with audio. I've really grown up like an audio native as it were.
Paul (12:59.725)
No kidding.
Toby Ricketts (13:23.416)
and learned lots of lessons very early on by taking things apart and breaking things or doing various things like that. Then I, what happened then, then moved from the UK when I was 14 years old, so kind of in the first years of high school, which was kind of a, would seem to be a tough time to move to another country, literally like as far away as possible on the globe, you can move away from a place. It's absolutely the other side of the world.
Paul (13:47.063)
Another continent, everything, yeah.
Toby Ricketts (13:50.648)
another hemisphere, you know, it's a radical shift. But it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me because I wasn't really very happy in England and it gave me a chance to kind of redefine myself, you know, at that age, at that kind of formative age when you're sort of finding new friends. Interestingly, my accent, which you'll hear has got quite a Kiwi sound to it now, it changed within two weeks of me being here. So like when I was a little pom back then, I used to talk like this and like, you know, have to have this kind of voice.
And then I came over to New Zealand and people were like, ha ha, he's funny, he's different. You know, like, so I very quickly changed my voice and, and, and, and, and got this kind of like hybrid accent between Kiwi and, and, and UK. And it probably went full Kiwi within like, you know, a couple of months, I'd say. So my, my subconscious just kind of learned this accent. So I, so fit in and people didn't, didn't hassle me, I guess, because it's a very tough time at high school when everyone is.
like listening to everything you do and there's lots of social pressure. But I did find that when I talked to my relatives back on the phone to England, my parents would say, oh, why were you putting on a British accent? And I didn't realize I was doing it, but I was code switching back into like what was appropriate back home and then backwards. So it was kind of an interesting lesson.
Paul (15:04.365)
And I've gotta think that serves you so well as a voice actor today because I'm guessing you do a lot of work both in Oceania as a New Zealander and in the UK as a Brit.
Toby Ricketts (15:16.152)
Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Yep. So I offer four, sorry, five professional accents now. New Zealand, obviously, which is where I'm based, although it's kind of my weakest accent because I do the least amount of work in New Zealand. And because I wasn't born here, I mean, there are very, it's like any country, there are various levels of accent within a country. Like you say, an American accent, you're like, which American accent? It's the same in New Zealand. There are a bunch of different New Zealand accents. So like, I find it difficult to find my way in the New Zealand accent because I'm so familiar with overseas markets now. But I offer New Zealand.
Australia is the, like our Australian cousins over the Tasman Sea, is a similar accent. There's a few like key differences, which were relatively easy to master. Then I offer the British accent, of course, because I can code switch right back into that. An American accent, which I learned after I had these other three accents, because I mean, it's the, if you work on the pay to plays, 95 % of the work is in a North American accent. So I was like, I want some of that work.
And then this new kind of phenomenon, which I kind of brewed up about three or four years ago, after a conversation with J. Michael Collins, actually, which was a hybrid, non -regional global accent, which kind of takes a bit of everything and is the perfect accent for corporates who are trying to be non -regional and to do one video for the whole world. And it's like, I've had a few really big gigs through that. Like when the World Health Organization announced what they were going to do about COVID.
Um, I recorded the video, which was like, here's what we're going to do in this kind of global accent, which included elements of like a Chinese accent, American accent, like some Australasian. It was a real kind of mixed bag, um, accent, but it was, it was fun to kind of work. Like I kind of with, I say that it's a bespoke custom accent service in a way, and you can take elements of different countries and mix them together. So that's, that's always fun to do. But yeah, I think, um, that original code switch, um, has served me well over the years in order to like.
I can do different accents. You just have to listen and repeat and do it over and over again.
Paul (17:12.749)
And I think you have to have a proclivity for it too.
Toby Ricketts (17:15.352)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because I'm still a total accent nerd. I like to play a game whenever we go to a restaurant and there's a server who's got an interesting accent. I try and guess it. I'm like, don't tell me where you're from. I want to narrow it down and see if I can get it. Which sometimes I'm really good at and sometimes hopeless. Yeah.
Paul (17:34.413)
Very nice. You said that, interestingly, you get the least amount of your work in New Zealand. Where does the bulk of your work come from?
Toby Ricketts (17:41.238)
Hmm.
