The Glow Girls quite literally glow in the voiceover industry. Cassie and Sabrina are an award-winning pair, breaking into the voiceover space together at a young age. The duo has already accomplished more than some do in a lifetime, working on major projects for clients like Disney, Nickelodeon, NBC, Dreamworks, Netflix, and more.
Casting Frontier had the privilege of speaking with the Glow Girls about their careers and what advice they have to offer for aspiring voiceover artists. From the process of setting up their at-home recording studio to their number one tip for breaking into the business, read on to glean the wonderful well of guidance they so generously offered up.
Casting Frontier: Hi Glow Girls! Thank you both for taking the time to chat. First, can you tell us how you both got started in the voiceover world?
Glow Girls: Thank you as well! Our childhood was filled with reading books aloud, singing, puppet shows, messy art projects, acting out made-up stories, countless trips to magical theme parks, and watching lots of classic animation and cartoons. To encourage our creative side, our parents encouraged us to try all sorts of art classes like dance classes, musical theater groups, and kids’ acting and improv classes. We had some fun experiences with commercials and print work in the local market, but once we learned that voiceover was a thing, we knew that was what we wanted to do! We officially started in the voiceover world when we were ages six and eight – but we wish we had started even sooner! It combined everything we enjoyed – reading, singing, acting out stories, toys, and cartoons!
Since kids’ voiceover [work] was not very common or easily accessible in our area at the time, our mom started reaching out to contacts in other entertainment markets and connected us with voiceover coaches to work with remotely. We immediately loved it! We trained across multiple voiceover genres – like animation, toys, and commercial VO – and then practiced-practiced-practiced and auditioned-auditioned-auditioned. Over time our persistence and hard work earned us a track record of more and more voiceover bookings and agency representation across the country.
Today, we work with various animation studios, production studios, creative agencies, and streaming services that specialize in the kids’ market. We have been doing voiceovers for half of our lives!
We love that you are such a team. We all need someone to rely on in this crazy business. How do you support each other on the hard days?
We definitely are a team – thank you! Having voiceover as a shared experience between us makes the good days better, and the hard days not as difficult.
For as much success as we have enjoyed, we have certainly had our share of hard days and disappointments too. Voiceover is an extremely competitive business, and we continually [compete] with each other. In fact, for almost every role that one Glow Girl has booked, the other sister submitted for it as well. We are always rooting for each other and encouraging each other, even when submitting for the same job. We’re always happy for each other when one of us does book a role, and we’re always excited to see each other in the finished product! It is such a bonus when we both book and get to work on a project together. We also help each other prepare scripts and songs and bounce ideas off each other when creating a character.
Being part of the entertainment industry is like continually riding a roller coaster. We are lucky to be sisters and best friends riding this coaster together! (Sidenote: we love riding loop roller coasters in real life).
You are both a testament that hard work pays off, having trained with top VO professionals and really honed your crafts. What was your first “big break” and how did it come about?
Thank you for that recognition. It is rewarding when your hard work and dedication pay off!
Sabrina: I would say my big break was landing the role of “Mila,” the lead voice in the animated preschool series My Magic Pet Morphle, which I booked through an online casting and callback process. I didn’t even know it was my big break at the time! I was only 7 years old when I began voicing “Mila.” My Magic Pet Morphle started out as a YouTube series for kids, and since has soared in popularity and grown to over 10 million subscribers with billions of views! I have recorded over 300 episodes and today the show can be watched on major streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon!
Cassie: My first big break was landing the role of “Penny” in the Disney Junior animated series, Vampirina, which I booked through an audition submission to a talent agent. “Penny” was a guest role in season 2 of the show – I loved that she was a fairy and she got to sing as part of the episode too. Being on such a huge network with a recognizable name made me feel official as a voice actor!
Yes! We know you have each worked with major clients like Disney, Nickelodeon, Netflix… the list goes on. What has been one of your favorite gigs to date?
We’ve had so many cool and memorable experiences in voiceover, it’s really hard to pick a favorite! But there are a few stand-outs 😊
Cassie: Voicing “Kid Cassandra” on the Disney Channel animated show Tangled: The Series was thrilling. On top of being a superfan of the show already, my character shared my name, and the role was the younger version of my favorite character on the series, “Cassandra”, voiced by my favorite singer, Eden Espinosa. Mind blown! Being part of Disney animation history will always be one of my most special voiceover jobs.
Another favorite role of mine has been voicing the adorable fast-talking trendy hamster “Hammy” from ZURU Toys’ popular MiniBrands collectibles for their commercial and social media campaigns. Being the voice of “Hammy” is such a blast because the creative team lets me improvise and be totally creative with the lines! I even get to voice some additional characters in the spots and deliver the promo voice for the campaign too!
Sabrina: “Beatrice” from the Nick Jr show Becca’s Bunch was one of my favorite animation roles. Beatrice was the frenemy of the series, very sarcastic, sassy, and conceited. It was always such a blast to get in the booth and play a character so different than my own personality. The director even told me that the animators loved animating to my voice because Beatrice’s lines were so off-the-wall crazy funny expressive!
One of my favorite voiceover projects was being the lead Singing & Talking voice of “Olivia,” the main character in the “Toy Doctor” voice assisted app, created to teach kids about health and safety in a fun way! “Toy Doctor” will always be special for me, because it led to my winning a Voice Arts® Award for Outstanding Voice Assisted Device – AI – Best Voiceover from the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences!
