A vital part of story telling is the spoken word. When the visual aspect is not enough, the audience relies upon and is able to identify with the human voice. Finding my voice was a result of my many broadcasting experiences. Yet it was not until my time in Hollywood that I officially started to put my voice to use on a professional level. Having already used my voice for hosting shows or anchoring news programs, I thought voice over would come natural. It turns out that relying solely on one's voice to tell a story can be a difficult task. Like many others, I made the mistake of trying to sound like other voices I heard on TV or in the movies. Doing an impression of what you think a voice over should sound like will only produce a disingenuous series of words that have little if any affect on your audience. Once I learned that voice over is not necessarily a monologue but in fact a dialogue, is when I began to truly grasp the concept. It is easy to express emotions and connect with an audience when you are visually present but without the visual it is important to exercise theater of the mind. I learned that by simply using my natural voice and feeling the emotions associated with the subjects I was speaking about, my voice over technique improved ten fold. It is important to speak into the microphone as if you are speaking to a real person so as not to sound like you are simply reading. I still have not mastered the intricacies of voice over and it will always be a work in progress. My immediate focus was on commercial voice over and the next step will be narration. As I continue to study the art of voice over I am confident that mastering the technique will allow me to continue to work in advertising, broadcasting, and my ultimate goal of documentary style television.