Most of my work is being, or actually in the last five years, like the number of jobs I do, mostly it's being British for Americans. So it's doing a British accent for American clients based in New Zealand, which is a very global kind of operation. But recently I'm the voice of Outback Steakhouse in the United States now, which is a, yeah, that's me. Yeah. So, yeah.
Paul (18:03.085)
That's you!
Well, I'll check that off because I've been thinking, man, Toby sounds familiar. Now I know. All right, there you go.
Toby Ricketts (18:10.584)
Yeah, there you go. Thank you, mate. There you go. It's the adback steakhouse read. So that's my Aussie. Although it's not like it's, it was so interesting. This is one of these really interesting accent things. When they were casting this and I kind of got the job, they said, now we want an Australian accent, but we want what Americans think an Australian sounds like, not what they actually sound like. But this is the perception sort of thing. So yeah, that was a really interesting job. And to try and find out what Americans thought Australian sound like. So it's kind of...
Crocodile Dundee, Steve Irwin kind of stuff with a few other sort of references and touchstones in there as well. But yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's a really fun gig and I really enjoy working on those scripts because they have some really fun campaigns that they pull out occasionally.
Paul (18:45.037)
bit of a parody of itself, right? Yeah.
Paul (18:56.621)
And who'd have thunk that the world's most trusted health organization was using the guy from Outback Steakhouse, right? I want to talk a little bit about, sorry, I completely lost my thought. Let's talk a little bit about your voice academy. You clearly, from your points earlier, you enjoy being a teacher.
Toby Ricketts (19:02.896)
Exactly.
Toby Ricketts (19:13.048)
Hmm. It'll come back.
Paul (19:23.255)
How did that come about? How is that going? Where can, I mean, do you just cater to New Zealanders and Australians, or is that a worldwide voice academy? Let's hear all about that.
Toby Ricketts (19:33.112)
Hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. So it started off as the New Zealand Voice Academy. It actually started like I, we haven't really covered in the conversation, but the fact that I, for most of my career in life, I've been actually on the other side of the glass as an engineer. I started as an engineer. When I say I was an audio enthusiast and building studios, I went into audio engineering and was very happy being the guy on the other side of the glass, pushing the buttons and not being like on camera or on mic. I worked in radio for many years.
And I ended up owning and running a recording studio in Christchurch, New Zealand called Tandem Studios. And one of the things we found was there were lots of people that would come into a recording studio and say, I want to be a voiceover. I want to be a voice actor or something. And we'd say, great, show us what you've done. And they'd be like, well, I don't have anything because I want to become a voice actor. So how can I just record some ads? And we were like, well, not really because clients are paying for the studio time. And do you have any acting background?
So there was this weird no man's land between people who were already voiceover actors and people who wanted to be them, but had no experience. There was no way to get booth time unless you'd already had booth time to get up to the sort of the grade. And most people who were voiceovers either came through acting and they've got an acting job that turned into a voiceover job, or they were from radio where you just spend all the time in the studio because you're there anyway and they needed a voice. So we identified that there was this gap in the market for someone who...
You know, people wanted to try it out, go into the studio, start recording stuff, and basically make a demo reel so they could say, like, I've been in the studio. I know where to start. So that was how it was born, really. And it was 20, I think 23 years ago that started. It was about 2002, I think it was. And yes, the New Zealand Voice Academy, we thought, why not go big and go the whole country? And it was done specifically for that, held out the studio so that people could get some booth time, find out a bit more about what being a voiceover is.
and get some recorded stuff to kind of show their friends and show them some basic techniques. Yeah, that's basically how it goes. We are open to anyone in the world. It's always held in Auckland in New Zealand, the biggest city here. We have a fantastic studio called Native Audio, which is a post -production studio, which is recorded. They're primarily responsible for recording, re -recording a lot of Disney stuff. When Disney movies come into the country and they're dubbed into the tereo, which is the native official language.
Toby Ricketts (21:56.056)
They go to native audio, so they've got beautiful facilities, like just really nice. And they let us, they give us the run of the place for a whole weekend. And we have eight people who come on the course. So it's very small class sizes. And we take, people get lots of booth time. There's lessons about what studio etiquette is. We do lessons, build up the craft. We start with breathing, of course, because as you know, breathing is the foundation of everything we do as a voice artist. Script interpretation.
Paul (22:03.819)
Wow.