You both have quite an admirable career! What is one unexpected thing you know about voiceover work now that you didn’t realize when you were starting out?
One important lesson we have learned about voiceover over the years is that not booking a role doesn’t mean that you aren’t talented. In other competitive areas the outcome is more predictable (like, the person with the highest-ranking, fastest time, best score, etc… wins). However, voiceover is a creative pursuit with so many factors involved in the casting and decision-making process. So not getting a role doesn’t mean that your audition wasn’t great, it might just mean someone else’s tone, voice, or background was a better fit for the role.
Great advice. A lot of our readers are looking to break into VO. What is your number one tip for those starting out?
#1 tip = Coaching!
If you are just starting: take an introductory voiceover class and see if it is something you truly love because it is a lot of hard work. If you do want to pursue VO, invest in professional voiceover training to give yourself the best chance to succeed. We suggest working with different coaches (it is always great to get new perspectives and feedback as it [prepares] you for working with various clients in the booth). Taking private coaching is a great way to develop your expertise but working in group lessons allows you to hear and learn from others too. Both are valuable!
If you are already auditioning in VO: Over the course of our careers, we have probably submitted t-h-o-u-s-a-n-d-s of auditions to earn our portfolio of bookings. If you are consistently auditioning and not booking, consider having a professional voiceover coach review your recent auditions to give you feedback. Continual improvement is crucial in this business! Keep training, keep trying, and don’t give up! You could be one audition away from your breakthrough.
I hear you have an amazing home recording booth setup! Can you share some secrets to creating a professional booth at home for our readers?
Over the years we have continually invested in upgrading our home recording space and studio equipment. We love working from our professional home studio and connecting with clients all over the world. However, we certainly did not start out at this point. We started in a closet filled with lots of clothes, blankets and pillows, an inexpensive mic, and our scripts held up on a cookbook recipe stand!
Here are a few tips to creating a recording space at home:
- Find a dedicated small area to set up your recording space – an enclosed space like a closet is ideal. If possible, find a space that has internal walls and is not near a noisy fan, A/C unit, TV, or window.
- Line your recording space with as much insulation as you can. If you are in a clothes-filled closet, you can also add pillows, blankets, and floor mats for added sound absorption. If you have high ceilings, try to “lower” the ceiling with a blanket above you, and if you have hardwood floors in your recording space, cover them with a rug or floor mat.
- Educate yourself with free resources! There are many social media groups, blogs, and online videos that have tons of helpful free advice on sound basics, how to build your own sound panels, how to position acoustic foam, and how to make the most of your space on a budget.
- There are microphones at every price point available online. To note, even the most expensive microphone in a poor recording environment will not sound good! So, if you have set aside a budget to get started in voiceover, the general rule of thumb is to spend about half of your budget on the mic and invest another portion on improving the sound quality of your space.
Your home recording setup doesn’t have to be fancy! Just make sure it’s a dedicated space with plenty of sound absorption, and that you have dedicated your budget carefully to your microphone and your space. And don’t forget to make it fun! We added Fairy Lights and Artwork from our favorite animation voiceover projects to our booth for inspiration!
Wow. When auditioning, how do you pick the best takes to send in?
Great question! When picking takes, the first thing we listen for is anything obvious like mouth clicks, voice cracks, technical issues, and so on… delete! Beyond that, we always like to trust our first instincts. When we listen back to the recording, there is usually one take that stands out: the take that makes us feel a certain emotion, or even makes us laugh out loud (if we crack up while listening to our playback, that take is an automatic keeper!). We always consider how we would want to hear that line as the audience and listen for what takes sound like a fit with the brand, network, or show we are auditioning for. The takes that get the best reaction are the takes we send in!
I love that you give back a portion of your earnings to the community food bank. Can you tell me about that decision?
Growing up in Florida, our family created a lot of memories and celebrated many special occasions with visits to Walt Disney World theme parks located here in Orlando. The longer the pandemic drew on, the more we became aware of how COVID was impacting our local community. The domino effect of lockdown orders, travel bans, reduced tourism, theme park attendance caps, furloughs, and employee layoffs had a significant economic impact on Central Florida.
We learned about a charitable organization called Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida that offers hope and fights hunger. We decided to donate our first voiceover booking of every month to Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida. We have pledged a minimum of 12,000 meals in 2021. In addition, we have also offered our voiceover services to the organization’s marketing department.
We have been truly fortunate in our career and were very lucky to have the ability to continue recording voiceovers from the safety of our professional home recording studio throughout lockdown. Orlando will always be a beloved place to us that sparked our imaginations and solidified our love for voiceovers. The decision to give back was a way for us to use our voices, literally, to help the very community that has been the source of so much happiness during our lives.
Anything else you can share that you think might help aspiring VO artists?
Yes! Know that there isn’t just one path to success in the voiceover business. We have earned voiceover work through talent agents, production houses, independent animation studios, online casting forums, social media networking, referrals, and direct marketing.
Also, be open to all different types of voiceovers. Often, people solely associate voiceover with doing voices for cartoons. Animation is hugely popular of course, but there are so many kinds of voiceover work in the market – audiobooks, commercials, video games, podcasts, toys, apps, explainer videos, e-learning… the list goes on! Trying different kinds of voiceover could open new opportunities for you, and help you focus on the style of voiceover you love and perform best.
