We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful J. Michael Collins. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with J. Michael below.

J. Michael, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I’ve been blessed to have voiced thousands of commercials and other projects over the years, so it is hard to choose. Meaningful has so many different connotations. I do a lot of political commercial voiceover, and it’s always wonderful to see the candidates or causes I lend my voice to come out on top. That said, those who know me know that I look at life first and foremost through a lens of playfulness and humor. Right now I’m voicing the Messin’ with Sasquatch commercial campaign for Jack Link’s beef jerky. For those who are familiar, these are some of the funniest spots on TV, and being able to help bring a laugh to viewers is very fulfilling.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I did my first paid voiceover in 1994 after dabbling in radio for a few years as a teen. As they say, the rest is history. The industry chose me in many ways. I always saw my future in the broadcast world….TV news or talk radio, or possibly politics, which is what I studied in college, but by the time I was in my twenties I was making a living voicing commercial and movie trailers and TV promos.

The industry was dramatically different back then compared to today. After finding my initial opportunities through radio industry connections, I signed with my first talent agencies and began the path of becoming a professional full-time voice actor. For a decade, that’s pretty much all there was to it, but with the advent of broadband internet and decreasing costs to build home studios, the industry shifted dramatically in the mid-2000’s. I was fortunate to see the writing on the wall and become an early adopter of the DIY-world of voiceover, while still honoring and growing the classic brick and mortar relationships that helped me find early success.

By 2010 my business had experienced astronomical growth…..close to 10x where I had been a decade earlier….and I began seeing a demand for my guidance from other people exploring voice acting as a career. The JMC Coaching and Demos brands were born around that time, and in addition to my primary work on mic, I started to help new talent find their way into the business through coaching them to proficiency and creating their demo reels, allowing them to seek agency representation and go out and find work on their own. This quickly became a strong second component of my business, as I had the good fortune to work with many new actors who found substantial success in the field.

Around the same time industry conferences were becoming a much bigger part of the landscape, and I found myself being frequently invited to speak at these events. By the mid 2010’s I was the leading sponsor of many of them, and in 2017 my wife and I began offering the JMC EURO VO Retreat, a small-group luxury week-long learning experience in VIP 5-star settings throughout Europe.

In 2020 we partnered with The One Voice Conference USA to bring the UK’s biggest voiceover conference to the USA for the first time, and in 2022 we had the opportunity to acquire VO Atlanta, which is the largest and longest-running conference in the industry.

My brand also offers full commercial production and other audio services to our clients, and occasionally casts voice actors for work as well.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Carefully. First rule of fight club on social media is don’t get in the mud. And if you DO have to get into a contentious thread, come armed with incontrovertible facts, and not emotion.

I’ve seen so many creatives self-immolate their careers by getting nasty on social, or making their politics their identity. News flash: Whichever side you are on, half of the country thinks you’re wrong, LOL.

Your social media presence should be helpful, thoughtful, kind, fun, and add value, If you are a creative, your socials are part of your brand, and clients are watching.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Right now everyone is naturally very concerned with AI, artificial intelligence.

I’m a big believer that the hype is overblown. Indeed, it all reminds me a lot of the noise around crypto or the Metaverse. How’s that going for all the people who burned money on developing it?

That said, while I believe most people don’t want artistic generative creative AI, and that ultimately the insane energy resources it requires and environmental damage it does will be its undoing, we urgently need legislation to protect likeness and intellectual property rights. Large corporations have been training LLMs and other AI on copyrighted content and then pirating it for their own profit. That’s simply criminal, and politicians on both sides need to be held accountable if they continue to allow it to happen.

In our industry we have great organizations like SAG-AFTRA and NAVA (The National Association of Voice Actors,) lobbying on Capitol Hill to create a legal framework to protect artists. These are efforts we all need to support.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jmcvoiceover.com
• Instagram: jmcdemos
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/j.michael.collins1/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmichaelcollins/
• Twitter: @jmcvoiceover

Image Credits

Elaine Descallar