Toby Ricketts (22:23.288)
And then we get into some stuff about like how to, how to start up and voiceover where the jobs come from. Um, we don't, we never tell people like, you could make so much money in voiceover. Just do that because we say it's like, it's, it's a, those first few years are very hard. Like it's like starting anything brand new. You've got to learn so much before you can really start making money off it. Um, and, uh, so we teach them about, uh, how to do online auditions, uh, like how that will work once they're sort of good enough.
And then we finish off with a fantastic afternoon of just being silly and coming up with accents and characters and making characters like converse in a scene. And it all ends with lots of giggles and fun in the studio of what it feels like to be in like a radio drama with silly characters. So yeah, and we run it maybe sort of four or five times a year. So not that many. And I kind of, I deliberately restrict it so that we're not, you know, it's only the people that really committed to wanting to come on it. And, um,
and we still get some sort of truth in it and it doesn't become repetitive for us. But yeah, you can find out more at your voiceacademy .co .nz if anyone's keen to have a little look.
Paul (23:28.237)
That's voiceacademy .co .nz for New Zealand, obviously. You mentioned the challenges and there's so much to learn in this business. Let's bring it back to we're recording this in early 2024. What is UC Adobe are the major challenges to somebody coming into this business in the first half of 2024?
Toby Ricketts (23:31.734)
And Z, yeah.
Toby Ricketts (23:49.366)
Hmm.
I mean, I'll start grimly by saying I don't think it's ever been harder than it is now for a new voiceover starting out because there are multiple challenges. There has never been more market saturation. There are so many people who want to be voiceover artists, especially in sort of North America, especially since COVID, when everyone reassessed everything and thought, what do I really want to be doing from home? And voiceover was really one of the...
industries, I think, or online voiceovers like myself who work remotely, we got a huge boon through COVID because so much work had to come through us instead of the traditional studios. So I think lots of people looked at that and thought, that's what I want to do, and then put everything they had into it. So it's kind of flooded in that respect. Of course, there's the now ubiquitous presence of AI, which has mopped up so much of the training grounds, I think, that voiceovers used to be able to get a toe in the water.
whether it was sort of low budget YouTube videos or e -learning or onboarding videos or things where performance didn't really matter. It was kind of procedural. It was kind of mechanical. It was just getting the words out right with some kind of sense. And the budget was kind of low and the clients weren't that fussy. I feel like a lot of that for convenience sake and probably a bit of cost has gone to AI now. I think there will be a Renaissance back to some kind of humanization, but it's...
who, you know, it's anyone's guess at the moment, whether that's going to happen and when that will happen and whether the rates will drop because of that. So for those two reasons, I think it is a tough time to get into voiceover. But having said that, I was like to temper it with the fact that there has never been more voiceover work and there will always be more voiceover work because there's always, there's more content all the time. There are more companies, there are more marketing campaigns. Uh, there are more like, uh, media in order to demonstrate this stuff. So, uh, I feel like they're.
Toby Ricketts (25:39.448)
that those two have kind of been like keeping up with each other in terms of the scarcity of voiceover work is becoming less of a thing because there's a lot around, but also like those jobs are being swept up by AI a little bit. So yeah, so it is a tough time to start out in voiceover, but it's one of those things where if you really love doing it, then that's what gives you your energy. And as long as you can support yourself like you would with starting any hobby,
to start off with, like doing it and getting enjoyment out of it, then that's kind of what matters. And one day that gig will come along or that client will come along and start like paying you properly and it'll be a regular gig and that will be your sort of ticket to freedom. The tricky bit I find with a lot of students and myself included was when do you make the leap? And the leap being going from a side hustle where you've got a day job that's paying you bills, but you can't really apply yourself to being a voiceover artist. You can't spend all day.
you know, marketing and coming up with campaigns and doing auditions, um, because you've got this other day job you have to service. And if you do get a job, you're like, Oh, um, I can do it tomorrow between two and five. You know, you can't be as flexible as you need to be to be a truly great voiceover artist. So at some point you need to say, this is what I'm going to do. Like as my job, and I'm going to fully commit to doing it 24 seven. Um, and it is 24 seven, um, being a voiceover artist. Um, so like that, that leap is the toughest bit to know when you're ready.
to have enough savings to carry you through the early period. But it is the only way to go full -time professional. It's like at some point you just have to make that call and make the switch. And knowing when that is is tricky. You do, you have to do it. So it's a leap of faith.
