The microphones are adjusted into place, papers shuffle and a calming hush fills the air. For four online voice actors, these three actions mean a recording session is beginning and a new role is being filled.

SungWon Cho, known by his online alias ProZD, is a voice actor and online video creator. Cho began voice acting when he was 15, performing roles for a friend’s radio play. 

Cho graduated with a degree in telecommunications, a major he said has helped him further his career as a voice actor. Throughout his time in college, he would often be asked to do narration and fulfill various roles in the class.

“I think college and telecommunications not only gave me practical experience like editing and having experience in front of the microphone, but also as a performing standpoint, I got a lot of experience in that too,” Cho said.

Cho first began making videos and doing voice acting in 2006, but didn’t start seeing it as a career path until 2013. Using the social media site Tumblr, Cho posts various audio recordings and videos he has made to the platform.

“I started the voice acting Tumblr about three to four years ago and I decided that I was going to post one thing a day, doesn’t matter if nobody’s listening,” Cho said. “It was just like I’m going to start doing it for myself.”

As well as posting recordings online, Cho works on commissions and has done voice work for various games and animations, such as the role of Zeus in the video game “Apotheon.”

Tamara Fritz, known online as TotalSpiffage, is a full-time voice actor doing commercial and character work, as well a student currently majoring in linguistics.

“It was completely on a whim, actually,” Fritz said. “I was doing university courses and my professor pulled me aside and said ‘You should think about acting.’ When I saw people doing stuff online, I was like ‘Hey, maybe I should do that and give voice acting a try.’”

Before she started recording for voice acting purposes, Fritz spent time recording music to post online. Using her set up for recording her songs, she spends time before each session ensuring both her microphone and vocal cords are ready.

“Mostly what I have to do is make sure my set up is all ready and there’s no obvious room noise and then I do my vocal warm ups,” Fritz said. “One of my warm ups is I’ll read a part of a script, but I’ll stick my fingers in my mouth so I’ll talk around my fingers until a certain point and read the first sentence again and then I’ll be ready to go.”

Fritz performs a mixture of commercial and character work, be it for local businesses or video games. One such game is an online multiplayer game, “Hounds: The Last Hope,” where she voices the female protagonist.

“I had 24 hours to record 1,000 words, and they all had to be matched up with the original Korean and Turkish lines, so I basically had to lock myself in my room with food and water and just get down to work,” Fritz said. 

While Cho and Fritz work professionally, Zack Maher, known as Majinboo0111, sees voice acting in a different way. Maher is a University of Nevada student majoring in psychology with a minor in theater – a decision he said has helped him with performances.

“I think it’s something that could be a dream job for a lot of people,” Maher said. “I would love to have it as a dream job, but the one thing that holds a lot of people back is that it’s a very competitive industry… You’ve got to have the mindset of ‘I know I can beat this person’ even if it’s your best friend and someone you record alongside of.”

Much like Maher and Fritz, Jane Redd, known online as RedAsATomato, juggles school and her career as a voice actress simultaneously. Redd began voice acting in 2012, taking inspiration from popular web comics like Homestuck.

For her, the web comic became an outlet to test her vocal talents and start out with character roles. For the past four years, voice acting has been a creative outlet which lets her express herself and bring life to characters.

Much like Maher, Redd approaches each character she voices with intrigue to learn the personality of the person she is voicing.

“I really like multifaceted characters,” Redd said. “Especially when there’s more to them than meets the eye in the sense of internal struggles, there’s stuff that people miss if they aren’t paying attention… I also like ones that let you go off the wall crazy.”

Though the four have worked in the voice acting industry for various years, the career has never been one of guaranteed success.

“You are your own advertiser and you’re your own piece of work,” Maher said. “You can’t always sit around waiting for requests to come your way. If you find something funny or you get a skit or project you want to do, you have to do it.”