Paul (27:13.581)
Yeah, you have to have to do it to do it. Right. Yeah. In your own case, I know this is true for me when I did make the leap, I felt I was well prepared, well trained. I felt that, you know, I had I had a special, I guess, circumstance because I booked a lot of work in a very short amount of time. And that's what allowed me to make the leap. And all that said, I went full time.
nine months after I put my full -time plan into effect. I don't think that's realistic for people. I also don't think it was smart for me. Looking back, I leaped too early, too soon. Do you have a similar circumstance or do you feel like, yeah, I mean, it was a little rough in the beginning, but you know, I think my timing was good.
Toby Ricketts (28:05.24)
I mean, I had a different approach and I think I had a lucky approach in terms of it was a time in my life. I'll give you a bit of backstory. I had the recording studio in Christchurch. I had a family and had everything down there. I had put down roots in Christchurch and it was all sort of going well. And then on, when was it? 2011 in February, we had the Christchurch earthquake, which was a 6 .7 magnitude earthquake right under the city.
took everything to pieces, you many people lost their lives. It was a really tragic day in New Zealand's history. And my studio is right in the business district of Christchurch. So we basically overnight was suddenly like, well, you're closed for six months. Like that's it, you know, it's kind of all over. At the time, I was actually looking to try and get out of the recording business anyway, because I'd found VoiceOver and I was kind of like, I kind of want to dabble with this. I kind of want something new. And it's... I did, yeah.
Paul (28:40.781)
Yeah.
Paul (28:57.773)
And so you arranged an entire earthquake just to get out of the... It's amazing!
Toby Ricketts (29:01.624)
Exactly. You make the right calls. You know, know the right people. But it was actually the best thing that for me personally, that was the best thing that ever happened to me was that earthquake because it gave you the freedom suddenly to completely decide what you wanted to do. It was like, you know, you don't have to live here anymore because everything's up in the air. You know, you've, you've, you it's basically like you've lost everything. You didn't actually lose everything, but it was like everything was, was suddenly up in the air, literally for a second.
Paul (29:26.893)
Right. Right.
Toby Ricketts (29:27.64)
Um, so, so it allowed me to kind of reassess and think, well, what, like this life is not quite turning out how I wanted, like, what would the perfect life look like? Um, and so I reassessed and ended up moving to Auckland, the biggest city. Cause I was like, I want to live in a different city. I lived in Christchurch all my adult life. I wanted to try something new. Um, and, uh, and, and the marriage ended around the same time. There's lots of sort of upheaval. So, um, when I moved to Auckland and got a job at a radio station up here, which is a really.
funky kind of dance music station. It was, it was like, it was very, very casual and very fun to be around. That allowed me to kind of build up the voiceover thing in the background. Cause I had a studio to use and I could do auditions on the side. But after a few years of radio, I was kind like, that's not really for me, the big city thing. I met a lovely, um, girlfriend, my, and now my wife who, um, we decided to move to the country together. So we were like, uh, we're, we're just going to run away to this, you know, to, to four hours, uh, in the middle of nowhere. Um, and that allowed me like,
If you move a long way from anywhere, the rent's typically very low because, or where do you end up house setting? So we have a house setting at someone's house and paying like, I don't know, 50 or a hundred dollars a week. So if you go into something like that, when you, and I built a studio out of some gear I had leftover from the recording days, although, you know, these days you could set up a decent studio for like two and a half grand probably, like it's not much at all. And as long as you get your living costs exceptionally low, the pressure to have to succeed straight away in voiceover.
isn't there. So you don't have to suddenly make a thousand dollars a week to make your mortgage payments or whatever. If you can, you can get rid of instead of the supply side, if you can get rid of the demand side in terms of outgoings, it's very easy to make a living out of a voiceover early on, because you can just do like an IVR job and you've made your quota for the week, you know? So that was my strategy was to get the, the, the demand side, to get the, the costs out of my life. And then the voiceover thing could build up over time.
Um, and really I've continued with that attitude, like we're completely self -sufficient on this property now in terms of, uh, like water and power and food. Um, so we could like for COVID, it was, it was a great test of our, our, our zombie apocalypse strategy, as we call it. Um, we, we own all the utilities infrastructure. Um, and so we can be, you know, fairly, uh, self, um, yeah, self -sufficient. Which is, I know.
Paul (31:41.389)
So you're completely off the grid where you are. Yeah.
Toby Ricketts (31:43.928)
Yeah, exactly. Apart from this internet connection we're talking through now, which Starlink keeps dropping every now and again. But so yeah, it's and I feel like that's a good strategy for success because then you're not, you don't have this mindset of like, oh, I have to do this this week. I have to make this much money and it's really stressful if I don't and that affects my performance. You can kind of be more of a leaf in the wind and go where your nose follows you and have a bit more flexibility in terms of the financial stuff in your life. So.
Paul (31:48.941)
I apologize.
Toby Ricketts (32:09.912)
Yeah, if people are kind of, I know a lot of people are tied down by sort of, you mortgages and relationships and existing jobs, but if you can get out of that rat race and reassess everything, it's a lot easier to jump into a voiceover career if your outgoings are really low because there's much less pressure on everything.
Paul (32:27.277)
Well, I think there are two ways to look at it, right? There is, I can hang in this and try and make enough money and save enough money and get by and try and not really put my lifestyle through a whole lot of upheaval. Or the other side of the coin is I can sacrifice, maybe I have a more stoic personality and maybe there are things in my life that I do want to give up and that gives me an opportunity to do that.
lower my overhead and make the transition that way. But you've got to do one, the other, or a combination of both because if you think you're going to make the leap, as you put it, without making some sort of sacrifice, I think you're being naive.
Toby Ricketts (32:56.632)
Hmm.
Toby Ricketts (33:07.192)
Yeah, absolutely. Unless you've got lots of savings. If you could, you know, I mean, I had some savings coming out of Auckland. So I was like, I've got six months. I gave myself like a good, a term of six months where basically I'm paying myself a salary out of my savings. This is the time, like you don't have to make any money, but you just have to put in the good groundwork. So I built the studio, got all that working well, paid some voiceover subscription fees to like the online pay to plays and just started auditioning like crazy. And within six months, like after that savings period worth had expired, I was making as much as I did from the
radio job that I'd left just because of that constant effort for six months, 24 -7 effectively. Well, it wasn't 24 -7, but it was definitely more than a day job of just constantly marketing, getting better, and getting yourself out there. Yeah. Experimenting too.
Paul (33:38.605)
That's fantastic.
Paul (33:52.173)
I often say that, and I think this is true for just about any entrepreneur, much less freelancers, much less voice actors, there will come a time, 100 % guaranteed, when you will want to quit, when you will say, this is too hard, I can't do this, I'm not good enough. Whatever the story that's running a loop in your head is, you're going to hit that point. Do you remember the first time that hit for you?
Toby Ricketts (34:17.88)
Um, when would I have been? Possibly not because I was living in the country with these low overheads. Life was good. You know, when I wasn't auditioning, I was probably doing some yard work or something active outside. I was looking for other things to supplement my income because it's not good to have all your eggs in one basket. And I still have other side hustles that I do. Like real estate photography is something random that I ended up doing. I don't need the money anymore, but I still do it because it gets me out of the house.
It gives me another thing. Again, it makes me less desperate as a voiceover artist because if everything dries up tomorrow, which is very unlikely to happen, but if it did, I've still got that other thing to like to feed myself and to, you know, to provide a little bit of income. So I think it's good to have more than one. I'm, I know I'm contradicting myself slightly in saying, you know, you have to be a voiceover 24 seven and also have side hustles, but you know, if you, if you can, it is good to have side hustles to, again, it's about taking the pressure off.
being a voiceover and having all your eggs in one basket there. You do have to apply a lot of time in the early days to sort of get the runs on the board. But it's a bit like dating. It's like if you come across clients and they can hear how desperate you are for the work, you are not attractive as a client. Like it's good to be able to take stuff and leave stuff and not have to be lowballed by clients that are saying, well, you know, can do it for a hundred dollars. It's good to be able to walk away from that and say, well, no, I'm worth more than a hundred dollars. And, you know, because otherwise it's a slippery slope.
And you don't want to be working 80 hour weeks and only earning not much as a voiceover artist. Yeah, that's important too.
Paul (35:53.773)
Well, I agree with you. And I've said, in fact, I said it in Dallas at One Voice USA last year, that I think the one of the transitions that we're making in voiceover and possibly freelancing overall is I think in order to future proof ourselves a little bit, what you say is true. If you can diversify your streams of income and maybe see yourself less as I'm a voice actor and a little bit more as I'm a creative.
who is primarily a voice actor, but I also do X, Y, and Z, right? And they may be adjacent to voice acting, they may be like real estate photography, not so adjacent, but you have a creative suite of services that you can offer people so that it provides variety to your income, but as you just pointed out, it also provides variety to your life and gets you out of the house when you need it to.
Toby Ricketts (36:26.392)
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
Toby Ricketts (36:33.932)
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
Toby Ricketts (36:48.568)
Hmm. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. I 100 % agree that variety is the spice of life. And if you are just locked in your booth during ADR weeks, new additions, which I kind of hinted at earlier is required. But I mean, I don't, I think you can do that for a little bit, but it's not sustainable in the long term. Like I think setting up a good base, it's good to really get, get amongst those different markets. But yeah, once you are set up and, and, you know, it's good to be less, um, uh,
less dependent on the one thing in order to get by and have a bit more variety for sure. Like it's, yeah, it's very important.
Paul (37:22.253)
You've obviously built a stellar career in the last several years. What do you think, in as much as you can share it, the future looks like for you? What haven't you done yet that you still see out there on the horizon? What are your white whales?
Toby Ricketts (37:35.288)
Hmm. Hmm. The white whales. I'm a big believer in these, I call them b -hags. Have you heard the term b -hag, a big hairy audacious goal? Yeah. Because I have set many of these over the years and they have a habit of coming true. They seem so audacious at the outset. Like I want to make a full -time living out of Orsova, which was my big, my first b -hag. And then it happened. And I was like, I want to do international commercials. And then it happened.
Paul (37:42.891)
Oh yeah, big, oh shay Audacious Gold, exactly.
Toby Ricketts (38:04.696)
And then what was my next one? It was, uh, I think there was one, you sometimes have to adjust them. One was to be flown over to America to do a voiceover job. But then like that was at the period, like I guess before COVID and with when climate change was the thing. And I was like, I don't feel good about that anymore. I don't, I don't want to travel. I'd actually rather do it from home now. So I adjusted that big, hairy, audacious goal. I'm being the voice of a national brand in the States. We've done that without Beck. Um, the next one is probably, what is the next one?
I think I'm searching for my next one at the moment to be honest. But it would, well yeah, what would it be? Yeah, I'm still thinking. I think I need to firm that up and.
Paul (38:42.029)
You used an interesting phrase. You said they have a habit of coming true. Is it is explain that? What does that mean when when when you say my big hairy audacious goals have a habit of coming true? That language to me is very interesting.
Toby Ricketts (38:46.584)
Hmm.
Toby Ricketts (38:56.056)
Yeah, so it's interesting to me too, because I feel like it's, they seem impossible when you make them, because you're just like, I just love to do that. I can't imagine how I can do it. Somehow your subconscious and the decisions you make after that point will all just like a compass, just kind of tend in a different direction. So at least you have a, you have the stick on the horizon.
At least you have a stick on the horizon. If you're going for a hike and you don't have a stick on the horizon, you will get lost. Like there's no point in walking around in circles. So the thing with a big, hereditary goal in my belief is that it focuses where you want your life to go. And then other decisions you make on the periphery or sometimes sort of in the primary that your subconscious is making often will direct you towards that point.
So if you hadn't made that point, your decisions would have been a bit more random. You don't really know where you're going. You're trying lots of things, but without any clear direction. So it simplifies a lot of your decisions to head for that North Star. And then suddenly the culmination of all those decisions that you make is that you arrive there and you're like, wow, I'm here. Like, how did I get here? It's because you decided made all those left and right turns to get to where you are. And you know, it's that classic aphorism of...
If you don't have a target, you're sure to hit it. Something like that. Why am I kind of remembering it? It's off the pits, isn't it? I'm going to mess it up completely. I'm going to murder it.
Paul (40:28.589)
I think it's a penny saved is a sailor's delight. No, that's not it. That's not it either. No. I think you're right. There you go. I knew we'd find it. I think you're right. And what you're talking about is direction. I feel like direction is half of the equation. The other half, I believe, is the daily steps, the action, the consistency. Talk about that in your life.
Toby Ricketts (40:32.984)
If you aim at nothing, you're sure to hit it. That's what it is. If you aim at nothing, you're sure to hit it. Yeah.
Toby Ricketts (40:50.104)
Yeah, it is.
Mm. It is. Yeah. Mm. Absolutely. Something, a big project that I had for a while when I was doing voiceover and it was all going very well. And I switched like my big, hairy audacious goal from voiceover stuff to life stuff, which was that I wanted to build my own house. Like a forever house. I wanted to build the house I was going to live in until the day I die, which is a pretty big audacious goal. So I've built...
this enormous house, what's 250 square meters, not sure what that is in feet, but it's a large house made out of hempcrete here in the New Zealand jungle, primarily by myself with a little bit of help from other people where I needed it. But like overall myself, I've got a bit of a DIY background, but not a builder at all. And I kind of look back at this project and I wonder how on earth I did it because it's a giant house and people come and they say, how did you do this? And I'm like, I don't really know.
Paul (41:38.733)
Okay.
Toby Ricketts (41:48.536)
But I think what the key to that is, and this can be like used in different contexts, is that you have this giant plan and you're like, right, well, what are the four big steps I need to do it? Like, oh, okay, foundations, you know, subfloor, walls, roof. Well, so you break it up into those and you take one of those, you take the subfloor and you're like, well, what does the subfloor need? Well, it needs the poles in the ground and it needs this and this and this. What do I need for the poles in the ground? Well, I need to dig a hole. So you can break any giant goal down into its component parts. And then all you have to do is just.
to those one by one, like, and then readjust as necessary along the way if something's not working properly or take a step back and look at the whole project again. But very important that you, when you're doing these steps and when you're going through these motions, that you're just focusing on that action at the time and you're not maintaining a broad view because it becomes overwhelming. If you're like, you know, if you're digging the hole for the, for the first stomp, you're like, I've got to build this house. I've got to build this giant house. It's just not going to work. It's I'm just digging this hole. I'll do it. And then I'll dig the next hole and then I'll dig the next hole and 140 holes later and you're
onto putting stuff in the hole. And you know, so as long as you can maintain the passion for that end goal, that that's what drives you, that it doesn't become completely debilitating, then just, you just focus on these little steps and eventually there's this huge molehill that you've built. So I think you can apply that to voiceover career. I think you can apply it to most things is to break it down into its most simplest form and then just carry out those steps.
Paul (43:09.901)
I think you're absolutely right. We say in VO Pro all the time, eat the elephant in small chunks and, or build a house with very tiny bricks. All right, Toby Ricketts, it's been a pleasure chatting with you. I, you know, I, we've never been able to be on the same continent to give each other a hug, but I consider you a friend and it's been, it's just been lovely getting to know you today, man.
Toby Ricketts (43:13.4)
Mm, exactly.
Exactly, grains of sand, one by one.
Toby Ricketts (43:31.894)
Hmm.
Yeah, absolutely. It's been fantastic. And I hope to be over at Voice of Atlanta, not this year, but probably next year. I'm going to aim to come over for Voice of Atlanta next year. So, yeah.
Paul (43:41.133)
Okay. Fantastic. Well, there'll be, there'll be a drink of your choice sitting, waiting for you at the bar. Thank you. Toby, where can people find you when they want to, when they want to look at the gravy for the brain Oceania, Toby Ricketts, the voice actor, or maybe even the voice Academy.
Toby Ricketts (43:48.984)
Fantastic. Thanks so much, Paul.
Toby Ricketts (43:56.286)
Yep.
Toby Ricketts (43:59.672)
Absolutely. So you can find me at tobyricketsvoiceover .com. Nice and catchy. And then oceania .gravyforthebrain .com is for the Gravy for the Brain stuff. And then voiceacademy .co .nz is where you can find the Voice Academy stuff. But yeah, I'd love to hear from those people out there. And there's my YouTube channel as well, Vio Life. You can just find it at youtube .com slash tobyrickets. And you'll find up there at the moment an interview with the redoubtable Paul Schmidt.
which has just gone up in the last few days. So, yeah. Thank you.
Paul (44:31.725)
Well, clearly your standards are too low. So, dude, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Alright.
Toby Ricketts (44:42.558)
Excellent.